The room was frozen, but Arthur raced forward to pick Morgana up off the floor and Merlin was only a step behind him.

"We need to get her up to the infirmary," he whispered, leading Arthur toward the door. Before he reached it, Merlin turned to the rest of the Council. "I'm sure you understand, but this is far more important than sitting and arguing about everything."

In spite of himself, Arthur smiled. Merlin was finally acting like his cheeky self again, and that was one bit of good news at least.

The doorway unsealed itself as he carried Morgana toward it. While it might have been slightly faster to simply teleport to the infirmary, such magic didn't work in the MIB offices for obvious security reasons.

She was light in his arms, far lighter than he thought she should be. Whatever had been happening with her hadn't been good for her health and well-being. He could only hope that Gaius would be able to pinpoint the problem and deal with it.

Merlin was at his side as he stepped into the elevator and took it back up to the infirmary. "Is she going to be alright, do you think?" he asked, pulling a handkerchief from somewhere and wiping away some of the blood on her face. "I mean, it doesn't look good, but she doesn't deserve this."

"No, she doesn't." Arthur adjusted his grip on her and her head lolled against his shoulder. "I don't know. I've never seen anything like this."

"Gaius should be able to do something for her, though, right?"

"We can only hope." Arthur didn't want to mention the times that some kind of malicious magic had stolen members of the MIB from them, how something as simple as an animation spell had gone horribly wrong while Arthur was confined to a be in the infirmary, and how he could do nothing but watch as the person they were trying to save slowly turned to stone. No amount of reanimation spells had been able to return the person to life, though they had managed to turn the body back to flesh.

Gaius looked up as they walked in and turned visibly paler at the sight of Morgana in Arthur's arms. "Set her down on the bed. I told her she should come in for a check-up weeks ago."

"She said she had."

"Arthur, she's as bad as you are when it comes to check-ups. You should know this." He sighed, moving to her side to check her vitals. "I fear this is more serious than even I was expecting. When Leon mentioned she was having strange mood swings and seemed to be forgetting things, I thought it might be exhaustion. She has been working later over the past few months. But this..." He frowned down at the blood staining her lip. "This looks like an attack of some sort. A curse, perhaps."

"A curse? What kind of curse could cause all this?"

"I don't know." Gaius glanced up at him, then at Merlin. "I think the two of you need to search her office, see if you can find something that might have caused this. Anything that looks out of place or could point to what might have happened. I don't know how much I'm going to be able to get from my readings, but as she spends the most time in there, it's the most likely place to find some indication of the cause of this. If it is a curse, perhaps it's likely whatever item delivered the curse is there."

"Will she be alright?" Merlin asked. "Will you be able to fix it?"

Arthur had a sudden stab of jealousy as it occurred to him Merlin might like Morgana. True, he would know by now that Morgana was in a relationship with Leon, but even then, he would have no reason to care about Arthur in the same way. Shoving the feeling aside, he decided to focus on more pressing issues. Morgana was his cousin, and he loved her. He loved the moments they would get into a battle of wits in the halls, insulting one another playfully until the people around them begged them to stop for the sake of peace. He loved knowing that she was largely only concerned with his well-being, even when she took actions that seemed punitive to him. He wanted her to realize that he cared just as much about her, even if he didn't always mention it. She was like a sister to him, and he definitely didn't want to know what life would be like if she wasn't there.

"I don't know," Gaius admitted. "I hope so, though."

"We'll leave you to it," Arthur cut in. "Come on, Merlin. We have something we need to do."

It had been a while since Arthur had been in Morgana's office, but he hadn't been expecting it to be this different. Normally, she kept the room scrupulously clean. She wasn't obsessed with keeping everything in a very specific order, but she often regaled him with the merits of a clean office space upon visiting his more cluttered desk.

Now, it was like something or someone had torn through her office. There were papers scattered across her desk and floor, some crumpled and stained with ink and what looked alarmingly like blood. There were tissues also stained with blood tossed in the general vicinity of the garbage bin—tissue which could only have been used that day, as the bins were emptied every night for the sake of security and sanitation. The books which sat by the window behind her desk had been shoved onto the floor and left where they lay, folding the pages in awkward shapes. In the corner, there was broken glass glittering against the carpet, and a damp spot where some sort of liquid—water, most likely—had seeped into it.

"It wasn't like this last time," Merlin murmured. "Did someone already search through here?"

"I don't think so," Arthur said, though it chilled him to do so. "I think Morgana did this."

He wondered how long it had been since someone else was in her office. Something as extensive as this was sure to be noticed and gossiped about, unless she had done something to prevent people from noticing. This was, to his mind, a visual representation of everything that was currently wrong with Morgana. Something was wrong in her head, something had changed, and they didn't know what that might be.

"Before we touch anything in here, we need gloves." Arthur turned back the way they had come. "If we're dealing with something that might have cursed her, there's no telling what it might be, and I don't want to risk either of us running afoul of it."

It was a quick dash down to their desks, as all members of the office of Misapplied Magics had a pair of gloves to ward off the effects of any cursed items. Merlin had never used his, as they hadn't been out in the field for anything more major than taking a statement from someone whose enchanted items had been stolen, but even he had them. Arthur had been sure to get a pair like his, which stood up to more than the standard variety of curses people tended to put on objects. Working with him would eventually bring Merlin in contact with some of the worst people and the worst spells ever conceived by man. In those instances, it was better to be seen as paranoid than to be underprepared.

When they returned to the room, Arthur had to take another moment to stare at the mess. Whatever had happened to Morgana, it was destroying who she was. She would never have let her office get into such a state. She would have scoffed at the very idea of neglecting her space to this degree. There was, upon second viewing, a sensation of madness and desperation to everything he was seeing, like she had been searching frantically for something, but nothing was making sense.

Even where he was standing, nothing was making sense.

Merlin started picking up the paperwork off the floor, setting it aside in a neat pile by the door where they could go over it later. Arthur moved to her desk and sat down, starting to do the same with the paperwork on it, wincing when one of the piles slipped onto the floor.

"It's fine," Merlin told him, going to pick it up before Arthur could move. "She has let it accumulate, hasn't she?"

"I think this is just how much she has in any given day." He smiled ruefully. "There is a reason I'd like to stay where I am in Misapplied Magics, and it has everything to do with the sheer volume of paperwork everyone else has to do."

Going back to his work, he started paying more attention to the paperwork he was shifting. There were forms for item requisition, papers needed her signature to approve certain uses of artifacts they held in storage for research purposes. A small cluster of applications was part of the deluge, all for various positions throughout the MIB, as well as a couple transfer requests from a couple of the branches up north. None of them had been addressed that he could see, shoved to the side and buried under a small mound of food wrappers. He transferred the wrappers to the bin after checking through it for anything unusual. Other than a couple crumpled up forms, which he summarily rescued since he couldn't be sure as to their original intended fate, there wasn't anything interesting among the trash.

By the time he had the top of the desk in some semblance of order, Merlin was picking up the books that had ended up on the floor, whispering a restoration spell or two as necessary.

Arthur set the paperwork to the side and started opening the drawers in the desk. In the first, he found a packet of blank forms resting on top of her computer. Normally, the computer was out on the desk, but it didn't look like she had used it for a while since it was under the forms. The top drawer on the opposite side of the desk was filled with pens, pencils, and other writing utensils, as well as the usual assortment of office supplies. There was a small box in the back of the drawer with a small magical presence. When he opened it, it started playing a simple meandering tune coupled with a charm that boosted the listeners ability to focus on their task. He snorted.

"What is it?" Merlin asked, glancing up and catching sight of the little box. "Find something?"

"I just realized how Morgana copes with all of the paperwork normally."

"A music box?"

"It's spelled to help the listener focus, which makes them more efficient at their work." He closed it, smiling. "I think it was a gift from her mother. Aunt Sirene likes making little trinkets like these and giving them out to members of the family. Mine was a bit more tongue in cheek. She made a bottle that would turn any liquid put in it into a deodorizer. Apparently she didn't like the way I smelled, but she was the one who always managed to track me down after I'd gone for a run and before I'd been able to get a shower."

"I suppose it's useful," Merlin replied diplomatically.

"That it is. But not on me. I put water in it and spray down my flat whenever it starts smelling strange." He put the box back. He'd seen it sitting on her desk before anything strange started happening to Morgana, and her mother would never attack her for any reason. She loved her daughter.

In the bottom drawer on the left-hand side of the desk, under the drawer with the office supplies, Arthur found her purse. There were a couple items in it with trace bits of magic, but these felt like her mother's magic as well. With a sigh, knowing that even the Morgana he grew up with would be upset with him for messing about in her purse, he carefully unpacked it. One of the enchanted items was a perfume bottle that seemed to have a similar enchantment as the deodorizer bottle he had at home. It was almost certainly his aunt's work.

The other object was attached to Morgana's keys. It looked like an ordinary key fob, a flat bit of hardened clay with a simple vine and leaves design stamped into one side, but the other side had a word carved into it, written in Old English. Freod: peace. It was fairly standard for protective amulets, though they weren't usually kept with one's keys. All of the protection amulets Arthur had seen were hung on a leather cord and worn around the neck, or they were incorporated in some kind of bracelet or cuff, something that wouldn't get in the way of everyday work.

He really had no place to judge Morgana, as he had an amulet, a metal wrist cuff, that he usually kept in his desk, only bothering to put it on when he was going out into the field on an assignment that seemed particularly dangerous.

Other than those two items, everything else in her purse seemed normal from what he knew of Morgana. The four cylinders of mace and the spare set of handcuffs had him chuckling to himself. He was not the only member of his family to subscribe to the philosophy of the overprepared. Although she had magic to defend herself, clearly she wanted something for the times she was too exposed to use it. Carefully, he put everything back in her purse and placed it back in the drawer.

Arthur opened the last drawer and found a notebook and a pen. Glancing toward Merlin, he saw that his partner had moved on to searching the cabinets built into the walls and floor. One or two would require magic to open them, but Arthur was confident Merlin would be able to handle it.

Setting the pen to the side on the desk, he opened the notebook he'd found and was immediately assaulted with scribbling and sketches pouring over one another like she couldn't find the space to fit everything she was trying to write. In cramped characters near the spine were a series of four-digit numbers in ascending numerical order.

1082

1244

1367

1471

1556

1703

1839

He stared at them for a while, trying to figure out what they might mean. They didn't seem especially significant to one another, nor did they spark anything in his memory. At best, they looked like years, but he couldn't think of any specific historical significance to any of the years.

Turning over the page, he first noted that it was cleaner and less cramped than the last page. At the top, Morgana had written '1839' in large characters by way of a heading. Beneath it, she had a list of names: Gabriella, Mary, Francis, Elliot, Alexander, Hortense, Sylvia, Franklin... There were several other names vehemently crossed out and he could only make out pieces of them. One started with an 'M' with a 'g' somewhere in the middle before ending with what looked like an 's-e'. Another started and ended with a 'C' with a taller letter of some sort in the middle, a 't', 'l', 'd', or 'b'.

At the bottom of the page, there was another four-digit number, 1873. But its meaning was clearer as she prefaced it with the word 'died'.

Arthur froze, turning back the page to look at the dates. He was sure they were dates now, but he still couldn't remember anything of any significance happening in those years. But if they were birth years, whose were they? Who was Morgana looking into that she had these specific names and dates?

Ghosts, in spite of all the stories, didn't actually exist unless someone performed a kind of magic that upended the balance of the world, and that usually had further reaching consequences than just the person who performed or utilized the magic. Possession was not one of those consequences. The usual consequence for meddling in the balance of life and death was death.

Arthur turned over the page again. The date at the top of that one was 1703. There was another collection of names on this page. Most were typical English or French names. There were even a couple of Spanish names listed, but the one that immediate caught his eye was underlined heavily. 'Morgause'.

It sent a chill down his spine and he didn't even know why. He remembered where he'd heard the name. She was one of the last priestesses of the Old Religion, as magic was called around the time of Merlin. Her death was used split the veil between life and death, and the whole of England had suffered for it. What he found most terrifying about the woman was the fact that she had gone to this end willingly, had even advised the Morgana of King Arthur's time to do it, and all in the name of revenge and usurpation.

It couldn't be the same person, not after about six hundred years, but there was still something unnerving about a person who was willing to commit so deeply to what they believed in that they would allow themselves to be part of ritual that threw the whole world out of balance. A balance she was meant to uphold.

He turned over the page again. The dates were going backwards from the latest to the earliest. On the pages for 1471, there was a person named Merlin listed, and Arthur glanced toward his partner. It wasn't surprising that he wasn't the only one named after the famous mage, but he had to wonder if there was some significance to the inclusion of that Merlin. Especially since it, like the name Morgause which also appeared on the page, was heavily underlined.

The pages all had a kind of shorthand that Arthur had never seen before. He knew Morgana had ways of making notes that she could keep totally secure, but it was hindering his ability to understand what he was looking at. For every name, there were some short notes made, but he couldn't tell if it was supposed to be a description of their physical appearance, their character, or if it was completely arbitrary and unrelated to any of the names.

"Arthur?" Merlin was standing in front of an open cabinet. "Do you recognize this?"

Leaving the notebook open to the pages on 1244, where yet another Merlin was listed, he crossed to the cabinet and looked inside. Sitting a small plush box was a large fist-sized crystal which radiated pure energy. He blinked. He did know it but couldn't remember exactly where he'd seen it.

"Wasn't she looking that over the day you gave me a tour of the Records offices?"

"That's it! But why would she have it here? If it was anywhere, I would have thought it would still be down in Records, somewhere in the archive of confiscated artifacts and enchanted items. It was that crystal picked up from the smugglers I stumbled into."

"Gwaine said she had him looking into it, that it might have been made by my legendary namesake. The Galdre's Gemod, I think he called it."

"Galdre's Gemod, you're sure?"

Merlin shrugged. "It was a little while ago, but I think that's what he said. He didn't bother to say what it meant, and I haven't had time to get to fluency in Old English quite yet."

"The magician's heart. That's what it means. Although what that is meant to signify is anyone's guess. Names often give some indication of their function, so it must have something to do with mages specifically. Other than that, I don't know." He gingerly moved closer to the crystal, trying to feel out the sensation of the magic pouring off it. It was powerful, intoxicating really, and he wasn't sure how he hadn't felt it the moment they stepped into the room.

A simple examination of the cabinet itself gave him the answer to that. It was shielded against magic, specifically built to mask any magical trace inside until it was opened. By the time Merlin had opened it, he had been too wrapped up in the notebook and its strange secrets to notice.

"We should take it to Gaius, see if this might be what caused it," Arthur said, straightening. "It's the most magical thing we've found, and even just standing here I can feel how much it's trying to fill the space with its own magic." He shivered. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, having a foreign magic push against his own. "We know that she touched it without any sort of protection the day I was showing you around, when she put it back on the examination stand. She must have assumed that nothing was wrong when nothing happened, but never bothered to see Gaius about it."

"Right." Merlin moved forward to pick up the box, careful not to touch the crystal itself, even with the gloves on. "Did you find anything in the desk?"

Arthur glanced back at the notebook. "I think I might have. I'm not sure what it is though. Without Morgana, I'm not sure how to interpret most of it, but every page has a list of names."

He crossed back to the desk, looking down at it. In addition to the 'Merlin', there was another 'Morgause' listed. It wasn't as unlikely a name to be on there during that time period, but it still unnerved him.

He turned over the page to the last date and froze. 'Arthur' was the first name on the page, but there were other names, more familiar and more confusing. Merlin, Gwen, Uther, Leon, Lancelot, Gaius, Gwaine, Percival... the list continued for several pages, with several lines of notes after each of the names. Towards the middle, he found the name Morgause, paired with Cenred and a few other names he didn't recognize. But there was enough for him to assume that this was a record of the original Morgana. This was more or less confirmed when the last note on the last page was 'died 1114', the year it was believed Merlin killed Morgana to protect King Arthur. It was also the year King Arthur died.

A deep sense of foreboding settled on him as he stared at the page. It was like the nightmares where he was standing over his own grave, not really comprehending what it was until he read the name on the stone several times, and still he didn't understand what had happened. He shivered.

"Arthur?" Merlin's voice managed to drag him forcefully back to reality. "Are you alright?"

He straightened, closing the notebook and tucking it under his arm. There seemed to be more to it, sketches and notes that he hadn't paid as much attention to while focusing on the names. "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine." Merlin's eyes dropped to look accusingly at the book. "Is there something wrong with it?"

"Actually," Arthur brought it back out, staring at the cover, "I think this might have part of the answer in it. What did you say that crystal was called again?"

"Galdre's Gemod?" He frowned. "You said it meant 'the magician's heart'?"

"Right, yes. I think Cedric was saying something about it to the smugglers. Something about past lives, I think, and remembering a world they can't remember." He looked at the crystal sitting innocently in the plush box. "If I'm right, this wasn't caused by a curse, not exactly. It was an effect of some sort, and her mind isn't taking to it well." He glanced down at the book. "It's trying to remember too much. We need to get this to Gaius, both of these things, and see if that's right."

Merlin nodded, making his way to the door, still carefully avoiding contact with the crystal. "Then let's go. The sooner we get there, the faster he can find a solution."

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