Elsewhere, Lydia was taking her latest batch of gems to the pawn shop to be appraised. She glanced over her shoulder frequently as she walked. Something wasn't sitting right with her, and she had no idea what. It was setting her on edge.

Gold was in his shop. He could feel something too, something magic and not very nice magic, either. But he wasn't going to mention anything unless someone asked. Instead he'd just keep an eye on everything.

Lydia hurried into the shop, closing the door behind her. Whatever was going on in the town, she didn't like being out in the open while it was happening. Even the pawn shop was better than being outside.

"Good afternoon, dearie," Gold said, looking at her. "Back again already?" He found himself slightly surprised that she could feel what was going on. Or at least, that's what he guessed, since there was no other good reason for her to look spooked.

Lydia nodded and pulled the small cloth bag of gems out of her purse. It rattled a bit as it moved; her conversation with Killian before had produced a good number of them.

Gold waited patiently for her to set the gems down, and then went through the ones to decide what he wanted. If this kept up, he'd have to get back to spinning gold, not that that was ever a problem.

"Same request as before?" he asked, glancing at her.

Lydia nodded. There were many more gems than last time, so she knew he had plenty to choose from if he wanted his pick of the batch in exchange for the appraisal.

Gold picked out a few and set them aside. That was all he'd need for right now. "The rest you keep," he said, pushing the bag back to her. "For later." His eyes glinted. He knew she'd be back.

Lydia raised an eyebrow at that, and pushed a ruby back across the counter after a moment. She wanted to know what he meant by that comment.

"Oh I'm sure you'll be back again, dearie," Gold said, keeping the gems he'd picked out and not touching the ruby. "Besides, you can probably think of other ways to use those."

Lydia quirked an eyebrow again but took the ruby back. She couldn't do magic, so she really had no idea what she could use the gems for, but it was no use pressing for more information. So she just took her little bag of treasure and headed out of the shop again.

Gold watched her go and went to go tuck the new gems away.

The whole town was a little restless, a little on edge, because of the magic. People didn't know what had happened, but they knew something was up.

By the time Lydia was walking past the center of town, there was a crowd gathered. Everyone there was agitated, and there was someone in the middle speaking to everyone.

"...and she was just gone!"

Lydia blinked when she realized it was Granny. That couldn't be good. She went closer and tried to nudge her way up closer to the front.

"What do you mean, she was just gone?" someone in the crowd asked.

"I mean just that, one minute Ruby's going to her car, the next she disappears right in front of me," Granny replied.

Uneasy murmuring started at that, and David and Emma were quick to move up to the front.

"We don't know what happened yet," David said, looking around at everyone. "So for now, we just have to stay calm. We will find out what happened."

Emma looked more troubled, though, because that screamed of magic, and only a few people in the town had magic to do that. And she didn't like dealing with either of them.

Lydia was troubled, too. She could feel the vibrating tension in the air, and she was pretty sure that it was magic. And now Ruby had disappeared, that made it even worse.

David and Emma got everyone to go home before they went to go investigate and try to figure out what was going on. Mai had stopped to listen for a few minutes, since she didn't have to pick up Grace for another hour or so. She had a feeling that this was really only the start of whatever was going on.

Lydia wasn't surprised when Emma came to find her. She worked with Ruby, after all, and it made sense that the sheriff would want to ask questions of everyone Ruby saw regularly. She waved slightly in greeting when Emma came up to her.

"Hey. You heard what happened?" Emma asked, frowning a little, because she was feeling unsettled and angry at whoever had done this.

Lydia nodded. She'd heard the tail end of Granny's story in the center of town. It was definitely an unsettling thing.

"Do you know anything about this? Has anyone unusual been coming in recently, or has Ruby been talking to anyone new? Outside the normal diner waitress norms, I mean." Emma raised an eyebrow at her.

Lydia blinked at the rapid questions, and took a moment to weigh her options for answering. Then she made a bit of a face and cleared her throat.

"No," she said, shaking her head a bit and catching the bittersweet that appeared. "I haven't noticed anything unusual until today." Two more bittersweets fell to the table, alongside a pearl and two rubies. The pearl bounced out of reach before she could catch it.

Emma caught it and handed it back to her. "Wow. That's... new." She blinked, looking startled.

"Sorry," Lydia said, producing a generic rose. "It's from before." She grabbed the new diamond and emerald. "Ignore it." Another rose joined the first.

Emma nodded after a moment.

"Alright. Thanks. Let me know if you think of anything, okay?"

"I will," Lydia said. "Sorry about these," she added, holding up a gem and a rose. "I can't control it. You can keep any of them you like, though." She caught several sapphires as they fell and added them to her quickly-filling bag of precious stones.