"Stop in again in a few days, so I can give you stuff," Tina said, getting up and starting to gather the mugs and plates.

"I will," Rachel promised. She grinned. "For now, I'll leave you to try to talk your way into your own fire lizard."

Tina laughed quietly and that and shook her head. "We'll see," she said with a grin. "See you in a few days."

"See you then," Rachel said, nodding. She nudged Killian towards the door.

Hook needed no encouragement to leave the castle, and he grimaced once they were outside again.

"Well that was fun."

Tina shook her head and took everything over to the sink to wash.

"And now we can go have time to ourselves," Rachel said, standing on her toes to give him a quick kiss.

Hook grinned a bit and looped his good arm around her. "Looking forward to it."

Rachel grinned at him and leaned in close. Yep, she was looking forward to time alone with him.

Elsewhere, Emma had stumbled upon some rooms in the lower levels of Snow's castle that she'd never seen before, and was exploring. There was something down there, and she wasn't sure how she knew it, but she was going to find whatever it was.

Of course, no one else knew she was there, and no one was looking for her yet. So when Emma was looking around and managed to knock into a table with her hip, sending the sealed vase crashing to the floor, no one was around to see the magic inside be released.

The magic was quick to latch onto Emma, though. As before the dust from the shattered urn even settled, the deeply dark magic lunged up and into Emma.

Emma struggled with it, but she had no real way of keeping the magic out of her. So it settled, waiting, and Emma had no idea what to do. But at least she didn't feel any different... yet.

Emma might not have felt any different yet, but Henry still noticed something was off when he came back to the castle.

"Mom?" he asked when he saw her. "Is something wrong?"

"No, kid, I'm okay," Emma said after a moment. "Just did a bit of exploring earlier." She managed a grin.

"You sure?" Henry replied. He studied her a bit. "You look... I dunno, off, somehow. Did something happen?"

"No, nothing." She wasn't sure why, but Emma lied about the vase. It was practically nothing, right? Right. No big deal. "Come on, I think I can smell dinner."

That made Henry grin.

"Awesome," he said. "I'm starving. Let's go see what there is."

Emma smiled and headed inside with him, ignoring the niggling little voice that said something was wrong, something was off.

Even as they walked, Henry kept glancing at her. Something still wasn't right, he just couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

Everything continued to be normal (or close to) for a few days following the incident. Until things changed. Emma didn't know what happened, really, but she found herself not in the castle and not wanting to be around other people, bits of magic sparking around her hands.

Henry knew something was up, and he'd been practicing his magical transportations, so he was able to follow her when she suddenly popped out of the castle.

"Mom?" he asked when he found her. "Tell me what's wrong. Something's up, I know it is."

"You should go back inside." Emma didn't look at him, instead looking down at her hands. Had magic always felt this powerful, this addictive? She wasn't sure. But it was nice. Very, very nice.

"Something's wrong," Henry said stubbornly. "You keep telling me it's not, but I know you're lying. I have magic too, Mom, I can tell something's not right."

Emma smiled. "It's nothing you need to worry yourself about," she murmured. "Go on back inside."

"I'm not going back inside," Henry said firmly. He shook his head. "I know something's wrong. Maybe I can help."

"I don't need help." Emma shook her head. "This isn't something that can be helped anyway, kid."