Regina woke after yet another unrestful night of sleep and glanced over at the other bed – Maleficent must be up already, she thought. She had yet to see the other woman sleep and after the last several days, Regina was not able to stay awake to see if she ever came to bed. She got up and immediately put on some clothes and shoes before grabbing the bucket and walking out into the main chamber.

There was Maleficent as she had been the last five mornings preparing for today's lesson – but not the first day.

No, that first morning of being there, she had woken to find Maleficent there standing next to the bed.

"It's time to start your training," she said. "If you thought this would be like when you were home, you can forget it. You will train from morning till night. Here is your first lesson. "

Maleficent held out a bucket toward her.

"What's that for?"

"For you to go get water," Maleficent said. "There is a stream just about a mile from here to the west."

"Excuse me?"

"Stream. Mile to the west. Water," Maleficent said. "Was that clearer for you? Now, I set out some clothes there for you to wear which are more suitable for what needs to be done. I suggest you get moving or tomorrow morning I will wake you an hour earlier."

Regina took the bucket from her and Maleficent promptly turned and left the room.

When Regina had returned with that bucket, Maleficent sent her out after four more. Each time, all Maleficent would say was "another" and Regina cursed her for it each time she left the cavern.

After she brought the last one back, she sat down at Maleficent's feet feeling worn out and stared at her a moment but Maleficent didn't say anything.

"Now what?" Regina asked finally.

"Now," Maleficent said. "You will do this every morning except every morning you will bring an additional bucket full until you learn how to do it with your magic."

"And how do I do that?"

"Once you learn enough, you will figure it out for yourself," Maleficent smiled.

That hadn't happened so far and so every morning Regina went through this routine.

Maleficent was truthful when she said this wouldn't be like it was back at the castle – she had trained Regina from morning until night and it left Regina exhausted.

She thought about Emma every time she had a spare second to think about something other than magic. The initial shock of Emma's betrayal had worn off, but there was a lasting ache. She had opened up to her wife entirely only for Emma to treat her like everyone else in her life did – with lies.

Everyone except for Maleficent it would seem.

Every question that Regina asked – not that Maleficent gave her a lot of time to ask them – was answered for the most part.

This morning as she finished her water task, Maleficent told her to sit down and Regina took a seat in the chair that somehow had shown up thereafter that first night. When she had asked about the increase in furnishings Maleficent had smiled and said she had her ways.

"I expect Rumpelstiltskin to return today," Maleficent said. "I wanted to speak to you about that before he arrives. I wanted you to know that I will not allow him to harm you in any way. As I told him, you are under my protection. Even with this assurance, you should not let your guard down around him at any time. He is not to be trusted."

"Then why allow him to be here?"

"Because you don't send away someone who has the potential to be useful," Maleficent said.

"And that is why I am here too?" Regina asked.

"Yes," Maleficent said.

"How am I useful to you?"

"As I said, I know the curse you are destined to cast and only I can teach you it," she said.

"Then tell me more about it."

"I'm afraid not. You are still a long way away from that kind of magic," Maleficent said. "You can't even figure out how to get water here without legging it all the way from the stream. In case your curious, your mom figured that one out quicker than you are."

"What was she like – my mom, when you knew her?"

Maleficent appeared to think about the question before speaking. "I will tell you what, once you figure out the magic to bring the water here, I will answer that question for you. In the meantime, let's get to work."

Maleficent drilled Regina for the entire morning, reviewing what she learned the day before and then expanding or building upon that lesson. Her style of teaching had changed from when she was pretending to be Anita, but Regina discovered that Maleficent was still good at explaining things to Regina in ways that she understood. Or if she didn't understand, Maleficent found another way to explain it. She rarely berated Regina, which was a little surprising to her, but she did know how to throw in the occasional snide remark – although some of those were directed more at Cora for not teaching Regina these things from the beginning.

After lunch – well more precisely during lunch and after – Regina would be studying books on magic which she would be quizzed on sporadically through the rest of the day – often right in the middle of another lesson while Regina was supposed to be concentrating on her magic.

It was after dinner when Maleficent stopped her. "Rumpelstiltskin is here," she announced.

Regina looked toward the entrance of the cave but saw no one.

"Not here, here," Maleficent said, "but he is nearing the entrance."

"How do you know?"

"I have wards set up around the perimeter to warn me if anyone approaches."

"Wards?"

"We'll get to those soon enough," Maleficent said. "You will find magic is a great way to keep an eye on your enemies."

Before Regina could ask another question, Rumpelstiltskin entered the cave. "Good evening ladies," he said to announce himself. "How is the magic school going?"

"Not as quick as I would like," Maleficent said. "What news do you bring?"

"Midas was not pleased with your decision to keep Regina here all to yourself," he said getting closer and Regina took a step back. "But I think I was able to convince him that given what he is planning it was better to be able to honestly say that he doesn't know her whereabouts."

"The man is a fool if he honestly believes that his machinations will come to fruition," Maleficent said.

"Well, he has made his next move on the chessboard," Rumpelstiltskin said. "He had a couple of visitors while I was there – Cora and Emma's father. They suspected of course that Midas was behind your resurrection as it were. He essentially sent them on their way with his proposal to Queen Emma."

"What proposal?" Regina asked, stepping forward. "What is he planning?"

"It's not important," Maleficent said.

"I want to know. If he is planning something that involves my wife then I need to go now and warn her."

"Oh, is this your wife that kept a rather important secret from you?" Maleficent said. "Let's not forget that Emma lied to you just as much as the others did. Besides, Midas isn't out to harm Emma not that he probably could. When it comes down to it, her magic will protect her."

"Her magic?" Regina asked, more confused by that statement than perhaps anything else that had happened. Emma didn't have magic, she couldn't, Regina thought.

"Yes, your wife has magic. She was born with it, as you were, but unlike you, her magic is the product of her parents being each other's true loves. That kind of pairing can lead to offspring with pure white magic," Maleficent said. "I tested her myself for it, and she does indeed have it. Not that she knows what to do with it – so she is kind of like you in that respect. The lessons I was teaching you on detecting magic, it was my hope that we would get to the point where you would detect it in her, but then your mother had to go and show up so I had to improvise. Now if we're quite finished here, we have a lesson to get back to."

"I need a moment," Regina said, walking toward the entrance.

"Regina, stop," Maleficent said. But Regina ignored her and walked out of the cave.

"I see you haven't broken her yet," Rumpelstiltskin remarked.

"The idea isn't to break her," Maleficent countered. "You don't break a sword, you forge it. And make no mistake, she is a weapon. She is my weapon."

"Don't forget my part of this," he said. "You owe me. If it weren't for me you would still be stuck as a powerless dragon. I will have her power."

"Once she casts the curse, I don't care what you do with her," Maleficent said. "Until that time, she is mine."

Regina exited the cave and kept walking the same route she had every morning – ending up by the stream. Her nerves were on edge and it threatened to overwhelm her. She wished that Quicksilver was here and that she could ride away from this place.

But where would she go?

Back to Emma. Maleficent was right, Emma had lied to her. She had known about the prophecy, about what Midas had tried to do to her, and yet Emma hadn't said a word. It made Regina feel foolish for telling Emma what she thought was the truth when it came to the seer.

How could Emma do that to her?

And now Emma had magic too?

It was all too much.

Her life had crumbled down in an instant.

She thought about all the times she felt like this – overwhelmed. Yet she realized, she didn't feel like her magic was going to come bursting out of her. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to feel the magic coursing through her, but she remained in control. She knew somehow that the magic wouldn't do anything if she didn't allow it to happen.

Opening her eyes, she called up a fireball. It was always what she started with during her practices with Maleficent because it was the easiest thing for her to manifest. Maleficent said despite her ability to do it, she always wanted Regina to start with it because it was simple, and because she hoped that the routine of doing that would lead to Regina trusting herself to do more.

Maleficent had said that it wasn't fear that was holding Regina back – like her mother had said – but it came down to trust. Regina didn't trust herself to employ magic because of what other people thought of her – because other people feared her.

Maybe Maleficent was right and what they really feared was possibly losing their power. Because if this curse did what Maleficent said it could and Regina was the one who could cast it then they would fear her even though she had no knowledge of this curse until recently. They and their decisions had made her ignorant of not just her magic but how they perceived her.

It made her angry to think that they would think this of her when most of them didn't know her.

She had been judged and sentenced before she was even born.

Then there was Emma. She knew and she chose to not tell her. She had lied to her. The only thing she could think of was that Emma too had judged her and she must have believed that Regina was indeed capable of doing this – of casting this curse.

She extinguished the fireball but continued to stand there staring at the water.

She tried to let go of the anger she was feeling but couldn't.

It reminded her of the time leading up to her marriage. She had felt such anger over being forced to marry someone she hadn't been in love with. She felt like she was angry all the time because she hadn't been given the freedom to choose for herself.

All her choices it would seem were taken away from her because some seer said she would do this thing.

Even this current situation with Maleficent and Rumpelstiltskin – it was yet another thing she didn't have control over.

She was so tired of not being in control.

Again, she called up a fireball. Being able to do that so freely made her feel a small bit of euphoria. Again, she looked down at the water. Every morning she had come out here and filled up buckets like she was some handmaiden that Maleficent could order around. But she wasn't a handmaiden, she was a queen.

Well, she was done hauling water just because Maleficent said she had to. She didn't see where it helped her learn magic or learn anything outside of how hard it was doing it day after day. Nothing she had been taught so far had shown her anyway to transport the water by magic.

Maybe that was because she wasn't supposed to transport the water, she thought suddenly.

Maybe the idea was to transport herself.

How many times had she experienced transporting both by her mother and Maleficent? She considered what her mother had said about it when she had asked her about it. Her mother in her usual manner was very non-specific – saying only that it was easier to do to yourself than to transport another person. She didn't explain why that was.

Maleficent as Anita had explained to her that transporting was similar to moving an object but a little more advanced than that. Regina knew how to move objects – it was something she had learned since being here and while she lacked "touch" as Maleficent put it, and she had trouble moving something to the exact spot that Maleficent would mark off for her, she could still make the object move.

What was transporting besides moving a body rather than an object? Of course, when she moved an object the object didn't disappear and reappear unlike transporting.

She was missing some crucial piece to this.

"Idiot," she said out loud a moment later. Then she called her magic up and closed her eyes. When she opened them she was in the cave standing just inside the entrance.

She could hardly believe she had done it, and then she heard clapping and looked over to see Rumpelstiltskin applauding her.

"Took you long enough," Maleficent said. "I gave you that hint the first day you were here."

That was why Regina had called herself an idiot. She remembered the first book that Maleficent had given her to read and how she had pointed out a specific chapter that at the time didn't mean much to Regina. It was about using magic as a conduit – a passageway through an object. She hadn't understood it at the time but now she understood that magic could create these passageways for travel and that was how transporting worked. It didn't matter if she had to travel through a wall or structure, the magic created the corridor to do it.

She walked up to Maleficent and Rumpelstiltskin.

"I'm ready for the next lesson."