The Five of Cups card depicts a cloaked figure turned away in dejection. Three of his cups are overturned, and that's all he can see, though two remain upright. A river flows past, a bridge crossing it to a distant town. Guilt, loss, failure, pain, self-pity... you can lash out or wallow or you can take the bridge and get over it. Move on, move on!
The first wish brought Alice to her father. It took its price from her in time, as much time as it would have taken to walk every step on her feet. The days passed in a blur of color, and she felt as if she had been blown across the worlds by a rainbow storm.
"At least I didn't wear out seven pairs of iron shoes," she told herself. Her last step brought her to a doorway. On the other side she found him at last.
Her father was working in a merchant's office as a clerk. That wasn't so surprising — in her travels she had found that literacy was an uncommon skill, and the lack of a hand wasn't a hindrance — but time had taken its toll on him and it took her a moment to recognize him.
"Papa?" She approached his desk and smiled at him.
He glanced up, his brow furrowing in confusion. "Excuse me, did you say...?"
"Papa, it's me, Alice."
"Starfish! You're free!" He moved forward to embrace her, but the curse seized him and flung him back, and he cried out in pain.
"Sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Papa." Alice skittered out the door, hiding behind the frame and peeking in at him. When the wish had brought her so close, she couldn't help hoping that maybe the poison had worn off.
"No, wait, don't go." Her father picked up the papers he had knocked off his desk, straightening his work. "How did you get out? How did you find me? You look..." He gestured vaguely at Alice. The years had changed her, as well, but less than one might expect.
"I spent ten years as a statue."
"You what?"
She explained haphazardly, in bits and pieces, in between people coming and going to see him while he finished up his assignments for the day. Afterwards, he took her to the room he had rented. If not for the bed in the corner, she could have taken it for an alchemist's workshop, full of books, scrolls, potion ingredients, and equipment. "What's all this, Papa? Are you a wizard now?"
Her father scratched the back of his neck in apparent embarrassment. "It's like this, Starfish... I went to countless mages and hedge witches in hopes of finding a cure for my poisoned heart, but alas, to no avail. When it comes down to it, the only person I could trust to have my best interests at heart was myself."
"Well, now you have me, Papa." Alice grinned at him from across the room. She took out her pouch of wishing powder. "I've been looking for a cure, too, and I met a pretty sorceress who told me where to find this. It's wishing powder."
"Aye?" Her father's eyes gleamed with interest. He caught the pouch with his good hand and opened it. "How does it work?"
"Sprinkle a bit on yourself and think of what you want."
"That's easy. To be able to be with my daughter again." He set the pouch down on a table and extracted a handful of dust. "Wish me luck."
Alice crossed her fingers — on both hands — and nodded. The dust shimmered, settling over her father and sinking into his skin. For a moment, reality wavered. Everything went dark, and it was as if a curtain had dropped in front of her, only she could almost see another world on the other side of the curtain.
Then the moment passed and her father was curled on the floor, hand clutching at his chest, groaning in agony. Green light shone between his fingers, the mark of the curse. Worse, the emerald lines streaked out from his heart, crawling across his face, withering skin across brittle bone.
"Papa!" Alice ran instinctively towards him, but the light burned even brighter. "No, no, hold on, Papa, there must be a way..." Her gaze darted frantically around the room, searching for anything that might help (but he didn't have one, obviously, or he would have used it already) and nothing, she had to leave him again... and there was still one pinch of powder left, because wishes came in threes and they had used two. She grabbed the pouch from the table and held it open as she flung the contents over him. She closed her eyes and wished, imagining her father hale and strong before her. "Papa, please, come back to me!"
She held her breath, not daring to open her eyes. Her father had stopped screaming. His breathing was still labored, but she could hear him shuffling to his feet.
Then he cleared his throat, and called out tentatively, "Alice?"
She raised her right eyelid a crack. Then both eyes shot wide open and her jaw dropped. He was restored. More than restored. "You... you're young again, Papa!"
He looked down at himself in bewilderment. "I don't understand."
"Oh. Oh, I see." Alice smiled in realization. "I wished for the Papa I remembered. And that was the memory of you I carried for years and years.
" He sighed, looking at her in longing. "Powerful stuff, your wishing powder."
The smile fell from her face. "Not powerful enough to lift your curse."
"It's not your fault, Starfish." Her father gave her a resolute nod. "This is good. You're out of the tower and we've found each other. We're not going to give up." He gestured. "There is so much I'm still learning. I may yet find the cure."
"I'll help you," Alice promised. "I'll find that sorceress, see if she knows why the wishing powder didn't work."
"She's here." Henry handed Hansel a folded paper. "This was under my cup this morning."
Hansel frowned. "There wasn't anything when the tray was brought into your chambers. I checked."
"Magic. I guess at this point we shouldn't be surprised." Henry nodded at the paper. "She says she didn't kill the king and queen, that it was an imposter. She's willing to meet us, but if we don't come alone, she says we'll regret it."
Hansel snorted. They had faced the Dark One himself, what else was there to be afraid of? "Do you think we should go?"
"I want to talk to her." Henry sighed. "Maybe it really wasn't her who killed my grandparents, but... she was still the Evil Queen once. She might know something to help us with the other one. And even if she can't, there's still the mission we wanted to hire her for..."
"No, Henry, that can wait. You... you have important responsibilities here. You can't go running off on some quest."
Henry looked at him unhappily. "Your family is just as important as mine, Hansel. It's not fair to put you off when you've lost someone, too..."
"But it's not just our families. You have a whole kingdom to think about." Hansel gripped his friend's hand. "It's all right, Henry. It's just how it is."
Henry dropped his gaze to the paper. "But the kingdom can spare one squire. If... if it turns out that Captain Manzana really is the woman who saved us, and not the one who murdered my grandparents, then... well, it's worth a try, isn't it? See if she can help you with Gretel."
"And if she proves trustworthy, we can get her to help us find your mother and avenge your grandparents," said Hansel.
They slipped off again that night. Captain Manzana met them on a deserted hilltop near the town. It was damp and forbidding, overgrown with stunted trees, bare-branched as winter approached.
"An imposter?" Henry confronted the captain boldly, hand at the hilt of his sword. "I'm told she wasn't so much an imposter as a version of you from a different world. That means you did want to kill my grandparents once upon a time, and you're only alive today because they had mercy on you."
"'Told'? By whom?"
"The Dark One. So don't try lying to us," said Henry.
Hansel nodded in confirmation, watching the captain warily, comparing her to the 'Evil Queen' who had interrupted Henry's knighting ceremony. Their features looked identical as far as he could see, only their clothing and posture differing.
"You've been talking to the Dark One?" The captain sounded both impressed and amused. "My, my. Did you make a deal with him? If so, I expect you don't need my services anymore."
"No, wait," Hansel broke his silence, lifting a hand as if to hold her back. "We still want to hire you."
Captain Manzana raised an elegant eyebrow. "Oh? If I was, as you say, once your grandparents' enemy, why would I assist you now?"
"You did before," Henry reminded her. "Even after you knew who I was. Anyway, this job isn't for me. It's for Hansel."
"We'll pay." Hansel hefted a small bag of coins. "Half now, half when it's done."
"And what is 'it', exactly?" She watched them curiously, and Hansel had the impression it was that curiosity that moved her, more than the promise of money.
"I need to find out the truth about my sister's death." Hansel explained what had happened, and Henry corroborated the details.
"Very well. Not my usual line of work, but I think I can help you with that."
The next day, Hansel set off with Captain Manzana for Opona.
Rumplestiltskin muttered apologies to Belle's bones, still contained inside the canvas sack. "She had to see. I had to make her see what she'd done. You didn't deserve to be caught between two monsters."
He transported himself back to Baelfire's tomb, where he had spent the bulk of his time since being freed. It was set off in a space of its own, marked by polished stones inscribed with paeans and tributes to his sacrifice, as befit a prince of the realm. A far more elaborate memorial than the simple wooden cross he would have rated as a boy soldier fallen in the ogre wars three centuries ago, but none of that lessened the pain in his father's heart. The two people he had loved most were dead, and he knew it was his fault.
Too much of a coward to hold onto the ones you love, too weak to protect them.
"Oh, Bae, I wish you could have met her. But my wishes have no power, do they? And it's too late for you. Neither of you... neither of you ever existed as anything more than memory." With a swirl of magic, he laid the sack of bones to rest near his son. "May those memories be at peace."
But his own memories were anything but peaceful. He had let light imprison him, let light banish darkness to a dungeon for thirty years. Light had not saved them.
"Reul Ghorm!" The Dark One traced the fairy easily. She had been at the royal castle mere days ago. The depths of the Infinite Forest couldn't hide her from him. "Reul Ghorm. I know you're lurking here, you hypocritical gnat." He channeled all his anger into a compulsion spell. "Reul Ghorm, show yourself!"
A speck of blue light fluttered out of the darkness, resolved itself into the tiny form of the fairy. "Dark One."
"You broke our deal," Rumplestiltskin hissed.
Kill her.
"We had no deal." Arrogant and self-righteous as ever, the Blue Fairy said primly, "Good doesn't bargain with darkness."
"Liar!"
Crush her.
"I'm not the liar."
"That's a lie," growled Rumplestiltskin. His voice rose in fury. "My son refused dark magic. He delivered me to your tender mercies, yet you refuse to acknowledge your debt?"
"Good asks no reward. You would understand that if your heart were not rotten to the core."
"You had enough power to imprison the Dark One, but not enough to protect Baelfire from the ogres? You had the insight to meddle in the Dark Castle, releasing Belle when it suited you, but not when it would have saved her life?" He clenched his fists, fighting back the urge to lash out at this treacherous creature. Memories slipped. He was in another wood, in another skin. "You may have made no deal, but what about the child given into your care? You let her take him! My son was lost to twenty-eight years of torment... because of you." His vision blurred, and the power rose, drawn from the depths of darkness.
She flinched then, reaching for her wand, but there was no escape now. She gasped, but her words choked and died as magic tightened around her throat. Fear flooded her eyes as she pleaded mutely for mercy.
Rumplestiltskin barked a brutal laugh. "Oh, I'm not planning to kill you, dearie."
He dragged her out of the sky. His fingers closed around her neck as she took human form. He snarled, his eyes burning as he focused on the power bound inside her. He laid his other hand on her forehead and forced darkness through her shields, cracking them open. Light flared. White fire seared his bones, but he endured the pain and took it all.
In another world, light flowed into a broken sword. In this one, it settled inside Rumplestiltskin himself, contained through sheer force of will. And he didn't stop until the Blue Fairy collapsed, drained of every last drop of magic.
For a long time, Rumplestiltskin stood there, swaying slightly, eyes open but unseeing, his breath coming in labored pants while Blue lay at his feet. Finally, he blinked and woke from his trance. He waved a hand, conjuring a glass coffin for the inert form. He set her in it, then leaned over to whisper in her unhearing ear, "Remember this, dearie? Snow White's coffin. And the cure is the same for you as your little princess. Your heart has stopped, but it takes only a kiss to restart it. Surely such a beacon of light and goodness as the Blue Fairy has someone who loves her truly and sincerely."
He leaned back and cocked his head as if waiting for a reply. When none came, he giggled nastily. "Ah, what's that? You don't? My mistake."
He shut the lid on the fairy with another swoosh of magic. Leaving the coffin to wait in the wild heart of the Infinite Forest, Rumplestiltskin took himself back to his castle. Squatters had taken up residence. A conjuration of fear demons sent them screaming through the gates and down the mountain. He sealed the boundaries behind them with a fresh layer of blood magic and retreated to his workroom along with a selection of arcane tomes.
Trying to ignore the foreign magic boiling in his blood, he focused on his task.
The curse. Darkness. Light. Two worlds, one real, one not. There must be a way to shift that balance.
Alice felt a sharp stab of betrayal when she found out that Drizella Tremaine was working for Gothel, and she wasn't even sure why. She barely knew the woman. But she had liked her. In some sense, she had come out of her stone tower for Drizella. So it hurt to find her answering the gate at Gothel's garden.
"How could you?" The accusation flew out of her mouth in lieu of any words of greeting.
Drizella's jaw dropped. "...Alice? What are you doing here?"
"How could you work for that vile woman?" Alice jabbed a finger in her face, causing Drizella to flinch back, eyes narrowing.
Drizella caught the finger, glancing around quickly. She hissed, "Shut up. We can't talk about that here." She waved her other hand, transporting both of them to a clearing in the woods. She picked up a long stick and drew a circle around them in the leaf litter, muttering an incantation that flared up in a haze of brown mist. "There. That's for any eavesdroppers. Now, do you mean Mother Gothel?"
"Of course I mean Gothel, and she's been no mother to me," growled Alice.
"Wait, what?"
"You need to get away from her. She's evil." Alice grabbed Drizella's sleeve, tugging at her to start walking. Any direction, as long as it was away from Gothel's bloody garden.
"Stop it. Calm down, will you?" Drizella freed her sleeve from Alice's grip. "I know what she is. But I have to stay."
Alice frowned at Drizella. "Why?"
"I swore to bring her down, and to do that, I need to learn her powers and weaknesses first. If I tried and failed... well, let's not dwell on that." Drizella sighed. "Besides, my mother thinks I'm spying on Gothel, while Gothel thinks I'm spying on my mother, but it's really Ana that Gothel is interested in, and I have to find out why. It's a delicate situation all around."
"I'll say. And here I was thinking Wonderland was messy." Alice sat down on a rock just inside Drizella's circle and kicked at the fallen leaves. They stuck to her foot in wet clumps.
Drizella scoffed. "That's not even getting into my other sister's plot to avenge our father. But never mind that. What the hell are you doing here?"
"Ah. That." Alice looked down at her foot. "I wanted to ask you about the wishing powder. It didn't work on my father's poison."
"Oh. I... I'm sorry." Drizella sounded sincere, and Alice risked a peek at her face. She saw no lie.
"Yeah." Remembering what Drizella had said at their first meeting, Alice asked, "Did it work on your sister?"
"No. No, it didn't."
"Oh. I'm sorry, too."
"Yeah, well." Drizella joined Alice on the rock. "Here, budge up. I'll tell you what Gothel told me."
"I suppose that could be useful — if she wasn't lying." Alice was surprised Drizella would trust Gothel to tell the truth. She felt Drizella shrug lightly.
"Take it as you will. According to her, my sister's death was the result of my father's choice to save my other sister first. To reverse her death is to reverse that choice. Waking Ana would cost Ella's life." Drizella poked balefully at the ground with her stick. "And no wishing powder is powerful enough to change that."
Alice's heart sank. That did sound likely, from her own experience with magic, and she said as much.
"Yeah. And as for your father — you didn't tell me Gothel was the one who cursed him! — he, too, made a choice that opened a crack in his soul. To heal him requires the sacrifice of a pure heart."
Alice winced. "He wouldn't want that."
"Right, but it would have been nice to know that beforehand, because Gothel said that what the wishing powder can do is to bend fate to make those outcomes more likely."
"What?" Alice jumped up from the rock and spun around to stare in horror at Drizella. "You mean I've doomed someone without even knowing it?"
Drizella looked away, flushing. "Welcome to the club."
"Well, it's not right. We have to fix this." Alice set her hands on her hips. "You can't just give up."
"I didn't say I was. But it won't help to blunder about making things worse."
"If I had another dose of wishing powder, could I reverse the effect?" Not that she had one, but...
"Possibly. Do you have any left?"
"No. You?"
"Gothel took it. And we can't get any more, you know. Three wishes is all you get in a lifetime."
"Gothel took it? What did she use it on?" It was still powerful magic, thought Alice. Her other two wishes had done wonders.
"She used it to get an answer from the Tree of Wisdom," said Drizella. "I have no idea what it told her, but it must have worried her. She's been more secretive and high-strung lately. You need to stay out of her way, Alice."
"Why, I didn't know you cared."
Drizella shot her a pained look, then covered it with a smirk. "I don't. I'd rather she didn't wring my secrets out of you."
The secrets Drizella had just confided in her? Alice shook her head. "I'll be careful. You're the one in danger, staying with Gothel. And people call me mad!"
"I know what I'm doing." Drizella stood up, dropping the stick and brushing off her clothes. "Good bye, Alice." She vanished in a cloud of smoke.
"Now that's rude," grumbled Alice. Well, she wasn't having it. She started trudging back towards Gothel's garden, not sure what she meant to do, but having the last word was definitely in there somewhere. And probably an offer to help, because even if the wishing powder hadn't worked on Papa, Drizella was the only reason Alice had been able to try it at all.
Hansel led Captain Manzana to Gretel's grave. "Here. At least that's what the marker says."
Captain Manzana nodded. "Now, the easiest way to find out the truth is to ask her what happened."
Hansel stared at her incredulously. "She's dead. I don't think she can talk."
"Not to you or me, but... well... my friend is something of a specialist in such matters." The captain crouched next to the grave and took out a pouch of ashes, using it to draw a strange sign on the ground.
"You called?" A man appeared in a swirl of black smoke.
Hansel grabbed at his spear. "What... how?"
The man tipped his hat at Hansel. "And greetings to you, young sir." Then he smiled slightly at Captain Manzana, quirking an eyebrow. "More good deeds?"
The captain glanced at Hansel and snorted. "They're paying surprisingly well." She gestured at the man. "This is Doctor Facilier."
Hansel nodded in belated recognition. The sorcerer had appeared from nowhere last time, too, on that island where they had gone to rescue the princess. "I remember. You helped us last time."
"Ah, yes. Under rather different circumstances." Facilier shot the captain a meaningful look.
"I thought this would be a chance to test your theory." The captain explained their mission, while Hansel wondered what 'theory' they were talking about.
"Indeed." Facilier took a deep breath, then moved towards the grave, brushing his fingertips over the name carved into the wooden marker. He closed his eyes. "Hmm. Margarethe, called Gretel, sister of Hans." Then he turned his head to regard Hansel. "Time was I could have summoned her spirit to walk among us with as much substance as you like, but this is not that time. A veil has fallen over the world, and I am left grasping at shadows."
"That's more than we have now. Divination has never been my strong suit," said the captain. "Let's see what you've got."
Facilier nodded. He stretched a hand into the air above Gretel's grave, his brow furrowed in concentration. A translucent shape formed around his hands. It slowly gained clarity and detail.
"Gretel!" Hansel gasped. Then he bit his lip, not daring to distract the sorcerer. Suddenly, the ghostly image began thrashing violently. Another figure faded into existence; the two were locked in a deadly struggle. Hansel saw the flash of metal. Gretel fell, mortally wounded. A moment later, both shapes vanished, but not before Hansel saw their faces.
"Drizella." Hansel spat out the name. She had lied to his face. "I knew it. She killed my sister." He clenched his fingers around his spear. "I swear by my name to avenge her death."
Facilier let his hand drop back to his side. He swayed on his feet, a sheen of sweat on his forehead, and leaned against the captain's shoulder heavily. "Not entirely useless, eh?"
"Never," said Captain Manzana. Then she turned towards Hansel. "I believe that fulfills the terms of our agreement. Now you know who killed your sister."
Hansel started to hand the captain the second half of her fee, then stopped. "No. We're not done. That woman is one of Gothel's coven. She's a sorceress."
The captain's fingers closed on the coins. "We are done. You know the truth. It wasn't bandits. If you want us to kill for you, that'll cost you."
Hansel winced, but let her take the money. It was all he had. Any more, he would have to beg from Henry, but Henry was the king now, which meant Hansel would be requesting public funds for a personal vendetta. Henry couldn't even be seen to be involved in something like this, lest it jeopardize relations between Opona and the Enchanted Forest.
"I don't..." He swallowed, reminding himself that the blood debt was his to collect, and it would be dishonorable to put it on a stranger. "Don't need you to kill her. But she has magic and I don't. I just need... a fair battle. I'll do the rest. How much for that?" He could borrow from a moneylender. It didn't matter how long repayment took, as long as Gretel was avenged.
Captain Manzana looked him up and down, considering. Then Facilier touched her arm.
"If I may..." he said softly. At the captain's nod, he snapped his fingers. A round metal object materialized in his grasp. "We can take this in trade."
Hansel gasped, fumbling in his vest. No. How? That was his father's compass. Ivo had given it to Gretel, and she had given it to Hansel. "That's mine!"
"Of course. You could hardly trade it otherwise." Facilier let Hansel take the compass back. "Well?"
Hansel traced the brass casing with a trembling finger. It was all he had left of his father. Of course, that was what made it valuable. Gretel had taught him something of the price of magic — that was one of the reasons he preferred the honesty of sword and spear. But others were not so reticent, and there was a price to not using magic, too. "All right." Hansel handed the heirloom over to the sorcerer. "You can have this, in exchange for helping me avenge my sister's death. But this is my quest — it's nothing to do with Henry."
Facilier nodded, accepting the trade. "Agreed."
Hansel glanced at Captain Manzana in question.
She smiled. "Oh yes, I'm in, too."
Alice caught up with Drizella, not at Gothel's garden, but on the road half a mile away, in the middle of a whirl of magic and steel. What the hell was she doing there?
Fighting for her life. Alice counted the odds. Not good. One Drizella, versus two sorcerers and a boy with a spear.
"Stop! Stop it, what are you doing?" Alice charged in, arms flailing. Why were people so violent? This was becoming a terrible habit, the kind of thing that would get her killed — she knew that perfectly well, but you had to protect your friends, and she wanted Drizella to be her friend. Which would never happen if she died in the next ten seconds. She spun around, deploying her fiercest glare. "Leave her alone."
"Alice," gasped Drizella, unable to manage any more words as she fought to breathe.
"Out of the way." The boy with the spear returned her glare for glare. "She's a monster. She killed my sister!"
The man and the woman flanking the boy glanced at Alice, but kept their focus on Drizella. Alice sensed the tug of magic between the three — a battle Drizella was losing. Alice looked at Drizella. "You killed his sister?"
Drizella winced, but didn't deny it.
Alice turned back to the boy. "There must be more to the story. She saved my life, you know. Or, actually, you don't know, and that's the problem. A problem that isn't solved by stabbing her..."
"I know enough," retorted the boy. "If you try to stop me, I'll kill you, too."
"No, wait!"
He didn't wait. He lunged forward, the spear too fast for her to catch. Her hands closed futilely around the shaft a fraction of a second after the point plunged into her abdomen. From behind her, she felt Drizella trying to push her out of the way. Too late.
Alice stared at the boy in shock. The earth seemed to tremble underneath her. Then massive arms seemed to sweep her up, and she knew no more.
"What the hell?" Hansel leaped back, instinctively dropping the spear, his hands burning. The spear hit the ground as a scattering of gravel. Magic. Accursed magic. Stone swallowed wood, swallowed skin and flesh and blood. He was looking at two statues. Bland, grainy rocks in the shape of two women locked together in their defeat.
"Let me see that." Captain Manzana turned to him, reaching for Hansel's hands, turning them palm up. She hissed at the gritty gray dust coating them, the leather of his gauntlets eaten away where they had touched the spear. "Hmm."
Facilier examined the statues warily. "This is very odd magic. I've never seen a spell quite like this before."
"Can you break it?" asked Hansel. Was he to be cheated out of his vengeance?
Captain Manzana joined Facilier at the statues. "Is it some kind of curse?"
Facilier rapped his cane on the stone. "Hmm. It had a core of imprisonment and containment. But not aimed at your sister's murderer, I think. No, it landed on our stranger here and Drizella was caught in its wake."
Captain Manzana eyed Hansel speculatively. "Looks like you let go just in time. Lucky."
"Where did the spell come from? Who cast it?" Hansel looked around uneasily. "Was it Gothel?"
Captain Manzana shook her head. "We're warded from Gothel's sight. I'm not even sure how she found us." She poked a finger at the stranger.
Facilier circled the statues, then leaned over to sniff at the stone. "Mmm. This is... it's an old spell. Could even be centuries. Strong."
"Stronger than my magic," the captain acknowledged. She glanced sidelong at Facilier. "You?"
"As things stand currently..." Facilier sighed and shook his head. "It is beyond my strength as well."
Hansel ground his teeth. "So she's escaped."
"I wouldn't say that, child," said the captain. "As strong as the spell is, I don't think either of them is getting free anytime soon. Drizella may not be dead, but she may well wish she were."
Facilier nodded. "Their souls are bound here. If they were dead, there would be the possibility of moving on."
"What if we destroyed the statues?"
"I have no idea. Shall we find out?" Captain Manzana shot an arc of lightning at the Drizella statue, but it splashed off to no apparent effect. "Hmm. Maybe a more physical approach." She waved a hand. When the smoke cleared, she was holding a hammer and chisel, both of which she offered to Hansel. "You try. Your anger may give you an edge."
Hansel's anger gave him nothing but extra frustration when the statues proved impervious to brute force.
"As I said, strong magic." Facilier eased Hansel back, taking the tools from his aching hands. "Best leave it at that."
"Well..." Captain Manzana stepped forward again, laying a hand on the stranger's left shoulder. "We can't break in, but perhaps we can prevent them from breaking out." She concentrated for a moment, then stepped back. "I've ensured that their minds sleep as stone sleeps. Magic requires volition, and stone has none."
"Is that vengeance enough?" Facilier asked in a gentle tone.
"I don't... maybe." Hansel glared at the statues. Gretel was dead. Was justice satisfied? A fate worse than death? Facilier wanted him to think so, but Hansel didn't trust him. "For now. Yes."
"In that case, it's time to be getting back. Young King Henry did imply an interest in employing me for further services," said the captain.
Hansel felt a twist of guilt at that. He had run off and left Henry to face everything alone. He cursed his own selfishness. It was time to go back. "Yes, yes, you're right. Let's go."
Wards don't last forever, of course. A few hours later, Gothel went looking for her apprentice and found her locked in stone behind Alice. Gothel had no trouble recognizing either her daughter or the magic that trapped her.
"I could have told you that escape is only temporary, child. If you're too weak to do as I did, then you'll never be free." She left them where they stood. It was a pity to lose a promising apprentice (useful pawn) but Drizella wasn't essential to her plans. The Tree of Wisdom had shown her what was needed to escape this crumbling realm.
Author's note: In my head-canon, crosses are used as grave markers in the Frontlands, just with a different symbolism than in our world (the Enchanted Forest not being Christian as far as I can tell), which is why Rumple made one for Belle in 7.04.