Chapter Text
Emma was bored. It was a chilly Saturday afternoon and all she was doing was staring out the window, watching raindrops carve clear trails on the gray panes. Ordinarily at this time she would be in the vault practicing magic with Regina before they’d have dinner at Granny’s with Henry, but Regina had called that morning to say that the lesson was cancelled. There was no explanation as to why and Emma had no other plans, so she settled down to watch the rain.
It was quiet in the loft that afternoon. Snow and Charming had taken Neal over to play with Ella’s little girl, Alexandra, and Henry was staying at the mansion with Regina until Sunday.
When Regina had called, Emma had been a bit disappointed that there wasn’t going to be a lesson, but she had figured that it wasn’t too late to make some plans. What she hadn’t counted on was Ruby working the late shift, Mulan going out on a date with Aurora, and Belle planning on spending a wild night cataloging new books in the library collection. There was no one else that she could think of to hang out with. There wasn’t even any paperwork for her to do at the moment.
So she sat and listened to the rain as she stared blankly out the window at the gray sky.
Then it hit her. She knew from experience that she had a pretty bad track record with ideas, like the time she filled her science teacher’s fish tank with grape Jell-O, but her current idea seemed harmless enough. After all, Regina had told her to practice.
She was on her feet in seconds and had already slipped on her jacket before she could give her plan a second thought. Regina had been telling her that the key to improvement was practice, so by that logic, Emma didn’t even need the brunette to be there. She could go down to the vault and practice levitating some candles or something on her own.
She could imagine the impressed smirk that Regina would give her at their next lesson on Wednesday night; the glimmer of pride that would appear in those dark eyes. That alone was enough to make up Emma’s mind. She tugged on her boots, grabbed her keys, and hurried outside before she could question herself.
Emma had gotten quite used to the vault thanks to her regular visits with Regina. It always made her a bit uncomfortable to push aside the coffin above the hidden stairway and walking past Cora’s coffin made her shiver, but once she got into the vault itself, she felt right at home. Even the rhythmic beating of the hearts in their gilded boxes that had freaked her out during her first few lessons were simply background noise now.
She strode with confidence to the shelves on the far wall where Regina kept all her spell books and magic supplies. There was a row of stubby candles in dusty candlesticks sitting there. Emma grabbed a few of them and set them in a circle around her on the floor.
In her previous lesson, Regina had started teaching her how to conjure flames from a distance, so Emma decided to start with that. If it worked the way it was supposed to, she might even try combining the powers and levitate the candles at the same time. Regina would be so proud of her.
Emma could envision the tiny smirk that would stretch across those red lips and the twinkle of pride that would be reflected in those chocolate eyes. That alone was enough to motivate Emma.
She focused on the candle directly in front of her and called up all her energy to make it light.
She could feel the magic inside of her, swirling and pulsing and thoroughly alive. She squeezed her eyes shut in concentration as she worked to make it obey her. The magic grew warmer as it moved into her fingertips and Emma bit her lip as she slicked her wrist the way Regina had taught her. The magic flared outwards and when Emma opened her eyes, she saw a tiny tongue of flame flickering on the candle’s wick.
“Yes!” she exclaimed, punching the air in excitement.
It took her a few tries and quite a bit of energy to get the other four candles lit, but she managed it. Regina was right; practice really did make it a little easier.
Emma gave herself a few minutes to let her magic recharge before she started on the hard part: levitating the candles. She closed her eyes again and moved her hands as though she was lifting something. She felt her magic move and concentrated all of her energy on making the candles hover above the ground.
Once she was sure that was giving it all she had, she opened one eye to find the candles floating about a foot above the floor.
“I’m doing it,” Emma said incredulously. “I am actually doing this.”
She started to move her hands in an attempt to make the candles move with her, but the moment she twisted her wrist, she felt her magic flare out once before sputtering out and dying altogether. The candles dropped to the floor, still lit, and rolled around on the stone floor. The flames still flickered from various spots around the room, though, so Emma still counted it as a win.
She leaned down and grabbed four of the candles that had rolled into the corners of the room. She set them back in the circle before getting down on her hands and knees to retrieve the last candle that had landed underneath one of the shelves.
When Emma looked under the shelf, she saw an object illuminated in the candle’s dim light. She grabbed both the candle and the object, a big, dusty book with a gold gilt cover, and straightened up. She set the candle in its place in the circle and moved to put the book back on the shelf where it probably belonged, but curiosity got the best of her. She brushed off most of the dust and carefully opened the book to one of the central pages.
The pages were wrinkled and brittle and yellow with age, but the black ink was still clear. Emma recognized a few words here and there from a semester of Latin in some high school or another. One phrase was written entirely in Latin and she slowly read the words aloud.
“Demon ego præcipio tibi et vocare. Huh. That doesn’t sound good.”
It didn’t take long for her to regret her decision.
The floor beneath her feet began to get hot. She jumped quickly out of the circle of candles and closed the book, but not before a crack appeared in the center of the circle. Black smoke started pouring out into the air. Emma instinctively used her arm to cover her nose and mouth and started looking for a way out of the vault, but the smoke stood between her and the stairs.
In hindsight, reading an actual spell out of an actual spell book, no matter what language it was in, without Regina was probably not her brightest moment.
She watched the black smoke billow around the vault, crackling and popping with little silver bolts of lightning. It smelled awful, like rotten eggs. Wind whipped through the vault, tossing candles, bottles, and spell books around the room.
Then a high, cold laugh pierced the air. Emma could feel goose bumps forming on her flesh and she gulped as the smoke started to clear. The laugh was getting louder and louder and as the smoke continued to thin out, the silhouette of a figure appeared.
“Who dares summon me from the depths of the underworld?”
It was official. Emma was in deep shit.