So as to let Snow sleep, Emma decided to ignore the open invitation.

"What shall we do instead?" James had asked wearily from the dining room table chair. "Wait for her to come here?"

Emma shrugged. "She knows where we live. And no one but me can leave this town, so we can't be going anywhere. Let her met us where we want to meet."

Grumpy nodded. "Like a home field advantage."

Henry sat up in his chair at the table, tall and ready to command. " I think we should go to the library."

"The boarded up place where the dragon was?" August frowned.

"There is an actually library with musty shelves and books." Red remarked from her post against the door. "If you go past the elevator."

Emma looked to Granny who had joined them in the past hour. "Does anyone know what was in the library? Or why it got boarded up?"

Granny nodded. "As far as I understand, that is where Regina threw everything that might have reminded people of our old memories. Stuff that came with us in the curse. There is probably a lot of very interesting things in there."

"Weapons?" Grumpy asked.

Granny shrugged.

"There was a dragon." Red smirked.

James sighed. "Okay. I'm staying here. I'll text Red if I need to say something. Or any of you can call me. Once Snow wakes up, I decide what my next move is. The rest of you can take a trip to the library if you want. Just be careful."

Henry beamed. "I'm sure we will learn some very important things."

Emma looked at him oddly. It almost seemed like Henry expected something very specific.

"Okay. Let's do it." Emma shivered away her concern. "Any info is better then none."

The group was soon on their way. Emma had to try for several minutes to figure out how to take down the ward on the locks, but she was pleasantly surprised that it had taken her that quickly. Emma really did secretly fear how much easier magic was now, like she had ages of practice and just needed to shake off the dust. She kept these feelings to herself as they entered the library.

Passing the elevator, Emma was in amazement of how much stuff was in there. Shelves upon shelves of haphazardly tossed about books and cobwebs. Henry seemed to be searching the walls, August was admiring the wood carving on the reading chairs, Red was running up and down the hallways, looking the place once over. Granny was cleaning dust off of chairs and desks and Grumpy was opening various books here and there.

Emma had the feeling that this was not, despite the mess, a random collection of materials thrown in a random library building in Storybrooke. This felt like an actual library, a very specific library.

August approached her. "I think that this is what remains of the Queen's library."

Emma turned and probed, glad someone else thought so. "The Evil…Regina's?" Emma wasn't sure why she changed her title mid thought, but she did.

August noticed, but didn't comment. " No, not Regina's. But it is the one that belonged to the summer palace she used to frequent. This is the library of King Leopold and his family. This is Snow White's library, just as much as it is Regina's." He gestured to the wood on the wall behind him. "That's King's Leopold's crest."

Emma was about to comment when Henry shouted. "Ah, ha."

The two walked towards him without comment.

Henry was boldly gesturing to a painting that was hanging on the west wall. Emma had to blink and she shivered when she looked at it.

"It looks like you." Red remarked in awe.

"The nose is different and she had a dimple on one cheek." August stated as though this were obvious. "Emma doesn't have a dimple."

Emma pretended she didn't notice that he knew these things. It seemed too intimate an observation. Like he had studied her face closely.

"Queen Margaret." She read the capture under the painting outloud. The woman did look like her, in royal garb she would never wear. A simple, elegant crown upon her head and a gracious smile. Emma knew she would never again doubt her heritage. The two woman could be confused on the street and mistaken for sisters easily.

"The heart of the matter is in the library." Henry muttered. "I wonder why this is so important, other then the obvious physical resemblance."

Emma frowned. This was the woman who gave birth to Snow. Who gave up her heart so that her daughter would not torment the world. She wore queenly robes, but Emma could feel that she knew hardship.

Grumpy approached the group with a book. "Here, listen to this. I found this in a desk drawer."

He read outloud.

"Another baby that will never be. It is like I am cursed to have to bleed out again and again. I am almost ready to give up on sex entirely, just to ensure that I will never have to know that my dysfunctional womb and I will destroy another human life."

"Are you reading her diary?" Emma had a flare of anger for this unknown relative. "Outloud even. In front of Henry at that?"

Grumpy shrugged. "We are here for information aren't we? Would you like me to edit things as I read." He seemed bristly.

"She seems like an impressive woman." Red commented breaking the tension.

"I know about sex already, mom." Henry rolled his eyes. His voice was confident, but his eyes were bothered and he seemed a bit uneasy. Emma breathed an internal sigh of relief. At least he still was a tad disgusted with the idea, at least for a few more years hopefully.

"Continue." Emma remarked. "But do take some concern for the mixed audience."

"Spoken like a mother." Granny remarked approaching the group. She gave Emma a warm smile.

Grumpy looked at the whole group, making sure they were listening again. "This is the really important part."

He continued.

"I am pleased to have a visit from Cora, an old childhood friend."

"Friend?" Emma interrupted. Grumpy glared. "Wait."

"She is out of the horrible relationship with King George and her new husband seems kind and gentle. She too has had no success with children. While hers seem to make it through the 9 months just fine, they all seem to have had various heart problems and none of them have made it past 3 months of life."

Here Grumpy paused. "King George's line was very…twisted."

Red laughed. "Yeah, the running joke was that the last three generations had all been changelings. Of course King George would shoot these rumors down. But I guess the family tree was so bent that none of the heirs could survive. The rumor is that he bought your father in a deal so that he could have an heir."

Emma nodded. She knew that her own father had been King George's son. Henry's book had said so. It seemed likely that he was traded for, rather then biological.

August confirmed this. "Rumplestiltskin made the deal. Your father came from a line of shepherds."

Grumpy frowned. "How come I didn't know that?"

August shrugged. "He's pretty secretive about it, I guess. Nothing to hide here though. Shepherds and Kings alike are stuck here."

Emma smiled, that was why her father smelled of countryside and wool, even now. It was in his blood. "Continue, Grumpy."

"But this time, she is pregnant again with her new husband. I do so hope that she can find some sort of peace this time. Losing children is never easy, I should know. And she seems to need the peace. She is so much sadder and more bent then I remember her. I'm sure the rumors about King George are exaggerated, but I fear not by much. The man is a…"

Grumpy coughed. "That I will edit for children's ears." Henry glared.

"I only wish I could have talked to her during that time, but she wasn't allowed out of the palace. I do so hope that one day she realizes what she has in her new husband, Henry. He may be a bit older then her, but he loves her, I can tell. And after everything, she needs that. That which I could never give her."

Grumpy stopped. "This is why I read this."

Emma frowned. "To show they knew each other well, and shared similar grief over lost children? Cora's possible abusive first marriage?"

Grumpy shook his head. "No the last line."

Granny sighed.

Everyone looked at her.

"It's just a rumor. But I guess it makes everything make sense in a twisted sort of way."

Emma frowned. "What?"

Granny shivered. She looked briefly at Henry before deciding how to word what she was about to say. "I had met Cora once when my daughter was growing up."

Red turned fast to face her. "You almost never talk about my mother."

Granny gave a weak, sad smile. "Andrea, she was…not the most amazing person."

Red frowned.

"Anyway, my job growing up was to walk into the nearest villages and get grain supplies. So my daughter did the same when she came of age. She used to repeat things she had heard at the village square, which I discouraged, but she persisted. Once when she was ill, I went to retrieve the grain instead. Rhea, had talked a lot about the miller girl, not some very kind things. But once I met her, I could see some of them were probably true at the core level. She was a very troubled soul, even at a young age."

Granny sighed again. No one seemed to be able to guess, so she was going to have to say it. "I don't usually spread gossip…"

"Go on." Red urged. "The suspense is killing me."

Granny raised an eyebrow, but continued. "The town gossip was that the miller's daughter was…" She searched for a kind turn of phrase. "not in the traditional way."

Emma was the first to understand. But Red announced it in shock. "She was a lesbian?"

Granny nodded.

Grumpy repeated the last line from the diary. "That which I could never give her."

Emma closed her eyes. How did this knowledge help them? It suddenly made her uneasy at best, thinking of how closely she resembled her grandmother. Especially with Cora running around, turning her into a swan and holding everyone in a constant state of horror.

Granny was fingering the necklace around Henry's neck when she opened her eyes.

"This was Cora's. She was always wearing it, until the day she disappeared from the village."

"Why did she disappear?" Henry asked, his questions about Cora's past finally being answered. Just as Rumplestiltskin had said.

Granny sighed. "Her father made up some ridiculous nonsense about her being able to spin straw into gold and a servant of King George took her to his palace, where she was tested. She must have sold her mother's necklace away to Rumplestiltskin in a deal."

Henry's eyes widened. "She is the miller's daughter from the Grimm fairy tale. The only story with Rumplestiltskin in it." He looked at Emma who twisted her mouth in thought. "In the Grimm tale, she traded a necklace away to save her life, because the king in the story threatened to kill her if she was lying."

Emma frowned. The Rumplestiltskin story about turning straw into gold, seemed more like a story of abuse and lies and the happy ending that the story provided with the death of Rumplestiltskin and the keeping of the baby, seemed to be a kind fabrication. Like the original ending hadn't been good. Like the Grimm brothers had needed a happy ending, so they forced one.

"It was the first of many trades." A voice interrupted her thoughts.

It was Cora.

Emma turned around and there with Regina at her side was Cora, standing tall and looking up at the painting as well. Her eyes met Emma's and she resisted the urge to shiver.

"Outside." Cora demanded. "The rest of the house of White is waiting."