Author's note: I'm obviously taking a lot of liberties with the Greek myths here (on top of what OUAT already did to them).

Let me out!

That was the gist of it, whatever threats or cajolery she dressed her demand (plea) with. The oven would not have looked out of place in hell — which Regina could now say with first-hand authority — and sometimes she wondered if she was still in Tartarus, except that the fire, however hot it seemed, never did more than cause her discomfort.

The island's caretaker was a stubborn old demon, with a head full of rocks and about as unyielding. She laughed at Regina's plight with a grating cackle. "Sounds different coming from your own mouth, don't it? Well, speaking for everyone what's had a taste of your dungeons: go suck an egg!"

It could have been far worse. At least she was alive. Though she refused to admit it out loud, Regina had new appreciation for that state, and for the difference between mere discomfort and screaming agony.

Sometimes it was the caretaker's granddaughter who brought her food.

"You're to stay here until the king says you can go," the girl told her, impervious to Regina's attempts to bribe her with promises of future favors or fortune.

Regina silently (and uselessly) cursed Midas, but couldn't quite bring herself to hate the girl. She was about the same age as Snow had been when — no, don't think about that — but no spoiled royal brat. This girl would never have blabbed to Cora, thought Regina. Then she laughed at herself for the pointless comparisons. She hardly had any secrets to keep these days, and was too wise to trust anyone with them.

Yet somehow she wanted to confide in the girl. She never ran away from Regina's temptations, but listened with a kind of bright-eyed curiosity as the former queen described the wonders beyond this little island — that could be hers if she would only free Regina. The girl always refused, but stayed anyway to hear the stories. So in the end it was Regina who was tempted. She could tell her about Daniel, could tell her about the hopes another innocent girl had once harbored. It could hardly harm him now. And for the first time, she could think about him without the crushing weight of pain and guilt and anger.

Daniel is at peace. She had seen it, and believed. He's in a better place, doing what he loves.

She wondered if she could ever find that kind of happiness.

Deep in the hills behind the capital of Yrkandos sits an ancient palace-temple, hidden from mortal eyes and home to gods long forgotten by the mighty rulers of Olympus. But today the weathered marble pillars are swept clean of their cobwebs, the floors once again polished and shining, the statues cleared of dust and the lamps relit — all in honor of their august visitor from Zeus.

"Phoebus Apollo," greets the queen-goddess, Cybele.

"Silver-bowed Loxias." Aigokeros the goat-horned, less diplomatic than his consort, imbues the epithets with an edge of mockery. "Centuries since Olympus has deigned to cross our threshold. What brings you here today?"

"Such hostility," Apollo says lightly. "Did you not once aid Zeus in driving back the Titans from Olympus? Did he not reward you finely for your aid?" His eyes skim over Cybele.

The goddess stiffens. "This is Yrkandos, not Olympus. My beloved is my choice, not the Skyfather's."

Apollo smiles. "As you wish. Though he may hope that you do not forget those moments you once shared with him. He treasures them, as he treasures..."

"Our son?" Cybele finishes the sentence where Apollo trails off in a pretense of discretion. It is clear those memories alluded to are not so warmly regarded in her eyes. Everyone knows that Zeus always takes what he wants, and woe betide those who try to resist.

"My son," growls Aigokeros. "Her son and mine, we who had the raising of him."

"Your son, then," concedes Apollo graciously. It's not as if this bastard half-brother of his will ever amount to anything. Zeus made sure of that long ago — a dirty secret that cannot be hidden from the oracle of the gods, but Apollo is well-versed in trading discretion for power and position. "And where is he, this son of yours?"

That he is not here to greet the Olympian visitor is a disgrace. But everyone knows that Dionysus is eternally lost in a haze of wine and merrymaking. He wanders the wilds carousing with his band of maenads and sileni.

It's an insult to Apollo, but to acknowledge the insult now would only damage his own dignity, so he pretends polite ignorance and ignores the unhappy glance between his hosts. "No matter."

But before he can come to the main point of his mission, the wastrel returns, heralded by a gust of wind that instantly extinguishes the lamps.

Cold-eyed and deadly, wildness barely restrained, Dionysus brings his own light with him as he strides into the hall. The staff in his hand — the thyrsus — hits the floor with enough force to crack the tiles, a spiderweb that spells out a curse, his guest-gift for the unwelcome visitor. The vines wrapped around the staff tremble. A scent of honey, sickly sweet and rotten, wafts through the air.

"I remember," he says to Apollo in lieu of the courtesies due the brightest son of Zeus. "I remember everything."

Apollo hides his shock behind a smile and a lifted eyebrow. "Sobered up at last? What, did your supply of alcohol finally run out?"

Dionysus growls, advancing a step.

Apollo forces himself to stand his ground, waving a hand in front of his face as if to fend off an ill odor. "My dear boy..."

"Is it the stench of death that has you cringing away?" hisses Dionysus. "Cowards. All of you sitting on top of that mountain... You can decree an infant be fed to the beasts, but don't dare look your guilt in the face." He lifts the thyrsus and aims the tip at Apollo.

Apollo flinches at the implicit threat. "No. You wouldn't dare. To attack me is to attack Zeus himself..."

Dionysus lowers the staff. "I may no longer have the power to threaten the Skyfather, but never will I submit to him. Tell him so for all I care!"

Apollo straightens, recovering his mask of control. His eyes flash towards the queen and king, the sun shining through his gaze for just long enough to remind them of who he is. "Control your wayward son!"

But their faces show him no welcome, only hatred. He sees the reflection of the wine god's light in their eyes, and he knows that they know. Aigokeros scoffs. "What do you want, Apollo?"

"The Titans have broken free. The gods must stand together against the monsters lest they overrun us."

"Olympus has taken enough from us. Let it fight its own wars."

"And if Olympus falls, you think Yrkandos will be spared?" Apollo shakes his head. "Will you surrender to the Titans? A decision you would soon regret." He appeals to Cybele, "This is no time to indulge in petty family squabbles."

"Zeus had my son killed!"

"Your son is very much alive, is he not?" Apollo nods at Dionysus.

"Despite his wishes," Dionysus retorts. "So if we dance at his downfall, well, that's no more than he deserves!"

"Dancing's about all you're good for." In the face of their intransigence, Apollo gives up all pretense of diplomacy. The real power here lies not in a handful of lesser deities, but in the massed worship of the mortals who inhabit the kingdom. Magic that rivals true love in its ability to shape fate. "And as for deserving, it's clear none of you deserve the faith the deluded folk of Yrkandos put in you."

"They are our people." Cybele's eyes narrow in suspicion. "You can't change that."

"Oh?" Apollo finds his smile again. "But that isn't for you to decide."

And by the ancient laws of the gods, Apollo has the right to take his appeal to the mortal king of the land. It is in the palace of Midas that the allegiance of Yrkandos is decided.

King Midas hears them out quietly, listening to each of the gods put forth their argument in turn.

Apollo has reason and history on his side. He is a god of music and poetry, of oracle and prophecy. He has inspired heroes, bestowed wisdom to emperors. The outcome of their debate is not in question.

And yet.

"No."

"No?" Apollo is incredulous. "Were you not listening? Are you senile, old man, or merely blind and deaf?"

"I heard you well enough," Midas replies. "But I choose to stand with my family. We of Yrkandos—"

"Are fools!" Apollo cuts him off. A scan of the room proves their folly: everyone from the king's daughter on down, whether fearful or stubbornly bold, stands a little straighter at his words. What right have these little humans to nurture such pride? "You would rather listen to the braying of an ass? Then so be it!"

There are other kingdoms seeded by the gods, other worshippers more obedient to Olympus. He leaves in a cloud of golden smoke, a last whispered curse his parting gift to Midas.

In his mind's eye, he sees the king reach up to touch ears suddenly long and furry. Apollo laughs to himself. Now everyone will know the old man's stupidity, his shame apparent at a glance.

The stars changed.

They had come up to the Jolly Roger deep in the night, only to be met with suspicion and the threat of fireballs from the ship's mage, an ogre who Baelfire had met a few times before, but that recognition did him no favors. They almost came to blows before Maleficent managed to persuade the crew that they had not been visited by ghosts or illusions or some magical trap set for the Jolly Roger.

"The wind changed. The stars were wrong," the ogre — Cathan, that was his name — explained once everyone had calmed down. "A wonder it is that you found us..."

"We had a guide," said Maleficent, nodding down at the ferryman, who grunted from under his hood.

It was a sound all too familiar to Baelfire, but he didn't look at the man (demon?) who was not his father. Not the real one.

"You're lost." A wave of his hand, a swirl of the robe, and the ferryman vanished from the stygian boat and reappeared on the deck of the Jolly Roger. For a moment, the hood seemed to shift in Baelfire's direction, but the face remained in shadow. "You still need my services, it seems."

"Can you stay?" The question came from the Fury.

The hood dipped in affirmation.

It wasn't until the next day that Baelfire understood why she had asked, when the ferry dispersed and faded with the morning light.

"Stranded in the middle of the damn ocean," grumbled Lily. Mother and daughter had taken dragon form for a scouting flight, but came back to confirm Cathan's assertion that there was only sky and water for hundreds of miles all around.

"Travel between realms is a tricky business," said the ferryman. "Or so I've found."

"We were on our way back from Avalon. Then one night, it was like we fell through a crack and slipped right off the charts." The Jolly Roger's captain squinted at the ferryman in suspicion. "Cathan says you can guide us back to Schlaraffenland. Can you?"

The ferryman waggled a finger in negation. "Ah, ah, ah. Yes, I can, but! No. Not yet. To be somewhere is to tempt the fates. Far safer to be nowhere, or as near as makes no never mind."

"Because of the Titans, you said." The captain sounded skeptical. "An unlikely story..."

"It's true!" Baelfire broke in. "You know me, Captain Raoul. You know I wouldn't lie about something like this!"

"Then all the more reason we need to get back. If Schlaraffenland is in danger, we can hardly sit here twiddling our thumbs. What kind of cowards would we be to abandon our families like that?"

The ferryman bristled under his hood. "The kind who don't charge in and make things worse!"

Baelfire reached out instinctively for the ferryman's sleeve, then drew back at the last moment. He turned to the captain and said with as much confidence as he could muster, "My father will sort it out."

The captain hissed out a strangled curse. Then, "The Dark One is as the Dark One does, but he's hardly a god."

There was a moment of silence, then the ferryman suddenly barked out a laugh. "A Dark One, that's true enough, but he and his wife have gone to the Wood Beyond, and it won't be a matter of one or two or a dozen Dark Ones and Light Ones, but a veritable army. And that's nothing to sneeze at, not even if your nose is as grand as the Skyfather's!"

The captain sighed. "Let's hope so. May the realms survive the battle."

Morning turned into noon, bringing with it a heavy stillness to the air. The sails hung listlessly from the spars and the ship floated, becalmed.

"The doldrums. That's what the captain called it." Emma joined Baelfire on the aft deck, where he had been gazing out into the shimmering expanse of water. "Guess we won't be going anywhere soon."

Baelfire shivered, remembering sailor's tales he had heard around the campfire back in Neverland, about ships stranded for weeks in windless waters, running out of food and drinking water. But no. The Jolly Roger would not suffer such a deadly fate. He turned to glance up at the sails. Though they were useless at the moment to propel the ship, they were still unfurled to catch the sunlight. Charms woven into the fabric channeled power into the myriad small magics that could keep them alive: food preservation spells, water purification spells, magical ovens, and more. And wind spells were a mainstay of a ship mage's craft— "Not that there's anywhere to go. This is nowhere."

"Nah, it's not nowhere," Emma contradicted him cheerfully. "This is somewhere, and definitely better than where we were." She waved a hand at the water. "There's the sun, for one thing, whether or not it's the same one that shines over Misthaven. There's the water, and all kinds of fish, plankton, seaweed, jellyfish, whatever. And under all that, the ferryman says there's solid ground, even if we can't see it."

Baelfire sighed. "But no people. No mermaids, no selkies, no..."

"No names here except those we bring with us." Emma nodded. "That's what makes it 'nowhere' in a magical sense."

"Magic," muttered Baelfire resentfully. The gods and the Titans had too much of it, that was the problem. It was taking his father and his step-mother away from him (again!) and he couldn't even argue that they shouldn't get involved without sounding completely selfish.

Later, when darkness fell over them once more, they could see a flickering glow in the sky like distant lightning — a sign of magic powerful enough to cast its shadow across multiple realms. Baelfire didn't sleep much that night. But people could get used to almost anything, as he had found out in Tartarus, so he hoped it would be true in this case. As long as things didn't get worse...

Not everyone was willing to wait for the winds (figurative or literal) to change. For Maleficent, their time on the Jolly Roger was only a brief respite from an ancient struggle. According to Emma, the old dragon had bargained for navigational insight from the ferryman, and now meant to go back to the Enchanted Forest.

"And you and Lily?" Baelfire already suspected the answer, but he had to ask.

"We have to go, too." Emma didn't quite meet his eyes, but her voice didn't waver.

He gripped her hands, wanting to beg her to stay here, where it was safe, but he couldn't. It wasn't only her foster mother, but also her birth parents who were in danger there. Emma's magic could make the difference between life and death for any of them. On a sudden impulse, he said instead, "I'll go with you!"

Emma was already shaking her head. "You can't..."

"Why not?" he asked stubbornly.

"You know why..." She trailed off, leaving the obvious You don't have magic hanging between them. She muttered half-heartedly, "Your father..." Then, "Your people are here. If you leave... they'll follow you. You don't want to bring them into danger, do you?"

Baelfire dropped his gaze in shame, feeling worse than useless. He broke free and took a step back. "No, you're right. But you... you'll be careful, yeah?"

"Of course." A moment later, she was hugging him tightly. "We'll see each other again. Promise."

"Yes," he whispered. A moment of warm hope, and then she was called away by her sister.

"Come on, Emma, it's time. Stop canoodling and get a move on!" Lily shot Baelfire an unreadable glance when he glared at her.

"Right, then." Baelfire sighed and gave in to the inevitable, forcing a smile to his face. It felt weak and faltering, but Emma smiled back as if she hadn't noticed.

After they had gone, vanishing into a clear sky, Baelfire lingered at the railing, shivering even in the warm day. He felt hollow inside. Abandoned again, he thought. Even if it was for his own protection, they had left him.

"You're lucky, you know."

"Huh?" Baelfire jerked his head around to find that Marceline had come up behind him, unnoticed in his preoccupation.

Marceline's smile was very different from Emma's. The ironic twist of her lips hinted at bitter knowledge kept behind her teeth. "You, your kingdom... you are close to the Dark One's heart, something which exists — so Belle insists — whatever the Church may say. What does Avonlea have? Nothing but that same Church..."

"Why didn't Alec go with them back to the Enchanted Forest? She could help your family, couldn't she?"

"The Church would never allow it. Besides, she refuses to leave me."

Baelfire looked at her heavily pregnant form. "I guess that's understandable." The baby would be some kind of cousin-in-law of his, wouldn't it? Marceline was Belle's father's brother's daughter. "But you're family. I'm sure M-mother" — he stumbled over the word, its shape strange in his mouth, but Belle had encouraged him to call her so — "won't forget Avonlea. And Papa..."

"He's a sentimental old fool, of course." The ferryman joined them at the railing, the Fury a few paces behind him.

Marceline gave him a strange look. "Do you think so?"

The ferryman snorted. "I know it better than anyone."

Baelfire looked away, pretending to study the blank expanse of the sea. "He would want to save the children. Not just the ones in Schlaraffenland." It was only that saving was so easily twisted by the darkness into something horrible and violent. He hoped that Belle would be able to soften the blow.

"Still, he may need to prioritize," said Marceline, giving Alec a quick glance. "Such is the way of the world."

"Prioritize?" It took a moment for Baelfire to catch her meaning. Because his stepmother wasn't yet visibly pregnant the way Marceline was, it sometimes slipped his mind or felt unreal. But of course his father wouldn't forget! "Oh..."

Marceline's smile lost its harshness for a moment. "Family is family." She moved away from the railing, ruffling Baelfire's hair in passing before catching the Fury's outstretched hand. "But I hope you and our friend here are right."

Baelfire took a deep breath, trying to settle his thoughts. A half-sister. Wasn't that what they had told him? After so many years as an only child, he would be a big brother. How different this family was from what he had been born into. She would never know what it was to be the child of the most despised, powerless man in the village. She would grow up with two loving parents, protected by magic.

Magic. She would probably have magic! His stomach roiled at the thought. He would be the only one who didn't. Jealousy ate away at him. He pushed it away at first, and again, but one night, waking up from another nightmare, he caved in and went to the ferryman.

"Can you teach me?" Baelfire tried to sound casual, but he knew the ferryman saw right through him (as his father always had, but this was not Papa, and more than that, this wasn't the Dark One). "Magic, I mean. Can I learn?"

The ferryman's reply was slow in coming, a soft assent. "Yes. But it won't come easily, not for you, not at first."

Baelfire's heart leaped in wild hope, and he betrayed his eagerness in the speed with which the words tumbled out, "I don't care. I can work hard. I'll do anything—"

The ferryman cut him off with a jerk of his head, his eyes glittering with an inhuman sharpness from the shadows under the hood. "Rash, rash..."

Baelfire closed his mouth, gulping. He did know better. Then a muttered, "Sorry. But will you teach me?"

Another long silence, then a soft sigh. "You know, you won't be loved any less for not having magic."

"I know that!" Baelfire found himself shouting, blindsided by his own anger. He took a deep, calming breath. More quietly, he said, "That's not... that's not the point."

"Then...?"

Baelfire gathered his thoughts. "Parents teach their children, don't they? A trade passes down, father to son. That's how it used to be with us. Before." He tried not to let it hurt. "Papa shared everything with me when I was little. Until everything changed. When he changed..."

Another silence, then, "He would not have wanted to share that with you. That kind of magic is a curse. A burden that Zoso choose death to escape."

"I know," insisted Baelfire. He remembered holding the dagger and hearing the voices of the darkness screaming in his head. Remembered the way it pressed against his thoughts, sinking into his soul. He had felt so relieved when his father took it away from him. "But it's more than that. Isn't it? He, Papa, made it more."

"With Belle's help. Yes."

"Then I want to learn." Seeing this version of an undarkened Rumplestiltskin gave Baelfire hope that his own father would someday also finally be free of that burden. Maybe he could learn the secret from the ferryman and use it to help Papa, really help him. "Please. Will you teach me?"

"Bae..." The hood shifted as the ferryman seemed to dip his head in a slow nod. "Go. Sleep. Then, in the morning, if this is still what you want... I will teach you."

In the morning, Baelfire had not changed his mind. The ferryman took him out on the dinghy and had him row them out to sea until the Jolly Roger was an indistinct shape bobbing on the horizon. Then he handed Baelfire a fishing rod and line borrowed from the ship's supplies, along with a jar of bait — tiny translucent shrimp (krill, the ferryman called them) fresh from the morning's catch.

Baelfire pinched the creature between his fingers and stuck it on the hook. "What does this have to do with learning magic?" He had half-expected to be presented with a spinning wheel and straw. "If we need a fish, can't we just ask Cathan?"

With the ship becalmed, the ogre mage spent most of his time in the ocean like an oversized mermaid, saying that it was like flying but much less strenuous, and it was no trouble at all to fill a net while he was at it. Baelfire didn't know if Cathan used magic to call his prey to him, but he thought uneasily that hunting magic seemed to fall on the darker end of things.

"Not just any fish. A fish fated for you." The ferryman gestured at him to cast the line out. "Those born without magic must find it elsewhere. A wee spark to jumpstart the process, shall we say."

"Huh?"

"A turn of phrase from a more technological age," the ferryman explained. "In more primitive terms: to become magic, you must devour magic."

"A fish?"

"A magical fish!" There was a flash of teeth from under the hood. "Count yourself lucky that I mean that literally in your case."

Because his father had stabbed a man to gain his magic. And so had he (even if he hadn't kept it). Baelfire shuddered, remembering how it had felt to shove the Dark One dagger into Gaston's back. At least the death of a fish wasn't as likely to darken his soul. It won't be a person. "Literally, as in, I catch a magic fish and eat it?"

"Out here in the middle of an endless ocean, with fairies in short supply—" The ferryman held up a hand at Baelfire's gasp. "Just a quip! But that is our best option, yes."

An increasingly uncomfortable option, he thought as the hours passed and the sun beat down on him, despite the wide-brimmed straw hat the ferryman had found for him. It wasn't that the fish weren't biting, but that none of the ones he reeled in passed inspection.

"So, um, how common are these magic fish?" Rare, it turned out. It could take months before they found one. "Isn't there some spell to narrow down our search?"

"If you want it to be your magic, you must cast the spell. And as you have no magic..." The ferryman shrugged. "Well, you see the problem. Patience."

Days passed. The weather held, clear and calm. A property of this realm, Baelfire guessed.

Then. Something floating. Something small, drifting with the waves.

"What is that? It doesn't look like foam. I think..." Baelfire flicked the line out (with much more accuracy than his initial attempts back on the first day) and caught the small something on the end of his hook. It was a bedraggled bit of fluffy down. "A feather?" He squinted up at the sky. "But I haven't seen any birds here at all!"

"Show me!" The ferryman cut through Baelfire's confusion with sudden urgency. Then, tension seeped away in a sighed, "Ah."

"Ah? What's that supposed to mean?"

"A feather is the emblem of the far traveler," mused the ferryman.

"Jefferson gave my stepmother a golden feather," Baelfire recalled, but this bit of wet fluff on the end of his line wasn't fit to be mentioned in the same breath.

"But this one is meant for you, I think, something in the nature of an apology.." The ferryman scoffed. "Perhaps he's a better man in your time than in mine."

"Who?"

"Your grandfather. And I don't mean Milah's father, or dear Maurice, for that matter..."

Baelfire yelped in horror, "Peter Pan?" and nearly dropped the feather, but the ferryman's hand closed around his.

"A gift from Neverland. It might do. Go on, make a wish..."

"A gift? And how many strings are attached?" Baelfire knew better than to trust Pan, and he said so. "You said it had to be my own magic."

"Do you trust me?" The ferryman released Baelfire's hand. "No strings. It's yours — the apology that is your due for what he did to you."

Baelfire thought about it. If he trusted the ferryman to teach him magic at all, then he had to trust his judgment in matters magical, or what was the point? He nodded. "What do I do with it?" He moved to untangle the feather from the hook, but the ferryman stopped him.

"It'll do for a lure. Try casting again. And make a wish."

Never mind the impossibility of it all. Baelfire squeezed his eyes shut and wished. Wished that it was true. Wished for magic of his own. And cast the line again.

And a fish foolish enough to swallow a wish was a fish magical enough to pass the ferryman's test. Served up on a wooden board, sliced and accompanied by a smattering of minced horseradish and pickled ginger, it was just raw fish.

"Why can't we cook it first?" complained Baelfire.

"A life for a life, magic from magic. You must take it fresh, while it retains its vital essence. Even in pieces, it's not what one might call dead dead!" The ferryman chuckled disconcertingly. "We're all animals in the end, you know. A smudge of primordial darkness we can never escape."

Well, at least he didn't have to swallow it whole and wriggling, thought Baelfire.

After that, progress came slowly, in fits and starts. Stuck in their self-imposed exile in the Doldrums (as good a name as any for this nowhere realm) Baelfire's wish was for escape, and that shaped the direction of his magic. The ferryman opened a door for him into a dream world as vast and mysterious as the waking realm. He was older and had traveled farther than Baelfire's father, and brought those memories through the door.

He found in himself a talent for seeing and finding. Having been lost so many times in different realms, he was eager to learn the art of arcane navigation as well as the more mundane methods any sea captain could master. Other skills did not come as easily.

When Marceline's time came, Baelfire was still working on the simplest of healing spells, and was no more use at assisting with childbirth than Alec, whose magic was that of a vengeance demon.

"Not to worry," declared the ferryman. "I've delivered many a baby in my time!"

"As a merchant delivers his goods?" snapped Marceline. Still on her feet and pacing the deck in between the spasms of labor, she was sweaty-faced and irritable.

The ferryman huffed, no doubt rolling his eyes beneath the cover of his hood. "Pfft. Do you want my help or not?"

Marceline capitulated with a muttered curse. "Fine. If it's a choice between a demon and an ogre... I suppose you do have more experience."

Hours later, deep into the night, the baby was born: a tiny but healthy boy, with strong lungs. The cries followed Baelfire into his dreams, where they morphed from an omen of hope into something darker.

Something desperate.

Voices crying out for help.

Baelfire didn't think much of it at first. He didn't mention it, not wanting to spoil the mood. But even though the Doldrums felt almost as timeless as Neverland, the birth of a new life was a reminder of change. A reminder that their seeming safety was only an illusion. Somewhere out there, their friends, family, and countrymen were in danger. Beyond the horizon, war threatened.

The sky! Look to the sky! The sky is falling!

In the shared space of the dreamscape where Baelfire had his lessons, the voices became loud enough for his tutor to hear.

"It is a true vision," the ferryman told him bluntly.

"That means we have to help them! If it's a true vision, then it was sent to us for a reason."

Of course the ferryman objected. Of course people were in danger all the time. That was the nature of mortal reality. War or peace, birth or death, fortune or catastrophe. That was life.

"And this is ours! We can't hide forever."

"It won't be forever," said the ferryman. "We just have to wait—"

"They can't wait! We can't just ignore a distress call." Seeing that it was no use arguing with him, Baelfire changed tack. "Anyway, it isn't your decision to make. This isn't your ship, any more than it is mine."

At first the captain and the crew dismissed his visions as mere nightmares brought on by nerves. Their condescending attitude and pitying looks infuriated Baelfire — and the ferryman.

"Idiots," he snarled. Then, grudgingly, he backed up the veracity and seriousness of Baelfire's visions. And once he had spoken, the Fury and the ogre mage threw in their support. However unassuming he made himself in the mortal world, the ferryman cast a heavy shadow for anyone with enough magic to sense. Marceline took the word of her beloved, while the captain trusted the ship's mage, as did the rest of the crew.

"We have a duty," the captain decreed, as if he had never doubted the boy. "It's the law of the sea to offer succor to those in distress."

A blaze of fervor spread through the crew. Even Marceline, new mother or not, was caught up. All their worries and restlessness boiled over at the chance to finally escape the Doldrums.

"So, lad, where to?"

Baelfire hesitated. Where? The voices hadn't actually said. He looked at the ferryman.

The ferryman sighed. "Time to put your lessons to the test. The elves had a spell that you may find useful..."

The griffons keep the sky from falling. Cracked and crumbling, held up by a net of magic, it remains almost whole.

Almost.

There is a weak point. A place where blood of two realms soaked into the ground, planting grudges in fields that once cultivated magical beans. With the Titans freed from the pit, those grudges sprout and grow, blood calling to blood, a cry for vengeance answered by distant kin.

It gives them a point of entry into Prydania.

Rain falls from the clouds of another realm, rain mingled with magic. The grudge stains the roofs, the walls, the windows of the king's palace. It works its way inside. Becomes a key that opens the way.

They are here. The Titans, staking their claim, demanding that the price be paid. They will have this kingdom for themselves.

But the old king, George, is hard-headed to the end. He will not bend the knee to these usurpers. He regrets only that his knights failed to conquer the land above the clouds for Prydania. He may be old, but he can still carry a sword. They have killed giants. Why not Titans?

They find out the answer too late. Giants, though magical, were peaceful, mortal. Titans... are not.

The human army is easily subdued. The Titans descend to earth and wear their conquests like cloaks. There is nothing left of George but a name and a memory and a human-skin mask, worn now by a Titan king.

Regina felt it like thunder, when the hammer of the sea struck the Yrkandan coast. The enchanted oven that imprisoned her also shielded her, but it cracked under the pressure. Swept away in the onrushing waters, tumbled and thrashed in the waves, flung against rocks, the prison was sundered. Metal shards split apart, stabbed into the prisoner.

Her magic drained away with her blood, sucked into the spell holding the pieces of the oven together. Consciousness went with the last dregs of her magic. The world went black.

Later.

Light.

Regina found herself cast ashore on the tiny island of her exile.

As she picked herself up and took stock of her surroundings, she noted the corpses littering the rocky beach. She had been lucky. Her wounds were minor, the worst healed by her own magic before it gave out.

She limped inland towards the flattened remains of the house that had been her prison. There, she found the girl, the caretaker's granddaughter, weeping over...

An old woman? Or a crumpled heap of seaweed and driftwood covered with wet rags?

"Impossible," hissed Regina, taking a step back in her shock. "She was an earth god. How...?"

The girl made no answer, only shaking her head mutely without looking at Regina.

The wrath of Olympus. Regina shuddered, guessing at the answer. What else could destroy a god but another, more powerful god? She stepped forward again, crouching next to the girl and reaching out tentatively. Moved by the child's grief, her own heart lurched in unaccustomed sympathy and she remembered a time when she had not been the Evil Queen.

"I'm sorry," Regina whispered. "It'll be all right." She hoped it wasn't a lie. There was no rational reason to believe it, but somewhere on the edge of hearing, the wind carried a distant song.

Regina was long past prayers, but she could still hope. For the girl's sake, she could do that much.

"It'll be all right," she repeated. A tiny piece of her heart joined in the song. Olympus was powerful, but there were other powers in the world.