Regina's first impulse was to sneak in at night, but Robin laughed shook his head when she suggested that.
"We'll wait until morning," he said.
"Why?" Regina asked. "Won't we be seen?"
Robin nodded. "Of course we'll be seen, but we won't be noticed. The gates to the castle will be open during the day. We can simply pretend to be peasants on our way to deliver ... I don't know, something the king might need. They'll let us right in through the front door."
Regina was skepical, but his plan worked. No one looked twice at them as they passed through the gates carrying baskets of freshly-picked apples that they abandoned as soon as they were inside. Grinning in triumph, they made their way to the stables together.
The soft, musky scent of straw and horses came rushing over Regina as they entered. For a moment, she was taken back to Daniel, to the feel of his lips on hers and the horrible thud his body made as it hit the ground. Soon after the wedding, she had learned that King Leopold would not allow her to ride the way that she liked, bareback and wild, as if she might sprout wings and fly away mid-gallop. Even that illusion of freedom had been taken from her, and since then, she had avoided the stables. They only brought painful memories to her.
"Now all we need to do is find that horse and get out of here," Robin said. "But ... which one is it?"
He was right; there were a lot of horses here, and they were each graceful and majestic enough to be a king's prized steed. No doubt many of them were. But as Regina glanced back and forth, one horse in particular caught her eye. She couldn't tell why at first glance; it looked like the most average of all of them here, a small, dusty-brown horse with a mane that could almost be described as shaggy. It pawed at the ground and snorted impatiently. In its eyes was a glint of something Regina couldn't quite name.
That was it, she realized. It didn't belong here, not because it was too ordinary, but because it didn't want to be caged. But did that make it the horse they were looking for?
All of a sudden, a sound broke through her thoughts. She and Robin turned at once to see a young boy, no older than sixteen, standing in the doorway to the stable.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
Regina didn't think. She just felt. She focused on the anger inside of her until she couldn't contain it anymore. At once, she vanished in a puff of purple smoke and reappeared right beside the intruder. Another second later, she had plunged her hand into his chest and yanked out his heart. Red, beating, and alive. For now.
"Regina!" Robin's vocie was a whispered shout. She turned to face him and saw horror in his eyes.
"So the rumors are true," he said. "You're a witch."
"I'm learning magic, yes," said Regina. He opened his mouth to speak again, but she cut him off. "Lecture me later, if you must."
She turned back to the boy and gave his heart a gentle squeeze. Not enough to hurt him, but just enough to make him gasp and clutch at his chest. If she squeezed a bit harder, he would be on his knees.
"Which one of these is the king's most valuable steed?" she demanded. "Which one is the enchanted horse? Tell me!"
She wasn't quite sure yet how to use his heart to command him, but the fear seemed to be enough on its own. He lifted a hand and pointed directly at the horse she had noticed a few minutes before.
"Please don't hurt me," the boy begged.
Looking down at the heart in her hand, Regina knew that she had only two options. She could let him go and warn his king. Or she could crush it into ash. It wouldn't be the first time she had taken a life this way; the memory of a dead apprentice and ashes slipping through her fingers was still sharp in her mind. But to kill an innocent boy here in the stables was another matter entirely.
To her surprise, a gentle hand touched her arm. "Let him go," Robin murmured.
"We can't!" Regina protested. "We let him go and this whole castle will know we're here."
"I won't tell anyone, I swear," sobbed the boy.
"There, you see?" said Robin. "Anyway, once we have the horse, we'll be out of here before anyone can stop us. How fast did your stepdaughter say it could run?"
Faster than the wind, if the rumors were to be believed. Regina looked from Robin to the horse to the terrified teenage boy and finally to the heart she still held in her hand, pulsing red. Steeling herself, she made up her mind. She gritted her teeth and found her anger again, and her fingers clenched around the heart, squeezing it until the boy was writing on the floor in pain. She turned away from Robin's disappointed face. Then, bending down beside the stable boy, she plunged the glowing heart back into his chest.
"You'll live," she said, pulling her hand away. "You can thank a man named Daniel for that. But if you betray us, I will come back for you, and I will crush your heart into ash. Do you understand?"
He gasped and nodded, tears still running down his face. But then she stood and turned her back to him. Robin looked back at her, shocked and confused.
"Regina ..."
"Later," she said shortly. "We need to get out of here now."
They said that King George's horse could run faster than the wind. Whether that was true or not, it could certainly run faster than any other horse Regina had ever been on. Robin sat behind her with his arms wrapped tightly around her as the forest around them rushed by in a blur. Before long, the forest began to look familiar. They couldn't have been riding more than half an hour, but they were already back by the stream they had passed close to Leopold's castle. Regina reigned the horse in, and it slowed its pace to a slow gallop before finally skidding to a halt.
"Let's stop here before we go back," she said, and Robin nodded.
They both slid off of the horse's back, and Regina looped the reigns around the branch of a nearby tree to keep him from running off. She bent down beside the stream to drink and then sat down on the bank, and Robin did the same.
"I suppose we need to talk," she said at last.
He nodded. "That we do. How long have you been practicing magic?"
She paused for a moment, wondering how much to say. But Tinkerbell had said that he was her soul mate, so surely he would accept the truth?
"Just before the wedding, I was desperate for a way out," she said. "I summoned a man called Rumplestiltskin, thinking he could help me, but things didn't exactly go the way I planned. He said he could teach me magic, and I said yes. I hoped I could ..."
"What?" he prompted when she grew quiet. "You can tell me anything."
"I hoped I could learn to bring back the dead," she admitted.
"You lost someone?" his voice was gentle now.
"His name was Daniel," she said. "And I loved him. But my mother wanted me to marry well, and he was just a commoner. A stable boy."
"He's the one who taught you about horses?" Robin guessed. "I can see you have a great deal of skill with them."
Regina nodded.
"So he's the reason you spared that boy's life."
"I never wanted to be like my mother," said Regina. "But sometimes I worry that it's too late for that."
"Because you're learning dark magic," said Robin. "Can't you just stop?"
Regina let out a frustrated sigh and shook her head. "It's not that simple. Rumple says -"
"Why care what he thinks?" Robin cut in.
"Because it's true!" said Regina, choking back tears. "My anger is all I have! I'm trapped in that castle like a bird in a golden cage, and even if I wanted to start over, I could never get away."
Robin blinked, and a thoughtful expression appeared on his face.
"What if you could?"
Regina laughed humorlessly. "That's not even possible. The king will never let me go, and now that the darkness has gotten ahold of me ..."
"But what if you had a chance to leave all that behind?" Robin asked. "Would you take it?"
Regina just stared back at him for a long moment. He couldn't possibly know that at this very moment she was struggling with that exact question. She caught a glimpse of the lion tattoo on his arm and remembered how she had nearly run from him, how she might still run from him now.
"I don't know," she admitted.
"Well," he said, "I do have an idea, if you'd like to hear it."