Bae heard Silver calling after him to come back and ignored her. Then he heard Mehitabel.

No pleas to come back from her. Her voice was calm and practical.

"Remember, boy, keep to the shadows! And don't leave yourself open when you stab someone!"

He wondered what his father would think of Mehitabel.

His father.

The wizard Tom had been trying to get him to was his father.

Tom hadn't said anything about him not being human.

But, then, Tom hadn't said anything about him and his sister not being human either. Or half his family being Goblins. Or his friend Silver being a cat. Or a witch. Or whatever she was.

Bae had a feeling things like that slipped Tom's mind.

Then, he remembered the ring Captain Roberts had given him. He made his hand into a fist, trying to feel his way into making a spell. Or whatever Goblins did.

Feel the coming of death.

He tried to picture that, not sure if he would even recognize the feeling when it came –

Papa.

He saw his father.

Only, it wasn't his father. Not the way he'd last seen him.

He was human again. But not the Papa Bae remembered. There was coldness in his face that wasn't like Papa before he was cursed – but it wasn't like him after the curse, either. His clothes were strange, finely made, silk, not linen or wool. Bae didn't think even the Duke had clothes as fine.

And there were two women. One had maple brown hair. She was lying on the ground, blue eyes staring blankly at the night sky.

She was dead.

There was blood on his father's hands.

The other woman reminded him a little of Siri, with her jet black hair and eyes and her alabaster skin. She had a cruel, triumphant smile.

She was holding the dagger – his father's dagger – and driving it through his heart.

The vision vanished.

Bae stopped. He felt drops of ice water on the palm of his hand. The ring seemed about the same size, but he must have lost some of it.

Death.

Approaching death.

It hadn't happened yet – couldn't have happened yet.

There was a feeling left by what he'd seen, he realized. It felt – it felt like the time he had stood up on a hill during the spring floods and seen debris blocking the stream while the water rose higher behind it.

Then, he'd seen the debris swept aside and the flood come crashing down after.

That time, there'd been no real harm done. This had been miles away from the town. The water had crashed into the small pond where the shepherds would be bringing the sheep for the shearing, to wash the wool while the sheep grazed, but no one was there now.

But, the memory burned in Bae's mind, the building force, the crash as it swept everything opposing it away.

It felt the same. He could feel death building. Soon, it would strike.

But, it hadn't. Not yet.

Bae ran.

X

Regina smiled as the sun set.

She had almost forgotten the annoying Mr. Rosa – had forgotten him until the curse had broken – and she was going to dearly enjoy forcing Gold into telling her how he'd managed that.

But not if it got in the way of killing him.

He had been so . . . uncooperative when she'd asked him for help – such a very little bit of help, too, just a little something so she could cast spells again, now magic was back. She'd even threatened him, pointing out how much trouble it might cause if people knew their home was still there – and that Mr. Gold was at least as responsible as she was for their not going back.

But, Gold had simply sneered at her. He had other things to worry about, he told her. Even finding out his please no longer affected her hadn't left him nonplussed for more than a moment or two.

"So, that bit of magic doesn't work anymore, does it? Too bad, dearie, it would be annoying to all of us if I had to resort to some other magic that does. Before I do that, I suggest you leave. Please."

And, Regina, seeing the look in his eyes, had fled.

He'd told her he wasn't going to kill her. He'd promised that little slave of his, Belle. Regina still didn't know how he'd found her. Something he'd built into the curse? An extra bit of magic telling him everything he needed to know about this new Storybrooke now that magic was restored?

Or had he known all along and just been playing with her?

She remembered when she and Swan had had to go for him for help to save Henry – and he had been ready for them.

Had been ready, his pieces set in place, for twenty-eight years.

She remembered him sitting in his cell after beating Moe French within an inch of his life, bargaining with her for the return of his one little memento of the girl she'd told him had died a lifetime ago. She'd been so thrilled at beating him for once, knowing he didn't even suspect the card she still held hidden away, the supposedly dead girl herself (and she would die, Regina had told herself, at some moment when she needed Rumplestiltskin at his weakest, when she would hand over his lover's corpse).

He had warned her then. This changed nothing between them, he said. He was still the one with the power.

She had smirked, thinking he didn't know how wrong he was.

But, Rumplestiltskin prided himself on never lying.

Had he known about the girl even then?

Had he been content to wait all those years just to snatch her pawn away at the last moment?

Well, he would pay for it now.

He wouldn't have seen this coming.

That white haired girl, whatever she was, had been a source of magic – difficult magic, tricky to use, every spell she'd tried to cast with the bits and pieces she'd taken from her trying to reshape itself into ice and moonlight.

But, Mr. Rosa had left a single strand of hair behind when he had rescued his lady love (if she was a lady, which Regina doubted).

It hadn't been much, just enough for Regina to get an idea what his own flesh and blood might be good for if she wove it into her spells. The white haired girl would have been infinitely more useful.

But, she had seen a special use for Mr. Rosa's blood all the same.

Whale had been amenable once she told him his own world still existed and, yes, she knew how to find the way back (that that way involved using a currently torn and useless hat was something she saw no reason to explain to him). Pity, Mt. Rose had hurt him so badly, along with two of the other men she'd sent.

But, one, Mr. Crow (an old servant of Maleficent's) had made it back, along with a cloth well soaked with Rosa's blood (Whale had meant to put a needle in him and fill up a few blood donation sacks, but what Crow had given her should be enough).

She didn't understand what Mr. Rosa was or all the vagaries of his odd magic, but she knew this blood could be used to show her the one thing she needed: death.

Gold's death.

She'd learned the heart of it years ago, even if she'd never learned the secret of how.

There was one way to kill Gold. Not just kill him but steal his powers as he died.

She took the blood soaked cloth, knowing, unlike the other spells she'd tried since magic's return, this one would work.

Show me, she told it, show me how to finish off that back stabbing imp. Show me how to make him suffer, to take everything he has. Show me where to find the secret of his death.