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“So she needs… a home?”
Even the darkness weighing on his soul couldn’t push back the rising tide of hope. Rumplestilskin thought his traitorous heart might beat out of his chest and fly off without him until it found Belle.
He would take her in. He would apologize. Admit he was a coward. Ask her to stay. If nothing else, he wanted to see her one last time, part with good will that he so often destroyed.
The woman in front of him -- the Evil Queen -- casually poured some tea into her cup. The malice in her laughter put his racing thoughts stumbling, then stopping. She leaned forward. “He was cruel to her. He locked her in a tower and sent in clerics to cleanse her soul with scourges and flaying.” She shrugged a shoulder. “After a while, she threw herself off the tower. She died .”
In an instant, he grew stiff as a board.
Something inside him snapped.
No.
No . Not again. His cowardice had robbed him of a son. It would not rob him -- no, the world -- of a bright soul like hers.
“You’re lying,” he grit out.
“Am I?”
For a moment, silence. Then he waved a hand and the doors of the room flew open violently, banging against the walls of the hall. “We’re done.”
“Fine. I have other calls to make.” The Evil Queen trailed her fingers along the table as she approached the door. Clicking her tongue, she inspected them. “Hmm. This place is looking dusty, Rumple. You should get a new girl.” With one final sneer, she passed him by and left him alone.
Alone.
He simply stood there for a while. He couldn’t stop the images from playing in his mind. Couldn’t stop imagining the betrayal and the pain she must’ve felt. Skin pulled back from flesh. Burning to cleanse the soul. Smoke from incense making the air too heavy to breathe right. His hands shook when he finally approached the cabinet in the back of the room, but as soon as they held a chipped cup, they stilled.
Maurice. He had driven his own daughter to death. If the man had only shown a fraction of the kindness Belle had given to her own father, she would be living as a princess. She would be dressed in the finest gowns. She would be surrounded by books. She would be listened to, and she would be alive .
He pulled a golden goblet off a pedestal -- it had something to do with the Fountain of Youth, and he liked to brag about it to anyone coming for spells on aging -- and set the chipped cup there in its place.
Maurice, he realized, had broken the deal.
And to Belle, the Dark One had a debt to pay.
There would be no more playing coward.
***
Belle listened. She listened to him talk about all sorts of trivial matters. At first, he assumed that she was trying to get information out of him -- some way to erect a loophole and worm her way out.
But eventually, he simply began to wonder if she liked the sound of his voice. The idea felt so strange to him that he dismissed it without a second thought. That was, until Belle asked him why he’d chosen the color of the wallpaper.
“Why did you pick red?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said dismissively. “Why did you pick blue for your dress?”
“Because I like blue. And I think it goes well with my eyes.”
He looked up from his spinning at that. She was smiling at him, bright and warm as the noonday sun she had let in with her arrival. That, he thought, made her eyes stand out brighter than any dress would.
In a beat, she went back to wiping at the window with a rag. “I think there’s more to it than that.”
“Mmmm, you’re right. Blood would stand out too well if it were any other color.”
She actually laughed at that, and he turned to hide a smile. The touch of the wheel beneath his hand didn’t quite ground him like it had a moment before.
“Well, I think red just happens to be your favorite color.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed.
She would have been right if she guessed that a few weeks ago. But he decided now that if he had to choose, he would say blue.
It no longer mattered to him what they spoke about. And whether or not she liked the sound of his voice, he relished the sweetness of hers.
***
Rumplestiltskin had never expected to be digging up the grave of the woman he loved, but here he was, standing in a royal cemetery in the middle of the night while enchanted shovels did the work of moving dirt away from a fresh mound.
Her final resting place was surprisingly grand. Rumplestiltskin had half expected Maurice to bury Belle in some unmarked grave far away from the palace for fear that her association with him would somehow corrupt the ground. But instead, she had a grand obelisk decorated with flowers. An angel sat on the flat top while reading a book -- a fitting image, he decided.
One of the shovels hit wood, and the others responded by working faster. Rumplestiltskin swallowed the lump in his throat -- he could not be a coward, not any longer -- as he approached.
He had never before seen a coffin. Oh, he had killed, but he left the bodies for someone else to deal with. His mother had left him as a child, his father traded him for eternal youth, his wife had been left in the hands of her lover, and even his son had vanished to another world. For once, finally, the grief caught up with him. He sank to his knees and ignored the flare of pain that followed.
A coffin of willow wood lay in the dirt, painted white and covered with a glossy sheen. Belle’s broken body hid somewhere inside. It felt as though his heart had been buried with her, freshly ripped from his chest and thrown inside. All of him ached , and somehow didn’t at the same time; an odd numbness had taken root.
He waved his hand, and in a cloud of smoke, the two of them teleported back to his Dark Castle nestled in the snowy peaks. The coffin had been set on a table in a room that Belle had not yet stripped the curtains out of. The darkness here, the inability to really truly see her, made it almost easier to breathe.
The coward, after all, had trouble fleeing a cage of flesh and blood.
Still, he had one more piece of work to do before he could continue. He needed to preserve the body.
He walked forward until his hands brushed the smooth, curved lid. There would be a price for this. He wasn’t sure what. It was fortunate, then, that he had taken a knight of Avonlea captive when he first approached the graveyard.
Too impatient to make the walk to the dungeons, he teleported inside the woman’s cell. The knight in armor with a golden crest reacted instinctively, dropping low into a fighting stance. She looked rather ridiculous holding empty air -- Rumplestiltskin had of course taken all her weapons. Realizing it, she adjusted, holding up her fists instead.
“Dark One,” she hissed.
“Royal lapdog,” he said dismissively.
“I challenge you--”
Another wave, and the two of them reappeared in the dark room. She stumbled forward a step before catching her balance.
“You’re a man of deals,” the knight tried again. In the dimness, he could see that she returned to her previous stance. “I will fight you, and if you win, I will stay your prisoner, no further questions asked. If I win, you have to set me free and never imprison me again.”
Her confidence was frankly annoying. He scowled. “No.”
“No? But--”
“You would break the deal. You would try to escape.” He cackled. “Would you like to know why I know that?”
She had the sense to back up a step.
“A knight,” he hissed, “takes an oath of chivalry. Whatever happened to being the champion of Right and Good once your very own princess is locked up in a tower for ‘cleansing’?”
“I--”
He didn’t wait for her to finish. Power leapt to his fingertips as he touched the coffin again. Preserve her , he thought. A faint, pale ripple sprouted from his hand.
And the knight in front of him began to scream. Metal hit the ground with a clank.
Her voice turned strained, then hoarse, then--
It died off.
The room fell so completely silent that he could easily pick out only one person breathing: himself. A mess of armor and dust lay sprawled across the floor.
Good. The magic had accepted the price.
The coffin beside him glowed faintly now; a shimmering barrier of pale gold surrounded the entire thing. He would check on it regularly to make sure it didn’t start to fade. Until then, he had research to do.
***
Rumplestiltskin could be described as a solitary man.
After all, for most of his long, long life, he knew nothing more than the thoughts in his own head and the silence of the world around him. It didn’t particularly matter where he went. His Dark Castle was barren. The forest creatures fled whenever he drew near. Even people sealed their lips when they caught sight of him.
And so it came as a surprise to him when Belle began to open up. He hadn’t quite realized how quiet the world was until he heard her approaching footsteps against wood, her soft breathing as she dusted the room, and the flipping of pages as she read.
The return of silence deeply bothered Rumplestiltskin, even with all of its years of companionship. He shuffled his feet. Dropped books a little too roughly onto desks. Coughed.
Very nearly cried.
He swallowed back the burning sensation in his throat. He knew that love was weakness. It only inspired tragedy. A missing mother who must’ve understood that. A father taking advantage of that bond to trade him away. A wife who learned every part of him and then used it against him. And a son so determined for a better life that Rumplestiltskin watched the portal close behind him while the coward held him back.
He slumped into a chair and faltered. He waved his hand and a rose appeared in his grip.
So what was he doing this for?
She would not be safe. That was fact. Regina had clearly caught onto his affection. If Belle stayed here, he could certainly protect her -- but then life would be a cage, and she would have a target on her back every time a visitor came.
He could let her go again. As far as anyone knew, she was dead, and so she simply could not be Belle of Avonlea. However, he wasn’t sure what side effects revival might have. He couldn’t give her remedies if she was out exploring the world. (And that wasn’t even including the selfish, lonely part of him that so desperately wanted to beg her to stay.)
Perhaps she was simply safer dead.
Silence. It stuffed his ears like cotton.
He hummed the tune he often did when spinning. His hands instinctively curled. The rose fell from his grip and onto the floor. Blinking, he bent down to pick it up.
A thorn pricked his finger, and his mind unwillingly shot back to the rose he’d given her. It replayed the memory, then jumped back to the time she had broken the cup.
He remembered that she wanted to prove herself to the world. That she felt trapped in her arranged marriage. And then he had trapped her here, and when he pushed her out, she was trapped all over again. Now she was stuck in the Underworld.
He had long since grown desensitized to most of his actions. He had killed. Dealt poisons. Cast curses. So the pinprick of guilt buried beneath everything else caught him by complete surprise. He pressed a hand to his heart.
He owed it to Belle to bring her back. So she could have another choice.
Setting the flower aside, he pushed himself back to his feet and returned to work.
***
Reviving the dead had always been some sort of unspoken taboo among most magic users. The few who succeeded reported disastrous results. He had even heard of the Evil Queen attempting it through some sort of advanced science and failing. (But then again, the laws of science required so much more attention to logic that magic could ignore.)
After spending the rest of the night and all of the early morning researching -- a full day after learning the news of Belle’s passing -- the Dark One had found two major flaws.
The first required a price. Rumplestiltskin already had a fantastic idea on how to solve this. Blood, after all, was far more effective than emotional bonds.
The second was making sure the right soul came back, and that it came back wholly. That proved to be a roadblock. After all, he couldn’t venture to the Underworld without dying himself -- and that meant giving up his power.
He couldn’t do that. Not when he still had a son to find.
So the only other option was an audience with Hades. The real trouble was finding a way to get an audience. He and the god were stuck on two very separate sides of death.
One of his Furies would have to do.
“Belle?” he called out. He flipped the page. “The Furies, what--”
Silence. Of course. Even if she had the answer memorized word for word from a book, she wasn’t here to tell him what she knew.
He grit his teeth, and his hands shook against the pages of the book.
No more being a coward. He would fix this. Maurice would pay. Belle would have all she deserved and more, even if he couldn’t give that to her.
He ignored whatever pangs of hunger he felt. He kept searching.
There were three Furies total: Allecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera. The first, Allecto, was created from a curse. The second, Tisiphone, had been a murdered woman Hades gave power to enact revenge. And the third, Megaera, had simply been born from Nyx.
That sent the wheels in his head turning. A curse. He dealt with those quite regularly. He asked the power of the Dark One thrumming through his veins if any of the previous hosts had perhaps created Allecto.
Nimue.
“And would she recognize you?” he asked out loud.
An apparition appeared out of the corner of his vision in response. A hooded woman with scaly skin, just like his own, and dark, hungry eyes.
“She would recognize the power of the Dark One. You might even be able to call to her with our magic alone.”
He considered this. “And the price?”
“Was paid the day I created her. She is as much of ours as she is Hades’s.”
He nodded to himself. But before he decided to summon the Fury, he returned to the room with the coffin and tapped on it. The light flared at his fingertips. Weaker already.
He didn’t have much time -- unless he found another person to sacrifice.
He ventured to his vault and rummaged around the dozens of artifacts. What, exactly, could he give the god of death -- the god to whom all people, animals, and anything with any essence of life, trickled down to -- that he would not already have? Besides, supposing this ‘Underworld’ truly was beneath his feet, then the god would have access to gold, silver, and every sort of gemstone.
He pushed aside a bag of fairydust, a seed of night root, and caught a branch of birdbark before it floated out of the cabinet. Life, surely, would be unattainable to the god of death. Perhaps a live, and sturdy, plant would entice him.
Ah.
He paused and began to pace. The Underworld. Life. Two things forever separated. Which meant…
In a burst of speed, he flew to the other side of the vault and ripped a crystal ball from its podium. Souls must come with tales of the above, but without any proof of it beyond their words. And so, the ability to witness the life above -- even through an orb no bigger than his fist -- must be an experience he craved.
He slipped the ball into a velvet bag and moved to a half empty parlor. He hadn’t run out of funds to decorate it, but simply ran out of ideas. All the detailed murals and gold accents started to blend together after a while. Perhaps he’d ask Belle what she wanted when she returned.
But for now, the barren nature of the room would do him some good. He didn’t dare leave the Dark Castle in case something happened to Belle or someone came poking around while he was gone. So he would need space -- and somewhere a little more private than the open courtyard -- to summon a Fury.
Rumplestiltskin stopped in the center of the room, closed his eyes, and sank inside of himself. The power humming just beneath the surface welcomed him immediately. He calmed a little at its eagerness. Directing it towards the ground, he summoned for the memory of Allecto’s creation, and imagined the beast appearing where he wished.
He hadn’t ever teleported something he wasn’t there to see. He frankly wasn’t sure if it would work or not. But he pushed all of his rage, his fear, and flicker of hope into the need for the Fury to arrive.
Seconds ticked by.
Precious seconds wherein the spell on Belle’s coffin faded just a little more. Seconds wherein he was alone. Seconds wherein he didn’t know if being a hero -- or the closest thing he could be -- would pay off.
He nearly glanced into the future just to know whether or not this path would work.
But just before he did, glass shattered.
The dragon hide coat kept him safe from any dire injuries, although a jagged edge still caught him across the cheek. He wiped at the blood and turned slowly to face the Fury.
Allecto reminded him of the time he’d transformed a pesky beggar lingering in the courtyard into a bat. Gray, leathery wings beat as she flew around him, and he noticed with vague interest that they replaced any arms. Her legs and neck were just a little too long to be natural. The same could be said for the pits of inky darkness that were her eyes. Finally, she landed in front of him, and with snapping of bones, her wings retreated back to too-long arms.
“Dark One,” she hissed through long teeth. “You abandoned me long ago. Why do you summon me back?”
“Out of the goodness of my heart.” He rolled his eyes. “I have a message for you to relay to your master. Hades, I’m sure, will like to hear it.”
She tilted her head curiously.
Rumplestiltskin held up the velvet bag and made a show of extracting the small crystal ball. “He has something I want. I have something he wants. Tell him, in exchange for a soul’s safe passage out of the Underworld, I can give him a permanent looking glass into the world above.”
“My master does not revive the dead.”
“I am not asking him to. He simply needs to make sure she doesn’t meet any resistance on the way out.”
The Fury considered this a moment longer. Then, in a heartbeat, she flew back out the shattered glass.
Rumplestiltskin felt anger bubble to the surface. White knuckled, he gripped the back of a cream (and now torn) chaise.
She had gone without accepting the deal. Belle had slipped through his fingers.
He’d have to find another way. He went back over the other spells he’d seen mentioned in the library. Too simple a spell and she’d return a mindless puppet. The wrong price would kill him too, and then he would never find Bae, and his poor boy would die without knowing his papa had searched for him all his life. Even following all the right steps might lead her to only half-back to her own body, and she might slip away at a moment’s notice.
The flapping of wings returned. He blinked, shifting easily back into the confident, scheming man everyone took him as. The Fury landed again and outstretched a clawed hand.
“My master has agreed to this deal, Dark One. What is the woman’s name?”
Not one moment of the smug expression he wore had to be faked. “Belle French,” he said, and handed the Fury the bag.
***
“Your Majesty!” A messenger burst into the throne room, his feet tapping frantically against the marble floors. “Ogres! In the city!”
“What?” Maurice shot to his feet. He barely suppressed a shudder. With the Dark One’s help, the Ogres had before been kept at bay -- they hadn’t once crossed the border into Avonlea. “How?”
The man swayed on his feet. One of the guards had to steady the messenger before he fell flat on his face. It was only then that Maurice realized the tunic the man wore was not the kingdom yellow, but rather a deep, ugly orange.
A deep gash ran across his chest, spilling blood across his front. Maurice would frankly rather not guess what the fleshy chunks that stuck to his clothes were.
“How?” Maurice demanded again, careful to keep his tone more urgent than sharp. He crept forward.
“I don’t… I don’t know,” he heaved. “They just appeared.”
Dread unspooled in the King’s stomach. Magic. But were the Ogres working with a sorcerer, had the Evil Queen thought he trespassed, or… did the Dark One hear the news? He turned to the captain of the guard. “Send troops out to secure the palace walls! Let in all of the villagers you can!”
“I prefer the title ‘Dark One’ over ‘villager’,” someone said, “but I already let myself in, so what does that matter?”
Maurice whirled around. It was as if he had taken a look into the past. The Dark One sat on Maurice’s throne again with his hands clasped and one leg over the side, and for a second, he panicked, thinking he had come back for his daughter.
But no. He had buried her only a little more than a day ago.
Oh.
Oh no.
“Deal’s off, dearie!” He hopped to his feet like a child might at seeing a brand new toy. “You killed your end of the bargain. Looks like those Ogres came knocking.”
“You…” He went red in the face. “You cursed her! You played tricks on her mind and she jumped out the tower window!”
The Dark One laughed loud and sharp. One of the guards lunged at him, but he simply ripped out the man’s heart and crushed it. He crumpled to the ground with a groan. Rumplestiltskin picked up his sword. Its point aimed at Maurice’s heart.
“Now who told you that?”
“Her Majesty!” Maurice floundered. He backed up. A few guards leapt forward to surround him, weapons drawn and pointed at the Dark One as if they would have a fighting chance. “The Queen--”
“The Queen, the Queen! Did you not think to check her work?” He caught a blade with his own when one of the men darted forward. In a few quick movements, the sword fell from his opponent’s hands, and he drove the weapon through the guard’s partially exposed neck. Blood spurted along Rumplestilskin’s sleeve. “Do you trust every word a tyrant says?”
“I-- she knows her way around magic--”
“She is not the only one!” Another slice, this time behind a woman’s knees, and Rumplestiltskin continued his approach. Crimson dripped along the blade. The last guard beside Maurice trembled. “You had her love! You shut her out!”
The last man started inexplicably choking. He fell silently.
Maurice and the Dark One stood face to face. The fury in the man’s eyes sent sweat trickling down Maurice’s forehead. “Rumplestiltskin, she was not well, Belle--”
“Don’t say her name!” The man lunged.
Maurice had felt his heart ripped out twice before: the death of his wife, and the death of his daughter. The third time and final time was quite literal. Rumplestiltskin grinned manically as the king fell to the marble floor. He wiped the blood on the man’s silky, golden doublet, then slashed it across both of the king’s palms.
“I can bring her back.”
Panting, Maurice looked up at the Dark One’s beady eyes. Behind him, a window let in the bleeding sun, with smoke from the city curling up to reach it. He licked his lips. “Please. Please, I’ll do anything--”
“Ah, much more pleasant words! Then the deal is struck.” Rumplestiltskin kicked the man in his side. “And the price will be yours to pay. Have fun with the Ogres,” he taunted.
And in a cloud of dark smoke, the Dark One vanished with his heart and blood.
***
As soon as Rumplestiltskin returned to his Dark Castle, he carefully coaxed the blood off the blade and into a vial. Everything else had been properly prepared. The blood -- and heart -- of a loved one should bring her back.
The room with the coffin had been lit up by a dozen candles. Rumplestilskin finished setting up a cauldron and collecting ingredients. The chipped teacup had been removed from its pedestal, just to make sure the correct soul came back into her body. He had half a dozen healing potions and concoctions to ebb pain. He even set aside a fresh pair of clothes, plenty of money, a few protective charms, and rations, just in case she decided she would rather leave him to explore the world. (And he would rather know that she was alive out there than buried in the ground.) Finally, he turned back to the white deathbed.
The cowardly part of him begged not to remove the lid until after the curse was cast. That way, he would never have to witness her truly being dead. Would never have to see her in the final moments of agony. But he would rather her (second) first breath not be taken in the depths of some unknowable black abyss.
And so, as calmly as he could (which is to say, barely keeping it together), he stopped over and nudged the lid off.
Belle had her eyes closed -- a small mercy, he didn’t wish to see her blue eyes so lifeless -- and arms had been folded across her chest to hold a bouquet of roses. Her dark locks of hair fell over her shoulders. Just like she had in life, she wore an extravagant golden dress.
But the clothes did little to hide the injuries.
Deep gashes along her arms. A bruised neck cocked a little too far to the right. A dark, swollen ankle. He didn’t dare to imagine what the flaying had done to her back.
“You didn’t deserve that, Belle,” he murmured as if she could hear. He pressed a hand over hers. Cold. He recoiled.
Then he set to work.
He paid close attention to the spell he had written out. Every ingredient was measured to the exact amount. It was only at the end that he let in the drops of Maurice’s blood. He held the other man’s heart over a swirling blue -- blue just like her eyes -- and finally hesitated.
When she came back…
Would she hate him? Run away forever, without a single word? And what if she never came back properly? And what if -- what if she never truly loved him?
No. No, he had to do this. Had to vanish the coward within him, once and for all.
He crushed the heart.
***
Belle felt as if she was falling again. Falling from so high up that she couldn’t see the ground.
And she was still falling when pain exploded across her body. She cried out. Bones fused back together, tendons and ligaments reattached, and muscles encased them all. Her skin burned, back ached, and--
She was… she was breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Seeing. A ceiling with a mural of the Enchanted Forest. Feeling. A silky cushion beneath her body. Wood pressed against her elbows and shoulders. Smelling. Something stank like the dead.
The dead.
She had been--
Her father. The tower. The lashes. The fall.
“Belle?”
Rumplestiltskin’s face appeared above her. She could actually see tears forming in the corner of his eyes. She sucked in a shaky breath.
“Rumple?”
It was so hoarse and unsteady that she almost didn’t recognize her own voice.
His arms wrapped around her. Warmth seeped into her body, a sensation she had somehow already forgotten. He lifted her out of the box -- no, the coffin, she realized -- and set her down on a plush red chair. A second later, he came to her with half a dozen vials. He didn’t meet her gaze.
“For the pain,” he explained, putting one into her hand. “And faster healing.”
“Rumple,” she croaked. She blinked a few times. The chipped cup on the table caught her attention -- some sort of transparent blue gas clung to it. That must have been… He…
He froze mid step. “Are you feeling worse?”
“No, no it’s not that.” She peered at the coffin he had pulled her out of. Flashes of memory came back again, bringing bile to her throat. “What…”
“You were right.”
***
He marveled at her, letting his words sink into the space between them. Back. Really, truly back. The bruising on her neck had all but vanished. The color returned to her features. She stared at him with those wondrously perfect blue eyes.
“You were right,” he said again. This time, he looked at her. Between terror and shame, he forced the next words out. “I… I am a coward. I want you. I just didn’t believe you would want me. And so I pushed you away. And you suffered deeply because of it.”
She stared at him. Slowly, she uncorked the vials and drank them. It was only after she rolled her shoulders and sank further back into her chair that she spoke. “You brought me back from the dead. How?”
“Deals. I made one with Hades to make sure your soul could leave. Another with your father and his blood to activate the spell.”
“But you told me magic always has a price.” Her chin started to quiver. “My father…”
He said nothing. That was enough. She wiped at faint tears trickling down her face, then devolved into ugly sobs. She pulled her knees to her chest and hid her face. Rumplestiltskin, frankly unused to comfort after so many years, wordlessly placed a hand on her shoulder. He could only imagine the storm hitting her; grief at her own death, grief from her father’s, relief, shock, and confusion must’ve hit her all at once.
When the tears had calmed, he withdrew. “You don’t have to stay. With me, I mean.” She peeked up at him, and he gestured to the supplies he laid out. “You deserve to be happy. It was… It was my fault you died. Go, if you want. Explore the world that’s lying at your fingertips.”
There was another long pause.
“I want to,” she said. She shifted, uncurling herself from that makeshift cocoon to face him fully. “Will you come with me?”
That startled him. He put his hands behind his back and fiddled with his fingers nervously. “We can travel.”
“And that magic of yours…”
He sucked in a deep breath. The truth. He had to share it. “I cannot get rid of it. Not yet. It… it means almost the world to me, because it is the only thing that can reunite me with my lost son.”
“He’s not dead?”
Still so quick after being dead for days. He smiled faintly. “Ah… no. Just lost. Very far away. But this power -- I would use it for you. To move the heavens and the earth just so we could stand closer if only for a moment.”
“Hmmm.” She studied him. Then, slowly, that smile of hers tugged at her lips. “You changed.”
“For you.”
She extended her hand. He took it lightly, and then found himself a little surprised when she laced their fingers together. His heart started beating wildly.
“Camelot,” she said, “is a place I have always wanted to visit.”
“Then we’ll go, as soon as you feel you can handle the trip.” He didn’t imagine reanimation to be an easy recovery process, for both the mind, spirit, and the body.
She pointed to the half a dozen bottles nearby with a soft laugh. “I think I’m in perfectly good hands.”