Chapter 17:
Predictions, Prevarication, & Pleas
Madame Symona's Portal to the Divine
Sunday afternoon…
Madame Sybil de Fayke, a.k.a. Symona D'Faux, struggled to find a way to safely undo the mess she had caused. But anything that she could think of – getting her hair done at the salon and slipping a note of warning along with her tip into the stylist's hands, 'accidentally bumping' into Princess Ella outside of church services, crashing Hatter's Sunday tea party and offering a free reading to his girl – were all out of the ordinary for her and certain to tip off Stromboli and his vermin as to what she was up to.
It was not until Pierre Astin showed up for his weekly tarot reading that a plan began to form in her mind. It would require all of her cunning, her knowledge of psychic lore, and skills as a show woman to pull it off. But it was not impossible.
Pierre Astin, a.k.a. Starkey, was a sailor and one of the most superstitious in Storybrooke. To cover all his bases, Pierre attended morning mass and then came to see her, wanting the favor of any Powers-that-be that might give one fig about him. This quirk of his was well-known, so no one would question her seeing the former first mate of the Jolly Roger. A bonus was that he was easily suggestible.
While he 'opened' himself to the spirit's guidance, she shuffled her tarot deck and had him 'pick' five cards – the five of her choosing, of course. This was not a matter to be left to a pirate's whimsy. She then dealt them as the spirit's 'led' her, dramatically revealing the portent images as she went.
The first, the one closest to Pierre, depicted a young woman leaping with a sword. The next two contained dark portents. The card to his left depicted a female figure barefoot, dressed in rags, bound and blind-folded, surrounded by eight swords, and standing on a rocky, stormy shore. The card to his right displayed a hooded figure straddling a wall and holding five swords in his arms, while leaving two others behind him in a tented camp. Above these two was a card that boldly but starkly portrayed a heart pierced by three blades amidst a downpour of rain. The final card, above that, displayed a heart-bejeweled cup overflowing with water and light radiating out.
She gazed at them in contemplative silence, before murmuring as if to herself, "Strange…"
As his readings had never had any ominous peculiarities before, (for he had a rather banal existence since forswearing his piratical ways), this one word had Pierre on the edge of his seat, anxiously asking, "What?"
"The cards," she explained, her mannerisms becoming more intense with each word, as if she was vibrating with barely restrained excitement. "The placement is unusual. Normally, in this shape it is ten cards. But it is only five. Normally, with five cards, they are an arc or the four points of a compass with the fifth as the seeker card which represents you. And usually, the cross-beam is higher, so it forms a cross, but…"
She theatrically drifted off at the end, letting his imaginative mind fill in the blanks. He did not disappoint.
"Today, it is a reverse cross? An inverted cross? Is that … bad?"
She tsked and smiled sympathetically, "You have been with me long enough to know that I do not hold with this world's fear of opposing imagery, no?"
Pierre nodded, looking both relieved and abashed.
"But I do not see it that way. If you notice most of the cards are in the suit of the sword, so it is likely that it is a sword not a cross. I believe that this is significant. The sword represents intellect and communication…we must use our wit to interpret this correctly." She concluded this explanation by tapping her nose and praying he will eventually understand her meaning.
If anyone was listening to this via some electronic or magical bug, she hoped that they did not understand. But if someone was and decided to Google fact-check her interpretations, s/he would learn that they were all plausible and consistent with psychic lore. And hopefully, she would be able to avoid meeting the sticky end that Driver promised.
She then hemmed and hawed and muttered a few "Aha's", before saying, "This is a story. You are not the subject, but you, your intellect and your ability to communicate with that clever tongue of yours, play a pivotal role in the outcome."
"How do you figure?" was her client's skeptical reply.
"I'm glad you ask." She grinned girlishly. "I love a good story, and I so rarely get to tell one. All people ever want to know is answers to the most mundane of questions." At his impatient shifting at her prattling, she resumed her explanation, "The handle here is the subject, the holder of the tale, and is the Page of Swords, which sometimes represents someone in our lives who is younger and has a tendency to stick their nose in where they do not belong…"
She let him consider a few possibilities and then continued, "The 'hilt' or 'cross-guard' is rather menacing. A little known fact of sword-craft is that this cross-section was meant to keep the hand from slipping forward, more than to protect from an opponent's blade. But of course you knew that being the once-upon-a-time swashbuckler that you were." While he preened at her flattery, she got down to business, "Anyways, I bring this up and say 'menacing' because of the imagery on this first card, the Eight of Swords. It is an image of entrapment. I believe that our page here is experiencing some sort of restriction, possibly as a result of their acts of prying."
"And the Seven of Swords?"
"This is the card of the Trickster." She hesitated for a moment, not for dramatic effect, but more because this is where it got, well, tricky. She begged the spirits that she wasn't being too obvious, and then opened her big fat mouth. "It often predicts a loss caused by cunning, which could be that of another person who cons you or could be your own trickery that leads to your undoing. But since this is the page's story and this is the second card of the hilt, I lean more towards the latter."
"So this page, who is a nosy busybody, is paying for his/her crimes by being restricted in forward movement?" Her client mused aloud, either to seek clarification or to more easily sort out the meaning for himself.
She treated it as if it was the former, but neither confirmed or denied as now was the time for her to be her typical ambiguous Seer-self, only stating with a casual shrug, "Possibly."
Not liking that, Pierre eyed her sharply, querying shrewdly, "And I come in how, chéri?"
She hedged and prevaricated with a vague cliché of her profession, "Ah…That is not for me to tell you. But for you to figure out."
Pierre slumped and grumbled, "I hate riddles."
Sybil made a sympathetic clucking noise and reached across the table. Placing her hand on his arm, she declared with conviction, "I have faith in you."
When she was certain he was ready to hear more, she pointed to the last card. "This is interesting. The tip of the sword, the pointy end which goes into the other guy – " (Pierre jolted at that. Something in her words held great significance to him, like an old memory. Bless the spirits which inspired her to use such a phrase.) " – is the Ace of Cups. Usually, this card comes up when seekers wish to know about their love lives, but since this is not the case, I can only presume, that it means that the Power of Love is necessary for the situation to end victoriously for our page."
"'Power of love', huh? Then, it must be significant that the blade of the sword of this formation has the image of three swords stabbing through a heart," he noted with far more wisdom than he gave himself credit for.
"Mhmm…The Three of Swords represents pain and hope." She replied, not answering his question directly. "Deep anguish or misery will be or has been experienced, but it can be lessened or endured. The heart can emerge from darkness and love again. The suit of cups, or hearts in other decks, also represents intuition."
Lifting her gaze from the cards to him, she challenged, "So what does your gut tell you? Does the card represent you or someone you know? And how can you or they use the Power of Love to affect the outcome? These are the questions you must ask yourself."
Pierre said nothing to this, just stared dumbly at the card for several minutes, so she took a risk and turned his arm over, finger-drawing a heart-shape with a line through it.
He jerked back, stared at the card, his arm, and back to the card before looking up at her; dawning comprehension finally lit his too-pretty-for-a-brigand face.
She nodded in confirmation, but then pursed her lips, tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, and then glanced significantly around the room, signaling the possibility of being listened to and her reluctance to say more.
Thankfully, he caught on, and merely said, "Well, that has been the most interesting reading I have ever had. You are worth every penny I have ever spent. But I'm curious to know if it will cost me anymore this time around?"
"No, like I said, it is my pleasure to do these sorts, now and then. But I wouldn't turn down a tip …" She grinned toothily and waggled her eyebrows as she added slyly, "If you were so inclined?"
He smirked at her, "I can do better. Swing by the Pleasure Island sometime, and you can have a drink of your choice on the house, and I can tell you the outcome of all this."
"I would be delighted." She truly was, quite tickled in fact, at the divine justice of it all – the two of them cheating the curs out of their money as a result of their ruining said curs' vengeance scheme. Absolutely and positively delighted.
~0~
The trailer was empty and looked to be undisturbed since the last time they were there.
Killian wanted to scream. He wanted to take his hook and slash everything in sight – sofas, cabinets, windows…
His lass, his feisty minx of a lass, was missing. He didn't know if she had met with some accident or she had been taken somewhere – gods help the poor devil who dared to take what was his – or ...or, blast it, or something. He just knew it was something bad. She wouldn't be so willingly disconnected from everyone for so long. She was addicted to information, as he was to rum, maybe even as he was to the sea.
He violently rummaged through a drawer for a writing implement and then scrawled a scathing request for her to contact someone, anyone, if not him. Then he placed it prominently in the center of the less than sturdy table before storming back to civilization. He would do the same on his ship, her apartment, her work place and gym locker, and any other place he could think of, and somewhere in between he would call in the favor that Swan owed him to help him with his search.
He had just reached the forest edge, when his phone began to buzz. His heart leapt in joy for a brief glorious moment, only to be disappointed by his eyes which saw that the tiny screen read: Starkey
He almost didn't answer, but then the thought occurred to him – what if he had heard something from someone from the club? So he accepted the call.
"Captain?"
"Aye, mate. Is this about Tawny?" If it wasn't, he was hanging up.
"Oui, your bonnie lass. I fear she has been taken for all your two's avenger escapades." And from there he told a fascinating tale of a former Ozian hoofist snitching in code.
"But I do not know what this 'Power of Love' business is," his trusty if not overly clever mate admitted.
"Fortunately, I do," Killian declared. It could only mean one thing, the product of True Love, or rather, one person - Swan.
He was going to thank Starkey, but then his phone beeped at him and its screen read: F. Conroy, and in the course of fumbling with the blasted thing's buttons, he dropped the call but managed to answer the incoming one.
He was greeted with a dismayed and defeated: "Jones, I think she's been taken."
"I know," he cut him off. "Where's Swan?"
In the background, there was murmuring and what sounded like wolf-girl's husky voice, and then Conroy answered, "Red says she is at the diner, for the Sunday afternoon supper special."
"Excellent. Meet me there."
He was being brusque and rude. But he did not care. He could not care. He was sickened with worry for his lass. But he could not let himself feel it. If he did, he would be of no use to her.
The important thing was that he had a plan now that he knew what he was facing, or at least the start of one.
Find Swan. Ruin Swan's dinner. Persuade Swan to be the Savior of his love.
Swan could do anything if she set her mind to it, and he, Killian, could at least do that for his partner whom he had abandoned.
He would not lose another.
~0~
After her preview of the evening's entertainment, her tormentors ushered her down a set of spiral stairs that led to an area beneath the stage.
It was dimly lit, but she took advantage of what light she could and did a quick recon. Sturdy and solid wooden pillars served as support beams for the stage. Stacks of spare tables and chairs from when this was a dinner theater were shoved up against one wall, and boxes of old movie reels or of props when it was a live theater lined another.
She could see four doors. The two far doors were labeled 'Exit' and 'Restroom'. On the wall closest to her were the other two doors. From the noises that were coming from one, she assumed it was the utility room.
Door #4 was the one that they shoved her through. It led to a broom closet. It was, unfortunately, an empty one except for cobwebs.
She refused to stay in there for long though. She decided that if they were okay with her screams in the auditorium, they could deal with her shouted pleas for the use of the restroom.
Thankfully, it was Bulldog who responded and not That's-my-gun-in-your-mouth-and-not-my-happy-stick Douche. Without a word, Bulldog herded her to the facilities, only grunting in annoyance when he thought she was taking too long to take in the scenery. The most fascinating bit was that in the 'ceiling' of the under-stage, there were remnants of a pulley-system for scene changes from its days of live theater. Because of the foggy-haze that was the Curse, she could not remember when exactly it had been converted or if it had always been a renovated theater.
When they reached the bathroom door, he declared, "It's been searched, and anything that you could use for something funny was removed. So don't bother."
"The only 'funny' thing that is going to happen in there is me trying to do my business with my hands like so," she retorted dryly, wiggling her fingers which were still bound behind her back.
Bulldog grunted again, and then pulled out a knife and cut the zip-tie.
She murmured a soft thank you as she entered the tiny and less than hygienic bathroom. While relieving her poor bladder, she rubbed circulation into her sore arms and scanned the room. He was right. There was nothing. Even the spring rod for the toilet paper roll had been removed and the roll set on top of the now empty dispenser. No soap or towel dispenser either. Thorough bloody buggers.
She scrubbed her hands vigorously, because if she survived this, she didn't want to die from whatever contagion was cultivating in this cesspit. It was bad enough she was walking barefoot across these floors.
Drying her hands off on her pants, she exited. When she did, she was met with Bulldog's stony expression and a roll of duct tape. She held out her hands in a 'cuff me' gesture, in the faint hope, that her arms wouldn't be twisted up into a pretzel. But it was not to be, for one of his meaty paws grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her and then he rumbled, "Now, the other one."
At first, she thought of all the ways she could have taken him down in that moment, but out of the corner of her eye she could see a second tough leaning against the wall by her 'cell' with a gun trained on her, so she complied with as much meekness as she could muster.
As she was being led back, Larue was descending the stairs. His boots that must have been intended to give a few inches in height, clonking loudly on the metal steps of the stairs. He watched her vacantly with his buggy little eyes while Bulldog re-taped her feet to the metal chair that had been placed in her 'cell' while she was gone. He said nothing until Bulldog went to shut her door. "That's alright. Leave it. I have some questions for our guest."
She was too tired and emotionally spent to try to come up with a witty retort, so she sat there and waited in longsuffering silence for his interrogation to start. Bulldog went to sit over by the 'exit' door that must lead to an outside stairwell, and Tough #2 moved out of her sight, but she assumed that he hid in the shadows by the spiral staircase. She noticed that all three men wore amulets, carved to look like screaming snakes or eels, causing her to ask herself: Was their little crime ring the Order of the Shrieking Eels? And was this one of those things that she 'was not supposed to see'?
Larue drew up a fold out chair, and when he was comfortable, he finally stated, "So, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that your extra security on your computer did its job. Reeves will be spending weeks trying to rout out all your viruses."
Oh bless Fitz and his crafty ways. When he had realized that she was going to make a habit of poking her nose in "bad fellas' business", he had offered to add some creative safeguards to her computer. Anyone who tried to access it that didn't have the proper password was hacked in turn. Fitz was all for the "best defense is a good offense" bit.
Unable to hide her smirk, she let it rip as she taunted, "The price you pay for having a trusty but old-fashioned jock do your modern nerd-run security."
"And I suppose, your mastery of these skills is what contributed to the success of your campaign against us?"
"Yes," She lied with every bit of skill she had. There was no need for them to go looking beyond her towards a tech-savvy locksmith. To distract him, she inquired, "So where is the tyrant hiding these days and does he know that you are using his house to stash your lady guests?"
This time, it was his turn to smirk. "Thanks to you, he's been hiding out in the lap of luxury of the D'Enfer estate, now that it has conveniently been vacated." He let that unpleasant truth sink in, before shrugging, "And I'm sure he'll forgive the trespass once he learns that it was the nearest safe house to where we grabbed the Busybody Bitch."
"While you're having that chat with him, do let him know for me that if he hadn't gone after Ruby, I probably would have remained a good li'l non-interfering citizen."
He snorted, "From what I understand from a few of Regina's old soldiers, you have never been 'non-interfering'.
"Ah, but I had learned my lesson." She countered. Knowing where this conversation was now going, she prayed that she could continue to be convincing. "Or so I had thought."
He looked at her with a tiny hint of pity, as he warned, "Well, my associates won't be as merciful as the once Evil Queen, I can assure you." When she did not say anything in reply, he continued, "So it will go better for you if you answer our questions."
"Questions like?" If she knew what they would ask her, aside from the obvious of who her partner was, the better she would be able to prepare her answers.
"Questions like the ones you have already heard: How are you seeing what you shouldn't? Who helped you get out Ariel? Is Hook involved?"
She pulled her best poker face, kept her breathing even, and answered with bemused indifference, "I'm not sure what you all keep referring to when you say I 'see things I shouldn't'." She paused to see if he would elaborate on the point, when he didn't, she gave a huff of wry amusement, "And as for Jones, he's a pirate who has no love for mermaids and an amoral compass of selfishness. His dalliance with the Side of the Light was ended when Swan made her choice."
And because she too believed in the maxim of what makes good defense, she turned the focus on him, noting, "You're not at all like how Disney portrayed you, are you? And you use that image of bumbling fool sidekick to make people underestimate you, and you do it so well, they use you to interrogate people like me or potential new recruits."
There was a gleam of triumph in his buggy eyes at this. She thought initially that it was due to her compliment of his acting skills, but then he asked, with smug slyness, "So the Captain told you I was the one who first approached him to be our gofer, did he?"
Several responses could be made to this, and all of them flashed through her mind within the space of a heartbeat. She could object to Hook being called 'gofer'. She could gloat how her self-defense instructor's side job had been a windfall for her, and how easy it had been to use him. She could go silent (which would be a major tip off that she was hiding something), or she could deny it. She decided on the latter, but in such a way that would not seem like she was protesting too much.
She let her expression rapid cycle through shock, denial, introspection, puzzlement, and then dawning comprehension, before asking, "His pawn shop trips…?"
"You honestly didn't know he was smuggling for us?" There was a hint of pity and smug delight mixed in with his doubtful question, which is how she knew she had him.
She shook her head slowly. Looking wounded and ego-bruised, she murmured, "No, I didn't. I knew he played poker with you lot, so I offered to tell him what I knew about you all, your pre-Cursed selves, and that's when he would tell me who was there and who was chummy with who and then I – "
She snapped her mouth shut then and was unresponsive to anymore questions and just stared stonily at her toes. Larue soon realized he would get no more out of her, and left to go tell his fellows what he had learned.
Hopefully, all that he had learned from that was that she was another victim of the pirate's charm or that the girl-who-had-been-falsely-queen still had mad acting skills and that he couldn't tell what was truth and what was fiction. Perhaps…
~0~
Emma was sitting across from Henry listening to him chatter away to anyone who would listen about Tink's latest cooking catastrophe in Regina's kitchen. Well, listening might not be completely accurate. She was more like watching him, basking in his boyish delight, his bright eyes and wide smile, and his dramatic hand gestures as he demonstrated how the "flour went everywhere, exploding like – like pixie dust! And you should have seen…"
In the back of her mind, however, she was trying to figure out where Ruby had gone to. She had been flirting with Whale at the cash register one moment about half an hour ago, and then the next she was slipping out, wrapping her red scarf around her neck, and meeting that Fitz guy, both wearing anxious expressions.
"And what did Regina say when she saw her spotless kitchen a disaster zone?" Mary-Margaret asked mildly, while at the same time shooting her a concerned look. Perhaps, her sheriff/Savior worries were more attention-consuming than she had thought.
Focusing her attention on her son, she saw a proud and mischievous expression cross his face, as he stated, "Oh, she said something like 'And this is why it's a good thing fairies use wands and not potions for their magic', but she was pretending to be all – what's that word again? Oh yeah, snarky – She was pretending to be snarky, but really, she was just trying not to laugh in Tink's face – her flour-powdered face."
Before anyone could respond to this, Hook burst into the diner and strode straight towards her. And it was Hook, not Killian, who did so. His face had that thunderous I'm-out-for-blood, yet deadly calm expression.
Without preamble, he blurted, "Swan, I need to have a chat with your latest catch of villains."
She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off with a wave of his hook, "I know I'm interrupting a charming family moment, but time is of the essence."
"What's so urgent, mate?" David asked, strangely the only one not put off by his pirate-on-a-mission demeanor.
"The lass has been taken." He replied, his blue eyes darkening to black and boring into hers with his bereft anguish. Yes, anguish was really the only word that could describe it.
"Tawny's been kidnapped?!" Henry cried, his voice cracking on the last syllable. She shot him a concerned glance. Since when did he care so much about the maid? Or start calling her by the name Hook favored rather than 'Miss McKinley'?
Henry's distress alerted Neal who had just exited from the bathroom and brought him swiftly over to their booth at the same time Fitz, his wife, and Ruby tumbled into the diner.
"I tracked Gwen's scent from the salon to an alley," Ruby breathily reported. "But it stopped there. And it was mixed with others that were," she wrinkled her nose in irritation and confusion, "magically masked."
The tension in the diner spiked at that. Everyone, including Emma, prayed that this 'masking' was a leftover enchantment from Ursula's and Maleficent's reign and not a sign of a new magical nasty.
"Tick, tock, Swan. Dante, Foxworthy, and even the mute know the people who have her. I need to speak with them now," Hook urged her. Ruby's bit of news kicking up his homicidal intensity. He was practically vibrating with it.
As badly as she felt for him, there was no way in his present state that she could let him anywhere near her prisoners, not in good conscience at least.
Before she could voice this, Neal stated compassionately but firmly, "Listen, Hook, it's not that we don't want to help you find her. In fact, we will. But we can't just let you interrogate people in our keeping, based upon your word that they know something."
"My word is still not good enough for you, Baelfire?" Hook bit out.
Her fiancé shook his head and for once explained patiently without rising to the pirate's bait, "No, it is. We just need to understand why you think they know something and who it is you think that has her."
"The Trickster, the Puppet-Master Stromboli/Agustino or that Driver chap who turned boys into donkeys and now lasses into whores. I know she's taken against her will because she's not answering her phone, she did not show for tea with Jefferson's Grace, she did not go home last night as her friends expected her to, but yet her computer is missing from her apartment which I suspect was searched through. For those who know her, that is sufficient reason," he concluded with an irate glare.
Emma wanted to ask what it was that this girl had done to catch the fugitives' attention, but was derailed by Hook's sudden query to the dark-haired Fitz, "What about GPS? Can you track her computer?"
'GPS? Since when did the three hundred year old pirate, who still wandered around town looking like a cosplayer know about GPS?'
"Wait. You know about – ?" the man she thought was a simple locksmith asked haltingly, voicing her own baffled thoughts. But before he even finished asking the question, understanding lit his face and he mused aloud, "Oh, of course, you do. Gwen would have taught you."
Hook, obviously not giving a flying fig for the how or why of his recent tech-savvy, growled warningly, "Conroy."
"I can't," he hastily and apologetically explained, "I need access to her account information, which I don't have."
At his words, Hook looked ready to break his own teeth, he was grinding so hard. But then, the man's wife piped up, "But you have her phone. She has all her information on her phone. She used to joke that the Wizard gave the Scarecrow not a diploma but a smart-phone for a brain."
Her husband and Ruby did not look any more optimistic. Ruby stated glumly, "We don't know the password," to which Fitz added with a regretful shake of his head, "We tried several combinations already. If we don't get it right, it will lock us out."
"Her phone was in the alley?"
At their forlorn nods, Hook let loose a string of oaths that Emma had never before heard him utter and devoutly hoped he would never say in front of her son again. But before anyone could object to his obscenities, he asked, "How many attempts are left?"
"Two," Ruby answered as Fitz pulled out the device and handed it to Hook.
"What have you tried so far?"
"'Pick', 'lips', 'dumb', 'caps', 'Cap' with a question mark…" Ruby rattled off, grinning a little whimsically when she made a hook finger for the symbol.
At everyone's puzzled frowns, Fitz explained, "Her password screen is the 'I am – key code – locked' screen."
"And she likes word games," the hair stylist declared with sudden understanding.
"In that case…" Hook muttered to himself as he punched in four entries. They all waited with baited breath and simultaneously exhaled with frustration when he frowned at the screen. If he had succeeded, it sounded like she would have no worries about humane prisoner treatment.
Hook continued to mutter as he pondered his next attempt, "Well, if G-L-D-I isn't it…" He then glanced up and asked, "What's this world's shorthand for gold? Tawny was always going on about the importance of using alphanumeric codes."
"A-U-79," Mary-Margaret piped up and at everyone's disbelieving looks, she sheepishly defended, "What? I'm a teacher. And I've been teaching the basics of the periodic table for nearly thirty years."
"Aha! Do I know my lass or what?" Hook declared triumphantly, as he gave the phone back to Fitz to do search through.
It was her clever Henry who put together the significance of the code first, blurting, "'I am gold-locked'? She's Goldilocks?!"
"Seriously?" she herself couldn't help but blurt. More in disbelief at herself for not figuring it out sooner, than at the revelation. She had looked through her file – multiple trespasses on private property and all.
"Aye, lad," Hook confirmed. "And trust me, this world got her and those beasts' tale wrong too. And you have no idea how much trouble I will be in with her for so publicly revealing that, when I find her that is."
Henry absorbed this, and then turned his big pleading eyes on to her and begged, "Mom, let Killian talk to those guys. Please."
"Why? Because she's Goldilocks?"
"No, because she's – " He stopped mid-sentence and looked guiltily at Hook.
When she silently dared him to finish her son's sentence, Hook rolled his eyes and rumbled, "In for a penny…" and then his azure gaze steadily holding hers, he declared, "Because she's the Concerned Citizen and an Avenging Angel, and she orchestrated the mermaid's rescue."
She could feel her eyes widen in shock at the revelation and her stomach drop and knot in horror at what that meant, and because she couldn't readily deal with the guilt she felt for her attitude towards this girl, she instead focused on the tiny ounce of frustration she had towards her son.
"And how long have you known this, Henry?"
Her son, instead of shrinking beneath the weight of her accusing eyes, faced her head on with chin up, admitting, "For a while, but I didn't tell you because your distrust of her was keeping them from suspecting her."
Her distrust of the maid may have shielded her from suspicion at one time, but her distrust of the resurfaced-Captain Hook was certainly not doing McKinley any favors. It was unfair of her, as Hook – Killian had never hesitated to help her.
She sighed, "Well, not anymore, kid." To Hook, she announced, "I'm sorry for dragging my feet on this. Let's go get your answers."
As they exited, she could hear Neal arrange for her mother to take Henry for the night and declare that he would let his father, the mayor, and Regina know of the new developments. She also heard Fitz call out to Hook that he would let him know if he found the computer's location.
The pirate waved in acknowledgement of the man's promise as he strode to the door, but was coolly silent towards her. She supposed she would only be forgiven if their delay did not cost him his…whatever's life.
A/N: The tarot cards described are based off of Robin Wood's tarot deck. Questions, comments, and feedback of any sort are most welcome.
Oh yeah, and the usual disclaimer of my non-ownership. The next chapter will be Prisoners and Powwows