Bo spent the next couple of hours aimlessly wandering the castle's halls, her tumultuous mental state making it impossible to keep her body still even though she didn't understand why her mind was in such an uproar. After all, she wholeheartedly believed what she'd told Merlin and Morgana – Vex was not a good person, and the world would almost certainly be a better place without him in it.

Sure, there was that one time she'd been forced to save him, when Future Evony's beleaguered assistant had influenced Vex's human dominatrix into trying to kill him, though she had thought of it as helping the woman as much as him; she wasn't in her right mind at the time, but that wouldn't have protected her from the repercussions of harming a client, and Bo wasn't going to let a human's life be ruined just because some fae decided to use them as a pawn in their schemes. Besides, the whole point of that ploy had been to frame Evony for Vex's murder, and Bo had to clear her name in order to obtain the key to freeing Lauren from Lachlan's control. Now, though…

Now Bo was under no such constraints. There was nothing stopping her from simply walking away, letting Count Vladimir carry out his grisly plans for the mesmer…nothing except her own conscience. Despite her tough talk earlier and her sincere belief that Vex was thoroughly despicable, she wasn't sure she could really stand by and watch a person, even one she detested, be mutilated and thereby sentenced to a horrible death.

What about the people he killed horribly, though? she argued with herself. Lou Ann, Siegfried, probably a bunch more I don't even know about but who I'm pretty sure were all a lot nicer than him – if he dies now, maybe they won't have to. Anyway, it's out of my hands. Vlad's made up his mind, and there's nothing I can do about it.

…Only that's not really true, is it? You're the Blood King's granddaughter, whispered a sly little voice that seemed to come from the deepest recesses of her mind, where she pushed all the thoughts and impulses and parts of herself that she didn't want to deal with. You're a princess, and he's just a two-bit, small-potatoes count. You could overrule him…if you wanted to.

But I don't! There may be a time when I have no choice but to flex my royal muscle, but there's no way in hell I'm doing it for Vex! Merlin and Morgana just need to accept that I'm right on this one, that I know him better than they do. If they knew him like I do, they'd agree with me.

Freshly resolved to make them see things her way, or at least to stand firm against any further arguments they might try to make on Vex's behalf, she marched back to her guestroom, only to find when she got there that they were already in bed. That didn't mean they were sound asleep, though; Morgana was tossing and turning, obviously in the throes of one of the nightmares that had become an almost nightly occurrence since the commencement of Bo's Dawning, and Merlin, who looked as if he'd just been rudely awakened by her frantic movements, was trying to wake her.

Their disagreement instantly forgotten, Bo ran over to the bed and joined him in shaking Morgana, who finally jolted awake a moment later, though it seemed to take her mind another minute or two to register that she was no longer trapped in whatever hellish vision had been tormenting her. Her huge, glassy eyes roved unseeingly around the room, and she flailed against the arms that wrapped around her, trying to hold her still.

"Morgana, calm down! It's us!" Bo exclaimed, throwing in a few soothing pulses of her power just in case words alone weren't enough to get through to the disoriented seer.

She blinked, her struggles gradually petering out as her eyes finally focused on the anxious faces of her lovers. "Merlin? Bo?"

After they both assured her that they were right there, she was safe, and everything was all right, she practically went limp in their arms, sobs racking her body. They held her tighter, and as their eyes met over her head, both of them saw the same worry they felt reflected in the other's gaze. It was Bo, however, who said what they were both thinking. "Don't worry, Morgana. I'm going to get through this Dawning mess, and I'm going to do it as fast as I can so you won't have any more of these nightmares of me turning into an underfae."

Rather than being comforted by this reassurance, Morgana just shook her head. "It wasn't that," she whispered. "This nightmare wasn't about you, Bo. It was me."

Bo and Merlin exchanged another look, this one just as worried as the last, though now there was confusion mixed in as well.

"What do you mean, it was about you?" Merlin asked her, trying to hide his alarm behind a façade of gentle concern. "Are you… Do you think one day you'll be fae enough that you'll have to go through the Dawning too? Or is it…something else?" He didn't want to give voice to the fear that had suddenly gripped him, that the fae blood which had given Morgana her magic and visions had somehow become corrupted and was now turning her into some sort of monster. He didn't know how such a thing could happen, but then, he didn't understand how her fae heritage had manifested at all when everything he'd read in Trick's extensive library said that the offspring born of couplings between humans and fae were nothing more than ordinary humans. He had hoped to find an account of at least one other person like Morgana, maybe a case that had occurred so long ago that it had passed out of living memory, but it seemed that she truly was unique…which meant there might be some equally unique problems in store for her as she continued evolving.

Morgana, however, shook her head again. "No, nothing like that. I don't think I'll ever have a Dawning – at least, I haven't seen anything to suggest that I will – anyhow, I didn't see my future this time. I saw… I think it must have been glimpses of another life, another world in which Bo never came to Camelot, because she and Kenzi weren't in any of them, and…"

"Come on, how bad could it have been?" Bo asked in a tone of forced levity as Morgana shuddered in her arms. "I mean, I'd never want to imagine a world without Kenzi, but it was probably a lot more peaceful."

Unfortunately, her attempt at humor didn't seem to lift Morgana's spirits even a tiny bit. "It wasn't," she said in a soft, choked voice that sounded as if she was on the verge of tears. "Without you, Bo, I… Somehow I ended up joining Morgause, aiding in her schemes, doing…terrible things. I saw myself using some sort of enchanted herb or root to poison Uther's mind and relishing his pain, tricking Arthur into wearing a magical talisman that nearly killed him, throwing Gaius into the dungeons after I'd conquered Camelot and making a knight who was captured along with him fight my men for scraps of moldy bread to feed him with, refusing to give him anything more even though he was wounded and sick, imprisoning Gwen in a tower where I conjured visions to torment her and break her mind in order to twist her into a puppet I could use against Arthur…to say nothing of all the knights and innocent people of Camelot I slaughtered merely because they remained loyal to their rightful king rather than bend to my rule…" Her recounting of her nightmare ended there, her words abruptly cut off by a gasping sob.

Bo and Merlin were horrified, but they quickly pushed those feelings away. "I don't know what kind of bizarre alternate universe you were dreaming about, but that wasn't you," Bo said firmly while Merlin nodded in agreement. "We know you would never do anything like that – you couldn't. That's not who you are, Morgana."

"Are you sure about that? Didn't you say earlier that some people are born with darkness inside them, and it always shows itself eventually, regardless of circumstance? That some people are simply evil?"

"I think you're paraphrasing a bit," Merlin told her, "but you're right – she did say something along those lines."

Now they were both gazing intently, almost accusingly, at Bo, who found that she could only shrug and say rather feebly, "Well, obviously I wasn't talking about you."

"Doesn't the same principle apply, though?" Morgana's voice was still shaky, but now her usual steely resolve was creeping back in. "If there was ever the slightest possibility that I could have done such things, no matter what might have caused me to take that path, doesn't that mean that I must have the same darkness in me as that man down in the dungeon?"

"You don't," Bo insisted, growing agitated. "I know you don't. Look, maybe… Maybe if you take a nice, normal person and do enough bad stuff to them for long enough…stuff like what happened to my mother…maybe even a good person can snap. It doesn't mean you're some kind of bad seed."

"If you truly believe that, how can you be so certain that Vex is?"

"Because I know you, and I know him-"

"How well do you really know him, though?" Merlin asked gently. "If he's here now, it seems he'd lived a very long time before you met him. Maybe, in all those centuries, something happened to him that was as bad as the torture that drove your mother mad and whatever might've turned Morgana against us if you hadn't been there to stop it. We've already seen that his kind are being persecuted, after all."

Bo was still skeptical, but she had to concede on one point: Vex clearly had a hard life, and she acknowledged that it was probably very difficult for anyone to be their best self in such conditions. "The Vex I knew and loathed still had both hands firmly attached, though," she added, determined not to pity him too much, "so it doesn't sound like he got tortured too badly the first time around."

"Maybe not, but not everything is exactly the same as it was before, is it?" Merlin pointed out. "Shouldn't we at least try to find out if there's still a chance for Vex to take a different path this time, like Mordred – and apparently Morgana – did? If we could help him do that, wouldn't that save his future victims just as well as killing him?"

"I guess," Bo said grudgingly. She hoped they would let it go at that, but when Merlin and Morgana continued eyeing her expectantly, she sighed loudly and threw her hands up. "Fine, I'll go talk to him tomorrow and see if this version might be slightly less psychopathic than his future self, okay? Will that make you happy? Can we please just go to bed now?"

###

Satisfied with Bo's promise, Merlin and Morgana allowed her to join them in bed without another word on the subject of Vex, but when the sun rose the following morning, they began pestering her about keeping her word as soon as she got dressed – and so, with much grumbling, Bo reluctantly let them drag her down the narrow, moisture-slick stone steps leading to the dungeons.

Vex was huddled in the farthest corner of his cell when they arrived, his hands shackled behind his back and fastened to an iron ring on the wall with such a short length of chain that he couldn't move them an inch. He raised his head at the sound of the barred door grating open and sneered at his visitors, which prompted Dyson to step protectively in front of Bo, Merlin, and Morgana and growl at him.

"No need for that; can't you see I'm trussed up tighter than a feast day turkey here? Now, if I had even one hand free-"

"You still wouldn't be able to control me, Dyson, or Mireya if we shifted," Esperanza pointed out from where the two female shifters stood guarding the door, "and we'd tear you apart."

"Fair enough. What are you lot here for, then? Come to gawk at the last living mesmer, have you? Well, I hope you're enjoying the spectacle, ladies…and gentlemen," Vex added with a taunting leer at Dyson and Merlin. "Wouldn't want to deny you fellows the pleasure of a good show either."

"Actually, we came to see if there might be anything here worth saving," Bo said while looking down her nose at him with a deeply disgusted expression, "but we're obviously wasting our time. Come on, guys."

"Pity you didn't figure that out before you got into a fight with those louts who were dragging me behind their horses," Vex called after her as she turned to go. "Don't know why you bothered if you were just going to bring me here to have my hands lopped off."

"If I'd known who you were," Bo retorted over her shoulder, "I wouldn't have."

"Oh, right – of course you're just like all the others, blaming me for being born with powers I never asked for!"

"It's not about what you are, asshole!" she snapped, whirling around to face him once more. "It's who you are!"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"

They glared heatedly at one another for a minute, until Merlin broke their standoff by putting himself between them and crouching down so he was on Vex's level. "I'm sorry for what you've been through. I know how hard it is to be treated like an outsider because of something you can't control."

Vex looked away from Bo and stared at Merlin as if he didn't know what to make of him, clearly surprised by his earnest attitude yet also doubtful. "What would you know about it?"

"I was born with magic in a village full of ordinary humans, so I know plenty. Bo was raised by humans who weren't exactly understanding when her fae powers manifested, and Morgana's a half-human, half-fae who inherited the Sight from her mother, an oracle, and spent most of her life hiding her visions since she grew up as Uther Pendragon's ward. So you see, we're all outsiders."

"And yet I'm the only one chained to a dungeon wall," Vex said bitterly, though his face softened slightly as he glanced Morgana's way. "Being brought up by Uther Pendragon does sound like a nasty piece of bad luck, though."

She accepted his sympathy with a polite nod, then took half a step closer, lifting her skirts to keep them clear of the dirty straw littering the floor. "What did you mean when you referred to yourself as the last living mesmer? Have you no family?"

"Not since they were all rounded up by people who hated and feared us for our powers," Vex answered, the bitterness creeping back in. "Ambushed us in the middle of the night and seized them all before they could lift a finger to defend themselves – literally. I only escaped because I wasn't in my bed where they thought I'd be; I'd gone down to the kitchen for a drink of water, and when I heard the mob storming through the halls of our manor I hid amongst the sacks of flour and potatoes in the larder. I was a lot smaller when it happened, you see. After the noise died down, I crept outside and watched what they did – how they cut my whole family's hands off so they couldn't use their powers anymore, couldn't feed. Then they just left them there to starve. I've been on my own ever since, moving from place to place – more like being chased from place to place – doing whatever I could to survive."

"Including turning to thievery," Dyson observed.

"What was I supposed to do, wither away to a skeleton? We mesmers may feed on our control of others, but we still need food too."

"Have you ever committed a crime except out of necessity?" Merlin asked quietly. "Have you ever hurt anyone for any reason other than self-defense, or…or killed anybody?"

"Goddess, no!" Vex said emphatically, giving the sorcerer a horrified stare. "I use my powers whenever I need to feed, but not to make people hurt themselves! I would never do that!"

"I'm glad to hear that." Merlin looked up to gauge Bo's reaction, and saw that she was watching Vex with an expression of extreme perplexity. It wasn't quite the sympathetic response he'd hoped for, but at least it was a shift from her previous attitude of cold contempt.

For her part, Bo felt thoroughly disconcerted, like she didn't know which way was up anymore. The Vex that was sitting in front of her right now sounded perfectly sincere in his insistence that he wouldn't hurt anyone – or force them to hurt themselves, more accurately – and against her better judgment, she almost found herself believing him…except that what she was seeing and hearing now was so completely at odds with the coldblooded, sadistic torture specialist she remembered from the twenty-first century that she couldn't reconcile the two versions of Vex in her mind, even though they were obviously the same person.

She knew a thousand years was a long time, but was it really long enough for someone to undergo a total reversal of their morality, to become the absolute antithesis of their former self? After all, the other familiar faces she'd encountered in the past had definitely changed over the centuries – or would change, rather – but she still recognized shades of the people they had become. If the current version of Vex truly wasn't a murderous psychopath in the making, something pretty drastic must have happened to precipitate the change in him; the question was, what had the trigger been, and could she identify it in time to stop it?

###

Bo was unusually quiet for the rest of the morning, which Merlin and Morgana hoped meant she was giving serious thought to Vex's situation, though they wished said situation hadn't cropped up to distract her from the unicorn conservation problem she was supposed to be solving. Unfortunately, homeless unicorns seemed to be the last thing on Bo's mind; when Evony, who had ridden out at daybreak to take another look at their meadow (and hopefully catch another glimpse of the herd), rejoined them for lunch, Bo barely listened to her observations.

"…Oh, and I sent a message to my father about that mesmer you captured yesterday," she added offhandedly while spearing a chunk of pear with her fork.

"What?" Bo asked sharply, abruptly tuning in to the conversation. "Why did you tell him about Vex?"

"Because it seemed like the sort of news that would interest him," Evony answered distractedly, her attention still fixed on her fruit salad. "Everyone thought the last of the mesmers were wiped out years ago, you know. Anyhow, he sent word that I should tell Count Vladimir to hold off executing or maiming the prisoner until Father can get here to speak with him in person. Apparently he thinks he might have a use for him."

Electricity seemed to shoot up Bo's spine, filling her with an ill-defined yet burning sense of urgency. "What kind of use?"

Finally picking up on the tension in Bo's voice, Evony set her fork down and frowned at the succubus. "Well, I imagine he'd make a very useful weapon," she said with the air of someone who wasn't sure why they had to explain something so obvious. "Mesmers' ability to control one's body makes them extremely dangerous – that's why they were all hunted down, you know. They're the perfect assassins, since they can kill without leaving a trace; it would just look as if the victim committed suicide."

"And your dad's in the market for a mesmer assassin?"

"Yes, they were frequently hired for that purpose before people grew too afraid of them; I suppose you could say they became victims of their own success. Still, who wouldn't want to have that kind of power at their disposal, particularly when its wielder is the only one left in the world?"

"Yeah," Bo said slowly. "Yeah, I can see that. Excuse me." Shoving her chair away from the table, she walked out, with Merlin and Morgana hurrying after her.

"Bo, wait! Where are you going?!"

"Don't you see? Ever since we talked to Vex I've been going crazy trying to figure out what could've caused him to change so much, and now… I think this is the turning point. If he accepts Evony's dad's offer – well, his first assignment probably won't be anything as extreme as making a woman drown her children, maybe it'll even be someone who actually deserves to die, but after a few hundred years of killing people who have it coming, I bet a lot of people would get desensitized enough that their standards for who deserves it become a lot more flexible."

"So what are you going to do?" Morgana asked breathlessly, as she and Merlin were practically running to keep up with Bo's rapid strides.

"I'm not sure, but I can't just sit by and let this happen. I have to talk to him again…"

"And say what?" The question came from Merlin this time.

"I don't know yet!"

"Ah, so the plan is to make it up as we go along," he muttered. "All right, we can work with that." Morgana gave him a doubtful sideways glance, prompting him to add reassuringly, "Don't worry, I had to improvise plenty of times to save Arthur's royal arse."

###

Vex appeared to be taking a nap, but he jerked awake when Dyson, who had joined the trio as they passed through the keep's lower levels, opened his cell door with unaccustomed force, causing the rusty hinges to shriek in protest. This discordant screeching was accompanied by the sight of Bo storming into his cell, her dark eyes burning with some intense emotion he couldn't quite identify, which left the mesmer startled and more than a little alarmed, though he tried to maintain his façade of cool flippancy. "What's the matter, love? Got a bug up your skirt?"

"You're about to get a job offer," Bo blurted out, "and you need to turn it down."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"We've just learned that a powerful Dark Fae nobleman will soon offer to arrange your release in exchange for…certain services which you're uniquely equipped to provide," Morgana clarified.

Vex gaped at her in open disbelief for several moments before gathering his wits enough to say, "And you want me to refuse that? Are you out of your bloody mind?"

"You don't understand," Merlin told him. "This man is ruthlessly ambitious, and if you agree to work for him…eventually he'll ask you to do terrible things, or introduce you to other people who will."

"And getting my hands chopped off isn't terrible?"

"So you'd have no problem making someone torture themselves to death to save your own skin?" Bo demanded, scrutinizing him through narrowed eyes. "How about killing children? Not doing it yourself, but forcing their stepmother, someone they loved and trusted, to drown them in a bathtub? Is that totally cool with you?"

Stunned into silence, Vex could only answer with a horrified stare. No one else spoke, simply watching and waiting with bated breath until he found his voice at last. "No, I don't want to do that," he said in a much quieter, more solemn tone than they'd heard from him in any prior conversation. "But I don't want to die either." Having bowed his head as Bo's words sank in, he now looked up at her once more with an almost pleading expression. "I don't want to hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it, but I don't deserve what's going to happen to me if I don't take this noble's offer, do I? What choice do I have?"

"There's always a choice."

"Then you'll have to spell it out for me, because right now I'm not seeing it."

Bo didn't answer right away; her mind was spinning, an indefinable yet unbearable feeling of pressure building inside her skull. She had to do something, had to show him there was another way out, but how, how… Then she heard words issuing from her mouth, unexpected, unbidden, almost as if someone else was saying them. "What if… What if I could give you another choice?"

"What?"

"I'm the Blood King's granddaughter," Bo said slowly. She wasn't entirely sure where this new thread of an idea that had suddenly emerged from the chaotic, desperate jumble of her thoughts was leading her, but she'd always operated mostly on instinct and this felt weirdly, inexplicably right, so she decided to just go with it. "If some archduke can spring you from this cell, I'm pretty sure I can too. You can work for me instead, and I'll never ask you to hurt innocent people."

"Really? Swear fealty to you?" Vex's head tilted to one side as he considered her offer, then slowly dipped in an assenting nod. "Well, you did save me from those ruffians so that at least I didn't get dragged behind a horse all the way here, and you and your entourage here are the only people I've met in years who haven't treated me like scum just for being what I am…so sure, why not? If I have to be used by someone, it might as well be you."

He tried to shift onto his knees, but was held back by his chains – until Merlin broke them with a flick of his wrist. Vex nodded gratefully at him, then moved to kneel before Bo. "I pledge my loyalty and service to you, Princess Isabeau, from this day until my last day."

"Great. Thanks. Now, uh…"

"Why don't I take him out of here and find him some clothing more suitable for a member of your personal guard?" Dyson suggested, seeing that Bo appeared to be at a loss for what to do next.

"Good idea," she said gratefully. "Vex, go with Dyson."

"As you wish, your highness." He bounded to his feet and eagerly followed Dyson out of the cell. As they walked away together, Bo heard him say, "I guess this makes us comrades now, eh? Brothers-in-arms?"

"I guess so," Dyson replied in an unenthusiastically flat tone that almost perfectly mirrored Bo's own feelings about the situation.

Once they were out of earshot, she turned to Merlin and Morgana and asked, "What the hell did I just do?"

"You showed someone who would otherwise have started down a very dark path today that there is a better way," Morgana answered, "and in so doing, you've almost certainly saved countless lives – not to mention gaining what could prove to be a highly useful ally."

"I'm proud of you, Bo," Merlin added, beaming as he silently addressed Morgana. She has quite a gift for drawing in and inspiring loyalty from both Light and Dark fae, doesn't she? For someone who keeps insisting she doesn't want to be queen, she's already getting in a good deal of practice.

Yes, Morgana responded with a hint of amusement as well as pride in her mental voice, but we probably shouldn't let on that we see more of the makings of a great ruler in her every day. We don't want to scare her off.

###

When the threesome emerged from the dungeon, they found Elaine waiting for them at the top of the stairs, wearing a proud smile identical to the ones Merlin and Morgana sported. "Congratulations on passing your first test, Bo."

"What?" Bo sputtered. She was already blinking as her eyes made the adjustment from the gloom of the dungeon to afternoon sunlight, but now her shock brought on a marked increase in rapidity. "But I haven't done anything about restoring the unicorns' habitat-"

"That was merely a ruse, a way of getting you where you needed to be," Elaine explained patiently. "Your willingness to show compassion to someone you honestly believed was beyond redemption was your true test. Besides, the unicorns will be fine; with my guidance, your elemental friend Gabriel was able to use his power over earth to nourish the soil so that it will once again provide what they need, as well as identifying a new irrigation path that will allow the local farmers to obtain the water their crops need without depleting the unicorns' meadow again. It will require more work on their part, but Lady Evony was able to convince Count Vladimir of the necessity of persuading his tenants to adopt this new system."

"Oh. Well…good. I'm glad the unicorns are okay," Bo said lamely, feeling rather put out at the way she'd been misled. "Couldn't you have told me what was really going on, though?"

"I'm afraid not," Elaine replied with one of those mysterious smiles she pulled off so well. "Oftentimes, it's only when a person doesn't know they're being tested that they show their truest self. Now we must return to your grandfather's castle with all haste; we only have a few days until your next task begins."

So, before the sun set, they found themselves on the road – this time with Vex in tow, looking much better now that he'd had a chance to clean up and change into fresh, non-tattered clothes.

"I can't believe you took the last mesmer into your service," Evony commented as they rode away from Count Vladimir's keep. "My father won't be happy when he hears of this."

"Well, he'd better get used to not having things his way all the time," Bo retorted, "although if you're worried about catching blowback, I'll be sure not to mention that you tipped me off to his plans of recruiting Vex so I could beat him to the punch."

"That would be appreciated." Though she tried to keep her tone light, it was clear she had indeed been worried. "You should be careful too," she said seriously. "If he thinks you thought of it on your own… Until now, Father's opinion has been that you don't seem to have much interest or skill for playing the game, but if he starts to see you as a worthy opponent…"

"He'll ramp up his own game? Start playing hardball?" Bo guessed.

"I'm not exactly sure what you're saying, but yes…I think. Then again, perhaps you won't have to worry about my father after all – at least not until after you've explained to the Blood King why you're bringing a mesmer into his palace," Evony said with the same cunning, cat-eating-canary grin Bo had seen so often on her future self's perfectly made-up lips. "That should be a treat to watch."

###

Trick greeted Bo warmly upon her return home, congratulating her on successfully completing her first test. Deciding that she might as well take advantage of his good mood, she beckoned Vex forward as soon as she and Trick finished hugging. "The thing is, my test involved helping this guy, so I kind of gave him a job. I know mesmers don't exactly have a stellar reputation, but this one hasn't done anything too bad – yet – and I'm hoping with enough good influence, we can keep it that way."

"A mesmer, you say?" Trick asked, eyeing Vex appraisingly. "Tell me, young man, are you any relation to General Clust?"

Vex's eyes widened, and his mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before he was able to get words out. "You knew my father?"

"Yes, Clust was one of my best generals in the Great Wars. He was a good man."

"Are you sure we're talking about the same man, sire? The one I knew was nothing but a brute, always drinking and bellowing at me and my brother for every little thing."

Trick nodded sadly. "Alas, despite his great deeds on the battlefield, your father still faced distrust and ostracism from his peers. By the time he left my service, he was a bitter, angry man. Still, it grieved me to hear of his murder, along with those of his entire family, or so I was led to believe. You are most welcome in my court, where I hope you will carry on the better parts of your father's legacy."

"I'll try, your majesty."

Although Bo couldn't be certain, she thought Vex sounded pretty sincere, maybe even a little humbled or grateful, or both. "Well," she said as she, Merlin, and Morgana split off from the group and headed to their chambers, "that went better than I thought it would."

"Isn't it a strange coincidence, though," Morgana mused, "that he knew my mother, and now we learn that he has a connection to the father of our new associate as well?"

"Yeah, but you have to keep in mind that he meets lots of people in his position as the most powerful fae ruler of all, and for all we know, he's already had hundreds of years to make acquaintances," Merlin reminded her. "I don't even know just how old he really is, so we should probably be more surprised if it turns out there's someone he hasn't met."

###

That very evening, Elaine presented Bo with her next task – which turned out to be a strange spiral-shaped object inscribed with what Bo suspected were some kind of magical markings. "This is but one piece of an invaluable magical artifact that was entrusted to my people four hundred years ago," she informed Bo. "You must locate the other pieces and reassemble it before the week's end."

"But that means I've got less than five days," Bo protested. "Can you at least give me a clue where these other pieces are?"

Elaine named a region to the southwest which wasn't so large that searching it within the specified time limit would be impossible, but it was clear that Bo couldn't afford to waste any time.

"Fantastic," she sighed, feeling a wave of weariness crash over her. Forget passing the Dawning; at this rate, I'll be doing well if I don't drop dead from exhaustion! "I'll leave first thing in the morning. I just need to get some rest first."

###

Unfortunately, her plans to get a good night's sleep so she could tackle her second task with fresh energy were ruined when Morgana had yet another nightmare, and even though Bo had had the foresight to put Merlin between herself and the sleep-challenged seer, Morgana's panicked thrashing and gasping still woke her.

"What is it this time?" she grumbled, privately thinking that if Morgana's dreams didn't let up soon, they might have to explore separate sleeping arrangements, at least until the Dawning was over. "More glimpses of my bright future as an underfae if I fail, or your exploits in the bizarro mirror universe?"

"No… It wasn't about either of us," Morgana panted, still breathless and soaked in sweat from the fear of whatever she'd seen. "It was… I'm afraid… I don't know exactly how or from what, but I fear Arthur is in mortal danger."

Well, of course he is – mortal danger seems to be a near-constant state of being for Arthur, doesn't it? In our next chapter, we'll skip over to Camelot to find out what trouble our favorite prince has gotten into this time.

Fun trivia fact: the bit about Vex's father being one of Trick's top generals, as well as his name, was taken from 4x11. Vex told Bo how his family died in 4x05, though I embellished a few details.