Chapter Text
The cat on the sill stared Merlin down with torch-yellow eyes. A quiet nighttime visitor—a mouse hanging limp from needle sharp teeth. Only the softest sound could be heard in the room, the sluggish
drip
drip
drip
of the mouse’s blood, pattering on the ground.
Merlin rubbed a tired hand down his face. He felt something watching him as he slept, his magic like a sixth sense. But it was only a cat. Another one. He didn’t have the energy, nor the desire, to shoo it away.
“Don’t you have somewhere better to be?” Merlin whispered, his throat dry and cracked from sleep. It was too late now, his body craved water—it would not allow him to slip blissfully back under the blanket until he tended to its needs.
The cat only continued to stare, of course, oblivious to its unconscious disruption. It was still as a statue, unfazed by Merlin’s rising and departure.
Returning to his room with a goblet hastily drunk, Merlin blinked in surprise to see the cat still had not moved. Nor had it eaten or released the mouse; it remained between its fangs, the thin pink tail waving gently with the breeze.
Now that he had left his covers, Merlin was aware of the chill in the room. Autumn had arrived at long last, a relief from the extraordinarily long and hot summer. It was that time of year where Merlin needed to shut the window at night, but he always dragged his feet with this. He loved the earthy way his room smelled in the morning, and the warmth he felt from the sun as it peeked over the trees and peered into his room.
He stalked over to the window. The cat was still unbothered, though its pupils followed the sorcerer's every move.
“Stay or leave, my friend,” Merlin said quietly, not wanting to wake the sleeping physician outside. The cat couldn't understand him, of course, but it was worth a shot.
Merlin reached over the cat to pull the window closed an inch, signaling that the feline's time was running out to make a decision. This, the cat understood. After a moment's hesitation, the cat was gone in a blur of gray fur that Merlin watched streak across the grass and out of sight.
He sighed as he pulled the window the rest of the way closed. Cats had become an . . . issue recently. With the weather getting colder, it seemed like the castle had become the social spot for all of the strays in Camelot.
Merlin didn't mind—he rather liked cats. He was aware of how fitting this was, what with witches and their fabled companions. Perhaps there was something that tied magic and cats together. Or maybe Merlin was just a cat person, coincidentally.
Arthur never minded them before, but a few weeks ago, when the first strays of the season found their way into the laundry, the king woke up sneezing and red in the face. An allergy, developed in his adulthood. Gaius said it wasn't uncommon, but this meant that the cats had to go. The only issue was that no one knew exactly how to get rid of them. The task wasn't quite as easy as they had thought.
Merlin went back to bed, savoring the few hours he had left until sunrise. Still, as he lay in bed, he had a hard time falling asleep. Strangely, he couldn't stop thinking about that cat. Where would he sleep tonight?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Keeping his head up during the knights’ training proved to be very difficult in the late morning.
The only thing that prevented Merlin from nodding off was the incessant clanging of metal as the knights fought with fervor. There seemed to be some pep in their step this morning, and Merlin despised them for it. Still, he was glad of their vigilance and energy. They wouldn't be caught off guard were an attack to happen. An attack that Merlin feared was soon coming.
“What happened to you?” Gwaine's brash voice broke through Merlin's haze.
Startled, Merlin turned. His friend was stuffing his face with a late breakfast of bread and apples. He tossed one to Merlin, which in his tiredness, hit him squarely in the chin.
“Did you sleep at all last night?” Gwaine asked with a frown, his lighthearted teasing succumbing to concern.
Merlin waved him off, plastering on a grin. “Of course. I'm just . . .somewhere else this morning, that's all.”
“Can I join you there?” Gwaine asked, sitting on the grass beside him and offering him half of his loaf. Merlin smiled while refusing it. Gwaine could peer into Merlin’s life a bit too much for the sorcerer’s liking, but he supposed it was good to have a friend who noticed these kinds of things, even if Merlin could never let him know the truth. That could be a problem, sometimes, but Merlin was still grateful for his friend’s attention.
“Well I'm right here now,” Merlin said, slapping the ground for emphasis. “Why aren't you training this morning? Or rather, what excuse did you give Arthur this time?”
Gwaine laughed. “My poor knee!” He said, clutching it dramatically.
Merlin batted his shoulder. “Your poor head, more likely.”
Gwaine smirked. “How’d ya guess?”
“It's a day of the week that ends in ‘y,’ so I figured you were in your cups.”
Laughing, Gwaine said, “I can't ignore the siren song of the tavern, Merls. You should join me tonight! That'll liven you up.”
Merlin offered a regretful glance. “I can't. I promised Gaius I would clean the leech tank tonight.”
Gwaine wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Yuck. Good luck with that. If you finish before dawn, you know where I'll be!”
The sorcerer laughed, knowing it wasn't an exaggeration. “I'll try to make it. But you better get a move on.”
“Why?”
“Because Arthur is marching over here and he looks fit enough to kill you.”
Gwaine's back straightened so fast it popped. Merlin couldn't stop himself from laughing as Gwaine’s eyebrows furrowed, realizing he'd been had as Arthur was still busy as ever with training. “That was mean!” he exclaimed, shoving Merlin's shoulder. “I'm so proud. But I better split before His Royal Pratness actually does come yell at me.”
Merlin sent his friend off with a pat on the back as he scurried away. Returning his gaze to the training, he noted with humor that Arthur finally noticed Gwaine's presence, and he was scowling at the knight's retreating back.
Training ran its course, and Merlin made his way to the knights to help Arthur out of his armor, as always.
“Did you tell Gwaine that I was going to kill him?” Arthur asked.
Merlin shook his head. “I didn't have to, he already figured that much out.”
“Then he's smarter than I give him credit for,” Arthur replied with a snort. “He’s lucky that he’s one of my best knights. But don’t ever tell him I said that,” he added the last part with a glare.
Merlin smiled and rolled his eyes. “Cross my heart.”
“Anyway, Gwaine can’t get out of this by . . . by . . .” Arthur’s nose scrunched up and his tirade was interrupted by an uncontrollable sneeze. All of his knights turned to him, eyes full of concern. Merlin tried not to laugh, because gods forbid the king gets a little sick.
“I’m not ill!” Arthur said, his voice loud for everyone’s benefit. “It’s the cats!” He narrowed his eyes at Merlin as the knights went back to disarming, satisfied. “Have you been spending time with the cats again?” Merlin frowned guiltily as he looked down at his tunic for stray hairs, an answer enough. “Merlin! How many times must I get it through your thick skull that you can’t play with the cats, you know it makes me sneeze. I’m nearly out of my mind with this!”
“Calm down,” Merlin chastised, still smiling. “Stop acting like you don’t like cats, too. I happen to recall an embarrassing moment of your youth involving the castle cats . . .”
Arthur’s eyes widened, and his voice dipped to a furious whisper. “Who told you about that? Gaius? He wouldn’t.”
Merlin’s eyes glinted with mischief. “Of course not. It was Leon.”
Arthur suddenly looked fearful. “I never told him that!”
“Apparently you had too many goblets of wine at the final summer feast.”
Arthur looked mortified for a few wonderful seconds later before schooling his expression in case anyone was looking. “You can tell no one.”
“As you wish,” Merlin relented. “That’s not the point anyway. The point is that I know you secretly love our annual furry visitors.”
Arthur shrugged, feigning indifference. “They’ve never caused me any problems before, either.” That was true. Arthur’s allergy had developed later in life, and unfortunately that changed the cats’ lodging situation a bit. “Now they’ve become a problem, because in case you haven’t noticed, I’m something of a king around here.”
“Fine, fine, the cats can go,” Merlin agreed. “They can just sleep outside in the cold this winter. I hope they’ll all find shelter when the snow comes.” When Arthur’s face immediately fell into a sad frown, Merlin gave him a pointed look. “See! You do still like the cats! Come on, it’s not like you ever see them!”
Arthur was becoming exasperated. “It doesn’t matter that they stay out of sight. Every time they enter a room, they leave behind their fur. And I am getting sick of . . . getting sick! They have to go.”
Merlin bit his tongue. This was not the first time they’d argued about this, but it definitely seemed like the final time. Arthur couldn’t stand it, and Merlin couldn’t fault him for that. The cats were nosy and sneaky, which was a dangerous combination. They slipped into the kitchen and into quarters, leaving a trail of sometimes unnoticeable hairs everywhere, without anyone having seen them. Especially at night, when everyone was off their guard. And when Arthur woke, the whole castle could hear it.
“Merlin, I know that you feel bad for the cats, so you’re angry with me. But you can’t just decide not to show up to your job because of it. As your king, and your boss, I am telling you never to pawn me off to George again. That goes too far.”
Merlin blinked innocently. “I did no such thing. ‘Pawning.’ Bah! George was delighted to have the chance to wake you up this morning.”
“My heart nearly went out! I didn’t recognize him, and he had been . . . staring. While I was still sleeping!”
“George is probably your most devoted subject. And here you are. Ungrateful.”
Arthur glared at him. “It isn’t funny.”
“It really is.”
“No more George! That’s final. He is the dullest man alive, no matter how much he may like me. He makes jokes about brass.”
“Yes, you’ve said.”
“Because it keeps happening! This stops now, Merlin!”
Merlin laughed and backed away. “Okay, okay. No more George, I promise.”
Arthur scoffed, but the mood was light. They continued as they walked back to the castle, trailing the rest of the knights. “What were you so busy doing this morning anyway? Clearly you had the time to speak to George, so it mustn’t have been your laziness.”
“There was an incident in town,” he told him, and for once it was something true. There was so little truth between them that it was nice to not have to lie this one time. “I was around, so I helped.”
Arthur’s eyes bulged, curious, much to Merlin’s regret. “Incident?” he echoed in concern. Merlin knew he’d sobered quite a bit, and Arthur frowned, suddenly understanding. “Has someone else gone missing?”
Merlin offered a look of concern. “Yes. A woman named Nadia.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Merlin was definitely not going to clean the leech tank that night.
Even when Merlin was actually supposed to clean it, he couldn’t. It's a tank. Full of leeches. That doesn't warrant further explanation. But it was certainly a good lie to tell Gwaine—also something that no one would ever volunteer to help him with. Because again, leeches.
The truth was, Merlin was on the hunt. For the past week, he had been attempting to find a mage who rolled into town, flagged by a thick trail of dark magic.
Recently, Merlin had been trying really hard to work on listening to his magic, feeling it, owning it. See, he’d been doing this a long time, and yet there were still days where he felt like his magic wasn’t something within his locus of control. It had been years now since he first came to Camelot, and he’d seen a lot, and done a lot. Frankly, he felt he was getting too old not to work on honing his skills. He’d made a lot of progress, too. He was rather proud, though there was no one he could tell. Not even Gaius. He would only worry that Merlin was becoming too bold. He didn’t want Gaius’ disapproval, because Merlin was proud of how his magic had developed. It now served as a far more accurate warning. Any cruel magicians who wanted to hurt Camelot no longer had the element of surprise.
Nor did a cat chasing a mouse, apparently.
When this new sorcerer appeared in town, Merlin’s skin crawled in warning. His magic could feel the visitor’s; it was powerful and angry. Trouble was, being alerted to their presence ahead of time did not tell him who they were. He could only know so much from a distance.
At night, as soon as Arthur went to sleep, Merlin had been searching. He was particularly familiar with Camelot’s best hiding places, but after three days he still had no luck. There was no sorcerer in any seedy inn or forest cave. Only a handful of people he could ask had noticed a stranger in town, and none of them got a good look. He was starting to think that this ability of his magic was doing more harm than good, and wondered if it would have been less stressful to simply be taken by surprise, like always. Maybe his bad luck made sense—after all, he’d never been very good at hunting.
Merlin had a foreboding feeling about this strange sorcerer. A cloud of magic that big and dark didn't promise peace and safety. And he was right, because Avi had gone missing.
Avi was a little boy, the seven-year-old son of Grenaine, a widowed baker in town. It was two days past now, but at the time Arthur had heard Grenaine’s plea for help finding her son and sent the knights out to look for him. They still looked, even today, but after the first day of searching, they were less optimistic that Avi would be found.
Merlin had gone to Grenaine’s house with Gwen after the first night to bring her a warm meal and sit with her a while. Merlin, however, could practically taste the thick, black cloud of magic that came from the back of Grenaine’s house. Neither Gwen nor Grenaine could sense it at all, clearly, as grief hung in the air thicker than the magic. But Merlin could hardly breathe through the echo of the magic.
A spell had been cast in Grenaine’s backyard—a horrible, dark spell that Merlin could not decipher, and now Avi was missing. It couldn’t be a coincidence, but no one had any other clue. But Merlin couldn’t simply tell Arthur he sensed dark magic—how could he explain it?
Merlin hadn’t given up, and that morning he hadn't been able to fall asleep after the gray cat woke him up, so he decided to search the town one more time before dawn broke. Though he found no sorcerer or missing boy, he found something else.
As he wandered the streets, he began to hear someone calling a name. “Nadia? Nadia!” The voice called, over and over.
When Merlin found the source of the voice, he recognized the man who called out. Edmund was a farmer who rarely came into the town proper, but they had a friendly acquaintanceship formed over the years. Every fall, he was the only farmer who planted pumpkins, one of Merlin’s favorite treats. Because of this, Merlin showed Edmund the tiniest bit of favoritism by using his magic to ward off crop-eating beetles. How else was Merlin to enjoy Cook’s warm, rich pumpkin soup on Samhain? And Arthur too—the man loved fresh pumpkin bread with his breakfast on a crisp, autumn morning.
“Edmund?” Merlin called cautiously, not wanting to startle the man, or his companion. Edmund was a short, portly man around the age of forty, with curly red hair peppered gray. Beside him was a man Merlin had only met a few times, Edmund’s husband Frances. A tall man with dark brown skin and silver gray locs, Frances had always been rather quiet when Merlin saw him out with Edmund.
“Merlin! What are you doing out at this hour? The tavern kick you out?” Edmund laughed.
He shook his head. “No, I couldn't sleep, is all. Is everything alright? I heard you calling for someone.”
Edmund looked down and frowned. “Maybe it's nothing, but when I came in from the patch today, our neighbor Nadia was gone. She's always in her adjacent field at the same time every evening to greet me and Frances after a day's work, but not tonight. Now it's been ages, and no one has seen her!”
Merlin bit his lip, considering. Someone in Camelot going missing . . . it was a large kingdom, of course, but these things really didn't happen every day, and now it happened twice. He hoped it was a coincidence, but deep down, Nadia's disappearance only confirmed his suspicions even further.
“Maybe I could help you look,” Merlin offered. Edmund looked relieved, so they split up.
Just as before, Merlin checked every hiding place, but he had a more important theory to test. The warlock made his way to Nadia’s farm, on the hunt for the a sign of the same foul cloud of magic that hovered outside Grenaine’s house.
It took half the night before Merlin found it, the scent invading his nose as he traveled some yards away from Nadia’s fields, closer to the forest. Following the smell like a bloodhound, Merlin found it thickest around a small pond at the edge of the woods.
The pond was clearly cared for by either Nadia, Edmund, or Frances, as it was nestled between their farms. The surrounding environment was well-tended, flowers meticulously planted. It was odd, then, that there was one sole fish in the pond.
Merlin crouched beside the pond and watched the fish swim in fast, dizzying circles. Clearly the fish did not feel the poisonous magic that surrounded them, or else it wouldn’t be so energetic. Merlin could only sigh, and dip his fingertips in the water for the fish to excitedly nip at.
“If you belong to Nadia, I’ll make sure Edmund and Frances feed you while she’s missing,” Merlin mused to the fish, who began to butt at his hand rather aggressively. Merlin only giggled at the sensation before removing his hand with a sigh. He may have learned that the disappearances were linked, but he was no closer to actually finding them.
As the sun began to rise, Merlin went back to the marketplace to meet up with Edmund and Frances, but the farmers hadn’t yet arrived. Merlin tapped his foot, watching the sky. He knew he’d be late to wake Arthur, but this felt more important.
That was when providence shone, as Merlin caught George, ever the early bird, strutting through the market on his way to the castle.
“George!”
The man groaned, long and loud and slow. George’s distaste for Merlin was very obvious to anyone who witnessed them in the same room. Merlin was never anything but nice to the servant, but George hated Merlin. Probably because Merlin had his dream job, or maybe because Merlin didn’t behave like a good servant—whatever the reason, George treated Merlin as little more than a nuisance.
“Yes, Merlin? In what way may I assist your laziness this morning?” Ouch.
“Could you wake the king?” he asked, ignoring the other man’s dig at his expense and giving his best puppy-dog eyes.
George pinched the bridge of his nose. “Considering you’re out of bed, might I ask why you’re so keen to slack on your duties?”
“I’m helping a friend of mine look for his missing neighbor,” he said truthfully. Then, a brilliant idea came to mind. “If you help me out . . . I’ll make sure to sneak you one of those pumpkin tarts that Cook makes.”
George turned red. “I don’t know what you’re implying, Merlin. Those are only for the nobles.”
“Riiiiight. And you certainly didn’t sneak one or two for yourself at last year’s autumn banquet.”
Instead of red, George turned an alarming shade of white. “You would blackmail me into helping you?!”
“What?! No! I’m not blackmailing you, I’m bribing you!”
The words went in one ear and out the other as George stalked toward him, close enough to menacingly whisper, “if you can keep my foolish actions to yourself, then I will wake the king for you, alright?”
“Alright, but I really wasn’t going to– and you’re walking away.” Merlin let out a sigh at George’s retreating back. The man always saw the worst in him, so it wasn’t like Merlin desperately wanted him for a friend. Still, it would be nice if George could at least be friendly with him!
Besides, who was Merlin to rat someone out for snatching a treat or two from the nobles’ plates? Seeing George break a tiny rule for the sake of a pumpkin tart was the closest Merlin had come to believing George was a human being.
As George disappeared through the street, Edmund and Frances came up to Merlin’s side.
“No one’s seen her,” Edmund said, looking worried. “I know that she doesn’t owe us an explanation if she’s going to leave town, but I know that boy went missing . . .” he trailed off, eyes watery. Frances put an arm around his husband’s shoulders in silent comfort.
“I’ll keep looking,” Merlin promised. “I’ll tell Arthur too. He’s a much better tracker than me anyway,” he tacked on lightheartedly.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
A woman stood over a bubbling pot and smiled wolfishly at her reflection in it. A small brown weasel chirped on her shoulder.
“Perfect,” she whispered reverently into the steaming liquid. Rolling up her sleeve, she dipped a glass vial inside, collecting a shallow pool of the substance.
So far, her experiment had two fantastic results, but she wasn’t done. No, she’d never be done. This would be her life’s work, just as she swore to her goody-two-shoes sister. There was no going back now, and why would she want to?
Holding the vial up to the light, she admired the glittering, dark purple substance. She turned to grin at the weasel. “Now . . . who should be next?”