The shift of the environment is prefaced only by the barest trembles of another energy, one he can detect but cannot recognize. When the shape of the island resettles, it is warped, distorted, blending wrongly from roughened bark to lacquered wood and back again. He studies the construct with the air of fascination, and Grizelda stops hissing long enough to stare, tongue darting in and out restlessly. He can feel the thrill of her alarm, her fear - but to the lizard's limited credit, she does not release the rabbit. The rabbit stays where it is.

Intrigued if unperturbed, Rumpelstiltskin strolls over to one of the freshly-made walls and, planting his cane into the ash, leans over to knock against them solidly. Swirls of gray-white stir at his feet and around the tip of his cane as it comes to rest in the ground. There is an undeniably flawed sense to the thing, to its presence, the distinct air that it is not supposed to be here, that space was never intended to be bent this way.

"And you can do this regularly?" he asks, curious and measured, apparently untroubled by the way the young man has appeared t have keeled over by the effort.