She got Henry back to the mayor's house before morning; if Regina noticed he'd been gone in the night, it didn't show when she dropped him off at school that morning.
After making sure Henry wasn't in trouble and had arrived safely, Emma headed straight for Granny's and went up the stairs to August's room.
"August?" she said, knocking on the door. "It's me; I need to talk to you." He didn't respond, so she tried the handle. "Come on, just let me in."
The door opened suddenly, almost causing her to fall. She balked when she saw August; his skin was shiny with sweat, and there were dark circles under his eyes.
"You look awful," she said.
"You don't look much better." He shut the door and stiffly walked back to his bed. "What did you want to talk about?"
"I want you to show me your leg again."
"What?"
"Show me what you tried to show me last night."
Realization dawned on his face. "Someone got through to you."
"Just show me!"
Carefully he bent over and pushed up the soft leg of his pajama pants, revealing the glossy varnished leg underneath it. He didn't have to look at Emma to know she saw it this time; the audible gasp was enough.
"So you believe."
"I do," she said, her face white with fear. "And I have no idea what I'm supposed to do." Her voice broke on the last word, and August got up from the bed and wrapped his arms around her.
"Hey, don't worry about that yet. We'll start with what we know first." He pulled away so he could look at her face. "Come on, let's get some food, and we'll come back here and go over it all."
Emma gave August a look and pushed him back onto the bed. "You are not going anywhere. I will get food and be back here in ten minutes."
High noon found them still in his bedroom; August lay in bed as he studied his notebooks while Emma paced back and forth, nursing a hot chocolate and digesting the new information he'd read to her.
"This makes no sense, August. No sense at all."
"What, that you're the sole savior of an entire world made up of fairytale characters?"
"No! Well, yeah, but…" She paused to take a drink. "What can I do? I don't know how to use magic."
"As far as I can tell, all the research I've done…" August rubbed his hand over his chin. "It has to be something only you can do. You're the savior, so the way to break the curse is—" He gasped and fell back against his pillows, legs convulsing.
"August? August!" Emma ran over and grabbed his arm.
"I'm OK," he gasped. As the spasms died down, he breathed heavily, wincing with each movement. "The only way to break the curse…is to do something no one but you would do." He closed his eyes, leaning back into the pillows. "And whatever it is, you'd better do it fast."