SMOKE AND ASHES
Maurice has made his way into the Fairy kingdom and encounters Nova who offers him shelter for the night and the following morning supplies him with food and a direction to go.
Meanwhile, Gold is trapped on the mountain in a magical snow storm and is losing consciousness. Belle, Nova, even little Elspeth all send him soothing heat but it is Gold's own last, desperate effort that saves him. He calls upon and makes a deal with the little Fairy Sprite Queen. She will start a fire for him provided that, should he ever come into power in Fairyland, he will establish a separate, safe place for the sprites. She also leaves him breakfast. Gold survives the night and sets off for the Fairy capital the next morning.
Belle talks long with her mother who tells her the Fae knew that Gold would grow into great power and eventually was destined to take over both the lower and upper kingdoms. Realizing they could not defeat him, the Fae devised a desperate plan.
Pushing their limits, some disgruntled shadow creatures are gathering with the purpose of bringing Gold, their New Master, down. They plan to kidnap Elspeth and begin with an attack on The House.
Gold finally makes his way to the interior of a Maze and finds Belle and Miranda, whom he recognizes as Ruel Ghorm, the Fairy Queen. Before he can say anything, Belle approaches him to tell him she cannot return with him and she wishes, instead, to stay with Fairykind.
Chapter 39
Fire
+ + + + + Confrontation
She was dressed like she was One of Them. She stood by Their Queen.
And she had looked at him and oh so kindly had told him, "My darling, I need to stay here. I can't go back with you. I'm sorry. This is where I belong. I can't be with you. I'm so, so sorry."
Gold felt poleaxed. There was a brief moment that he forgot to breath.
His first thought was that this had to be some kind of Fae construct. Something that looked like Belle and talked like Belle but wasn't Belle.
He tore through her shields and saw her flinch away from him as if he had struck her. Oh hell! But now he was left with no room for doubt. This was his Belle, definitely his Belle, and not a Fae creation. He could feel it was his Belle.
And she was telling him goodbye.
She had been taken from him by the Fae!
He turned on Ruel. "You witch! What did you do to her? What kind of lies have you told her?" Despite being in the center of the Fae stronghold, he felt his power welling up inside of him.
"You know better than most, Rumple. No one can successfully lie to Belle. Her Empathic Talent will always uncover the truth." She looked so smug, so in control.
Gold considered fire-balling the Queen. Sending her off in a blaze might not make anything better but would it would make him feel better. Somehow, some way, she had corrupted his Belle. He turned back to the light of his life.
"Belle," he pleaded with her. "You can't mean this."
"Meeting my mother has changed everything. How I feel. What's important to me. I . . . I need to stay here with them. With the Fae."
"Please, darling, you have changed me. You know you've changed me. You have made me a better person. Without you, I will . . . I don't know how I can go on. Belle, please, please." To his own ears it sounded like he was begging.
"You must go. I cannot be happy with you now that I have been here. Please."
Gold's heart was breaking. He had not felt such emotional pain since. . . since . . . he did not think he had ever felt this way. He loved Belle. He loved her more than his own life.
In a very low voice, "If this is what you truly wish, Belle. If this is what you truly want." He couldn't meet her eyes. He wasn't sure what he would do next. How he would go on?
He turned away.
"This is too harsh!" he heard Belle say and suddenly she was running after him. "I can't push him away any more, any longer! I hope this was enough to pass your horrible, horrid test," she called back to Miranda.
Gold had stopped moving. He felt Belle's arms around him. "I didn't mean it. I didn't mean any of it. I still love you. I want to be with you."
He heard the fairy queen, her voice low and almost sorrowful, "We had to know Rumple. We had to know that you would give up the thing you loved most if it meant her happiness. We had to know that you had grown to such a stature."
He turned on her. "What gives you the right to do such a thing?"
"It was to ensure our survival," the queen said quietly. "Belle understood and she cooperated, as difficult as it was for her. You two have True Love. We weren't expecting to find that."
Gold circled the Fairy Queen, not sure if she had something else planned. "What were you expecting to find?"
"They knew that a dark power, a Child of Dark, would rise up with the return of magic. They realized it was you. All of their prophecies said you would take them down, destroy them," Belle began to explain.
He did not look at Belle, still keeping a watchful eye on the Queen. "That doesn't sound so bad to me right now," he admitted quietly.
"We realized all of this quickly, so quickly, while you were our . . . guest . . ." Ruel began.
"Prisoner," Gold interrupted.
"Prisoner," Ruel accepted the correction. "We realized that we would never be able to defeat you. We needed our own Child of Light to take you on."
He glanced at Belle, suddenly realizing that she . . . she was the Child of Light. Of course. "So you . . . created Belle, so that she would be my True Love?" he asked incredulously.
Ruel had the grace to look somewhat embarrassed. "Frankly, Rumple, we thought her role would be quite different. We thought, when the time came, that she would . . . " She locked eyes with him. "We thought she would kill you."
Now that made more sense to him.
"They didn't foresee, couldn't foresee, that we would fall in love." That was his Belle.
+ + + + + The Attack Begins
They would never expect an attack in the late morning, under the bright sun.
No, they believed that dark creatures only attacked at night, under shadows. But they underestimated their enemies, the Bocans, the largest, strongest of the shadow demons, ghost shadows.
They watched, watched for the Little One. She was important to the others, to the New Master.
She came out with one of the big ones. The Daughter of the Favored One. They liked the Favored One. She petted them and valued them for what they could do. The daughter – they did not know. Maybe strong, but impetuous. Now serving the New Master.
They began to close in.
+ + + + + Lunch with a Sprite
Maurice had made it into the city. Now he was confused. The place was huge and he didn't know where he was going. He couldn't exactly ask if anyone had seen Belle. He decided he'd stop and get some lunch.
He found a little open air restaurant and got something he didn't recognize for his meal. He took it and sat in a sheltered spot watching the inhabitants of the city.
They certainly were a pretty lot. Attractive women who seemed to favor live flower hair ornaments and long, sweeping dresses. As she watched he realized that there were few, if any, men. The ones he saw, he suspected by their different dress, were outlanders.
He finished his lunch and tried to decide what to do next.
"Looking for Princess Belle?" he heard a tinkling voice. He looked around but didn't see anyone.
"I'm down here," the little voice came again, sounding a bit peeved, and he looked over to see a perfectly formed miniature young woman standing in the seat of the other chair that was set at his table. He put his hand down and she stepped into it.
"You . . . you . . . you are beautiful," he told the young woman. And she was. Pretty, with long curling dark hair and large green eyes. She was dressed in a flowing green dress.
She preened at his compliment. "Thank you kind sir," she replied to him.
"Whom do I have the honor of addressing?" he asked formally.
"I'm the Queen of the Sprites."
"Your majesty," he bowed his head to her.
"You are King Maurice. You look for your daughter, Princess Belle," she told him.
"I do, my dear. Can you help me?"
She smiled at him.
+ + + + + Forbearance
"I don't expect forgiveness for what I did to you," Ruel began. The three were now sitting around the table in the center of the maze.
"Good, 'cause you won't get it," Gold told her sharply.
"But perhaps I can get tolerance, forbearance."
"Unlikely," he muttered.
"We had to know if you were, indeed, the Dark One, the power we were expecting to rise. We had to find out just how powerful you were. And during the difficult process of finding out that you were, indeed, The One, we also realized that you were too powerful, far too powerful for us to . . . ," she hesitated.
"Dispose of," he suggested.
"All right," Ruel reluctantly agreed to Gold's term. "To dispose of. We realized that we weren't going to be able to kill you, but you were quite capable of killing us," Ruel summed up their position succinctly.
"I will admit that I gave it some thought," Gold told her and added, "recently." Belle was sitting next to him, subtly shifting her alliance to Gold from her mother.
"Rumple, we came to realize that we needed our own Power. Someone like yourself who was half-human, who was descended from the original two that first cast the curse that took away the magic."
"Wait a minute. Belle and I are related?"
"Oh, about a hundred generations ago. I don't think you have to worry about having any webbed-footed children," she told him waving off any concerns. "Why do you think your family and her family both had a piece of the dagger and one of the scrolls?"
He considered. It was making sense.
Ruel continued, "The Fae, well, we scattered. We did not know who would be chosen to give birth to this special Child of Light." Ruel grew quiet and distant. "I took the name Miranda and went out among the humans. Once in human form, I found I had human feelings and human desires. When I met Belle's father, I knew he was The Right One. I had never felt about anyone, certainly not a human male the way I felt about him. It was as if the world had gone silent and there was only his voice. It was as if the world had gone dark and he was the only light. I . . . I never felt that way before . . . or since."
"Ruel, if I didn't know better, it sounds like you and Maurice may have been meant for each other," Gold observed.
"But, of course, because I am Fae, that would be impossible," Ruel told him.
"Why is that Miranda?" Belle asked her mother.
Ruel seemed flustered. "Because the Fae do not fall in love. We cannot fall in love," she insisted.
"How do you know that?" Belle persisted.
"Because we never have. Since the Before Time when our magic was the strongest," Ruel explained.
"But your magic was taken away and is only just now coming back," Belle began. "Maybe it's coming back and it's different," she suggested. "True Love is a form of magic, a very, very powerful form."
"It was the only magic that withstood The Curse that took away magic," murmured Gold. "Maybe when your magic came back, love came with it."
Ruel looked concerned and stood up. "You know I have never forgotten your father, Belle. When it came time for me to leave, it was harder than I ever thought it would be. To leave him and to leave my darling baby daughter." Ruel actually had tears in her eyes. "Does it . . . does love make you weak?" she asked the two sitting back down.
Belle and Gold glanced at each other. "It makes you stronger because now it's not just you," Gold told her.
"You have the other person's strength to draw on, to help you through things," Belle added.
Ruel seemed unconvinced. "Perhaps. I just knew when I met your father that our child would be the Child of Light, the one who would save us."
"She did, just not in the way you thought she would." Gold looked at Belle and squeezed her hand, "She saved us all."
"More than you realize." Ruel seemed contrite. "I have accepted that things have changed. That there is a new order coming. We cannot stop it. We can choose to fight against it and be destroyed or we can bend with it and survive. The Fae have chosen to bend with the new order and accept it as we can. We want to make things as easy for ourselves as we can. But Rumple," she sat down across from him. "we had to be sure. Knowing you from before, we knew you as a monster, a beast. Before we could accept your authority, we decided to subject you to three final tests to determine your current worthiness."
"Who are you to determine. . ." Gold began angrily.
"They are who they are, Rumple," Belle told him and she put her hand on top of his, effectively calming him down.
"The first was the child you met in the forest," Ruel began.
"But I failed that test. I stopped looking for Belle and went off to help the child," he told her.
"The test was to see if you would help someone without there being any profit in it for yourself. And to see if you could render aid without killing.'
Gold considered his actions, "So I did well?"
Ruel nodded, "You did, you did quite well."
"And the second test?" Belle asked.
"We created a strong magical force in the form of a blizzard. Many of us contributed to it, infusing it with our strongest magic, strong enough that you would be weak, too weak to stand against us."
"The snow, it almost froze me," Gold told her.
"We wanted to see if you could escape the force, knowing that you would require help. Were you strong enough to ask for help? Did you have anyone who would be willing to help you?"
"And I did ask for help and, I suspect, I don't know for sure, but I suspect that there were many who sent me warmth that kept me unfrozen."
"I know I did," Belle admitted smiling at him.
"There were others," Ruel confirmed knowledgeably.
"Let me guess," Gold began, "For the third test, Belle was to repudiate me to see how I would react?"
"Exactly," Ruel confirmed. "Would you fly into a rage, try to kill us all? Would you simply pick up Belle against her will and force her to come with you?"
"Or, as painful as it might be, would I want my True Love to be happy, with or without me?" Gold asked.
"And you passed that test beautifully," Belle told him, leaning in to give him a kiss.
+ + + + + The Shadow Force
The Daughter of the Favored One had been easy to incapacitate. She had fear of them.
But this Little One . . . . Rashnack, the Lieutenant, was concerned. "Why isss ssshe not afffraid?" he asked his Commander.
The Commander shrugged. Little did he care.
Elspeth sat between the two large ghost demons. They had long slithering black-grey bodies that faded back and forth between being solid and being smoke. Their eyes gleamed like fiery rubies. Elspeth clutched her Teddy Bear to herself but otherwise did not appear alarmed. She looked back and forth between the two large figures.
"My daddy is going to come," she told them. "My daddy is going to come soon."
"Weee have no fffear of your fffather, Little One," the Commander told her, his voice hollow and distant.
"You should," Elspeth told them and settled down, holding her Bear.
"What ifff she knooows sssomething?" Rashnack asked. "What ifff . . . ?"
"You worrrreey too much. The New Massster is fffar away in the Upperrr Kingdom. The hideousss Fffae will keeep him there. Heee will not be coooming back sssoon."
"Youuu can't knooow that," Rashnack insisted.
"I know the New Massster and the Fffae have looong haaatred betweeeen them. Heee will not beee walking out offf there soooon. Come on nooow, thisss isss our bessst chanccce," the Commander replied. "Tell the othersss to sssurrrround The House. We will attack nooow."
+ + + + + The Attack Begins
Emma was in her patrol car, cruising the streets, checking on things as part of her usual routine. She drove down Lexington and glanced over at The House.
Something didn't look quite right. Emma depended on sudden flashes of insight and she tended not to shrug off feelings that things weren't going right. She pulled in front of The House, made a quick call to David to let him know what was up and got out of her patrol car. Almost immediately she felt smothered. Something hungry, angry, full of malevolence was wrapping itself around her. She couldn't see anything but she knew damn well she was under attack. She stumbled into Gold's shop. Jefferson was behind the counter. Emma could see that he was holding his hands to his throat as if he was trying to stop something from choking him. Her knees folded up beneath her and things began to go black.
At that moment unaware of what was happening in the shop, Archie had been joined by Milah and Ashley, all three coming down the stairs. The two women were planning to go shopping in some of the vintage re-sale stores when they saw a roiling dark cloud, a black mist that was easing up the stairs. All three immediately stepped back, sensing, seeing, something dark that had invaded the premises.
"What is that?" Ashley asked looking down at the mist that had already risen to another step during the short time they had stood there.
"Beats me," responded Milah, "but I'll be damned if something going to trap me in my own home. "Help me out here," she told Ashley.
Ashley dutifully conjured a fireball (she couldn't do large fireballs but she could produce small ones fast). Milah began to deploy small whirlwinds to carry the fireballs further and further into the dark mist that was creeping up the stairs. Archie was able to help Milah direct her mini-whirlwinds where they would do the most damage. The mist recoiled from the fireballs and together Archie, Milah and Ashley were able to create a pathway for themselves.
"Why do I feel so bad?" Ashley asked as they neared the ground floor.
"Yeah, it's like PMS with cramps, headache and nausea," Milah agreed. "I'm sure it's coming from this mist."
Archie had glanced behind them and sure enough the mist had regrown and reformed around them. "Milah, Ashley " he whispered. "It's surrounding us."
"Let's keep moving, we need to get out of here," Milah decided. No reason to go back.
They had made it down to the lobby on the ground floor. They could hear rustling noises like vermin shifting around and moaning.
"I think someone's in the shop," Archie said in a low voice.
"Me too," Milah agreed and, listening to Archie's directions, they made their way into the shop, continuing to send fireballs in front of them to clear the way. They first encountered Jefferson, passed out, at least they hoped he was passed out his body draped over the counter.
"Let's see if we can drag him out of here," Archie grabbed him by the arms and began dragging him out. Milah and Ashley continued working together to carve out a pathway with their combined magical sendings. They nearly stumbled over Emma who was lying on the floor.
The two women picked her up, each one holding Emma under an arm which left them a free hand to continue fire-balling a pathway for themselves. They made it to the front door and pulled both Jefferson and Emma out to the front of the police car.
Jefferson had begun to regain his consciousness first.
"We need help," Jefferson said, his speech slurring. "The House is on fire."
Milah glanced up and they could see flames shooting out from the top of the building.
+ + + + Reunions
Led by the Sprite Queen, Maurice had made his way to the royal palace and found the garden. He had been wandering around in the maze when he emerged to see his daughter leaning over to give an odd green-skinned creature a kiss on the cheek.
"Belle?" he called out not sure if he was really seeing his daughter.
Belle turned, "Daddy?" she got up and ran over to him. "Daddy! Whatever are you doing here?"
"Looking for you, darling. I've missed you so much. I'm so, so sorry for all that happened." Maurice had tears in his eyes. "We were trying to help you. Do you believe me?"
"Of course I do, Daddy," and she hugged him.
Ruel watched the reunion and then turned her attention onto Gold. "Your potential father-in-law," she noted smugly.
Gold gave her a tight nod.
"I take it he's never seen you in your Mardi Gras colors?"
He glowered at Ruel and responded, "I think that you will get to let him know that his dear departed wife is still very much alive before I have to worry about introducing myself."
Ruel nodded and stood. She walked towards the father and daughter, both still lost in each other. She cleared her throat.
"Moe, I'm afraid this may be a shock to you," she began.
"Miranda?!" he said, obviously stunned. "But . . . you . . . died? Am I dead too? Is this heaven?" he asked.
Gold barked a laugh when he heard that and the three turned in his direction.
"I'm looking forward to introducing Rumplestiltskin to you but that will be in a moment," Ruel said slyly. "Moe, darling," she turned back to him. "I did not die but I would have if I had stayed. You are not dead. And this is not heaven. Come with me, I shall explain everything. Your daughter will still be here."
Maurice looked at the woman who had been his wife and then looked at his daughter.
"Go with her, Daddy," Belle told him. "I think it will be easier to explain what happened to me if you hear her story first."
Belle rejoined Gold who was slouching in his chair. "This gets better and better," he muttered. "Perhaps we can hold off introducing me to your father until we get back to The House. I had really envisioned meeting your father wearing one of my nicer three-piece suits."
"Relax, darling. Daddy's going to love you," Belle told him.
"I doubt that. I'm the guy that's doing his daughter, the Princess."
They watched Maurice and Ruel as they walked around the large open area in the center of the maze. At one point Ruel conjured a ball of white light and then extinguished it. At different points they both looked back at Belle.
"Before it's over, she'll have Maurice saying, "I do believe in fairies. I do believe in fairies,'" Gold told Belle, adopting a high pitched squeaky voice and flapping his arms as if they were fairy wings.
"I hope so," Belle told him. "He never stopped loving her even though a lot of people put pressure on him to marry again."
They were watching the older couple when Lovecraft abruptly appeared before Gold. Gold immediately sat up. He and the cat looked at each other for several seconds Belle could swear they were communicating telepathically.
When Gold looked back at Belle, he looked troubled. "I've got to go with Lovecraft. There's a problem at The House." He hesitated but decided not to tell Belle that The House was under attack.
Before Belle could respond, Gold stood and bent down to pick up the cat. The last thing he said to Belle was, "Lovecraft tells me he knows a shortcut." And the two disappeared in a puff of purple smoke.
That was the moment that Ruel and Maurice chose to return to the table.
"Where's Rumple?" Ruel asked. "I still had more business with him. Very Important Business."
"He said there was a problem at The House and Lovecraft, the cat, took him back straightway," Belle explained.
"Lovecraft, the cat?" Ruel asked puzzled.
"It's this big black cat that lives at The House," Belle tried to explain. "Gold told me that he came with The House and he kinda comes and goes as he pleases."
Ruel was shaking her head. "There's a Mowrath that lives there. It's like a small, but very powerful Pookah that's attached to The House. Its job is to protect The House. If it came here for Rumple, then there's a big problem, something even the Mowrath couldn't handle."
"Gold, that's the fellow who came to Avonleigh? He's kinda like your landlord?" Maurice asked.
Well now was probably not the time to explain about her relationship with Gold. "Yes," was all she answered and then added. "I need to go and help him." She turned to Ruel.
"I'll come too, dear," Ruel told her. "He may need some help. If something has dared to attack that House, it's pretty powerful. Maurice?" Ruel turned to him. "Hold my hand. You too, Belle. We are going to take a shortcut."
Belle felt her breath pushed out of her as the ground went out from under her feet. This was different from when she transported with Emma. They all appeared in the little garden above the gate that led out to Lexington.
"Come on everyone," Ruel told them and she opened the gate to step out into Asheville. Belle had a brief moment to marvel that Ruel's outfit had changed from the soft sparkling robes to a smart A-line skirt with a loose fitting long-sleeved top. She wore tight-fitting lace up boots on her feet and her hair was now long and free-flowing. She nodded back at Belle who was back in the original outfit that she had entered the Fairy world wearing. The threesome began walking down the street at a fast clip. They could hear sirens and . . .
"Look," Belle pointed to a plume of smoke that rose from the vicinity of The House. She broke out into a run.
When she got close enough to see, there were multiple fire trucks and other emergency vehicles closing off the street. Emma was sitting in the back of an ambulance sucking oxygen and Belle approached her.
The top floors of the building were on fire, flames flicking out of windows.
"What happened?" Belle asked.
"Not sure. I think it may have been a Bocan attack," Emma explained. "Jefferson and I went down but we got dragged out by Milah, Ashley and Archie. They came along just in time."
Belle remembered the Bocan that Cora had worn draped around her body. It had come after her and only by making herself invisible had she been able to avoid it. She shivered. They had been Pan's bully-boy honor guards in Undertown but Gold had re-assigned them to be body guards to Cora and Jones and requested that they keep in touch with him about anything untoward happening in Undertown. They were big and powerful . . . and particularly nasty.
"Is everyone all right? Everyone accounted for?"
Emma considered. "Well Milah, Ashley and Archie got Jefferson and myself out of the building," as she named the tenants, she counted on her fingers. "Mary Margaret, David, Ruby and Regina are all at work. Leroy and Jones are otherwise accounted for." Emma had counted out thirteen. "Yeah, I guess we are all accounted for."
"The House is on fire," Belle stated the obvious.
"I didn't think it could burn being . . . well, you know, The House," Emma told her. "I don't know if the Bocan started the fire or if Ashley and Milah doing what they had to do to get us out started the fire."
It doesn't matter, Belle thought. "Where's Gold?"
"Gold's here?" Emma asked unaware that the sorcerer had returned.
"Yes. He . . ."Belle closed her eyes. Gold was in The House. He had crossed the line the firemen had put around The House and was somewhere inside.
Belle turned to her mother, Ruel Ghorm, the Fairy Queen. "Gold's in The House. Can you get us in there?"
"Belle, you can't be thinking of going into a burning house?" her father asked her.
"Gold will be stronger if I'm there."
Ruel turned to Maurice, "Moe, I'll take care of her. I'm not losing you both again after waiting so long. Belle, I need you to concentrate on him so we'll show up close to him." And she took Belle's hand and the two disappeared.
Gold was in the Artifacts Room in his shop. It was sealed off from the rest of The House and there was no sense of the heat or smoke that was rapidly filling up other rooms of the building. Gold was facing down a trio of the Bocans. Belle and Ruel appeared behind him and Gold quickly put Belle between himself and Ruel.
"Put your hand on her shoulder," he directed Ruel. "She can channel our energies."
Ruel smiled at him, "Excellent."
Belle gently touched the two hands that were now on her shoulders and then released them. "Let's take care of these," she said.
Belle twirled one finger in the air and the Bocans began to spin, slowly at first, their essence trailing out around them. Ruel watched in fascination at the blending of the dark and light powers, a purple color coming from Belle's left hand and a pale white-blue light coming from her right, the two colors blending together into a silverish flash of light. Ruel could feel Belle pulling on her strength and she began to feed her additional energies. Gold in turn was adding his strength to the whirlwinds and the three unfortunate Bocans began spinning faster and faster. As they spun they became thinner and thinner and smaller and smaller. Finally they had been reduced to about a six inch size and Gold fetched a bell jar with a flat bottom stand and he knelt down to capture them inside the glass jar.
"Well, that was exhilarating," Ruel remarked.
"Yeah," Gold had lifted the bell jar with the three miniaturized Bocans and brought them over. "I'll need to put these somewhere safe while I decide what to do with them." He set them into one of many barrister cases that went around the room.
When he turned back to them, he sighed. "I guess we need to get out of here. The House is putting things in this room that are important. And I want to go out and see how everyone is doing."
They managed to set out from between some building and quickly located Emma who was now out of the ambulance. Next to her were Ruby's Hellhounds. Emma was able to fill Gold in as to the whereabouts of all the tenants.
"How did the dogs get here?" he asked
"They were yowling and one of the firemen brought them out. I guess Jefferson must have called Ruby. She had pulled up by then. Ruby collected the dogs from the fireman and now I'm pretty sure they're going out of a date."
Gold smiled. Ruby had always been a fast worker.
Emma continued, "So Ruby came in. I called and confirmed that Regina is still at work, as is David and Mary Margaret. We know where Killian is and where Leroy, you and Belle are. Jefferson and I were out here, along with Milah, Ashley and Archie. So that's everyone," she reported, confirming the report she had just given Belle.
Gold stood a moment and suddenly looked up, "Where's Elspeth?"
Many thanks to all my insightful, helpful reviewers: Orthankg1, Robin 4, Anne Andrews (Guest), Erik'sTrueAngel, MyraValhallah, thedoctorsgirl42, DruidKitty (30 & 31), RaFire, crazykat77, Aletta-Feather (37 & 38), jewel415, AnneElliotsCat, CharlotteAshmore, Chauchi and
Deweymay (who was actually spot on with the idea that Belle was created for a nefarious purpose)
NEXT: More on the Important Business that Ruel wants to discuss with Rumple
And, of course, Little Elspeth will have to be rescued