Chapter Nine

Regina roused slowly out of a deep and dreamless sleep. She stretched languidly, turning her head to blink sleepily at the clock.

10:46am it proclaimed.

Odd, she thought. The room was very dim if it was that hour of the morning.

She turned her head the other way and realised that the thick curtains were tightly drawn. Exhausted as she had been after her ordeal, she couldn't remember closing them, but was grateful that the sunshine hadn't had the chance to wake her. She was stiff from sleeping so soundly, and sat up leisurely with an indulgent yawn. She felt better - much better - than she had yesterday, and her lips curved into a smile as she counted approximate hours of sleep in her head. Eighteen hours, more or less. That'll do.

Feeling refreshed and ready to face her problems, she slipped out of bed and padded to the window. She pulled the drapes open to let in the daylight, but, immediately, her spine stiffened and her nostrils flared. It hadn't been her that closed the curtains, after all. The tell-tale scent of honeysuckle and apple-blossom filled her nose, and she ran a finger along the edge of the windowsill, feeling the protection spell with yet another layer of bristling power added.

At least, now, she knew what it was. Or rather, who it was.

The Red Queen.

Still, after hurling fireballs at each other in her Vault the other day, she thought adding an extra layer of protection an odd thing to do. And she still couldn't figure out how the woman had done it. She'd never heard of someone under-laying extra tiers to a spell that had already been cast. Doing it together was one thing, or casting more than one spell over another, but to embed layers within a spell that was already created...?

She shook her head in bemusement and made for the shower. In the bathroom, she finally realised that she was still wearing the same clothes she had gone to Granny's in days ago, and wrinkled her nose in distaste as she quickly peeled them off. The hot water soon streamed over her, washing away the stiffness that teased at her muscles, and she took her time beneath the powerful torrent as her thoughts drifted back to her encounter with the Red Queen.

The nil effects of their respective magics had been startling, and Regina stifled a shudder as she recalled the horrid sensation of being hit with a fireball. Even though it hadn't harmed so much as a hair on her head, it had still scared the wits out of her. And then, there was the matter of the rest of their encounter...

She could still feel the after-effects of that unknown, frighteningly powerful magic that had nearly torn her apart. Despite the steaming hot water, her blood ran cold at the mere memory of it. She was relatively sure that she'd almost lost her life that fateful morning in her Vault, which incidentally was supposed to be her 'safe place'. The thought did not sit well with her.

She mulled it over. How did a screaming fireball flung straight at her heart have no effect whatsoever? And yet, an invisible, unfathomable magic almost tore her in two from the inside out? Nothing in her vast repertoire of spells and enchantments even hinted at anything of that nature being possible... And if the Red Queen's magic in the form of a fireball hadn't so much as singed her exterior, how had the same magic affected her from within her core? Regina didn't think it was possible to fake a fireball, so the two things together didn't make sense.

"It wasn't my magic. It was yours... My magic cannot harm you."

The Red Queen's words echoed melodiously in her mind. Regina replayed them a couple of times, trying to fit them into the puzzle. The Red Queen seemed to have proved the latter statement with her fireball stunt, but what did she mean by the former? Certainly, Regina didn't recall cursing herself, and her magic definitely did not attack its wielder of its own accord.

With a sigh of frustration, she turned off the shower and towelled herself dry. Still deep in thought, she dressed without really noticing what she took out of the closet, and then meandered out of her bedroom and down the staircase with the intent of putting the kettle on. In the hall, she paused as she passed by one of her many mirrors and caught sight of her reflection. Her subconscious appeared to be back in working order, for her lack of conscious attention to her wardrobe had not affected her – she looked incredibly chic and stylish this morning.

She smiled at her reflection, glad to see her usual self smile back. She noted that the blue bruises under her eyes had faded to nothing, and that her still slightly damp hair had arranged itself artfully around her face once more. Her skin had returned to its usual healthy glow. Satisfied, she stole a moment of simple pleasure in fluffing her silky dark tresses, knowing that they would soon dry fully into a manicured style that required no effort on her part – one of the many benefits of being a sorceress.

On the other hand, and her reflection took on a dark scowl as it mirrored her emotions, being a sorceress apparently came with its share of deadly downfalls too. With a sigh, she turned away and completed her voyage to the kitchen, setting the kettle to boil and then raiding the fruit bowl for something to quiet her complaining stomach. When she'd made her tea, she sat at the kitchen table with an apple in hand, munching on it thoughtfully. The rich colour of it caught her eye and she paused with it halfway to her lips. Red apples had always been her favourite - a trademark of hers. She stared absently at it for a moment, and then, of its own accord, her mind made the connection between the deep red of the apple and colour of the silken dress worn by the Red Queen.

They matched. Exactly.

"Huh," she said, out loud.

She twisted the apple to and fro in front of her, watching as it caught the light with hints of silver reflection, exactly as the Red Queen's dress had done.

Her appetite evaporated, and she cast it aside.

She turned to her tea instead, cupping her fingers around the warmth of the cup. She twined her legs together comfortably and thought back to the dilemma at hand.

"It wasn't my magic. It was yours."

The words meandered across her mind, but their meaning eluded her. She remembered again the moment the Red Queen had interrupted her ranting, saw in her mind's eye the woman reclining on the armchair without a care in the world. Regina shook her head wryly, and a small smile graced the corner of her lips. It was audacious to a fault - the kind of entrance that Regina herself would have used if she'd been in the other's shoes. She couldn't help but admire her sense of theatrics.

Her thoughts wandered to the fireball she'd thrown, and why it hadn't affected the Red Queen in the slightest. It had certainly demolished the chair, which sat smouldering long after the Red Queen had abandoned it. That had never happened before - Regina's magic had never failed to incinerate someone she had been so deeply intent on destroying.

And yet, it had failed.

A shield, perhaps? Regina sipped at her tea thoughtfully. But then, she hadn't had time to even think about a shield when the Red Queen had returned the favour in kind. She'd felt that blue-and-white fireball hit her squarely in the chest, endured its heat, heard its power... She should have been obliterated by that much force, but the magic hadn't so much as scorched her clothes.

She set down her teacup and rubbed her temples with delicate fingers. None of it made much sense, and it was starting to give her a headache.

She fast-forwarded the memories in her mind, stopping at the point where the hook-sensation had gouged through her core once more. She'd been trapped against the wall... the Red Queen's gaze searing into her soul from those implausible moonlight eyes.

What was it? What had set it off?

She'd previously thought that the unknown power had something to do with the moonlight, but the Vault was underground, so there went that theory. Perhaps it was fear that ignited it? She'd been very afraid at that moment, much as she winced at admitting it to herself. She snorted with derision at a mental bird's eye view of the Evil Queen, cowering against the wall at the mercy of some glamourous upstart.

Thank God no one else had been around to see it.

But she remembered again the feeling of near evisceration that had accompanied that moment - her panic as she attempted to force air back into her lungs - and forgave herself for being afraid. Those were extenuating circumstances...

And then - her thoughts moved forward indignantly - and then...

... Just when she'd thought she couldn't survive through another heartbeat of it, the Red Queen had swooped down and kissed her.

She'd never in her life been kissed by someone she had so shortly before been trying to kill. Not to mention that she had never been kissed by another woman, either. It was the most inexplicable tactic she'd ever come across, and if the Red Queen had meant to unnerve her completely, she'd succeeded. It was evil, even by Regina's standards, and she'd had a hand in some nefarious deeds in the past that made her wince in retrospect.

The moment replayed in her mind with incredible precision, almost as though she was looking at the Red Queen before her once more. This time - without the savagery of the magic tearing her up within - her vision was far clearer than it had been the first time round.

She remembered the Red Queen's splendid, milk-pale face in perfect detail - every lash, every contour; the furrow of her brow betraying that she felt the devastating magic too. Regina watched in her mind's eye as the Red Queen drew back infinitesimally, saw herself cry out at the surge of the objecting magic.

She paused the mental picture, as only a sorceress can, and examined the frame more carefully.

There was a glow, very faint, but just tangible, that breached the gap between them. It linked them, inexorably, together. At the time, nearly out of her mind with pain and fear, Regina hadn't noticed, but she knew that her memory was correct. Her subconscious was simply providing the details now that her conscious mind had missed at the time.

Now, what the hell is that?

She studied the link. It seemed to snare them both, and Regina played her memory forward in slow motion, watching the glow brighten violently as the distance separating them increased. As the glowing strand snapped aggressively between them, she noted the agony on her own face and the mirrored expression on that of the Red Queen.

"It really wasn't her magic!" Regina whispered out loud in sudden realisation.

But it wasn't hers either - it was something else entirely, something that had entrapped them both. In the moment, consumed as she was by her panic and fear, she hadn't seen it. She'd naturally assumed that the source of the threat was the woman in front of her.

She let the frame play forward slowly, watched the Red Queen flicker her gaze to the heavens as though in mute appeal. And then, there was the moment when the Red Queen had kissed her.

Remembering it now from a far more detached perspective, Regina realised that it had been an act of desperation. The Red Queen had been equally ensnared, and had leapt upon a longshot for escape from the frightening magic.

Mind reeling with the implications, Regina sipped at her tea and found it was cold. Mechanically, she got up to brew a fresh cup, her mind still completely preoccupied. New questions arose - what was the power that had affected them both? Why had it affected them both? She stirred her tea and resumed her throne at the kitchen table, sipping at the now-hot beverage gingerly.

Most intriguingly, why had the Red Queen kissed her?

Regina replayed once more the instant before their lips met, when the Red Queen had thrown her gaze heavenward as though steeling herself. How had she known it would work? And work it had - Regina had to admit it. She watched the memory carefully, slowly running it through. There, the moment the Red Queen had kissed her, the fierce glow vanished.

She saw the instantaneous relief on both their faces. She blushed as her memory replayed her reaction - she didn't pull away from the kiss immediately, but instead met the other's embrace, and she had no idea why.

The Red Queen pulled back first, and without the previous fog of relief washing through her as she now watched impassively in reminiscence, Regina saw that her expression wasn't quite as unfathomable as she'd thought at the time.

The Red Queen looked troubled - vulnerable - just for a fleeting instant.

And then, she disappeared.

Regina set down her empty cup with a long, mystified sigh. She hadn't even realised that she'd finished her tea. She leaned her elbows on the table and rested her head in her hands, weaving her fingers through her hair. If the situation didn't make any sense before, it made even less now. She decided that the magic that had torn her up inside really wasn't the Red Queen's doing, and that, in effect, the woman's incomprehensible reaction had probably saved her life.

Actually, now that she thought about it, apart from the fireball (which hadn't had any effect), the Red Queen had made no real attempt to harm her. But the Evil Queen had been so enraptured with rage that she hadn't even stopped to think about it. True, the other had trespassed, but Regina had thrown the first punch, metaphorically speaking.

There appeared to be a lot more to this story than met the eye at first glance, and Regina felt her headache intensify as she tried to work it out. Absently, she wondered if a kiss from the Red Queen could fix that, too. Her mind's eye amiably furnished her with a precise impression of the full scarlet bloom of the Red Queen's soft lips, and she found herself biting her own at the memory.

With a sharp intake of breath, she became aware of herself, of her thought train. She sat forcibly upright, resolutely banishing the vision from her mind.

What the hell is wrong with me?

She felt a deep blush burn in her cheeks. The Red Queen's pale, beautiful face shimmered through her mind, her moonlight eyes seeming impossibly sad, but Regina reined in her thoughts. She stood up and busied herself with the mundane task of rinsing out her teacup. She forced her focus to the lesser of two impossible evils - the mystery of the perilous magic glow. She reasoned that the Red Queen probably knew more about it than she did, especially considering that she'd known how to rectify the problem.

Regina put the clean teacup back in the cupboard with renewed resolve. Yes, her budding idea seemed like a logical first step in untangling the riddle. Now that she'd realised that the Red Queen wasn't necessarily malicious, she would simply find the woman and ask her about it. Her decision cleared her headache immediately, and she carefully schooled her mind to inconsequential thoughts of the constricting magical hook. She felt better for having a plan.

And even more so for lying to herself about why she wanted to see the Red Queen again.

First, though, she resolved to call Emma.

Before the Sheriff showed up at her house again and rained down hell for her lack of communication.