A/N: Special thanks to OnceSnow for not only editing, but for suggesting Whitesnake's "Is This Love" as the song here (spelled it wrong in the last A/N, sorry!). The best I came up with on my own was the Celine Dion "Power of Love," but...that would have been a little too much.
"You should come back to the house. Regina will want in on this."
It's odd walking the streets with Robin, watching the man who is still very much a woodsman gallivanting past the modern shops. He wonders which one of them knows more about how to command a car, if he should call David just to let him know he saw Emma today, if he should inquire more about the baby just to be polite. And yet, he feels that the two of them have done this before. Wherever that feeling came from, it also tells him not to address it just yet. Six missing weeks. Perhaps they'd teamed up to try to help Emma.
"So there is one clue about our missing time that's come to the surface," Robin says with a deep sigh, shoving his hands into his pockets. The normally relaxed—if also somewhat stumped by all the magic around him—expression on his face tightened into something much more somber.
"What's that?" Killian asks.
"I apparently died."
Killian halts, cocking his head at the other man.
"That's regarded as a mere clue now, is it?" Gods, this is their lives now. Shuffling, he scratches behind his ear and fights the urge to laugh, not sure how Robin would interpret it. The lives of all these thieves and royals and pirates surely had been frought with peril before coming to Storybrooke, and yet he wagers it warrants the distinction of being one of the most dangerous places in any realm. And yet, he thinks, leaning his head back and taking in the moonlight, it's home.
"Earlier today, something called a Fury tried to spirit me away to the Underworld," Robin explains. "Regina was barely able to thwart it, and that was with Mary Margaret, David, Leroy, and Arthur's help."
"Arthur? He's here?"
"Here, and it appears just as confused as we are." Pausing, Robin sets his jaw. "I'm fine, by the way."
"Apologies, mate. Glad you're here, but why does that mean you died in Camelot?" he asks.
"It would seem that the Fury hadn't been sent randomly or maliciously. It was just doing its job. Something happened to me in Camelot and it was just now playing catch-up with me." Clearing his throat, Robin shoots him a look and then swallows. "That's not to say Emma had nothing to do with it, but she didn't summon one to come after me, anyway. Maybe we were all in a battle? Evidence of that could be in her house."
They arrive at Regina's house, half shrouded in hedges, a cool breeze rustling a few leaves over the narrow sidewalk. The white columns and strange shrubs cut into spiral shapes had always struck him as ostentatious, but tonight, with a warm orange porch light hanging above them, there's a homey quality to it. Robin unlocks the door and motions for both of them to step into the foyer. He leads them down into a sitting room, the wood-paneled one with the leather sofas, the one in which they'd once tried to contact Cora. Tonight, however, death and the afterlife seem sacrilege. Regina, sitting curled up with Roland in her lap, reads aloud from a children's book. Only two lamps light the room and the soft, tinting sound of guitar music playing on one of this world's machines gives the space a coziness he never would have imagined it having before. Regina really had carved out a happy ending for herself.
"Getting some leather envy, Hook?" she asks, looking up from the book, rubbing the arm of the sofa.
And here he'd been happy for her looking so content.
"Now, now, Regina," Robin sings, disappearing for a second only to return with an opened bottle of wine and a few glasses. "Be nice. I've told you the best way to approach breaking and entering is teamwork. That, and lots and lots of Moscato."
"Breaking and entering?"
"Yes. We've talked about it, and we're, uh, well, going to break into Emma's house. Son, it's time to brush your teeth and get ready for bed," Robin says without missing a beat. Killian wonders what a normal night at the Mills house consists of, suddenly feeling a pang in his chest. He's not ready to visit David and Snow yet, but Regina and Robin are familiar faces, ready to help Emma, and...Henry. He needs to see his boy.
"Is Henry here?" he asks, shuffling as he watches Roland scamper up the stairs.
"Hold on. If we're breaking into Emma's house, I don't think Henry should be in on it." Rising with her hands on her hips, she joins Robin at the table where he is unrolling the drawing of the house he'd worked on in the diner. Killian settles down in the chair across from her.
"Okay." Robin clears his throat. "I say we do this in broad daylight. The odds are Emma won't be home, and I don't think we need to worry about neighbors being overly concerned with what's going on at the Dark One's house. No offense."
"No, you're right," Killian agrees, giving Regina a sideways look. "That's where you come in. There's a locked door once you're inside the house. There's something magic behind it; I know it. I doubt this will be as easy as picking a lock. We need someone with your particular skill set."
Cracking her knuckles in an exaggerated fashion, Regina rolls her tongue inside her mouth, deep in thought. She could burn holes into the house diagram with the violence of her stare. She rests her chin in her hand and studies it, finally tapping the paper with two fingers.
"We should see if Belle can go with us. She's become quite the expert on magic. Theoretically, of course."
"You can give her a call, although I haven't heard from her since yesterday," Killian says, suddenly frowning. She must have her own problems, what with Rumpelstiltskin's less-than-chipper state, but he finds it worrisome she hasn't talked to him. "That won't be the difficult part, though. How do we guarantee Emma won't be there?"
"We could always do a stake-out of the house," Robin suggests. "Hold off on actually doing anything for a few days and just observe when she comes and goes."
Imagining being so near that monstrosity hearing...sensing...feeling whatever lies behind the door beckoning him to come just a little closer for perhaps days on end causes a shiver to ripple from the base of his scalp all the way down his spine. The only solution would be to bait her, give her a reason to step out, but isn't it all dishonest enough already? Besides, he's too weak to seek her out so soon. If he sees her again...gods, what a tremulous sensation—to know she's near and yet not reach her. Regina and Robin prattle on about the possibility of Henry summoning her, wondering whether or not it would put him in danger or cause him irreversible psychological damage. Not a hundred percent sure what "psychological" means, Killian's sure based on the context that that ship has sailed.
"Is he home?" he asks.
"He's upstairs, doing homework before bed," Regina says, pointing toward the stairs. She dips her chin down, as if she really is needing to remember to be nice. "It's okay if you want to go up and say hello to him."
He'll leave it to the thief and the magic expert to fine-tune the details of his plan; he needs his boy right now, just to see that he's all right, that someone still clings to the hope that Emma will let go of the Darkness.
Tiptoeing up the stairs to avoid waking Roland, he stops at the door across from the bathroom, slightly ajar. Opening his mouth and lifting his fist to knock on the door, he hears Henry's voice. Singing? He nudges the door but is careful to remain technically in the hallway. Henry's at his desk with his back to the door, large black earmuff-things against his ears.
"Is this love that I'm feeling/Is this love that I've been searching for/Is this love or am I dreaming/This must be love/Cuz it's really got a hold on me..."
Tucking his lips into his mouth to suppress laughter, he leans against the door and listens to him, in his own little world, singing and what appears to be sketching. But he can't eavesdrop forever. All but pounding on the door, he's about to shout Henry's name when the lad whirls around and jolts.
"You sc—what are you doing here?" Henry sputters, jerking the black ear-covers off and slamming his notebook shut. Raising an eyebrow at him, Killian stays where he is, wisely not counting the stammering as an invitation.
"I can't come talk with your mother and Robin Hood?"
"No, sorry. I just wasn't expecting you. I was..."
"Doing schoolwork, according to your mother."
"Yeah."
What's the boy been doing lately, he wonders, but refrains from asking. Boys are terrible at keeping everyone's secrets but their own. All he'll get after an inquiry will be a grunt. They take in one another for a moment, a look that is man-to-man and brotherly and heart-to-heart all at once, and then Henry motions for him to sit on the bed closer to him. Entering Henry's room, Killian surveys it as he did when he'd first stayed at Regina's house, with Cora in the guest room and himself savoring his first shower. On the wall next to the bed, he finds the photograph of Emma with her mother, remembers how he fell asleep staring at it, how a faint desire for her to like him turned into a feverish, breathless dream that almost caused him to fall out of bed.
"Have you talked to Grandma and Grandpa?" Henry asks after a raspy, back-of-the-throat sound. He stands up and turns around to his shelf of books where a few games are stacked on the bottom shelf.
"Not recently. Have you?"
"Here and there. They're working with the Arthurians and I'm just, er, trying to be friendly, I guess. Make some friends. So we cross paths."
"Arthurians?" He doesn't like the sound of that.
"Well, 'Camelotians' sounds weird, a-and the people I've talked to—in passing—call themselves that, so, you know. When in Rome. Jenga?"
"What the bloody hell's Jenga?" Killian blurts out, trying to make sense of the lad's ramblings. Not usually so secretive, he hopes Henry is just as tight-lipped with the "Arthurians." Word should not get out yet that the Emma Swan they might or might not have met now prowls the streets and houses as the Dark One. Without answering him, Henry dumps several rectangular blocks out of a box and begins arranging them into a tower, three in a row, touching, then three more the other way and so on. Poking his head around the tower so they make eye contact, Henry smiles at him and gently pokes a block out from the middle of the tower and sets it on top.
"Your turn."
"Henry..."
"Please? Just to get our mind off of, you know...Mom?" Blushing, he hangs his head. "I don't want to lose her, especially the way I lost Dad—not knowing what was going on around me, not knowing what would come next. Just...come on. If we play, it'll feel like we'll have a plan soon, and that Mom'll be okay, and you guys can get married or shack up or whatever you want to do and everything will be back the way it was. If we're fine, she won't give up. If we're okay, that's a promise for the future."
The large, pleading eyes ensnare him, as do the words. Promise for the future. There's a chill in the room now, a haze that presents to him the idea that they've discussed this before. Returning Henry's smile and nodding at him, Killian taps at the edge of another block until it sticks out of the other side of the Jenga tower.
He wakes up realizing he's lying spread-eagle on some kind of half-sofa, half-bed in one of the sitting rooms downstairs in Regina's house. Blinking and channeling paralysis to gain his bearings, he tucks his limbs in and remembers Henry rubbing his eyes and no longer focusing on the game. Killian had patted his back, suggested he call it a night, and left the room. Then, he'd imagined his body just crashing down on the nearest soft surface and passing out for a few hours. Everything else, well, it's like waking up after a night of hard drinking without the hangover, and he does know something about that.
"Why aren't you ready to go?" Regina storms in, fully dressed and finishing clasping on an earring. Her red dress jacket almost hurts to look at, especially against the whiteness of the rest of the room. Sitting up, he stretches his neck, being sure to take his sweet time, watching her roll her eyes at him. "Snow called. She wants us at the sheriff's station right away."
"Is Emma there?"
"No. Something about a death in the cell...I don't know. I'm tired. Robin's leaving Roland with the Merry Men, so he'll meet us there." Pausing, she folds her arms and huffs. "Oh, don't bother snapping to attention. I'll just go get a granola bar for you."
"Did you 'poof' me down here or something?" he calls to her as she heads into her kitchen, presumably to grab him a bar of granola or whatever she'd said. "I don't remember coming down the stairs last night."
"We're all a bit punchy these days," she says, returning with a wrapped-up bar in one hand and a cup in the other. Leaning down to him, he sighs when he sees it's orange juice and not coffee. He supposes it doesn't matter how he fell asleep; he just did. Now that he's refreshed, he finds himself quite up to a day of breaking and entering into his girlfriend's house.
The rest of them are there, Robin included, standing in front of the jail cell. David looks past Arthur right at Killian with a look of bitter disappointment, so similar to the one he gave him back in the Enchanted Forest, when he'd believed looking for the Jolly Roger would give him enough purpose to not just crawl into a cave, huddle into himself, and die.
"You must be Captain Jones. An honor, sir." Arthur marches toward them with his hand outstretched and Killian grabs it, taken aback at this rather odd meeting, humble and yet demanding at the same time. "And Regina, is it? Mayor of the town? Gifted sorceress?" Only half smiling, the king retains a grim demeanor as he introduces his wife, Guinevere to them. Still in their garments and plates of armor from another world, they both stare into the cell, shaking their heads.
"What's going on?" Regina asks, crossing her arms.
"We apprehended his squire yesterday," David explains. "They had a magic bean locked in their kingdom's chest of magical odds and ends. When I investigated, he ran. Now...now he's not here at all." Flapping his arm in a helpless gesture at the cell, David paces back around to the desks.
It doesn't immediately scream any connection to Emma, but the events in Storybrooke always seem to have a way of coming to a head, Killian thinks, running his hand through his hair and taking his own turn peering into the cell, as if the squire is just cleverly hiding. If David arrested him, it's a good bet the man was in on something, and it doesn't look like anyone helped him escape. In fact, it doesn't look like anyone was in there at all.
"So he just...vanished?" he asks the room, turning away from the cell. No, no, it can't be that cut-and-dry, and he's so tired of not having all the pieces to the puzzle. Events in Storybrooke also lend themselves to being knee-deep in deception, Killian remembers, taking a hard look at Arthur. Worry crosses the king's face. Worry, fear—all feelings that go along with losing a member of one's crew, and guilt. Being the king of anywhere is a bit like captaining a crew, only on a larger scale. When acts of fate remove one of your responsibilities for you, guilt worms its way into you.
"Could it be magic? Your squire—did he wield such power?" Robin tries. That's not it, either. Magic being involved, almost certainly, but not by someone who would be content to be a lowly squire. People with magic use it.
"Not that I ever saw," Arthur answers.
"Well, there's no sign of tampering," David sighs, probably for the dozenth time, and indeed, this squire didn't escape the conventional way.
"Then he must have lied about having the bean. Must've hidden it on his person somewhere and used it to escape," Arthur concludes.
"How could he be so selfish?" Guinevere at last snaps out of her slightly vacant pose. "We could all be home right now!"
"Desperate times..." her husband says.
"Our people want so badly to return. We must do something to raise their spirits. The despair of being away...that's what caused all this. Who knows what else it can lead to?"
And here he'd had a mind to dismiss the queen as a lovely fool. Perhaps she did harbor a mind of her own. At least it knew some universal truths.
"Well, you're right. People need hope," Snow states, looking over at David, the two of them having one of their silent conversations. A slight nod indicates they've reached an agreement about...something. "And as your hosts and leaders of this town, it's up to us to provide it."
"What do you have in mind?" Regina asks through her teeth, trying to collect her patience, but then she shoots him a quick glance. Ah. David and Snow can busy themselves with politics, freeing the rest of them to go do what needs to be done. Excellent. Eyes lingering on her, he suddenly catches sight of Henry furiously thumbing something into his phone.
"How about a dance?" the lad blurts out. Killian doesn't mean to grin; he really doesn't. But it all makes sense now—the daydreaming, the singing. There's a lass.
"A dance, huh?" David saunters over to him, glancing at the text discussion on the phone. "Looking for an excuse to ask your girlfriend out on a date?"
Does he know this boy, or does he know this boy, he thinks, continuing to grin like an imbecile. Finally out of that stage where a girl is, at best, an honorary boy. Maybe they can press for details.
"Girlfriend? What girlfriend?" Come now, Regina, don't interrogate him. He won't say anything then. She must be from Camelot. And here is Henry, a friendly, helpful, handsome lad from a new and exotic land. A bit star-crossed, but then most memorable love stories are.
"She's not my girlfriend."
"Who's not your girlfriend?" Perhaps a little too used to Regina's wrath, Snow places a protective hand on Henry's back.
"I think a dance is exactly what we need," she says.
"Henry, who's this girlfriend?" It does make him feel a little better that Regina's mother-induced omnipotence had not picked up on this fact, and he does understand any reluctance to just toss a crush into all the drama that surrounds this family, but Killian can't help but think if he'd stayed up with him just a little bit longer last night, Henry might have mentioned this mystery girl. Regina just lacks the approach needed to get the boy to open up.
"Well, if it's dating tips you need, lad, I know my way around women," he boasts, smirking at Regina's horrified expression.
"Over your dead body!"
"Regina," Snow snaps at her. "Let's start planning. I think it's time Storybrooke had a ball." Ushering Regina out the door, Killian nods at Henry that it's safe to follow them out. David and Robin can handle the pleasantries with the king and queen for now. Of course, he'll have to rescue Regina from Snow's grip and excuse them all, but if that's the most difficult part of whatever Henry will eventually name this operation, then they at least ought to do well.
"So, who's this girlfriend?" Regina whispers to Snow once they're outside, and in a calmer tone. "What do you know about her?"
A name would be nice, a brief description in case they see her and don't wish to embarrass the boy...or if they do want to embarrass the boy...but Belle dashes to them from across the street, almost tripping over her own feet.
"Belle, what is it?" Snow asks.
"It's Rumple."
"What happened?"
"He's missing."
"Missing?" Snow gasps. "How can he be missing? He was in the shop. Belle, we took every precaution before we left. He was supposed to be fine!"
"And he was. He was. He was waking up! I saw the rose, and then I rushed over there, and he's gone. Like he was never there," Belle pants, trying to catch her breath. First some squire and now the Crocodile? Well, the squire might have some magic bean and might be sitting pretty in Camelot right now, but the Crocodile would have no such magic anymore. Someone else would. Running his tongue over his teeth, Killian doesn't know if he should curse the Darkness inhabiting Emma or thank her for giving him the perfect cue to commence tearing apart her house.
"Perhaps Regina, Robin, and I can see what we can find," he says, crossing in front of Snow. "We can meet up later tonight."
"Wait, wait." Snow throws up her hands, her eyes pleading with him as if it's the last time they'll ever see each other. Gods, she's the one that wanted to throw a party together. "I don't know if it's a good idea to be off doing our own thing right now. We still have no idea what Emma's up to, and now people are disappearing?"
"We'll be fine, milady. We always are."
"I think we've got plenty of experience between the two of us closing in on Rumpelstiltskin," Regina adds, holding Robin's hand and wedging their way between the shops and Snow.
"It's just..." Snow locks eyes with him in such a way he wants nothing more than to avert his gaze. "We wanted to talk to you, David and I. Putting this dance together would have been a good opportunity."
Bloody hell, is he in trouble? She doesn't seem angry with him, and while her features match Swan's in almost every way, Snow proves quite the difficult woman to read at times. Why would they want to talk to him? He doesn't know anymore about Henry's budding romance than Regina does.
"Please, Mary Margaret," Belle intercedes. "It's like Regina said. She and Killian know Rumple better than anyone. Almost." There's a pout of a smile on her face, but it disappears all too quickly to be anything other than a mask for the worry she feels. Sighing, Snow waves them away with orders to call when they want to meet up, to be careful, to stay together. He certainly hopes he's not in trouble with them; he's sure he's never loved Snow more.
Robin advises them to hang back a few blocks, to be just four people out on a normal walk since the sunny day doesn't seem aware a Dark One exists. The house is a longer walk from the station, Killian notices, but the neighborhoods surrounding it look a little more manicured. The lawns shine greener, fresh coats of paint adorn the trims and shutters of the houses—the scent of saltwater wafts about in the air. In fact, the occasional gull flies overhead. They've driven past here a few times, mostly to retrieve Henry from school, but he still can't fathom why this specific location for finally living in her own space.
They move along, a little too rushed for a leisurely stroll, but convincing passersby everything is fine falls low on the list of priorities. They may have to split up, keep an eye on each section of the house, waiting for her to leave. Is she comfortable there? Does any aspect of it feel like home? Has she set aside a place for Henry? A place for—he gulps—a place for himself?
A chime from Regina's phone returns him to the group. He can worry about why Swan chose this house after he learns what's in it.
"Showtime. Henry says he's got Emma occupied," she announces, rushing up the steps.
"You told Henry what we're doing?" Shocked, he stumbles over one of the steps. Wretched place, he thinks. Swan's lived in an apartment three floors up since he's known her, but he trips over a harmless little set of steps that lead up to her house?
"No, but he'll let us know when she's headed back. Let's do this."
He stands back. Magic is going to block the door. He knows this. Emma wouldn't leave her house unguarded, and, well, it seems so obvious to him, like a sign with "magic" written in huge blocked letters hung over the door. Sure enough, the air crackles, a flash of light, and Regina jolts back from the door as if it had been a branding iron.
"You okay?" Robin asks as he catches her.
"Protection spell," she groans with a hint of surprise. Well, what had she expected?
"It would appear she doesn't want you trespassing," he decides on, the remark having just enough cut in it to let her know this was the whole reason why he and Robin brought her along. Deflecting magic, she can do. Breaking into a house unnoticed? That's a different beast.
"You want to try, pirate?" she challenges.
"Well I know she doesn't want me to."
"Henry," Belle starts, so suddenly he glances back at the front yard to make sure Henry hasn't given his other mother the slip and tagged along with them. "She'd let Henry in. Do you have anything of his on you?"
Well done, he thinks as Regina conjures up Henry's scarf.
"I do now." Burrowing her hand into it, she tries the lock again while biting her lip. This time, the lock clicks and the magical barrier resumes its normal function as an ordinary door. "Thank you, Henry," she murmurs. "You're our hero."
The inside of the house looks the way it did before, nothing new out, no new dishes in the sink. No new papers or mail on the tables or counters. No chairs left out or any other sign she'd had any company since he'd left. That had to be driving her mad, or it would have been if the Darkness hadn't already done that to her. A loner who hates to be alone.
"There," he says, nodding at the locked door in front of them. It still hisses, sings, calls to him, but his worrying for Emma muted it. As long as he focused on the task at hand, he could ignore it...whatever "it" was.
Regina merely touches the lock against the door and it creaks open for them, darkness on the other side.
"Cocky of her, not thinking she'd need any reason to put a spell on this one if she did on the outside," Regina notes, shaking her head as her hand groped the side of the wall, searching for a switch.
"I've got it," Robin says, producing one of those thick black sticks with light emitting from one side. "I thought we might need this. Everyone use the rail. The last thing we need is for Emma to come home and see us all here dragging someone with a broken leg out."
The staircase is longer than he imagined it, the walls giving way to stone, the domestic, modern surface under their feet giving way to a pebbly worn path. Robin switches off the light stick when they come into a clearing of sorts, a few naked bulbs of light strung across the stones. Did Emma come up with this herself? She must work down here if she needs the light, but for what?
A glint of something catches his eye. Craning his head to see over Regina and Belle, he sees it—Excalibur, the sword of legend. Arthur's sword, isn't it? What the bloody hell is it doing here?
"Now we know why she didn't want you down here," Regina mutters, circling the sword. It's beautiful, finely crafted. A bit narrower than most swords he'd seen, straighter than a cutlass, it conjures the image of a graceful dancer spinning amid a barbarian horde. So many crests and patterns on the hilt, the garnet on the pommel shimmering. And the design on the blade...the black designs and symbols.
"Indeed. I don't think she wants anyone to see this, and I think I know why," he says, pointing at it. "Take a gander. Excalibur looks quite familiar."
"The dagger," Belle gasps as she bends down and examines it. "It's the same design, the same edges." She indicates a section of the blade that seems to careen off and bend. Just like the twisting blade of the dagger.
"What the hell does she want with this? And with Gold? What is she up to?" Regina breathes.
"Well, given our missing memories, I'd wager whatever it is, it's not good."
Thank you, Robin. That's revelatory. They need to be done guessing. They need to bloody know.
"Let's take a better look at the damn thing and find out." Reaching for Excalibur, he feels a sudden surge, a rush of power flowing through his body. There's an answer to be had somewhere, and it must mean they're getting close to finding it.
"Stop!" Regina thrusts out her hand before he can even touch it. "I can't believe I'm about to say this, but it could be booby-trapped. You could get killed."
"Oh, I didn't know you cared."
"I don't. But right now, you're useful...ish."
Cutting through them, Belle heads toward the gate in front of them that must lead back into the mines or the vault or...gods, he doesn't even care to know where right now... Rope. She's lifting rope. Emma and her bondage tendencies...
"He was here. Rumple was here," she says, holding it up. Wonderful. Excalibur, the ex-Dark One, and a group of people with no memories. Henry would say Worst Clues Ever.
"And now he's gone. Let's try searching the rest of the house," Robin suggests, only for another chime from Regina's phone to interject.
"No time. It's Henry. She's on her way back."
They have to rush out, leaving no trace of their mission for her to find. It's not right, he thinks, taking one last backward glance at Excalibur before hurrying up the stairs. He and Swan should be doing this together. Someone else should be the Dark One with the two of them investigating. His eyes scan the upstairs as they charge toward the front door, making sure no one bumped a chair leg or upset the corner of a rug, when he stops dead in his tracks. A small box rests on the table near all the windows. It's the only decorative piece in the entire house, something that looks personal. And if it's personal, it could help.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Regina yells to him. Flipping the lid, he doesn't know what he expected, but it wasn't a dreamcatcher, the strange object he'd seen her working on once at the sheriff's station to ward off bad dreams. The only magic she had believed in before she came to Storybrooke, she'd said. Almost a perfect circle, he'd admire the shells and feathers woven into it under different circumstances.
"What the hell is that?" Robin asks.
"It's a dreamcatcher," he explains. "Baelfire gave her one similar to this a long time ago, but this...it's different." He turns it in his hand, mesmerized by it. It's magic. Why else would she keep it? And...he won't say it aloud in order to avoid Regina jeering, but there's an angry magic to it, something deep and full of heartache, full of regret. But it's just a feeling.
"Why would she have it?" Belle asks.
"Because they can be more than just objects of folklore." He's grateful Regina takes it from him gingerly, gathering it to her and holding it up like the delicate thing it is. "When imbued with magic, they can be quite powerful. I think I know how Emma took our memories."
A/N: Coming up? Mushroom power!
