- Maleficent puts Storybrooke under a sleeping curse in an attempt to steal the page that the Author is trapped inside. Mary Margaret and David struggle with their guilt as flashbacks show them go to extreme lengths to protect their unborn child from darkness.
- Snow and Charming are lying to everyone they care about. Their secret unfolds back in the Enchanted Forest where we also see just how Cruella and Ursula ended up in this world. Regina struggles to keep up her evil act while Henry finds a way to release the author. We see just how much Maleficent's child ment to her when Gold reveals what happened the day she lost it. Will Henry be able to save the author before the villains get their hands on him? Will Emma ever forgive her parents after what they've done?—g-wass30
- Hook tells Emma that her fate is at stake in Gold's plan while Regina leads the villains on a wild goose chase. Henry makes a breakthrough in his search to find the Author, but Mary Margaret and David need a moment to reconsider the best course of action. In a Fairy Tale Land flashback, Snow and Charming search for a way to ensure their child will grow-up to be a hero. When a travelling peddler directs them to visit a kindly old hermit, Snow and Charming are presented with a choice that could secure their child's goodness, but at a price that will haunt them for years to come.
- Looks like things are about to get real in terms of what Snow White and Prince Charming did to Maleficent, and that's where we start. In the Enchanted Forest, the pair touches the horn of a unicorn to get a glimpse at their child's future. Prince Charming's vision is a perfect one of a cooing newborn, but Snow White sees an older, teenage version of her future child who rips Snow's heart out of her chest and crushes it, saying, "I don't care" when Snow mentions that she's her mother.
August is sleeping and seems to be weak.
Regina tells Emma that she has to bring something to the villains otherwise they'll suspect she's not real. She snaps a photo of the door in the author's book in hopes that it sends them on a wild goose chase around town.
Killian breaks the news to Emma that the villains plan to darken her heart to turn her against the village. David seems concerned, as does Mary Margaret, while Emma tells Killian there's no chance she's going dark. David and Mary Margaret whisper to each other their worries that Emma could go dark, and they decide they have to do something without Emma finding out the truth.
Regina comes back almost empty-handed, which annoys Mr. Gold, but she shows him the picture she snapped of the door with her phone. Mr. Gold immediately figured out that the glare in the photo is magic and the author has been trapped in the book. He asks Regina to bring the page. Maleficent says she has "just the thing" to handle Emma, who Regina says won't be willing to give up the book.
Maleficent casts a spell across the town that knocks out Killian and Emma.
Back in the Enchanted Forest, Snow White and Prince Charming run into a charming peddler who warns them about the trouble Maleficent has caused back west, where they live. Maleficent has turned herself into a dragon and laid an egg. He tells them to head east and find a kind old man who will take care of them. They get to the sorcerer's cabin and he invites them in for tea. He says they don't have to worry about Maleficent while they're at his place.
Maleficent tells Mr. Gold that she needs to know what Snow and Charming did to her child, and the heroes will pay.
Mary Margaret starts to worry that with all the lying they've been doing to protect Emma, they might actually help turn her dark. Then they realize that the town is asleep.
When Mr. Gold, Maleficent and Regina can't find the book despite everyone being asleep, Mr. Gold notes that the only person who wouldn't be asleep would be Henry, because he's already been under a sleeping curse and is immune. He thinks Henry's protectiveness of the book will test Regina's commitment to work with him.
Mr. Gold takes off to handle "other business" while telling Maleficent and Cruella to follow Regina. David and Mary Margaret get a call from Henry and start to head toward him, but David suggests that they destroy the page, trapping the author in the book, in order to protect Emma from being turned dark. There are all sorts of issues with this: notably, the sorcerer would be trapped in the book forever, and Regina wouldn't get her happy ending -- at least not from the author.
Back in Fairy Tale Land, the sorcerer tells Snow and Prince Charming that the possibilities for good and evil in their child exist equally because of free will. Snow offers to pay whatever the price to ensure their child won't become evil. The spell would transfer any possible evil to another "blank slate." Charming thinks it's wrong. Snow White thinks about Maleficent's egg, which she figures will be evil anyway.
Henry sees a flash of light that leads him to open a drawer and find a key. Regina shows up, and she's followed by Cruella and Maleficent. They want to ensure Henry will give Regina the page. She demands it from him, giving him a stern looks that seems to also convey to him that he should trust her and go along. He does, and they set out to find Mr. Gold.
Back in the Enchanted Forest, Prince Charming and Snow White sneak into Maleficent's lair and find the egg. As Charming reaches for it, the dragon awakens. Charming steals the egg anyway and hands it to Snow White. The dragon breathes fire, but Snow yells out that if they get torches the egg burns, too. Maleficent transforms back from her dragon self and asks what kind of people would threatens a child. Snow White says her child will become a monster, just like Maleficent. She pleads, "mother to mother," saying her can't lose her child. Snow White says they'll bring the egg back when they're done with it, and they run.
Mary Margaret and David get to Henry's hiding place in the sorcerer's mansion and he tells them he gave the villains the forged page from the book. He has the real one, and he found the key to unlock the book and free the author, but David yells at him to hand over the key because they don't know how they want to handle things yet. Mary Margaret says that if they keep lying to people, they're no better than Mr. Gold.
Mr. Gold, meanwhile, has gone to give Belle "the hard truth" while she's sleeping. He says he'll come back for her if he can.
The villains hand the forged page to Mr. Gold, who immediately recognizes it as a fake and knocks out Regina, telling Maleficent to bring her to the vault.
Back in the Enchanted Forest, the sorcerer says the spell can be cast on the egg -- and he does it, but he will have to send the egg far away. Cruella and Ursula show up and are also sucked into the hole with the egg despite Snow White and Prince Charming's screaming and pleading and insisting that they promised Maleficent they were going to bring the egg back. Snow White says they've made a terrible mistake.
David is about to toss the page with the author's door into the fire, but Mary Margaret stops him and says they have to tell Emma the truth "because heroes do what's right, not what's easy." They can't be responsible for any more lives and lies.
We next see Emma's shocked reaction at her parents having lied to her. She says she's not OK and she starts to leave. Mary Margaret tells her, "I'm your mother." And Emma responds with, "I don't care" -- just as she did when Snow White saw her child's future.
In Mr. Gold's vault, the villains stand over Regina's unconscious body as Mr. Gold talks abut a plan he has to make Regina do his bidding forever.
Killian comes to find Emma and tell her that August is awake and is going to be fine.
Back in Fairy Tale Land, Snow White is a wreck about what they did to Maleficent's child. She says she thought they were doing something brave for their child, and they were brave but not kind -- they were selfish and they "are not heroes anymore." Prince Charming convinces Snow White that they might be able to make it right by working hard to be the best versions of themselves.
Maleficent comes to Mr. Gold and asks him to take care of her needs, but he says she didn't hold up her end of the deal because she didn't get the page. He says her pain can fade if she doesn't feed it, but she says she needs to know. He waves a hand and shows Maleficent a crying baby who was being adopted, and the adoptive father says the baby's name will be Lilith, or Lily. Maleficent wants to find her.
Emma brings the page with the author's door to August -- and the key. Mary Margaret is worried, but Emma says she has her own questions. But August turns the whole thing on its head when he explains that "the author" is just a job, not one person. The author they are trying to unlock is just the last one who held the job. This author had gone off the rails a bit and, instead of simply observing and reporting great stories, he tried to alter them. The sorcerer was fed up after what he had to do to Maleficent's child, which the author said made for a better story, and trapped the author inside the book. Emma reaches out with the key and turns it in the door, anyway, and the author falls out. It's the peddler. Emma says they have a lot of questions. The author says, "I'll bet you do," then knocks down the curtains in the room and runs away until Emma can't find him.
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