The infirmary was a storm of activity when Merlin and Arthur returned. Gaius had obviously pulled in a few of his normal assistants to help, and three of them were standing around the bed, murmuring spells under their breath.

"What's going on?" Arthur asked, moving to stand near Gaius' desk. "Has she gotten worse?"

Gaius sighed. "Physically, she isn't much worse than when you left. That being said, she's not in a particularly stable place, and she is fighting against me every step of the way." He glanced between the two of them. "Please tell me you found something."

Merlin came forward and set the box with the crystal on the desk. "We found this locked in her office. Arthur thought it might have something to do with it."

"What is it?" Gaius sat down and reached into his desk, pulling out a pair of gloves that was more durable than the pair Arthur usually used. Of course, since he was their main physician, he couldn't take any chances when it came to curses because there was no telling if his assistants would be able to diagnose the problem and deal with it without his expertise. "This is—" Gaius's eyes widened as he turned the crystal over in his hand. "This is not a natural structure. This was created by a mage, a powerful one at that."

"It's called the Galdre's Gemod." Arthur cut in. "That smuggling warehouse I stumbled into a few months ago, this was picked up in all that. The one who brought it mentioned it was supposed to bring back memories of past lives or something like that."

Merlin shucked his gloves and shoved them into the pocket of his jacket. "And Gwaine thought it might have been created by the original Merlin. Morgana had him studying it for a while. He probably knows the most about it that we can find. I somehow doubt a member of the Black Hand is going to show up and explain it to us."

"Then we should find him. In fact, he needs to be examined as well. Morgana is not usually careless with artifacts like this and, if he was working with it, it's possible he's been exposed to it as well." Gaius waved over one of his assistants who was standing idle and sent them off towards the office of Records and Research. "Do you have anything else for me?"

Arthur held out the notebook. "She had this in her desk. I can't tell much more than the list of names and the dates, but I think she was trying to keep track of what she was remembering. Maybe at some point it was just becoming too much. I don't know why she would try to do this on her own. She knows that this sort of experimentation requires others to maintain standards of health and safety. She's normally the one who would insist on it." He sighed. "But I do think the first incident might have been my fault. I surprised her when she was in the lab, and she knocked a few things over, then set them right without putting on any gloves or anything."

Gaius took the journal and started flipping through it, frowning at certain pages in concentration. "You may be right about this." One eyebrow raised as he turned to the last of the pages of names, probably seeing his own on it. "I will need to examine this further, but I do think this is where I will find most of the answers I'm looking for." He looked back over at the bed where Morgana was being kept in a magical slumber. "I shudder to think what effect this is going to have on her in the long term."

Leon walked into the room then, looking around until his eyes fell on Morgana. His shoulders slumped, but he crossed the room in a few quick strides, taking a seat beside the bed. He didn't even seem to notice anyone else as he grabbed her hand, stroking it gently.

"I fear what this will mean for them as well," Gaius murmured quietly. "If, as we assume, her mind is the most affected, she may not be the same woman when she wakes up as she was when she awoke this morning."

Arthur tried to swallow the lump in his throat. He didn't want to lose his cousin, but he couldn't help but think that the situation would be so much worse for Leon. He'd caught a rumor last week that Leon had been seen looking at rings, but nothing had come of that yet. Even with all of the trouble they had been noting, the changes in Morgana over the past few weeks, Leon still loved her and still wanted to marry her. But it had to be hell sitting there wondering if she was ever going to wake up.

"We should go let the Council know what's going on," Arthur said, desperate to get as far away from the infirmary as possible right now. He couldn't think of anything worse than sitting there and wondering if all the effort they were going through was inevitably going to be useless.

"I will probably need to give a report in a little while as well." Gaius set the notebook down and stood up. "After I examine Gwaine and determine who else might have been exposed to that. With any luck, his knowledge of the crystal should help determine how it has affected Morgana and how we can reverse the damage it's done."

"I suppose we'll see you down there in a little while then."

Arthur decided to amend his opinion of sitting uselessly off to the side in the infirmary. It wasn't nearly as bad as sitting uselessly somewhere other than the infirmary, wondering what was going on, but unable to find out without going back and getting in the way.

The Council of Magic was uncommonly quiet for a legislative body. It was quiet compared to the arguments thrown back and forth before Morgana had collapsed. Everyone was still there, but they were waiting in silence for Gaius to arrive with news. Arthur couldn't think of a time he and his father had been in the same room without arguing after a while, but they hadn't said a word to each other beyond his response regarding Morgana's current state of health and the theories regarding her sudden and unexpected deterioration.

Greer was the calmest and most collected of those present, and he drew Merlin away with a small mouse that appeared on his shoulder. Apparently, the man had a small family of them in one of his pockets, which he carefully guarded against any jostling. The adventurous little mouse was currently wandering around the table. It was instinctively giving Uther a wide berth as though it knew how to interpret the look of utter disgust he was leveling at it, as well as Merlin and Greer.

For his part, Arthur had given up sitting in favor of pacing back and forth. No one had yet said anything about it, and he had no intention of changing his behavior until someone did or something changed.

Aithusa and their children had hardly moved despite the room expanding to accommodate them. Aithusa looked incredibly sad, as though they had some stake in all this. He paused, the words of Sotrios and Efthymia returning to him, talk of stories about Morgana.

"Did you know her?" Arthur asked into the silence, turning to face the dragons. "Morgana?"

"I did," Aithusa replied. "Not the Morgana you know, but the one she was before. The Morgana who was both ambitious and misguided, unaware of her failings and ignorant of her destiny." They sighed. "You must understand that she and I were both young, and I was more trusting than I should have been."

"She was angry," Efthymia whispered. "In the stories, she was very angry."

Aithusa nuzzled Efthymia gently. "Yes, she was angry. She had some right to be, but she held onto that anger for far too long and it began to drive her mad." Again, they sighed. "In the end, I'm not sure she understood why she was fighting."

"Why was she angry?" Merlin asked, a strangely pensive look on his face.

"There were many reasons. Chief among them, however, was that she had the life she had chosen for herself torn from her violently because of the will of an old man she later learned was her true father. She hated him for that, for keeping the knowledge of her true heritage from her, for the violence he leveled again others who had magic, while denying she possessed magic herself. He was drowning in his own hypocrisy, and she hated fearing for her life and that others feared for their lives from her father." Aithusa's gaze grew distant. "She wanted to save magic users of the time, open Camelot up to the practices of Druidry and sorcery again, but she attempted to do so at the detriment of those who opposed her. In some ways, she was very much like her father, but she didn't want to admit it. Still, her destiny ran counter to what she desired. When she stood against Emrys, she was doomed to fail."

Arthur tried to imagine this image of Morgana. She was vilified by the stories of King Arthur and Camelot, made out to be a snake waiting for the moment to strike, but Aithusa, who had known her, painted a very different picture. He could almost see this version of Morgana, intelligent but forever pushed down and forced to deny who and what she was. Still, she fought for what she wanted and needed, but the constant fighting turned her bitter.

"It was the years spent in the pit that drove her to that end, I think," Aithusa continued. "She didn't hate anyone with the full depth of her soul until she was trapped in the pit with me for two years."

Merlin gasped, and Arthur felt his blood run cold as he made his way to his chair. This wasn't a story he wanted to listen to on his feet anymore. He wasn't sure what the pit was, but it couldn't have been a good place, not if she was trapped there. And if that was what caused Morgana to hate someone so much, it was no accident that she had become trapped there. The level of cruelty it spoke of was horrifying.

"Why would anyone do that?" he demanded. "Why would someone trap her like that, even if she was trying to impose her will on others?" There was suddenly a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. "It wasn't King Arthur who did it, was it?"

Aithusa blinked and looked down at him. "No. Arthur could not have done that to her, no matter the provocation. Even to the end, he loved her as family should love one another. The one responsible was killed by his own assassin while attempting to murder Arthur." A hard look appeared on their face. "I am sure he found his punishment on the other side of the veil."

Arthur leaned back in his seat, relieved that his namesake was not the cause of her suffering. If the original Morgana was anything like the woman he grew up with, she certainly didn't deserve to be imprisoned in a dark pit for disagreeing with the way the country was run.

Gaius stepped into the chamber, bowing to the inhabitants. "I beg the Council's indulgence for a time that I might inform them of Morgana's condition."

"How is she, Gaius?" Uther demanded, speaking for the first time since Arthur and Merlin had returned.

"Not well, I'm afraid, but I do know the cause and a possible treatment for it."

"You have not applied it?" Greer asked, tilting his head to one side. The mouse had returned to him and was climbing back up his sleeve to his shoulder.

"I lack the power for it."

"What is the treatment?" Arthur asked. If it was a matter of power, it was possible he could do it without too much trouble. Gaius was clear and direct in his instructions, so there was little fear of something going wrong in the attempt.

"Perhaps it would be best if I explain the exact issue first." Gaius moved toward the table and sat in the chair that rose up from the floor. "The problem, as I have been able to understand it, is that the magic from the Galdre's Gemod crystal has built up in her system and is currently attempting to alter her mind. From the notebook Arthur found, it is clear that Morgana had connected with seven specific time periods in which she lived in one form or another. She was able to identify the year she was born, certain people she met with during that life, and the year in which she died. However, each of these lives has its own personality, unique to its period and the circumstances of her upbringing. The magic from the crystal is trying to force her mind to conform to these patterns, but she cannot cope with the disparate personalities acting in contention with her own well-established personality."

"So, it's trying to make her be eight people at once, and her brain can't handle that?" Arthur asked by way of clarification.

"Exactly. Now, what needs to be done is for someone to remove the magic from her mind. I don't have the power or the ability to remove it myself, and there is a chance that the magic will latch onto them instead, attempting to do the same thing."

Arthur winced. 'There is a chance' was basically code for 'I'm fairly certain this is exactly what will happen, but I don't have any proof'. If it could be removed like that, there was then the problem of the person who absorbed that magic and how it would affect them. "Is there any possibility that the magic might be diluted once removed from her?"

"I don't know."

Aithusa shifted. "The Galdre's Gemod crystal, you said?"

"Yes." To his credit, Gaius didn't appear outwardly to be afraid of the dragons. The only evidence that he was clearly terrified lay in the absolute stillness with which he sat in the chair. Other than speaking, Gaius hadn't so much as twitched a finger while sitting there.

"There can be only one person to do it then," Princess Brígh cut in. "It must be Emrys."

Arthur frowned. That was one of the names she had used before, referring to the position of High Warlock. "You mean Merlin?"

"Me?" Merlin squeaked. "Why does it have to be me?"

"Because you are Emrys," she replied, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. Perhaps to her, it was.

"I don't doubt Merlin's skill with magic, and I know he's powerful, but why does it have to be him?" Arthur asked.

Merlin rubbed absently at the little mouse, which had moved again from Greer's shoulder to rest in his cupped hands. "What does that have to do with being Emrys?"

Brígh offered him a pitying look. "Everything. The Emrys is not a name given lightly or without cause. There is only one Emrys and there will only ever be one Emrys, the one Magic favors."

"But what does that have to do with anything? Is it just because of how much magic I have?"

Aithusa chuckled. "Being Emrys does not merely mean that you are a powerful mage. It means that Magic itself bows to your will."

"Is that why he was able to learn so quickly? The level of spell work he exhibited when I was first teaching him was far beyond what anyone would expect from someone who only just learned of the community." It was a far better idea than someone erasing the memory of learning magic from Merlin's mind. As much as it made sense, it left behind more questions, the implications of which were sinister.

Across the room, Uther scoffed and crossed his arms. "You talk about magic as if it has some sentience. Magic is magic; it's merely a tool some measure of the population has control of."

"Magic is a tool, yes," Princess Brígh told him, looking in askance at him from the corner of her eye. "But there is an intelligence to it. You cannot tell a hammer to pound a nail, nor can you command a knife to cut while expending no energy on your own. But magic can be called upon to perform a near infinite variety of tasks, and the will of the magic user is the only effort applied to it. However," she continued, "this relates to the magic such people have within themselves and how they use it. There is a difference in between the magic one is born with and the existing force of nature we are speaking of. Magic as a force of nature is intelligent and it demonstratively chooses favorites. Merlin Emrys, who even the mundanes recognize by name, was one such favored." She nodded to Merlin, who blinked confusedly.

Arthur couldn't blame him. Merlin, the current Merlin, had no history in the magical community that they had been able to find, but she had acknowledged him in conjunction with the original Merlin as though there was some familial connection between them. Which would have explained a lot more. Perhaps the Sidhe had better ways of tracking magical bloodlines, ways that they had not shared with the mortal magical community.

"Such favor often goes hand in hand with destiny," she finished. And at this, she turned her gaze to Arthur.

There was a weight to the words he knew she wasn't saying, something heavy and unbearable, and he wasn't sure how he could handle it as it settled on his shoulders. He wasn't even sure what it was, only that it must have had something to do with the title of High King they had given him. With the exception of Greer perhaps, there was a distinct lack of knowledge among the shorter-lived members of the Council, all the talk of destiny and the connections to the world of the original Merlin's day were leading to something that they must have been waiting for.

"Okay," Merlin said, sitting up straight, a glint of determination in his eyes. "How can I help Morgana?"

Princess Brígh smiled. "Now that is the right question."

She came around the table and knelt beside him, to the consternation of her attendants, who brought themselves out of the background to buzz around nervously. None of them dared to say anything about it though, and Arthur got the feeling she often took actions they didn't expect. Merlin glanced at Princess Brígh, then the attendants, then back at the princess.

"Come, stand up," she told him, holding out her hand. Merlin accepted it and allowed himself to be pulled away from the table. "As I said, magic is about will. You must want something to happen for it to work. If it does not work, you did not want it to work. Doubt is something you must leave behind when you work magic because it will prevent you from trusting in the outcome you want." She led him to an empty portion of the chamber. "Now, I want you to change this room."

"But—"

"No." She held up a hand, almost touching his face, still holding his wrist with her other hand. "No doubting. All doubts were let sitting in your chair. You have access to all the magic you could ever need. Ask it to do something and it will." She leaned closer to him until their noses were almost touching, dropping her grip on his wrist. "Now, ask."

Merlin frowned, but he turned to look at the room. There was still a measure of uncertainty in his posture, but he turned in a slow circle before closing his eyes. As Arthur watched, Merlin's hands drifted up like he was trying to feel out the space.

Slowly, a spark of something appeared and started growing between his outstretched hands. Merlin then opened his eyes and the spark expanded to an orb, spinning and throwing off light like a miniature blue sun. A shape was emerging from the light, but Arthur tore his gaze away from it to look at Merlin's face. There was something old there, old and familiar and just out of reach. The irises of Merlin's eyes were gold and burning, his expression more intense and focused than he'd been in any of their training sessions, and yet Arthur couldn't shake the feeling that he knew this side of Merlin in a way that spoke of years of constant contact rather than a few months of something more casual. He craved that contact, wanted it more deeply than anything he'd ever felt before, wanted it more than he had ever wanted to be part of the MIB.

His focus was so intent upon Merlin that he almost missed the way the air was thrumming with magic, how similar it was to their first encounter, how again it was difficult to even breath with the weight of it surrounding them. The cluster of magic Merlin was weaving was now larger than his arms had the ability to span and still it was building and adding more. His arms had drifted down so his hands were under it, holding it up as it gathered and compounded upon itself. Then, when it looked like Merlin wouldn't be able to hold it any more, it drifted up and away, moving slowly to the center of the room. Light rippled across every surface and the room changed beneath it.

The floor beneath them filled with color rather like a time-lapse of grass growing in an empty plot of land. Instead of green, it was a pale blue that actually grounded the all-white space. When the light reached the walls, wood bled up towards the ceiling in wide panels separated by wood pillars finished in a varnish so dark they were almost black. A light fixture was centered in every other panel, molded in pale amber globes that spread warm summer light across the floor. Gold filigree danced up the edges of the paneling before slowing transitioning to jade as it began spreading across the domed ceiling in thin vine patterns. The top of the dome lay open to the sky, a clear jewel-like window completing the structure there. The orb of magic had reached its place over the Council table, which had arisen from the center of the room. Slowly, it became sharper, the edges more defined and the carvings around the circumference of it filled in with silver. The table itself turned from white marble to glossy black stone, which accentuated the newly filled carvings. The chairs around it were the same dark varnished wood as the pillars along the edge of the room. A large archway guarded by tall marble pillars marked the entrance of the room. There was no trace of the plain room that existed before,

Arthur looked back at Merlin, who was watching as more globes of light grew down from the ceiling to provide the same amber light to the table, suspended by metal cords twisted together like branches. The expression on his face was equal parts awe and satisfaction. Finally, when the orb of light had melted into their surroundings, leaving behind all of the changes it had made, Merlin sighed.

"Alright," he said, striding for the door. "Let's see what we can do about this."

If there had ever been a doubt in Arthur's mind whether or not he liked Merlin, it was gone now. In its place was desire, hot and heavy. He started walking, uncomfortable as it was at that moment, so no one would notice the distinct bulge in his trousers. That was not a conversation he wanted to have right now, especially not with his father in the room.

He was not, however, going to miss out on the opportunity to ogle Merlin all the way to the infirmary. It was a terrific view.

Merlin's steps faltered ever so slightly as he entered the infirmary, but Arthur was fairly certain he was the only one who noticed. Leon was still sitting beside Morgana's bed, stroking her hand lightly. His presence must have helped somewhat, as Gaius's assistants had backed off, no longer chanting sleeping spells over her with every breath to keep her under.

The rest of the Council had followed them, and Arthur wasn't as surprised as he thought he should be that the dragons could take on a different form. They still had draconic qualities—spiky ridges where eyebrows would be on a human, thick scaled lips hiding too sharp teeth, sharp claws at the ends of their fingers—but they looked mostly human.

In this form, Aithusa was just as androgynous as they were in their natural form. Their long thick hair had a delicate wave to it where it sat on their shoulder. Their outfit was reminiscent of a monk's habit, with thick baggy fabric hanging off them, tied at the waist with a thin length of cord. Efthymia and Sotrios were dressed in similar attire, but Efthymia had a thin frame and a narrow face with soft features while Sotrios was solidly built, with very angular features. All three had eyes as pale as the summer sky, though both Efthymia and Sotrios had darker hair and complexions compared to Aithusa.

Uther was the last one to enter the infirmary, and Arthur didn't miss the way he paled at the sight of Morgana on the bed. Uther had doted on her when they were younger, and he always seemed proud of her in a way he never was of Arthur. There were several rumors circulating at one point that Morgana was his illegitimate daughter, but a simple inheritance test proved that wasn't the case. Still, it was strange that he paid such attention to her while belittling most of the decisions Arthur had made for himself. He didn't think his father meant to show such blatant favoritism, more that Morgana held similar ambitions to what his father wanted for him, and Uther thought acknowledging that approval in another would cause Arthur to fall in line with his father's dream for the future.

Merlin turned to Princess Brígh. "Where do I even start with this? I don't know exactly how the magic is currently affecting her."

The Sidhe princess chuckled, a dry, hollow sound, like wooden wind chimes rattling in the distance. "Then ask."

Merlin opened his mouth as if to retort, before closing it, shrugging, and moving to the head of Morgana's bed. He nodded in acknowledgement at Leon, then placed his hands on either side of Morgana's head without touching her and closed his eyes.

The air grew heavy with magic once again as it always did when Merlin was casting without a focused spell. Slowly, the sensation tapered off, condensing in the space around Merlin and Morgana. One of Merlin's hands drifted away while the other moved from its place at her temple to hover over her face. Then, once the magical potential of the room had narrowed to a pinprick, tiny tendrils of purple-blue energy began bleeding out of Morgana to hover in space beneath Merlin's hand.

He drew his hand up, pulling more of the energy with it until the orb that formed under his hand was about the size of a walnut. Once all the energy seemed to have been drained from her, Morgana's brow relaxed, and she appeared to melt into the bed as the tension left her body.

Merlin's hand slipped beneath the orb as if to cup it and the energy started leeching into him, traveling up his arm to his neck just beneath the skin. When he opened his eyes, there was a twist of that same purple-blue in the irises. For a moment, he didn't seem to comprehend where he was until his frantic gaze found and settled on Arthur.

He stumbled forward a step, then another. "Arthur, you're alive," he whispered, before pitching forward into Arthur's arms.

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