So the Seer had been keeping secrets from him. She was a clever little bitch when he got right down to it. She'd kept this secret because she knew that he might have been resistant to it in the beginning, perhaps fought her, and tried to find another way around it. But now that he was only a few months away from his Curse being enacted, she knew he hadn't a choice but to trust her and go along with her path. She told him things when he needed to know them. And to think that sometimes he thought he was gaining control of her.

It wasn't hard to find this location. Not with his magic, though, it was odd how his magic reacted to it. A month or so after he'd gotten the news, when he noticed that the Charmings, Cinderella, and her Prince Thomas were beginning to exchange more messages, he felt ready to see it, accept it, and make the appropriate plans. So he'd pictured it in his mind, the image of the future the Seer had once given him of Snow White standing in a dark place some distance from him, completing her deal to tell him the truth if a question was ever asked of her, and then he went there. But his magic didn't bring him to that place, to where he wanted to be. Instead, he arrived in a wooded area within King George's Kingdom. He inhaled through his nose and smelled dwarf as well as…fairy magic.

Ordinarily, he might run from a smell like that, but this time he pulled his dagger from his boot, for extra measure, and walked toward it. If ever there was a plan to contain him, he should have known fairies would be behind it.

The scent of magic grew stronger as he walked through the forest, dagger out, following after the trail of it like he was some kind of bloodhound. It led to somewhere unexpected…an old Fairy Dust Mine. There were boxes outside, freshly covered with hide. If he had to guess, they'd only arrived a few days ago. He pried the lid off one and glanced inside. Iron, silver, bronze, and gold, raw metal materials that stunk of fairy magic. In another one, hammers, nails, axes, smelting cups…construction materials. He glanced at the entrance to the mine in front of him. The wooden frame to the cave entrance was dilapidated, the smell of dwarf was there, but it was old. Clearly, this mine had not been used in years. And yet new materials were being delivered? Because this was what the King and Queen were planning with the Prince and Princess. This was it—his new prison.

Sensing no heartbeats coming from within the caverns, he slid his dagger back into his boot and proceeded inside. It wasn't much of a prison, but then again, it wasn't much of a mine either. This cave hadn't been mined probably since he was a boy and a shoddy job they'd done on it too. He could still feel the fairy dust in the walls. There was one tunnel as opposed to dozens he knew that mines often used. At the cave entrance, the ground went down, then made a turn, then made another turn and…

There it was.

He was drawn to one particular spot about halfway down the hall. Oh, he could practically see the ghost of Snow White from his vision standing there when she told him her truth. But from where he stood now, her back was to him, and from where she stood in the vision, she'd faced him. His eyes drifted beyond her, down the darkened hall—the cavern's end, a dead end.

That was it. His future home. His cell.

Boxes had been stored here just as they were outside, but he could see footsteps in the dirt and small drawings where bars were meant to go. Bars made of gold, silver, bronze, and iron…all elements that mythically kept magic at bay. They'd done their homework. While a single one of those elements wouldn't keep him from his magic, all of them combined would surely dampen it. The metals…and one other thing.

He felt it when he crossed the lines on the dirt that indicated with the cell would begin. Fairy Magic. The unmined Fairy Dust that still sat in the walls had a long time to stew. It was powerful stuff. This cell, this small space, it acted not unlike Bald Mountain. It wasn't at such a high concentration as that mountain, but it was enough that he felt his magic diminish immediately. Outside the cell, he had it, inside…there was a noted soreness in his bad ankle. It was present, but he was grateful that the pain wasn't overwhelming as it had been the first time he'd been to Bald Mountain. He could live with a bit of soreness for a while. That wasn't the only effect of being in the room. The voices in his head were quieter, the sound of ordinary prattling became a whisper, and whispers from the less powerful became nothing. Nimue, Zoso, and the Seer, they were the three most prevalent if he cared enough to focus on them…which he didn't. He couldn't transport himself inside or outside the cave, which was probably why his magic had delivered him to the forest instead of here. But…

He held his hand open and produced a ball of fire. It was small, smaller than he'd wanted it to be, but it was there. His magic wasn't gone entirely. Weakened to the point that creating fire made him want to take a nap for the first time in a hundred years, yes. But not gone.

He used what he'd created to light a torch he saw hanging against the wall. It was less work than keeping it lit. He was able to communicate with the Seer, but only just. She was dampened too, but when he focused, he knew that she wanted him to look around. To find something. A place to hide.

Yes…he had a plan, a plan for what he needed to do before the Curse was cast to wake himself up earlier than the others from the Curse and get a head start in helping the Savior break it. But if this was where he was going to be, if this was how he would be trapped, he needed to be smart about how he did it. At her urgings, he ran his hands over the future cell's walls. Something hiding. Something he needed to find. Something he needed to stumble upon.

There!

His hand ran along the walls, stone after stone without giving, but suddenly small rocks came tumbling down at his touch and revealed…

A crevice! It was small. He reached inside of it and stopped when he felt his fingers jam on the far side of it. It was maybe seven or eight inches deep. But the area inside created enough to hide just a few small precious objects.

Objects. Things. Oh, there was a lot he would love to leave within these walls. If he was to be here for a month or two, he would have loved to bring a spinning wheel. He'd want a blanket for comfort, Belle's chipped cup, his staff, maybe an item or two from his collection. But that wasn't an option. He had this one small space, and that was that. There was no room for anything else. His ability to create a Trigger to the Curse, a piece of magic that would wake him up when the time came, would take priority. He'd need to come up with something small and then hide only what he needed to work that magic, to set it in place. He'd need to be careful when he was in here, store up the magic he had, use it for one last grand piece.

Looking around the small space that was to be his own, he knew it wasn't going to be easy. He wasn't especially keen on small spaces like this, and he'd grown accustomed to living with a certain amount of grandeur over the years. This was going to be boring. Like rotting away forgotten. But he'd do it. He'd do it so long as he knew that Baelfire was on the other side. He'd lived well over a hundred and fifty years, and by the time the Curse broke, he'd be closer to two hundred. What were a few months of boredom?

Welcome to the eighth and final section, which I have appropriately entitled: The Final Section. Yeah, I know, not very original, but what do you expect? The first section was called "The Beginning Section," so it's only natural the last section should be called "The Final Section." This section isn't long, as you know, we've only got ten chapters left, but there's a pretty hefty checklist that goes with it. Snow and Charming have to make bad choices, Cinderella has to capture him, he has to close off the castle and stash some important things in his cell, and that's all before he's imprisoned and then received several fascinating visits while he's captive. A small section, but it's got a lot to do.

Thank you, Jennifer Baratta, Grace5231973, Alarda, for the previous reviews; much appreciated! It's hard to believe we're down to the final ten! I'm so happy you've been with me through all this. It's been an honor as always to write for you. So let's not fall down in the 9th inning, and wrap this up nicely, shall we? Peace and Happy Reading!