There was a voice humming in Merlin's ears. At first he thought it was Arthur's but he remembered that he'd travelled to Sythian with Prince Garrick. He opened his eyes to find the prince lying extremely close to him, his head buried affectionately against his chest with his slow and warm breaths sinking into his shirt. The voice came again, a bit clearer now, but Garrick's lips didn't move and he didn't seem to be awake or humming in his sleep.

Merlin recalled what he and Prince Garrick had spoken about the night before and an immediately terrible feeling seeped through him. The voices, were they back? Were they haunting Merlin now?

Could the curse have been passed on to me? Merlin worried.

He frowned down at Garrick's sleeping face. He looked so calm and majestic, like a sleeping lion. He must not have heard the voice buzzing in his ear. What was it trying to say?

"Channing must be worried."

Channing? The servant assigned to Merlin?

"I suppose it's a good thing. They seem happy."

Merlin stared confusedly at Garrick but the prince didn't stir. The voice didn't sound sinister. It was very soft and pleasant. It sounded like a man but wasn't gruff from age. Could there have been a druid nearby? It was entirely possible here.

Merlin heard a light creaking noise and looked out past the end of the bed. The chamber door was ajar but nobody was there. A silver tray and cover sat on the table. Garrick's breakfast? Eldon must have brought it earlier…but the curtains weren't drawn. Merlin's cheeks warmed once he realized why. He must not have wanted to wake the prince and his special guest.

Merlin almost lied back down and tried to find sleep again but Garrick stirred at the movement on the bed and sleepily blinked open his eyes. Upon seeing Merlin in his arms, a soft smile settled on his lips.

"You slept well, I'm assuming." Merlin asked with a grin of his own as he sank down on his right elbow, still perfectly in the prince's arms.

"I don't think I've ever slept so peacefully." Garrick said. "And you?"

"Like an infant."

The prince gave a little space between their bodies before Merlin was able to realize how closely they were pressed together. Garrick kept his arms around Merlin's waist but with a few inches of distance. The two lied in bed for a moment but Merlin eventually left with his belt and boots back in place to walk discreetly to his chambers next door. He found himself unable to resist smiling when remembering Prince Garrick's sleeping face. He was an early riser so Merlin hadn't seen when they were travelling to Sythian. Merlin wasn't curious then, either.

Merlin found his breakfast already placed on the table in his guest room. He sat down and started eating but at some point, he heard that faint voice again. It wasn't like Kilgharrah's voice and it really didn't seem like an outside noise. It was like the voice was in his head.

"I need more time off to search but Garrick would want to know what I'm doing." It said very calmly. "I can only take the opportunities I have now to travel out and look. Is it really even worth worrying about? She understands me without words already and the stone could be in any of a million places. Looking for something so small is only giving false hope and hurting us."

As the words sank into Merlin's mind, so did the image of Prince Garrick's manservant. Merlin stayed absolutely quiet as if he'd be caught but thoughts were streaming rapidly in his head. How was Merlin able to place the voice with Eldon? The voice did say that someone understood them without words. It seemed like something Eldon would think.

"Garrick looks happy. Why isn't he eating with Merlin?" the voice went on to ask itself. "Maybe since things are going well, Aster and I can tell them about us. I'll probably be asked to move further away from her room and I'll get tormented a bit by the knights but I've endured worse. The price this time will be, by far, worth its pay."

It is Eldon, isn't it? Merlin thought to himself. But what is it about him and Aster that they're hiding? It sounds like a romance.

Merlin halted his thoughts in an instant. Their romance wasn't near as suspicious as the fact that Merlin could hear his thoughts. Why was he able to do that? Had the sorcerer said some spell accidentally and was now able to hear people's thoughts? But Eldon must have been in Garrick's chambers and there were people closer to the guest room than that. Was it only Eldon?

Merlin slowly rose from his chair while still thinking about what to do. Were there others that could hear Eldon or was it just him? Was it because of his magic? But Merlin shouldn't be able to read people's thoughts. It had to be a spell of some sort or a…magical trinket.

Merlin immediately reached into his trouser pocket to retrieve the little purple stone that he'd brought back from the dungeons. It shined cheerily in the sunlight streaming past the opened curtains. What if the stone was what allowed him to hear Eldon's thoughts? What if that was why it didn't work when Garrick was tampering with it? Could it be that Eldon's blood had already met the stone?

Merlin gripped the stone tightly and walked to the door of his guest chambers before slipping out of the room and into the sunlit but shady corridor. There wasn't anybody around but it was better not to take chances. Merlin slid down the hall and hid behind one column adjacent to the prince's room. He waited silently for several minutes before the door creaked open.

Merlin ducked back and hid until the door sounds shut again. Then he peered around to see Eldon carrying Garrick's tray back to the kitchen. The sorcerer followed swiftly and silently, not feeling guilty in the least for spying on the servant. He followed Eldon all the way down to the servants' quarters but stopped a hallway short to avoid being questioned by the knights who were up rather early and in a good atmosphere of chuckling.

"I don't mind in the slightest as long as I'm not concerned in the matter." One of them said with an uncomfortable grin.

"Whatever you say, Troy." One of the other two laughed and the second joined in.

"It's alright." A stalled maid told Sir Troy with a supportive elbowing in the arm. "Many people have fallen for the prince, even knights."

"Are you all seriously going to keep this up?" Troy asked as the three grinned like playful cats. "I only said that as a joke, once, five years ago."

"But he is 'hard not to fall for'." The maid smirked.

"It must be Troy's bad luck that's kept the prince so closed up until now." One of the knights said. "It's alright, my friend. There will be plenty more princes."

"I hear Camelot's is unspoken for." The other knight said.

"You'd have Troy killed?" the maid scoffed. "Mixing magic with cold blood like that is hardly a good idea."

"You shouldn't insult another kingdom's prince." Another maid named Annalisa said as she walked down the hall toward the group that seemed to stiffen a bit. "King Uther may have horrendous laws that deny our kind life but until Prince Arthur takes the throne and speaks for himself, there is every chance that things will be different."

"You've been listening to that strange and violent pot scrubber, haven't you?" the older maid asked the girl.

"He has surprisingly profound things to say." Annalisa answered without wavering.

"Maybe she's right." One of the teasing knights nodded as the others looked to him. "Maybe magic is exactly what Camelot's future ruler needs to heat his blood."

Everyone but Annalisa cracked a humored smirk, even Sir Troy. Annalisa shook her head disapprovingly. Being the youngest, she didn't have very much sway in their minds. She was still so innocent, so naïve, so hopeful, but none of them had endured what she had. She'd seen more of Uther's hate than any of them but a disguised prince with his own bias combined with her sad memories of loss had opened her eyes a bit more. There was more darkness to the light in Sythian than people understood, much like there was more light to the darkness in Camelot. Merlin saw the strong conviction in the young girl's eyes and felt unexplainably proud, maybe because she was also a person of magic but more precisely because she reminded him of someone he'd been missing lately.

"Who would volunteer to take on the job?" the older maid added to the previous joke. "I hardly think a passive man like Troy would accommodate such a cold heart and not buckle under."

"Perhaps Anna would give it a go." Troy grinned, probably glad to be put out of the light despite the insult.

"Should he be any less crude than you all, I just might." Annalisa scoffed which only caused more laughter to break out between the others.

"She would be prime age for bearing children, I suppose." The older maid said somewhat casually.

"And have more descendants of that Pendragon blood?" someone snorted.

"If Prince Garrick weren't in love with the boy himself, we could easily leave Merlin to such a job." Troy sighed to all of their shock. "He doesn't seem to have trouble seducing princes, after all."

"Boy's a beaut, I must admit." Another knight nodded. "I do mean that in the most brotherly way."

"Merlin has magic?" the older maid asked Troy.

How do they know? Merlin asked himself but he didn't feel as entirely alarmed about that as he did about the seducing comment.

"He either has magic or he's around it all of the time, not that it's likely since he's from Camelot." Troy answered the maid. "I can smell it on him, especially when he's near the prince. With the energy he puts off, I'm not surprised they ended up spending the night together."

They know about that? Merlin thought.

How did they find out? Surely Eldon didn't go to the trouble of telling them something like that. It was private, after all. Now they'd misunderstood. Nothing even happened, really. Last night there were confessions of love and curses but sweet promises were made. They were sealed with warm kisses and the two of them held their new paths tightly, all the way into the morning just because it felt right. It felt good to be cared. It still did.

"It doesn't matter who has magic and who doesn't." Annalisa told the others. "And what Merlin and the prince do is none of our concern, either. I'm sure greater loyalty exists in Camelot."

"Because Camelot would allow two men to marry?" the other maid responded.

"They wouldn't gossip about their prince all day long." Annalisa insisted.

"Says the ignorant pot scrubber. What does he know of Camelot? He used to live there?"

"…maybe." Annalisa said unsurely. "He seems kinder as you get to know him. He's only a bit agitated while working. I don't think he's used to working. He doesn't sleep at night anymore, either."

"He doesn't sleep and you're listening to him?" Troy asked.

"I choose to believe what I want." The young maid shrugged as she started walking past them. "I choose to be hopeful for those who might otherwise feel discouraged."

Merlin smiled a bit at her last words but realized she was coming his way. He shuffled further around the corner and stayed pressed to the wall as the small blond girl passed by. Once she was gone around another corner, he turned back around toward the kitchen. He immediately ran into someone and they smacked foreheads. Merlin held his aching head while wincing.

"I'm sorry." He said to the person.

"What a first impression." Merlin heard one of the knights chuckle from far off.

Merlin heard quick movement and opened his eyes to see nobody was there. He turned around to just barely catch glimpse of a very familiar figure's back. He felt his pace quicken and he hurried after him. He didn't quite know whether he wanted it to be true or not. He'd missed the haughty prince but this meant he'd have to tell him about what had happened with Garrick, right? Merlin wasn't sure how Arthur would react to hearing something like that. Should he even tell him? Garrick was going to make excuses with Uther anyway. There was also the possibility that this wasn't even Arthur.

He grabbed the young man's shoulder just before he could turn the corner.

"Arthur?" Merlin asked unsurely.

There was a moment of hesitance before a quick hand found Merlin's wrist and pulled him around the corner. The small purple stone slipped from Merlin's hand but he didn't even notice its absence. He found himself in an empty corridor with a dim shadow playing over a face he'd grown used to by working for him. Prince Arthur scowled unconvincingly behind the dark smudge of charcoal on his left cheek.

"Nice to see you, Merlin." He said.