His new bauble was remarkable. When Jefferson had first told him of it, it seemed too much to hope for that it might be a genuine Crystal Ball and not one of those frauds that gypsies placed simple enchantments on to make money. Holding it in his hands, he could see that those fears were unfounded. It was an authentic Crystal Ball, a heavy piece of cloudy rock that distorted the images inside unless the right amount of focus was applied.
Focus. Focus was all he needed to move forward with it, and this was a perfect situation in which to practice with it. True enough, he hoped to use it to identify the man inhabiting the invisible house at the bottom of the mountain, but he didn't want to try too early, lest he fail and alert Merlin's Apprentice to his knowledge of his whereabouts. No, though the Dark Ones in his head screamed at him to go right then, he ignored them so that their screams were only whispers. They'd had the same responsibilities he'd had, and they'd all failed. There was no use repeating what they had done only to get the same results. Nimue said his gift was patience, and he intended to exercise it. Instead, he practiced on this little deal of his, the plot he'd been working on for months now to attain the thing he wanted most. At this moment that was a Regina who would cast a curse that would end this world and take him to the world his son was in.
Focus.
He held the ball in his hands he could see Regina. At first, the image was blurry and unfocused, but he found that the more he desired to see, the more the image cleared. She was in her room. She was pacing, a smile was on her face and she was shaking her hands, looking as if any moment she might begin to jump up and down in excitement. Remarkable. It was just as if he was looking through the mirror only the angle changed as he desired. When she walked, he could see her face, and when she spun around to face the other way, the angle he was looking at changed so he could once more see her face. Odd. He wondered…
Astounding. He'd held that Crystal Ball in his hands and asked to see his book, the one that he'd originally lent to Cora. He'd taken it back when he thought Regina was growing too dependant on it and now he kept it in the other Tower, safe and sound from Regina getting her hands on it again. And there it was! He could see the book hidden in shadows from where it lay upon a dusty table.
And when he wanted to spy Regina again…
There she was! Unphased by the magic she didn't even know was being worked in her room. It was a minor thing, nothing that proved that magic couldn't be felt in the room. Regina was too new and too excited at this moment to really take note if there was. He'd have to conduct further experiments before he used it to glimpse into the house at the bottom of the mountain. Experiments like…
Looking beyond this world.
He didn't want to get his hopes up, or get too excited, so he started with something easy. What he desired was a world of black and white and gray, and what he got was just that. Before him, the foggy image became something blurry, then slowly revealed the familiar lab of Doctor Frankenstein and…Jefferson! His associate was sitting atop the metal table in the center of the room watching the doctor, whose back was turned to him as he packed a black bag. He would have questioned whether Jefferson had approached him yet or not, but the more he looked, the more he saw Frankenstein's unhappy face scowling before him, muttering. When he stopped, the image shifted and he watched as Jefferson's mouth moved as well. They were having a conversation and that allowed him to see the one downside of his new Crystal Ball. No sound. It was just as it had been when Cora placed a spell over the mirrors in her estate, and yet, he didn't find himself upset. This wasn't something that had been done to him as Cora's spell had been, this was simply something brand new to figure out, and perhaps even tinker with. In time, perhaps he'd figure out a way to improve it, but as he sat in his tower watching Jefferson retrieve Regina to introduce her to Frankenstein, he recalled that he was too busy to tinker at the moment. In order for this deal to go off, he needed to provide Frankenstein with a heart.
It was possible, he supposed for Regina to go out and get him one that would work, but he alone knew it couldn't be just any ordinary heart. It would have to be something special in order to maintain the sort of energy the good Doctor needed to pulse through it. Of course, it would need a very special heart for his brother not to go mad from having another heart inside of him…but he hadn't promised that he would provide that, only a heart that would survive the procedure. In the very likely case that Regina wouldn't provide that when she went out to take one for her beloved Daniel, he needed to be prepared.
A fairy heart would do it, but a glance at his two useless dolls reminded him he wasn't much in the mood for their antics. The heart of the Truest Believer, if it was such a thing, might also work, but he wasn't willing to search the world over for it. No, he needed something just a bit more common and yet just as rare. He could think of one heart that fit that description.
"Show me…a heart born of true love…" he muttered into his crystal ball with a smile. Well, that was a mistake. Faces, so many faces, appeared and disappeared inside that glass ball. Too many for him to pick from; old, young, men, women, babies, mothers, fathers, single, married…he couldn't pick anyone out. Not like this.
Frustrated he set the ball aside. True love wasn't as difficult as finding the Heart of the Truest Believer or getting the heart of a fairy, but that appeared to be the problem. It was rare but still common, and therefore there were none he could single out. He didn't know their stories, didn't know what made them tick, their routines…all were necessary if he wanted to keep this quiet, and he did. But then…
A Heart of True Love wasn't the only requirement then. He needed one that was born of True Love, but didn't know it. He needed someone who hadn't come into his abilities, one who had never learned to master them, and better yet someone who didn't know they were in possession of them. The magic created by True Love was powerful. While he could beat them, he didn't particularly feel like spending his time flexing his muscles today, not when he had Regina to watch. He needed an easy target.
With a sigh, he picked up his crystal once more, closed his eyes, and squeezed. "Show me the one whom I must seek."
The command was simple, he wondered if it was too simple, but when he opened his eyes, he saw the crystal ball focusing in on somebody. A boy. No! It was a man. He was short with sandy hair, in the back of a shop of some kind, bent over…a cake! He was decorating it. Normally a female's job to be sure, but he seemed to have a steady hand and keen eye. He'd done this before. A bakery. He owned a bakery. No, he was a man, but only just. And as he watched the image in the ball, he saw a man, one older than him come up behind him and clap him on the back. His father. No doubt he owned the bakery, and his son simply lived there. Where? Where was it?!
"Show me where-"
Before he could finish the question it came to him. As he sat there staring into the ball, the Seer pulled him into a vision.
He saw Father and son exchange words briefly before the boy took his apron off. Finally, he stepped outside into his little town, and took up a wheelbarrow filled with bread. He was surrounded almost immediately by women and children offering him coins for a loaf. The picture shifted to what appeared to be a dark ally. A look of pain on the man's face as he felt himself pull the heart from his chest before sending the boy away. And then he was in the forest again, far from there. He saw Regina dressed in black, smiling at him in the woods, holding the heart of a witch he well knew had been trying to resurrect her sisters. He felt pleasure as he watched Jefferson take the Doctor back to his own realm. His plan had worked.
He pulled free of the vision so quickly and suddenly, he'd nearly dropped the crystal ball. So much information! It buzzed in his head like a hive of bees, but he smiled at it. If the buzzing wasn't so loud he'd have laughed. If he didn't know any better, it was as if the Seer was jealous he'd found a new way to access information and wanted to prove her own worth.
Where would he find the boy? When he'd left the bakery he'd seen a mountain over his shoulder with a castle perched on it. He recognized it. It was the Kingdom of King Maurice. He hadn't spent much time in that Kingdom, just enough to know who ran it and who would someday, unless Maurice and Collette finally had the son they wanted so desperately. But according to the vision, it did appear it was time for a trip. And after that...well, the Seer appeared to have laid his plan for him.
With a smile, he pulled free a spool of gold and used his magic to fashion it into a lovely stand for his new toy; an elegant throne upon which it could be seated. He was eager to get back and see what more it could do, what it could tell him and reveal about the man at the bottom of the mountain. He was even more eager to see if the Seer's jealousy would reveal anything further to him. But, for now, he couldn't let himself be distracted. He had work to do.
Getting the heart was easier than he could ever have expected. No sooner had he set the ball down did he find himself in that ally he'd seen. Perfectly, as he could not have planned it with so little time to prepare, he suddenly caught sight of the boy, pulled his cloak up over his face and eyes, and called forth some of the pain from his ankle to give himself a helpless looking limp. He made a show of falling down and crying out for help, and suddenly there he was before him. A hand on his elbow and one against his shoulder.
"Here," he stated. "Let me help you, Sir! Easy now, easy-"
The next second he'd plunged his hand into his chest and removed the precious item for him. He had the heart of true love in more ways than one, but the second he removed it, the boy gasped and dropped him. By that time, however, he was already upright once more. He giggled as the boy fell to his knees and put his hand to his chest.
"Please!" he whimpered. "Please, have mercy! My mother was killed by ogres, I'm all my father has!"
Mercy indeed, though it wasn't mercy that made him pause to think. He needed this heart intact, which meant that he could not, as he usually did, crush it between his fingers to kill the boy. But he also knew, the second that Frankenstein placed this heart into the chest of his brother, the boy would die. He was almost relieved at that thought. His time was limited. But it wasn't him that would be responsible for his death, not really. It was the doctor. It was unfair, but then...so was life. Given that, mercy would be granted in this case, a short reprieve. After all he was certain he wouldn't need the heart until tomorrow when the Doctor's job was completed. And since he'd mentioned his father…
"Finish your work," he commanded. "Go home and forget all of this." Instantly the boy stood up to his full height. The look in his eyes fell away and went glassy as if he was looking without seeing. "Tell your father you love him before you go to bed and say your prayers for life is short and you never can tell which moment will be your last. There is no predicting when that heart in your chest…" -he reached out to jab his finger at the boy's chest where he felt the gentle thrum of his heartbeat- "will cease to beat."
That would do it. When the doctor used the heart for his brother, then the boy's heart would stop, and he would die. He would die after telling his father he loved him. It was merciful. Or at least that was what he told himself. But if he was right, there was one other death that would not be as merciful. When he took the heart back to his tower and fashioned a box, like the ones he'd always taught Cora to use, he knew there was another job to do as night settled. Especially because things had not gone as planned.
He'd been hoping all the time that Frankenstein would force Regina to rip out a heart for him. But she hadn't. He watched instead as she floundered, she took the two men with her back to her former residence, and once inside stole a heart from her mother's former collection. He could have cracked his new crystal ball in irritation. She had no guile; it seemed. How was he supposed to work with her if not even the promise of Daniel was enough to get her to turn to taking a heart for herself?! Still, he grit his teeth, held the Seer's vision in the forefront of his mind, and watched on hoping that what he saw next might be enough to make it true.
The experiment failed. He watched that much for himself. He watched as the doctor had taken the heart, disappeared into the tent, where he started his equipment with the heart stashed away, and began to doomed experiment as ordered. Foolish man. He thought he was saving that heart for himself. It might help him. Cora had taken many hearts, it stood to reason that there was one among them that had been born of True Love with no manifestation, but whether or not he had the one that he needed…the chances of that were slim. The chances of his plan working however…grew stronger by the second.
Regina grieved. When it didn't work, he watched as the men stood aside and let her rest her head on Daniel's still chest and weep. There would be no preservation spell this year. This was crying, mourning as she hadn't allowed herself to mourn over him yet. It was an end for Daniel. But whether it was a new beginning for Regina, remained to be seen. Which was why, when he brought the Doctor and Jefferson back by magic and the Doctor demanded to be taken home with his prize, he stole that box out of his hand and tossed it into the fire.
"Not so fast!" he piqued as the doctor held his breath while it burned. It was the face of a man who thought all his hopes and dreams had just turned to ash. Until he held up the identical box. "This is what you need for your experiments. But our deal is not complete until I've seen the result of your work."
"I've done exactly what you asked of me!"
"Well then you should have nothing to worry about!" he laughed, before tossing the box to Jefferson. "Keep a close eye on that through the night. Tomorrow, after my lesson with Regina, bring him into the woods with the heart. I'll decide if the deal was fair at that time."
"What am I supposed to do here tonight! Spin wool?" the Doctor asked sarcastically, pointing at his wheel the corner.
"You know…it's not a bad way to pass the time."
With a snap of his fingers, the Doctor was gone in a puff of smoke. If his magic worked right, and it always did, he was currently taking up residence in one of the dungeon cells…with a spinning wheel and wool.
"In his own defense, I think it will work," Jefferson stated.
"As do I, but one must always be sure before business is concluded," he noted, thinking to the vision of Regina he had in his head. He hoped it was enough to push her to that. "Make sure my guest remains comfortable. I will meet you in the woods tomorrow."
"I'll bring the…payment!" he said awkwardly, motioning to the box in his hand. He would have loved to have guarded it himself, but there was one last thing he needed to do to make the vision he'd seen a reality.
"Winnifred Sanders…" he muttered, letting himself into her home and sneaking up behind her as she worked on a brew. She jumped when he arrived. He could hear her heart hammering even as she made an attempt to quiet herself and look unimpressed and unsurprised. She was the witch he'd seen Regina kill in his vision. She'd come to him at one point asking for the power, but he hadn't obliged simply because he couldn't. It was practically Regina all over again. Irritating as she was, he'd been tempted to kill her more than once. But perhaps, if his vision was correct, there was one last thing she had to give him.
"Dark One…to what do I owe this pleasure?"
"Oh, just a brief…" he crept up closer to the pot that was simmering and smelled. He smelled hazelnut, jasmine, thyme, but also leather, blood, and wax…all ingredients for a Black Flame Candle, a candle that was said to have the ability to bring people back from the dead…but it was a myth. It was a myth that happened to be born out of the two-sided candle that he had sitting in his workspace right now, the same two-sided candle that had gotten Regina into this mess and helped him along in his own. But she didn't need to know that. "…conversation. I do believe your candle needs a bit more thyme."
"What do you want?" she growled, suddenly moving about her worktable, clearing up the mess and shutting the book that she was studying from-a book with a human eye on the cover. He smiled when he noted that through her rifling she managed to add more thyme to her brew.
"Still trying to master the art of Dark Magic with a second-hand book, I see. Still trying to no avail to save thy sisters Sarah and Martha!"
"Mary! And what does it matter to you? I asked you for help. You said you wouldn't provide it."
"Well then today is your lucky day!" he squealed. "I just so happened to wake up in a generous kind of mood. Tell me…" he pushed the book she'd just closed so that it slid off the table and onto the floor with a heavy thump! "How would you like to learn from the Master himself for one afternoon?"
I'm going to start by saying that I really hate this chapter. It's chaotic in a way that isn't really what I do. There are about four different scenes here that I could have turned into chapters all on their own, but truly they weren't long enough and I didn't feel like stretching this out any longer than it had to be. But this chapter was still necessary to making everything work together. When we last see Jefferson and the Doctor they're telling Regina "oops, it didn't work, too bad," the Doc has the heart, and Jefferson is just kind of there. Yet when we see them next Jefferson has the heart and is clearly "in-charge" of the situation as they meet Rumple in the woods the next afternoon. That's a lot of time and something had to be said about it to turn the tables. I also wanted to get a special heart for Gerhardt because when you compare Gerhardt's resurrection to Daniel's eventual resurrection, the two are different and I wanted to come up with a reason that explained that. Gerhardt has a heart that gives him "his best chance" but Daniel does not. Thus the difference. And then the girl, Winnifred...we see her, but I doubted that anyone would meet the Dark One and just say "yeah okay teach me", I wanted there to be a prior relationship and a reason one might trust him and that led me to her so...it's busy. It's convoluted, it's messy, it's not at all like the chapters I usually write or enjoy writing but it was the best I could do given the circumstances. I promise, the last couple of chapters in this episode are a lot cleaner!
Thank you MerlockVonBaron, Jennifer Baratta, Alarda, and Grace5231973 for your reviews on the previous chapter. I am curious what you'll think of this one, but sort of nervous as well. There were a lot of nice little references in this that I hope made it bearable. The Sanderson Sisters, the reference to Products of True Love being able to guard their hearts, and of course our very first reference to Belle. Not by name of course, but now you know that he's aware she's there. Still no appearance though, that comes later! Peace and Happy Reading!
