Rumplestiltskin poured over books and conjured image after image in mirrors and crystal balls, in fire and water. Meanwhile, as the days passed, Miss Swan's main contribution was pacing back and forth, obviously thinking she'd waited long enough when she asked if he'd learned anything new every five minutes or so.
He'd dealt with impatient kings, queens, and megalomaniacs without losing his concentration. He could deal with Emma. Really, he could.
"Why can't you just open the doorway, the way you did back in Storybrooke?"
"Because, it's not just my blood that's needed," Rumplestiltskin said, trying to concentrate on his book and not look at her. It had been written by a madman who might (or might not) have seen the Underworld and described his journey using a mishmash of forgotten tongues and bad handwriting.
"What do you mean? It was all it took last time."
Rumplestiltskin put the book down. He didn't have time to be giving magic lessons. But, it looked like there was no way around it. "Last time, we were in the land where I died. The door had also been opened and . . . consecrated, if you will. You robbed death without paying its toll, opening the way for a fury to pass through and claim one of the living."
"I didn't know that would happen!"
"I didn't say you did." Though, you were warned of the price, weren't you? You just didn't know they could send someone to collect. "Your intentions were good." For whatever intentions are worth. "But, the door was still opened. Then, four people worked together to pay that debt—four, the number of death—four living people who had each gave a quarter of their lives, one part in four, into the Underworld, tying both sides together."
Emma blanched. It seemed she hadn't thought this through before. "What did that do to them? Giving part of their lives away?"
"In the regular way of things, it could bind them to that world until . . . well, there are ways to sever the tie. Since they're currently in that world, I don't know that it much matters." Not quite true, but it wouldn't present a problem until they got them out.
"I couldn't let Robin die," Emma said.
"Yes, you could have," Rumplestiltskin told her. He was too tired for this argument, but Emma needed to understand. "If someone had handed you a magic knife and told you murdering someone with it would save Robin, would you have done it?"
He saw the angry clench of her jaw. She wanted to argue, to shout him down. Instead, she just grated out one word. "No."
"No, you wouldn't. That's the danger of dark magic. With light magic, the costs are always up front. You can draw on your own power till your strength is used up. You can draw on other sources till they're used up. If you can't offer what needs to be offered, the spell won't work. It's as simple as that.
"With dark magic, you can put off the reckoning. You wouldn't have murdered someone in cold blood to save Robin. But, if I'd handed you a magic knife and told you, if you promised to murder someone with it tomorrow, it would save Robin today, it would have been harder for you to turn down. If I told you the life must be offered in a year and a day, refusing would have been even harder. There are all sorts of things you could tell yourself. You'd find a way out of it. You'd find someone evil who deserved it. Or you'd make a new deal when the time came, promise a different payment for a different day."
"You've never saved a life?"
She had a wonderful sneer, Rumplestiltskin thought. Though whether it was there because she thought he hadn't saved one or because she though he had, he couldn't tell.
"I know loopholes, Miss Swan. You might have been able to use the life of the knight your father had just killed, if you'd been clever about it." It was always tricky when the price you were offering had, technically speaking, been paid before you offered it. "You could have closed up the wound because the sight of it put you off your dinner. You could have decided you wanted to collect the poison in Robin for your collection and magically pulled it out of him. Saving him would have just been a side effect—although even that still has a price.
"Which is all beside the point. We don't have four lives to open the doorway. We don't even know where the doorway would be in this world. That's assuming it wants to open for me. That place might just as soon not have me back, not yet."
"What are you talking about? Those dead guys didn't mind marking you. I saw it."
Those dead guys. Not exactly the most impressive nickname for hordes of evil sorcerers returned from the grave and set on destroying as many worlds as they could sink their teeth into. Miss Swan liked to mock her enemies. He could hardly blame her, he did the same. But, he didn't ignore their strength when he did it. Of course, Miss Swan would probably point out she didn't ignore her strength when she went up against him.
Dead guys. It was just a matter of scale.
"I wasn't the Dark One then," he said. "More importantly, now, I'm a living Dark One with the power of all the Dark Ones who went before me. They'd just as soon not have me come to call." A Dark One who'd come closer to stopping the curse than any Dark One before him, even if a lot of that had been by accident.
"If you hadn't taken the power back—"
"We'd have been sucked into the Underworld with the rest."
"Killian—"
"Miss Swan, death doesn't break the curse. Not on this side, not on the other. And, for the Dark One, death isn't death. If the last Dark One dies without passing on the curse, he can be brought back. As I well know."
X
Emma stormed out. It didn't help that Gold had a point. There was a corner of her mind that knew she was being unfair and irrational. She might not always understand Gold, but it was a sure bet he wanted to rescue Belle and Henry as badly as she wanted to rescue everyone else along with them.
But, it was driving her insane. At least, Gold got to make himself useful. He conjured stuff and went through his books as if he had a clue what he was looking for. Emma couldn't even read most of them. When she could, she couldn't make sense of them. As for spells, she could throw fireballs, rip out hearts, and steal memories with dream catchers. Unless the Underworld turned out to just be something someone had thought up, she was just going to continue sitting on the sidelines while the lives of everyone she knew were in danger.
She found her way back to the great hall. The spinning wheel was there, in its usual corner. Emma went over and spun the wheel, not that there was anything for it to spin. She should ask him to give her lessons. It might be something to do. Except, the time he used teaching her would be time he wasn't using to save Henry and her parents and everyone else.
Emma walked around the room, wondering what all of this stuff was. Tapestries, paintings, why did he have a sheepskin up on display anyway? And why was the one guy in that tapestry holding a heart?
She went over to the magic mirror and pulled the cloth of it. "Hey, Sidney, you in there? I don't suppose you made it back here?"
No answer. Not that she'd expected there to be.
Hard to believe Gold got along without mirrors. Even in Storybrooke, he hadn't exactly been underdressed. Here, how had he even managed to tie those lacey neck-cloth-thingies without strangling himself if he didn't have a mirror? Or what about those tight, leather pants? How could you wear pants like that and not check to see if your shirt was all wadded up where you'd tucked it in in back?
Except he wasn't Gold here, was he? Gold would have died before wearing those pants. Unless Belle asked him to. Maybe she had, not that Emma wanted to think about that.
Emma remembered hearing what David—her dad—had said about the changes the curse made. We are both.
More like Three Faces of Eve with a side of Norman Bates, Emma thought. Or Mr. Hyde and Mr. Super-Hyde with claws, scales, and a big dose of hyperactivity.
Or that's what he'd been last time she'd been in the Enchanted Forest. This time around, he'd been acting like calm, reasonable, liquid-oxygen-for-blood Mr. Gold. Which was good. Emma felt like she knew Mr. Gold. She wasn't so sure about Rumplestiltskin.
Or, maybe, having had that same darkness crawling around in her head, she knew him too well.
Emma felt a chill. She glanced at the windows. They were pretty high up in the mountains here, and the weather had a way of changing without warning. But, it was still sunny outside.
It was the mirror that was frosting over. . . .
Emma reached out and touched it, not quite sure what was happening. "Sidney, is that you? Or . . . Elsa? Is this your idea of a phone call?"
As her fingers brushed against the glass, cold jolted through her. She saw darkness, a barren, empty land. Monsters crept across the landscape, killing and being killed. Red fire bled out of fissures in a dying earth—
Hello? Can you hear me? Who's there?
The words echoed in her mind. The frost from the mirror was spreading out along her fingertips, stinging against her skin. Emma didn't dare pull away. "Rumplestiltskin? Rumplestiltskin, get down here! Something—" She stopped, cut off by the pain as the ice spread along her hands.
I'm not letting go, Emma told the mirror. You can't make me.
Then, Rumplestiltskin's scaly hands closed over her wrists. He didn't pull her hands away, but the ice stopped climbing up her skin. He looked from her hands to the glass. His eyes narrowed.
"What's happening?"
"Jefferson," she gasped. "I heard Jefferson. I saw—" She gave a gasp as pain burned through her hands. Her knees shook.
"Hold on," Rumplestiltskin said, not sparing her a glance. "Jefferson, we're hear. What's going on? What can you tell us?"
Words came, blending with images. Emma saw a Pyramid rising against the wasteland, light glowing around it. She saw the faces of people she knew inside, her parents, Ruby, the dwarves—
Belle, Jefferson said. Rumplestiltskin, Belle's here. So's my daughter. Please, Rumplestiltskin, I will do anything—Emma gasped. She didn't understand the imp, not really, and she knew how dangerous those words were.
Maybe Jefferson heard her because he went on wryly, I know how dangerous those words are with you, and I'm still saying them—I will do anything if you save her. Save Grace. Please.
Rumplestiltskin looked as desperate as Jefferson sounded, but Emma could see him forcing himself to be calm, to think before he made any promises. "I can save you," he said slowly, mapping out possibilities Emma was sure she couldn't imagine. "I can save your little girl. But, I need a thread."
"You need a what?" Emma said, pretty sure she felt an echoing surprise from Jefferson.
"Something to sew our worlds together," the wizard said. Something flashed through his eyes. Fear? "Bring me Belle. Open the way, and I can free you.
"Hold on," he told Emma. I'm going to have to let you go. It's going to hurt, but we need to keep this open."
Emma nodded, bracing herself, and—
She screamed. She could feel ice burning up through her bones, feeling them crack and splinter with the cold. "Hold on," Rumplestiltskin said. There was a puff of lavender smoke. She caught a glimpse of something in his hand, a sack of red and gold. Then, Rumplestiltskin plunged his own hands through the mirror, gritting his fangs. Did it hurt him, too? She hoped so. "I've almost got him," the dark wizard said. "Just a little longer—"
Cold, jagged knife-edges of it, cut through her mind, her thoughts. A part of her knew she must still be screaming. She could feel the pain in her throat, the pressure in her lungs, but pain blotted out the sound. It was cutting her to pieces—
X
Rumplestiltskin pulled Emma away from the mirror. As she collapsed against him, he kept his eyes on the glass. It was dark as lead, cold and still. But, at the same time, there was something, the sense of shadows moving in the stillness, flickers of movement in the dark.
He'd done it. Or some of it. The doorway hadn't closed. Not completely.
He turned his attention to Emma, conjuring warmth and healing. She tried to pull away, but he held on. The heat must feel like fire after the cold she'd just been through, as painful as the ice he was trying to rescue her from.
"Sorry, Miss Swan," he told her. "You know how dark magic feels about healing."
"W-what. . . ?"
"Jefferson. It seems we were not entirely alone in this. It takes more than a magic hat to make a realm-jumper. The Hatter's instincts led him to what we've been looking for." He waved a hand towards the mirror. "A weak place between the worlds."
Emma looked at the mirror then, just as quickly, looked away. From the yellow-green color of her face, he thought she was trying not to be sick all over his floor. So, her magic let her see more than his did. That . . . wasn't surprising. Unfortunately. "W-what happened?"
Her teeth were chattering. Rumplestiltskin helped her up and led her to a Victorian-style sofa that hadn't been there a moment before. He slipped into his lecturing voice as he settled her down on it. "The way between this world and that one isn't an easy one to open, not for the living. Mr. Jefferson needed to draw on power to open in. Your power. That's what it was draining from you."
"M-my p-power?"
Rumplestiltskin conjured a cloak and tucked it around her. "Despite what Queen Elsa's talent might lead you to believe, cold is the absence of energy. That's what was being taken from you. It makes sense. Your light magic against that world's dark magic. I was able to help but I had to funnel that power through you. When I let go. . . ."
"It h-hurt. I g-got that."
"Yes, I supposed you did. But . . . what did you see of that other world?" The Savior's ignorance of the most basic rules of magic—as he'd had good reason to be reminded these past few days—was appalling. But, she'd had useful insights in the past. The gods knew he could use one right now. Anything to tell him he was wrong. "Did you see the Pyramid? Or Jefferson's weapon?"
"P-pyramid? Yeah, it had l-light. All around it. But, I d-didn't see a-a weapon."
"Ah." That wasn't what he wanted to hear. Still. . . . "He had a staff. There was a . . . light at the end of it. He used it to help power his hat." Did she see the implications of that? "When he did, the cold hitting you grew worse."
"I d-don't un-understand."
No, of course she didn't. "Miss Swan, that staff fed on your power. It was in another world—a world without light magic—but that's what powered it. The same power shields the Pyramid. If I understood Mr. Jefferson correctly, it's growing weaker."
Weaker. The people on the other side were safe for now. But, for how much longer?
He looked at Emma, already drained and weak. Had there been signs before this? She'd been angry, irritable, but her restlessness had seemed like nothing more than what he expected in a woman used to attacking problems head-on forced to do nothing but wait.
How much power could he feed her? Hers would resist his. The power he'd passed through her to open the portal had changed to light—or close enough to light to get the job done—but there were limits.
Even with his help, even using every trick he knew, how long before that makeshift protection spell he'd glimpsed on the other side failed and Belle—and everyone else—died?
Emma would die when that happened, he thought. There was no way around it. She would give every last drop of life and power she had to keep them alive. When that was gone, she would die along with them.
It was probably unwise to tell her that now. He kept to the simple facts. Or speculations.
And he hoped Miss Swan would find a way to disprove all of them.
"I think. . . . This is only a guess. But, the little Jefferson was able to tell us, it's as if the curse—the one that created Storybrooke—has been reshaped. Someone managed to grasp the last shreds of it, to reshape what was on the other side and what was left of the town into some kind of shelter, perhaps to give people memories and knowledge to survive there. At the same time, someone—" He frowned, thinking it over. "—It might not be the same person. Or persons. The fairies use light magic. They're not innovative by nature, but necessity—and desperation—are the loving parents of invention. One of them might have found a way to use your magic while the world was falling apart." It was more than he'd seen a fairy do in all his centuries of keeping a wary eye on them, but it might have happened.
"But, you don't think so."
"No, but I could be wrong. What I think is that someone with a touch of dark magic and a touch of light, someone desperate and acting on instinct, managed to save them. Not that it matters right now." He looked at the mirror.
Did she see who he meant? There was only one person it could be, one person linked to this curse—and the previous curse—by blood and magic.
"You told him to get Belle."
He nodded. And I may have killed Belle by doing that. "I did. Belle is . . . linked to me. Oaths, promises, they're another form of deals. Marriage is an oath, a deal shaped in life and blood. That place, that piece of the Underworld is shaped by the same rules that form my curse. It should—it has to respect that." And, gods willing, it would respect the protections he'd given her.
And, if he were very, very lucky, they might be the means of saving them all.
If he were lucky. Well, why not? he thought bitterly. There was a first time for everything.
"The oaths Belle and I swore when we married . . . between that and what I gave Jefferson, I think I can draw her out. If she can get to the boundary. I've managed to prop it open. Enough to get her through. I hope."
"What about everyone else? Are you just going to leave them?"
Of course. She would ask that. Well, he'd given her reason enough. And it wasn't as if he knew the answer. "I . . . hope not. I think . . . maybe . . . by bringing through Belle, I think I can strengthen the door."
"You think? That's not good enough, Gold!"
"It's the best I have, Miss Swan. We might be able to strengthen the door. We might be able to save everyone. Or we might not." He looked at her. He could see the exhaustion in her face.
It was only to be expected, he thought. This had been draining, but Emma's reserves were deeper than she knew.
They had to be.