Chapter Four: The Knights Ride Again

Friday Night

The evening passed very pleasantly and Merlin, gentleman as he was, offered to walk Morgana home. If she hadn't been so engrossed in their current conversation she would have probably turned him down but, seeing how much she was enjoying her evening, she decided to accept. Even then, she was surprised at just how quickly they arrived at her apartment building.

So, instead of saying goodbye at the front door, they were already into the hallway and halfway up the stairs before she checked herself. No, he was most definitely not coming in for 'coffee'. She stood firmly in front of the door to her flat and smiled brightly at him.

"Thank you, Merlin, I've had a lovely evening."

"Me too. Could we perhaps go out for another drink sometime?"

"Yes, I'd really like that," she replied, honestly.

He'd moved towards her before she had fully registered his intention and, assuming he was aiming for her lips, turned her head to offer her cheek instead. However, for one reason or another, their lips ended up touching anyway. Now nicely tipsy on vodka and a little high from her very enjoyable evening, Morgana gave up any notion of objecting, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply.

That's when all the building's lights short-circuited and the magic alarm went off.

~o~0~o~

She pulled away and blinking as her eyes attempted to adjust to the sudden darkness. This time it definitely had been her.

"Quickly, let's go inside your flat," Merlin said, trying to open her locked door.

"I really don't think that's a good idea." Her heart was racing and she was close to panic. "Oh, the Knights will be on their way now and I just don't know how I'm going to explain it this time and-"

"-Morgana, you have to trust me. We really need to get inside so they don't know for certain where the magic came from."

"But..."

He opened the door and pulled her in, whilst she stared numbly at the keys in her hand which she most definitely had not used.

"Okay, so the power is out in here too," Merlin said as he tried the light switch. "Looks like you shorted the whole building which is good news."

She gaped at him, incredulously. "How do you work that one out?"

"Having it widespread will make it far harder for the Knights to detect the exact location of the magical event."

"But I'm going to be in so much trouble."

"Morgana relax. Let's take a look at your Gauntlet."

She held it up. "Oh no, it's dead! No lights at all. They'll come checking all the flats and it'll be obvious it's me and then they'll have to put me up to Blue... or perhaps even Purple and then..."

"You must let me see it." Merlin said, grabbing her wrist and looking at it intently. Then he closed his eyes and focused.

"Merlin? What are you doing?"

"Ssh."

"But..."

"Bother, this is no good," Merlin complained. "I can't work properly with this horrible thing on."

And then, to Morgana's total shock, he pressed his left hand against his own Gauntlet until it clicked open, before removing it and placing it on the table.

"But... you're not supposed to do that," she gasped. "Only a Blue sorcerer is able to remove a Gauntlet."

He ignored her, moving her closer to the window where there was a little more light and lifting her wrist up. He again focused, closing his eyes until, with a vicious little buzz, her Gauntlet flickered back to life, flashing red.

Merlin opened his eyes and gave a satisfied nod. However, seconds later, a siren sounding from outside had him swear under his breath.

"I can't believe they're here already. That was annoyingly quick."

"I can't show Red," she complained. "I'm registered as Green."

"Yes, I know. Give me a moment."

Merlin again focused on her Gauntlet and the lights started to change from red through yellow to green, finally settling on blue. He held up a hand before she had a chance to complain again.

"Just one last trick," he said. Best to keep you on Blue whilst you're still emotional because we don't want to risk your exposure, but I'll make it look as if it's Green so the Knights won't question it."

"But how, Merlin? How are you able to do this?"

"The questions will have to wait, Morgana and you'll need to sit down too, because that higher setting is likely to make you feel a bit dizzy."

"Yeah..." she said swaying almost as soon as he moved back to the table to retrieve his own Gauntlet. "Definitely."

Just as soon as Merlin had snapped it back on his wrist there was a knock on the door and he rushed over to answer it.

"Ah, you're here," he said brightly. "That was quick."

Morgana couldn't believe how calm he sounded.

"Do you live here, sir?" the Knight asked, looking at the tablet in front of him.

"No, I'm just visiting." He held out his wrist to the man. "My name's Merlin."

The man quickly scanned his Gauntlet, checked the readings and nodded, whilst Morgana got up slowly and worried how it might look with her quite so unsteady on her feet.

"Sorry, a bit too much vodka," she improvised before offering her wrist and holding her breath.

"Green," the man said. "Are you aware of any magic you may have cast tonight?"

"No, sir. It was all very quiet here until the lights went off."

"Well yes, your Gauntlet is working fine so... you're obviously in the clear." He grinned broadly and she forced herself to smile back. "Goodnight, I promise we'll have the power back on just as soon as we've completed our checks."

"All right, thank you," Merlin called out. He turned to Morgana wide-eyed and let out a loud sigh. "Well, that was close."

She glared at him. "And you have some questions to answer."

"I suppose I do. Probably best to wait until they've gone though, just in case. In the meantime I suggest you lie down and try to relax."

"Don't think you're getting away with it that easily."

"I promise I'm not going anywhere, Morgana. But, seriously, we both need to relax after that." He looked around the flat. "May I use your bathroom?"

~o~0~o~

By the time the Knights had checked all the residents' Gauntlets, fixed the power and reset the magic detector, it was gone one o'clock in the morning, but there was no way that Morgana was going to let Merlin go without explaining what had happened that evening.

They sat down on the sofa with a cup of coffee each, Merlin biting his lip as he wondered where to start.

"So, you do have magic," she begun.

"Yes."

"You lied."

"No, I said that no magic had been detected, which is true. My magic is like yours, Morgana, it doesn't register."

She glared at him, annoyed by the sophistry. "So why are you still wearing a Red Gauntlet?"

"Because I was fortunate enough not to lose control when I was growing up, and have now developed the ability to evade most of the systems that are put in place to detect sorcerers."

"So, you should be Blue like your father?"

He shook his head. "There's a reason why the system can't register us, Morgana."

"Why?"

Because they don't have a setting high enough."

She shook her head. "But Gaius says I'm Green."

"He's wrong. You're like me. And we call our level Silver."

"We?" she asked suspiciously. "You mean Eden, don't you?" He winced. "I promise I won't tell."

There was another, very long, pause. "All right then. Yes. Mum moved me to one of their sanctuaries as soon as she realised what I was."

"Sanctuaries? Where?"

"Probably best I don't tell you that quite yet."

She glared at him. "You don't trust me?"

"I want to. Really I do, but there are a lot of lives at stake here. I have to be careful."

"I suppose." There was a long pause. "So, did you have anything to do with Thursday's incident?"

He looked down at his lap, a small smile playing on his lips. "Ah... perhaps."

"How? How did you manage it? I saw you during the fuss and you were also registered on the system as having left the building."

"I told you, I'm Silver."

"That's not an answer."

"It is when you understand how different that is from Blue."

"How is it different?"

He shook his head. "Look, the main reason I've revealed myself to you at all is so that I can help you. You have now pushed past a Green setting and, if left to your own devices, will almost certainly push past Blue too. The only way for you to deal with your Gauntlet problem is to learn to control your magic yourself."

"And you're going to teach me?"

"I don't think there's anyone else who can. Gaius is a good teacher but he only understands Blue magic and this is something very different."

"Why? Why are we different?"

He shrugged again. "Who knows but, with our high levels of magic, we can make a difference."

"By freeing all the dangerous sorcerers in the Camelot vaults?" she asked, sceptically.

"No, just those whose lives are in danger or who have been unfairly imprisoned."

"And what's Eden's interest in our Gauntlet research?"

"Uther's only partially right about that. As a rule we have little interest in Gauntlets as we don't believe they can work, simply because magic levels are not fully understood. Arthur's also right in that they can be of use for some people and we do think they could be adapted even though, in most cases, there is a much easier way."

"Just teach sorcerers how to use magic properly?"

"Yes."

"And me? Will it be easy to teach me?"

"It's not the teaching I'm worried about, but rather all the practising you'll have to do. Silvers are very rare but those we do know of have been discovered when very young - like me - and it's very much easier to teach children how to control it. Add to that the fact that you work inside Camelot itself and that makes it especially difficult to train you without alerting someone."

"So?"

"I'll give you one small lesson here tonight, if you're up for it, and then you can come to my place. I've got it set up so it's... less dangerous."

If it had been anyone other than Merlin suggesting that, Morgana might have suspected an ulterior motive but, as it was, she simply nodded and held out her wrist. "Where do we start?"

"Firstly I'm going to lower the setting and then give you something to test your power. The key is where you focus your attention. Don't try to hold it in and don't focus on your Gauntlet. Instead I want you to aim your power at me."

"Are you sure?"

He nodded, one hand hovering over her Gauntlet. "I'll be able to absorb it, at least for this one small experiment. I'll see what happens with that first before I decide what to do next." He closed his eyes and then nodded. "Okay, that's down to about Yellow."

"It's still showing Green."

"Yes, I know. Now, remember what I said, Morgana. When you start feeling something, push it all towards me and try not to think of anything else."

"All right. What are we going to do?"

He gave her a wry smile. "I'm going to kiss you again."

She blinked at him. "Oh..."

"Although you've probably sobered up a bit by now so it might not trigger you as much."

He shrugged, slightly embarrassed, before leaning forwards and pressing his lips against hers.

Morgana couldn't remember what it was she was thinking about during the last kiss, other than being surprised at how pleasant it had felt. But, of course, she had to keep thinking about Merlin right now, pushing everything towards him... just him. She closed her eyes, focusing on the sensation of his lips moving very gently against hers, and had to admit that it felt good. Then she felt a tingle and a slight buzz on her wrist as her Gauntlet reacted. No, she mustn't think about 'that' but about Merlin. About his blue eyes and his smile and that one lock of dark hair which kept sticking up. He deepened the kiss and she followed suit, all her thoughts on Merlin and the kiss and the wonderful feelings it was starting to awaken.

Then she felt it. A strange warmth deep inside her, like a small light which was starting to build and expand. She focused on that and then on Merlin and pushed.

He jumped away from her with a gasp. "Oh!"

"What?"

He smiled sheepishly. "It suddenly feels a bit warm in here."

"I felt my magic then. I felt it start but... I think I stopped it."

"No, you didn't. You used it." He was grinning now.

"But..." She looked at her Gauntlet to see the lights still gently pulsing, and then around the room as if not quite believing that everything was intact.

"You used it and controlled it," he confirmed. "But, I definitely will have to put some thought into your future lessons because that was very strong for just a kiss and it's going to take a lot of work to get your magic fully under control."

"Shall we try again?" Morgana asked. "I'm not at all tired. Teach me something else, like moving something. Could you do that?"

He shook his head. "Not tonight and not here where the magic alarms have so recently been set off. Luckily it's the weekend though so, unless you have any plans, we can continue with this tomorrow at my place."

"All right." She looked at the clock to see it was now past two in the morning. "Would you like to stay here?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Don't get your hopes up, Merlin. You can just sleep on the other side of the bed, or on the sofa if you can't trust yourself."

His lips twitched. "Do you really think that I'd even suggest us having sex after what that first kiss did?"

"I..." His bluntness shocked Morgana into silence.

Of course that was exactly why Gaius had been nervous about her going on a date in the first place and, even if she wasn't looking for romance at the moment, she definitely didn't like the idea of her uncontrollable magic forcing the decision for her.

Not that she wanted to sleep with Merlin, of course. And she'd only kissed him the first time because she was drunk and the second time because it was part of the lesson.

That was the only reason, of course.

~o~0~o~