The Cracks.

Merlin looked around the concrete wall's corner. Police units, lights, tape, spectators. Old Religion's hiding place was overrun. They'd stolen Mordred's magic in payback. Edwin Muirden had stolen his soul. Shaking the thoughts out of his head, Merlin noted everything he could. There could be no mistakes if he was going to fix it. End it.

People were being loaded into vans, ambulances, and medical staff buzzed from one person to the next. He walked forward with his head low, passing one of Old Religion's people. Physically the drugs had destroyed the man, magically they'd done the same only worse. Much worse. In a cruel way they got what they wanted. Suppressed the magic by ruining their minds.

Slipping through unnoticed he headed inside the block of flats and climbed the stairs two by two. A Uniform was heading down, distracted by the plastic evidence box she grappled with in her arms.

'What's going on?' he asked her, flashing his warrant card. There wasn't a flash of recognition across her face, in fact she gave him a warm smile. He mirrored it.

'Why are you here if you don't know?'

'Everyone's being redirected here. It's big, right?'

'Drugs bust and confiscation of explosives. This is the base of the people behind the attacks on Friday,' she explained, gesturing to the box she tried her best to carry with ease. 'I hear an undercover intelligence officer figured it all out. Would love to meet him, wouldn't you? He's a hero. At least I get to be on the team clearing all this out.'

Merlin's smile tightened, the prick of horror at Mordred's state enough to crush any momentary distractions. He had to fix it. The magic which had joined his and given him strength was stripped away and he felt his own powers wane. 'Better not leave them waiting then.'

'Course not,' she said with an even wider grin before heading down the stairs. He pressed on to the floor where he'd find Edwin. A nuisance in his past life, and something even worse in this one. Through the stairwell's door Merlin stepped into the dying corridor, Edwin's workroom several doorways ahead.

'Merlin?'

He stopped in view of Kilgharrah through the doorway, who had been studying one of the drug user's rooms.

The faint trace of scales around his face seemed to darken and become more defined. 'You can't be here.'

'They took Mordred's magic,' Merlin said, the bite of irritation and fear in his words. He hadn't seen Kilgharrah in days, and the man, the ex-dragon, hadn't bothered with contacting him despite the rumours. Despite Merlin's career, life, hanging in the balance. He felt insulted. Alone.

'They did what? Why?'

'A power play?' he suggested, eyes flicking back to the doorway of Edwin's nest. He ignored Kilgharrah's motion for him to come into the room, to keep out of sight. 'We undid Nimueh's enchantments. By now she's probably recast them. I can't do it alone. I can't undo them without Mordred.'

'Look at me, Merlin,' Kilgharrah said, moving towards him. His eyes were still drawn to the workroom, where the powders and potions might hold Mordred's remedy. 'Look at me!'

Kilgharrah's order shook the air with magic, and Merlin faced him, Kilgharrah's hands coming up to his face. They moved his head left, then right, up and down, his watery eyes examining him in silence.

Merlin pushed his hands away and gave him a hard frown. 'What is it?'

'You've merged your powers.'

'I told you just now,' he said.

'You have no idea,' Kilgharrah breathed, the lines in his skin shuddering with anger, horror, each emotion rising into his features with mask-like exaggeration. Merlin wondered if he'd ever let his feelings show with such clarity. Ruadan's comments about his and Arthur fights floated in his thoughts as a mocking reminder. 'Magic isn't a toy, Merlin. It's dangerous.'

'Don't patronise me.'

'Mordred's magic isn't gone. If it were yours would be too,' he went on to explain, voice hushed but the attempt was hopeless at containing the controlled rage which rippled through his tone. 'It was foolish of you to combine your powers like that.'

Merlin refused to fall into the scolded schoolboy dynamic and pushed on with the core issue. 'What does this mean for his powers? For mine?'

'You two are like opposing forces,' Kilgharrah said after a pause.

Merlin scoffed. 'Always with the abstract remarks. Can't you just be straightforward for once? First Arthur and I are-'

'You and Mordred are each part of a whole. Mordred is the dark to your light, the light to your dark. If he's weak, so are you. If he dies, so do you, understand? Understand why it was reckless of you?'

'Yes, I understand.'

Voices travelled to them from the opposite end of the hallway. Kilgharrah paused, head tilting to the side with recognition. 'Bayard.'

'Are Nimueh and Edwin in custody? Will they be able to reverse whatever they've done to Mordred? Will any of Edwin's powders help?'

'They weren't found, and without the caster of the spell any attempt to undo it is pointless. Intelligence is searching for them though,' he replied, having pulled the reluctant Merlin into the room. He tried to focus on the ex-dragon, DCI, not the stained and rotting mattresses, the empty and broken syringes scattered on the ground. The splashes of blood on the grey aged fabric. 'Mordred's information was quintessential to this whole operation, don't think his actions are lost on me.'

Merlin eyed him. 'You knew he was working with them? A spy?'

'Of course I knew,' he said, carefully looking back out in the hallway. The voices grew closer. 'Go. Before they see you.'

Merlin wasn't done. He needed more. He needed Edwin. He needed Mordred. The voices were drawing nearer though, and Bayard with them, a bloodhound who knew his scent. He had to run. Only a second in the hallway and someone called out, 'DS Emrys?'

His feet carried him to the stairwell's door and then he barraged down the barren tower of winding stairs. Breaking out into the morning air he charged out of Old Religion's territory, officers chasing after him, shouting after him. The Vanishing hit him like a wall, his shattered bones and torn skin spurred through London irrespective of what stood in his way. He landed in a huffing pile on Arthur's bedroom floor. Catching his breath Merlin got to his feet, head throbbing and body aching. Vanishing had never left him in such a state, never been so painful. If he's weak so are you.

'Shit,' he huffed, hand pressed against his queasy stomach. Once the ache dulled he walked over to the edge of the bed and nudged the foot poking out from under the covers. 'Get up.'

'What the bloody,' Arthur started, blinking awake and shuffling up onto his elbows. 'Merlin? I thought you gave your key back.'

Arthur threw his legs over the side of the bed, stretched, and snatched up some clothes.

'Nothing you haven't seen before,' he reminded Merlin as he hid away his exposed skin with a shirt and trousers. 'Gwaine and I have an idea about how to handle your growing criminal record.'

It took all his strength to keep focused, a strange nothingness which permeated his mind clawing back his thoughts. He shuddered to think of what Mordred was going through. 'Arthur, Old Religion have . . . . shut down Mordred's magic. I can't feel him anymore.'

'Feel him?'

'It's complicated,' he said, and Arthur's face fell. He paused, thinking of a way to explain it. 'You know that comfort you get from knowing a friend's in the same room? Their breath, warmth, presence, occasional comment? Well, it's like that in a way, only the room is the world. At the very least London.'

'Weird.'

'I know Nimueh's behind it, but she's disappeared,' Merlin continued, breathing a little easier after letting Arthur understand one aspect of his magic. It was weird. Incomprehensibly so. His agitated body needed movement, and he resolved to pace along the short stretch of the bedroom.

'Like Aredian?'

The name sent a shiver down Merlin's spine. 'Edwin Muirden too.'

'Who?'

'Long story,' he huffed.

'Do we need to find them? We've had no luck with Aredian, but I'm willing to bet he killed Cenred,' Arthur said, stepping in front of Merlin and forcing him to stop, to calm down. 'About our idea to get you out of the law's firing line.'

Merlin opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came. Arthur had a solution. He closed it again and noted the soft smile on the ex-king's lips.

'Convince Morgana to come clean.'

A hollow laugh escaped him. 'She's beyond reason.'

'Mordred was the same, wasn't he? They've both changed,' Arthur reasoned.

It was a fair point, but it grated against Merlin's nerves. Arthur didn't know what Morgana had done in the past, but then Merlin had had a great part in the broken witch she'd become. This lifetime's counterparts weren't the same, and Mordred was a case in point. So was he. Perhaps history didn't always repeat itself. Not their's. Merlin was sick of the fate, of the prophecy, which had plagued their pasts. He had to fight it, even if that meant turning to Morgana - who'd ruined a possible life with Mordred.

'Convince her for the rest of us, if not for yourself. We deserve as much. Our reputations are burning up right now too,' Arthur said into the silence Merlin left between them. 'You have more sway over her. Common ground.'

'Common ground?'

'Mordred.'

There it was. A sad mist which clung to Arthur's eyes. Merlin hoped he mirrored the look. That Arthur could understand. He wouldn't without remembering though. Memories were his gift and curse. No wonder people suppressed their pasts. The memories weren't his to give to Arthur though, to weigh down the one person he wanted to keep safe and separate. 'I meant to keep away from you, after the break up. Guess we're stuck together no matter what. Even after everything that's happened.'

'I'm happy with that arrangement,' Arthur said, taking Merlin's hand. The touch was momentary. The rush of the wind in the forest beyond Camelot's walls, the cool breeze in Arthur's bedchamber, the playful insults and rich smells of the banquet hall.

Arthur gasped and lurched his hand away. 'What did I just see?'

Merlin stared at him in horror. He'd been remembering. Had Arthur seen what he had? A metallic ring cut through the pause and Merlin insisted Arthur answer it.

'Bayard?' Arthur repeated in response to the caller. Merlin turned away from him, breathing deeply. The air, it had changed. It was colder. Empty and scentless. Aredian had been here. He'd been in Arthur's bedroom. Like Cenred, he left it drained. Merlin's blood moved lethargically, filled with heavy ice and fire. The hunter was stalking its prey, learning its weakness. It made him sick.

'It's not him. When will you people listen,' Arthur argued over the phone, running a hand through his dirty blonde hair. 'He was there? In the hospital room?'

Arthur shot him a questioning look, and Merlin could see the doubt. It darkened the light in his face, and he loathed Aredian more for it. Five minutes passed, Merlin waiting to defend himself, to return the shine in the colours shrining Arthur. The colours that had been fading. Did Aredian's past presence drain so much from the air? Or was his connection to Mordred stealing away more of his own powers?

'They found another body like Thornberry's,' Arthur told him after hanging up. His eyes were fixed on the mobile, taking several seconds before he looked up at Merlin after throwing the phone onto the unmade bed. 'In one of the flats. A description Mordred gave of Edwin Muirden matched the body. They found a note too. He's the guy you were talking about, isn't he?'

You're a fiction in the modern world. Fire will free you, Merlin. Cenred, Edwin. Himself. 'He's hunting me. Weakening me.'

'Not very subtle about it,' Arthur said, voice softened by what Merlin imagined were some confusing thoughts. The darkness of doubt grew, heavy and sharp, as Arthur directed it towards him. Any memory of a smile on Arthur's face had been buried deep, sealed in marble and left preserved in cold isolation. Merlin's stomach remained uncomfortably uneasy at the sight. 'You were in Cenred's room before they found him dead.'

'Mind games are a hobby of his, like all good self-obsessed witchfinders,' Merlin said, keeping his nerve as the pure light of Arthur dimmed into nothing. Mordred was weaker. So was he. 'He's messing with me. With you. I didn't kill Cenred.'

Arthur nodded. 'I believe you.'

He couldn't see the light or the shadows. Arthur was just Arthur. Lying, telling the truth, Merlin couldn't tell and the drained cold air brushed his skin, consoling him, mocking him. 'I hope you do.'

'Merlin, just now,' Arthur started, his eyebrows furrowed, 'what did I see? There was a castle, and then trees. You were there. What was it?'

He looked into those blue eyes, earnest and free of any magical influence. This was Arthur to everyone else. Dimmer, but somehow brighter. He couldn't jeopardise his life, his happiness. 'I'll convince Morgana.'

'Wait, Merlin-'

He left the room and Vanished to her flat in Islington.

.

.

.

Strangers buzzed around, busy with their weekend. La Petite Auberge was comfortably full with hungry patrons. Merlin kept to the side. He watched. They left no trails, possessed no stain of their personalities. Like Arthur, they were nothing more or nothing less than what they were. With no insight into their lives Merlin found a smile pulling on his face, gently coaxing his lips into an expression of what bubbled in his chest. Warm, cold, thrilled, terrified.

He cast his stare upwards, first the charmingly blue sky, then to the reddish brick of the building on his right. To the window beyond which Morgana and Mordred existed, trapped by a weight they all now carried. He had to convince her. Had to save him. Mordred and Arthur were his to protect.

The Vanishing lurched him up through the air and left him standing in the kitchen. Mordred's back was facing him as he stirred the tea. The spoon clinked where he dropped it into the sink and he turned, Merlin lost in his new perspective of the man.

He jumped when he saw Merlin, his dark eyes wide and hands jerking up as if to defend himself before he realised who it was. The mug cracked onto the wood, hot tea spilling out, moving languidly through the hazardous maze.

Mordred didn't even glare at Merlin, just crouched down and started picking up the pieces. Merlin joined him, fingers wetted by the tea soaked porcelain he piled carefully in his palm.
'Sorry,' he said as he lifted another jagged piece from the pool of tea.

'Don't worry about it. The whole no magic thing has made me a bit jumpy.'

He couldn't stop studying Mordred. The hair which curled down over his forehead, wavy and filled with wild life. Heavy lids, slight shadows under his eyes. Fond fascination made every fibre of the jumper he wore seem softer, amusing. The heat which pressed against Merlin decorated Mordred with question. The dark fabric spotted with bronze speckles was out of place and disconcerting in the sunlight. 'A jumper?'

'I was cold.'

'It's the middle of July.'

Mordred stood and dropped his collection of broken mug into the bin. 'I'm always some wounded pup of the pack to you, aren't I?

'Not always,' he said, Mordred's chuckle laced with bitterness. Whatever Merlin was feeling, was only an echo of the powers which suppressed Mordred's magic. That echo had left him on the verge of becoming hysterical with panic, a mad sort of excitement and hard terror. The source, the real thing, lived and breathed with Mordred. 'Morgana did destroy your morality for a few months, and you were beaten and chained to a radiator. Act or no act, Old Religion hurt you then and they've done it again. Emotionally, psychologically, you name it.'

'I never asked you,' Mordred started, his eyes staring at the wall just past where Merlin crouched. The sunlight lost its golden touch, left pale and hollow as clouds crossed the sky. 'When we removed Nimueh's enchantments, when you saw my past. When I saw yours.'

Mordred's words came slowly, stopped and thickened by thought. Fear. Merlin got up and binned his own selection of porcelain pieces, mopping up the tea with some squares of kitchen roll. 'When we joined our magic?'

'And you saw what my life is. Was. Why Morgana could enchant me and make me become . . . that. What happened, with the foster homes and,' he paused, taking in a deep breath.'You honestly see me the same way?'

'No. I understand you now. Like Morgana even less,' Merlin said, moving forward to where Mordred leaned against the counter. He dropped the sopping brown bundle into the bin and cleaned his hands, inches from Mordred who watched him silently. Merlin turned the tap off. 'Edwin's dead.'

'You just can't keep away,' Morgana remarked, appearing in the doorway.

'Morgana,' Merlin acknowledged. He dried his hands and remained at Mordred's side, arms touching. The warmth, the fabric, but no magic. Brushing the sensations and the shock in Mordred's eyes to the side he trained his stare onto the witch, Arthur's words clear in his mind. 'You have to come clean. If we want to find Nimueh, we can't have the Yard out to get us alongside the Press. If you want Mordred to get his powers back, sort out Aredian, end all of this, you need to tell the truth. Confess.'

Mordred ran a hand over his face, and Merlin could practically see the man reel in the strands of thoughts and facts, trying to make sense of it all.

Morgana's raised brows pushed downwards. 'What's wrong, Mordred?'

'Besides the obvious, you mean? Edwin's dead apparently,' he repeated with a bitter smile which split his face disturbingly. It left his eyes sombre. A smile which reflected just one of the cracks that threatened to break him. He turned to Merlin, stripped bare of the intoxicating magic, the past. His eyes hid nothing, their pure colours just as mesmerising as the storms he'd always seen in them. 'Who killed him? He was killed, wasn't he?'

Merlin took in a deep breath and held it as a cold wave soaked through him, taking more of his strength away. 'Probably,' he answered after the sickening feeling had passed. 'I plan to find out.'

Mordred mirrored how he felt in the unhealthy pale hue which had destroyed the natural glow of his skin. 'Good. Thank you.'

He cleared his throat and turned back to Morgana who stood watching them silently. 'So, will you hand yourself in?'

'We need to be allies, remember,' Mordred added, putting more of his weight against the kitchen counter. Merlin felt the icy enchantment brush through his body, and stifled the urge to hug Mordred, to hurt Nimueh. Too bad Edwin Muirden was dead. Killing him would have made him feel less helpless. Useless.

'I'd go to prison,' she pointed out, but her voice was strong and relaxed, a fiery determination brightening her eyes.

Mordred's face was tight, lips slightly pursed to control whatever threatened to show itself but he broke the mask to tell her, 'You never liked the police, and breaking out would be nothing to you.'

Morgana watched him, and that determination softened, melting down into an empathetic pool like the tea. 'When?'

'Now,' Merlin said.

'Allies?' she checked with them both.

Relief left him in a long breath and he managed a smile. 'Better than the alternative, don't you think?'

When he looked to the side Mordred didn't seem to share his relief, or Morgana's determination and smile of hope. He seemed lost. The pure colours of his eyes were a blur, greens and blues all flooding into one another. Like the colours of the ocean in all climates had been spilled into him, circling around the dark pupils and fusing together to then crystallise. Caught in their movements and currents.

'I'll fix it,' Merlin assured him, hand lightly touching his arm. He felt like a stranger he'd known his whole life. The warmth that had surrounded him in the hotel room, that had infuriated him, saved him, that had almost destroyed him at Christmas. 'I will.'