Chapter Text
To preface, Arthur didn’t believe in magic. Magic was for people who could afford it; it was for those who could spend their time thinking about the kind of things that Arthur’s father would have disowned him for believing in. Arthur didn’t have the time to believe in magic, the kind of magic which came with the tedious business of staying up at night, wondering about the unknowns in the universe. Arthur. . . well, he had enough to keep him up at night.
He swirled his spoon in his cup of coffee. He drank coffee now, not tea. It was one of the bad habits in his life which only seemed to become more numerous. But he was tired, and Morgana was late. Both were indisputable facts, and both were the ultimate cause of his pounding head.
He looked down at his watch, 20 minutes left on his lunch break — Bugger. Where was she?
He took the shallow respite of letting his head fall into his waiting hands, warming his cheeks from where his palms had gripped the cup. Even though his father’s voice echoed in the back of his head, calling him uncouth from beyond the grave. And it was only when Arthur raised his head again that Morgana manifested in front of him. Arthur should have predicted that; she had the uncanny ability to appear when Arthur would rather her not.
“Arthur, you're looking well.” She greeted, in a tone which suggested quite the opposite.
“Morgana.” He gave her a small smile. “ You’re early.”
“Well, the early bird gets the worm.” She took the seat opposite to him, draping her bag over the back of her chair. “And it seems as if you may be the worm. Rough week?”
“Week.” He straightened. “Month, year — take your pick.”
She flagged down the waiter, requisitioning a glass of water and forcing her order onto him. She eyed him.
“Have you eaten?”
“I’m fine.” He grimaced.
“Make that two.” She told the waiter, ignoring him.
“Gana. . .” He didn’t know how to finish, he never did.
“You need to eat sometime.” Her tone was sharp. “You're killing yourself Arthur. You don’t eat anything but coffee, you don’t sleep. You look like you’ve just crawled from your grave.”
“And you look like you're the one who resurrected me.” He glared back. “Surely only witches wear that much eyeliner.”
“Oh sure, I can be a witch.” She smirked. “Thank you for complimenting my eyeliner.”
She was impossible. Arthur didn’t know how it was that he hated her and loved her dearly.
“You have your flaws, I have mine.” Arthur drained the remainder of his coffee, trying very hard not to think about said flaws.
“And how are those flaws being handled?” She leaned in, hands bracing her sweating glass.
“They, in fact, are causing problems.” Arthur didn’t want to think about what awaited him when he went back to the office.
“He’s dead, you know.” Morgana spoke, nearly a mutter. “Your promise is to a dead man. Don’t let this hang over you.”
“It’s far past hanging over me.” Arthur let himself snap, but only just. He didn’t want to look at Morgana when he told her, so he took the coward's way out, leaning back in his seat and staring out the window at the people walking by the cafe. “I will sign in tomorrow.”
“You. . .” He still didn’t look at her. “Arthur, you can’t .”
“Morgana, the last thing he asked of me was to not let his company go to shit. He cared about Camelot more than he cared about us. It's not something I can refuse.”
And he did want to refuse. He had thought he had time, time to finish Uni, get a position on a national Rugby team. He had a dream, and he had a plan. Once upon a time those two things coincided. Then his father dropped dead of a stroke at the tender age of 54. He was the only one to take up his legacy, it certainly wouldn’t be Morgana.
“You don’t owe him anything.” She hissed it out, more anger than he’d seen from her in ages. “That man doesn’t deserve anything. You don’t even believe in the afterlife, it’s not like his ghost is watching over you, waiting to wring your neck.”
“It’s not like that — “
“You are free for the first time in your life, and the first thing that you want to do is trap yourself again?” She scoffed. “Did you like your cage?”
“Morgana!” He snapped, He couldn’t help himself. It hurt to hear her say it, because it echoed the exact thoughts that crackled in the dying embers of his sanity. Cage. That's what it was. He was being shackled to the same future that put his father into an early grave.
“I have to.” He whispered.
“Arthur.” Her voice was full of pity. He didn’t want her pity.
“I have to.” He sounded more sure now, or at least more resigned.
“Just. . .think about it first, okay?” She wiped one impeccably crafted eyelid. Was she actually crying? Over him? “Buy an 8-Ball, consult the cards — whatever. Don’t just jump into this. This is your life, Arthur.”
His watch beeped at him, his lunch was ending. He had to go.
“I’ve got to run.” He stood up, and walked over to pull Morgana into a brief hug, before walking out of the restaurant. He dodged the waiter holding their entrees.
“Arthur!”
He didn’t look back.
He lived in his father’s old house. This was an issue, as Camelot headquarters was at the edge of Canary Wharf, folded neatly into a nondescript skyscraper, and his fathers cozy-brutalist townhouse was tucked into west Kensington. He abhorred riding the tube. And because it was England, it was raining. But it was the kind of rain, so cold and hard, that it should have been snow.
He was five minutes from the next tube entrance, soaking wet in a three piece suit and shoes that were more expensive than his car. He supposed that it was a retribution of sorts, from running away from the problems he was running straight towards. Especially poetic since he’d left his umbrella in the cafe.
Just for a moment of reprieve, he stepped under the billowing awning of a shop. Leaning against the brick, shivering, he wondered why exactly he’d been so idiotic. Would they kick him off the tube for being a walking water fountain? He rubbed his arms through his jacket, trying in vain to bring feeling back into his hands. He needed to stay somewhere warm for a time before he braved the rain again, lest he lose his toes. At least this shop was. . .open?
Arthur looked into the tinted windows, trying to determine whether the lights were on. The glass was so dark that he couldn’t tell. He looked at the door, but there were no hours of operation posted, nor any sign which advertised the shop — at the window, anyway. But the outside was peculiar, in a way that hadn’t occurred to him from the street.
The building was brick, the door was ornamental, brass colored door knobs, with decorative gold climbing up the edges. This wouldn’t have been strange by itself, but it was the fact the building was situated between two unreasonably tall skyscrapers which made his eyebrows furrow. He had passed by the spot hundreds of times. Why hadn’t he noticed it?
Curiosity got the better of him, and he braved the freezing rain for another moment to try to make out the name of the shop from the swirling cursive above the awning. Above him in gilded lettering was ‘ Merlin’s Magic Emporium ’ in a script so ostentatious it made it eyes hurt to read. He fled back under the awning in the next moment.
He was tired, cold, and drained to the core. He wanted to take a scorching shower and sleep for twelve hours. Neither would be possible, well, perhaps he could fit in the shower. But even more, he did not want to continue his jaunt into the rain at that particular moment.
He tried the door, and to his surprise, it was open. He stepped inside, suddenly wafted by a wall of heat and air filled with incense. He closed the door quickly behind him, not willing to let the cold in. He didn’t care if he’d just walked up to the butcher's block, he was freezing .
His eyes roamed over the shelfs, fascinated. Arthur didn’t exactly believe in magic, so a magic emporium wasn’t his ideal location, but the store resembled an old second hand bookshop, items stacked precariously on shelves, organization with seemingly no rhyme or reason. The ceiling was lined with velvet, and from the center hung a great golden dragon chandelier which seemed to float in the air. The chains were so thin, Arthur couldn’t see them.
He looked down at the velvet, expensive looking carpet which he dripped onto more with every passing moment. Not ideal. Perhaps the owner would be so kind as to give him a towel?
“Hello?” He called out, hesitant. Perhaps the shop was closed after all? Arthur was in no mood to be arrested for trespassing. “Are you open?”
No one answered. He heard neither breathing, nor footsteps. He should’ve stepped out again, it was incredibly rude to drip water into a closed shop and then not buy anything. But it was cold outside, and Arthur much preferred to be rude than to be cold.
Bugger it—
He stepped forward, eyes roaming the shelves. They were packed full with mysterious cloth pouches, random crystals—w as that an actual crystal ball? Arthur picked up a deck of cards, not held inside of a cardboard case, but instead bounded with waxed twine.
Suddenly, Arthur recalled Morgana’s earlier words— buy an 8-Ball, consult the cards. It was idiotic, foolish, but Arthur couldn’t help but want to seek the kind of affirmation he couldn’t find in himself. He wanted to believe that he wasn’t making a mistake, signing himself away to Camelot. That belief didn’t seem to want to come from him. It’s not like it would hurt, he was already in the damned shop.
He stroked the deck, wondering if the cards were hand made. What were they called, tarry cards? They looked like they were painted, not printed. They were even gilded; the top card— the magician— had golden robes. He could see why people became obsessed with them, if all of them were so beautiful. He had never really thought about them before, what all the different cards meant, surely they all meant something?
“I wouldn’t touch the Major Arcana.” Arthur startled, nearly dropping the cards. He whirled around to the voice. “They get twitchy.”
An ornamental crystal ball fell onto the floor behind him, shattering into millions of tiny pieces.
Behind him was a man, probably near Arthur’s age. He registered the wide bright eyes, pale skin, and dark hair. Arthur hadn’t heard him approach, where did he come from?
“The—” Arthur’s eyes jumped back to the magician card, “Major Arcana?”
That sounded sort of . . . magicky
“Yes, yes, they get so full of themselves.” The man’s lips twitched, and Arthur was inexplicably drawn to the hint of his grin.
“Right.” Arthur was suddenly wrongfooted. He looked down, remembering the soaked rug, the one now covered in glass. “It’s raining outside—er, would you happen to have a towel?”
“Oh don’t worry.” The man walked past him, farther into the shop. “It’ll sort itself out.”
The man turned round the corner, leaving Arthur alone by the entrance holding a twine-bound bunch of cards, the top one of which belonged to something called “the Major Arcana” who didn’t like to be touched. This, Arthur thought , is what happens when you listen to Morgana.
He waited for a few seconds, not knowing exactly how to proceed. Did he leave? Did he try to clean up the glass? Should he leave money for the crystal ball? Arthur didn’t know how much crystal balls cost. He was saved the torture of indecision by the mans return, who whipped his head around the corner, eyes narrowed in on Arthur.
“Aren’t you coming?” He asked, voice filled with an innocent sort of confusion.
“Er—” Arthur put the cards down on the table, making sure to not touch the top card. He decided to under no circumstance let the man know he had no idea what was happening. “Of course, lead the way.”
Arthur was suddenly hit with the man’s face morphing into a full impish grin. He turned around, continuing on his previous path, and Arthur could do nothing but follow. Was he about to be murdered in a strange shop in the middle of the night? Likely, given Arthur’s luck.
Arthur had to pick up speed in order to catch up with the man. From the outside, the store hadn’t looked so large. Arthur was surprised to find among a maze of faux mystical items stacked precariously well above his head, that it was difficult to keep up with the ever changing directions of travel. Arthur was sure that, if prompted, he wouldn’t be able to find the exit. When the man stopped, it was in front of a small black door surrounded by concrete. It nearly looked out of place, more suited for the back of a Tesco's rather in the middle of the shop.
The man opened the door, gestured for Arthur to follow him inside. It looked like a simple office, much like the ones in the downtown Camelot buildings. This place—it made no sense.
Arthur followed the man in.
“Sit, sit.” He insisted, gesturing to the black computer chair rolled in front of the man’s desk. “I can tell you have questions.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong, Arthur had several questions. Despite himself, Arthur sat, the dampness of his clothes causing the leather to squeak under him. The first question, which was on the tip of Arthur’s tongue, ‘ so who the hell are you’ , never made it past his lips.
“Focus on the question, don’t tell it to me, I don’t like hearing about people’s problems.” The man ordered gently, cards materializing in his hands. He shuffled them smoothly. Arthur wondered how long he had to practice that. “Come on now.”
Right, question. Arthur didn’t think he meant the questions he had about this place. No, he meant the reason Arthur wanted to have his fortune read in the first place. . . but how did the man know that?
Focus, the question. His choice. Why was Arthur going along with this farce?
The man began laying down cards, five of them in a row. The backs glinted red and gold, lacquered and gilded. Even more ostentatious than the set in the front.
“Now you might look down on me for using a five card spread.” The man explains, tapping the first card to his left. “But I prefer my own methods of divining.”
“Of course,” said Arthur, as if he had opinions on card spreads.
“Now let us unveil your present.” The man said, flipping over the first card. Arthur could devine the image just fine without the man's explanation. “Ah, the hanged man, reversed. A bit of a sacrificial lamb, are we? You know, will your involvement really make a difference?”
“Excuse me?” Arthur bit out, sort of offended. He wasn’t a sacrificial lamb .
“What can you do?” The man asked. “It’s the Major Arcana, they're not going to beat around the bush at it.”
“Well—”
“Now let us see your next steps.” The man flipped over the next card. He tisked, mouth twisting. “Two of Wands, you already know your choice, don’t you? All you have to do is look inward.”
“. . .Look inward—”
“Obstacles next, let us see what is keeping you. “ The man turned over the third card, face all at once sobering. Arthur looked down to see a ‘five of swords’.
“Grief, then.” The man dragged his eyes up from the card, meeting Arthur’s surprised gaze. “And you're cleaning up the battlefield, aren’t you. You had goals and ideals, but you can’t remember them when you're haunted by misfortune, can you?”
Arthur decided he didn’t much like the tarry cards.
“My father.” Arthur said without really thinking, perhaps a reflex from the past month where he had to receive many insincere condolences. “Stroke.”
The man hummed. “It’s always the father, isn’t it. Especially with the five of swords.”
Arthur swallowed, not quite knowing how to respond. The man just continued, and Arthur let him.
“Your strengths, Ace of swords, reversed.” He hummed. “Ace of swords is clear, using logic to cut through all of the bullshit. The reverse? You're creating your own barriers, trapping yourself with your own logic.The strength? Re-examining your perspective, you’ve done that before, haven’t you?”
How could he possibly know? This man couldn’t possibly know, it was just a trick of the cards. It had to be. Arthur couldn’t, he didn’t—
“And the outcomes?” The man flipped over the last card. It was a familiar one.
“The magician?” Arthur asked. It was one of the major arcana, right? Whatever that meant .
“Interesting. . .” The man held his chin, looking down at the card with an intense focus. “This is unexpected.”
“Why?” Arthur was quite concerned before he quelled it firmly with an emphatic ‘ it’s not real magic.’ “What does it mean?”
“Well, if I was anyone else, I would tell you that ‘the magician’ would mean you may have an unorthodox success. “ He tilted his head. “But being who I am, I think it means something quite different.”
Arthur didn’t follow.
“Something good?” He chanced to ask.
The man’s eyes dragged up from the card, his eyes shining with a strange emotion Arthur couldn’t place.
“That remains to be seen.” He mumbled, so quiet Arthur could barely catch it. Then quite suddenly, he held his hand out. “I’m Merlin.”
Arthur probably should have guessed that, Merlin of ‘Merlin’s Magic Emporium”
He grasped the man’s—Merlin’s—hand, shaking it firmly. “Arthur.”
“You're joking.”
“About my name?” Merlin was the one with the strange name, he didn’t have leverage to judge. “What’s wrong with Arthur?”
“No, no—nothings wrong with Arthur.” He rushed out, face reddening, “It’s just. . . Merlin and Arthur? It must be fate.”
Suddenly, Arthur recalled the origins of both their names, and cringed that he hadn’t caught on earlier. Merlin and Arthur, of course, was he an idiot?
“I suppose.” He drew out, considering. “I don’t know about fate.”
Merlin gave him a tight smile. “Well, fate definitely knows you.”
This was a lot. Arthur was tired, wet, and confused. This place was strange, this man was strange. Arthur wanted to go back to the world he understood, yet. . .he desperately wanted to understand. How did the man know those things about him, why did his advice make sense?
Merlin caught him staring at the deck, so he shuffled the cards rapidly, splaying them upwards for Arthur to see. They looked as if they were all in order, how had he—
“The cards like you.” Merlin informed, plucking up the magician card from its place in the deck with a practiced sort of derision. “Lucky, they don’t like me, which makes them distinctly unhelpful.”
“Sure.” Arthur didn’t see how cards could be biased, but he wasn’t going to argue with the man. He pushed himself up from the chair. “Right. Well, how much do I owe you?”
“Hmm?” The man looked up. “For what?”
“For the tarry reading?” Arthur asked, tarry readings usually cost money, didn’t they? He fumbled to pull the wallet out of his jacket.
Merlin snorted. “Ah, well, it’s uh, it’s tarot, not tarry.” He replied with a voice barely constrained with laughter. “And don’t worry, I don’t charge for readings.”
That was an unusual business model.
“Tarot then.” Arthur accepted. Still he wanted to provide the man with some type of compensation. As much as the entire interaction had been trying, it had given him something to think about at least. “How much would it be to purchase the crystal ball I broke?”
“The ball?” Merlin’s eyebrows furrowed. “I suppose I could charge for it, you certainly don’t look like you're hurting for cash. 20 pounds?”
“You don't sound so sure of yourself.” Arthur crossed his frigid arms over his chest. “You do sell things don't you?”
“Occasionally. . .”
Merlin stood, opening the door for Arthur; who had the sudden feeling he had outstayed his welcome. The man was suddenly very shifty eyed, Arthur didn't trust it. Was this to be the portion of the evening where he was kidnapped? It didn’t feel like he was going to be kidnapped.
“Why don't I bring you to the front?” Merlin said shortly. “We can get your bill sorted.”
Merlin walked back through the door, and Arthur could do nothing else but follow him back through the maze of a store. They’d only reached the till when Arthur’s eye caught the cards he was holding earlier. For some inexplicable reason, he wanted them. Perhaps he wanted to see how much made up nonsense Merlin had thrown at him.
“How much for the cards?” He inquired.
Merlin looked up curiously from below his fringe of hair, eyes scanning him. Was the man who sold magic things judging him for buying a magic thing? Impossible . Merlin looked at the cards behind Arthur, lips curling.
“20 pounds?” Merlin suggested.
“Is everything in this place 20 pounds?” Arthur clenched his teeth.
“You're right.” Merlin bobbed his head. “Too repetitive, 40 pounds. That sounds better.”
“You’re joking.”
“Too low?” Merlin grinned. “50 pounds then. That’s a balanced number.”
Arthur gaped, while Merlin looked on expectantly.
“You’re barmy.” Arthur said, near speechless. “Proper barmy.”
“Now you sound like my mother.” The other man retorted, flipping around the screen to the I-Pad register. “70 pounds then?”
Arthur relinquished his card.
Arthur suddenly felt very weary of the day, time felt sluggish, and his eyes had been drooping for hours. So he didn’t argue when Merlin got the door for him after depositing the tarot cards into his pocket. At least the rain had stopped, and he desperately wanted to crawl into his bed. He realized on his way home that the broken glass he’d created had been cleaned up when he went to the till. Perhaps there was another worker he didn’t see? Strange.
Arthur ended his night tucking magic cards under his pillow, feeling bewildered, exhausted, and thinking of wide blue eyes and such ridiculous notions. Fate, what a load of codswallop.
Arthur twisted his watch for what felt like the hundredth time. He could hear his fathers voice in the back of his head, stern. He had always said, in a tone which broke no arguments, ‘You must arrive precisely on time, not a second sooner, not a second later. A Pendragon’s time is too valuable to be spent waiting, and we must also show the same respect.’ It was the same speech each time, and Arthur had had it memorized word for word before the age of six. He had very important engagements at that age, or course. Mustn’t be late for Year 1.
But Arthur wasn’t always the best at following the advice, more inclined to follow the letter of the law rather than the spirit. He’d usually arrive early to whatever meeting he had, but not enter the room until the exact time. That gave him 15 minutes to hide in the loo and think about his life choices. It was very important, those 15 minutes.
But he was out of time.
He stood, opening the stall, not really thinking about it. He would just walk down the hall, walk into that obnoxiously large meeting room he’d always hated, and he would sign the piece of paper which would sign him on as the head of the board of directors. It was nothing really, he would smile, go through the motions of business that had been implanted into his blood since a young age. It would be nothing, just a piece of paper. He’d signed lodes of papers.
Arthur stopped in the middle of the hall, looking at the painting of his father on the far wall. It was large, professional. His father never left his suit, Arthur wasn’t sure if the man had slept in one. His fathers eyes stared down at him. They were as cold as Arthur remembered.
“ Your promise is to a dead man.” Morgana had said.
His father’s cold tone. “ A Pendragon never breaks an oath.”
“ You had goals and ideals, but you can’t remember them when you're haunted by misfortune— ” That strange night.
But Arthur knew his father had loved this company more than he’d loved Arthur, as much as the man had the capacity for love. It didn’t hurt Arthur anymore, not now that he knew better than to expect it. And Arthur did love his father, he did, but he didn’t particularly like him.
“ Do you like your cage?”
Arthur’s fingers trembled as he checked his watch. He was late. He entered the conference room, hand slick on the doorknob. He wasn’t thinking, he couldn’t.
“Pendragon.” Greeted DuBois, Arthur wasn’t sure if she was genuinely happy to see him, or if her face was permanently frozen into an empty smile.
“DuBois.” He replied, trying to smile like he couldn’t feel the sweat dripping down the small of his back.
Others talked at him, and he nodded like he was listening. He could see the stack of papers in the corner of his eye, taunting him.
“—so we’d like to know whether you’ve come to a decision.” Arthur zeroed in on Kay’s voice, his brain finally snapping back into his head.
“I have.” Arthur said, and even as he could manage.
“— you already know your choice, don’t you?”
“Glad to hear it.” Kay replied, sliding over the pen. It was thick, black and gold. Arthur did not pick it up.
Arthur walked around the table to the projector, there was financial data on a graph, an upward trend, it seemed. It always was, whenever he checked.
“My father started this company in his living room.” Arthur looked at the returns for the last quarter, they had not gone down since Uther’s demise. Quite the opposite. Arthur knew why. “He built Camelot up with the ideals of my mother, and then in the memory of her.”
“Quite.” DuBios broke in. “And now you will build it up beyond him.”
“Will I?” Arthur asked quietly. The other members of the board suddenly got very shifty-eyed. Some looked distinctly panicked. Arthur suddenly got a very bad feeling about the entire arrangement.
“Certainly.” Said Argrivane. “You, after all, are your father’s son.”
Arthur looked him straight in the eyes.
“I’m not signing on.” He said, and after saying, the weight of the entire arrangement seemed to slide off his shoulders. It felt nice, to say it.
“If you need more time to decide, the board is more than happy to—”
“I'm not signing on.” Arthur said. “I am selling 70% percent of my remaining shares. I implore you to find another executive among yourselves.”
“Surely you are not serious—”
“Good day.” He said with finality, twirling around and out the door, no one bothered to call after him.
And once he was out of sight? He ran.
His phone buzzed from the nightstand. He ignored it, like he ignored the ringing, and the doorbell, and the house phone, the incessant knocking. He shut his ears. He didn’t want to hear what anyone had to say at that particular moment, much less the people who actively wanted to say things to him.
He’d slept with the cards under his pillow, the guide online had told him to. It said that they would be ‘attuned’ to him that way. Arthur didn’t quite know what being attuned entailed, but he figured he could follow the simple enough directions until he actually knew what he was doing.
The first card Arthur remembered getting. Merlin said it represented his present. The hanged man. Apparently reversed meant the cards were upside down, that would have been nice to know. ‘Stalling, disinterest, stagnation, avoiding sacrifice, standstill, apathy.’ All lovely synonyms. All which had pretty accurately represented his present. Had. Because Arthur had changed it, right?
Unfortunately that was the only card Arthur had remembered, the man had presented them unfairly fast, and it certainly wasn’t Arthur’s fault the man didn’t slow his explanations down. But the man had lingered on the last card, the magician, and it ate at Arthur. Why did the card have a different meaning? From what Merlin had said, the card was meant to represent his future, and from what Arthur had looked up on a website named tarot.com, it was supposed to represent pure willpower. Arthur thought that represented him pretty well.
But it was futile to know unless he went back to the shop, which wasn’t going to happen, the man had shamelessly fleeced him. The nerve. . .
He took the initiative to lay three cards out in front of him, supposedly representing his past, present and future. He had changed his circumstances, thus his future must have changed, right? He needed to know his new one.
The first card, his past? ‘Six of swords’, reversed (was it reversed if it was facing away from him or towards him?). The apparent meaning? Unresolved emotional baggage. Unfair. The cards were clearly defective.
He turned over the second, his present, just to be met with ‘the hermit’. Just because he wouldn’t open the door? A bit of an exaggeration, that.
And the third, his future, was ‘the magician’.
Strange.
He shuffled the deck and drew himself three more cards.
Past, Temperance, Present, Seven of wands, Future, Magician.
He shuffled and drew again.
Future, the Magician.
Shuffled again, he flipped over the card.
Magic—
He tossed the whole lot of them off of his bed, wrongfooted. They fluttered to the floor in a mess he was going to hate cleaning up later. What were the chances? That didn’t seem mathematically possible, although he wasn’t exactly great in maths.
But, as it stood, Arthur only knew one magician.
The shop wasn’t there. Arthur stared at the empty alley.
He had thought it strange before, to see the small shop nestled between the two skyscrapers. It’s delicate lettering, stone, and drapery in stark contrast to the metal prisons beside it.
But now, and Arthur was quite sure that this was the exact location of the shop, it had completely vanished from existence. It was mad, he was mad. Shops didn’t just pick themselves up and walk on to greener pastures, it’s not like they moved locations in a single night. It was impossible.
Perhaps he had hallucinated the whole thing? The possibility seemed to grow more likely with each passing second a shop didn’t magically appear before his eyes. Magic . That was the issue. He had touched the tarot card, perhaps they had drugged him somehow? Maybe tarot was a gateway to magic. One second you're pretending to divine the future, the next shops start disappearing before your eyes.
He shook his head, finally walking away from the alley he stared into for an unreasonable amount of time, like a loon. He walked away— back to his apartment. He felt his phone buzz in his coat pocket, he ignored it.
But it buzzed, and buzzed, and it didn’t stop buzzing.
He ripped it out of his pocket, tapping the ‘accept call’ button with about as much force as one would squash a roach. “ What Morgana?”
“Arthur Pendragon.” Her voice had an edge to it, one Arthur has only heard directed at Uther.
“Morgana.” he said, wincing. But he didn’t say anything else, and wouldn't really know what to say if he did.
“You’re mad.” She hissed. “You better have a reason for—”
“By Morgana.” He said, ending the call.
That would come to bite him in the ass later. God, Morgana was going to kill him.
His phone buzzed again. He looked down, contemplating. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. He turned his phone off.
He looked over his shoulder, the shop hadn’t magically appeared in the distance. Perhaps he was simply losing his mind. Unfortunately, he had the feeling that it wasn’t that simple. Sighing, he walked on.
He came back to the real world on Monday.
Unfortunately, his professors didn’t care about his beginning life crisis. They cared less for the late assignments Arthur had been turning in all semester. Perhaps it was the fact that Arthur didn’t particularly care for the finer details of his business degree. He hadn’t wanted to study business. He had been studying business from birth. But he hadn’t been the one paying for his education, and it was one of Uther’s decisions ‘for his own good’ to make Arthur focus on taking over Camelot.
He must be rolling in his grave. Arthur mused. He was the one paying now, the chance tied up nicely in his inheritance. He could change his major, but it was too late now; He was a senior, and now that he was on the precipice of finishing it, he couldn’t quit now just because he didn’t enjoy it. So he sat in his strategic marketing class trying not to fall asleep to the droning voice of his professor. It was much preferable to sitting in his living room and thinking about whether or not he was horribly screwed.
He’d used the cards again, the magician staring back at him mockingly. It was almost like he was saying ‘what did you expect’. And Arthur was begging to anthropomorphize playing cards, so perhaps he was slightly barmy.
His mate Lancelot caught his eye, and Arthur realized that he had missed something the professor had said. People had begun to raise from their seats, grouping together.
“Would you like to partner together?” Lance suggested, twisted to look up at Arthur from where he sat in front. Unlike Arthur, Lance actually listened to the class. Arthur didn’t know why the man wanted to work with him, Arthur knew himself well enough by now that he would likely forget about the assignment by the day’s end, and he certainly wouldn’t jump to partner with himself.
“Sure.” Arthur gave Lance a tight smile, not willing to let go the opportunity to work with someone he actually knew. He gazed up at the powerpoint—marketing research, interviews, product development —wonderful.
Lance returned the smile with something that looked a bit more genuine than Arthur’s attempt. He fist bumped Arthur’s offered fist a moment later, before twisting back to glance at the projector.
“Shouldn’t be too difficult.” Lance offered.
“You got any ideas?” Like what the project was about, for starters.
“Some type of fizzy drink?” Lance tilted his head. “That fits the mark of a Horizon 1 product.”
“Sure.” Arthur vaguely knew what that was, but certainly not from listening to the lecture—well not the lecture of his professor. “Loads of options for that.”
“Got anyone we can interview?” Lance’s eyebrows drew together in thought.
“We could bribe the boys with chips after footie practice.” Arthur offered. “Could drop by a pub after, make it a focus group thing.”
Lance snapped his fingers, pointing a finger at him. “You’re brill Arthur, fucking brill.”
Seeing people begin to filter out of the room, Arthur knuckled the strap of his bag, making to stand. He didn’t want to spend more time in this accursed place than necessary. He offered a hand to Lance. “Tell you what, you make the questions, i’ll text group chat and foot the bill, deal?”
Lance took the hand to hoist himself up, then shook it, smirking. “You’ve got a deal Pendragon.”
Arthur rolled his eyes and left the lecture theatre.
It was later that week Arthur made the terrible decision of asking Gwaine his thoughts on the matter. It was a decision supported by at least ten questions about the lads' opinions of fizzy drinks, three missed calls from his sister and, at that point in the night, five glasses of ale. As the night rolled to an end, only him, Lance, and Gwaine stuck it out, the latter of who wouldn’t call the night to an end when drinking on Arthur’s dime.
“So,” He began, catching the attention of a buzzed Gwaine to his left. “Have you ever had a tarot reading?”
Gwaine snorted.
“Mate, my roommate’s a professional medium, what do you think?” Arthur felt his eyebrows raise.
“I didn’t realize that talking to ghosts predisposed you to gimmicky fortune-telling.” He shot back. “My mistake.”
“Oi!” Gwaine punched his arm. “It’s no’ a gimmick. That shit works, I'll tell you.”
Arthur wished he could be surprised that Gwaine was so vehement, but he really, really wasn’t.
“Well if you're the expert.” He drawled. “How about I run something by you?”
“Hit me—NOT LITERALLY —let me be your sensei, your guide into the Arcane —”
Arthur hit him again.
“Alright, alright! Seriously now, what was your question?”
He smoothed his palms onto his trousers, then brought them up to circle his glass. “Have you ever got a reading multiple times and kept getting the same card?”
Gwaine frowned, getting that small furrow in his brow, the same one he got when thinking through strategy in a game. Contrary to most people, including Gwaine’s own admission, he had the capability of being incredibly thoughtful—he just had to get all of the idiocy out first.
“Honestly? Not really.” He admitted. “I’ve gotten a reading a handful of times, but there’s round eighty different cards, it's hard to get repeating ones.”
“Right.” Arthur said, not quite knowing what else to respond with.
“But you did?” Gwaine put his fist under his chin, giving Arthur his unwanted undesired attention. Arthur caved.
He reached into his bag, and under the sweat drenched jersey, he pulled out his card deck. In the moment, he could have sworn the top card, the High Priestess, was giving him the stink eye for keeping them shoved under his smelly uniform. He didn’t know why he brought them, except he knew exactly why he brought them.
“I think they're cursed.” Arthur confessed.
“Piss off.”
“No actually—look.” Arthur did a quick shuffle and laid out three cards, his past, present, his future.
The first? ‘Four of Cups’, reversed.
The second? ‘Nine of Swords’, reversed.
The third? ‘The Magician’. Always ‘The Magician’.
Gwaine blinked.
“Four of Cups, choosing happiness” Arthur started. “Nine of Swords, reaching out, hopeful.”
“Well I can see that's pretty spot on—”
“The Magician.” He spat out.
“I remember that one.” Gwaine blinked. “That’s like manifesting, right?”
“Not important.” Arthur scooped up the cards, reshuffled, then laid them back down again. One after one, Ten of cups, reversed, Wheel of Fortune. The Magician.
“I think the universe is trying to tell you something, mate.” Gwaine looked bewildered. “But I don’t think I can help you with this one, ’less you want my roommate to check if they’re haunted.”
“Fucking typical.” Arthur messaged his head, which had started pounding before the five beers, after which certainly hadn’t helped.
“Where’d you get them from anyway? They’re a beut.” Gwaine stroked the art on the Magician, who Arthur could imagine preening at the compliment.
A hand on Arthur’s shoulder broke him out of the thought, Lance peered at the cards behind him, setting down Arthur’s sixth glass between him and Gwaine.
“Tarot?” Lance leaned over, inspecting the cards. “I didn’t think you the type.”
“I can have hobbies.” Arthur defended, trying to sound more offended than he actually was. He wasn’t sure if he could count obsessing over a cursed deck of cards a hobby. He turned back to Gwaine. “I got them from this strange shop, Merlin’s Magic Emporium.”
“That’s a bit on the nose innit?” Gwaine made grabby-hands towards Lance until he relinquished the last glass into Gwaine’s waiting arms.
“Merlin’s Magic Emporium, you said?” Lance asked, eyebrows furrowed. “Strange.”
Arthur turned around his chair, staring up at Lance. Lance avoided his eyes, and Arthur suddenly got the same feeling he got staring at Laura last week when she had said ‘ no Arthur, I have no idea who broke the copier machine.’ Morgana might call him thick, but he wasn’t that thick.
“You know something.” He drawled, suddenly feeling like a predator sniffing out his prey. Lance cleared his throat.
“Just thought it strange, s’all.” Lance made to go back to his seat across the table, but Arthur grabbed his arm, staring him down.
“I am going insane.” He stated, matter of fact. “So help me god, if you know anything , spill it.”
Lance winced, then sighed, surrendering.
“What I know,” Lance began, “is that strange things happen at the Emporium, but it's the good kind of strange, yeah? Maybe the kind of strange you needed.”
Arthur was silent for a moment, swallowing down the responses of ‘that’s not really an answer’ and ‘who fucking told you?’ His eyes drifted to the magician card, and he could almost imagine the dark haired man on the front giving him a pitying smile, pitying but kind.
“Yeah.” Arthur agreed, huffing a noise that could have been a laugh, if the stars had aligned. “The good kind of strange.”
Gwaine’s roommate was. . .different. Arthur knew that of course everyone was different in the end. Lance was entirely too patient, so much that it might have given Arthur hives how nice the man was. Elyan had that weird obsession with AFC Wimbledon. Percy sometimes tried to nurse lost baby ducklings back to health. Gwaine was—Gwaine. Arthur was self aware enough to know that he wasn’t exactly what you might have considered normal, and he had his father to blame for that, right along with everything else he blamed his father for.
But Mordred was proper different. If his father had ever been in the room with Gwaine’s spirited roommate, he would have taken the ample opportunity to point at the man and explain to Arthur in superior tones about the sort of people Arthur should find himself associating with. This of course meant that despite Mordred’s differences, he looked past them for the supreme reason that he knew it would annoy his father to the grave, and perhaps beyond it if he was lucky.
“So Gwaine says you may have a haunted object?” Mordred looked intrigued. Arthur was always sort of impressed about how the man could simultaneously look like a normal bloke, but also exactly what you would expect a medium to look like.
“I don’t think it’s haunted.” Arthur admitted. “But I'm not ruling it out.”
He pulled the deck from his trouser pocket, handing them over to Mordred, who looked at them with wide eyes. He brought them over to Gwaine’s apartment despite the pretense of watching the match between Manchester United and Liverpool. He knew Gwaine would blab Arthur’s sob story to Mordred, was counting on it in fact.
“These are beautiful.” He stroked the top card, a stylized picture of the grim reaper with two scythes, the figure’s cloak was a matte black that seemed to swallow all of the light, the whole card embossed in gold.
“I wouldn’t touch the Major Arcana.” Arthur warned, even though he couldn’t quite explain why.
“Don’t worry.” Mordred smiled easily at him. “Death doesn’t mind, he touches us all in the end.”
Arthur was not poking that with a ten foot pole.
“So what’s the verdict? Is it haunted?” Mordred shook his head.
“Why do you think they're haunted? You asked them to tell you your fortune, and they complied. Haunted objects tend not to follow the will of the owner, but the will of the soul remnant.” Mordred handed the deck back to him. “Then what’s the issue?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t understand that the cards are magic? Or you don’t understand what they are telling you?” Mordred asked patiently. “Because I can try to explain their function to you, but no one can truly divine the future.”
Arthur frowned. The word magic sat uncomfortably in his head. It wasn’t like the concept of black holes, or of dark matter, which held at least some sort of scientific basis. Magic sat with mermaids and aliens, conspiracy and confusion. He knew that he was grasping at straws to stay in the same frame of mind, but the idea of letting the concept of magic be normal to him felt cramped and uncomfortable in his head. But there was a shop in between two skyscrapers on a rainy night, and then there wasn’t, and there were cards that told him his fortune that never seemed to actually be wrong. Except. . .
“All of the other cards change their answer, the past and the present.” Arthur finds himself saying. “But the future? It's always The Magician.”
Mordred blinked, then frowned.
“The results of the cards are heavily influenced by the will of the holder.” Mordred said slowly. “Your present is of course ever changing, your past less so, but the result you see will be dependent on the past you think of when you turn them, understand, your entire life is your past. . .”
“And the future?” Arthur swallows and he watches Mordred’s eyebrows furrow.
“The future can be more complicated.” Mordred admits. “It’s always changing, always in flux, and there are many years ahead of you, you could be fortelling next week or twenty years from now.”
What did Arthur think of as his future? Arthur thought back to the strange man in the shop, what had he said? That it meant something different, what was the meaning then?
“Try pulling one card.” Mordred suggested. “Think of tomorrow. Think of your plans, of what could happen.”
Arthur complied, shuffling the cards. He walked over to the kitchen counter and set the top card on the laminate, right in front of Gwaine’s antiquated microwave. He turned the card over and—
The Magician stared back at him, Arthur could have sworn the figure rolled his eyes.
Mordred peered over his shoulder, looking at the card in fascination.
“My father said something to me once. He said that some destinies are bigger than others.” The other man quoted, soft. “I thought for a long time that it meant that some people are more important, but that’s really not what it meant. Some destinies are tomorrow, and some destinies are the rest of our lives.”
Arthur swallowed.
“And now it’s up to you to figure out what that destiny is.” Mordred smiled at him.
“Who.” Arthur said without thinking.
“Hmm?” Mordred tilted his head. Arthur released after a moment what exactly he had said.
“Who, not what.” He looked down at the Magician, who looked back at him, smirking.
Because, yeah, Arthur was a bit thick. Arthur knew one magician, and there happened to be a man who worked the till at a disappearing shop who sometimes charged for things, made absolutely no sense in that everything he said made complete sense, and Arthur couldn’t get the damn man out of his head.
Who indeed.
“Oi!” Gwaine roared from the couch. “Get your arses in here, the match is on!”
To preface, Arthur didn’t believe in magic. He didn’t like the word, it felt too encompassing. He believed that sometimes Gwaine’s roommate could talk to ghosts. He was pretty sure science couldn’t explain fortune telling cards foretelling the future. Shops didn’t get up and walk away in the middle of the night, except sometimes this one specific shop did. That didn’t mean he had to call it magic.
To preface, Arthur was in denial.
“This is your fault.” Was the first thing he said to Morgana.
He had learned, the hard way, that in order to escape Morgana’s ire for your wrongdoing, you must provide a sufficient distraction. Arthur had chosen to escape her nagging while going through his life crisis, but that was not without consequences. There was always a time limit to that sort of thing, and it ended with their weekly Friday afternoon lunches.
It was something he cherished, that they could scream at each other, spew hatred into each other's faces, swear to never grace each other's doorstep again, but they would always find themselves at the same bistro come Friday afternoon. Sometimes he well and truly hated Morgana, but that never meant he didn’t love her, so he could stand 30 minutes in her presence once a week at the very least.
“Arthur.” She took a hearty sip of her glass, staring at him over the rim with a glint that spelled immediate bodily harm. She had chosen wine for this one, how wise.
“No seriously, you get into my head.” He pointed a finger at her. “And I do something insane. I am never listening to you again.”
She held up her hand and started counting.
“You don’t answer my calls.” She put up one finger, god, she was going to count all the ways he had wronged her. “You don’t answer my texts, you don’t open your door when I knock, I have to find out from a news article that you handed over the company.”
“Morgana I—”
“Arthur, I thought you were dead for an entire day.” Her nose was scrunched in fury, and she shot to her feet. “I almost called the police!”
He held up his hands, trying to placate her. It wouldn’t work, she was going to be pissed with him till the end of time.
“I was fine.” Arthur winced. “I was trying to. . .”
“Trying to what —”
“I don’t think you’ll really understand but I-” He closed his eyes. “I couldn’t talk to you.”
“You’re right.” She bit out. “I don’t understand.”
“Morgana. . .”
“Arthur.” She pointed at him aggressively. “All we have left is each other. You don’t get to shut me out. You text me ‘hey Morgana I need to disappear from the world for a week because I’m so incredibly full of angst I couldn’t possibly speak to you’ and I will listen.”
“I get it.” He looked down, frowning.
“You don’t,” She enunciated, “but just know that the next time you pull a stunt like that I will dig your grave myself .”
When it was Arthur’s time to go, he wanted to be cremated, but he shut his mouth, because the imagery of Morgana burning him alive actually seemed to enforce her ire, how wonderful.
They stared at each other for many moments where both of them pretended not to notice the stares of the other bistro patrons. The waitstaff had seen entirely too much of them to be surprised. Morgana took a breath of air, sat primly back into her chair, and took another large swig of her wine glass.
“So how was your week?” Arthur asked, taking a small sip of the glass of water Morgana had ordered for him.
“Terrible. Yours?”
“Horrible.”
“How awful.” She deadpanned. “I believe you mentioned doing something insane? Was the insane thing before, during or after you sold most of your shares?”
He tutted. “Why not all three?”
“You're impossible.” But she was smiling when she said it, so how mad could she be really?
Not really knowing how to broach the issue, he set the deck of cards on the table. He’d resigned himself to practically bringing them everywhere, he never left the damned house without them, too tempted by the answer the cards would give him, and he was beginning to wonder if this was actually becoming a problem. Come the new year he’d be set up on the road with a sign advertising psychic readings and wearing beads by the hundreds.
“What is that?” Morgana leaned forward, intrigued. “A gift?”
Something in Arthur recoiled at the thought of giving them up, even to Morgana. That was his deck, she could get her own. . .and wow yeah it was becoming a problem.
“It’s a problem, is what it is.” Arthur grumbled. “Get a tarot reading from a wizard in a disappearing shop, rearrange your entire life, divine your destiny, this is what happens when I listen to you Morgana. ”
“Are you okay?” Morgana reached over the table to try and touch his forehead, and he might have been sick in the head, but not that kind of sick. He swatted her hand away. “You're worrying me now.”
“I don’t believe in magic.” Arthur protested, although he’s not sure who he’s protesting to. “But I’ve had a really, really weird week.”
Morgana’s eyes were wide, then they narrowed speculatively. “Magic?”
Magic was a big ‘no no’ in the Pendragon household. Uther Pendragon was the type of man who tolerated very little tomfoolery, and less from his children. THere were no games of make believe with mermaids and unicorns, and both he and Morgana were heavily discouraged from ascribing things to fate and fortune. To Uther Pendragon, things happened because he made them happen, and there didn’t seem to be any room in his worldview for a spark of other .
Naturally, as Arthur imagined things usually went with fathers and their daughters, as soon as Morgana was out from under Uther’s control, she went though a bit of a witchcraft phase that never exactly ended. Arthur tended to mock her relentlessly for it, and he was sure she attempted to hex him in return with her little ‘spells’. After last week, Arthur wasn’t sure if he should actually fear for his life now, because of all the implications of the Arcane, Morgana having that sort of power was the most terrifying.
“Yes.” Arthur hung his head. “Magic, whatever you want to call it. It won’t leave me alone.”
“And the cards?”
Arthur spilled out the entire torrid affair, from the first instance of running through the rain soaked streets of London to the final conversation with Gwaines' roommate. Arthur was anything but a natural orator, but he needed to tell someone about the entire affair, needed the assurance that surely the absurd series of events wasn’t a mild hallucination, or perhaps that it was. By the end of the tale, Morgana sat across from him, having finished another three glasses of wine and a truly miniscule salad, trying her hardest not to laugh in his face. He couldn’t even muster the strength to get angry at her for it, it was absurd .
“Let’s see it then.” Morgana commanded, suppressed laughter in her voice.
Arthur passive aggressively shuffled the cards, and laid out a card thinking only of tomorrow. The dark haired figure winked back at him.
Morgana tilted her head. “You’ve got to find him.” She said, steadfast.
“How do you find a man like that?”
“Well,” she considered for a moment. “You follow the magic.”
Arthur, knowing he was doomed to follow Morgana’s terrible advice once again, groaned into the wood of the table.