With a cloth soaked in water, Zelena beat out the flames that threatened to lick a hole in the wooden table. "We've been mixing this brew for days and what happens when you add the last ingredient? It melts the glass flask and burns down half the castle!"

"Are you blaming me for the fact that it didn't work?" the Blue Fairy huffed.

"No, just... Damn it, how are we going to breathe magic back into this stinking old cupboard if the potion needed to do so chars all the wood to ashes? Not that the cupboard is much intact, I'm just saying."

The Blue Fairy knew that Zelena's anger was not directed at her, but was due to the fact that they were back to square one and no closer to rescuing her sister. Still, she had had more pleasant partners to work with than the Witch of Oz. "You need to get out of this cellar. You've been down here for days, brooding. Take a walk, maybe you'll have a new idea," she suggested cautiously.

Zelena's eyes flashed angrily in her direction before the anger in her gaze subsided and her shoulders slumped. "Maybe not such a bad plan. I can't save anything here now anyway." So she threw the charred rag she had used to extinguish the fire into the corner of the room and climbed the stairs into the castle courtyard.

The sudden bright sunlight blinded her eyes, which had adjusted to the twilight of the cellar, and made her squint and shield her face with her hand. Glad that the courtyard was empty except for a few individual people she didn't know, she hurried to one of the side exits. She didn't feel like talking to anyone at the moment. Then she would have to explain her failure and she wasn't ready to admit it to herself just yet.

With her head down, she slipped through the gate and poofed from there into the nearby forest. The Charmings had apparently cast a protective spell on the castle after Regina had turned up here unasked a few times, making it impossible to poof in or out.

The sudden silence, interrupted only by the chirping of the birds, the rustling of the leaves in the treetops and the whispering of the wind, instantly relaxed her.

Her fingertips stroked the smooth bark of a birch tree and she breathed in deeply the scent of the mixed forest, which smelled pleasantly of needles, cones, drying leaves, earth and moss. Although she could have done without the memories of her childhood, there had always been something comforting about the smell of the forest when she lay in bed at night and couldn't fall asleep for fear of being beaten and humiliated again the next day.

Her thoughts drifted to the memory she thought she had lost, which Cora had given back to her and Regina. On the one hand, she was grateful to her for it; she was no longer jealous of Regina and knew that she would have loved to have her as a sister. But on the other hand, it also made her sad to know the life she could have had had been so brutally denied to her.

And now she had lost Regina again. As a big sister, she felt responsible for her well-being and she had failed in her attempt to bring her back to her.

Slowly, she slid down the birch tree onto the slightly damp forest floor and smoothed her cloak. Perhaps they had started in the completely wrong place. Henry had already told her that Emma was dreading the idea of having to cross half the state again. But she still saw no other way to get them from one place to a certain other place they knew, since the closet and the tree were the only points they knew were definitely connected.

Therefore, they would either have to locate two other such points, or the two would be on their own to create a connection between the two worlds, which was more than unlikely due to the lack of magic.

Zelena took another deep breath before rising to her feet. She would brew the potion again, only this time a better version of it. And even if it failed again, there was no way she could spend her days just waiting like Henry and the rum-smelling pirate did. She would keep trying until she succeeded, and if the Blue Fairy got tired of it over time, so much the better. She preferred to work alone anyway.

Regina had decided that she wanted to actively focus on her recovery from now on so that she could leave the hospital with some dignity. She didn't yet know where she wanted to go, and the thought that the only place she knew as her home could be gone, and with it all her things, frightened her.

But one thing at a time. For now, she had grabbed the crutches next to her bed to do something good for her leg muscles, but she had quickly realized that it was probably too early for the intensity of training she had planned. So now she was back in the wheelchair, moving around the hospital and clinic grounds to regain at least some of her fitness. As she didn't want to work against the staff, she had even signed out this time.

When she returned to the outside area, as she had done on her last excursion, she paused and simply enjoyed the fresh air. If she closed her eyes and just listened to the rippling of the fountain and the quiet conversations of other patients and their relatives, she could at least convince herself for a few moments that she was 15 again and had taken off with her horse Rocinante to stroll through the weekly market like an ordinary girl, at least for an afternoon, leading her faithful mare on the reins behind her.

But she had never been an ordinary girl, her mother had made sure of that at a young age by scaring off potential friends immediately. But it had rarely happened anyway that Regina had ever gotten close enough to anyone to call him or her a friend. Her reputation, or rather her mother's reputation, preceded her and so her only option was to stay close to Rocinante.

Regina opened her eyes as a sharp pain traveled down her spine to her feet and looked down at her legs. If she had been an ordinary girl, she should have gotten used to this condition much sooner.

xxx

It had happened on a stormy night, shortly after her marriage to King Leopold. Even after the wedding, she had not immediately accepted her fate and had made another attempt to escape. But this had come to an end when a tree right next to the path was split by lightning and Rocinante bolted. It had happened so suddenly that Regina had had no chance to cling to her fur, which was wet from the rain, and so she hit the path, which was paved with roughly hewn stones, back first, where she rolled a little further and cut her face and hands on the sharp-edged pebbles. She had probably been unconscious for quite a while, as she could only remember the pain that had coursed through her when she was gently placed on a cart. It had become light in the meantime and she had bitten her lips bloody at every pothole and every little bump in the road so as not to scream out loud in agony. The pain had knocked her unconscious again several times on the way back to the castle.

'You can be glad that you are so privileged and that I am your mother,' her mother had said to her when the journey back had finally come to an end and she was lying in her bed. 'Without my magic, you would never be able to walk again.'

Regina had not felt privileged, on the contrary. She had been happy to feel this pain, as it had distracted her from the pain inside her. And if she had become a cripple, the king might have had the wedding annulled. But as it was, Cora had only left her in pain in her bed for a week as punishment before her mother's spell had merely caused an uncomfortable ache and healed the shattered bones and severed nerves in her back. Her face was as flawless as ever except for the scar on her upper lip. From that day on, they had forbidden her to ride, depriving her of the last joy she had left. Only after the king's death had she got back on the back of her mare, but it had never been the same again. She had already changed too much and riding for pure pleasure was no longer part of her daily routine.

xxx

Regina shook her head slightly and ran her hand over her face to banish the memory. This time it was different, this time she had to and could do it without magic and she would work hard for it.

xxx

In her hospital room, the call on her cell phone went unanswered.

With a little more momentum than necessary, Emma slammed the receiver onto the fork of the payphone, which sent her change clattering into the box with the change. It would have been too good to be true if Regina had taken her call and given her precise directions. But Emma had learned by now that nothing in her life was simple, so she grabbed her coins and left the cat urine-scented phone booth, which was covered in ugly graffiti by would-be artists.

She would just try again at another time, but for now she got back behind the wheel of her car and drove to the nearest tourist information office.

It was a mystery to her how so many people could gather as a cluster in front of the building at lunchtime in the middle of a weekday and she counted the people in the queue outside the door with a groan. "I'm warning you, this is important, okay? You'll get something to eat when I know where we need to go. Until then, please pull yourself together," Emma spoke to her big belly before opening the car door and standing at the end of the line. She couldn't afford to get sick now of all times and fall over. She might be taken to a clinic against her will and then she wouldn't be able to find Regina at all.

xxx

The minutes crawled by and after half an hour Emma had at least reached the door of the information desk and was grateful that she could at least lean against it and that the small roofing protected her from the sun.

"New in town or on vacation?" a voice suddenly sounded behind her.

Emma turned around and found herself face to face with an older lady in a pink cardigan and purple handbag, her white hair in short curls. It barely reached her shoulders, giving her the perfect clichéd look of a grandmother from a novel. "Um, neither," she replied, shrugging her shoulders. "I'm actually looking for a friend to pick up here. Unfortunately, I don't know my way around very well."

"Seattle is a nice city if you know your way around. But it's also strange here sometimes," she implored Emma urgently, and the glasses on her nose made her eyes look a lot bigger than they actually were as she tore them open.

"Strange in what way?" Emma then wanted to know. Her ears perked up and the best information never came from official sources anyway. Her nausea was blown away.

"Just strange. People are there one moment and not the next. About a week ago, a glistening pillar of light lit up the night over there." She pointed vaguely in one direction with a crooked finger covered in age spots.

"And what do the other inhabitants say about it?"

"Nothing at all. They don't want to have noticed anything. But I'm telling you: there's a conspiracy going on here. Aliens abducting people; of course the government wants to deny it and not make a big deal of it."

Emma raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "You think they're aliens?"

"Well, do you have a better explanation?"

"Tell me, do you know Roni's Bar?" Emma was aware that it was a crapshoot, and not just because the bar probably didn't exist in reality. Her counterpart wasn't exactly the sort of clientele you'd meet in a bar.

"No, unfortunately not. But that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I got lost a month ago. There are bad areas here, you know. A Detective Rogers picked me up and took me home. I wanted to bring him a card to the station to thank him and what do I get to hear there? 'Never heard of him, ma'am, you must have got the names a bit mixed up.' And I'm telling you, I know for a fact that was his name, I..."

"Grandma!"

Emma turned her head and saw a woman who must be about her age, but a good deal taller than her and with red hair, hurrying over.

"Grandma, you shouldn't always run away, I told you to wait in the car." She turned to Emma. "I'm sorry if she bothered you, she gets a bit confused sometimes."

"It's okay." Emma looked after them both, lost in thought, as the granddaughter led her grandmother away again, clearly reluctant. She probably wouldn't be able to get any more valuable information than that.

"So, what now, young lady. Do you have a request or will you make way for the next person?"

Emma was startled out of her thoughts; she hadn't even noticed that she had slipped to the front of the queue and was now standing in front of the counter. "Um, sorry, yes. Can you tell me where I can find a giant stone sculpture of a troll here in town?"

"The Frement troll? Sure." She took a map and drew it for Emma. "Is that all?"

"Roni's Bar, do you know it?"

"Just a moment, please."

She turned to her computer, giving Emma time to look around the little house. The rubber plant in the corner could have done with some water, or it simply didn't like the artificial light mounted on the wall above it. Apart from that, there wasn't much else to see apart from a lot of stands with brochures.

"I'm sorry, there's no Roni's Bar in Seattle," the employee said shortly afterwards.

Emma nodded. "Thanks anyway, that's all there is to it."

She took the map with the sculpture marked on it and, wrapping an arm protectively around her stomach, pushed past the people waiting behind her and back outside. After comparing the map of the sights with the normal city map in her car, she realized that she was only a few streets away from the stone troll.