Alice watched Cyrus carefully as Gold led them toward the Enchanted Well.
"Are you sure your ready for this?"
Cyrus sighed. "It was never my choice to try and change my mother's fate; if she is willing that the water be returned, then so am I."
"Especially if it means stopping Jafar before he can start," added Ana, as she walked behind them.
The group gathered around the Well. Amara looked to Cyrus.
"All right, we are here," she said. "What is it that we must do?"
Cyrus sighed, but resolved to get the words out. "The water that I stole must be returned."
"The water that restored my life," Amara pointed out.
Cyrus swallowed the lump forming in his throat. "Yes; Mr. Gold can summon Nyx, the Guardian of the Well, and as soon as the water has been returned, the curse will be lifted."
"And all the genies will be free?" Said Anastasia.
Amara watched her son sadly. "Well, I guess this is it, then. We must say our goodbyes."
Cyrus sighed brokenly as tears itched his eyes. Alice was already weeping. Amara turned to her.
"Alice, it was good to meet you; I only regret that we could not be better acquainted. Take care of my son."
Alice nodded. "I will!" She broke down and sobbed into Cyrus' shoulder.
Amara kissed him tenderly on the cheek. "Give my love to Taj and Rafi," she said.
Cyrus fought back the tears, but they came anyway.
Amara turned back to the Well. "I am ready, wizard," she addressed Mr. Gold.
He nodded and held his hand over the water. "Oh Nyx, Guardian of the Enchanted Waters, we summon—"
"Well, well!" A dry voice interrupted him. The wind picked up and the sky filled with dark clouds as Jafar descended on his carpet. The sorcerer sneered at them. "Did you really think I would leave you to lift the curse before I could complete my spell?" He thrust his hands toward the well and the stone shaft crumbled inward on itself. Lightning cracked overhead, and a powerful wind stirred.
Alice caught Gold's eye and nodded to him. "Go," she said. "Take Anastasia and find Will. Maybe, if returning the water fails—"
Gold didn't let her finish. As Jafar and Amara faced one another, Gold and Anastasia scuttled away in the shadows.
Jafar leered at his transfixed audience. "Amara, I did wonder, for all your ambition, why on earth would you choose the losing side, but then—" he waved his hand and levitated a few of the sharper rocks, "I soon realized that the greatest antithesis to ambition would be sentiment." He flicked with his fingers and sent the rocks crashing into Cyrus. The young man was flung backwards, a shard right through his chest.
"Cyrus!" Alice screamed, as Amara stood rooted in horror, her eyes fixed on Jafar.
The sorcerer smiled. "You were always too sentimental. So here is how it must be: either you join me and we'll complete the spell right now and be able to save your son... Or you can watch him die. I'm afraid ending the curse isn't going to be one of those options."
Alice wept as the blood pooled around the thick shard. Cyrus' skin faded toward grey.
"Stay with me, Cyrus!" She begged, clutching his hand. "Stay with me!"
"You miserable street rat!" Amara suddenly hissed. "I should have let you rot in the gutter where I found you!" She turned and sent a blast of magic toward the shard. It disintegrated to dust, but the gaping hole remained. Cyrus would still die.
"Very well," Jafar replied, extending a hand toward the sorceress. "If that's the way you feel, then Cyrus will just have to watch you die!"
Amara raised her hands to block his magic, but stared in terror as her skin became translucent.
"Mamman!" Cyrus groaned, as Amara began to shrivel before his eyes. If Jafar drained her of the enchanted water, the curse could never be broken.
Cyrus and Alice locked eyes, and both knew what had to be done. Supported by Alice, Cyrus leaned forward and scooped up a little of the water in his hand.
Fervently hoping Nyx could hear him, he prayed, "Oh Nyx, to you I return the water that was stolen!" He hefted his hand upward, watching the drops sparkle as they fell—
But they never touched the stones. Instead, the drops congealed into a watery orb just inches above their goal. Jafar had ceased his torture of Amara and now stopped the water by his magic. Grinning wickedly, he pulled the water toward himself and tossed it against a tree.
"Foolish boy!" He seethed. "You have lost your chance! Now there is nothing that will keep me from becoming the most powerful wizard the world has ever known!" He raised his clenched hands in victory.
In the same moment, the Well exploded outward in a great geyser. When it receded into a pool, the water burbled, signaling the approach of Nyx. Jafar watched eagerly, expecting the moment when Cyrus and Alice would fail utterly at their attempts to break the curse. After all, they had no more water to offer.
Still, Alice wore a smile and carried a gleam of hope in her eye.
"You're forgetting one thing, Jafar," she said.
"What else could you possibly have?" He snarled as Nyx rose from the pool. "I have wasted all your water!"
Alice shook her head. "No; you see—Cyrus had already given up the water. You did not steal from us."
Jafar blanched as the dead specter pointed a gnarled finger at him. "You have stolen to satisfy your own wishes; you will pay for the theft by spending eternity satisfying the wishes of others."
"NO!" The sorcerer shrieked, even as the bronze cuffs clamped around his wrists. His body disintegrated into a cloud of red smoke, and floated away to the bottle where he would be trapped forever. "NOOOOOOOO!"
The sky cleared as soon as he was gone, and Nyx vanished. All who remained were Alice and Cyrus. She wrapped her arms around him as he lay dying.
"Cyrus!" She wept. "We have fought so long to be together, please don't leave me again so soon!"
Cyrus couldn't say anything. His strength was slipping away...
"Alice!"
Alice looked up as Anastasia called her name. The erstwhile queen approached in the company of Will, Mr. Gold, and two young men Alice didn't recognize.
They knew Cyrus well enough, though. Both men ran forward, falling to their knees beside him.
"Cyrus!" The older one cried.
"No! He cannot be dead!" The younger man was already weeping along with Alice.
The resemblance to the face she knew so well was unmistakable.
"You're Cyrus' brothers," she guessed.
The older one nodded. "I am Taj, and this is Rafi; and you are?"
"Alice," she answered. "I met Cyrus as a genie, and we fell in love." She looked up at Gold, who stood arm-in-arm with Belle. "Please," she begged, "isn't there something you can do to restore him?"
Gold crouched down to study the wounded man closely. "If he were dead, there would be nothing I could do to restore life, as you know," he began, and Alice's face fell.
"But—" he continued, "there still seems to be some small spark of life in him yet." He placed a hand over the wound, and a glowing purple light seeped from his fingertips. Under his hand, Cyrus' chest moved, and everyone heard him begin breathing once again. Gold pulled his hand away, and the wound was gone.
Cyrus opened his eyes and smiled at Alice.
"I love you," he said.
"Oh Cyrus!" She kissed him. "I love you too," she whispered.
His eye caught the new faces in the group.
"Rafi? Taj?" He blinked in surprise at the sight of his brothers.
They all laughed and scrambled to their feet as one man to share a hug.
"I never thought I would see you again!" Cyrus gasped.
"Nor did we ever have any hope of being free!" Taj replied.
"Well!" Anastasia interposed, a smile on her face, "Now that everything is put to rights, why don't we find out where that White Rabbit has gone off to, so he can send everybody back to where they came from?"
Will wrapped his arms around her as she laid her head on his shoulder. "I think that sounds like a fantastic idea!" He said.
Cyrus nodded. "But not just yet," he said. "There's something I want to do first." Taking both Alice's hands in his, the former genie got down on one knee, looked into her eyes, and said, "Alice, the first time we met, I was compelled by magic to do your bidding—yet I was so struck by your beauty that I was willing to do so. You then showed me the loveliness of your character by giving that privilege back to me, and our hearts have been entwined ever since. You have crossed worlds for me, and I can only ask this one thing of you: may I remain at your side, and can we meet all of life's adventures together, never to be apart, for as long as we both shall live?"
Alice smiled as if she would never stop, and she pressed Cyrus' hands to her lips. "Yes," she cried. "And yes again, until the end of time! I have no life but with you. Let us never be separated again!"
And they never were.
THE END