:: Box of Magic: A Merlin Big Bang Challenge

"She's a powerful sorceress—she can enchant the eye that beholds her."

Nimueh was bored.

It was not the mundane tedium that could be waylaid by sending her luckless assistant on a futile quest for a script as yet unwritten, or even by arranging for auditors to show up unannounced at the Time Warner offices (enjoyable as that always was). No, this ennui oozed like thick sludge through her veins, crawling through her bones like cold porridge and reminding her that it had been far too long since she'd felt her blood boil with mischief.

As her impatient Borghese scarlet nails clacked on the remote, images flashed across the plasma screen too quickly for any human to process.

Her assistant, scrolling through his Blackberry nearly as fast, did not bat an eye. He was well accustomed to witnessing the miraculous and not questioning the impossible. Armed with stiffly gelled blond hair, a phoney English accent, and a contact list that any fledgling screenwriter would have sporked an eyeball for, he guarded her calendar as fiercely as Cerberus.

Only through him could one gain access to Naomi Lachlan, founder and CEO of Avalon Media. And to make it in show business, you had to know Naomi. She might not possess the power she once had, back in those days when magic flowed from the earth, but what little remained was magnified by the camera. And when it came to the magic of the movies, she was still a high priestess. Spielberg had her on speed dial, she was godmother to two Branjelina children, and Variety claimed she had a Midas touch when it came to making hit shows. Luck, they called it, and uncanny foresight.

They were half-right.

"Lunch is confirmed for twelve-thirty," her assistant announced in his most officious voice. "And I've rescheduled your Oscars' fitting for tomorrow; Miss Wang will be here at four. Mr Cruise asks you to ring, he says it's urgent…"

Nimueh waved dismissively. "It's always urgent with that man."

"Mr Coen called," he continued, after making a precise tick on his screen. "Joel, not Ethan, about scheduling the screening party for No Country for Old Men; he has tentative dates but wanted to make sure you were free…"

But his words were drowned as the volume from the television rose and a British accent—a real one this time—filled the corners of her sleek Hollywood office.

"…the situation has grown increasingly dire. With only one female black poplar left in all of Norfolk, Saddlebow's native trees face imminent extinction."

The camera panned out to reveal a tweedily dressed, middle-aged man tramping through a marshy field. Over the squelching sound of his Wellies came the narrator: "Black poplars, featured in John Constable's famous painting 'The Hay Wain', were once common throughout the East. Today, they're in danger of disappearing. That is, unless Meredith Emerson, founder of the Rowan Wood Association, can save them."

"Our association," explained the shabby man, a leafy switch slapping against his palm, "encourages county councils to propagate female trees. We're spreading awareness about the importance of pollen exchange to England's black poplar population…"

"Tree sex?" her assistant snorted, his accent slipping vaguely, but Nimueh ignored him. Her eyes turned terrifyingly blue as she drank in the sight of her old friend. It had been many years, decades even, since they'd crossed paths.

She remembered the last time. She was scrying through a Sony Discman, back when they were brand new on the market, just to see if the silvery whorls could mimic the rippling water of her bowl. For an instant she'd seen a ramshackle cottage, bursting at the seams with books, mugs of tea and overgrown plants elbowing each other for space on every spare surface. Merlin was curled up in an easy chair upholstered in once-regal Pendragon red and gold, now faded to comfortable warm shades; the man himself was draped in a dreary plaid bathrobe. He'd glanced up from his reading and glowered, then waved his hand and clouded the vision. She had not tried to reach him since.

Based on today's dowdy appearance, he hadn't changed. Whereas she had moved with the times, adopting Cavalli suits and Christian Louboutin slingback pumps, Merlin Emrys—Meredith Emerson, she winced—looked like he would be as comfortable in those dreary peasant clothes and that ridiculous neck scarf he'd once fancied.

Yes, Nimueh thought, recalling that Merlin from long ago, it has been far too long.

She turned to her assistant. "Get me the BBC," she commanded.

"Arthur was never destined to die at my hand. And now it seems I will be his salvation."

It was a dark and stormy night… but then it always was on the north Cornish coast. Frigid winds hurtled off the Atlantic onto the defenceless shore, sending the rain falling in sheets—not down, like ordinary rain, but sideways, flat enough to make a bed.

Merlin braved the winds long enough to crack open his sturdy double-glazed kitchen windows. "Hurry up, Archie. You'll blow away out there." A lone jackdaw fluttered inside and perched the toaster as Merlin fussed about. Whilst tea leaves steeped in the Brown Betty, the cupboard was scoured for biscuits and perhaps something a bit stronger to imbibe. This search proving fruitless, and the night being too wild to venture out, Merlin gave up and settled on a simple mug of strong tea.

Once upon a time he would have conjured something. He can't really remember when he stopped doing that, but he remembers why. Oh, for some centuries after the fall of Camelot he had raged against the loss of magic alongside Nimueh and Morgana, the three of them making strange bedfellows as they faced an existential crisis that recalled Merlin's adolescent moans to Gaius.

And for a time, as they struggled on, they did manage to harness some of their powers again. In fact, Merlin suspected that together they could have achieved their former status—and that is why he withdrew. It could be too easy to rely on magic, too tempting to make everything better. Better for him, that is, and after one (oh, all right, perhaps closer to one hundred) disasters that began with good intentions, he could never really convince himself that he knew what was best for everyone else. And so he'd resolved to keep magic just for the essentials—a nudge to get paperwork to the council chambers or a tweak on the ear of a wealthy donor—and if his scant powers grew even rustier, then so be it. It was better to let things work out the way they were meant to. Destiny, he'd learned, was far more fragile than one might think.

Still, noble as his beliefs might be, he regretted not conjuring a stiff drink when he retired to the sitting room and found her waiting for him, examining his bulging bookshelves with a critical eye.

"Harry Potter? Really, Merlin, how could you?"

Ignoring her jibes, he sank into the room's only comfortable armchair. The jackdaw winged to his side, cocking his head warily at the intruder. "I'd hoped I was past needing warding spells anymore," said Merlin. "Obviously I was wrong."

"Now, now. Is that any way to greet your oldest friend?" With a wave of her hand a rickety stool slid forward, on its way transforming into a chair far more elegant than anything in his simple cottage. A crystal champagne flute appeared in her hand—Merlin knew it was filled with something ridiculously expensive—and she raised it in a silent toast as she made herself at home.

Merlin studied her posture: ankles crossed, suit-lines straight; the consummate professional woman. With her coiffed hair and stylish couture, Nimueh bore little resemblance to the simple serving girl he'd met so long ago, or the sorcerer he'd challenged for the sake of his king, or even the lover he'd loved and loathed in centuries since. But her bright eyes had not changed. In their inhuman brilliance it was impossible to hide the traces of her magic, weak as they might now be.

Or her devilry.

"I told you the last time, I've no wish to ever see you again."

"Oh, Merlin," she sighed, her tone every bit as patronising as he remembered, "it was just a bit of fun. You've lived lifetimes; why must you get so bent out of shape over eighteen-and-a-half missing minutes?"

"Yes, well"—and after all these centuries, must he still be the one saddled with ideas of right and wrong, chirping like a disapproving priest?—"your idea of fun always has left much to be desired."

"Oh, but you'll like this!" She smiled in a way that assured Merlin he wouldn't. "Ask me—ask me why I've come to see you, even after you were so very horrid last time."

"I don't care why you've come, Nimueh, just that you leave me to enjoy my evening in peace."

"Peace?" scoffed the sorceress, "You know you were always bored to tears by peace! It was in battle that you used to shine, you and Arth—"

"Hush!" Merlin belted out. A stray bit of magic knocked a book from the shelf, but he ignored it, his ire focused on the witch. "You've no right to speak his name."

But she only smiled blithely. "My poor darling, I did wonder if you were still pining after all this time. It's so romantic. And more than a little pathetic, don't you think, when you know you could wake him any time you wanted?"

"You know it doesn't work that way," growled Merlin. He could feel magic sparking again on the back of his hands, just stray twitches, like his skin was too dry. It felt strange, after so long, and not comfortable. Tomorrow his body would ache from the exertion of holding it in. It was almost tempting to let it pour out, and if he didn't know that he was far too weak to clash with Nimueh's more practised magic, he would have. "The king will rise when it is time, not before."

"But that's why I'm here," she cackled. "The time has come to tell your story—the real story, not some fable of a fostered prince and a sword in a stone. Or you aging backwards—how was that even supposed to work?"

Merlin had known he wouldn't like Nimueh's idea, but battling to breathe with this boulder pressing on his chest, he realised he'd had no idea just how much. He had spent decades planting the legends of Arthur, nursing seeds that had grown over the years into something wild and unintended and comforting. Their lives kept him from being lonely, but their distance warded off his melancholia. "No," he said, his voice threateningly low, "you can't do this."

"Oh, but I can. In fact, I already have a production team in place and the scripts are being drawn up as we speak. And I might have had a hand in guiding those, since this is such a bold, new take. We're starting from the moment you arrived at Camelot."

She was serious then, and her eyes held that terrifying gleam that he recognized from such debacles as the Hindenburg and the Falklands. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because I'm so dreadfully bored," she said with an exaggerated sigh, "and I think you are, too."

Merlin shook his head. "Our time is over, Nimueh. Can't you just be satisfied being a media mogul or whatever it is you do these days? No one needs this story."

"But you're wrong! The BBC is all over the idea—you'd think it's their next Doctor Who, the way they're going on."

"Nimueh, please, don't." An entire shelf of books spilled to the floor but he hardly noticed. "This isn't right—this isn't your story."

"No, it's not," she conceded, "and that's why I want you on board. I was thinking we'd call you the Medieval Consultant—how would you like that? We can change the title, of course—"

"Stop it!" Merlin rose, his chair bucking wildly under him as he moved. Archie screeched and waved its wings furiously as Merlin growled, "I won't let you do this!"

Nimueh stood too, her smile flirtatious and terrible. "Merlin, my dear, you can't stop me. This is happening with or without you."

"Bewreoc!" His banishing spell rode out on an irrepressible wave of magic, flowing like raging waters through a broken dam, flooding him with such relief that it overwhelmed the inevitable danger. It was more magic than he had used in decades and tomorrow would be horrific—if he could get out of bed two days hence, he would be lucky. But now, in this moment, it poured from him and he did feel mighty.

When his power finally slowed to a trickle, he was relieved to see that Nimueh was gone. As was an entire bookcase and the stool-cum-chair where she'd been sitting.

But just where she'd been standing was a small business card. Archimedes snatched it in his beak, holding up the prize to Merlin. Its edges were black as a smith's cast iron, but the word in the centre gleamed like steel forged in dragon fire:

"Once you enter into this bargain, it cannot be undone."

"That's great," said Johnny to the ginger-haired actor. "You're bringing lots of energy to the role, which is exactly what I want to see."

"Thank you, Charles," chimed in Julian, as if to tone down Johnny's enthusiasm. "We hope to make a decision within the week, so we'll let you know what we decide."

"I liked him," Johnny reiterated as the actor left the room. "That's just the kind of playfulness I envision for Merlin."

"Yes," agreed Julian. "There's exuberance there—he could really make us believe magic exists. What did you think, Naomi?"

Nimueh shook her head, finishing her notes with a flourish of her Mont Blanc pen. She would polish them later with a touch of magic, but it helped to keep up appearances during the interviews. All of which were a mere formality in any case. The ginger-haired man had no chance of being cast. "He was preposterous," she announced. "Merlin was often foolish, but he was never preposterous."

Johnny blinked a few times while Julian simply raised a curious eyebrow. It hardly mattered; they'd remember little of this later, once they'd cast the perfect lead. Still, the production assistant's interruption was welcome. "Are you ready for the next one? His name is Colin Morgan."

"Ah, yes, I remember him," Johnny announced as he rifled through his papers. "He was impressive in his earlier audition. You've seen the video?"

"I did," said Nimueh, although the clip was just another formality. As was the C.V. she now scanned. Graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Doctor Who, a solid grounding in theatre—all the details of which she knew intimately because it was her ongēanfealden spell that had slotted all these pieces into place. It had not been easy—reaching back through the folds of time never was, but it seemed to demand even more of her effort this time. She'd been left a wreck, her holiday in the Bahamas simply a cover for the fortnight she had needed to recover.

She'd even, in those quiet days when she could barely lift the phone to ring room service, given some thought to what Merlin had said. Was he right? Was it wrong to meddle in these lives? Who could say whether a child might have been born to a higher calling—to cure disease, or to discover new galaxies—before she'd bestowed a love of magic tricks and a taste for the stage? Who could tell what ripples might have spread as her hand dipped and tugged on the frayed rags of fate? But try as she might, she could not fault herself for altering destiny. Such grand paths were only meant to be walked by the rare ones: she and Merlin… and, yes, Arthur.

And when she'd first seen these familiar faces reflected back at her in new bodies, first through her scrying bowl and later on a flickering laptop screen, she'd stopped asking such questions. It was enough to see their features, almost painfully familiar, to know that she had done the right thing.

The actor entered the room and sat before them. He smiled Merlin's disarming smile—the one that proclaimed that there was no way this person was remarkable, no chance that he possessed any real power. His script sides were rolled into a tube that he tapped nervously against his palm, unnecessary as he recited perfectly memorised lines.

"I like it," said Julian when he'd finished the last scene, "but can we try a different accent. Something less… regional?"

"More English, he means," Johnny translated. "Nothing too posh, either. We want it to distinguish you from Arthur."

"Do you know where he'd be from then, Arthur?" asked Colin, his vowels drawn out too long and his consonants cresting and falling like waves.

"Merlin's the first role we'll cast," explained Julian. "This is very much an ensemble show, but he's at the heart of it, so it's essential we find the right person."

As Julian launched into a grand explanation of their concept, Nimueh studied the actor himself. It was true that she had rifled through his life, pulling at various threads to make sure that he ended up here, but this was the first she had seen of him in person. She couldn't help but congratulate herself when he proved even more successful than she'd hoped. The resemblance was uncanny. She had forgotten that when Merlin first arrived in Camelot he'd been half-starved, raised on a meagre peasant's diet. Only after years of the king's feasts had he lost that. This actor lacked that emaciation, but his limbs were lanky and awkward, and she recognised something hauntingly familiar in the hollows under his cheekbones.

They grew even more marked once Julian had finished his speech, and Colin smiled cheekily. "So. Not Irish then?"

Nimueh couldn't help but snigger even as Julian shifted uncomfortably, grumbling, "No, not Irish." So like Merlin had been, irreverent and too quick for his own good, and she wondered how much truly was her spell. Was it too much to think this might be the man's natural personality?

"Give us your best English accent," Johnny requested, ignoring his partner's discomfort, and this time Nimueh decided to help out. It might look like she was tracing words on her clipboard with an elegantly sculpted nail, but her subtle drȳminge smoothed and shortened the syllables, leaving both Johnny and Julian with pleased smiles once Colin reached the end of the scene.

"Well, that was impressive," admitted Johnny after Colin exited. "I think he's on our short list."

Julian nodded. "He has promise, yes. Maybe we'll call him back, and I'd like to see that other fellow from before, Charlie…"

"The ginger one, yeah," said Johnny. "And there were those two from yesterday…"

Nimueh rolled her eyes. This was one thing she would never understood: humans' lives were so short, and yet they wasted them on things so meaningless. "I think your list could be even shorter," she proposed, adding the nudge of magical suggestion—just a touch, but it was enough.

"But on second thought…" amended Johnny.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Julian asked.

Johnny nodded. "I think we just found our Merlin!"

"You knew that one day this business would come back to haunt you."

The village where Merlin made his home was small enough to not really be there at all: too few locals to support a village shop and even the part-time post office had closed. But he remembered better times, when the tumbling-down houses sported bright lights, when he'd spent his nights in the old pub with Cornish revivalists, when he had marvelled alongside the rest of the villagers at the stash of Irish gold discovered in the hedge down Badger's Lane. Times changed and people passed on, and they never came back. That's how the world worked.

Merlin was just returning from his walk up Trencrom Hill, blowing clouds of warm breath into the frosty morning air, when he spotted the courier van outside his cottage. Must be the Norfolk council, he mused, hurrying to catch the van. They had promised a quick answer on his campaign.

But when he saw the label on the envelope, "Avalon Media," his heart fell. He had hoped she would have grown bored with this little game, like she had always done before when he refused to rise to her bait. He should not have lost control like that, or paid her any attention at all. Nimueh was very like a spoilt child; giving in to her demands only encouraged her. She would have tinkered with this idea until she saw he wouldn't bite, got bored, and returned to Hollywood where she could be just as crazy as she wanted and nobody would notice.

Still, his fingers itched to tear open the package just to see what she had planned. He managed to hold off until the white van rounded the bend, or just barely, before shoving his hand inside.

There was only a single page there, a single glossy print. The face before him could have been a mirror image—would be, had he not appeased the king's vanity by matching his age. Now, with this innocence staring up at him, he was reminded of how he had once appeared. My ears were never that big, he insisted each time he drew it out, and the birds nipping seeds on his sill politely twittered their agreement. Archie just laughed.

Gaius arrived not long after… or rather, the man cast to play Gaius. The actor was actually quite well-known, but Merlin had never before noticed the strong resemblance to his old mentor. And he could not shake the niggling doubt that such a resemblance existed before. He tried not to imagine the horrific lengths that Nimueh might have gone for this little game of hers. There might have been times when he envied her practiced power, but Nimueh gave credence to Uther's belief that magic did indeed corrupt.

It was when Uther arrived—the glossy of Uther, rather, or of his actor—that Merlin was convinced of it. He'd drawn the picture slowly from its brown envelope, and as the face slowly appeared he exhaled in relief. Nimueh had got it wrong this time. Laugh lines surrounded kindly eyes that looked nothing like what he remembered of Uther. These eyes had not overseen the murder of hundreds of innocents, they had not commanded acts of such violence that today they would be named genocide. No, the man that wore these eyes had not ever known such hatred, and Merlin felt oddly reassured.

His heart stopped as he extracted the rest of the picture. It was the smile that did him in. It was the exact one that he had dreaded seeing for too many years, and that even after centuries still managed to shoot a jolt of terror through him. It was the one that hid Uther's paranoia and fear, and ensured his enemies knew they were little more than a fly caught in his trap. Not a sneer, nothing so crass as that; Uther's smile was the self-assured lip curl that announced, "I am king and will take pleasure in your death."

"Don't do this, Nimueh," he muttered, but the only reply was the confused chirp of a corn bunting in the hedge. Merlin incinerated the picture with a single thought.

But they did not stop, and although Merlin still protested each arrival vehemently, as evidenced by the growing mounds of pottery shards and splintered bookshelves, he couldn't bring himself to throw them out. Morgana was there, with her sly, knowing gaze, before her dreams turned dark; lovely Guinevere—Gwen, as he'd called her in those days—her skin darker but her eyes brimming with that same rich generosity that promised too much to too many; his mother… Merlin actually cried when he opened that envelope. The actress was younger than the age he now wore, but for an instant he couldn't help feeling like the child he once was, racing for the safety of her sturdy skirts.

And Nimueh, even Nimueh with her trickster's smile—somewhere they had found an actress who looked close enough to the real thing that surely people would think them kinswomen. Merlin considered ringing her office just to point out that once she'd been youthful and vibrant, not the mid-30s careerist she appeared to be today; he only stopped when he remembered he was still angry with her, and that she would simply remind him of his own lost innocence echoed in that other actor's face.

The strange protective urge he felt towards these actors confused him. These were not the same people he'd once known. But as each one appeared, more perfectly cast than the last, his unease grew. Nimueh would not have interfered in their lives, surely not. Her magic was not strong enough, not for the kind of unfolding required to put all this into play. But his reassurances grew shakier with each passing day.

He knew what he was waiting for. Only one was left.

"Arthur and Merlin don't get on at the start, at all."

"Come on, that's enough."

"What?"

"You've had your fun, my friend."

Colin's head was only half on his lines. The other half was wondering just how many read-throughs he'd have to go through with just how many different Arthurs. He'd been absolutely sure they would cast the second one, Adam, who he'd got on with like a house on fire. Or Gerry Fitzgerald—he must have been number five—who was as Irish as Colin but sounded as posh as Prince Harry when they read together.

By the time he got to number seven he had stopped bothering to learn names and just referred to them by Doctors. Sylvester McCoy, who would not shut up about his guest spot on Hotel Fucking Babylon; Paul McGann, who stood a full head shorter than him and not once looked him in the eye; Chris Eccleston, who would have made a great Arthur, even if he smelt of cabbage; David Tennant, who was too busy texting and threatening his agent to get to know Colin.

Now they were on Matt Smith; after this he reckoned he'd have to resort to companions, because there was no possible way that Matt was going to make it. There was no way they were envisioning King Arthur as a lager lad, no matter how revisionist their version might be.

"Do I know you?" asked Matt, pulling a face that made him look like Colin's Great Aunt Magella.

"I'm Merlin."

"Then I don't know you."

As Colin began the next line, the door swung open and Naomi Lachlan entered. Colin had met her several times since the first audition but she never failed to intimidate him. She had this way of looking at him, like she knew more about him than he even knew himself. It was more than a little off-putting.

"Hello, Colin," she said, then, "Hello, Bradley. How are you two getting on?"

Colin had no idea how to answer that. They had spent a few spare minutes together before taking their marks and running lines, but it was hard to build a rapport with someone who nodded dumbly to everything you said and stared like you were from another planet.

And Colin just might have called him Matt.

But he needn't have worried. Before Colin could even say a word, Bradley was answering. "It's still early days, of course, but I'd have to say we're getting on famously. In fact, I can't say when I've ever felt this comfortable with a potential co-star—or with a production team, for that matter."

Oh god, thought Colin, he's pulling out his 'charm the mum to get into the daughter's knickers' routine. He glanced at Naomi; there was no way she had fall for this. And in fact, she looked terribly amused—an expression that was somehow even more unnerving than her knowing gaze.

Bradley seemed not to notice; still talking, he tried to draw Colin into his smarm. "It almost feels like we've being going at this for years, right, mate?"

"Yeah, Matt, sure," Colin replied, his eyes rolling. "Whatever you say."

Naomi laughed, seemingly delighted; Bradley just looked perplexed. Colin wondered what the next wannabe-Arthur would be like, and whether he'd mind being called K-9.

"Together, we could have ruled the world."

"My word, Merlin, but you're a mess."

The man stood frozen in his doorway, his umbrella still half-open and thick curls of water pouring off his Burberry, gaping at her in horror. Nimueh smiled in anticipation of the fun she was about to have. The news she'd brought would surely set him off guard, but she had not expected to find him already so unbalanced. "Well, come into the kitchen where it's warm, I'll make you a cup of tea."

He took a few minutes to shed his wet gear in the mudroom before joining her, that damnable jackdaw perched on his shoulder. Seating himself at the table, he regarded her warily even as she poured his tea. "You are aware that this is my house?"

Nimueh chuckled as she filled her own cup. This was a ritual that she missed in Hollywood; it felt so civilised, even when shared between two erstwhile enemies. "Now, now, it was hardly a century ago that you were touting all those socialist ideals. Whatever happened to your communal spirit?"

"If I recall," countered Merlin, "that was around the same time you were making Rockefeller the richest man in history."

"You overestimate my powers, I'm afraid. I did very little for John, other than supply bits of information now and again. He really was a charming man."

Merlin sighed, sending tiny waves rippling across the surface of his teacup. "If you're here just to reminisce about your old lovers, I'll have to pass. I've had a hard day."

"Poor dear," she tutted. "And what took you out in this miserable weather?"

He studied her for a moment and she wasn't sure if he would answer. "Our ancient trees campaign," he finally explained. "We had a programme at Savernake Forest this afternoon, and the entire thing got scuppered by rain."

"Which left you alone with your trees," Nimueh said with fondness. "If I'd known you would grow so attached to them, I'd never have held you so long in Brécéliande."

Merlin puffed out a laugh. "I just wish I could tell people the truth about Savernake, that it's so much older than the thousand years they credit. Some of the older oaks still remember Arthur's hunts."

Nimueh blinked, surprised. It was only on rare occasions that Merlin mentioned the king, and though she had come with the intention of taunting him over this very subject, Merlin's candidness softened her heart. "They're human, Merlin. A thousand years is already a very long time. Adding another half-millennia, give or take… would it truly make any difference?"

"No, probably not." He gazed out the window for a moment, his thoughts flying far from this room, into some plane where she couldn't follow. Then he shivered and turned back to her, and she saw the return of that resigned enmity that blemished all their encounters these days. "You didn't come all this way just to ask about my day, Nimueh. And I'm cold and wet, so why don't you just get it over with so I can throw you out and we can go on with our lives."

But she wasn't ready for that, not yet. She had missed Merlin, and not just because he was one of only a few immortals still inhabiting this earth. She cared for him, in her own way, and she suspected he held a soft spot for her—one big enough that she felt safe to tease, "You know you could remedy that easily."

"What," he said after a moment's puzzlement, "being cold and wet?" When she nodded, he frowned. "I don't do magic anymore. You know that."

"Oh, don't even start. You do magic every day, just by existing. You've been talking to trees for hours and you've had that damnable bird for centuries. And no one questions the fact that you haven't aged a day since Arthur left. That's magic, Merlin, whether you admit it or not."

Merlin frowned. "It's different. That's passive magic. It's not manipulating the elements. It's not… it's not manipulating people's lives for your own entertainment."

"Oh," she smiled; this was getting interesting, "Manipulating people's lives—is that what I'm doing?"

"I hope not. I'm not sure I could forgive you that."

Nimueh's smile widened. She could not have hoped for a better opening. She came toward him, holding out the envelope she'd brought, the very last one. "Not even if it meant you could have your Arthur back? When he was just a prince? When he was all yours—does that not tempt you?"

Merlin shook his head, refusing to touch the envelope. "No. Because it's not him. It's an actor who, yes, probably is the spitting image of Arthur. But he's not the same."

Nimueh laid the brown package on the table and pushed it closer to Merlin. "Oh, I think you'll be surprised just how much this actor resembles your king. Or rather, your prince. And not merely the physical resemblance, although I think that will please you, too." She waited for the flicker of interest in Merlin's eye, the one she knew he was trying to repress. It came at last, a spark of life, so gratifying and immensely better than the lifeless features he had displayed on the telly just a few short months ago. And she knew just how to feed it. "This one has such a personality, you'll be astounded. And that same strong will—I had the hardest time setting him on this path."

"Tell me you weren't folding time…"

"Oh, only for a few decades," she said, waving her hand dismissively, "a blip in history. This one, though, had his heart set on being a professional footballer. You wouldn't believe how I had to tug to get him into acting."

"You've gone too far this time, Nimueh," he proclaimed. Righteous anger had always been a good look for Merlin, sharpening those boyish features that he still held on to. "By rights I should strike you down."

His hand rose, in warning or in offence it was impossible to tell, but Nimueh mirrored his move. The air between them shifted and cracked, crisp as the precursor of a storm. Nimueh let the static caress her skin, soothing as a balm after such a long absence. InterestingShe felt energized as she had not for years, and it made her generous.

"We may be weaker," she reminded him, although at this very moment she felt anything but weak, "but we could still hurt each other. Should we not be friends instead?"

She wondered if Merlin noted the change in the air. Did he feel the intensity of their power ricocheting off each other? Would he call her bluff and turn that glare (that was immensely satisfying, she had to admit) into a flash of gold? Not knowing was thrilling and part of her almost welcomed battle, just to see what would happen.

But then, at the last moment, Merlin lowered his hand. "How can you even say that, after what you've done? You can't just shift time around at your whims—you can't play with destiny like that. If this wasn't what they wanted…"

"Oh really, Merlin," Nimueh cut him off, her laughter sounding rough. "A human child hardly knows what he wants, certainly you know that. Besides, it's not as if football is an honourable goal. He might have had a few years of success before an injury stole his career. I've given him fame, fortune—things most people only dream of. Besides," she said, her voice turning silky, "consider this my way to put things right. To tell the story as it really happened. Wouldn't Arthur want that?"

"Arthur would want you dead."

"Perhaps," she admitted. "But more than that, he would want you happy. Not wasting away like a hermit, with your only connection to the world in your trees and your endless hopeless causes. I'm trying to give you something—something that'll last."

She pushed the envelope toward him again and watched as he struggled even harder against the temptation. His eyes flitted to and fro, darkening whenever they landed on the envelope. Finally they met hers and narrowed.

"Nothing lasts, Nimueh."

She laughed again and spirited herself away, but not before casting a drying spell on the sputtering warlock. She was surprised by how little effort it took.

"He bullies me on-set and off-set."

"Got room for us?" said a voice over his shoulder. Colin looked up and gave Angel a smile. It faded only a bit when he noticed Bradley lurking behind her.

"Oh, sure, give me a second…" He snatched up the pile of scripts and newspapers that had spread around him, and the emptied space was quickly filled by their trays: Angel's bore a healthy salad, Bradley's a plate heaving with everything the Shine cafeteria had on offer.

"Did you see the pictures from France? Of the castle?" Angel asked.

Colin nodded around his bite of pasta. Johnny's snapshots of Chateau de Pierrefonds had been passed around earlier that day, and they had all been awed. "Oh yeah, it's astounding, isn't it?"

As usual, Bradley stared at him as if he'd spoken an alien language, looking to Angel for translation as he so often did these days. It was true that Colin's mouth had been full at the time, but it couldn't have been that difficult to get the gist of what he'd said. And really, a three-syllable word was beyond him? It only supported Colin's theory that Bradley was a bit simple.

Strangely enough, he was absurdly grateful for Bradley's ignorance, as it kept the lid on Colin's inconvenient attraction to the man. It was purely physical, of that Colin was sure, since it had only sprung up after seeing Bradley in full Arthur costume for the first time. He blamed it on the rare sunny day that had brightened Bradley's hair, making it seem like he wore a crown even though the singlet still rested on the costumer's tray. The crushed red jacket that accented his unfairly broad shoulders didn't help, nor did the stretchy brown leggings that hugged the curve of his arse like Colin, in an instant of weakness, wished he could do. The whole situation might have been a problem if he would let it—shagging co-stars was so often disastrous. But then Bradley had made a clumsy pass at Angel, something crude about really getting inside their characters. She had laughed and asked if he'd read the scripts. In the wake of his confusion, Katie chimed in that Arthur had a better chance of getting off with Merlin than with Gwen. Colin wasn't sure whether to laugh at Bradley's slowly blooming awareness or take offence at the look of distaste. In any case, he knew he was safe from developing any kind of real crush on the man.

"So," Bradley asked now, confirming Colin's relief between bites of his sausages, "you must be looking forward to going to France?"

"Oh?" Colin's eyebrow cocked curious. "Why's that?"

"I'd think it'd be great for a vegetarian, what with all that cheese everywhere."

Colin glared. "I'm allergic to cheese."

"Oh, you poor thing," Angel commiserated. But Bradley looked confused, not to mention unsympathetic.

"What? He can't eat cheese?"

"Oi, he's right here!" snapped Colin. "And yes, that's generally what allergic means."

Angel seemed about to chide him for his outburst, but then her eyes widened. "Oh, dear, because of the milk?" When Colin nodded, she added sadly, "I guess that means no chocolate either?"

She looked so heartbroken at this that Colin softened. "Yeah. Well, a little's okay, but yeah, no, not unless I want my face to swell up like a balloon."

It took a long moment for this to register in Bradley's glacially slow brain, but when it did, his face contorted in horror. "What? No chocolate? Morgan, you really are a freak."

And Colin thought that if he could have Merlin's powers, just for a second, he would turn Bradley James into a toad.

"It's a step up from when I was ten playing Prince Charming."

He should have known that Nimueh would not give up so easily. Over the next weeks the deliveries continued with a steady stream of brown envelopes; they taunted him for the few minutes before incineration. Merlin almost wished that she would simply send him the picture unconcealed—have the envelope dissolve or even plaster the boy's face across his bedroom wall—but that was not her way. She wanted him to choose this, and he refused to give her that satisfaction.

But when it finally happened, it was in a way that neither of them had chosen. One minute Merlin was standing in the grocery store in St. Ives, handing his selection of oranges to a shop clerk and trying to block out the sound of the crying child behind him; the next he was staring in horror at the community newspaper:

In his long lifetime, there had been only a few moments in which Merlin wished to reverse time. The first and most obvious was when Arthur, headstrong, impetuous Arthur, had raced off without him onto a battlefield teeming with soldiers and smoke. It was not the first time he had done this, of course, and Merlin had no reason to believe it would be the last. But when he had found the king, half-crushed under the weight of Mordred's lifeless body and nearly dead himself, it was all Merlin could do not to throw the entirety of his magic into rolling back the hours long enough to change this destiny. Even then he had known it was wrong—that the fragile threads of time could not be rewound and that too much would be endangered from the instant he began to unravel them.

And even knowing all that, Merlin felt the seconds clawing their way to a halt. Unconscious magic pulsed in his veins as the world around him froze—the shop clerk with her hand on the till, the crying boy with his soundless mouth open, an orange halfway to the floor. There was no time to wonder how it was happening, this surge of power that he had not possessed in years. There was no time even to breathe; it was all he could do to reel it back. It fought him like a bulging river fights against the banks that contain it, and as its force grew, the world began moving like a film in reverse. "Fordemme!" commanded Merlin, watching the boy's face morph into pleasure when his mum returned the chocolates. "Fordemme!" he repeated as the clerk walked stiff-legged outside the shop, scooping up her crumpled fag from the ground and puffing it until it was long and straight. "Fordemme!" he shouted a final time, dredging up every ounce of his strength and filling the word with so much power that the rack of wine bottles beside the door came crashing down. This time, the world stilled again, the flame frozen in her lighter, before the ember ignited and started to burn in the right direction.

Carefully, Merlin guided time back into its proper track. He could not do anything about the wines or the clerk's confused expression; he felt so depleted that he could barely manage to pick up the stray orange.

Somehow, although he could not say how, Merlin survived the winding cliffside roads that led him back home. But even this was not a sanctuary. As he pushed open his door a package fell across the threshold, slightly worse for wear for being shoved through the mail flap. It bore the now-familiar Avalon logo, although Merlin didn't need that to know what it contained. This time, he ripped it open and pulled the glossy from within.

It was Arthur.

It was Arthur as Merlin had not seen him in centuries: youthful, his face still unlined, his smile open and carefree. And his eyes, they lacked that weariness that had grown with each passing year of his reign, but still they shone with that spark of life that had made him the greatest king the land had ever known.

Merlin could not say how long he stood there, staring at this boy who, but for Nimueh's caprice, would know nothing of Camelot. By the time he looked up the room had grown darker. And he was no longer alone. "Please, don't do this," Merlin said without turning.

"It's already done," Nimueh replied. It was the gentleness in her voice that filled Merlin with dread.

"The relationship between Bradley and Colin has sort of been a slow burner."

Pathetic as it was, Colin could pinpoint the exact date when his opinion of Bradley started to change. It was at Bradley's Christmas party. Colin arrived at his flat expecting it to be full of boisterous footballers and mindless Barbie dolls. Instead, it was a relatively quiet gathering, just a few of the Merlin cast and crew and some friends from drama school. Colin liked them instantly; they reminded him of his classmates in Glasgow, with their clever wit and quick comebacks. It did not escape him that they were genuinely fond of Bradley—and of sharing his escapades, especially the embarrassing ones, with a new audience.

As the night progressed and the vodka bottles emptied, the future prince's obsession with Monty Python and the Holy Grail was revealed. Colin, who shared this passion, absently quipped, "Why not try a holiday in Sweden this year?"

Bradley stared agog for half a second before grabbing the DVD from the shelf and dragging Colin down beside him on the sofa. The next thing Colin knew, he was engaged in the most competitive viewing event he had ever experienced. As the rest of the room watched—bemusedly at first, and then with growing boredom—they recited in almost perfect unison the script imprinted in their memories, hooting whenever the other flubbed a line. It was the first time that Colin had ever noticed the expanse of Bradley's laugh. He wondered that he'd missed it before.

It was late when they finished, and not a few people had made their exits during the film. Bradley hopped up to say goodbye to the rest, declining an invitation to go clubbing and suffering brutal mockery for suddenly becoming a decrepit old man.

Colin was just about to say good night too when Bradley turned to him. "Bet you can't do it with the sound off, Morgan."

And how could Colin walk away from that challenge?

Things changed after that, after that morning when he woke up on Bradley's sofa with a fleece throw tucked around him. At first the shift was so subtle that Colin wondered if he was imagining it. It just seemed that Angel was demanded a bit less for translations, that Bradley waited around a bit more after Colin had endured a day of green screen work, that in the week since coming to France he seemed to seek Colin out more than he had ever done before. But then Bradley mentioned it, too.

"I've been thinking," he announced without introduction, "you and me, we're a bit like Arthur and Merlin."

Colin squinted up at Bradley and then wished he hadn't. After sword training that day, his blond hair had dried in straw-like bristles—an unfairly good look on him that did nothing to quell Colin's resolve. "How do you reckon?"

"Well," said Bradley, dropping down beside Colin on the couch and jostling coffee over his hand. Colin grimaced, but Bradley just continued, as oblivious as usual. "We didn't get each other at first. I think it was the language difference…"

"I speak English, Bradley," Colin reminded him, wiping his hand on Bradley's sweatshirt. It struck him that he was not nearly as put out as he might once have been, which could have had something to do with the glint in Bradley's eye signalling both mischievousness and a full awareness of what he had done. He wondered when Bradley's eyes had become a Rosetta Stone to help decipher the nonsense spurted from his mouth.

"Your accent, then. Don't be difficult here, Morgan. I'm trying to apologise. It's taken a while to attune myself to your sense of humour, but I get it now. And I'm just saying it's like our characters, I think, a bit."

Bradley was smirking and somehow looking incredibly earnest at the same time, and Colin knew he was about to do something exceedingly stupid like fall for his co-star.

"That so?" he managed to say. "And here I thought it was because Merlin would want to turn you into a toad, too."

Arthur would have only huffed indignantly, but Bradley released another of his gigantic laughs. As the sound of it stretched into every corner of the lounge, Colin thought how much easier Merlin must have had it.

"None of us can choose our destiny, Merlin, and none of us can escape it."

He swore he wouldn't go.

He swore he would have nothing to do with Nimueh's madness—it was far too dangerous. He had not forgotten his breakdown in the St. Ives shop. His magic had never spun out of control like that, not even when he was an untrained boy. He could not risk waking it again.

Still, there was something…

Perhaps it was the change in the seasons. Winter was a time of rest, but as the trees awoke and sprouted tiny green shoots, his own restlessness began to blossom. The birds that had been absent for months returned full of chatter about their southward adventures. Merlin did not want to ask, but then he did, and listened as they chirped about the castle where they had taken their rest.

I'm only concerned for the actors, he told himself. Over the months spent surrounded by their pictures he had grown fond of them. Not that he looked at them often, of course. No more than once a week. Or sometimes twice. And if he did take them out, sometimes, if he did lay the black-and-white glossies across his table and stared at them until his tea grew cold, then it was only because in the hush of winter, when the frost glistened on the hillside, Merlin's memories had always returned to that first winter in Camelot. It had been luxurious compared to what he had known in Ealdor. There were endless supplies of firewood, and lavish feasts to break up the dark season, and Arthur… If Merlin's eye lingered longer than it should have on that black-and-white image of the young man, it was only because he looked so like Arthur had that first winter, while he still recovered from the bite of the Questing Beast, when Merlin had discovered just how warm the prince's bed was.

Merlin knew this actor was not Arthur. This boy called Bradley James knew nothing of the warp and woof of chain mail; he had been brought up on Wombles and the World Cup, in a time when the battles of Albion were fought on football pitches and foreign fields. He should have been living a different life, never giving any more thought to Merlin or Arthur's lives than any other boy who read The Once and Future King or dressed up as a knight for a costume party. He deserved to be more than a pawn in Nimueh's schemes.

It was not Merlin's fault that Bradley and the others were mixed up in this, he was well aware of that. Not unless you considered the fact that Nimueh still breathed to be his fault, that is. Oh, he had tried to kill her more than once, long before he possessed the power to do so. Once that power was his, he'd lost the will and the desire. Or maybe he had gained enough wisdom to know that she was not so terribly different than he.

No, it was not his fault, Merlin concluded, but he was still the only person who could spare the actors being exploited in her little games. At the very least, he supposed that he should check in on them. Yes, that was the only reason that one bright spring morning, Merlin walked barefoot across the dewy grass and took to the air.

His small bird brain did not recall the last time it had done this, but as the green world dropped away it remembered what it had to do. Merlin stretched his black raven wings wide, letting cool air sluice over his feathers as he rose into the firmament. It felt good, this flex of his shoulders, the press of air above and below. The wind, solid around him, was every bit as tangible as the book of maps he had consulted that morning. It lifted him higher and higher, above verdant forests that on the pages were only pale greens, above black-topped villages that had been mere dots. It carried him over groomed fields forgotten on the map but teeming with life, where his keen eye found lunch amongst a mischief of mice. It fought him as he inched along England's serrated coast and across the blue waters, over which huge slabs of wind crashed, caring little for a solitary raven. And finally, taking pity on him, it sent him a strong, sympathetic tailwind that carried him all the way to the forest of Compiégne.

Merlin was exhausted when he caught his first glimpse of Chateau de Pierrefonds. In fact, he was flying so low that the taller poplars nearly scraped his chest, but that was not why he nearly fell from the sky. No, it was the turrets rising above the forest, the grey towers looking so like the castle that had crumbled centuries before, that made Merlin forget how to fly. He recovered in the next instant, but not fast enough that he could avoid the thick branches of a budding beech. "Thank you for catching me, madam," Merlin squawked, gasping for breath.

"Avec plaisir, monsieur," replied the beech. "Perhaps you should rest here a bit, non?"

The invitation was tempting. His raven instincts told him to stay here in the beech's wide branches, surrounded by the sprouting buds that split the forceful wind into comforting wisps. But the still-human part of his brain reminded Merlin that he had come this far and had to see it through. This would only be a quick visit. He would drop in, see for himself that Nimueh was not abusing the actors, and be home before anyone even noticed he'd been there. "Your offer is generous," he chirped, and ruffled his glossy neck feathers until they shone a lustrous blue. "I should like to hear of your forest. Could I rest my wings on my journey home? I will only be a short while."

Flattered by his attention, her fronds swayed gracefully. "Mais oui, monsieur. I look forward to your return."

Taking flight again, Merlin bolstered his resolve. Chateau de Pierrefonds rose again over the dense forest, but as Merlin neared the castle, he realised it wasn't that similar to Camelot. Once he got over his shock at the round turrets bearing the Pendragon banners, he saw that the layout was wrong, the bailey too even, the slant of the rooftops too regular. The streets were thronged with people in both modern dress and ancient, the cobbled courtyard cluttered with equipment of metal and props of wood. It was an incongruous sight, made even more curious by the people moving forward at a natural pace then scurrying back to start again at the director's command. And the smell—or the absence of smell, to be honest, the absence of odours good and bad—made this too-clean chateau a far cry from his long-lost home.

But it did not feel nefarious, not like Nimueh's past schemes had. Still, Merlin flew a wide circle around the bailey, scrutinizing the parapet for any sign of her. She was nowhere to be found.

Giving up at last, he dived low and flew through the castle gate where another group gathered on the grassy lawn. It took just an instant to survey the scene, but by the time that split second had passed, Merlin had succumbed to an irrepressible, nearly elemental pull. A faraway part of his human mind knew it was only a film crew and actors performing a scene, but it was his aviarian mind that had taken over, that was now fixed on the shining one in the centre.

He perched on a nearby stone wall to watch the bauble shine, his loud caw announcing to all around that it belonged to him. It glowed with brilliant incandescence, its edges sparkling like diamonds, and it was all Merlin could do not to snatch it up in his beak and fly it away. He was contemplating the best place to stash it, where it could be his alone, when he was joined by a woman. She smiled indulgently as he rustled his feathered scruff.

"Glad you could make it, Merlin. Would you like to meet Bradley?"

"Haven't you had your fill of revenge?"

But in reality, Bradley was not the one Merlin felt most anxious about meeting. That honour went to Anthony.

Even after all these years, even after his body had turned to dust, Uther scared the daylights out of Merlin. Too many mornings—both before and after the king's dispatch—Merlin had awoken with his neck stiff and still aching from the imagined executioner's axe.

Those days were the good ones.

More often, the dead king's spectre demanded vengeance in the sacrifice of his son. Sometimes Merlin dreamt of poisoned mead at a coronation feast that turned Arthur to stone. Sometimes it was the prince's corpse dredged from the moat, submerged for so long that its pale flesh was pocked by silverfish bites, its mail shirt rusted and unyielding. Sometimes Merlin stood amongst the dead and the dying at Camlann, helplessly watching as Uther instead of Mordred twisted his blade through Arthur's heart.

And sometimes—and these were the dreams that woke Merlin in a cold sweat and kept him awake until the lush nights faded to grainy morning greys—Merlin would climb the Tor where he had left Arthur to recover and find only a pile of bones worn smooth by the winds. When he would reach out to touch what once had been a hand, still bearing the Pendragon signet ring, it would crumble into powder as fine as the ground ivory in Gaius' toothache cures. Merlin would awake to a desolate chill and Uther's laughter still echoing in his head.

An entirely different laughter emerged now from the red-clad figure, his back turned but his likeness unmistakeable, as Merlin and Nimueh approached.

"Tony, can you spare a moment?"

The man whirled around, his cape fluttering like a startled cardinal. Merlin jumped too. It was Uther, but not. His physical appearance was exact, right down to the lines notching his forehead. But where Uther had guarded himself with a bastion of fear, there was something about Tony that felt welcoming. Laughter lingered on his face even after the sound stopped, inviting Merlin to share in something joyous and good. It was unexpected, and Merlin blinked away his surprise.

Tony grinned even wider, as if he'd caught Merlin, before shifting his attention to Nimueh. "For you, Naomi, always."

"I'd like you to meet Meredith Emerson. Meredith, Tony Head, who you know plays King Uther."

"Welcome to Camelot." Tony stretched out his hand to Merlin. Even knowing this was a different person, Merlin balked before taking it. The only person who had willingly touched the king had been Gaius, and even that familiarity had not saved him in the end. But Tony's grip was firm and felt somehow true; strangely, it reminded Merlin of the first time Arthur had offered his hand, before the raid on Ealdor. And just like Arthur, Tony held it a beat longer than necessary.

"You look familiar," Tony noted. "Have we met before?"

Not in this lifetime, Merlin thought. Aloud he said, "No, I'm sure I would have remembered."

"You've probably seen Meredith's environmental programmes. He's agreed to step away from them"—she smiled cloyingly at Merlin—"and pitch in as Medieval Consultant."

"Medieval Consultant?" He dropped Merlin's hand and winked at Nimueh. "My, but you're taking this seriously."

"It's worth doing right," replied Nimueh. "Don't you think so, Meredith?"

"It's why I'm here," he lied.

When Tony studied him, Merlin knew he'd been caught out. Those eyes were as sharp as Uther's when he suspected a sorcerer's attack. There was a flicker of mischief there too, but one much closer to Arthur's than to his father's—or perhaps it had passed from father to son, that spark of wilful humour, before burning out long before Merlin reached Camelot.

"Well, I'd certainly be interested in hearing how you got roped into this madne—" Tony stopped mid-sentence when one of the PAs appeared beside them. "Oh, is it my turn? I'm terribly sorry, but duty calls."

"That's quite all right," Nimueh said.

Tony reached down for the edge of his cloak. "Perhaps as a medievalist you can explain how people walked in these things without tripping over themselves. They're a bloody nuisance. Are you free this evening?"

Staring at the tail of the red cloak looped casually over an arm, a convenience that Uther had always criticised as indecorous, Merlin barely got out a choked, "Em, yes…"

"Splendid. I've discovered the best crêperie in Villers-Cotterêts. We'll go there and you can tell me all your secrets."

With that, he nodded to them both and walked away. Merlin watched in horrified fascination, both at Tony's step-by-step transformation into the hated king and from his dinner invitation that had sounded like more of a dinner command.

He'd almost forgotten about Nimueh until she elbowed him. "I think he likes you."

"Let's just say it's lucky that I'm here to give Colin Morgan a hard time, because it's doing him a world of good."

"So what do you think of the new guy?" Angel asked, reaching over Bradley's arm and nicking a chip.

Bradley slapped at her hand. "Um, he's creepy?"

"He's all right," asserted Colin. "And it'll be great having some help learning spells." He remembered the quiet scrutiny he'd been subjected to earlier by the medieval consultant. It hadn't felt creepy; on the contrary, it felt very familiar, like someone who knew him very well, a relative or a close friend, was making sure that he was well. "It's weird, though. I think I recognise him, but I don't know from where."

Katie nodded. "I heard he used to be an environmentalist. Or is an environmentalist still, I suppose. It's not like he's given that up." She waved her hand, which ended up hovering over Bradley's chips as well. She tucked one into her mouth, ignoring his glare. "He's been on loads of nature programmes."

"Oh, yeah." Colin nodding, awareness dawned. "That must be where I've seen him."

"Well, I still think he's odd," insisted Bradley. "He was giving me all kinds of strange looks earlier. And did you see how he was all jumpy around Anthony?" He raised his chin, giving himself the haughty look that Colin knew he associated with Prince Arthur. Colin caught him using it all the time these days. "Figures he'd be one of your people, Colin. One of you cheese-haters."

"You're such a bully, Bradley," Katie scolded, turning Colin's eye-roll into a guileless grin.

"He is, isn't he?"

"Yeah, and Morgan here is so sweet and innocent," scoffed Bradley. "Have you got them fooled!"

Colin smirked and pushed back his chair, not bothering to disagree. "Well, I'm off, I've got a re-shoot with Eve."

"But I thought we were heading up to the rooftop to work on the diary." Bradley looked abashed, but he rose, too. Colin realised with a smile that he hardly gave a second thought to that anymore. If Bradley wasn't following him around these days, he was following Bradley. It certainly didn't make his nights any easier, alone there in his bedroom, but he didn't know what he could do about it.

"Sorry, man," he shrugged. "I've got to re-shoot."

"I'll go by myself, then. Since I'm obviously capable getting my scenes right the first time."

"Yeah, well, I reckon it just means my scenes are more important."

Colin fell into step behind Bradley, leaving Katie and Angel to share an indulgent, long-suffering smile.

"Hard work breeds a harder soul."

It was not unusual to see jackdaws in France. What was unusual was how this one seemed entranced by the sparkling windows at the Chateau de Pierrefonds. Cloaked in black, twisting its head to peer inside each room, it resembled a cat burglar more than a crow—at least until it came to a small window overlooking the bailey, when its excited chatter could easily have been confused with a security alarm.

Merlin pushed open the window. "Ah, there are you are, Archie. I was wondering when you'd make it." He already had a pepper pot full of sunflower seeds waiting; it had arrived along with his books the day before, helping to make his tiny but comfortable office feel more like home.

Leaving the jackdaw content to crack seeds in its sharp beak, Merlin returned to his spreadsheets. An intern had managed to somehow decipher his writing—an impressive feat in itself, even before she had transformed his scratched curls into tidy text arranged in neat columns:

He was making a concerted effort to leave out the really dangerous ones, but the script—and history—demanded some. The surprise was that he remembered them after all this time. He'd hoped he was long past needing spells to kill and to raise the dead, but somehow they were still lodged deep in his memory. It would have been worrying if he was not sure that magic, the kind that anyone could learn, had disappeared from the world over a millennium earlier.

Merlin refilled his teacup from the oversized thermos—another feat of the intern's, and he really needed to learn her name if she was going to continue being this useful—and made a few pronunciation notes in the appropriate column on the spreadsheet. With these words rolling through his head again, he could not help but recall when he had used spells for the first time. It had felt tremendous, this ability to concentrate his natural power into words, and wholly frustrating, like trying to learn a language and lacking the vocabulary for what he wanted to express.

A sharp rap on the door interrupted his musings. "Enter," he answered, and a bald head poked through. It was Gaius… or Richard, rather, and Merlin was really going to have to stop doing that, now that he was here. "Richard, hello."

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," he offered, "but I thought I'd stop in to see how you're getting on."

"Very well, thank you. I've no complaints about the hospitality." Merlin motioned towards the chair beside his desk; Richard sank into it as Merlin poured another cup from the thermos.

"Yes, I've always enjoyed spending time in France. They do seem to make time for the important things in life in a way we don't." Richard wrapped his hands around the warm cup and leaned back. "The language, though, has always given me trouble, I'm afraid. You're fluent, didn't you say?"

"I used to be," replied Merlin, "but it's been a long time." And it had been called Frankish then, then langue d'oïl, and even with this many years to get used to it, he would get words mixed up still. "But you're getting on well enough now? I suppose there are people here to translate for you?"

"Oh, yes," Richard nodded. "To be honest, it's not French giving me trouble these days but Old English. It takes me about ten times longer to learn one of those phrases than it does my normal lines." He chuckled. "You know what they say about old dogs and new tricks."

These self-disparaging comments were so like Gaius, when the old man had used his age for any number of excuses, that Merlin had to smile. "It can be difficult, yes. I could help, if you'd like."

"Oh, I don't know that you'd want to waste time on me. I've got few enough scenes, compared to what Colin's got to manage. I don't know how that boy does it."

The boy in question had been given a predilection for magic and a capacity for memorising spells, nothing more. Merlin could not admit this; nor could he ever let Colin know the truth of how he'd landed this role. But he could help Richard, even if it was a backwards way of repaying his debt to his old mentor. He would never forget what it had meant to have Gaius' support when he had arrived in Camelot, naïve and unaware of the older man's powers. And he would never forget all that Gaius had done, sacrificing even his life to Uther's mania, to save the kingdom and to shield Merlin. The man had been a great sorcerer, but legend had tacked his deeds onto Merlin's while forgetting his name. It had not been fair to either of them.

And none of that was the fault of this actor who was doing the best he could. Merlin offered him an encouraging smile. "Nonsense. It's my job, for the moment anyway. Until my campaigns need me."

"Until the trees call you back?" mused Richard. It was obviously an off-hand comment, but one so true and so like one Gaius might make that Merlin's breath caught. He covered it with a swift sip of tea. There was no call to be paranoid. It's just that I've been thinking of Gaius, he assured himself.

"Well, I should probably be getting back," said Richard, setting aside his teacup. "My next scene is in the vulgar language, thank goodness, but I will take you up on your offer." He rose and made his way out, but stopped at the door. "It's probably sacrilege to suggest this to someone like yourself, but I don't suppose we could just use Latin? It's good enough for Jo Rowling, after all." Then he chuckled and slipped out before Merlin could even stutter a reply.

"There's no way Merlin is a sorcerer."

Nimueh checked her calendar. As show runner, she had to keep track of everyone's whereabouts, at all times of the day. Including Merlin's. With a free afternoon, he was most likely slipping out to converse with his trees. She was tempted to follow—she was endlessly curious about what they might say to each other—but not today. Not while they were filming a scene that she knew he would find very interesting.

A seemingly accidental encounter and a casual oh, you're free, I need a second opinion, and Merlin joined her on the set. The transformation was remarkable. The room was the perfect likeness of Uther's meeting room, the actors wearing an uncomfortable approximation of the dress she remembered well. And the scene being enacted was one she knew Merlin would remember, too.

Legend had got it wrong, after all. She had not imprisoned Merlin at Brēcēliande while Arthur lived. There had been no need to; and in any case, she would have lacked the power for it then. It was only after the defeat at Camlann that she had drawn the bereft warlock to the forest. Weak with grief and the effort expended to send the king to his centuries-long rest, Merlin had put up little fight as she conjured enchantments to keep him there—those that she promised would help him forget.

She had visited him often, as she had promised, there in his tower amongst the white-thorn trees. Her attention had not been entirely out of kindness. Merlin had much to teach her; if he would not offer them willingly, then she would take her lessons as he slept. Trolling through his memories had proven both gratifying and bittersweet. Deep within Merlin's mind she discovered that elemental magic she had coveted since he first destroyed her Afanc. It called to her, rich and loamy, fertile with promise and power. But when she tried to draw it into herself, she found it depleted.

Once Nimueh would have raged, would have shredded Merlin's body as it lay helpless and scattered it to the four winds. But seeing his memories had affected her more than she cared to admit. As she picked her way through the vaults of Merlin's mind, she saw where they had both gone wrong. Together they should have been powerful; together they should have rebuilt what Uther had tried to destroy, but too early they'd been set on opposing courses. Now, when she could ensure that there would be no one to wake Arthur, that the Pendragon line was truly ended, she no longer had the heart.

Instead she had roused Merlin and listened as he talked endlessly, learning from what he at first hesitantly and then more eagerly shared. He recounted his memories of Arthur as if needing to purge them, or perhaps just to share them with another immortal.

She had heard of this day, too. It was one not long after his arrival in Camelot, when Merlin had foolishly tried to sacrifice his life to save the servant girl—the one who would later become queen. Overlaying it on top of memories she had seen wandering through his past, Nimueh felt Merlin's terror as he stood before the king and his indignation when Arthur refused to believe him. And she found she admired his reckless courage.

That spirit was coming through today, as Colin burst in, take after take, to confess his crime, but it was not enough. Merlin was still watching passively, without the kind of reaction she had hoped for. Confused, Nimueh sorted through her recollection of the memory. There was terror, to be sure, and there was indignation. But neither felt like enough. There was something else there, a feeling that arrived later, cringing and flushed red with embarrassment…

That was it—that was what was missing.

Nimueh left Merlin gazing at Bradley—she had not missed how his eyes always settled on the young actor, although he was probably unaware of it himself—and slipped behind the director. "James, I wonder if I might make a suggestion." A subtle persuasive charm accompanied her request, and a moment later the actors were called together to confer.

"Okay, this time I want to try something different." James turned to Bradley first. "I want you to play it like you already know about the magic. Same lines and all, but this time you're protecting Merlin not only from your father but also from himself. The idiot's just stormed in here and given himself up, and you want to tell him that's not on, but subtly. And Colin," James continued, "you're clueless—you don't know why Arthur's doing this. You reckon he's just looking out for you—you definitely don't think he's copped onto your secret. Can we try that?"

The boys nodded, although they both wore hard looks of concentration as they took their marks. These disappeared the instant the director called for action. Colin's studied expression gave way to Merlin's adrenalin-fuelled fear, while Bradley stood a little taller, looked a bit more regal, and somehow became the prince of Camelot.

A subtle movement of her wrist sent a quick spike of magic through the room, one that most would dismiss as an involuntary twitch; Merlin cast her a sharp look. "What are you doing?" he mouthed silently.

"Just watch," she whispered back, nodding to the actors.

"Merlin is a wonder," Bradley pronounced, folding Colin into his protective grasp, "but the wonder is that he's such an idiot." He focused on Colin and enunciated the next line, so much more a warning to Merlin than an argument for his father: "There's no way Merlin is a sorcerer."

That was it. The words clicked into place in her memories, their intonation perfect and the caution clear. Turning to Merlin, she saw it resonated even more strongly for him. He was struggling to maintain his stoic face but it was not working. She knew what he must be feeling: his anger at Uther, his indignation at how ignorant the prince was, how dim he had felt when later he realised that Arthur had known his secret all along. Remembering how that secret had come out, a blush warmed Nimueh's cheeks. It'll be very interesting to see how that gets past the censors, she thought.

But for now, she simply leaned against Merlin's shoulder and whispered, "Takes you back, doesn't it?" When he turned to her, eyes glistening, she wound her fingers through his and held on tightly.

"Since we've come to France it's got really bad."

"Do you really think he knew?"

The question had been nagging at Colin ever since the scene that afternoon, and when a freak storm ended their shooting early, he'd had even more time to mull it over. He had not been expecting James' new direction; and sure, he was used to improvising on the fly, but this… this would obviously change how they played their upcoming scenes.

It did not seem to have phased Bradley, though, who kept flipping through the rack of brochures in the hotel lobby—all in French, and none of which he could possibly read. Exasperated, Colin kicked out at him, his runner striking a solid shin.

"Oi! Earth to James!"

"What?"

Colin rolled his eyes. Why must someone so attractive be so exasperating? "Do you think he knew?"

Bradley dropped roughly down beside Colin; the sofa, one of those delicate little French things, made an obscene squeak as it scraped across the slick tiled floor. The receptionist behind the counter glared—she was the one who always took her sweet time buzzing them in when they got back late from the bar—but Bradley carried on as if nothing had happened. "Who knew what?"

"Arthur. Do you think he knew about Merlin's magic?"

For that he got a weary look, and Bradley James—of all people!—leaning over and explaining, as if talking to a child, "Seeing as they're fictional characters, then no, Colin, I don't think fictional Arthur really knew about fictional Merlin's magic."

The patience of a saint. Whenever Bradley got this trying, Colin always remembered his mum's voice telling him what this role demanded. "But it feels like the way the story's leaning, don't you reckon?"

"I should certainly hope so. If Arthur hasn't noticed something by now, then he's an idiot."

Colin tried, he really did, but the harder he tried, the harder his smile wanted to burst through. And when it did, it brought with it sputtering laughter that he had no chance of holding in. Bradley's eyes widened as he read Colin's thoughts; his mouth dropped into a delectable O shape that growled, "Why you…"

And then he tackled.

Colin fell back on the sofa, his chest still heaving with laughter, Bradley landing heavily on top of him and laughing too. Oh! Colin thought, and then as their hips slotted into perfect alignment, Oh…

This wasn't good. This was very bad, in fact. This was worse than the winding road between Villers-Cotterêts and Pierrefonds, when the sway of the van pressed their thighs together and Bradley's warmth leeched through his jeans into Colin's skin. Worse even than those nights when Bradley muscled his way into Colin's room late at night—wearing only his t-shirt and boxers—because his telly didn't work. Then, a carefully placed jacket or pillow could hide all manner of sins, but here it was a bit more… obvious.

What made it worse, what made it all almost unbearable, was Bradley's face above him. He looked down at Colin with eyes breathtakingly blue; Colin wished he could look away, but it felt like a dare, and like all their dares he refused to give in before Bradley. So frozen, they hung between action and slowly dawning awareness—so close, it would take nothing at all to curl his hand behind Bradley's neck, to pull him the scant few inches until their lips fit together…

"Are we interrupting something?"

Colin blinked once, opening his eyes to find Angel and Katie staring down, wearing the face of God. Bradley could not see them, gazing down at Colin as he was, but instantly he sprang up and bounced in place on his toes.

"Just Morgan here, besmirching the king's reputation."

"From where I'm standing, I'm not sure who's besmirching who," Katie remarked snidely.

"Whom," Bradley corrected. "Who's besmirching whom." He rubbed his hands together and bounced again. Obviously not suffering from the same problem Colin was, then. "So, we're ready for the pub then."

Colin took a moment to untuck his shirt the rest of the way before following the others out. As he passed, the receptionist treated him with a baleful glare. He could not agree more.

"Uther's got this slightly OCD thing about magic."

"You are happy," pronounced the beech tree the next time Merlin ventured into Compiégne forest.

And he was, maybe. It was an emotion he had not felt for so long that when it embraced him in a bear hug of cheerful good will, he hardly recognised it. He noticed its signs, though, a buzzing energy that made time swell to accommodate everything he wanted to do and gave him a smile for everyone he met. His senses seemed keener as well, attuned to the contagious enthusiasm shared by cast and crew alike over those early days at Camelot. Best of all, the soul-crushing nostalgia that Merlin had dreaded never came. Instead he felt a certain ease whenever Bradley was around, as if life was indeed moving on. And he loved to watch, amused, as Colin dashed about Bradley with the same fervour that he had once trailed after Arthur.

But oddly enough, he owed much of his newfound contentment to the man who played Uther. Merlin had quickly noted the comfort of Tony's presence—a certain kingly magnanimity, what Gaius must have meant when he insisted Uther had been a good ruler—and it was easy to see why both cast and crew circled him like bees on clover. In fact, it took only two dinners, three coffee breaks, and countless drop-ins to his office before even Merlin relaxed enough to forget Tony's resemblance to Uther. Intellectually he had always known they were not the same; the king and his special brand of evil had perished long ago. Still he could not help wondering whether Nimueh's interventions had instilled a similar obsession and paranoia into this actor. His fears proved unfounded. Tony was obsessive, yes, but about video games and his Blackberry, and his paranoia extended to believing that Bradley and Colin were switching his coffee with decaf, which they were.

And so it was after their third dinner that Tony ended up in Merlin's room for a nightcap. It felt natural, this transition from cognac to a kiss. Savouring the brandy lacing Tony's tongue wiped Uther from his mind; tasting the warm skin revealed under each button made Merlin forget how long it had been. They were old enough to know this wasn't love, just the touch of a different hand and a rhythm unlike what they would set themselves. But they were still young enough to throw themselves into sex with abandon and more than a little competitiveness. Merlin pressed Tony down into the bed, lashing his chest with a teasing tongue. Tony, not wanting to give him the upper hand, deftly manoeuvred Merlin under him and laughed when his breath tickled Merlin's abdomen.

They ended up sweaty and sated and with only minimal awkwardness after. And even that disappeared the next morning, when Tony stopped by his office and begged Merlin to test his coffee's caffeine content. As Tony grappled with the two paper cups and an armful of scripts, a newspaper escaped from under his arm and slid under the desk. Merlin caught a glimpse of the logo for The Oracle when he bent to pick it up.

"What's this?"

"Ah, just something I had sent over for the boys. You've heard of their great spider adventure?"

"Has anyone not heard by now?" The way they had gone on about trapping the spider in Bradley's tub, one would have thought they faced creatures like those in the caves of Balor.

"Exactly. So I thought this was fitting."

Merlin rolled his eyes at the headline:

Underneath, a tarantula towering over Big Ben covered the entire front page. "Please, tell me you didn't pay to have this rag shipped over."

Tony grinned, looking not at all ashamed. "Yeah, ridiculous, and I had to subscribe too. But it'll be worth it for the looks on their faces, right?"

Merlin thought about it and smirked back. "Yeah, it will be." Knowing he was about to be drawn into another of Tony's schemes, one that would likely go nowhere but end in uncontained laughter, he asked, "How are we getting it to them?"

Yes, unexpected as it might be, Merlin was happy. And when the campaigns rang, asking when he might be back, he told them to find someone else. He was needed here.

"You kill a lot of people… You're a murderer."

The first time, he reckoned it was a fluke.

The fly had buzzed round his hotel room all night, dive-bombing his head and being even more of a nuisance than flies generally were. Colin swatted it away, but each time it returned, buzzier than before. And Colin, being a live-and-let-live kind of guy, would probably have just tolerated it—I work with Bradley James, he reminded himself, I've got a high tolerance for nuisance—but then the fly committed the unpardonable sin of landing on the half-sandwich he'd saved for later. For the next twenty minutes Colin chased it around the room, rolled up magazine in hand, and for twenty minutes the fly eluded him. It landed, unperturbed, right on the edge of the cheese, even having the nerve to rub its spindly legs together, mocking.

It was only because he'd just shot a scene in which Merlin blasted an unfortunate rat that he even thought about it. There was really no other way to explain why he had waved his hand toward the fly and muttered, "Swilteþ." And there was no way possible to explain why the insect quivered once and then tumbled down the lettuce leaf to land on its back, its tiny mocking legs frozen in the air.

Colin tried not to think anything of it. After all, flies die all the time.

Birds, however, do not.

The crow had taken a special liking to Le Regent's balcony. Particularly to its perch just outside Colin's open window, and most particularly just before the sun broke the horizon—just when Colin preferred to be fast asleep. For three mornings straight Colin had been woken by its ugly caw, and this morning the bird was no longer fazed by any of the items—magazines, shoes, the clock radio—that Colin turfed at it. It was a half-hearted joke borne of frustration that finally inspired him to point at the bird and mutter, "Swilteþ." There was a moment of quiet and Colin huffed sleepily, bracing himself for the caws to start up again… but all was silent. With another huff, he pressed his face into the pillow and was soon fast asleep.

Hours passed before Colin woke again, not to the sounds of an angry crow this time but to the sun high in the sky. After a brief panic he remembered that it was Sunday, their day off, and let his eyes sink closed again. But the room was warm and light was creeping between the cracks in his eyelids, and there was a smell of coffee wafting in from somewhere—all good reasons to crawl, slowly, out of bed.

Colin turned squinting eyes towards his window. A breeze whispered through filmy curtains, softening the light and making it shimmer around the figure outside. It could as easily be an aurora as a man, with its aura of pure gold, and Colin might well have slipped back into hazy half-dreams of a legendary king kissed by the sunlight and blessed by the gods. But when his eyes opened again, the figure was still there, and after a few minutes and a good long stretch, Colin staggered out to join him.

"Mornin'," he muttered, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Bradley grinned at him and pointed down, and Colin followed the direction to a tousled pile of black feathers lying rigid on the ground.

"'E's pinin' for the fjords!" Bradley announced proudly. "'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker!"

Colin groaned. "You've been waiting ages to say that, haven't you?" Bradley just beamed.

And then it sank in, what he was looking at, what had happened earlier that morning. It couldn't be—it had to be a coincidence. The bird had flown into the windowpane. It had suffered a heart attack—could crows have heart attacks? A stroke, maybe, or old age, whatever it was birds die of. Not magic.

"Mate, you're looking rough."

Colin came back to himself with a shiver, looking down to see a broad hand on his shoulder, and a voice quieter near his ear. "You okay? You didn't drink that much last night, did you?"

"Yeah…" Colin frowned, shaking his head to clear it. "I mean no, I'm fine. I just need coffee."

The hand rested on his shoulder a second longer before offering a comforting squeeze. "Now that I can do."

"I cannot see the future, only the present, but one must always seize the moment."

He knew something had changed the instant he arrived on set. It was nothing visible; the dew-speckled hillsides looked exactly the same, the castle rose majestically over them, and extras in medieval garb scurried around the courtyard. But something was not right; something made everything feel off-kilter.

Without thought, Merlin sent his sight across the castle grounds to flush out the danger. It was a complex spell that he had not used for centuries, not since the Northumbrian wars when Camelot's army ventured into new and hostile terrain—he should not have been able to cast it without conscious concentration. But Merlin did not even realise the magnitude of what he had done, not until an alarm sounded in his head. By then it didn't matter. He knew who had come.

He followed what felt like a strand of silk thread to Nimueh's office in the highest tower. Two women waited there, watching as the actors gathered for a scene in the bailey below. They turned as one, these who had been at times his greatest friends and direst enemies. He was not sure which they were now. But the smile that Morgana graced him with was one he remembered from her younger days, wide and brimming with mischief.

"Merlin! How good it is to see you." He was startled by how small she looked. She had never been a tall woman, but with a proud posture rivalling a flag mast, she had always been able to look him in the eye. Now her shoulders hunched over, and when she stepped towards him, she bore her weight on a polished cane. "My, you haven't aged a day," she remarked.

Merlin bowed his head slightly. "Neither have you, my Lady."

But it was not true. Morgana looked all of seventy years—aged as beautifully as a vintage Chateau Lafite, granted, with well-kept silver curls grazing her shoulders and eyes still bright as stars, but the years had indeed touched her, and not kindly. And she knew it.

"Liar. I never mastered aging like the two of you. Even my wrinkles have wrinkles." She examined an age-spotted hand for a moment, then waved it dismissively. "Still, not bad for fifteen-hundred years. And it lets me go where I please. No one notices an old woman like me."

"I could do something," offered Nimueh, "if you'd like."

Merlin noted her solicitous tone, and the gentle affection that was returned. Their camaraderie made him prickle with unease. "I already feel better just for being here." Her smile grew wider to encompass Merlin as well. "Besides, I appreciate my age. It keeps me respectable."

"And what need do you have for respectability these days?" he sked, genuinely curious.

"Really, Merlin," tsked Nimueh, "do you not keep up? Ms Levane is in publishing."

"Publishing? Not Levane Publishing?" Merlin knew of them—everyone knew of them, and more than half of Britain's population read one of their papers daily. They offered a spicy mix of current events and celebs, with titles spanning the political spectrum so that no one was beyond their reach. "Quite a change from when I last saw you. That was 1917, I believe? St. Petersburg? You never could resist the underdog."

"Yes, well. That didn't end exactly as I'd hoped. My sight had already failed me long before that, I just didn't want to admit it." She chuckled, but it was hollow. Merlin watched as Nimueh rested a hand on her arm. "It's all right," Morgana protested, but she did not shrug off the touch. "I'm quite happy running The Oracle these days."

"The Oracle?" Merlin's eyes flew open. Tony still got his weekly copy, making Merlin spurt coffee as he narrated its accounts of alien abductions and poodle-pig hybrids. "Really? That rag is yours?"

Nimueh flashed him a warning glare, but Morgana raised her chin with the defiance he remembered, against Uther so many times, and later against him. "Mock it if you will, but with what's left of my dreams and our reporters, it's the truest news on the stands."

"I'm glad you came yourself, for this," said Nimueh softly.

"I would trust no one else," Morgana replied.

The two women exchanged a knowing glance that sent a chill racing down Merlin's spine. The only thing worse than when these two were at odds was when they worked together. "This?" he asked, glancing from one to the other. "What is this?"

"It's why I'm here, actually. You don't think it's just for my Mini Me and the pretty boys?" She glanced out the window; Merlin followed her gaze to where Colin and Bradley waited, side by side on the steep stairs. "Although you know how much I appreciate a spot of unresolved sexual tension."

"Morgana…"

She looked up, and just for a second he recognised that feral gaze that she would get after a sleepless night, when she had seen too much. "Something is happening, Merlin. I don't know what, not yet. Just keep your eyes open, that's all."

Over Morgana's shoulder, Nimueh caught his eye and held it for a long moment. It was anything but comforting.

"You are special—the likes of which I've never seen before."

Colin was scared and he didn't like it. Back home you learnt never to let on when you were scared, no matter whether you were shook awake in the middle of the night by soldiers with their big guns or had just seen something you shouldn't have. You went on and acted the hard man even if inside you knew you were just a wee small boy.

But no matter what he had seen in Armagh, no matter the funerals or the marches or the machine guns, nothing had ever really scared Colin like the black cat that was purring and winding itself around his legs.

After what he referred to (when he had to refer to it) as the dead parrot incident, Colin had decided… well, at first he decided he was just going to ignore the whole fucking thing. There was no way he'd brought down that bird. Or that fly. Coincidences, both of them.

But then it happened with another fly, and Colin's curiosity spiked. That had been just a fly, after all. If he'd not killed it with a spell, he would have squashed it with the Glamour magazine that Katie had left in his room. But he needed to test out what was happening, and he could hardly go around killing things. Bringing things to life… well, it wasn't what he would call good exactly, but it certainly beat having to explain why there were carcasses piling up on his balcony.

And so he had bought a tiny Tintin figure in the gift store and spent an entire evening trying to transform the painted plastic into a yapping dog. Just as in the script, the spell resisted him. His intonation, his expression, his hand gestures, none of it seemed to matter; Tintin refused to come alive. Colin had finally given up, relieved that French flies were apparently suffering from a lethal insect virus that had nothing to do with him.

And then came the cat.

At one time it had been a medieval weathervane in one of the Chateau's displays. To create Uther's dining hall, the space had been cleared and the collection of cast iron shifted to an empty side room. The cat-vane was stacked with bears and stags and dragons; in retrospect, Colin realised he should have given more thought to the creature he chose to casually fire the spell at. It was just a joke, really, just to remind himself that his suspicions had been silly. But as the last words of the spell crossed his lips, before "ārīsan cwician" had even finished echoing off the chamber's high ceiling, a green eye had looked up and lazily blinked.

Now, as the cat sat and groomed itself, arching its long neck and looking nothing at all like cast iron, Colin wondered just what the hell he had got himself into. Magic was not real—of course it wasn't! Pulling rabbits out of hats, turning scarves into bouquets, it was not called the art of illusion for nothing—people saw what they wanted to see, full stop.

But that did not explain the cat.

Which followed him onto the set, even jumping onto his chest as he was supposed to be lying, feverish, in bed.

"Made a new friend, Morgan?" inquired Bradley.

"Yeah, I'd been dying for some intelligent conversation," quipped Colin.

"Can we lose the cat?" yelled James. "It's ruining the shot."

Colin knew only one sure-fire way to "lose the cat," but he doubted anyone would appreciate a demonstration of his newfound Swilteþ. And isn't it odd, he thought, that the spell for killing something is so much easier than bringing it to life? He must have looked a bit helpless at this thought, because just then one of the locals rushed to his rescue.

"Oh, she is lovely," cooed Marie. And with that, the cat had a new home.

But that only solved one of Colin's problems. The other still weighed heavily on his mind, that evening and through the next, until finally on the third day he trudged up the castle's spiral stairs to the second floor. He was sure he'd go crazy if he did not talk to someone about this. And the only person who might know anything about it was the one who had taught him these spells in the first place: Meredith Emerson.

There was no answer when he knocked on the office door, though, which was as much a relief as it was frustrating. Just what would he say anyway? I just have a quick question about how to pronounce "ānweald". Oh, and by the way, I've been killing things and bringing them to life. What's that all about? Colin didn't think Bradley was right about Emerson being a bit off, but even if he was he would still agree that was not normal.

Colin leaned back against the stone wall beside the arched door. It was quiet up here, far from the buzz of the courtyard, and it had always been a good place to study the spells he performed. Now the peace was just an empty space where his worries could expand.

But maybe this could be a good thing, he told himself. What if he went back to Armagh with some kind of… of magical healing power? He could do loads of good with it, surely. Who knows, maybe he could even do something to make sure that fragile peace held. Looked at that way, this might be a gift bestowed on him, for whatever reason; now he probably had some kind of obligation to use it for the benefit of mankind.

But no, another voice argued back, it'd only be a matter of time before anything good was turned into some kind of weapon. Even the best intentions in the world would be useless against all the prejudice and politics, and him just an actor. The best thing he could do was just to keep mum about the whole thing; nobody need know a thing.

Caught up in this internal debate, he did not hear the footsteps on the stairs or notice anyone approaching until a voice startled him from his thoughts. "Colin? Are you looking for me?"

He jumped back so quickly he nearly stumbled. "Um, no… well, I was, but I'm all right now…"

Meredith studied him for a second, a smile just starting to twist his lips; it always unnerved Colin, how the consultant so often seemed to know what he was thinking—and be amused by it, as he apparently was now as he unlocked his door. "I think you should come in."

Colin followed him into the office; as many times as he had been in here, he was always amazed by the sheer number of things that Meredith had managed to cram into this tiny office. Bookcases stretched floor to ceiling, bulging with gilded tomes bearing titles in Old English and other languages that Colin did not recognise. Stuffed in between these volumes were strange contraptions that looked like they had been scavenged from boot sales. It seemed unfathomable that he would need all of it just to write up a few spells, but then Colin still was not sure exactly why a "medieval consultant" was even necessary on a show that played as fast and loose with history as Merlin did. Maybe Bradley's other theory, that Emerson was some kind of Home Office spy, had merit after all.

He was doing a lousy job of spying at the moment. In fact he was ignoring Colin completely, his entire attention fixed on the jackdaw outside his window. When he opened the leaded glass pane it did not fly away; in fact, it hopped closer to inspect the birdseed Meredith scattered onto the wide sill. They seemed to be chatting, with Meredith chirping and the bird answering in excited caws.

"It sounds like he's talking to you," Colin remarked.

Meredith looked over his shoulder and grinned. "Oh, he most definitely is." He put his hands on the small of his back and stretched as he turned around; it made Colin wonder how old he really was. Sometimes he looked far younger than Tony, but other times, like now, he seemed much older.

"So," he said, settling into the chair beside the window, "want to tell me what's on your mind?"

Colin tried his best to sound casual. "I wanted to ask you about the magic." He might have been able to pull it off, too, if the bird outside had not punctuated it with an angry squawk. Colin jumped at the sound—he really had to relax!—but Meredith rolled his eyes.

"Well, I told you to come in."

The jackdaw squawked again, almost reproachfully, but picked his way carefully onto the cluttered desk. Colin stared in disbelief until Meredith addressed him.

"So, magic—what did you want to know?"

Meredith sounded bemused by the question, putting Colin at ease enough to blunder out, "Em… I'm just curious, really. I know we're using real spells, like—well, what're supposed to be real spells anyway. So, I mean, did they work?" He was kicking himself for asking such a stupid question, but he could not stop before adding, "Did magic really exist?"

To his surprise, Meredith did not laugh. "Oh, yes, magic existed," he said, his tone leaving no room for doubt. "Once it flowed through Britain as free as the rivers. And Ard Macha, where you're from, was home to Ireland's greatest sorcerers."

The jackdaw screeched and gave his wings a violent flap, but instead of shooing him out Meredith paled. "At least, that's what the history books say," he added hurriedly.

"But not anymore? What happened to it?" Colin felt even less certain of what was happening than when he had first entered the room, but he had a feeling that there was something here, something that he should be getting. Meredith looked disinclined to say more until Colin added, "I mean, what do the history books say happened?"

"That it vanished after Camelot was lost." Meredith cast a quick look at the bird; Colin followed his gaze and noticed that its beady eyes were fixed intently on the man. He braced for another interruption but the bird just cocked its head as if it was interested too. "Magic feeds on magic," continued Meredith, "that's where it gets its power. And after Uther murdered so many, the few that were left…" His voice fell, and in the silence Colin heard a low, comforting trill from the jackdaw. "In the end, they were not enough to bring it back."

"Uther?" Colin frowned. "This whole anti-magic thing—isn't that just our take on the myth?"

Meredith smiled. "There are as many versions of this story as fishes in the sea. Who can say what's true or not."

It was an answer that could have come straight from the mouth of John Hurt and that cryptic ping pong ball cum dragon—and it did not address any of Colin's real questions. He tried again. "Do you think it could come back today?"

"No, absolutely not," Meredith said, firmly this time. "The connection between the earth and its people was broken. Ordinary people can't learn magic anymore."

"But…"

Colin started to protest that he was hardly ordinary—that he'd conjured the power, somehow, to turn cold iron into purring fur and an irritating bird to a feathered corpse (he thought he'd best leave out that last bit to avoid another outcry). But he bit back his tongue just in time. Protesting that he was special sounded a little too much like Merlin trying to impress Gwen. And when had his entire life turned into a scripted programme anyway?

Meredith sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers in front of pursed lips, and looking more concerned than one would expect from such an academic discussion. "Yes?"

Colin bit his lip, debating how much to confess, when a breathless intern showed up huffing at Meredith's door. "Colin, thank God, you're here! I found him!" he told his crackling walkie-talkie, before turning frantically to him. "We've been looking all over for you!"

The reprieve was welcome; Colin hurried down the winding staircase and back to the set. But all afternoon, he had the strangest feeling that he was being watched, and each time he looked up at the railing around the courtyard, he saw the jackdaw looking down at him.

Their shoot went long into the night, and Colin had little time to spare for magic or anything else. It was after midnight, in fact, that it came to his mind again, as he and Bradley sat on the bulwark eating the last slices of strawberry cake from the catering van. The full moon cast an otherworldly glow over the castle and everything under it, and Bradley was no exception. With his golden hair and silver mail, he shone like a jewel, like an enchantment, and Colin had to ask, "If you could do magic and make anything in the world happen, what would you do?"

Without a second's hesitation, Bradley answered, "Play for Arsenal in '91."

"That's it?" asked Colin incredulously.

"Hello!" protested Bradley from around a mouthful of cake. "Best Cup final ever!"

Colin had another bite and wondered if maybe he wasn't taking this all a bit too seriously.

"Please, Merlin, you must beware. This is only the beginning."

It had become regular thing, Tony reading The Oracle aloud over breakfast in the hotel. He took particular glee in today's headlines, which were plastered over a grotesquely magnified photograph of a beetle with its mouth and incisors gaping wide.

"'Inhabitants of northern France fear for their lives after an enormous colony of deadly beetles was discovered in a local hotel. Experts say this single colony housed up to a million insects, and they expect to find similar nests in the vicinity.' Deadly beetles. Just incredible." He folded down the paper and peered over it. "Any croissants left?"

Merlin slid the basket across the table. "Apparently it hasn't affected your appetite," he quipped.

But Tony had gone back to reading. "Listen to this: 'The Angelus minor or 'little angel' beetles, thought to be extinct, are often fatal to humans. They enter the ear canal while a person sleeps, causing hemorrhagic bleeding, aneurisms, and possibly death." He made a face and put down the paper. "Does it ever seem like our plots are coming straight out of here?"

But Merlin's mind was spinning on the name. These little angels. A box of crawling insects and a whispered swefaþ to send them to sleep; a disfigured face and fire, all around him burning. "I've got to get to the set," he said, rising from the table so abruptly that their cups rattled in their saucers. "Think I'll try to catch up with Richard."

Tony frowned as he glanced at his watch. "I thought you had the day off."

"Yeah." Merlin turned to grab his jacket, not wanting Tony to notice his worry. "Um, I forgot something I was supposed to do."

"Dinner later then?"

"Sure," Merlin agreed as he raced out the door.

Richard welcomed his company on the ride and attempted pleasant chitchat as they crossed the plains around Pierrefonds. But Merlin was preoccupied and he could not bring himself to look Richard in the face. Transposed over his smile, Merlin saw Gaius' terror as flames encircled him. By the time they reached the village, he had gone quiet and Richard had given up, and they parted hurriedly.

Merlin immediately sent out his sight towards Morgana. He found her on one of the high balconies overlooking the castle grounds, gazing down at the narrow strip of lawn where the actors relaxed between takes. Merlin knew her eyes were fixed on Katie, who lounged in a folding chair under the cavernous black umbrella that shielded her fair skin from the sun. His own landed on his doppelgänger far below, as always orbiting what looked like a golden sun.

"I had an umbrella like that once, in Dublin years ago." Morgana spoke without looking up. "I almost asked her if she'd got it at the same place but then I remembered that shop was destroyed in 1916."

Merlin could empathise; he often felt out of time himself. For years, he had managed that by keeping his life as unchanging as he possibly could. His little village in Cornwall, the ancient forests, his ever-growing libraries—these were the constants that kept him grounded. This performance had turned that upside down.

"She has a lovely complexion, doesn't she?" Morgana sighed wistfully. "I don't believe I was ever so fair."

"You were every bit as fair, my lady." With Katie there, it was easy to remember Morgana as she had been during his early days in Camelot. He had loved her then for her kind heart as well as her beauty, long before everything soured.

She still had the same fluttering laugh that had once filled the halls and charmed legions of knights. Now it floated carelessly on the breeze where only Merlin and the roof tiles could hear. "You are kind. But we're not in court anymore, and I know you didn't come here to flatter me. What's on your mind?"

Merlin saw Gaius' face again, lined with sweat and fear, and the king sleeping as if dead, and the beetle lying still in his cupped hand. And over it all, Tony's voice saying, Deadly beetles. Just incredible.

"I need to know what's going on," he said. "Your paper, these stories—why are you here?"

Morgana's expression turned thoughtful. He wondered if she would lie to him, and looked for the telltale signs. But her smile was not cloying and her eyes kept their focus. "I've told you all I know. We're at the centre for… well, for whatever is happening." Merlin's puzzled look begged for more explanation, but she just shrugged. "I wish I knew more, but I haven't had normal visions—not like I once did, not for many years. These are more like… like memories, but they're so hazy that I can only recall snatches."

Merlin saw frustration crease her brow. He felt the same frustration, sensing that there was something he needed just out of reach. "Do you think it's magic?"

At that, Morgana regarded him with such disdain that he felt like an ignorant country boy straight out of Ealdor, using his fingers at his first Yule feast. "Of course it's magic, Merlin. Can't you feel it?"

She lifted a hand and the top canopy of branches rustled; the sound of his own name whispered in a wind that had not been there a second before and Merlin suddenly saw the shadow of the sorceress she'd once been. As she moved towards him with only the slightest limp, he noticed for the first time that her back was straight and she no longer used her cane; her hair, once pure silver, was now streaked with black. He gaped, undone by the realisation. "You're growing younger?" This was power far beyond what she should have been capable of—akin to how he had turned back a few seconds when he first saw Bradley's photograph, or to Nimueh unfolding a few decades to shape the actors lives, but Morgana was rolling back centuries.

A girlish laugh answered him, her teasing scoff taking him back to that time with him. "I've been here for two weeks and you've only just noticed? Honestly, if I didn't know you better, I'd be insulted."

Merlin shook his head. "It can't be. The magic died with Camelot—we can do little things, but this…" But he knew the words weren't true. He could feel it, in the ease with which he'd cast his seeking spells, in the unconscious surge of magic that had rolled back time, in just how naturally his blood warmed when he sparred with Nimueh. Like a saddle left unused too long, his power felt cracked and dry; with care and use, though, he knew it would return.

"You know that's not true. It just went underground, like we did." She smoothed her hands down the sides of her trim linen jacket. It was the same brilliant green she'd favoured long ago, the shade brightening her eyes, bringing them to life like her machinations once had. She had twisted kings around her little finger; now she wore the same expression as she added, "Or maybe it was sleeping, like Arthur is. Will you ever wake him?"

Merlin stared at her, reeling at the sudden shift in the conversation. "What?"

"Nimueh believes that if you wake Arthur, then our powers will grow. Something about realigning the balance of the world and all; you know how she is."

Merlin knew all too well, which is why he answered, "All the more reason not to do it."

"You don't miss him, then?"

It was as much her tone as the supposedly innocent statement that infuriated him. In it rang all the times that she had bent others to her bidding—Uther, Arthur, Merlin himself. To have her use it now, to attach it to the pain that he had suffered for centuries, filled his words with warning. "Do not try to manipulate me, Morgana. You know nothing of my loss. And you know that I can't do it."

But Morgana, wilful as ever, refused to heed the warning. "You can do anything you want. Arthur is not lost forever to you—not like Gwen was to me." Her eyes blazed with spite that Merlin knew was not directed towards him; even knowing that, and even knowing that he was still more powerful than Morgana would ever be, he shrank from her venom. "Seeing Angel now, seeing the two of them—it reminds me of the life I once had."

Merlin glared at this incomplete version of history. "Before you corrupted it."

"Before Arthur corrupted it," Morgana snapped back. "He was the one who took my Gwen. He deserved to lose her and more."

The words struck him like a braided whip, slashing skin that had healed but was still tender. When he recoiled, Morgana's eyes widened in surprise. "You still haven't forgiven him, after all these years?" She shook her head, her voice softening a little. "Oh, Merlin, what Arthur and I did was years in the making. It was not to displace you. The threads tying us together were joined long before you came to Camelot. You were the one most hurt by his infidelity, though, and for that I am sorry."

Merlin was silent for a long moment. Morgana, with her romantic notions of justice, would never understand that it was not for jealousy's sake that he had spent years trying to forgive her and Arthur. It had been their fear of discovery that had led to betrayal, as they told those lies that made him doubt himself and doubt the signs he should have trusted. It had been his belief in them that had stayed his hand for too long, until even when he had finally, agonisingly done what he had sworn he had never do—when he at last turned magic against two of the people he loved most in the world and learned the truth—he was too late to stop the wheels they had set in motion.

But Merlin had never doubted his place by Arthur's side; and although he had resented Morgana, once, for casting it into shadow, any jealousy he had felt had been short-lived. She would never understand that his anger was against himself, and with no desire to educate her, he simply said, "It was centuries ago. It doesn't matter anymore."

"Of course it matters. You still love him, and I know you want him back."

"My feelings are not the question here. The King is not supposed to wake until the time is right."

"It's not the King, Merlin. It's Arthur." He felt her eyes sharpen as they studied him, as if they could read his secrets. Perhaps she could. She certainly sounded sure of himself when she declared, "You're afraid you won't be able to do it."

"Nonsense," he replied, which drew a disbelieving—and quite unladylike—huffing sound from Morgana. She ignored him then, her attention returning to her likeness below, her smile smug with her misunderstanding.

Merlin pondered Morgana's questions, even rolling them around in his almond-sized raven's brain that night as he flew to Brittany to permanently send the little angels to sleep. She was right, he admitted, but only in part. It was true that nightmares did plague him: A rattling bag of bones on Glastonbury Tor; an eyeless skull still wearing a golden singlet; a body perfectly preserved but cold as marble to his touch. What if his spells, conjured in deepest grief, had failed when he laid Arthur to rest? What is there was nothing left to awaken?

But even more than this, he feared that his magic had indeed worked, that these years of sleep had given Arthur time to recover. His life would restart from the exact moment when it had stopped, and Merlin would have to once again face the fact that Arthur was a mortal man, that the love that he had stoked for centuries would blaze too brightly and burn out too fast. Once awake, Arthur's life would continue, inexorably, to its final end. And that, that was a fate Merlin could not bear to face.

"I don't actually know where we are, but it's a pretty impressive view."

It was Bradley's fault. Well, maybe it was Mike's, since he was driving, but it was Bradley who insisted that they stop for fucking Cornettos when they should hsve stayed behind the other van that knew where it was going. But no, it was Cornettos all around, and now they followed the sinking sun west, lost in the middle of nowhere, and Bradley's lip had a smudge of chocolate smearing it and driving Colin mental for the last hour now.

And even so, Colin could not bring himself to be in a bad mood.

Sure, they would miss the shoot and Jeremy would give out to them. In all likelihood, they'd arrive so late they would be lucky to find a chippy still open. And after crawling into bed long after midnight, they would be woken with alarms before dawn, groggily suck down coffee, and stumble onto set to botch their first few takes. But right now, with the late afternoon sun shining down warm on his shoulders and a patchwork quilt of greens and golds laid out as far as his eye could see, that all seemed so far away.

Bradley had pulled out his camcorder at the same time as Mike and Richard had god out their maps. Colin left him to it, certain that he would see the footage later, laughing as Bradley egged the two of them into a cut-throat competition that neither had anticipated. For now he wandered a little ways further, to the edge of the pavement where a ravine tilted down and made the valley seem even wider.

He had been happy to hear they were returning to England for a few days. France was feeling too claustrophobic, when the only people that he could really talk to were tied to the show. Not that he had that much chance to talk to anyone here, between taking the train to St Pancras and then immediately getting in the van with Bradley and the others. But that wasn't the point. He could do it, if he wanted to. He could go up to someone in the petrol station, someone who did not know a word of Old English or have a clue what a hauberk was, and he might still hold a conversation that did not end up like a frustrating game of charades.

Yes, if he wanted to, Colin could walk right up to that fellow in the petrol station and he could say, "I know how to kill something with just one word." And he would understand, and maybe even do more than nod like Colin was just another crazy English tourist passing through.

Not that Colin wanted to, not really. But he did have a new appreciation for what Merlin was supposed to be feeling.

Because really, sometimes the magic just refused to be kept secret. Like now, with birds chirping cheerfully in the trees, and the air warm with enough breeze to keep it from being too hot, and the world for just this moment feeling pleasant enough that Colin got that nothing could possibly go wrong idea into his head. So when he saw the glider sitting abandoned on the side of the hill, it was only natural that he stretch out his hand and command that it fly with a simple "ūpflīeh." His skin tingled, warmth pooling in his fingertips even as gooseflesh pimpled his arms, and then the little plane stuttered forward. Shaky, like it was being pulled up by the jerk of a string, it threatened to fall until Colin safely guided it to a wide current of air.

Back and forth he led it, gaining confidence as he manoeuvred the glider in first simple, then increasingly more complex patterns. He had tried this same thing with clouds, one bright blue day beside the lake in Pierrefonds, but it had felt so much different. He was never sure that he was the force pushing the tufts of cumulus around. Here, though, he had no doubt. He was keeping the craft alight, he was steering it, as surely as if his hand was on a rudder and his own breath was supplying its tailwind.

Concentrating on how close he could swoop to the treetops, Colin did not notice the others until they were beside him. Richard and Annette were still talking directions, but Bradley and his ubiquitous camera were carrying on a constant conversation. "Bit of a view isn't it?" he said, intent on charming some future audience somewhere. "Don't know if this camera will show it up… will do it any justice…"

Colin flicked his wrist just then, sending the glider out of the branches and into a breeze that carried it across Bradley's sights. "Whoa!" he exclaimed. "He's just whizzing up… just whizzing about…" Colin laughed to himself; Bradley's need to continually rephrase himself had been annoying at first, but now he found it oddly endearing. It deserved to be rewarded with another swish of his hand that took the glider past the camera lens again.

There was a pause and then Bradley asked, "Are you doing that, Colin?"

This was no stranger in a petrol station. This was Bradley James, probably the number one person that Colin would prefer not think him completely mental. And yet Colin felt a boundless elation as he answered, "Yeah."

"Yeah, I thought it must've been."

"ūpflīeh," whispered Colin, and up the glider flew, to the sound of leaves whipping in the wind and Bradley laughing with delight behind him. "Working my Merlin magic," he said, and how good it felt to say it.

"Mate, you're pretty… I like the way you're dedicating yourself to this role." His voice full of pretend awe, he explained to the audience, "He's actually physically learnt magic."

If you only knew, thought Colin. With a satisfied farewell, he let the glider drift down, picturing it landing softly atop a field of young soybeans; somehow he was certain that this was enough to make it happen.

"So Colin, where… where are we?"

"We are in"—He turned then to find Bradley glued to the tiny camera window, and could not help but grin—"Camelot."

"Your cheekbones are kicking right off on this shot, mate."

The corners of Colin's lips twitched fiercely; it was all he could do to bite back a surprised smile and ask, disinterestedly, "Are they?"

"Oh, yeah," Bradley assured him.

"You likin' them?" And now there was no way Colin could keep from beaming, no matter how hard he tried, because Bradley had finally looked up from the camera and was beginning to blush as he realised what he had said.

"Hello, ladies, it's Mr Colin Morgan," he blurted out. And Colin went along with his attempt at a save, even contributing his own cheesy porn movie boom-schicka sound, but when Bradley dropped the camera to his side a few seconds later he looked troubled.

Colin shrugged like it was no big deal.

"No worries. I'm sure they'll edit out that bit."

"Oh, of course they will," Bradley agreed too quickly, but when he did not immediately start the camera again, Colin knew that something was off. And for once, Bradley was not offering any helpful narration. Colin looked over, hoping to see something that might clue him in, but ended up trying not to stare as Bradley licked his lips and just barely missed the chocolate still staining the crease of his mouth.

"You've got a"—Colin touched his finger to his own mouth to show Bradley where—"a bit of chocolate…"

Bradley's tongue darted out but missed it, as did his finger when he swiped at the edge of his lip. His eyes seemed enormously wide as they asked if he had got it off, but Colin shook his head.

"No, here, let me…"

Colin reached up and pressed his thumb to the smudge, rubbed; it came back stained a rich brown. Without giving himself a chance to think what he was doing, he pressed it against his teeth and sucked until his skin squeaked.

Bradley, looking like someone had knocked the air out of him, stared at Colin without blinking. Without breathing either, it seemed. He looked far too kissable in that moment, with his mouth parted, his lips still shining from the lick of his tongue, his eyes fixed intently on Colin's mouth. He looked like he might even want to be kissed—or at least like maybe, just maybe, he might not be completely opposed to the idea. The thought of it gave Colin a little trouble breathing as well.

"You're not allergic?" asked Bradley in a voice that was far too gravelly for such an innocuous question.

"I'll risk it," Colin answered, swallowing hard.

He was not sure whether to thank or curse Peter for picking that very moment to shout for them to come see the giant horse carved into the hillside. As they trudged off, as he took the binoculars and Bradley resumed documenting the scene, Colin wondered what might have happened if it had just been the two of them, the warm sunshine on their backs, and magic still tickling his fingertips.

The taste of chocolate stayed on his tongue for hours.

"I believed you would die and that was a risk I could not take."

The black clouds advanced on Glastonbury Tor like a flock of angry priests, sending tourists racing to their cars. A few die-hards hung back, perhaps hoping to experience the full force of nature on the holy hill, but the groundskeeper—who had experienced quite enough nature in his day, thanks very much—chased them off with curt words and an indisputable tap on his watch. Fleeing just as the bloated clouds spit out their first drops, no one noticed the raven on the lawn, its feathers almost indistinguishable from the line of darkening sky. It stretched its wings full and waved the last humans away.

The hill was silent then, save for that dense sound that lived in clouds. Ravens knew it, as did any birds who flew at those heights. In those dark contours they heard the spaces between raindrops and the depth of thunder. This raven cried out a lonely caw as the silence breathed around him.

The heavens opened then, pelting the earth with the hard rain it had borne for so many miles. And the raven, who was no longer a raven but a man, wet and cold, raced to the shelter of St Michael's Tower. Under its arches he shivered, his clothes plastered to his body and a puddle spreading all around him.

And then he laughed, just a small, sheepish chuckle, as he remembered.

"þæm eorlgewædeum ādrūge."

Immediately the moisture wicked away, leaving his clothes as dry as when he had dressed that morning. The spell, which once would have left him at least winded, took no more effort than blinking.

With a wry grin, Merlin found the centre of the tower and sat down, his palms pressed flat against the pebbled ground. It was not necessary—Arthur was everywhere here, and Merlin would be just as close to him if he mounted the stairs and sat under the stormy skies—but for some reason he always chose this spot, and he always began the same way: "Well, here I am." He addressed the stones and the air in the old language, the one that belonged in this place. Once these words had been filled with power, in those days when he had packed mud into the palm of his hand and formed the hill he stood upon today. With grieving fingers he had worried ridges into the mound; he had breathed his loss into the very soil, crafting a resting place worthy of the king.

But that had been centuries ago. Now he tasted dust as his tongue formed these words, as they stumbled out gruff and uncertain, like they had been stashed away too long in an attic. He suspected that Arthur would have liked that. He had always taken perverse amusement in Merlin's rare bouts of reticence.

"I've been away, you know, in France. With that programme I told you about… Nimueh's meddling, of course. There are things happening there and I'm not sure what to do," he explained, already feeling himself relax. Even his worries over the production vaporised; he could almost imagine he was asking the King's counsel about a matter affecting Camelot, with the surety that between them they could solve any problem. "Morgana says it's magic feeding on magic—oh yes, did I mention that she showed up too? She said she couldn't resist seeing her Mini Me… which you wouldn't get, but it's quite funny, trust me."

A face appeared to him; it did sometimes when he was here, when he was enveloped by the elements, surrounded by Arthur. Or maybe, just wanting it so badly, he only imagined that it floated there before him. But tonight it was clearer than it had been in centuries, so substantial that it could almost be real. It was not the face of the prince—nor of Bradley, even in full costume and breathtaking in his resemblance. This was Arthur as he had been as king, with his look of amused indulgence, urging Merlin to get to the point. And as ever, Merlin was intent on thwarting him. "You'd hate this production, I'm sure—it doesn't pull any punches about what a prat you were. But at least it doesn't make you out to be a simpleton. And I don't have a beard." He chuckled, his palm curling in the earth, pads of his fingers stroking the fine dirt and recalling the sensation of skin. "Remember when I tried to grow one, right after your coronation? And you threatened to issue your first royal decree."

The rain pelted down; a fierce gust of wind blew it through the arched entrance, spattering drops across Merlin's face like wet fingertips. He edged closer to the storm, laughing with delight when his skin was kissed with spray. "Yes, yes, I know what you're wanting to know." Merlin leaned his back against the stone arch, just barely out of reach of the torrent. "And yes, you would like him. He's funny, and he's a lot smarter than he wants anyone to know. He likes for people to underestimate him, I think. Or maybe I'm just projecting, it's hard to tell sometimes." He paused, feeling melancholia steal over him. "I watch him and Colin—Colin is my Mini Me—and I can tell he's got a good heart and sometimes I want to tell them…"

Thunder crashed and shook the foundations of the tower. Merlin felt himself tremble too, at that moment overcome with something so empty, so acutely painful—the aching conviction that no matter how much Bradley resembled Arthur, he was not him, and he would never be. "Do you have any idea how much I miss you?" he complained to the storm. "No, of course you don't. You're just lying there like a lazy monarch, hogging the blankets."

At that, angry lightning cracked the sky. A bolt struck nearby, close enough that Merlin could taste ozone crisping the air.

"No, it's not your fault," Merlin said hurriedly, "I know that. I would wake you, but it's just…" His fingers worried a pebble loose from the column. "While you sleep here, I know there'll be a future. You're still with me… I can't lose that…"

The winds picked up then, ferocious and feral. They spiralled swirling around the ridges of the Tor, pressing Merlin against the stone archway. Like a body the stones caught him, held him up; he could feel their almost-human warmth brace him against their force. Magic rose stronger than he had felt it in years, from the earth, from the stones, from Merlin himself. As the wind crested with the sound of growling laughter, Merlin joined them joyfully. Tonight, just for tonight, the world was his and Arthur's.

"I know it didn't go exactly to plan."

"They're not coming, mate."

"Sure they are. They're probably on their way now." But Colin had a feeling that Bradley was right.

It had not been a bad plan, the two of them staying for one last drink. It was Saturday night, after all, and they deserved a break. The shoot that day had been a misery. And for all Bradley complained about wetsuits and seaweed, all he'd had to do was wade out into the lake a bit. Colin, on the other hand, had spent the day racing up and down mucky tracks, trying to keep from breaking his ankle in slippery mud, and having Nina give out to him between takes for splattering dirt on his trousers. So when the others decided to call it a night, and Bradley draped his arm over Colin's shoulders and announced, "We're staying for another round, because we deserve it"—well, there was no point arguing with that.

And he was lying to himself if he said Bradley's arm had nothing to do with it.

No, it had not been a bad plan, not then. No, not even when Bradley made some comment disparaging Irish whiskey and Colin had to set him straight. With samples.

No, the plan had not soured until well after the Jameson's. It was still sound up through the Bushmill's, when Colin realised that listening to a slightly drunken Bradley talk was akin to foreplay, the way he rolled words over his tongue, fucking them thoroughly before releasing sated syllables and indecent inflections.

Somewhere around the Powers', though, the rain began to fall, and by the time they were finishing up the Paddy's, it had become torrential. The plan turned bad when they realised they would be practically swimming the half mile to the B&B; it went worse when they called every number on their mobiles for a lift and ended up with voicemail each time.

Now the plan had bottomed out, leaving them huddling under the shallow eave of a closed pub, trying to duck the lashings of rain, as the tiny country village slept soundly around them.

"If they were coming, they'd have been here by now."

Squinting did not help decipher that in Colin's head. "You do know that makes no sense, don't you?"

Bradley grinned, sideways and slow. It was the look Colin was coming to associate with insanity. An oddly appealing insanity at that. "Let's make a run for it."

No, just insanity; nothing appealing about it. "Are you mad? It's a fuckin' tsunami out there."

"They won't check messages 'til tomorrow, and I don't fancy waiting 'til then." Thunder cracked again, as if agreeing with them; in fact, it almost sounded like it was threatening them to go, now or never. "Let's do it."

Colin did not remember agreeing to that, but when Bradley ducked his head and dove into the torrent, Colin was right beside him. They were thoroughly drenched by the time they reached the B&B, and breathless, and Colin's side ached from a stitch, and they could not stop laughing even when it took four tries to get the front door open. They got inside eventually, into the hallway with its floral wallpaper and generations of grandkids staring from gilded frames, and dripped messy pools of rainwater onto the faded shag carpet.

Colin had a moment of thanks for his ground floor room; there was no way he could have negotiated stairs up to the second floor like Bradley had to do. Maybe that was what Bradley was thinking too, as he pressed against Colin's back and pushed them both into Colin's room. Or maybe there was not a lot of thinking going on, not while they were laughing so hard they were bent nearly in half, and their clothes were sodden and clinging like second skins, and Bradley was hopping up and down and making his trainers squeak on the tile. Not with the timbre of his voice dropping lower as he tried to contain his laughter, or his chest pressed against Colin, his body warm through his soaked shirt, or Colin reaching to pull his head closer for a kiss…

Not when Bradley froze…

Colin started thinking then. He thought of pulling away, of dismissing it as a joke, or an accident, or the whiskey, but mostly he just thought shit shit shit shit shit. And then, while he was still muddled in all that thinking, Bradley unfroze. And then it was his mouth moving on Colin's, his lips opening wider, his tongue slipping almost shyly inside. And Colin thought yes…

Getting out of their wet clothes seemed the only thing to do then, and diving under the covers to warm up came next; after that, things got a bit fuzzier. The things that were clear: the startling softness of Bradley's bottom lip, the slightly salty taste along his hairline, the feel of his pulse hammering in his throat. Their bare skin flushed, cold and then almost too warm. And Bradley's hands, everywhere at once, sliding over his chest, down his hips, into the small of his back. His fingers dug furrows in Colin's arse, making Colin grind against him, making him groan.

"Is this okay?" asked Bradley, suddenly pulling away. "I've never… with a guy…" He turned bashful then, and Colin, struck by surprise, felt his heart swell until he was sure it would burst.

"This is more than okay," he answered, carding his fingers through Bradley's surprisingly soft hair. "This is brilliant. Anything you want."

Apparently what Bradley wanted was even more touching, which was fine with Colin—it would have been far too easy to believe this unreal otherwise, this alcohol-soaked softness and these lush, unexpected kisses. But Bradley's hands were solid and grounding; thorough, if at first shy, they grew confident as they roamed. Colin felt malleable as clay, melting as Bradley explored how his body differed from his own, testing what it could do. His nipples were pulled taut with sharp bites of Bradley's teeth, the puckered skin soothed with the sweep of his tongue.

It took just the slightest nudge, just the slightest suggestion of fingers against his thigh, for Colin to hoist his leg over Bradley's, to slip their hips into perfect alignment. It took just his hand, slicked wet with spit and sliding the long length of Bradley's cock, to fill the room with their groans. At the sound, Bradley's eyes flew open wide; shockingly blue and pupils glassy, they looked surprised by the measure of his need. But Colin smiled and sucked kisses down his throat until the groans began again, this time in the sound of his name.

As he felt Bradley relax back into him, Colin thrust into the channel of Bradley's hip, his head spinning dizzily from the friction. When next he arched up, he thrust harder, slipping their bodies together until their erections joined in his hand. Now they were his groans that ached with desperation, Bradley's smile that made him melt bonelessly; the silky skin so hot in his palm became the limits of his world. As Colin stroked, Bradley's gasps came in ever harsher staccato breaths, the pace of their thrusts perfectly matching the rhythm of the rain against the windowpane. Bradley's hands clutched the small of Colin's back; one strayed lower, gripping the curve of his arse, bringing Colin to the slowly dawning awareness that with each stroke Bradley was trying to pull him closer. Heat flared low in Colin's belly, smouldering embers that ignited when Bradley's fingers tightened and dug into his skin. They sparked at the sound of Bradley's keening cry, flash fire racing through him, fuelled as Bradley spilled over Colin's hand and slicked it for the last strokes it took to finish him off.

Boneless, Colin collapsed, with Bradley on top of him, panting warm gusts of breath against his neck. They did not move, and Colin was convinced he would never move again, not even after the room grew colder and their breathing slowed. The last thing he remembered before drifting off was Bradley's arm settling low across his waist, his thumb tracing Colin's hipbone in slow, possessive strokes.

When Colin next woke, it was still inky black outside, but his eye fixed on the strip of light under the bathroom door. The toilet flushed and Colin stretched languidly, waiting for Bradley to re-emerge and crawl back into bed. But the light stayed on and when Bradley came out, he used it to locate his clothes. He was perfectly silent doing it, and the next sound that Colin heard was the door's click as it closed.

"Where's Bradley?" he asked Katie the next morning at breakfast. He was caught somewhere between cranky and dejected, and was not sure which way to tip.

"I have no idea." She rolled her eyes as she scraped butter on her toast. "The man is a lunatic. He was pounding on the door this morning at dawn, demanding Angel drive him somewhere." She stopped with the toast halfway to her mouth and stared. "You two didn't row, did you?"

"Who, us? Don't be ridiculous."

But now Colin wondered if maybe they had, somewhere between Bradley's sleepy breaths and silent escape, and he just hadn't noticed.

"Avalon, the land of eternal youth. Mortals are only supposed to glimpse it the moment before death."

Merlin remembered Speech House Lake. It had been called Geatmere once, since through its gates lay the kingdom of the Sidhe. It had been wilder, too, as had all the Forest of Dean. Its underbrush, thick and impenetrable, had been home to wild boar and wyvern and other creatures long gone from Albion. Vines drooped from the trees and camouflaged snakes stretched out alongside to trap prey that wandered here to quench their thirst. To trap young warlocks, too, who risked life and limb racing down treacherous paths to save their bewitched and besotted princes.

It was much easier going today. A gravel road took the minivans nearly to the water's edge, where the cast and crew piled out and turned the peaceful lakeside into a grand production. Even after months in France, Merlin had never got over just how much was involved in creating a television show—how it took so many people and such extraordinary amounts of equipment to recreate what he envisioned so simply in his mind. Watching as they set to work transforming this real site was more than a little disorienting.

He wondered if this was why Nimueh had recommended that he take some time off. Actually, what she had said was you look stressed, as if she did not well know that she was the cause of said stress. She and Morgana, on the other hand, were looking better than ever. They seemed to glow these days, thriving on their renewed magic, and filming had benefited from a suspiciously long stretch of cloudless days.

As a matter of fact, Merlin could not remember ever seeing the Gloucester sky as clear as it was today.

But despite the perfect weather, he had arrived to a gloomy shoot. Colin and Bradley were at odds, had been since the weekend apparently, and now were hardly speaking as far as Merlin could gather. Their usual antics usually drove everyone else to band together. To see them now apart, lurking on opposite ends of the set, cast this sunny day into shadow.

To make matters worse, most of the footage from the previous week had been unusable. Unexplained bright spots had appeared in almost every frame, spreading out across them like a flame licking a piece of paper, and fading the images so completely that even the best editors in Cardiff could not repair them. Now Jeremy, the director for this episode, was overly paranoid. He was now shooting in extraordinarily short cuts so he could check the film in between, but this meant the actors had to get in and out of the water frequently. After just an hour everyone looked frayed, and Merlin was starting to covet his blissfully boring cottage in Cornwall.

Merlin wandered away from the hubbub, debating whether anyone would notice if he simply took to the air and flew back home. The PAs already viewed him as a doddering academic; most likely his disappearance would result in search parties and possibly sniffer dogs. Nimueh would be most displeased. On the other hand, Nimueh's irritation was almost a reason in itself to do it…

Amidst lining up the pros and cons, a glimmer on the lake caught his eye. Sunlight, obviously, the day was sparkling. Or perhaps a gleeful fish breaking the surface. But then it happened again, silver glinting across the edge of his vision like a polished blade and his eyes focused on an extraordinary sight. It was the Fae that flitted like hummingbirds over the lapping waves. In the night they would illuminate the surface bright as stars, but now they went unnoticed, in clear sight of humans whose eyes could never process what they saw, whose ears were not attuned to their high-pitched trills.

Merlin, though, had long ago learnt the secrets of the Sidhe. It had been Arthur's wish, to forge a peace with magical beings (and, he suspected, the king's way to ensure Merlin was protected from retribution for killing one of their own). Although it had been many years, he called to them now. Silver flashed through a golden tint, metallic and otherworldly, as the seconds stretched long. The world turned sluggish, all save Merlin and the creatures who frolicked across the water. One approached, the most aged of them all, king of the land of Avalon.

"Lord Oa," Merlin said, bowing slightly, for although he had always resisted any obeisance to human monarchs, he had no such qualms about humbling himself before a force as powerful as the Sidhe. "It's an honour to see you again."

"And you, young Warlock," answered the faery king, rustling his wings; Merlin did not have the heart to tell him that he was far from young. "How fares your good King Pendragon?"

Merlin flinched, his voice catching in his throat. "The world has changed much since we last met, sire. It's been many years since the gates of Avalon were open like this."

"Has it?" The faery's face sharpened, pale blue rimed in stark white furrows. He glanced to the far strand where Bradley stood, majestic in his gleaming chain mail. Merlin realised that the Fae had taken him for the king. It was an easy mistake to make. "Time passes differently in our realm. Perhaps that explains why this place feels strange to us now."

"There's no magic here anymore; perhaps that is what you sense?" But even as he said it, he heard Morgana's voice: it just went underground, like we did; he remembered the forces he'd felt on the Tor, his certainty that the veils between worlds was shifting.

"Do not attempt deceit, Warlock." King Oa bared his teeth, tiny but as deadly to a mortal as their razor-sharp wings. "In all my days there has never been such enchantment drawing us to your world."

Merlin looked across the lake to where Bradley and Holliday were venturing once again into water. Around them the Sidhe swirled, skating figure eights in the air and clothing the actors in shimmering falls of faery dust. After a few minutes the director called them out again; the crowd milled while the film was inspected, and the Fae returned to skimming the lake's surface. Merlin knew already what they would find: that bright lights had destroyed yet another take, and that tempers already smouldering would soon ignite if something was not done. "I mean no affront, Your Majesty, and I would never seek to deceive you. But if I might, I do have a favour I would ask."

"You and your King have been friends to our kind, Warlock. What is your wish?"

"Could you leave this lake for a little while?"

The Faerie's conciliatory tone vanished. "You would banish us?" he growled. Angrily he batted his wings, creating a breeze that sent ripples skirting the lake's surface. The other Sidhe, startled from their revelry, dashed together to create what to Merlin looked like a globe of blue-green light. It broke apart in the next instant, fluttering to their ruler's side just as he pronounced, "It is these mortals who intrude upon our realm. They are the ones who are not welcome."

"I would not banish you, any of you," said Merlin, anxious to appease. "I only wish to understand what is happening. If what you say is true and powerful magic is brewing, then I fear it could endanger both of our realms. Please, as a favour to me," Merlin entreated, then added, "and to my King."

The crowd of Sidhe murmured in shrill twitters that Merlin could not make out, but he suspected they were as eager as he to hear the king's decision. King Oa shimmered gold to silver-blue, and Merlin hoped that it signalled a cooling of his anger. "We will do what you ask," the king said at last, "but once you have found what you are seeking, you must vow to safeguard our gates. These mortals must not intrude again."

Merlin wondered if he could make this promise. At one time he could have easily cast a concealing charm that hid the lake from curious eyes; he had mastered this spell to hide Gaius' book of magic, and perfected it later to aid in Camelot's battles. Could he do it now…

Well, he thought, if I can't, then chances are the gates will close anyway. Merlin disliked thinking so opportunistically—too short-sighted, too much like mortal politics—but he could see no way around it. "You have my word."

"Do you swear it on the future of your kingdom?"

As he swore, Merlin thought of both the stones long crumbled to dust and the castle that now flew the Pendragon banners. At the moment, they felt equally real, and as the gates opened in a blinding flash of colour, he knew his oath had been bound to both. The Sidhe exited the world in a glittering swirl of light, a wake of faery dust trailing behind them and falling onto the glistening waters as they disappeared. Merlin waited for it to sink beneath the surface, not restoring the normal flow of time until every hint of brilliance had faded into murky green. Slowly then the lake settled, and if it looked duller than before, Merlin knew he was the only one who would notice.

"What was all that?"

Merlin whirled around to find Colin perched on a log behind him. The boy's forehead was creased in confusion, but his eyes bulged with curiosity. That's not possible! thought Merlin. This was not a sight for mortal eyes, yet Colin clearly had witnessed something. Merlin forced himself to casually ask, "What was what?"

Colin waved his hand out over the water. "Those lights, that… did you not see it? You were looking straight at it."

The veils could not be so thin, could they? The thought sent panic racing through Merlin, but outwardly he only shook his head. "No… well, the sunlight on the water, that's all." He studied Colin, trying to look concerned—which he was, of course, but for a different reason. A simple enchantment would change what Colin thought he saw, but Merlin wanted to first see if the boy could doubt himself. "Haven't you been running all day?"

"Yeah."

"Well, that's it then." Merlin nodded as if the matter was settled. "Stars in your eyes—happens all the time."

Colin frowned, but he looked a bit more dubious. "Are you sure you didn't see anything?"

"Nothing but the shoot. Speaking of, I probably should get back over there." Merlin moved a step along the bank, and then looked back at Colin. "Are you coming?"

Merlin saw the boy's eyes dart across the lake. They hardened, and he knew what they saw even without turning.

"No, I… I think I'll stay here a bit longer."

Merlin hesitated, wanting so much to say something to soothe: Yes, he's a prat; yes, you'll be furious with him and tempted to not save him the next time he gets himself in a ridiculous mess; no, there's nothing you can do about caring the way you do, that's just destiny and it's a bitch…

But then, reminding himself that he was not Colin and Bradley was not Arthur, he left Colin staring out over the shimmering water.

"You don't prove her innocence by jumping into the flames. You do it by finding out what's causing the disease."

It was a too hot summer day in Pierrefonds. Outside the castle, extras hiked up their long medieval skirts over their knees; a knight in full armour pushed his helmet back to take a long swig from his Coca-Cola, and the makeup team worked overtime against the sheen of sweat that appeared on everyone's faces faster than they could blot it away.

Inside Nimueh's office, protected by the chateau's thick marble walls, it was quiet and peaceful. At least, it was until Merlin barged and flung a newspaper onto her desk.

"Have you seen this?"

That didn't take long, Nimueh mused. Calmly, she lifted her eyes from her budget reports to the man who'd just come blustering past her furious assistant. "Good morning, Merlin."

His eyes narrowed, and she could tell he was biting back spiteful words as he repeated, "Have you seen this?"

"I've told her of it, yes." Morgana stepped out of the alcove from where she'd been gazing at the empty courtyard. Her stacked Manolos—impossible for her to manage just a week or two ago—clicked against the marble floor as she swayed to the edge of Nimueh's desk.

This has been so good for her, Nimueh thought generously. She's growing more graceful by the day. Merlin, on the other hand… "You seem terribly stressed, my dear. I'd offer you a coffee, but perhaps something less stimulating might be—"

"You're in this together, aren't you?" Merlin's accusation shuddered against the stones; she felt its push of power and thrilled inside. It was especially pleasing that he seemed not to even be aware of it. That had always been her biggest advantage over Merlin. For him, magic just existed, like air. And while he might breathe it easily enough, he too often failed to give thought to using it.

She blinked, feigned confusion knitting her brow. "Really, Merlin, together in what?"

He grabbed the newspaper and read aloud. "'Bromley is Ground Zero for the worst water-borne illness ever to hit the U.K. Six deaths have been recorded, and with nearly 200 people hospitalised in Southeast London, public health services are strained past breaking point.'"

"And you think we did that?" But despite keeping her voice neutral, Nimueh caught Morgana's eye and saw fear flash there. They had discussed this possibility already, with much cooler heads, certainly, but with no less concern.

Merlin was of course his usual hot-headed self and would not be stopped. "'Symptoms of this illness include skin pallor, a pearly white film over the corneas of the eye, and extreme flu-like symptoms.'" He looked up, his eyes darkened with anger. "Sound familiar?"

It did, of course. She had loved making Afancs, moulding those little creatures of wet clay to do her bidding. So small they were in her hands, and what destruction they could wreak. At times she had wondered if this was what mortal mothers felt—less messy than childbirth, of course, but that same desire to see them grow into something too large to contain it.

She had not made an Afanc in years. Strange, then, that her fingers itched with the familiar memory of being enfolded, of being first resisted, then yielded to; of sinking into elasticity, held and released. It felt like eons ago and it felt like every night since Morgana had arrived and shared her bed. Nimueh saw her long, pale body stretched across the sheets, skin slick from heat and quivering, like clay waiting, wanting to be moulded…

Nimueh choked on her next breath. She should have recognised this as sex magic, the capture of her power at the moment when it was wildest and she was least in control. She reeled at the violation—she should have given her consent for such an exchange of power—even as she cursed her unfamiliarity with her magic. It flowed almost too freely these days, so much so that she had not noticed some going missing. But who would do such a thing? More importantly, who was even capable of such sophisticated sex magic? Merlin, of course, but he would never. Morgana perhaps… but no, Morgana knew Nimueh would willingly share her power; she had no need to do this covertly. Who then?

Distracted by these thoughts, Nimueh was caught by surprise when she blinked to find Merlin still glowering down at her. Fortunately Morgana, noticing something amiss, stepped in to divert him. "And just why do you suppose we would do something like this?" she asked.

"I don't know—maybe to boost your newspaper sales?"

"You really think I care about that?" Morgana's laugh, harsh and unnatural, helped clear Nimueh's head. "That I'd do something like this? The Oracle is just a lark—my other papers make five times what it does!"

"What exactly are you accusing us of here?" interjected Nimueh as soon as she could find her voice. She hoped it wouldn't betray her; there was a truth here that she was only now starting to suspect, and when Merlin whirled on her with that unflinching gaze that had conquered the king of Albion she knew he suspected the same thing.

"You cannot deny that our powers have grown since this first began," he accused, waiting for her to nod before going on. "The Sidhe feel it too, the veils thinning, and even Colin has noticed things."

"This may all be true," Morgana admitted, "but we did not cause this."

Morgana's voice implored him to understand, and Merlin paused. "It's the actors, then," he proposed. "Maybe they're doing it? Because of how they got dragged into this?"

He glared at Nimueh and instinctively her indignation rose. "I certainly hope you're not crediting Michelle Ryan for something like this."

But even as she said it, she realised it could be true. The actress had been uncannily well-cast, even before contacts turned her eyes cobalt blue. Nimueh had seen her around the set several times, her hands stained grey from worrying the lump of polymer clay that she'd gotten from the props manager. They'd even let her mould her own Afanc for the third episode. If she had charged her creation with magic…

Nimueh tried to steel her features and hide her dawning comprehension, but Merlin was watching too closely. His normal countenance as an absent-minded professor type vanished, and his eyes blazed with keen fury. "You knew," he accused so firmly that his judgement echoed on the walls of her office. "When you started, you knew exactly what would happen!"

Nimueh opened her mouth, the denial poised on her tongue, but she could not say the words. Truly she had suspected as much the moment her magic surged, that very first time she had begun sharing these remembered stories. "I did not choose this, no, but I'm not sorry. We are creatures of magic, you know that. Perhaps this is destiny come full circle."

"Of all the arrogant…" Merlin huffed as his rage built; it grew dense in the air, thick as smoke and just as ready to choke her. "This is your hand, Nimueh, not destiny's. But then, you always did confuse the two."

Nimueh stood, her retort loaded and ready to fire. This bristle of anger racing through her felt every bit as familiar as two old lovers repeating the steps of a well-loved waltz. For an instant it seemed they were the only two people in the world; she was curious which of them would be standing when they were done.

But before she could she fire her volley, Nimueh was interrupted by a steady hand on her arm.

"Really, the two of you row more than children." Morgana lifted her other hand and the dizzying fog began to clear, just a little. "Does it matter who started it? If this really is an Afanc, we've got a bigger problem." She pointed to the desk calendar that charted the programme's progress. "Right now the Mini-Mes are shooting at Chislehurst Caves."

Her announcement put a halt to their bickering. As awareness dawned, in an instant they transformed from adversaries to allies.

"Merlin, go!" urged Nimueh. "You've fought it before. We'll get you there—save your strength until you need it."

She wondered if he would obey, entrusting his life to someone who had wanted to take it so many times. But when he nodded, she knew the fate of the young actors outweighed his doubts. He moved between them and she reached around his waist, joining hands with Morgana. Energy flowed from her body to the other woman's, charged with the power of the words she began to utter. To the four corners she spoke, bidding them to let Merlin travel unhindered by time or distance. Morgana joined in, their voices woven together as their invocation filled the room. Magic filled it too, stronger than either could ever be alone—and then suddenly it disappeared.

Merlin was gone too. Now it was only Morgana staring straight at her, exhausted but wearing the same dire expression that she had when she first arrived at Pierrefonds.

"Maybe you're right," admitted Nimueh. "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea."

"This way to the caves."

The map in the visitor's centre had made the caves look enough of a maze, but being down in their bowels was utterly disorienting. In every direction stretched tunnels chipped through the chalk, chiselled arches where Druids and Romans and Saxons had all left their mark. Outside the bright glow of the camera's lights, the light dimmed drastically; a few steps further, a corner turned, and the world turned black as pitch. It'd be far too easy to get lost down here, Colin mused.

There was not much chance of that at the moment, though, with the cave guides herding them along like baby chicks.

As the cast and crew milled around, the director's voice rose above the din. "Okay, we're adjusting the light levels, so at the start of this take it's going to go black for a few minutes." James chuckled as he added, "I hope none of you are afraid of the dark."

Colin heard Katie groan beside him. "You're not, are you?" he asked.

"Oh, no," she answered, completely deadpan. "I adore being in complete darkness. Especially underground. Nothing better."

Colin sniggered. "You'd have been fucked down here during the war."

"Tell me about it."

"When the two of you are finished"—James' voice came crackling through static; who else would bring a megaphone down here?, wondered Colin—"maybe you'd be so kind as to join the rest of us over here?"

Of course, Bradley was already on his mark. He'd never been as prompt as he was these days, as long as it was far away from Colin.

If anybody had been watching, they would have to say that both actors were consummate professionals. But there had been no more late night knocks on his door, no saved puddings when the catering van closed, no offers to run lines over coffee. And Colin knew it was his fault. He should never have let his crush come out.

Sadly, it had not curbed his feelings at all, even if it did make them harder than ever to deal with. It did not help that now Colin remembered how Bradley had looked stretched out on his bed, how he sounded when he came, and that even through the haze of alcohol the memory still made him instantly hard. Yes, Colin still had it bad.

Merlin got it right, he thought, hiding his magic, hiding that he was gagging for Arthur. Just one big bundle of repressed emotions that got released ever so often in grand displays of heroism. Gotta love those Dark Ages.

At least Katie and Angel had copped on and stopped asking questions. Now they diplomatically split their time in two; Colin knew he wasn't supposed to notice, but he did admire how skilled they'd become at intercepting the curious and steering them safely away before things got awkward—well, more awkward, anyway.

Today, without Angel, Katie was doing double-duty; Colin caught her winking at Bradley as they took their places. He stared straight ahead, resisting the temptation to watch Bradley wink back, and focused on James' instructions.

"Now it's going to get really dark," he warned as Bradley and Katie's torches were lit, "so I don't want you guys moving around too much. We'll drop the lights and then bring them up slowly to get the Afanc's POV." He turned to the actor standing knee-deep in the pool, kitted out in his rubber suit and monster mask. "Ready, Jack?"

The would-be Afanc waved and made a grunting sound that must have passed as a yes, because James said, "Okay, lights down…"

Darkness dropped around them, heavy as a stone. It could have been his imagination but Colin was sure the temperature dropped as well, more than could be explained by the lamps shutting off. The two torches emitted their feeble glow; they would not be turned up until the later scenes, James had explained, well after the Afanc had made what would hopefully be a terrifying entrance.

"…and action."

The caves went deathly quiet for a moment, then water began splashing in the pool before them. In the dark the waves sounded louder than before and Colin glanced left to see Katie's torch shaking a little, casting a faint afterimage against the lush blackness. On his right, Bradley held his still and upright; it shone on his hair, radiant. Colin frowned, reproving himself for allowing the distraction. It was good that this take required nothing other than standing and looking frightened.

Then an unexpected roar shook the caves. It came from behind at first, and then in the next instant surrounded them. Colin heard people screaming and equipment clattering to the ground; something huge and metal shattered on stone. "Lights! Lights!" someone shouted, but the only light came from the faint torches on either side of him. The one he knew to be Katie's was moving away from the sound, but the other was swinging violently. The wind growled around him as Bradley battled what neither of them could see; when Colin stepped forward, it stung his cheeks as if he was racing into a storm. Fetid odours surrounded him, smells of decomposing matter dredged from stale water. They smothered Colin, sliding down the back of his throat when he swallowed; the bile that flooded his mouth was almost a relief. Every instinct told him to run—he had no weapon to fight this thing, whatever it was, even if he could have made it to Bradley's side. But his legs refused to move. All he could do was stand frozen as fire swung side to side, as whatever this unnatural thing was attacked, again and again.

And then the unthinkable happened, and the torch fell.

"Bradley!"

There was no answer to his cry, none he could hear above the roar. Without thinking Colin raced to where Bradley had been. The torch still burned, but when he reached for it, something snarled so close to his ear that he almost lost his grip. He fell back against something solid. Bradley. The thought of him lying there, hurt, filled Colin with rage that brought him to his feet. Closing his eyes, he thrust the flame towards the source of the sound with all his might.

He did not open them until a wall of heat beat against his face. The torch had flared, and now it blazed wild and uncontrolled, bright enough to blind him. Then his eyes adjusted, and he saw a figure—its outline at least, huge and gnarled and thrashing to escape. Adrenaline replaced his fear and Colin thrust his torch towards the creature, finding purchase against something firm. The flame rose, for an instant lighting the chamber, and he saw it: a monster nearly twice his height, malformed and grotesque, and writhing in agony as it was engulfed in fire.

Sudden silence dropped over the cave and the lights came on a second later. Colin spared only half a glance at the ashes, all that was left where the creature had been, before looking for Bradley. He lay on the ground, curled in a fetal position. He looks too small, thought Colin, panicking as he crouched beside him. "Bradley?" Colin fought the strangest urge to gather his friend in his arms and spirit him away, reminding himself that you were not supposed to move injured people. Still, he could no keep from clutching his arm. "Bradley, are you okay?"

"Colin?" Bradley craned his neck to look up, and Colin saw his pupils were tiny, just pinpoints in too blue eyes. But his hand slid up and nudged against Colin's. Taken aback, Colin did not know what to do at first, but then he opened his hand and Bradley slipped their palms together. His grip was tight, and Colin squeezed back just as hard.

"Yeah, I'm here."

Others were gathering around them now, including the team medic who pushed his way to the front. "Make room," he urged, and the rest of the crowd moved back. But when Colin began to pull away, Bradley's hand tightened.

"Don't leave."

Colin glanced up at the medic, who nodded. Colin tightened his hold on Bradley's hand. "Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere."

"On one side it says take me up, on the other, cast me away."

"Well, you're looking better today. Not on the verge of death anymore then?"

Merlin opened his eyes to see Morgana at the foot of his bed, almost hidden behind a spray of cut flowers. It was enough to make him want to pull the covers back over his head.

"I don't suppose a locked door means anything to you?" His voice scratched; it had been over a day since he had used it.

She set about arranging the flowers in a vase, binning those she had brought a few days earlier. "You know it's not good to be alone like this. And you've got everyone else terrified with that rubbish about a flu." Morgana settled on the edge of his bed, smoothing down his bedcovers with a flawlessly white hand. "How are you feeling now?"

He sat up, groaning as his joints popped. "You don't want to know." Nearly a week after battling the Afanc and he still felt like Muhammad Ali's punching bag. Stretching out his limbs, he took a quick inventory, testing the aches mired in his bones; now they felt only skin deep, which was a vast improvement. He ran a hand through his unwashed hair and looked out the window. There was daylight, but as for the time, it was a complete mystery. "How is everyone?"

"Right as rain. That was a nice enchantment there. No one remembers a thing and they got back to shooting the next day." Merlin grimaced at the compliment. He disliked memory spells and hated removing anyone's free will, but sometimes they were indeed better than the alternative. Morgana of course had no such compunction, and continued to praise him. "They're even blaming the damaged light boxes on the uneven floor. And, strangely enough, the boys are getting on again."

Her wry smile told Merlin that she knew he was responsible for that as well. It had been hardly anything at all, really, just letting a single memory of giving and receiving comfort remain. They might not remember where it originated, but they could hang onto the emotion. Still, he was reluctant to explain himself. Fortunately Morgana didn't press, so he didn't have to. Instead she looked at him with concern. "How are you feeling now?"

He knew she did not mean his body this time, but his conscience. And that was a question he could not answer. "I should never have put him through that."

She didn't ask who he meant. "No, you should not have."

He waited for her condemnation, but it did not come. She only crossed to the window and pulled back the drapes. The sun felt afternoon-warm; he really was sleeping too much.

"What else could I do?"

She turned away and shrugged deferentially. It was a gesture designed to make him feel safe, make him feel like she was on his side. She had a theory she was dying to share, she just needed to lure him in. Merlin hated being one of her pawns, but he could not deny his curiosity, so he supplied the push she needed. "What is it, Morgana?"

"You had no choice, Merlin. You aren't strong enough to do this alone, and you've always needed someone to focus your power. There was no one else."

Merlin nodded, his face grim. He knew this; he knew the water now ran clear and the Afanc was dead. He should be relieved, but the image of Bradley crumbled on the ground had been devastating. "Bradley was not the right choice."

"No, he wasn't. You're too strong for the boy—for either of them. You need your own Arthur." That was it, then, another spur in his side, urging him to wake the king. He started to protest, but she held up her hand, silencing him. "Or Colin needs his own Bradley. You can't risk using them next time."

"Next time? Can you see what's coming?"

He recalled the other miseries inflicted upon Camelot. Such a small kingdom it had been; the scale of the disasters in this day and age would be staggering. Contaminated water in London was just the beginning—were they facing famine from cursed crops? Or winged monsters picking off commuters on the M25?

Instead, Morgana said something he did not expect. "One of the castle tombs was raided. They're putting it down to vandalism."

"But it was Michelle?" asked Merlin, already knowing the answer.

Her face completely blank, Morgana replied, "She shouldn't be any more trouble. Nimueh's put a binding spell on her. "

Merlin felt tugged between his desire to know more details and his certainty that he did not want to know more. Most of all, he needed to be sure that this threat was gone. He had thought the same about Nimueh as he rode away from the Isle of the Blessed.

So fraught were his nerves that he did not notice Morgana until she was at his bedside. "And there's something else," she said, drawing something from her side. Immediately the air seemed to change; infused with magic, it felt crisp and too dry. But there was nothing in her hands—nothing he could see, anyway, not even when she laid it carefully by his side and the bedcovers sank under its solid pressure. Not until she laid her palm above it and uttered the revealing spell: "ætīwe ānweald Excalibur." The air shimmered like sunlight breaking through the heavens, just for a moment making the empty space seem a living thing. It breathed, stretched, and in an instant became a sparkling sword the likes of which Merlin had not seen in centuries.

"Excalibur," he whispered, instinctively reaching for the hilt. The touch evoked an almost overwhelming wave of sense memory, the heel of his hand settling perfectly against the pommel and his fingers sliding along the grip. His head spun as its magic washed over him—magic meant not for him, but for the king of Albion. It felt unbalanced now, just as it'd been when he left the caves.

"It showed up in the armoury on set," Morgana explained. "I took it before anyone noticed. I thought…" Her voice took on a warning edge. "I think it knows it's needed. If one king will not wield it, then another must."

"Another?" The cryptic message was worthy of the Great Dragon. "Who are you talking about? Tony?"

Morgana frowned. "Don't be ludicrous, Merlin. The sword was only Uther's for a short time. He's not the one it's meant for."

"Bradley, then?" Merlin shook his head, though it felt as if it would split open, aching worse than when he left Chislehurst. "You're talking about a boy who has no idea what he's getting into."

He could sense Morgana's growing frustration; her eyes flashed as she protested, "How is that any different than what destiny laid for us? Did you know all that you were getting into? Even with the power of sight, I didn't." Merlin grimaced in pain, although what she said was true. His condition must have betrayed him, for her voice softened. "I don't know if he can do it either, Merlin. But I fear that dark days are coming, with more beasts known only in legend. If you still doubt you can reawaken the King, what else can be done?"

Kind as her voice might be, Merlin recognised the manipulation behind Morgana's words. Doubt of his powers did not still his hand, but a greater fear of forever losing Arthur, a fear that Merlin knew she would never understand. So he let her go on believing what she would believe, let her assuage her conscience by promising to bring whatever he needed, and let her depart with an assurance that he would rejoin society soon.

His head cleared after he left and silence settled back over his room, but his earlier peace refused to return. Excalibur weighed heavily on him, on both his bed and his thoughts—sharp as when he had last tended it, shining as it had when the Dragon first forged it. And Merlin wondered, was it a reminder of what had been or a sign of what was to come?

"That doesn't look particularly friendly."

The set was calm, but Merlin wasn't at peace.

As one quiet day rolled into another, and then they all rolled into a quiet week with no sign of incident, he became increasingly anxious. The very air felt humid, heavy with his apprehension. Each time Tony showed up with The Oracle, Merlin eyed it with dread.

So he was almost relieved when Tony appeared with the news that a mysterious beast had been killed by the police in Soissons, and that a friend at the local newspaper could get them close enough to see it.

"They say it may be some kind of prehistoric creature," Tony rhapsodised, "something nobody's ever seen before. And it's only twenty minutes away," he said again, even after persuading Merlin to accompany him. "When are you going to get another shot at something like this?"

Too soon, I'm afraid, Merlin thought grimly.

It was easy enough to find the place. Crowds pressed around the square just off the main road, and cordons of yellow police tape did little to abate their curiosity. They had been gathered there for so long that by now the scene had taken on an almost festive spirit. Tony circled a few times before finding a spot to park; they still ended up several blocks away and had to make their way through chain-smoking businessmen and apron-clad shopkeepers and teenaged hipsters with matching leather jackets.

"This is absurd," said Merlin. "We won't get close enough to see anything." Tony was unfazed, however, and pushed his way through the crowd with a regal stride. As the crowd parted around him, Merlin's throat tightened; for just a fleeting instant he'd seen an image out of time, a crowned head and a glare, a decisive hand dropping and bringing with it the executioner's axe.

With a start, Merlin shook the picture from his head; it had no place here. Tony wore a Mekons t-shirt, not Uther's red cape, and his raised hand merely gestured for Merlin to join him at the edge of the police line. Squeezing into the space beside, Merlin watched the people who mulled on the other side. Some wore white protective gear and were trying to manoeuvre a large lump into a lorry. Others, dressed in scruffy suits and the uniform of the local gendarme, were arguing rabidly in animated French. The entire operation was in plain sight of the crowd, and Merlin could not help thinking that if they'd been in England, this would all have been kept under wraps.

"Bonjour, Daniel," Tony called to his friend. "Ça va?"

Merlin was shocked when Daniel lifted the police tape and waved them both past. He was even more surprised when they were allowed to approach the tarp-covered creature. Just then the team tried to shift it onto a makeshift stretcher and its plastic covering came untucked on one side. As the blue plastic fluttered, for a few seconds Merlin saw a metre's worth of razor-sharp claws—like what you might expect to see on an ostrich but magnified many, many times. It was quickly covered back up, and they were moved a few steps back by one of the police, but not before Daniel had snapped a quick battery of shots.

"C'est quoi, ça?" frowned Tony as soon the camera stopped whirring.

"They don't know yet," the reporter mumbled around his cigarette. "These people, they are xenobiologists from le Collège de France. That man"—he pointed to the loudest of the loud bunch—"he says this might be an extinct creature thousands of years old. And now there is nothing but a pile of bones and gendarmerie bullets."

Not a magical creature, then, Merlin was pleased to note. That ruled out many of the threats Camelot had faced in his first year. It might even mean that this was completely unrelated to their programme. He knew it was a vain hope, but he clung to it anyway. "Did you see anything?"

Daniel nodded. "I came down while the gendarmes were chasing it—it had already attacked some office workers eating by the river. The hospital hasn't released any news, but it does not look good."

"Terrible, just terrible," muttered Tony.

"The police had no choice, in my opinion. Of course, it is a loss to science, but once it started towards the village, well… It took a dozen gendarmes to bring it down even then."

Merlin looked at the masses of people gathered. Yes, the creature could have done incredible damage here. "What did it look like?"

"I will show you." Daniel stuffed the cigarette back into his mouth and thumbed through his camera images. "There, there is the monster."

At the sight of the prehistoric beast, Merlin's faint hope vanished; the images of the Cockatrice had been etched in his mind's eye since Arthur braved the caves of Balor. They had been lucky, these people. The beast could be killed without magic, as long as they had enough firepower—or the skill of a prince, Merlin thought with the smallest of smiles. It had taken a dozen police and their machine guns to do what Arthur had done with his skill and his sword.

He looked up to find Tony watching him with a piercing gaze. An unvoiced question hung between them, one that Merlin would not answer; when Daniel's cell phone interrupted them, Merlin drew a relieved breath.

But that relief lasted only for a moment. "No… both of them?" asked Daniel. "Merde." "The office workers who were attacked," he announced to Merlin and Tony, "they're dead. There was nothing they could do."

Wordlessly, Merlin followed Tony back to the car. They sped past green soybean fields and microscopic villages that hardly made the map, Merlin's eyes glued to the scenery without seeing a thing, guilt churning in his gut for thinking these people had been lucky. It was not until they were back in Villers-Cotterêts that he noticed his friend's knuckles clutching the steering wheel so tightly that they had turned white.

"Tony? Are you okay?"

The answering glare felt like a slap in the face. "Of course I'm not okay! You saw what that creature did." Tony seemed to vibrate with barely restrained anger, and Merlin grasped the dashboard for balance as they rounded the sharp bend that brought them to the hotel. "You know more than you say, don't you, Meredith? What are you hiding?"

Merlin blanched; the voice was Tony's own, coloured by his North London accent, and the question was for one who had shared his meals and occasionally his bed. This thing they had together was the height of casual—neither of them desired any more—but Merlin had never lied to him.

But in his denials, in Tony's accusations, he knew he was talking to someone else, somewhere else. He answered to the same words that should have heralded his death—would have, had not Arthur returned from Dinas Brân in the nick of time. As lines crossed and worlds blurred, Tony's little coupe was forgotten, and Merlin stood again in Uther's presence, waiting for judgement to be passed against him.

Blood had flowed that night, staining the floor in his quarters with an indelible red, but it had not been his. The next morning, he had new quarters and Camelot had a new king. Now was a different place and time; Tony's thoughts were not those of a fanatical king and there was no blood left staining the streets of Villers-Cotterêts. But there was still an ache as Merlin watched Tony walk away from him, both aware that what they'd had was at an end.

"What are you doing here this evening?" "Setting him on fire." "Well, that's a bit mean."

"You don't need me for a while, then?"

Annette scanned her clipboard, shook her head. "No, it'll be at least another hour before your call. Taking off?"

"Thought I might stretch my legs. It's a grand night."

"Sure, go, clear your head."

Good advice. Colin needed to get away, even if just for a little while. He could traipse through the sleepy village, with all its shuttered windows closed up tight—or no, maybe the dark hills surrounding the castle would be more welcoming. An hour, Annette had said; that was more than enough time to hoof it down and back. He set off down the paved path that wound over the hills to the chateau's outer walls. In just a few steps he entered a different world. On the set, high-powered lamps flooded the stone walls with radiance, but out here, where the only light came from the stars above, Colin stepped into the velvety dark. Black as the country lanes outside Armagh; like there he could only make his way by feeling the tarmac under his feet.

It was welcome, this focus on the physical. He desperately needed to shake loose the thoughts that had plagued him for the past week. Oh, he was not mucking up or anything. The scenes in the caves had come off well enough, after those weird delays the first day, but he could not shake the feeling that something was off. Since they had returned to France, where everything should have been so familiar, he kept thinking that there was something else he should be remembering.

Colin had never had this much trouble getting his head sorted. It was all Bradley's doing, no doubt. The man was as maddening as ever—first treating him like a leper, then suddenly his best friend again without so much as a single word. It was confusing as hell. Not that Colin wanted to regress to their former animosity, not at all, but it seemed they had leapfrogged over several essential steps.

Just a little while longer, he told himself, again. After all, they would only be holed up here for another six weeks. There were studio pickups later, of course, but at least he would not be living on top of Bradley for those. And then it would all be over. If the series was recommissioned… well, he could deal with that later, and surely everything would be easier after some time had passed. The images of that ill-advised night in Gloucester were already starting to fade. In a couple of months, he will have forgotten the timbre of Bradley's laughter; a few months more, and he will not even remember the shade of his eyes with their intense earth-shattering blue… Just a little longer.

On and on Colin walked, his confidence growing with each step he took away from the set. Wrapped up in his thoughts, he did not notice how the wind had picked up until the woods around him shuddered. A sudden gust crashed through the branches overhead, making boughs creak like worn floorboards and sending leaves rustling as noisily as a crowd of extras. He wondered whether a storm might be rolling in, and whether he should leg it back to the castle, but the cloudless sky above convinced him otherwise.

There was a strange compulsion, too, drawing him towards the end of the lane, helped by the winds at his back but fuelled by something more. Just through the open gates ahead he saw them: flashes of light, bluish-silver and unworldly, shining and then disappearing in the dark. Curious, he picked up his pace. He knew the gates were left open at all hours, but as leaves swept past his ankles and branches swayed ferociously above, he was overcome by the strangest sense that they would slam shut just as he reached the threshold. That fear vanished when he passed through safely, replaced by another so much greater that it made the first seem like a childish need to sleep with a night light. This, on the other hand, this was the equivalent of demonic toys or monsters that would snap off your fingers if they hung over the bed. This was a creature not to be trifled with.

This was the Black Knight.

It was the spitting image of the armour that the costume department had been slaving over for weeks. But that was made of pressed plastic—this was solid steel, if the sound of clanging metal was any indication. And that had been a still mannequin, while this one parried and charged, swinging its heavy broadsword wildly as it battled a foe of mercury and light. No, Colin thought as his eyes adjusted to the sight, it was a sword! One infused with a brilliant blue flame that made it seem more liquid than solid, that left a dizzying pattern of light traces against the dark night—and that was wielded by… well, by no one. No one visible, that is. And surely no one human, Colin decided, judging by the weapon's range and how it swirled around the Black Knight, circling him in ever tightening loops like a branch caught in an eddy.

No, no human could move like that—and certainly none could lift a sword so high to bring down a killing blow like that, one long straight thrust that slid perfectly between the weak seams of the breastplate. The creature seemed to split in two, emitting a burst of radiant light and a wrenching howl of pure agony. Like the cry of a banshee, Colin heard it not through his ears but through his spine; it filled him with horror, its sound bleeding out through prickled flesh on his arms.

And then the world was perfectly quiet—so quiet that he could have heard the proverbial pin drop. So quiet that he should certainly have heard footsteps crunching on gravel, but he didn't, not until a voice spoke beside his ear.

"I wondered how long it'd take you."

"Jesus!" Colin jumped nearly out of his skin, simultaneously trying to whip around see who'd spoken. It was an entirely graceless move that left him scrambling for balance, but he was so shocked to see who was standing there that he did not care. "Meredith?"

The man smiled. "It's Merlin, actually."

"Merlin? You…" Colin shook his head, which was stubbornly refusing to make any sense out of any of this. "What was…" His words floundered and he was left waving his hand towards where the knight had stood just a second ago. "What's going on?" he finally gave up and asked.

"It's real. All of it."

He took a step and seemed to stumble. Colin reached out for his arm. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, yes, just… tired, that's all."

There was a large boulder a few steps away, and Colin guided him over to sit, waiting just long enough for him to catch his breath before blurting out, "What do you mean, 'it's real'?"

Meredith panted, his hands on his knees as he bent over and tried to breathe. In the light from the lone street lamp, Colin noticed that he did indeed look rough. He tried to be patient and give him time to catch his breath. "I mean that you really saw Excalibur dispatch a wraith just now," he finally answered. "Just like you really saw the Sidhe at Speech House Lake. And probably a lot of other things that haven't made a lot of sense to you." Meredith gestured wearily back towards the castle. "This is Camelot—or at least the closest thing we have to it in this day and age."

It felt a bit like the world was shaking around him, so it was only natural that Colin shake his head, too. "No. No, that's mad. You're only messing."

Meredith just smiled. "You can do magic, can't you, Colin?"

"No!" He froze, his indignation cooling as he remembered all the times he had wanted to talk with someone about that. "Well, maybe little things. Just the spells you've given me, like."

With eyes that looked much older than usual, Meredith studied him. "Spells that no one has been able to learn for centuries, and yet you've brought them alive. Don't you think that's strange?"

"Me? But I didn't do anything!" Colin's voice rose and he knew he sounded frantic, but he could not help it. This whole thing was just too ludicrous. "I'm— I'm just an actor! I couldn't have done this!" he insisted.

No, it's not you, Colin. This is Nimueh's doing."

"Nimueh?"

"You know her as Naomi Lachlan, but in ages before she was called Nimueh, among other things. It was her magic that brought us all here. And now…" He paused, and Colin hoped it was not one of those times when Meredith would cut his explanation off short. But although he looked completely shattered now, he eventually added, "Well, now it seems we're in a lot deeper than we ever imagined."

"Wait. You're saying that Naomi… that you…" His words jumbled together, piling one on top another, but one thought kept rising above the rest. "You're saying you really are Merlin, like the Merlin?"

Mere— Merlin chuckled. "I am, yes. And this programme you're in is what my life really was like, when I first got to Camelot." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Except it feels a hell of a lot harder this time around."

"Why? What's wrong with you?"

Merlin took a deep breath before answering. "It's the balance of nature. I took the creature's life, so it took some life from me."

"But… you're not dead."

"No, I can't die." He leaned forward, pressing his face into his hands. "Really, must I explain this now?"

Colin ignored him. "Not ever?"

The man sighed heavily. "Apparently not, although sometimes I do truly wish for it."

Colin ran a hand through his hair, trying to help push all these thoughts into some order that made sense. Meredith Emerson, Merlin Emrys. No, no, he could not make sense of this. This was utterly mad, to think that the legend and the person standing here in front of him were one and the same. "Why should I believe you?"

The other man lifted his face towards Colin, a hint of disappointment shadowing it. Not that Colin minded. Someone making such outlandish claims deserved to be challenged and more. But at last Merlin reached inside his jacket and withdrew a tiny object that he presented on his flattened palm. Colin stepped forward to see a tiny sword, its point barely extending over the tip of the man's index finger.

"What is it?"

The only answer was an ancient spell intoned with an authenticity that Colin had never managed, even after hours of practice. "Tōblæde ānweald Excalibur." In the blink of an eye, the sword grew to its full length, infused with the same blue radiance that Colin had earlier seen battling the Black Knight.

"Excalibur," Merlin announced flatly. "Is that proof enough?"

But Colin could not answer, not yet. "Can I hold it?"

"Really, this is hardly the time," grumped Merlin even as he handed over the sword.

This is Excalibur! Colin's mind finally locked onto the one thing that could not be a lie, on the tactile sensation that could not be a dream. The sword was heavy, many times the weight of the plastic swords they used on set, and he could feel ridges in the handle where constant fingers had worried a groove. More than that, he sensed the electrical charge that came off it—no, not electricity, that would be full of stings and pops and jolts of power. This felt entirely natural, like it was an extension of his arm, like it could know his mind…

"So this is real," Colin said at last, believing for the first time. "You're Merlin—I'm playing you, like you used to be, and this… this is Camelot?"

"More or less, yes."

"So the Sidhe and"—he gestured towards the spot where the Black Knight had been moments before—"they were real?"

Merlin nodded grimly. "And the Afanc last week, but you wouldn't remember that."

"In the caves… I thought there was something…" The niggling memories that Colin had wrestled with suddenly made more sense. "I thought it had to do with Bradley."

He cringed, realising that he had admitted that aloud, and to Merlin. But the other man just smiled knowingly. "So much does, I think you'll find."

"But Bradley's not… no." There was much that Colin might be able to accept: that he had managed to do spells that had been dead for centuries, that this person before him was a legendary wizard, that in his hands he held the one and only Excalibur. But one thing he could not fathom. "There's no way that Bradley is anything like King Arthur."

The sword glowed brighter, humming its agreement. Merlin just shrugged.

"You never know what destiny holds, yours or mine," he said, "but I have a feeling that you and Bradley are bound together in this somehow."

He held out his hand, and Colin reluctantly let him take the sword—take Excalibur—and the thought of that nearly wiped the rest of Merlin's words from his mind. But then they returned, along with the tone of despair he had heard.

"Do you think there'll more?"

"Definitely." Merlin hefted the sword once, giving it an admiring once-over before shrinking it back down to miniature.

Colin sat on the boulder beside Merlin. His doubts might have vanished, but he was far from being sold on his part in all this. It was one thing to play a warlock who was just discovering this obscure thing called destiny. It was quite another to have it overlap his own. Colin had never really gone in for heroism, at least not off the stage. He was not sure he was ready to start now.

"What if I quit?"

"Honestly?" Merlin tucked Excalibur back into his pocket and levelled a calculating stare at Colin. "Then I don't think we stand a chance in hell."

"Ready?" "Would it make any difference if I said no?" "Not really."

They all had their favourite places to hide away. Bradley would head for the promenade circling the castle, where amongst the folding deckchairs and stunt people he could always count on an audience for his jokes or a subject for his camera. Angel favoured the Grand Hall, where she could tuck herself away in one of its built-in alcoves and sun herself like a cat. Katie claimed the crypts were her favourite spot, but Colin suspected that was just to shock people. More often, she could be found up on the highest turret, Charlemagne's Tower, where she knew only the most determined would disturb her reading.

Colin's hideaway was down the slope of the eastern side of the castle, amongst the old ivy covered ruins. They had used it in one of their early scenes, when Arthur battered Merlin into shape on his first day, but the film crews had avoided it ever since. True, the ground was soggy as a bog and you could lose your shoes in it if you were not careful, but that was a small price to pay for a spot of peace.

It came in handy now that he was practising his magic. Meredith—Merlin, he corrected himself—was a lot more forthcoming these days. He introduced new spells daily, and instead of just correcting Colin's pronunciation, now he was equally concerned with the thought process behind it. As far as Colin could tell, so much of magic depended on his faith in it. It had been easy enough to believe he could kill a fly, after all, but a lot harder to accept that he could make something spring to life.

Or that he could control the weather, like he was trying to do now. From his perch atop a crumbling wall Colin manoeuvred a melon-sized cloud back and forth above an outcrop of rocks. It stubbornly refused to rise any higher or swell any larger, no matter how much he repeated "tīdrēn īs". To his credit, though, the cloud was spitting buckets of rain, and ever so often a tiny fork of lightning burst forth.

The problem with having a favourite place, however, was that others knew where it was. When Bradley's voice rose out of nowhere, Colin almost fell off the wall.

"Colin? What was that?" Bradley repeated.

Fortunately breaking his concentration had made the cloud disappear, and Colin looked down at his friend with as blank a face as he could muster. "What was what?"

"That…" Bradley pointed to the rocks still shiny from rain. "That thing. That was right there."

Colin felt his cheeks going scarlet, but still he shrugged. "I didn't see anything."

But Bradley was not buying it. "You're a terrible liar, Morgan. I know you're up to something." He stomped over to the wall where Colin sat, each step more petulant than the last. "You're never around anymore, and when you are, you're acting odd. I want to know what's going on." Arms crossed, he did his best to stare Colin down, even though he had to look up a full metre to do so. It helped that he was still in costume, wearing his red jacket and scabbard and looking extra princely, especially when he impatiently added, "I'm waiting."

Colin had known this moment was coming, sooner or later. He had imagined that alcohol would be involved, but now that the opportunity was presenting itself, he reckoned he might as well get it over with. "We need to talk."

As nervous as Colin was, it was Bradley who blanched. "Yeah, I know. I just haven't known what to say." Colin stared in confusion, which Bradley apparently took as a cue to go on. "I was a real wanker, I know. That night was… well, I wasn't ready, and I just thought…"

Caught off guard, Colin blurted out, "Um, that's not what I wanted to talk about."

Only after the words escaped did he realise that he had just interrupted the explanation he had wanted for weeks. Wishing he could take them back, he looked down at Bradley, hoping that he might at least see that Colin was torn about the direction the conversation was taking. But it was no use; Bradley's jaw was steeled in an unforgiving line.

"Well, then?" he asked, his voice cold and dangerous. "What's so much more important?"

If only he could say that nothing was, just to wipe that hard look off Bradley's face. If only Colin could know, after all these weeks of wondering, just what had been going on in Bradley's head as he had snuck out that night. If only, for the first time in a long time, something else was not actually more pressing.

But it was, so instead he said, "I'm learning magic."

Bradley cocked his head. "Sorry, what was that?"

"I'm learning real spells."

"Big deal," shrugged Bradley. "That's your job, as I recall."

"Yeah, but… they're real." Bradley rolled his eyes with pure disdain, so Colin quickly added, "Look, I know it sounds mad, but I killed that parr— that crow on the balcony. And then I brought a cat to life, that's how I knew. And I've been having magic lessons—"

"Just like Hogwarts," Bradley interjected, "and your friend Emerson is Dumbledore, I suppose?"

"No," Colin grinned. "He's Merlin, actually."

Bradley rolled his eyes. "Right. And that means Tony is Uther in disguise."

"I didn't think you'd just believe me," admitted Colin, knowing he could not blame Bradley, but still a little disappointed. "Here, watch…" He dropped from his perch and knelt over a rotten log. It was damp, half-covered in moss, but when he commanded "bærne", it burst into flame.

Bradley was beside him in an instant. "You…" he started, but then his voice failed. He had lost his stiff expression; now his mouth was an "O" of confused wonder, for once left entirely speechless, and his eyes… As they fixed on him, huge and questioning and bluer than they had ever been, Colin had to fight to remember what he needed to say.

"It's magic," he finally remembered, "real magic. It's stuff that hasn't worked for years and years and years, and now I'm doing it."

"But how…"

"Because everything we're doing—this whole take on the legend, Merlin and Arthur as boys and the dragon and everything—this is how it really happened. And whatever we're doing here, it's bringing magic back into the world again."

Bradley shook his head. "That's completely mad."

"That's what I said, until I saw Excalibur."

Eyes shooting side, Bradley said, "Wait, you saw Excalibur? The real Excalibur?"

"I saw it kill the Black Knight. Tuesday night, actually."

"You saw it kill the Black Knight on Tuesday night?"

Colin could not help but grin; flustered, Bradley was awfully entertaining. "Well, I saw Merlin kill it, but yeah."

"And Meredith is…"

"Merlin, yeah. The one and only."

And then Colin shared what he had learned from Merlin, an immortal warlock, who had teamed up with Nimueh—"Wait, I thought they were enemies?" "Yeah, but Merlin says you can't hold grudges that long; obviously not Irish."—to tell the story of the manservant and his love for the young prince—"You mean Merlin and Arthur were really…?" "Like rabbits, apparently."—through actors that were all inexplicably close to their characters—"Remember that time Katie dreamt we'd have cheesecake and then we did?" "Yeah, but she also dreamt Johnny Depp was her ninja sensei…"—and magical creatures that were distressingly close to those that had been vanquished centuries before—"At least it's just one fearsome creature at a time." "As opposed to what?" "Primeval."—and that now it might be up to the two of them to save the world.

By the time Colin finished the story, the chateau's long shadows had spread into a grey blanket of dusk. He knew they should go back soon; much longer and they would have to take the long way back, along the lit road. But Bradley sat unmoving, processing all the things he had heard, and Colin hated to rush him. This tale took time to accept—he had needed a full day before buying into it completely, and he had even seen the Black Knight. So Colin waited as night melted over them, listening as the sounds of summertime rose, the frogs chirping in the nearby creek and a hoot owl watching from a high birch tree.

At last he rose to gather more branches and conjured another fire, a brighter one this time, and returned to sit beside Bradley. On a whim he thrust a stick into the fire. When its tip glowed white, he held it up and whispered, "Draca." Embers flew out on his gust of breath, glowing golden as they fell into the form of a Pendragon crest.

Colin felt Bradley's gasp beside him, but neither said a word, reluctant to disrupt the magic. It was not until the dragon shimmered and then disappeared that Bradley said, "This is brilliant!"

At that moment a bloodcurdling screech ripped through the peaceful night. The forest suddenly was deathly quiet as all living things fled. It was a sound that had not been heard for centuries, but Colin did not know that. All he knew was that it could not, by any stretch of the imagination, bode well.

"I did mention the part about the monsters, didn't I?"

"With all my powers of prediction I could never have foretold this."

Nimueh had always hated Griffins. Legend might have rehabilitated them as noble creatures, but the truth was that they were crude beasts whose instincts were ruled by bloodlust. With a savagery completely lacking in grace or elegance, it was fitting that the worst of mortal kings embraced their likeness to symbolise their power. She had hoped that heralds were the only place that these creatures would ever be seen again.

That wish was destroyed by a horrific cry that shattered the night. It was nearby, and dangerously so; it sounded like it came from the wood surrounding the castle. The thought sent a chill across her flesh. Too many friends, powerful sorcerers as well as mortals, had lost their lives to Griffins in days gone by. She could not bear to lose more.

But a quick glance at the shooting schedule quieted her fears. Only a small crew was on site, filming an interior shot deep inside the safety of the castle walls. Everyone should be out of harm's way, at least for tonight, and tomorrow, in the daylight, she and Merlin could go on a hunt. But just in case she dispatched her assistant with an excuse to keep everyone indoors.

Relieved that all was in order, Nimueh returned to her laptop, wishing for the millionth time that she could magically dispense with budget reports and cost overruns. Her focus was shattered by another feral shriek, followed by the trill of her mobile. At least that distraction was welcome, and she answered with a smile.

"What are you doing up, dear? I thought you'd turned in early."

"It's the boys," Morgana gasped, "they're in danger!"

"What? No, everything's fine," Nimueh calmly assured her. "There's a Griffin in the woods, but everyone's safe indoors."

"No, the boys! They're out there with it!"

"You had a vision?" Bad as the news might be, Nimueh could not hide her excitement. When Morgana's sight had not returned with her youth, they had both thought it gone forever.

"It was… it wasn't clear, but I saw Bradley and Colin, and a flying creature, it could have been a Griffin, it was so dark…"

"I'm sure it was," Nimueh reassured her, "but the boys aren't around. They don't even have any scenes this evening."

"But I was so sure…"

Nimueh hated the discouraged tone in her friend's voice. Brought up to distrust her visions, drugged for years and convinced that they were simply dreams, it was no surprise that Morgana had eventually rebelled against those who had done that to her. Nimueh could be better than that.

"Listen, I should see if I can't find the Griffin's lair anyway. Merlin's going to be insufferable when he hears about this. Maybe that will pacify him."

Opening the cupboard behind her desk, Nimueh stirred the still waters of her scrying bowl. It was easy enough to find the beast. With its sleek grey feathers it slipped through the forest like an enormous shadow, boughs bending and snapping in its wake. It was difficult to discern the location, however. Nimueh widened her field of vision, hoping to make out some distinguishing feature—a road or a rock outcropping, perhaps. Or there, a part of a wall, and another one continuing a little further, leading to some ruins and a bonfire…

"No, it can't be."

This was not the depths of the forest at all, but the edge of the castle keep. And there in the flickering light of the bonfire were Colin and Bradley, peering into the darkness. They had sought shelter in the arched doorway of the abandoned ruin, but it offered them little safety. The beast shrieked again, nearer this time, and the two men drew a little closer.

"It's them, isn't it?"

There was no triumph in Morgana's voice, just real fear. It was echoed in Nimueh's when she answered, "They're hiding in some ruins."

"That's what I saw!" exclaimed Morgana. At least she hadn't seen them crumble, Nimueh thought, relieved. It would only be a matter of time before the creature realised it could dismantle the fragile stones for clear access to its prey. "We have to do something!" Morgana insisted.

Nimueh was already running through the options in her head. Merlin could not get here in time, not still recuperating from his battle with the Wraith. Her own magic was diluted as well—stronger than it had been in ages, it still was too diminished to take on such a powerful creature alone.

She stirred the waters again with her hand, her focus narrowing to the two actors. They looked terrified, both white from fear, but there was something else there, something familiar. She recognised it in the way Bradley manoeuvred himself in front of Colin, jostling a long stick in his hands to get the feel of it. He looked every bit the warrior that he played, and if strength was all they needed, they would be in very good hands. But this time it was Colin who would decide their fate.

"No," Nimueh answered, "I think we need to see what these boys can do."

The Griffin shrieked again, distant from her vantage point but close enough to startle both men. As they turned panicked faces to the sky, she knew they saw the winged beast with its vicious beak and treacherous claws. She winced when Bradley batted at it, even more when Colin picked up a branch of his own and joined in. They were just going to get themselves killed that way, angering the creature.

"What's happening?"

"They're just upsetting it, as far as I can tell."

"They don't know what they're doing. You've got to help them!"

The image in the water flared as Colin dipped his branch into the bonfire and ignited the dry leaves. They transformed into a brilliant fireball that he waved at the airborne beast; under the shower of sparks that rained down on him, he looked as powerful as she remembered Merlin once had.

"They do," Nimueh insisted, quietly but firmly. "They do know, they just need to think."

Another cry drifted through her window, a furious one that chilled her to her marrow. The boys were shouting too, mouths moving mutely on the surface of the still water. Colin's face radiated a determined concentration and she suspected that something was starting to click.

That's right, Colin, she urged him, think!

She knew he had got it when he dropped his branch and focused on the stick that Bradley held. His lips moved, mouthing words that she could not hear but knew were right. Bregdan ānweald gafeluc, the spell that Merlin had first called forth for Lancelot, charging his lance with puissance.

And, as with Lancelot, at first nothing happened.

"Nimueh, talk to me! What's happening?"

"Colin's transforming Bradley's spear, but he's having some trouble," she narrated. "Bradley's looking impatient, and oh"—she winced as the Griffin charged again—"No, they're okay, it was just close that time."

"Can't you do anything?"

"Together they have a better chance of killing it than I would."

"If it doesn't kill them first!"

Nimueh could not answer right away; as the creature swooped low it filled her entire vision, and she held her breath until the boys' images came back into the frame. They had dropped to the ground in the attack but rose quickly.

But in her mind they did not rise, and in a horrifying instant she saw herself telling Merlin that his protēgē had fallen while she stood by and did nothing. That was something she knew he would never forgive. With a resigned sigh—and a stubborn refusal to question why Merlin's good opinion mattered—she said, "Perhaps I could slow it."

"Do it!" Morgana excitedly urged. "I'm going to get Merlin."

Nimueh started to protest, but then agreed, "Yes, that's probably for the best."

As soon as they hung up, she began incanting the spell. The dissonance of pronouncing words dead for centuries so soon after transmitting her voice through satellites did not escape her, and it took some effort to push the thought from her head; this enchantment was long and complex and demanded her full concentration. "Ic þē namie, þā rȳneu, hlimman ond uphreran, eower sylfe gaderian," she chanted, invoking the elements by name to help impede the beast. "þæt lyft ond þæt līgfȳr, sēo eorðe ond sēo ēa…" The air and the fire, she called, the earth and the water. At first there was resistance, as there was any time such forces were asked to act against their nature—she was, after all, evoking the very air to thicken around the Griffin's wings, for the earth to hobble the beast's feet, for fire and water to torment and block its way. She felt them like a barrier of silk cloth, supple but deceptively strong. Into her words she poured every ounce of her power, imagining herself pressing a persistent hand against the cloth, feeling for the slightest give and never letting up until at last the strands frayed under the pressure. They broke, fibres at her command, and she reshaped them to do her bidding. When the Griffin howled its displeasure in another bloodcurdling screech, she knew it was working. Her spell would not hold for long, but she hoped it was enough to turn the battle in the boys' favour.

Feeling so weak that she could barely stand, Nimueh leaned heavily against the cupboard and scryed for the result. As figures took shape, she saw a welcome sight: Colin's hand was raised towards Bradley, whose lance now glowed with blue-white magic and illuminated the images in her bowl. The Griffin still raged, but its charges were sluggish, its attacks more like rumbling thunder than flash lightning.

Bradley's attacks seemed lethargic, too, and she wondered if her spell had affected him as well. Then she realised that his motions were not slow so much as they were precise. He had realised that he could not kill the Griffin with his pole; magic or not, its blunt end simply bounced off its tough feathered hide. Instead, he was targeting his shots, aiming for its beak. He would kill the creature, not just repel it, and Nimueh was newly impressed. It was a strategy worthy of a warrior; she only hoped that it would succeed before the spell wore off.

But it was not to be.

She saw the exact instant that the Griffin broke free. He surged forward as if he had been held by chains, as if they had just dissolved and the momentum of fighting them had propelled him forward. The men were caught by surprise; she was glad to see that Colin's spell did not falter, but Bradley tripped as he retreated. He fell, sprawled on his back right in the monster's path.

Colin screamed out Bradley's name; she knew, for she saw him mouth the same scream that came from her own tongue. With her shout, she thrust her last strains of magic towards the boys, desperate and undirected, but all she had left to offer. Even louder sounds careened inside her head, tortured screams from friends long lost mingling with those of the imminent bloodbath. Head spinning, her balance faltered and Nimueh fell crashing to the ground.

She woke some time later—minutes? hours?—to the feel of Morgana stroking her cheek, gently easing her from peaceful oblivion back into this nightmare reality. Guilt crushed down on her, the awareness that but for her games these young men would still be alive. If she had not been so intent on irritating Merlin, if she had not insisted that they make everything so close to how it was, if she had only been faster… "I tried," she wept. "I couldn't stop it."

"Shhhh…" murmured Morgana. "You did well. I'm proud of you."

Her words made no sense. Nimueh knew she had failed—she should have done more, she should have fought by their side, even died with the boys. This had been far too much to ask of them.

"They're not dead," Morgana explained, as if reading her mind. "Bradley got caught in its claws, but Merlin's taken him to hospital. They did it, my darling. They killed the Griffin."

Laying her palm gently on Nimueh's forehead, Morgana let the memory seep through. The image crystallised as clearly as if she was there: the Griffin frozen mid-pounce, its beak swallowing a pole that held it just above the ground, its broken neck twisted at an ugly angle.

She tried to ignore the less welcome sight of the two men under the beast, one dangerously close to its treacherous claws, far too still; the other trying to pull him away, crying out for aid or just in agony, his t-shirt dark with blood.

"I no longer require your services."

The chairs in the hospital corridor weren't designed for napping, but somehow Merlin had managed to fold himself into the moulded plastic, and didn't wake up until he felt someone shake his shoulder. He was surprised when he saw Morgana standing over him. "What time is it?" he asked, stretching; the sound of his creacking joints popped off the tiled walls.

"Just gone half-three. Sorry I'm late—I had some business to take care of."

Business that Merlin knew involved spreading their cover story through her newspapers: the escape of a wild lion, straight out of Namibia, frightened and out of its native surroundings, and how it had crossed the path of two actors late at night. He was still exhausted from his effort to convince the gendarmes that it was their bullets that had brought down the animal, after the ambulance had already whisked Bradley and Colin away; now Morgana's contacts would do the rest.

She handed him a cup of bitter black coffee; Merlin braced himself as he took the first sip. He would have sworn you couldn't find a bad cup anywhere in France, but here the grounds were boiled and watered down, just like in hospitals the world over. He noticed Morgana wasn't drinking hers, just holding it for comfort as she peered through the window into Bradley's room. "How is he?"

"The surgery went well. He was even awake for a little while—Colin said he demanded a sword as soon as he woke up."

"Can you blame him?" Morgana took the seat beside Merlin, looking elegant even perched on the beige plastic. "Have you been in yet?"

Merlin shook his head. "They won't allow anyone but immediate family, not until he's got some rest."

"But they let Colin stay, I see." She smiled slyly. "I suppose that's your doing?"

"They won't even notice him," he smirked. His spell did not exactly hide Colin, but it did make him unobtrusive enough that those around just accepted his presence. "It's good he's there, anyway. He's learned some healing spells."

"You could have used those yourself, once upon a time."

Merlin huffed in agreement. "I never thought of it, to be honest. I was always too busy with whatever was trying to kill us to worry about healing." With a conciliatory sigh he added, "I guess you were right. The boys might really be our best hope."

He was surprised by the dismay that hardened Morgana's fair features. "I never said that!" she hissed, her voice rife with anger. "But of course you would hear it so. Do you have any idea how worried I've been? Or Nimueh—you haven't even asked about her! She's so shattered she can hardly lift a hand today. Do you even care?"

At that moment a pair of nurses hurried by wearing identical frowns, cautioning Merlin not to raise his tone. "That's not fair," he whispered as forcefully as he could. "You know I'd have been there if I'd known. I'll keep a closer eye on them from now on."

She shook her head, scoffing. "Yeah, it's easy to say that now that it's all over."

"Over?" Merlin stopped with his coffee cup halfway to his lips. "What do you mean?"

Morgana glared, scrutinising his eyes as if trying to find the lie. "Then you haven't heard?"

"Heard what?"

"I thought you knew…" She rifled through her purse and handed him a sheet of paper:

From: torlach.rowntree@homeoffice.gov.uk
To: nlachlan@avalonmedia.com; cappie@shine.co.uk
Cc: jmurph@shine.co.uk; julian@shine.co.uk
Subject: CASE NO. 78901-09124AX-15427

Dear Ms Lachlan and Mr Capps:

As certain events have recently come to light surrounding the television production currently filming in France, "MERLIN", of which NAOMI LACHLAN of AVALON MEDIA and JOHNNY CAPPS of SHINE LTD. are listed as the proprietary owners of record; and as such events are believed to have a direct and negative bearing on the safety and well being of British citizens both at home and abroad, particularly with regards to the production's suspected involvement in recent water contamination in south London and on-set injuries to actors involved in the production; and further that these events have negatively affected or have the potential to negatively affect our relationships with foreign friends and allies in whose country your production takes place; it is hereby ordered by the Home Office, and with all due authority entrusted in it, that all production on or related to your television programme cease immediately.

Torlach Rowntree
Deputy Home Office Secretary
Cultural and European Affairs

As he came to the end of the message, to those glorious words—cease immediately—Merlin melted boneless against the plastic chair. No more beasts, no more magic, no more of this nightmarish feeling that he was a very poor substitute for the king. "They're shutting us down," he said, feeling relief pour through every cell and flooding him with a hope that, until that very moment, he did not know he had lost.

He opened his eyes to Morgana's frown and remembered that he was not out of the woods yet. "The crew's breaking down the sets as we speak. Due to Bradley's injury and cost overruns, of course—you'll help with that, I assume?"

In other words, more memory spells. For one who abhorred using them, he was getting plenty of practice these days. But even that irony could not diminish his relief. "Of course," he agreed. "I can't believe it's really over."

"It seems to be."

Merlin's breath caught, for just a second, on Morgana's hesitation. But then he dismissed it. Even Nimueh could not fight this. At last, her mad scheme had been thwarted. At last, things could return to normal.

"Well, you've been terrible. Really, I mean it, the worst servant I've ever had."

"Budge up!" demanded Angel.

But the tiny hotel lift was crammed to overflowing, Angel's enormous bags filling the space like Tetris blocks, and there was no way Colin was going to fit, no matter how much budging up was done.

"That's all right, I'll take the stairs."

"C'mere to me, Colin," Katie enticed, her palm holding the doors open. "You still haven't told us your plans."

"Maybe that's 'cause I don't have plans."

"But maybe you want to have plans," Angel chimed in. "Maybe you want to come with us to Cannes."

"Maybe you're due a bit of a holiday," Katie added for the umpteenth time.

"Yeah, maybe," agreed Colin. The doors started to close again and Katie slammed them back, but he stepped away. "Listen, I'll catch you up in the car park. You're not leaving yet, right?"

With promises that they would never leave without saying goodbye, Colin headed towards the stairs at the far end of the hallway. The hotel already felt quieter, too empty. Tony had left that morning, Richard the night before, the girls would soon be heading off in their rental, and Bradley…

Bradley's door was ajar for the first time in nearly a week and voices wafted out into the hallway: Bradley's mum's, garrulous with forced cheer, his dad's, more casual but concerned, and Bradley's, which once had boomed through the hotel, now sounding too thin, too subdued, even as he once again assured his mother that he felt fine. Colin wondered whether that frailty was due to the ugly stitches that criss-crossed his chest or because he was suffering from loose ends, feeling the loss from this too-abrupt ending just like Colin was.

Not really the kind of question you can ask anytime, Colin thought, but certainly not with the 'rents around. Maybe the girls were right—maybe he should go to Cannes, forget about everything with umbrella drinks and beaches. It might be a nice final coda to this whole debacle. And it certainly was a better option than returning to Armagh, to Mam's pitying looks and Auntie Sharon going on about how well Daragh was doing out in Dubai with that oil company and that maybe Colin ought to look into that now that acting had fallen through.

Grimacing from that thought, Colin did not notice the door had opened until Bradley's father was standing there. A huge hulk of a man, a shade taller even than Colin, he filled the door frame completely. "All right, Colin?" he said.

"'lo, Mr James."

"Look, Lorna, Colin's here. Let's leave the boys to finish up." He tugged on Colin's shoulder, pulling him into the room's narrow entry. "Thought we'd hit the market—got to take advantage of the duty free. You don't mind, do you, Colin?"

"Oh, no," Colin replied. "I'll be glad to."

Mrs James stood up, smoothing her neat twin-set down with a graceful hand. In all the time since the Griffin's attack, Colin had never seen her look anything but perfectly kempt. The only time she showed any distress was when she had to leave her son, as she did now. But she smiled as she passed Colin and pressed her hand to his cheek.

"I'm so pleased that Bradley will be looked after back in London," she said. "We couldn't bear the thought of him being there all by himself."

Colin frowned in confusion, and was just about to correct her when he saw Bradley nodding frantically behind her. "Oh, London, yes. I'll be looking after him. In London." Which was a crazy idea. Completely insane. And the thought of it should not be nearly so appealing.

"And you'll be just a hop away, Mum," said Bradley, slowly easing himself out of the chair and sliding his arm around her waist. When he winced, Colin realised how he must hurt—he had only been released from hospital that morning—and just how desperately he must want to distract his mother.

"Really, Mrs James, we'll be fine. I'll make sure he takes good care, eating well and all that." Not that he was letting his thoughts go there, not at all.

"But none of your vegetarian stuff, mate. Not sure I could stomach that."

Mrs James' indulgent smile embraced them both as she left. "We'll see you boys soon."

The minute the door clicked shut, Bradley eased back onto the bed. "Thanks for covering there, mate. You don't have to go through with it. I just needed to tell them something."

Of course. He had just been covering; Colin knew that. It didn't really explain that slightly numb feeling he was experiencing now, though. "Right. I mean, I didn't think that…" He didn't know what to say, so he waved his hand vaguely in the air.

It was enough to make Bradley squint up at him. "I mean, you're heading off to Cannes, right?"

"I thought I might do."

Bradley gave him a long, unreadable look, then nodded. "It's just that I'd go mental in Tavistock, you know."

The frustration in his voice matched how Colin felt whenever he imagined returning home himself. "Yeah, believe me, I know the feeling."

He sank down beside Bradley, looking at the bags neatly stacked by the dresser. Nearly a year of our lives, he thought, stashed into two army-green duffels. He had a similar set in his room. Once they were home, once their bags were unpacked, there would be nothing left to remember this—Bradley would take away his scars, of course, but nothing would ever again remind Colin of the immense charge of power that had roiled through him as he sent his magic to Bradley.

"I guess this is it, then," Bradley said after a moment. "Don't guess there's a chance we'll get recommissioned?"

"I doubt it. I don't think the Home Office cares how good the ratings are." Then Colin remembered something he'd wanted to share with Bradley but had never had the chance, not with people constantly around during visiting hours at the hospital. "Did you know they're Druids?"

"Who's that?"

"The Home Office. Merlin said it's riddled with Druids."

Bradley's jaw dropped. "You're kidding me."

"Amn't. He said when they lost their magic they still needed the rituals, so they set up the civil service. They're still protecting the earth, like, but now with paperwork."

"Druids!" Bradley exclaimed, and then he let fly one of those huge laughs that Colin had not heard in far too long. "Fucking hell, I was not expecting that. Ow, ow!" He held his side, still wheezing through his obvious pain. "Do you think he might've been messing with you? He always did seem a bit off, you know."

"Could be," Colin sniggered, torn between wanting Bradley to stop hurting and needing to hear his laughter booming through the room. "Makes sense, though, don't you reckon?"

"Too much sense." Laughter faded into a bemused chuckle as Bradley shook his head. "We'll never top this, you know."

"I should fucking hope not. For my next role I'm dealing with nothing more dangerous than kittens."

"Or a rabbit…"

"…with big pointy teeth," they said at the same time.

Somehow Bradley had ended up leaning against him, or he had shifted towards Bradley. Colin thought of how many times they had ended up in this same position, their shoulders drawn together like metal to a magnet while they threw lines to each other or plotted pranks. This was it, though, and he only let himself savour the feeling for another long second before pushing himself off the bed. "I guess I should head, I told the girls…"

"Right, right," Bradley interjected. "But we'll see each other around, I'm sure."

He stood too, easing himself upright so gingerly that Colin cringed. His steps as he moved towards the door were as awkward as his words, and Colin's when he answered were just as stilted. "Oh, yeah, of course we will. Probably even be working together soon enough." Wooden, they sounded, like stiff wooden soldiers crowding around them, with their rigid joints elbowing out whatever he might have said.

"Yeah. And you've got my number, if you want to hang out…"

"Sure, that'll be grand."

"Colin?"

At the sound of his voice, Colin turned back. He winced inside; it seemed terribly wrong that his last glimpse of Bradley would be of him leaning for support against the closet door.

But there was no any weakness in his voice, even if he would not meet Colin's eyes. Instead his gaze fixed on Colin's shoulder, so solid that Colin could have sworn he felt the weight there. "You know what I said before, about us? About not being ready then?"

"Yeah." But there was an honesty in Bradley's voice that reminded Colin of another time, that moment when he had, against all reason or common sense, fallen for his co-star, knee-deep in his bewildering remarks about accents and foot-in-mouth contriteness.

"I really wish I hadn't been such an idiot." He had compared them to their characters then, but Colin thought Bradley had never embodied the solicitous bravery of the future king as he was doing now.

And like Merlin, Colin felt compelled to lend a hand. "It's okay. I reckon it comes naturally to you."

When Bradley lifted his eyes, Colin felt like he was drowning in a wash of blue. He smiled, he could not help smiling, and stepped into the deep. The kiss was chaste, just a firm press of lips, but longer than a goodbye kiss should have been—long enough that Colin's hands found their way to Bradley's face and let his fingertips brush that soft golden hair one last time; long enough that Bradley's hands lifted to take Colin's wrists and hold him there as seconds stretched on, long past the moment that it could easily have shifted into something more passionate and less bittersweet, had they both not pulled away at last.

"Take care."

"You, too, mate."

Walking away from that, stepping into the empty hallway and pulling the door shut behind him, was, Colin thought, the hardest thing he would ever do. His body rebelled at the sense of loss; even his legs refused to work right, shaking like rubber. Jesus, Morgan, pull it together, he told himself, and then groaned when he realised that even his internal voice came out sounding like Bradley these days. It will pass, he thought as he pushed open the door to the stairwell. I just need time, he reminded himself, traipsing down to the ground floor.

He had only made it as far as the lobby when the strains of "I'm Too Sexy" bleated from his mobile. The ring tone had started out as a joke, just to annoy Bradley; it was the last sound he expected to hear now.

"Yeah?"

"I do appreciate you covering for me," Bradley launched in without any preamble, "but I always figured we'd have more time."

Not at all sure what it was he was agreeing to, Colin repeated, "Yeah?"

"And I know that's a lousy excuse, carpe diem and all that, but the truth is, I wanted to be sure. I mean, we still had to work together and all."

"Right…?"

"And yes, admittedly, I did have a bit of a sexual identity crisis, and believe me, I was as surprised as anybody. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. And… well, you can never really be sure, can you, not really?"

"I guess not." Colin was still not sure what it was he was agreeing too, but he desperately wanted Bradley to keep talking.

"But the thing is, I wanted us to… I really wanted to try again. Without my freaking out, obviously. I mean, if you still wanted…"

"I still want."

If he had given himself even a second to think, Colin would never have blurted out the words. But when he heard Bradley sigh with relief, he was glad he hadn't.

"I just always thought we'd have more time."

"Yeah, me, too."

"So yeah, it's great that you're telling my Mum that you're looking after me and all, but then I was thinking if you were to stay in London…"

He paused, and Colin, baffled by this turn in the conversation, muttered, "Um…"

"Because if you were, and I was… and I know it's skipping a few steps but I thought we could try…"

Bradley seemed to be skipping a few words too, but the pieces were falling into place in Colin's head. Suddenly it hit him, what Bradley was saying—what he was asking in the only way he could. The idea was so huge that Bradley could only ask it over the telephone, and that made Colin's heart jump up into his throat.

But just to be certain, he asked, "Did you just suggest we get a flat together?"

There was a pause, then, "Yeah, I think I might have done."

Colin heard the hesitation, and he felt it himself. He was tiptoeing along the edge of a cliff, on one side the safety of the mundane; on the other the exhilarating free-fall into what was most probably disaster. He swore he heard air roaring in his ears, the sounds of rushing wind and danger. It made his head light when he stepped off into thin air, as he said "I think that might be a good idea."

"Yeah?" And Colin could have sworn he heard the smile come through his handset. "So do you need a lift back to London?"

"Yeah," laughed Colin, "yeah, I reckon I do."

He slipped the phone back into his pocket and stepped outside, into the brilliant sunshine of late summer. Angel and Katie were just shoving the last bag into the back seat of their hired car; the tiny Peugeot looked like it was about to split at the seams.

"Looks like there's no room for me after all," Colin said, plastering the most convincing pout he could muster on lips that insisted on curving up.

Contrite, Angel opened the boot again and stared at the bags stuffed there. "I was sure we'd all fit. Maybe we could tie some of this up top?"

"No, no need," he assured her, surrendering to the smile that refused to be restrained any longer. "Actually, I thought I might go up to London instead, maybe get a flat with Bradley…"

Colin wasn't prepared for the piercing squeal from Katie or the explosion of Angel's grin, but in less than a second his arms were filled with two giddy girls.

"That's a brilliant plan," Angel praised him, over and over, while Katie said, "Wow, didn't I tell you? It's just like my dream!" and something about winning a bet with Tony, and Colin knew that he could not be happier.

"No young man, no matter how great, can know his destiny."

Technically, the coffee table could probably be called an ecosystem. Mugs that had once held tea were now the breeding grounds for mould, harbouring thriving mycelia at various stages of growth. Their habitat was fed by plates still crusted with dried egg yolks, rock-hard crusts of bread, and (on Bradley's) stains of sausage grease, hardened like droplets of brown plastic. Out of this terrain littered withTime Out guides and chocolate wrappers, empty Boddies cans rose up like skyscrapers; a wine bottle towered over dusty crisp packets and telly remotes.

The scale of destruction might approximate a nuclear holocaust; it was, in fact, only the natural result of two young men cohabitating for seven weeks.

Hardly noticing the mess, and certainly not identifying it as such, Colin flopped on the couch and stretched his legs out into a relatively clear spot on the coffee table. His agent had just sent scripts over; both period dramas, he saw, sighing. After being steeped in legends, the 19th century seemed awfully humdrum. But two months of leisure was starting to push it (as his parents kept reminding him), so he dutifully grabbed his pen and alternated between sucking on its cap and making notes in the margins.

Twenty minutes later, despite the red scribbles filling the pages, he was no closer to understanding why Jane Austen held such appeal. Just the weekend past, Angel had tried to explain it after landing a role in Emma; Katie had even threatened a marathon viewing of Pride and Prejudice, but he and Bradley insisted it was a chromosomal thing that men would never comprehend.

Colin's mind drifted to Bradley, still at his audition. "So much for kittens," he had grumped when he got called in. Still, a guest spot on Demons was nothing to sneer at.

Almost as if he'd been summoned, Colin's mobile began to sing. The interruption was most welcome; Colin dropped the pen between the pages and lunged for the phone. "Hey, how'd it go?"

"Yeah, really well, I think. The director said Johnny had put in a good word for us both." Bradley's voice was rich; he sounded happy, and Colin hoped this job would come through. They'd both go stir-crazy if they didn't land something soon. "And they had me read for a recurring role, too."

"That's brilliant, man. So? Did you meet the Gene Genie?"

A long-suffering sigh came through the phone. "You're such a fangirl, Morgan."

"Yeah, whatever. So did you?"

"Yeah, and I got his autograph for you… on my arse." Bradley sniggered, drowning out Colin's groan. Then his voice turned serious. "Listen, I think I've lost my keys. Could you have a look 'round?"

Colin toed aside the weekender guide; the red Arsenal fob was hidden under the newsprint. "Yeah, they're here."

"Great, then I'll just buzz when I get home."

"I'll be here."

No more than ten minutes had passed before the buzzer pealed, not nearly enough time for Bradley to make it from the city to Dalston, but Colin was hardly paying attention to the time. "Aliesan dūre," he said, waving a lazy hand toward the entrance, before returning to his reading.

"Now that's impressive."

He started at the feminine voice, sending his scripts scattering onto the ground and his heart pounding. It raced even more when he saw who it was. He had exchanged a few words with her as they waited outside Bradley's room, but he had certainly never thought to see her in his own flat.

"Ms Levane?"

Despite her words, her raised eyebrow as she surveyed their accommodations told him that she was anything but impressed. Still, she offered a smile as polished as her crisp suit. "We're far past that, I think. Call me Morgana. May I come in?"

Colin nodded because his tongue had apparently stopped working, but he moved quickly to sweep Bradley's football magazines from the chair. She perched graciously on the edge, although he noticed she was avoiding the arms where crumbs had collected. Offer your guest something, he heard his mother's voice say, so he stuttered out, "Um, can I get you a cup of tea?"

"Thank you. That would be lovely."

The time it took to make the tea gave Colin a few moments to compose himself, even if asking if Morgana La Fucking Fay took milk and sugar nearly did him in. By the time he returned with a plate of Jaffacakes and two mugs, he felt a bit more himself—at least enough to ask what he was dying to know: "Is there some reason you're here?"

"I had several questions for you, but you've already answered one. I see you're still using spells. For some things," she added after looking askance at the cluttered coffee table.

Colin was unsure how to respond. From Merlin he'd got the feeling that he had best forget about magic, although the sorcerer had consented to leave his and Bradley's memories intact. But Morgana had seen him open the door, so he really was past hiding anything. Plus, if she was anything like Katie, it would be beyond his skill to keep a secret from her.

"I kept my notes," he admitted, "but I haven't been doing anything bad with them—I'm not killing anything." Okay, there had been those cockroaches in the cupboard, but he reckoned that zapping them away was a lot better, environmentally speaking, than blasting them with Raid.

"That's unfortunate. Perhaps you should be. There are far too few willing to do what is necessary nowadays." Her voice dripped with scorn, and Colin felt strangely defensive. He felt the strangest urge to assure her that he wasn't like that, that he would do what was necessary, but before he got the chance she leaned forward. "What do you know of the Questing Beast?"

It sounded like a trick question, and Colin's answer was wary. "Not much, really. It's half-lion, half-snake, right?" He was sorry they had not shot that episode before production had ended. Of all the beasts slated to appear in the series, that had been the one he most wanted to see.

She looked disappointed with his answer. "Yes, but do you know its purpose?"

"Its purpose?" These medieval beasts had purposes, other than to rampage and keep the knights busy? But then he remembered reading something to do with inequity and incest and… oh. He felt his cheeks warm as he answered, "It's a warning, I think. It was Arthur and… and you."

Morgana frowned and her voice turned tetchy. "Well, yes, the second time. And don't believe all that nonsense you've read. I share closer blood ties with Merlin than Arthur. But the Questing Beast that first year, the one that nearly killed Arthur, had nothing to do with me. It was all Merlin"—she huffed an exasperated—"again."

"I don't understand."

She sighed, casting him a dour look like she might give a child who did not pay attention. "It is a warning, yes, one that foretells a host of horrors—terrible creatures the likes of which we've never seen before. The Questing Beast is only the first danger we'll face unless difficult choices are made. The first time, it forced Merlin to reveal his magic to Arthur, and the prince to betray the king. It ripped Camelot in two."

Colin frowned; Arthur finding out had not been in any of the scripts he'd seen, and he had always wondered how it would happen. His curiosity got the better of him when he asked, "And the second time?"

Morgana stared at him until he realised what he'd asked. "What Arthur and I did ripped many things in two," she said frostily. "What happened in the past cannot be undone; I came about the future. I can't say when, but the Questing Beast will return. It lies to the two of you to stand against it."

"The two of us?" Colin shook his head, first in disbelief, building to violent denial. "No. No, the series is over. We're through."

Morgana's lip curled, scornful. "If it were only that easy. Nothing is as it was before, is it?" She traced a long, black fingernail around the rim of her cup; Colin could easily imagine the same graceful hand casting runes of polished bone. "We thought it was physical proximity that fuelled our magic, and that it would fade, like it did last time. But our powers, although nothing like they once were, have remained, and you…" She caught his eye, and her smile was shrewd. "Well, you have stayed with Bradley."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Colin felt his defences rise. "Bradley doesn't even have any magic."

"Neither did Arthur, but Merlin was always stronger in his company. You are the same. Bradley is your sword; you are his shield."

"In case you've forgotten, we almost got killed!" There was no way he could forget. Each night he was reminded by the scars on Bradley's chest, measuring the time that passed by how the raised skin slowly faded. Each morning as Bradley slept beside him, he remembered how pale he had looked in hospital, and he knew that he could not bear to lose him.

Morgana's eyes bored holes into Colin, daring him to cave, but he stared back. On this he was firm. At last her gaze relaxed; she smoothed a crease from her skirt and then stood up. In an instant she had transformed back into a crisp professional businesswoman. "Then we have nothing more to discuss. Nimueh said you were too much like Merlin." She sighed as she started towards the door. "I had so hoped you might be different."

Colin followed, and unable to contain his curiosity, asked, "What do you mean, I'm like Merlin?"

"There are difficult choices ahead. Merlin is unwilling, so it falls to others"—she sized him up with narrowed eyes, and Colin had the distinct impression that, if he'd been a bug, she would have crushed him beneath her heel—"who, it now seems, are equally unwilling."

"I don't get it. What choice won't he make?"

"Maybe you should ask him that." She smiled bewitchingly and pressed an envelope into his hand, then turned to go without another word.

Colin realised that he had been wrong—he would not have been crushed, had he been a bug. He would have been seduced by the glistening beauty of her web, forever entangled on treacherous silk.

Feeling suddenly foolish, he looked down at what she'd given him. Just a plain brown packet, the flap not even sealed, just tucked inside, tempting him to peek inside. He refused to give her that satisfaction, managing to hold off until she had disappeared down the stairs. It was futile, though; her knowing look had assured him that she knew exactly what he would do as soon as she was out of sight.

"I bet Santiago will let us borrow his car," Bradley said, many hours later, as he flopped beside Colin on the sofa and handed him a can of Tennent's.

"Hmmm?" replied Colin, taking the drink absently, his eyes hardly looking up from his book. He'd been reading the same page for the past hour and the words refused to focus. He kept seeing Morgana's calculating smile—it was, disturbingly, the same one Katie wore whenever she tried to coerce him into doing something unpleasant—but there was something about it that kept drawing his mind back to what she'd said, about what they were being asked to do. And his fingers kept returning to the envelope, shoved between the pages of his book, where his finger could trace its edges as he pretended to read.

"Have you ever been to Cornwall?" asked Bradley, his eyebrow cocked. "Trust me, you don't want to be at the mercy of their bus service."

Suddenly realising what Bradley had proposed, Colin dropped the book into his lap. His jaw dropped nearly as far. "You can't be serious."

Bradley shrugged. "It's not like we have much choice."

"Of course we have a choice," Colin interrupted. His fingers curled around the envelope, feeling where the fibres were soft from all his worrying. "They always say things like that—it's always life or death, fate of the world, blah, blah blah." He shook his head. "We can do nothing. Absolutely nothing—which is exactly what we're going to do."

"And you're okay with that?"

Colin glared at him, the stupid man, and said pointedly, "I'm okay with you not getting killed."

And the stupid man, the infuriating man, just laughed. "Oh, believe me, I'm fine with that myself. But if you keep this up, it'll drive you nuts, and me with it."

He tugged the frayed envelope out of Colin's grip and slid the slip of paper out. Chy Myrddin, Nancledra, Penzance, Cornwall, it said, penned in an old-fashioned hand. Such a few words to give Colin such a sense of dread.

But Bradley seemed to have no such premonition. He was matter of fact as he folded the paper and tucked it into his pocket. "This is for me as much as you, Morgan. You'll be insufferable until you know what's going on. So we'll just pop down to Cornwall and see what Merlin's up to."

Then Bradley made himself comfortable, dropping his head into Colin's lap and stretching out long on the couch. Aloud he debated which route to take, and wondered what Colin would think of the forest at Dartmoor, and decided they would have to stop in to his parents on the way back else they'd be furious, and they couldn't lie about not being in the area because his mum could always sense those things…

Listening to Bradley rattle on, combing his fingers through soft blond hair, Colin began to relax. He was right; they could just go down, check things out, and set his mind at ease. But one thing kept bothering him, and when Bradley's chatter paused for a second, Colin tightened his hold on his hair. Bradley looked up, then his eyelids fluttered closed as Colin kissed him. He was smiling, and quiet, when Colin drew away.

"Are you sure about this? This isn't some kind of noble Arthur thing, it is?"

Bradley snorted. He reached up and cupped the back of Colin's neck, pulling him back down. "Not a chance," he said, just before their lips met again. "Not unless I get a really big sword."

"You show him most extraordinary loyalty."

On arriving back in Cornwall, the first thing Merlin had done was put away the glossy photographs that Nimueh had delivered all those many months ago.

He had considered burning them. He had even dropped them into the kitchen sink as Archie perched on the tap, urging him on, with the word "bærne" already sparking on his tongue, but at the last minute he could not do it.

He wondered if it was because he already missed them. He missed seeing Bradley, watching the sunlight fall on him like it had discovered one of its own. He missed seeing Colin, face wide with wonder, when he mastered a spell. He missed Tony, too; although they had never returned to their easy camaraderie, breakfasts were terribly quiet once he had gone.

Merlin had stayed in France after the cast and crew departed, working behind the scenes with Morgana to tie up loose ends that Nimueh still was not strong enough to tackle. He suspected that her delayed recovery had something to do with a reluctance to abandon what she'd created here; in his more introspective moments, he suspected that his own willingness to help was due to his own reluctance to break this last connection he had with his past.

But break it, he must. Centuries from now he would pull these pictures out, their images yellowed and their edges cracked, and remember how close they'd come to disaster.

Now, however, he had a life to rebuild—and one without magic, for he was sure that any lingering traces of power would vanish not long after they had parted. He threw himself into the simple things. Appreciating the approach of autumn, for instance, as the trees turned crimson and the grasses on Stowes Hill took on a golden hue. Or laying in stores for the birds who would depend on his provisions through the winter. Or keeping score for the squirrels as they battled over fallen acorns, every bit as fierce as Camelot's finest knights.

And decidedly not allowing himself to be lonely.

But when Colin and Bradley showed up at his door one crisp November afternoon, he found he could feign neither surprise or displeasure. Instead, seeing them together, he felt a strange longing that he could only chalk up to his self-imposed isolation. They both looked different than they had during filming; Colin's hair was longer and Bradley's shorter, and both had abandoned the clean-cut appearances that the show had demanded. But the way they stood shoulder to shoulder, with Bradley edging slightly in front, told him that nothing had really changed.

"Morgana came to see me," Colin explained, and that was all he needed to say for Merlin to usher them into the kitchen. They sat around the worn table and drank piping hot tea from oversized mugs while Colin told him of Morgana's visit. From the corner of his eye, Merlin noticed how solicitous Bradley was. He'd arrived full of breezy assurances that they were just there to clear things up and would soon be on their way, but his flippancy vanished whenever Colin wasn't looking.

Merlin was not pleased to learn of Morgana's interference. He was unsurprised to hear that she had no evidence, either; had it been a vision, he would have been more inclined to believe. Or so he told himself. But frightening the boys over nothing? "I'll tell you my theory," Merlin offered. "People thought Morgana was mad for knowing the future, but I think it's when she doesn't know what's happening that she goes a bit crazy. I think that's why she's got reporters scouring every inch of the countryside. Oh, yes," he nodded at their dubious looks, "I've seen them. If a stray cat goes missing, her people investigate it like it was Jimmy Hoffa."

"She said I was too much like you." There was disdain in Colin's tone; it was clear that he was not pleased by the resemblance. That should not sting, Merlin thought, but it did. "If something bad is coming, why would you not help?"

In that moment, Merlin hated Morgana as much as he ever had for twisting the truth and casting him as the villain. "Believe me, I will help. If this Questing Beast does show up—and as I already said, I doubt it will, nothing has happened in months—but if it shows up, I'll do everything in my power to stop it."

"Everything?"

Merlin glanced at Bradley, who had been uncharacteristically silent until then, and whose simple question now cut straight through to the heart of the matter. His face was pointedly blank, but his eyes invited confession and promised understanding, looking so much like what Merlin had lost that it hurt.

"I will help," he repeated. "Perhaps not as Lady Morgana wishes, but that's why they're called choices, I believe, because I can choose."

Bradley's eyes narrowed. "Then it's true? You really could wake King Arthur if you wanted to?"

Colin threw a surprised glance at Bradley—Merlin wondered if they had not talked of this before—but his question was for Merlin. "That's what she wants you to do? Just wake up King Arthur?"

Just? Merlin glowered as the temptation he'd struggled with for years was reduced to such simplicity. That these children—for that was what they were, no matter that the world called them men—could even begin to criticise his choice made his blood simmer. "The King of Albion will wake when, and only when, we need him most. Britain has survived plagues and riots and wars—you would not remember, but I do. I remember every single crisis, every time I had to decide whether it was time—not Morgana, not Nimueh, not two actors who've spent their entire lives in peacetime!"

His dismissal should have given them pause; would have, had it been anyone else. But Colin, imbued from birth with the qualities to portray Merlin, had obviously picked up a bit of his doggedness as well. "Peacetime? That's what you're calling this?" Colin's eyes flashed, not gold with magic but dark in anger. "It's not tanks and machine guns we're up against here. We're talking Afancs and Griffins—what good's the Army against creatures like that?"

Merlin answered his challenging eyes with his own firm voice. "If more show up, then I will stop them." Although there would not be, Merlin was sure about that. Nimueh's nonsense had simply upset the balance. If there was anything he regretted, it was not doing enough to prevent that. The desire to see Arthur again, even in another's body, had been too strong. That was where such temptation led, and he would not fall for it again. "You may think you know best," Merlin said, his tone clearly showing he did not agree, "but there is no reason to summon Arthur."

His answer was final, and he was relieved when, after a loaded pause, Bradley took it as such. "Well," he said, scooting back his chair, "I guess we've wasted enough of your time. We should be off."

"Mind if I use your toilet first?" Colin asked, and scooted off down the corridor.

Left alone with Bradley, Merlin fiddled with his empty mug, noticing how silent the kitchen had become with just the two of them. It was no easy silence, but the expectant ambience between two people with far too much to say and no way to begin. And all he could manage was, "So, driving back to London tonight?"

Bradley looked up and the lines around his eyes crinkled in confusion. He looked like he had not expected such a pedestrian question. No, Merlin realised, he looks like Arthur when he's interrupted mid-thought. He wondered if Bradley would share what he was thinking, but instead he shook his head and answered, "No, we'll stop at my parents'."

"Right. Well, they'll be glad to see you." Words bubbled to the tip of his tongue then—apologies for landing him in the hospital, wishes for good fortune, everything that he wished he could say—but they came out as "Do you get down very often?"

But Bradley had gone back to his own thoughts. He was staring at the edge of the table, thoughtful, his thumb worrying a groove. He didn't look up when he said, "Sometimes when Colin's asleep, I'll watch him too." His voice was hushed, so as not to carry out into the hallway to Colin, but deep enough to resonate and demand Merlin's attention, as much as his words did. "It's nice, he looks peaceful. And… and vulnerable too, I suppose—when he's like that, it feels like it's my job's to look after him. But really, it's lots better when he's awake and we're looking after each other. And he'd be furious if I just went off and let him sleep."

Merlin felt a certain satisfaction, inexplicable as it was, that Colin had a person so loyal in his life. It warred with prickling resentment that Bradley would reduce his situation with Arthur to a Sunday morning lie-in. "You don't understand—" he began, but Bradley interrupted.

"No, I don't—I'm just an actor, and I can't pretend to know what you've been through. But I did spend an awful lot of time trying to get into Arthur's head. If those scripts were what really happened, then Arthur trusted you to look after him. He trusted you to know what was right."

Bradley's words stunned him into silence. It was true—he did have Arthur's confidence, long before he was even aware of it. Demanding the impossible had been how Arthur displayed his trust; those vague, usually shouted instructions to "do something" were his own peculiar way of saying he knew that Merlin could.

Colin returned a few moments later, and they said their goodbyes, but Bradley's words stayed with him long after he'd seen the boys off. Merlin dreamed of them that night, and of the others: Bradley's earnest smile morphed into the faery king's, cruel and inhuman; Katie's long locks turned into ropes that bound her to a pyre, her terrified eyes flying open as flames singed her capris; Colin's runners twitched a metre off the ground as he swung from a makeshift gallows at Pierrefonds.

Each time, Merlin would try to save them, and each time he would fail. He would curse King Oa only to find his staff had vanished; he would strike at the rope holding Colin and find no blade in his hand; he would call forth a storm to extinguish the flames, but his hand would be useless and withered. He woke hearing Katie's screams and Morgana's voice whispering under it, "You always did need someone."

"One of them is bad, really bad, and the other is unthinkable."

He heard it in the hedgerows first, as he walked along the lane to the river. It came to him in whispers that skittered across the curled edges of dry leaves and stuttered down creaking boughs. A creature in Epping Forest, they said, just on the eastern edge of London, but Merlin shook his head. He had heard such rumours before: phantom cats, Shug monkeys, the Beast of Exmoor, and all the other creatures haunting England's empty lands. The truth was always more ordinary—overgrown tomcats and poorly socialised dogs—but the trees could hardly be blamed for exaggerating. With senses more attuned to the tang of the soil or the chill in the air, they often struggled to distinguish the unusual from the fantastical.

"Especially when it's the gossip of birds they listen to," Merlin reminded Archimedes, who flew off in a huff.

But the leaves refused to be silent, and as dusk fell and the branches swayed dramatically, Merlin started to wonder if this time their warnings might mean something more. A huge snake, some said; a lion, said others; the leap of a hart. Each alone might be dismissed, but when they snapped together like a padlock he couldn't deny his unease. He thought to distract himself with dinner, taking painstaking care in chopping vegetables for his soup, but these deliberations that always brought him peace tonight left him restless.

Even reading proved too difficult, and after watching the words swim for an hour or two, he gave up and switched on his dusty television for the news. He expected the usual staid newsreaders behind officious-looking desks. Instead the screen blazed red and orange like a circus, bright floodlights casting the forest with unnatural shadows. Soldiers and canvassed army jeeps raced back and forth across the screen; before them in the camera stood a young reporter looking prepped for wartime in his khaki jacket, filling in the details for the off-screen reader.

"…and as you can see behind me, the Territorial Army has been deployed and is trying to contain the situation—the last thing they want is for whatever this is to get into a populated area."

"We've got conflicting reports, everything from a rabies-infected animal to a pack of wild dogs to an escaped panther. All they will say for sure is that it is extremely dangerous and that residents should remain in their homes. I repeat: residents are advised to remain in their homes…"

Merlin did not hear the rest; he was already dialing Morgana's number.

It took four rings for anyone to pick up, four interminable rings during which he paced his narrow living room four times. When it was finally answered, it was by someone he had not expected. But she was the one who said, "You're the last person I thought would ring." Nimueh sounded exhausted, but not enough to lessen her derision.

"What are you doing there?" Merlin asked.

"I came over this afternoon, as soon as I heard." That explained the exhaustion, but not the contempt oozing from her voice as she added, "You have some nerve."

"Me?" Merlin was taken aback.

Nimueh said something, but the sound was filtered; she was no longer speaking to him. Instead quiet voices argued down the line while figures moved relentlessly across his muted telly. Like a swarm of ants, they seemed intent on defeating whatever it was through sheer industriousness. Merlin wished that was possible, but if this was the creature he suspected, then Her Majesty's entire Armed Forces would not be able to bring it down.

There were worse creatures than the Questing Beast, to be sure. There were Strix and Sylphs, Eachys and Sceadugengan, Wyrms and Ghouls, and Merlin had battled them all in his time. But none had ever left him as broken as the Questing Beast. Twice Merlin had faced it, and twice he had come too horribly close to losing something irreplaceable. First, Arthur's life; then later, his trust in the king.

What could he lose this time?

His thoughts, growing more morose by the second, were interrupted by a rustling on the other end of the line, and then Morgana's heated admonishment: "Really, Merlin, I'm a little busy for this now. My reporters are going crazy."

"Just tell me what's going on. Is it the Questing Beast?"

"You know it is! And won't it be fun seeing what comes next?"

She chuckled, humourless and razor-edged, and he almost snapped back at her, but then remembered there was more at stake. "All right. I'll go see what I can do."

She snorted. "Haven't you done enough? Sending the Mini Mes because you're too cowardly to face it yourself?"

Merlin paused, stunned. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, don't play games with us. They came to you for help and you sent them away."

"I did what?" he interrupted. "Tell me you didn't believe them, Morgana. Tell me you didn't send them after the Questing Beast."

When she paused, he knew she could not deny it. She had told them, not him. He had been left in the dark while the boys—again he remembered that they were only boys—went hunting for a creature that they were utterly unprepared to face.

"But you gave them Excalibur!" Morgana sounded defensive and a little desperate. Merlin couldn't blame her, but he felt no urge to ease her conscience. She had believed their lies, forgetting centuries of the character she knew him to have.

"I did no such thing," he said, his bitter tone betraying how that stung. "It's right here, with me."

As he spoke, Merlin slid the shallow trunk from under his bed. He would need this sword, enchanted with every bit of magic he could imbue, if he was to face the Questing Beast. He wondered if it would be enough. He had almost not managed it the first time; he had almost lost Arthur to the beast's near-fatal bite. When it had returned a decade later, stronger and rumbling with a darker magic than he had ever faced, they had both come close to perishing. It had taken all of his magic and all of Arthur's skill to strike the killing blow. It had been Excalibur then, as it would have to be now.

But as he folded back the thick red velvet that protected the sword, a fear greater than the beast stole his breath.

"It's gone," he gasped.

Panicked, Merlin rifled through the items left in his trunk, through the half-empty vials of ancient balms that clinked and dried herbs that rustled as they spilt from threadbare pouches. He sifted through bright gemstones, silver rings now tarnished black, a few wax candles with wicks hard and black, and at the bottom, an old Sidhe stave, so dry that the oils in his fingers threatened to crack it open. But the sword… the sword was definitely missing.

It was then that Merlin remembered welcoming the boys into his home. He thought of sitting in the kitchen with Bradley while Colin was apparently ransacking his possessions for the greatest prize of all.

For an instant he was furious with them. For an instant, he felt such anger that he knew he would willingly let them die. It would serve them right, the stupid, rash boys. Who did they think they were, charging in like that? Acting like they were…

Arthur and Merlin.

The truth of it almost knocked him over. They were stupid and rash, yes, but they were also noble and self-sacrificing, and they were doing exactly what they had been brought up to do, since Nimueh had begun folding time and recreating their stories. Their lives had been moulded from the start, not by destiny but by the intrusive hands of one sorceress. Now their deaths had been sealed just as surely by another.

Unless he used the one weapon he had left.

"I've condemned them, haven't I?" Morgana cried. He suspected her tears were genuine, but Merlin, still reeling from her betrayal, spared not a moment for comfort. She had Nimueh for that; he had a king to wake.

"I've stood there and watched you overcome every fear you've ever faced."

If anyone had bothered to look up as they hurried home on that cold December evening, if any one of them had glanced up towards the heavens at just the right moment, they might have seen a dark figure blotting the night time sky. But no one was at Glastonbury Tor that night, and no one noticed as the raven glided from the sky and, once earthbound, shifted without preamble into human form.

There should be mists, Merlin thought as he gazed up at the Tor. The air should have felt heavier and a full moon should have shone down on the shadowy hill. There should have been something, anything, to signal that an event of such importance was about to take place. Instead, there was only the crunch of frosty footsteps and a cloud of haze from his breath as he made his way by the half-hearted light of a gibbous moon.

Is it too ordinary? Merlin wondered. He remembered sending Arthur to his rest on a stormy morning that matched the clamour in his head. Magic crashed against the echoes of the battlefield, and his heart frantically beat in a chest that felt hollow. On a bed that was far too like a funeral bier he had laid the king, relieved of his armour but still wearing his blood-drenched tunic. His power felt fragmented and ragged; only later did he realise it was the first time in decades that he had been isolated, separated from Arthur.

Centuries later, he'd grown used to that isolation. But when he stood at the centre of the tower now, it did not feel ordinary and he no longer felt alone. There was another's presence—Arthur's presence—and he wondered if the Tor knew his intent. Did Arthur feel like it was the early hours of morning, just before daybreak, when his body knew it would soon be time to rise?

The thought that the king was ready gave him the courage he needed. Closing his eyes, Merlin sent his magic outwards. Into the air around him it flowed, falling like rain from the heavens, seeping into invisible cracks in the earth, trickling down to where his lord slept. Into the night he spoke ancient words, beseeching the king of Britain to awaken. "Ic þē besēce, Arthur," he said, "Ic þē besēce, Brytenwalda, āwæc!"

Arthur's face swam before him as he repeated the words, transparent like the finest rice paper. But when Merlin grasped for the image it disappeared, rippling like a pebble dropped in a pond. He froze for just a moment, doubt clawing its icy fingers into his thoughts. He resisted it, melting its sharp edges by repeating the chant, forcing it stronger until his words echoed against the walls of the chamber. As his voice reached out, he felt an answering tension; a reciprocal power met his and returned it, transforming his plea into a command for his king. "Ic þē abidde, mīn cyning." He reached again towards the image of Arthur, now clear enough that he could see eyelids fluttering, that he could feel warm fingers and the cold Pendragon ring. His grip tightening, Merlin pulled as he finished the chant: "Ic þē ābīede, mīn mōdleōfne, ārīse!"

He had imagined—when he had let himself imagine this—that Arthur would ascend from swirling mists, armour polished to a radiant shine and cape resplendent in crimson and gold, looking every bit the king that he was. But that was not the way it happened. One minute Merlin was alone in the empty tower, the residue of his magic still reflecting an unearthly light off the stone walls; the next, he was standing beside a low pallet, upon which a man was fast asleep.

Oddly, the first thing Merlin noticed was that Arthur lay curled on his side. All those many years ago, he had laid the injured king on his back, and in his mind that position had not changed. But apparently over the centuries Arthur had tossed and turned just as he had always done in those nights when they shared a bed. In fact, the way his arm stretched out now, his hand locked in Merlin's, looked like he might be reaching for his bed-mate.

The second thing he noticed was that Arthur was completely unclothed. The soft fur that had once cushioned the king's bed had disintegrated, as had all his clothes; a metal buckle, all that was left of his belt, lay beside him where it had fallen. Untangling their fingers, Merlin quickly conjured a warm throw—its texture might be disorienting to Arthur, but Merlin had grown quite fond of polar fleece—and draped it over him.

At the movement, Arthur opened his eyes. Glazed and groggy, they struggled to focus. Then they met Merlin's and brightened. "Merlin."

Merlin felt his heart swell so much he was sure it was going to burst. "Arthur," he answered.

The king stretched and then sat up, clutching the blanket around his shoulders. As Merlin's keen eyes inspected the long-faded scar on his chest, Arthur, ever the warrior, took in their surroundings. "Where are we?"

He spoke in the old language, which sounded both strange and glorious to Merlin's ears. Merlin responded in kind. "We're in Glestingaburg," he explained, using its ancient name. "Do you remember anything, sire?"

Arthur's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I remember you don't usually call me 'sire'."

Merlin smiled with delight, plus not a small degree of relief that Arthur's mind seemed intact. "There'll be time to call you a prat later. For now, tell me what you remember."

"I remember a battle." he said thoughtfully. His hand wandered up to touch his chest. He looked older, and it took a moment for Merlin to realise this was because he had grown so accustomed to seeing Bradley. "I was wounded and sure I would die. And then you were there." His eyes softened as he looked to Merlin, who nodded and sat on the pallet beside him. "I had the strangest dreams," he continued, never taking his eyes off Merlin. "I heard you sometimes. Talking in your sleep again?"

Merlin shook his head. "It was a sleeping spell. Your injuries were severe—you needed to heal."

"I'd say it worked," said Arthur, rolling his shoulders. "Apart from a little stiffness, I feel fine. But that's to be expected I guess. I feel like I've been out for a month."

Merlin shifted uneasily. He had known this moment was inescapable, but still he dreaded it. Arthur, of course, noticed his hesitation and pounced like a hunting dog on a hare. "Just how long was I asleep?"

His fury when he found out shook the tower to its foundations.

Arthur raged for far longer than Merlin had expected; he wasn't sure whether the king felt especially refreshed after his extended rest or if he had just forgotten how bad the man's temper could be. Still, it was reassuring to see that the king suffered no lingering disabilities. With Merlin countering that he had thought Arthur would die, and that he should be thanked instead of deafened, and even that there were greater things to be worried about, they eventually reached a more civil peace.

"So, mīn heortlufe," said Arthur, his endearment undermining the glare he cast towards Merlin, "since you've finally found it convenient to wake me, I think you'd best show me where we might find that bloody beast."

"And," he added, swinging his legs off the pallet, "some clothes would not go amiss either. If it's convenient, of course."

Just for that, Merlin conjured trousers of the scratchiest wool he could find.

"Do not dismiss this; the beast is an omen."

It was surprisingly easy to get lost in Epping Forest. Away from its groomed trails, the brush grew thick and the woods seemed to stretch in all directions. Colin knew the entrance to the forest was behind him and that they were moving forward, but beyond that he could not say. London reflected down from wintry clouds, its light casting the trees in shadowy greys, making their passage through the crisscrossed gullies a wee bit smoother.

Of course, when two Territorials swept through with their supercharged headlamps, it made everything nearly as bright as day anyway. Colin swerved behind a tree, crashing into Bradley as he made the same manoeuvre. They landed chest to chest, neither moving as the forest exploded in sound light. Colin felt a heart thumping against his chest; he could not tell whether it was his or Bradley's, but he hoped that it was not as deafening as it was in his ears—that it really was not drowning out the crunch of the solders' feet.

The Territorials passed without seeing them, but it was another long second before Colin heard a voice low in his ear.

"I still think I'd prefer a gun."

The thought had crossed Colin's mind, too—what he would not give for an Armalite—but he still elbowed Bradley. "You've got the most powerful sword in the world," he whispered back. "What do you need a gun for?"

"How do we know it's the most powerful? Because some watery tart said so?"

Colin sniggered. "Morgana'll murder you if she catches you calling her that."

Bradley huffed, his breath misting in a little cloud as he squeezed the shoulder of Colin's parka. "We should try to catch them up."

But there was hesitation in his voice. "We don't have to do this," Colin reminded him.

"We do. If what they say is true, then this is what we were born to do." Colin could not read his expression in the shadows, but he knew that Bradley was wearing that impossibly noble look he got sometimes, the one that had lingered even after he had retired his crown and hung up his armour. It was a side of his personality that Colin would never have imagined at their first meeting; now it was so integral that he could not imagine Bradley any other way.

And then he ruined it by prattishly adding, "You just stick to the magic stuff, Morgan. I'll handle the rest."

Colin let Bradley lead as they trailed the foot patrol, trusting him to keep his eyes fixed on the lights ahead while Colin listened for troops behind. At least he was half-listening. In his mind tumbled the words of his spell, and over his tongue they silently slipped. There was no time to stumble over them this time, no leeway for any mispronunciation. Their lives depended on getting it right.

Preoccupied with this thought, Colin failed to notice that Bradley had stopped until he bumped into his back. "Sorry," he muttered. He was surprised, and then worried, that Bradley did not give out to him. "All right?"

"They went over the ridge there," Bradley whispered; Colin saw the vague outline of his arm pointing up the slope ahead of them. "When we near the top we'll need to get down so they don't see us."

Colin opened his mouth, about to mention a dip where the incline was not quite as steep. But before he could utter a sound, the ground around them began to shake. It was like the baying of a pack of dogs, some shrill, some growling, all hungry for blood. "The Questing Beast," he gasped.

Bradley was already racing up the slope when they heard the staccato of gunfire. It drowned out the creature's cries, but only for a minute. Colin chased after him just as the unnatural baying returned, bringing with it all-too-human screams of pain.

"Bradley, wait!" Colin called, but his voice was drowned out in another burst of gunfire. He picked up his speed, trying to catch Bradley, who by now must surely be cresting the hill. The fear that he might go over it alone spurred Colin on. Faster he ran, his legs stretching further, his shoes digging for traction on the wet leaves. And then his leg overstretched, his shoe slipped, and he tumbled. Head over heels, he cursed with each revolution, ending up in pile back at the bottom of the frost-covered hill. The fall was not far, but it was enough to knock out his breath. "Fuck," he wheezed.

Bradley was there even before Colin knew which way was up. He crouched beside him, checking for damage, and sounding more worried than he ought as he asked, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Bruised and embarrassed, but nothing worse. With Bradley's help he got up and brushed away the leaves. "Really, I'm fine," he repeated. He glanced up towards the stark outline of the ridge that came from the soldiers' lamps shining from the other side, and tried to ignore the internal voice helpfully reminding him that every creepy scene in The X-Files had been backlit in the exact same way.

He was about to suggest another go when the ground began to quake. Colin had a fleeting fear that this was it—that this was the Questing Beast descending upon them, but when the floodlights hit them, blinding him, he knew it was a different kind of danger.

"What the hell?" barked the officer stomping toward them, as the handful of men behind him eyed them nervously. Colin noticed that the barrels of their machine guns had shifted only minutely upon seeing them; the observation was not comforting. "What are you two doing out here?"

Colin knew better than to sass a soldier, but Bradley had no such training. He plastered on his most guileless face and said, "We thought we'd just come see what the fuss was about."

"You can't be here. You're disrupting our training exercise." He waved to one of his men. "Hanson, get them out of here."

"That won't be necessary," interrupted Colin, tugging Bradley's sleeve. "We'll just go back now." Go back a hundred yards, double back, and be right back where they started. He tugged again, praying that Bradley would follow.

He did, but so did Hanson a few steps behind. Colin was debating how to lose him, and he suspected Bradley was doing the same as he dragged his feet, but still they moved further and further from the action. They were far enough away that when the beast's horrible baying again shook the forest, followed by sharp rounds of gunfire and more screams, they were too far away to see what had happened. Hanson gripped his gun tighter; Colin knew he was itching to run back to his troop. "Go on," he urged. "We'll be fine."

"Stay here," the soldier ordered, as if to get the last word in.

But staying was not in the cards. Although Colin's instincts told him to run away, he was not surprised when Bradley stepped forward. "Get ready," Colin heard him say. He'd drawn his sword—When did he do that? Colin wondered—and was holding it in the defensive pose that Andreas had taught them both.

The thought of wielding a sword against a beast that was wiping out fully trained soldiers seemed more than slightly insane, but even more unthinkable was letting Bradley go it alone. "I'm ready," he answered, and together they raced back in the direction they'd come.

"If you fight, you die." "Then I die."

"Show me the battlefield," Arthur commanded.

It was a familiar order, one that had always prefaced their skirmishes. The spell was even one he had used frequently at Pierrefonds when he needed to quickly locate someone. But when he tried it now, wanting to project Epping Forest onto what had once been the king's bier, nothing happened.

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose. "In your own time," he sighed, which of course meant he was struggling to rein in his impatience.

"I'm trying," Merlin protested. "It's not working." He repeated the spell, but to no avail. It was like turning a key when the car battery was dead. Dread clawed at his throat, terrible hints that he had exhausted his magic waking Arthur. That spell had not left him fatigued, but perhaps it had just taken him to the limit of his power. And it did not help that the king was eying him as if he was an idiot. "Maybe we're too far away," Merlin murmured, not truly believing it but hoping it could be true. "I always did it at the Chateau. Maybe that has some effect."

But Arthur was dubious. "Did you need to be in Northumbria for the Battle of Ebrauc? As I recall, you once spread all the lands of Deira across my table." His face grew wistful at the memory, and Merlin hoped he would not have to explain that the round table was long gone, as was Arthur's favourite hunting jacket and his wolfhounds and even Blōðughōfi, his favourite stallion. But Arthur seemed to realise that this was not the time. "Try again," he urged. "And this time, concentrate."

Merlin glared; how had he forgotten how infuriating the man could be? But Arthur was unfazed. He reached out his hand, offering it to Merlin. "Come, Merlin. I could not even feel anything then."

"Feel anything?" Merlin repeated. Then he smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Of course!" Centuries of solitude, with no foil for his magic, had turned it inward. It had been so long that he had forgotten there was any other way. But now, when he took the king's offered hand and uttered the spell again, the effect was immediate. If he had felt like a discharged battery before, then Arthur's presence was the boost he needed. With their hands clasped, the image of a forest sprouted on the bed, complete with the rise and fall of the land and tiny transparent trees.

It was not hard to find the Questing Beast. It was at the centre of one of the brightest spots, circled by figures that looked from this vantage like toy soldiers, with rifles spitting out what looked like tiny flint sparks. Their bullets bounced harmlessly off the creature's hide.

"What are they doing?" Arthur asked.

Merlin bit back his cynical retort when he heard the king's genuine confusion. "They're shooting the beast with guns—like a mechanical crossbow, only firing bits of metal instead of arrows. It should slow the bloody thing down at least." But instead the Questing Beast methodically dispatched the troops, its hart hooves like battering rams, its efficient bites leaving corpses littering the scene.

"Is it my imagination or does that look bigger than the last time?"

Arthur's voice was strung tight with tension; Merlin wished that his words were wrong, but he had to agree. Their second Questing Beast had dwarfed the first, and it still would not have been half the size of this one. When it lifted its serpent's head it could clear all but the tallest trees in the wood; its back was so large that even in miniature Merlin could see its fur ripple when it crouched, catlike, to pounce on the men attacking it. There was more gunfire, more tiny, ineffectual sparks, and then more bodies splayed on the ground in the wake of the creature's fangs.

Dragging his eyes from the carnage, Merlin searched the scene for the actors. It was Bradley's golden hair that caught his attention, shining like a crown. He held his sword at the ready, and beside him, inevitably, was Colin; Merlin could almost hear him mispronouncing the ancient words. The two stood dangerously close to the Questing Beast, and Merlin knew it was not just this layout of the map that made them look dreadfully small, even in their overstuffed parkas. "There they are."

Arthur followed the line of his finger, but his gaze landed on the glint of silver, not gold. "You gave my sword to a couple of children?"

"They're not children," argued Merlin, "and I did not give them anything. They took it of their own volition."

Arthur squinted in disbelief. "And you are intent on saving these thieves?"

"Of course I am!" exclaimed Merlin, shocked that Arthur would even suggest such a thing. He wondered if the long sleep could have altered his principles in some way. It was unlikely, but not nearly as implausible as the king he had known condemning anyone to die by the Questing Beast, not after his own history with it. And not nearly as disturbing as the thought that, after his countless deliberations about waking Arthur, they might not stop the creature after all. "I told you, they're only in this because of Nimueh." The voice did not sound like his; it was too high-pitched, too frantic, but it had to be his because it was the same panicked explanation that was running through his mind. "You'll understand when you see them…"

"Yes, yes, I know," interrupted Arthur, a consoling hand squeezing Merlin's shoulder. With his other he pointed down to the images, where the Questing Beast crept ever closer. "But if we want to be of any help to them, we need to get there now."

"Oh." Of course. For so long he had been accused of being unwilling to help; his defensiveness about the subject had become second nature. This was a startling change: someone not only trusted he would take action but stood by his side whatever his decision. It snipped his anger midstream, and Merlin felt a relief that he hoped he would have time to savour later.

But now he had a more important task. He reached for the king's hand again, ready to carry them to the battle site, but Arthur shoved that formality aside and wrapped both arms around Merlin's waist. "We are going to stop the Questing Beast," Arthur said, pressing their chests together, "and then you are going to wake your king properly." He leaned in and pressed his lips to Merlin's. It lasted just for a moment, just long enough for Merlin to notice that his breath was surprisingly sweet, to remember that his kiss still curved into a smile. After so many years it was not nearly enough, but Merlin took it gladly.

The trust granted as the king leaned against him was heartening, and Merlin's voice was strong and sure as he invoked the four corners to grant them safe passage. His magic swelled as he chanted; it rose up the sides of edges that earlier would have contained it, and then spilled over with no effort on his part. It flowed freely now, pouring from him to Arthur and then out into the world, just as it had done centuries before. " Ge, ge byras, aberaþ ūs!" he said, commanding the winds to carry them, and before Merlin could blink they were transported from Glastonbury to Epping Forest.

A chaotic scene met them. In the small clearing ahead, a handful of Territorials had surrounded the Questing Beast; now they dodged its hooves while firing enough rounds of artillery to take out an army. They seemed to only anger the beast, making it flinch and roar viciously.

And there, just a few metres away, were the idiot boys. They were advancing towards the melee, Bradley with Excalibur at the ready and Colin with his hand outstretched towards him. Over blasts of gunfire and snarling it was impossible to hear his words, but Merlin could hazard a guess: the sword in Bradley's hand shimmered with pale icy-blue light. Not a bad try, he had to admit, but against the Questing Beast it was not nearly enough.

Merlin heard the rustle of chain mail as Arthur moved forward. "Are these the thieves then?" the king asked. His imperious voice carried through the forest just as it had once done in the Great Hall, loud and commanding, and first Colin and then Bradley whirled around. The spell broke and Excalibur's light faded, but it was replaced by the covetous gleam in Arthur's eye. "You have my sword."

The boys stared dumbly, mouths gaping, their tongues tied up in knots with all the questions Merlin knew they were dying to ask. He knew what they saw—his own breath had been stolen the first time he saw Arthur prepared for battle, standing tall in his chain mail—but it was only after a second that he realised it was also his old speech that confused them. Colin's eyes sought his for answers, and Merlin decided to spare them. "He says you have something that doesn't belong to you."

Merlin extended his hand and Excalibur flew into it so fast that blue traces of light marked its wake. The sword seemed to twitch; still charged with Colin's magic it demanded more. The metal spoke to his own powers, pulling them like a magnet to the surface until his very skin seemed to stretch with the effort to hold them in. But this was no longer Merlin's weapon to bear. Tilting his head slightly, he presented it to Arthur instead. "Excalibur, my lord."

Arthur's lip quirked up at the half-bow. Merlin waited until he took the sword before returning the smile, but then it was irrepressible. Arthur's joy at holding Excalibur again was palpable and he swung it with the same grace that he always had, rolling his wrist smoothly as he formed elegant arcs. Air swooshed past, his blade creating patterns of such momentary perfection that Merlin had often slowed time just to watch. Now, though, he was overcome to see the king in such motion.

He followed Excalibur's trail until it came back to rest to Arthur's shoulder. The king caught his eye, the question there even before he asked, "Ready, Merlin?"

And like all the many times the king had asked that before, Merlin nodded, knowing that whether he was or not, he had to be Arthur's shield. "Just don't get yourself bit this time."

"Perhaps if you could be quicker with your magic…" came Arthur's retort.

Merlin's returning snigger vanished as they stepped around one of the bodies the beast had discarded. A woman, he saw, lying far too still, and he wished he could spare the time to grant her the proper respect—to wonder if she might have a family, loved ones who would barter their own lives for her survival.

But he forced himself to focus on the three men still dodging the beast's hooves, their machine guns still firing wildly into the air—thankfully away from us, Merlin thought as he and Arthur crept forward. They ended up behind the Questing Beast, which Merlin decided was as good a place as any to begin his spell.

Abidde þone glæm þrȳþswīþ,
þæt ic þæt wælgeuga æfre gebinde…

At his command, a shining sphere appeared in the air above the creature's haunches. No bigger than a fist, it hung there like a full moon, so pale that it looked almost silver in the frosty night. His forefinger tracing through the air, Merlin pulled a strand free and unwound it like a thread from a ball of yarn. He drew the fine cord down, wound it through the beast's legs, then brought it back up to criss-cross the broad back. As the shimmering threads sank into the thick spotted fur, Merlin's memory of their last encounter with the Questing Beast returned. That creature had been much smaller, and he eyed the waning skein to make sure he had enough to complete the spell.

It was intricate work to wrap the oblivious beast's torso, but the most dangerous part of the spell still remained: Slipping the threads around its chest, creating the loops to hobble its front legs, Merlin needed to be under its carriage. Carefully he crept forward, his stomach turning as musky sweat filled his nose. His heart leapt into his throat when a huge hart's hoof landed a crushing blow right beside him. "Hurry, Merlin," Arthur urged—unnecessarily for he was every bit as eager for this to be over, but daring not move too fast lest the creature noticed them.

It was not the creature that spotted them, however, but one of the Territorials. "Oi! You there! Get back!"

Arthur moved forward in that infuriating way Merlin remembered, ending up between the beast and the soldier, Excalibur poised directly level with the gun barrel. "Drop your weapon!" ordered the soldier, but Arthur, who recognised the bellicose tone even if he might not understand the words, took a slow sideways step. It was his familiar battle stance, circling his opponent as he sized them up, but Merlin knew it was also Arthur's way to draw the enemy's focus away from him.

"I said drop it!" the soldier barked again, but of course he followed Arthur's lead. A sword-bearing man was more dangerous than one with just his hand, after all.

Although he had no wish to test the theory, Merlin was fairly certain the Territorial would not shoot a civilian. But he had no such confidence in Arthur's restraint. Merlin could shield Arthur from bullets, of course, but splitting his focus could well unravel his work on the net. "Arthur, get back!" he shouted, but his voice was swallowed by the Questing Beast's roar. So near to his belly Merlin heard not thirty hounds but three hundred, each one snarling and ferocious.

The sound was not what stopped his heart, however; it was how the creature pivoted towards Arthur and the soldier. Above Merlin, muscles undulated wildly and the furred chest heaved, making the very ground spin beneath him. The serpent head drew back, poised to strike with that lethal bite that had come so terribly close to taking Arthur before. "Scielde!", Merlin commanded, pouring his magic into a momentary shield around the king. The thread slipped from his grasp, the metallic threads so intricately woven fast coming unwound, but Merlin did not notice. All he saw was the thin barrier his spell had created between Arthur and the beast and that was enough. He might have accepted that he would watch Arthur die someday, but there was no way he would let it happen tonight.

"Hey! Over here!"

The giant muscles over Merlin's head froze, four legs stiffening around him like solid steel girders when the Questing Beast turned to the sounds. Merlin turned too as the boys dashed out of the bushes, yelling at the top of their lungs. Both were unarmed; Bradley had even taken off his coat and was waving it to attract even more attention. "Idiots," Merlin muttered.

The soldiers were obviously thinking the same thing. They had stopped firing at least, a silence the Questing Beast filled with another fierce growl. It bounced forward, barely missing Merlin's shoulder; an almost overpowering odour assaulted him as it passed, aggression and musk mingling in the creature's shaggy fur. Someone grabbed his arm and pulled him free. Arthur, his mind filled in, while his heart fell at the sight of his carefully wrought spell unwinding.

"Do something!" Arthur demanded.

Merlin watched as the creature's heavy hoof batted another soldier to the ground, and as Colin, standing beside him, narrowly ducked out of the way. His face was a ghostly pale when he rose; Merlin was certain his looked the same. In the same instant, Bradley darted by, brandishing his coat even more frantically to distract the beast and giving Colin time to crouch beside the soldier.

Merlin knew they needed help, but when he raised his eyes, his heart fell. The silver threads he'd woven were now just a loose web that looked like frost across the beast's back. It might be sufficient bind its hindquarters, but the rest of its body would be just as deadly. "But I didn't finish—"

"Just do it, Merlin," insisted Arthur.

His voice brooked no protest, commanding with that authority that Merlin had almost forgotten he possessed. And couched within it was that faith that Merlin could. It was that trust that did it—that, Merlin could not disappoint. "Bebind!" he commanded, shoving all his magic forward until he felt the surge that turned his eyes glowing gold. Instantly the gossamer threads tightened and like the biggest goose ever trussed, the Questing Beast's legs folded into its chest. Furious, it bellowed louder than before, a harrowing cry sure to wake all of Essex.

Grappling for balance on its two free legs it still tried to reach for the men, its serpent head bobbing and dancing as wildly as a charmed cobra. The soldier still trying to corner he and Arthur was taken by surprise when he turned his back on the beast; a frantic thrust of its rump knocked him to the ground. Without hesitation, Merlin cast a quick spell to drag him out of harm's way. He knew he should have checked his injuries first, but that would have to wait.

Gunfire from the last remaining soldier drew his attention back, but it was on Arthur that Merlin's eyes locked. In the scant seconds that Merlin's back was turned, the fool had rushed into the creature's sights, as if eager to meet his death. Merlin knew Arthur had to get past its leather-tough hide and armour-hard scales, that the only way to kill the Questing Beast was by piercing its vulnerable throat, but that necessity was little comfort. Nor was the knowledge that Arthur had not changed at all—that he was still as reckless as he had ever been. The serpent struck towards him and Arthur threw himself into a roll, deftly somersaulting out of its reach. A moment of awe almost assuaged Merlin's panic—how could someone immobile for so many centuries still move like a kid?

But in the next instant the beast doubled back, almost faster than the eye could follow, and struck another, deadlier blow. Merlin screamed as its maw widened, as venomous fangs descended on the king. In his head it sounded like a warning or a curse or maybe just a frantic no!, but then he sensed it, that elemental pull of power, instinctual as the first day he arrived in Camelot and just as unfettered by the words of spells. Time ground to a halt as all their stories melded into one. He watched as another Questing Beast crouched over Arthur's body, its hood obscuring the prince from sight; he shuddered as a second one dove from the cliff ledge and knocked the king to his knees. Twice he had almost lost Arthur to these creatures, and Merlin's magic rebelled against another sacrifice. It caught the beast in its thrall, dragging it to a halt just long enough for Arthur to surge forward and find the softness of its throat.

"Now, Merlin!" Arthur commanded, his sword held high above his head, and Merlin stretched out his hand.

"Bregdan ānweald Excalibur…"

Power surged through him as he incanted, this time controlled and directed. Stronger than it had been in centuries, it rushed towards the king and into his sword. In Arthur's hands the metal blazed, its edges shining startling white and its core brilliant blue, the same intense shades that lived inside the hottest flames. Its heat seared Merlin's skin even from this distance; or maybe it was his heat that fuelled the sword, that turned the crude metal into something as strong and unstoppable as lava carving the sides of a volcano.

Or maybe they were the same, Merlin and Excalibur, both Arthur's tools as they plunged into the Questing Beast's throat. He could feel the blade as it thrust deeper, using strength that was not his to cut through the tough flesh. He knew the whip-snap shudder of its muscles and the violent rush of blood exiting its body. Through the thrashing death throes of the beast Merlin held on tightly, coming close to being unbalanced though he stood on solid ground. And finally his feet steadied as the beast rocked to a halt, its massive body trembling, its sharp hoof twitching one last time.

Only after it stilled completely did Merlin step away both exhilarated and unnerved by this connection to someone outside himself. He did not feel that exhaustion that he usually felt, that he'd felt for centuries. Adrenaline still raced through his veins and his ears echoed with the Questing Beast's cries even in the hushed forest. But he was still standing, his body unbruised and his magic still strong, and it was such a glorious feeling that he grinned as Arthur approached.

"Well done," the king said, grinning back when he added, "You managed to not get us both killed." His skin shone with sweat, his fringe plastered down on his forehead, and he looked every bit the conquering hero as he clapped Merlin on the shoulder. "Now, how about getting us out of here?"

"That your and Arthur's path lies together is but the truth."

It took only a few words to transform the Questing Beast into a more recognisable animal and tinker with the surviving soldiers' memories; in the morning, Morgana could release a few stories about the aggressive hippopotamus and put an end to this whole affair. Merlin swore he would never again believe a single word he read in her papers.

The scene cleaned up as well as it could be, Merlin whisked the four of them away from the aftermath. They landed in the tarmac car park of a nearby pub, thankfully closed up tight this time of night—Merlin knew there would be quite enough explanations necessary between just his three companions, what with the boys' awed stares and Arthur's incredulous wonder at the glowing street lamps.

Bradley spoke first, but he didn't get any further than "is this…" before his voice was stolen by the presence of royalty and legend.

But the words were enough to draw Arthur's attention down from the lamp pole. His face was cast with the same fascination that Merlin had felt upon arriving in Pierrefonds. "Perhaps you should present them, Merlin," he suggested, and added with a wry grin, "They look as alarmed as poor Gareth on his wedding morn."

The recollection of the poor knight looking whiter than his flax shift was one Merlin had forgotten, but his returning smile had more to do with his own joy that they could once again share these recollections. Gods, but I've missed this, he thought. "Sire," he announced aloud, surprising himself with the unintended reverence in his tone, "may I present Colin Morgan from the kingdom of Ulster and Bradley James of Devonshire."

He turned to the boys then, whose attention had been piqued by the sound of their names shrouded in the older tongue, and who gaped at him demanding a translation. "And to you, I present Arthur, King of the Britons," he announced. When the boys still stood, dumbstruck and unmoving, Merlin took pity on them. Lowering his voice, he proposed, "You should probably bow now; he likes that."

Immediately they both bent nearly double, causing Arthur to chuckle with delight. "Uncanny," he said, stepping closer and peering at them through sparkling eyes. "I had forgotten what a scrawny thing you once were, Merlin. Still had the ears, though, even back then."

Merlin huffed. "And there was once a time you were fit, before the kitchen spoiled you with all those extra helpings of hazelnut crumble."

Arthur's head snapped back towards him, his glare looking every bit as fierce as it had in the midst of battle. "That's treason!" he spat. "How dare you mention hazelnut crumble after I have fasted for… did you not say fifteen centuries?"

The boys, with heads still bowed, were whispering in confusion. It was fortunate that Colin's knowledge of the old language was confined to spells, Merlin decided. It really was regrettable that he had not had the advantage of a second language in Camelot. It would have been very useful in dealing with the royal "advisors" and their disapproving glances whenever he spoke plainly to the king.

"He's disappointed to learn there are no stocks anymore," Merlin answered their hushed queries. "He says that's fitting punishment for guests who steal from their host."

Bradley had the good sense to look contrite, but Colin protested. "We're sorry, we just thought…"

"I know what you thought," Merlin snapped, "and you were wrong. This was never your destiny, and it almost got you killed. Really, what were you—"

"What nonsense are you putting into their heads, Merlin?"

Arthur's question pulled him up short, making him feel like a yo-yo yanked back into the hand—an extremely disgruntled yo-yo that much preferred the steady pull of gravity to this back-and-forth. "I was explaining how irritable you are when you first wake up," he grumbled.

Countless times, Merlin had told the king not to roll his eyes, that it made him look decidedly un-royal; it was time to point that out again, apparently, but Arthur seemed intent on schooling him first. "You are lecturing them, and from the looks of things they already know what they did wrong." He stood before Bradley, gazing at him like he might be looking into a mirror. "They might be foolish, but they were very brave tonight."

"Yes," conceded Merlin, "they were."

"Tell them that," Arthur commanded.

Merlin stifled his instinctive protest; Arthur was right and they did deserve the praise. "The king wants you to know that you're both idiots, but brave ones."

The young men looked first relieved, and then grew chuffed. As they should be, Merlin admitted. He had been scared out of his wits when he faced his first Questing Beast—and his second and his third. Bradley and Colin had handled themselves admirably.

"And," continued the king, "that should I have need of knights, I will call upon them."

Merlin arched his brow in warning. "Now, let's not go overboard."

But Arthur would not be dissuaded. "Tell them."

This time Merlin did not bother to suppress his sigh. "He also wants you to know that he has graciously decided not to throw you into the stocks, but that now you are both to go home and behave yourselves. You should thank him and take your leave."

The boys quickly acquiesced, bowing again as they stammered their goodbyes. Arthur seemed terribly amused by the whole thing, struggling to bite back his laughter as first Bradley and then Colin backed away, and Merlin imagined how much he would enjoy hearing the whole tale. Merlin wishes them well as they departed, close enough that their shoulders kept bumping and their hands might as well be entwined. To go from battling a legendary monster to catching the train home demanded extraordinary resilience, but he hoped—for all their sakes—that their adventures were over.

It was Arthur's future he was more concerned with now, and his thoughts filled with the wonders the king was about to experience. Merlin had found it extraordinary and not a little disconcerting to watch these actors step from their world into his distant memories. Now, as Arthur stepped out of those memories and into the twenty-first century, Merlin knew his earlier dissonance had been nothing. There, in the hazy light of a Chingford car park, he was struck anew with what was happening. A brand new world awaited them, and the thought made his heart race in equal parts terror and exhilaration.

Arthur, as usual, was focused on more practical matters. He stalked back over and clasped Merlin's shoulder. "God's teeth, but I'm famished. Hazelnut crumble, I should think." Arthur's stomach rumbled, centuries of hunger demanding to be heard. "And boar with berries… but it's winter, isn't it? In that case, compote will have to do."

The mention of these rich foods made Merlin's stomach growl, too, but vegetable soup and day-old mash were all he had to offer. Reluctant as he was to disappoint the king, he shook his head. "I'm afraid you'll find things very different now."

"I expect that many things are," Arthur admitted.

His voice was so wistful that Merlin battled a fleeting moment of regret. It was one thing to lose what you'd known with the gradual passage of time; it was quite another to wake up to know your loved ones were dust, your life but a page in history books. What if Arthur could not abide this new world; what if he was better off dreaming? Suddenly Merlin found the cracked pavement below his feet fascinating, the loose pebbles so much easier to look at than the man before him.

"Merlin?"

Arthur's hand curved around his chin and tilted it back up, bringing Merlin's focus back. It was not the pompous act of someone who always demanded his attention, although the king could certainly be that. Now there was a question in his tone, an uncertain cast in his eyes. "I know this world is different," he said, "but I must know that not everything has changed."

Merlin was startled to recognise some of his own fear reflected back. It would have been unnoticeable, had it not looked so misplaced on this face that never revealed such weakness. Not us, Arthur was asking.

Merlin was no seer, and he had no idea what the future held for any of them. But one thing he knew—had known almost since arriving in Camelot. Destiny might have joined their futures, but it was a force even more powerful that had bound them together.

"No, Arthur," Merlin said, feeling more confident than he had in centuries. His hand slipped behind the king's neck, pulled him closer, his fingers twisting in the long uncut strands of hair. Arthur's lips met his, dry and even softer than he remembered, as Merlin assured him, "Some things will never change."

Much later, when Arthur asked how they had gotten home, Merlin could not say. It had been a mere thought... no, a need that carried them, faster than the winds and more gently than a lapping wave, that deposited them in the bed where Merlin had slept, alone, for longer than any man should have to remember. It had been a mere touch of his hand to Arthur's chest that banished their clothes—another unconscious act, perhaps, but deliberate all the same. As deliberate as Arthur's touch, his hands soft and lacking the calluses from swordplay but no less sure for that. They pressed Merlin into the mattress until his body had no choice but to reshape itself around the king. Reshaping, relearning, reawakening... these felt like the words of a spell that Merlin had forgotten long ago, remembering... Remembering how Arthur's skin smelled, fresh, like being in a mossy wood right after an unexpected rain... the heaviness on his chest as Arthur pressed until Merlin wondered that he could still breathe... the stretch in his hips, the sheer surrender as he splayed his legs and let Arthur sink between them... the rake of kisses that burned across Merlin's skin, each one claiming him as if Arthur could somehow doubt that Merlin was already his...

"Arthur," groaned Merlin, for no other reason than to hear the response. He needed to know that this was no illusion on the Tor, that he was not once again wrapping himself in the spectre of the king.

Teeth attacked his nipple then, and Merlin was sure this was no ghost even before Arthur looked up. His skin was flushed and his lips were red as cherries, and Merlin's imaginings had never looked so cranky when they were interrupted. "Unless you're about to tell me where you keep the oil, I do think it can wait."

Oh. It took a moment's concentration to conjure a small pot of the balm that Arthur favoured; the faint scent of bergamot tickled his nose as he handed it over. "Fifteen hundred years," said Arthur as he took it, leaning back and continuing some conversation that apparently Merlin was supposed to follow.

"At least you've been asleep," countered Merlin. "Not... ah," he stammered as a finger traced a slick circle around his hole, slipped teasingly inside for moment, then retreated to stroke the tender skin outside.

"And you've been missing this?" asked the king, with a puckish smile that was rapidly reminding Merlin what a sadistic bastard he could be.

"Not so much," he replied, although his voice sounded far too shaky to be convincing.

"Really?" queried Arthur, slipping his finger knuckle deep, then sliding a complete orbit around the tight muscle. "You haven't missed this at all?" The stretch was so intense, so intimate—Merlin's eyes threatened to fall closed but Arthur's gaze would not let him escape. "I'll remind you that it's treason to lie to your king."

Another finger joined the first, twisting so the knuckles scraped along Merlin's tender skin. Merlin swallowed back his gasp as Arthur pumped into him, once, twice, fighting to control his hips that threatened to betray him by pressing back against the intrusion. "I got by," he finally croaked.

Merlin was not expecting Arthur's growl, nor for his free arm to grab Merlin's waist so suddenly that he brought them face to face. Gravity tugged on him, those presumptuous fingers crashing into him in almost obscene waves of pleasure. He whimpered despite himself, and Arthur smirked. "So you don't want this, then?"

His grin did not fade, not even when Merlin tried to kiss it off of him. Merlin felt it curve as their lips collided, he tasted its smugness as his tongue swept across Arthur's teeth, and he knew that he could not win. The gods knew he had always hated giving Arthur the upper hand, but that no longer mattered, not when Arthur's smile grew even wider as Merlin said, "You know what I want."

With a very unroyal grunt (which Merlin graciously refrained from mentioning), Arthur lifted him, his erection sliding along the crease of Merlin's cheeks until Arthur positioned him and pressed inside. The breach burned, piercing him with intensely pleasurable pain. Heat stretched his muscles so much wider than those intrusive fingers, seeping through his whole body until it reached the tips of his ears, until he was fully seated in Arthur's lap. He let the burn fade just for a second, then "Gods, Merlin, move," groaned the king.

Merlin took the demand as a royal edict, rising slowly at first, lowering himself at a snail's pace, letting his body savour the sensation of moulding itself around Arthur, of being filled absolutely. But spurred on by Arthur's helpless mewling sounds each time Merlin plunged himself all the way down, by their mutual gasps at the friction as he rose, their motions grew faster, more frantic. The sounds, the sheen of sweat on Arthur's chest, the hard grip on Merlin's hips guiding him up and down—it soon became too much, and Merlin let his eyes sink closed.

Surely it was some kind of unconscious magic that took over then, that cradled them as their hips slammed together, again and again, helping Merlin forget he no longer had teenaged knees and that gravity was no friend. But through it all, he could tell it was Arthur's hands on him, bracing his hips, making him feel so incredibly light, and terribly alive like he'd not felt in centuries. It was that hand that slid across his stomach, his palm wrapping around his cock, stripping it in that stuttered rhythm that never failed to bring him off. And it was Arthur's desperate mewl, drawn out into a keen that became Merlin's name, that soon tipped him over the edge, leaving him shattered and helplessly clawing at Arthur's back as he came.

Arthur was precious little support, though. He toppled gracelessly on top of Merlin, letting out an inelegant "ooph" as the air got knocked out of them both. Merlin shoved him over to the side, though not too far. Their sides still pressed against each other, all the way down, and their fingers joined up in a proper tangle as they panted their way back to life.

Merlin was already drifting into that pleasant after-sex haze when he felt something brush his cheek. His weary eyelids fluttered open to see Arthur's eyes staring down at him like twin skies. "You're not tired at all, are you?"

Arthur shook his head with the smallest of smiles. "Not surprisingly, I feel rather well rested." His finger stroked down the length of Merlin's jaw, and Merlin gave in to the temptation to curl into it like a cat, kissing the knuckle when it reached his chin. "Sleep now," urged Arthur softly, bundling Merlin up so he fit into his broad chest. "I'll be right here when you wake."

Merlin had lived long enough to remember when "they lived happily ever after" was a new fad. Real people did not live happily ever after and the point of Hollywood endings had always eluded him. There was always another quest calling as soon as the first was over, just like the end of one war always sowed the seeds of the next. The only real ending was when the hero died, and that could rarely be called happy.

But now, with Arthur's body curved flush around him, his warm breath tickling the back of Merlin's neck and wooing him back into sleep, Merlin could believe that the idea of happily ever after might have merit after all.

"We haven't done all the things we're meant to do."

It was earlier than most people rose in southern California. The wintry dawn was just creeping over the mountains, gently spreading morning over the red tiled homes where Malibu's richest residents slept. Nimueh, who had been awake for hours, sipped Kona at the edge of her balcony, watching the ocean fade from inky black to a rippling slate grey.

Things had been so different since she returned to Los Angeles. She rarely slept anymore, for one. The hum of the freeways had once been comforting, as had the cool, clean lines of her ultra-modern beach home. Now they felt as cold and aloof as the unmussed sheets beside her, this brushed steel and the people endlessly driving, somewhere, anywhere. They reminded her of her restlessness and refused to let her mind still, even for an instant.

It was not boredom that plagued her nowadays, but the sense that after coming so close to what she wanted, she had let it slip away. This was not a feeling that Nimueh was used to. Oh, she had been denied many times, but this… this was different. But L.A. in all its temporariness was a very good place to remember that life kept moving on, just like the sun kept rising and setting—that trying to hold on was like trying to catch the blade of a dagger in your palm, where the steel only felt warm until you realised that you had been cut.

The chirrup of her mobile interrupted her musings; in the time it took her to reach for it, she had shaken off her moroseness and become the epitome of the professional businesswoman.

"Good morning, Ms. Lachlan. I have your calls." Her assistant sounded abnormally chipper, as he had since their return. Apparently half a year in rural France was enough to eradicate any Gallic mystique. And for some unfathomable reason, his cultivated R.P. now slid into something resembling a Welsh accent, even after several months back. "Ms Coppola wants to see if you might be free for lunch next week, and Mr Abrams rang three times yesterday, he's desperate for your help with that new Star Trek film."

Yes, life kept moving on, but some things stayed the same. In Hollywood, it was still all about who you knew. "Squeeze Sofia in whenever you can," Nimueh instructed. "And tell J.J. I got the dailies. I do wish that man could make some decisions on his own."

While her assistant took a moment to scribble notes, Nimueh watched a single gull sail across her vision. It seemed to float effortlessly on the wind, but she knew thousands of minute adjustments helped maintain such perfect balance. Very like the adjustments she was learning to make now, she realised, tempering her powers in this new world. Things could turn too easy, if she let them. She could reassemble time to squeeze in hundreds of lunches. She could sort J.J.'s messy ramblings with the snap of a finger. The challenge was in the restraint—there was no need to flap her wings frantically, not when the winds were there to lift her. Someday, and soon she hoped, this would all come to her as naturally as flying did to the gull.

Her musings were interrupted by her assistant. "An email just came in that I think you should see. I'm texting it over now."

He sounded far from pleased; when she read the message, she saw why. She had not done this, not consciously at least, but she could not stop the little flip of her heart—an acrobatic move she had not thought it still capable of. "Sean…"

"Yes, I'm already cancelling your appointments. Shall I book your flight as well?"

Her smile was too wide to contain, and a jetliner far too slow for her journey. "That's not necessary. But perhaps you should get your bags packed."

She hung up the phone before he could begin his inevitable groan.

It had been well over a year since Nimueh had visited Cornwall.

Merlin's cottage was every bit as ramshackle as she remembered, perhaps more so now that he had added several extensions. They clamoured on top of each other like white fungi growing on a log, sharing a rooftop of continuous curves that far surpassed the skills of most modern roofers and would have challenged even the finest craftsmen.

It appeared that Merlin was re-adjusting to his powers as well.

Cautiously, she stepped towards the door—less because she feared her welcome than because Miu Miu suede pumps were designed for red carpets, not the red moss that crowded this flagstone path. Still, she felt a moment's hesitation as she stood there. If he still blamed her for all that had happened, she hoped that, in Arthur, he also had reason to thank her. And so, taking a deep breath, she lifted the door knocker. She could easily have entered the cottage without notice, but the temptation to do so had vanished. After putting their lives on display for a year, the least she could do was grant them a little privacy.

The door opened, releasing the sweet scent of stewed berries into the chilly air. She breathed deep; it was a smell of such domesticity, of warmth and safety and home, that she could not restrain leaning towards it. Her eyes widened when she saw that it was Arthur, not Merlin, standing before her.

"Nimueh?" he asked, sounding both incredulous and amused.

"Your Highness." She bowed slightly, reluctant to take her eyes off him. Morgana had warned her that he had not changed, but it was truly remarkable to see the king of Camelot standing there as if he had stepped out of time. Save for the soft navy jumper and jeans, of course. "I would not have expected the king to open his own doors," she remarked.

His returning smirk was one she did not remember, but she liked the way it made the lines around his eyes crinkle. "I think I've had enough of being king." When she shivered—there was a reason the English loved southern California so, and she was smack in the third month of it—his eyes narrowed. "I would invite you in, but I doubt Merlin will be glad to see you."

"No," she admitted, unable to stop her lip curling up as she added, "I'm sure he won't."

He studied her for just a second and then his smile stretched up, too. "In that case, you'd better come in."

As she stepped into the warm cottage, she noticed the changes in the sitting room. It was still arranged for comfort, but was larger now, and much neater. Two comfortable armchairs as well as a sofa were nestled around the fireplace. Nimueh could not help but notice that the new armchair looked rather throne-like, and that beside it rose a precarious tower of books. She glanced at some of the titles—Historia Regum Britanniae, Le Morte d'Arthur, The Sword in the Stone—"Arthurian legends?" she asked, trying to stifle her laugh. "You're able to read those?"

The answer came from across the room. "It's amazing to see his motivation when it's about him."

She turned quickly to find Merlin standing in the door to the kitchen. He wore a red apron, covered in spatters of stains—a step up from that neckerchief, she supposed. What had not changed was that his eyes were all for Arthur; they twinkled when he teased, "A millennium of sleep's made him no less an egotistical prat."

"It's history," groused the king.

"Of course it is," Merlin placated. His gaze shifted to Nimueh. "So. What trouble have you brought us this time?"

He sounded more curious than disgruntled, she was happy to note, though he still rolled his eyes when she chided, "Now, Merlin, what makes you think I bring trouble?" At Arthur's gesture, she sat on the sofa. "I suppose you've both heard about the programme, that it's doing very well."

"We might have heard something about it," said Merlin a little too casually, disposing of the apron and sliding into his chair.

Arthur laughed. "And you call me egotistical?" He sat as well, not in his throne but on the arm of Merlin's chair. His gaze dropped to the dark hair beneath him, although his words were directed to Nimueh. "Not only do I have to watch, but I also get to hear how none of it would be possible without this one's input."

"Oh, and who was it threatening beheadings when the power went out last Sunday?"

Their banter sounded practised, their jabs sliding off each other like cogs in a well-oiled machine. She wondered that they had never tired of this, that they had picked up right where they left off and still took such obvious delight in trying to best each other; she wondered what it would be like to share her life with someone who truly was her equal.

She wondered if that was not the real reason she had returned.

"The Home Office re-opened our case," she explained. "They've decided that in light of recent events"—she nodded towards Arthur—"we'll be allowed to finish the last episode. And if that goes well, the BBC is giving us the green light on a second series."

Merlin frowned at her, making him look surprisingly ghoulish. Arthur, on the other hand, leaned forward. "There'll be more?" His voice rose with excitement, ignoring Merlin's scowl.

Why could Merlin not be this easy, Nimueh thought. "That's why I'm here, actually. We've run into a few problems; we were going to use Speech House Lake for the Isle of the Blessed, but our site scout says it's just vanished."

"You don't say?" asked Arthur with mocking incredulity. He dropped lower to lean on Merlin's shoulder. "You wouldn't know anything about a vanishing lake, would you, mīn heortlufe?"

Merlin raised his eyebrows and dropped his jowls. "Nope," he replied, somehow managing to fire off a glare at Arthur at the same time. "I reckon you'll have to cancel production then?"

"Oh, no," Nimueh assured him. "We've scouted another site. A better one, actually. In fact, it's where you met the wyverns…"

"You're not filming that!" Merlin interrupted. She wondered if he objected to the series itself or to the particulars of that story; from the way his cheeks burned crimson, and the intimate memories she had seen from Merlin's mind, she suspected the latter.

"Of course we are—it's one of the highlights planned for the second year." When he blushed more, she added, "We'll tone it down for a family audience, of course."

"Hang on," Arthur interjected, leaving Merlin's lips flopping like a gasping fish. "When you did this before, you brought these creatures back to life. How do you plan to stop that from happening this time?"

Nimueh started to answer, but was surprised to hear Merlin speak. "We won't have to. They came back because the magical order was unstable. We thought just our powers were growing, but it turned out that the creatures' were too."

"And that won't happen again? You're sure of that?"

Could they ever really be sure? Nimueh wondered. Only time would truly tell. But there was no reason to rile Merlin again; at the moment, tucked away in his warm, safe home, with Arthur draped over him and the years stretching out ahead of them, he seemed surprisingly amenable. It was such a cosy image, one that gave her a pang of envy—and a surprising reluctance to upset—and so she simply replied, "Now you've returned and there is balance."

Merlin reached his hand over Arthur's thigh and tangled their fingers together. She saw Morgana's hand instead, her own fingers bounded by Morgana's rings. The image felt so real that when Merlin said, "I've come as close to thanking you as I'm going to, Nimueh," the words did not even bother her.

"I didn't come for thanks," she said, and she honestly meant it. "I wanted to ask if you would join in. This is when the fun really begins, after all."

A long look passed between them, and Nimueh leaned forward. To her astonishment, she was surprisingly eager for their answer. When she had sucked Merlin into this whole thing before, her motivation was mischief and manipulation. It was different this time; now she truly hoped that they might join her—her and Morgana—in this creation.

But when their gazes shifted to contentment, she knew what their answer would be, and it sounded right when Arthur said, "I think we'll pass. We've already lived that once."

"I think it's time for something new," agreed Merlin. He looked up at her and his smile spread, more open than she had ever seen it. His magic swept through the room, warm and for once, affectionate, wrapping around her shoulders snug as a woven shawl.

Yes, Nimueh mused, something new. Perhaps that was just what she needed, too.