Chapter Fifty-Eight—"Safe Conduct"

People were frightened, and frightened people often did foolish things. Or they lashed out, even at those who were closest to them. Fear was a powerful force that often overcame even the innate goodness in those who were better than their actions on days like these would suggest. Snow couldn't blame them for that. After all, she had had a few dark moments in her own life, moments where fear drove her to do things she regretted. She tried to learn from those moments and to be better, but she could not blame others who had not yet been able to learn those lessons.

Still, at the moment, she wished it would make them shout less. Baby Graham had quite a set of lungs on him, but compared to the pandemonium being created by the nobles and royals who thought themselves key members of the Grand Alliance, he was downright quiet and meek. Even his worst moments hadn't been this loud, and Snow couldn't begin to make sense out of the shouting, finger pointing, and outright terror currently filling the largest ballroom in her castle. It probably didn't help that there weren't enough chairs for everyone; in her experience, lackluster accommodations always put people on edge. Royals and nobles were used to being treated with a certain amount of deference, and not being able to sit down for a meeting only made them testy.

Of course, that couldn't be helped. The great hall had taken a bit of a beating during Rumplestiltskin's fight with the Black Fairy; one of its walls had caved in and buried a lot of chairs and other luxury items with it. Emma and Regina had managed to repair most of the hall—and Snow thought that even Baelfire had helped there—but she'd still moved this impromptu meeting into the ballroom to avoid the remnants of the destruction. After all, she hadn't expected to hold a meeting today since they weren't scheduled to do so at all for another two days. But the attack on Leah's hunting party had changed things, particularly since one of the smaller hunting parties had nearly had the same experience, only to escape by the skin of their teeth and the quick thinking of Jafar—who had been, for some reason, invited along by Midas' youngest daughter. I don't think I want to know about that one. Tinker Bell had also been along on that hunt, and between the two of them, they'd gotten everyone to safety.

Still, the suddenness of the attacks had left everyone reeling, particularly since the fae had then been so audacious to attempt to flatten Snow and Charming's own castle, an attack that Rumplestiltskin had fortunately stopped. The Sugar Plum Fairy had gathered several of her sisters to help fix the damage that attack had done, too, and Snow thought everything was over…but even she felt the whispers of terror gathering in the pit of her stomach. Listening to everyone else demonstrate their fear wasn't particularly growing her confidence, either.

Snow squared her shoulders and stepped forward, anyway. She and Charming had been the leaders of the Grand Alliance from the beginning, and Snow would not shirk those responsibilities now.

"Everyone, please, calm down," she started in her most authoritative voice. Soothing though she might prefer to be, no one got anywhere by trying to soothe Queen Leah, and Leah was in full form now that she'd gotten over being thoroughly snubbed by Philip. "I know that much has happened in the last few hours, but shouting at one another will get us nowhere."

"Says the queen whose hunting party escaped completely unscathed," the former King George snapped, and Snow resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Perhaps we ought to worry about what other unholy alliances you and your husband have made. Perhaps you're not limiting yourselves to just the former Dark One."

"You're one to talk," Charming cut in forcefully, and for once, Snow couldn't blame him for his lack of tact. "And stick to the facts, will you? You might have noticed that our castle was almost flattened in an attack just this morning."

George scowled, but King Midas got in before he could argue further. "Queen Snow is right. These attacks are clearly meant to divide us, and I, for one, will not give the Black Fairy the satisfaction of seeing me turn on my allies simply because her fae have committed atrocities. Please tell me that I am not the only one in the room that understands that the fae are making war against humanity. Last I checked, that applies to everyone in this room."

Heads nodded, but predictably, it as Queen Leah who took Midas' argument to extremes:

"Yes," she snapped. "They are attacking us humans, but no one is asking themselves why. And that answer, my lords and ladies, is far simpler than you want to accept. Those vile sorcerers some of you are so foolish to call friends have unsettled the balance. They must be exterminated, and failing that, confined—"

"Are you really going to go down that road again?" Emma demanded before anyone else could speak up. "Locking up the people who are going to protect you isn't going to earn you any friends—and if you think that the Blue Fairy's going to stick her neck out for you with the rest of us gone, you've got another thing coming." Snow's daughter snorted and rolled her eyes. "And I'd like to see you try to lock us up. Or exterminate us like irksome rapid animals."

"So would I," Regina spoke up. Snow hadn't even known when her stepmother had arrived; she'd been helping bring back the bodies from the attack on Leah's hunting party, and must have slipped in when Snow wasn't looking.

"Going to war against our own kind is not the answer," Snow said forcefully before Regina could say something that would set Leah off. "Blue has already promised to help humanity against the fae. I know that weathering such attacks is hard, but if we remain strong, we will win. Any talk of extermination or imprisonment will not be tolerated at this council."

"And if I demand a vote on the issue?" Leah looked Snow straight in the eye, and Snow could feel hatred radiating from the older woman.

"You're going to want to read this first," Philip interjected. Like Regina, he'd arrived late, and Aurora's widower really did look like hell. Snow wanted to reach out and hug him, but Philip was looking steadily at his mother in law, holding a folded piece of paper out to her. His expression was unreadable; there was something lurking underneath the howling grief Snow could feel radiating off of him, but Snow couldn't tell what.

Leah glared at Philip, but took the note anyway, and Snow watched her face grow ashen as she read it. Philip explained to the Council:

"The ancestral summer palace in my late wife's kingdom has been destroyed by an attack by the fae. Everyone inside has perished."

A cold wind whipping around the room could not have made more people shiver. Snow knew that King Stefan's largest castle was still being rebuilt after the battle there almost a year earlier, but the summer palace in that kingdom had been widely known as the oldest and most beautiful castle in the entire Enchanted Forest. It was the castle where Stefan had married Leah, where Aurora had been felled by a sleeping curse, and then the castle where Philip and Aurora had eventually married as well. That was also where Philip and Aurora had been ruling their combined kingdoms from…and where Philip would have left his young son had Aurora not insisted on bringing the child along.

"There's naught but rubble left," Philip finished tonelessly. "The only survivor was chosen by the fae to bring that message here."

"What does it say?" Snow had to ask, much though she wished she could just let Philip grieve.

But it was Leah who replied, her tone sharp and furious. "It says that those who ally with the fairies will be punished."

As one, almost everyone in the room turned to stare at the fairies that were present, led by Tink and the Sugar Plum Fairy. Tink stared back with wide eyes as the hostility in the room grew strong enough to taste, and Snow groped frantically for words to set the others at ease. Leah had tried to turn them against magic users in their fear, but what if they turned on the fairies instead? Oh, Snow had little love left for Blue these days, but Tink and the others who followed her were trying to help, and they needed that help. Surely the others could see that! These people were supposed to be the wisest and the strongest in the Enchanted Forest…and fear made people do foolish things.

"Rubbish," a new voice interjected, and heads snapped around to stare at the man in the room who loved fairies the least. Rumplestiltskin shrugged as if he'd not threatened to kill the Blue Fairy just a few days earlier. "Don't let Danns' a'Bhàis manipulate you all as if you were puppets on her strings. She's playing the lot of you."

"What do you mean?" Thankfully, it was Princess Abigail who spoke up and not someone more antagonistic.

"I mean that history has proven one thing. Neither the Black Fairy nor the Blue Fairy can gain complete ascendance over the other without an external power to prop them up. Nor can humanity hope to defeat either one without the other. Danns will divide us if she can, and keep humanity from allying with the fairies if she cannot, because she can't take both sides on at once. Divide and conquer." Rumplestiltskin gestured airily. "A tried and true method for defeating your enemies. Let them defeat themselves while you watch."

"We're not —" Leah started to interject hotly, but Rumplestiltskin laughed at her.

"Aren't you, dearie?"

No, Snow's fellow grandparent wasn't good at making friends, but he was good at throwing a bucket of ice water on people frightened into being fools. Snow supposed she should be grateful for that, because at least Rumplestiltskin shut his mouth when he was done and let her start knitting things back together again. The next few hours of the meeting were anything but enjoyable; it took all of Snow's diplomatic prowess to bring even a slender majority around to the thought that a united front really was what they needed. Locking human magic users up to placate the fairies was off the table. A genocidal war against the fae was as impractical as it was wrong. Only by being strong and by working together—and with those fairies that would work with them—could they hope to survive the darkness that always came before the dawn.

She had some unexpected help on that front. Slowly, one sorcerer after another stepped forward to volunteer help, even those who had kept to the shadows during the last few centuries, and even some who had managed to sidestep Regina's curse and remain in the Enchanted Forest. They spoke of weaving protective spells on places that humans could find shelter in every kingdom, and ever so slowly, a plan to defend themselves against the fae started to come together.

Being teleported always made Belle's stomach twist a little uneasily, but today seemed to hit her worse than it had in months. Or perhaps that was just a side effect of looking at the destruction in front of her; it was certainly enough to make her queasy. Her hand held tight in Rumplestiltskin's, Belle could only stare at the Dark Castle as they appeared in the courtyard of their home.

She could feel the tension in her beloved, too, could sense the fury whipping through him like a wildfire. The Black Fairy had attacked their castle while he was not present to defend it, and Belle knew there were few things that could anger Rumplestiltskin so badly as an enemy attempting to destroy his home or take his things. He had a good hold on his temper, though. For the moment. His knuckles might have been white where he gripped her hand tightly, and his shoulders might have been so stiff that he could have been made of stone, but no magical explosion was forthcoming.

But Belle couldn't blame Rumplestiltskin for his anger. Although the Dark Castle was still standing and even mostly intact, it looked like a giant hand had reached down from the sky and drilled into the castle's very foundations. A large piece of the slate roof lay on the ground inside the courtyard, almost broken in half by the impact but not quite. Stones from the front face of the castle lay strewn about everywhere, singed and shattered as if that giant hand had been made of molten fire. A little smoke even wafted out of the hole, and Belle could smell burnt cloth and wood as they picked their way over the rubble. She tripped twice, only to be caught by Rumplestiltskin. He smiled tightly, but neither spoke; they were still too shocked.

Instinctively, Belle kept hold of Rumple's hand. There was no knowing what stray magic was lying around amidst the destruction…but even Belle could feel that something about the entire castle was off.

Slowly, they stepped through the main doors, both glancing up at the hole in the wall above them before doing so. But the giant wooden doors did still open at a wave of Rumplestiltskin's left hand, not even creaking in protest. Still silent, they made their way through the entrance hall, which was strangely intact. Given the destruction outside, Belle would have expected the entryway to be trashed, but it looked just as it had when they left, at least if one could ignore the smell coming from further in the castle. Perhaps things aren't as bad as they look, Belle tried to tell herself, but Rumple's tension screamed a different story.

Then the doors to the great hall opened, and Belle's optimism vanished.

Here was the devastation she had expected. The long wooden table was overturned, and two chairs were broken in half. Her favorite chaise had a hole burned in it, and the two display pedestals on the front left side of the hall were absolutely melted. Several tapestries were singed and one was half roasted away; next to that one was a pair of shattered windows and a painting that had liquefied inside its frame. One cabinet of knickknacks or precious magical artifacts (Belle had never been able to tell the difference) had been upended and looked broken, too. She could see Rumplestiltskin's eyes sweeping over his collection of belongings, cataloging what else might be missing and deciding what needed to be fixed first, but his pinched expression had nothing to do with the collection he'd amassed over so many centuries.

In truth, Belle wasn't even sure if the smoking crater in the floor was what angered him so much, or if it was the fact that they both knew where that crater led. Slowly, they stepped up to the edge together, still holding onto one another tightly. Belle had never seen the inside of Rumple's private vault before, but she did now; the crater was actually a tunnel, a gaping hole that led all the way down into the most secure place in the entire castle, the one place Rumplestiltskin had known the Dark One's dagger would be safe.

"Well," her love said slowly. "I expected it to be worse, actually."

"You expected worse?" Belle echoed incredulously, glancing up to stare at Rumplestiltskin before looking back down into the abyss. She could see neat cabinets and sealed chests, all carefully organized and warded against intrusion. But she couldn't see the one box they both knew had been the Black Fairy's target, and Belle felt a sinking feeling press down upon her. She had been so confident that using Circe's bones to shield the dagger would work, but all that had done in the end was give the Black Fairy an excuse to rip a hole in their home.

Rumplestiltskin shrugged, distracting Belle from blaming herself. "With the power she used, she could have done much more damage."

"Like Leah's castle," Belle knew. The fae had destroyed that outright and destroyed everyone inside. They had tried to do the same with Snow and David's castle, too. At least the Dark Castle was still standing. The Black Fairy must have focused all of her power on freeing the dagger.

"Yes."

"Can you fix it?" Belle asked quietly, knowing that Rumplestiltskin would never admit what the Dark Castle meant to him, probably not even to her. He wasn't one for acknowledging more than a superficial attachment to anything, but the castle was home.

"I can and I shall," Rumplestiltskin replied, his voice still tense despite what Belle could tell was a studious attempt to sound like he hardly cared. Belle squeezed his hand.

"Now?" She knew that frown.

That finally earned her a crooked smile. "You know me too well, sweetheart," her fiancé replied. "Though do think I'll be reworking the wards just a little while I'm at it."

"How?" she wondered curiously.

"The Janus Stone." There it was, the distant look in Rumplestiltskin's eyes that told Belle he was already working magic. "If Danns can use a secondary power to break through, I can use one to prevent her from doing it again."

Belle wasn't sure how comfortable she was with Rumple's now habitual use of the Black Fairy's first name, but oddity that could be discussed another day. Right now, they had many more important concerns. She sighed heavily, knowing what mattered more to Rumplestiltskin than the castle. "But that won't get the dagger back."

"No." His face darkened.

"What will you do?"

"Rebuild the castle." Anger danced in his eyes alongside grim purpose. "And then I will deal with the Black Fairy."

Reconstituting the shattered ashes of the Dark Castle took far less time than Belle would have expected. Rumple was even willing to chat with her as his magic went to work, although he wouldn't let her go check on her library until he was certain that the castle was structurally sound. She did head up there, however, the moment Rumplestiltskin let her. Meanwhile, he began meticulously rebuilding his broken wards, a task that occupied his entire attention and Belle could do nothing to help with. She understood magic in a theoretical sense better than most sorcerers, but she'd never had much aptitude for it. Oh, she supposed that she'd ask Rumple to teach her a small spell or two one of these days—Belle did love learning, and she knew that anyone could do minor magic—but she was content to let him handle the power.

So, she spent a few pleasant hours reading while he worked on the wards, but even Belle could feel the slight vibration in the walls as Rumplestiltskin amplified his magic through the Janus Stone, linking that ancient power to the Dark Castle and then burying it deep within the castle's foundations. It made for a strange taste in the air, that connection, one that made the Dark Castle feel more magical and strange than it had even to Belle when she'd first come there. Back before she'd been used to the castle's interesting aura, Belle had found it rather creepy. Later, that very feeling had become comforting, so she supposed she'd grow used to the changed ambiance. The difference was minor enough that by the time Belle opened her third book, she'd all but forgotten about it.

Belle was deep in the fifth book by the time Rumplestiltskin found her in the library, and by then she was researching other ways to break the Dark One's dagger out of the Black Fairy's control.

"Find anything interesting?" he asked, but if Rumplestiltskin hadn't dropped a kiss on the top of her head, Belle might not have heard him at all.

"Hmm?" she muttered, and then shook herself, looking up from Magical Artifacts from Before Time with a warm smile. "A few things. Can we bring these books back with us?"

"Of course—" Then Rumplestiltskin seemed to notice how very many books were in the stack she was indicating. "You mean all of them?"

Belle threw him an innocently pleading look. "Well, it won't do me much good if I forget the one I wind up needing."

"One of these days, I'm just going to make you a portal to the library," he groused, but Belle could see that Rumple wasn't really angry. Or not at her, anyway. Plenty of fury still lurked beneath the surface.

"Can you do that?" Belle couldn't help it if her voice was eager. It would be so useful if she could get back to the Dark Castle's library at any time! Regina's library was all but useless—Belle had read everything in it years ago—and neither Snow or Charming was much of a reader. She didn't mind spending time with the rest of the family, really, but she missed her library.

"I don't see why—oh, hello, dearie. Where did you come from?"

A raven, so black and shiny that it was almost purple, had landed on the windowsill near Belle, and she twisted to look at it as Rumplestiltskin cut off whatever he was going to say. She'd opened the windows earlier to air the smoky smell out of the library (it was horrible for the books), but now an unexpected visitor had taken advantage of that. The bird was staring at Rumplestiltskin like it knew who he was, and it held a folded piece of parchment loosely in its left claw. Rumplestiltskin, of course, immediately stepped forward to retrieve the message. Belle unfolded from her chair to stand next to him, reading over his shoulder. At first, she'd feared that it was word of danger from Snow, who had been known to send messages with birds, but Belle didn't recognize the handwriting.

The hand that had written the note was heavy, and the script terribly old fashioned. But the words were simple:

You are invited, under a flag of truce, to the Vault of the Dark One. Bring that beauty you are so in love with. She will want to see this as well.

- Danns.

They were not the only ones who received a note like that. The Black Fairy invited her most implacable enemies to the Vault of the Dark One, magic users and political leaders both. Tink's message was the most simple:

Come to the Vault of the Dark One, cousin, and come in peace.

Emma's was more complicated, ending with:

Bring your husband and your boy. Today the Truest Believer is in no danger from me or mine.

Snow and David received one, too, but that hardly mattered since they had been with Regina when she read her own note. Robin refused to let Regina leave without him to watch her back, so she brought her lover and the Charmings with her, following the slight magical trail on the note designed to lead them all straight to the Vault of the Dark One. After all, neither Regina nor Emma had ever been there before, and truth be told, even Rumplestiltskin wasn't exactly sure where the Vault was located. Danns had known that, and she provided a harmless way to direct those she invited.

The trap, of course, was not in the magical pull they followed, and was not designed to be sprung before anyone arrived. Danns meant most of them no harm; she truly did desire an audience for that magic which she intended to perform. She even invited her sister, knowing that the Blue Fairy would not be able to stop her in time, no matter how hard she tried. After all, the path all but one of her invitees followed was designed to take precious seconds longer than necessary…and those who arrived early had no way to stop her.

Regina's note had provided no guarantee of safe conduct.

A/N: I hate to beg for reviews, but if you're still reading and enjoying this story, please give drop me a line and let me know! There's not too much left in the story, but I do so love to hear from everyone. Particularly, in this case, what kind of trouble you think faces Regina.

Stay tuned for Chapter Fifty-Nine: "A Life for a Life", where Maleficent faces the consequences of her choices, Regina makes an unexpected request, and Zoso returns.