A/N: The events of the story take place directly after 'Brave New World'. They can be read separately, but they'll make much more sense if you read the other stories first. They'll be in chronological order, if sometimes not in numerical order. Absolutely no slash.

1. Arcana Cabana

When the Arcana Cabana first came to his attention in 1822 it was a small family-run candy shop. It had been called Marlene's Sweets, a rather unoriginal title. He went there once on his worldly circuit, just to get out of the rain. New York City, with its streets paved in 'gold', or mud rather, weren't the best for walking through in the rain. Balthazar had endured many discomforts in his life, but one he still had trouble with was thick mud that drew you in worse than Persian Quick rugs.

The rain hadn't let up and he had stayed inside. In the end the long time spent there had guilted him into buying something. Normally there would be other customers he could hide behind, but he was unlucky enough to be the only one in the shop. So he had searched around to find something that would stop the baleful stare of the elderly woman behind the counter. It was then that he saw it.

He picked up the tin cautiously and turned it over in his hands.

"Pine nut candies are little-old fashioned, I know," the old woman said.

Balthazar whipped around to find that the old woman was now standing behind him. Few people in the world could brag about surprising Balthazar, but this woman could now be added to the number.

"What can I say?" she said, either not noticing or just not caring about his surprise, "My grandmamma loved them. Her grandmamma used to make them for her and so on. My grandkids hate them, but I'm pretty sure that one of them will make them for their grandkids. It's just one of those things."

She shrugged in a resigned sort of way. He sought for words to express exactly what he was feeling. To her these were just some sort of tradition that had been passed down. For him it was different. He hadn't seen those damn candies in years. They'd gone the way of most things that he'd grown up with; jousting, dragons, knights, all gone.

When he was younger he remembered the day Merlin came to claim him as his apprentice. Letholdus, his older brother, had put up a valiant fight to keep him with him. It was a tense day between both his future master and his brother. Everyone in the castle had picked up on it and the servants walked as though on eggshells. Even the weather seemed to be holding its breath, the day dawned both silent and dreary.

Although he hadn't been allowed down in the Great Hall since Merlin had come to visit and the ring had reacted he was still able to listen. He was a resourceful child of ten and the castle walls weren't thick enough to keep him out. Anything he didn't hear he could find out by disguising himself and going down to the servant's quarters. They gossiped incessantly so it wasn't hard to find out too many details.

The first day Merlin asked Letholdus has flat out refused. As Merlin kept asking and arguing he started to argue right back. There were thousands of reasons Letholdus had used to ward the old man's offer away. Balthazar's parents had died less than a year ago; displacing him could be disastrous. Balthazar was training as his page to one day become a knight, it was ridiculous to make him change professions so soon.

Merlin had been just as persistent. The ring had reacted to him, he was going to be a great sorcerer one day. That was his true calling, not as a knight. As the younger second son, even one that had lost his parents, what hope did he really have of making his way in the world? It was an undeniable truth that most younger sons were sent to the church to prevent the division of the estate. The estate of the Blakesons was small enough as it was. There would very likely not be a good place for him at court either.

In the end Letholdus had grudgingly relented. A rift between the two of them had opened that day though. Balthazar could never remember the two of them meeting face-to-face on the most formal occasions. They would only exchange the briefest and most formal of greetings. Even when Balthazar was a fully grown man and an amazing sorcerer the two had never reconciled. The two people who had had the biggest hand in raising him couldn't stand the sight of each other.

On that day Letholdus himself had saddled up Balthazar's horse. It was the job of one of the grooms to do that, but his brother claimed the right that day. He saw them off as far as the ford that partitioned his lands. On the other side Merlin's other apprentice, Horvath, was waiting for him, back from a visit to his own family. They had said their goodbyes and Letholdus had journeyed back. Balthazar would not see his brother for another year.

That night he was ushered to rooms in a strange castle. Both Merlin and Horvath had been nice enough, mindful of his situation. It didn't help much though. He had fought back tears as he went through his bags and put their contents in a wooden chest. At the bottom of his saddlebag, underneath a cloak and tunic, he found a small leather bag that he'd never seen before. It was chock full of pine nut candies, something he was allowed only on very special occasions.

He had given in to tears then, the gesture was too much to ignore. Yet, eating a few that night had given him hope that his new life would still have traces of the old. For months the smell of pine nuts and sugar had clung to the leather. Balthazar would sniff it from time to time to breathe in deeply the smell of home.

Finding them again gave him a surge of hope that things truly could come back. He fingered the tin, turning it over in his hands again.

"I'll take them," he said.

The old woman had smiled and wrapped them up in old brown paper. That was the first of the many visits he made. He always took good care to make sure that they never recognized him, but he had a feeling they knew anyways. He was probably the only one who bought the pine nut candies after all. It was an acquired flavor for the people of the 1800's. Balthazar didn't buy them for the flavor though, but for the hope.

When he came in 1870 the store had been bought out by two brothers. He had felt his heart sink when he saw that the sign over the door had changed. It was a bank then and he felt a sense of both anger and loss at the development. How dare they take this away from him, this one little thing? He had stared at the shop venomously before turning on his heel and storming away into the night.

Eighteen years later he found himself walking down that same street. The bank was moving to bigger premises, the two brothers had found themselves moving up in the world. He was bitterly glad for them. However, a small thought nagged at the back of his mind. He needed a place to hold several things safely, and the store was both centrally located and well within his means.

Before he knew what he was doing his feet led him inside. That was when it hit him; the smell of pine nuts. He breathed it in deeply. There was that smell of home and hope. He decided right then and there that he would buy the place. There was no real haggling done and the smooth transfer of the shop was swift.

Through the years he found many occasions to store items in it. Every few decades he would 'die' and his 'nephew' would come and take over. If anyone ever wondered why the consecutive nephews never married, looked alike, and always left it to their nephews, they never asked. No one really cared enough to wonder about the strange little shop. They didn't even care that the place still proclaimed itself to be a bank.

He didn't change it. His search took him around the world and he never really had a place to call home. Balthazar only tentatively thought of the shop as his base. There were living quarters upstairs which he seldom slept at. As much as he respected the local Merlinians he usually stayed at a hotel while in New York. No one should know where he would retire to, or more specifically where the Grimhold was kept.

In 1939 a girl named Lacy Steed had suggested that he change the name to something more suitable. After locking Horvath in the Grimhold he thought that perhaps it was time for a change. New York now seemed like it would be a good candidate to make into a home from Lacy's own predictions. After all, the Prime Merlinian was coming to him on a date sometime within the century. So the sign was changed and the store became the Arcana Cabana, a name that it would keep for decades.

He'd never bought insurance for it, seeing as he viewed himself as insurance. Of course, if he'd known that he was going to get stuck in an urn for ten years than he would've made better arrangements. He didn't though and when he came back out it was a Nokia outlet. There was a sense of outrage over that and he didn't expect anything to be the same when he went back in to retrieve a few items. It was an electronics store for cryin' out loud. However, to his shock and deep delight, the smell of pine nuts and sugar still lingered.

Perhaps that was why he fought so hard to get it back after Morgana's defeat. It was technically still his; the required ten years hadn't passed before it had been sold. It irked him that people would just pounce on property like that, but he should have expected it. After all, he should've gotten used to human nature.

Keeping that in mind he set about regaining his lost property. A little money greased the way, as well as a few scare tactics, and the deed was in his hands. After that he was back to waking up to his favorite scent. He was also waking up to the woman of his dreams beside him, but that was a different wonderful thing entirely.

Veronica seemed to clue into the place. She was entranced by all nuances of modern living and the store seemed to be especially wonderful to her. With nowhere else for her to go, and a mutual desire not to be apart from each other, they had started living together. While Balthazar's sensibilities were somewhat shocked by this, it was practical and again, he couldn't be apart from her for too long.

So when he married her and took her back from the reception, it was to a place that she was very familiar with. Seeing as how he'd had a long time to picture that day, she had too, he decided not to split hairs about that. He just picked her up bridal-style, careful not to step on her trailing skirt or veil, and carried her over the threshold. She'd laughed but twined her arms around his neck and allowed him to do it.

He was home now. Somewhere along the way the small shop had become home, perhaps from when he got his first whiff of the place. So much had happened in 122 years. The Arcana Cabana wasn't a candy shop anymore. It wasn't a bank. Balthazar wasn't even sure that it was an antique store really. Everything about it had changed. Everything but the smell of pine nuts and sugar.