Chapter Twenty.
Henry did not like this plan. He didn't like it one bit. On most days, he had no trouble putting his trust in his family to come up with something clever, but they'd piled this attack into the planning span of just a couple of days and even a twelve-year-old could see that was likely to have holes littered all through it, even if one of the planners could see the future. Grandpa Gold had told him everything would be okay though, so he had to believe him. Regina, Emma, and Neal had all said the same thing, so it couldn't be a lie just to make him feel better. They'd be back. They'd promised.
"I don't want Papa to go," Roland said, his voice pitching up in a way that made him sound like he might start crying at any second.
"He'll be back soon, sweetie," Granny assured him from her place at the window.
"I want to go!" the little boy cried, suddenly making a dart for the door that led the foyer and out to the courtyard.
Henry caught him though, and pulled him back. "What if we go watch them disappear from the tower? My mom and grandpa are going to make take them away in a puff of smoke. It'll be cool. If we hurry we can see it."
Roland didn't look like he believed him so Henry took him by the hand and pulled him along after. They raced down the corridor and Henry found the door just where he needed it. The steps they climbed should never have taken him to his grandpa's tower, but they did and the two boys burst out from the magical hallway and up the spiraling stairs just in time to see the crowd of soldiers and sorcerers below. Henry sat Roland up on the window sill and hopped up with him, pressing his face against the glass.
Neal turned and looked up and Henry thought he saw him smile as he waved. Henry waved back, urging Roland to look down to where his own papa was waving at him too. Regina stood next to Robin and she joined in. Grandma Snow, Emma, and the Blue Fairy were already gone. They'd thought they might need more time to break through the holds that kept Glinda locked to her space than Rumplestiltskin, Regina, and Maleficent - if she was still with them by the time they landed there - would need dismantling Zelena's outer defences.
The grownups turned back in and Henry watched his Grandpa Gold motion for them to come in closer and he might have offered a wink in the boys' direction before dark red, purple, and Maleficent's own lighter shade of violet swirled around them Henry tapped the window. "Watch," he urged and Roland pressed his face against the glass. The magic continued to build, swirling, and weaving around each other with the three magic users working together - something that was more difficult than it appeared, his grandfather had told him the day before - and then they were gone, leaving only an unnatural wind stirring just outside the castle gates, flurries of snow drifting down from the sky to cover the space like they'd never been there at all.
Emma wasn't new to be being teleported here and there, but fairy magic and human magic was, apparently, very different. While Regina and Maleficent's magic tingled a little it was pretty straight forward. They set the magic out, it wrapped around, and you were gone, appearing wherever they deemed to take you. She wanted to learn it someday, but much to her own displeasure had not learned it in time to avoid the Blue Fairy being their mode of transportation that day. She hadn't known to expect anything different, so when Blue had smiled that sickeningly sweet smile of hers and blown her damn sparkly dust all over her, Emma had about choked on it.
She was still sputtering, coughing, and sneezing when they landed and she turned a furious look on the fairy. "Some warning would have been great."
"I'm sorry, child, I thought you knew how fairies traveled."
Blue didn't sound sorry. Not really, but Mary Margaret shot her a look that told her that voicing every thought was not necessary, so Emma recalled the same image of a flabbergasted Blue finding out about Neal to mind that she'd shared with him the night before and had to remind herself not to laugh out loud. It did the trick though and she was less incline to throttle the self-appointed ultimate good.
"So where is Glinda? We should hurry. The others are waiting on us," Mary Margaret pressed and the Blue Fairy glided forward.
"She's here," she said, motioning towards a door.
Emma blinked. She'd seen a lot of strange things in her time in the Enchanted Forest, but a door without walls leaned even more towards the strange side than usual. Sure, the doors and walls moved in the Dark Castle - she was starting to think at Neal's whims, actually, as much as his father's - but they were always connected to something. This was just… standing there. She walked towards it, brushing past the little fairy and peeked around, finding no invisible wall keeping her from looking around the door. "What the hell?"
"It's a test," Blue answered her, her voice sounding as if the blonde princess might be straining her patience. "If you're pure of heart she will let you pass through. It's to keep Zelena out."
"What's to keep her from attacking Glinda once she's free?" Mary Margaret asked, eyeing the door.
"Well, her full powers will be freed once she is. There is nothing to fear. Come, Snow. Open the door and we will reclaim your childhood home. There's no reason to linger in darkness any longer than you must."
Mary Margaret nodded enthusiastically and reached for the door. Emma, on the other hand, shot it a skeptical look even as it opened… into nothing. See? she wanted to say. Nothing magical about the door except that it hasn't fallen over yet. This was some sorcerers' idea of a practical joke.
"Go on, child," Blue urged and Emma's mother stepped through and disappeared.
The blonde blinked at the open doorway for a moment, her mind scrambling to make sense of it. Phrases and bits of information battled with each other to come together into something useful and she was sure she'd read something about this kind of spell in Regina's epically huge book of magic that she'd given her. "A cloaking spell," she said at last, but she received about as much praise for coming up with the right answer from the fairy as she would have received from Regina herself.
"Yes, it is," Blue said as if Emma had just told her that fire was hot. "You shouldn't doddle. Go on."
Knowing that it was a cloaking spell and expecting it to take her through the portal it hid were two entirely different things, but Emma stepped through, finding herself on a hillside covered with snow. Her mother was already speaking gleefully with a blonde woman dressed all in white and Blue flew through the door behind her, shifting into her larger form to take the woman's hands in her own. "We must hurry or we will lose all hope."
"Emma, this is Glinda," Mary Margaret introduced, almost as if she'd known the other woman for years. "She's going to help us."
Glinda's eyes shown and Emma tried to crush the feeling that the gaze looked a little too much like' Blue's for comfort. It probably just came from already having spent more time around the obnoxious fairy than she normally would have cared to. No need to judge the poor woman so harshly.
"So you're Storybrooke's savior," the Good Witch gushed. "The Blue Fairy has told me all about you."
"I'm sure she has," Emma groused. "So you can beat Zelena?"
"Oh no, dear. She's much too powerful."
Emma felt the world shift under her feet and she blanched. Neal and her dad - along with everyone else - were probably there already had had already begun to fight. They were supposed to break Glinda free as quickly as possible and deliver her to the battlefield so that she could face Zelena head-on, destroying the Wicked Witch. It wouldn't do away with their Pan problem, but halving the villainous pair was something at least and right now they'd take what they could get. "Then what the hell are we here for?" she growled, not bothering to hide the boiling irritation. "You told Blue that you could-"
The fairy shifted behind her. "When I sought Glinda out she confided to me that Zelena was much too powerful for her to defeat."
"Her power is kept in her broach," Glinda added, but it was nothing that Gold hadn't already figured out. "Light magic will-"
"Yeah, we know that," Emma snapped. "Rumplestiltskin told us."
Glinda flinched at the name and Blue frowned. "With the Dark One knowing her whereabouts, time was of the essence that we free Glinda so that he cannot harm her and deliver her pendant to Zelena. It is imperative that we keep her from gaining all four of them, lest we be entirely unable to stop her."
Emma met the fairy's eyes steadily and didn't flinch. She didn't have any idea that Zelena hadn't gotten ahold of the pendant she'd been after at Thomas' castle. Granted, as far as Emma knew, very few people were aware of that little fact. She wasn't even supposed to know, but Neal had trouble keeping secrets from her. He hadn't liked the idea of keeping it from everyone else, either, but he'd told her that he was choosing to trust his father in this. If Rumplestiltskin decided that it was best to keep that information quiet, he had a reason, and Emma was starting to think that that reason was small and sparkly.
"I don't understand," Mary Margaret managed. "David and the others are relying on us being able to help them. Glinda was the key to this plan. If we can't defeat her… They're all going to die."
"We're not going to let that happen," her daughter assured her and Blue nodded firmly.
"Of course we won't. I would never allow something like that to happen, Snow. Surely you know that."
Mary Margaret swallowed hard. "Then what?"
"I cannot defeat her alone," Glinda said softly and her gaze fell on the savior. "But you, Emma… Together with the Blue Fairy we can wield enough light magic that we should be able to take Zelena's pendant from her. Without it she'll be powerless and we will win back your parents' kingdom from her."
"We need your help to save your family, Emma," Blue said and Emma turned a cold glare on her.
"Listen, I have a pretty good bull shit meter and it's wailing right now. You haven't been straight with us since the beginning. Why start now?"
"I don't know what you mean," Blue managed.
"I think you do. You didn't think we'd come here to get Glinda without thinking she could do it on her own. Why?"
"Emma," Mary Margaret cut in, a hand going to her daughter's arm to calm her, "we don't have time for this. We have to go. Your father, Neal, and the others are counting on us. We'll handle this… misunderstanding after we've defeated Zelena."
Blue's startled look at Neal's name being mentioned along with David didn't go unnoticed, but Emma ignored it. Instead she pushed a long breath out through her nose, frustration near boiling. She'd be lucky if she could reel it in enough for the light magic that they thought she could do. Not that she'd ever been trained in it, specifically.
"You'll do great," Mary Margaret assured her as if she could read her thoughts.
"This isn't over," Emma promised the lead fairy. "Once we've gotten her, I want the truth."
"Of course, child. We will speak on any matter you wish, but first we must free Glinda."
"Right," the blonde nearly growled and turned towards the door, focusing her thoughts on the ones she loved. Henry's face filled her mind. He was laughing and running, free to be everything that he'd dreamt of and finally in a place that he knew he could belong. His smile warmed her heart, making it easier to pull on happier memories of her parents and even of Neal. Her entire body grew warm and the sensation flushed through, making her fingers tingle a little and she remembered what Gold had said the day that he'd told her that she would be performing the magic with the dreamcatcher to see what Pongo had seen. Will it, he had told her, and in that moment she pushed against the door and against the wards that kept Glinda trapped there. Magic rushed through her and it was powerful. The wards came crashing down like glass shattering and they were no longer standing in the snow-covered mountains, but in the forest outside the portal door.
"Very good, Emma," Blue praised.
Emma blinked, feeling a bit woozy from the burst and she could almost hear the warnings about the price bouncing around in her head. She didn't have time to push it off and find a plausible route for it to take like Regina had been teaching her - she didn't even know if that would work with light magic - before a laugh pierced the forest and she knew it.
Zelena appeared in a puff of green smoke, her smile taunting and all three women and the fairy froze in their place. "Oh," she chuckled, "don't mind me. I just came by for a chat. Long time."
"I know what you did to our sisters," Glinda said, her voice mostly steady as she squared her shoulders.
"You told me once that when I took the pendant that my life would be tied to it. I needed theirs and I couldn't have them coming back for it, now could I?"
"You were once better than this, Zelena."
The green skinned woman's face scrunched up in a scowl. "Until you betrayed me, just like everyone else."
"We didn't betray you. You went after an innocent girl that had done you no wrong. You've always been so fixated on what you don't have that you fail to see what you have right in front of you."
"How did you know that we were here?" Mary Margaret demanded, her bow in her hand now and aimed at the witch.
The taunting smile returned. "You don't keep your secrets quite as well as you'd like to think."
"Rumplestiltskin told you," Blue said and Emma resisted the urge to roll her eyes, but Zelena's next words made her stop.
"Not directly."
Blue and Glinda exchanged a worried look and Emma felt any of the warmth that the magic had brought on replaced instantly with a cold fear. Gold had always been a manipulator, but she'd thought - perhaps incorrectly so - that he wouldn't have put she and her mother directly into harm's way. Perhaps if it had just been Blue... But he'd known they were going with her, and it hadn't been until they'd decided to fetch Glinda for the battle that he'd finally given to David's requests. She hadn't thought anything about it at the time other than that he'd simply been tired of saying no to something he probably knew he'd be roped into anyway, and Neal had been so determined that his dad knew what he was doing and that he had all the pieces of the puzzle worked out just right. And worst of all, if Rumplestiltskin had set them up, it was going to break Henry's heart. He'd gotten so close to him since the former Dark One had made sure his grandson had passage through to the Enchanted Forest.
"No," Blue said tightly, "he never does anything directly, does he?"
The fairy might have been moving to restrain the witch to the best of her ability, but she didn't have a chance. Zelena's dark magic wrapped around them, holding them in place just as it had when she'd stopped their transport from the Forbidden Fortress to the Dark Castle. Mary Margaret had her arrow ready to send flying, but it had never made it before the spell took hold and it looked like neither Blue nor Glinda could break free. Zelena tutted as she moved towards the woman that had perhaps once been her friend. "Pan seems to think I'm making a mistake by coming here. He thinks his son's pulling a clever little trick, but do you know what I think?"
"No one really cares," Emma snapped, trying to draw her attention away from the woman whose broach she was after. Gold may have double-crossed them - surprise, surprise - but she didn't doubt him when he'd spoken of how dangerous the woman would be if she somehow obtain all four stones.
"Quiet now, savior. Wait your turn," Zelena growled, turning back to Glinda. "I think that Rumple's slipping. He let that pretty little thing in his head and now he can't control the board quite like he used to. Too bad that he taught me well."
"You can't change the past, Zelena, only your future. You can still make the right choice. You can choose to be good."
"You see, that's the thing. To get what I want, I really can't." She plunged her hand deeply into the other witch's chest, Glinda's eyes going wide as she pulled her heart from it while Blue shouted uselessly. The smile never left her painted lips as she squeezed, the heart cracking and splintering like a glass figuring held too tightly in someone's grasp. Glinda let out a small sound before she dropped, her heart nothing more than dust in Zelena's hand that the wind carried away. Regina's elder sister bent down over the Good Witch of the South's lifeless body and reached for the broach. Her fingers touched it, but as they did magic sparked through the air and it disappeared, flashing out of existence.
Emma huffed out a laugh at the look of utter shock that crossed Zelena's features and she whirled on her. "You!"
"Hate to break it to you, but that wasn't me. Wish it had been though."
Zelena stalked up to her, leaning in so that she was close enough that the younger woman could almost feel the hatred radiating off of her. "Oh, it was you, but you may not have been the source. He just used you to sneak the spell in. You were right, little fairy. Rumple never is straightforward. It's a sad day for you, though, savior. It looks like Glinda wasn't his only sacrifice."
Gold's words from the day before snapped back into place in her mind. She was more powerful than she gave herself credit for. He'd known. He had set this up, but he'd set it up so that they'd win. She didn't know if she hated him or felt something oddly akin to respect for him at that moment, but it only took one look at her mom and the warmth began to flow through her again. She needed to protect those she loved.
"Sorry," Emma answered, her magic working to rip apart Zelena's holding spell, "but did you really think it's going to be that easy?"
The witch seemed to realize something was happening, but it was too late. Emma's magic hit her hard, fueled by the love she felt for those she wanted to protect. She didn't think it was purely light magic, because there was a fair amount of anger in there too, but there was enough to burn and Zelena stumbled back, screaming as the steam rolled off of her, and when she seemed to steady herself at least a little, Emma hit her again. "Listen, you psycho bitch, I don't care if Rumplestiltskin had anything to do with this or not. You're dealing with me. I won't let you get that pendant, you're not keeping my mom's castle, and you're not getting your hands on my son. Got it?"
Zelena's face contorted into that terrible pout and she pulled back, her skin still sizzling even as she disappeared. Emma turned her steely gaze on Blue. "We need to go help the others, but if we're going to win, you let us handle Gold."
"Very well," Blue said and they were gone in a sprinkling of fairy dust.
"I thought the reason they brought you along was so that things like this didn't happen," Maleficent growled as she dodged an attack that Zelena's protections had left behind. They weren't nearly as strong as they could have been without the witch actually there, but her power coupled with both Pan's and the two stones that she did actually possessed was causing more than a little trouble. Monkeys sprang up, magical portals opened and tossed people away, and various other types of wards were put into place. It wasn't that the sorcerers amongst them couldn't detect them, it was that those without magic seemed determined to barrel ahead and set them off. "Did you even look before we came here?"
"No one said you had to stick around, dearie," Rumplestiltskin snapped back as he froze a monkey mid-air, sending it spiralling back through the trees and out of sight. He spun around, a magical shield blocking a fireball that had come out of nowhere and he hit yet another screeching creature with a particularly nasty curse, watching as it disintegrated into a pile of ash on the forest floor.
"Rumplestiltskin, can't you change them back like you did Hook?" David called over and the sorcerer snorted.
The sorcerer shoved the irritation down hard, trying to look past it, but it didn't keep the bite out of his voice. "It never ceases to amaze me how many times you people try to simply ignore the price of magic." He dodged, feeling the price of the quick fix on his ankle as it twinged, but it was holding. He'd bought himself at least some time with the week and half between injuring it and spelling beck together. "Just because you don't know what it is -" he flicked his hand, two monkeys colliding into each other and falling to the ground in tangled limbs and tails that likely wouldn't be free for hours - "doesn't mean someone won't have to pay it. Nothing comes for free, dearie."
He turned, eyes widening as a monkey reached out for him, claws poised to rip at flesh, but it fell before it could reach him, an arrow protruding out of its back. Baelfire stood a few yards away with a lopsided smirk. "All magic comes with a price. Thanks, Pop. We hadn't heard."
Belle's pleasant laugh met his ears from where she'd loosed a trap she and Ruby had just set and a net captured several monkeys at once.
"Shouldn't your wife have been back with that damn fairy by now?" Regina called towards Charming. She and Robin were back to back, his arrows flying as quickly as her magic, and they seemed to be working surprisingly well together for the rocky start they'd begun with.
"We don't know how long it'll take Emma to undo that holding spell," Bae pointed out and Regina snorted.
"We could be here for days before they show up."
"Days? Really?" a new voice sounded and Emma Swan was glaring at her magic instructor almost as soon as they appeared in a flurry of fairy dust. The blonde did not look happy and Rumplestiltskin found her shifting her cold gaze towards him.
"Where's Glinda?" David asked, his sword - enchanted for just such an occasion - stopping a magical attack that would have left him writhing on the ground.
"Dead," Snow answered tightly. "Emma defeated Zelena, though. This can be won."
"You were supposed to go back to the Dark Castle."
Snow blinked innocently at her husband before loosing an arrow that pinned a monkey to a tree. "Was I?"
"Zelena's not dead or her spells would have unraveled by now," Rumplestiltskin pointed out, his eyes traveling skywards, looking for signs of Pan. He'd known Emma could do it and that if she would allow herself that she would do it. Sometimes all Storybrooke's savior needed was a push in the right direction and she could get the job done.
"No, but Glinda is most certainly dead," Blue snapped and the former Dark One leveled a glare at her.
"Now really isn't the time to be leveling your accusations all over again, is it, dearie?"
The fairy met his glare with one of her own, but she didn't matter. Not right now. His dark eyes moved up again, still searching until he found what he was sure he'd see. That was the sign. His father had never cared much for games he couldn't win, and there was no way he would win this one if he touched the ground anywhere near them. Regina's castle meant more to Zelena than it did to her impish cohort anyway, and he had no care to lose his life over its keeping.
Without either master there to control them, the wards and spells that were making their advance troublesome weakened considerably and Rumplestiltskin tugged hard on the various loose strings he'd been collecting from them. They unravelled, monkeys falling and flames dispersing into the air in the forms of smoke. The chaos ended abruptly and he let out a shaky breath, turning to make sure everyone was still in one piece. Bae was watching the end of the battle with a look that said he wasn't quite willing to believe it and Belle had turned to him, still standing close enough to the wolf that Ruby's eyes were on him as well. Charming and Snow were whole, the dark haired princess having escaped the event with Zelena without a scratch, and Emma was stalking towards him now. "Are we done?"
"Yes, your troops should have a clear pathway now. The castle will be empty," he answered after a moment. His mind was still so wrapped around the future - making sure that the words he was saying in the present were still accurate and that no small change, no sidestep by some nobody had shifted everything - that he didn't see the blow coming until it was too late. His magic kept him on his feet, but pain blossomed across the side of his face where Emma had laid a fairly solid blow, softened only by a very hastily thrown up guard that certainly hadn't kept her from connecting.
"Emma!" Charming called out to her. "What-"
"You better have a damn good explanation, Gold," she growled at him, looking like she might rear back for another blow and Rumplestiltskin took a step back.
"I'm sure he does, dear, though how much truth is in it remains to be seen," Blue answered haughtily.
"This really is not the time nor place," Rumple said as he motioned to the troops waiting for an order. He turned his gaze on David, Snow, and then Regina. "If you want the castle that you were all so eager to get back, I'd suggest you take it now, otherwise you will lose your window of opportunity and all of this will have been for nothing."
Charming met his expression carefully, obviously at a loss as to what his daughter and wife were so angry about, but he finally nodded. "Go," he told his general.
"David, you can't possibly put your faith in him now," Blue argued. "He-"
"His son and Belle are both here. He wouldn't risk their safety. Whatever happened, we'll deal with it, but for now Rumplestiltskin has earned enough of my trust to last until we get to a place where this can be worked out and we can make sure all the facts come to light."
The Blue Fairy bristled, but didn't argue with him.
"Papa, what's going on?" Bae's voice sounded from behind him and Rumple turned.
"Bae," he whispered, feeling the first pulls of uncertainty. Not in his actions, but in his son's own reaction to them. He reached a hand out to him, even as the younger man's brows knit in confusion and worry. "Whatever happens, whatever they say, I need you to trust me, son. Do you trust me, Bae?"
Turmoil raged behind dark eyes, but Baelfire took his hand. "Yeah, Papa. I trust you," he swore and Rumplestiltskin offered him a strained smile. He thought he could stay above water in all of this, but he'd need Bae and Belle by his side. As long as he had them, he could face anything.
TBC
Notes: Next time - Maurice is found to be amongst the missing and Rumplestiltskin's fate is decided.