A/N: Thank you for reading/favoriting/following and thank you those of you who leave reviews, I love hearing your thoughts and speculations! This one is a bit of a stepping stone to the next chapter where we'll check be checking up on Emma:)

I do not own Once Upon a Time or its characters!


Henry had spent the better part of the last two weeks reading in what he now dubbed, "Merlin's hidden library". In that time he had been able to go through many of the storybooks that lined its shelves, however he had yet to touch at least half of the remaining books. Unfortunately, after day one, he quickly discovered that there was no discernable order to the shelf location of each storybook. The books covered a range of time periods from ancient Greece to Victorian London to the nineteen-twenties but their organization had nothing to do with the times they written for.

As he moved from story to story, book to book, he supposed it made the most sense for the books to be in order of author. With that logic then Merlin's story or any stories from Camelot were most likely at the beginning of this order, however, checking the storybooks at either end of the library disproved this idea as well.

Perhaps if he knew the names of the authors then he would be able to discern how they were categorized. Since the Apprentice had given Henry zero information on the authors before him, besides what he already knew about Isaac Heller (and since Isaac refused to give any information to Henry's grandparents), Henry was left right back where he started. He flipped the page on another storybook and moved on to the next one.

Henry thought, if he didn't have a mission and his mom weren't missing, then going through these storybooks would actually be interesting and fun. The hundreds of stories he had skimmed in the last two weeks were all well written, highly intricate, and now he knew about real people. Reading the stories also gave Henry a sense of uniqueness and meaning since he was the only one able to read them.

However, in their current situation, Henry's uniqueness was becoming a kind of struggle. On the one hand, Henry was happy that he finally had a purpose among his family. He was actually doing something productive and meaningful to help solve the town crisis as opposed to be part of the crisis. His family finally needed his help in order to save the day. On the other hand, Henry was beginning to wish that he wasn't the only one who could read the storybooks. If his family could read them too, while it would probably mean they would force Henry to sit on sidelines, at least then they would probably be able to find Emma faster.

Henry would just skim the books looking for references to Merlin or Camelot but with Merlin's illusiveness in the role he was playing and their lack of knowledge on his location Henry was having to read every book quickly, but thoroughly. Unfortunately, Merlin was proving to be much harder to find then Henry had initially thought. There were some very clear instances pointing towards former Dark One's in some of the stories Henry went through but none of them seemed to reference the powerful wizard who was keeping tabs on them all.

That is until a little over halfway through the storybooks on the shelves; Henry stumbled upon a story called, "The Sword in the Stone".

He called his mother and his grandparents and within twenty minutes, they were gathering in the library with him.

Regina sat next to him at one the tables, drumming her fingers on the wood and checking her watch impatiently. Killian sat at the seat across from Henry, playing with his hook and nervously scratching the back of his ear with his hand. Since he had arrived with Regina and Gold, Killian had seemed a little shaken to Henry. He supposed they were all feeling tense after two weeks with no leads. Meanwhile, Henry's grandfather, Mr. Gold, and his wife Belle stood across from their table. Gold was leaning heavily on his cane and looking around the hidden room, Belle beside him had picked through a few of the books curiously, asking Henry about what he saw in them.

"That one is about a world like ours only instead of humans, everyone is animals." Belle flipped the pages.

"It's amazing that you're able to read all of these." She said.

"All part of being an author, I guess." Henry glanced around the room at the hundreds of storybooks stacked on the shelves. There were many stories that the world couldn't see, why?

Just then, Henry's other grandparents came swiftly into the room hand in hand, apologizing for taking so long.

"We talked to August like you asked Henry but he said he's never heard of any of the stories you mentioned." David said.

"The only book he was familiar with was your storybook." Mary Margaret added.

"That's okay; I knew it was a long shot." Henry had only thought to ask August Booth, also known as Pinocchio, since his mom, Emma, seemed to turn to him with questions about the books.

"Well now that we've all arrived," Regina began, "Henry, what have you found?"

Henry pulled out the last storybook he had been reading. After he had called his family, asking them to meet him here, he had read through "The Sword and the Stone" and several of the other stories the book contained. They were all from a land called Camelot.

"I found it." He finally said.

"You found out where Emma is?" Snow asked in an excited voice, her hand gripping David's tightly.

"I found Camelot. I've gotten through at least half of these books by now, but this one," he said pointing toward the storybook he still had in front of him on the table, "this one is filled with stories set in Camelot."

"Do these stories talk of the wizard Merlin?" Killian probed, looking up from his hook.

"He's in almost all of them," Henry opened the book and began flipping through. "Most of the stories are mainly focused around a man called Arthur Pendragon."

"Does this Arthur Pendragon become Merlin?" Regina asked, glancing over at the book even though to her it was blank.

"No, Arthur was more like Merlin's student. Merlin helped Arthur become King of Camelot and then became his most trusted advisor."

"So Merlin is in Camelot?" David questioned.

"Well, that's still unclear. He definitely spent a significant amount of time there. See, Merlin gets imprisoned in this cave and while he's there there's a war and Arthur dies and Camelot's golden age ends."

"So what you're saying is—" Regina began.

"I'm saying this is the first time I've ever seen Merlin appear by name in any of these books. And it mentions Merlin fighting 'dark forces'." There was silence in response to Henry's statement. Everyone was thinking the same thing.

"The Dark One." Gold finally murmured.

"That's what I think. I think the darkness that makes up the Dark One is the same darkness Merlin fought in these stories, in Camelot." Henry didn't mention how much the darkness had destroyed Camelot since it wasn't relevant to finding Merlin. However, he knew from what he had read that the darkness his mom was facing at this very moment could be more powerful than anything they imagined.

"Does the book say what happened to Merlin after the war, if he ever got out of the cave?" Belle asked.

"He got out, after that the book's unclear. It looks like once Arthur died Merlin disappeared." Henry shut the storybook.

"If we could just find a way to get to Camelot maybe we could find out more about what happened." David put a hand on Henry's shoulder, "Good job Henry. Now we at least know more about who we're looking for."

Henry nodded. This was the first lead they had found in weeks, at this point any information they found was good information with the potential to help them find Emma.

"I think I'll head back to my shop, I've been tracking a few things in my books that might be able to help us reach Camelot." Gold said and after offering his arm to Belle, they left the library.

"Henry, do you think you could read this book aloud for me, I'd like to hear it myself." Regina pulled the book closer to where she was seated, as if she thought having the blank book in front of her might help her figure something out.

"I'd like to stay and hear too, lad, if that'd be alright." Killian asked.

"Yeah, sure! Grandpa, grandma?" He turned to David and Snow. Emma's parents would want to know as much as they could about any hints to their daughter's location.

"We're all ears." Snow said as she sat down around the table with David.

"Okay, here goes." Henry started as he opened the cover.