The lulling sound of singing rang out of the tower's window the next morning. Jack recognized the voice as Rapunzel's, warm, syrupy, and louder than it had been last night. He pulled himself over the windowsill with a push of the wind and leaned onto the wall, waiting to be spotted. But after a steady minute of watching the girl dance while she chopped what appeared to be veggies (gross), Jack found himself getting impatient. He stepped inside, swinging Twinetender along his side as he walked. After only a few steps, his foot caught on something soft and hard.

A green blob went flying forward There was a yelp. Jack barely spotted the pan in time to dodge its swing.

"Whoa, there, Goldy!" Jack exclaimed, throwing his palms up in the air. "And here I was walking around thinking we were friends. I'm hurt."

"Oh god!" Rapunzel breathed, dropping the pan back on the burning stove. "I'm sorry, I didn't know—Pascal!" And there she went, running toward her dresser, as if it was more important than the sense she'd almost knocked right out of him.

He pressed a hand flat against his heart, sauntering over to her bed. "Okay, now I'm actually hurt," he whispered, half-jokingly. He leaned Twinetender against the bed post and hopping down onto the mattress. A tiny, purple dress sat just beside him. Jack plucked it up with his finger, examining the tiny garment. Something about it seemed familiar, but he couldn't pinpoint why exactly that was… Until he lifted it in the air just beside Rapunzel's curled figure.

''I knew it looked familiar!'' Rapunzel spun around, hands shooting behind her back, wearing a normal version of the very dress he held between his fingers. ''What's it for? Ants? No, it's too big for that. Dolls?''

Red creeped across Rapunzel's cheeks as she pitter-patted over to him. "Actually…" she started, leaning forward to pluck the dress out of his grasp. "It's for Pascal."

There was that name again. Jack's interest was successfully peaked. "Who?" He cocked a questioning brow.

Rapunzel brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, rubbing at her wrists. "It's..." Her gaze darted away from him, hesitant. She cleared her throat."He's my friend."

"Your doll friend?"

"Chameleon, actually…"

"A chameleon!'' Jack exclaimed, crossing his legs. "Never seen one of those before! Tell me, where is this Pas-cal?" He made a show of looking around. And he was genuinely curious—he'd seen a lot of reptiles in children's houses, but they usually varied from snakes to geckos. He'd yet to run into any chameleon. "Do they actually change colour depending on what they're standing on?"

But Rapunzel was too busy suppressing a giggle to answer his questioning. In the air, Baby Tooth hovered closer to Rapunzel with her tiny arms crossed, and a shameless grin on her face. Jack only had time to frown at the pair before a disgusting wetness filled his ear. Jack hissed and swiped aimlessly at his head while the girls laughed away in front of him.

Rapunzel rushed toward Jack, fingers grazing his shoulder. A buzz thrummed through him at the touch. When she leaned back, there was a gleeful green blob sitting on her open palm.

"What a way of saying hello," Jack commented, still rubbing at his ear. He tipped his chin to Rapunzel's hand. "Pascal?"

The chameleon tilted its head back to Jack; an approval Jack hadn't realized he'd needed before now.

Rapunzel smiled joyfully, setting Pascal back down on the bed. Finally, she turned back to Jack, "You're back," she said. "I didn't think you would be. Not so soon, anyway."

"For a girl who believes, you have such little faith in me, Goldy."

The blush came back to Rapunzel's cheeks. She looked away, still rubbing absentmindedly at her wrists. Jack slid off the bed, taking his staff up with him. His thoughts wandered over Katherine's visit yesterday, and how hard it had been for him to wait until sunrise before coming back to see Rapunzel. Keep her safe, if you would, she'd asked.

"Actually," he started. "I did come here for a reason. Other than you, that is." He added with a crooked smile. When she didn't say anything in return, he went on: "Do you know anything about a dark, shadow-y man? Yay-high. Yellow eyes. Looks like he's angry all the time?"

Rapunzel grew still at his words. She pursed her lips. He was starting to think her wrist rubbing was a nervous tic. Probably was. Suddenly, she lowered herself down to her knees, and Jack took a step back. Swiftly, Rapunzel slipped a thick book out from under her mattress and opened it to a specific page over the bed. "This?" She asked, pointing to what was undoubtedly the Boogeyman himself.

"Yeah," Jack answered, staring at the page. "Where'd you get this? Never seen a book like this before, but I'm touched they put me in it. I look pretty good, too."

Rapunzel set a hand over the page, seemingly deep in thought. "It appeared on my bed one day, years ago. I thought it was Mother's doing at first, but she never said anything about it. And I had a feeling I shouldn't tell."

Jack frowned. That did seem like an odd happening. Did the Man in the Moon drop it off for her? Out of everything, that seemed the most likely of cases, but it still didn't answer the why part of his question. Jack's gaze fell on her hair—what must be at least sixty feet of it, if not more. She had powers. Healing powers, it seemed, considering what she'd done to the raven-haired woman. Was she one of his Guardians, too?

Something inside him told him no. She was human, and he sensed nothing of Mim on her.

Jack focused back on Pitch Black's painted figure. "Have you seen him before?"

Rapunzel blinked. "I don't go out much."

"I kind of already got that impression," Jack teased, growing slightly serious again. "But he's never… Shown up here—?"

Suddenly, Rapunzel slammed the book shut in his nose, jamming it back into its crevice. "Of course not," she said, no longer looking at him. She was fiddling with her hair, shifting away, ever so slightly. "Why would you ask that?"

Jack thought back to Katherine and her warning. He'd been led to this girl for a reason, and if Pitch really was back and interested in her powers… He couldn't let him tempt her over to his side. Not when Mim was trying so desperately to point her Jack's way.

Not with what he saw her do last night.

He noticed, just then, how the shadows in the deepest corners of the room had begun to crawl their way forward. They were slow, almost unnoticeable if you weren't looking out for them. They were predators stalking their prey—and Jack didn't exactly enjoy being on the receiving end of the equation.

"How about we play a game?" Jack tried, looking back at Rapunzel, who was still in the midst of moving away from him. It was a struggle, trying to keep his voice calm. With only but a thought, he willed a snowball out of thin air. It feel lightly into his palm. "A snowball fight, you and me." He cocked his head toward the window, grinning playfully. "Out on the grass."

But Rapunzel no longer seemed ecstatic about his games. "No," she shook her head, frightfully. "Not out there. Not with the monsters. We stay in here."

Confusion muddled Jack. "Right. The monsters. They don't like the cold," he tried. "Don't you worry, good ol' Jack Frost will keep you safe. What do you say?" He lifted a brow in question, hand extended toward her. He tried to ignore the shadows, but found it to be a difficult task to achieve considering how much closer they were getting by the second. Say yes, he silently pleaded Rapunzel. Just say yes so we can go.

But she was one of the stubborn folks, it seemed. Rapunzel straightened suddenly, glancing briefly at the floorboards before crossing her arms over her chest defensively. "Mother was right," she said, almost sadly. "I'm only hair to you people."

"Well, if makes you feel better, I've never heard a hairball talk before. So I'd say you're slightly more than just that." When she still didn't move, Jack sighed. "Listen, Goldy. I swear, you're not just hair. Okay? But we do need to get out of here. Preferably as fast as possible."

"Why?"

"Did I forget to mention the 'as fast as possible' part? My bad." The shadows were taking their shapes now, humanoid fearlings and dark nightmare's reaching hungrily toward them—no, toward Jack. They were just reaching for Jack. Dangerously close. "I'll explain once we're out of here, okay? Promise."

That seemed to catch Rapunzel's interest. She broke away from the hard gaze she'd directed at him, whimpering when she finally noticed the creatures in the shadows. She took a step away from them, closer to Jack, while she glanced back toward the door sitting atop the staircase. "I have to tell Mother—"

"She'll understand."

Jack could practically see the decision rooting itself into stone inside of her. Rapunzel looked back at him, gaze hard and determined, just as the shadows jumped at him, with Pitch Black himself taking shape in the darkest corner of the room. Rapunzel yelled, hands making contact with Jack's chest as she pushed him out of the fearlings' starved circle. She took his hand in his, pulling him fast toward the window.

But the fearlings weren't finished with their attack.

Shadows wrapped themselves around Jack's lanky limps, determined on turning him into their main course. He clasped his hand tighter around Rapunzel's, only to let go once he felt himself being overtaken.

"Wait!" He told Rapunzel, who was just about to step back down from the windowsill to help Jack. He could handle them himself—he'd done it before. But when the wall of ice escaped his palm, starting to fill the inside of the tower from floor to wooden beams, Pitch's shadows wrapped a tendril around Jack's wrist before the ice could reach him, yanking it hard to the side.

Ice met Rapunzel's temple before Jack could hold himself back. Jack watched, horrified, as her eyes fluttered shut in time with the treacherous cold chunk hitting the sill beside her feet. With nothing to stop her, the believer fell back into the nothingness of the outside air.