#I doubt he wants to owe any of them a favor. sounds like a shortcut to a bad time

[creature-once-removed]

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[jarienn972]

A Simple Spell - Chapter Ten

A Captain Swan Supernatural Summer Tale

I had planned to have this chapter of my @cssns​ story completed a lot sooner than this but a stressful trip to Texas and a sinus infection threw those plans right out of the window. I finally got this chapter done and it picks up inside Regina's vault after Emma's statement that it might already be too late, implying that the third challenge may have begun. As they prepare to search for the missing Killian Jones, Emma is going to have to deal with her decision to cast the spell and uncovers a piece of the past.

Once again, I’m going to thank @lassluna​ for all of her beta assistance and @cocohook38​ for her amazing artwork!

From the beginning on Tumblr: One  Two  Three  Four  Five  Six  Seven  Eight  Nine       Also on AO3 and FF.net

**********

“What do you mean it might already be too late?” an agitated Regina queried as the vault fell under an eerie silence.

Emma flushed with guilt, suddenly feeling sick to her stomach and hyper-critical of her earlier decisions.  She slumped against a bare chamber wall as her head struggled to process the potential ramifications of her actions. “I think I may have inadvertently fallen into the third challenge…” she confessed as a multitude of thoughts bombarded her.  Was history about to repeat itself? Had she just set herself upon the same path as her mother? “What the hell have I done?” she sighed, squeezing her eyes closed in a foolhardy attempt to make this all go away.

“What?” Regina pressed, needing a lot more information to even begin to figure out what was going on. “Emma - just what the hell did you do? And what makes you think that it has anything to do with the warlock’s challenges?”

“I cast a spell the other night,” Emma stated, not that her answer was going to give any clarification to her fear. “I think that spell might have triggered the third challenge…”

“What sort of spell?” Zelena questioned, her curiosity piqued as to how a novice witch like Emma would have stumbled upon a spell powerful enough to garner the warlock’s attention.  Yes, Emma’s mother had been the last victim, but Ava had been a seasoned practitioner, more worthy of a battle.  Choosing Emma would almost be cheating for such a powerful warlock.

“It was a love spell, okay?” Emma replied defensively, although now  cringing with embarrassment over how ridiculous it sounded. 

“You cast a love spell?” Regina scoffed, but Emma cut the mayor off before she’d allow herself to be berated.

“Yes - a love spell!” Emma snapped back at her cousin. “Laugh all you want, but I knew I wanted someone in my life… I live with my brother and Mary Margaret and honestly, some days it’s like living with Snow White and her Prince Charming and yeah, I got a little jealous. I just want what they have - what you and Robin have… I just wanted my own true love and maybe taking a shortcut was too good to be true, but when I stumbled across that spell, I knew I had to cast it.  Maybe it was a bad idea in retrospect, but I did it.”

“So what about it makes you think that the spell might have been a part of the warlock’s games?” Zelena asked. “Can you show it to me?”

“The whole issue with my mother having to make a choice…,” Emma responded, scurrying back into the anteroom towards the towering bookshelves. “Let me show you…” She quickly located the volume she’d used and carried it to the potion table, dropping it rather indelically so she could flip through the pages searching for the specific spell. Despite her recollection of how many pages into the book it had been, Emma couldn’t locate it.  “What the hell? I can’t find it…  I know this is the right book - Zelena used it for one of our lessons in incantations a while back, but now, the spell isn’t here… I don’t understand… I swear it was here…”

“It’s alright,” Zelena offered her some comfort, but Emma could hear the faint air of disdain behind her words. “Do you remember what it said?” She hoped to garner enough information to determine what Emma had potentially conjured, but before Emma could answer, Regina unleashed a tirade.

“What were you even doing with those books?” Regina demanded. “I warned you not to get into any of those advanced spellbooks. That one’s written entirely in Latin!”

“And I’ve been studying Latin!” Emma angrily retorted.

“Ladies!” Zelena shouted, throwing up her hands in frustration. “Bickering isn’t going to get us anywhere. Let’s just try to figure out what happened…” She returned her attention to Emma and asked her again, “Emma, do you remember what the spell said?”

“I think so,” Emma replied, taking a deep breath to calm herself while she thought about the exact wording of the spell. “It was a short one… Verus amor occurant, which means to encounter true love. Verus amor reveles, to discover true love.  Verus amor agnocis. This was the only phrase I wasn’t really sure of.  I didn’t have an exact translation for agnocis, but everything else fit so I didn’t question it.  The last phrase was Confirmare verus amor which I know means confirm true love.”

“So you went ahead and cast a spell without knowing what the whole thing meant?” Regina questioned, shaking her head condescendingly at Emma’s impetulence.

“It was only one word.  I was only unsure of that single word and within the overall context, I didn’t see it as a problem at the time,” Emma replied.

“The problem is that single word changes the context of the spell.  It means identify. The phrase is identify true love and it takes this from a simple spell to discover true love to one that requires you to be able to distinguish your actual true love,” Regina explained.

“So, then it really is a choice…,” Emma sighed. “That’s why they both showed up in my life. “I’m supposed to choose between them…”

“Both who?” Zelena queried. “I know that our missing sailor is one of them, but who’s the other?”

“He’s an old friend from Boston, well, technically, an old lover.  I ran into him the same day I met Captain Jones and I didn’t really think much of it at the time.  It was a bizarre coincidence, that’s all I thought it was, and I went out to dinner with both of them.”

“And you have feelings for both?” Zelena asked, to which Emma nodded. 

“Okay, so then if the spell is to be believed and if, by chance, this is the same spell that led your mother into the warlock’s challenge, one of them is your true love and the other is a fake that will allow the warlock to steal your powers.”  Regina made it all sound so simple but Emma was struggling with the complexity of the mess she’d unexpectedly created. “Now do you understand why we wanted you to learn more about magic and its consequences before you learned about our family and all of the proverbial skeletons in the closet?  You needed a lot more knowledge to prepare you, but you got too curious for your own good!”

“Regina, enough!” a man’s voice boomed from the stairway behind Emma. “We should have told her the truth from the beginning.” Even though she already knew his voice, Emma was still slightly surprised to find David descending the steps. “We’re all equally culpable, so let’s just figure out a way to help Emma.  If this really is another challenge, you know as well as I do that the entire town will be affected, so we all need to work together.”

“Fine,” Regina relented with a huff. “But how are we supposed to help Emma figure out who her true love is, especially if one of the potential suitors is missing?”

“By first finding that missing captain. I’ve got calls in to organize a search team, provided I have a valid area to search,” David responded.

“Do you think his disappearance has anything to do with the choice I have to make?” Emma asked anxiously. “Do you think that maybe the warlock had Killian abducted because he’s really my true love?”

“Possibly,” Zelena stated before frowning and adding: “Of course, it could also be a ploy to make you pity him so he can garner favor…”

“Well, that’s encouraging…,” Emma sighed disparagingly. “But David’s right - we still need to find Killian first.  The locator spell indicated a spot out in the woods northeast of town.”

“It’s out near John’s cabin somewhere,” Regina explained. “I was going to call Robin to see if he and John can shed some light on what’s out there.”

“Sounds good,” David replied. “I’ll call Belle and see if she can locate any property records out in that area.  Maybe that will turn up some link to someone tied to this abduction. We’ll find this captain, Emma, but can I ask you a question - where’s the other guy?”

“We were having breakfast together when Graham called,” Emma responded. “I really owe him an apology…”

“Don’t hate me for this, but as Sheriff, you know I have to ask - do you think he might have had any involvement in Captain Jones’ disappearance?”

Emma honestly hadn’t anticipated that question.  “Walsh?” she asked incredulously. “He and Killian don’t know each other.  Why would you think he would be involved in this?”

“You don’t think jealousy could be a motive?” David asked her.

“I can’t imagine why it would,” Emma answered. “As I said, they don’t know each other.”

“Do you know where Walsh was last night?” was David’s next question.

“No,” Emma responded, now beginning to doubt her own resolve. “I didn’t see him last night. After our blow-up here, I went straight to Killian…”

“And that apparently upset someone,” Regina commented.

“Well, until we know more, we’re just going to treat this as a missing person case,” David stated. “Emma, meet me back at the station. I’m going to check in with Leroy to see how many people he was able to round up for our search party and I still want to get in touch with Belle to see what the town records will turn up about property owners out in that neck of the woods. It may not lead us anywhere, but it certainly can’t hurt.  Regina, let me know what Robin and John have to say.”

“I’ll call Belle,” Emma offered as she collected Killian’s compass and prosthetic hand, shoving them back into the leather pouch Mr. Smee had provided. David nodded in agreement as Zelena spoke up.

“What else can we do to help?” Zelena wondered.

“Right now, the best thing you can do is try to find out as much as you can about the warlock and the challenge my stepmother faced.  We need to learn everything we can,” David told her. “Whatever you can remember from what your mother told you will help.  Talk to Gold and Ingrid too. Maybe they can fill in some holes for us?”

“We’ll see what we can uncover,” Regina stated, although clearly not enthusiastic about the task.

“Thanks,” David replied, smiling despite the seriousness of the situation. “Now, let’s find Captain Jones and then we’ll deal with the rest of this.”

**********

Remembering that she still needed to reclaim her car from the cemetery parking area, Emma was able to return to the station in a matter of minutes, but what she really wanted to do was drive out to the forest and start hunting for Killian.  It took all of her strength not to keep driving past the station toward the woods, but she knew that they’d have more success working as a team.  It was simply too much territory for a single person to cover, logic dictated that fact, but it wasn’t going to make waiting for the search party to gather any easier.

She had contacted Belle, librarian and unofficial town historian, the moment she sat down at her desk, leaving a detailed message with precisely what they were needing in hopes that she’d get a response back rapidly. Despite the new developments that had occurred since she’d left the pawn shop that morning, Emma had an inkling that Belle might already be aware of some of what the deputy had requested - at least those pertaining to her mother and the warlock.  Gold had already provided quite a bit more information than Emma had expected from him, but she was hoping that Belle might be a bit more forthcoming - if the younger Mrs. Gold had any additional details.

Now she found herself with too much time to kill while she awaited David’s return with the search party.  She’d stared blankly at her computer monitor for several seconds, trying to decide what to do next, but she was facing a stalemate.  She wanted to search for more background on the warlock, but she realized no one had even given her a name.  Where would she start her search if she didn’t know the damned warlock’s name?  She toyed with the thought of calling Walsh to apologize for their interrupted breakfast, but since it was unlikely that she’d be able to reconnect with him at all today, she decided against it.  She simply couldn’t bring herself to dial his number because now she found herself wondering where he had been last night. Everything had suddenly become so complicated and she was feeling a fool for not recognizing that she’d fallen victim to a very clever trap.

One thing she could do with her time was to examine the one piece of evidence she had in her possession, one that she’d set aside earlier - the second book that she’d obtained from Gold this morning. The leather-bound volume that was currently occupying the upper right hand corner of her desk.  Picking it up, she could find no visible markings on it that would easily identify its purpose, but the wear along the spine and covers indicated that it had been handled regularly. The conundrum came when Emma attempted to open the damned thing. There was no flap on the cover to lift, no latch or lock anywhere on the burnished leather and it had her completely baffled. How did this blasted thing open?

Unless…

A blood seal?  Her mother had been a witch so perhaps she’d utilized a blood seal?  If this book contained some of Ava Nolan’s biggest secrets as Emma suspected it would, her mother would likely have thought to protect them with a seal that only she or those with like blood could open.  Emma had seen Regina and Zelena draw blood from their own flesh to open a bronze chest in the vault that housed several powerful amulets so the idea wasn’t out of the question. It seemed that Emma would now need to do the same to break into this mysterious book.

Yanking open the top drawer on her desk, she started digging through the office supplies and random junk in search of something sharp enough to draw a little bit of blood. The best object she could find was a plastic headed push pin from the bulletin board which wasn’t going to give her more than a miniscule bubble of blood but she was going to have to make due.  She didn’t have time to waste so push pin it would be.  She lifted the pin from the drawer thinking it would probably be best to sterilize it first, especially since she didn’t even know what all was in that drawer.  She squeezed a dollop of hand sanitizer from the dispenser on her desktop and smeared it all over the push pin and her fingertips.  Once satisfied that it was usable, she pressed the business end of the pin into the pad of her left middle finger.

A tiny crimson bead erupted to the surface of her skin and once she felt it was large enough, she drew her bloodied fingertip along the edge of the book that had the most visible wear. To her surprise and delight, the flap popped open and provided her access to the pages within. With a hint of trepidation, she raised the cover, thoughts of Pandora’s Box swirling through her overloaded mind.  She wasn’t going to stop though as she forced herself to skim through the pages of handwritten text.  She immediately recognized her mother’s handwriting as she gazed upon the words that had gone unread for decades.  The earliest entry was from nearly 40 years ago - the ramblings of a barely twenty year old Ava Blanchard whining about being overshadowed by older sister, Cora.  The jealousy was obvious in her words.  Ava envied her sister’s marriage and her status - being groomed by their father to succeed him as Storybrooke’s next mayor. But there was also some clear dissent between the sisters - Cora wanted to expand the town’s magic and open its borders to more like beings, not just their fellow witches and warlocks.  Ava voiced her disagreement, believing that the town’s magic was too much of a burden, essentially a curse upon them - and that was apparently long before she’d fallen victim to the warlock.

Emma found it to be an interesting insight, especially considering what would later befall her, but since she didn’t have time to read all of this now, she decided to skip ahead a few pages, landing on a journal entry that confirmed one of Emma’s own suspicions.  In this entry, Ava laments her loneliness and her belief that she was failing her family.  Cora had just given birth to Zelena and Ava worried that she couldn’t even keep a steady boyfriend. She believed that her one true love was out there but she was growing impatient and bored with her small town so she’d decided to cast a spell that would bring true love to her.

Emma could only speculate as to whether or not her mother had cast the same spell since the journal entry didn’t elaborate, but she could tell by skimming through the subsequent entries that the spell seemed to be successful. Ava wrote eloquently about the two men she’d developed feelings for. Robert Nolan was the sweet widower she’d grown up with.  They’d been friends since they were toddlers but as her attraction to Robert grew, Ava strangely began to fear that Robert’s one true love had been his late wife, Ruth.  She worried that she’d always be second, never measuring up, which began to push her towards the mysterious outsider she referred to merely as Ozzie. He was more cavalier and daring, taking her on trips to the bigger cities and showering her with the affection she craved, and she found herself gravitating towards him.

There were several more entries discussing both Robert Nolan and the man known only as Ozzie but so far, Emma found no mention of Ozzie’s surname. Her mother’s words did lay out her eventual decision though - believing that Robert had already found and lost his true love, Ava, she had decided that Ozzie must be the one for her and planned to seal the choice with their first passionate kiss the evening she’d written this.  Emma couldn’t help but think about her interactions with both Walsh and Killian where they’d shared little pecks on the cheeks over the past few days, but as of yet, no kisses on the lips.  Of the two, only Walsh had expressed any outward disappointment, perhaps simply due to their prior relationship, but his reaction, even after an apology, weighed on Emma’s mind as she flipped the page to her mother’s next entry.

Several days must have passed between Ava’s journal entries because the next one was visibly different in both content and appearance. It was written in a much sloppier script and spoke of betrayal and stupidity and of utter failure, yet surprisingly, it also spoke of hope. She wrote of choosing Ozzie, the more enigmatic of her suitors, but the moment she’d kissed him, he was gone. Vanished in a puff of grey smoke - along with her magic.  She was left feeling drained, hollow and empty, but she made no attempt to hide her fault. She’d made a poor choice and fessed up to it.  She’d gone to Robert and explained everything, including all of her shortcomings, and to her surprise, he’d forgiven her, going so far as to ask her to marry him right then and there.  True love had won after all, but at a hefty cost.

Hyper-focused on the journal, Emma failed to hear David and Graham returning to the squad room until one of them called her name, instantly snapping her back from the 1970s to the present - and to the current challenge facing them.

“Emma? You alright there?” David asked, slightly concerned when his sister didn’t respond immediately.

“Sorry, David… I just got a little caught up reading through this old journal of my mother’s while I was waiting for you,” she explained, closing the cover instinctively as if to protect it from prying eyes.

“Where did you find that?” David wondered.

“I got it from Mr. Gold at the pawn shop in exchange for a book of his that I retrieved for him from Regina’s vault.  He’d been holding on to some stuff mom had sold him for decades.”

“Well, unless you’re planning to continue reading, Leroy is assembling the search team he rounded up out at the farmhouse at the end of the paved stretch of Highway 3,” David said. “It’s as close as we’re going to be able to get to the area Zelena circled on a town map. Robin and John are lending us a couple of ATVs and Graham is using his own 4x4, but most of the area will still need to be covered on foot.  Have you heard anything back from Belle about properties and possible buildings out there?” 

“Haven’t heard from her yet,” Emma replied, “but what did Robin have to say?”

“Well,” David began as he unfurled the map Zelena had provided onto the top of an empty desk. “According to Robin, it’s mostly dense forest out there, but he did say there are a handful of cabins scattered throughout the woods. I guess there are some people who really like living off the grid because I don’t think the power lines extend that far out of town.” David stabbed an index finger into the center of the circle drawn in what looked like bright red lipstick. “We’ll have a team of ten, plus the three of us, available to search the indicated area.  Hopefully Belle will get back to us quickly and let us know more specifics on people who might be living out there.  It’s a long shot to think any of the owners could be connected to Captain Jones’ disappearance, but I’d still like to know what we’re up against. Now, let’s get stocked up on flashlights and make sure we have enough two-way radios because cell service is going to be spotty at best out there.”

“Alright, let’s get going then,” Emma stated as she sprang to her feet. There was still a little nagging voice in her head that had her fighting conflicting feelings about Killian’s role in the inevitable choice she was going to have to make, but no matter what, she still had to find him. Whatever she’d set in motion by casting that stupid spell wasn’t going to stop until she’d made her decision. If this was all a part of some deranged warlock’s game to steal her magical powers, Emma had no intention of giving up without a fight and when David wasn’t looking, she casually tucked her wand into the inside pocket of her leather jacket and then zipped it up before heading to the stockroom David jokingly referred to as the armory to gather the rest of the supplies they’d need.

Hang in there, Killian, she thought to herself. I will find you.