The King was dead.

Leopold, the King of the Kingdom, father of Snow White, husband to Regina was dead.

He'd never seen it in his visions, but he couldn't say he was entirely surprised by it either. In truth, the only thing that really surprised him was that Regina had taken as long as she had. A year ago was the first time he'd had a suspicion that the King's days might be numbered. It had been Regina's birthday. They hadn't had a lesson planned for that day, but they rarely did after Regina's incident with Maleficent. To plan a lesson was to suggest a relationship that didn't exist anymore. They'd moved on from being teacher and student after she'd mastered fire. Now she saw him as something of a mentor, only calling on him when there was something specific she wanted him to teach her. Otherwise, she'd struck up a friendship with Maleficent after the incident in her Kingdom and the two women preferred to teach each other magic. They shared secrets, trades spells, Regina had even adopted the habit of using birds to carry messages for her; though she used black birds instead of ravens. These developments were fine with him all things considered. Regina wanted to be like him. She wanted to possess power like his…maybe even greater. With ambition like hers it would have been too dangerous to continue to teach her as he had before. Especially when he admitted that his own relationship to her had grown a bit muddled over the years.

He saw her as…well…he wasn't quite sure there was a word for it, but he knew creating some space was good. She was his creation, someone who depended on him and trusted him, but he was always cautious given her nature. And he felt something for her, felt some kind of emotion that he couldn't put his finger on. When she was happy and excited, he felt a bit of her joy himself. When she accomplished something they'd been working at, or she behaved in the way he wanted her to, he felt proud. When she dressed in black and there was a fire in her eyes that reminded him of Cora, he felt nearly as playful as he once had with her mother. But when she felt sad, so sad clouds rolled over the sky and thunder could be heard in the distance…he didn't know what he felt then, only that sometimes he had a wish, that he could share with her some of the images the Seer had left in his mind so she could hold onto hope for herself.

He'd felt that a bit that night a year ago. She'd summoned him to her, not exactly an oddity for her. But the room had been so heavy that night; heavy and dark. She'd lit not a single candle, nor did she stand in his presence or meet his gaze. She'd called him from where she was perched at her vanity, looking down at something small in her hands. He'd said nothing as he approached her and observed that it was a piece of jewelry. A broach. Laid with emeralds that reminded him of Zelena if only for their color. Unaware of his arrival, Regina traced them with her thumbs as she looked at it, studied it as though it was precious, but if it was, then why was he here? Why was she so miserable she hadn't even lit the candles in her room?

"A beautiful piece," he commented softly, as he came to stand behind her.

The nod Regina gave was barely noticeable. "It is beautiful," she finally responded. "A gift from…my beloved husband for my twenty-fifth birthday. I would have been speechless if this was the first time I'd seen it."

"The first time…" he'd prodded.

Regina had sighed and stood up to face him with the broach still in hand, but now her eyes were on him. "I've seen this before. My mother brought me to a party here once; it was the first time I met the King and Queen Eva. I was so star-struck that I remember nearly every detail about them both. Including…this broach. The Queen was wearing it that night."

"Ah…it belonged to his first wife then."

"And now he's just given it to me," Regina sneered, looking down at it again. "A 'special' gift for my 'special' day." With a violent jerk she threw the broach across the room where he heard it hit the floor and slide across the perfect tile. He didn't turn to watch it, but he felt certain by the sound it made it was probably chipped.

Chipped…there was something important about that…or so said the Seer.

"Do you know what he gave Snow White when she turned fifteen?" Regina questioned, taking a step closer. Impressive. He didn't move from his place, he wasn't afraid of Regina, but her motions, the way her nostrils flared and she claimed space for herself in a gentle yet threatening way, it would scare a lesser person. It would intimidate them, without question. If he wasn't so set in playing his part, he would have smiled at how far she'd come. Instead, he kept a mask firmly in place, refusing to let her see the pride he felt swell in his chest at her progression, that she was well on her way to becoming the villain he needed.

"He got her that pony she won so many tournaments on before I put it down. It was a small little thing any girl would have loved then, but when he took her to it, he'd had it trained to bow before her."

"Doesn't quite seem fair," he'd added, throwing more fuel on the fire. "She gets something original and thought out…"

"And I get a hand-me down…" she finished for him on a growl. She looked away, off in the direction she'd tossed that broach and took a few heavy breaths. He stayed focused. He didn't look away from her though he wondered if she could see the thing gleaming in the moonlight.

"I'll never be good enough for him, will I?" she stated.

The moon caught her pale skin, and he saw tears in her eyes, true tears of hurt like he hadn't seen in her before. He'd always believed that it was Cora who had done the most for him, but now that he was looking at her, he had the thought that maybe he'd gotten it wrong. Cora had done a number on her, it was true, but perhaps it was Leopold's lack of interest in his wife that had doomed her and helped him along most of all.

"Not as long as the spawn of his first wife still walks the earth happy as a lark," he replied.

And that was it. Regina had walked out of the room, and he knew, in that moment, that the King's death was imminent. That was the day that she'd stopped believing that maybe everything would work out, that the King or any man could replace Daniel and she might have a happy future someday. It was the day she accepted that she was truly alone. And now, a year later, the King's coffin was draped in black, and she was finally a widow.

And now he stood in the castle in the dead of night, just as he had when Eva had died. And for good reason. He was here to retrieve something once more. The second he'd heard the King had died so soon after his birthday when he'd appeared to be in good health, he'd suspected Regina. He'd been busy the last few days as the Apprentice had been on the move, and he'd been keeping a close eye on him. That meant he hadn't been watching Regina. But all he had to do was seize his crystal ball and demand to see Regina's movements before the King's death, and there it was.

The King had freed a genie he'd found on the shore just before his birthday and brought him into the castle. Regina had finally seen an opportunity. He watched as she tricked him into falling in love with her, as she sent her father to retrieve a snake from the genie's home in Agrabah, then gave it to the genie. She'd faked wanting to use it on herself and the genie had taken it and instead used it to kill the King. Clever girl. She'd killed the King. And she'd framed the genie for it perfectly. The guards were on the search for the genie, but they never would find him, because while she had crafted a plan that was almost worthy of him, she hadn't considered the true consequences of how she'd used her magical boy toy. Her feelings had been a fraud. His feelings had not. Without sound it was difficult to tell how it had happened exactly, but after a brief argument, he'd been bound to live in her mirror, something he only learned when he tried to look in on Regina through it and found he couldn't.

So it wasn't a perfect execution of a plan, but it was highly impressive. And he was proud. Proud…and now the proud owner of a very rare and valuable piece of magic.

Before him, unattended in a separate room of the castle, the genie's empty lamp sat. It was empty, of course, the genie was now trapped within Regina's mirror, a feat of magic he wanted desperately to observe for himself. But just because the lamp no longer held a genie didn't mean it had lost all its magic. What was he planning to do with it? He hadn't quite determined that yet, he'd been too busy since all this happened to consider it. However, that didn't change the fact that he wanted it. At the very least, it was a trophy on its own, a remnant that would forever remind him of the moment Regina had finally broken her chains.

Snow White was an orphan. And broken. Just the way Regina wanted her.

His work with Regina was nearly done. But there was still more to do.

Really significant for a number of reasons. We ended the Preparation Section with "The Queen was dead" and we end Regina's section with "The King was dead". This was the dirtying of hands that I was talking about in regards to making Regina's transformation complete. From the beginning, The King was never a target for Regina. No, she's never liked him very much and they've never had a "good" relationship. But until this chapter, he's never really been a threat to Regina. Here we have the first time Regina makes a kill. But it's why she kills that is really telling. This is where her hatred for Snow White begins to spill out to others so that she's willing to kill those who support Snow, or favor Snow, over Regina. I felt like this was a really good place to leave the Regina section because it feels now like Rumple is that clockmaker we talked about before. He's wound her up, now she's more or less ready to function on her own with minimal involvement. For that reason, we'll see a lot less of her in the next section.

Thank you Grace5231973, Jennifer Baratta, and Alarda for your comments on the last chapter. Simple as it may be I hope you like this chapter and the conclusion it brings to the Regina Section. We did hear that story about the broach in the series and it presented such a wonderful opportunity that I just had to use it. I hope you'll like how it turned out. Up next, we're into a new section. Just...do me a favor, don't judge the new section by the first chapter, or the second...or the section title. Just trust me on this. It'll all make sense once you've read it, but trust me when I say this next section is awesome, maybe my favorite, but it starts off sort of sad so just don't judge the entire section for what you'll read next. Or for its title. Or for the chapter after. Alright, that's enough of that, wave good-bye to Regina and her section. Let me know what you thought of this chapter and this section, I'm looking forward to your thoughts before we move on! Peace and Happy Reading!