Cassandra explored her castle once again. Walking around often helped her to think, and after realizing that Rapunzel had been hiding the mirror that showed that Gothel really did care for her, she needed to think. Every once in awhile Cassandra would find small parts of the old tower lying in her new one, and today was one of those days. Usually, it was nothing more than a few pieces of rubble that Cassandra would quickly toss out the window, but today she found a single mirror shard. The shard was much too large to be the piece missing in the mirror she found earlier today, but it was probably one of Gothel's magic mirrors. Cass tapped the shard and was pleased to find a new memory starting until she realized what memory it was.
Cass heard the clink of handcuffs being locked followed by the sickening voice she now knew was her mother's. "In case you get any ideas about following us," it hissed.
The shard showed a slightly younger Eugene leaning against a pillar with his hand just barely covering his blood-stained clothes. Rapunzel quickly came to his side and started giving him rapid reassurances, but Cass knew that those were more for Rapunzel's sake than Eugene's.
"No," Eugene grunted, "No Rapunzel, I can't let you do this."
"And I can't let you die." Rapunzel smiled at Eugene through the tears that were clouding her vision.
"But if you do this," Eugene coughed out, "then you will die."
She gave another quick reassurance then started to inhale so she could sing the song that she knew would bring Eugene back to life, but stopped when he whispered, "wait."
Cass then watched as the same mirror shard that she was currently holding cut Rapunzel's long blonde hair. Eugene fell to the ground as Rapunzel watched what was once her beautiful strands of long blonde hair turn brown as Gothel began screaming and tried to grab as much of the hair that was still blonde as she could. Her attempts were futile though as the hair quickly turned brown and Gothel's true age was revealed.
As Gothel continued screaming and trying to hide her new hideous form she fell out of the tower's window. Rapunzel tried to reach out for her but failed as Gothel turned to dust before she could even hit the ground.
The shard returned to a regular mirror but Cass continued to stare at it anyway. Cass had been so furious with Rapunzel for taking away her mother, that she had forgotten who that woman really was. Not only did she have no quarrels with killing a man in cold blood, but she did not hesitate to abandon one child and kidnap another. Cass remembered being summoned to rapunzel's room many times when the princess first returned because of the nightmares she would have.
"You know she never looked at me when she said she loved me," Rapunzel said one night, "She always looked at my hair. Even when she would kiss me, she would only kiss the top of my head. I should have known what she was doing."
"There's no way you could've," Cass said to her that night, "She was all you knew at the time."
Rapunzel gave a small, sad chuckle at that response, "yeah she made sure of that. Every day in that tower I read three books over and over again. I loved those books, they were my only source of freedom, but when I asked for new books she refused to get me any even when it was my birthday. When I left I realized that it was because they were my only source of freedom that Gothel refused to give me any more. If she felt that a book would even remotely contradict the lies she had been telling me then there was no way I would get the book."
Cass replayed that memory in her head and thought of who Gothel really was. She thought of the lengths Gothel went to in order to make sure Rapunzel remained her willing prisoner. She shook her head convincing herself that it would have been different had Rapunzel never been kidnapped. Gothel loved Cass and if she had stayed instead of kidnapping Rapunzel then things would have been different. Cass replayed the memory of her getting a music box from her mother, and continued to convince herself that everything was Rapunzel's fault.