Rumplestiltskin held Belle as she slept, content to watch her with just human eyes as the sun made its way over the windowsill. At first, she was just a faint outline in the dark. Then, slowly, the first hints of gray light crept over her in the false dawn. The blankets around her were like blue shadows. The first glimmer of pink was in her cheek as a ray of true sunlight hit her. Her hair cloaked her in a halo, reflecting the burning, red gold of the light behind him. As the light grew, she began to glow with it. Or so it seemed to him. She was as pale and luminously bright as the pearls she had worn round her neck yesterday, a sunrise in and of herself.

But, what took his breath away was the look on her face, safe and contented. Even in her sleep, there was a small smile playing about her lips. He had waited since she fell asleep in his arms for the nightmares that had plagued her since he'd rescued her, but they hadn't come. They hadn't come.

When her eyes flickered open at last, she looked at him lying beside her. It struck him how unfair it was. She was the first thing he had seen in dawning light. But, the first thing she got to see was him, an ugly, ancient imp with rot colored fangs, snake eyes, and lizard skin.

But, when she looked at him, her small smile spread into one as large and radiant as the morning outside.

Then, she had leaned in and kissed him, and he found other things to think about.

X

Belle's days with Rumplestiltskin began to fall into a pattern. Rumplestiltskin spent much of his time working, pouring through books, studying charts, and strange images in crystal bowls or shards of glass. Once, she found him looking at what seemed a very ordinary farm beneath a harvest moon—but with constellations in the sky Belle had never seen. He mixed potions, some magical, some not, and outlined spell after spell. Then, he would file away whatever he had done and start all over again.

Belle helped, reading through books, looking for certain words or phrases—or anything that sounded like it might be useful. "Trust your intuition, dearie, if it tells you something is important," he told her. "It's right more often than you know."

They discussed their findings at length. There was a logic to magic, sometimes frightening or twisted, but always there. It frightened Belle a little that she was beginning to understand it. But, she already understood things just as disturbing, what a battle ax could do to a man or the eerie silences of men waiting for Ogres to attack.

And there were other parts to it, too. Sometimes humorous. Sometimes even beautiful.

When she wasn't helping Rumple find a solution, Belle spent time walking in the gardens, sometimes with him—even Rumplestiltskin couldn't stay locked up in his workroom forever—and sometimes with the giant dogs. They were playful as puppies, though they never pulled puppyish tricks, like jumping up and down on her, or anything that might have hurt her. She noticed Rumplestiltskin seemed easier letting her out of her sight now she had them—and now she wore the wedding ring he had given her, the one he said was loaded down with every protective spell known, "And several that aren't. Those were trickier."

The livestock he'd mentioned had been housed near what would have been the castle's servants quarters. If it had ever had servants, besides her. She'd never lived there. Rumple claimed to never see the point in waiting the extra time it would take for her to walk over when summoned. Or that's what he'd said when he'd first given her a room in the main part of the castle, one fit for a queen.

She never caught Rumplestiltskin paying any attention to the animals, but the barns were always mucked out when she checked on them and the chicken coops were returned to their glory days. Before, they'd been fit for nothing but kindling.

She spent some of her time reading books, ones that had nothing to do with traveling worlds, and some working in the kitchens—Rumple had proven he could put meals together with no help from her, but that was no reason to let him take over what had been her territory. They ate their meals together—breakfast was never a problem, but Belle sometimes had to go hunting for him when he was caught up in a project. When that happened, she would find him—usually in his workroom—and either drag him to the table or bring up a tray and wait as long as it took for him to notice she was there.

He was becoming more like his old self. Since their wedding day, when he had conjured that almost blinding suit of gold (and looked so pleased as she gaped at it), he seemed to have rediscovered his love of clothes. He had dressed as finely as ever since the day she had woken up and found him half-naked beside her. But, he had seemed like someone saying words in a language he had forgotten, going through the steps but finding no meaning in them. Now, she could see him looking pleased with himself as he straightened a cravat or flicked a tiny fleck of gold dust from a sleeve.

For her part, Belle's nightmares had grown fewer and, when they did strike, less severe. If they did come, Rumplestiltskin woke her before they became unbearable and held her till the fear subsided and she could bear to sleep again.

He had explained to her that they had not completely escaped the curse.

He had been going through notes, discussing some of the less obvious aspects of it. "This land is still linked to the new one," he said. "Some things will change, some won't. Plants will grow and age the way the always do, but the animals—some of them—are frozen in time. The same way we are."

She looked at him, not sure she'd heard right. 'The same way we are'? "What do you mean?"

"We're not aging. The curse stopped time for us." He said it so matter-of-factly. She just stared at him, sure she couldn't be understanding.

So, Rumplestiltskin had kindly, patiently explained.

Her body would steal heal from any injuries, the way it normally did. Other things would also go on as always. Her hair would grow, her nails would need to be trimmed, and so on. In other ways, she was frozen in time. She could see it best in the animals, he added. Of the livestock, creatures that lived "fast lives," as he called it, would grow and mature. A chick hatched the day the curse started would grow to a year old adult, then stop. The slower paced beasts, like the cows and donkeys, were already frozen.

"We had beef for dinner last night," Belle said blankly.

Rumplestiltskin had smiled. "I know some small tricks for keeping the larder full, dearie, ones that have nothing to do with using the farm animals," he assured her. "Don't worry, we won't starve before the end of the curse, whatever happens. And the cows can stay where they are. But. . . ." he paused. "You do realize . . . there won't be any calves born till the curse ends? And that holds for humans as well."

Belle wasn't used to staring dumbly so much during a conversation.

Rumple fidgeted. "I mean, you won't—we can't—there's no possibility of children. Not till the curse ends."

Belle let that sink in. She thought of her parents, who had waited for years to have a child. And no one had told them how long they would have to wait.

Of course, they hadn't had to wait twenty-eight years, either.

It had been a shock. She had watched the cows in the pasture the next day. No new calves. Not for twenty-eight years. And these calves would continue as they were. For twenty-eight years.

She'd asked Rumplestiltskin further questions about what this might do to the world. The monsters, he expected, would increase. He outlined why the Ogres and chimeras and other creatures would be least effected. "But, they'll also bear the brunt of it if and when the people return."

"If?" Belle asked, exasperated. She was glad Rumple wasn't teaching her magic. Just the theory gave her a headache.

"When the curse is broken, the barrier between the town and the world they're in will be weakened. Travel between the two will be possible. It won't automatically return them to our world, but it will make it possible to return." He hesitated. "They'll probably figure it out. Eventually. Even without anyone showing them how. Then, the monsters will be hardest hit. There are . . . protections for other creatures. Things that are rare—things that may even seem to have died out—will begin to recover.

"It wouldn't be a problem at all," he added. "Except that we're here."

"At least, no one else is," Belle said.

He nodded. "There's that. And we have the castle and magic to protect us. And we're not staying here. Not any longer than we have to.

"The worlds are linked, now. It's only a matter of time before I figure out how to get us across. Then, our only problem will be putting up with Regina."

Belle smiled wanly. "There is that."

It was some time later when Belle was walking along the ramparts that things changed again. She'd managed to put what Rumple had told her about time out of her head. Instead, she was thinking over again what he'd taught her about spells and how the odd elements balanced each other. Their logic was emotional, balances of loss and desire. There was one that claimed to be a love spell that was horrifying.

"It's not a love spell," Rumplestiltskin had said, when she asked him about it. His eyes had glinted angrily as he looked over the entry in the book. "It's a curse. The curse of the empty-hearted. That's what you make yourself if you use it." His lips pulled back, like wolf sighting an enemy. "It uses murder and hate to control the person you give it to, to make them think they love you." He stared at the page as though thinking of tearing it out and feeding it to the fire.

Belle wasn't sure what to make of that look. There was something he hated about this spell, something personal. "Have you ever seen it used?" she asked. "Or . . . did anyone want you to make it for them?"

"Oh, there've been plenty who wanted it. Or thought they did. It usually disappoints." He seemed to be looking inward, brooding over something only he could see. Whatever it was, he didn't like it. "The one who was Dark One before me, he made it for a woman named Milha. She gave it to a pirate she'd fallen in love with." He scowled. "She had a husband. And a child. But, she would go to the taverns to meet men and spend her evenings drinking with them. The pirate's name was Jones. He was no great treasure, either. He kidnapped her the next day. Her husband, a weaver, went to the ship and begged Jones to give her back. Jones told the man he meant to have her. And let his crew have her. Then, he threw down a sword at the man's feet and told him he would duel him for her."

Belle flinched. Like any noblewoman, she knew about sword fighting. She'd watched practices in the training yard and had seen duels—usually, just the nonlethal competitions with blunt swords. But, there had been real ones. "He was untrained?"

"Untrained and lame."

Belle stepped back, shocked. She knew how vicious fighting could become. She'd seen what wars did to men. But, even so, there were codes and laws. Especially for duels. As a cynical, old veteran had once told her, "Some men are honorable. They keep the code because it's in their hearts. Some men aren't. But, they keep the code so long as anyone's watching. Because they know they can't fight alongside men who don't trust them."

Someone who would even offer to duel a lame man was beneath contempt—worse, even, than a man who kidnapped a woman to service an entire crew. And this crew was made of men who would stand by and watch him do both these things—who would help him do these things.

"He'd have been slaughtered."

"Yes," Rumplestiltskin shrugged, his moment of anger gone. "I suppose he knew that. At any rate, he didn't pick up the sword, and Jones let him live."

"But, the old Dark One had an interest in the matter. He'd had a complex plan going that I had to tidy up after when I inherited the mantel. I think the woman was just his contingency. He used the child. . . . Well, it doesn't matter, now. Just that my predecessor went to the woman and offered her a choice. He could free her to return to her husband or he could give her a drink that would make Jones obsessed with her. Forever.

"She chose the potion."

The darker the curse, the darker the balance seemed to be. That struck Belle as wrong. Somehow, somewhere, it seemed there should be a balance of light, life against death, hope against darkness. She wondered if it was the nature of dark magic—Rumple's magic—or if it could be pushed a different way.

She was ruminating possibilities when she saw something out of the corner of her eye on the mountains. It was in the ruined area, beyond the land Rumple had protected. Belle could make out oxen, a wagon along the old road. At first, she thought that, somehow, the beasts had been trapped when their masters were taken by the curse and had been wandering, unable to get loose of the yoke ever since. Then, she made out tiny figures around them.

People.

There were people on the mountain, only a few miles from the castle.

And they were trying to reach an outcropping of rock, a protected spot just a few yards away. Racing to it. Some of them were pulling something, a person out of the wagon, while the others raced ahead. Wounded, Belle thought, or ill. They unyoked the oxen, then tipped over the wagon so it made a barrier in the road. The person from the wagon was hauled up behind the one rider in the group.

While this had been going on, most of the party made it to the rocks. A place to defend themselves, Belle realized. To make a last stand.

Shadows came into view, huge forms rounding the curve of the mountain. Ogres.

Belle turned and ran for the workroom, screaming Rumplestiltskin's name.

X

This chapter's title comes from Elizabeth Barret Browing's Sonnets from the Portugeuse 1

I thought once how Theocritus had sung

Of the sweet years, the dear and wished for years,

Who each one in a gracious hand appears

To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:

And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,

I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,

The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,

Those of my own life, who by turns had flung

A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,

So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move

Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair,

And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, ...

Guess now who holds thee?'—Death,' I said. But there,

The silver answer rang ... Not Death, but Love.'