The Empty Fireplace.

Merlin Vanished, and for a moment after he had Mordred could still trace his features in the empty air.

He tensed his body to suppress the shivers, head swimming with heat one second then a painful cold the next. Shifting his stare to Morgana he asked, 'You'll really do it?'

'You could die if I don't. I could die,' she said. 'Merlin's our best chance.'

'What you did, Morgana,' he started, looking down to his feet. Studying the angles the bones of his feet created in the socks. The weight which had bored down onto his chest for the last sixth months was gone, taken with his magic. He could be straight with her. Free. He curled his right toes then stretched them out again, concentrating on the stretch and restriction of the cotton. 'Whatever past life we shared in Camelot, it means nothing after that.'

'People with magic are always persecuted, Mordred. I was just trying to do what I thought was right. Keep Merlin out of the way, even if that meant using you. I was wrong,' she explained. Mordred clenched his teeth and gripped the edge of the counter a little tighter. He was drained, scarred by what she'd done, and hating her was easier. Even if that hatred included himself. 'I'm sorry for what I did to you and Merlin.'

'People always suffer, but that always comes to an end. If you had patience,' he said and ran an unsteady hand through his hair. 'If you hadn't been so desperate to please Morgause, to avenge whatever wrongs were done to you,' he trailed off, the words beyond him. Hypotheticals stung. What if? What could have been? It was a dark alleyway. Almost indefinitely ended with a mugging, possibly a stabbing or two. He couldn't handle it. Didn't want to.

She pressed her lips together, crossed her arms. 'And has yours come to an end?'

The kitchen's wall clock ticked. She watched him with gentle intrigue and a touch of what could have been mourning.

'Merlin's forgiven me,' he said.

'But you can't forgive me?'

'I can't,' he said, took a deep breath and met her stare. His thoughts were hazy and it took effort to strain them through into something tangible. Something comprehendible. 'Don't know if I ever can.'

The ticking was louder. Persistent to fill their silence. Tick. Tick. Tick. The familiar tone of his mobile chimed out and he left to answer it, Morgana staying silent in the kitchen.

He picked it up on its last buzz. 'Hello?'

'Mordred? It's DCS Agravaine. You need to come in and make a statement on the incident involving the death of Intelligence officer Aglain. Sorry about all this.'

'I understand,' he said and for an instant felt the warm blood, the life, leaving Aglain's body. 'I'll come in right away.'

'I'm sorry for what you went through, Mordred,' Agravaine told him again. He ended the call. Everyone kept apologising. He didn't want any of it. Mordred pushed the mobile into his jeans pocket before heading back to find Morgana. She was making a cup of tea.

'I have to go.'

'It's a Sunday. How can they expect you to go in?'

'A man's dead, Morgana,' he said, concentrating on the light fabric of her blouse, the soft folds, shadows and filtered peachy-red light. 'If you get the time finding Nimueh would help.'

While her lips were downturned, weighted by his refusal to forgive her, she nodded her consent. He left, descending the staircase wedged between one set of flats and the other. Outside the noon sun was hidden and rubbish bags were piled up around the base of a black street lamp. He headed left, Angel underground station a five minute walk away.

He melted into the company of strangers with the occasional whistling draft cooling him as it passed through the carriage's door seal. Some listened to music, some stared at nothing in thought, others made cursory glances at the shoes of their tube travelling companions. Mordred did his best to stay awake. To stay alert. To ignore the suffocating sense of isolation and weakness which had woven itself into every sinew.

Changing at Moorgate, he waited through another twenty minutes of heat before rising into the chilled crisp air of St James's Park and made a bee-line for Scotland Yard. Press clogged the street, enough to give anyone a heart attack, and a smart looking man beckoned him over when he turned into sight.

'Man of the hour!' the man bellowed, snatching him to his side accompanied by camera flashes. Mordred noted who was there, who was recording, who tried to interview him. Anything to keep his mind occupied. He felt unsteady, as if he balanced on muscle and tendons only with no support from bones.

'How do we know you're not a double agent? That you didn't kill officer Aglain?'

'What about your history with Merlin Emrys? A detective-turned-killer?'

'Alright, alright, that's enough,' the man said, patting him on the chest like an old friend. 'DC Leir helped bring terrorists to justice, putting his own life on the line, alright?'

'So, what did happen?'

'Was Aglain the final victim of Old Religion?'

'Does this prove beyond a doubt that DS Emrys' allegations earlier this year were false?'

Mordred's chest constricted, queasiness twisting at his innards. It played with them, knotting and throwing and shifting around like the pieces of a child's game.''Excuse me.'

He pushed through the man's calls for him to come back and the net of questions thrown out to try and reel him back. Safely inside an officer rounded on him. He recognised her. That flat brown hair pulled into a tight bun, the features so everyday and so forgettable. Memorable in that way at least. She'd originally spoken with him about the intelligence operation, at the very beginning. Before he'd fucked it all up.

'Where have you been? What happened with Aglain?'

'His car blew up. He died,' he said, surprised at the bluntness of his own words. The woman's face was a mixture of shock and horror, the previous concern now triple-fold. 'Sorry, I . . . I'm tired.'

'The Commissioner wants to see you,' she said, escorting him to the lift. Her attempts at small talk failed utterly, Mordred too immersed in how he was beginning to forget what magic even felt like.

The lift came to a halt, and he stepped out, dazed, following her. She left him at the Commissioner's door. Sir Bernard Hewitt-Harding. A mouthful of a name. He knocked. Entered. They shook hands. Sat down.

'Mordred Leir,' the old man said as if it were a remark, a notable point to make. That was his name. One half carried with him for centuries now. The other a reminder of this life. The modern life. The one which had taken away his soul, if it even existed. Taken away any chance with Merlin and left him close to breaking.

'Sir.'

'So young and so accomplished. Especially given your troubled past,' the Commissioner went on, bland watery eyes fixed on him. 'Mordred, I've made the decision to present you with a commendation.'

'Why?'

'You deserve one. You've done a great service to London.'

'I thought I was here to make a statement.'

'You are, but I wouldn't be here on a Sunday afternoon if there wasn't a bit more going on, now would I?' he said with a smile, the sagging skin around his mouth forced up into their well-worn creases. 'You should look forward to a prosperous career with the Metropolitan police. Now, a media liaison is going to help you prepare for an interview on BBC news tomorrow night.'

Mordred stared at the Commissioner. 'What?'

'Don't look so scared, Mordred,' he said with gruff laugh. 'You must be used to the press at this point. Granted you haven't had a lot of the good kind. The tides are turning, Mordred. You should feel proud. Aglain's murder is a tragedy, but he died in the process of bringing these Old Religion monsters to justice, once and for all.'

'Nimueh wasn't found,' Mordred reminded him, hating how the old man's hair had been overridden by the grey of a failing body. 'She's the instigator, the one leading the whole thing. It's worthless without having caught her.'

'We've launched a search, and that's all we can do,' the Commissioner said as he stood. Mordred followed suit, accepted another handshake, and was ushered towards the door. 'We need some positive press and you, Mordred, are our saving grace. The Met's golden boy they're calling you.'

The Commissioner opened the door for him, and Mordred was ushered into the colder corridor. 'I'm not a boy.'

.

.

.

Merlin's shoulder thumped against the wall when he reappeared just outside Old Religion's boundaries. His body ached from the Vanishing. The magic no longer thrummed warmly with his blood, instead it was heavy, cold, worn.

He pressed on. Keeping to the side and out of sight Merlin tracked down the room which had housed Edwin's corpse. The police vans were gone, and Uniforms milled about with bored expressions. The building complex was large, but he had enough magic left to feel that emptiness call to him. A soft unsettling breeze intermingled with the still air, leading him to Edwin in silence.

He ducked into one room then the next to keep from the impartial eyes of some passing officers. Merlin found it within minutes. Top floor, empty aside for rubbish and the heady scent which hung in the air like a perfume designed to coax him. To lull him closer. Grey light filled the barren corridor, unappealing but it pulled him forward.

One door stood open directly ahead, flanked by the corridors walls, with white and blue police tape stretched across it in warning.

He bent down beneath it and entered the rectangle. He took a sharp breath at the drop in temperature and crossed his arms, scanning the room left to right. A fireplace, abandoned and stripped of its flames. A window with mysterious grime splattered against its panes. Merlin took it all in with his human eyes. Breathed the stale air.

The note glared at him. It hung angry and black where it had been singed into the wall.

COME FIND ME, MERLIN.

He walked up to the taunting message and traced the charred sharp edges of plaster bordering the letters. Black ash stained his fingertips, cool and chalky having forgotten the heat. Merlin shuddered as another wave of nausea crashed through his body. The burned words lurched towards him and his forehead hit the wall, hands attempting to steady himself. Pricks at the back of his neck tapped their way down his spine. They branched outwards until the numbing sensation, the white noise, coated his skin. He sank down to a crouch, one side of his body stung by the cold air and the other supported by the damaged wall.

Merlin couldn't feel anyone, anything. His muscles were sore. The white noise, the emptiness, made it worse.

Footsteps. He ignored them and watched the smokey air spill out from his mouth and nose before sucking in another icy draught.

'Look at this. Searching for days and here you are at another murder scene with your name written on it. This time quite literally.'

Merlin craned his neck to look at the large Inspector. Bayard. Aredian's threats and controlled words beat with his heart: I hunt. I am your choice. Let me end it. Come find me.

'DS Merlin Emrys,' Bayard began, having crossed the room and latched a hand around his elbow. He pulled Merlin up to his feet and locked the metal cuffs around his wrists. The cold edge bit at his skin, the bones of his wrists. Would Aredian's jaws feel similar? Hard, icy, emotionless. Mocking. 'I'm arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Cenred Mercid on Saturday 25th July. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something you rely on later in court. Anything you do say may be given as evidence. Do you understand?'

Mordred had been enchanted, his powers stolen, only last night, and Merlin already felt like collapsing. The grime on the window reminded him of wet dirt, muddy and trodden through, compacted like the ground at a sodden funeral. Uther's had been like that. Overcast. Wet. Muddy.

'Do you understand?' Bayard pressed again, shaking him slightly.

'Yes,' Merlin said, and the Inspector led him away. Right to left, the room disappeared from view. The taunt, the funeral window, the empty fireplace.