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Chapter Text

Camelot, some time ago

The knight was snoring softly, still sunk in the deepest of sleeps.

Ardena couldn’t stop drinking in the sight of him. She’d been drawn to his bedchamber by curiosity more than by duty, hoping to catch a glimpse of the strange guest her husband had welcomed into their home, but now that she had laid her eyes on him she couldn’t quite tear herself away from the doorframe, as if entranced by the spectacle set before her. Young, he was, younger than she’d expected, closer to her age than that of the man she was wed to, and handsome too – he’d kicked away the blankets in his slumber, and was now laying sprawled over the bed like a starfish, all long limbs and tangled hair, the sleeves of his sleepshirt bunched up to reveal strong arms and finely wrought hands.

She knew that it was unseemly for her to act like this, to peer through a half-ajar door and intrude upon his rest. She was no giddy little girl hiding from her tutors – she was lady of the castle, a noblewoman born and bred, someone who ought to know the rules of hospitality and had no business scurrying around on her tiptoes to avoid being caught red-handed by the chambermaids. She should have sent a valet to wake him up and attend to him far earlier, and gone back to check on what was expected of her for the day.

She should have, but she had yet to bring herself to. She was bound by oath to do many things she misliked, and would need to do far worse now that the man was here, but she was breaking no rule in her hesitation, and that was as much pleasure as she could hope to draw from her current situation. She would take it all gladly, and not waste a single drop of it.

And perhaps, Ardena thought with a small, peevish smile, she might even have some fun with this mysterious knight errant while she was at it.

Swiftly, she stepped into the room, shutting the door behind her back as quietly as she could. Only when she was sure the servants wouldn’t come barging in did she close the distance between them, and then sat delicately on the bed, careful not to disturb its occupant just yet. She took a deep breath, allowing herself a minute more to steel her nerves, then brushed her fingers lightly over his outstretched hand, smiling softly when he startled awake, squinting dazedly up at what no doubt had to seem some sort of whimsical apparition in his foggy gaze.

“And I thought knights were never idle,” she said with a hint of a laughter in her voice, hoping the nervousness she felt wouldn’t seep into her words. “Wake up, ser. The sun is high already, and the lord of the house wants you to break your fast with him.”

Storybrooke, 25^th December 2014

There was something going on with Emma’s parents.

Not that that realization could cause any kind of shock in her, if she was being honest with herself. In the near three years since her father had regained his memory, Emma had had to watch him and her mother worry about a long, long list of things, most of which she couldn’t even have fathomed in her past life. In fact, it had easily been the most chaotic three years of her entire existence, what with having to bring Regina to heel, sorting out an entire town’s worth of fairy tale land refugees and fighting off multiple villains who’d decided to claim Storybrooke as their home turf – it stood to reason that it would keep her parents on their toes, to be surrounded by so many issues that needed tending to.

She herself had been on the verge of losing her mind frequently enough, after all, and even taking into account the trifle matter of her being capable of magic, she hadn’t been reunited with any long lost love on top of everything else, nor had she been forced to navigate a sudden three-decade age difference with her spouse. She was willing to cut them some slack, all things considered.

Still, there was no threat hanging over their heads that she knew of, unless some old acquaintances had crossed the town line without her knowledge, and yet here the two of them were, skirting around each other like stray dogs sniffing at an intruder. They weren’t snapping or replying sharply when the other spoke, which was something of a relief – in fact, they were almost too civil to each other, making idle conversation as though they were choosing every word with exaggerated care, their smiles turning genuine only when they were addressing their daughter. They’d sat as far away as their dinner table allowed, too, and even with their house scrubbed clean for the occasion, there was no doubt that someone must have been spending their nights on the couch; David, most likely, considering her mother’s back problems and tendency for fitful sleep, and all those chivalric notions he’d no doubt learned in his homeland.

She couldn’t quite put her finger on what was going on, but she wasn’t really of a mind to find out, either, considering what kind of old resentments they tended to fight over when push came to shove. They were both adults, for God’s sake. They didn’t need a third person to play mediator. They most certainly didn’t need their daughter to fill the role, not with a townful of trusted friends, former enemies and at least one vaguely reliable therapist who basically lived at their beck and call.

It was, however, turning Christmas lunch into a rather awkward affair, and she’d have rather gone home without her belly churning and refusing to digest anything she’d eaten, if she could help it. Better to face the music now, before it took away her appetite for good.

“So how have you guys been doing?” She asked casually, pushing her slice of roast beef around the plate. At least the food was good, or at least it had been up until she’d grown too restless to taste it properly. “Any news?”

Her mother hesitated, then smiled at her, bright and wide and not reaching her eyes. “Oh, you know,” she said lightly, her fingers toying with the hem of her napkin. “Much the same as usual, I think. It seems we’re finally getting some peace, for once.”

David shot her an unreadable look, quick but hard to miss, and nodded vigorously in the face of Emma’s skeptical expression. “Yeah. It’s getting a bit boring, actually, but they say no news is good news, right?”

Emma glanced from him to his wife and back, and even opened her mouth to object, but then thought better of it. They were trying to fool her, and badly at that – she didn’t even need her superpower to pierce through their pretense, flimsy as it was – but if they were putting on a brave face to hide some marital problems from her, then pressing the matter would only serve to make things worse. Unless what they were concealing regarded long-forgotten family secrets, of course, in which case she’d have rather remained ignorant for the rest of her life, considering how well some of the previous revelations had gone.

She was about to come up with some sort of excuse to leave early, or at least remove herself to the bathroom to get away from the increasing stuffiness of that bloody dinner table, when she felt her phone buzz with an incoming message. She fished it out quickly, grateful for the temporary relief it granted her, and unlocked it to scroll through the latest notifications.

She’d expected another text full of holiday well-wishes, like the half-dozen she’d woken up to and the several more she’d received throughout the morning, but instead it was as terse as a written conversation could get, and coming from Regina, too. That caught Emma off-guard – she and the other woman had grown, if not lovingly fond, at least trusting of each other over the years, but that didn’t mean they were the kind to spend much time casually chatting, especially in the middle of a day as busy as Christmas.

The message simply read, Come to the Merry Men’s camp as soon as you can.

And then, before Emma could fully process what she’d just read, it was followed by a second, even shorter one: Bring your mother.

Her confusion must have shown clearly on her face, because next thing she knew her father was leaning closer to her, concern writ all over his features. “Everything okay?”

Wordlessly, she handed him the phone. He frowned as he read, and then turned back to her while he passed it to his wife so she could see for herself. “What do you think it means?”

“Trouble, no doubt,” her mother said, tersely. “Regina wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important. I wonder why she texted, instead of calling. That’s not like her.”

Emma sighed, standing up and moving to retrieve her coat from the hanger. “Well, we can ask her when we get there. It seems that there is no Christmas break for this kind of stuff, and I want to get it over with before something blows up again.”

“You’re right. Better we see what’s going on for ourselves. David, can you-“

“I’m coming with,” he replied, quickly gathering the plates left on the table before getting up as well. “We’ll make it a family thing, since it looks like hot cocoa on the couch isn’t an option for this year. Who knows, might be you’ll need backup.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, alright?” Emma groaned, but she didn’t complain as the man followed them outside, bundling up for the cold as they moved.

She didn’t miss the way her mother’s lips pressed into a thin line for a brief moment when she looked at her husband, either, but now was not the time to wonder about it. It would have to wait until they’d sorted out whatever new mess Storybrooke had in store for them.

Emma couldn’t pretend that she wasn’t at least the tiniest bit thankful for it, not even to herself.

“Please tell me it’s not an emergency,” she said as soon as they’d reached the patch of woods where Regina was waiting for them.

The other woman scoffed, a grim look on her face. “Believe me, I wouldn’t have cut my holiday short like that if it weren’t. Not the biggest one we’ve ever gotten, though. It doesn’t look like we’ve got another dragon in our hands, at least.”

“Well, that’s a low bar to clear,” Emma muttered under her breath, before raising her voice again. “Anyway. What is it that you wanted us to see?”

Regina gestured towards the path that led deeper into the forest. “This way. I left Robin to stand guard, in case someone wanted to snoop around and muck up what traces we have left.”

Traces of what, exactly? Emma wondered, but before she could voice the question aloud her mother had stepped forward, leaning heavily against her husband as they reached the clearing. Despite their still nameless disagreement, David hadn’t hesitated to offer her his arm to navigate their way to the meeting point, nor had she balked at the idea of taking it – it had snowed plenty already, to the delight of the entire town population below the age of twelve, and the slush had made the ground grow muddy and decidedly harder to get through.

“I take it you were spending the day together, then?” Snow asked, a small smile dancing on her face.

Regina didn’t quite flush, and neither did she hesitate more than a couple seconds, but she pressed her lips together for a moment before nodding, to what Emma supposed would be no one’s surprise. It was common knowledge by now that she and Robin had become an item, after he’d been instrumental in deescalating her villainous habits, and though some people in town were still decidedly suspicious of both issues, it had already faded in the background of the local gossip trade, surpassed by more recent scandals.

“Yes. Some of his men were a bit skeptical about the way things are handled here, but Roland’s been wondering about Christmas in this land for a while now, so we thought to put up a small feast.”

“And where is he now?” David asked. “Roland? You didn’t bring him along, did you?”

The woman shot him a pointed look, arching a carefully maintained eyebrow. “Who do you take us for? Not a chance. No, some kids came from town and asked him to go play with them. Very convenient, if you ask me. And anyway, Robin told Little John to gather most of people and bring them to Granny’s as soon as he could, since we heard she would be hosting some kind of celebration later. This way the area will be clear for a while, and we won’t be disturbed by any passing drunkard.”

Emma hummed noncommittally, but in truth, she was grateful for the effort they’d made. At least there would be no stragglers around, even in case – perish the thought - there turned out to be some kind of actual danger. “Good. Granny’s ale will keep them busy for the rest of day, while you show us…Whatever it is that you wanted to show us?”

Regina nodded, starting out towards the woods and moving away from the still-bustling camp. “Follow me.”

They didn’t have to travel very far. After about a couple minutes of trudging through the snow, diving into the thicker patches of trees, they found Robin Hood squatting down beside a small snow mound, his bow in his hands and a quiver slung across his back. He rose to his feet when he saw them approaching, moving to stand closer to Regina, and nodded in greeting to the newcomers, though his face remained serious. “Sheriff.”

“Hey,” Emma replied. “I’d say Merry Christmas, but it looks like you haven’t been getting much of that, today.”

He gave her a rueful grin, shrugging distractedly. “Ah, yes. I’d hoped celebrations could be a little more peaceful in this land than they were in ours, actually.”

“A bit optimistic on your part, I’m afraid,” Snow remarked drily, before looking questioningly at Regina. “Why did you want us to come here? I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. Did the Merry Men catch some weird animal while out hunting?”

“Not exactly. But they found something else, and you’re still one of the best trackers in town. If your eyesight hasn’t gotten any worse, that is.”

“I’d thank you to respect your elders, Regina.”

Emma turned her eyes skyward in a bid for patience, then shook her head, turning her attention to Robin. “What kind of tracks are we talking about?”

He pointed to the mound of snow to which he’d been devoting so much care before. “Come see for yourself.”

Emma drew closer, and then crouched low to give it a thorough once-over, only barely conscious of her parents following suit. What from a distance had looked like a smear of fresh, largely untouched snow, was in fact dotted with a series of pawprints, small but definite, the four-fingered marks making a stark contrast against the white landscape.

“A fox,” her mother said, after a moment. “Or a very small dog, but I doubt anyone would come this far to walk their chihuahua.”

“Is this what you were in such a hurry over, Regina?” David asked, frowning. “A fox? Aren’t foxes supposed to be part of the local wildlife or something?”

“Is that the only thing you noticed?” Regina replied, somewhat snappishly. “Seriously? After all the time you spent running around my woods?”

“Hold on.” Emma stood up, scanning the rest of the area. She could see the path drawn by the pawprints, now, a dark trail leading further north, but there was no explanation as to where a fox might have emerged from, no holes or hiding spots that could justify the tracks’ presence. “Why are they coming out of nowhere?”

The mayor threw her hands up in the air. “Finally, someone with an ounce of sense.”

“Still, that’s no reason why you should have called us here. For all we know, it could have fallen off a tree and run off in shame. Or the wind could have covered some of the tracks.”

“There’s more to it,” Robin interjected. “Look.”

They followed his lead, eyes glued to the tracks as they minded not to step over them. The trail took a winding path through the trees, halted by fallen logs and boulders but never fully vanishing, instead reappearing on the other side with equal clarity. On and on it went, and despite her puzzlement Emma soon found herself somewhat bored by the task, which had thus far proved rather uneventful. She’d dressed warmly for the day, but her day hadn’t been supposed to include an impromptu fool’s errand of a hike, and her feet were starting to demand her return to a more comfortable environment, preferably one equipped with centralized heating. Part of her almost wanted to call Regina out on her bluff and make her way back to town, or at least to where the Merry Men had no doubt set out a grand meal to celebrate the day, and the request was on the tip of her tongue when something caught her attention.

Wait.

“What the hell?” She murmured, bending down to brush over the tracks with her fingers, as if to ascertain they were really there.

Somewhere along the way, there had been a shift in the pattern, one that continued as far as her gaze went. The markings had become more and more frequent, and the distance between them increasingly larger, until it almost looked as if the fox had been proceeding on its hind legs only – but no, that would have been impossible. She’d seen plenty of surreal things, but for some reason her brain refused to conjure the image of a fox hopping around on its back paws like a miniature person, no matter how endearing it could seem at first glance.

Still, there was no denying the change happening before her – and the traces were changing too, in dimension if not in shape. In fact, they appeared to be slowly getting bigger, with no sign of returning to their prior appearance. Emma kept her eyes glued on them until they’d grown about the size of her hand before raising her gaze back to the others, who were looking as disconcerted as she felt.

Except, perhaps, for Regina, who had the hint of a sardonic grin on her face. “Not exactly your usual Maine fox, is it?” She commented archly.

“What kind of creature is that?” Snow murmured, seemingly transfixed by the sight before her.

Robin sighed, scratching at the back of his head with his free hand. “Well, we’d hoped you could tell us that. A couple of my men found the trail while checking on their traps for today’s meal, but they came to warn me right afterwards. They suspected magic had something to do with it.”

“Well, I can’t say they were wrong.”

“Oh, it gets worse,” Regina said darkly. “Keep going.”

Emma looked skeptically back at her. “How can it get worse than this?”

“I thought you’d learned not to ask questions like that by now, Sheriff.”

Regina’s assumption was proved correct not a couple minutes later. The trail took a turn, running up a slight slope and then through some bare-branched shrubs, and when it came out on the opposite side the tracks looked garbled somehow, as if they’d been muddied or stomped over. One could spot a familiar curve here and there, or the outline of a claw, but it would have been impossible to determine what animal they belonged to, if they hadn’t known already. And when they finally grew clearer again…

Emma stopped abruptly, almost causing her father to bump into her. “Are you kidding me?”

What followed was a long line of pristine human footprints – small, to be sure, no more than a size 6 or 7, but human nonetheless, five toes and all. They picked up right where the pawprints ended, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, and continued their way into the forest without even the barest hint of hesitation.

If the walking fox had been unconceivable, the idea of a barefoot shapeshifter taking a stroll in the middle of a sub-zero Maine winter was far too absurd to even be spoken aloud, and yet it was the most likely option, to Emma’s dismay. “What is this? Are they- Should we call Ruby? Is there another werewolf we should worry about?”

“A werefox, more like,” her mother mused. “But no, I don’t think Ruby has anything to do with it. I watched her turn more than once, and it was not nearly as neat as this. There’s something odd with these tracks.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Regina rubbed her gloved hands together, then crossed her arms against her chest, as though attempting to ward off the cold. “That’s why we called you in. It might just be the usual lost newcomer, but it never hurts to be careful, especially when it looks like they could be using magic.”

“Did you see where they’re going?”

Robin shook his head. “We thought to wait for reinforcements before we went any further. Whatever creature these tracks belong to, it’s not as if it might vanish out of thin air. And if it can, well, we could hardly have stopped it.”

“Good call.” Emma stepped forward, putting herself at the head of the group. “Come on, then. Let’s see if they come in peace.”

By then they’d walked far enough that she had lost, if not her bearings, at least part of her sense of direction. There was something utterly eerie about having to follow a trail without knowing where it might lead, in a forest that was ripe with weird noises even where the snow should have, by rights, muffled every sound including that of their footsteps – she kept looking over her shoulder at every creaking branch and rustling of leaves, almost expecting for someone to be watching them, and came up with nothing every time, likely to the amusement of what few wild animals were minding their business around the area. It brought to mind the trials of Hansel and Gretel, the way she’d read them as a young girl in school, when fairy tales had seemed wonderfully distant and nothing she could set to rights on her own.

Still, she’d already sorted out the matter of Hansel and Gretel within the first two months of her stay in town, and she’d collected her badge and gun before leaving to join Regina as well, just in case. That ought to put her at an advantage against any hungry witch they might meet.

Finally, they came to a spot where the trees seemed to be thinning out some, and Emma raised a hand to stop the others before they could stumble on her again. “Hold on. What is that?”

Standing before them was an oddly misshapen structure, about eight or nine feet tall, placed right in the middle of a circle of bare trees. It vaguely resembled the mouth of a cave, made of roughly squared-off boulders streaked with moss, with a sloped roof that made it look like as though it were burrowing down into the ground – which it might very well be doing, for what Emma could see. The interior was pitch black and impossible to analyze from the outside, and though there was snow piling up at its sides and before the makeshift doorstep, only very little of it was dusting the outer walls, and the moss creeping over them was almost too vibrant a green, clashing intensely with the wintery landscape that surrounded it.

The footprints kept their merry pace right to the entrance, afterwards vanishing into the darkness without so much as a by-your-leave.

“Where does that thing lead?” David asked, his brow furrowed. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in this part of the forest before. Robin?”

“Not a clue. And I thought we’d scoured through everything up to the town line.”

“You have,” Regina said, her voice tense. “Whatever that is, it’s not supposed to be here. I have never seen it in my life – and believe me, twenty-eight years stuck in the same loop will give you a lot of free time to spend combing through the woods.”

Snow scoffed. “You want us to believe it’s, I don’t know, sprouted out of the ground while you weren’t looking?”

“Well, do you have any better idea?”

“I do,” Emma cut in, taking a step forward. “I say we go check it out and see if we can get some answers. Then, we can discuss the rest.”

“Emma, are you sure?” Her father spoke up. “You don’t know what might be in there.”

“Listen, until there’s any proof of danger, we’ve got to work with the assumption that someone’s been running around shoeless in the middle of December, and that they found shelter in a hole. I’d rather get them out and back to town before worrying about anything else.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Robin admitted, fetching an arrow from his quiver and nocking it. “Go on, then. We’ll cover you in case something goes wrong.”

Emma nodded and pressed on, the rest of the group at her heels. She tried peering inside the building once she was close enough, but the darkness was so absolute that she could hardly notice the difference, so she sighed and pulled her phone out from her pocket, turning on the flashlight.

“Be careful,” she warned, leaning against the stony doorframe as she attempted to light up the interior. “We don’t know if the ground inside is-“

She couldn’t finish the sentence. As soon as her hand touched the boulders, she heard a low, threatening rumbling sound raise around her – for a moment, she thought it might come from inside the cave, some sort of feral animal howl that immediately had her raising her guard. Soon, though, it was clear that there was no creature screaming, and that the ground itself was causing that inarticulate noise, like the humming at the back of someone’s throat. It grew louder and louder, until it felt as if it were surrounding her, hounding her from all sides.

Then the ground was shaking underneath her feet, listing to the side as though she were standing on a wobbling platform, rather than on solid forest floor.

Emma’s eyes went wide with shock. She tried holding onto the cave walls to keep herself upright, but her feet kept sliding on the mud and slush, and from the startled gasps coming from all around her, it wasn’t hard to gather that the same might be happening to the others as well. She caught a glimpse of her father, making a desperate grab at her mother’s arm, but it was to no avail – down they both went, and Regina and Robin with them, with no chance to pull themselves out of whatever was clamping them down.

“What the hell’s happening?” She exclaimed, but the words were drowned by the deafening roar that was piercing her eardrums more strongly by the second, near enough to be unbearable.

She made a last-ditch effort of using magic to dig her way out, but her feeble spells seemed to clash against something much stronger than her, and all she could for feet and feet away was snow and trees and logs curling inwards towards her, as though they were teeth from a giant mouth trying to take a bite out of her. She shouted again when the ground swallowed her, taking the glare of the sun over the snow with it, but she got no response.

And then there was utter, complete silence.

Chapter Text

????

To her surprise, Emma landed on her feet.

The impact still reverberated up her legs and through her entire body, and she staggered back, trying to keep her balance, but for a brief moment the shock of being all in one piece surpassed the discomfort by a long shot. She let out a choked breath, blinking to adjust to the sudden return to the sunlight, and only afterwards did she manage to look up, trying to figure out what was going on around her.

The first thing she could make out was Regina’s shape, standing a couple feet from her and looking no less frazzled than Emma herself was feeling. She met the woman’s gaze for a moment, knowing Regina would likely the quickest on the uptake if there turned out to be danger around, and then looked over her shoulder to see Robin and her parents trying to find their footing as well, though luckily they seemed no worse for the wear.

“Is everyone okay?” She called out, wincing at how hoarse her voice sounded. Trying to scream her way out of a cave-in had really done a number on her. “Mom?”

Her mother nodded, waving her concern off. “We’re alright, I think. Regina?”

“If you can call it that,” Regina gritted out, attempting to dust some grime off her coat. “What the hell did just happen?”

“No idea.” Emma looked down at the state of her own clothes as the rest of the group drew closer. Some dirt was still clinging to her jacket sleeves, too, but aside from that she was faring better than she would have expected from someone who’d just fallen through the ground only to hop down onto the other side, like a cheap copy of Wil E. Coyote. Only her boots and the hem of her pants were deliberately smeared with mud, but that had probably more to do with the off-the-road hike they’d taken to the cave, rather than the fallout itself.

Which was made even more impressive by the fact that the terrain she was currently standing on was dry as bones, with no sign of snow whatsoever.

Slowly, she raised her head, hoping against hope for her first impression to be proven wrong, but there was no going around it. They were still, from what she could see, standing in the middle of the woods, but the trees were unmistakably different from the ones they’d left behind, taller and sturdier, and the sky above was clearer than anything the weather forecast could have predicted for Storybrooke, though the air was still cold enough to sting at Emma’s upturned face.

“Where are we?” Robin asked, following her gaze. He’d managed to retain his bow and quiver, though a few of the arrows now laid scattered around their feet – he bent down to pick them up, still casting nervous glances around. “What is this place?”

Regina pulled a face. “Don’t take my word for it, but if this isn’t Storybrooke, then I’m afraid there aren’t many options we can consider.”

Four heads whipped around to stare at her. “You think we’re back in the Enchanted Forest?” David ventured, stunned. “Again?”

“Well, it would check out, wouldn’t it? Some kind of magical bait, a portal opening up under our feet, finding ourselves stranded somewhere… I’m just saying, it would hardly be a shock.”

“I don’t recognize this place, though,” Snow said, thoughtfully. “Now, I won’t pride myself of knowing every corner of the forest, but shouldn’t it at least look a bit familiar?”

“Honestly, I have learned to lower my expectations when it comes to travel between realms,” the mayor replied drily. “Might be it works on the same rules as…whatever that hole in our woods was, but it doesn’t matter, now. For the time being, let’s just-“

There was a scuffling noise at their back, preventing them from hearing the rest of Regina’s plan. They turned as one, their eyes scanning the unfamiliar surroundings for any sign of change, but there was no trace of it even as the sound started getting louder and louder. Soon, though, Snow was gesturing wildly towards a particular section of forest, and Emma nodded, stepping in front of the group.

“Who’s there?” She called out, her hand going to the holster at her side. She eased the gun out of it, but didn’t dare draw it out in full just yet, in case it turned out to be a false alarm or, at the very least, some kind of creature with a dislike for firearms. “Show yourself!”

“Don’t shoot,” a high-pitched voice yelled in return. “We come in peace.”

She reared back in shock as three figures emerged from among the trees – two boys, she realized quickly, with a small child walking alongside them. The tallest of them had both arms raised, though in a somewhat mocking fashion, as if expecting the lot of them to be playing cowboys, while the second one was tugging the child along by the hand, his eyes flitting between the various adults with some apprehension. All three were wearing clothes that had clearly come from Storybrooke, and not from the land they were supposedly standing in the middle of, with colorful winter coats and thick woolen scarves and boots who’d have been more at ease on snowy grounds than anywhere else.

All three, to Emma’s despair, were faces she recognized far too well, and who had no business showing up on the other side of a portal they had no surefire way to reopen. “Oh, for the love of- You?”

“Pinocchio?” David chorused, clearly caught off guard. “And…who’s this?”

Emma sighed, sheathing her gun again. Unexpected as their visitors were, she wouldn’t be needing to shoot any of them anytime soon – or at least, she fervently hoped she wouldn’t be asked to. “Someone who really ought to be somewhere else.”

“’Lo, Sheriff,” Lampwick drawled, some hesitation in his customary grin as they approached. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Pinocchio, standing next to him with Roland’s hand clutched tightly in his own, went wide-eyed and elbowed him hard in the side, hissing something that Emma couldn’t quite catch. Lampwick sneered at him in return, while Roland took advantage of the sudden jostling to wiggle out of the older boy’s grasp, and then darted towards his father, barreling against the man’s legs with no small amount of desperation. “Papa!”

Robin picked up his son almost mechanically, allowing the child to cling tightly to him and bury his face in his neck, but his expression was still torn between worry and utter puzzlement, and his eyes narrowed when they settled on Roland’s companions. “What are you three doing here?”

The two raised their heads from their bickering, something approaching guilt crossing both their faces. “Same thing that happened to you, I think?” Lampwick replied tentatively. “We weren’t that far behind you when there was that…earthquake…thing.”

“You followed us?”

“Please don’t get mad at Roland,” Pinocchio hurried to cut in, a hint of alarm to his words. “It wasn’t his fault.”

“Yeah, no, it was mine. And Pinocchio’s, a bit.”

“Lampwick-“

“What? We’ll get there eventually, so better save ourselves some time, right?”

“Wait, so these are the kids you left in charge of your son?” Emma spoke up, turning to Robin in disbelief.

“Yes,” he replied, with an alarmingly flat voice that caused both boys to flinch and finally shut their mouths. “But it was with the understanding that they would keep him out of trouble.”

“I’m afraid they’re not exactly the people I’d choose for the task.”

Lampwick let out an outraged noise, and the boy crossed his arms, raising his chin defiantly. “Well, we were trying to do just that! We tried running away when that bloody thing collapsed, but we couldn’t get out of there fast enough, and wherever we went the hole just kept getting bigger, so really, we’re not at fault there.”

“Yes, well, none of you should have been in the woods to begin with,” Emma said sharply. “It’s Christmas, for God’s sake. Why weren’t you at home?”

Pinocchio shrugged. “Papa made me a new sled. We wanted to let Roland have a turn on it.”

“And where’s that sled now?”

The boy winced, and he scratched the top of his head, not meeting Emma’s gaze. “…at the bottom of the slope? Where we told Little John we’d be, before we saw you leaving and decided to follow you?”

Emma stared at him for a moment, speechless, then closed her eyes and took a deep, deep breath. When she’d woken up that morning, she had hoped her only concern for the day would be keeping the peace and ensuring none of the dwarves thought to get behind the wheel after drinking too much eggnog, not having to deal with a magical crisis before sundown. And now, not only was she stranded in an unknown place with little in the way of company, but three reckless kids had had the brilliant idea of sticking their nose in that very same crisis, unnecessarily raising the stakes by a large margin – and to make it all worse, only one of their parents seemed to be around, which made her the nearest thing to an adult responsible for Lampwick and Pinocchio’s well-being for the foreseeable future.

The more she looked at the situation, the less ideal it seemed, but it was fine. Everything would be fine. She had to convince herself of it, otherwise she was like to lose her head, and right now she needed it working and stuck firmly on her shoulders.

“Alright,” she said, finally looking up and around at the others. “We’ll discuss the whats and whys later. Right now, we’ve got to find out where we are and how to get back to Storybrooke. Might be that we were lucky, and that that thing just moved us a few miles inland.”

Regina pursed her lips. “Forgive me if I don’t believe the odds to be in our favor, when it comes to that.”

Emma had to admit that she had a point. Still, they couldn’t exactly afford to waste time moping. Wherever they were, it was cold, and the temperature was likely to drop even further with each passing hour. They had to find shelter, or even better, a way back before the sun could begin to set. “Does no one really recognize anything about this place?”

Her father shook his head. “There aren’t exactly a lot of landmarks around here.”

“There is a stream.” Pinocchio pointed over his shoulder, in the direction he and his friends had come from. “Right over there. We spotted it while we were trying to reach you.”

“Good call.” Snow turned to the rest of the group. “You know how it goes. If there’s running water, there ought to be signs of life. We should follow it until we can find someone to ask for help.”

“Shouldn’t we stay put, in case the portal reopens? We wouldn’t want to miss it, if it did.”

“There’s little chance of that, David. Or are you suggesting some of us stay behind to wait for it?”

“If we’re splitting in two groups, I’m sticking with the sheriff,” Emma heard Lampwick mutter to Pinocchio under his breath. “You know how it goes in Scooby-Doo and stuff. Don’t want to take any chances with that kind of thing.”

If it had been any other day, the picture he was painting would have flattered and amused her in turn. Unfortunately, though, none of them was supposed to be standing there to begin with, and she was much more concerned about keeping them all alive than about anything else – and that went without mentioning the tense edge that had seeped back into her mother’s words when speaking to David, after the initial shock of being teleported elsewhere had faded slightly. It would have been an unwelcome sound in a cozy Storybrooke living room, nevermind in a strange land that they had yet to identify.

As it was, ridiculous that their situation might look from the outside, she was struggling to see the humor in any of it.

“No one is getting left behind anywhere,” she said loudly, forcing her parents to return their attention to her. “Mom is right, Dad. Whatever that cave was, I don’t think it will come back for us. We’ll have better luck checking somewhere else.”

Without waiting to see if there was any other complaint, she turned to the older boys, pointing a threatening finger in their direction. “You two, with me. Marco will wring my neck if either of you gets hurt on my watch.”

“Right,” Robin muttered darkly, setting Roland down onto the ground and trying to coax him into letting go of his father’s neck. “I’d hate to see what else they can come up with.”

“What do you make of all of this, then?” Regina asked, once they’d set out on their search.

The stream had turned out to be little more than a rivulet of water, small enough that they could have made it to the other side with a single jump if need be, but running water it was, and as such, Emma considered it as good an option as any other they had – which were, admittedly, very few. She wasn’t the kind of woman to ever throw the towel in too soon, but she had to concede that the circumstances weren’t looking all that bright.

At least, with such small amounts of water, they didn’t have to worry about any of the children stumbling in and getting carried away by the current. Robin had managed to convince Roland to walk on his own for the time being, and was holding his son’s hand tightly as they went, but she wouldn’t have put it past either Pinocchio or Lampwick to attempt something in that particular vein of recklessness, though right now they seemed temporarily cowed, keeping away from the riverbank and not straying too far from her line of sight. That was a weight off Emma’s shoulders, if an incredibly light one, compared to what was left for her to carry.

Belatedly, she realized the mayor was looking at her, still waiting for an answer, so she shook her head, chewing thoughtfully at the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know,” she said, finally. “But I don’t like any of it. That portal, for starters- Where the hell did it come from? If it even was a portal, I mean.”

“Oh, it was. Of a sort. But I have no clue who could have opened it, or how. Shoddy work, that was. Nothing I could recognize- And definitely no magic beans involved, if you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t. But that’s not very reassuring, is it? At least we’d know where to begin, with a bean. But as it stands…Are you sure it wasn’t any old friend of yours? Someone who’d leave a signature, or something?”

Regina chuckled humorlessly. “I know a few who could cast something like that, yes. But I doubt many of them would still consider me their friend, after all this time, so I’m not sure me knowing them would be of any help, even if they deigned to show their faces.”

She turned to the boys, who were regarding her with poorly concealed suspicion. “And you’re certain that you didn’t see anyone in the woods aside from us? Anyone at all?”

“No one.” Lampwick shrugged, shaking his head. “Just you guys. And we’d been there a while, too, so it’s not like we could have missed it.”

“Typical.” Regina cast a reproving glance in Emma’s direction, as though she were personally responsible for the lack of information at hand. “And you still haven’t explained how you know these kids. I thought Roland had just pulled some friends out of nowhere, like he always does.”

“I’d have to be deaf to never have heard Marco speak about his son. And that one has left a lot of messes for me to clean up – the last was throwing bricks at windows, wasn’t it?”

“That’s not fair, Sheriff. It was a single brick, and the guy deserved it, anyway.”

“Of course he did.”

“We really are sorry for following you, though,” Pinocchio added. “We know we shouldn’t have. We were just curious. We weren’t expecting any of this to happen.”

Emma sighed, laying a hand on his ruddy head. She was still beyond pissed at the idea that more people might have been engulfed by the portal, and people she already needed to chase away from potential danger on a weekly basis at that, but her anger would serve nothing if directed towards the boys, though she could understand why Robin was still glaring daggers at them, with his son on the line. They had to stick together, and as such, she couldn’t afford to scare any of them off just yet. Any lecture would have to wait until they’d returned to Storybrooke. “I know, kid. Neither did we. It’s just that I’ll rest easier when I know where we are and how far we are from home.”

Despite her attempts to keep her voice light for the kids’ sake, however, she couldn’t quite shake off the unease Lampwick’s answer had brought her. Most of the villains she’d fought had been adamant that she should know exactly what she was measuring against, leaving marks of their presence and at times even showing up in person to gloat over what they had believed to be their imminent victory. It ground her nerves to fraying, usually, to be challenged so blatantly, but at least it tended to give her a head start when it came to looking for a solution.

This- This was different, and she was liking it little and less with every passing minute. Not being torn away from Storybrooke, perhaps – she hadn’t enjoyed being played in such a fashion, nor being strung along like cattle, but she had to admit it had worked even too well; they’d walked right into the trap without hesitation, like dutiful little sheep, instead of taking a minute to consider if they should trust a mysterious hole in the middle of the forest. She would have warmly congratulated the people responsible on their well-executed plan, if she had known their identity, probably to yell in their faces immediately afterwards.

But the not knowing, that was what threatened to undo her from the inside. No ransom note, no name to attach to the threat, no explanation for their day being turned on its head without prior notice – not even the discovery of a new branch in her parents’ ever-growing family tree, however much she would have dreaded to find another new relative to be the culprit behind all this. Only a smattering of footprints that made no sense at all, and a brand of magic not even Regina could parse through.

Precious little to start an investigation from. True, she might have taken up the job of sheriff as a necessity more than a vocation, but even the best detective in the world could do nothing without a clue, and she doubted she had missed any that could be easily analyzed while in their current predicament.

She was torn from her grim elucubrations by her father’s voice, raising up from behind her with vague alarm. “Wait. Do you hear that?”

They stopped where they stood, straining their ears to listen. At first, Emma couldn’t make out anything aside from the common noise she would have expected from a stretch of woods, birdcalls and rustling leaves and so on, but soon another sound began to filter through, a strong, rhythmical thudding that kept growing louder and louder, until it was easily identifiable as multiple hooves hitting the ground at a gallop.

Horses. Riders approaching. And likely none of them familiar faces, if they were going around on a saddle rather than behind the wheel of a car.

Instinctively, Emma stepped forward, putting herself between Lampwick and Pinocchio and the open forest, and caught Regina doing pretty much the same thing in the corner of her eyes, solidly planting her feet before Roland and Robin. They exchanged a quick glance, but didn’t say a word, instead bracing themselves as the newcomers got nearer and noisier, almost holding their breaths in anticipation.

Then the riders emerged from the treeline, and drew to a halt a few feet from the group, the horses huffing and snorting as they slowed down their pace.

Emma stared at them in open puzzlement, though she kept her guard raised. The men before her were no more than a dozen, most of them clad in leather and chainmail, with swords at their hips and crimson cloaks pinned on their shoulders. None of them seemed particularly tense or about to attack – rather, it looked as though they were out on a pleasure stroll, not coming up armed to the teeth to a bunch of foreigners. A couple of them were smiling; others, though doing a far better job at keeping their composures, could hardly hide the merriment in their eyes as they looked down on Emma and her companions.

The man at the head of the formation was smiling widest of all – he appeared to be the leader, seen as it had been his raised fist who’d signaled at the others to stop. Neither his clothes nor his fur-lined cloak were any finer than those worn by his peers, but there was an undeniable aura of importance to his bearing, as well as to the way the people around him were now turning to him, as if expecting further instructions.

“It seems we haven’t arrived a moment too soon,” he said, voice ringing loud and clear – the voice of a man who knew how to make himself heard, even at a distance. “I apologize for our lateness. We’d expected to find you further south than this.”

“Who are you?” Regina spat back, brow furrowing. “What do you want from us?”

“We’ve come to find you, of course. We’re in need of your assistance, and I suspect you’re in need of ours.”

“You knew where to find us?” Emma asked, a flicker of unease twisting in her gut. “How? How do you know us?”

“My lord,” one of the riders called out, with unmistakable amusement, “they think their arrival is a surprise.”

Well, that was not what she’d been expecting at all. “It’s not?”

“Most certainly not.” The leader’s eyes scanned the group gathered in front of him, like a general surveying his troops. “Merlin prophesied your coming here a long time ago, along with many other things that have since proved themselves to be true.”

“Merlin?” Emma’s eyebrows shot up in disbelief. “The wizard?”

The man’s grin grew sharper. “I’ve been told he prefers the term sorcerer. But yes, it was him.”

But he doesn’t exist, she very nearly said, possibly accusing her interlocutor of trying to mess with her while she was at it. The cold-resistant fox-person had already dealt a hard blow to her psyche – the image of a doddering old magician waiting for her with open arms was getting quite difficult to paint in her mind, particularly on a day like the one she’d just experienced.

But of course, she knew better than to do anything of the sort. Her mother was Snow White, for crying out loud. Regina’s mother had been the Queen of Hearts. The two boys she was currently acting as a human shield for had spent a good chunk of their lives as donkeys, if she was not mistaken. There was no reason why Merlin couldn’t exist – hell, there was no reason why he couldn’t have a talking owl, too, either. She’d seen worse at Granny’s during rush hour.

And she’d- she’d heard of Merlin somewhere already, hadn’t she? Somewhere that didn’t involve a movie screen. She couldn’t exactly remember when or from whose mouth, but it was on the tip of her tongue even as she spoke - she would have found the answer, she was sure of it, if she hadn’t been so busy squinting up at the stranger looming over her on horseback.

Ah, well. It would come, sooner or later. Probably once that tidbit of knowledge had proven itself to be crucial to their survival, as those things tended to go in her life.

“Wait. So if- if this Merlin has been expecting us, that would make you…”

“I’m King Arthur of Camelot. I welcome you into my lands, and I’d welcome you into my castle, as well, if you were to agree to follow me. We could talk much more comfortably in a room with a fireplace.”

Head spinning, Emma glanced sideways at Regina. The woman’s expression was flat and unreadable, but there was something flashing in her dark eyes – a question, and one that Emma would have undoubtedly found in her mother’s gaze as well, and that of the others, if she’d dared to look back over her shoulder.

What better choice do we have?

None, was the correct answer. Their options were rely on this king’s hospitality or wander around in the cold, and some vague suspicions weren’t enough to refuse such a tantalizing offer. Plus, their willingness to comply to the man’s request might yet turn out not to be a requirement – Emma had seen time and again that royal moods could be fickle and unpredictable, and dangerous, too, most of all. A no likely didn’t figure in the list of answers he would be pleased to get, even if until he’d seemed pleasant enough to talk to. And she and Robin might be armed, and Regina might not have needed any weapon to face anyone, but the lot of them couldn’t be certain of escaping a bunch of men with swords without injury, and she would have rather gone home without picking up any fight, if she could help it.

“Alright,” she said in the end, trying to suppress the whirlwind of thoughts that was currently taking place in her brain. “We’ll come with you. But we have more questions to ask.”

“I’m sure you do.” Arthur tugged at the reins of his horse, motioning for his men to turn around.

“I can only hope I’ll provide all the answers you need, so that you’ll be able to satisfy my curiosity, afterwards.”

King Arthur’s castle was huge.

Pinocchio could barely stop himself from gaping, head craned back to take the full sight in. He was so distracted he’d already walked right into Lampwick twice, much to the latter’s grumbling, but he knew that his friend was as hypnotized as he was, and they kept tugging at each other’s arm to turn this way and that, pointing at yet another vaulted ceiling or colorful tapestry.

The king’s knights had offered for “the children” to ride with them, but Roland had refused to let go of his father (which he couldn’t be blamed for, considering the ordeal they’d just put him through), and Pinocchio and Lampwick had refused near as quickly. Neither of them had ever sat on a horse before, and the last instance of pack animal riding that had seen them involved hadn’t ended well for anyone in the premises. They weren’t very keen on giving it another go, all in all.

Plus, they couldn’t be certain that these strange men wouldn’t just book it and take them away as hostages, since even Emma seemed to mistrust them. Better to go along with the rest of the group, then, and keep hoping for the best.

“So, how’s this one compare to the queen’s castle?” Lampwick whispered in his ear as the king led them into his hall. “Since you’ve seen it and all.”

Pinocchio wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know. It’s weird.”

In truth, he wasn’t sure what to make of any of what he was seeing. The castle was magnificent, to be sure, with enormous towers and gaudy decorations everywhere he turned, and more and more people seemed to be pouring out to watch the king come in – to watch them come in, Pinocchio realized with a start. He wasn’t sure why an entire court would amass to witness their arrival, but they were clapping and cheering loudly as though in the presence of a triumphant hero, and not a few bewildered foreigners and some kids who hadn’t even bothered to brush their hair before going out to play.

The sudden attention would have been bad enough, but there was more to Pinocchio’s discomfort, even if he couldn’t say exactly what. Perhaps it was just the sheer change in dimensions – no building in Storybrooke had ever been that big, no matter how small he’d felt in the middle of it sometimes, and he’d spent too little time in Snow White’s castle to really get used to it, though he could recall getting lost in the seemingly endless corridors every other day. Perhaps it was the fact that for the first time in ages he wasn’t surrounded by faces he’d seen every day for years, and that there were rows and rows of strangers staring intently at them instead, like the audience of a circus peering with avid curiosity into the ring.

In any case, he was grateful for Emma’s presence, at least – the sheriff’s air of no-nonsense determination as she kept marching forward was somewhat reassuring in that chaos, even if she didn’t seem to have any more explanations than he did. And he was even more grateful for Lampwick, who was putting up a good show of being unimpressed by the king’s pompous welcome, and had yet to stray further than a couple feet from Pinocchio’s side during their forced march.

“You think the sword’s still around?” He asked, pursing his lips in thought. “We could try and give it a look, while they work out how to send us home.”

Pinocchio shot him a quizzical look. “What sword?”

“You know, the one in the stone? Like in the movie?”

“If he’s king then it means he got it out of the stone, stupid.”

“Oh. Right, yeah.”

“And anyway, I’m not coming with you to look for any sword. We’re already in trouble as it is. Big trouble.”

Lampwick scoffed. “Come on, you can’t tell me that it’s worse than-“

“No, of course it’s not worse than that. But it’s bad, okay? Really bad.”

And that was, probably, the heart of the problem. Not that they were in trouble – that would have made it any ordinary Thursday, Christmas or not, and they likely deserved what they’d gotten, for not minding their business – but that there didn’t seem to be any way out of it, or any mean to communicate with the people they’d left behind in Storybrooke, for that matter. No doors to knock on, no one to call and ask for a ride home - no phone booths to call from, either. How long had it been since they’d left already? A few hours at least, like as not, plenty enough for everyone to start worrying.

Pinocchio hadn’t even said bye to his father properly. He’d left them still sitting at the table when Lampwick had come calling, him and Jiminy, and had shot out of the house like a light with his new gift clutched under his arm, promising that yes, he’d be careful, and yes, he’d make his way to Granny’s before it got dark out. And now he was in Camelot of all places, the sun setting outside of the colored glass windows, and he doubted things could be solved that swiftly, even if the king was indeed of a mind to help them all.

He was starting to feel terribly guilty about everything, if he was being honest with himself, and more than a little scared, too, though he hoped no one would notice. Especially Emma. Or Robin Hood, who was still rightfully upset about him and Lampwick dragging Roland into that mess to begin with.

They had reached the bottom of a grand staircase, on whose landing stood a woman with a cascade of dark hair, flanked on both sides by more ladies in lavish courtly dresses. King Arthur commanded the party to stop, and then climbed a few steps and extended a hand towards the woman, smiling broadly as she began her descent.

“My queen,” he said, warmly. “Guinevere.”

The queen took her husband’s hand, allowing him to escort her in the final steps towards the guests. Her dark eyes were shining in the torchlight, as were the jewels in her hair, and she beamed brightly at them all, casting a warm glance over the crowd. She was wearing a rich, plum-colored woolen gown – the fabric was likely heavy enough to ward off the cold, despite the multiple fires lit around the room, and yet it couldn’t entirely conceal the shape of the body underneath. Instead, it followed the unmistakable curve of a rounded belly, and she laid her free hand on the swell for a moment once she’d reached the end of the stairs, as though catching her breath.

“Looks like they’ve got buns in the oven,” Lampwick muttered, earning himself a shushing and a sharp pinch in the arm.

“Welcome to Camelot,” Guinevere cheerfully greeted them. “I hope you’ve had a safe journey. I am glad you have finally reached us, and that Merlin was not mistaken in his prediction.”

“Well met,” Snow White said, stepping forward to face the younger woman. “Though I wish we were as well-prepared for our arrival as you seem to be.”

The queen’s brow creased, and she turned to the king in blatant confusion. “Arthur?”

He gave her a brief laugh. “They didn’t know about the prophecy, my love. They told me they were brought to Camelot against their will.”

“Yeah, you might say that,” Emma interjected. “Our home is…very far from here, and we don’t know how to get back. Do you think the sorcerer, Merlin, could help us?”

There was a small, subtle shift in King Arthur’s expression. It was incredibly quick, a blink-and-a-miss kind of change, but Pinocchio noticed it all the same, though he didn’t manage to draw Lampwick’s attention to it in time, and found himself frowning at the man, puzzled. For a moment, it had seemed as if Emma’s words had poked at a bruise of his, causing him to squirm in discomfort, but there was no reason why he would react like that, was it? She’d asked a simple question. She hadn’t even been rude, though perhaps royalty had different standards for politeness, in this land.

Still, it was gone nearly as soon as it came, and the king was smiling broadly once again, as if nothing had happened. “I don’t see why not. His magic was said to be more powerful than anyone else’s in the kingdom.”

“We’ll see about that,” the mayor scoffed, though it was hardly audible, a disdainful whisper that had Pinocchio bite his tongue in an effort not to burst out laughing, despite his concern.

And then, louder: “Wait, was?”

“Merlin has been…missing, and for a long time now,” Guinevere said, before adding jovially: “But that is about to end. According to the prophecy, you’ll be the ones to reunite us with him.”

Arthur nodded. “Indeed. But we need not speak of it here. I have had rooms prepared for you, and changes of clothing, too. Please, allow my men to escort you to them, and I will meet you once you have rested a while, if you would join me for the evening meal. We have much to speak about.”

Pinocchio’s stomach was agreeing wholeheartedly with the idea of receiving some food, but his brain was still unsure about anything that might come along with it. Still, they didn’t appear to have much choice in the matter - already some of the knights were approaching them, as though they’d been expecting that very order for a while. Emma opened her mouth as if to protest, but her mother preceded her, appearing by her side and taking her daughter’s hand in hers. “Thank you, Your Majesty. We appreciate your generosity.”

“It’s nothing. It is us who should be grateful for your presence.”

They were herded away like mildly confused cattle, the adults shooting uneasy glances around. The knight closest to Pinocchio even held out a hand as if to help him along, not unkindly, and yet the boy grabbed Lampwick’s wrist before the man could so much as touch either of them, and then darted ahead to the heart of the group, where Prince Charming was trying to keep pace with his wife. Snow White was still keeping a solid grip on Emma, the two women’s heads bent together as if they were sharing a secret, though the former princess’ smile was tight and wavering, and her daughter was doing nothing to hide her puzzlement.

“You wanna know what I think of this place?” He hissed, once he was sure the ruckus would drown his words.

Lampwick snorted. “Let me guess, you think it stinks, too, right?”

Pinocchio’s shoulders sagged in relief. At least he knew he wasn’t being stupid about the whole ordeal, or making a mountain out of an anthill. “Right.”

He glanced over his shoulder to where Arthur was standing, now arm in arm with his wife. The king was still grinning from ear to ear, but he was watching them go with great interest, too, as though convinced they would break formation the moment he looked elsewhere, scattering to the four winds like a handful of confetti.

Well, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, as far as Pinocchio was concerned. He had no intention of going anywhere alone without being first reassured that they were, in fact, safe in that great big castle, and even then he would have probably hesitated, considering what kept happening whenever he and Lampwick were left without adult supervision.

“I don’t like it, Lampwick. I hope we can go home soon.”

“Well, that makes two of us, Pinoke,” Lampwick sniffed, pulling a face at a passing lady who was trying to get a better look at them. The noblewoman recoiled, clearly miffed, and the boy flashed her a peevish grin before leaning down to speak in his friend’s ear once more, with an ease that would have felt genuine if Pinocchio hadn’t known any better. “Let’s just pray they don’t ask us to do too much work for them in exchange for that, uh?”

“Yeah.” Pinocchio buried his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. Packed as it was, the room ought to feel warmer, stuffy, almost, and yet there was a shiver running down his spine all the same, a bad feeling that probably didn’t have anything to do with the low temperature, or how many layers of clothing he’d failed to put on despite his father’s fretting.

“Yeah, let’s.”

Chapter Text

Camelot, six months ago

“That witch has made a joke out of me again!” Arthur howled, slamming his hand over the tabletop so hard the palm began to sting almost immediately.

Guinevere did not flinch, though she could hardly be used to the ruckus, given that her husband wasn’t usually prone to such outbursts of rage, even in private. “Are you sure it was her? You have made many enemies since you became king, Arthur. It could be any one of them, trying to defy you.”

“Could it?” He let out a bitter laugh, finally sitting down to face her. “No, I don’t think so. Not like this.”

He made a vague gesture that was meant to encompass the message he’d just finished scrolling through, as well as most of what had happened in the previous weeks – months, really, by then. He could barely pinpoint the moment when the realization had hit him, when the string of mishaps that had been plaguing his kingdom had begun blurring together and appearing less like a stroke of bad luck and more like the well-planned attack against his authority that they were, but it had been far too long already. He was starting to grow weary, and the wearier he got, the more tempted he felt to take up arms against the woman behind his troubles, powerful enchantress that she might be.

After all, no punishment could be too harsh for someone who was tearing Camelot apart piece by piece, like a mouse burrowing under the floorboards of a house.

“Dried-up rivers,” Arthur muttered, more to himself than to Guinevere, who likely remembered it as well as he did. “Cattle vanishing from their pastures. And now this- she razed entire fields to the ground, Guinevere. The people will go hungry, and they will blame me if I can’t feed them, or if I don’t stop this madness.”

There was more to it, of course. He was a king, and therefore bound to protect his subjects, but he was a man, as well, and he did not know any man who would be happy of being made the fool of his own castle. And he could almost hear the other Knights of the Round Table laughing, already, at the way this witch kept pulling at his leg and then darting away just out of his reach, no matter how many scouts he sent to lure her out of her hiding spot or how many magical artefacts he employed to try and banish her from his lands. Years of struggles and humiliations and quests he still hadn’t seen the end of, and she was threatening to destroy it all, famished village by famished village.

And still above it all hung Excalibur, broken and ridiculous just like his kingdom risked to end up being. He could pretend all he wanted, but his thoughts were still crowded by visions of the sword, and what it would take for it to be repaired. His people were none the wiser about it, but his ruse couldn’t last forever, nor did he have any intention of allowing it to happen. He needed- no, he deserved to fulfill his birthright, whatever the cost to his person.

His eyes fell on his wife. Guinevere had picked up the roll of parchment to read the message for herself, her brow furrowing as her eyes scanned the hastily written lines. She appeared as worried as he was, if not more, and on her face there was no trace of the joy with whom she’d brought him her news, less than two weeks earlier.

A child. They were to have a child. Arthur was to be a father, and to finally have a heir, too, someone he could pass the crown onto once he’d grown too old to wear it. A boy with his eyes, perhaps, or a little girl with Guinevere’s impish grin from when they were younger, before Lancelot could seek to take her away from him.

The thought left him both elated and terrified at once. Of course, he would be happy to have something to tie him even further to his wife, and to see his line grow stronger and surer on its feet – he would be mad not to be, after all his hard work. And yet, Arthur couldn’t help but be anxious at what exactly he would be leaving in this child’s hands after his departure, and how he would be remembered for it, if he was to be remembered at all. The king who’d pulled the sword from the stone, he was, but not the whole sword, and he owed his kingdom more to magic and illusion than to the strength of his arm; surely, no child of his would go around spreading the secret, after being handed a half-empty scabbard at their father’s deathbed, but still they would have to face the truth of who the great, mighty king Arthur really had been.

But- no. He couldn’t bear to even think about it. The news, both pleasant and not, had made his search all the more frantic, and his resolve all the more steely. He would make Excalibur whole again, and ensure that his kingdom could only grow more prosper – it would be his gift to this new son or daughter, a legacy they could pass down to their own children without having to go through the shame and struggles their father had been familiar with for so long. And then, finally, he would be at peace with the life he had, and spend the rest of his days reaping the fruits of his work.

Slowly, Arthur braced himself against the table and pushed himself upright. He exhaled deeply, trying to compose himself, then turned back to Guinevere, who was still staring intently at him, a sheer patina of dullness – the one he’d grown accustomed to since he’d used the sand on her – ever-present in her eyes.

“Enough,” he said, forcefully. “I will put an end to this farce. There must be a way to bring the sorceress to task, and I shall find it, however long it takes.”

“And if there isn’t one?”

“If not, then we will come up with one of our own. I will not allow Morgana to run riot in my kingdom until the end of her days. That much I can promise you, my love.”

Camelot, present day

David stepped out of the room he’d been assigned, smoothing down the front of his doublet.

He could grant King Arthur that, at least – the man had gone above and beyond in tending to his guests’ comfort, dubious that the means by which he’d found out about their arrival might be. The quarters they’d been shown in were no doubt meant for noble visitors, richly furnished and with fresh rushes on the floor, every bedchamber kept warm by a well-stoked fireplace. The clothes David had found laid out for him, though clearly not brand new, had been of fine facture and in good conditions, and he’d been left with a wide enough range of sizes to allow him to don something that fit him. Sure, perhaps the tunic he was wearing was tighter in the shoulders that he might have liked, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, could they?

And beggars they were, for the time being. Honored ones, maybe, but they wouldn’t have much leverage in any discussion with the king until they found out where they stood, and what was expected of them. In fact, he would have rather liked to know what Arthur had meant, by implying they were supposed to help Camelot – prophesized to do so, even, despite the fact that they’d hardly planned for this little journey to happen. Nothing of what David had heard had managed to shed any light on that yet, and as such, he wasn’t exactly keen on letting down his guard for the time being.

Well. He supposed they would learn more while sitting at the king’s table, at least in part. The thought was oddly comforting, even after all those years spent in bland, uneventful Maine – guest rights were still a thing in most civilized lands, as far as he knew. He didn’t know how honorable this Arthur was, but perhaps the risk of him killing them would be a little lower, once they’d shared his food and drink.

David caught a movement in the corner of his eye, and he turned around to see another one of the doors opening and Snow venturing into the hallway, carefully lifting the skirt of her dress as not to step on it. He froze on the spot, and even considered, briefly, if he should retreat back into his own room, but he was scolding himself near as soon as the thought had crossed his brain. They weren’t teenagers fumbling through their first romantic mishaps, for God’s sake. They were perfectly able of having an adult conversation, even without a third party to act as buffering.

And besides, by the time he’d made up his mind, Snow had raised her head, cutting off all of his options. She stilled when she spotted him, but she smoothed her expression down almost instantly, and even smiled as she walked towards him, running a finger on the embroidery of his shirtsleeve as soon as she was within reach.

“Aren’t we handsome,” she said, lightly, her grin only barely wavering.

David smiled back, taking her hand and squeezing it gently. “You don’t look half bad, yourself.”

She scoffed, swatting his compliments away, but he’d meant it in earnest. The dress was a deep shade of blue, almost matronly in the cut, with intricate needlework down the sides and along the high neckline. She was wearing a matching veil as well, though some strands of hair were already peeking from underneath the fabric – she’d cut it short sometime before coming to Storybrooke, and had kept it like that ever since, so now it laid flat against her scalp, an uneven mixture of grey and white, so different from the tumbling black curls he remembered even too well.

David resisted the urge to tuck it back under the headpiece for her, and instead took an awkward step back, letting her hand fall from his grasp. “How were the rooms? Any rats or hidden assassins we should worry about?”

“Nothing of the sort, I’m afraid. You?”

“Good. Nicer than I’d expected, actually.”

Truthfully, he’d barely managed to hide his relief, once he’d seen her ushered into a door different from his own. They’d all been assigned separate rooms, except for the children (who, in all fairness, hadn’t seemed all that troubled by the fact), and though it gnawed at him to admit it, he was glad he hadn’t been asked to share with Snow, and that he would have a plausible excuse not to do so for as long as they were stuck in Camelot. He wasn’t sure how much Arthur and his companions knew about the relationships between them all, or if they would ever be able to gauge that the woman twice David’s age was in fact his wife – strictly speaking, at least, for now – but anything that might postpone the awkward explanations he’d eventually grown accustomed to would be a welcome boon, especially since their situation was still precarious at best.

Which reminded him… “What do you think of our gracious host, then?” He whispered, turning his head so that it would look as if they were trading confidences. The only guards in his line of sight were much further down the hallway, hardly within earshot, but it was probably better to play it safe, in the long run.

Snow shook her head, a frown marring her lined face. There was more than a hint of her younger self when she focused on something like this, as if he could see all the cogs and wheels turning inside her while she tried to work through the next obstacle. For a moment, she always ended up turning back into the princess he’d married, even shortsighted and less springy as she was now, with a weight to her words that he lacked and that spoke of decades of additional experience whenever she opened her mouth.

And that, in the end, was the heart of the matter. It would have been easier, maybe, if she’d come to Storybrooke as a completely different person, one he’d have held no recognition for. It would have made it less difficult, if infinitely more painful, to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Instead, she was the same Snow he’d fallen in love with – wearier, perhaps, more bitter than David had ever thought she could be, but not so different at the core as one might presume. Not a stranger, especially to those who, like him, had known her best in her past life.

A blessing, some would have called it. The thought made him want to laugh aloud, and then punch something fragile, for good measure. Preferably someplace where Emma wouldn’t see him.

“I don’t know what to think. He wouldn’t go to such lengths if he wanted to imprison us off the moment he sees us next, would he? But…this prophecy talk, I don’t like it. Nothing good ever comes out of prophecies. You know that as well as I do.”

David did, in fact, know what she was talking about, though that didn’t mean he had to like any reminder of it. They knew better now. Snow had to know better now, a snide, petulant voice inside him insisted. “It can’t be all bad, though. Who knows how long we’d have been left wandering around, if Arthur hadn’t come to look for us, and he couldn’t have known where we were without this…premonition of his.”

“Yes, but where did he get it? This Merlin he speaks about- he has no business knowing about us, David. We have been missing from these lands longer than we ever lived in them. Our presence here, it’s not something he could have guessed. Whatever magic he’s capable of, it must be stronger than what we’re used to, and I don’t want to think about what that could mean for us.”

“Magic doesn’t always have to be working against us. You’ve seen it yourself. Emma’s powers are getting stronger by the day.”

He realized his mistake as soon as he’d committed it. Snow turned on him such a hard, fiery glare that David very nearly recoiled away from it, her hands fisted in her skirt and a hoarse note filtering in her voice. “So were Regina’s when we were younger, and how did that go, Charming? Do you want to talk about how lucky our odds have been until now?”

“Emma is not Regina.” It was a flimsy defense at best, and he was already regretting having opened his mouth in the first place. Snow was still struggling to accept that their daughter was capable of magic, for reasons she had yet to disclose to him – and that, perhaps, should have been the first sign that something was amiss, the fact that her only answers to his questions on the matter had gone from terse silence to angry rebuffs.

It was easier to say, in hindsight, but David felt as thought he ought to have noticed earlier, if he would have, maybe, if he hadn’t been so busy willfully turning a blind eye on the problem.

“And Arthur is not someone I trust without proof.” She sighed, finally releasing the fabric bunched up in her fingers and tugging at it to hide the creasing. “Listen, I don’t care about motives- if this guy’s plan involves putting our family at risk, then I want no part in it, prophetic words or not.”

“You believe he’ll give us a choice?”

“I believe we’ll find a way to get a say in anything that happens, King Arthur or not. Or are you so changed that you won’t even try?”

I’m not the one who’s changed, he almost hissed, but he bit the words back sternly, like a kennel master herding a bunch of unruly dogs. It wouldn’t have helped anyone, least of all him, and there was no need to go around poking at wasps’ nests more than they already had, no matter how much it stung at him to let the topic drop. “Of course not. You know that’s not- I would never, Snow.”

He and his wife might not be on the same page anymore, but he was at least somewhat certain that they still occupied the same book, one where keeping Emma safe was the most relevant issue at all times. His doubts, their quarrel- it could wait. It could all wait until they had put their present affairs in order.

Their place at Arthur’s table, however, might not, so David stiffly offered Snow his arm, carefully smoothing his expression into something approaching calmness when she looked up to stare uncomprehendingly at him.

“Come on, now. Let’s go see if our daughter is fit to be in the presence of a king.”

She scrutinized him for a moment more, then gave him a rigid nod and slid her hand in the crook of his elbow, letting herself be led away.

“You told me you have questions,” Arthur said amiably, turning to Emma with a small grin dancing on his face. “Ask them, then. I’d hate to keep you all on your toes.”

Emma let out a soft noise of disbelief. “I really don’t know where to start.”

She’d expected, upon entering the grand dining hall of Camelot’s main keep, that the king would be sitting at the head of the table, perhaps flanked by his wife and noblest guests, but nothing more. She only had the barest knowledge of court etiquette, but she had thought a great display of power and wealth would suit royalty the most, if Regina’s personal tastes and proficiency in putting up a show were of any indication. Dozens of courses for the higher tables, mayhaps, and smaller portions for the rest, with all the pomp and circumstance it might entail.

Instead, it seemed that Arthur would rather sit among his men than far away upon the dais. He’d introduced most of them to his guests, Percival and Agravain and Gawain his cousin, and so many more than Emma’s head had started to spin before she could register their names – all valiant knights, according to the king, and all of them faithful friends of the crown, his equals rather than his subjects. A few had even gained places of relative honor around him for dinner, the Storybrooke natives mingled seamlessly with them, while Guinevere had taken the seat to Regina’s left and was now merrily trying to chat with the mayor, an attempt which Regina appeared to be taking with poorly concealed reticence. Only the squires and cupbearers had been granted a table of their own, likely to allow the adults the chance to speak freely, and had then begrudgingly welcomed the three foreign boys into their midst, if with multiple suspicious glares that Lampwick kept returning in full.

Emma had very nearly taken up the mantle of harried schoolteacher and insisted Lampwick and Pinocchio sit separately, for fear they might cause a diplomatic incident of some kind if left to their own devices, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to. She already misliked the idea of being distanced from anyone in her group, if only by a couple seats at worst, and she wouldn’t split anymore pairs unless she was forced to. Plus, not only had the two of them descended upon their food like hungry vultures, sparing no thought for anything else, but they seemed to be doing a pretty good job at keeping themselves in check so far, sitting at Roland’s sides to close ranks around the younger boy and speaking only when strictly necessary, as if still unsure of who they should trust.

Emma commended that choice, just as she sympathized with the way Pinocchio kept tugging at the collar of his shirt, as if ill at ease with how it fit. She was grateful to Arthur for providing them with fresh clothes, of course: their journey on foot had left her shirt soaked through with sweat, despite the cold, and these outfit would presumably allow them to blend better with the rest of his courtiers. And she had to concede that her dress was nothing short of gorgeous, as well – her mother had gotten teary-eyed at the sight of it, though she had refused to explain why, instead busying herself by fussing at the way Emma had tied the laces at her back.

Still, it was a far cry from the practical outfit she’d put on what felt like a lifetime earlier, and it felt like nothing she’d worn before besides, all layered skirts and minute details that she wished she could pay proper attention to, instead of wondering what sort of problem she’d been dragged into this time. There was a flowery design picked out on the bodice, for example, gold thread on white cloth, and she kept absentmindedly running the pad of her thumb on it, up and down, up and down, as she tried to find a name for the nagging sensation at the back of her brain.

Healthy mistrust, certainly, because how could she not be mistrustful of a place she’d been taken to against her will, but something else laid underneath it, fainter and far more puzzling. She was wary of calling it a sense of foreboding, because she’d rather not expect the sky to fall onto their heads just yet, but even so it was far from pleasant, like the pungent smell of something left under the table from a previous meal. She couldn’t quite ask their host how long it had been since they’d last swept the floors, but she could start prodding a bit, at least, if slowly and cautiously for the time being.

“There are many things that we can’t explain yet,” she began, finally, when she noticed that Arthur was still patiently waiting for her to speak. “We don’t know how we got here, for one. We don’t know how- how you know us, because we have never met your Merlin before, or where you got this prophecy you told us about. And we don’t know how to help you, or if we even can, depending on what your problem is. You see, we didn’t exactly have the time to bring much with us.”

The knight sitting in front of Emma, a young man with inky black hair and a long, angular face, burst out in laughter as soon as she stopped to catch her breath. He’d already attempted to strike up a conversation with her more than once, offering her the best cuts of meat from the platters set on the table between them and complimenting her choice in dress, but now he flashed her a peevish grin, clearly amused. “For someone who didn’t know what to say, you sure have much to ask, my lady.”

Arthur waved him off, though he was hiding a smile behind his goblet of wine. “Peace, Gawain, leave her be. She is right to be confused- they all are, in truth. I would be, too, in their place.”

Sighing, he set down his cup, taking in the assembled crowd with a glance. “I can answer some of your questions, though there are some gaps I hope you will help me fill, afterwards.”

“If I can, yes.”

“Thank you. You see, the great sorcerer, Merlin, has been a…protective presence in Camelot since the days of old. He was there when this kingdom was born, and has been keeping watch over it ever since, in spirit if not in body.”

A somber silence had fallen around Arthur, and all eyes at the table were now turned on him, as though hypnotized. He sure knows how to keep his audience engaged, Emma thought, begrudgingly impressed, but she didn’t dare voice it aloud, instead waiting for the king to continue.

“He had the gift of foresight, and many of his predictions came true during my time as king. He was the one to prophesize that I would claim this throne, in fact, and that I would defeat an usurper who’d try to take it from me, and all of it has come to pass. And a while ago, he delivered a prophecy in our hands that stated that the Savior would come to rescue us from great peril, and break the curse that has kept Merlin from us for a long time now.”

“We have some experience with breaking curses, at least,” Snow interjected, a dry note to her voice. “What happened to him?”

“He’s trapped into a tree- has been for decades now, since before any of us were born. No one knows why he suffered this fate, or who chose to punish him this way, but the story has been passed down since then all the same.”

Regina arched a very surprised, very skeptical eyebrow. “A tree? Now that is new. How did he manage to communicate with you? I don’t suppose branches would make for good writing tools.”

Arthur chuckled, inclining his head slightly towards her. “And your supposition would be correct. Still, even in his current condition, Merlin has found ways to reach me, and many others before I was old enough to heed his counsel. He was, and probably still is, the most powerful sorcerer Camelot has ever seen, though you likely wouldn’t believe it, watching him now. I’ll take you to see the tree, in the morrow. The castle was built around it- the village we were was built around it, before we had a stroke of good luck and managed to get where we are now.”

“I would like to see it, yes,” Emma replied, trying to parse through what she’d just heard to get to the heart of the matter. Too much information to assimilate all at once, it was. “But I’d like to know what this prophecy said, first.”

“Not much, I’m sorry to say. Only that the Savior and their mighty companions would come to our aid, and the time and place where we might find you. All the rest were suggestions and inklings, nothing more.” His smile broadened, and he gestured to his guests. “I think that promise was kept in full, at least. I don’t presume to know any of you, but I’d say you look fit to be the heroes Merlin told us to expect.”

Emma spared a glance to the table on the side, where Pinocchio was not-so-subtly craning his neck to catch on their conversation, and Lampwick was even less subtly swiping slices of roasted meat off his friend’s plate while the latter’s back was turned. “Some of us more than others, yeah.”

He guffawed, as though he’d caught her meaning. “I know you must have thought me impossibly rude, to not have asked you for your names, but I wanted you to feel welcome in my halls, before pressing you for information. I know how it feels, to be stranded away from home and among strangers, and it breeds suspicion more than trust. Still, I would hear them now, if you would offer them to me.”

“That was…considerate of you,” David commented, and then made to say more, but Emma’s mother cut him short before he could add anything else.

“You might have heard of some of us already, actually,” she said, with forced ease. “My name is Snow White. My father was King Leopold of Misthaven.”

Something flashed in Arthur’s eyes, a hint of realization. “Ah, yes. We have heard many stories from your land.”

“Most of them true, I’m afraid. This is Prince David, and this is…my daughter, Emma, the lady Regina and Robin of Locksley. The children will probably introduce themselves as soon as you give them the opportunity, Your Highness, though I suggest you let them finish chewing their food, first.”

There was a roar of laughter from the knights present, but Emma barely heard it, too busy searching her mother’s face for clues of what might be going through her mind. The woman had arranged her features in a neutral, blank smile, but her eyes were bright and attentive, not leaving Arthur for a single second.

My daughter, she had said, and it couldn’t have been an accident. David seemed to have come to the same conclusion, because he was now staring wide-eyed at his wife, his lisps pressed into a thin line. My daughter, and not our daughter.

Snow White had been honest on that front, true enough: she’d offered Arthur all their names, and hardly more than that. Make your own assumptions, her tone had implied, and show your cards, if you know more than you let on. A clever move, and one they likely wouldn’t have expected from an amiable, serene-faced older woman, though Arthur might begin to suspect her a political animal, now that she’d revealed herself to be of royal blood.

But Arthur simply nodded, his expression unchanging. Genuinely surprised, then, or at least capable of putting up a good ruse. “Well met. Though I must say, you didn’t look as if you were coming from the Enchanted Forest at all. I’ve never known their clothing to be so strange, and you can’t possibly have walked from there, not in winter.”

“Yeah, well,” Emma said, slowly, “it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

She gave him a brief summary of their shared history, from the Dark Curse to the cave in the forest, taking care not to include any burning details, especially where it concerned some of their identities. She was prepared to vouch for Regina if need be, but she wasn’t sure it would be enough to settle any uproar, and it was better not to let it slip that the former Evil Queen was sitting next to the king’s beloved, heavily pregnant wife, her hands folded in her lap as if she were physically restraining herself from massaging her temples in despair.

She studied Arthur as she spoke, but she couldn’t find anything but avid curiosity in his reactions, like a diligent student taking note of any questions he might want to ask later. Perhaps he truly was trying to do well to his visitors, and looking for something that might fix his kingdom, too, for good measure; perhaps she was just in bad faith, too accustomed to being played the fool by anyone that asked for her help to trust a stranger so blindly.

And yet, she couldn’t quite shake off the ominous feeling that had blanketed her since she’d set foot into the castle’s courtyard, clinging uncomfortably to her skin. Something wasn’t right; worse, something had the potential of being deeply, deeply wrong, and all of them were stuck in the middle of it with no chance to leave unless they kept playing along.

The king was silent for a long time when Emma was done, waving off the eager cupbearer that had come running in favor of pouring himself some fresh wine, his brow furrowed. Finally, he said: “It seems you are more involved with our troubles than we thought. That trail, it looks like Morgana’s work.”

Robin frowned, clearly perplexed. “Who’s Morgana?”

“Morgana is a threat to Camelot,” Guinevere interjected. She had wrapped her arms protectively around her belly, but her eyes were alight with fury, her voice thick with emotion. “Has been for at least an year now- more, even. She is a fiend.”

Arthur nodded. “Indeed. She is a witch, there’s nothing to it. When I spoke of peril you could help us get rid of, it was her I was talking about. She has been attacking our kingdom for a long time, and she seems to be able to mold the forces of nature to her will. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d been the one to create a passage between your realm and ours, and lure you all into it.”

“But why would she do something like that?” David ventured. “We have never met her. Not that I remember, anyway.”

“I have no answer for that. We don’t even know why she’s been targeting us so ferociously. Perhaps she thinks she has been slighted in some way- they say enchantresses are slow to forgive, and quick to take offense.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that one too,” Snow muttered, prompting Regina to scoff and pull a face before turning to the king.

“Have you tried speaking with her? You must have met her at some point, to be so sure about what she’s doing.”

“She won’t let anyone see her in the flesh. She has been leaving her mark in any place she’s ruined, but only a few have managed to catch a glimpse of her, and only from a distance. We have tried everything in our power to stop her, or to trap her where we could confront her, but all of it has been in vain.”

“But,” he continued, far more brightly, “now that you’re here, perhaps we might try again. You might have the strength needed to bring an end to our hardships, and even if you don’t, Merlin will. You’re the only ones who’ve been said to be able to free him, and I trust in those words.”

“Well, I suppose we could try,” Emma said, tentatively. “I still don’t know how, but we’ll try.”

“I have faith you will succeed. Tell me, which one of you is the Savior?”

Emma hesitated, but that was not the kind of information that they could hope to keep hidden for long. She exchanged a rapid glance with Regina, who nodded minutely, tipping her chin ever so slightly. “Uh, me. I’m the Savior.”

“I should have guessed.” Arthur regaled her with a broad grin. “There is something peculiar to you, my lady…or I should I say princess?”

“Neither. Just Emma, please. And listen, not that we don’t appreciate your hospitality, but I have to ask again- we don’t have any way to return home right now. Do you have one to spare? Or could Merlin find it for us?”

“I don’t, I’m sorry to say. But I know Merlin will have many tricks up his sleeve…once he manages to wear sleeves again, of course. And though I will be sad to see such fine guests go, I’ll be glad to personally see you off, when the time comes.”

He was telling the truth, Emma realized with a start. Not that he’d been outright lying before – she would have noticed, she wasn’t so dumbfounded not to access her superpower anymore – but there was an especially genuine air to his last words that, in hindsight, had been missing from most of what he’d said before, as if for a moment he’d let a different side of himself shine through the reputable host veneer.

He would be happy to see them go, then. That would have reassured her when she’d first met him, to know that he wasn’t of a mind to keep them imprisoned for the rest of their lives, but now that she’d heard the full story (or at least, an abridged version of it), she couldn’t help but worry about why he would be so eager to get rid of them, once they’d fulfilled their mission.

What are you hiding, Your Highness? Emma thought, as Arthur called for a toast to the newcomers, welcomed by scattered cheers from his fellow knights. What is it that you don’t want us to see?

And why did you bring us here anyway, if you’d rather we hadn’t come at all?

Chapter Text

“Well, this sure is a big tree,” Robin remarked flatly.

At his side, Lampwick snorted derisively, and the man turned to regard him with a cold stare. “Do you have something to say, boy?”

The kid shrugged, shaking his head. “Oh, nothing. That was some, uh…great power of observation. I got nothing against trees. My best friend’s a tree, actually.”

Pinocchio rolled his eyes and gave him a half-hearted kick in the shin, which Lampwick easily avoided. “Are you ever gonna get some new jokes?”

“Yeah, when you get yourself some better aim, stupid.”

The conversation quickly descended into a squabble, but Emma’s ears nearly tuned it out entirely as she raised her eyes to the crown of the tree, still filled with bright green leaves despite the bitterly cold season. The leaves themselves seemed to almost be vibrating under her watch, though the day was dry and quiet, with only the barest hint of a breeze to offer some justification for their rustling.

After a quick glance over her shoulder at King Arthur, who was standing with his knights and the rest of the Storybrooke natives and regarding her with great attention as if waiting for her next move, Emma drew closer to the tree, lifting up her heavy skirts just enough to avoid tripping on the thick roots emerging from the ground. Afterwards, she laid a hand on the trunk, and was only mildly surprised to find it very nearly pulsing under her fingers, the air around her crackling with an electricity that was making the hair stand up on the back of her neck.

No, Arthur hadn’t lied about the tree – or at least, he’d built his lie around a convincing truth, up to a certain degree. There was a constant flux of movement where her skin was pressed against the bark, a simmering energy of a kind that she’d long since learned to associate with magic and magic alone, and though it had a slow, sluggish pace to it, like the trickling down of a half-closed water tap, there was no denying its presence, nor its strength. Either someone capable of magic had truly been trapped inside this tree, or the tree itself had been tampered with, though even that would have required enormous amounts of power, to leave such deep tracks as those.

“You can feel it too, right?”

Emma looked to the side to see Regina mimicking her gesture, the older woman’s well-kept fingernails digging slightly into the wood. Regina’s gaze was fixed on the tree as well, an expression that would have been best described as rapt on her face, but it was marred by a faint perplexity, as if she weren’t fully convinced of what she was seeing, and she was frowning when she turned to Emma, which did nothing to reassure the latter about whatever mess they’d unwillingly stepped into.

Still, Emma couldn’t do anything but nod in return. There could be no mistake about what it was – the power that stupid tree was exuding would have been difficult to ignore even if they hadn’t been standing right in the middle of it, and as it was, their surrounding were starting to feel less like an open courtyard well into the morning and more akin to a damp, foggy alley in the middle of the night. She wouldn’t have been shocked to see her hair frizzing and standing up of its own accord, if she’d had a mirror to look into, as if coaxed by the static of an old TV screen.

She let go of the tree and swirled around to look at the king, her fingers tugging at the hem of her sleeve as if trying to rid themselves of that strange sensation. “How long did you say Merlin’s been like this?”

Arthur shrugged, shaking his head. “Who knows? The records from before I took the kingdom are vague at best, I’m sorry to say. It could have been decades, or even centuries, for all we know. But you do believe me now, don’t you? About his…condition?”

“It’s hard not to believe it when he’s standing here in the flesh,” Regina replied drily. “Or in the wood, I suppose. And you have no clue about who put him in there?”

“None. But Merlin has left some books behind in his tower, books of magic and of ancient stories. No doubt there will be some clues there, if nowhere else.”

“Not just books,” Sir Percival interjected hurriedly from his liege’s side. “There are entire shelves of herbs and potions there, that they say he used to make his portents.”

“True. Though there haven’t been many portents for us to see, lately – and not for lack of trying, believe me.” The king was still looking at Emma, an expectant gleam in his eyes. “You will help us, then? Before you go back to your homeland?”

Emma hesitated, but there were very few options laid before her. She couldn’t exactly afford to barter much, particularly because the dress that had been lent to her, grand as it was, had given her no chance to conceal her gun anywhere – not that she’d yet been offended so greatly to feel tempted to use it, in truth. Lingering suspicions and a bad feeling couldn’t justify threatening anyone who came asking for their help, though she would keep those impressions under close watch, just in case. “We will. But we’ll need to leave as soon as your problems are fixed and Merlin’s given us a way, not a second later. We have left some unfinished business, back home.”

“But of course. I wouldn’t dream to keep you here against your will.” A quick grin escaped Arthur’s controlled expression. “Still, I would be a poor host if I weren’t making sure you’ve all been treated as befits your position. Tell me, were the rooms to your liking?”

“Yes, thank you.” It wasn’t a lie. The bed had been the most comfortable Emma had ever tried, including the one that was waiting for her back in Storybrooke, and a young maid had come knocking as soon as she’d gotten up, to stoke the fireplace and point her in the direction of the dining hall among that maze of looping hallways. A luxury treatment, far more so than anything she was used to.

And yet, she had hardly rested peacefully, despite the comforts at hand. The knowledge that she was far, far away from home had left her jittery and incapable of falling into a deep sleep, and she knew that the rest of the group hadn’t fared much better – she’d guessed, both by sheer intuition and by what she’d heard throughout the night, that Robin Hood had left his chambers to enter Regina’s at some point, and she was fairly certain that either or both of them had gone to check on Roland every now and then, though the boys had been warned to keep the door locked as they slept.

Emma sincerely hoped it wouldn’t become a common occurrence, this lack of sleep, or that, God forbid, they wouldn’t need to establish a guard rotation for the rest of their nights in Camelot. She liked feeling safe in her own bed, but she’d rather get enough rest to remain lucid and sharp than curl up beside the fireplace for hours on end, sword in hand.

“Splendid. Also- I have taken the liberty to throw a ball in your name, tonight. I hope you will all do me the honor of attending, and that it will bring some merriment to my court, even if the occasion is…not so merry.”

“We’ll be glad to join you,” Emma’s mother said, before Emma herself or, worse, Regina could give a more cutting response. “Though you’ll have to forgive us- I don’t think any of us came prepared for a grand occasion.”

Arthur laughed amiably. “Ah, don’t worry, my lady. My wife and her companions are quite eager to share the latest fashions of our kingdom with you lot. They say I’m a vain man myself, but Guinevere is still the more well-versed of us two.”

He offered Snow a gallant arm. “Come, now. I’ll show you Merlin’s tower, and perhaps together we’ll manage to solve this mystery.”

The group began to file up behind him, some eagerly, others with much more reticence, and Emma made to follow suit, not wanting to lose sight of the king, but her efforts were halted by a firm hand taking her by the elbow. A beat later, Regina was matching her pace to Emma’s own, though still keeping them at a far enough distance from Arthur’s entourage.

“Unfinished business?” She whispered harshly, a thin worry line appearing on her forehead. “I wasn’t aware we had unfinished business back in Storybrooke. Even Gold’s been laying low recently, unless he’s managed to start a revolt in the last couple days- which he might have, I’ll give you that.”

Emma grimaced in dismay. “Yeah, listen, better that than telling this guy we’d rather be anywhere else- what was that line in the movies? Our business’ our own? I don’t know how much we can trust Arthur yet. Or anyone in the castle, for that matter.”

“Me neither.” Regina pursed her lips in thought before continuing, no louder than before: “Do you reckon we have time to throw a ball, though? I’d have thought our gracious host would be in a hurry to get this over and done with.”

“Oh, he does. Didn’t you hear him last night? He wants us out of here as soon as possible. But I suppose propriety and manners go a long way, when you’re a king.”

The other woman scoffed sarcastically. “You wish. Gods, I miss when treating with foreign dignitaries meant setting them on fire. It was much easier that way. And speaking of which-”

“Yes?”

“What the hell has been going with your parents?”

Emma stopped abruptly, only snapping out of her surprise when Sir Percival caught the movement with the corner of his eye and turned to glance back at them, a questioning frown on his face. She shook her head, motioning for him to continue, and then resumed her walk at a much brisker pace, Regina still pressed close to her side.

“That’s just it,” she muttered darkly. “I have no idea.”

They had mellowed down some since their arrival in Camelot, true enough. They were…civil was perhaps the right word for it, for lack of better alternative. They’d likely sensed that closing ranks and putting on a happy face would be better for everyone involved, and they’d managed to fool Arthur with their pretense, perhaps, given that he hadn’t seemed to notice that anything was amiss, and that he, at least, hadn’t asked any pressing questions about the matter.

But Emma knew better, to her continued discomfort. She could notice all their little aborted gestures and sidesteps just fine, and she hadn’t yet forgotten her mother’s words from the night prior, the way her voice had wavered ever so slightly when she’d called Emma her daughter. Sure, it had been a clever declaration, and one that had saved them the trouble of explaining how a man in his early thirties could be the father of a woman about his age, but that hadn’t been all of it. She could have bet some of those golden coins she’d seen Arthur put in his servants’ hands on that.

Regina sighed in displeasure. “And here I thought you could have some answers. They’ve been driving me crazy, I swear- you wouldn’t think Snow dearest would elect to sit next to me to avoid her husband, and yet, you’ve seen them at breakfast. How long’s this been going on?”

“I don’t know. A while, I think. Any suggestion about how to deal with them?”

“Why would I have any suggestion?”

“You’ve known them longer than I did. Well, David at least- it’s a bit hard to help my father with his love life when he’s young enough to have gone to school with me.”

“I mean, they sure are acting like school kids who’ve broken up for the first time. And look- when I knew them, they were sickeningly in love and I was trying to ruin their lives, and right now, they’re miserable enough for it be an annoying sight, and not a pleasant one. Sorry, can’t help you with this one, Emma.”

“Yeah,” Emma said under her breath, her gaze flitting between her father, who was trying to prevent one of the boys from straying off the path and barrel into one of the guardsmen, and her mother, still hanging with some degree of tension from Arthur’s arm. “Yeah, don’t worry about it.”

They walked in silence for a few moments, as the king led them back into the bustling heart of the keep and towards one of the towers on the other side of the castle. Then, a thought crossed Emma’s brain with abrupt insistence, and she raised her eyes, turning once more to Regina. “Actually, there’s something else you might help me with.”

“What is it?”

“When…when you were showing me magic, the first times. I know we were doing more a crash course than anything else, but…did you ever mention Merlin, when we were together? Or was he in a book, or something?”

Regina seemed to ponder on it a while, then shook her head. “No, I don’t think I did. I mean, I suppose I could have mentioned him in passing, if he’d been someone Gold had warned me about back in the day, but- I don’t ever remember bringing him up at all. Why? What’s wrong?”

Emma hesitated. It was not that she didn’t trust Regina – logic would have pressed her not to, but the former Evil Queen was a far more sympathetic presence in her life than others in her own family, if Emma was honest with herself – but she wasn’t sure she could explain what was going through her mind properly, not in the few moments they could snag from prying ears. “I don’t really know, okay?”

She took a deep breath, then pressed forward. “It’s just- I have heard about him somewhere before, I’m sure of it. And it wasn’t in a movie, or anything like that. It was…like learning about any of you guys, or Robin, or everyone else. Like I knew he was a real person, someone I could meet.”

“Who? Who told you about him?”

“That’s the problem, I don’t know. But someone did, and it just…resurfaced now, since who knows how long ago. It was there in my brain somewhere, I guess.”

The mayor pulled a face. “You know the record for stuff being dug out of nowhere after a while is not great for any of us, right?”

“I know.” The wind had picked up some, sending cold shivers down Emma’s spine. She pushed her hair back as she thought, so that it wouldn’t get blown into her eyes, and then turned to address the other woman again. “You think we should start worrying about it?”

“We have enough to worry about already, don’t we?” Regina exhaled slowly, tugging at her cloak with her free hand to wrap it more securely around herself. “There’s a wizard dormant in a tree, some kind of beast that led us here without us noticing, and now we have to dance to Arthur’s tune to find out what’s going on. You having…visions? A sixth sense? Might be the least of our problems right now.”

“But?”

“But I would keep it in mind, if I were you. That kind of stuff has a tendency to come back to slap us in the face, if the past three years have been of any indication.”

Then she hastened her step to catch up with the rest of the group, tugging Emma along as she went.

Camelot’s great hall was cavernous to say the least.

It was also, to Snow’s displeasure, packed full long before the dancing even started. All the people in the castle were in attendance, apparently, save those confined within the kitchens or flitting in and out of the room, their arms laden with plates both clean and heaped with food. There were chairs and benches aplenty, scattered around the banquet tables, and yet very few of the courtiers present seemed willing to spend longer than five minutes in their seats, instead spinning around on the dancefloor or elbowing their way through the crowd, eager to catch a glimpse of the king’s guests.

The atmosphere had been suffocating from the start, and it was growing worse by the minute. Snow had missed balls, true enough, missed the rush of pump and celebration that came with them, but the balls she’d attended as a young girl had been a cause of joy and little else, safe within the walls of a castle she’d known to be a welcoming space. Right now she could count the people she’d feel comfortable turning her back to on the fingers of one hand, and the uneasy feeling that had fallen on her shoulders the day before was still stubbornly clinging to her like a giant flea, sucking every desire of “making merry”, per Arthur’s words, out of her.

But she couldn’t beg her leave and go back to her rooms, either. She couldn’t trust herself not to lose the way without anyone by her side, for one, and they needed eyes everywhere at the feast, besides. Many had told her that to know someone’s true character she’d have to meet them on a battlefield, back in the Enchanted Forest, but she’d realized soon enough that no battle would reveal a man’s thoughts better than a few drinks too many at the end of a feast, or a few well-placed words by a beautiful woman when they were just verging on tipsy. A political genius she might not be after living so long in another world, but even the land she now called home had required her to grit her teeth and put the lessons her father had taught her to use, and she was old and cantankerous enough to know how to make do even in the worst of situations.

Still, that didn’t mean that she was enjoying her task as a watcher all the way through. Or that the sight of David striding purposefully towards her was a welcome one, either.

“Absolutely not,” she said, before he’d managed to do more than opening his mouth.

He pulled a face, more reminiscent of a belligerent child than a grown prince decked in his best finery. “You didn’t even hear what I was about to ask.”

“I don’t need to. Please, go find yourself another dance partner.”

“Perhaps I’m just humoring you, standing here all alone.”

Snow gave a him a sad, pained smile. “You’re humoring no one but yourself, David. Go, go dance with Emma. I don’t think Sir Gawain is going to survive the night, if he asks her for another round.”

They’d all been offered clothes more suitable for a party – from the royal household’s wardrobes themselves, in some cases, and coming with instructions on how best to wear them no less. Camelot fashion bid all women past a certain age wear their hair covered: even one of the queen’s own ladies, an old matron with a lined face and a crooked back, was sporting a white, gauzy wimple that wrapped around her head and neck, and Snow had followed the example to a T. Her turquoise dress was modestly cut, if made of rich, luxurious silk, and the veil pinned to her hair was midnight blue and studded with small crystals, as to resemble a starlit sky.

And yet, no headscarf, no matter how grand and finely cut, could have ever allowed her to surpass her own daughter’s beauty. Emma’s dress was a pale shade of gold to match her unbound hair, a crown of fresh flowers come from Guinevere’s greenhouses on her head, and she all but glowed in the burning firelight, even as she frowned with tentative skepticism at what Sir Gawain was saying in her ear – the knight had danced with a good chunk of the ladies present, a charming smile ever on his face and a steady hand on their backs, but he’d claimed Emma for the past three turns now, as if he’d wanted to speak with her for a little while longer instead of letting go of his partner at the end of a song.

Snow’s eyes prickled with tears again at the sight of her, though she made sure to wipe surreptitiously at them with her heavy sleeve as David moved away to rescue their daughter, lest the latter notice her distress. She was not a weepy woman, usually, but she wasn’t made of stone, either, and no one would begrudge her for feeling some longing, especially not in an occasion like that.

She was, as she’d always been, beyond grateful for having been able to raise Emma from the start, a chance David himself had been deprived of. She’d seen her daughter take the first steps and learn her first words, have her clumsy high school dates and graduate, all the things she’d have never witnessed without the wardrobe, and still something had always been missing, something that couldn’t quite be put into words but had squeezed Snow’s heart painfully all the same. Emma hadn’t had anything her mother had taken for granted throughout her own childhood and early adulthood – no formal balls, no trips to foreign kingdoms, no horse races or meetings with the seamstress for a new gown.

She hadn’t had any of the things that had made Snow’s youth a joyful phase to remember, despite the loss of Queen Eva, and yet there she was now, dancing in the heart of a castle like the princess she was by birth. It was enough to make any mother weep, and even in a less composed way than hers, all in all.

Snow was so focused on watching David twist Emma under his arm with practiced ease that she almost didn’t notice the queen hailing her from afar, motioning for her to come closer. She hesitated for a moment, but she couldn’t pretend not to have seen the gesture now that she had turned, and it would be impossibly rude to snub her host’s wife so blatantly, so after a few more seconds of uncertainty she headed towards where Guinevere was sitting at the place of honor, in a great chair with a cushioned back and armrests inlaid with gold.

The queen smiled at seeing Snow approach, and bid the ladies around her to make space at her right for the newcomer. She had a great many ladies at her service, Guinevere, though now there were no more than three or four attending her: the rest was up and dancing, or mingling with the rest of the partygoers around them at the very least. Even the youngest of her maids in waiting, girls no older than eleven or twelve, had been swept away by awkward squires or older relatives, and some were even eyeing the foreign boys with great interest, despite the lack of reciprocation – to Snow’s mild amusement, neither Pinocchio nor Lampwick seemed to be aware of being an object of curiosity, too focused on the carousel of rich foods and bizarre noblemen around them to notice anything else.

“Are you quite alright, my lady?” Guinevere asked, as a seat was produced for Snow with great haste. “You were looking a bit lost. I hope you are enjoying yourself.”

Snow nodded, though the lump of discomfort was still lodged quite firmly in her throat. “Of course. Just a little overwhelmed, is all. I hadn’t expected so many people to come.”

The queen chuckled softly, shaking her head. “Neither did I, though I should have. Half of these lords weren’t even invited, but they’d never miss a chance to hear some fresh gossip, and Arthur is too hospitable to turn them away.”

That seemed to fit what the king had shown of his personality thus far, but there had been an odd lilt to Guinevere’s words as she’d said it, a flat note in her otherwise melodious voice. It was gone too quickly to be investigated any further, but Snow felt herself stiffen all the same, though she did her best to keep her expression in check. “Do these feasts happen rarely, then?”

“Oh, no. They’re a common occurrence, these days. But of course, none of our balls ever had the Savior and other mysterious travelers as their guests of honor before. I suppose the chance was too good to pass, for many of them.”

The Savior in question was now laughing much more freely, covering her mouth with her hand as her father whispered something to her. It was difficult to determine what might be amusing them so, if Robin Hood tugging Regina closer than was appropriate as they danced or what seemed to be the beginning of a begrudging alliance between Pinocchio and Lampwick and a couple determined-looking cupbearers over the conquest of an enormous honeycake, but it sent an aching stab of longing through Snow’s chest all the same, so sharp and sudden she thought it might cut off her breath for good.

She turned back to Guinevere instead, hoping it might pass if she didn’t pay it any mind. The queen was following the festivities as well, though she was looking a good deal more at ease with it than Snow herself, a serene smile on her face and her hands neatly folded in her lap. Her dress for the night was a deep burgundy trimmed with gold, a pattern of geometric shapes embroidered on the bodice from the neckline to the waist and drawing the onlookers’ eyes towards the swell of her belly – it must have been done on purpose, for Guinevere was quick to catch Snow’s gaze when she glanced to the side, and grinned broadly and brightly, an overflow of genuine delight that the older woman remembered very well from her own pregnancy.

“How far along are you?” She asked, pushed both by earnest curiosity and the need not to think about what said pregnancy had led to.

“Not far enough, my lady. Not far enough in the slightest. It’ll be at least another month before I can hope to get done with it, and this little one is so demanding already- I’d be abed most of the day if it were up to me, but a queen is too busy to enter her confinement so soon, isn’t she?”

This time, Snow did laugh a bit, shaking her head. “My old councilors would be tearing their hair out if they could hear you. Everyone wanted me to lay down and rest when I was pregnant with Emma, but I just couldn’t be bothered to sit still, nevermind leave any of my work to someone else.”

“Is she your only child, then? The princess Emma?”

Snow’s mouth went dry in an instant, all traces of amusement gone from her mind. Of all the wounds to run salt in… “Yes. Yes, she is.”

“And- forgive me for asking, what of the father? Is he waiting for you in this land of yours as well?”

A cold, sinking feeling was slithering up Snow’s veins even as she looked away, congealing her blood and making her feel as though she was about to turn into an ice statue, despite all the fires lit around the room. She cleared her throat, but the words had a hard time leaving her tongue all the same, as if they were refusing to climb out of her mouth entirely. “It’s…a long story, Your Highness. Long, and not very happy.”

Unbidden, her eyes went to David again. He’d let go of Emma for the time being, instead standing near one of the tables as he sipped on his cup of wine, looking over the mass of people around him. Like their daughter, it was if every light of the hall were turned towards him, making him stand out among the rest, though perhaps that was just Snow’s brain playing tricks on her, projecting her feelings over the mighty feast Arthur had thrown.

He was just as handsome as the day they’d wed, the golden fool. Just as stubborn when railed up, as well – she’d loved him for that when she’d been younger, for refusing to give up on any of their causes even at their most dire, but it had grown tiresome in the three decades she’d lived since then, now that he was pushing against her and common sense both instead of being willing to admit defeat. He could only pretend everything was well for so long before he had to face the truth, but the more he insisted the harder would the blow be, once the time came, and it would come, no matter how valiantly he fought.

She was not so strong as to enjoy seeing him struggle, but she wasn’t so cruel to play along to his delusions, either. Better for him and for everyone involved to give up on them altogether, and sooner rather than later.

A warm hand landed on her freezing ones, snapping her out of her reverie. Snow looked up, startled, to see Guinevere’s sorrowful gaze as the queen squeezed the other woman’s fingers in her own. “I’m sorry, my lady. I did not want to trouble you so.”

“It’s alright.” It was far from alright, but the room seemed to be growing smaller and stuffier around her by the second, and she couldn’t put up with it a minute longer than strictly necessary. “It’s just…I think I need a breath of air.”

She stood up swiftly, only offering some murmured excuse as she swiveled out of Guinevere’s grasp, and strode away as quickly as she could, not bothering to look over her shoulder to see who might have noticed her gesture.

The hallway was blessedly refreshing compared to the feasting hall, and she leaned gratefully against the rough stone wall, inhaling and exhaling deeply. There were no guards around, which was an unexpected boon – she wouldn’t have wanted anyone to go reporting to Arthur that the eldest of his guests was having a minor freakout in the middle of a corridor, and she needed to be alone for a minute, she thought, before diving back into the throng of questioning and prodding she knew would come at her from all sides so long as they remained in Camelot.

It didn’t hurt to know that she could refrain from laying eyes on her husband until she went back to the ball, either.

She remained still for what felt like hours, but in truth couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, feeling the colder air brush away some of her troubles. Then a movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she swiveled around instinctively, her guard already up.

“Hello?” She called out, though she couldn’t see much of anything in the thick dark shadows produced by the scarce torchlight. “Is anyone there?”

There was no answer, so she took a couple steps in the direction the figure had come from, some cold sweat forming on the back of her neck. Gods, let it not be Pinocchio or one of the other children wreaking havoc outside of the adults’ purview. They likely couldn’t afford to replace anything they broke, in case Arthur demanded repayment. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”

Again, silence. Then a human-shaped shadow emerged from around the corner – it was no child, but a man grown instead, taller and bulkier than her by far, his already broad shoulders made even broader by the armor he was wearing. Snow’s breath as his uncovered face came into view, with his dark eyes and close-cropped hair, and she reared back in shock, clutching at her chest

“Lancelot?”

The knight smiled, broad and delighted. “Hello, Snow. I’m glad I was in time to see you.”

“What are you doing here?” Snow hissed, her hands balling into fists at her sides. “The last time I saw you, you were on the run.”

On the other side of the wall, the ball was still going strong, the music and cheering filtering in the distance every time a servant or drunkard opened a door to walk in or out. Lancelot had tugged her into a semi-hidden alcove only moments after their meeting, seemingly wary that they might be seen if they wandered too far away, but that had only served to increase Snow’s confusion.

The knight scoffed at her question. “I could say the same of you. I heard you had left- with the curse, and the Evil Queen. And now she’s in there with your husband, and you- what has happened to you, Snow?”

She sighed, shaking her head. She could understand his perplexity – she’d aged more gracefully than some people she knew, but she had to concede she couldn’t pass as the girl in her twenties he had met so long ago, even with his eyes still adjusting to the darkness. But she was too caught off guard by the encounter to be willing to answer his questions, at least not before he gave some explanations of his own. “It’s complicated. And you’re not making it any easier. You said- when we were looking for Lake Nostos, you said you couldn’t return to Camelot ever again. Why are you here? Isn’t it dangerous?”

“It is. I’m still in hiding. But I wanted to keep an eye on…some things, and then I heard about your arrival, and I knew I’d need to speak with you. You shouldn’t be here, either.”

“I didn’t exactly have any choice in the matter. Neither did any of the others- and don’t mind Regina, she’s not the trouble you think she is. She’s not dangerous anymore.”

“Truly?”

“Yes. Trust me on that.”

Lancelot let out a deep breath of what sounded like relief. “Good. That’s good. That solves part of the problem, because there’s someone else you need to watch out for.”

“Yes, we know about Morgana- Arthur’s asked us to help him defeat her, but we’re still working on it.”

“No.” Suddenly, he grabbed her by the shoulders, not forcefully enough to hurt her, but with an urgency that shook her to the core. “No, Snow, it’s not Morgana. It’s Arthur. Arthur’s dangerous, for anyone that gets close to him.”

Snow’s eyes went wide, and she stilled, her words of protest screeching to a halt before she could voice them aloud. “What?”

“Please, you have to trust me. You need to leave as soon as possible.”

“Easier said than done.” Her head was swimming, even more so than it had done while she’d been drowning in the chaos of the feast. She could contend with her own personal issues and a foreign country at once, but someone she hadn’t seen in years, popping out of nowhere and warning her of looming dangers? That was just about enough to make her snap. It was as if the ground were wobbling under her feet, threatening to topple her over much as their surprise passage to Camelot had done.

 “We have no way home, Lancelot. We- we don’t even know how we got here in the first place, for God’s sake-”

“Then find one. Find a way. You need to get your friends and leave, before it’s too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“To make it out all in one piece.” Lancelot looked up, as though he’d heard someone approach, but there was no sound except the far-away singing and hollering, and the odd call for a toast. Still, he didn’t seem reassured in the slightest, and his gaze keep darting away from her, as if he were expecting Arthur to crawl out of a crack in the wall and pounce on them. “Camelot’s not what it seems, Snow. Please, at least tell me you’ll keep your eyes open.”

“But why?”

“Because Arthur’s not a king. He’s a spider.” He gritted his teeth, and Snow knew then, that he was speaking the truth, and this was not some sudden madness that had overcome him. There was real pain in that expression, and real regret, and that frightened her more than anything else he might have said.

“He’s already fooled Guinevere and the rest of his subjects, and if you’re not careful, you’ll fall right into his web. Don’t let him eat you alive too. I won’t allow it.”

Chapter Text

Camelot, one year ago

The ruckus in the hall quietened down some when Arthur stood up, the feet of his great carved chair scraping noisily against the stone floor.

The king waited until the eyes of the assembled court were all fixed on him before he began speaking, a smile dancing on his face and a cup of wine in his hand. Only when even the odd hollers and chatter had finally dimmed down did he clear his throat and say, his eyes scanning the banquet tables so that every guest would feel the illusion of speaking one on one with him: “My lords, my ladies- thank you again for joining me tonight, to welcome the arrival of the new year. I hope the food has been to your taste, and more importantly, that there was ale enough for everyone.”

A smattering of raucous cheers signaled to him that not only had they appreciated the drink he had offered, but they’d indulged in it far more than many of them usually would. Guinevere, sitting at his left side, appeared amused by their antics, her grin bright and blinding; at his right, Sir Gawain was banging his cup on the tabletop, whistling loudly and urging the other knights on whenever their enthusiasm seemed to be dying down.

The seat at Arthur’s right was meant to be a place of great honor, and, since Lancelot’s departure had left him lacking a trusty lieutenant, he’d been assigning it to a different Knight of the Round Table at every celebration, depending on the time of the year, their presence at court or their latest feats, so that no one would think to feel slighted. This time, the honor had fallen upon young Gawain, who, while not among the strongest or most renowned of Arthur’s companions, had recently returned from a journey that had taken him to a far corner of the kingdom, a small quest that nevertheless needed to be celebrated accordingly.

Besides, the lad had a brave soul and a lively mind, and could therefore keep anyone entertained with his easy chatter: a boon during every feast, but especially one like that, meant to prolong deep into the night.

And night it was, now. The bells that signaled the coming of a new year had long since tolled, and yet almost no one had retired to their rooms yet, instead continuing to eat and drink and clap to the tunes played by some tireless musicians, when they were not sneaking off with a young man or maiden in tow. All in all, a successful feast, and one that would likely be remembered long into the remaining winter months. Arthur could call himself satisfied- and he was, truly, for the time being. All his woes and worries could be put aside tonight, at least until the first light of dawn.

He held his cup up high, quickly imitated by everyone else around him. “Let me raise a toast, then- to another year of peace, and to you, my friends!”

“To the king’s health!” Someone howled in return, and the call was picked up by one man after another, until the entire hall was rumbling with the loud cheerfulness off it.

Arthur graciously inclined his head in thanks, and then took a sip of his wine, watching as the courtiers settled back once again into their places. More than one knight was taking his sweet time sitting down, instead raising their full goblets towards some of the queen’s ladies with a nod and a meaningful glance, probably thinking themselves invisible to royal scrutiny.

Ah, well. They did say that drinking made fools of all men.

“And now, before we turn in for the night,” he continued, turning a blind eye on their awkward attempts at subtlety, “does anyone have a final song to offer us? Or a story, perhaps?”

He waited, patiently, as people started fidgeting in their seats, turning their heads left and right to see who would take up the challenge – and someone would, sooner or later, after they’d waited enough not to seem too eager. The best storytellers always came up last, after the cheap ones had already had their chance to bore the court to death, and most of them would weave long, intriguing tales, engaging enough that no one would accuse Arthur of cutting the festivities short too early.

Still, that night, the silence persisted. He was about to repeat his query, hoping to sour at least some old wise men into motion, when the double doors at the end of the hall were pushed open, the creaking noise tearing everyone’s attention away from him.

Arthur stared at the newcomer, his brow furrowed in puzzlement. The figure was too far away to be recognizable, and the shadowed antechamber they were standing in didn’t help matters in the slightest, but it was huge, with broad shoulders and thick legs and the suggestion of a weapon slung across their back. Tall, too; the king was not an exceptionally big man, and many of his own knights surpassed him in height, but this stranger was far more imposing than them all, taller than Percival and Gawain and even mighty Bors, at risk of dwarfing the grand doorframe they were currently making their way through.

They took a step forward. And then another. And then another one, finally entering a patch of torchlight and allowing Arthur to make out some of their features.

“Greeting, o King Arthur,” the stranger said, with what sounded like a man’s voice, if much deeper and booming than any man could hope to conjure. “I have come to challenge you to a game.”

Camelot, present day

“You know, for someone who thinks he’s about to be attacked by a witch, this king sure should get some better guards,” Lampwick ventured, chewing thoughtfully.

Pinocchio shot him a warning glare, but didn’t comment, instead shoving the last of the flatbread inside his mouth to avoid having to give an actual reply. He’d have liked to tell Lampwick that those guards were probably trained to face hexes and wolves and mountain trolls, and not children who were entirely too confident in their ability to sneak out through the smallest hole on hand, but his friend would have likely gotten all smug about it if he had, having been the one to smuggle them outside Camelot’s walls in the first place. A smug Lampwick was an unbearable Lampwick to have around – Pinocchio could speak from experience on that front, and was rather keen on not repeating said experience anytime soon.

They weren’t supposed to abandon the main keep at all, in truth. They certainly weren’t supposed to wander off into the woods unsupervised, either, and definitely not with Roland trailing dutifully after them – there would be hell to pay if someone caught them in the act, especially if that someone happened to be Robin Hood. Or Emma. Emma would likely be more disappointed than angry, perhaps limiting herself to shutting them up somewhere, but Robin Hood was already mad at them to begin with. Better to let sleeping dogs lie, it was.

Still, it wasn’t as if they had much else to do. They’d already explored far and wide into the keep itself, and the grown-ups kept spending near the entire day holed up somewhere and talking, so there was no chance in getting one of them to chaperone their kids somewhere. And they weren’t going very far, anyway – just within sight of the castle, close enough that they might easily find their way back even after straying off the path, which Pinocchio quite hoped they wouldn’t end up doing. What had Jiminy called it, once? Ah, yes. Damage control. That was it. He needed to do damage control.

And they had brought provisions along, besides. Pinocchio and Lampwick were a bit too old to sneak into the kitchens and beg for treats, but Roland wasn’t, and he was well-behaved and sweet-looking enough to melt the heart of even the sourest serving maid, besides. The younger boy had only needed to smile and turn that wide-eyed, filled-with-innocent-wonder stare on the staff to be handed a bowl of milk and plenty of food – he’d walked out with a thin white veneer coating his upper lip and enough flatbread for all three of them wrapped into a cloth, and off they had gone, right under the nose of the nearest guardsman.

“I’d like to be a guard when I grow up,” Roland was saying now, wiping his fingers on his pants to get rid of all the crumbs and then reaching out to take Lampwick’s hand as they walked. “Papa always said guards were eating better than us, back in Sherwood. And there’s always a fire in the barracks. I’ve seen it.”

Lampwick snorted, but he didn’t wriggle out of the boy’s grasp. “Yeah, and then most of the time they go to sleep without putting it off and burn the whole thing down. ‘S why they’re called barracks, because they can’t remain standing for the life of them. Easier to rebuild them than to fix them up.”

“That’s not right,” Pinocchio protested. “You just made that up. They’d be wasting lots of wood if they did.”

“Right, and you’re the kindling expert, aren’t you?”

Pinocchio sneered contemptuously at him, but didn’t say anything in return. He didn’t want to utter any word that Roland might pick up and then repeat, and he had nothing to throw at his friend’s head, which would have been even better – if they’d still been home he could have flung a snowball his way, but it had yet to snow in Camelot since their arrival, despite the freezing temperatures, so the ground was as bare as ever.

He missed home with a fierceness that wasn’t showing any signs of dimming down, now. Not just because of the snow – he wouldn’t have been out and about on Christmas day if it hadn’t been snowing so heavily the days before, so really, he could just fine with only rain and mud for the time being. He missed his father and Jiminy and his bed, though the one he was sharing with Roland and Lampwick was way softer and so big it was a wonder it had ever passed through the door without hindrance. He wanted to go back to his house and finish the stack of homework he’d left on his desk, because he was starting to doubt they could make it home before the end of Christmas break and he didn’t want his grades to plummet again.

They’d already been at King Arthur’s court a few days now, and there was no clue as to how they might find their way back just yet. Neither Pinocchio nor his friends were privy of what the adults might be talking about, aside from what they’d openly discussed on the first night, but they weren’t making much of a progress, at least as far as he could see. They hadn’t even managed to communicate with Storybrooke in any way, or even open a smidge of a passage to reach through, as the mayor said she’d been able to do once – which was a shame, to be honest. Pinocchio would have quite liked to send a message back, so that everyone might know where they’d gone before resorting to any drastic measure to find them.

He really, really hoped it would happen someday soon, and that his father wouldn’t try to set sail to God only knew where to come get him, in the remaining time.

“Better a guard than one of those lords, though,” Lampwick said, tearing him away from his thoughts. “Did you see them at the feast? Granny says we eat like pigs, but she should’ve taken a look at them before saying anything. They kept so much food and wine for themselves, half of them were puking it back up in the privies round the corner.”

Pinocchio wrinkled his nose, his worries momentarily forgotten. “Gross. Why’d you have to tell me that?”

“Because you get all worked up when I say something disgusting. It’s funny to look at.”

“Your face’s funny to look at.”

“The food’s good, though,” Roland cut in, blissfully uninvolved in their quarrel. “I liked the boar. And the honeycake you got me the other night, when I was already in bed. The food’s not so good in Storybrooke, except for the ice cream.”

Lampwick grinned slightly, letting go of the kid’s hand to ruffle his dark hair. “Yeah, I bet they’re only giving us the good stuff ‘cause we came along with all those queens and princesses. They’d have put us with the servants if we three had got her alone, and let us eat the scraps.”

“Why?”

“’Cause we’re common as muck, okay? We’re not nobles. Pinocchio’s dad is a carpenter, and yours is- was- a thief. They wouldn’t let their little squires hang out with us if they knew.”

“And you, Lampwick? What did your dad do?”

Lampwick’s grin did not fade exactly, but the peevish light left his eyes all of a sudden, and he distanced himself a bit, burrowing even further in his borrowed cloak. “My dad was an arsehole. But don’t tell Robin Hood I said that.”

Roland giggled at hearing such a forbidden word leave his mouth, but Pinocchio only looked away, unease churning in his gut in place of amusement. Lampwick didn’t often bring up his family if he could avoid it, and Pinocchio himself already knew plenty enough not to need to ask for more anyway, but every reminder was as unpleasant than the last, if not more.

And besides, his friend wasn’t wrong, was he? They were lucky they were being treated so well to begin with, but no one could deny the stark contrast between their origins and, say, the mayor’s, and the three of them had no titles to boast to ensure that King Arthur wouldn’t throw them in a dungeon somewhere. Even the clothes they’d been loaned were different: Emma and Snow White and Prince Charming had been given their choice of pretty dresses and finery, but Pinocchio’s clothes were hand-me-downs from the steward’s son or something on that line, and so were Roland’s and Lampwick’s – clean, to be sure, and finer than any of them could have ever afforded in the Enchanted Forest, but still blander and more anonymous than everyone else’s. Camelot wouldn’t spare much effort for the children of commoners, it seemed.

All the same, that wasn’t exactly the most pleasant topic of conversation. He was still looking frantically around, scrambling to find a distraction that might liven their discussion up again, when he caught a glimpse of…something in the near distance, peeking from the bare tree branches, and he stopped in his tracks, puzzled. “What is that?”

Lampwick turned to him, his eyebrows raised in confusion. “What is what?”

Pinocchio pointed to a corner of forest not a hundred feet from them, where some sort of clearing seemed to open among the trees. “There’s something over there. A house, maybe. We can’t have gotten to the village already, can we?”

The older boy followed his gaze, and then frowned, clearly skeptical. “I can’t see anything. Are you having hallucinations now? You sure there wasn’t anything strange in that bread they gave us?”

“Maybe you’re just going blind, did you think about that?”

“Well, only one way to know, isn’t it?” That said, Lampwick darted forward, quickening his pace without so much as a word of warning. “Come on, then. If there’s a house, there’ll be a fire, too. I think my fingers are gonna fall off any minute now, if we keep going in circles like this.”

“Lampwick, wait-“

Too late. He’d already marched off, likely to see for himself whether he was right or not. Pinocchio huffed in annoyance, then made to follow his friend, tugging Roland along as he went. “Let’s go. They’ll be blaming me if he gets eaten by a monster or something.”

“Do you think there are monsters here, Pinocchio?”

“Don’t worry, if there are, they’re gonna eat him first and leave us alone. He’s bigger.”

Tragically, Lampwick was still all in one piece when they reached him, with no trace of any strange beast trying to hunt him down. Instead, he was standing at the edge of the clearing with his hands on his hips, staring intently at what laid before him. He looked over his shoulder when he heard them approach, and he sent Pinocchio a dismayed glance, his mouth twisting in disappointment. “Okay, you win. Maybe. That’s not a house, is it?”

“It still counts,” Pinocchio shot back, instinctively, but as he followed his friend’s gaze he felt the rest of his protests die in his throat, leaving him gaping and rooted on the spot.

Lampwick had been right. Nothing of the building they were looking at could remind anyone of a house, except maybe the fact that it had a roof and a handful of walls – windows, too, though most of them seemed to have been smashed through already, or perhaps had never had any glass panes to begin with. The sight of them was almost unnerving, as if they were hollow, black eyes glaring down at the three boys lingering just out of reach, rather than just a few rows of ruined peepholes.

The entire place was little more than a ruin, to be honest. The outer walls, though not much taller than those of any one-story house in Storybrooke, were mostly intact save for a few cracks, but the vaulted roof had caved in in multiple points, and what was left hardly looked sound and stable; of the two pillars holding up a small awning right above what seemed to be the entrance, meanwhile, one had crumbled down at some point, dusty pieces scattered all over the overgrown dead grass at its feet, while the other was covered by thickly layered ivy. The vines had climbed up to reach the nearest windows, while moss had claimed the stones nearest to the ground, turning them into soft, mushy green pillows – not that it mattered, in truth, considering that the stones themselves were already green, like leaves in the middle of spring.

As was the entire building, in fact. Pinocchio had never seen any such mix of similar shades, all blurring together like a painter’s palette. Green the walls, green the window arches, green the rounded curve of the ceiling. The pillars were a dull, almost sickening pea green, while the roof tiles were a much richer forest green, but still everywhere he looked there was only green, green, green, to the point that his eyes were starting to water, so vivid a contrast it made against the otherwise bland scenery that surrounded him.

And yet, he was struggling to tear his gaze away from that unusual sight. There was something mesmerizing about it, almost magnetic, as if a fishing hook had lodged itself in his chest and were slowly but steadily reeling him forward, so strong he could feel his feet ache with the need to move closer and get a better look on that strange, strange place. He wasn’t so far away, after all; only a few steps and he would be standing at its doorstep, and then he might push the rotting door open and walk right inside and see-

A hand landed heavily on his shoulder, snapping him back to reality. Pinocchio whipped around, his heart hammering in his chest and the stinging, unpleasant sensation lingering on his face, only to find Lampwick staring at him in puzzlement. “What?”

“I just said it looks like a church.” His friend frowned, his eyes searching Pinocchio’s face with faint alarm. “You okay? You look like…I don’t know, like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“It’s nothing.” It was most certainly something, but Pinocchio wasn’t entirely sure of what it might be. The odd feeling had washed over him swiftly, leaving at the same brisk pace it had surged forward, like a sudden bout of wind, but it was almost entirely gone now, very few traces still clinging to him. Even his ears had stopped ringing, even though they’d sounded like tolling bells only moments earlier.

Perhaps he was just more tired than he’d thought. He hadn’t slept well the night before – he hardly slept well, if ever, but Camelot was really doing a number on him. Maybe the cold had only dealt him the final blow. Definitely nothing to worry about, or to make Lampwick worry about. “It’s just…it looks weird, doesn’t it? And it’s not a church. It’s a chapel.”

The older boy still seemed skeptical, but he shrugged half-heartedly, apparently willing to take Pinocchio on his word. “What’s the damn difference?”

“Churches are bigger. You can do more things in there. I don’t think you can say mass in here.”

Lampwick sniffed in contempt. “Well, I sure hope no one’s gonna ask us to go to mass anywhere around this place. Can’t be sure it’s the same Jesus we have back home, you know?”

“Huh-uh,” Pinocchio hummed distractedly, though he supposed there was some sense in what his friend was saying. He wasn’t sure anyone living near the Enchanted Forest might be catholic for real- might be this was just one of Camelot’s old temples, left to rot once all worshippers had stopped caring for it. He’d seen plenty of them before the curse, when lots of people had been too scared to wander far from their villages just to get a blessing, but he’d only set foot in one of them once or twice after being dared by his schoolmates, since his father hadn’t been all that devout.

Still, it really did look like a chapel to him. It was bigger and grander than the one adjoined to the convent back home, named after some blessed martyr or the other, but there was no mistaking the shape of it, nor the style. If he focused hard enough he could nearly picture how it might look on the inside, with its altar and the rows of benches and the paintings on the walls, full of dazed-looking angels and the occasional grumpy saint – he didn’t miss many things about the orphanage, and attending services least of all, but at least they’d been a comfortably familiar part of his routine, and twenty-eight years of playing hide and seek inside the confessionals and hoping not to get caught by Sister Vanessa were hard to forget, besides.

Someone was tugging at Pinocchio’s cloak. He looked down to see Roland staring straight ahead, eyes filled with dubious wonder. “What is it?”

The boy held out a hand, pointing towards the corner of chapel furthest from them. “Look. There’s someone there.”

Pinocchio followed his gesture, as did Lampwick. For a moment he couldn’t notice anything amiss, and very nearly chided Roland for scaring them both for no reason, but then his eyes registered a fraction of a movement, and he froze, feeling his heart sink.

There had been no sign that anyone might be coming their way, no shuffling noise, no sound of footsteps drawing near, but that should have been impossible. The man was tall, taller than anyone Pinocchio had ever seen, too tall, seemingly, to enter the chapel without ducking or knocking a good foot’s worth of wall to accommodate him – they should have felt the ground shake under his steps, or near enough, especially since he appeared to be dressed in layers of heavy armor, which ought to have been clinking and clanging at every move.

And yet, he’d appeared swiftly and silently, and it was no mystery, now, how he could have blended so well with the environment to look like an extension of the temple. Not only was his amor made of vivid green plates, glinting in the dull sunlight, but so was his helm – the visor was lifted, and the face underneath was green as grass, with a great green beard that fell to his chest. His green feet were bare, but the greaves on his legs were green as well, and there was a green sash slung across his breastplate, keeping a huge axe tied to his back in a huge green scabbard.

The green man and the three boys stared at each other in complete silence for what felt like an horribly long time, the latter paralyzed in shock, the former with what looked like some sort of detached curiosity, as if they’d been nothing more than a bunch of wild animals come to pasture in his backyard. Pinocchio could feel blind, inexplicable panic churning in his gut, but there was an odd sense of recognition in it, as well, as if there were something in this stranger that he’d already seen somewhere before – which was stupid, of course, because how could he recognize someone like that? Had it been in the Enchanted Forest, In one of those terrible places he’d tried so hard to forget? But he couldn’t have forgotten a giant man in a giant armor, and looking like a picture out of one of his fantasy books to boot, could he?

Then the man reached behind his back and towards the axe, his face creasing in reproach, and all foreboding thoughts left Pinocchio’s brain all of a sudden, leaving space only for what little survival instinct he knew he still had somewhere. He flung his arms out, fumbling blindly to grab his friends’ wrists, then turned around and ran for his life.

“Here,” Arthur said, unrolling a map on top of the table and pointing towards a stretch of open field near the sketch of a river. “This is where she was seen last.”

Robin leaned forward to see for himself, but he didn’t bother making sense of what part of the kingdom this map might be trying to depict. His sense of direction was as good as that of any man in his line of work, and he could navigate the woods around Storybrooke with near the same ease that he’d felt in the Sherwood Forest by now, but he was far, far away from both places now, and he had no hope to get so familiar with any region of Camelot anytime soon – nor did he want to, if he was being honest with himself. Growing accustomed to the place would mean staying around way longer than any of them were planning to, adding a few weeks to the days he’d already spent away from his men and their new home.

He was getting restless, too, and not just because he wanted to make a hasty return. They’d spent the past couple days poring over Merlin’s books and spells, looking for something, anything that might help their current condition, and all of that had been in vain. Whatever this sorcerer had done with his life, it hadn’t involved planning in advance for the arrival of a magical foe, or, indeed, for his untimely transformation into a tree, and all Robin’s doubts about their task aside, he could tell that Regina was growing more frustrated with the lack of answers by the hour, and that the king’s presence was doing nothing but making her antsier, even when the man had been doing nothing beside looking over her shoulder.

They’d both almost breathed a sigh of relief when Arthur had gotten word of Morgana landing another foray on Camelot, because that might mean having something more concrete to work with, rather than rumors and hearsay. Not in earnest, given that such an attack might have hurt someone innocent, but- almost. Almost.

Emma frowned, tapping a finger on the section he had pointed out for them. “How do you know she’s still there? It’s not like we have any proof. She could be anywhere by now.”

Arthur shook his head, a grim look on his face. “Her lair must be around there somewhere. The first few attacks were in the same area, and she’s been spotted in the forest more than once. There must be something drawing her to that place.”

That hardly sounded like foolproof logic to Robin, but he wasn’t sure it would be the wisest idea to make such a complaint aloud. There was a dangerous glint to the king’s eyes, a triumphant one, maybe, at finally having a road to follow, and he undoubtedly wouldn’t take kindly any attempt at dismissing his idea. “Did she leave a trail? Anything?” He asked instead, hoping it might shed some light on the whole ordeal.

“Nothing. The men whose farms she raided said she took a rabbit before vanishing into the woods, but that doesn’t really help us. They said she slashed his throat, too, and took it away as a sacrifice, but I wouldn’t listen to such foolish rumors, if I were you.”

“How charming,” Regina muttered, eyes still scanning the map. “What do you suggest, then? That we lure her out like a fish?”

The man hummed thoughtfully. “I’d send a scouting party, perhaps. I’m as eager to take this sorceress down as anyone with reason would be, but I can’t march an army on these woods without first ensuring that she’ll be there waiting for me.”

“Waiting for you, Your Highness?” Snow White’s expression was as neutral as ever when addressing Arthur, but there was a dubious hint to her voice as she spoke, betraying her true feelings.

His mouth twitched in a mirthless smile. “I’m not the kind of king to send other men to do my bidding, my lady. And whatever quarrel Morgana might have with me, she has not dared openly challenge me yet, so I doubt she’ll try and get my head the moment I come knocking. No, I’ll lead these scouts myself- this place is only half a day’s ride from here, after all. We might reach it before the sun sets, if we leave at first light. Witches are said to have their covens in darkness, are they not?”

Regina lifted her head, her gaze meeting Robin’s across the table for a moment before she glanced back towards Snow. She had not spoken a word, but the message had come through loud and clear all the same – this King Arthur was as reckless as he was open-handed, and every word he spoke only added to the growing mystery of his court, and not in a good way whatsoever.

The former princess had told them all, in hushed whispers behind barred doors, of her meeting with Arthur’s former friend and the latter’s warnings about the man himself. Robin hadn’t known what to make of Lancelot’s words, which had proved as vague as most things said around Camelot, but his anguish and Snow’s insistence that he was someone to be trusted had proved more effective than anything else. A spider, they’d called the king. A spider that had gotten his queen before anyone else.

Robin shot a glance at Guinevere, who alone among them had remained seating for the duration of the meeting. The woman was scowling down at the message recounting Morgana’s latest feat, occasionally murmuring something to the knight standing beside her – Arthur himself had asked her opinion once or twice while bringing everyone else up to speed, but she hadn’t been a particularly active member of the conversation otherwise, her dark eyes staring intensely at the foreigners while they were speaking instead, her hands neatly folded on her lap.

She didn’t look like a particularly unhappy woman, nor a wife mistreated by her husband. And as Regina had so often reminded him, it was not every king that would have done their consort the courtesy to include her in any serious discussion, so that definitely marked a point in Arthur’s favor, however meager.

Still, not all signs of distress could show up at first glance. There could be more to Guinevere than what met the eye. There definitely was more to Arthur than what met the eye, though Robin was the wrong person to dwelve into what it was – Lancelot’s suspects had only given weight to doubts that had already been there, molded them into a concrete shape that was working quite nicely as an elephant in the room. No one could address it, not without risking their heads, but there it was all the same, threatening to crush the council table with a careless movement.

Robin wondered, idly, how Snow White could suffer to stand right beside the king and not betray any of her thoughts, instead keeping an amiable façade for all their sakes. Regina had managed to keep her distance from Arthur, at least to a certain degree, but the man kept addressing the princess and her young husband with a polite sort of camaraderie, as if trying to appeal to their shared status of uncommonly gained royalty – Snow hadn’t fallen for the bait, but Prince David seemed tepidly interested in Arthur’s overtures, relenting at the king’s insistence that his guest join him for a spar in the yard or give an opinion on the latest council meeting. He’d sat at Arthur’s right for more than one meal, too, his daughter on the other side of him, both clearly trying to decide what they should do with such an indisputable honor, though more so on Emma’s part than her father’s.

An abrupt change, if maybe not so shocking. Perhaps the prince had missed having someone of noble stock to spend time with. Robin wouldn’t know how it felt, but he could sympathize with the urge to be around men who’d had the same experiences at him – though none of those men, even the likes of Will Scarlet, had ever been compared to an eight-legged beast of ill repute, it must be said.

“I’m coming with you.”

As if roused by his thoughts, Prince David had spoken up, stepping closer to the king with a resolute look on his face. For a split second Robin dared hope that it had been part of some kind of plan, that the man had discussed it with the rest of them beforehand, or his wife at the very least – but no, that couldn’t be right. Robin would have caught wind of it, surely, and the pang of surprise in his chest was reflected neatly on Regina and Emma’s faces, and on Snow White’s most of all. The older woman’s eyes had gone wide with shock, her face paler even that the silken coif on her head that Queen Guinevere had lent her, her hands clasped stiffly before her.

Arthur was as taken aback as them all, though, if not more. “My friend, I couldn’t ask that of you,” he stammered, seemingly genuinely enough. “Even if we’re not like to fight Morgana today, or even tomorrow, it might still be a dangerous plan. You would be putting yourself at risk, standing beside me.”

“We’re already at risk, Your Highness,” David protested stubbornly. “If we’re meant to help you defeat this woman, at least one of us should come along to see what her deal is. Emma and Regina need to work on freeing Merlin from his curse, and I know my way around a magical fight. I’m coming along, if you’ll take me.”

“I would be a fool to refuse such an offer from you. Still, are you sure?”

“Yes. I’ll need a sword, though. And a horse, I suppose.”

A grin spread across the king’s face. “You may have the pick of the stables and of the armory, if that’s all it takes.”

He clapped Prince Charming affectionately on the arm, clearly overjoyed with the latest turn of events. “It’s decided, then. We’ll leave on the morrow. We won’t need much in the way of supplies, but I’ll still need talk with the steward-“

There was a shriek, a shout, and the loud banging sound of one of the doors being slammed open. All heads turned at once, just in time to see three small figures barge into the room, followed by a somewhat taller one with a thunderous scowl on his face.

“Come back here, you-“, the guard howled, trying to make a grab for them as he ran. He was deliberately avoiding trying to catch Roland, perhaps sensing that it might be bad form to aim for the smallest child on hand – a poor tactical choice, Robin noted with detached lucidity as he tried to process the scene unfolding before him. Lampwick was slippery as an eel, and Pinocchio easily the fastest of the three, but neither would have so much as thought to leave their younger friend behind, if said friend had been captured.

At least, that was what his fatherly side was fervently hoping to be true.

Fatherly instincts were also the only reason he managed to prevent Roland from stumbling on his own feet, his arms reaching out to grab the child before his brain had ever caught up with the plan. Robin yanked his son away, setting him on his hip with practiced ease, while Pinocchio and Lampwick made a dive for Emma – the Savior looked as if she’d just aged ten years at once, her qualms about her father’s decision momentarily set aside, but still she put her arms around the two boys without a hint of hesitation, her eyes immediately darting to the sword at the guard’s hip, still mercifully sheathed and stored away.

The man drew to a halt, evidently winded. “My apologies, my lord,” he panted. “I know you asked not to be disturbed, but- I couldn’t stop them, and they lost Sir Cuthbert along the way.”

Arthur arched an eyebrow in blatant surprise, though he appeared more amused than truly outraged. “Don’t fret about it, Alain. It seems that this land of theirs keeps its children in good shape. Surely they had a matter of great urgency to bring to our attention.”

“We saw a green man,” Roland piped up from his place in Robin’s arms, prompting the king to stare at him.

“Begging your pardon?”

“That was not a man.” Lampwick shrugged off Emma’s grasp, stepping forward and squaring his shoulders as if to hide the slight trembling that was shaking him from top to foot. “That guy was huge. What do you feed people here? Steroids? That’s not normal, right?”

“What are you on about now, kid?” David asked, puzzlement writ all across his face.

“We were in the forest, and- no, Sheriff, I know we weren’t supposed to be in the forest, listen- we found a, a church or something, and there was this green guy next to it, wide as I’m tall, with an armor and a stupid big axe. We thought he’d be attacking us when he saw, so we ran away, but he didn’t follow us here so we should be fine, right?”

Robin’s first, innate instinct was to flag all those words as bullshit and invite the boy to leave the room at once. What little trust he’d had for Lampwick had been wiped off once the kids had showed up in Camelot, and that impression kept being proved right – Pinocchio at least seemed reasonably chastened, and had retained his manners throughout the entire visit, keeping a watchful eye over Roland at all times, but the older boy was stubborn and unpredictable, and certainly capable of making up a shocking story to wiggle his way into an adults-only discussion.

Still, there was raw, genuine concern in his eyes, and his stance was tense and jittery, as if he were ready to bolt at the drop of an hat – if it was an act, then it was a bloody good one, especially if backed up by his friends’ demeanor. Roland was almost blessedly confused by the situation he was in, but Pinocchio was rigid and uncharacteristically quiet, his eyes enormous in his pale face, though he had yet to say anything at all. He was staring at the king, instead, as was Lampwick, but quietly and with nothing of the other’s fire and bouncing nervousness, his arms keeping a slack hold around Emma’s waist.

And as for Arthur himself…

Arthur was returning the kids’ gaze, but there was something…off about him, even if Robin was struggling to put a name to it. Shock, most certainly, and that was reasonable enough, but a stranger feeling was hiding behind it, a glint of something deeper behind his kingly façade- worry, perhaps, though that was puzzling at best, because what in the gods’ name could three little fools of their ilk do to worry the ruler of an entire kingdom to such a point?

He didn’t manage to give himself a satisfying answer. The light was gone from the king’s eyes as quickly as it had come, hardly noticeable to anyone not paying the utmost attention, and Arthur let out a booming laugh, only slightly wavering at the beginning.

“They teach you how to tell great tales, too, it seems,” he said, after he had composed himself once more. “That’s one I hadn’t heard yet, that I remembered. You’d make good fortune in any of our feasts, if you were still here come harvesttime.”

What knights of his were in attendance burst into laughter as well, and if there was any hint of unease to it, the overlapping noises all but drowned it before it reached Robin’s ears. Even those who weren’t making a grand show of it were hiding their amusement behind their hands, guffawing under their breaths.

And in the midst of their merriment was Lampwick, still standing his ground, but whose bravado seemed to be faltering. He opened his mouth once, twice, his eyes darting from one chuckling man to the other, and his hands clenched into fists at his sides, so stiffly that Robin feared his fingernails might be digging into his palms.

“What?” He exclaimed, hoarse with outrage. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“There is nothing in the forest, child.” Arthur’s grin had faded to a faint, amused smile, no less patronizingly complacent than before. “No place of worship, no building still standing, and definitely no green man. It’d make for a wonderful tale to any of your friends, but everyone in Camelot knows that the nearest settlement is miles and miles away from this keep.”

“Are you sure about that, Your Highness?” Regina began, brow furrowed. “That sort of situation can change quickly. A creature like that might have wandered in at any time.”

“I’m most certain of that, my lady. Our borders are secure, and I’m kept informed on what goes on across the entire kingdom. I would have known, if such a beast had been sighted before. Nothing can enter the forest unannounced.”

Except us, Robin thought bitterly, but he didn’t manage to voice it aloud, as the boy was howling in frustration again, gesturing furiously at thin air.

“But we’ve seen it! It was there!”

“Then you must have been dreaming. Or perhaps lying is a more renowned sport than I thought, in this Storybrooke you speak of.”

Color rushed to Lampwick’s cheeks all at once, turning his face redder than his fiery hair. He took another step forward, his eyes narrowed in fury, his teeth bared as if he were a little beast and not a boy on the verge of puberty. “Listen here, you-“

“That’s enough.” The smile had vanished from the king’s face, leaving behind a flat, terse look, his blue eyes hard like chips of glass. “I am more indulgent than most, but you’re toeing the line, now, boy. Others would have you whipped for addressing a king so- cruel, perhaps, but I’d rather you don’t force my hand.”

“I’m sorry, there’s a man out there that’s the size of a house and I am problem? He was gigantic. He had a fucking-“

“Lampwick,” Emma warned him.

“-a bloody axe, alright? He could have cut us in half! Shouldn’t you-“

“Lampwick.”

“-be worried about, I don’t know, hunting him down? Catching him before he hurts someone?”

“Lampwick.” The Savior’s hand grabbed him by the shoulder, forcing him to turn around and face her, still snarling.

Robin watched her too, though part of his mind was still intent at keeping Arthur in close scrutiny, lest he had any such ideas about Roland as well. Emma’s expression was stony and unflinching, impossible to stare down into relenting, though Lampwick was certainly making a strong attempt at it, and her grip on the boy’s arm was firm and steady, leaving no space to tug oneself free.

“King Arthur,” she said, slowly, never breaking eye contact. “Enough. You should go and rest, and leave Roland here with us. It seems like you’ve had quite a day.”

Lampwick’s mouth fell open once more. “But Sheriff-“

“Now, kid.” Emma’s voice had a stern note to it that Robin had never heard before, unless when facing one villain or the other, but her gaze softened somewhat after a moment, and she nudged Pinocchio slightly, pushing him towards his friend. “Go back to your room. I’ll see you both at dinner.”

“What are you, my mom?” Lampwick sneered mockingly, harsher than ever.

Still, Emma’s interference seemed to have worked its magic. His shoulders sagged minutely, and he lowered his gaze, staring sullenly to the side. “Fine. Come on, Pinoke, let’s go.”

He didn’t wait to see if his friend was listening, instead turning on his heel and marching off, making a rude gesture at the guard that had tried stopping them on his way out that Arthur thankfully seemed to ignore. Pinocchio followed him at a more sedate pace, but rather than gazing stubbornly ahead, his eyes remained fixed on the king up until he’d shut the door behind his back, still filled with that blank, distant stare that looked oddly out of place in his young face, as if he were barely blinking at all.

There was a lull of confused, uneasy silence once the two boys had left, stretching uncomfortably into the packed room. Finally, Snow White cleared her throat and reached out with her hand, her fingers brushing against the sleeve of Arthur’s doublet to draw his attention. “Forgive them, my lord. They’re still very young. They’re- it’s been a difficult time for all of us, and they don’t have their families with them as some of us do.”

“There is no need to apologize.” The king’s face had smoothed back into its usual amiability, but his eyes still betrayed a certain amount of unrest, flitting back and forth between his companions and the now closed door. “I wouldn’t begrudge them their hotheadedness. I was just as restless at their age, if not more. But Camelot is not as safe as I would like it to be just yet- it might be dangerous for them, to stick their noses everywhere and make such bold claims where everyone might hear them.”

“I never would have guessed,” Regina said, evenly, but there was a clench to her jaw that was impossible to ignore, and when Robin finally dared set Roland down to entertain himself she shifted imperceptibly, as to be within arm’s reach of the boy even as her focus seemingly went back to the matter at hand.

It was, however, a futile attempt. Though everyone tried to return to their work, the unexpected interruption had left a lingering unpleasantness in the air, making most of them restless and distracted and unable to remember what they’d said last. Their leader chief amongst them, it seemed – Arthur made a valiant effort in steering the conversation back where he wanted it to be, but eventually he had to admit defeat as well, declaring that he had to oversee the preparations for their ride of the following day and promising to keep them all updated in case there were any news.

Robin lingered near the table as people began filing out of the door, pretending to look for something on the map as a pretext not to join them straight away while he tried to sort out the turmoil of thoughts in his head. An unpleasant business, the scene he’d just witnessed, and not merely because he’d had to watch the supposedly honorable Knights of the Round Table ridicule a boy half their age – Robin had no particular love for Lampwick, but the exchange between king and child had left a foul taste in his mouth, though there had been little and less to do about it with Arthur’s temper still running high.

No, something was missing from his understanding of the discussion, as if the whole court had been rehearsing a play and missing some fundamental actor. The king’s reaction had come a split second too late, and so had his knights’, and the possibility of a living, breathing giant man had been brought up and subsequently buried away far too quickly, as though trying to make everyone involved forget about it before it took hold. And Lampwick…well. It was easier to dismiss a boy of twelve than to rebuff a warrior or a former queen, was it not?

At least he didn’t appear to be the only one with objections to raise. Prince Charming had been swept into some kind of whispered discussion with the king, no doubt related to the newly planned mission he was meant to join, and while Snow White had tried to linger a little longer after Arthur’s party had left, Guinevere had taken her by the arm as if they’d been long time friends and steered her in the opposite direction, but Regina had kept her place, turning a burning glare at any knight who might try and escort her away, nervously thumbing through the rolls of parchment left behind to guide them on how to handle Morgana

Emma, too, had seemingly only been biding her time. She carefully stepped closer to him once most of the others had left, her fingers tracing idle, casual patterns on the worn-out map, and then murmured, almost casually: “Do you think that Roland would make up a story like that?”

Robin shot a glance to his son, who appeared to be somewhat interested by what Regina was doing. The little boy had seemed surprisingly unfazed by the chaos around him, as if he hadn’t quite grasped what was happening, but…“Not on his own. He might have repeated what the other two told him to say, though. Do you think they would?”

The Savior exhaled heavily, her face creased in thought. “Lampwick, maybe. He might think it’s funny. But he’d never let anyone accuse Pinocchio of lying because of that. It’s…it’s a whole thing, for them.”

“You know them well.”

“Yes.” Finally, Emma raised her head, her lips pressed into a thin line as she looked over to Regina and then back to him.

“Arthur doesn’t, though. So that begs the question- if they’re not lying, and he doesn’t know them well enough to dispute that, why was he trying so hard to convince us that nothing of what they said was true?”

And once again, there was a question Robin had no sensible answer to. And no pleasant one either, he noted with dismay, as Arthur’s forced laughter boomed in his ears once more, traveling from the long stretch of hallway just out of the door.

Chapter Text

Snow found her husband in the armory, parsing through the weapons hanging on the racks.

She hadn’t exactly been seeking him out – not efficiently, at the very least. She was pretty sure stalking through a castle she wasn’t familiar with, with a step barely lighter and less threatening than that of an elephant stampede, couldn’t really count as looking for someone, even if that someone didn’t deserve a more delicate approach in the first place; no doubt there would be plenty of maids scurrying to Guinevere’s chambers come nightfall, reporting to their mistress that the visiting princess had been stomping through their hallways with a dangerous glint in her eyes and the brisk pace of a woman on a mission.

All the same, she had been meaning to find David, and found him she had. He appeared to be selecting a new shield for himself – Arthur wasn’t with him for once, thankfully, but the master armorer was, making suggestions to the prince in a low tone of voice. They both raised their gaze when they heard her stomp in, the old man with a puzzled frown, her husband barely suppressing a flash of unease before his expression settled again.

“I would like to speak with Prince David for a moment,” Snow said, icily, and then in a softer tone, because the armorer had, after all, done nothing to irritate her: “Please, if I may?”

The man was clearly displeased at having to give up his workspace, but she was still a highborn guest of his king, so he merely bowed his head, muttering some unintelligible reassurance, and then moved away quickly, glancing uneasily at them over his shoulder before he shut the door behind himself. Snow waited until she’d heard his heavy footfall fade down the corridor, and then turned back to David, whose jaw was now jutting out in a stubborn scowl that, for a moment, reminded her almost painfully of Emma – but no. She couldn’t think about him like that. He couldn’t hope to escape her wrath via a mere resemblance to their daughter alone.

“What the hell have you been thinking?” She hissed, taking a step closer - the armorer had left, true enough, but one could never know where Arthur’s little spies might be stowed away. Better be careful, once more, than regret her words later down the line. “Have you lost your mind?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, please. Spare me the act. You might have convinced Arthur that you’re a brainless, chivalrous fool, but I know you better than he does, David. I don’t know what game you think you’re playing, but it has to stop. You can’t go around risking your head like that.”

“Game?” David’s eyebrows shot up, and he looked at her in stunned, offended disbelief. “I’ve been trying to get us home. Just like you have.”

She scoffed sharply. “Then why did you not consult us before asking Arthur to join him, pray tell? If we’re so important to your plan? Are you mad, going with him alone like that- we can’t trust him! For all we know he could be trying to- to single us out and off us one by one! And you’d go with him God knows where? Without telling us first?”

“If he wanted to kill us, he’d have already done it. He’s the king. No one would bat an eye.”

“He’s not Regina. He doesn’t have magic to protect him from his people if he missteps. If he wants to hurt us, he’s going to be careful about it- or did you miss the part where he all but threatened to have a kid flogged, earlier?”

A muscle in his jaw tensed. “I don’t know what you’d have expected him to do. I’m not saying he was right-“

“Because he wasn’t!”

“-but it was in his right to act like that,” he continued, as if he hadn’t heard her. “Like I said, he’s the king. If he needs to command respect, he might have to take drastic measures.”

Snow felt heat rush to her cheeks. “So that’s it?” She spat out, venomously. “He’s turned you to his cause? You’ve made a new friend?”

“I- No. Gods, no.” Suddenly, David grabbed her by arms – not strongly, not hard enough to hurt, but firm all the same – and leaned even closer, speaking to her in quick, hurried whispers. “I’m trying to get his confidence, Snow. You’re right- we can’t be sure he won’t hurt us, but it could all be a misunderstanding. And- and even if he does, he won’t dare get rid of me if he thinks I’m on his side. I’m doing this for you, not just because I like him.”

The choice of words was not lost to her, no matter how impassioned his tone might be. “Then take Robin with you. Take Regina. Take anyone- Christ, he could stab you in the back and blame Morgana for that, too. You can’t go alone.”

“Then come with me. Arthur will suspect something’s up if Robin changes his mind so suddenly, but he likes you. You’ve seen how he acts. He will follow your suggestions, if you’re around to offer them.”

Snow exhaled deeply, closing her eyes for a moment to steel herself, then shook her head firmly. “I can’t. I can’t ride hard for half a day and expect it to end well anymore- I know we used to go do worse than that, and- and hunt bandits, but that’s gone now, David. Arthur is not blind enough to ignore that. You shouldn’t be, either.”

David’s mouth twitched slightly, curling upwards in a mirthless smile. “Right. I forgot. You’re a different woman now. Well, then I don’t have that many options left, do I?”

The harsh, mindless fury in his voice sent a sharp jolt of surprise through Snow’s body, one that left her staring at him wordlessly, gaping numbly like a fish out of water. The outraged flush had left her face, as if freezing water had started running through her veins in place of blood. She tried to speak, but felt that her throat was dry as sandpaper, now, all vitriol rushing out of her in the blink of an eye.

“So that’s what this is about?” She finally managed to rasp. “We’re always going to circle back to that?”

“I don’t know,” David spat back, curtly. “You tell me, Snow. You’re the one who’s been playing games since we got here. Might be you’re finally winning.”

“Now what does that mean?”

At least, he seemed to hesitate, apparently realizing he’d gone too far, and let go of her abruptly, trying to turn away and back to the shields. “Nothing. Forget about it. Send Master Cahir back here, will you?”

“Oh, absolutely not.” This time she was the one to grab his shoulder, putting all her strength into forcing him to face her again. “If you’ve got something against me, fine, we’ll sort it out. But I won’t let it endanger our friends, or the children, or our daughter-“

“So it’s our daughter, now, uh?”

Snow recoiled back as if slapped, almost stumbling on her trailing skirts. “David,” she said, trying to keep her voice firm and even. “David, of course she is. I’ve never thought anything different. You know that.”

“No, I really don’t. And neither does the entirety of Camelot, thanks to you, so don’t try and change your mind now. Indecisiveness is not a good look on you.”

“I was trying to keep you safe! To keep us all safe! If they’d heard about our relationship, they’d have known more than they needed to know. You know we’re not exactly a common family, and we can’t trust anyone here to learn what happened to us just yet.”

“Can’t we?” David sighed, a sharp, enraged sound, his stiff shoulders dropping ever so slightly. “You know what, forget it. You’re right. You had her for twenty-eight years. I should have figured out you wouldn’t want to give up on your exclusive.”

“My-“ Her vision was getting more blurred by the second, though she didn’t know if by tears or by anger, like that of a bull having to face a red banner. “You think I wanted this to happen? I wanted you, David! I wanted our home, and I wanted to grow old together, and now look at me. Is this what you believe I wanted? Our child being older than you? You think I’m happy with it?”

“No, I- No.” He paused, seemingly debating with himself about whether he should continue or not, then appeared to steel himself, pulling his shoulders back and raising his. “But I think you’ve grown too used to it, Snow. Enough- enough to make you think you’re happy with how things are.”

Snow’s whole body had ran cold now, her thoughts grown stunned and sluggish, her fingers stiff as they clutched at her heavy woolen gown. She took a step back on unsteady legs, and then another, breaking free from his grasp, but she was too prideful to let anyone see her so openly distraught – even a man who’d witnessed worse from her, both in her youth and in recent times.

Especially a man like that, it seemed.

“I’m sorry, David,” she said, slowly, her chest aching with every word even as she held her head up as high as she could. “I’m sorry everything went wrong. I’m sorry I’m not- I’m not Abigail, and that we never had all the children we talked about. If I could have made it all better, I would have. Whatever you think of me now, you must know I would have. And I know you’re angry, and you deserve to be angry, but- Remember it’s not just me you’re hurting, if you want to go and get yourself killed. If you don’t care about what I think, then at least care about Emma- our daughter, David. Ours. Yours. Pray not forget about it.”

Then she turned on her heel and stalked out of the room, leaving her husband speechless in her wake.

“Pinocchio? You awake?”

Pinocchio hummed under his breath, rubbing at his tired eyes as he rolled onto his other side to face Lampwick. “Yeah. Yeah, ‘m awake.”

He had yet to sleep a wink, in truth, despite how late it was. He and the other boys had been sent to bed what felt like ages earlier, and now the entire castle seemed to have fallen asleep around them, the distant sound of voices and clinking armor dimmed out almost completely, save for the scurrying footsteps of a latecomer servant or the occasional guardsman doing his rounds.

And yet, Pinocchio was still as awake as it got – and so, apparently, was Lampwick. The older boy was laying down with his head sunk in the almost too soft pillows, Roland fast asleep and clinging to him like a baby monkey to its mother, but his eyes were wide open and searching in the faint candlelight, his long face drawn into a scowl. “Can’t sleep, can you?” He whispered, leaning as close to his friend as he could without jostling the child between them.

Pinocchio shook his head, feeling his chest clench once more. “No.”

“Me neither. Too angry. Can’t believe that bastard didn’t believe us. Who does he think he is?”

“A king?”

“Yeah, right, and that gives him the right to be an arse? Hell, the one time we try to help-“

“Yeah.”  Pinocchio rolled onto his back, staring sightlessly up at the darkened ceiling. “But there’s not a lot we can do about it, if they think we’re lying.”

He wished there was something they could do, to be quite honest. Not just because the prospect of being named a liar and a storyteller again had hit him harder than he would have thought before, especially since Emma and the other adults hadn’t seemed entirely convinced by their tale either – the more he thought about it, the more important he felt the matter at hand might be, aside from the danger it posed.

He couldn’t quite shake the image of the chapel from his brain – the chapel and the knight standing beside it, both shining green in the greyish winter weather. It was as if someone had burned the picture inside his eyelids, forcing him to remember every time he tried to set it aside and go to sleep for good, and it worried him, how insistent his brain was getting about something he would have rather entirely forgotten about.

He had never seen that place before. That, at least, Pinocchio was now fairly certain of – he’d pushed a lot of things that had happened to him at the back of his brain, true, but he had never forgotten about any of them, not completely. He couldn’t. Most of it had been too awful to forget, and he was pretty sure it would be hard to erase a giant green man and his equally as green out-of-sorts church from his mind completely, however terrifying the encounter might have been.

Still, the pull was there all the same, and he- he didn’t know what to make of it, really. He couldn’t quite figure out why he might be so interested, and he would never find out unless he got another close look at that chapel, and he wanted to go back there again, he did, but…he couldn’t. It felt dangerous. It had to be dangerous, if it had troubled him so.

And even if it hadn’t, well. The man did have an axe, after all.

He felt a hand tugging at the sleeve of his sleepshirt, and he turned to look at Lampwick again. There was a determined set to his friend’s expression, and Pinocchio felt dread pooling low in his belly at the sight – it couldn’t mean anything good, if past experiences had taught him anything. “What?”

“I was thinking- the king said it was all a story, right? Something we made up?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So let’s find him some proof. Prove him it’s all real.”

Pinocchio frowned, staring skeptically at him. “Like how?”

“I say we go back there and bring something back. Or get the guy to chase us back to the castle, I don’t know. I’m still working on that part.”

“What?” It came out as a louder whisper than he’d intended, and Lampwick shushed him even more loudly, forcing Pinocchio to tone himself down despite his restlessness. “Are you out of your mind? We could get ourselves killed. And if the axe doesn’t, the mayor or Robin Hood will. Especially if we bring Roland.”

“We don’t need to bring him,” Lampwick replied stubbornly. “He’s sleeping, and there are guards in here, anyway. He’ll be safe. We get out of the castle, find something useful, come back before dawn. Easy.”

“We can’t- What if they see us leave?”

The older boy snorted quietly. “Please. No one’ll even notice we’re gone. They never do, you know that. We’ll be back before the king’s left his royal loo tomorrow, promise.”

“No we won’t.” Pinocchio shook his head again, trying to sound firmer than he felt. “We’re not going anywhere. That’d be stupid. Emma’d toss us into the moat.”

“Not if we prove King Arthur wrong, she won’t. Come on, Pinoke. You know you want to see it again, too.”

“I really don’t.” But that was a lie for real, wasn’t it? He did want to see the chapel again. He wanted to run his fingers along the groves between bricks and see if some dust had collected in there, at least, or if the whole building had sprung out of nowhere while they weren’t looking, like a place in a dream. He wanted to check if that dust might be green, too. He wanted to step inside and see for himself if it had a beautifully painted green ceiling, like the churches he’d seen in books when he’d been younger, or if it might smell rotten at all, after all the rain and hail that had surely already fallen in through the ruined roof.

But Lampwick couldn’t know any of that, or Pinocchio would never hear the end of it, so he repeated, swallowing hard around the throat in his lump: “I don’t. And I’m not coming. That’s it.”

“Alright. Suit yourself, because I am.” Slowly, carefully, his friend began wriggling out of Roland’s grasp, prying the little boy’s fingers off his shirt. “I’m not gonna stay here and mope just ‘cause you’re scared of a little church.”

“Really?” That had been a low blow, and a terribly effective one, as Lampwick must have known for sure. Pinocchio groaned in frustration, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. “Fine. Let’s go.”

He slipped out from under the covers, then, and began quietly hunting down his boots, the weight in his chest growing heavier by the minute.

The air outside was colder than Lampwick had expected.

Both him and Pinocchio had neatly bundled themselves up in the winter clothes they’d been gifted, and even slipped on their Storybrooke-bought coats for maximum effect, and still the night breeze was biting relentlessly at their noses and cheeks, no matter how much they tried to keep their heads down. Lampwick could barely feel the tips of his fingers by the time they’d set out into the forest, and his toes were not lagging that far behind, woolen socks or not.

And yet, their little escapade through Camelot’s flimsy defenses hadn’t been any harder than daylight had made it. If anything, it had been even easier – almost too easy, if Lampwick was being honest with himself. What guards they’d seen had been few and far in between, and all of them looking less than focused on their task, huddled near some open braziers or slowly patrolling the walls, vacuous looks spread all over their faces.

The sight had unnerved him, though he hadn’t said a word to Pinocchio about it. It had made their job easier, sure enough, but all the same, nothing about it was looking quite right – it was as if there were something missing from all those men, as though they’d all been filling their designated spots without knowing what they should be doing with their hands and feet, like toy soldiers on a parade.

An act. That was what it had felt to him, for a split second. Like they’d been mummers on a show, hard at work at a first glance, but slacking off the second the king turned around. If this was the best fight they could stake against the diffusion of evil, it was a wonder that Morgana lady hadn’t razed the whole castle to the ground already.

Still, now the two of them were out in the open, and Lampwick needed to put all those armored fools at the back of his mind. Their job wasn’t any concern of his, and there was a great big green bastard to find – that was a task that would require an extraordinary amount of focus, since neither he nor Pinocchio were exactly good at navigating unfamiliar places.

“How far was it, d’you reckon?” He asked, relishing in the chance to speak out loud after so long spent whispering back and forth.

Pinocchio pursed his lips in thought, lifting the lantern they’d snatched along the way to light the road ahead. “I don’t know. But I could see the chapel from the path, so if we follow it we should get there soon.”

“Yeah, sorry, I don’t see that happening.”

The voice had come from behind them, sudden and unimpressed, causing them both to jump of their skins in surprise. Pinocchio’s clumsy fingers fumbled with the lantern, very nearly dropping it to the ground, and Lampwick turned around slowly, muttering a curse under his breath when he saw the two figures looming at the outer edge of the path. “Uh-oh.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself, kid,” the sheriff replied tersely, crossing her arms against her chest. She’d tied her hair back and traded her daily princely dresses for a tunic and breeches, and there was a swordbelt strapped around her waist as well – she was carrying a torch in her right hand, while Robin Hood, standing by her side, was holding his customary bow aloft and looking no less displeased than she did. “Uh-oh.”

“Roland’s not here,” Pinocchio said immediately, probably more out of reflex than anything else. “He’s still at the castle.”

Hood scoffed, lowering his weapon. “Not that I’m not pleased to hear that, but it’s not really helping your situation, boy.”

“We were just out on a stroll,” Lampwick shot back sharply, raising his chin in defiance. “We weren’t doing anything bad.”

“In the dead of night?”

“’S not against the law, is it?”

The sheriff sighed, and then took a few steps towards them, raising her hand in a peacekeeping gesture. “Nice try, Lampwick, but I can’t believe you’d be so stupid to go, well, out on a stroll after the king’s little show today. Unless you want him to call for your head again?”

The boy huffed reproachfully, stubbornly glancing away to avoid her pointed stare. “Would be an improvement, if you ask me,” he muttered darkly, sinking even further into his heavy clothes.

He almost expected to be chided for it, but it was Pinocchio who spoke next, to Lampwick’s vague surprise. “We wanted to see that knight again,” he said, his voice ringing loud and clear in the silent forest. “The one with the axe. We’re sorry we snuck out, though. We know it’s dangerous here.”

“Understatement of the year,” the sheriff murmured, then brusquely shook her head. “Never mind. That was our plan too. So if you could please go back to your room and lock yourselves in, for my peace of mind…”

“What?” The word was out of Lampwick’s mouth before he was even aware of it, and he lifted his gaze again, his eyes wide and his mouth gaping in surprise. “Really? You believe us?”

“Of course I believe you, kid. Got a superpower up my sleeve, remember? And your story sounded more believable than the king’s, anyway.”

“Uh.” The shock hit him like a wave in the back, the ones who used to send him sprawling flat on the sand like a starfish, but there was something else underneath – relief, perhaps, though he would happily chew glass rather than admit it. He had already given up on having someone not named Pinocchio on his side, to be quite honest, and no one could blame him for it, really, given their combined past experiences. “So why didn’t you say that?”

“I was trying to save your neck, actually. And mine, and everyone else’s with it. But yes, I trust you both to be smarter than Arthur thinks, and not to make up things for attention. Happier now?”

“Thank you,” Pinocchio replied, sounding immensely relieved as well, and Lampwick found himself nodding along, an elated grin spreading across his face.

“Yeah, thanks. So we’re off to see this knight now, aren’t we?”

“We aren’t doing anything of that sort,” Hood cut in, scowling. “Emma and I will be taking a look at this man you saw. You two are going back to the castle, like she said.”

“What? No, we’re not, what are you talking about?”

“Kid, please,” the sheriff all but begged, her voice even more tired than before. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. It’s for your safety. You’re already at risk as it is.”

“Come on,” Lampwick insisted, throwing his hands up in the air. “You can’t send us away! You don’t even know where the bloody chapel is, and- and we do! Right?”

The last question had been directed to Pinocchio, but if he’d expected his friend to eagerly back his story or, at the very least, roll his eyes in exasperation, then he was sorely mistaken. The dark-haired boy remained very, very quiet instead, slowly but firmly nodding his assent as his gaze remained fixed on the princess before them.

Lampwick was starting to get worried about Pinocchio, in truth. Their little misadventure had shaken them all to the core – it hadn’t shaken Roland, alright, but the kid seemed to be pretty used to having to take things in stride – and yet, Lampwick himself had been quick to recover from it, letting anger and resentment take the wheel before he could dwell on it any longer. Pinocchio, on the other hand, had been behaving oddly for hours now, falling silent mid-sentence and staring vacantly into the void, as if he’d been thinking about something far away from their obnoxiously lavish rooms or Arthur’s infuriating mockery.

It was becoming a little unnerving, all in all. Particularly because there didn’t seem to be anything Lampwick could do to get to the bottom of it, and pressing the matter hadn’t taken him anywhere, since Pinocchio kept insisting there was nothing wrong with him, when he wasn’t refusing to answer for good. It was frustrating him to no end – he was supposed to be good at sorting out Pinocchio’s issues, dammit. There weren’t many things he could call himself an expert of, but that had always been the notable exception.

Well. Perhaps having a sword-wielding princess for an ally would cheer his friend up a bit. There was nothing they could do about Robin Hood’s presence, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, right?

“See?” Lampwick went on, undeterred, gesturing victoriously towards his friend. “You’ll get lost in no time. And there’s another thing, too.”

“Yeah? And what’s that?”

“You can’t walk us back to the castle, ‘cause you’d lose lots of time and someone might see us, and you don’t want that, right? But if you send us back alone, you know we’ll be following you until you get there, so really, you’ve got no choice. You’re stuck with us, Sheriff.”

He gave her his most winning smile, which really wasn’t winning at all, particularly with his lips cracked and chapped by the cold, but there was nothing wrong with being proud of a job well done. The sheriff was staring at him with an unreadable expression on her face, her eyebrows raised, Robin Hood looking incredulously from her to the two boys and back.

Then she sighed, heavily, as if Lampwick had been an enormous chore she’d been saddled – which he technically was, right now, if he was being honest with himself. “Fine,” she gritted out. “But you’re doing exactly as I say, got it? No wandering off, no splitting up, and if I say run, you run. Is that clear?”

The boy’s grin widened, and he threw a quick salute. “Crystal.”

“What?” Robin Hood asked, the shock palpable in his voice.

“Believe me, I don’t like it any more than you do, but they’ve backed me into a corner.” The woman waved a warning finger in Lampwick’s face. “But I’m sending Marco the hairdresser bill for all the white hair you guys are giving me when we get home, you can quote me on that.”

“Aw, come on, Sheriff. Why don’t you send it over to my folks instead? Mr. Geppetto doesn’t deserve that.”

“That guardian of yours should count himself lucky I haven’t clamped down truck yet, kid. Leave it be.”

They started towards the forest once more, and Lampwick found himself marching alongside Pinocchio again, scampering after Princess Emma. The other boy had yet to say a single word, his face pale and drawn, and Lampwick leaned in to whisper in his ear, low enough that the two adults wouldn’t be able to catch on it. “You alright?”

Pinocchio pressed his lips together for a moment. “I don’t know,” he muttered, finally, glancing uneasily towards his friend. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“That’s the stupidest thing you could have said,” Lampwick protested, but there wasn’t much they could do without setting the sheriff off again, so he simply reached out and grabbed Pinocchio’s free hand, squeezing it in silent support. It was cold and clammy with sweat, limp in his grasp, and it did nothing to reassure him that his companion was, in fact, fine, but when were things ever simple for the two of them, after all?

He’d expected a long, tersely silent walk in the darkened woods, but even though the distance felt bloated by the tension among the group, it wasn’t long before Pinocchio was tugging at his arm, nodding towards what looked like a thinner patch of trees. Lampwick followed his gaze, and this time he did see what he hadn’t in the light of day – a flash of green, shimmering quickly in the torchlight before it vanished back behind the closest branches.

“There it is,” he called out to the other two, forcedly cheerful, since he didn’t trust his friend to have found his voice yet. “Final destination.”

Robin Hood and the princess exchanged a glance, and then the woman passed the torch into her left hand, unsheathing her sword with the right. “Stay behind me.”

The chapel looked even bigger and more eerie in the dark, looming over them like a big mouth with jagged teeth, ready to swallow them all whole. It hadn’t been all that intimidating earlier, not until the knight had stepped onto the scene, but now the sight was disturbing enough to send a slight shiver down Lampwick’s spine, despite the layers of winter clothing under his jacket.

At his side, Pinocchio looked even more ill at ease with their situation, swallowing hard before he finally managed to speak. “Lampwick,” he whispered, a frantic tinge to his voice.

“What?”

“It wasn’t supposed to be this close. It took us longer to walk there, when we were with Roland, and the place looks different anyway. Why? Why does it look different?”

Lampwick glanced nervously around, trying not to let Pinocchio’s fright infect him. The clearing wasn’t looking all that familiar now, true enough – the trees seemed to be spread out wrong, thick where they’d been sparse, low where they’d been tall, and even the chapel itself appeared to be facing the wrong direction, but perhaps it was just his gaze doing all the work, filling the blanks on its own as it grew accustomed to the dark.

“’S just your eyes playing tricks on you,” he replied nevertheless, sounding more sure of himself than he felt. “Maybe we were going around in circles, this afternoon, and just didn’t notice. Come on, now- the sheriff’ll chew us up like bread if we lose her.”

The four of them approached the building with exaggerated care, circling it like carps nosing at a lure, alert to any small noise. Still, nobody seemed to be home; there was no giant figure standing at the doorstep, ready to welcome them with a swing of its axe, and though Lampwick kept looking over his shoulder in apprehension, half expecting the knight to be silently creeping up on him from behind, there was no trace of his passage anywhere, no flattened down grass except where they’d stomped on it on their own.

It was, in a way, a bummer. Better for their chances at keeping their heads on their shoulders, sure, but…they’d only gone so far to prove the green man had been real, and now that he wasn’t there in the flesh, doubt was starting to seep into Lampwick’s bones, needling its way to his brain. They hadn’t been dreaming, had they? They’d been lucid. It hadn’t been an hallucination, a flight of fancy, a story they’d come up with after long days of boredom in what was supposed to be an exciting land of adventures.

Right?

At the sheriff’s silent request, Robin Hood tried tugging at the doors, but neither of them would budge from its place. “It’s locked,” he added, for good measure. “Or bloated by humidity, perhaps. It looks old. No one’s walked through it in a while, I wager.”

“Yeah, well, let’s make it move, then,” Princess Emma said, her stubbornness an almost welcome gift now that their mission wasn’t as clear cut as the boys had thought. “It doesn’t prove anything. Locking doors is easy enough, with the right magic. I want to see what’s inside.”

“What if there’s nothing?”

“Then we’re gonna sleep a little easier. Come on, let me give it a try.”

Suddenly, Lampwick felt Pinocchio’s hand slip out of his grasp. He turned away from the bickering adults to see his friend all but stumble around the corner of the chapel, and when Lampwick made to follow him, he found Pinocchio crouching low near some green stones that seemed to have crumbled down from the building itself, piling haphazardly on the ground at his feet.

There was a gap left on the wall behind them, Lampwick realized with a jolt. From afar it must have been near invisible, but now he could clearly see its jagged outline in the cone of light shed by the other boy’s lantern, not as big as a door, maybe, but big enough for someone as weasely as them to crawl through.

Pinocchio threw a quick, undecipherable look in his direction, his eyes returning to the passage almost immediately. “Go tell Emma what we’ve found,” he said, already starting to push his way in. “I don’t think that door works.”

“Hell no,” Lampwick replied instantly, going down to his hands and knees to slither in after him, sparing little more than a glance at the other two’s half-shadowed silhouettes, seemingly still deep in discussion. The sheriff would order them out and away the moment she learned there was a better road to take, and they couldn’t afford that, could they? They’d be getting their first look in peace, thank you very much.

It was even darker on the inside, it turned out. Smellier, too – there was a stale, musty reek to the air around them, like food left at the back of a fridge too long. When Lampwick clambered to his feet again, hot at Pinocchio’s heels, his hands came up grimy and sticky with something foul, and he wiped them on his pants as he looked around, waiting for his eyes to adjust to yet another change in lighting.

If the exterior of the chapel had seemed grand, the interior felt positively cavernous, stretching out on all sides like a bloated barrel. It almost appeared to be bigger than the outside, but that couldn’t be possible – it must have been an illusion, surely, prompted by the sudden apparition of a nearly empty room after half a week spent in King Arthur’s richly furnished halls. What light could filter in from the holes in the rotting roof brought forward naked walls and unadorned window frames, what carvings had once decorated them long since faded and smoothed down, and there was no furniture scattered around, not even the altar Lampwick had expected to find in a place like that.

There were statues, though. Those did make it feel much more like a church, at the very least, rows and rows of statues lined up against the walls like children waiting for their turn at a game – most of them were men, some whole, others broken and cracked down, in armor or grand sweeping robes, but there were a few women, too. When they stepped further into the room Pinocchio’s lantern allowed one of them to emerge from the darkness, a young lady in a long, billowing green dress, standing proudly on a green pedestal, holding a green bundle in her outstretched arms.

No. Not a bundle. It was a head – her head, Lampwick realized with a cold shiver and an instinctive step backwards. Her neck ended in a smooth, flat surface, and the head was sporting a crown and hair braided close to the scalp, her eyes open and staring accusingly at the void…or at the two of them, given the angle at which it was laying.

“Charming décor,” he muttered, flashing Pinocchio a tense grin, hoping that his bravado could chase away some of the unease that blasted place was piling up on him. “It’d look good in your backyard, don’t you think?”

Pinocchio ignored him, which was, if possible, even more unsettling. Even an eyeroll or a long-suffering groan would have made Lampwick calmer, safe in the knowledge that they were both treating this trip of theirs as nothing more than it was – a thrilling, risky little adventure, one they would most surely get scolded for but that would leave them feeling closer than before, like skipping school or stealing an armful of pears from the neighbor’s tree. “Someone should be here,” the younger boy said, glancing around nervously. “Why’s no one here?”

Lampwick shrugged, wrinkling his nose. “Dunno. Maybe they went away for the holidays. It doesn’t look like a nice place for Christmas, does it-“

There was a long, ominous creaking noise behind them. Lampwick trailed off, his eyes widening and his mouth agape, and he and Pinocchio turned in unison, their movements slowed down by a sudden wave of fear.

One of the statues was moving, rising unsteadily from its green stone seat and lifting its head towards them with the stiffness of an old crone – or someone having kept their position for too long, as it looked like. It had been a great big statue already, looming a few feet above them while sitting, but now, stood up to its full height, it was positively gigantic, a colossal man in heavy green armor with a full helm covering his face. His hidden eyes seemed to stare at the two boys for an unsettlingly long time, boring into them like headlights blinding a deer in the middle of a road, and then the knight turned slightly to the side, reaching for an object leaning against the wall of his alcove.

There was a glint of vibrant green, the moonlight shining along the sharp edge of the axe.

Pinocchio’s lantern shattered to the floor. The candle inside was snuffed out instantly, but the clattering sound was enough to startle them out of their spell, at least, and they spun around and darted for the crack in the wall, the knight’s heavy steps booming in their ears as it stepped onto the floor and started walking towards them.

But it couldn’t just be him moving, Lampwick thought suddenly, with startling, terrified clarity. He could hear footsteps past the frantic pounding of his eardrums, sure, but there was a much louder noise drowning them all, a hollow, thundering rumble rattling through his bones and making his legs less steady – it was as if the entire chapel were closing in on them, tightening its hold and patching the gaps in its walls to better lunge at the two running children in its midst.

And the passage was still terrifyingly distant, seemingly shrinking down before their eyes.

“Fuck,” Lampwick breathed out, trying to accelerate. They hadn’t gone that far, he was almost certain of it – no church could be so big as to warrant him having to gasp for air, and yet it felt as if he’d been running for miles without taking a single step, like someone being chased down in a dream. He wasn’t sure how long he could hope to continue like that, particularly not with that cacophony above their heads, and he was struggling to single out Pinocchio’s panicked footsteps lagging down behind him, making him fear he’d outran the other boy already.

Wait, his brain screeched at him, suddenly. Wait. Wasn’t Pinocchio supposed to be the fastest one, always? Why wasn’t he loping ahead? Why was he struggling?

Part of Lampwick wanted, unreasonably, to stop, to turn around to check on his friend. The other wanted nothing more than to reach blindly behind himself and grab at Pinocchio before they lost all sight of the gap. He didn’t get a chance to do either – before he could make up his mind he felt a sharp, strong force pushing against his back, and then he was outside, rolling clumsily onto the dead grass, coughing to try and get some oxygen in his lungs.

There was a low, final rumble that had his teeth clattering in his mouth, the ground shaking under his dirty hands – and then, miraculously, silence, so abrupt it left a high-pitched ringing behind, nearly as deafening as the noise had been before. Lampwick took another long, stuttering breath, and then forced himself to look up, blinking tears and dust out of his burning eyes.

The chapel had disappeared. Where earlier there had been ruins for them to find, so great and mighty that it would have been impossible to miss them, now the clearing laid empty and barren before him, as if nothing had ever been built on its soil. There were no leftover bricks, no rooftiles, not even the outline of its walls left in the mud – only him and the grass and Robin Hood and the sheriff, staring in shock at the sudden emptiness, a hand still outstretched towards a door that wasn’t there any longer.

The green building was gone, as if it had never existed, as if it had been a dream, as Arthur had insinuated, only the foolish tale of a couple too-imaginative children.

And Pinocchio was nowhere to be seen.

Chapter Text

Camelot, one year ago

The knight’s challenge hung in the air for a few long, interminable seconds before Arthur could find his voice again.

It was not fear that had made him speechless, not quite. He was a knight and a fighter before he was a king – no visitor come alone in his hall could hope to scare him off, not even by coming in armed. All of the Knights of the Round Table would surely jump to his aid if roused, even if only a few of them were technically his subjects: he’d have had his back covered ten times over in any honorable fight, and even a few dishonorable ones, as well.

Arthur was not afraid, no, but he was stunned, and if the stranger’s peculiar appearance hadn’t caught him off guard, then his imposing stature and even more imposing weapon would have done the trick. He didn’t think he’d ever heard of such a man before, except perhaps in his wet nurse’s fantastic tales, when he’d still been a child fascinated by stories of great horrors and monsters. It was a wondrous sight, but more importantly, a troubling one, since the newcomer had brought live steel to a simple banquet.

Still, diplomacy had gone a long way in securing Arthur his throne, it would most certainly not fail him now – or at the very least, it would stall the inevitable bloodshed, if push came to shove. He coaxed a welcoming, if puzzled, grin out of himself and said, as evenly as he could muster: “Welcome, my friend. Please, join us at our table – the New Year has come and gone, but there is still ale aplenty, if you are thirsty.”

The knight inclined his head slightly, though his eyes lingered on Arthur’s face, boring through him like a stonemason’s drill. They were of an uncanny shade of green, those eyes, matching his green face and green armor and the bare green feet that had now stopped not very far from the king, and Arthur found himself having to resist the urge to squirm under that piercing gaze, like a child being caught tracking mud into his father’s chambers. He almost wished that…creature had worn a full helm, so that his features might be entirely concealed, though perhaps it would have felt worse, to not know how he looked like.

“I thank you for your hospitality, Your Highness,” the man replied, his booming voice a low, thoughtful hum, almost capable of making the floor tremble under their feet. “But I have not come in your hall to drink and make merry. As I said, I wish to challenge you and your honorable guests to a game.”

“Then speak your challenge freely,” Arthur said, some faint, forced bravado in his words. “Quickly, if you please. The hour grows late, and I know many of us are thinking only of their beds.”

The stranger nodded gravely, then reached behind his back, towards the huge axe that peeked over his shoulder. There was an rustle of general unease, many of Arthur’s companions inching closer to the swords at their hips or hanging from the walls behind them, but he didn’t seem to be of a mind to lunge towards anyone in fury – instead he merely set the weapon down onto the floor with a soft thump, leaning against its head as one might a half-wall during a stroll.

“The rules of the game are simple,” he began, amiably enough, though there was no smile on his bearded face – only utter, unreadable concentration, as if the task at hand were the most important of his life. “I am asking you, King Arthur, to face me in single combat, or to send one of your loyal knights in your stead. If the man so brave to take up this challenge will manage to land a blow on me, then I will expect him to come find me a year and a day hence, so that I might return it in kind- nothing more, nothing less. What say you, Your Highness?”

If there had been ripples of unrest across the hall before, then now they’d all quieted down into an almost eerie silence, lords and ladies alike remaining deadly quiet as they stared at the knight in frozen wonder. Briefly, Arthur hated them for it – he’d expected outbursts of outrage, strangled, shocked yells, not to see all his most trusted friends and advisors sitting in fearful paralysis before such ridiculous demands.

He would not be so easily cowed, though. “This is madness,” he said, firmly. “We do not know you, ser, nor do we know where you hail from. Even if we could trust you to keep your word, which I would not, with my companions’ lives at stake, how would we know where to seek you out, when winter rolls in again?”

The knight didn’t seem particularly surprised by such demands – perhaps he’d been expected them all along, Arthur thought briefly, in a sudden bout of lucidity. “I would ensure you find your way back to me, by next winter,” he replied, and then, after a short, suspenseful pause: “As for my word, it is as good as yours, but if it will put your heart at rest, then I swear on my own head no one will be harmed further than it is demanded from the game. Those are the rules: will you accept them, then?”

More silence, heavier this time, weighing on Arthur’s chest like a mallet. He glanced around, but no one seemed willing to speak, their eyes flitting from the visitor to their king with ever-growing insistence, as if they truly expected him to take up arms and fight a man as wide as he was tall, with the advantage of surprise and full armor working for him.

He would need to, Arthur realized, with chilling certainty. He would need to fight this monster. Honor commanded him to accept the challenge, to come out of it victorious and set an example for every knight at his table, his sword stained green by what he supposed would be the stranger’s blood. But the sword at his hand was still Excalibur, halved and ridiculous, not fit to clash against an axe of such magnitude – he would be laughed out of the room, his ruse finally uncovered, his reputation ruined.

His honor would be lost either way, then. What kind of choice was that, even for a king?

The knight scoffed, vague laughter rumbling in his chest. “No one? And to think, I had heard much about these Knights of the Round Table- the bravest men in the land, and in all the lands across the border. None of you will dare come forth and face me, then?”

That was as strong a blow as any blade’s, when it came to anyone’s pride. Arthur opened his mouth, then closed it, the words rasping against his throat in an effort not to come out, to leave him clinging at the table, cravenly but alive and unharmed.

And then, a voice from somewhere near him-

“I will do it.”

????

The knight was even taller from up close.

Pinocchio’s neck was starting to ache from the effort of craning his head back to hold the man’s stare, but he had yet to find the courage to turn away, though the sight before him was as frightening as anything he’d ever stumbled upon – and he’d stumbled upon a great many terrible things in his life, even if at times he’d only realized how dangerous they’d been after they were gone, piecing it together from his father’s worrying or Jiminy’s.

There was no one to hold his hand and fret over him now, he knew. He was alone. He was thankful for that, mostly – if Lampwick had made it out okay, then he’d already be safe and far away from that place, and he might warn Emma of what they had seen, once the dust had settled. Emma would come save him, Pinocchio was sure of it. She would be terribly mad, and reasonably so as well, but she would come and whisk him away and magic this stranger into a chicken or something. She would. She had to.

But there was more to it, deep down. A tiny, nagging part of him kept pushing back at the thought of being rescued, as if he ought to put down roots and remain exactly where he was, trembling and teary-eyed at having to sustain that impassable green gaze that loomed above his head. Good, that part of him was saying, looking around and seeing they’d been left alone in this strange, hollow cave of a chapel. It’s good. It’s right. It’s as it should be.

Shut up, Pinocchio reared back silently, gritting his teeth. That wasn’t helpful in the slightest. There was nothing right about the hole he’d dug himself into, and the sooner he managed to slip out of the knight’s grasp and make his escape, the better he would be for it.

He’d been standing still plenty enough, besides. He didn’t know how long they’d been facing one another like that – it could have been minutes, or hours, or even days, so woozy and wavering his perception of time was getting – but he had yet to move a muscle since the man had cornered him against a wall and stopped in his tracks, his visor finally lifted, his axe in hand, his eyes looking the boy up and down like a particularly interesting ham hanging in a butcher’s window. They’d both turned into passable statues again, stiff and silent, nearly blending in with the rest of the environment.

At least they weren’t standing in the middle of the room, Pinocchio reasoned, trying to keep his thoughts from straying into even more dangerous territories. That was something to be grateful for. He didn’t have to worry about anything creeping on him from behind, and if he reached back just a little his fingers could graze against the wall, barely, yes, but enough to sink his nails into the moss that had grown on its surface. Moss was good. It could keep him grounded, help him remember where he was, and it was somewhat damp, too, blessedly refreshing against his skin.

He had a desperate need for freshness, now, bizarrely enough. The courtyard he’d crossed with Lampwick had been cold and barren, the only warmth coming from the guards’ fires and the lantern burning faintly in his hand, but that freezing, unpleasant sensation had melted off him the moment the chapel had closed in around his body, pulling him back and away from his friend. It was sweltering, now, of a wet, humid hotness that left sweat beading on his forehead and on the back of his neck, as though someone had lit a fire under the stone floor and was now stoking it to raise the temperature even more.

It was not far from what Pinocchio imagined a tropical forest might be like, sans colorful birds and hanging vines, and he was definitely not dressed appropriately for the change in climate – he dared lift a hand ever so slightly, and when the knight didn’t immediately snarl at him to remain still he unzipped his jacket and clumsily shrugged it off, letting it fall onto the floor. The relief from the gesture was not as much as he would have liked, but he could make do, though his sleepshirt was sweat-stained and rumpled by now, his skin itchy and burning at the touch.

His eyes were burning, too. Not- not out of pain, thankfully, but he could scarcely bear to let them wander around the room, because there was- there was so much color to be seen, now, after the darkness of the night outside.

Most of it was green, true enough, but Pinocchio had never thought there could be that many shades of green in the world, or any world he’d already visited, actually. It was as if his eyes had grown stronger in the brief time since he’d left the castle, keener, capable of catching even the slightest ripple of light down the outline of a carving – and there was light everywhere, in that chapel. It shouldn’t have been possible for the sun to have risen yet, and there were no torches or chandeliers anywhere in the room, but the light wasn’t streaming in from the windows, nor did it seem to have any physical source; it just…was, as if it were permeating the entire building, and it allowed him to see far and wide, down to the tufts of grass sprouting from the cracked pavement many feet over and the empty eyes of the furthest statues.

And the smell – there hadn’t been such a pleasant odor when he’d crawled in, he was sure of it. The stench had been foul and unwelcoming, but now it was deep and earthy, almost sickeningly sweet, fresh mud and wet grass and new wood. The smell was green, too. He didn’t think smell was supposed to feel green, but it was, and it was starting to freak him out more than he could handle. If he was going mad, then he didn’t want to go mad in a stupid chapel in the middle of a land he’d never seen before. He wanted to go home. He wanted to fall asleep and wake up in his room back in Storybrooke, running late for school, only to find out it had all just been an horrible nightmare.

But he wasn’t dreaming. He couldn’t be. The moss was still tickling at his fingertips, and his breath was coming in ragged and shaky, and he wouldn’t have been able to feel any of that in a dream, would he? So he couldn’t afford to let himself whine and shiver and do nothing about his current situation. He’d never been like that in the first place, and it wasn’t what he was supposed to be, either, after all – selflessness had meant pushing Lampwick out of the chapel, and he wasn’t sure whether the truth would make him lose his head or not yet, but bravery…

He could be brave, if it meant having a chance to go home. He had to be.

“I met someone like you, once,” he said, finally, trying to conjure up at least some of his best friend’s usual flippancy. “He was a fisherman. Do you know him?”

There was no response. The knight didn’t utter a single word, and only kept staring, completely motionless – he wasn’t even breathing, for goodness’ sake. His shoulders weren’t rising and falling visibly, and no puff of air was been blown on Pinocchio’s head, as if the man didn’t need any oxygen in his lungs at all.

Perhaps that was for the best, Pinocchio thought, a little hysterically. He didn’t really want to know what that could smell like.

“I’m sorry we came here,” he tried again, undeterred. “We were just curious, and no one thought you were real. We didn’t want to bother you, sir.”

At last, the knight seemed to stir somewhat. His stance relaxed slightly, and something flashed across his face as he lowered the axe ever so slightly – amusement, Pinocchio thought, which made no sense, considering he hadn’t said anything all that funny just yet.

Unless the amusement was directed at him in the flesh, of course. That he could understand. It had happened more times than he cared to admit, before he’d become a real boy, and even afterwards, if he was being honest with himself.

“I have no quarrel with you, child,” the man said, slowly. His voice was a deep rumble – it reminded Pinocchio, oddly, of some adults he’d met in his wanderings through the Enchanted Forest, though lacking their vitriol and malice. “And no harm will come to you because of your curiosity, you have my word for it.”

He leaned a little closer, then, sizing the boy up with intense concentration. He even raised a hand to catch Pinocchio by the chin and lift his face up a bit more – the pads of his fingers were calloused and rough as tree bark, but they were as warm as the rest of the room, and unexpectedly gentle in their endeavor.

Still, it was hardly the most reassuring gesture, and Pinocchio found himself swallowing hard, his tongue thick and dry in his mouth, struggling to answer the knight’s question. “Tell me, boy, what is your name?”

“Pinocchio. I’m Pinocchio.”

“Has your family come here with you, Pinocchio?”

Pinocchio shook his head, his breath catching in his throat. “It’s just me and my friends. My father’s waiting for me at home.”

“I see.” Mercifully, the knight let him go, and then straightened up to his full, impressive height, his beard concealing most of his expression even in that bright, inexplicable light. “And what, then, brings you here, if you’ve left your father waiting?”

“It was an accident. We weren’t supposed to come here at all. Not me, anyway.”

The man hummed in blatant disbelief. “Nay, that was no accident, child. Everything happens for a reason, in Camelot. It’s the work of knights and kings, this land you see.”

“’M not a knight. Not a king, either.”

“Not yet.”

Now what was that supposed to mean? Everyone kept speaking in riddles in that stupid place. Had he mistaken Pinocchio for one of the hundreds of squires that kept popping up everywhere in the castle? That would have explained it, though the boy prayed he didn’t look half as snobbish as any of those louts. “You got it wrong. I just made a mistake, is all. Please, just- just let me go. I won’t tell anyone about you, I promise.”

“Have no fear.” The knight absent-mindedly rubbed his thumb along the surface of the axe’s blade, mere inches from its sharp edge, as if trying to get a sense of it without cutting himself. “I will be letting you go soon. But I’m afraid I will need you to speak about what you saw, after all.”

Pinocchio was starting to feel as though watched by many, many people at once. None of the statues had moved, not like the knight had, but he could feel their eyes on him all the same, and if not theirs, someone else’s – but there was no one else with them, was it? Just him and this strange man and dozens of baleful green stares scattered around the room, subtly turning towards him from their cold stone seats, glassy like dolls’ eyes. Like puppet eyes. Like his had once been.

It should have put him more at ease, the familiarity, but it did not. If anything, it kept reminding him of the man that had locked him up and forced him to dance, and of the rows of helpless marionettes stowed away in the backroom, following him with their empty stares. And he wasn’t a puppet any longer, anyway, no more than he was a statue. He didn’t belong there with them. He did not.

Did he?

Slowly, silently, the knight took him by the wrist. Pinocchio’s first instincts was to struggle against his grasp, but he was no match for the man’s great muscles and strength, and he was mercilessly tugged forward, closer and closer to the edge of the axe until the palm of his hand could be lightly pressed against it.

Pinocchio gasped in shock, both at the stab of stinging pain and at the sudden cold sensation left by the blade on his skin, so out of place in that furnace hot room. The knight relented his hold after a brief moment, preventing the axe from sinking too deep into the skin, but blood was already starting to well up in the cut all the same – it dripped down the boy’s fingers and onto the floor, a miniature red puddle against the green stones, and it was a blessing in a way, Pinocchio’s stunned, cotton-filled brain thought idly, as his eyes zeroed in on the wound. He’d almost started fearing his flesh might be turning green as well, after so long inside that chapel.

But his skin was still pale and sweaty, and his blood as red as ever, and the contrast was made to look even greater when after a couple seconds the knight grabbed his hand again, gently, surprisingly gently, staining his thick fingers and the hem of his surcoat as well.

“Aye,” he said, and there was a wistful tone in his voice, tinged with sorrow, almost, not at all reveling in what he was about to do. “Aye, you have just what is needed, child. You will have to do, I fear.”

The castle was, for lack of a better word, in complete uproar.

It didn’t help that none of the people involved appeared to have slept more than half an hour at best, Snow supposed. Even the strongest of Camelot’s men at arms, now milling about their king in an attempt to do damage control, had to be struggling after being unceremoniously pulled out of bed in the dead of night, and it was almost morning now. Her own thoughts were, if too filled with adrenaline to be sluggish, still tenser and more irritated than they would have likely been otherwise – and they wouldn’t have been calm and placid to begin with, mind, given the kind of news her daughter had woken them all up with.

Said daughter was going head to head with Arthur, now. She wasn’t shouting yet, which was something of a feat at present time – everyone else seemed to have taken their turn howling in rage, mild Robin included – but there was a palpable outrage in her words all the same, even as she struggled to keep her voice from raising at every turn, and her hands from wringing the kingly neck at the edge of her reach.

Not that Snow could blame her, in truth. She was certain she would have taken up the task at the drop of a hat, if asked, and not just to spare Emma from it.

“We can go around in circles all day if you want,” Emma herself hissed, her hands balled into fists, her tone sharp enough to send a jolt of vicious pride through her mother’s chest. “It won’t change anything. If Pinocchio gets hurt, that’ll be on you.”

“Peace,” Arthur snapped back. “I understand your worries, but there is naught to be done now. With some luck, he will be easier to find, now that the sun has come up- if he’s still there to be found, that is. The woods are brutal at night, in this season even more so.”

“Naught to- he’s a kid! It’s winter! And he wouldn’t be out there in the cold, alone, if you’d done something about it, so yes, Your Highness, that’s on you, so forgive me if I want to get this over with and look for him again-“

“I have sent scouts aplenty, there’s no need for you to-“

“Yes, you did,” Regina said, coldly, from her place at Emma’s side. “And if your scouts are as capable as the rest of your guards, then that boy’s as good as gone.”

The man turned to her stiffly, a dangerous glint in his pale blue eyes. “You forget yourself, my lady. What are you trying to say?”

A muscle tensed visibly in the mayor’s jaw, her lips pulled back in a thunderous grimace. “That you could have done more to prevent this from happening, for a start. And that you’re not telling us the whole truth, either, like you accused those kids of doing yesterday- or should I say earlier today, since we’ve all lost a whole night of sleep because of you?”

Snow’s eyes strayed to another corner of the hall, to the only other person who wasn’t muttering in contempt or keeping a hand on the hilt of their sword, aside from her. Lampwick was sitting on one of the lowest courtiers’ benches, his shoulders hunched, his head in his hands – he had yet to say his piece about the matter at hand, or any word at all, really, and he’d refused food and water and any attempt to send him to rest with nearly feral growls, but he’d put up a fight when Pinocchio had disappeared, from what Robin had said. They’d had to drag him away from the forest kicking and flailing, struggling in their grasp in an effort to go back to where he’d last seen his friend.

And why shouldn’t he have acted so, besides? Their reckless stunt had caused this entire fallout, yes, but Pinocchio was just a boy – he didn’t deserve to get caught in the crossfire of Arthur’s lies and whatever machinations had brought them all to Camelot. They should have been safe and sound in Storybrooke, all three of them children, back in their families’ homes and far away from that madness.

Gods, Pinocchio’s family- how could Snow ever hope to look Geppetto in the eyes again, if anything were to happen to his son? Or Jiminy, for that matter? They wouldn’t have blamed her, like as not, nor Emma, but she would have blamed herself for the years to come if the boy couldn’t be found quickly. How could she not? The kids had been under their purview, supposedly protected, supposedly safe. How had things gone wrong so quickly, and so out of the blue?

And there was- there was the bitter, cruel irony of it all, laying underneath the more obvious worries. That trap hadn’t been meant for Pinocchio, or Roland, or even hotheaded Lampwick, but it had sprung on them because of Snow and her daughter’s involvement, and she couldn’t quite shake Geppetto’s distant words out her brain yet, how he’d once told her that he’d almost sent his son through the wardrobe in her stead. How she’d only gotten to see Emma grow and thrive because he’d made the selfless choice and let Pinocchio get swept into the curse alongside everyone else.

She hadn’t blamed him for thinking about it, back then, nor had she allowed herself to feel guilty for the opportunity she’d had. She would have done the same in his shoes, she knew, and there was no going back from either of their choices, now. But to think that Pinocchio might have been kept away from a portal only to come to harm after falling into another – that would have been the most horrible joke of all, and Snow couldn’t find it in herself to laugh about it, honestly.

Arthur didn’t seem all that amused by the bind he was finding himself into, either.  He exhaled slowly before launching back into the debate, frustration radiating from every inch of his body. “What more would you have asked from me? My best men are out there looking for him- the castle’s garrison could barely man the walls now, never mind defend us if this knight you speak of decided to attack. The boy’s life is not the only one at risk, here.”

“But it’s the only one you could have spared if you’d told us what you knew,” Regina replied tartly. “So there’s that.”

“I didn’t know I would have to rescue a boy of nine from his own recklessness, if that’s what-“

“He’s ten.”

They turned as one, stunned into momentary quietness, towards the source of the new voice. Lampwick had finally lifted his head, and he was all but trembling with poorly contained rage as he rose from his seat – his face was pale and drawn, and he was still only wearing a worn out jacket over his sleepclothes, but his eyes were sharp and burning, despite the livid bags underneath.

“He’s ten,” he repeated, more steadily, taking a few steps towards the king. “He’ll be eleven in February. He’s not stupid. I thought you’d remember that by now.”

Arthur stared at him in sober silence for a moment, then shook his head briskly, his lips pressed into a thin line. “My apologies. But my point still stands, doesn’t it?”

“No, it doesn’t. Pinocchio didn’t do anything wrong. You know that.”

“Your little quest is what went wrong. That was ill done, going to find someone so dangerous on your own. You should have stayed out of this monster’s way.”

“You said there was nothing to find in there!” The boy howled, pointing an accusing finger towards the king. “How- how can you stay out of the way of something that doesn’t exist? You said we were making stuff up, but you’re just a bloody liar!”

Arthur glanced at Emma then, a stiffness in his movements that spoke of barely contained fury threatening to spill out at any moment. “Is this how they teach children to address a king, in your land? Have you got nothing to say to him?”

“I would, but he’s got a point.” Emma stepped closer to the boy, wrapping a pointedly protective arm around his shaking shoulders. “The cat’s out of the bag now, Your Highness. Are you going to tell us what you know, now, or can I go look for a missing child in peace?”

Silence stretched out across the room, as knights and foreigners alike looked from the king to Snow’s daughter and back, waiting for that particular impasse to reach some sort of solution. The man was like to grind his teeth to dust, but Emma kept holding his stare, a fiery expression in her eyes, her free hand hovering close to the gun she’d managed to stash in the folds of her clothes.

Then Arthur sighed, defeat, and begrudgingly said: “It moves.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from many of the people present, including Snow’s own husband – David hadn’t taken the king’s side in the discussion, thank the gods, but neither had he been the most vocal of Emma’s supporters, either. Snow would have liked to know what was going through his head, but they had yet to exchange a word since their fight of the previous afternoon, so she could only make an educated guess and pray for him to keep his sense, for now.

“Excuse me, what?” Lampwick blurted out, Emma’s fingers digging into his shoulder in shock. “What the hell d’you mean, it moves?”

“The chapel, it can move,” Arthur replied, his gaze not meeting the boy’s, instead wandering through his knights’ ranks, as if he were looking for someone else entirely. “It has been known to travel across the forest without warning- I don’t know how it manages to achieve such a feat, but it does. That is the truth. You have to believe me about it.”

“So you knew, then.” Robin’s words were more a statement than a question, and still he was looking stunned, as though struggling to believe anyone could act like that in the first place. “You knew all along.”

“Aye, I did. I knew there was some kind of sorcery going on in there, but I thought we’d put an end to it long ago. The chapel was supposed to have been sealed with magic, and I didn’t think some children would go back to prove me wrong, after being scolded like that.”

“Yes, well,” Snow said drily, unable to restrain herself any further, “I pray you disavow yourself of such a notion before you child is born, Your Highness.”

Guinevere was not in attendance now, though a few of her ladies were, the old crone and a couple younger ones. She likely needed her rest, at such an advanced stage of her pregnancy, and wouldn’t handle any such stress as well as other women might, but there was something unnerving about her absence all the same, as if Arthur had been made all the more brittle by it. She seemed too docile to act as a buffer, too soft-spoken, and yet-

Unbidden, Snow’s thoughts went to Lancelot. Her friend had said he would remain in hiding for the time being, but he was close, surely, unwilling to stray too far away from her – and from Guinevere as well, likely. He had little reason to care for Arthur, but he’d loved Arthur’s wife, once. He wanted to be on hand in case things went south, even if his presence wouldn’t make them any less outnumbered.

She prayed that, if Arthur’s men couldn’t find Pinocchio, then the boy might at least stumble upon Lancelot hiding spot – it was a foolish hope, but it was better than nothing, right now. Lancelot was a good man, strong, easy to trust. He would keep Pinocchio safe until they could both come out from underground.

“How long?” Emma asked, a dark, heavy edge to her voice. “How long have you known about it?”

“Months, by now. Nearly a year.”

Regina snorted humorlessly. “What now, then? Since this guy’s been walking around as he pleased for an entire year and you still haven’t managed to find a solution?”

“That I do not know,” the king muttered. “But now you have the truth of it. So if you have any suggestion-“

There was a rumble of hurried footfall outside the room, then the door burst open, a young man wearing the livery of Camelot’s multiple squires and pages barreling in without waiting for an invitation.

“Your Highness,” he panted, gasping for breath. “Your Highness, the boy-“

The two simple, careless words seemed to bring a sudden, chilling hush across the entire hall. “Yes?” Arthur prompted him, forcefully. “What about him?”

“He’s alive, Your Highness,” the squire said, and then, as Snow’s knees very nearly gave out in relief: “They say he’s delirious, but alive. One of the scouting parties found him.”

Emma’s body refused to let her relax until she’d physically laid eyes on Pinocchio.

For one, she didn’t trust these supposed scouts any more than she did Arthur – less, even, considering that at least Arthur was close enough for her to make a valiant attempt at intimidating him – and while she didn’t think the man capable of ordering his subjects to kill a child in cold blood, she wouldn’t have put it past him to let slip some vaguer, less direct suggestions to find an equally unsavory suggestion to the problem. The boy could be injured too grievously to make it back to the castle, the little king conjured by her mind cajoled. He can no longer recount what happened to him. Oh, what a shame. What a pity. Something like that, perhaps.

And then, of course, there was the aching, burning shame that wouldn’t let her breathe, or have any sort of optimistic outlook on Pinocchio’s state, for that matter. She’d let the kid slip from under her nose, for God’s sake. She could scream and rage at Arthur as much as she wanted, but the truth was, the blame laid on her as much as it did on him. She should have sent the boys back with Robin when she’d had the chance, and then kept going on her own – she might have been captured in Pinocchio’s place, yes, but she’d wager her chances of survival against an axe-wielding maniac to be greater than those of a fifth grader. She’d let her fondness for those kids blind her to what risks she might be taking, by dragging them along for the ride.

No more. She wouldn’t allow it to happen again. It was a miracle she hadn’t lost both of them in one sweep, and that Lampwick was trailing after her with desperate hope in his eyes, sleep-deprived and white as bone, but at least as hale and healthy as he possibly could be. Some sheriff she was, keeping them all line so well! She was glad, in part, that they’d left Storybrooke’s most vocal complainers behind, otherwise she would have never heard the end of it in her lifetime.

Still, it seemed that Pinocchio had made it through the night in one piece despite her mistakes – mostly so, at the very least. The scouts had already reached the innermost courtyard by the time the group led by King Arthur descended upon them, and when Emma spotted one of them helping a smaller, clumsier figure dismount from the back of a horse, she could very nearly feel herself sag like an empty balloon as the tension in her back and shoulders finally relented, letting the exhaustion of their sleepless night start to creep in at long last.

Delirious, the messenger had said, but if she’d expected to find him raving and ranting at thin air, then she was in for a disappointment. One of the knights had wrapped Pinocchio into his heavy winter cloak, and while the boy appeared to be even smaller, bundled as he was in thick red wool, his head was held up high and his eyes were staring straight ahead, bright and alert and oddly determined, as if following an invisible marker along the castle walls.

He didn’t stop when Emma reached him first, breaking out of their ranks; he barely seemed to register her presence, to be honest, breezing past her and the few others crowding around him on unsteady legs as though wearing blinders on his head. He marched on, instead, and aimed directly for Arthur, who’d stopped in his tracks with poorly concealed uncertainty, a tense, troubled expression writ all over his face.

Pinocchio stopped once he’d reached the king, and by then the murmurs and calls of surprise seemed to have quieted down some, leaving space for what felt like a collective holding of breath, a wait full of anticipation. He pulled his hands out of the cloak, and held out something for the man to take, which he did, if haltingly and with some trace of trepidation, as Emma and her companions instinctively leaned closer to see better.

It was a long strip of green cloth, finely embroidered along the edges, like a scarf or a belt to loop around the waist, in what seemed to be Camelot’s style. It was wrapped loosely around Pinocchio’s right hand, and when Arthur unwound it and tugged it away he uncovered a large cut on the palm underneath, a scab already beginning to form on the surface – it had left some specks of blood on its crude bandage, dried to a reddish brown on the fabric, but the king seemed more preoccupied with the scarf itself than the wound it was hiding, his eyes growing clouded and unreadable as he held it up for everyone to see.

“He said that a knight’s word used to be worth his weight in gold, once,” the boy said, a strange, queerly distant heaviness to his words, the hollow emptiness in his gaze so terribly out of place in a face still bearing some traces of baby fat. “And that he thought a king’s memory would last longer than a year.”

It hung in the grey morning air for a moment, no one daring to break the spell, but then it appeared to break itself, and suddenly at that, before Emma or anyone else could ask him the meaning of his ominous sentence. Pinocchio blinked a couple times, and then there he was, a lost, terrified child again, his cheeks made red by the cold and his eyes wandering around in search of any indication of where he might be.

They landed on her almost immediately, and the boy’s face creased in a mixture of worry and frantic disbelief. “Emma?” He whispered, raw and strained, sounding more like he’d been recovering from a cold than speaking with the voice of a grown man.

“Hey, kid.” Gently, as if she were dealing with a frightened wild animal, she crouched beside him and put a hand on his arm, steadying herself as well as him. “Are you alright?”

He nodded mechanically, though it didn’t appear to be a lie – he seemed to have endured the cold quite well for someone in his situation, even if his face was chapped and roughened by the wind, and his hands no warmer than a tray of ice cubes, when Emma made to grasp his uninjured fingers. The cut was clean and not exceptionally deep, though it would still need to be cleaned and bandaged properly, and there were smaller, uneven scratches on both his palms as well, along with a few similar ones on the underside of his chin, as if he’d tried to stop himself from falling on his face, but he was mostly unharmed, by and large. “Is Lampwick okay? I didn’t-“

As if on cue, some kind of ruckus rose from behind her. “Get off me,” a voice snarled shrilly, and soon there was a stringy, red-haired shape barreling towards Pinocchio at full speed, ignoring the offended mutters from those he’d elbowed out of his way. Lampwick had seemingly broken free from whoever had been keeping him away from the front row, and was now roughly wrapping his arms around his friend with something akin to desperation, whispering what sounded like a blend of frantic apologies and obscenities of some kind in his ear.

And that, more than anything else, seemed to do the trick. Pinocchio faltered for a brief second, then he burrowed into Lampwick’s embrace with equal abandon, his fingers digging into the older boy’s back as though mindless of his wounds. He wasn’t crying, not quite, but he was shaking like a leaf all the same, as if the only thing holding him upright were someone else’s strength.

“Your Highness,” someone called out, tearing Emma’s eyes from the scene. Ser Gawain had stepped forward, bowing his head briefly as he addressed Arthur, though his eyes remained fixed on the older man’s face with some apprehension. “Allow me to escort the boy to his rooms and out of this wind. The royal medic will want to see him, no doubt.”

Emma wasn’t about to refuse any proposal that might get Pinocchio closer to a warm bath and an even warmer meal, but the sudden, inexplicable hospitality unnerved her somewhat, coming out of nowhere as it did. Gawain had flirted with her as much as he had with any woman in the premises, true enough, but he hadn’t gotten all that close with the rest of the group, not as much as Guinevere had tried to do with her mother, for example.

But perhaps his kindness had less to do with what he knew about them and more with what he knew about his king instead. Arthur was still staring intently at the strip of fabric, all but transfixed by it, as though it were reprimanding him in a voice only he could hear. It was an unsettling sight, and one Emma would have rather not witnessed first-hand, especially not involving the man who was, at present, in charge of a whole realm’s prosperity, as well as her family’s chances of ever returning home.

“Yes,” he said, somewhat detachedly, after a couple seconds had passed. “Do that. And take Bors with you, if you will. One should never be too careful, with these things.”

But he didn’t seem to care nearly half as much as he pretended to, and when the two Knights of the Round Table made to lead them all away, Pinocchio clinging to Lampwick’s arm, Emma hovering behind them like a shield on legs, he didn’t spare them a single glance, instead continuing to stare at the scarf with an intensity that had no explanation and that offered very little in the way of reassurances.

Chapter Text

Emma shut the door of the boys’ room behind her back, as quietly as she could manage, and then leaned heavily against it, resting her head on the dark wood panels and squeezing her eyes closed as she felt exhaustion settle on her shoulders.

Her moment of respite, however, was to be very short-lived, because she barely managed to take a deep breath and begin to untangle what she was supposed to do now before Regina’s voice reached her ears, forcing her to come back to Earth and face the music. “How’s he?”

“Better than we feared,” Emma muttered, scrubbing a hand down her face as she turned to address the other woman. Emma’s own parents were at her back as well – moving in packs still hadn’t lost its practicality, it seemed, though Robin had likely chosen to stay with his son, who had been quite vocal in his frustration at being kept away from his friends.

“We should be glad he’s a tough kid. Arthur’s medic gave him a look, but he said it was a good call for Pinocchio to keep moving- he could have lost a finger to frostbite, otherwise, but right now he only needs to keep warm and rest for a couple days, and then he should be fine.”

Regina scoffed, crossing her arms against her chest. “As fine as you can be when you’ve just gotten your hand cut wide open, I bet. Any news about that?”

The sheriff shook her head tiredly. “Nothing. He’s not said anything new since we got here. The knight steals him away, keeps him for a few hours, gives him a message to parrot back to Arthur and sends him on his way- that’s the whole story, from what I gathered. Poor kid didn’t even know what time of day it was, when the scouts found him. He could have been wandering the whole night for all he knows.”

Provided that Emma bought that story, of course. She was hesitant to call Pinocchio’s bluff, and she didn’t think he was lying about losing track of time, at the very least – she’d seen how disoriented he’d been upon his arrival, his eyes glazy and confused. There was no doubt he’d spent enough hours running around in circles for it to mess with his head, before those men had found him, and that he couldn’t be a reliable source of information on that specific front.

The rest of the tale…well, omitting the truth still counted as lying, probably, though Emma would have hardly made such a comment where Lampwick could hear her. If that creature had only meant to use the boy as a carrier pigeon, then why would he harm Pinocchio to begin with, except for the dramatics of it? And could he really have spent so long in the knight’s company without hearing anything that might explain such a strange behavior – no hints, no additional snide comments about Arthur, not even a name? No, it wasn’t adding up. There was something else Pinocchio wasn’t saying, something more unsettling than a mad giant with a taste for cruelty against children.

Now, if only Emma could manage to speak with him without his red-haired guard dog glaring daggers at her for the gall of it, it might make her life just a little easier, honestly.

“Great.” Regina lifted a hand to massage her temple, her brow creased in tension. “Just great. So what’s the next move? Wait until another one of us gets picked off and carried away? See if they lose the whole hand this time?”

“That’s not going to happen,” Emma’s mother said firmly. “From what Arthur told us, the knight hasn’t come anywhere near the castle yet, so this is the safest place for us, right now.”

“Yes, but Arthur’s in the castle, too, isn’t he?”

David cleared his throat, prompting them all to turn to him. “Maybe not for long. He said he wanted to speak with me, once we’d made sure Pinocchio was okay. It might have something to do with his quest to find Morgana.”

His wife blinked in shock, all but gaping at him. “You’re telling me he still wants to leave? After everything that’s happened?”

“I don’t know. But I wouldn’t put it past him. He doesn’t look like he’d have cared much, if the boy hadn’t made it back to the castle.”

“But it’s still madness! If this gets out, he might even have a revolt in his hands- why leave now? Why ask you to leave now?”

“I don’t know,” David said, coldly. “Despite what you think, King Arthur doesn’t tell me everything about his daily life, Snow.”

“Okay, that’s it,” Emma cut in before her mother could respond in tune, stepping between them.

“I don’t know what the hell is wrong with the two of you, and honestly, I don’t really care, right now. But if you have problems, either sort them out now or pretend everything’s fine, because I’m getting tired of watching you bicker like little kids while I’m trying to keep the actual kids from getting themselves killed. I’m done, alright? Done. Is that clear?”

Her voice had raised in tone more than she’d meant it to, harsh and furious, but Emma couldn’t find it in herself to feel guilty about it. She’d swallowed her irritation at her parents’ quarrels for too long now – she was so, so tired of them, and even the more vocal part of her, the little girl who couldn’t believe they would ever be so fed up with each other, was getting angrier by the minute, full of frustration and betrayal. She might have been the Savior, yes, but they were supposed to help her with her job, for God’s sake, not make it even more difficult. They’d been the ones who’d dropped it on her, after all, if you wanted to be nitpicky.

She exhaled deeply, trying to steady herself, then turned once more to David, who was staring at her with wide eyes. “Go and see what Arthur has to say, Dad. Maybe he’s got an explanation for all this, and maybe he doesn’t, but we can’t keep grasping at straws forever. We need more information if we want to be home before spring break.”

He looked at her for a long moment, quiet and stunned, and then nodded stiffly. “Alright. I…I’ll keep you posted.”

Emma gave him a sharp nod in return before watching him turn on his heel and march off, then dared glance at her mother, who had yet to say a word, her hands fisted so tightly in the folds of her gown that her knuckles were turning white. “Mom…”

The older woman shook her head, her mouth pressed into a thin line. “Sorry, honey. You shouldn’t have had to see any of that.”

She moved away as well, her head held rigidly upright until she reached the door to her rooms. She didn’t slam it shut, exactly, but even its steady click managed to reverberate through the entire hallway, since the place had gone quiet enough to catch the sound of a pin dropping.

“Well,” Regina spoke up, evenly, after a long, awkward pause. “That was quite the show, Sheriff.”

Emma winced in faint regret. “Yeah.”

She ran a hand through her hair, grimacing when her fingers got stuck in a couple tangles. God, she probably looked a right mess – she was still wearing the clothes she’d picked for her nightly excursion with Robin, and she hadn’t had so much as a chance to stop and take a deep breath in…well, likely a couple days, at this point. She wondered if she would have any luck asking for a bath, or if the maids would try to stab her moments after carrying up the tub, given recent experiences.

“Do you think that was too much?” She ventured, trying to shake the image from her brain.

Regina snorted humorlessly. “Oh, no. They’d had it coming for a while, if you ask me. I only hope we can get back to Storybrooke before your mother stages an unfortunate accident for her charming husband.”

It was a joke in poor taste, like as not, but Emma could appreciate the effort, and she was too tired to protest, besides. “Me and you both. Please, tell me you’ve got some news on that front.”

“It’s not like I’ve had all that time to spare, is it? No, there’s nothing. Merlin’s collection is mostly useless, and what he left of his own work is either written in code or filled with words no one’s used in centuries. It’ll take a while to decipher it all, so if you’ve got a better idea, I’m all ears.”

“I wish. Unless you want to take a detour to that chapel again…”

“We might have to, if Arthur doesn’t spill anything of use, but…I’m afraid it doesn’t seem exactly the smartest choice, right now.” The mayor shot a glance at the door behind them, quick and unreadable. “Maybe you could try with the kid again. He must have seen something, and those brats only seem to trust you, these days.”

“Can you blame them? No offense, but Pinocchio said he still remembers you threatening to take his father’s head back in the day.”

“Point taken. I remember him as well, though. Maybe it’d be better if he were still as sturdy as he was then- for his sake, at least.” The other woman went silent for a moment, pursing her lips.

“I don’t like this knight business, Emma. I thought the boy would have traces of magic on him when he came back, but it’s nothing I recognize, and it’s not very reassuring, I’ll tell you that. What the other kid said was right- how are we supposed to avoid someone we know so little about, even without Arthur throwing roadblocks up our lane?”

“We’ll figure something out,” Emma replied, not sounding very convinced herself. “As usual. But I hope he won’t mind if I stand guard on my own, tonight- it doesn’t look like his men are doing their job well, honestly.”

Regina grinned, a faint, tired little thing, but sharp as ever nonetheless. “We’ll make sure he’s too busy elsewhere to notice. But I’d suggest you try to get some rest before that- you’re no use to anyone, if you’re sleepwalking with a sword in hand.”

She gave Emma’s arm a tight squeeze before departing, no doubt returning to what few hints Merlin must have hidden somewhere for them to find. Her footsteps were still fading in the distance when the boys’ door was cracked open a couple inches, Lampwick’s head poking out and frowning suspiciously up at the Savior. “All clear?”

“All clear, kid. You can come out now.” Emma forced herself to arrange her face into a somewhat reassuring smile, though this was not the kind of child she could hope to fool so easily. “I thought you’d be sleeping. You had one hell of a night.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. Pinocchio is, now, but he keeps kicking and talking in his sleep. I’m about to bed down on the floor, honest.”

“Wait, what? What is he saying?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s like he’s speaking in another language, except usually I can follow when his dad does that, so…”

Lampwick trailed off, lowering his gaze. His eyes were wide and troubled when he next lifted his head, his face pale with worry – he looked exhausted to the core like that, and painfully young as well, like the boy of twelve he was instead of the grown man whose angry sneers Emma sometimes heard leaving his mouth.

“He’ll be fine, right, Sheriff? He’ll get better from…whatever the hell this was. He has to. Right?”

“I don’t know, kid.” Emma put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it gently like Regina had done with her, and let out a mental sigh of relief when he didn’t recoil away from her touch, instead keeping his eyes trained on her. Good. It was the bare minimum, but it was good - she would have hated to alienate one of the very few people who still seemed to trust her blindly, even in that foreign place.

“But I promise I’ll do my best to make this right. You have my word. I’m going to get you both back home in one piece, alright?”

“Alright,” he parroted, voice low and uncertain.

“You’ve got to help me, though. I need to know you’re safe even when I’m not looking, and for that you have to stay in the castle- I mean that, Lampwick. I want you and Pinocchio and Roland inside these walls all the time, and all three of you should stick with one of us whenever possible. Do we have a deal?”

“Yeah.” The boy nodded vigorously, without even a hint of hesitation. “Yeah, I swear. No more tricks, cross my heart. We didn’t- I- It wasn’t supposed to go like this, Sheriff. We just wanted to help.”

“I know. The king, what happened to Pinocchio- It wasn’t your fault. None of it.”

He nodded again, though with less emphasis this time, less conviction. “Mh-hm.”

“I’m serious, kid. Blame the right people for it, if you really want to blame someone.” Emma hesitated, wondering if this would be the push that would make him retreat back into his room, then said: “Speaking of Pinocchio- did he say anything more to you, after I left? Anything we could use?”

“No, nothing.”

The reply had come impressively fast, and she raised an eyebrow, skeptical, but Lampwick pressed on stubbornly, chin up and voice insistent. “I swear, Sheriff. I’d have told you if he’d said something you needed to know. ‘S not like I could tell anyone else, is it?”

Her superpower remained dormant. He was, surprisingly, telling the truth – or perhaps not so surprisingly, given what was at stake. Emma would never have pinned Lampwick down as someone particularly rule-abiding, but even he’d likely had to put his foot down at some point, with his best friend’s life on the line.

It was, yet again, a relief, and still there was something nagging at Emma’s brain, some detail she felt she was missing while looking at the big picture and for which she was lacking the right magnifying glass. She doubted it had something to do with Lampwick himself, who for all his perks was definitely not a conspirator, but now the question was – had it been his words to spark some interest in her? Had it been her father, who by now must have been well into his audience with the king and who she couldn’t expect not to do something reckless?

Or was she, at long last, becoming a paranoid mess, finally letting the environment weigh on her shoulders?

The king had taken the time to change, it seemed.

David felt a faint stab of self-consciousness as he stepped into the room, though he tried not to let it show too keenly – his own clothes were still rumpled and in disarray, testament of the long night they’d all just gone through, and he’d been too incensed with his wife to think about taking a detour to his rooms and grabbing a fresh shirt, rather than just storming off. By contrast, Arthur was nearly resplendent in his royal garments, all fine leather and soft velvet in shades of red and gold.

Still, no amount of luxurious finery could have made look any less tired than he actually was. The man was sitting at the Round Table alone, his chin resting on his hands and his sheathed sword laying in front of him – his face was pale and his expression troubled, and the dozen empty seats around him made him look smaller somehow, as if he had shrunk into his chair during the past couple hours.

Nevertheless, he smiled thinly when he saw his guest enter, and even dismissed the guard standing at his back with a distracted gesture, leaving the two of them alone in the hall. “Ah, Prince David. Thank you for agreeing to see me. I’d offer you a seat, but I’m afraid some of my knights would take offence.”

“I’ll survive.” David let his eyes wander across the various gilded armchairs, all of which seemed to be sporting some kind of sigil on their back. “You don’t have any empty spots, then?”

“Only one, my friend, but it’s not a place I would force anyone to take unwillingly.” Arthur nodded towards the chair at his right. “That one used to belong to someone I thought I could trust with my life- my right-hand man, if you will. Unfortunately, it seems I’d made the wrong judgement about him.”

“Was it Sir Lancelot?”

Something flashed briefly in the king’s eyes, a dangerous glint, though the rest of his expression didn’t change. “The very same. I wasn’t aware you knew him.”

“Only by fame. He was tasked to kill me a long time ago, from what I heard. He failed.” And then he’d repented and saved Snow’s life, and agreed to go on a fool’s errand to try and save that of David’s own mother, and got the two of them married along the way, but none of that sounded like something this man would like to hear. From what Lancelot himself had passed along to Snow, there was more than simple bad blood lingering between the two of them, and David didn’t want to draw anymore attention to his own missteps than he’d already done.

“Then you’ll understand why I would banish him from my court.” Arthur cast another long glance to Lancelot’s former seat, his gaze unreadable, then turned back towards the other man, almost apologetically. “And I understand why you wouldn’t think me worthy of your trust, after what happened tonight. I said many things I have since come to regret, while speaking with Princess Emma, and as for the chapel…I never should have hidden something like that from you all, I realize it now.”

“There were children involved, Your Highness,” David said, cautiously. “It was hard to watch you accuse them of bringing it on themselves- you must see that, at least.”

“I know. It was ill done on my part- I’ll go offer my apologies to both of those boys later, if they’ll take them. But I didn’t mean any of it in earnest. It was the heat of the moment- it went to my head, and I couldn’t think straight. That is why I wanted to speak with you first; I want to clear my name, and you seemed the one most willing to listen, even after all I’d said.”

David hesitated, but then drew closer to the king, leaning heavily against the table. He didn’t know what to make of the regretful note in Arthur’s voice, or whether he should believe it or not, but the franticness in the man’s eyes seemed genuine at a surface glance, and he was there about to pry first and foremost, besides. He couldn’t hope to unearth any of Camelot’s worst secrets without indulging into its ruler’s whims a little. “I’m listening.”

“Thank you. I knew I was right to request an audience with you alone.” Arthur sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes for a moment as if attempting to ward off an unpleasant sight.

“You see, I really thought we’d managed to get rid of the Green Knight, all those months ago. When he appeared, he didn’t hurt anyone- he just made some vile threats, and then he left. I believed it to be another trick of Morgana’s, who’d recently began haunting this land with her magic. I still do, in truth. That monster reeks of her touch from miles away.”

“Then why not hunt him down? If you thought Morgana had something to do with him?”

“We did. We tracked down the chapel, and sealed it with a magical tool I acquired during one of my quests. I thought it had worked- I really did, my friend. Many spotted the chapel moving, over the last year, but we never saw hide nor hair of him again until those children came to warn us, and when they did…I didn’t want to believe I’d failed. It’s a hard truth for a king to learn, as you more than anyone might know.”

A pause, and then, more firmly: “This is why I wanted to beg a favor of you, Prince David. You can say no, and I would never dare think less of you if you did, but you’re the only person I trust with this plan.”

David reared back, instinctively, shock flooding his brain. “Me?”

Arthur nodded. “Yes, you. Many of my own men would likely be happy to take your place, but none of them will be able to gain the trust of your compatriots- not that I could blame them, after what they’ve been through.”

He stood up abruptly, the chair scraping unpleasantly against the stone floor, and began pacing around with his head bent low, his brow furrowed in a deeply focused manner.

“I can’t spare the forces needed for an armed expedition- I’d rather they stay here and guard the people that live in and around the castle, actually. My wife is here, and her ladies, and the ones that came with you…Enough children were hurt because of my mistakes. I won’t allow it to happen again, no matter what it takes.”

He slowed down as he passed by the table once more, and his fingers brushed briefly over Excalibur’s scabbard, surprisingly plain and unadorned for the holder of such a famed sword. “But if magic couldn’t hold the Green Knight back the first time, there’s no reason to think it will do any better now. That’s why I think we should nip this rot right at the bud, and not discard our original plan.”

“What do you mean?” David asked, puzzled, though he was starting to get a hunch on what he was about to hear.

The king was at his side not a beat later, moving with a fervor that would have appeared almost threatening if it hadn’t been accompanied by such a fiery, determined glare – this was a completely different man than the one that had welcomed him just a little earlier, tired and defeated. Arthur seemed to be running on pure adrenaline, now, ready to face his foe with little more than his bare hands.

“Let us go and snare that witch out of her den, my friend. Just the two of us- no retinue, no guards, no one but us and our strength. We would make a good time, ahorse. She would never expect such a small ambush, and it sounds fair, doesn’t it? A man for Camelot and a man for Storybrooke. Even if Morgana’s not there to greet us, we have to find something to take her down, for the harm she dealt my people and yours. So? What say you? Will you join me in this quest, or shall I go alone, Prince David?”

David stared at him in silent stun for what felt like an eternity, trying to process how he was supposed to react now. He didn’t like the feverish glimmer in the other man’s eyes, not one bit, and though it could easily be explained by his desperation in seeing his troubles come to an end, such an option was hardly backed up by pretty much everything else he’d put them all through. And yet…

And yet, what could David do, really? Say no? Arthur might have worded it like an invitation, an urgent plea, even, but there was no telling how he might react to a refusal, and they couldn’t exactly barricade themselves in their rooms and wait forever for the storm to pass. If Merlin’s way wasn’t working, then they ought to try something else, something more hands-on and in line with how they’d solved their problems back in the Enchanted Forest.

Besides, could he be certain that the king was putting up an act, and was not instead simply losing control of the situation at long last? The man was about to have a child, for God’s sake. He couldn’t be so stupid to risk their life on a whim, could he? David himself had gone above and beyond the line of duty to protect his little girl, after all, in the past and in recent times both. He would have been doing so still, to be quite honest, if Snow-

No, that wasn’t fair on his part. He couldn’t think like that. He was supposed to be the bigger man. Their situation was weighing on them all equally, not just him.

And still, David couldn’t shake the thought from his brain entirely. Snow was a good woman, and she’d trusted Lancelot’s pleadings about not putting any faith in Arthur, but Lancelot himself had once been their captor before turning cloak, and even now he was probably keeping his head down and scuttering behind the castle’s walls or something like that. Why, then, would the king be any different, if given the chance to do better? It wasn’t like everyone in their group could be awarded as a morally upstanding citizen, anyway- Regina alone would have counted as a special case, but Robin had been a thief, too, and David was pretty sure at least one of those kids had made a name for himself as a full-fledged troublemaker. Was he supposed to ignore all of that, as well?

He didn’t have a solid answer for that question when he opened his mouth, and yet the words slid out of his mouth all the same, swiftly and steadily, before he could even realize it was his voice speaking them aloud.

“Alright, then. I’ll come with you, Your Highness.”

Regina sat up on her bed abruptly, her heart pounding in her chest.

She hadn’t quite registered what, exactly, had startled her awake; a sudden noise, perhaps, but the castle was deeply silent once more by the time she’d blinked her grogginess away, and Robin was still asleep besides, curled up on his side next to her. They had to be in the dead of the night, judging by how dark the sky outside her window was, so there could hardly be knights sparring down in the courtyard or dancing at one of the king’s feasts, preventing anyone else from retiring to bed in peace.

The king wasn’t even around, damn him. He and David had departed in the early hours of the afternoon, riding hard for what Arthur believed to be Morgana’s lair. Regina had tried to keep the worst comments about that foolish plan behind her teeth, but Emma had been shocked to say the least, and Snow uncharacteristically somber and quiet, retiring to her chambers and refusing to say a word to anyone.

Not that she could be blamed for it. No one in their right mind would have agreed to take up a quest with a man who could easily order half the country to ambush you on the way out, but David had never been the sharpest blade in his wife’s possession, and three decades stuck in a curse fog had hardly improved his condition. Either he would return with something that could help them, or he would die trying, and Snow would likely raze the whole castle down in her rage.

Still, the former fairest of them all was hardly the kind of woman to wail in despair in the middle of the night, and Emma was supposed to guarding the boys’ room, anyway. Regina was about to push the matter out of her mind and go back to sleep, pinning it down as the remnants of a nightmare or something of the like, when another, clearer noise made her freeze in place – soft, nearly unintelligible footsteps, then the dimmed down creaking of a door, one that sent a jolt of magical reconnaissance up her arm and straight to her chest.

She’d offered to put up a proper, full-fledged shield charm while the children slept, but Emma had insisted they couldn’t afford to take that risk – they didn’t know what could happen to any of them now, she’d insisted. The boys needed to be able to leave that room at the drop of a hat, in case of danger, and the rest of them ought to have a way to burst in as well. The distress signal had been a compromise, made to warn Regina of any comings and goings while not being capable of physically stopping anyone, like the metal detector at the entrance of a clothes store.

Now it was ringing a silent alarm that was impossible to ignore, reverberating through her bones like an earthquake, and Regina was not of a mind to let it slide. She pushed herself out of bed immediately, briefly making a grab for Robin’s sleeping form. “Robin,” she hissed, nudging him sharply. “Robin, the boys-“

She didn’t linger long enough to see if he’d heard her; instead, she darted out in the hallway a louder crash raised from the boys’ bedchamber, followed by a sharp, surprised yell. Emma was nowhere to be seen, and the room’s door was open a few inches – dread pooled in Regina’s guts at the sight, heavy as lead, and she pushed her way in without hesitation, fearing what she might find on the other side.

The room was surprisingly well-lit, despite the late hour; flames were still dancing high in the fireplace, and there were a couple candles burning on the table, though mostly melted down by now. As such, there was no mistaking the scene before her, and Regina found herself paralyzed as though time had stopped, allowing her to register even the smallest of details at a single glance.

There was a man in the room. That was the most glaring difference from before. A man, or perhaps a woman – it was hard to decipher, since the figure’s cloak went down to its ankles and its hood was pulled up. The only visible parts of it were its boots and a hand clutching a shortsword, holding it menacingly aloft and pointed towards the children.

Said children were not in bed, as one would have expected, though they were still barefoot and in their sleepclothes, looking harried to say the least. The younger two were pressed against the opposite wall, wide eyed, while Lampwick stood in front of them, one hand keeping them behind him and the other waving what looked like a kitchen knife, his lips peeled back in a furious growl. He glanced to the side when he heard the mayor come in, as did the stranger, their face turning towards her while still concealed by the shadow of the hood.

They stood there for a long, interminable second, staring dumbfoundedly at one another. Then Regina felt anger and outrage flood her body, rushing in with enough strength to spill out, and she flicked her hand to the side, a snarl escaping her mouth.

The cloaked intruder was thrown against the stone wall, limp like a discarded doll. They tried to keep a hold on to the sword, but another brief gesture from Regina pried their fingers open by force, sending the weapon skittering across the floor towards her. She picked it up with heavy disdain, her free hand still itching with barely restrained magic, and walked over to her opponent, nudging them with her foot until they rolled over.

“I thought boogeymen were supposed to stay under the bed,” she commented venomously as they struggled against her invisible force, before finally resigning and flopping back down, pinned in a lopsided position where the wall met the floor.

The sound of people running, then the door burst open once more. Regina looked over her shoulder, and was met with the sight of Emma, sword in hand and painting heavily as if just come out of a marathon, and Robin, his bow already drawn and ready even though he was still in his nightshirt. “About time,” she muttered, then she frowned, noting a large stain of indefinable color running down the Savior’s side. “Are you alright?”

Emma grimaced, picking at the wet cloth sticking to her skin. “Yeah. It’s not blood. I’d heard a noise down the hall- there was more than one of them, it seems. The other one had me chase them for a while, then they pushed a table in my way. I think there was a flowerpot on it, or a wine flagon.”

Her eyes slid over to the boys huddled together, glancing between the adults like a nestful of ruffled owl chicks, and worry spread all over her face. “Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah,” Lampwick replied hoarsely, still hovering in the same spot. “We good, Sheriff?”

“I think so. Put the knife down, kid.”

The boy hesitated for a moment, but then he reluctantly complied, though he was still narrowing his eyes at his attacker. Roland stumbled over to his father as soon as he was free to do so, coiling like a vine around his legs, but the man didn’t make any move as if to pick him up – Robin’s arrow was still pointed at the collapsed figure, but his eyes kept turning to Lampwick, filled with confusion as well as a hint of blatant surprise. And as for Pinocchio…

Pinocchio hadn’t moved from his friend’s side, yet. He, too, was looking intently at the stranger, but there was no anger or hatred in it – rather, he was once again wearing that vacuous, distant gaze that he’d been sporting upon his return to the castle, his expression blank and impassable, as though nothing of what he’d just seen had been of any shock to him. It was a somewhat unnerving look on a child so young, Regina had to admit, or she would have, had she not been a little busy elsewhere.

“So,” Emma said, drawing closer to her with some circumspection. “Who do we have here?”

The mayor wrinkled her nose in displeasure. “Well, we’re about to find out.”

She was expecting it to be Arthur in disguise, in truth, come back in secret after leaving David in some ditch over the river bend. Or maybe the knight again, shrunk down to fit in the castle, or this Morgana too, trying to sneak in without magic in a fit of stupidity- part of Regina hoped it was the latter, in all honesty, so that they might finally know what that fiend could look like and get her to send them all home. She bent down slowly, tugging away the hood in a snappish move-

-and then reared back slightly, stunned, when it was not a witch or a giant who peeked out of the cloak, but Sir Gawain’s dark hair and genial face, his gaze fearful and contrite as he stared back at her.

Chapter Text

Camelot, one year ago

“I will do it.”

Arthur turned, painfully slowly, to see Sir Gawain standing up from his seat. The young knight’s face was set in a determined scowl, his hands balled into fists and braced against the tabletop, mindless to the hush that had fallen all around him and to Guinevere’s round-eyed shock which had now turned to him from the other side of the king.

The urge to refuse the claim was on the tip of Arthur’s tongue, sweet and tantalizing against all reason. Gawain was one of the youngest and less experienced of the group – he had proved his worth, certainly, but that had happened during honorable quests, not in the midst of a mummer’s show like the one they were now seemingly living through. It could end bloodily, if he were to make a single misstep.

And yet, Gawain had sworn his loyalty like the rest of his fellow knights, had he not? He was perfectly capable of making his own decisions in times like those. And besides, if he did not pick up the challenge, Arthur himself would have had to step forward instead – a horrible solution on many fronts, including that of his personal safety. No, better let the boy take it, and bring honor to Camelot’s name with his success. Surely it couldn’t hurt to allow him to test his strength.

So Arthur nodded, sitting back down, and when he looked towards the knight he saw that the latter was nodding too, as though he had expected nothing less. “So be it,” he said, in his booming voice. “May I know the name of the man who will bring this blow home, then?”

“It’s Gawain,” the younger man replied, his tone unwavering. “And I vow to keep to the rules you have stated, if you will do the same.”

The knight smiled slightly. “Very well. I will hold you to your vow, Sir Gawain. Now come forth, and let us play this game to the end.”

Gawain made to move away from the table, then, pulling his sword free from its scabbard, but Arthur caught him by the wrist before he could go too far, tugging until his ear was close to the king’s mouth. “Remember, it is only a game,” Arthur hissed, low enough that no one else would hear. “Strike him clean, and make sure you won’t have to worry about this blow he promised to return one year from now.”

Some color drained from the young knight’s face, but he nodded stiffly all the same, and then he stepped into the center of the hall – he barely reached his opponent’s breastplate, tall though he was, and his sword looked closer to a toothpick when compared to the monster’s weapon. He could never win by brute strength, but if he were to rely on his speed instead…

Arthur hoped he would be smart enough to do so. He hoped that Gawain had understood his warning in full, too, and that he wouldn’t be trying any tricks dictated by the hotheadedness of youth. He needed warriors at his back, not dismembered fools.

The creature regarded Gawain for a long moment, not speaking a single word. Then, still silently aside from the creaking of his armor, he went down heavily on one knee, setting the axe onto the floor right in front of him. Arthur all but gaped in surprise at the sight, but no shock could be greater than Gawain’s, it seemed – he recoiled as though struck on the face, and then took a step forward once again when the knight bowed his head, baring a considerable strip of flesh on the back of his neck.

“What are you doing?” Gawain blurted out, livid with outrage and confusion. “What is treachery?”

“’Tis no treachery,” came the reply, muffled by the other man’s green beard. “I am holding my side of the bargain. Now, don’t stall, Sir Gawain! Time is trickling away, and a year is shorter than you may think.”

And still, Gawain hesitated. He hovered uncertainly next to his foe, shifting uneasily from foot to foot, his hands readjusting their grasp on the hilt of his sword. Second trickled by in the eerie quietness of the hall, steady and inexorable – Arthur had nearly come to believe that the knight in his service would go nowhere like this when the pace changed, so long had been the wait, but then Gawain lifted the sword, high above his head, his arms trembling with stress and effort.

He remained like that for a moment, stock still. Then he brought the blade down and cut off the Green Knight’s head.

Camelot, present day

“You?” Regina rasped out, numb with shock.

Gawain did not smirk or give a cutting response, as they had often seen him do during their stay at the castle. In truth, he looked as though he was about to be sick all over her feet, his face so pale it was almost grey as he glanced from one of his captors to the others. “Peace,” he said, slowly raising a hand in a stiff movement. “Lower your blades. I will do as you say, and I meant no harm to the children, I swear it.”

Lampwick scoffed in open disbelief. “Yeah, sure. And that’s why you had your sword out?”

“I only planned to scare you. I would never hurt a disarmed foe. I hadn’t expected to find you all awake.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Emma interjected drily. “Why were you all awake, kid?”

The older boy made a noncommittal noise, some of the bravado vanishing from his voice when he spoke again. “Pinocchio wasn’t feeling well. Kept us up for ages.”

Regina dared glance back at the kids, though she was still poised to strike, in case Gawain decided to try making a run for it. Pinocchio did, in fact, look like someone running the fever of their life, deep circles under his eyes and a hand clutching his friend’s arm; a likely story, his illness, at least for the time being – she supposed they would have to dig further, once away from prying ears. Who knew what those boys could really be doing, while sensible people slept. They’d already demonstrated that sneaking out of the castle itself wasn’t entirely off the cards, after all.

Gawain nodded, suddenly looked way more tired than he already had. “I see. As I said, I wasn’t expecting it. I’d apologize, but I doubt you’d take my word for it.”

“A great intuition,” Regina said, heavy with sarcasm. “So why were you out to scare them, then? Is this what Arthur makes you do on the job- skulk around and frighten little kids?”

A faint alarm flashed in the knight’s eyes. “You’re mistaken, my lady. Arthur- Arthur has nothing to do with this, believe me. It was all my doing. I was only trying to amend an old mistake.”

“By making an even bigger one? Yes, sounds logic to me.”

“Emma?”

The new voice made them turn. Snow was standing in the doorway, a robe haphazardly wrapped around herself and eyes filled with shock – they wandered to her daughter and to the children huddled in their corner before landing on the man lying on the floor, and went wide with surprise then, her mouth gaping open. “Sir Gawain? But- What-“

“Go warn someone we’ve got an intruder, Mom,” Emma replied. “Whoever you find first. We have everything under control now, but we can’t keep him here forever.”

“Right,” the mayor added, “but don’t be too quick with that, Snow. And don’t tell them who it is just yet. We might need a little more time with him.”

The other woman hesitated for a moment, probably uncertain as to what threat those words could be hiding, then nodded and scurried away. Regina watched her go briefly, but afterwards she bent down again and grabbed the front of the knight’s cloak, forcing him to look her into the eyes as she felt the corner of her mouth curl into a smile that was as mirthless as it was dangerous.

“You’d better start talking now, Ser. I don’t know what this…mistake you mentioned is, but it better have been worth getting caught laying a finger on these kids, mark my words.”

Gawain, to his credit, did not quaver in his boots at being stared down like this, though his green-grey eyes were filled with an acceptable amount of fear. He licked his lips, clearly nervous and looking for an escape, but there was none, and finally he gave up on his attempts, opened his mouth and began to speak in a halting, hesitant fashion.

“I was on a journey, the year before this. Nothing of great importance- a small quest, on the king’s behalf. On the way back I stopped at a lord’s castle for the night, and they- he and his lady wife- they insisted on having me as a guest for as long as I could afford to tarry, to regain my strength.”

“What does that have to do with us?” Emma called out, beating Regina to the punch. “We’re not looking for a travel guide, Ser.”

The knight swallowed hard before replying to her question, but he pressed on without needing to be pushed, thankfully. “I broke my vows with the lady, Princess Emma. That was my mistake.”

“I didn’t know Arthur requested you to take vows of celibacy,” Robin said, puzzled – he had lowered his bow, now, it seemed, and when Regina looked to him over her shoulder he was crouching down to pick Roland up with his free arm, the little boy burying his face in his father’s neck.

“He doesn’t, but to intrude in another man’s marriage is still frowned upon everywhere. What happened there, between me and that lady and her- her husband, it’s against every law I know, of god and man alike, but it was supposed to remain a secret. I told no one, and I thought they wouldn’t, either.”

“What changed?” Regina asked, skeptical. “And you still haven’t answered the question.”

“I’m getting there, my lady,” Gawain protested, in a rush of unexpected rebellion. “The scarf- the one your boy brought back from the chapel- it was gifted to me by the lady herself, as a sign of her affection. I don’t know how that monster got his hands on it, but when I saw it, I knew my secret was in danger. That is why I came here tonight- to ask the boy how much he knew, and to scare him into silence. Nothing more, I swear on my lady’s head.”

“That seems to have worked well for you,” Emma remarked. “It makes no sense, though. Why would this guy show you the scarf, if it’s all the leverage he has on you? I get it, he was warning you, but- why? Have you met him before?”

There was a prolonged pause, one where the knight lowered his gaze, pressing his lips together in a thin, tense line. Feeling her patience slip away, Regina gave him a slight shake, hoisting him upright a little more – she wasn’t above using a little dose of magical encouragement, even now that she was technically reformed, though she’d have rather not done it where Roland could see. “Well? Have you?”

“Yes,” he finally admitted, in such a low whisper she nearly thought she’d imagined it. “Yes, I have. He challenged me to a duel, only hours after the bells rung in the new year. A duel that I thought I’d won, since I chopped off his head.”

“Yeah, well, he still got one on his neck,” Lampwick commented tartly. “How’s that work?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what sorcery he’s capable of, but he stood up, picked up his head and tucked under his arm, and then he said he would wait for me at his abode a year and a day hence, to land the same blow on me. That is why, when we found the chapel, King Arthur tried to have it sealed- so I wouldn’t lose my head as well. I don’t think I would recover as easily as he did, boy, just as I didn’t think I’d find you armed.”

“Rookie mistake. No one ever leaves us alone, even when we’re minding our business. Might as well come prepared.”

Emma exhaled slowly, a blatant attempt at trying to keep her composure. “Do I want to know where you got that knife, Lampwick?”

“I took it the other night at dinner. I figured they had enough not to miss this one.” The boy’s tone changed abruptly, going from flippant to circumspect and defensive in the blink of an eye. “I’m not giving it back, Sheriff. I’m tired of all these people kicking us around and then saying it was our fault.”

“Calm down, kid. At this point you might as well keep it, so long as you don’t go losing your fingers when I look away.”

“I told you, I didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” Gawain repeated once more. “I was foolish and reckless, but I swore never to harm an innocent- even if I regret coming here tonight, aye. I regret accepting that challenge, too- nothing good came from it, for any of us.”

“That’s an understatement,” Regina muttered in disdain. “Who else knows? That lady you told us about- what about her? Who is she?”

“No!” The knight reared up suddenly, and only Regina’s quick reflexes allowed her to push back, keeping him pinned where he needed to be. “No, I won’t tell you her name. She doesn’t need to be shamed like I have. Her, the king- my mistakes were mine alone, not theirs. I’m the one who needs to pay for them.”

Ah, courtly love. Most stories seemed to agree that, while romantic, it had a tendency for leading its defenders to certain doom, and now she was seemingly getting proof of it, just as she had while hunting down a younger Snow and her husband. Certain doom and nothing of use in their current predicament, either. “Yes, yes, very noble. You realize that if you don’t tell us everything there is to know, then we’ll never stop your green friend, right? How long until you’re supposed to meet him at the chapel?”

“Two days. Tonight we’ll usher in the new year, and the next I will have to go. That is why I was in such a hurry- I had no time to waste, my lady. Can you understand that?”

His words were almost a plea, so frantic that Regina was almost moved to compassion by them. Almost. She couldn’t ignore what he had just attempted to do so easily, though she could use his own fear to convince him, lacking better options. “Then help us stop him. He’s done enough damage, hasn’t he? We might save you as well, if you just-“

There was a clanging of armored feet down the hallway, and she fell silent, bracing herself as she turned to the door. Snow walked in first, then two hurried guardsmen with their swords in hand, and then finally Guinevere, followed by more guards. The queen looked impressively put together for someone who’d likely woke up only minutes prior, resplendent in her nightgown despite her advanced pregnancy and uncombed hair.

“What happened here?” She asked aloud, to no one in particular. Her composed expression faltered when her gaze fell on Gawain, and her somber dark eyes widened ever so slightly, but there was no excessive surprise on her face. Rather, Regina sensed a sort of tired acceptance coming from her, as though she had come prepared for the inevitable when she’d entered the room.

“What is the meaning of this? Why is one of my husband’s men on the ground?”

“He broke into the children’s room while they were alone, Your Highness,” Emma replied carefully. “We stopped him before he could…do whatever he meant to do, I suppose.”

“What?” The queen turned to the older two boys, her brow furrowed. “Is this true?”

Great. Just about the worst people to entrust with telling the story straight. Regina watched with increasing worry as Lampwick stepped forward, wrapping a protective arm around Pinocchio’s shoulders- and then stopped mid-movement as Gawain spoke up, drawing the attention back to himself.

“It is true, my lady.” He awkwardly stood up, and Regina found herself allowing him to do so, both out of sheer surprise and because she knew that it was out of her hands now.

“A madness came over me, and I have no excuse for it. I will make my explanations, and receive the judgement you see fit for me, but you may take all these people on their word. They were right to stop me when they did.”

There was a collective holding of breath as Guinevere scrutinized him intently, not speaking a single word. Still, Regina was beyond grateful already – as things stood, Gawain lying would have probably ruined them all, because there was no chance for them to be trusted by such a rigged jury. By admitting his faults he’d turned the tide in their favor, and the worst part was, she wasn’t sure why he’d do it. He wasn’t their friend, and he wasn’t their ally. Why not throw them under the bus, while he had the opportunity to?

Finally, the queen spoke up, tearing her from her elucubrations, and said: “Only the king can dispense judgement to the men sworn to him. In his stead, I command you to be brought down to the castle dungeons and await his return there. In the meantime, I will into the matter myself, and see what can be done with it.”

The knight nodded rigidly, and let himself be led away by two of the guards, only sparing a glance to the boys before he was pulled out of the room. Guinevere followed him with her gaze for as long as possible, then turned to the rest of them with a wan, apologetic smile, one that did not reach her eyes at all.

“Allow me to beg your forgiveness in my husband’s stead, as well. I can promise you, no guest has ever been harmed inside Camelot’s walls, and I never wished for it to happen during our reign. I know I can’t demand anything from you now, but please, let me ask you to come to my chambers so we can discuss what happened. I want to see things clearly, for what is possible, and I’d rather be somewhere more comfortable, given my conditions.”

She paused, and then added belatedly, as if with an afterthought: “The children should rest, though. These nights have been a trial for us all- I will speak with them in the morning, perhaps. If you wish for me to leave some of my own guards with them-“

“I’ll stay with them,” Robin interrupted her, meeting Regina’s eyes for a brief moment before adjusting his arms’ grip on his son.

“Me too,” Snow added, firmly. “You’ll forgive us the precaution, Your Highness, but you can see why we’d be wary of anyone not of our own.”

“But of course. I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.”

“Thank you.” The former princess made an imperious gesture towards the boys – Lampwick seemed likely to refuse her, for a beat, then he reluctantly moved away from the wall, heading towards the door with a deadly glare directed at the men he brushed past.

Pinocchio followed him closely, but he stopped when he got near Emma, lingering until she shot him a quizzical glance. He grabbed the Savior’s arm in a swift movement, then, urging her to bend down a little, and once she’d done so he whispered urgently in her ear, a string of sentences that no one else in the room would probably be able to hear – he hovered at her side, undoubtedly waiting for a response, but his troubled expression didn’t clear up when the woman nodded, and he hurried out without another word, letting Robin fall into step behind him to guard the rear of the group.

Guinevere raised an eyebrow, nothing but blank politeness on her face. “He is well, I hope?”

“For someone who hasn’t slept as much as he should, yes.” Emma shook her head, her lips pressed tightly together. “Sorry. He’s just…He asked me not to tell his father that he was scared, when we get back home.”

A profound pity seemed to fill the queen’s expression – genuine pity, writ on her every feature and going bone-deep into her skin. It was an extremely surprising sight, especially when compared to her recurring vacant and distant stares. “Poor child. I understand. But no one would chide him for being scared, I hope. This must have been quite the ordeal for him.”

She urged the remaining guardsmen by her side once again, then, turning to the other two women: “Again, if you would follow me…”

Regina nodded, and made to keep pace when Guinevere walked out the door, but Emma’s hand was at her elbow not a second later, her steely grip forcing the mayor to lag behind. “They’re all very good at making up stories, aren’t they?” She murmured, hissing through gritted teeth.

“I suppose dear Sir Gawain didn’t pass the superpower test, then?” Regina snorted, equally as low.

“No, he didn’t. And Pinocchio was a little more convincing, anyway.”

Somehow, that wasn’t much of a surprise, either. “What, no heartbreaking pleas about his father?”

“That, too.” Emma leaned closer, speaking quickly as though fearing a guard would come round them up at any moment, her eyes hard and determined.

“But he said that the knight warned him Gawain would come. It’s why they were up and waiting for him. And that Arthur knows- Arthur knows everything, Regina. He knows all the stuff Gawain said he doesn’t, and he knew what would happen tonight, when he left. We need to find a way home as soon as David gets back, because I don’t think they’re going to give us much more time to figure it out.”

“There we are,” Arthur announced, coaxing his horse into a halt. “The trail ends here.”

David followed his gaze with some perplexity, more skeptical than anything else. There was nothing in his line of sight that could convince anyone of the presence of a witch nearby – they’d crossed many a field during their rushed journey, and most of them would have made a better secret lair than the rock surface he was staring at now, covered in dried vines and stained with humidity.

“It was all a trick,” he commented with dismay. “There’s nothing here, Arthur. She fooled us again.”

And it was proving itself to be one of her best tricks yet, too. David could feel each of his muscles tense with exertion and exhaustion, now that the adrenaline rush from the ride was beginning to fade away. True, they had made good time on their trip, travelling light as they had – the king hadn’t been lying about that part of the story, at least. With some luck, they would be back to the castle sometime in the afternoon, even factoring in a stop to eat and swap their horses with fresh ones.

But Arthur didn’t seem anywhere so inclined to turn back immediately. Instead, he chuckled lightly, and dismounted with a fluid movement before giving a triumphant smile to his companion. “Ah, my friend, how clear it is that this is a foreign land for you. Look closely- all is not lost, yet!”

David frowned in confusion, but climbed down from his horse as well, moving to stand next to the other man. “What am I supposed to look at?”

“Wait.” They had brought torches with them, expecting to reach their destination at nighttime. Arthur handed him one, and then, after lighting it with some struggle, directed his attention back towards the uneven wall before them. “Do you see what I mean, now?”

“No, I…” David trailed off, the words dying on his tongue as his eyes finally adjusted to the unfamiliar environment. Most of the vines clung tightly to the stony slate they were growing onto, yes, but there was a gap between some of them, a darker background behind them that left them hanging limply and swaying in the night breeze. “What is that?”

“That, my friend, is what we came here to discover.” Arthur pulled a dagger from his belt and cut off the yellowy plants that stood in his way, revealing what appeared to be the entrance to some sort of cave. “Give me the torch, now, and unsheathe your sword. I have heard you’re a far better fighter than me, and we’ll need all your strength if the witch is home.”

David complied quickly enough, but there was a growing vein of unease creeping up his chest as they stepped into the opening with great care. The last hollow space he’d tried entering had been the one leading them all to Camelot, and though it was somewhat comforting to find a hint of familiarity between the two things, a reassurance that they might be on the path that would lead them home, it didn’t bode well for what they might discover inside, Morgana or not.

And still, it would be cowardly to turn back now, after having travelled so far. He couldn’t come back empty handed. He had to find something, at least, something that might help his friend and family and allow him to face Snow with his head held up high, whatever the cost.

He had expected a long tunnel to await them, leading them deeper into the hillside. Instead, after only a couple turns of that stony passage, barely tall enough for them not to bang their head against the ceiling as they walked, they found themselves approaching the exit, signaled by bizarre bouts of flickering light despite the late hour – David and Arthur exchanged a look, and then slowed their pace almost in unison, treading even more carefully until they had reached the end of the path.

What awaited them reminded David of the pictures of great cathedrals his cursed self had supposedly seen in schoolbooks, with their tall vaulted roofs and cavernous aisles. His eyes travelled up, up, up to the apex of the curved ceiling – it was like being trapped inside a dome, except there were no marble columns or fancy paintings, but merely what felt like dozens of square feet of grey stone. Along the walls were torches not so different from their own, but there was an odd quality to their light, as though they were less pieces of burning wood and more modern neon sticks that for some reason had decided to waver and tremble like simple flames.

They cast enough light to show every inch of the room, and yet there wasn’t much to see, all in all. There was no one in sight, nor were there any corners behind which they could be hiding; the walls were bare, and so was the floor – for the most part, at least, for right in the middle, set down in the spot where the torches seemed to shine most of all, was a great big wicker basket, like an actor taking the center of the stage.

No. Not a basket – a cradle. A children’s cradle, David realized once he’d dared wander further into the room, not unlike the one they’d set up in Emma’s unused nursery, all those decades before. This, too, had to be far from a new acquisition; it gave a whiny, disused creak when he touched its side, and the pads of his fingers came back smeared with dust, collected from the thin grey layer that coated every inch of it. No baby had used it in a while, like as not, and there certainly was none inside it at that point in time, though the beddings were all there, a small pillow and a sheet and a little woolen blanket with the corners carefully tucked out of sight. Sheet and pillow, once probably made of a lightly-colored linen, were now equally as grimy as the rest; the blanket seemed to be faring a bit better, except-

Except for the large, uneven reddish stain that had soaked through it, already crusted brown in some spots, as if it had been used to clean up a butcher’s shop only the day prior.

“What the hell is that?” David muttered, snatching his hand away with sudden, troubled disgust. “Is that blood? What kind of trick is this?”

“No trick, I fear,” Arthur said, his tone surprisingly hollow and toneless. When the other man looked over to him, the king was staring at the ruined blanket as well, his gaze as dark and sightless as it had been when Pinocchio had given him the green sash, as though he dreaded the thought of glancing away from it – it was an unsettling expression on him, and David reared back instinctively, a surprised noise escaping his lips despite his efforts. For a moment, it was if the noble man at his side had been replaced by another in the blink of an eye, one with the same features and the same strength, but with a headful of dark thoughts and a tuneless voice.

The sensation was gone as soon as it had come, though the unease caused by it lingered; and yet Arthur, for his part, seemed completely unbothered by the reaction he had just caused. “No, my friend, this isn’t a trick. She really was expecting us, after all, and she left a little message for us, to let us know how foolish we were.”

“Yes, alright, but- a message about what?” Reluctantly, David tore his eyes away for him, scanning the abandoned cradle once more for some kind of clue about its meaning. “Do you think it’s about your future child? Or- or your wife, since it hasn’t been born yet?”

“Perhaps. I can’t think of any other babe that Morgana could mean to endanger, unless she’s making a mockery of one of your boys.”

“Then we need to get back immediately. If it’s really about Guinevere, or Pinocchio, or- or I don’t know, then we must warn them. We must tell everyone what we found.”

For the first time in a while, a sliver of humor seemed to make its way into Arthur’s response. “I’m afraid I can’t allow you to do that, Prince David.”

David made to turn towards him, a puzzled look on his face and a request for an explanation already on the tip of his tongue, and yet he never managed to voice it aloud. Arthur no longer had his hunting knife in hand; instead, he was holding it open and turned towards the ceiling, its cupped palm filled with a strange sort of sand that seemed to glitter red and gold in the queer lighting of the cave.

Then the king blew gently onto it, sending it flying into the other’s eyes, and all questions vanished from David’s mind entirely.

Chapter Text

Camelot, present day

Snow found herself standing at Guinevere’s side as the queen welcomed back her husband on the castle’s mighty steps, who’d sent word that he’d be back to the castle within the afternoon.

It was funny, in a way. She’d never been the kind of princess to sit longingly by the window and wait for her gallant lover, even in her youth – if anything, David had been the one thrown into an adventurous life without much of a warning, hurrying after her as she attempted to save her kingdom and keep her life. Had it not been for Regina’s curse, her Charming would have likely been the one to stay home and tend to Emma as his wife roamed the land, settling disputes or avenging slights or something along those lines.

And now, there she was, craning her neck in the hope to spot a couple of horses galloping in the distance – she would have laughed bitterly about it, in truth, if she hadn’t been so tense. At least Guinevere seemed no less nervous than her, even under the queenly façade: the woman was arm in arm with one of her attendants, the wrinkled old matron, and they were whispering urgently back and forth, though it wasn’t clear who exactly was keeping who upright.

All that stress couldn’t be good for someone in such an advanced state of pregnancy, Snow mused, trying to keep at bay the sort of reminiscing such a thought could bring. If Guinevere was really pregnant, of course; at the rate their noble hosts were going, the queen could have been faking it all along, the cherry on top of the enormous cake of lies the Camelot resident seemed to be baking since their arrival. She seemed sufficiently spry and active for being so close to her due date, that was for sure.

Oh, God. That was straight up paranoia, wasn’t it? No, she couldn’t allow it to fester in her brain. Fear might be the mind killer, but she’d realized over the decades that constantly looking over her shoulders for a threat tended to fray one’s nerves even worse. The baby had to be genuine, at the very least, even if their mother might be plotting in that very moment.

Finally, the heralds’ trumpets sounded, and Snow managed to make out two lone figures approaching. They were going at a surprisingly slow pace, but then again that was to be expected – they’d travelled for hours without rest, like as not, and that was without considering the eventuality of some ruthless fight against Morgana. Both Arthur and David were strong, well-trained men, but neither of them held any kind of superhuman power, and their horses were likely exhausted by now.

The crowd’s murmurs died down as the king drew to a halt in the middle of the courtyard and dismounted, holding himself with only one hand as he swung off the saddle; the other was pressed against his chest, clutching tightly onto something – Snow narrowed her eyes, trying to discern what it could be, but only moments later her attention was drawn to David instead, who’d fallen into step with Arthur with an unreadable expression on his face.

Neither of them appeared to be hurt, at least. She allowed herself a sigh of relief, however small – she and her husband might have been at odds before his departure, but she’d never wish him harm, and no one could predict what would happen to Camelot if its king had been slain. Nothing good, she supposed, especially not for the newcomers.

Arthur climbed up the stone steps with what felt like deliberate slowness, and only when he’d reached the top did he turn to face the onlookers, his features set in a determined scowl. He lingered there for a moment, his eyes scanning the eager crowd, then he said, voice grave and booming across the yard: “The witch has been slain.”

A deafening roar raised from the assembled court, but the king paid no mind to it. Instead, he pulled the unidentifiable bundle away from his chest and unraveled it, holding it up in his outstretched arms – it was a piece of fabric, Snow realized, roughly cut in something approaching a square shape, a large red stain smeared across most of it.

“I present to you Morgana’s blood,” Arthur continued, steadily, “wiped away from mine own sword after I slit her throat. I say to you, rejoice! Our troubles are over and bound to be soon forgotten.”

The response was somewhat more muted this time around, perhaps sprinkled with unease at the thought of such a bloody affair, but no less joyful. The king nodded and pocketed the cloth away, raising a hand to acknowledge the cheers, then turned to his wife with a bright, if puzzled, grin.

“I thought you’d be happy to hear we’d succeeded, my love,” he said. “Are you unwell?”

Guinevere smiled back, though it was tense and thin-lipped. “No, Arthur. I am glad to see you return, and to know you were victorious. But…there has been a grievous incident, while you were away.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sir Gawain lost his sense. He tried to bring harm to the Storybrooke children while they were abed. He didn’t succeed, but…”

There was no ignoring the glint in Arthur’s eyes, even as his brow furrowed above them while he turned to Snow. “Is this true?”

She nodded slowly. “Yes. He claimed that he only meant to scare them, but Regina intervened before he could do anything, so we have no proof.”

“This- this is outrageous, my lady. I’ll need to investigate these claims at once.” The king took Guinevere by the hand, gesturing for her ladies to take a step back. “I trust you have taken Sir Gawain into custody already- I must question him immediately, to know what kind of madness afflicted him. And the boys, too, once they have recovered.”

He stopped in his tracks, a shadow passing over his face. “There is no way of telling what could happen to other children, including our own, if those three have been put through so much danger already.”

Snow would have liked to ask him exactly what he meant by that, but the moment passed as quickly as it had come, and soon Arthur was gone, taking the chance for questions away with him as he listened intently to what his wife was whispering hurriedly, their heads bent together. She was left with nothing to do, then, nothing but finally direct her attention to her own husband, who was still staring at her with a searching look in his eyes.

She sighed, then took a step towards him and took David by the elbow. She didn’t like that look one bit, but she didn’t like much of what was going on with her life at the moment, in truth, and there was nothing to it but continue to do her duty, as much as it weighed on her more with every passing minute.

“Come on, then. We need to speak in private, too.”

“Did Arthur really kill Morgana?” Snow asked, as soon as they’d found an empty spot to talk freely in.

David scowled, crossing his arms close to his chest and leaning against the table at the center of the room. She had no idea what its purpose could be – probably a cellar or a storage room of some kind, given the shelves lined with flasks and bottles all around them – and honestly, she didn’t care enough to wonder about it, at the moment.

“Do you really think he would lie about something like that? In front of everyone?”

“I think he would lie about worse things,” she cut back, archly. “Please, David. Were you with him? Did you see him do it?”

“Fine.” He threw his hands in the air, clearly annoyed by her mistrust. “Yes, I was with him. I was watching. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

His tone was more than a little worrying, but Snow couldn’t afford to get distracted by the matter at hand – everyone in their group would need to know from a first-hand source, one that hadn’t been filtered through Arthur’s intervention. “And Morgana? What did you do with her?”

“We left her there. Arthur was right- it was her lair, that place we found. No one will find her by mistake, I think.”

“That doesn’t sound like you. Or him, for that matter- I thought you’d make sure to bury her, and that Arthur would bring back a trophy.” That was in the realm of nitpicking, she knew. She ought to feel relieved and nothing else, grateful that at least part of their problems had supposedly vanished, but relief was hard to come by around those parts, lately.

Maybe she just hadn’t been expecting the news. Perhaps it would be easier in a little while, once the realization had properly settled in her mind.

“What kind of impression would it have made on people, the king crossing the land with a woman’s dead body on his horse? The blood was supposed to be the trophy, I think.” David’s gaze was hard as steel as it fixed on her – grey as steel, too, a small voice piped up from the back of Snow’s mind. It was as though something else were troubling him, clouding those light eyes she had once known and loved so well.

“And I wasn’t in the mood to treat her honorably, anyway,” he continued, dismissively. “Especially if she was the one to drag us here, or to sic that knight on the boys.”

“Yes, well,” she said, slowly, weighing each word with great caution. “I’m not so sure about that, after last night.”

He raised an eyebrow, skeptical. “That business with Gawain? You think the two things are connected?”

“I know they are. He admitted as much. That scarf Pinocchio brought back from the chapel- it was Gawain’s. The knight used it to taunt him and Arthur. That’s why they meant to- to get him to shut up, I suppose, one way or another.”

“Hold on.” David stood up abruptly, almost quickly enough to startle her. “I thought that guy had acted alone. You’re saying you think Arthur is involved, too?”

“Gawain swore he wasn’t. But the knight warned Pinocchio of what would happen, and told him that Arthur knew more than he let on.”

“So you’re going to believe Pinocchio over someone who just faced a- a sorceress to keep us safe?”

Snow faltered, unsure if she ought to believe her ears or not. “Excuse me?”

“I’m just saying, the kid’s not exactly famous for being reliable,” he said with exaggerated care, as though speaking with a dimwitted child. “It’s been a long night. I understand. I am tired, too. But the man I saw killing Morgana is not a man who’d hurt a child on purpose. I think you’re speculating a bit too much for someone who’s got no proof, now.”

“Jesus, David, I am not speculating- if it’s proof you want, you can just go ask Pinocchio yourself, and hear what he’s got to say- “

“And trust he’s not the one lying, I suppose?”

Snow slapped him.

She hadn’t meant to; in fact, the thought hadn’t so much as crossed her mind, up until the millisecond before her action. But the anger and frustration and just plain exhaustion had gotten the better of her, and when she regained some semblance control, her hand was smarting and stinging, and David was clutching at his cheek, eyes wide with shock.

“How dare you,” she hissed, unable to restrain herself any further. “Pinocchio’s just a boy, and he’s ten times the man your friend Arthur will ever be. We’ve known him since he was a small child, David. His father gave up on saving him so that I could raise Emma myself. And you’re saying I should call him a liar and believe a guy who’s been making up all sorts of stories instead? Someone we’ve only just met?”

Her husband’s jaw clenched. “Yeah, I’m really in his debt, now,” he commented sarcastically after a pause, dry and venomous. “You know, maybe it would have been better if Marco had sent him away for real. This way maybe you’d still be reasonable, instead of- of old and bitter.”

Snow looked at him, really, truly looked at him, and though what she saw should have filled her with horror, with regret, maybe, all she felt was tired, along with a heavy sense of longing that threatened to crush her to dust. How did we get here, David? She wanted to ask. What happened to us, after that curse?

“You’ll never let me live that down, will you?” She asked instead, more rhetorically than anything else.

“I’m sorry, David. Is this what you wanted to hear? I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I grew old. I’m sorry we broke the curse and your nice young wife left and is about to have a baby, while I’m never going to give you all the kids we dreamed about. But if you’re letting any of that cloud your judgement, then you’re nowhere close to the man I married, and maybe you should reconsider your speculations, too.”

And wasn’t it funny, in a way, that the woman David had left for her would now come back with a vengeance, become their breaking point even thousands of miles and multiple worlds away? There was some sort of bitter irony in there, she was sure of it. Regina would have laughed, had she still been the Evil Queen of old.

But Regina wasn’t there, and Snow had no desire to laugh alone, now. And besides, Kathryn- Abigail- she wasn’t to blame for anything that had happened, honestly. All she’d done was follow her heart, find her Frederick and start a real family, one no curse had dictated for her; it was David who the news of her pregnancy had shaken so much, pulling the rose-tinted glasses away from his eyes and forcing him to realize that the happy ending he fantasized about would never come for the likes of them.

How long had it been, now, since they’d found out? Weeks? Months? Snow supposed it would have felt like an eternity even in normal circumstances, but time was a queer affair in Camelot, it seemed, passing by sluggishly and hurriedly all at once.

She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. She only succeeded in part, but she couldn’t bear to stand under his hostile gaze a minute longer, not in the state that she was in.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, finally, forcing her voice not to crack. “Just…don’t let the boys catch you say anything like that, will you? They’ve gone through enough, and at least one of them will punch you for it, if he hears.”

“But I hope we find a way home soon, David. At least we’ll be able to leave, and you might stay here for as long as you wish, if Arthur enjoys your company.”

She turned away and slammed the door open with shaking hands, then, stalking out without waiting for a response. In another time- in another world, perhaps, he would have called her name, ran after her to apologize or even just continue the discussion, but this was not the place for it, and they were no longer the man and woman that sort of thing could happen to. Snow walked and walked, her eyes burning and her teeth gritted, and David remained where he was, immersed in stony silence.

She could have walked forever, like as not – it would have probably done her good, she supposed, to get some fresh air and straighten her thoughts up before facing anyone else. Her feet certainly didn’t seem of a mind to stop anytime soon, leading her into a part of the castle she couldn’t readily recognize, closer to the bowels of the court than any place she’d seen before. There were less nobles around, and increasingly more servants the further she went, most of them brushing past her with barely the hint of a bow and a second glance as they hurried to complete their tasks.

Snow was beginning to relish in the refreshing change of pace, the laxer etiquette and the near-anonymity it gave her, when she felt a hand touch her lightly on the arm. She whipped around and found herself staring up at a figure wearing the practical clothes of a lower-class man, the hood of his cloak pulled up over his head. “My lady, a word?”

She narrowed her eyes and took a step backwards – he was much taller and broader than her, and that alone warranted some caution, but he didn’t grip her any tighter when she moved, and there were still other people around, so she supposed she was safe enough for the time being. “I’m sorry, if you need anything, I’m afraid this is not the time to-“

“I’m not sure there is any time to waste, Snow.” The hood fell back a little, revealing Lancelot’s familiar face – there was a hint of humor in his voice, but his expression was serious and filled with urgency as he looked at her. “You should be paying more attention- I have been following you for the past two flights of stairs.”

This time Snow did feel the relief, weakening her shoulders and knees for a brief moment. “Oh. It’s you. Sorry, I’m just- I was a little preoccupied with something else.”

Then the realization hit her, and her eyes widened as she nudged him towards the closest corner turn, her tone lowering in faint alarm. “What are you doing here? I thought you were hiding! It’s too dangerous- someone might recognize you!”

Lancelot snorted in dry amusement, gesturing to the corridor near them – it was almost empty, now, save for a young boy carrying a bucket over his shoulder and a maid sweeping the floor with a baby strapped to her back. “How many of these people do you think ever met Sir Lancelot before his exile, hm? And remember his face, too- I’m safer here than I could ever be outside, with Arthur’s dogs running after me.”

He shook his head, his gaze darkening. “Besides, most of them aren’t loyal to him. He set up a spectacle and now they’re all playing their part, but they won’t fall over themselves trying to gain his favor.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think it was only by chance that your friends managed to leave the castle without being stopped, over and over again? No stragglers from the inn, no patrol raising the alarm?”

Suddenly, Snow was hit by a memory – something young Lampwick had said and Emma had later confirmed, and that she’d dismissed in light of more important news. Distracted guards and lazy men, they’d said, too dazed to notice three boys scampering out of sight and two adults following soon after. “You’re telling me they’re all- what, slacking at their job? Is that it?”

“Not exactly.” Lancelot rubbed his face with one hand – he looked tired, too, if not as much as she felt.

“The castle- the entire kingdom was built in a day, Snow. Arthur used a kind of magic he never should have dabbled with to fix his problems, and he was sloppy with it, too. Most of what you see is little more than an illusion, and these people…his people, they’re just going through the motions every day. Especially down here- they wake up, do their work and raise their families, and never seem to remember what they were doing before they came to Camelot. You would never know something’s wrong by talking to them, but none of them could ever fathom leaving the castle for good. I told you, they’re playing a part. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Snow sucked in a sharp breath, horrified. “How do you know this?”

“Because I was with Guinevere when she was given the magic.” The knight looked deeply troubled, now, as though every word pained him, and that quenched down all of her questions about how he could ever do such a thing. “She wanted to use it for good, but she must have been a victim of it, too. I have been keeping an eye on her, and the Guinevere you’ve met is not the one I remember. She’s only doing what Arthur wants her to, now.”

“So…All the weird stuff, it wasn’t only in my head? I wasn’t being paranoid.”

“If anything, you should be more scared. I don’t know if this magic infectious, but I don’t want to find out the hard way. You and your girl, and the rest of your family- you have to leave the castle before it’s too late.”

That was too much to process in so little time. “I- we can’t. You can stay hidden, but there’s too many of us, and we’d be noticed immediately. We can’t just disappear.”

“Please, Snow.” He took her hand in his broad, calloused one, worry radiating from every inch of him. “Let me take the children, at least. I know they’ve been attacked already- they’ve tried to keep it secret, but it is no mystery that Gawain is sitting in a cell right now. They would be safe with me, I swear.”

“I know they would.” Snow shook her head sharply, trying to clear her head. The option was tempting, but she was not the one who could make that choice, and she wasn’t sure it would be the right one, anyway. She wasn’t sure there were any right choices left, at that point. “But we need to stick together. We might not have the time to come get you and the boys if we find a way to reverse the magic that got us here. I’m sorry, Lancelot.”

And she did regret it, truly. She could see how much he was risking, to watch over them all, and how desperate all of them were getting; the sand in the hourglass was still running impossibly fast, even with Morgana gone, and there was no handle in sight to turn it in their favor. But she had no choice, no more than Lancelot himself did.

The man nodded, then, clearly deflated. “I understand.”

He hesitated for a moment, then dug into the neck of his shirt and pulled at something that had been hidden in its folds, tugging at it until it came undone. “Take this, at least. This way I will know that you’re not unarmed.”

Snow bent down to inspect it, frowning in puzzlement. It was some sort of medallion, or something akin to the lockets she’d seen in the other land during her youth, the ones where mothers would keep pictures of their children – its body resembled a rounded, latched little box, made of light wood or dried vines, while the string it hung from was of old and faded leather, already frayed in some spots.

“What’s this?” She asked, confused.

“Just precaution.” Lancelot lifted it up and then, with slow, steady movements, he tied it around her neck, the pendant a small but heavy weight on her chest. “I hope you never need it, but- only open it when the situation looks dire, and you don’t know what else to do. You will receive the help you need, and I will know you’re in danger.”

“But what’s in it?”

“I don’t know for sure.” He grabbed her hands again, squeezing them with a warmth that did nothing to mask the tension in his body.

“But I promise you, I will not allow anything to happen to you, or your daughter, or- or Guinevere. On my honor as a knight, Snow- I don’t know if your prince still tells you this, but I will come find you wherever you are, whenever you need me.”

“Just as Morgana will no doubt come find Arthur, now that he’s claiming that he killed her.”

The knock on the door found Emma huddled in the chair closer to the fireplace in her room, her blanket pooled on her lap and her sword close at hand.

“Come in,” she called out warily, reaching out for it almost reflexively – she supposed she should have already barred the door for the night, but she was pretty sure it wouldn’t have made that much of a difference while she was still awake and alert. It wasn’t like a lock could make that much of a difference in an entire castle full of backstabbers.

Besides, she didn’t know any cold-blooded murderer who had the decency to knock before entering, so there was no point worrying about that, was there?

As predicted, there was no murderer poking their head in when the door was cracked open, but merely Lampwick’s long, freckled face, staring at her with some apprehension. “You got a minute, Sheriff?”

“Just the one.” Emma gave him a thin, tired grin, letting go of the pommel of the sword. “You should be in bed by now, kid.”

She should have been in bed, too, truth be told. She wasn’t doing anyone any favor by curling up like a cat and staring into the flames, ignoring the late hour. But her exhaustion had long since circled back to leaving her unable to sleep, and her tumultuous thoughts had had the better even over the ache in her arms and legs – she’d been hoping that by relaxing for a while, she might at some point be able to turn in for the night, but she’d been unsuccessful so far.

At least she knew that she wouldn’t be the only one sleeping poorly, that night. The king had decreed that to pay for his actions, Gawain would be tasked with fulfilling his promise, and that he’d be leaving to find the chapel at the first daylight – Emma might be struggling to rest, but she had no doubt that he would fare worse, knowing that he would be sent off to his likely death in the morning. She could almost pity him, despite what he had done; there was no chance that an enemy so intent on scaring them all off and hunting down those who’d slighted him would let him go with his head on his shoulders.

Arthur’s head would have probably served better for that purpose, but that wasn’t to be – the man had locked himself away with his queen hours before, to plan their course of action. There wouldn’t even be a banquet to celebrate the new year, given what had happened during the previous one; most of the court had already retired, unusually early for their standards but extremely conscious of the tense atmosphere in the castle, and only the ringing bells would mark the passage between a day and the other, for those who wanted to celebrate privately in the safety of their rooms.

That made her miss Storybrooke more than anything, oddly enough. At least there would be fireworks, in Storybrooke. They always found a reason to light some fireworks, after twenty-eight years of cycling through holidays that had kept looking the same over and over again.

Lampwick shrugged, huffing derisively as he closed the door behind his back and plopped down to sit on Emma’s bed. “Not exactly the best atmosphere round here at night. Might be I should start sleeping during the day instead.”

“I’m sure your teachers back home would be thrilled.”

“’S not like they can think any worse of me, right? I bet they’d throwing a party if I didn’t come back after Christmas break.” His mocking expression faltered, and he glanced away abruptly, picking at his fingernails.

Emma raised an eyebrow, perplexed by the abrupt change in tone. “You will go back, Lampwick,” she said, as gently as she could muster. “Maybe not before Christmas break ends, but…sometime around that, I hope. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. It’s just-“ He shrugged again, this time way less flippantly. “I’m sorry, Sheriff.”

That took her by surprise. “What for?”

“For not telling you we knew about what would happen when you asked. And- dunno, I wanted to thank you for letting me keep the knife too, I guess.”

Oh. So that was the crux of the problem, then. Emma gaped at him for a moment, then slowly untangled herself from her cocoon and made her way to the bed, sitting next to the boy and putting an arm around his bony shoulder. He tensed in her grasp, but didn’t squirm away, thankfully, instead staring studiously at the crackling fireplace.

“It’s okay, kid,” she said, carefully, trying not to startle him out of the room and the conversation at once. “It would be different in Storybrooke, but here…I trust you to only use it when it’s needed, alright? And I think I get it- you thought it would be better if no one knew what Gawain would do. Did Pinocchio ask you not to tell me?”

“Kind of.” Lampwick pulled a face, as if trying to work out what he intended to say. “I mean, yeah, he did- the guy, the knight, he told Pinocchio there’d be trouble if he tried to warn anyone, and Pinocchio told me ‘cause we were supposed to make sure Roland was safe, but…It’s not like I disagreed. I thought it’d work, like when they set traps for the killer in movies.”

“Did you really think Gawain was going to kill you?”

“Not really. The knight said he wouldn’t, at least, and between that and a big green bastard with an axe that says you shouldn’t tell anybody…You get my point.”

“Yeah, I do.” Emma sighed, running the fingers of her free hand through her tangled hair. Hell, there wasn’t supposed to be so much nonchalance in the voice of a twelve-year-old boy, especially not when touching subjects like those.

“I’m not angry that you didn’t tell me, don’t worry. I mean, I am angry, but not at you- I’m angry that the three of you were ever put in a position like that, that’s all. It shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”

Lampwick frowned, looking vaguely taken aback. “’S okay. Nothing new, am I right? And it wasn’t your fault either.”

“But I know whose fault it is, so I’m going to sort that out before we leave, okay?” She shook him half-heartedly, forcing him to meet her eyes with some sternness. “Look at me, kid- the mayor and I are going to sort that out. Got it? Not you and your friends. You guys try your best to stay out of the line of fire, deal?”

His expression faltered, then, a beat later, he regaled her with a broad, blinding grin, his eyes lighting with the usual mischief again at long last. “Deal. But that’s not binding unless you get it on paper, Sheriff.”

Wait, where had she heard something similar before? “Oh, God. Have you been hanging out with Gold, recently?”

“Nope. Just Pinocchio’s friend Eugene. He’s like that with everything we do. You should meet him- he’d drive you crazy after five minutes, I bet.”

Emma scoffed, then reached out to ruffle his bright hair, feeling a smile tug at the corner of her mouth at the surprised yelp he let out. “Thanks, I’ll pass. You do enough on your own.”

“Oh, I can still get better at it. I’ve got time.” The boy shrugged her off, though he didn’t seem particularly displeased, then hopped off the bed, lifting his arms up in an exaggerated stretch. “Thanks for the chat, Sheriff, but I’d better get back. Pinocchio always steals all the covers, and I’d rather not freeze my arse off tonight.”

“You can stay, you know, if you want. Someone else can look after them. You don’t have to do everything on your own.”

“I know.” Lampwick rubbed at the back of his head sheepishly, clearly ill at ease with the proposal. “But they’re gonna wonder where I went if they wake up, and someone’s always waking up around here. This place gives me the creeps.”

“Me and you both.” There was palpable fondness in Emma’s smile now, but she wasn’t in the mood to squash it down just yet. “Don’t tell anyone I’ve said this, but you’re a good kid, Lampwick.”

“They wouldn’t believe me even if I said it, but thanks, Sheriff. I appreciate that.” He made as if to leave, then suddenly, he halted in his tracks, a hand on the pommel of the door. “You know, Pinocchio was talking in his sleep again, earlier.”

“Really? What was he saying?”

“I’m not sure. I paid attention, since you said it could be important, but most of it was still gibberish. Except- at some point he rolled over so fast I thought he’d fall off the bed, and then he mumbled something that made sense, like he was talking to someone. Something like, she’s not crying. She’s not crying yet. Stuff like that.”

Emma stared at him uncomprehendingly, trying to make sense of what she’d heard. “She, who?”

“Dunno. He didn’t say a name, and he was back to rambling right after. Ominous, though, isn’t it? What d’you think it means?”

“I have no idea.” Great. Another piece of the puzzle to fit in, and no picture on the outside of the box to tell her where it might go along with all the rest. Just what she needed to stop stressing and fall asleep.

Still, hearing her speak like that would no Lampwick no good. She had to spare him at least some trouble. That much she could do. “Maybe Pinocchio will remember what he’s been dreaming, in the morning. We’ll see what to do at that point. Off with you, kid. It’s getting very late.”

He nodded, though he still looked unconvinced. “G’night, Sheriff.”

Then he walked out, the door shutting after him with a soft click, leaving her alone with thoughts even more confused than when he’d first come in.

Chapter Text

Camelot, some time ago

“I should get dressed,” Gawain drawled, laying back against the pillows. “Your lord husband will be back soon, and I must get to work on my side of the bargain.”

Ardena snorted in laughter, and her fingers trailed up and down his naked torso, drawing his attention back to her. “’Tis only morning still. And Bertilak won’t care if you don’t have anything to trade- it is merely an excuse for him to spend more time hunting than tending to his land, you should know that by now.”

“Ah, but it wouldn’t do to disappoint him so, would it?” His gaze grew wistful as he took her hand and lifted it up, pressing light kisses down the length of her arm and speaking in soft whispers against her skin. “I have broken enough vows already, my lady. Let me do this, at least.”

That wasn’t the answer Ardena had been hoping for. She couldn’t let him wallow in his guilt for too long; he might climb out of bed and her arms for good, then, and that was the last thing she wanted – for more than one reason, as the world went.

She freed herself from her grasp, then, and scuttled closer until she could press against his side, laying her head on his shoulder. “All the more reason for you to wait for him here,” she said, a teasing note in her voice. “Perhaps we should ask him to join us in bed- he seemed to appreciate your kisses, Ser, more than he usually does mine.”

Gawain snorted and shoved her away, but it was playful and half-hearted, and the somber look had thankfully left his eyes at long last. “I don’t think he would take kindly to me bedding his wife, however pleasant he might have been until now.”

“Do not be so sure. Bertilak is a man of many surprises.”

As Ardena herself was, of course, though the knight wasn’t supposed to know that just yet. Her heart ached at the thought of his handsome face twisting in fury at learning of her deceit – she’d expected the guilt that would come with tricking a man who’d done nothing to her, but she’d never planned to grow so fond of him, so…close, closer than such a short acquaintance should have warranted. His departure would hurt her more than she’d predicted, she feared.

And her husband wasn’t helping matters, either. Him and his stupid bargaining game – a wager, he’d called it, but in truth it was nothing more than a way to spice things up for his hunt, a boring pastime even for a man who indulged in it as often as his duties allowed him. Every day he would bring forth what he’d won in the woods, and Gawain what he’d gained during his stay in the castle, and they would swap their catches, big or small that they might be.

Bertilak had stayed true to his word thus far – he’d gifted his guest the best their land could offer, a boar and a goose and more – but Gawain had only offered him part of what he’d received from Ardena, though it went further with each passing day. Only the kisses; one kiss and then two and three, with poorly concealed trepidation and in full view of the rest of the hunting party, and a lingering touch that left both men flushing and their following laughs threaded with unease.

She knew it couldn’t last long. Soon her husband would crack, or she would, and Gawain would have to return to attend his king, besides. This sweet, girlish bliss was only a temporary condition, one that would fade and spoil like a slab of meat left out in the sun, and then tear her apart from the inside out with pain and blame.

But the sun hadn’t risen in full yet. King Arthur and Bertilak could wait a little longer. She snuck her arm around Gawain’s waist, pulling him back to her, and smiled softly when he offered no resistance, leaning close to her face as if wanting to steal another kiss.

“Come on, then,” she murmured, fighting the ache off her words. “Let us make the best of our morning, if we are to be ready for my lord’s return.”

Camelot, present day

“This is pointless,” Regina muttered darkly, setting another book down on the table with what was probably a little too much force. “We’re not going to get anywhere with this stuff.”

She felt Robin’s hand settle on the small of her back, the touch gentle and reassuring. “It’s alright,” he said, encouragingly. “There must be something here that can help us. I’m sure we’ll find it.”

“But how?” The woman sighed, rubbing at her forehead and then gesturing vaguely at the room, with its rounded walls and shelves full of books and magical trinkets. “We’ve looked everywhere, and I’m getting cross-eyed with all these runes and codes. I don’t even know if I’d recognize the solution to our problems, at this point.”

“But this Merlin- Arthur said he lived for centuries. You’re telling me he didn’t leave anything behind, in case he was ever in danger?”

“He might have.” Regina sat down on one of the chairs near the table, leaning heavily on her elbows. “But we’ll never find it without a hint. I have a dozen escape plans set up back in Storybrooke, too, but they’re all foolproof unless you’re…well, me. Or someone I would trust to know about them, at least.”

And it wasn’t like they could exactly coax an answer out of Merlin, either. The king had said he could communicate with the rest of the world, somehow, but thus far he didn’t seem intentioned to do so with her, or with anyone that might be useful to their cause. Whatever telepathic link the wizard had managed to form, it was getting faulty in the worst possible moment, and she’d scoured his tower from top to foot more times than she could count, now.

It had yielded very little in terms of answers so far, all in all, and Regina was starting to get discouraged, which didn’t help in the slightest. She didn’t do discouragement – it only served to infuriate her, and she had no plan to let a king, a sorcerer, and the pile of rocks they called castle beat her to the punch.

Robin carefully sat down before her, and then reached out over the table to take her hand, his thumb rubbing soothing circles on her palm. “You need to take a break, Regina. You don’t get enough sleep as it is- there is no need to make it worse. Can’t Emma help you with any of this?”

Regina scoffed, though his presence was already beginning to work its own kind of magic, soothing her stress in part if not in full. “Emma’s knowledge is more limited than mine, and she’s got enough on her plate, anyway. Her mother’s in a state, and David follows Arthur everywhere now, and the kids…please, tell me the kids haven’t been having any more visions or anything like that. I’m not sure I could take it.”

“Not that I know of. Roland was with Snow last time I checked, and the other two- I don’t know where they are exactly, but they swore they’d stay close.”

“Well, let’s hope they keep their word, then. We don’t really need another trip to that chapel right now.”

Not until Gawain made his return, at least. It had been a full day since the man had left, now, and there had been no sign of him since – Regina was starting to doubt there would ever be one, truth be told, and her conviction was only growing stronger by the minute. He’d pledged to get his head chopped off by a ten feet tall monster, after all; there was little returning from something like that, honestly.

Emma had raised the suggestion of either following him or preventing him from leaving in the first place, but even she had had to admit that it would have been a hopeless cause. They were outnumbered and outarmed, and they didn’t know enough about their playing field yet to make it an even match – Regina would rather be pinned as a coward than allow Arthur to line all their heads up on the outer walls next to Gawain’s. Better to come up with a plan and bide their time, and strike when they were ready to win.

Besides, there really was a lot on all of their plates, right now. Charming was climbing the ranks of Camelot nobility, it seemed, and Snow had come back from her chat with dear old Lancelot with puzzling news and an even more puzzling necklace – Regina had given the medallion a few magical prods, but though it was thrumming with energy even from a distance, it didn’t appear to be posing a threat to anyone in the vicinity, so she had left it be for the moment, too preoccupied with this illusion that was supposedly tightening its hold on them all to think much about anything else.

And now there were that child’s ramblings to take into account, too. Emma had repeated Pinocchio’s sleep talk to her first thing in the morning, but the little puppet had no memory of even saying those words out loud, apparently, so they were at a moot point still. And what words they were – complete nonsense for two days in a row, and then a bold declaration about someone crying their hearts out.

Well. Not simply someone. A woman. A woman, or a girl, or something of the like. And she hadn’t been crying as Pinocchio spoke – it was if the boy had been expecting her to begin at any moment, or growing frustrated that she wasn’t complying, and none of it made any sense at all, because…who could he even be talking about? Someone in the castle? A character in his nightmares, and nothing more? And why would it be so vital for her to start weeping while he slept, anyway?

She’s not crying yet. She’s not crying yet. She’s not…

Wait.

Abruptly, Regina stood up, pushing herself away from the table and hurrying back to one of the bookshelves that she’d looked at so disdainfully only moments before. She crouched down in front of it, mindless of Robin’s confused calls for an explanation, and began rummaging in the lowest rack, pulling out books and scraps of paper with little care for where they landed until she could reach behind them, where she knew some of the oldest tomes – by now little more than fraying sheepskin bound together, in truth – were stored.

Flipping the tower on its head more than once had its rewards, it seemed. Her fingers closed around the piece she was looking for almost immediately, and she turned back towards her partner with a triumphant grin, holding it up as she returned to the center of the room. “I was right. The only thing missing was a hint.”

Robin frowned, clearly far from understanding what she meant. “What is that?”

“A list of restoration spells- ancient ones, stuff we don’t use any longer if we can help it. It got obsolete, I think, after a while.” With deliberate care, Regina tugged open the book and spread its stained pages flat on the table, searching them for the incantation she needed.

There were many, and most of them almost illegible with age, but the one she needed was right where she remembered, and though the ink was faded, she could decipher the entire text just fine. Her fingers brushed lightly over the words, and her grin widened as took in the various ingredients that someone had made sure to emphasize among the rest.

The last one, tears, was underlined three times over, the letters thick and dug deep into the page.

“And it seems little Pinocchio has just given us all the hints we needed.”

“There,” Pinocchio said, holding his drawing out for his friend to see. “All done.”

Lampwick plucked the piece of parchment from his extended hand, squinting suspiciously at the lines sketched on it. “I don’t get it. What’s that supposed to be?”

The younger boy huffed, rolling his eyes in a way that was closer to his usual self than most of his recent gestures, despite the pale, drawn face that surrounded it. “I told you. The knight had it on his armor. Like a sigil, or something.”

“Not a lot of detail for a sigil, is there?”

“It’s not all of it, Jesus. Some of it was under his beard, and his armor was all rusty, or dirty or- I don’t know. I put in what I could remember.”

“Alright, alright. Don’t get so worked up.”

They were in the castle’s monumental library, huddled in one of the corners furthest from the door, mostly hidden behind rows and rows of shelving stacked high with books. The place was pretty much empty, save for a couple old folks moving around with their arms full of tomes or taking notes on one of the many tables – librarians, probably, or scribes of some kind, likely writing the story of Arthur’s glorious conquest of the most horrible kingdom at hand.

They’d been the ones to provide the two boys with the writing supplies Pinocchio needed to draw, too. They’d been almost impressively eager to do so, even; it seemed that the tale of Gawain’s departure had spread more than anticipated, despite King Arthur’s attempts, and now everyone was scrambling over themselves to satisfy the whims of a kid who’d already risked death in their land twice. It was funny, in a way – judging by their fretting and fussing, one would have thought Pinocchio capable of smiting them in their sleep, like those angry angels he used to mention when he was still going to church, those blonde fellows with flaming swords and fancy wings.

There was nothing hilarious about Pinocchio’s real condition, though. He didn’t have any wings, and he certainly didn’t have a sword to wave around – it was doubtful he would even have the strength to wave it, honestly, given how he was currently propping his chin up with his hand, as if he couldn’t quite hold his head upright. He’d perked up a bit while drawing, his fingers moving swiftly as he’d traced the sigil over the parchment with a piece of charcoal, but that hadn’t lasted long, and now he was rubbing at his eyes again, looking on the verge of dozing off.

Lampwick bit back the wave of worry churning in his throat, and then turned back to the drawing itself, trying to figure out what it could possibly represent. There was some kind of four-legged animal in the middle of the page, a dog or a cat or another creature with pointy ears, and behind it was a great circle that was more than double its size, clear and devoid of details and totally not helpful at all.

“I’ve got no clue of what it could be,” he commented after a moment, turning it this way and that. “We should ask someone else. Someone who knows more stuff than us.”

Pinocchio sighed, shaking his head. “Yeah, but who? There’s only five people who we can ask, and one of them is Roland, and I don’t think the others know anything more than we do.”

“You mean six, right?”

“Five,” the other boy repeated, somewhat hollowly. “I don’t want to ask Prince Charming anything. He looked angry the last time he talked to me. He looked- I don’t know. Wrong.”

Lampwick turned on his seat to face him, his voice lowering instinctively. That was not good. Not good at all. “You mean you’re still seeing things?”

“Does it look like I stopped seeing things?” Pinocchio snapped back, some color rushing to his cheeks. Then, a beat later, his expression faltered, flickering with guilt, and he looked away to the closest window, taller than they were and covered in stained glass. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it like that.”

“Don’t worry. ‘S alright.”

“No, it’s not alright. I don’t want to be nasty with you. But I- I just- I don’t know how to make it stop.”

Lampwick didn’t reply, still fidgeting with the corner of the drawing. He didn’t know what to say, in truth, or at least, he didn’t have anything to say that could be useful at the moment. He’d exhausted all the reassuring crap he knew about forty-eight hours earlier, he feared.

Thing was, since Pinocchio’s return from the chapel, Lampwick had been privy of most of the weird stuff going through his head – the flashes, the noises, the memories of his time with the knight, even the fitful dreams that made him toss and turn in his sleep and that he kept forgetting about the moment he woke up. He’d promised he would report all of it, yes, but Lampwick suspected there were things even he wouldn’t know how to explain, things people like them weren’t supposed to see and would be better off storing away for good.

And there was no proper way to react to those things, either. It wasn’t like anyone had written a book about what to do when your best friend started hallucinating, after all, and though they already had some experience with getting kidnapped and sort-of-possessed, that instance had brought along some slightly more physical consequences. It wasn’t like Pinocchio had sprouted long, hairy ears again, stuff one could reasonably get freaked out about – he was just seeing and hearing things that weren’t there, like a drunk or a madman, and as such, Lampwick was left with no choice but to sit there in silence, sidling on the bench until the two of them were a little closer, at risk of jostling one another with every movement.

Still, that seemed to be enough, thankfully – after a moment Pinocchio sucked in a great, stuttering breath and began to speak again, his voice barely more than a whisper.

“It’s just- It’s everywhere, you know? I can’t turn it off. Everything’s gotten strange since I came back from that place. I look at people walking and they’re all blurred, like they’re going too fast or- or too slow, and when they talk- you know that thing that happens when you try to start the music at the same time in two different places, but one of them is a little late? That’s it. It’s like I’m hearing double. And- remember what I said about the chapel? That it was too green?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s the same here. Except it’s not green. It’s red. Everything’s too red, and foggy, and it hurts my eyes all the time, and I don’t know what to do.”

He glanced up, then, his pleading eyes meeting Lampwick’s once again – he looked terribly lost, once again, lost and tired, in a way that couldn’t be solved by just going to sleep. “Do you think I’m going crazy?”

“You’re not going crazy.” That, at least, Lampwick knew to be the right thing to say, and he was certain of it to boot, as sure as the king was out of his mind. “That green guy must have fucked with your head, okay? He wasn’t all wired right himself. Maybe he did something to you when he cut your hand, like- like tetanus. Or rabies. Magical rabies. You’ll get better when this is all over, promise.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Course I know that. I’m not letting it go any other way. Neither’s the sheriff, for that matter. We’re gonna get you fixed right up. You trust me, right?”

“Yeah.” Pinocchio gave him a thin, watery smile. “I always trust you. And Emma.”

The smile wavered, then, and he glanced down at his hands again – they were trembling, Lampwick noted with some alarm, even pressed flat against the wood of the table as they were.

“I don’t know if there’s a way to fix this, though. Maybe with magic, but- the knight, he showed me things while I was there. All the stuff I’ve been dreaming about, it’s like he put it there, and I want to remember it, I swear, because maybe if I remembered something Emma could use it when she fights him, but…I just can’t. All these faces and places I see, every morning I think I can recognize them, but they’re all mixed up instead. It’s not like the usual nightmares. I always remember those when I wake up.”

He hesitated for a second before continuing, his tone even lower. “What if I have to keep seeing them forever? What if he’s the only one who can take them out?”

“That’s bullshit.” Lampwick elbowed him gently in the side, forcing himself to coax out a grin. “There’s always another way out, alright? You know we always find one. Used to drive Eugene mad, remember?”

“It still drives him mad, he’s just too pissed off to tell you,” Pinocchio replied mechanically, then shook his head again. “It doesn’t matter. Even if it doesn’t go away, I’ll be fine as long as we leave this place. I just want to go home.”

He wiped at his nose with the back of his sleeve, his voice cracking ever so slightly. “And I left my coat in that stupid chapel too. Papa’s going to be so mad. It was supposed to last me this winter and the next.”

“Yeah, well, lots of people are gonna be mad at us when we get back, Pinoke,” Lampwick commented drily. “I’d say the coat’s the last thing you should worry about.”

Belatedly, he realized that was perhaps the worst string of words he could have voiced out loud. Not that it wasn’t true; he was pretty sure there’d be plenty of people waiting for Pinocchio with open arms, brushing off their absence as a whole, and he was even more sure that he wouldn’t be receiving any such warm welcome himself. That was just how life went, for what he knew.

True didn’t mean helpful, though, and he didn’t like the way his friend’s face had fallen after listening to him. “Shit, I- I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t have said that.”

Pinocchio didn’t reply, which somehow made the situation even worse. He remained frozen in his spot in silence for a long moment, instead, his expression distant and vacuous once again, then he buried his face in his crossed arms, his back shaking with poorly contained sobs.

Lampwick felt a tart, coppery taste flood his mouth. At first he thought it was just his guilty conscience rearing its ugly head, but soon he realized it was only blood – his blood, as it turned out. In his nervousness, he’d chewed at the inside of his cheek so hard it had eventually cut open, and now it was stinging like a bitch, for such a small scratch.

Still, he couldn’t just sit there and do nothing, bleeding like a very clumsy gutted pig. Tentatively, he wrapped an arm around Pinocchio’s shoulders and tugged him closer, mindless of how his friend wavered and shook in his hold. It was the same thing the sheriff had done to him, more or less, and it had felt…good. It had felt right, honestly, kind of safe in a strange way. He supposed Pinocchio could use some of that, right now, and it was better than any alternative Lampwick might have on hand.

They stood like that for what looked like an eternity before the younger’s boy shivering finally subsided, the library mercifully quiet around them. Finally, Pinocchio looked up, pulling out an sheepish, ashamed sort of smile as he rubbed at his face with his hand. “Sorry. That was stupid.”

Lampwick shrugged, giving him a companionable shake before letting go. “It’s alright. You’re stupid. It checks out,” he said, with a nonchalance that was almost completely genuine.

“But I think you should get out of this place for a bit. Come on, let’s see how high on the ramparts we can get. Not to sound like your cricket, but you look like you need some fresh air.”

“But Emma said-“

“She said not to leave the castle. The ramparts are still part of the castle, aren’t they? They just don’t have roofs.”

Pinocchio hesitated, then nodded weakly, allowing Lampwick to pull him off the bench and tug him along by the hand. The older boy’s mind was ticking away as if it were full of cogs while he walked, trying to force him to process what had just happened, but he ignored it stubbornly, focusing instead on making sure they could reach their destination without crossing anyone’s path.

He couldn’t fix Pinocchio’s problem at present, alright. Big deal. No one seemed to be able to, these days. But he could still ensure that his friend wouldn’t have to talk to anyone until he had recomposed himself, particularly not anyone over twenty years of age. That much he could do, at least.

It was a long way up towards the castle walls while avoiding prying questions, but it was worth it. Pinocchio’s shoulders were relaxing some now that they’d left behind that bloody library, and though fresh air certainly wouldn’t do any miracles, Lampwick felt as though he would be going mad himself without a chance to look at something that wasn’t a musty brick wall, or worse, their bedroom ceiling for the umpteenth time.

They’d almost accomplished their mission when a woman’s voice raised from behind them, stopping them in their tracks halfway up a flight of stairs.

“Well, what do we have here?”

Lampwick froze, so abruptly he almost pulled Pinocchio off-balance. Experience had taught him that when someone called out to you, looking back to check who they were would only be wasted time – time that’d have best be spent running away, especially if you were getting caught on your way to do something that you were maybe, sorta, kinda forbidden from doing.

But Storybrooke rules had a way of not working out in Camelot, it seemed, and the same was true for Enchanted Forest ones. And besides, they weren’t doing anything wrong, technically – not yet, at least. So, against all his instincts, Lampwick turned on his heels, only to be faced with none other than Queen Guinevere, smiling serenely up at them with a few armored guardsmen at her back.

“Good morning,” she said amiably, motioning for them to climb down and step closer to her. “May I ask where you might come from, to be in such a hurry?”

Lampwick remained rooted exactly where he was, this time around. “We- the library, Your Highness.” That was not revealing too much, now, was it? Sure, they had to be wary around just about everyone in that damn castle, but the queen had yet to do anything explicitly bad to them, and there weren’t that many places they could have been hiding in, anyway. It wasn’t like it had to be a secret.

“Really? That is good to hear. It’s not usually a place most children find welcoming. What were you reading?”

Now that was definitely too much information to offer to just everyone who asked. He opened his mouth, then closed it, his brain racing to come up with some brand of bullshit that would be at least slightly believable – and then found himself gaping as Pinocchio stepped forward, his chin lifted up stiffly and his clammy hand slipping out of Lampwick’s own as he made to address the queen.

“We were looking up some sigils, Your Highness. Sigils from- from this kingdom, you know.”

Guinevere’s eyebrows rose in a skeptical, if politely curious, expression. “Coats of arms, you mean? A strange subject for someone so young.”

The boy nodded rigidly, ignoring the wide-eyed, astonished stare Lampwick turned his way. “We were just curious. We see a lot of those things around the castle, but we can never guess what’s on them, and we don’t know what it means, anyway. We wanted to look them up on some books in the library, but we didn’t really find anything we could understand. There’s nothing like that where we come from.”

The queen regarded them impassably for a long moment, then a soft, tittering laugh escaped her lips, catching them both off-guard. It wasn’t the fact that she was laughing at all, Lampwick realized after a couple stunned seconds – they’d seen her smile and laugh plenty while at court, though mostly from a distance or hiding underneath a table that was definitely not meant to be used as a hiding spot. No, it was the light-hearted, genuine amusement that seemed to be behind it, as though for the first time she were entertained in earnest and not just putting up a show not to offend someone.

It was strange to say the least, and he would have probably used some stronger terms, had he not been talking about royalty.

“That is not hard to believe,” she said, finally, her mouth still curled in a slight smile. “I do not know enough about your land to confirm what you said, but Camelot’s scholars have never made any effort to write their notes in a way common people might understand. We will have to amend that, if we want our kingdom to prosper.”

She extended an arm towards them, as if inviting them to move once again. “Well, then, what do you say I offer you a more hands-on lesson?”

At last, Lampwick seemed to regain his voice. “What d’you mean?” He asked, and then, before one of the men with her decided that was reason enough to take him to the gallows: “I mean, what do you mean, Your Highness?”

Luckily for his prospects and for his neck, Guinevere appeared too amused to take offense at his slip-up. “I would ask you to join me and my ladies until supper- we do our needlework at this time of day, but you wouldn’t be required to join us, of course, and they come from all over the land. I suspect they would be delighted to show you what they know, and boast about their own house sigils a little, if you let them.”

“That- that sounds really nice,” Pinocchio replied, and Lampwick nodded, trying and failing to hide how unconvinced he was.

“Yeah, it does. But I don’t know if we’re allowed to come. I mean, we’d love to, but the sh- the princess said…”

“Believe me, I know about your companions’ concerns about your safety,” the queen interrupted him sharply, and now the dull, vacuous veneer was back on her grin, as though it had never left.

“But there is no place in Camelot more secure than my chambers, these days. My king and husband has tasked his best men with protecting me and my ladies – you will be safe with me, I give you my word. Not even the lady Emma could protest, I bet.”

And who’s gonna protect us from those men, ma’am? Lampwick thought cynically, but there was no saying that aloud, and their hands were tied in any case. They could still make a run for it, but that would put them on the wrong side of the whole debate, and it wasn’t like they could go very far, besides, not in a castle so full of people who seemed to hate their guts.

“Then- thank you, I guess, Your Highness. We’re coming with you.”

“Okay, what was that?” Lampwick hissed in Pinocchio’s ear, as Guinevere led them through the palace with her slow, waddling pace. “What the fuck got into you?”

Pinocchio lowered his head, muttering so the guards, following not far behind them, would not be able to hear. “Trust me, okay? I know what I’m doing.”

“The first thing? Yeah, maybe. Second one? No thanks. I thought we were supposed to keep our head down or- or something, and you start talking about sigils and stuff like that.” The older boy exhaled heavily through his nose, his brow furrowed. “No, wait, you know what? Fine. Let’s go see what these ladies want. But if something goes wrong-“

“Nothing’s going to go wrong-“

“-when something goes wrong, you know what happens. I go left, and you go right, and we meet back when it’s clear.”

“That only worked when we were doing market runs. This is a castle. It has stairs. You go up, and I go down, alright?” Pinocchio shook his head. “But we don’t have to worry about that. I told you, I know what I’m doing.”

The frightening thing was, he did look the part of a guy who knew what he was doing. There was a determined light in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, some of the exhaustion having disappeared from his face – he was walking as though he’d already been informed of where they were going, barely falling into step with the queen at all, his hands balled into fists and his expression set in a firm stare. It was a bit worrying, in truth, especially if compared with the tense scene in the library.

Lampwick just hoped Pinocchio wasn’t seeing ghosts again, right now. One had to draw a line at some point, didn’t they?

Guinevere directed them to a surprisingly unassuming door in the far east of the castle, and even smiled gratefully at the man at arms that sprang forward to open it for her, as if in extremely high spirits. From the room on the other side spilled out some bustling, giddy chatter, but it fell quiet as soon as the queen had entered, followed by the rustle of fabric – the sound of a dozen or so ladies standing up to welcome their mistress, Lampwick guessed, once he and Pinocchio had poked their heads inside to see the crowd assembled in those chambers.

“My friends, I hope you will forgive me for the delay,” Guinevere greeted them lightly, accepting the arm one of them offered to help her sink into a cushioned armchair. “But we have some guests today, and I had to ensure they would not get lost trying to find us.”

The women mumbled their reassurances without hesitation, but their gazes turned to the foreign boys almost immediately after, following their arrival with avid curiosity. For all his confidence, it seemed Pinocchio hadn’t predicted being at the center of so much attention – he took a step back instinctively, his eyes wide and darting around with vague alarm, and Lampwick found himself moving in the opposite direction out of pure reflex, putting himself between his friend and everyone else as he regarded these infamous ladies with some defiance.

Not that they were painting much of a fearsome picture, to be honest. If anything, they reminded him of a flock of birds, the extravagant ones he’d only ever seen in travelling caravans as a small child: they were sporting fine dresses in a wide array of colors, and they varied in age and appearance as well, tall and stocky, pretty and plain, fidgeting and disinterested. There was the older woman that the queen had so often at her side, and a couple looking so similar they had to be twins or at the very least sisters, and a bunch of flustered, giggling young girls that kept gesturing furtively in his direction and speaking in whispers behind their hands – as if! He wouldn’t get embarrassed so easily, mark his words.

“On the contrary, my lady, we hope you will be the one to forgive us for starting without you,” a voice raised from the group, a hint of laughter in it. “But some of our projects need all the time we can scrounge up, especially for those of us with children to tend to.”

Guinevere waved an indulgent hand in the speaker’s direction, nodding gratefully as a maid handed her needle and thread. “Peace, Ragnelle. I wouldn’t dare interrupt you when you’re so hard at work.”

Was that it? Had they been dragged all the way down to that room just to be paraded around like a couple of fancy lapdogs? Sure, it was better than being threatened at swordpoint, but not by much, and all those stares directed their way were starting to feel a bit unnerving. Lampwick was itching to make up some excuse and find a way out – in fact, he was already searching the room for the best route around the guard posted at the door when the queen spoke up again, detachedly, seemingly too focused on her sewing to give proper attention to any other matter.

“In truth, I have to ask you all a favor,” she said, lightly, unfolding a small bolt of fabric on her lap. “These young gentlemen here had some interest in the history of our land- I thought you could show them the coats of arms of your families, so that they might see it’s not just the king carrying the burden of this kingdom.”

There was a chorus of general cooing and murmuring, as though it were the sweetest thing any of them had ever heard. “But that is only partly true, my lady Guinevere,” the old crone said, clucking like a satisfied hen as she regaled the boys with a grin, sickeningly sweet for how toothless and wrinkled it looked. “This land wouldn’t hold without King Arthur. Don’t sell your husband so short.”

“Ah, but ignoring your support would mean doing everyone a disservice, wouldn’t it? Now, do not be shy- we have guests here, remember. Does none of you have something ready to be shown?”

If they did, they likely weren’t all that eager to step forward now, if it meant being the first to expose themselves. Aside from the clacking of knitting needles and some nervous giggles, there was no answer, and after a minute or two the elderly woman scoffed and reached out to touch the arm of another lady, prompting the latter to startle and turn her way with a surprised laugh.

“What about you, Lady Ardena? You told us the handkerchief you wanted to gift your husband was almost done, was it not?”

The lady – Ardena, supposedly – smiled back, nodding, and then produced a minute, neatly folded bundle out of her sewing basket, handing it over to Pinocchio with an eyeroll directed to her companions that could only mean something on the lines of look at the things I do for you all.

“This is the sigil of my husband, Sir Bertilak of the Tower,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she leaned forward – it was a very light shade of brown, bound in two long braids, and it framed a small, triangular face, with a pointed chin and deep dark eyes.

“It’s a fox, standing in a moonlit field. I do not know what it means, though – he says his great-grandfather chose it, when he was given our lands. Perhaps he was a fox-hunter, back in the day.”

Pinocchio was still staring at the handkerchief, clutching it loosely in his fingers and sporting that disturbingly unreadable expression on his face again. He didn’t so much as twitch when Lampwick elbowed him in the side, as discreetly as he could manage, and instead passed it to him without a single glance or comment, lifting his head to smile rigidly at Lady Ardena. “It looks…it looks nice, my lady.”

Lampwick would have liked to smack him over the head and ask him what the fuck was going on, this time around, but then he found himself losing that train of thought, a cold chill running down his spin as he finally looked at the object in his hands, gone stiff and clumsy with shock.

A fox in a moonlit field, the lady had said. He could certainly see it, now that she’d told them – the animal stitched in the corner of the handkerchief did have the tall ears and reddish fur of a fox, and the handkerchief itself had been cut from a dark-colored fabric that resembled the night sky, its edges embroidered with a pattern of stars in the same shade of yellow that had been used for the full moon that dominated the scene. It would have been a nice gift for anyone’s husband, probably.

But Lampwick wasn’t looking at the quality of the product, nor could he notice whether the stitches were precise or not. All he could see was Pinocchio’s rough, hasty drawing, superimposed over the handkerchief like a banner on a cheap, outdated movie frame, the two pictures muddling and blending together – the charcoal creature growing a long tail and sharper features, the clumsy hand-drawn circle turning into a bright, easily identifiable moon high above its head.

He could try to deny it all he wanted – and he wanted to do it very much, honestly. And still, there was the picture the knight had been carrying around on his chest, in full color and finer details, staring almost mockingly up at Lampwick as though it could sense his growing horror.

Chapter Text

Camelot, present day

“Tears?” Emma asked, skepticism heavy in her voice.

Regina shook her head. “Not just any tear.”

She handed the sheriff the crumbling book she’d retrieved from Merlin’s chambers, carefully pointing at the page it was currently open on.

“Look. This is an enchantment used to break someone else’s curse. I’m not entirely sure about all the ingredients we’d need for it to work, but whoever wrote this was clear about one thing – tears. Tears of grief for a lost love. Without them, we’d be going in blind.”

“And you think this is what would free Merlin from that tree?” Emma hummed under her breath in thought, her eyes scanning the recipe critically. “Sounds a bit forced, doesn’t it?”

“None of the other spells I found would work. At this point I’d rather- I don’t know, listen to the kid’s prophetic dreams and try this one out, than keep looking for something that’s not there. We can’t go around in circles forever, Emma. We need to leave this place now.”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong. It’s just...It looks a bit too good to be true. And where would we even find tears like that in this place? It’s not like we can go around and break some royal marriages up, right? Even Lancelot failed in that.”

“Your mother will forgive me for saying this, but Lancelot was a fool,” Regina replied, wrinkling her nose. “And you can’t tell me that Guinevere wouldn’t fare a lot better without the king at her side. You’ve seen her that night after we got Gawain, when she was alone. I think he’s sucking life out of her, like a vampire.”

Emma couldn’t bring herself to disagree with that, either. Something was off about the queen, no doubt – the longer they spent with her, the more evident it became, and the less they knew what to do with it. It added a sticky, cloying layer of unease to the whole ordeal, not helping in the slightest with the constant feeling that the walls of the castle were slowly closing in on them, like a dungeon trap in an old arcade videogame. Regina was right, once again: there wasn’t much time left for them before someone clapped irons on their wrists and prevented them from leaving ever again.

That didn’t make Merlin’s ingredients any easier to gather, though. “Maybe we should ask Lancelot, if Mom can track him down again. We don’t know any of these people, but he does- if there’s someone who can find a lost love here, that’s him.”

Regina scoffed, the sound slipping harsh and dripping with disbelief from her mouth. “And I was the one with the forced ideas? Honestly, we’d be better off checking if that old hag hanging out with Guinevere has any dead husband to reminisce about, instead of-“

“Emma!”

The sheriff felt a faint, weary twinge of alarm when she caught the high voice calling her name and the scuffling of footsteps moving towards them, but there was no pretending she hadn’t heard them- she turned to one of the corridors facing the antechamber they’d huddled in, and she was not surprised in the slightest to see Pinocchio and Lampwick hurrying down it, almost toppling over one another in their rush to reach her.

“Oh, God,” Regina groaned under her breath, following her gaze. “What have they done now?”

Contradicting her was on the tip of Emma’s tongue, but she had to admit there was no ground for it at all. Still, as the boys stumbled to a halt in front of her, she couldn’t deny the vague sense of relief shooting through her – both of them were panting and winded, but Pinocchio was looking more alive than he’d had in days, color rushing up to his cheeks and eyes bright and attentive despite the tense line of his mouth.

She was glad for that, at least. The kid had been half a ghost ever since the chapel, enough for her mother to think he might be coming down with something, and watching him return to his usual self felt nothing short of a miracle, the rest of it be damned.

It didn’t make Emma feel any less worried about what either of them might be planning, though, so she bit back a sigh and reached out to steady the two of them on their feet, her eyes darting from one to the other. “What happened? What’s going on?”

“Emma, look, we found something,” Pinocchio began breathlessly, but Lampwick cut him off right after, elbowing his way to the center of attention.

“Someone, more like. One of those ladies, the ones with the queen- she’s got something to do with that bloody knight, she does.”

Whatever Emma had been expecting to come out of their mouths, it wasn’t anything of that sort. “What?”

Lampwick nodded vigorously. “You heard that right. The queen asked us to follow her, and we didn’t have much of a choice there, so we went, and one of her ladies had something with the knight’s sigil. I think. Pinocchio got it better than me.”

“She was stitching it on her husband’s stuff,” Pinocchio interjected, as if on cue. “The knight had it on its armor. It doesn’t make sense, though. Why would they be the same?”

“Dunno. You’re the one who can read minds around here.”

“I don’t read minds, stupid-“

“Nevermind that,” Regina interrupted them, before the situation could escalate. “People are too connected to everyone else in this castle for their own good. That’s court for you. We can discuss the whys and the hows later. Did you catch that lady’s name?”

The boys exchanged a long, hesitant glance. “Not really,” Pinocchio finally admitted, slowly. “They only said it once, and we had to find a way to leave the queen’s rooms, after that.”

“Yeah, I told the guard I had to take a wee, and then we made a run for it. I hope they aren’t checking the royal toilets anytime soon.” Lampwick scratched his freckled nose, deep in thought. “We could recognize her, though. She’s a little younger than you, Sheriff, and she’s got brown hair. We’ll find her in no time.”

“And we have the sigil, too.” The younger boy rummaged in his pockets for a moment before fishing out a crumpled piece of parchment, which he then pressed in Emma’s hand with almost reverential care. “It’s a bit like this, except blue and yellow, and looks a lot better.”

Emma smoothed the drawing between her fingers, furrowing her brow as she tried to make sense of what was being depicted in it. “Alright, so what are you saying here? That this woman’s married to the knight you saw in the chapel? I mean, we’ve had worse marriages around, but-“

A loud, booming chime reverberated through the room, drowning the rest of her sentence. The castle’s bells, tolling from their tower. She glanced out of the nearest window instinctively as it rang again and then kept ringing, strong enough to make her teeth chatter in her mouth, but they were too high up to see anything but the sky outside.

“What’s this about?” Regina wondered out loud, frowning. “I thought they were done celebrating the new year. And it doesn’t sound very festive anyway.”

“Something’s happening,” Emma muttered, sudden, irrational dread coiling in her chest as the tolling seemed to pick up the pace even more, sounding almost frantic to her by now aching ears. She glanced around to the other three, her thoughts moving at a hundred miles per hours, then she straightened her back, her mind made up.

“Up the ramparts, now. I want to see what’s going on before we jump in. And don’t you two dare leave us behind, alright?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Lampwick mumbled drily, then he grabbed Pinocchio by the elbow and set off towards the staircase.

Emma had only walked Camelot’s walls a couple times before, but it seemed that the kids were already a step ahead of her – they took a passageway she had never seen before, probably a shortcut of sorts, and the only thing that kept them from bounding off was, apparently, the need to remain in sight, doubling back every now and then as she and Regina climbed up the steps, hitching their long skirts out of the way.

“Do you think it’s Gawain?” The mayor asked her, as the door that would lead them outside finally appeared after what felt like a million flights of stairs.

“The bells, or the sigil thing?”

“Either. Both. He’s the only connection the knight has with this place- him and Arthur, of course, but you get what I mean. It wouldn’t be too farfetched.”

“You’re right,” Emma conceded, grimacing. “He has to have at least one ally- there was someone else with him the other night, the person who got me to leave the boys alone. It could be anyone.”

“Well, if they’re trying to tell us he’s coming back right now, maybe he’ll answer some questions. With or without the king’s permission.”

The breeze was strong and freezing so high above the ground, whipping their hair around and making Emma wish she’d had the time to bring a cloak. She’d expected some of the guards patrolling the walls to stop them, but none of those men seemed interested in the newcomers – rather, they were all looking down and pointing at something a few floors down, their voices raising in shock as a couple of them run past and headed into their captains’ barracks.

Increasingly more unnerved, she peered over the battlements, gripping at Pinocchio and Lampwick’s shoulders so they wouldn’t lean any further out to see, and it was then that she noticed the figure advancing towards the outermost gate, slow and steady.

It wasn’t Gawain, it seemed, despite all of their predictions. It would have been difficult to tell him from any other knight, so far away they were from the entrance, but there was no mistaking the man moving across the yard, even for a poorer-sighted woman. People were fleeing at the sight of him, and still it was easy to notice how much taller he was than any of them, how thick his figure, how big the axe slung across his back.

The sunlight, though already dimming, rippled across his armor, making it shine a bright green.

“Lampwick,” Emma heard herself saying, the words sounding curiously distant, as though it were someone else coaxing them out of a parched throat. “Take Pinocchio and get back inside.”

“But-“

“No buts. Find my mother and Roland, bar the door, and don’t open unless you know it’s one of us knocking. Go. Now.”

Only then did she lower her gaze, catching the look on Pinocchio’s face. All the liveliness seemed to have been sucked out of him, leaving him wan and glassy-eyed as he’d been when he’d dismounted from Arthur’s patrol horse – even Lampwick had to notice the change in his friend, because he bit back any further retort and took the younger boy’s hand immediately, slowly inching back towards the safety of the castle.

Emma waited until she’d heard the door slam closed behind them, then dared release the breath she’d been unconsciously holding in, reaching out to grip Regina’s arm perhaps a bit tighter than what was warranted.

“Come on,” she said, hollowly. “It’s time we finally meet this knight we’ve heard so much about.”

It looked as though the whole court had assembled to watch the green knight’s grand entrance, at first glance.

That, of course, would have been impossible, and Emma realized it as soon as she’d clambered down the front steps of the castle, sword in hand. Most of the king’s guards had gathered around their commander, row upon row of men clutching an array of weapons, and some of them appeared to be pushing a bunch of common onlookers out of potential arm’s way, true enough, but the latter were much scarcer than one would have thought, mostly huddling behind Arthur himself; the rest, lords and ladies and servants alike, had wisely made themselves scarce, though curiosity seemed to have prevailed over safety in some cases – even just a quick look at the windows would have revealed multiple heads poking out to see what was going on, waiting with bated breath for the knight’s next move.

She just hoped neither Lampwick nor Pinocchio were among them, and that both kids had heeded her words and found somewhere to hide and lay low for a while. She didn’t think this green man would try to hunt them down for sport, not when he’d already let one of them get away with crucial information in hand, but one could never know, and Emma would have rather kept them behind thick stone walls in any case.

And besides, it was quite difficult to determine what, exactly, the knight might have in mind. He had reached a point roughly halfway through the courtyard, and there he had stopped, his feet planted firmly on the ground, his arm hanging loosely at his sides – he wasn’t speaking, nor making any sound, and the visor of his helm was pulled all the way down, covering his face entirely and making it impossible to determine his expression. If Emma hadn’t known him to be alive, she might have taken him for a colossal statue, built as a mark of Camelot’s splendor.

Splendid he was for sure – it was the first time she could see him in the flesh, concealed face aside, and she didn’t really know what to make of him. The boys had painted a vivid picture in her mind, but the knight looked even taller than in their stories, now, if not so thick and broad-shouldered as she had envisioned him; he would have easily overpowered anyone of them in single combat, but he didn’t seem to have any intention of attacking first, and his axe was sitting serenely in its holster, the blade glinting a bright green aside from a few rusty spots.

Regina, apparently, had followed the same line of thought as her. “Why aren’t they trying to take him down?” She hissed, a hand already pulled back as if preparing to launch an assault herself. “What are they waiting for?”

It was soon clear what. Arthur’s many archers had their bows nocked and drawn; when his sharp, clear command of “Loose!” rang through the otherwise silent courtyard, they didn’t waste any time, and soon the sky was filled with arrows, all flying towards the knight at great speed.

Not one of them reached its mark. They stopped a few feet away from the gigantic man, instead, as if caught in a bizarre contrary wind, and after a moment they all fell to the ground with a clattering sound, sunlight rippling across them as they went – and not just them, Emma realized with a start. The whole yard seemed to be wavering slightly before her eyes, fuzzy and oscillating like the air above scorching hot pavement during the warmest days of summer.

Summer was a long time away, though, and she doubted hot air could come in different colors as it was doing now, anyway. Where the knight stood there was a thin, impalpable green haze, while King Arthur’s side had taken a somewhat reddish hue; in the middle, where they should have clashed, they seemed to mingle instead, coiling together in a light shade of brown – Emma tried to prod at it with her magic, puzzled, but was met with a surprisingly strong resistance, as though the newcomer had wrapped himself in a protective bubble. “Regina,” she breathed, stunned, “can you-“

“No more than you can,” the mayor replied through gritted teeth. “Looks like he came prepared for us- hell, what kind of magic is this? What kind of magic is he?”

The knight lowered his covered head a little, as though regarding the carpet of arrows at his feet, then he raised it again, letting out a noise that was suspiciously close to an amused chortle.

“Greeting, o King Arthur,” he intoned, and no, there was no amusement in his voice, only thick, heavy sarcasm, booming out through the holes of his helm. “We meet again, finally.”

If Arthur had been caught off guard by being addressed so suddenly after so long a wait, he made no show of it. “Begone,” he bit back, fury writ all over his face. “How dare you show yourself here again?”

“I have come to offer you one last chance, Your Highness, and if you won’t take it, to close our deal instead. The last time it was Sir Gawain who stepped forward- what say you, now? Do you think you could do better? If so, unsheathe your sword, and let us meet in the field as peers.”

The king hesitated, his hand hovering on the pommel of his sword. He pulled out Excalibur in part, enough to show a bit of the uneven blade – Emma’s father, just a step or two behind Arthur, did the same, as if he’d been the one challenged, and she was flooded by an overwhelming sense of panic in the span of mere moments, struggling to resist the urge to tell them to stand back. Don’t do anything stupid, she begged silently, biting her tongue. Please. We’ve already had enough of that. It won’t do us any good if he cuts off your heads. Arthur’s alone, perhaps, but she wasn’t of a mind to see David topple over with a shorn neck. It would have destroyed her, and her mother, too, even if the two of them were having...difficulties at the moment.

Luckily, Arthur seemed to have other plans. He sheathed the sword again with stiff, brusque movements, then raised his chin sternly, radiating defiance from every pore. “No. I shall not. You won’t see any more men of this court play your games. The rules are rigged.”

The knight didn’t seem particularly troubled as he nodded in return – rather, it felt as though he had been expecting nothing less, and that suspicion was confirmed when he spoke again. “Just as I thought. Well, so be it.”

He reached back to his axe, causing many of the men to raise their weapons again, but he did not make to swing it at anyone. Instead, he grasped it tightly by the handle and bent on one knee, lowering it to lay on the ground before him.

“Then I must declare the terms fulfilled, and our game concluded. Fare thee well, King Arthur, and give my regards to your wife.”

Then he stood upright again, turned on his heels and left, his heavy steps making the ground tremble under their feet. The court watched him walk through the courtyard at a leisure pace, as though out on a casual stroll, and Emma felt that she could not move a muscle, not even the metaphoric cogs in her that prompted her magic to act, as if she, along with everyone else, were holding a collective breath until his enormous figure had disappeared from sight.

Seconds ticked by, impossibly slowly. Then a loud scream rang in her ears, and the spell was broken.

Emma blinked rapidly, attempting to clear the fog from her eyes and mind as the crowd started clamoring around her, their voices overlapping over one another. She opened her mouth to speak to Regina, as well, but found herself staring at the axe still sitting in a cleared-up patch on the ground instead, her tongue too tied up to utter any word.

She had seen right, the first time. There were indeed stains scattered across the blade, covering the metal unevenly, but they weren’t caused by rust, nor by dirt. What had tarnished it was blood, now thick and congealed and thus likely not fresh, smeared in a brownish red all over the green steel.

She jolted in surprise as a hand landed on her shoulder, adrenaline rushing through her veins, but it was just Regina again, an unreadable expression on her face. “It’s alright,” she said, evenly, barely loud enough to be heard over the ruckus, and gestured at a point not too far from them. “Emma, look.”

Emma complied willingly enough, though she couldn’t understand what she was seeing, at first. What the former queen had pointed at was the group of nobles hanging at Arthur’s back, now scattered all over the place and looking around with wide eyes, like fawns caught in a pair of headlights – the king himself appeared more than a little detached, staring at the space the knight had occupied with a dark look in his blue eyes.

Then she saw the girl.

Guinevere had not been in attendance to that spectacle, probably for the sake of her and her child’s safety, but a couple of her lady companions were. One of them, a woman in heavily decorated garments, was bent in two with despair, crying and pulling at her hair – she must have been the one to scream first, Emma realized, and even now she was weeping and wailing, tears streaming freely down her face, her fine bonnet torn off her head and cast unceremoniously to the ground. A man had wrapped his arms around her waist, trying to keep her from doubling over, but it was fruitless, and he didn’t look any less lost than her, anyway, his face slack with shock and grievously pale.

The man had to be in his early forties at least, with a long beard already spotted with grey, but the woman was young, younger than Emma herself by a few years. Her newly uncovered hair was a light shade of brown, the Savior noticed, and it was then that she knew who exactly she was looking at, even before Regina spoke again.

“What do you think?” The mayor asked, the corner of her mouth twitching slightly – a casual onlooker would have thought she might be smiling at the ruin in front of her, but Emma knew better, now. She knew that that expression wouldn’t reach Regina’s eyes, and that it was hiding a brand of barely restrained fury that Arthur should be really, really wary of.

“Because I think, that our poor Sir Gawain might still be able give us a hand- it’s not like he has anything left to lose, now, does he?”

Chapter Text

Lake Soth, some time ago

Lancelot had never felt so useless in his life before.

Even after his self-imposed exile from Camelot, there had been King George to work for, and then Snow, and all the little quests that had come in between, but he was empty handed now, and he hated it. A knight without a journey to undertake, now that was a laugh – who had ever heard such a tale before? Not the bards, that was for sure. They would sing of Lancelot the Purposeless for the decades to come if they’d found out.

Still, Lancelot hadn’t chosen his role in the hopes of his praises being sung by minstrels. He’d wanted to do good. He’d wanted to prove his bravery and protect the weak, before Arthur’s madness had tainted every mission he’d led them all through. And now, with Snow gone and Guinevere all but lost to him, he was struggling to find a way to accomplish that goal, or people who would take protection from a knight whose reputation was so infamous, for that matter.

He'd gone back to his mother’s abode in the hope of finding some peace, but not even the sight of his childhood’s home had been able to soothe his troubled soul, leaving him with hours of restless sleep and a mind full of doubts.

It was quieter than most places he’d visited on his quests, though, at least. Even now, in the dead of night, the lake was still and silent, not marred by any breeze; its lady had long since retired, as well, leaving her son sitting at the water’s edge, alone with his thoughts – not that they were particularly pleasant thoughts, all in all, but it was easier to turn a deaf ear to them in the eerie silence, with nothing but the dark sky above to remind him of the rest of the world.

Distractedly, Lancelot tossed a pebble into the lake, then another, watching the water ripple and bubble in their wake. Most of the creatures that inhabited that place wouldn’t have taken kindly to a stranger disturbing their sleep, but they’d known him since he’d been in swaddling clothes, when his mother had first presented him to all the inhabitants of her domain – they would forgive him for his bothersome pastime, or throw some gravel at his feet in retaliation, at worst.

“’Tis late for a man to go fishing, Sir Lancelot.”

He shot up to his feet instinctively, as was proper when addressed by a female voice, and as was precautionary when approached by an unexpected visitor after dusk. His hand went to the sword at his hip as he turned to regard the newcomer, as well – he’d set aside the armor at his mother’s request, when she’d insisted that no one would dare hurt him so close to home, but he’d yet to give up on walking around armed, a habit he’d had drilled into his head since his squiring days.

The woman smiled widely, as though amused by the alarm she had caused. She didn’t cut a particularly frightening figure, in truth; she was of middling height, the dark hair piled in a widow’s knot atop her head doing nothing to make her look any taller, and she was garbed as one would expect a lady to be, with flowing floor-length robes cinched by a girdle at the waist – and yet, Lancelot felt his suspicion grow, despite her apparent harmlessness. The Lady of the Lake tended not to keep many guests, and she would have warned him of any upcoming arrival, anyway.

Plus, he was trained to sense potential threats – far too well, he sometimes thought, bitterly. He’d have expected to hear her footsteps in the forest grass, particularly since she didn’t look as though she’d dressed for a journey; already the hem of her gown was streaked with mud and treaded with fallen leaves, even if she didn’t appear especially fazed by that fact.

“Apologies, my lady,” he greeted her, with wary politeness. “I did not see you coming. ‘Tis late for travelling, as well.”

The corner of her mouth twitched. “You are right,” she conceded, nodding. “But it could not be avoided. I was in a hurry to reach this place, Sir Lancelot.”

“How do you know my name? Are you a friend of my mother’s?”

“Nay, Ser. Well, she does know of me, but- I’ve come to see you, tonight, before it’s too late.”

She took a step forward, and whatever reply had been building up at the back of Lancelot’s throat, it died immediately as he took in the clearer sight of her.

He would have named her young, at first glance, a year or two above thirty at most, but that had been before she stepped into the dim lighting offered by his mother’s lanterns. Now, though – now he could see her eyes, big, burning eyes of a strange greenish brown shade, staring at him as though they could pierce him through like skewers in a roast.

They looked old, those eyes, almost ancient, for all that there were no lines around them. They looked too deep to be a common woman’s, as well, and instinct made Lancelot rear back, away from their piercing gaze.

“Who are you?” He gritted out, his grip on the pommel of his sword growing even tighter – threatening a lady with bare steel would have been unseemly even for the worst of knights, but Lancelot was no longer so sure this woman was a common lady at all, and his doubts were growing by the second. “What do you want from me?”

“My name is Morgana.” She appeared undeterred by the tension writ clear across his entire body, and a moment later she leaned even closer, her neck craning gracefully like that of a heron. “I have come to warn you of a terrible danger that is about to befall your friend, Snow White.”

“Snow?” That made no sense, even taking into account the oddness of the scene at large. “You lie. The princess Snow White has been cursed along with her people. She doesn’t walk these lands anymore.”

“No, she does not. But she will return, sooner than you think, and when she does she will need you to come to her aid, just as you did in the past.”

Morgana raised a hand, then, abruptly enough to make him pull an inch or two of steel out of its scabbard, but she wasn’t of a mind to harm him, apparently. She simply fiddled with something at the back of her head, instead, and then reached out to take his free hand, pressing the mysterious object onto his palm – he should have pulled himself away the moment her fingers brushed against his, and he would have liked to, in truth, but he was feeling as though lost in a daze, now, distant and detached, his muscles gone slack and unresponsive to his commands.

He could see what she had put in his hand, though. He could see it far clearer than he ought to have any right to, in fact, with how faintly illuminated the lake was – a string of stained leather, it was, and hanging onto it a pendant, made of wicker like a farmer’s basket. It was no bigger than half his palm, and yet for a moment he felt it weighing as heavy as a boulder, as though it were concealing something impossibly dense.

The moment passed, the medallion becoming feathery light once more, and Lancelot looked up to the woman again, lost and disoriented. “What is this? What...what sorcery is this?”

“The kind you will need before long.” Morgana was not smiling now, but there was a strange light in her eyes nonetheless, dancing like a live flame, or like the moonlight across the rippling lake water.

“Now heed my words, and remember them, else you might lose all that you hold dear- the good Queen Guinevere among the rest, Sir Lancelot, if you are not careful with how you act.”

Camelot, present day

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Regina asked, pausing as she laid the ingredients out before Merlin’s tree.

Emma shot her a puzzled glance, raising an eyebrow. “I thought we didn’t have any other choice left.”

“We don’t, but...We are going in blind, as I said. We don’t know for sure if it’s going to work- we could be setting up a timebomb here, for all we know. Are you sure this is a chance you want to take?”

“Well, you taking it alone wouldn’t be much better, would it?” Emma appeared to think it through for a couple of seconds, then she shook her head, her lips pressed into a determined line. “No, we can’t risk it. You said this spell required a lot of energy to cast- neither of us can do it on her own, and I don’t want to try it, anyway. Either it works, and we have a sorcerer on our side, or it doesn’t, and we’ll be in trouble whether it hurts us or not.”

Regina had to agree, much as it pained her to do so. “Did you warn your mother? I mean, she’s tough as old hide now, but...”

“She’ll keep an eye out. Robin?”

“He’s with the kids. I told him he should get them out the moment he hears things going south – he wasn’t very happy, but he’ll do it if needs be.” The corner of the mayor’s lips curled up minutely, though her fond amusement vanished as soon as it had come, struck by a sudden thought. “But Emma, your father...”

“I know. I tried to talk to him, too, but he’s glued to Arthur’s side these days. I guess he’ll find out when the king does, at this rate.”

The Savior had spoken lightly, but Regina could tell she was torn, underneath the determined facade. Not that Regina herself could blame her for it, mind; whatever had prompted David Nolan to side with the lord of the castle had also seemingly deprived him of what little sense he’d had left – he’d been on bad terms with his wife since the beginning of their journey, but now things appeared to have escalated abruptly, turning that kind, if insipid, man into a suspicious wreck.

There was no telling what would happen, if they succeeded in releasing Merlin and breaking free of Arthur’s hold. Would David snap out of his delusion, and come home with them? Or would he insist on staying, loyal to a fault to a kingly fool who by rights should have been the first one to lose his head before all that mess began? The former seemed unlikely, but the latter was too awful to even consider – it would wreak Snow’s heart irreparably, no doubt.

Emma’s heart, too, willful, stubborn streak or not, so Regina didn’t dare voice her doubts aloud, and instead limited herself to saying: “You know I wouldn’t be opposed to knocking him out and dragging him back by his feet, if things come to a head. Heaven knows I’ve always wanted to find out how thick his skull is.”

Emma’s responding grin was quick, thin-lipped and tense, but it was there all the same, so Regina intended to count it as a success. “Yeah, I bet Mom’d pay good money to see it happen, at this point. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. We better get to work now, before someone goes looking for us.”

The sun had dawned already, though that wasn’t much of an indicator for anything, so early night always seemed to come during the winter. The area around the tree was even quieter than usual, most of Camelot’s inhabitants apparently closing ranks in the face of what they’d seen during the afternoon, unwilling to do anything but sit in their feasting halls and pretend at planning – or mourn, in the case of poor young Lady Ardena. Her wails had been audible even long after the knight’s visit, once her husband and a couple of other attendants had struggled to drag her back into the bowels of the castle.

Regina and Emma hadn’t told anyone why they’d approached her in the first place, so said husband must have believed them pulling out a handkerchief to wipe his wife’s tears to be a bizarre show of compassion from a bunch of foreigners, but one had to wonder how much he knew of the reason behind Ardena’s despair. He’d appeared sympathetic, if not downright distraught as well, but he must have noticed that no one else had reacted quite so badly to the proof of Gawain’s demise – no other comely young lady, crucially, which gave the sequence of events a whole new meaning. 

Noblemen could be almost laughably blind and ignorant, in Regina’s experience, but if she’d managed to guess the girl’s identity from a few scattered hints and what piss poor description Pinocchio and Lampwick had been able to offer, then this Lord Bertilak had to have put two and two together, even without the chance to interrogate Gawain himself.

She glanced down at the wooden cup on the ground, lighted by the braziers lit around the circle of walls and by the torches they’d brought along. In a way she was glad to have avoided the need to squeeze grieving tears out of anyone else, though she wished Gawain could have been spared in favor of some more adept royal neck – the other ingredients had been quite easy to gather, most of them already stored away in Merlin’s own tower, and now, with Ardena’s surprise gift safely in her grasp, they could proceed to the final step without further hesitation.

Might be the girl would soon feel thanked plenty for her trouble – if she liked the taste of revenge, that was.

“Ready?” Regina called out, keeping her voice low.

Emma nodded firmly. “Ready,” she agreed, and raised both her hands, palms turned to the cup.

The recipe hadn’t been very exhaustive on the details of how to prompt the spell to act, but Regina had spent a long time parsing through the fine print of Rumpelstiltskin’s teaching for fear of what he might be plotting, enough to make a safe guess where the wording had been elusive. She had no way of checking if her suppositions were correct, but it was too late to doubt herself now – she couldn’t do anything but hope it would work, and that their luck hadn’t already run out.

She pulled out the handkerchief, still damp from Ardena’s tears and wrapped in a piece of burlap to keep it safe - it was an inelegant way to collect an ingredient, but they had neither the time nor the resources to be picky, and besides, Regina was pretty sure she’d gotten her hands much dirtier before. She knelt beside the cup, ready to drop it into the mixture-

“Halt, in the name of the king!”

They startled unanimously, raising their heads to search for the source of that order. Arthur was marching towards them with fury writ all over his face, his cold blue eyes glinting threateningly in the faint light, a dozen or so of his loyal men running at his heels. All of them were armed to the teeth, as though they’d been expecting to face an entire squadron of soldiers, and not two women in ill-fitting elaborate gowns.

“Look who’s joining the party,” Regina muttered tartly. Pride compelled her to stand up and show this little king just who exactly he was dealing with, but that wouldn’t have been the smartest choice, realistically speaking. She had a feeling she should remain as close to the potion as she could, in the following minutes.

Arthur commanded his knights to stop a few feet away from the pair, giving them a wide berth – suspecting a trap, like as not. “Step away from that tree,” he said, loud and stern but not enough to hide the shrill undernote in his voice, as though he were a schoolteacher frustrated by unruly students. “Do not make your position worse than it already is.”

“What do you mean?” Emma replied, frowning. She, too, had yet to move an inch, her feet firmly planted in the grass, standing in front of the tree roots like a makeshift shield. “I thought you wanted to free Merlin. It’s the only reason why you brought us here.”

“That was before I witnessed your treacherous actions. I have no doubt you’d enchant Merlin and turn him against me, if you were to free him. I will not allow it.”

“Treacherous?” Regina scoffed, dry and humorless. The handkerchief was still clutched tightly in her right hand, while fire was starting to alight around the left one, coiling and circling around itself in a vaguely spherical shape. “You mean eating your food and saving little boys from your knights? I wouldn’t want to know what you consider acts of loyalty instead.”

Arthur bristled visibly, then took a step forward, jaw clenched. “Enough of this. I command you-“

“Really?” Regina’ poorly contained fury was all but spilling out of her skin now – not just for his nonsensical words, but for the long, restless weeks this man had put them all through, for Gawain doomed and Ardena mourning and little Roland now afraid of every creak of the bed at night. “You’re less smart than I thought, if you presume you can command me. Emma, now.”

She cast the fireballs right at the knights’ feet, and as they were still jumping out of the way, yelping like pups with a stomped-on tail, she dunked the handkerchief in the bowl, quickly pulling her fingers out before the liquid could damp them.

She felt the pull at her chest before anything else. The light that erupted from the spell was blindingly white, threaded through with fleeting black filaments, and it spun and spun around them, a magical silkworm cocoon that filled her entire field of view – and still its appearance was no match to his strength, tugging at her insides the way a fishing hook would have. Regina could feel her own magic flowing in and out, a two-way street from her to the tree, and she could feel Emma, too, a burning presence at her side and a powerful influx of energy imbuing the enchantment.

That was good, wasn’t it? Regina gritted her teeth, trying to maintain focus, but her ears were ringing too loud for her brain to keep a hold of any thought for more than a couple seconds at a time. The recipe said they ought to be vessels for the spell, and that was what they were doing, right? It had to be. The strain it was taking had to be heavy and taxing enough to count as a weight carried along.

Time had muddled around her. The spell could have lasted a minute, a day, or an hour, before she felt the first crack forming into the flux – she doubled her efforts in response, pushing against the rift with all her might, but she realized with desperation that it was getting worse, broadening under her fingers like a ravine during an earthquake.

Then, the world exploded around her.

Regina was thrown back several feet, her knees and elbows scraping painfully against the stubby dead grass. She gasped for breath, raising her head with some difficulty – there were bursts of white flashing before her eyes still, as though she’d been staring at the sun for too long, and she blinked rapidly, trying to wipe them away as she finally regarded the scene in front of her.

Emma was sprawled to the ground in a similar fashion to her, struggling to get onto her hands and knees. Arthur and his men had been a bit farther from the eye of the storm – they’d only been knocked off their feet, apparently, and were now turning their heads left and right, dumbfounded, some looking frantically at their king, other at the tree that towered in the middle of the courtyard.

The tree. The tree was still there. In fact, it seemed to be just in the same shape as before, its trunk unmarred, its leaves too green and verdant for the season.

And, most importantly, there was no Merlin standing in front of them, no long-lost sorcerer with a white beard and a pointy hat in sight.

“Shit.” Emma had pushed her way back to her side – her face was smeared with soot and grime now, but she appeared mostly unharmed, to which Regina’s heart gave a brief jolt of relief. “It didn’t work. Regina, we got it all wrong. What now?”

“I don’t know.” The mayor scanned the area quickly, and then felt dread punching her in the gut, hair raising in the back of her neck.

Arthur was laboriously getting to his feet, now, but that wasn’t the only problem. The flames from her fireball hadn’t died it, instead growing bigger and spreading further, and so, apparently, had all the torches and braziers – the blast had made them blaze even taller, lapping at the nearest flags and standards, and wherever Regina looked there were small fires blooming, from a particularly dry patch of grass to the very top of the walls.

The castle was beginning to burn, and what was worse, she didn’t think she could extinguish all of it, not with the energies she’d just spent and the unnatural, mystical source of the flames.

“Hold on tight,” she shouted, rather than dwelling on that terrifying prospect, and grabbed Emma by the wrist, her free hand flicking in a familiar motion that made them both vanish from the courtyard in a cloud of smoke.

She’d aimed for the castle wing where they’d installed all the guests. She’d expected, upon opening her eyes, to find polished stone and carved bedroom doors. But once she felt her feet collide against something solid again, staggering with exhaustion, there was only more grass and mud in the vicinity, and trees lined up as far as one could see.

“What?” Emma coughed out, bracing herself against her knees. “Where are we? Why did you take us here?”

“I didn’t,” Regina replied, disoriented. “I wanted- we were supposed to get Robin and Snow. What the hell is going on?”

She’d have pinned the mistake onto her own tiredness, or the crazy stunt she and the other woman had just tried to pull, but there hadn’t been any of the stumbles she’d experienced as a girl, only a clean, straightforward redirection, with barely the slightest hitch in the magic. It made no sense – or it would have made no sense, if they hadn’t been currently residing in a place seemingly devoid of any logic or reason.

Tentatively, she tried to will her powers into following the previous route back to the castle, but was met with a fierce resistance a mere few seconds later, not so dissimilar from the one the knight had evoked around himself only hours prior to that, preventing her and Emma from attacking him. It was a cloying, unpleasant sensation, like sticking her hand into a tub full of jelly, and after a couple of attempts Regina retracted herself forcibly, her muscles sore and her skin clammy as though she’d just ran a half marathon.

“We’re locked out,” she said, frustration clear in her voice. “We- this shouldn’t be possible. We’ve never had any trouble doing magic before. What did that idiot do now?”

She waited a long moment for Emma’s answer, a suggestion or even just a bout of enraged solidarity, but there was nothing. She dreaded looking any further around, for fear of running into yet more trouble – and was that the gleam of fire, on the distant horizon? Could they possibly have been transported so far away from the castle? Could the flames already be doing so much damage? – but as the silence protracted, she couldn’t help but glance to the side, searching for the Savior. “Well? Any ideas?”

More silence, and nothing else. Emma wasn’t even looking at her, for God’s sake; she was staring into the darkened forest at Regina’s back, instead, her expression tense and her eyes wide and wondering. Regina very nearly asked what she’d seen that was so important as to ignore the very real problem at hand, but then she followed the other’s gaze, not even bothering to conceal her puzzlement.

She found her eyes looking up, up, and up some more, her head craned back and a wearily annoyed whisper escaping her mouth: “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

Above them, the chapel loomed silently, grand and glorious and green in the scant moonlight.

The first blow against the door came as Snow was pulling on her boots.

She wasn’t surprised; she’d been expecting some reaction ever since she’d heard the blast coming from down in the yard. Even before, as she’d pretended to sleep, her eyes had been open and alert, her hand hidden under the pillow and clutching a poker she’d taken from the fireplace in her room – she was under no delusion that she might truly be able to fight her way out of the room, in case of need, but her time has a bandit had taught her to never underestimate the pros of keeping a weapon close at all times, especially when your opponent would expect it less.

She had no plans of fighting for long, now, though. If the ruckus below was of any indication, then there was trouble afoot, and she couldn’t hope to protect herself without Emma at her side – and her daughter hadn’t returned yet, with or without Merlin. Her prospects were limited, lacking magic or, in truth, anything to shield herself with save her creaking bones.

Snow was just hoping that Emma was alright, at present. She and Regina would watch each other’s back, no doubt, but even that might not be enough, with Arthur’s entire guard dawning on them.

A couple more blows, stronger this time, in a more rapid succession. One or two slivers of wood had already fallen to the floor, having been smashed out of the door – they had to be using a hammer, or the back of an axe, Snow supposed. She could see the glint of metal through the splintering hole, but no sharp blade to account for.

She straightened up, her fingers sweaty where they were wrapped around the hilt of the poker. She couldn’t fight, but she could make these knightly loons waste a lot more time than they would have otherwise – she doubted they would try to hurt her on the spot, especially if the king didn’t have all the answers he needed to be satisfied, but she doubted that they would stop at seizing her, too, and Robin was guarding the children only a few doors down the hall, unless he had moved already. If she could just distract the guards a little longer, maybe it would be enough for him to spirit them away and find Emma. Maybe.

Unless...

God, let it not be David, she prayed, silently. Everyone else, I’ll take it. I’ll fight Arthur, I’ll fight the whole Round Table, but not him. I can’t take it. I can’t.

At long last, they seemed to have finally broken the door to their satisfaction. It swung open with a creak, revealing a group of four or five men wearing Camelot’s livery – the first one was holding a heavy mace, rather than a sword, just as she had guessed, but they all had the same bland, copy-paste furious glare on their faces, as though they’d practiced in front of a mirror before entering.

None of them were David. Snow allowed herself a very, very brief relieved exhale, then conjured up a politely surprised expression, on the verge of a smile. “May I help you?”

“Put down the weapon,” the one with the mace ordered stiffly. “You are to be brought before the king under the accuse of high treason against the crown-“

“Weapon? My good ser, I was merely stoking up the fire-“

“Now!”

She pressed her lips together, mimicking contempt. “As you wish.”

Very slowly, she bent down and set the poker onto the bedrug. Her heart was hammering in her throat and ears, despite the collected mask she was wearing – she pressed her hand against her chest, in a futile attempt to steady it as well as herself, and her thumb brushed against something rounded and polished, laying flush against her skin.

Of course. Lancelot’s medallion. Snow had spent those last, endless few days constantly fidgeting with it during every waking hour, but now she’d almost forgotten about his existence, so engaged she’d been by the new bout of chaos surrounding her. She didn’t know what to make of it, either – Regina had deemed it magical, but not dangerous, and no other hint had come her way since, so all she had were Lancelot’s own words, cryptic as they had been.

Besides, he’d said not to open it, hadn’t he? No, she remembered now - open it when the situation looks dire, he’d said. When you don’t know what else to do.

When you don’t-

Oh. Oh, she’d been a proper old fool, she had. She’d need to take up knitting and bridge playing upon their return to Storybrooke, if she kept up like this.

The woman straightened up, as dignifiedly as she could muster. The small group was advancing towards her now, all except for one of them, who had remained at the door to stand guard – they probably thought her too fragile to start a fight two grown men couldn’t handle, nevermind three or four. Meanwhile, her hand was still at her throat, the pads of her fingers brushing experimentally against the latch.

When the knights had gotten close enough, Snow grabbed it firmly, pulled it away, and pried the pendant open.

Only five seconds prior to that move, had anyone asked, she couldn’t have told them what she believed the necklace to contain. Perhaps a signal of sort, yes, a transporting spell, anything that might help her escape danger, but she would have never been able to go into detail as to how, not for the life of her.

What she certainly would have never expected was to see a great big black mass pour out of it, thick and viscous, flowing to the floor in a burst of speed.

No, not black, Snow’s mind amended numbly a moment later. In the open it took on dark blue-green highlights, the shade people in the other land called petrol blue, like the sea further from the coast. And it wasn’t shapeless for long, either; once it touched the ground it split and condensed into a myriad of smaller figures, four-legged and howling in unintelligible noises, who sprung forward towards the stunned men – foxes, she realized after a short while, once her brain had overcome the shock enough to make out their pointy ears and slick, fluffy tails.

She had never seen foxes so strange, though, eyeless and featureless like shadow puppets, nor foxes so big, even on hunting trips; they were easily the size of a golden retriever, but with thicker middles and stubbier feet, eerie and graceful despite that. They threw themselves at the knights with unanimous fervor, barking their strange bark – the man holding the door stepped away with a shout of terror, but one reached him all the same, lunging for his face with an open yet invisible mouth.

His screams were dimmed down instantly as he fell to the ground, flailing, inky jaws wrapped around his head, and after what felt like mere seconds they stopped completely, his arms laying limply at his sides. Then, there was silence.

Too much silence, really - Snow snapped out of her reverie, a sudden bout of adrenaline rushing through her veins. She’d sunk back on her knees at some point, while watching the nightmare-like creature make short order of her assailer, and her mouth was gaping in horror, though her hands were pressed tightly against it; she forced herself to snap it shut, sinking her nails in the soft flesh of her palms, and to look around properly, wondering why she couldn’t hear the others’ voices any longer.

It was immediately clear why. There were no more knights standing, only a few bodies scattered all over the floor, the nearest one not two feet from her, the furthest laying crookedly across the entrance and keeping the door ajar. Some of the foxes were nosing at their faces and hands, emitting guttural little chirps, but others weren’t – one in particular, the smallest one, approaching a normal size for that kind of animal, was standing still and looking intently at Snow, its head tilted as if with curiosity.

Snow made herself meet its gaze, though there was no proper gaze to meet. One of its ears flicked, the barest hint of an acknowledgement, then the fox turned around and darted out of the room without further ado, in a flash of sweeping tail.

As if following a cue, the others stepped off the bodies and grouped back together, following it at a more sedate pace. They were still walking with multiple sets of feet, and yet as the woman watched them go her vision seemed to blur them together, as though they had once again turned into a nameless, pliable mass of darkness.

She stared at the door for what felt like ages, long after they had left, before she felt stable enough to try to move a muscle. She was standing up on shaking feet, holding onto the bed for support, when she heard a newer set of footsteps approaching quickly – Snow stiffened, her fingers groping blindly for something else to throw at the intruder, but she knew, deep down, that there was nothing left. Only her and the dead, and they wouldn’t raise a finger to defend her any more than they’d done while they were still alive.

Then Lancelot appeared in the doorframe, panting for breath, donning his old armor once again.

She let out a small cry - out of shock or sheer relief, she didn’t know. The knight’s eyes went wide when they noticed her, and he crossed the room in a few swift strides, catching her by the arm to keep her steady. “It’s alright, Snow. I found you. You’re safe.”

Snow wasn’t sure if she wanted to hug him or for him to slap her in the face and wake her from that nightmare. “How?” She choked out, in lieu of either choice. “How did you know where I was?”

“You would not believe me if I told you.” Lancelot turned left and right, scanning the carnage at their feet. “What happened here?”

Despite herself, the woman felt the corner of her mouth tugging slightly upwards, somewhat hysterically. “You wouldn’t believe me, either.”

He searched her face for a long moment, then he shook his head, his lips pressed into a grim line, seemingly trying to clear it from any hesitation. “No matter. We can discuss it at another time. We need to leave, now.”

“Leave?” Snow echoed him, puzzled. “And go where?”

“Somewhere safer, for now.”

“But why? What’s going on?”

Lancelot looked at her again, and there was no risk assessment in that gaze, now, only immense, genuine surprise, as though she’d just said something completely outlandish.

“Haven’t you seen? The castle is burning.”

Chapter Text

“It’s late, Papa,” Roland whined, rubbing at his tired eyes with a chubby fist. “Where’re we going?”

Robin shushed him, as soothingly as he could muster, but he felt it was much harder to reassure his own troubled self than it was with his son. It didn’t help that he was currently carrying the boy with his left arm, for fear that he would get lost or left behind – Camelot’s long, suffocating hallways would have been an overwhelming environment even if the man had had access to his trusty bow, nevermind a short-range weapon like a sword, a tool he was much less familiar with.

It couldn’t be helped, though. He couldn’t risk any harm coming to the kids, and if the oldest two were savvy enough to know when to duck and when to make a run for it, Roland was much too young for any of that – already Robin kept glancing hurriedly over his shoulder, to ensure that Lampwick and Pinocchio were both still at his heels. A third tagalong would have only made everything worse.

The boys were keeping up the pace, though, mercifully. Pinocchio appeared only slightly less lost than Roland, trailing behind them with big, vacant eyes, but Lampwick had a look of grim determination on his face that would have rivaled any adult’s, the knife he’d used to defend himself against Gawain – to defend Robin’s own son – tucked into his belt. It was probably a ruse, a cheap facade to hide how scared he truly was, but one had to admire the effort nonetheless.

“Shouldn’t we go look for the sheriff?” The kid asked after a moment, probably feeling Robin’s gaze on himself. “If there’s anyone who knows what’s going on, that’s gotta be her.”

“Later. First we need to get away from the fire. We’ll figure out the rest from there.”

It seemed the flames had yet to reach their wing of the castle, at least. Whatever had happened in the heart of the courtyard – and Robin was praying Emma and Regina were keeping well away from that, despite what reason kept suggesting him – it was now licking at the outer walls of Camelot, not far enough for them to be considered out of peril, but still at plenty of a distance for the corridors they were crossing to be silent and empty of people rushing to get out.

Far too empty, as a matter of fact. Robin had seen his fair share of forest fires, both the small, contained ones and the ones that had threatened to raze down his camp more than once, and he knew that distance and dimension mattered nothing in the face of panic. Most folks went into a frenzy at the mere sight of something burning, particularly if that something was bigger than a bonfire – they should have been out of their rooms at the first whiff of smoke, trampling each other down in their hurry to safety, and yet there was no sign of life anywhere.

It was somewhat unnerving, that silence. Robin would have been of a mind to start banging on doors and yelling at people to come out, if he hadn’t known most of them would be likely to hunt his group down and drag it bodily to the king. Where could everyone be, at such a time? Could they really still be sleeping – all of them, nobles and servants and even the night watch, for whom staying up past sundown was an entire job?

As it was, he couldn’t afford to stop and ponder on it a minute longer. Instead, he pressed on, keeping an ear out for any sound that might cut through the quiet, still air of the castle.

He wasn’t certain of their route himself, in truth, though he was trying to hide it from the children. Out of there was a broad goal to have, and Camelot was a bloody maze; all hallways looked the same, endless lines of cold gray stone and thick wooden doors, and while he was pretty sure they were heading down, the winding, repetitive staircases were doing a number on his mind, making him wonder whether they might actually be going around in circles, stuck in the same spot without noticing.

It was impossible, of course. Down was still down and up was still up, magic or not, and Robin had no doubt Lampwick would have protested loudly, if he’d noticed an unusual change of directions – his brash, boisterous attitude would have been grating in times of peace, but now it was almost refreshing, a solid certainty in a land that persisted in not making sense, where both Roland and Pinocchio seemed to be affected by the unwelcoming atmosphere.

The boy was keeping his mouth shut at the moment, though, in a rare demonstration of sticking to the rules given, and so were his younger friends; as such, Robin caught the unmistakable noise of clanging steel and muttering voices in the distance immediately, and he felt dread coil around his chest as he heard the ruckus draw nearer, louder by the second.

He drew to a halt, gesturing for the other two to stop behind him, the bandit cogs in his brain ticking furiously. The tall, arched ceilings caused every whisper to echo like a drumbeat, making other people feel closer than they were, but all the same, it was too late to escape without being seen – the newcomers, knights or guards or whatever they might be, couldn’t be further than a few corner turns, and they were making good time as well, stomping heavily on the tiled floor. They would be on the four of them in a matter of minutes, and there would be no avoiding them, then.

Robin whipped his head around, scanning the place they’d been forced to stop at. Going back the way they’d come would have only delayed the inevitable, and there was not much else to take into account – a few torches, burning low and still casting enough light not to leave any blind spots; chamber doors, no doubt barred or locked; a window, looming too distant above the ground below to be a safe escape route.

That, and the narrow slit of a passageway ensconced into the wall, one of the more hidden paths servants would take, to carry on with their chores without showing the latter’s nastiest details to any noble guests.

Robin allowed himself one more second of indecision, eyes flitting from the passage to the hallway end where he knew their captors would appear. Then he bent down and handed his son over to Lampwick – the boy instinctively opened his arms, adjusting his stance to bear Roland’s weight, but soon enough his eyes went wide with surprise, his mouth already opening to protest. “What-“

The man shushed him, nudging the three of them towards the barely visible opening. “There’s no time,” he whispered, his hand lingering one additional second on Roland’s curly hair. “I’ll hold them back while you get out of this place. Find Emma and Regina if you can, they’ll know what to do. And you, kid- you’re the oldest. You’re in charge until you find the others, alright? Look after them.”

“But-“

“Papa-“

“No buts.” Robin shoved them in the right direction, urgently. “I’ll catch up with you. Now go. Go!”

Finally, they went, stumbling and hobbling down the barely visible stone steps, but going nevertheless. The man watched them until they disappeared, but already he was sheathing his loaned sword, reaching for the bow slung across his back and for the quiver of arrows beside it.

His opponents were almost onto him - Robin turned his back to the passageway, nearly entirely concealing it from view, and nocked the first arrow, muscle memory doing most of the work. Oddly, it wasn’t the possible number of guards that was taking up space in his mind, or the boys heading away from danger, but Regina, who’d kissed him almost ferociously before going off to wake Merlin, and who’d drilled it into him that he should think of no one but himself, in case of need, himself and the children, the rest of the world be damned.

Well. He’d succeeded in most of his tasks, it seemed. Regina would be proud of him, eventually, after berating him for picking such a reckless way to do it.

The first man rounded the nearest corner. Robin let his arrow loose, burrowing it in the other’s shoulder with a muffled thump, and suddenly he was slipping seamlessly into his element, not thinking about anything at all beside the bow and the target.

Emma’s boot collided with the chapel door, prompting a loud crack out of it.

It didn’t budge, of course, no more than it had done with her attempts at magicking it open, or Regina’s, for that matter. The tall, intricately carved doors had looked damp and rotten at first glance, and yet neither of them had let the two women pass, the wood creaking and whining and still remaining stubbornly stuck in its place. It could have been explained by a set of rusted hinges, in ordinary circumstances, but there was nothing ordinary about that building – common wood and iron weren’t supposed to resist magic, and yet no spell had gotten them to move, just as the pair hadn’t managed to return to the castle.

“This is pointless,” Regina groaned, wiping at her forehead with the back of her hand – the strain had brought a thin coating of sweat to her face, and there was still grime clinging to the sleeves of her tunic, after their failed stunt in the courtyard. “We’re just wasting time here. There’s nothing in this place for us- we should be trying to get back, instead.”

“And how do you plan on doing that?” Emma slammed her hands on the doors, feeling frustration build up her throat, but it did nothing except make her palms sting and smart after the impact. “We don’t know the way back, and anyway, it’d be a suicide mission- if our magic doesn’t work, then we don’t have any weapons, Regina. We don’t stand a chance against Arthur’s knights.”

“So what’s you plan? Keep on kicking that door until the forest burns down? Your mother is in that castle, Emma! And Robin, and the kids-“

“I know!” The sheriff snapped back, then she forced herself to relax her stance, despite the adrenaline rushing through her body. They were both worried, and still reeling because of Merlin’s prolonged and unplanned absence – they wouldn’t accomplish anything by shouting at each other, despite the temporary relief it might give them.

“I know,” she repeated, finally, more quietly. “You’re right. Nothing about this makes sense. But even if we don’t get lost in the woods, going back empty-handed is only going to make things worse. The boys said they saw traces of other people in here, so maybe there’s something we can use, and- and we don’t have any other choice, do we? I’d rather have a brick to throw at Arthur than nothing at all.”

Regina stared at her for a long moment, eyes blazing with tension, then she looked back at the chapel and sighed, straightening her back. “Alright,” she said, grimly. “What are you hoping to find, then? A green axe in your size?”

That was the million-dollar question, Emma mused, though she didn’t dare voice her doubts aloud, now that she’d gotten her friend to settle somewhat. Regina’s comments were correct, realistically speaking; they’d never find anything but dirt inside or, worst case scenario, some monsters – definitely not an army to lead against Camelot, or a weapon to end all their squabbles.

But even so, she couldn’t deny the incredible pull these green ruins were having on her, not unlike that of a giant magnetic field. Merlin’s tree had been their best shot at going home, but if there was one place aside from the castle that could by any chance be the key to solving that mess, then they were standing right in front of it – and not by their choice, either, so unless they’d just been incredibly lucky, there were other forces at play beside their own.

Still, she settled for saying: “I’m not sure yet. I’d like these things to open, for a start- Lampwick wouldn’t tell me how they got in, the last time, and I don’t really want to go crawling around in the dark looking for a hole in the wall, unless it’s our only option.”

“Well, it can’t get any worse than this,” Regina replied. “What else can we do? Knock? Cross ourselves? I heard that’s the proper thing to do, when walking into a church- or maybe this counts as a lord’s residence, since a knight’s living there.”

She raised her voice, then, almost startingly out of the blue, glaring daggers at the chapel. “Well? Is that it? Do we have to request an audience? Because it should be the other way around, you know- we’re of higher standing than you, Ser. This is not how you welcome a queen and a princess.”

Her words hung in the air for a moment, cutting through the silence of the forest. Then, with a high-pitched, obnoxious creaking, the double doors swung inwards, opening enough to give them a glimpse of the chapel’s interiors.

The two women stared at them, stunned beyond words. “Seriously?” Regina wondered aloud, at last. “I was joking. Mostly.”

“Well, maybe this green knight has a sense of humor,” Emma said, tiredness seeping in her voice once more.

“Come on. We should go, before it decides to close again.”

Lampwick had spoken at length of how dark the room had been, but nothing could have prepared them for its stink. It was a foul, cloying smell, one that clung to Emma’s skin and clothes like cigarette smoke – the ruined windows gave way to a few slivers of light, but they weren’t letting in any fresh air, making the chapel almost unbearably stuffy. It was a wonder that Pinocchio had lasted so long without passing out, stuck in a place such as this.

Then again, Pinocchio hadn’t said much regarding his stay in the chapel, and even less when it had come to describing the environment, so mayhaps it hadn’t smelled so horribly, at that time.

At the other end of the building, directly facing the door, the knight was sitting in a monumental stone seat, his hands leaning onto the armrests. Above his head was a grand rose window, like those Emma had only ever seen in her art history books in high school – it would have been magnificent, if it had been clean, but it looked as though centuries of dust and mold had crept onto the glass, leaving only a few glimpses of its old splendors. It casted a dirty, gloomy light onto the giant man, shining a nauseating green down the closed visor of his helm and making strange shadows dance across his armor.

“Be welcome, my ladies,” he said, his greeting booming through the empty hall. “I was expecting you.”

“Were you, now?” Regina asked, skeptically. She hadn’t taken more than a couple steps inside the chapel, as had Emma, and they were still hovering close to each other, wary of anything that might move around them.

The knight nodded, slow and grave. “Aye, my lady. The hour is late- you will need my help, and me yours, if we are to stop King Arthur’s folly before our time runs out.”

He pushed himself up, raising to his full height. He’d looked impressively tall already under the open sky of the courtyard, but the enclosed space made it all the worse, his head perilously close to the faded ceiling decorations and his axe bigger and broader than anything Emma had ever seen before – he didn’t reach out to grab it, and instead held his hands up peaceably, fingers open and empty.

“I know you have no reason to put your trust in me, but I am your ally in this quest. Have been for longer than you think, in truth.”

“But why?” Emma called out, unable to stop herself. She was starting to feel more than a little unnerved – the knight’s eyes weren’t visible, shadowed and hidden, and yet she had the bizarre sensation that she was being watched from all sides, like a prey circled by hunters. “Why are you doing all this? What did Arthur do to you?”

The man, if a man he was at all, appeared to hesitate, his gauntlet clanking and tinkling as his huge hand balled into a fist. “He has punished me unduly for my mistakes, Savior, and hurt me and mine with his decisions,” he replied, finally. “And many, many more heinous things we shouldn’t speak of tonight. I know you are eager to return to your friends- I would not delay you more, if it can be helped.”

That wasn’t an answer, Emma thought, but before she could repeat it out loud, Regina had leaned forward and spoken already, her brow furrowed in disbelief. “You think that the three of us can just fight a castle’s worth of people and take it from under Arthur’s nose?”

“He doesn’t speak for the entire castle,” the knight interjected, and then, somewhat amusedly, cutting off any eventual protest: “And we aren’t alone in this endeavor, either.”

There was a rumble to their left, like that of stone rubbing against stone. Emma’s head swiveled around, her heart pounding in her ears, but now the noise was coming from the right side of the chapel as well, and its front, and its back – she didn’t know where she would need to look first, or what to look for to begin with, so surrounded she was by this abrupt change.

Then she saw the statues.

She’d seen them already, of course. It would have been hard to miss the couple dozen vaguely human figures marking the perimeter of the hall, some in decent shape, some clearly lacking limbs or clumps of body even in the scantly visible nooks they were standing in, but she hadn’t deigned them of more than a glance – they had been green and sturdy and unmoving, fading in the background like another row of windows, so focused she’d been on the giant creature waiting for their arrival.

Now, though, there was hardly anything fixed about them. Rather, they were climbing with quiet, fluid movements off their pedestals, too smooth for something that had been frozen in place only seconds prior; the ladies lifted their stone gowns gracefully to reveal dainty stone feet, the soldiers lifted heavy stone weapons – even the statue nearest to Regina, whose right leg was puckered  and crumbling, hobbled down favoring the left one, and then stood at attention while leaning against the wall, its empty, sightless eyes staring vacantly at the knight, its vacuous expression unchanging.

All of them were staring at the knight, in truth, docile and patient like subordinates waiting for orders from their commander, and Emma found herself following their eyes, a chill running down her spine when she finally crossed his own, green, invisible gaze.

“You see, Lady Emma?” The monstrous man said, with a peevish tone to his words that suddenly, inexplicably rung a familiar bell somewhere deep inside her.

“If it’s an army you wanted, we have our very own- and they will fight for us willingly, contrary to Arthur’s men.”

“So,” Lampwick ventured, after a while, “any idea where we’re going?”

Pinocchio shook his head, then, realizing his friend probably couldn’t see him that well, replied out loud: “I don’t know. Let’s just keep going.”

They were descending, that much was certain. It was almost completely dark in the passage, save for the occasional opening in the wall showing the way a few feet ahead, but small, uneven steps had been carved into the stone, and they were leading the three boys downwards again – Pinocchio supposed they must have passed two or three floors already, though it was hard to tell, because time seemed to stretch indefinitely in that place. They’d heard movement a couple times, when nearing a door, but they hadn’t dared take a look at who it might be, and had instead pressed themselves against the wall, barely breathing.

It had been a while since they’d caught anything, however. That was for the best, of course, because very few people in that castle were their friends and they couldn’t hope for Emma or the mayor or Robin Hood to come save them right now, but it made everything that much worse, too. Pinocchio would have given everything for someone to tell him what to do, someone older, smarter, who might know why Camelot was being so loud and bright around him while his friends stumbled around in pitch black silence.

He hadn’t told Lampwick about it, but he wagered the other boy had guessed something, at least. They knew each other too well, after all, and Lampwick had been the only one privy to most of the weird stuff he’d been experiencing, too, and anyway no one in their right mind would have let Pinocchio lead the group, on any other day. Pinocchio didn’t have a good sense of direction. He’d get lost all the time, back home, lost or distracted, and then one of his friends would need to take his hand and lead him back to Main Street.

Lampwick’s hands were full, now, though, and Pinocchio’s eyes were doing that thing again, the one that had been driving him crazy since his meeting with the knight. He could feel that it was dark, somehow, but all he could see was stark, shining red, rippling on every surface and signaling where he should put his feet. The walls were red, the steps were red, and they were as clear for him as they would have been in daylight – he wondered if that was what cats saw, when their pupils grew big like saucers at night.

That was a terrifying thought. He didn’t want to have a cat’s eyes, no more than he wanted the keen perception he was being saddled with – he was a little ways ahead of the others, a hand on the cold stone and his back turned to them, and yet he knew that Roland was crying, fat, sloopy tears running down his face, and that Lampwick was chewing at the inside of his cheek again, even thought he’d said he would stop before he cut it open once more. Even their footsteps boomed unnaturally in his ears, making him wince at every turn.

It was unbearable, it was. He just hoped it would get better once they’d gotten out, far away from all that wrongness and closer to Emma’s comforting presence, otherwise he was afraid he would start screaming like a madman.

“We must be going to the kitchens,” he said then, to reassure both himself and the others. “Twinkle told me about this kind of thing once. She says they always lead to the kitchen at some point, because that’s where all servants need to get anyway.”

“And what does Twinkle know of this bloody place, uh?”

“She was a servant, stupid. Rich people’s houses all look alike, even when they’re this big.”

Lampwick scoffed derisively. “Well, I wouldn’t know, myself. Never set foot in one before.”

He was making an effort to be his cutting, mocking usual self, but his breath was coming in a little too quickly for it to be believable. He had yet to let go of Roland, but the younger boy had to be heavier than a babe in arms, and though Lampwick was tall for his age and pretty strong, even he would struggle with such a weight – they couldn’t hope to go on like this forever, really. Sooner or later they would need to slow down, or worse, stop entirely, and then who knew what might happen to them.

It seemed their prayers had been listened to, though. At last the stairs came to an end onto a narrow landing, twisting in a curve from where a faint bout of light seemed to be coming. Pinocchio crept forward as quietly as he could manage, peeking around the corner, but there was nobody in sight, only a series of bland, unadorned rooms – they must have reached the servants’ quarters for real, after all.

Lampwick caught up with him and, after a cursory glance, put Roland down with a soft groan, taking the boy’s smaller hand into his own. He reached out for Pinocchio, too, out of instinct, and the latter clutched his fingers just as mechanically while they looked around, catching their breath.

“Doesn’t look like the kitchens to me,” Lampwick remarked, a few seconds later. “Pretty hot in here, though.”

Pinocchio hummed distractedly in agreement. The rest of the castle had been closer to a walk-in freezer, the cold seeping into his arms and legs, but now he could feel warmth pricking at his face again, somehow. “We must have gotten closer to the fire. Robin Hood said it started from outside.”

“Alright, but we can’t stay inside, anyway. We should find a way out, come on. I don’t want to be roasted like a chicken, you know-“

“Who goes there?”

They froze in unison, their eyes darting to the direction the voice had come from. Lampwick’s hand let go of Pinocchio and went to the knife at the older boy’s waist, instead, though he seemed hesitant to pull it out just yet. For his part, Pinocchio could feel sweat beading on the back of his neck – they had nowhere to run to, and it would have done nothing good, anyway. They were too small and tired to do any difference, and though there were three of them, a single grown-up could easily overpower them, and it was two grown-ups who were coming their way now, because a second one was talking now, one that sounded kind of-

Familiar?

“For God’s sake, Lancelot,” the second voice, a woman’s voice, cut sternly through their indecision. “Let me pass- it’s the kids, see? Our kids.”

Pinocchio’s legs very nearly gave out in shocked relief as Snow White appeared in their field of view, followed by brawny man wearing a knight’s armor – he was openly armed, carrying a sword in his right hand and a torch in the left, and yet the princess didn’t appear to be intimidated by him in the slightest, so he was probably someone she trusted. She hadn’t looked anywhere so at ease next to Prince Charming, her husband, whose mere presence lately had been enough to make Pinocchio tense and nauseous, but the stranger didn’t make him feel any such thing, which must mean she’d made the right call.

The woman hurried over to the trio and bent slightly to inspect them more closely – it was as though she couldn’t believe her eyes, and she kept touching them on the shoulder or head, as if she needed to test whether they were truly there or not. “Thank goodness you’re alright,” she said, brushing her fingers on Roland’s tear-stained cheek. “We came looking for you, but we didn’t- what happened? Where is Robin?”

“He stayed back,” Pinocchio replied, hating the way his voice wavered as he spoke. He was happy there was someone else around to take the reins, now, but that didn’t mean he had to act like a sniveling baby – he’d been brave thus far, he could be brave a little longer. That was the point. That was the whole point. “To cover for us- there were some guards.”

Snow White went still for a moment, then she nodded and turned slightly to meet the man’s gaze. He shook his head, mouth pressed into a thin line. “We can’t go back. It’s too dangerous- I think the fire’s gotten to the southern tower, now. I need to see to your safety before we attempt to find the rest of your friends.

“I know.” She glanced back at the boys, a tremulous, forced smile on her lips. “Everything’s going to be fine, okay? This is Ser Lancelot. He’s an old friend of mine, so you can trust him. He’ll help us get out of here and find Emma.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

The coppery, revolting, red taste was filling Pinocchio’s mouth once more. Even before he whipped around with the rest of the group to check who had spoken, even before he caught Snow White stiffening at the sight of the newcomer, he knew what he was about to see – the wave of nausea rushing through his body, the mixture of well-known and wrong and dangerous, left no space for any doubts.

Prince Charming had entered the room, his own sword unsheathed. At his back were a dozen or so men wearing the king’s livery, just like the ones who had found Pinocchio in the woods – his clothes were plainer, in contrast, but there was no doubt about whether he was on their side or not. Their gazes were shifting from him to the princess and her companions, as if expecting him to know what to do, rather than checking he wouldn’t try to turn on them instead.

In the corner of his eye, Pinocchio caught Snow White stiffening, moving so that she could face her husband, a step ahead from the rest of them. It was a subtle shift, and still the way she was glaring at the prince was not nearly as easy to ignore, her chin raised defiantly and her eyes stony.

“David,” she said, evenly, “you know it doesn’t need to go like this.”

He scoffed, his brow furrowed in anger. “Don’t you understand? All of you have left Arthur with no choice. You were supposed to rule, too- you wouldn’t have let any of this pass, either, if you’d been in his place.”

“We were supposed to rule together. You’re telling me you would have been such a cruel king, if the curse hadn’t been cast?”

“I guess we’ll never know. Those times are long gone, and so is Emma- you made sure of both a while ago, didn’t you?” The prince’s stance changed as he leaned a bit forward, as if preparing to pounce. “So where is she, Snow? Where is your daughter?”

“It hurts me to say this, it really does, but- hopefully far away from you.” Snow White sighed heavily, opening her arms with something that felt like resignation. “Bring me to your king, if he really wants a scapegoat. That should make both of you happy. But- let the children go, David. You know, deep down, that they’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Not a chance. He wants to see you all, now. Starting...” He gestured with the hilt of his sword towards Lancelot, who had stepped forward as well, his grip on his weapon tightening and his gaze keen and focused. “...from him.”

Prince Charming raised his free hand, motioning for his men to close ranks, which they did immediately, with a shrill tinkling of chainmail.

“Seize them.”

Chapter Text

Camelot, a year ago

“Are you certain that you need to leave so soon?” Bertilak nagged at him as they reined their horses to a stop together, deep in the woods of his land and away from the rest of the hunting party. “Surely, His Highness can do without you for a month or two more.”

Gawain chuckled light-heartedly, trying to ignore the unease slithering through his chest. “Perhaps he could. But it wouldn’t do, to make the king beg for my return. I need to go back to my duties, and recount what I’ve seen during my journey.”

The older man sighed heavily, shaking his head. “Yes, duty is a mistress that can’t be denied, isn’t it?”

He glanced down at the pommel of his saddle for a long moment, as if deeply lost in thought, but when his gaze returned to Gawain it was sharp and penetrating, with a curious glint of determination in it despite the light, amused note in his voice when he spoke again at last.

“Well, I hope you’ll tell your liege your permanence here has been pleasant, at least. I’d hate to send you on your way with only tales of inhospitality and discourtesy about our home.”

The young knight nodded mutely, swallowing around the lump in his throat. Pleasant. That was a word for it. Accurate, for sure – there had been plenty of time for pleasure, during his stay at Bertilak’s castle, if not for much else – but not in a way that he could easily explain to his king, or that he would ever want to explain, for that matter.

He could tell his king that he’d given in to lust, for sure; Arthur would have probably made it into a matter of drunken celebration, a steppingstone in the path of his growth as a knight and as a man, clapping him on the back and encouraging the others sitting at the Round Table to toast him. But could Gawain tell him of the indescribable pull he’d felt in his heart, when he’d first glimpsed the castle’s great tower in the distance? Of the game Bertilak had challenged him to from the very beginning, where each of them would gift the other what he had gained during the day? Of the kisses Ardena had pressed to his lips in the mornings, and that Gawain had given to her clueless husband every evening in return, exchanging them for animal pelts and rich feasts?

Of the unbearable ache he was filled with now, at the thought of leaving behind lord and lady alike?

No, he could not. That was his burden to bear, and his alone. He would tell no one of what he had done, not even under peril of death. And perhaps the journey home would be long and tedious enough to dull the longing of love before he got back to Camelot, and Gawain could hope to detach himself swiftly from Bertilak’s hospitality as well, a quick, clean cut, as painless as possible, like pulling a leaf from a tree.

“We should return to the castle,” he said, then, with a cheeky grin that was only a little forced. “We have left your retinue behind- they will be wondering whether I have stolen you away, foreigner that I am.”

The man barked out a laugh, rough and booming enough to startle a bird from a nearby tree. “Ah, you are one of us, now, Sir Gawain. Anyone suspecting of you would have to fear my wrath- and I thought you wanted to join me for a last hunt, before you left.”

“I did, but all prey has been eluding us, today. We’d give even a devil from the deepest hells a great chase, so fast are your horses, but we have seen neither devil nor fox for hours- let us go back and let your lady wife mock us for our incompetence. Certainly, she would find it very amusing.”

“You are right, my friend. She would.” Bertilak sighed again, then signaled for his horse to turn, though its flank was still very close to Gawain’s.

“Would you grant me one last boon, though, before we go?”

“Of course. Anything you ask, my lord, if it’s in my power to give it to you.”

“It is.” There was another, somber pause, so long Gawain was struck by the absurd feeling that time had stilled around them, quieting down even the chirping of the wild birds.

Then Bertilak leaned in from his saddle and kissed him.

Gawain’s eyes went wide with surprise, but soon enough any turmoil in him was replaced by a flood of contentedness, warm and pleasant like the lick of a flame. This was nothing like the swift, almost mocking kisses they had exchanged in the grand hall, in sight of all present for the meal, laden with the excuse given to them by their game – it was the slow, practiced act of love of an experienced man, something Gawain couldn’t yet hope to accomplish. Bertilak’s lips were soft and eager against his own, his beard scratching against the young knight’s bare chin, and the end came too soon for Gawain, who’d hoped they could remain like that forever, Camelot and the king’s calls be damned.

“Safe travels, Sir Gawain,” Bertilak muttered when they broke apart, their heads still bent so close together their breaths were mingling, their gazes locked to one another.

“May your foot be quick, and may your absence be short-lived- my lady and I will be awaiting eagerly to see you again, you have my word on that.”

Camelot, present day

The fire hadn’t reached the main hall yet.

It was a small mercy, but it was something, at least. Snow had enough things to worry about to entertain the notion of being left to burn like a Thanksgiving roast – and she would be left there in case of emergency, she was sure of it. The hand clamped on her arm gave her no leeway to run, and she knew she would be the least of Arthur’s concerns, especially if he needed to save his ego and his wife first.

David was keeping a hold onto her himself, too. It was almost ironic, in a way; for all that her husband pretended to care little and less for her lately, he sure seemed intent on haranguing her from up close and personal. Snow couldn’t quite bring herself to laugh about it, but her relief was palpable all the same – at least he would be too focused on her to pay attention to the boys, if the chance to escape arose. She’d have willingly traded her freedom for theirs and Emma’s, given the choice to, and she doubted the men holding them hostage would be as strong and quick with their weapons as the renowned Prince Charming, either.

There had been no escapeway in sight yet, though. Instead, they’d all been dragged before Arthur like cattle, and no kicking nor digging their heels in had had any effect – Lancelot had put up a valiant fight after their ambush, true enough, but not even an experienced knight like him could do miracles in a fight eight against one. If anything, it had made him an easier hostage to carry; the fight had knocked the wind out of him, armor or not, and he was limping as he was pulled into the hall, wincing as though in pain with every step.

Arthur was not sitting in state, though he looked as satisfied as a man looming ten feet tall above their heads, and not one who was surpassed in height by half the knights in his entourage. He wasn’t alone, either; Guinevere was standing to the side, surrounded by her ladies and by some other courtiers, fear or chill making most of them shiver in their nightclothes, and more guards still were flanking the group and the king – they were armed to the teeth, if lightly protected, and two of them were holding down a third man, forcing him to remain on his knees at their feet.

Somewhere outside Snow’s field of view, Roland let out a whimper at the sight. The sound made Robin lift his gaze, previously fixed onto the floor – anger flashed across his features, and he began struggling against his captors, though he was clearly overpowered and his arms appeared to be kept in a hold behind his back.

“What is this?” He snarled, all but baring his teeth. He’d resisted arrest as much as Lancelot had, that much was clear - the lower side of his face was swollen and dark, some drying blood pooling at the corner of his mouth. “Are you stooping low enough to hurt kids now, you bastard? Let them go. They haven’t done anything.”

“Peace, my friend,” Arthur replied amiably, taking a few steps towards the newcomers. “No harm will come to the children, if they are wise enough to do as they’re said. And besides, they have as much a hand in your situation as any of your companions, if not more. You should have kept them reined in before it was too late.”

“Is this what you’re doing, Your Highness?” Snow asked, forcing herself to keep her voice even. “Reining us in? We aren’t horses, you know – if you wanted to speak to us, you could have just asked. No need to barge in our rooms while we slept.”

“Ah, but you weren’t in your rooms anymore, were you, princess? I had them searched, while my men were looking for you lot – how many guards did you kill in your foolish attempt, I wonder? Six? Seven?”

The king was perilously close to her and David, now, so close she almost wanted to rear back in disgust. A polite, overtly friendly smile was plastered over Arthur’s face, as though he were merely having a chat with a stubborn servant, but whatever its warmth might be, it wasn’t reaching his eyes – they were cold as chips of ice in their sockets, boring through her with calculating fury, shining of a strange light that hadn’t been there when they’d last spoken, or at least, not overtly showing to an untrained gaze.

Snow knew that light. She’d seen it before, when she and her husband had made their dealings with Rumpelstiltskin, or in Regina’s glare at the height of her path to revenge – those were the eyes of someone who’d lost sight of everything except their goal, and who wouldn’t stop at anything or anything until they reached. It was the light of pure, unadulterated madness, and the familiarity of it sent a shiver down her spin, despite her efforts to conceal it.

“I was attacked,” she said instead, bracing against that freezing stare. “As were these boys. Surely, if you condone the breaching of guest right under your roof, you’ll allow the guests to defend themselves, too.”

“Guest rights do not apply to traitors, my lady. I already had someone try to take my throne from under my nose, years ago, and they were snuffed out just as quickly- though I must admit, their leader was nowhere as subtle in his dealings as your friends here.”

Snow blinked, stunned beyond words. “What are you talking about? We’re not-“

Arthur cut her off before she could finish the sentence, turning around with a casual gesture that seemed to encompass all people present.

“It warms my heart to know you care so much about the wellbeing of your children,” he said, affably. “I, too, would do anything to protect mine, and to ensure the stability of the kingdom they’ll inherit. But if you’d wanted them to be safe, maybe you shouldn’t have embarked in such hopeless treachery- and you shouldn’t have kept your daughter away from her father, either.”

Snow’s heart sank in her chest, coldly and abruptly. She tried to turn around to look at David, hoping against hope that he would say something in her defense, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes, his gaze fixed stonily on the king, his grip like an iron clamp on her arm.

It was worse than she’d thought, then. The both of them, they were too far gone to see any sense – and she was alone in this fight, now, with Emma and Regina gone and Lancelot and Robin already injured. She would have to take all the diplomacy she’d learned in more than fifty years and wield it like a sword, if they were to come out of that damn castle alive.

“I don’t know what you’ve heard, Your Highness, but they’re all lies,” she interjected loudly. “We’ve never had any intention to take anything from you. And if you really want your future child to be safe, then you should send your wife away- whatever punishment you have in mind for us, she shouldn’t have to see it. Stress doesn’t do any good to a pregnant woman- trust me, I would know.”

If Guinevere had any opinion about being pulled into the conversation, she gave no sign of it. She remained straight as a pillar, her hands resting on her rounded belly, her expression empty and vacuous as she stared at her husband, so distantly and detachedly it was more than a little disquieting. For his part, Arthur’s smile went even wider, if not even an ounce more reassuring. “A most generous offer, princess, but a blind one, too, I’m afraid. Everyone in this hall is here to witness the justice I deal, so that they know Camelot is safe in the hands of its king, and always will be.”

“The castle is burning as we speak. If you want to save anyone, you should-“

The king raised an imperious hand. “Silence.”

He climbed a few steps on the grand staircase, the one he’d helped Guinevere descend upon their arrival, and there he stood triumphantly, his chin raised high, his hand on the pommel of Excalibur, strapped at his side in its luxurious scabbard.

“See, my lady Snow White, Prince David has told me everything I needed to know. When I found you in my kingdom, I thought you could be the answer to my prayers, that the Savior would truly rid us of the evil plaguing our land. But I got Merlin’s prophecy backwards- it was you, you and your kin, who put my people in danger. Your daughter tried to free him to sic him against me, to seize the power and get rid of me.

“You failed, though. Your plots, and Lancelot’s, back where he is not welcome, the shameless turncloak...They’re all disbanded. Even Gawain, weak that he was, tried to help you and failed. It’s over. Your plans are no more, and now all the traitors in this hall will face justice at my hand, to pay for their crimes accordingly. Have no fear; I am more than merciful enough. No one will have to pay more than their due, child or man.

“Now, then; who would like to speak first?”

A long, heavy stretch of silence ensued, thick and palpable like a woolen coat; then a reedy, snarky voice raised from the group of armigers following David, one that Snow immediately and dreadfully recognized as Lampwick’s. “Eat shit, you stupid asshole, and stop making stuff up. It’s not working.”

A shocked, terrified murmur rippled through the small crowd present, but Arthur merely narrowed his eyes at the boy, his grin gone thin and sharp as a knife. “I thought Lancelot might have the honor of taking the lead, given the history that we share,” he said, with a humorless chuckle. “But you have given me enough grief as of late, child. Come, then. Let us see if you’re still so brave when-“

There was a slight tremor in the ground under their feet, cutting him off mid-sentence. The king’s head whipped around wildly, looking for the source of the shaking, but everyone else seemed as taken aback as him. He opened his mouth, as if to speak again, but a second jolt interrupted him, and then another, and another, and he was left agape, his victorious stance wavering at the sudden interruption.

Snow looked down at the smooth stone floor, equally as speechless. She’d seen her fair share of earthquakes before, and nothing could have made her forget the seismic toss that had sent them to Camelot in the first place, but there was something odd about the way these shakes were occurring, coming and going in ebbs and flows, their intensity rising and falling at almost too regular intervals. It had, if anything, a sort of rhythmical cadence to it, like a heartbeat, or a song.

Or, God forbid, a military march.

The tremors were growing in strength, too, as if their epicenter were moving closer. When a particularly powerful one ran through the room, enough to make the stained glass windows rattle, the courtiers let out shouts and yelps of surprise, clinging to one another like passengers of a turbulent sea voyage – some long-lived, instinctive part of Snow’s mind wanted to do the same with David, but reason got the best of her, thankfully, and she wasn’t sure it would have done anything, anyway. Her husband was still holding her in place with the same firmness as before, but there was no concern with her safety in this emergency, no trace of the caring man she was sure she’d married. His eyes still looked as though searching for something she couldn’t see, far away and hogging the spotlight, though there seemed to be a crack in that facade, now, too, inexplicable as it felt.

Finally, the trembling came to an apparent stall. For a long, long moment no one spoke, glancing around with bated breath to see whether they were finally safe or not; then the hall’s grand doors burst open with a loud bang, and a chorus of screams rose again, this time more panicked and scattered.

Snow raised her free arm reflexively, shielding her face from possible debris, but there was no dust floating in the air as there would have been after a proper explosion, no jagged pieces of stone at her feet, so after a few tentative seconds she lowered it again, opening her eyes to face the cause of that delirium.

She saw Emma first, though her daughter was nowhere near the middle of the entrance. The young woman was standing at the side, her tangled hair framing her face almost like a halo, a sword in hand and Regina at the ready next to her. Around them, dozen of figures were facing the room in messy rows – soldiers, Snow’s mind guessed wildly at first, but no, it couldn’t be. Some of them were clearly decked in long robes and dresses, other impish and gangly like teenagers, and there was an eerily smooth quality to their appearance, chunky bits missing from their bodies where a human being would have had blood and gore to show, their eyes pupil-less and vacant.

Stone. They were made of stone, green as new leaves and grimy as though left forgotten in a cellar for decades; and in their midst, tall and powerful and stiff-backed, was the green knight in all his glory, his visor pulled down to conceal his face, the huge axe held tightly in his hands.

“Surprise, Your Highness,” Regina announced, a furious satisfaction writ all over her face.

“I’d suggest you let our families go, before you do something you might regret.”

Pinocchio was just about ready to give up for good, by the time he saw the knight.

It had been a miserable, unbearably long walk towards their destination – he’d barely had the presence of mind to resist his captor, and it had been useless, anyway. He was ashamed to admit it, but if the man hadn’t been physically holding onto him like a four-limbed sack of flour, the boy would have likely been too weak to even reach the king, nevermind hold himself upright thorough the entire conversation he’d had with Snow White.

He was too tired for shame, though. The feeling of thick, intense wrongness that had come over him when Prince Charming had attacked them hadn’t relented in the slightest – if anything, it had gotten even stronger, his head and ears pounding incessantly and threatening to make him retch for the sheer nausea they were causing. Everywhere he turned had looked blood-red and threatening; the guardsman’s arm around his chest had been red, the walls of the cavernous room red, the king’s crown red, everything red, red, red, and he couldn’t- he wouldn’t- he’d thought he would get swallowed by all that red, like the dogfish had done, or the Fire-Eater’s cage.

It had subdued some, now that the green knight had walked in with his squadron of statues. He’d heard them coming – he’d felt them coming, each step rumbling through his chest before it even did the room – and their presence had brought some relief to his mind and to his eyes, some green rippling its way through the red, or muddling in to create a murky brown, but neither of those forces had won completely over the other; and the familiar stone faces had brought in an equally as familiar sensation with them, besides, the odd, instinctive knowledge of being in the right place that he’d had inside the chapel, when something inside him had relished in the thought of having reached some sort of safe haven.

But- no. That was stupid. He wasn’t safe. None of them were. He was in deep, deep danger, and for all the familiarity he could bask in, an even bigger doubt was creeping through him at the same time, louder and stronger the longer he kept looking at the knight.

Because he was different, that knight. Sure, he was a giant of a man still, and the armor was identical; but Pinocchio couldn’t see if the lady’s sigil was still sitting on its breastplate, and it looked as though the creature was even taller than before, slighter, with skinnier arms and no beard poking from under his helm, and when he spoke his voice was different, too, ringing mockingly in his ears.

What could possibly have happened to him, in the span of what, a week? Less? It made no sense at all. Pinocchio had to be losing his mind, there was no other explanation.

“Well, my lord?” The knight asked, somewhat amused, taking a couple heavy steps forward and being soon imitated by the rest of his troupe. “Is it not the custom anymore, to welcome in travelers visiting your halls?”

A low, furious hiss escaped the king’s lips. “You.”

He stomped down the staircase, his voice full of righteous outrage, though he stopped after a few feet, well out of the knight’s reach.

“I don’t know who you are, or what- what sorcery you are made of, but you have a lot of gall, showing up on my doorstep again. Begone! You are not welcome here, nor will you ever be!”

The monstrous man threw back his head and laughed uproariously, the sound booming and echoing across the room. “Don’t you realize, o King Arthur?” He said when he was done, still guffawing darkly. “Many times now you have given the green knight leave to approach you- there is no going back from it, Your Highness. ‘Tis much too late for you to refuse, at this point.”

“What are you- Speak plainly! I do not understand your riddles!”

“No, you do not.” The knight seemed to have sobered up at last, a quiet sort of sorrow coating his words. “And that will be the end of you, I fear.”

Most of the people loyal to the king had retreated from the door in fear, when his opponent had come in, and they’d dragged their prisoners back with them. Pinocchio was now much closer to Guinevere’s ladies than he’d been before – he could hear some of them crying in fear, stifling their sobs behind the sleeves of their shifts, though the queen hadn’t so much as blinked in the face of danger, still frozen in her previous position.

Lady Ardena was there, too. The boy couldn’t remember any of the others’ names, but it was easy to recognize her small face and brown hair, even if she wasn’t looking his way – her expression was tense and full of despair, dark bags under her eyes, and she was being held up by a man much older than her, who seemed to be struggling to keep her from sagging limply in his arms.

It was the man Pinocchio found himself focusing on; and it was his face that made Pinocchio freeze in the guard’s grasp, still and stunned like a frightened rabbit.

He had seen that face before. He had never met the man himself, not ever, but he was so remarkably similar to what Pinocchio remembered that the boy felt his stomach sink at the sight, struggling to make sense of it. Sure, the face he had seen had been broader, made strange by its inhuman size, and greener, of course, but...the shape of the eyes was the same, and so was the beard, and the slope of his shoulders, and-

That was the knight Pinocchio had met, the one who’d cut his hand and released him in the middle of the woods. It was impossible, and yet there he was, straining not to falter under the lady’s weight- but if he was there, and he was just a normal man with a stout build and a frightened look, then who was it that was carrying the axe next to Emma?

“Enough of these games,” Arthur snapped, clearly frustrated. “Have you not haunted this court enough? What have I done, to deserve all this scorn?”

“That is not the right question, Your Highness.” Slowly, the knight shifted his grip on the axe, so as to be able to hold it with one hand only, and then he lifted the other one to pull at the edge of his helmet, tugging it away with a small grunt of effort and casting it to the ground.

The helmet landed on the floor with a soft clatter, but the sound was drowned almost entirely by the yells and gasps of the crowd, surprise making all their faces slack, included those of Emma and the mayor, who one might have suspected to already be aware of the change.

Pinocchio had been right – it was a completely different man wearing the armor, just as he’d thought. A much, much younger man, with an even more recognizable face, though his dark hair was the green of fresh moss now, his sharp, handsome face the same color of newly cut grass.

Sir Gawain grinned broadly, as though amused by the ruckus he had caused, but his green eyes were only for Arthur, who was staring back at him with something approaching utter terror filtering through his entire expression.

“The question is- what haven’t you done to me and mine, to deserve what you’re going to receive?”

Chapter Text

“How?” Arthur wheezed, sounding like a man on the verge of drowning. “You- you are dead. You should be dead.”

Laughter rumbled in Gawain’s enormous chest, though there was anger in it as well, a hint of venomous reproach. “You seem disappointed, my liege,” he said, somewhat mockingly. “Are you not glad to see me all in one piece? Haven’t I served you loyally, ever since I was knighted?”

“I have knighted no monster- nor would I have allowed such witchcraft in my own castle, had I had the foresight to predict this farce!”

The king was afraid, Pinocchio noted with some surprise. It was odd, in a way; now that green had started seeping through the edges of the boy’s vision, banishing the red further and further, Arthur didn’t look nearly as frightening as he had before – he seemed to have shrunk, in fact, a tiny little man facing a giant, like in the Bible stories they’d all learned at the convent back in the day, except it was hard to believe the lord of Camelot could win a fight against anyone, right now.

Gawain nodded in response to that declaration, too, which was more surprising still. “Nay, you wouldn’t have. The magic you have used to protect this kingdom, to make us believe this kingdom existed at all- it’s a more treacherous kind of magic than this, but you knew that, didn’t you, my lord? You have always liked tricks and deceit.”

He opened his giant arm in a wide, all-encompassing gesture, as though wanting to embrace the castle as a whole and the rows of people paralyzed by fear with it.

“You put magic in these walls, to shield them against any enemy. You put magic in all of our eyes, to convince us that you were our king in truth, that your sword was whole and victorious” – here Arthur’s hand, which had remained on Excalibur for a long time, wrapped tightly enough around the sword’s pommel to make his knuckles go white, but that did nothing to stop the young knight’s speech – “and with that you made us accomplices of your plots, whether we wanted it or not.”

Gawain paused, then, like a common man might do when needing to catch his breath, though he, like the other knight before him, didn’t seem to need much air to go on. When he spoke again, his voice was steady and light, if carrying a warning tone deep down that Pinocchio wasn’t sure anyone else could hear.

“The veil has been lifted from my eyes, now,” he said, evenly, his hand held out palm-first, a peacemaking sign. “I have been tasked to wield another kind of magic, an old one, that you’d never be able to stop. These ladies with me, and these creatures- they will be under its protection, so long as they remain by my side. They will be able to use their spells, and fight, and there’s nothing in Camelot that can prevent that from happening.

“So I’m asking you, as the boy you knighted, as the man you sat at your side for the new year banquet- please, don’t make us shed any more blood. It is over, my king. Let these people go and surrender, and free everyone from this misery.”

They stood like that for what felt like an eternity, the green knight with his outstretched arm, the king with his cold, unreadable gaze, facing each other as the entire room seemed to hold its breath in anticipation around them. Seconds ticked by sluggishly, stretched out to the point of sounding like hours, and no one dared move a muscle, the silence heavy and unbreakable.

Then, Arthur pulled out his sword.

He moved so quick it appeared to catch most of them off-guard, his feet darting to the side, his free arm reaching out towards Prince Charming and Snow White. In a moment, he had the aging princess’s head held back by the hair, Excalibur pressed against her pale throat, and a savage smile was dancing on his lips, no trace of royal poise left on his face.

Some shrieked in surprise, though the princess remained stoically silent, her teeth gritted in disdain and distress; but most of the shocked gasps came from people noticing the sword – for the first time, it seemed, even courtiers who had claimed to have been in the castle for years before. Its wavy, unusual blade did not have a tip; instead, it ended in a jagged, uneven cut, as though someone had brought it down on their knee and snapped it clean in two. More than a sword, it looked like half of one at most, like a toy crudely put together to let a little boy play at war.

The famed Excalibur was ruined, but King Arthur didn’t look particularly fazed by its sight, his ferocious stare still trained on Gawain.

“You have smoked me out, Ser,” he said, with an almost hysterical chuckle. “Yes, it is broken- it always has been, from the very beginning. But still, it’s sharp enough; so I suggest you go back to the hellhole you crawled out from, and take your friends with you, if you don’t want any harm to come to the Savior’s precious lady mother.”

It was clear that Emma was just about ready to lunge at his neck, as was the mayor; but neither of them moved, nor the statues on their side, their feet glued to the floor. Even someone with no head for strategy would have known that attacking recklessly might be dangerous – a simple swipe could have cut through Snow White’s neck, and everyone else was still in the hands of Arthur’s men, besides. There was no way of knowing who might be caught in the crossfire, even the knight had to be aware of that, for all that there was a stormy look in his green eyes.

And all of this Pinocchio found himself regarding with a sort of queer detachment, as though it didn’t involve him in the slightest. It did, of course – he was pretty sure it did, at least, even if he wasn’t important enough to be used as a hostage by a real king; but he was sinking into the green atmosphere Sir Gawain had brought into Camelot, and as such, he was having a great many troubles understanding what he should be worrying about. After all the fear and the stress and the weird things that had been happening to him, this calm was unexpected, but not unwelcome, the throbbing in his muscles relenting as they unclenched at long last.

The boy glanced around, uncharacteristically slow and calculating. No one was attempting to move – it was like a scene from a movie, where everyone was afraid to take a single step, in case it made the whole building collapse on their heads. Even the guards keeping a hold on the hostages were tense and alert; they looked like they might spring into motion at the first noise, like birds scared off a wire, though it was difficult to say if they would have attacked someone or ran away, to be honest.

It was an abrupt change, being able to note all of these things as if from a distance; but Pinocchio could feel himself change, too, so it couldn’t have been that much of a big deal. It should have frightened him, and yet at the same time it seemed the most natural course to take – it was a tickling sensation, in truth, as though the green were sinking its tendrils into body, absorbed through his skin like the strangest sunscreen in the world. His sight had gotten sharper, and every smell in the room was now more pungent, as if he now had a hunting hound’s nose all of a sudden, his ears perking up at the slightest noise.

Even his jaw seemed to have readjusted, though none of his bones had shifted in place, or at least none that he knew of – he prodded at the inside of his mouth with his tongue, unable to restrain himself, and found that rows of sharp eyeteeth had seemingly sprout from his gums, like the fangs of a wild animal, in the front as well as in the back, where he was pretty sure he still had some baby teeth waiting to fall off. He couldn’t look into his own mouth, not without a mirror, but from touch alone it resembled more a shark’s mouth than a child’s, and that, too, felt stunningly natural, an unavoidable consequence of what had come before it.

Finally, he looked down at the guard still clutching onto him. The man was wearing chainmail, clearly having expected his opponents to put up a fight, but it only protected him up to his elbows; the arm he had wrapped around the boy’s chest, pinning the latter’s limbs down, was only covered by his shirtsleeve, a thick fabric to withstand the winter cold, to be sure, but not as strong or as difficult to pierce through as a layer of steel – or as a talking cat’s grabby paw, as Pinocchio’s past could attest to.

He pondered on it all of two seconds; then slowly, methodically, he craned his neck downwards and sunk his new teeth deep in the armiger’s forearm.

The man howled in pain and surprise, instinctively relenting his grasp. Pinocchio fell painfully to his hands and knees, coughing and gasping for breath now that there was no iron grip wrapped around his chest, and felt as if someone had raised the volume in his ears all of a sudden, as the spell on him broke and chaos erupted all around him.

It was as he had expected; everyone had only been waiting for the slightest excuse to pounce on the enemy, logically or not. It would have almost been funny, the way they’d all sprung into motion as though he’d flipped a switch, but the scene was too terrifying to even consider laughing at it. In the corner of his eye he could see streaks of bright green, where the knight’s stone army was lunging forward, and there were blinding, fiery lights sparking here and there, magical attacks landing on their target and reflecting on the blades of the swords.

And still Pinocchio couldn’t pinpoint any familiar face in that flurry of fighting, no matter how hard he tried. He hoped none of his friends were getting hurt in the outburst, or not gravely, at the very least, but keeping track of anyone in there was barely thinkable, if not outright impossible. Bodies were clashing all around him, stone and human alike, but where a well-placed blow on the head might be enough to send the king’s soldiers collapsing to the ground, the same could not be said for the statues, who now appeared to be pushing against their opponents relentlessly, like green battering rams.

Mercifully, though, it seemed that no one had zeroed in on him just yet. He tried to push himself up on his feet, but it was a lost cause in that mayhem, and soon he resorted to weaving his way through the forest of moving legs on all fours, his head whipping around desperately in search of God only knew what. He needed to get away from the worst of the fighting, that much was certain, but he had no idea where to go, or what to do next, for that matter; the quiet bubble had burst the moment he’d delivered his bite, as if he’d chewed through it along with the rest, and now- now he couldn’t think straight, and the push of the crowd was only making it worse, and the noise was having the better on him, and-

A hand grabbed him by the shoulder, forcing him to roll onto his back. Pinocchio felt a spike of panic run through his chest, and he raised his leg instinctively, ready to kick his way out in defense, but it was not one of the king’s men staring at him, only Lampwick’s freckled face, brows knitted together in concern.

“You alright?” The older boy yelled, to make himself heard over the din of the fighting, and then, without waiting for a response, as his eyes scanned down his friend’s face. “The hell’s wrong with you? You look-“

Pinocchio felt his mouth go dry, despite the stick sensation of his captor’s blood still lingering on his tongue. “What?” He choked out, haltingly. “What is it?”

Lampwick hesitated a moment before shaking his head determinedly, as if trying to clear his thoughts. “Nevermind. Let’s get out of here.”

He grabbed Pinocchio’s hand tightly, as he had done a thousand times before, and side by side they elbowed a passage out of the thick of the fighting, made less visible by their smaller size and by the confusion reigning in the hall. Pinocchio was so grateful for the company he thought he could pass out in relief – Lampwick’s skin, though damp with sweat, was blissfully cold against his flushed one, and he no longer felt as if he were about to burst because of the inexplicable, sickly red warmth. And besides, it was easier to think where to take the next step, when you had someone paving the way ahead of you.

They found a column to huddle behind after what looked like ages – it was a flimsy protection, especially with people running in all directions and searching someone to strike down, but a little shadow to keep them hidden was better than nothing, at that point. Pinocchio leaned against the base of the pillar and tried to get his breathing under control again, pressing his palms hard against his ears in a poor attempt to dim the noise surrounding them, at least to some degree; he was shaking like a leaf, he realized, now that they had stopped running, and no amount of effort seemed to be able to make him stop.

“Hey!” Long-fingered hands wrapped around his wrists, and he looked up only to find Lampwick inches from his face, teeth gritted and voice steady despite the way his cheeks had flushed red in agitation. “Snap out of it- we can’t stay here, alright? I smell smoke. They’ll roast us like chicken if we don’t get a move on.”

“I can’t,” Pinocchio gasped, shuddering from head to toe. Even with his ears covered he could still hear everything around him and more, and when he blinked the battle kept flashing undeterred behind his eyelids – the green had seemed to win for a brief time, but now all colors were clashing and overlapping like a mad kaleidoscope again, making him feel as though he were watching a 3D movie without the right glasses. The tangy, coppery taste of blood had filled his mouth and nose entirely, by now, and he kept prodding frantically at his cheeks and mouth and forehead, trying to understand why the sensation of oddness wasn’t fading away, as though he were once again a little puppet becoming real for the first time; it was his face, and yet it wasn’t, and the confusion was driving him crazier by the minute.

He couldn’t fathom moving a muscle more than necessary, nevermind running fast enough to escape – and they would have had to escape very, very far, if they didn’t want the king to catch up with them, and that was entirely out of the question.

Lampwick, however, wasn’t the kind of person to relent so easily. “Yeah, you can,” he insisted, not budging an inch. “You can freak out as much as you like when we’re out of this bloody castle, but I need you with me right now, ‘kay? Get that wooden head of yours in the game. I’m not leaving you behind again.”

He rocked back a little, then, still holding firmly onto Pinocchio, and cast a couple quick glances around, parsing through the moving crowd. “Where’s Roland? We can’t leave him with these guys- d’you see him anywhere?”

Roland. Yes. That was as steady an anchor point as Pinocchio could hope for. His senses were too heightened to think of his own safety, beyond the feeling of sheer panic running through his veins, but his friends- they were supposed to look after one another, the three of them, and Roland was their responsibility, besides. Responsibility was one of the very few things that could ground Pinocchio to reality at the moment, as was Lampwick’s grasp on his arm, tight and unyielding and more familiar than anything else in the entirety of Camelot.

Slowly, he shook himself out of his paralysis, and then peered around the pillar shielding them, hoping to spot a tiny figure in its white nightgown. It was even more difficult than he’d expected – he’d thought some of the king’s soldiers would flee as soon as possible, taking advantage of the chaos, but there were just as many people fighting as there had been before, if not more. Whatever it was that compelled them to stand by Arthur’s side, they hadn’t eased out of its grasp yet, and they were attacking their opponents with full vigor, though the statues didn’t seem to feel any kind of pain when hit by a sword blow, and instead kept marching forward to take down any man in their line of sight, their neutral expressions never changing.

No one else appeared to have left the room, either. Sir Gawain hadn’t joined the fighting, and was still standing in the doorframe instead, leaning onto the handle of his axe and staring impassably at the battle raging below, but Pinocchio could see flashes of Emma’s golden hair and of the mayor’s infamous fireballs surface through the crowd at odd intervals, and other people he was less certain off – even the ladies of the court had managed to pull the queen out of the eye of the storm, and now they were all huddled together in a corner, ashen-faced and trembling, but seemingly far from being the main target of the fighters.

Or at least, so they had been until that moment. A statue had detached itself from the rest of its peers and was slowly making its way towards the frightened women, its gait clunky and stiff, standing between them and any escapeway and not giving any sign of wanting to stop.

Something abrupt sparked in Pinocchio’s chest, a sharp, sudden sting, like nails scratching against his skin, like a hook piercing through an unsuspecting fish. Dazedly, as though inside a dream, he felt himself pull away from Lampwick’s fingers and start moving, ignoring his friend’s frantic, surprised calls. “Hey, what the-“

Pinocchio darted away before he could hear the rest of the sentence, some deep, sunken part of him silently praying that Lampwick wouldn’t get it in his mind to follow. He wasn’t so stupid as to run in the thick of the fighting, in any case, and instead took the faster way through, skirting around the scattering men to circle the room as fast as he could. The statue was still walking, but like the others of his kind it seemed to be in no hurry, and he was fast, anyway. He’d always been the fastest runner around. He couldn’t fathom not being the one to win a race, especially not here, not now, right when it mattered the most.

He drew to a halt a couple feet in front of the ladies, lifting his chin defiantly in the face of their stony opponent, his arms open and outstretched, though they were hardly long enough to protect them all.

“Go away,” he exclaimed, sternly, raising his voice as much as he could. “They haven’t done anything. They’re not helping the king. Leave them alone!”

The statue stopped, regarding him with what felt like bizarre curiosity in its empty eyes. He’d seen it before, he realized; it was the one he and Lampwick had been looking at before the chapel collapsed on their heads, that first time, the green woman carrying her head in her hands. It was virtually unchanged from then, aside from the obvious fact that it was moving – it tilted its shorn neck to the side, as if trying to see the boy opposing it from another perspective, and simultaneously lifted the head higher as well, bringing it to an eye level with him.

Its dull, void green stare was more than a little unsettling, but Pinocchio refused to let it scare him. He was brave; he was braver than anyone thought, and there was no one else to do this job for him, besides. He wouldn’t allow a stupid stone lady to send him running with his tail between his legs.

“Go away,” he repeated, his hands balling into fists in an effort to stop them from trembling, not from fear but rather from an unsettling, grown-up sort of anger that was building up inside him, feistier by the second. “Go away, I said! Find someone else to fight. I’m not gonna let you hurt them, did you hear me? Go. Away.”

There was an odd, unexpected lull of silence, the kind of muffled ringing that came into his ears whenever he had to pop them after getting out of the bath. It was an eerie feeling, as though time had stopped for everyone but him and the statue – and it had, he saw with a start, or at least, the other statues had. They were frozen mid-lunge, unmoving from their positions, and though King Arthur’s men spent a few seconds more hacking at them as if their sword could make a dent in the stone, they soon realized that they were receiving no rebuff and gave up altogether, looking around dumbfounded and waiting for someone to give some sort of explanation.

Behind Pinocchio, someone started laughing, a high, strident cackle, cutting through the newfound quietness like a knife.

The boy was wary of breaking eye contact with the headless green lady, but he found himself doing so nonetheless, unable to resist. Wide-eyed, he watched as one of Guinevere’s ladies had stepped away from the rest – the oldest one, the ancient crone that they’d seen so often in the queen’s company, with her covered head and sagging, wrinkly neck. She was laughing and laughing, the sound impossibly grating as she walked towards the center of the room with great confidence, as if the women behind her didn’t even exist.

She stopped beside Pinocchio for a moment and turned to face him, smiling a toothless smile, her eyes glinting in amusement under the brim of her white wimple. At least, the rational part of his brain knew it had to be white, because according to his sight she was the greenest thing in the room, such a bright, astonishing shade of it that looking at her felt like staring at a bonfire for too long, or glancing at a clear sky without sunglasses.

“Well done,” she said, sounding quite satisfied despite the tremor in her aged voice.  “My choice was right, it seems- the blood is strong in you, boy. You have exceeded all expectations and more.”

She raised her head, then, her tone growing into something more imperious. “That will be quite enough. Stand back, now, and let me see this king of yours.”

The crowd parted before her, like Moses’ Red Sea – the statues moved instantly and without complaint, and the soldiers imitated them a beat or two later, some looking relieved, others bewildered at their feet taking steps of their own volition. On the other side of the room Arthur and Emma were still standing not an arm’s length from each other, the Savior’s sword unsheathed to face Excalibur’s ruined blade, but when the king caught a glimpse of the old woman his expression changed, going from unbridled rage to pure, irritated confusion.

“What is this about, you hag?” He called out with snappish irritation, not lowering his weapon. “Who are you, to command these monsters around?”

“They take no command, Your Highness,” she replied, strangely jovial. “They merely have no patience for those who intrude in their peace. Their habits are...etched in stone, you might say. And why, don’t you recognize me, my lord? Have I not lived under your roof all these months?

“But perhaps, I should not be surprised. A few days were all it took for you to forget brave Sir Gawain, who so loyally kept to your orders- what is a mere woman, compared to a knight of the Round Table?”

“Speak your mind,” Arthur spat at her, anger seeping into his voice again. “Did someone send you to watch me? Who was it, then? Whose spy are you, you old snake-“

Something else flashed in the woman’s eyes, the mirth disappearing in place of a more dangerous hint. “No, no spy, my good king Arthur. I am above these tricks of your kind. My kind, however...”

She trailed off, raising her hands to pull at the wimple. It came undone smoothly at the tug of her fingers, revealing a balding head with only a few thinning clumps of grey hair remaining – but no, it wasn’t as grey as it had first seemed, Pinocchio noted in mute shock. In fact, it seemed to be changing right before his eyes, getting thicker and stronger by the second, growing in length to form a dark, untamed mane tumbling past the lady’s shoulders and almost to the small of her back.

The thin white fabric fell from her hands as they unbent and unclenched, her knuckles no longer swollen and stiff as the wrinkles on her arms and face smoothed down in a seamless ripple. Her back straightened up, as did her neck; her head stood tall and proud; and her eyes, now uncovered and unclouded, were a deep and vivid brow with more than a tinge of green, active and attentive, darting from Arthur to the other people present like hummingbirds flitting between flowers.

Where the old lady had been now stood a woman who looked as young as thirty, perhaps less, a woman that someone might even have called beautiful, grinning sharply and self-satisfied in the face of King Arthur’s stupor.

“No more hiding, Your Highness,” she said, her tone affable and silky smooth. “Your people have finally seen you for what you are; I reckon it’s only fair I return the favor, now.”

The king opened his mouth, then closed it, seemingly at loss for words. When he found them, most of his bravado appeared to have melted, leaving his voice cracking like that of a middle school boy. “I- There is no fairness when I don’t know who-“

He was wavering, it was plain to see; and Emma had no hesitation in taking the advantage of it. Her sword hooked onto Excalibur and pulled it out of Arthur’s limp grasp, sending it clattering to the hardened floor with a practiced swing. A slimmer hand picked it up within seconds – the mayor, who held it pointed to the floor and away from potential thieves as the Savior got a hold of the stunned king and raised her own blade against him, just as he had done for her mother. Pinocchio couldn’t hear what she was whispering to her hostage through gritted teeth, from where he stood, but even a half-blind person would have guessed that it was nothing kind or friendly.

No one, flesh of stone, moved to help Arthur; nor did the mysterious woman’s smile dim in any way, still as serene and proud as it had been from the start.

“Lady Morgana.” This was Sir Lancelot’s voice, dripping with disbelief – the knight was stumbling towards the front of the group, a look of complete astonishment on his face, and the same men who’d have leapt at the chance to attack him only minutes prior now stood by and allowed him to pass through, frozen in shock and wonder. “You- What are you doing here? How long have you been in the castle?”

“Ah, my valiant knight,” the lady sighed, contented. “You have my thanks, for your bravery and for your help. I hope you appreciated my gratitude- I see my gift has kept your friend from further harm, for a start. That is good. I would not have relished in seeing her hurt, not today.”

The king let out a choked, strangled noise, which probably wasn’t being helped by the sword tip angled at his chest. “Morgana?” He breathed out, distantly. “You- It can’t be. Why would you-“

She laughed again, cutting him off. This time it was not the strident, nagging chuckle of an old woman, but a high and limpid sound, almost musical, green in the same inexplicable way the chapel’s pungent smell had registered as green in Pinocchio’s mind – she covered her hand with her mouth as she laughed, and when she pulled it away the smile underneath was broad and wicked, endlessly delighted.

“And why wouldn’t I, my lord?” She replied smugly. “‘Tis the best strategy in war, is it not? I have been watching you ever since you started looking for me, and as such, you never found me- you scoured all the land while I was feasting at your table and caring for your wife, and not once did you think to question my presence.

“But that has always been your custom, am I right, King Arthur? You do not question your subjects’ motives. You expect them to fit inside your mold, and when they do not, you make them do it by force. How long has it been, I wonder, since you lost your honor and replaced it with treachery instead?”

The accuse seemed to reawaken some strength in Arthur, though it was not enough to free him from his restraints, no matter how hard he tried to tug himself away or how many desperate looks he gave his men. “I will not be lectured in honor by the- the monster that ravaged my land!” He snarled, almost rabid with fury. “Was it not treachery you used, when you attacked my people?”

Morgana arched a dark eyebrow in terse incredulity. “Ravaged? Your Highness, I harmed no living man, woman or child in your kingdom- they lost flocks and pastures, yet, but nothing more than they would have during any common drought. I taunted more than I acted, unlike you. You brought more pain to them through your searching and questioning than I ever did. And I most certainly did not kill anyone in cold blood for the sake of revenge.”

“Revenge for what?” Arthur echoed her, furrowing his brow. “What have I done to deserve this- this haunting on your part? What do you gain from it?”

“So you truly do not remember.” The lady sighed, deep and heavy, shaking her head with vague disappointment. “I should have expected it. You are a small man, o great king: you forget all that does not suit your interest, and fill the gap with your own hands, to convince yourself you were right all along.”

There was no grin on Morgana’s face, now. Her expression had turned into a flat, somber mask, though her eyes seemed to reflect the dancing flames of the torches as she looked around appraisingly, her gaze boring through each member of her audience in turn.

“My lords, my ladies,” she said, with the strong, clear voice of someone used to making herself heard, as the king had attempted to do as well, “you must know, it pained me to hear you had brought your sons and daughters to this castle, willing or not. Camelot is not a safe place for one’s children, and likely never will be, so long as this vermin sits its throne.

“You ask what you did to deserve my anger, King Arthur. But here I must ask you – what mother would not seek revenge, against the man who murdered her son?”

Chapter Text

Camelot, before the Dark Curse

Arthur took off his helmet, relishing in the fresh air that could now hit his sweat-soaked face and hair.

Around him, he could see the opposing forces scattering, chased off by his own men; he had to admit it was a pleasant sight, though said forces hadn’t brought any particular strength to the table, to be quite honest. They’d been a ragtag group of traitors and bandits more than a proper army, led by a knight who’d just disgraced his own title - one full-scale battle had been enough to beat the fight out of them, and it was unlikely that the surviving folks would make a second attempt, after such a grievous defeat and especially after being deprived of their chief in command.

The latter part had yet to happen, that much was true; however, the king was not the kind of man to waste time beating around the bush, even more so when he was still bloodied and restless from fighting, energy rushing through his veins like ships on a narrow river.

Two of his best knights, Bors and Tristan, were holding the man down when Arthur approached, but they let go as soon as they spotted their king, retreating a couple steps. It was immediately clear why: the aspiring usurper was no longer in any condition to attack, or to stand up unaided, for that matter – he’d taken a wound in the leg, which, though not deadly, was still deep enough to ground him and stain his breeches red with blood, some of it already dripping onto the dirt below him.

“It is over, Ser,” Arthur said, gravely. “You lost. Your foolish rebellion is at an end.”

Mordred sneered at him, his handsome face contorting in pain and derision. He’d had ladies aplenty vying for his favor, before, despite being a few years older than Arthur himself, but now his fair hair was matted with blood and grime, and he looked even more weathered than usual, thanks to the exertion and the blood loss.

“Mine, perhaps,” he replied, his voice hoarse. “But fear not, my liege. More like me will come, and those you won’t be able to stop with swords and magic.”

“So say you, but I have grown tired of your prophecies. They have never done you any good, have they?”

Nor me, Arthur privately added, though he did not voice that thought aloud. Mordred had been one of the most mysterious additions to the Round Table, and one of the hardest to decipher, as well, speaking of omens and portents when other men would have gladly focused on wine more – his origins were questionable, too, as was his prowess with weapons, strong and efficient and yet more unpredictable than anyone else the king had ever met before. It was as though he’d climbed out of a rabbit hole one day, full-grown and full-armored, but unfamiliar with the customs of the land he currently inhabited. For long years, even after bringing him into the fold as the fearless warrior he was, Arthur had been unnerved by the knight’s queer declarations, too straight-faced and sinister to be a mockery of some fortune teller or the other.

Still, his strange nature hadn’t been the reason why he was waiting for his judgement, nor was it his nonexistent bloodline. It was the fact that he’d tried to snatch Camelot for himself, with its throne and crown and sacred sword, now mercifully safe at Arthur’s hip and still unsheathed and concealed.

“You know what the punishment for treason is, Mordred,” the king continued, as though no such thoughts had gone through his head. “Why try at all? You knew you would never succeed, however many sellswords you hired.”

The knight scoffed, and then spit out a mouthful of blood and bile before replying – it landed only inches from Arthur’s boots, which would have been a mighty offense on its own in any other occasion, but was now only kindling thrown onto the raging fire of the king’s outrage. “Better to try and fail than not to try at all,” he mumbled, sourly. “Your people would have been all the better for it, you must know that.”

“Hardly. You cannot think you have the makings of a king.”

“Might be I do not, but I would have claimed that throne with my own powers, not the red ones of sorcery!”

Arthur froze, his eyes darting to Bors and Tristan instinctively to see whether they’d heard or not. They were several paces away at this point, sure, and the noise of the dying battle could conceal many other sounds besides, but- “I know not what you mean,” he said, trying to conceal how those words had troubled him.

“Of course you do.” Mordred bared his teeth as he replied, half sardonic grin, half animal snarl.

“Why do you think all my men come from outside the kingdom? Did you fool yourself into believing your people would be too loyal to rise against you? Nay, King Arthur, I only did what I had to do. You’ve poisoned the whole land with your lies, and only those who do not inhabit it can see you for what you are- and me as well, of course. I’ve seen you red since the day I met you, and red you will bleed when the time comes, my liege. No change in color for you now, nor ever again, I fear.”

“You are mad.” Arthur could feel himself losing his balance, his head gone light and dizzy. If he could, he’d have put an end to Mordred’s life and to his dangerous words then and there, but he’d already abandoned the mace and lance he’d used during the battle somewhere, and he could not risk pulling Excalibur out where so many people could see it – he signaled for Tristan to unsheathe his sword, instead, but he wavered even as he did so, his movements slow and sluggish. “These are the ravings of a mad man. I should have known it- no sane person would have staked a claim to my kingdom, not like this.”

And still Mordred laughed, though it clearly pained him to – he was coughing and wheezing, his breath coming in ragged, all signs indicating that his wounds went far deeper than those visible on his leg.

“I am the sanest man in Camelot, Your Highness,” he gasped between one guffaw and the other, insanely cheerful despite his poorly situation.

“I carry no magic with me, but I was born to it, did you know? It has shrouded me since I was in the womb, and it protected me from your illusions as well- I see it all, Arthur, son of Uther. I see your empty halls and your empty heart, and your queen’s empty eyes, too, but you can’t quench their hunger forever. Sooner or later that emptiness will swallow you whole, and then you will regret not letting me kill you, quick and easy, like the honorable man you are not.”

The other knight had his blade raised, now. Arthur suppressed the wave of panic that had threatened to overcome him during Mordred’s rambling speech and gestured for the young man to come forward, trying to ignore the shaking and jerking of his hand while he did so. “Finish him. He doesn’t deserve the coin spent on a public execution.”

Tristan nodded numbly, his gait somewhat mechanic as he stepped forward. He was a good swordsman, at least; the slicing motion was clean and devoid of any hesitation, landing exactly where it needed to. The usurper’s neck was cut neatly, separating his head from his shoulders and sending it rolling onto the dusty ground, the mocking smile frozen onto his face, and then there was silence, blissful silence at long last.

And still, no matter the quickness of the kill, Arthur fancied he could still hear Mordred’s derisive laugh for a long while afterwards, ringing and ringing in his ears like the endless tolling of a bell.

Camelot, present day

A stunned, tense hush followed Morgana’s declaration, falling onto the room like a thick blanket.

It did not last long, of course, not a second more than Regina had expected. Arthur was not the sort of man to let someone else have the last word, after all, not even with a sword inches away from piercing through his chest. “I have never met you before,” he said, haughtily. “You can hardly accuse me of harming you willingly, witch.”

“And yet you did.” The lady pressed a hand against her chest, her fingernails digging into the plain nightgown she’d worn as the false crone, her voice raising to a near wail as her eyes blazed with fury.

“Aye, you did. You killed my only child. My boy, my baby, my Mordred- you killed him because he knew the truth about you, and you could not let that stand, could you now, Your Highness? He had to disappear. You had to slaughter him like a rabid dog, out on the street, get rid of him without even a trial.”

The king’s eyes went very, very wide, his face white as a sheet. “The cradle,” he whispered, the sound carrying far in the deadly silent room. “Of course. I did not think it could be that old.”

“Who’s Mordred?” Regina snapped, knowing full well that the two of them might have stood there for ages otherwise, trading cryptic quips. If things were coming to a head, then they better hurry up with it for once; she hated the confusion, hated not knowing what was going on, and more than anything she hated the weight of Excalibur in her hands – she felt as though she were holding a snake by the tail, or laying against an electrified fence, waiting for a bite or a shock that might never happen at all.

She had no idea what could cause such a bizarre reaction, but what she did know from experience was that weird, magical artifacts were best looked at from a distance, at least until you knew how to use them. “And what the hell does a cradle have to do with anything?”

“Mordred was a vile traitor,” Arthur gritted out, struggling in vain against Emma’s hold. “He was one of my finer knights until he tried to take my throne, some years past, and then lost his head for it. I will not be shamed for it- I have no space for turncoats in my court, as would anyone else.”

Morgana hissed spitefully in his direction, more animal than human, showing her clear distaste for the king’s words. “Mordred was my son,” she said, low and dangerous. “He only tried to overthrow you because he knew what you’d been doing to your people. He had my blessing to do it, and he would have had it ten times over, if you had let him live to try again.

“And yes, that was his cradle that you found in my dwelling. Not all those of my kind can have offspring, but I did, and laid him down in it many a night, and then- and then you defiled it, to convince everyone that you’d killed me as well. How is that for treachery, Your Highness?”

Arthur looked as though he had a tart reply on the tip of his tongue already, but blissfully, Emma managed to cut in before he could spout any more nonsense. “That’s enough,” she said, flatly. “You can argue about this however long you like, but not here. It’s a miracle the fire hasn’t reached us yet- we need to make sure everyone’s safe, before you tell us what exactly this guy has done.”

The sorceress arched a dark eyebrow, scoffing audibly in derision. “King Arthur will not walk out of this castle alive, Princess Emma. And you need not worry about the fire, either, you have my word for it.”

“And why’s that? Are you going to magic it away, since we couldn’t?”

“On the contrary, my lady Savior. There is nothing to magic away, as you said- for there can’t be no fire to burn down the castle if there is no castle to burn down, would you not agree?”

Regina was about to snap at her to just speak clearly before they all got burned to a crisp, but then Morgana closed her eyes and started humming, the sound reverberating impossibly loud in the otherwise silent hall, enough to sink deep into the mayor’s bones. She hummed and hummed, an eerie, monotonous tune, like a lullaby or a funeral dirge, and as she chanted she slowly raised her arms above her heads, smooth and wide and with her open palms turned upwards, as though she were a ballerina preparing her entrance.

The vibration raised in volume, almost close to a wind howling, and around them, the walls started to disappear.

It was not unlike the dismantling of a sandcastle, in truth. Anywhere Regina looked, equally as stunned as everyone else, she could see stone and iron crumbling to dust and being swept away to nothingness, shattering glittering ripples in as they showed more and more of the darkened sky outside. Even the floor under their feet was dissipating, smooth marble replaced by mud and dead grass – they were standing in what had once been the courtyard, except now it was much wider and unkempt, no ring of walls circling it, and the grand torches and chandeliers had vanished in full, leaving only a handful of lanterns to illuminate the area, swinging on their poles among a smattering of tiny huts with thatched roofs.

Where the might castle had been was now a small, haggard village, mostly enshrouded in darkness. Of all its former glory, only Merlin’s tower remained, looming high and ancient above everything else, and so did his tree, still whole and untouched as he’d been before they’d tried to break its enchantment.

The humming came to a crescendo, and then, abruptly, it stopped, the final note hanging for a few long seconds in the air. Only then did Morgana open her eyes again, a wicked smile dancing on her lips at the sight of all the confusion she had caused.

“What the hell did you-“ Emma rasped out, breathless and gaping, but the other woman interrupted her almost immediately, dropping her stance and clasping her hands before herself.

“You were wondering what His Highness’s crimes were, Savior,” she said, with a lilting, tittering laugh. “There you have it. He built an entire kingdom out of an illusion- a spell, you might say, brought to him many a year ago by the creature you call Dark One. Nothing you have seen here was genuine; not his castle, not his hospitality, not even his people’s loyalty or his wife’s love. He has been living a lie for longer than one might think, and no one born or bred in Camelot could have noticed without help.”

Regina’s head was spinning. The past fifteen minutes or so were being too hard to process, even for someone like her, who’d made chaos her tool for a long time before the curse. She could accept, theoretically, that Arthur had had them living through some sort of alternative reality, but not when it was sprung on her so out of nowhere, on a night that hadn’t made any sense to begin with. If anything, her brain kept drawing blanks, conjuring up useless questions that were of absolutely no help at present – if it all had been an illusion, then why were they still wearing the fancy, court-worthy outfits they’d been given earlier in their stay? Was Guinevere aware of what her husband had done, or was she a victim of his as well? And why the hell was Merlin still stuck in his damned tree, after everything had collapsed around him?

Bizarrely enough, Rumpelstiltskin’s involvement was the detail that surprised her the least, all things considered. It had been a bolt from the blue, no doubt, but Regina had known that wily old snake for too long to be shocked by his meddling; one was likely to find trace of his deals far and wide across the borders of the Enchanted Forest, honestly, if they were to put the effort in.

“Why on earth would anyone do something like that?” She asked in the end, since it seemed the most reasonable worry amongst the many she had. “What was in it for him?”

“Can you really not understand why?” Morgana shot back, mockingly, as though the answer was obvious and plain to see.

“This place- this is what Camelot used to be, before Arthur cursed it. A dingy little hole, is it not? I wager our good king here was not satisfied with is lot – he did what all good circus freaks do, and dressed a monkey in swaddling clothes, to pass it off as a strange hairy babe from a far off land. I do not begrudge him that, in truth; a wounded pride hurts more than a hand cut off, on some men.”

“But what kind of magic is this? Where did he get that to begin with?”

Surprisingly, it was Lancelot who spoke at that point, stepping forward with his uneven gait. “The fault is mine. The lady Morgana is right- it was the Dark One who procured the spell, but me and Guinevere were the ones to bring it to Camelot, a long time ago.”

There was a chorus of gasps, but no one seemed more taken aback than Snow, who turned to look at her old friend with a shocked, dumbstruck gaze. “Lancelot? But- but why?”

“It was for the good of the realm, believe me,” the knight said, raising a placating hand. “You’ve seen Excalibur now- Arthur was going mad, looking for the missing piece. He thought no one would ever think him the rightful king if the sword was not whole. The enchanted sand Guinevere and I found...it was only meant to trick him into thinking this quest accomplished, nothing more.”

“Liar,” the king spat out, almost rabid with fury. “You wanted to deceive me, so you could take my wife for yourself. That sand made her stay where she belonged, and made Camelot a kingdom worth of its name, as well. Do not attempt to charm them all with your traitor’s tongue.”

Deep, pained grief was etched all over Lancelot’s face, filled with such sincerity that it struck even Regina, for all skepticism. “She’d chosen you, Arthur,” he replied, slowly. “She loved you. I left because I thought it would be the most honorable choice, as her friend and yours. So many innocent people would have been spared, if that madness hadn’t taken you. Even Mordred could have been a great, honorable knight, in another world.”

“And who knows how many more he would have hurt, if my son had not tried to revolt,” Morgana drawled, sounding far more pleased than the whole situation entailed. “Because of my blood in his veins he could see behind the curtain, as could I, and as could that boy- it is a good thing, that you all listen to your children so carefully. It would have taken much longer for this farce to come to an end, otherwise.”

Her dainty, slender finger was pointed towards Pinocchio, and it was there that her audience’s attention was directed, after a moment of puzzled silence. The boy was still standing where the sorceress had left him, his balled fists clutched to his chest and his feet planted firmly on the muddy ground, but none of that determination was showing on his face – he looked impossibly lost, if anything, pale and guarded, like the scared child he was supposed to be.

And yet there was something, on that face of his: it was difficult to pinpoint, especially in the scant, wavering light of the lanterns, but it was there all the same, sticking out like a sore thumb among the features of a child Regina had just spent a good chunk of her Christmas holidays in close proximity to. Not a great change, perhaps, but rather a smattering of inexplicable oddness- an unusual sharpness in his jawline, maybe, a neck longer and craning more gracefully, even just a distant glint in his eyes, which made them appear older and more belligerent than those one might have found on a normal boy about to turn eleven.

They unnerved her, those differences – they reminded her, oddly, of how often she could catch glimpses of the Dark One in Gold, even in Storybrooke, even when he was lacking the lizard skin and slit pupils, and she didn’t want anything else to make her think about Gold, now that Morgana had already proven he was involved in the matter. The implications could be many and variegated, and none of them would be pleasant to consider, at the moment.

No, for her sanity, she had to believe she wasn’t seeing anything at all, and it wasn’t that much of a stretch, really. She was exhausted, on the cusp of an adrenaline rush; she’d seen many wondrous things happen on that very courtyard in the last twelve hours or less; it wasn’t that hard to convince herself that it was her vision swimming, or just the dancing shadows playing a trick on her tired brain, no more, no less.

A movement in her field of view made her snap out of her reverie, forcing her to blink and regain her focus. Another woman had stepped out of the gaggle of ladies surrounding Guinevere, a younger one this time, with a much more hesitant step – Ardena, Regina realized after a beat or two; even in the faintly illuminated yard, it was easy to spot her light brown hair and her small, pointed face, now pinched and drawn with worry.

Heedless of the crowd gawking at her, she closed the distance between herself and Pinocchio, and then put her hands on the boy’s shoulders, almost protectively – he flinched at the unexpected touch, but soon after he relaxed in her grasp as she leaned forward and spoke, her brow furrowed and her eyes fixed only on Morgana.

“Enough,” she said, bravely, her voice trembling and girlish in its tension. “We did all that you’d asked us to do, my lady. Me, my lord husband, Gawain – this child, too, did he not? You even put my grief in his dreams for him to see. We did our part. You swore you would return the favor, when you made your offer. Will you not keep your word, now?”

The sorceress regarded her appraisingly, her lips pressed together, but then she smiled, wide and amused, her eyes blazing more green than brown on her shadowed face. “Peace, child. I have not forgotten our pact- but nonetheless, you are right. You’ve done all I’d asked and more. ‘Tis high time I pay my dues.”

There was no otherworldly, mystical tune to accompany her gestures, this time around. Morgana flicked her wrist in a quick, near disdainful move, as if throwing something behind her shoulders, and then she leaned back casually, watching the results with great attention – nor were said results as clear-cut and fast-solved as the dismantling of the castle had been, either.

The statues were the first to go. Many of them had been stuck halfway through a fighting move, frozen by Morgana’s command, but now they dropped their stances, regaining the stiff, bland poses any stone replica around the world might have had, and only then did they start to dissipate, slowly crumbling to thin dust that was soon swept away by the breeze, just as the walls had done before them, leaving Arthur’s men gaping and empty-handed.

The latter were next, though. It was a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of change, but it was palpable in those guards’ expressions nevertheless – their faces went slack and numb, and many of them let their weapons fall from their grips as they lifted their hands to rub at their eyes, suddenly more alert and vivid than they’d ever been before.

“Go, now,” Morgana called out, merrily, if more warmly than one might have expected. “You are free to do as you please, and nothing will force you to fight for your king, now. If any of you have families, you better hurry to find them- they will be as lost as you are, and the forest is full of wolves, kind sers.”

The men hesitated, swiveling their heads wildly to look at each other, stammering confused half-words like children who were just learning how to speak. Then, as though they were a single entity with many, many heads, they bolted – their frantic ruckus spread all over the grounds, a mess of shouting, stomping and swords clanging obnoxiously as they were thrown to the ground in a mad rush to leave as fast as possible, almost enough to prompt Regina to do the same with Excalibur and cover her ears in dismay.

And still, all that noise could not conceal the loudest thud of all, so deep and forceful it made the ground tremble. Gawain had fallen to his knees, his young face blank and distant – he wobbled there for a moment, off-balance, then with an almost unnatural slowness he collapsed backwards, his green eyes rolling back and fluttering closed.

With a shriek, Ardena leaped towards him, followed closely by her husband. As they huddled next to the fainted knight, grasping at his arms and shaking him in a sort of wild frenzy, the green, sickly veneer started to recede from his body, revealing sallow skin and dark hair, while the mighty armor that had once made him look so monstrous seamlessly melted into the breeches and doublet he’d worn to face his challenge what now felt ages prior, his limbs shrinking back to normal at long last.

There was no green knight in the courtyard anymore; in his place laid simply Sir Gawain, thin and lithe as he had been before, passed out cold. Only once the chaos of the runaway soldiers had started to fade did he take a great, shuddering gasp, and then he opened his eyes again, breathing in hurriedly and looking bewildered and lost – he would have likely started fretting and trying to sit up in his shock, except the two people at his side didn’t seem of a mind to let him so much as move a muscle. Lord Bertilak had wrapped an arm around the younger man’s shoulder, pressing relieved kisses to his dark mop of hair, while Ardena was holding tightly onto his hand, a smile creeping up her face even as tears welled up in his eyes.

“Snow.” Regina heard David’s voice as though it came from a distance, muffled and haggard and somewhere to her left, pulling her attention away from that sickeningly sweet scene. “What did I- Snow, I’m so sorry-“

Regina would have liked to turn to her friends, then, to see if the angry facade had finally fallen off Prince Charming’s eyes yet, if Emma was still faring well enough with the disgraced king, and many more things she could barely formulate; but then she felt something touch the small of her back, and when she turned around she was all but enfolded in Robin’s arms, and by that point she was thinking everyone else could manage perfectly well without her help, at least for a minute longer.

“I can’t believe you,” was the first thing she said, tracing the bruising and swelling on his face with her free hand as her legs all but gave out in relief. “I thought I told you guys to be safe and leave, for God’s sake-“

The man chuckled lightly, pulling her in even closer. “I tried, alright? You can’t blame me for that. And I’m all in one piece, see?”

“You really aren’t,” she scoffed, though her voice was on the verge of cracking audibly. “But what- what about the kids? Where’s Roland?”

“Way ahead of you on that, Madam Mayor.”

It hadn’t been Robin speaking, this time, but someone much closer to her elbow in height – Regina turned around swiftly, breaking out of the embrace, only to find Lampwick grinning smugly up at her, Roland held close in front of him and Pinocchio hovering somewhat hesitantly at his back. All three boys were deliberately spattered with soot and grime, their clothes sweat-stained after the struggle in the main hall, but they didn’t appear significantly hurt, only tired and perhaps not wearing enough layers to be standing out in the cold like that.

Robin must have gone through the same train of thought, for there was a look of grateful bewilderment as he sank to his knees, cradling his sniffling son into his arms. “You’re alright,” he murmured, though it was hard to say whether he was talking to himself or Roland – maybe both, all things considered. “Hush now. It’s over. You’re alright.”

Lampwick’s grin dimmed down some at the sight, a strange shadow passing over his eyes. “We couldn’t get out,” he said, and for a split second he didn’t sound so cheeky and cocksure anymore, only filled with uncertainty and very, very young. “We tried, though. I looked after them, I swear.”

The man lifted his gaze, clearly surprised, but after a moment of silence he raised a hand and gave the lanky boy’s arm a warm squeeze. “I know. Thank you, Lampwick. You did well.”

Regina wanted to fret over Roland’s well-being just as much as his father was doing, in the meantime, but found her eyes drifting towards Pinocchio instead, no matter how hard she tried to stop herself. The kid was no less dirty and unkempt than his friends, but aside from that he looked pretty much normal – even too normal, now that she was thinking of it, except the air of tiredness that surrounded him, as though he hadn’t slept well in weeks, which he likely hadn’t, truth be told.

There was no strangeness in him, no inexplicable sharpness, no rage filling his eyes at Morgana’s intervention. He was his usual, familiar, baby-faced self, sticking close to Lampwick and clumsily pushing limp strands of hair away with the back of his hand – if he’d retained anything of his previous state, it was the fact that he still seemed lost, now, searching for an explanation to some kind of silent question he was asking.

Regina’s hand moved of its own accord, reaching out as if to touch him, but then stopped, gesture aborted midway through. A part of her wanted, bizarrely, to check if he was really so normal as he seemed, if he was really there at all, but another, foolish and even less sensible, was almost afraid to do so, as though by closing the distance she might break whatever spell was coating him now, showing the strange child she’d glimpsed from across the hall and shattering every hope she had that it might have been a play of the light dancing across Pinocchio’s face and turning into something-

Don’t be an idiot. Something what? She scolded herself, forcefully, but she knew what she’d been thinking only moments prior, even if she couldn’t admit it out loud. The first thing on the top of her tongue had been something monstrous; the second, more ominous and less reasonable, had been something I’ve seen before.

But neither was a comment Regina wanted Pinocchio to hear at that very second, so she retracted her hand and said, lamely: “There is blood on your mouth- are you hurt?”

The boy faltered, almost unconsciously lifting his arm to wipe at his face with the back of his sleeve. He looked at the red stain on the fabric for a long second, then replied, a dull, distant tone to his words: “I’m fine. I- I’m pretty sure it’s not mine.”

A sudden, piercing scream went up, making him startle; instinctively, Regina turned her back to him and stepped forward, glancing left and right to look for the source as she put herself between Robin and the boys and the rest of the crowd.

It seemed that while she’d been having her happy reunions, others had already moved past theirs. Gawain was standing now, albeit somewhat unsteadily so, Ardena close to his side, while Lord Bertilak had moved nearer to King Arthur, his sword drawn as if ready to relieve Emma from her duty. David, for his part, had put away every weapon altogether, and was holding onto his wife with the awkward, frightened delicacy of someone cradling a baby in their arms for the first time. Morgana was still standing to the side, her hands clasped together and that all-knowing smile of hers dancing on her face.

None of them appeared particularly distraught, except perhaps for the king, who was in a precarious position of his own, and he couldn’t have been the one to scream like that, knowing him. Regina was just about ready to believe she’d hallucinated the noise altogether – it wouldn’t have been unlikely, honestly, considering what she’d already seen and heard as of late. It was a wonder Robin himself wasn’t a wistful dream of his own, rather than the warm, comforting presence she could feel at her shoulder.

Then she saw the queen.

Lancelot had gone to her first, as expected, but he was standing a few feet away from her still, arms outstretched as if wanting to give her space, and the rest of her entourage had scattered to the four winds after Morgana had broken Arthur’s curse. Now, alone in that great empty space, with her thin white shift and no longer sporting the vacant haughtiness her husband had thrust upon her, regality had left Guinevere altogether, unveiling a shaking, speechless woman with the stricken expression of a terrified child.

She was bent slightly forward, her hands clutching her swollen belly, her dark eyes desperate and full of puzzlement as they stared at her husband. “Arthur,” she gasped, a thin layer of perspiration coating her face despite the cold breeze of the courtyard, “Arthur, why- what’s all this? What did you do?”

“Guinevere,” the king began, and for once he seemed genuinely frightened, more scared of the sense of betrayal rippling through his wife’s voice than he’d been of any weapon aimed at his person. “I-“

Guinevere screamed again, a strangled, haunting noise, cutting him off abruptly. She curled even further on herself, a shuddering sob escaping her lips as she trembled and trembled like a leaf in a storm, and it was then that Lancelot finally snapped out of his stupor, reaching out to hold and steady her while she tensed at odd intervals, not under the knight’s touch but because of something happening within herself, once and then twice and then thrice.

Her fingers were digging forcefully in her flanks now, and the lower part of her nightgown was sodden and stained, and something clicked in Regina’s brain, a sudden, horrified realization. Snow, too, seemed to have understood what the others had yet to, and she rushed out of her husband’s grip, moving towards the queen at a brisk pace. “It’s the babe,” she said, loud and steady and unwavering like the queen she’d been trained to sound like, and for once Regina was grateful that someone else was taking charge of the situation, and someone who seemed to know what to do at that. “The shock, maybe- nevermind that. We need to get her inside, now.”

She wrapped a loose, motherly arm around Guinevere’s waist and began to tug her along gently, holding her hand and spouting orders at the others all the while, even as she tried to soothe her charge’s tremors. “Come, Your Highness, you can’t stay here in the cold- find some clean water, Lancelot! We’ll need it. Warm, too, if you can. Winter babies are sturdy, but they can’t do miracles- but everything’s going to be fine, okay? You just need to keep on breathing, Guinevere. In and out, that’s it. Good job.”

Ardena’s lovestruck look wiped off her face in an instant at hearing those words, and after a cursory glance at Gawain she straightened her back and ran, hurrying after her wailing mistress and Snow White. For his part, the knight seemed to be able to stand unaided at long last, and only watched her go with blatant, unconcealed surprise, just like every other man in the room after that last turn of events.

All, save Arthur. The king was stock still, frozen and pale like a ghost of himself, and what manic light had been steadily filling his eyes had now overcome him entirely, transfiguring him into a whole new person that had little of his customary, majestic persona, just as the girl in labor that was now being led into one of the huts had little of the queen waddling around in velvets and silk. He stood there for what felt like half an age, holding his breath as his hands shook, not saying a single word, more a statue than the ones Morgana had just disbanded.

Then, he lunged.

It was never clear, afterwards, what exactly had transpired in that moment. Nobody knew what Arthur had been aiming to do, if he’d wanted to harm Lancelot or Snow or Emma, or just to reach his wife; nor did anybody have any idea as to why he might still have a knife on his person, probably tucked away in his tunic and out of sight. What they all saw, and would later remember, was the king breaking free of the Savior’s grasp, rushing forward with a mad snarl and a dagger in his hand, quick and unexpected and dangerous.

“Don’t touch her,” he howled, more beast than human, an arm outstretched towards Guinevere and the other brandishing the dagger wildly. “Don’t you dare take her away from me!”

He would have said more, probably, if he’d had the chance; but Lord Bertilak’s sword fell upon him, and as such, only silence followed that raving threat.

Regina flinched at the impact, but she was no stranger to bloodshed – she couldn’t be, given her history, and this was not someone she was likely to miss, even once the shock of it had worn out and reason had returned to her. She didn’t close her eyes as Arthur fell, dead in a matter of seconds; she hoped that the boys had, that Robin had had the presence of mind to cover Roland’s face, but the scene had left her transfixed, unable to look back and check for herself, and besides, she didn’t think it would do that much of a difference, at such a point.

Even if the children had been spared the end of Camelot’s most famous king, after all, she had an inkling that the noise would haunt them all the same, the two thumps of Arthur’s body collapsing to the ground in the forceful silence of the yard, the head first and the rest of him second, shorn in half like the sword he’d tried to keep concealed for so long.

Chapter Text

King Arthur was temporarily laid to rest at the very edge of the village, a cloak pulled over him to conceal his ruined state.

It had been Sir Gawain to piece the body together again, and he’d done so with a surprising amount of care, considering what his ruler’s actions had put him through. He’d even vowed to stand vigil over it until they came to an agreement as to what to do with the remains, and when someone had dared voice their concerns about his health and the need to act thus in the first place, he’d simply replied that he was as well as he would ever be, and that he’d sworn an oath to serve his king long before the latter had revealed his true colors, and a man of honor kept to his word no matter the cost.

Emma would have argued with him about how much honor exactly Arthur deserved, but she wasn’t so angry as to bicker with anyone in that grieving court, all in all. She would have offered to help him with his duty, too, but Lord Bertilak had beaten her to the punch with that, so there was no point; and besides, Morgana had summoned her and Regina with, apparently, the utmost haste, and one couldn’t really postpone a meeting with the woman who’d just taken down a whole castle bare-handed.

“I wager you have many questions for me,” the sorceress drawled, once the other two joined her. “Ask them, then. I will give you truthful answers, in return for the help you have given me in my quest.”

She was no longer wearing the shift that had completed her tottering old lady costume; if anything, she seemed to have the same penchant for shifting into an adequate outfit for the occasion as Regina in her early days. The dress draped over her was heavy brocade, all in shades of brown and forest green, with puffed sleeves and layered skirts – it looked quite foreign compared to the ones they’d seen ladies wear in Camelot’s halls, or perhaps antiquate, as if belonging to an even earlier age, and yet it still gave her a noble, powerful aura, something that should have been impossible to achieve for anyone sitting on a log at the edge of the woods.

At the edge of the woods, and barefoot, as well. Emma dreaded to think how awful it would be to wander around shoeless in the middle of winter, but Morgana seemed to be quite content with herself, sinking her toes in the cold, muddy ground with a satisfied look on her face, as though it were a reinvigorating treatment.

“That’s one way to say it,” Regina muttered, unimpressed.

She pulled out Excalibur, now safely wrapped inside its scabbard once more, and laid it down gingerly between them, as if disgusted to hold onto it a second longer than necessary. “Start from this,” she began without preambles – something Emma would have disagreed with in any other occasion, but which was currently a very welcome sight. “Why is it broken? And why was Arthur keeping it hidden?”

Morgana let out an amused huff. “Straight to the point, Your Highness. Very well. I will tell you what I know – which is most of the story, it seems, or at least the parts that truly matter.

“Merlin was the one to forge this sword, many a hundred years ago. Arthur claimed that when he was young, the sorcerer had spoken to him, saying that he would be king of Camelot if he could pull the sword out of its sanctuary...which he did, only to find it missing a piece. The reason he kept it a secret for most of his people was that he was afraid it would make his claim less legitimate, and that a new ruler would rise.

“But the search for the rest of the sword drove him mad. His wife, his poor, insipid little Guinevere found the Dark One and bartered some treasure for the Sands of Avalon, which would enchant him into seeing Excalibur whole – but Arthur used their magic on her instead, and then on the rest of his kingdom, forcing them to love and obey him. I do not know how much he had left after that, but I do know that he most recently used it on your Prince David, to gain himself an ally.”

Emma arched an eyebrow, full of disbelief. That explained her father’s unusually cruel behavior, at least, but the other’s story was still riddled with gaps. “Is that what you said your son noticed? Mordred?”

The sorceress nodded, a somber shadow passing over her eyes for a brief moment. “My magic is not the Sands’ magic,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Nor is it Merlin’s magic, either. I can feel the difference on my skin, just as any of my kind – what part of my blood Mordred inherited made him perceptive to this change, but not powerful enough to overthrow Arthur, and that is what led to his downfall, ultimately.”

She leaned forward, brushing a thoughtful finger down the length of the wavy blade, though keeping well away from the edge. “He did not even deign to kill my son with this. A shame, really, but nothing irreparable. Only one of them will be remembered as a hero in the ages to come, after all.”

“Is that why you put up this charade?” Regina interjected, scoffing audibly. “For posterity? Seems like a waste of your time.”

“Not at all, Your Highness.” Morgana stood up, then, regaling them with a thin, glinting smile.

“I did it for justice. To avenge my son and, in a single sweep, free the kingdom from its scourge. Did you truly think that the danger threatening Camelot was me, in Merlin’s prophecy? Nay, that was merely Arthur’s blindness that fooled him. He was the threat, and after your arrival, he was cast down with little effort. I must extend my sincerest congratulations to you, for a job well done.”

“So there is a prophecy, then? Scratch that- there is actually a Merlin around, and it wasn’t just some tall tale to keep us busy?”

“Aye, to both of your questions. Merlin was trapped inside the very tree Arthur showed you, not long after this sword was forged- I know not why your spell didn’t coax him out, for his tale is more ancient even than me, and I have never tried it myself. Mayhaps it was the wrong night for it, or the wrong people. But he is there; in fact, he has been inflicting his foresight onto any and all since his demise, the old fool, and King Arthur was unfortunate enough to overhear some of it and act as he saw fit in consequence of that.”

Abruptly, Morgana fixed her deep, haunting eyes on Emma, her voice lowering an octave or so and her brow furrowing.

“But you see, my lady Savior, prophecies are fickle. They are not rules one should follow without question- they rarely, if ever, tell you clearly what you ought to do. Most of the time they only serve to convince a man of the righteousness of his actions, rather than show him a future set in stone. He is as much to blame for the results as he would have been before hearing about his own fate.

“Perhaps, in a different world, Arthur would have been right. Perhaps the danger would have been me, or someone else entirely. Perhaps it would have truly been the Savior to break Camelot free of its binds, rather than the trust you all have put on your children. I do not know; I only get glimpses of the other branches of the tree – the one we are sitting on is the only one I know to have born fruit, until now. But do not mistake happenstance for the only version of the story that exists, my ladies. Nothing good has ever come out of that kind of willful blindness, that I remember.”

The tone of her words unnerved Emma, a cold sliver of unease creeping into her and coiling tightly around her spine. She understood very little of what the other woman was telling her, the real subject bundled under layers and layers of hidden meanings and riddles, but what she could grasp was not comforting in the slightest – for weeks they’d all been walking treacherously close to the edge of a ravine, it seemed, with no crocodiles or sharks in the moat below, but only a mad king with delusions of grandeur.

She wasn’t sure she ought to feel any relief at the prospect. At least she would have been to see the sharks coming, at some point.

“Is that why you brought us here?” She breathed out, unwilling to entertain that thought any further. “So that Arthur would think the prophecy was coming true?”

Morgana leaned back once more, the grin returning to her face slowly. “In part. I did think I would have appreciated a Savior’s help- tales of your and your parents’ prowess travel swiftly, if one knows who to listen to.”

“And Gawain? And Ardena and her husband? I doubt there were any tales about them, honestly, so why did you have to involve them?”

She waved a hand in her direction, a bored, dismissive gesture, as though not wanting to concern herself with something so trivial. “Mere luck on their part. Their sigil enthused me- I have always liked foxes, you see. Cunning little creatures, they are; I have picked that shape myself, from time to time, as the tracks you followed in your homeland might have suggested you.

“And besides, two people were needed for my plan to work. Lord Bertilak would be my green knight, and put fear in Arthur’s heart, and his lady was to lure Gawain out of his path and taint his honor. I did not expect them to go above and beyond with their tasks, but it all served my purpose, so I let them be. They will be happy, now, I think- all three of them free, and the king gone. I doubt their next ruler will dare get in the way of their love, after what they have done.”

Regina shook her head, her face creased in puzzlement and her arms crossed tightly in front of her. “I don’t understand. You had your knight, fine, I get that- but why put Gawain in his place then? There wasn’t any need.”

“There you are mistaken, Lady Regina. Even in the daze Arthur had thrust upon them, the court would have wondered why the girl’s husband wasn’t around- and Gawain had to die, anyway, did he not? He had to lose his head. If he had stuck around after the turning of the year, the king would have counted himself safe, and I could not allow it. Gawain left, and Lord Bertilak galloped into the courtyard to comfort his lady wife, valiant as you please.”

“So the blood on the axe-“

“-came from no one known to you, worry not. Lord Bertilak is a passable hunter, even in this cold season, and from such a distance even . The blood Arthur found in Mordred’s cradle when he broke into my abode, now...that had to carry some meaning, aye. Fortunately for all, your boy left us enough of it to put to use.”

Emma straightened up in a moment, barely aware that she was doing so. The worry rushing through her body was turning into fury by the second, all the pent-up tiredness and frustration molding into a lead-heavy, knife-sharp weight in her gut, something she would have gladly thrown at Morgana’s triumphant expression with all the strength of her arms. The revenge plot she could acknowledge, Gawain’s involvement she could justify, but-

“Fortunately,” she spat out, as though the word were filling her mouth with an acrid taste – which it was, the longer it rolled on her tongue. “Do you even hear yourself? I don’t know what you did to the kid, but I really don’t think it was necessary, since you said you had all the pawns you needed. Do I have to add lost blood for the sake of, I don’t know, prophetic accuracy to the list now?”

The woman sighed, the way she might have had Emma been a pointless chore she had to submit herself to. “I understand your anger, Princess Emma, but it is misplaced. I swear to you, on my son’s soul, I did not set out to harm that child.”

She raised a placating hand, then, beginning to speak again before they could pounce on her.

“What you don’t understand – and indeed, why would you – is that what you called a chapel is not a part of this kingdom at all. To cross its doors is to find yourself between this land and another, the one I was born in, a thousand years hence. I did not build it- I have merely made use of it, as many of my kind have, and changed its appearance to fit my needs.

“As it is more there than here, it tends to have...an effect on people, you might say. Undoubtedly you have felt it, upon coming to summon my knight. The boy was simply a victim of its influence, though the strength of the latter surprised me- both of you have shown an inclination for the same power I bear, but he only had an intense force of will on his side then, and now he seems most changed.”

Her smile had a sly hint to it, at that point, and now it was easy to spot the vulpine traits on her face as she grinned amiably at them, a hunter’s glint in her eyes. “Do you know a reason why he would be so vulnerable? Has anyone in his family shown such...aptitude, before?”

Emma opened her mouth to reply in kind, if a tad more rudely, but then she felt stiff fingers wrapping around her wrist, Regina’s hand holding firmly onto her and subtly squeezing as the mayor stepped forward, a thick worry line between her eyebrows. Quiet, that squeeze said, a wordless message that was nonetheless quite easy to decipher. Don’t. “No, nothing,” Regina commented archly. “We’ve met his father, but he’s a pretty decent man. Nothing weird about him.”

“I see. And his mother? What about her?”

“He doesn’t have one, so we can’t help you with that, sorry.”

Morgana inclined her head to the side at hearing that, bearing a look of fixed, polite surprise on her face. “Does he, now? More’s the pity, then. It seems I will find no explanation for this mystery.”

She sighed again, then, shaking her mane of untamed hair. “Still, it matters not. You have nothing to fear- I am not as heartless as Arthur painted me to be, and I have a soft spot for children, even when they are not mine. The magic will fade, in time, and the boy will return to normal; and I will make sure that he forgets what he has learned in this land, and his friend as well, once they are home again. It will all be buried deep into their minds, too distant to recall any details- that will be my gift for this child, for helping me succeed so deftly. Ardena was right: I pay all my dues, when the time comes.”

“How generous,” Regina scoffed, not letting go of Emma’s arm. “There’s just one problem, though- we don’t have a way to go back home. Unless there’s something you haven’t told us, we’re stuck here for the foreseeable future.”

“There is much I have not shared with you, my ladies, but this is something I shall not keep to myself. Now that the evil is vanquished, there is no reason to prolong your stay any further. When you are ready to depart, look to these woods- I will send you a sign then, and show you the way.”

The sorceress glanced up for a few seconds before turning to look at them once more, flashing them an amiable smile as she clasped her hands before herself, like a hostess ready to politely usher her guests out of the door.

“The hour is growing late,” she said, as affable as she had been at the beginning. “I have other duties to attend to. Send my regards to the children and to Queen Guinevere, and remember: wait for my sign, and do not be mistrustful – I would not send you away with treachery, after all that has passed between us.”

“Wait!” Emma rushed forward, raising her free hand as if she could physically prevent Morgana from leaving. “There’s plenty of stuff you still haven’t explained- you keep mentioning your kind, but what kind is that? And what do you mean a sign? How are we supposed to recognize that?”

“Patience, my lady Savior. When you see it, you will know what I meant.”

Morgana was smiling again now, but it was not the composed, ladylike sign of amusement she had worn while passing her sentence, no more than it was the toothless one that had turned her into an old crone. It was a sharp, ruthless thing, far wider and colder than anyone would have thought possible, and when she spoke again her teeth looked pointy and jagged in the dawning afternoon light, flashing like broken shards of ceramic underneath her burning eyes.

“And my kind is the oldest there is- the oldest, and the fairest. Might be you will find me again, or others like me, in the land you call home; but for now, farewell.”

She dropped her hands, then, spreading her arms like a pair of luxuriously coated wings. Around them, the wind picked up abruptly, pulling at their hair in cold whirlwinds; Emma raised an arm to protect her face from the floating dust and debris – it could not have been more than a few seconds before the whistling in her ears subsided, but by the time she looked up again, blinking away the shock, the forest before them was empty, and the only sign of life was Regina’s clammy hand around her wrist and Excalibur forgotten at their feet.

Morgana was gone, and with her, all the additional answers they could have hoped to get.

Queen Guinevere labored for most of the day, barricaded inside one of the smaller cottages.

Most of the courtiers had scattered, hastily gathering friends and family and what little belongings Morgana’s magic had preserved before running away, but a few women had joined Snow and Lady Ardena with the birth – servants, mostly, and not the youngest of them at that. In fact, many of those women had the robust, experienced look of someone with the knowledge of what to do as well as the strength to act on it, much as Snow herself had, and now Guinevere’s sobs and cries were punctuated by their soothing voices, coaxing her to hold on just a little bit longer.

David was glad for their presence, because otherwise he was afraid he would have made for a poor substitute. He’d only been present for one birth, aside from the sheep ones back at the farm, and those had been extraordinary circumstances – there had been no labor-savvy ladies to attend to his wife, only him and Doc, and a curse raging outside the castle. For Guinevere’s sake, he hoped this would be a more peaceful experience, especially after all she had endured at Arthur’s hand.

As such, though, David was left with little to occupy his time with. He didn’t know the land or the people enough to start sorting things out, as the few still loyal to the queen had done, and he had found no honor in the prospect of looking after the king’s corpse, only fury and disdain. The best he could do was offer a friendly presence to Lancelot, who had refused to stray more than a dozen feet from Guinevere’s current location since the pains had started, and who nevertheless had a look to him that spoke less of a patrolling guard and more of a worried father kicked out of the waiting room by annoyed nurses.

David could sympathize with the latter, at least, though he was of use for not much more than that. For his part, his mind was a jumbled mess, a web of thoughts that started from the last labor he’d witnessed and then tangled over itself on its way to the present, and the guilt on his shoulders was so heavy he feared they would soon crack under the weight – that didn’t make for great conversation, he supposed, and definitely not in times like the ones they were going through.

He knew, logically, that he was not the only one to blame. He had been cursed, again. On his own, he would have never been so cruel to Snow, or so cold to Emma, or so dismissive towards children in need – it had been Arthur’s intervention that had changed him, and Arthur’s spell that had set him on edge since their journey to Morgana’s hideout. It wasn’t wishful thinking; it was a fact, plain and simple.

And still, nobody had forced him to go on that journey. It had been all him, his stubbornness and his defiance and his need to prove himself smarter and stronger than others- than Snow might think, and though he had no proof for his supposition, there was a good chance that the spell wouldn’t have taken root on him so easily, had he not allowed his resentment to fester to begin with, like some kind of magical gangrene that had spread through his every limb. Arthur’s sand had chewed through him like a banquet, but he wagered he’d been setting the table for it ever since he’d learned that his wife had grown older in his absence.

It was a cold, cold realization to have, and yet David stewed in it for what felt like ages, circling the hut at Lancelot’s side in complete, tense silence.

Finally, there was a gut-wrenching scream, then a feebler, higher-pitched wail, softer and nevertheless managing to drown the hustling and bustling inside the house. The two men stopped in their tracks, glancing warily at each other before hurrying towards the door, waiting in front of it with bated breath.

Long minutes ticked by sluggishly; then the door opened, and Snow White stepped out, smiling wanly and holding a thick bundle of blankets. Her grey hair was mussed and tangled, her lined face worn out, and still she was as beautiful as the last time David had seen her cradle a newborn in her arms – the contrast between the two all but broke his heart, and he bore that pain silently, grinding his teeth until they hurt.

“It’s a girl,” Snow announced, glowing with pride and relief. “A little princess.”

She held the bundle out to Lancelot expectantly, who hesitated a moment before taking it from her, eyes wide with wonder and surprise – David couldn’t resist peering over his shoulder at least a bit as his wife began speaking again, but there wasn’t much he could see from where he stood, save an impossibly tiny face still speckled with fluids. “Guinevere wants to call her Enid. She says it was her mother’s name. And she wants to see you.”

“Me?” The knight stammered, caught off-guard, but Snow didn’t let him get another word in, clucking encouragingly until he stumbled towards the cottage, carrying the potential Princess Enid back inside in the warmth.

The door closed behind him with a soft click. Snow made as to lean against it, letting out a weary sigh, but David found himself offering his arm to her instead, and after a momentary falter she took it, leaning all of her weight onto him.

He did not mind. She was damp with sweat and likely to catch a chill standing outside with no one around to warm her up, and he was afraid he was about to say something that would make such ease and comfort much rarer from that moment onwards, besides. “How are you feeling?” He whispered, gently.

“Exhausted. Guinevere is doing worse, of course, but nothing out of the ordinary.” She grinned tiredly, crinkles forming at the corner of her eyes. “It’s her first child. Firstborns are always the hardest, and this was not an easy day to have a baby, anyway.”

“Do you think she will keep it? Even if it’s Arthur’s?”

“I’d say she wouldn’t, if she were alone, but...” Snow gestured vaguely towards the hut, her other arm wrapping loosely around his own. “These people loved her, before the curse. They still do, even if they despise Arthur- that’s why they came back, you know? They will rally around her, and that will do her some good, I think. And she has Lancelot, so there’s that to consider too.”

David nodded, the heaviness on his back growing stronger and more blindly painful, cutting off his breath for a long while before he could reply. “Snow, about what happened-“

He felt her stiffen against him, her fingers digging painfully in his flesh, but after a few beats she relaxed, exhaling slowly. “Don’t. It wasn’t your fault. It’s been- it’s been a right mess, these last thirty years. I wouldn’t blame you for losing your mind, and then Arthur-“

He shook his head, sternly. “But it wasn’t just Arthur, Snow. I- I know you know that. I’ve hurt you so many times I can’t even remember them all, and it’s- it’s not fair to you. I haven’t been fair to you since Emma broke the curse, and I’m sorry for that.”

“David-“

“Please, Snow.” The man took both her hands, made coarse by her recent efforts, in his cold ones – he did so firmly, but loosely enough that she could slip away if it was too much, and pressed a kiss on them, a gentle one, like he would have given Emma.

“I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you for wanting to see the truth, or for- for trying to keep our daughter safe. I knew it wasn’t your fault that Emma grew up without me, but saying those things made me feel like there were two of us hurting, so I just...stuck by them. But that wasn’t right.

“I don’t know if you can forgive me, but I am sorry. I promise you, it won’t happen again. I will never be so blind again. And when- when we get back to Storybrooke, I’ll look for a new place to stay, and you can keep the house. You were right, before we got here; I can’t keep pretending things are still the same, because it hurts both of us, and it hurts Emma. That needs to stop now. I’m just sorry it took King Arthur’s intervention for me to see it.”

There was a long, endless stretch of silence where he almost expected her to leave without saying a word. Snow was looking at him with her mouth slightly agape, motionless, breathing out thick puffs of air in the freezing terrain that had once been a ballroom - she was looking at him just as she'd looked at him on those very first days, when she'd been a bandit and he'd been posturing as a prince and both of them were starting to wonder if the other truly was as they appeared.

Then she took a step forward and burrowed herself in his chest, wrapping stiff arms around him. “Thank you,” she murmured, barely loud enough to hear. “For understanding. And I’m- I’m sorry, too. I wish things could have gone differently for us.”

“Me too.” David’s breath itched in his throat, but he returned the hug all the same, holding tight onto his wife and hiding his face into her faded hair. “You’re still the only woman I’ve ever loved.”

“I know, David. I know.”

Behind the wall they stood by, preparations were probably being made for Guinevere and her child, and still the two of them remained outside for what had to be half an age, holding onto each other and not moving a single muscle.

Chapter Text

Camelot, about a year ago

“Do you think he will do it?”

Bertilak turned to look at his wife, arching an eyebrow in puzzlement. “Do what, my lady?”

Ardena pressed her lips together, rather than answering. She’d crossed her arms tightly against her chest, her fingernails digging in the thick fabric of her autumn weather gown, and her hairdo had started coming undone – stray wisps were falling onto her pale face, but she didn’t seem to care, too focused on staring out of the window to notice anything else.

He followed her gaze, waiting for her response, but there was nothing of import to see – only the bare fields surrounding their castle, long since harvested. Gawain had already disappeared in the distance, with a fresh horse and the boar pelt Bertilak had gifted him draped across his shoulders, having galloped out of the gate at the break of dawn.

If anyone would know precisely when he’d left, it would have been the two of them. They’d watched him go until they could see him no longer, after all.

Finally, Ardena spoke again, haltingly. “What the sorceress wants him to do. If he doesn’t, all of this will have been in vain, and we will never-“

She cut herself off halfway through the sentence, an abrupt ending. Her voice had been barely above a whisper, tense and frightened, and Bertilak’s heart had ached at the sound of it, but the silence was even worse, a far cry from the merry young woman he had pledged himself to on their wedding day.

It had been an arranged marriage, as was the case for many of their rank, a matter of lands and inheritance more than mutual agreement, but he’d grown fond and more than fond of his wife since then, of her warm heart and sharp wit. Bertilak was more than a decade her elder, and should therefore have been the most experienced of the two, but Ardena taught him new things at every turn, even if on some days it only meant learning how to coax out that dimpled, girlish smile of hers when she was in a sour mood.

Gawain had been the same, as well, but now Gawain was gone, only to return once this mummer’s farce Lady Morgana was putting up had ended and the curtain had been pulled down. It was an uncertain fate, and both of them were suffering for it, no doubt, wondering whether they’d ever see the knight again.

But this was not the place to load more worries on his lady wife’s back, so Bertilak simply wrapped an arm around her shoulders, allowing Ardena to nestle close to his chest and leaning his head onto her soft hair.

“I’m sure he will,” he murmured, surely and firmly, though his eyes were still searching the hills outside, hoping fruitlessly to spot a lone figure riding along them.

“Be brave now, my love. We will break through this and see Sir Gawain once more, I swear it upon my own head.”

Camelot, present day

If Lampwick was honest with himself, he had to admit that he liked Camelot more as a dingy little village than the grand manor it had been before.

He hadn’t said it aloud to anyone except Pinocchio, of course. He didn’t want anyone to come after him with torches and pitchforks, after all – those people might have been happy to be finally rid of Arthur, and the snobbiest lords and ladies had left immediately after the fact, but that didn’t mean the rest were enjoying their newly reduced lifestyle that much, especially since it was the dead of winter and a castle’s giant fireplaces would have been most welcome.

Still, Lampwick hadn’t grown in rich houses and stone castles. Most of his life before the Dark Curse had been spent in places like this one, small and secluded and full of simple people, and though the folks that had stuck around for Queen Guinevere were struggling to adjust, they were warmer than they’d been at court, nicer and more relaxed. They didn’t seem tense like violin strings when they spoke anymore, and their behavior around the Storybrooke natives had changed, going from suspicion to gratefulness and then some.

Even now, instead of involving them in some plot to overthrow a king or running after them with an axe, a servant woman had scolded him and Pinocchio into sitting close to the firepit in one of the houses, pressing bowls of soup in their hands before going her way. The food was scalding hot on Lampwick’s tongue, and they weren’t entirely sure whose cottage they were currently occupying, but it was way better than whatever that witch had put them through, so he wasn’t about to complain of his lot in life just yet.

Pinocchio was benefitting from the change, too, though he was even less vocal about it than his best friend. Lampwick kept sneaking glances his way as they ate, both sunk in a comfortable silence – the other boy’s hands were still rough and chapped by the cold, scabs still visible where he’d been cut, but he no longer had those big, dreadful bags under his eyes, and he actually seemed to be enjoying his meal, for once, rather than dragging himself around like a zombie dressed in Camelot fashion.

He looked like someone who had slept more than two hours in a row, finally. He looked...well, he looked like himself, honestly, and Lampwick for one was very glad to notice that, after all they’d seen since Christmas Day.

“So that weird magic stuff is gone for good, right?” He asked once he’d thoroughly scraped the bottom of his bowl clean, voice deliberately light. “You’re back to basics?”

Pinocchio seemed to ponder over the question for a long few seconds, brow furrowed as he stared into the fire. “I think so,” he said afterwards, sounding cautious. “Everything’s the right color now, and last night I didn’t get any weird dreams. Maybe it had something to do with the curse in the castle, I don’t know.”

“Maybe. That’s not important, though, so long as that shit doesn’t happen again. So no more visions?”

“No more visions.” The younger boy finally looked up, then, a grin tugging at the corner of his lips and some familiar mischief glinting in his eyes. “I mean, unless you count the horrible creature I’m seeing right now, but...”

Lampwick scoffed and elbowed him in the side, startling a laugh out of Pinocchio. Within a few moments they were back to jostling and shoving each other good-naturedly, with the same ease they’d had before they got pulled inside that blasted kingdom – it felt relieving, in a way, comfortably normal, like slipping on his Storybrooke shoes would probably feel after weeks of those one-size-fits-all boots they had around there, except he could sense the contentedness rushing through his entire body here, not just the tips of his feet.

Their laughter, though, was cut short by the sound of the door creaking open, and they turned around in unison, only to find Lord Bertilak hovering uncertainly in the frame.

Lampwick narrowed his eyes, though he kept his mouth shut as the knight carefully shut the door behind his back and stepped further inside the hut. The man had brought the sheriff back to them, and he’d cut off the king’s head, besides, so that meant he had to be on their side...but he’d cut Pinocchio’s hand too, if he truly was the green knight as they suspected, as well as pulling an entire chapel down on their heads before resorting to kidnapping. One could never be too careful around him, even if he no longer carried an axe around everywhere and seemed too focused on his wife and on Sir Gawain to do much else.

“I apologize for the intrusion,” he said, his eyes flitting between the two of them in mild circumspection. “I will be on my way soon. I just needed to return something to you.”

The lord put a hand underneath his cloak, then, and a surge of instinctive, sudden mistrust made Lampwick’s muscles tense for the span of a second, but the man was not pulling out a weapon, this time. Instead, he produced a colorful, weirdly plasticky bundle that he immediately dropped in Pinocchio’s stunned hands, a tinge of amusement marring his voice when he spoke again. “You forgot it in my temporary domain, it seems, when we last met.”

Lampwick glared down at it, suspicious, but soon he found himself gaping in surprise, hardly believing what he was seeing. It was Pinocchio’s jacket, the one he said he’d left behind in the chapel – it had some muddy streaks here and there, but it was kept pretty clean aside from that, folded neatly as though stored away with care.

Pinocchio stared at it for even longer than his friend did; then, slowly, he glanced up at the knight standing before them, his expression oddly blank and his eyes hard like an adult’s. “So it really was you,” he said, flatly. “Before Gawain.”

“Aye, it was me.” Lord Bertilak shifted his weight from one foot to the other, almost fidgeting – there was a sheepish, uneasy air to him that made it hard to believe he might have been the same monstrous knight who had terrorized them both, but the jacket would have been proof enough, even if Pinocchio hadn’t recognized his face and his beard before then. “Lady Morgana commanded us to trade places, once I’d served my purpose. The green knight is no more, but we were both him, for a time.”

“Is that why you took me? Because she told you to?”

The man nodded, a strained grimace writ across his face. “There are many things I must beg your forgiveness for, but I swear, all of them were against my will. I did my best to spare you any unnecessary harm, but the lady’s orders were clear. I was at her mercy, and she needed you to spill some blood, so I had no choice.”

“That’s very convenient,” Lampwick groused, unconvinced, but a nudge from Pinocchio made him fall silent and turn to his friend, biting back the rest of his complaint.

Pinocchio, for his part, was still staring steadily at Bertilak, his fingers digging into the pile of synthetic fabric in his lap. It was not the terrified, vacant gaze he’d worn on and off since his trip to the chapel, but his eyes weren’t as clear and confident as they normally were, either; in fact, it was as though he’d grown up in the span of a few minutes, sizing the man in front of him up like a peer would have, pensively and maturely.

It wasn’t as unsettling as when he’d claimed to be seeing red, but it was still unnerving, and Lampwick felt a pang of relief when Pinocchio shook his head and glanced down, seemingly breaking the spell. “It’s alright,” he muttered. “I get it. It wasn’t your fault, or Sir Gawain’s. You guys didn’t even know who I was.”

“Aye, but we do now.” Lord Bertilak broke into a tight smile, his stance relaxing minutely. “My lady wife has yet to bless us with a child, but if she ever does, I pray that they are nearly as brave as the two of you, when they grow up. ‘Tis not a common occurrence, what happened in this land.”

He crouched down, then, closer to an eye level with them; except he didn’t do so in that infuriating way most adults had when addressing a child, leaning forward or sitting on their haunches so condescendingly that Lampwick felt grateful to have now grown taller than most boys his age. No, the man went down heavily on one knee, instead, head bowed slightly as he fished something out of his pocket – there was a certain stiffness to his movements, some sort of reverence, almost, slowing him down as though in the middle of a temple ritual.

“I know no gift could repay the help you have given us,” he went on, the words soft and low in volume, “but we wanted you to have this, all the same.”

He motioned for Pinocchio to hold out a hand, and when he did Lord Bertilak pressed a second object onto his palm and wrapped the boy’s fingers around it, slow and gentle. Lampwick caught a flash of glimmering green – Lady Ardena’s scarf, now bunched up ungainly rather than tied around a wound, but quite recognizable all the same, though they hadn’t seen it since it had landed in Arthur’s possession. When Pinocchio opened his hand again, dumbfounded, the bloodstains were still easily noticeable on the fabric, washed out to a faded brown and yet visible even in the wavering firelight.

“My wife gave it to Gawain, when Lady Morgana first sent him to us, and then I was tasked with sending it to King Arthur as a warning,” the knight reprised, ignoring their surprise, “but we believe you ought to have it, now. It would be a mark of shame, if any of us wore it, but it should be a reminder of your bravery, if you take it home with you instead. As I said, you were involved in something bigger than any of us, and acted bravely in the face of it – I would be proud of myself, if I were you.”

His smile grew sadder, then, somewhat longingly, and suddenly it was much easier to find the man who’d comforted Lady Ardena in her grief in him, rather than the creature they’d run away from in fear.

“The lady did not bestow her magical powers on me, when she made me don that armor, so I do not know what the future has in store for you all,” he said, and he sounded regretful, too, which made Lampwick blink in shock.

“But by the gods, I hope none of you will never be tested this way again. It is a cruel man or woman, the one who expects children to do the brunt of the work in their place.”

“Are you sure you must leave?” Guinevere spoke up, addressing the group of foreigners assembled around her. “You are most welcome to stay in Camelot as long as you please- poor hospitality that we could offer you now, I fear, but it would be hospitality nonetheless.”

She appeared genuinely saddened by the news, too, which was somewhat unusual to see. Gone was the placid, serene smile she’d sported while Arthur was puppeteering her – the actual Guinevere wore her emotions right on her face, where everyone could witness them, and at the moment there was no mistaking the tiredness marring her beauty, or the worry lines creasing the corners of her eyes.

It was a good look on her, Regina decided after a moment. Even taking into account her diminished status, one could not deny the sheer determination she carried herself with, or how her gaze softened whenever she glanced at her sleeping daughter – she was sitting the window alcove of a cottage with far more confidence that she’d ever done a throne, and though the maids had bundled her up in simple roughspun wool to ward off the cold, she made it look like the most regal of velvets, Sir Lancelot standing dutifully at her flank and the infant princess in her arms.

“Yes, I’m afraid we have to,” Emma replied, apologetically. “We would have liked to stay and help you rebuild some more, but Morgana promised us safe passage home, and I don’t want to risk her getting bored of waiting and leaving us here forever.”

That was the truth of it, of course, except it wasn’t all of the truth, not even close. Just as there had been a bitter aftertaste in the air upon entering the green chapel, now the energy permeating the very ground around them was giving Regina something like an ultimatum – go home, and go home soon. Camelot itself was urging them to leave, and though it didn’t feel a threat as much as strong, firm reminder that they had nothing more to offer this place, theirs was still a deeply uncomfortable position to be in, in a kingdom filled with so many vengeful people.

She wondered who else among the Storybrooke natives gathered to give their farewell could sense this pressure, aside from her and Emma. Morgana had spoken of a great many things rooted in magic in this land, so perhaps this, too, was one of them – that likely meant that Robin and David and all the rest were blissfully unaware of it, and would only be amused by her haste in leaving if she spoke it aloud, pinning it on a dislike of the overt friendliness the locals were showing them just now.

Maybe Pinocchio was feeling it, though, from what that witch lady had insinuated about him; except the boy was looking more at peace with himself than he’d done in weeks, so there was a chance his newly acquired sixth sense had already been defused – which was just as well, as far as Regina was concerned. She didn’t want to be the one to tell Marco that his son had tried to fight an enchanted statue bare-handed, once they got back in town.

Guinevere nodded he, letting out a heavy sigh. “I understand. I do not know if I should thank that sorceress or curse her for what she left me to work with, but I would not provoke her any further, either way. And you have nothing to fear- it will be a long time before Camelot regains its splendor, if it ever does, but we will endure. You have already done plenty enough to help us, and I am not alone in this endeavor anymore.”

She extricated an arm from her wrappings to reach for Lancelot’s hand, then, her expression softening as she took it. “If my dear friend Lancelot sees it fit to forgive me, then nothing should be capable of swaying me, with him by my side.”

“There is nothing to forgive.” For his part, the knight looked nothing short of besotted, his gaze warm and encompassing both the queen and the little girl in the crook of her arm. “Those who stayed here already regard you as their leader, and if we are lucky, they will be just as loyal to your successor.”

The princess Enid didn’t appear particularly interested in the discussion regarding her fate, instead snoring softly in her mother’s lap. She didn’t seem to be take much after her questionable father, but then again it was hard for three-days-old children to carry any resemblance to anyone in the family, so maybe this trait would change with time – for the kid’s sake, Regina hoped it never would, or that if she truly had to inherit anything from Arthur, it would be much later in her life, once the man’s memory had already faded in Guinevere’s mind.

“’Tis not about luck. I shall teach her to love and care for her people, so they will love and care for her, as me and my husband did before the madness came over him.” A shadow passed over Guinevere’s face, somber and twisting her features in grief; but when she turned to speak to her guests she was smiling bravely once more, albeit without slipping out of Lancelot’s grasp.

“And I will teach her of the aid that came from another land, too, you have my word for it. Again, I cannot know if we will ever regain the strength we had before, but that will not stop us from rushing to your help, if one day you come asking for some, be it under my lead or that of my heir. We shall not forget the Savior and her friends, who broke us out of our spell, and we will be sure to pay that debt, whenever the occasion may arise.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Regina replied, voice tinged with dry humor. “But I hope you won’t be offended if our next meeting happens in our land instead, because I for one don’t want to see Camelot for a while once we’ve left.”

The queen gaped at her for a long second, seemingly taken aback; then, abruptly, she burst out in laughter, the sound high and girlish and cracking, but as genuine as she had been before, startling Enid out of her slumber with a mewling peep of outrage that was soon lulled back to sleep by her mother’s soothing words.

There were more goodbyes afterwards, though the mayor was all but itching to leave, at this point. Lancelot and Snow were particularly reluctant to let go of each other, wrapped in a tight hug and whispering a long string of words that were unintelligible to just about everyone else, but finally the aged princess relented her grasp and stepped back slowly, wiping her eyes and yet still smiling warm and wide, and after that the meeting seemed to come to a natural conclusion, Guinevere sending them off with one last blessing.

“Now what?” Regina asked to no one in particular, as they made their way out of the village. There weren’t many people around to see them depart, but the few that were busying themselves among the huts all stopped in their work to stare at the group, some cheerfully waving at them, others staring in blatant curiosity, and a couple even glaring at the foreigners with what had to be heavy mistrust, suspicious and distasted.

Ah, well. It was hard to appease the entire audience, it seemed, even when the show set up included literally decontaminating the fields they were standing on from one of Rumpelstiltskin’s dated magical tricks.

“Didn’t Morgana tell you two what to do?” Robin shot back at her, eyebrows raised. “I thought you had a plan.”

“Well, she didn’t tell us much, alright? Only to- to look to the woods when we were ready to leave, or something like that. She didn’t exactly give us coordinates.”

“That’s so stupid,” Lampwick interjected, scoffing audibly. “How does that even work- Look to the woods and what? Think about Storybrooke very hard? Wish upon a star like this guy over here?”

Pinocchio groaned in annoyance and gave him a rough shove, which the older boy avoided nimbly, bundled up against the cold though they both were. Emma closed her eyes for a brief moment, as if praying for patience, then cut sternly in the middle of their squabble, grabbing them by the shoulder.

“Our best bet right now is to get to the forest, so that’s what we’re going to do,” she said, in a tone that allowed no further discussion. “There won’t be any wandering off from here on, you hear me? I’ve had enough of that from you two. You get lost at this point, I’m leaving you here, and you can ask Queen Guinevere if she needs her floors scrubbed for coin.”

“Aw, come on, Sheriff, I can’t believe you’d be so cruel.”

“Don’t tempt me, kid, I’ve had a very long week.”

Lampwick huffed half-heartedly under his breath, but seemed to settle for good at long last, trailing after the Savior complacently enough. They covered the rest of the distance to the edge of the woods in silence, each preoccupied with their own thoughts; it wasn’t a long walk, and they didn’t have a lot in the way of luggage – or anything, really – so there wasn’t any risk of exerting themselves too much...not physically, at least. There was no doubt that all of them had questions still unanswered floating on their mind, be it about the place they were leaving behind or what they would find back home, and that they would rather keep quiet about them for a while longer.

Nor was Regina too keen to exclude herself from that category, in all honesty. Far from giving them the explanations they’d asked for, Morgana had regaled her and Emma with even more puzzles to solve, ones that would hardly become easier to untangle once they’d escaped that death trap of a kingdom, and there was Excalibur to consider, too. The sword was hanging from the belt at her waist at that very moment, the weight a constant reminder of its unwelcome present – Guinevere had pressed it into her care almost as soon as she’d glimpsed the blade, insisting that she’d rather know it far away in a whole other land, where it could be studied and kept safe, than suffer its presence a second longer.

That was all well and good; but it meant they were bringing another dangerous artifact home with them, one the mayor would have happily done without, as though they’d merely lost a game of hot potato with King Arthur’s sword. Her underground vault would probably be the most secure place to store it, but there was no telling if anyone might come to reclaim the weapon, as seemed to be the case for most of the stuff she and Emma always got their hands on.

For now, though, there was no one making such demands – no one around them at all, in truth, the village a little ways behind their backs. When they drew to a halt at the very edge of the forest, still not saying a word, there was nothing to break the silence that surrounded them, nothing aside from the chirping and rustling deeper among the trees, likely from this wild animal or that.

“Should we summon her?” Snow mused, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain. “You don’t think she’s just spying on us until we’re ready to leave, right?”

Regina snorted, dripping disbelief from every word. “I’d be surprised if she weren’t, honestly. If she could manage to snoop on a whole court, I can’t see her struggling much with just the lot of us, Snow, can you-“

“What’s that?” Roland interjected, tugging at her sleeve and interrupting what promised to be an excellent discussion with her former nemesis.

Regina had no clue what that might be, but following the little boy’s outstretched finger directed her towards a small, pointy-eared shape standing a few feet ahead of them, its fur a dark stain against the barren ground of the path. At first it was hard to determine what it was, but then it turned its head, revealing a triangular snout and bright, intelligent eyes, and just like that the mystery was solved.

A fox. A little fox, with grey-brown fur and a fluffy tail – Regina caught Snow tensing in the corner of her eye, taking a step back instinctively, but she could not bring herself to turn around and check on the older woman, too mesmerized by the creature now staring at them with a little too much intensity. It trotted towards them at a leisure pace, like a lapdog freed from its leash, and only stopped when it had reached the group, sniffing the air expectantly.

“Oh!” To her surprise Pinocchio crouched down without a hint of hesitation, a faint smile spreading across his face, and held out a hand, clicking his tongue as one might have done while calling over a housecat. “Hello there. Were you looking for us?”

“Careful with it, boy,” Robin warned him, and Regina was comforted by the fact that the man was looking as confused as herself, caught off guard by this scene that seemed to be coming straight from a children’s picture book. “Those things have a nasty bite.”

Pinocchio clearly wasn’t listening to him, however, and besides, the fox didn’t appear to have any intention of biting anyone at all. It started nosing at the boy’s fingers, instead, yapping stridently and even allowing him to scratch it behind the ears, as though it were just Dr. Hopper’s Pongo and not a wild beast from the forest. “Good girl,” he murmured, his grin widening. “You’re alright. You found us just fine.”

Lampwick took a careful step closer, leaning forward to examine the animal better. “It saying anything interesting?” He ventured, shoving his hands in his pockets with a sigh. He didn’t look particularly fazed by what he was seeing, shockingly enough – if anything, he sounded...resigned. “Tryin’ to sell you stuff or something?”

“Excuse me,” Regina spoke up, finally finding her voice among all that puzzlement, “can we go back to the start for a second? Any reason why that fox should be talking to him? Was that always in the cards?”

The lanky boy shrugged dismissively. “You know, they just do that sometimes. Animals, I mean. They speak with him and stuff. But I never know when they’re doing that for real and when he’s trying to mess with me.”

“What?”

“I don’t mess with you, they just tell me funny things about you sometimes.” Pinocchio stood up again, brushing dust off his breeches, his head tilted to the side as he regarded the creature with curiosity. “And she’s not saying anything. She’s just happy that she found us. I think we were about to be late.”

“Late?” Emma asked from the head of the group, sporting a deep frown. “Late for what?”

The fox huffed more loudly this time, a near-yowl that, coming from a person, would have felt impressively urgent. It sniffed at the boy’s shoes a little longer, then turned on its heel and ran off down the path again, stopping shortly after to stare intently at them once more.

When it took off a second time, Pinocchio darted after it in the blink of an eye, bounding away and further into the woods.

Lampwick let out something that sounded perilously close to a hooray, more sarcastic than truly enthusiastic, and immediately followed in his friend’s wake, prompting Emma to stumble into a chase as well, her annoyed voice calling fruitlessly after them both. “What the hell, kid, what did I just say-“

“Don’t blame me, he started it this time!”

Roland seemed torn between joining in the older boys’ game and shying away from the darkening road slicing through the forest, so Regina elected to cut the middleman and pick him up first, holding him tight in her arms as she turned to the others, still rearing in shock from the most recent spectacle. “Come on. If we were waiting for a sign, this is as good as it gets.”

They didn’t have to go very far, mercifully. The path was rough and barely marked, as though very few people had beaten down it before, but it only took a few twists and turns of following Emma’s glowing mane of hair for the five of them to catch up with the fugitives – Regina very nearly slammed into the sheriff’s back, in fact, the other woman having stopped abruptly and seemingly in the middle of nowhere, her fingers keeping a death grip on the back of the boys’ coats.

Or- not nowhere, exactly. There was no clearing that Emma had reached, no distinct landmark – only trees upon trees, brown and grey and white with lingering frost, and the green opening of a cave, covered by patches of vibrant, unseasonal moss and vines.

Regina froze on the spot, her grasp on Roland tightening almost of its own accord. It was not the same dirthole that had led them to Camelot, not exactly, but it bore a stark resemblance to the previous one all the same, sans perhaps the snow stopping only inches from its entrance. It was the fox who stood to attention in front of the opening this time, not a healthy dusting of ice, and yet the former felt like a better, bizarrely fitting addition to the scene, to this slab of spring surrounded by a shivering and freezing kingdom.

The fox barked shrilly, impossibly energetic for something that might as well have led them to a horror movie setting, and disappeared into the cave, the tip of its tail flitting left and right before mingling with the darkness inside.

“Are we supposed to follow it?” Regina asked, trying to sound sharp despite the way her mouth had dried up. “It didn’t go so well the last time, that I remember.”

Emma exhaled heavily, eyes glued to the entrance of the cave. “Makes sense, though. Back the way we came from, or something like that.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s a trap, have you thought about that?”

“Well, any suggestions about how to check if it’s a trap without going in?”

“It’s not a trap,” Pinocchio protested, squirming in the Savior’s tight hold. “We don’t even need an earthquake this time, I think, since we want to go in.”

“I’m with him on this one,” Lampwick chimed in, before flashing a winning smile up at Emma. “Come on, Sheriff, where’s your sense of adventure?”

The woman stared down at him with a look in her eyes that positively exuded tiredness. “You’re going to run in as soon as I let go of you guys, aren’t you?”

The boy’s grin widened, his hand raising to give her a thumbs up. Emma nodded, clearly unsurprised, then straightened up again, wrapping her arms around the children’s shoulders. “Alright, then. Here goes nothing.”

“Emma, wait-“

The Savior ignored her mother’s plea, and instead walked forward purposefully, keeping Pinocchio and Lampwick close to her side. She hesitated briefly when they reached the opening, but only for a moment; then all three of them stepped inside, rapidly engulfed by the cave.

Regina waited with bated breath, but she didn’t hear any calls for help coming from the other side, no screams of pain or even just the sound of footsteps. Emma and the boys had simply vanished, just like the fox had done before them – just as they all had done during their one-way trip, taken straight to Camelot without a single by-your-leave. Either Morgana had played one last nasty trick on them, or...

A hand touched her lightly on the back, prompting her to turn. David and Snow were still rooted on the spot, staring uncertainly at the place where their daughter had disappeared, but Robin had drawn closer to her, looking worried but also oddly determined.

“What do you say?” He murmured, his mouth twitching upwards. “Shall we?”

There was still a tight knot in Regina’s throat, but she swallowed around it and nodded nevertheless. She adjusted Roland’s weight on her hip, feeling comforted by his warm presence more than by the cold, broken sword on her other side, and leaned into Robin’s touch instinctively, allowing it to stabilize her.

Then they walked into the cave together, leaving Camelot behind for good.

Chapter Text

Storybrooke

Archie was, to put it mildly, just about grasping at straws.

Not that the rest of the townspeople were faring much better, all in all. If anything, they all resembled a cluster of headless chickens, running around without a clue as to where or why they were doing it. It was a miracle no evildoer had swept in to take advantage of the situation yet, though one ought to be cautious in their relief – the Savior had only been missing for a couple weeks, now, and there was no sign that she might return anytime soon. Any wannabe villain would probably have plenty of space left to step in.

And still, the doctor couldn’t bring himself to worry about Emma as much as everyone else. Sure, she’d vanished without a trace on Christmas Day, with only the barest clue that she might have walked into the woods and never got out, and so had her parents, and the mayor and Robin Hood; but they were all adults, some with magical powers at their disposal, others with decades of fighting and surviving experience on their backs. They could handle whatever had happened to them, he was sure of it.

No, it was his own personal brand of homebrew worry Archie was most concerned about, to be quite honest.

“Have you eaten anything at all today?” He insisted, pushing the diner’s menu towards the man sitting in front of him. “Marco. Please. You’re not helping anyone acting like this.”

Marco shook his head, turning his cup of coffee in his hands with a distant look in his eyes. “It’s alright, my friend. I’m not hungry. Leave it be.”

Archie bit his tongue, restraining himself from reminding his friend that his job (or jobs, as things stood) physically prevented him from leaving anything be. It would have been of no use, even though it pained him to see the other man in such a state – it hadn’t even been twenty days since Christmas, and yet they seemed to have aged Marco about twenty years, leaving him snappish and brooding in turns. Nothing short of his son returning would set him to rights again this time, the doctor feared.

Part of him wanted to believe Pinocchio to have left of his own volition once more, that this was just another reckless whim, but Archie refused to entertain that notion. It was too much of a coincidence that he’d disappeared alongside the others, for one, and he wouldn’t have done that now, besides. Pinocchio’s behavior had been, if not impeccable, at least on par with that of any normal, healthy child his age since the curse, and he’d been vocal about only wanting some peace and quiet from that point onwards, besides – he wouldn’t have brought so much heartache to his father on a lark, that much was certain, not even with Lampwick at his side to provoke him.

That, however, brought forward an entirely new set of problems, because if Pinocchio hadn’t ran off autonomously, then he must have been taken instead, or worse. Neither was an option Archie wanted to consider for too long, in truth, because Storybrooke was...well, it wasn’t the Enchanted Forest, in more ways than one. There were only so many threats a child could face so close to the town, and most of them were farther from magic and closer to kidnapping than he would have liked.

Still, there was little to do about it for those left behind. The forest had been scoured from one end to the other, and nothing had been found to reward for their trouble, save for Pinocchio’s sled, stuck in the snow halfway down a slope – Marco had deposited it in his workshop and hadn’t moved it since, which wasn’t helping him keep his mind off the matter, either. There had been no further clue, no footprint, nothing; only a new mystery, and a big void where the town’s actual leaders and three children should have been.

The only thing Archie could conceivably be of use for was keeping his oldest friend from passing out in worry, and he would have gladly resumed his efforts if Pongo, who had been sprawled unceremoniously at his feet all along, hadn’t lifted his head in a sudden spark of interest, his tail thumping excitedly against the floor tiles. That gave the doctor pause; nothing had seemingly changed in the diner in the past five minutes or so, no abrupt noises or anything or the sort – if anything the atmosphere was more quiet and subdued than usual, mirroring what the rest of town had felt like for the entirety of the Christmas break. They were even too accustomed to all the ways peace could be broken around there, and everyone was very keen to lay low and keep their guard up rather than relax and go on about their days as usual.

Pongo whined audibly, earning himself some annoyed glares. Then the door slammed open, the loud crashing sound prompting everyone to look up and ruining any chance of tranquility entirely.

The newcomer- or better, newcomers, hovered in the entrance for a moment, as if startled by their own noise. Archie blinked, surprised, staring in disbelief at the two figures as the tallest one turned to the other and said: “See, I told you they’d be here, you dumb-“

The second figure cut him off before he could finish, sprinting forward with his arms up. “Papa!”

Marco hadn’t gotten more than halfway out of his seat, gaping in shock, when Pinocchio barreled into him at full speed. Within moments the boy was all but clinging to his father, an incoherent string of words streaming out of his mouth, and though it was hard to guess what he was saying with the cacophony of comments and exclamations now rippling through the diner, it appeared to be insistingly punctuated by apologies, growing more desperate by the second.

Lampwick had sauntered in after his friend with the usual haughtiness, but he had stopped a couple feet further away from the table, wariness writ all over his face, shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other and eyeing the crowd surrounding him. Once Marco had broken out of his stupor enough to return his son’s hug, however, he seemed to notice the second boy that had entered his field of view as well – he reached out and took Lampwick unceremoniously by the arm, pulling him into the embrace and prompting him to go wide-eyed with surprise for a long moment before he relaxed into the man’s arms.

Archie would have laughed at the sight of a child who had given him so much grief be caught so off-guard, if he’d had just a smidge more presence of mind, but the truth was that he didn’t. In fact, he was near frozen on the spot for a long time, until Pinocchio finally wriggled out of his father’s grasp and bounded over to him, nearly stumbling over the moving obstacle that was Pongo – the dalmatian was beyond himself with excitement, jumping and barking with much more strength that he generally dared use within Granny’s establishment, as though he, too, had realized how long he’d gone since he’d last seen his favorite playmate.

Still, the sudden, wriggling armful of boy the doctor got was plenty enough to break through his reverie, and he crouched down almost instantly, grabbing Pinocchio firmly by the shoulders – he wasn’t sure he would believe his eyes until he had the physical, palpable proof that the boy was truly there in the flesh, honestly. “Where have the two of you been?”, were the first words out of his mouth, though he had to admit he could have picked a somewhat gentler approach. “Are you alright? We’ve been worried sick!”

“It was an accident this time,” Pinocchio whined, sounding refreshingly childish and familiar after so long without hearing his voice. “We didn’t mean to go anywhere.”

“He’s right, we really didn’t,” Lampwick chimed in, Marco’s arm still wrapped firmly around his shoulders. “We got played real good this time. But it’s fine, we were with the sheriff all along.”

“With- wait, is Emma back, too?”

“Yeah, she’s-“ The boy turned to glance back at the entrance, but then he frowned, as though puzzled by something.

“Weird, I thought she’d come in with us. Doesn’t matter, though- yeah, she is, and the mayor and Robin Hood and all that. We went to Camelot, d’you know? We saw the queen from like, this close.”

“What?” Archie’s gaze scanned over Pinocchio’s appearance, numbly searching for anything that might dispute such a strange story. Both boys were wearing an impressive hodge-podge of styles, that was true enough, their own coats layered over clothes that would have been more fit for their old homeland, and they were looking a little worse for the wear – Pinocchio had a catscratch of healing scabs on his chin that certainly hadn’t been there when he’d left, for one, which wasn’t exactly a welcome sight, and the two of them had the grubby faces and sleeves of someone who’d gone a tad too long without proper adult supervision, as well.

Nevertheless, neither looked dirtier or sicklier than he could have conceivably been at home, so that only left the problem of their destination. “What do you mean, Camelot? What were you doing in Camelot of all places?”

“Well, we-“ Pinocchio began, but then he stopped abruptly, his brow furrowed in concentration. The doctor watched, strangely fascinated, as he cocked his head to the side, as if trying to recall something lost – his eyes were oddly distant, his gaze detached, and he kept distractedly fidgeting with a long strip of fabric that was wrapped around his wrist, his fingers pulling at the frayed green threads of the hem.

“That’s so weird,” he resumed after a moment, slow and doubtful. “There was something I really wanted to talk about, but I just...I don’t remember what it was. It’s- it’s like it’s just gone.”

He glanced over his shoulder at his friend. “Do you know what I’m talking about, Lampwick?”

“Yeah, duh, it was when you...” Lampwick pursed his lips together, appearing deep in thought. “Wait, no, I don’t have it either. I know what you mean- ‘s on the tip of my tongue, swear, but I don’t have it. Mustn’t have been that important.”

“I guess you’re right.” Pinocchio turned to look at Archie once more, though his grin was a tad less convincing this time around, a bit too forced at the edges. “Must have been something stupid.”

There was a thin, icy vein of unease in the air now – Archie couldn’t quite put his fingers on what it was, nor had he any clue as to what had just transpired between the boys, but he vowed to find out, sooner or later. First they had to get the whole story, not just bits and pieces pried here and there, and check if the Savior had really returned, and possibly put these children to bed for a nap, given the dark shadows lingering underneath Pinocchio’s eyes; but there would be time and space aplenty to unpack the rest afterwards, he would make sure of it.

Besides, there didn’t appear to be any desire to do so now, for within moments Lampwick was loudly voicing his thoughts again, seemingly unable to restrain himself.

“Now, where’s Leroy gotten himself to? I wanna go give him a heart attack.”

“Don’t you want to go in?” Regina ventured, after a long pause.

Emma grimaced, shaking her head stiffly. “Not right now. I’m going to need a break before I have to answer people’s questions, and I don’t want to see those kids again for a week at least.”

“What are the chances of that happening, really?”

“Honestly? Pretty low. There’ll be someone complaining that they’ve kicked a ball through a window within two days, if you ask me. It doesn’t hurt to hope, though.”

The mayor hummed in agreement, and they drifted into exhausted silence once more, watching the diner on the opposite side of the street. It was difficult to piece together what might be happening inside, with two sidewalks, a busy road and a thick glass window in the way, but there was no doubt that the boys’ arrival had caused quite a ruckus – Emma was glad she’d elected to send Pinocchio and Lampwick ahead on reconnaissance, now. They’d needed to be reunited with their families before anything else, and in doing so they’d tested the waters for her, showing what kind of welcome back celebrations she ought to expect for herself.

God, but was she tired already. Much too tired to speak to anyone ever again, if she could have – she knew she wouldn’t be so lucky, but maybe she could haggle to get some much deserved comforts before that, at least. She needed a long, steaming shower, a change of clothes that could be worn without stays underneath, and most of all... “You know, I could kill for a drink right now.”

“Me too,” Regina groaned, voice etched with annoyance. “Half of those knights were drunk all the time, and yet they still acted like brown ale was the peak of flavor. Come on, I think I have a bottle of something stronger in my liquor cabinet, with both our names on it.”

Emma looked quizzically at her, eyebrow raised. “Are you serious?”

The mayor shrugged dismissively. “Robin needs to check on his men, your parents need a marriage counselor, and we-“ she tapped her finger on Excalibur’s hilt, still prominent at her side “-need to talk about this, and about a lot of the crap we saw in that place, especially now that those two brats aren’t within earshot anymore. With some luck we can use any of those things as an excuse if anyone tries to come looking for us.”

She grinned in the face of the Savior’s skeptical glance, then, a wicked, peevish glint in her eyes. “So what do you say? A glass of cider to drown our sorrows?”

There was little that Emma wanted to do less than sitting down and talking about Camelot, at present; she wanted to forget as much as humanly possible, actually, and pretend she didn’t need to plan in advance for an eventual fallout in the future. Sure, Excalibur had followed them home, but there was no guarantee that the rest of their troubles would do the same – Arthur was dead, after all, clearly and irrefutably so. For once they could lay back without expecting him to come back to haunt them, axe in hand and face painted green.

However, if she knew Regina – and she wagered she knew Regina well enough, by that point, for good or for bad – then they were less likely to have a serious chat than to simply collapse on the mayor’s luxurious couches and complain about the aching bones that resulted from dethroning a king and jumping through a portal, far away from where her mother and father were no doubt having the most awkward conversation of their lives. They wouldn’t have to be a Savior and a queen, there, but merely two women at their wits’ end, sharing experiences and take a well-deserved break.

Emma liked that idea, in truth, but she liked Regina’s smile as she proposed it even more, the kind of bright, genuine smile one could hardly raise a complaint against, and even less so when they were on the brink of dozing off.

“Alright,” she said, turning her back to the rowdy diner. They could all handle themselves without her for an hour or so, and even if they couldn’t, well...it was none of her business, at long last.

“Sounds like a plan. Lead the way, Madam Mayor.”

????

The chapel looked as though it had been abandoned for centuries already.

It was to be expected, of course; ruins they were meant to be, and ruins they would be until the end of time, unless someone made use of them again. Maybe someone would, one day, someone with enough strength to make it shimmer and blossom to its full glory, or maybe it would remain empty for decades hence, long enough for the people of the land to forget about its legends and portents. Maybe they would tear it down and build a city upon its stones, and then wonder why their nights were haunted beyond relief, full of specters older even than Merlin’s tree.

The sorceress would not waste any of her treasures wagering over either of these outcomes, but even so she could appreciate the way the building clung to its customary state of disrepair, the very nature of its bones. Her skirts swept up clouds of dust as she walked, leaving a cleaner, uneven trail in her wake, and when she pressed a finger to one of the statues lining the walls it came away coated with grime, the cheek she had stroked marred like that of a lady who’d just begun removing her face paints and powders.

Still, it wasn’t neglect she was looking for; there, in the thick, oppressive silence of the chapel, she searched for life, and life she found, right at the heart of it.

The woman smiled, a bright, dazzling grin, and crouched down carefully, a hand not quite touching the plant and yet hovering close, prodding at the energy it exuded. The sprout would have gone unnoticed if the floor had retained its green, magical splendor, but now, amongst the dirt and mud and rubble, it was a vibrant spot of color in a world that was otherwise made of murkish brown, looking as healthy and full of vigor as a deer fawn on the cusp of adolescence.

Hellebore. Born to winter, stubborn enough to last until the brink of spring. An apt choice, one she should have guessed much earlier, for already it was getting so tall before her eyes, almost entirely grown. Soon its roots would dig even deeper, its flowers blossoming and its false fruits ripening – they came in many colors, usually, but she was willing to bet these ones would be red, like the blood that had been spilled upon these very floor tiles.

The boy’s blood. Yes, she could see the faint lines of the stain still – the budding plant had gobbled most of it down eagerly, earning itself a quick growth, but it was not the kind of mark one could easily erase. The Savior might have turned a blind eye to what a peculiar child she had in her hands, might have thought him common and frail, but blood had a way of always telling the truth of things, eventually, if you knew what to look for. Common little boys could not see the inner threads of the world well enough to weave through them, as she knew from motherly experience; they didn’t challenge her as a peer would have, with fire in their eyes; mostly, they didn’t have blood that sang when it was spilled, calling out for the earth to take it back.

Common little boys she had no use for; but there was nothing common in what she was seeing now, and that would serve her just fine. Aye, that would serve her best of all.

Morgana’s smile widened, sharp as a knife point. Then she stood up and left the same way she had come in, turning her back to the hellebore sprout as it continued its sluggish, inching growth, thrumming rhythmically with life as though following the pace of a heartbeat.

THE END