Dark One's Daughter *Book Four*

Family Business {2}

Third Person POV

Against his better judgement, Gold was stood outside the Snow Queen's hideout which just so happened to be an ice cave (how ironic) alongside Belle. He had tried to talk her out of coming here but it had been useless, Belle was just as stubborn as he was but he needed to pretend to be under the curse of the dagger or Belle would realise what he had done.

"This is it? This is where she's hiding?" Belle asked, her nervousness apparent in her voice.

"Indeed," Gold confirmed before he glanced back over to the cave. "But she's not at home. I don't sense her magic."

"Good," Belle nodded her head, looking straight towards the cave. "Okay, you stay out here as lookout. I'm going in."

"Belle, you're not going in there alone," Gold said, following after her, placing a hand on her forearm to stop her from going any further.

"Look, I won't be long," Belle assured him. "I just need to find something."

"What could you possibly want from the Snow Queen's cave?" Gold insisted, yet again following after his wife.

"A hat," Belle answered and whatever response Gold had been expecting, that was far from it. "One that can strip a magical being of their powers." Keeping his face neutral, Gold knew exactly what hat Belle was referring to cause it was the same hat that he had been searching for in the Enchanted Forest.

"Sounds like a remarkable object," Gold commented. "Almost too good to be true. Which means it probably is."

"It isn't and I know she has it. And I need to get it from her," Belle told him. "It's the only way to force her to tell us where Anna is."

"So this is about Elsa's sister?" Gold asked. "Why are you so invested in a girl you've never even met?"

"Because a hero always helps strangers," Belle answered before she held up the dagger. "Now keep watch. I'll call out to you if I need your help."

With that, Belle left Gold behind feeling torn between letting Belle find out the truth and going in after her or keeping his secret safe and risking something happening to her.

Pacing back and forth in front of the cave, fifteen minutes passed and Belle still had not returned from inside. Gold couldn't remember the last time he felt so nervous for someone he cared about. If Baelfire or Amie were doing something like this—

And then Gold had a thought. Amie! Belle only said that he could not go in after her, but Amie... Amie could go in and just make sure she was alright!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amie POV

After finding the ice cream van abandoned in the forest, Bae and I returned to my apartment for a nice cup of tea. What better way to get rid of stress than a cup of tea and a slice of cake?

"Why do you have so much cake in here?" Bae asked, peering into my tins on the counter in my kitchen.

"Why not?" I countered. "Cake is cake. You can never have too much of it."

"I think Whale might disagree with that when you show up half cake," Bae replied, making me laugh.

"Sugar?" I asked, referring to his tea.

"Just the one," Bae replied.

I dumped some sugar into his tea before placing it in front of him while he put a slice of chocolate cake onto a plate for me.

"So did you make this with magic or was it by hand?" Bae asked, picking up the whole slice of cake and taking a bite.

"You tell me," I replied. "What do you think?"