The first thing Regina noticed was the giant hourglass. It towered over the hidden street, with glittering sand sifting through it. The sand had almost run out, and she glanced at it warily, unsure whether that was a good thing or a very bad thing.

Drawing her gaze away from the hourglass, she took a cautious step forward and looked up and down the street. Unlike the city behind them, what lay before them was a dark alleyway lined with vacant shops, their windows smashed and their doors hanging open. The sky shone with stars, far brighter than they were in the rest of London. A couple of children, mostly boys near Henry's age, lingered in doorways, but there wasn't a single adult in sight. Henry sat on the ground, resting his chin on his hand, just below the hourglass. He stood up and tried to run to them, but another boy blocked his path and said something that Regina couldn't hear. Rumple grabbed her by the elbow and held her back.

"Careful," he whispered. "It's a trap."

"Don't you think I know that?" Regina snapped, failing to keep her voice down.

But Emma was paying more attention to the teenage boy who stared back at them from across the street. Her eyes widened with recognition.

"That's him," she said, pointing at the boy. "Malcolm Gold. He fits the description exactly."

The boy came towards them, with a careless swagger that didn't betray one bit of fear.

"I didn't expect to see you here, laddie," he said, turning his attention to Rumple and ignoring the others. "What, did you get homesick? Well, you're welcome to stay, just as long as you don't interfere with my plans. You see, that would make you my enemy, and then … well, then I'd have to kill you."

Rumple glared back at him, tightening his grip on his cane. Regina had known him long enough to recognize his fear, but anyone else would have missed it. "You just try."

"Oh, indeed I shall," said the boy – Peter Pan, Malcolm Gold, whatever his name was. "Your method of achieving immortality is far from foolproof. A bit of basilisk venom, or perhaps fiendfyre. Or maybe I'll find you a fate worse than death. What if I were to kill you, and let the piece of your soul that lives within that dagger be the only thing left? You'd suffer for eternity."

Rumple was definitely afraid now, and Regina couldn't help being grateful that she herself had never pushed the boundaries of dark magic quite so far. She had never had any reason to. Her descent into evil had been about revenge, whereas Rumple … Rumple was afraid. Afraid of dying, afraid of being powerless, afraid of his own prophecies, and afraid of never finding his son again. She didn't think she had any right to judge – after all, she was guilty of murder herself – but the thought the dagger still made her feel sick.

"Oh, where are my manners?" Peter Pan said, breaking off Regina's train of thought. "You're here for your son, aren't you? Not their son," he added, gesturing to Emma and Regina. "You wouldn't have come here for his sake. You're looking for Baelfire, and who am I to disappoint you?"

As he gestured, a boy a bit older than him stepped out of the shadows, holding a knife to the throat of a grown man. Emma's jaw dropped when she saw him.

"Neal?"

"Emma," he gasped. "I'm sorry, I …"

"One of our agents caught him trying to follow her," said Malcolm Gold, speaking over whatever Neal might have wanted to say. "I thought it would only be right to have him there for the family reunion. After all, we are, what, four generations of the same family?"

Rumple's brow furrowed with confusion, while Emma groaned. The pieces fell into place in Regina's mind: the son Rumple had spent so many years searching for and Henry's father who Emma had refused to speak of were in fact the same person. And if there were four generations …

"How old are you, exactly?" she asked the deceptively young-looking boy.

"Old enough to be a great-grandfather," he replied.

Henry had sat back down beside the giant hourglass, but he watched them carefully, with narrowed eyes. As she met her son's gaze, Regina had had enough.

"Give Henry back," she demanded, pointing the wand in her hand at Peter Pan. "And I might allow you to live."

Over the years, Regina had gotten used being seen as intimidating. She was certainly still feared in the magical world, and although her muggle neighbors weren't aware of her past, they had learned that she was not someone to be trifled with. But the abnormally young boy just laughed.

"You haven't killed anyone in years," he said. "Could you even do it anymore? Unforgivables don't come easily."

His taunts just made Regina's blood pound with anger. Throwing caution to the wind, she raised her wand.

"Ava-!"

"NO!" Three voices called out in unison. Regina lowered her wand and turned to glare at Rumple.

"Snow and Emma, I can understand, but you?" she said with a huff. "Surely you understand what needs to be done."

Rumple shook his head and pointed to the hourglass, where the last bits of sand were trickling out. For a moment, Peter Pan quivered. She could see traces of wrinkles appearing on his face, and streaks of gray in his hair. Then he laughed, his youthful appearance was restored. From behind him came a thud as the teenage boy holding Neal hostage collapsed, dead. He scrambled away, while Regina looked in shock from the wand in her hand to the body on the ground. How …?

Then she saw the hourglass. Within it the sands were swirling, rising up into the upper half.

"That's how he maintains his youth," Rumple explained. "By draining the lives of others each time he comes close to death, by old age or … otherwise. It's darker magic even than mine."

"And better!" Peter Pan boasted, still practically glowing with energy. "Elixir of life or a horcrux could keep me alive, but only this can make me truly invulnerable – and more importantly, young forever. You think horcruxes are dark magic? You don't even want to know what I did to create my hourglass. Nothing like this has ever been done before."

Regina didn't deign that with a response. Instead, she turned her attention to the hourglass, trying to determine what kind of magic it was. Was it safe to destroy it? Was that even possible? Was it something like a horcrux, altered in some way to do more than simply contain part of the soul, or was it something else altogether?

One thing was for sure. She wouldn't be casting any more killing curses today. No more children deserved to die so that Peter Pan – what an absurdly appropriate name! – could save himself. Instead, she shot a stunning spell at the man in a child's body. He blocked her as casually as if he was flicking away a gnat.

Nearby, a couple of the other boys were drawing their wands.

"You really want to fight for this guy?" Emma asked them. "He kidnapped you – he's using you!"

A small boy even younger than Henry spoke up: "If we do what Pan says, he lets us live. Usually."

Pan's face broke into an evil grin. "What would Peter Pan be without his Lost Boys?"

Regina saw the pain on Emma's face when he said that. Belle's eyes were wide with horror, Snow looked aghast, and David … well, David looked like he was about to attack someone with his bare hands. Regina could tell herself she was only here for Henry, but even she cringed. How did a grown man become so desperate to be a child that he would rob kids of their innocence and, eventually, their lives?

That wasn't worth thinking about. She exchanged a glance with Emma, and the two shot stunning spells in unison. A couple of the "Lost Boys" dropped to the ground, unconscious, but it wasn't enough. They were outnumbered too badly.

"Aim for the hourglass," she hissed. Turning her wand on it, she screamed out a "Reducto!" that bounced harmlessly off the glass. But four more jets of light joined hers, and she could see cracks begin to appear. They kept on casting their spells until the cracks grew and the glass shattered. The "Lost Boys" scattered, diving out of the way as shards of glass and sand spilled out over the street. Henry ran straight into his mothers' arms, and they caught him in a three-way embrace, holding onto each other as if their lives depended on it. Peter Pan fell to the ground, slowly aging from a teenager into a middle-aged man, gasping for breath among the shards of the broken hourglass. But he reached for his wand and jabbed it in the air, and Belle let out a gasp, grabbing at her throat as if she was choking.

"Let her go," Rumple snarled.

"Oh, would you rather I killed your son? Or your grand-"

Regina held Henry closer and raised her wand, but Peter Pan didn't finish his sentence. As the last pieces of the hourglass fell to the ground, his hair turned gray and his skin sagged and wrinkled. He dropped his wand and stared down at his hands in horror. A moment later, he was dead.