“Arm yourselves.” Emma Swan stared down at the spread of cold iron laid across the splintered wooden table, jaw tight as she eyed the edge of a broadsword. The late afternoon sun was bright enough, but under the thick canvas of the tent, it was almost dim. It was a blessing; a small one, but…

Idiot. She left the prince standing squarely in the middle of his own pathetic indecision, blond head finally full of something more than his own heroic fantasy.  Heels struck the pavement, clipping a punishing staccato against the concrete, as Regina kept her eyes on her target just a few doors down. This town… The ever-present…

“You must be loving this, aren’t you?” The breath that left him felt like an entire weight and yet it still didn’t leave his shoulders. David kept walking, heavy leather boots striking the flat pavement of Main Street in a steady marching rhythm. Too smooth… That was something he was still getting used to. The…

“FINN!” He looked up from the black mouth of the wishing well, the empty stone bottom yawning back at him with a depth he couldn’t measure with his eyes. “FINN!” His mouth fell open at the sight of her as she pushed through the trees, her face red and eyes watery under the light of…

Chapter 33 Epilogue Two: Flowers Wealth could do a good deal. It was, in its own way, a magic that persisted even while all others were forgotten under the rigors of age and the stressors of life. Two of those things were comfort and quiet. As such, Springmeadow Rest Home sat in the kind of…

Chapter 32 Epilogue One: Beneath Caverns under caverns, the mines of Storybrooke were bigger than they should have been for a town this small. But none of that mattered, not for a town made to order after all. Beneath the small town, in a cavern that shouldn’t exist carved into bedrock the people never knew…

All other thoughts out of her head, Ruby Lucas did the only thing she could. Ruby ran. Pure blind instinct and panic pushed her forward, heavy black boots pounding a brutal rhythm against dark pavement as she took to the streets. Fast, faster, and even faster than she’d ever run before, Ruby didn’t waste a…

The machines were all that kept the quiet at bay. Oxygen hissing into failing lungs and a sterile metronome keeping time for the small heart of Henry Mills. There was no magic to be found in those electronic beeps; no bargains and no loopholes in the cold countdown to the end. A sterile, mechanical metronome…

This took me too long. Dialogue is hard people. “Summer 2018, I think.” Eyes half-closed, heavy lids were already fighting a losing war against the Percocet he popped and bone-deep exhaustion. “I was seventeen, maybe?” The words came out slow, Finn picking his way through consonants as carefully as he could. “When they picked me…