Regina slammed the book shut, frustration making her irritable. Nothing. There was nothing concrete about splitting herself in half. Apparently it had simply never been done before and the odd mixture of science and magic was going to make things incredibly difficult to undo.
The biggest problem was that her double seemed to be immortal. Or, worse, her life was somehow still linked to Regina’s and it was only through her death that her dark side would perish. Of course, the only way to test that was with her actual death and Regina wasn’t willing to go that far. Not until there was no other way, at the very least.
She groaned and massaged her temples, trying to fight the migraine that was threatening. All of this.... it was on her. She had done something stupid and impulsive and now she was paying for it.
Had she made herself weak, she wondered, by taking out all that darkness? Her power, her magic... all of it was fueled with hate. The darkness had made her strong for so long and it was gone. Right? She had purged it all from her, carving it out with a jagged knife, leaving her raw and defenseless but free.
Doubt began to creep into her mind as she tried not to think about what this meant. What if she was the weak one? What if she couldn’t keep Henry and the rest of her family safe? What if she had signed their lives away when she made an enemy of the dark part of her? The strong part of her? After all, before she had given in to the darkness, she had been weak.
She felt sick as she pushed that thought from her mind, focusing instead on the next tome. There had to be something. She could feel her vision starting to go, the words blurring a little as she fought with her exhaustion. She knew that she should rest but she couldn’t sit around and do nothing.
A passage caught her eye and she inhaled sharply, the cobwebs vanishing as she focused on what might be her first real clue. It discussed duality and severance and how no one could be split to two without dire consequences. It described a fading of both halves and, though the case in particular had been a witch who had copied herself to be more efficient, Regina feared that this was close enough to count.
Two moons, it said. Two moons until they both started to fade and, by the third, they would both be dead.
