“Merlin,” Ninianne said, “when did you return?”
Her voice gave nothing away, but I sensed her shock like heat. The sorcerer advanced into the room, taking us in with his usual wolfish amusement.
“Oh, very late,” he replied. “Almost dawn, I believe, so I retired directly.”
At first glance, I hadn’t recognized him. This was a Merlin I had never seen: neater, serious, honed, his robe cut stiff and narrow from dark-green silk—none of his typical billowing sleeves or dragging hems. His lead-coloured beard was clipped into a neat point, usually wild hair braided into a grey, rope-like plait, like a Norseman of centuries past. He strode through the classroom with a sense of purpose that suggested no nonsense or theatrics and cast curious eyes over the water bowl.
“Interesting,” he said tonelessly. “My dear, I did not think you liked to teach.”
“I wasn’t.” Ninianne turned to him, her demeanour imperious. She felt tricked, disrupted—I could feel it as surely as I had intuited the shape of the water. “We were passing the time. Lady Morgan didn’t expect to wait so long for you.”
“My business in Camelot did not conclude as quickly as intended. The High King was in greater need of me.”
The mention of Arthur seemed to soften her. “How is he, in the wake of…”
“Becalmed, for now. But there is much work for me to do.” Merlin’s black eyes flicked to my face. “Still, my purpose is here. Lady Morgan and I only have a year.”
“Eleven months,” I pointed out. “Since you squandered the rest.”
The sorcerer chuckled. “Then wait no longer, Lady Morgan. Ninianne will leave, and your education can begin right away.”
“Can’t she stay?” I asked.
“No,” Ninianne replied without looking at me. “I have my own work to do.” She tilted conspiratorially towards Merlin. “I have assessed her abilities. She knows nothing of magic aside from the fire sphere you taught her previously. The rest—the Seven Arts, languages, basic physic—is nothing but the usual nunnery fare.”
Despite her concealment of our learning, which I supposed protected us both, her dismissive tone rankled, so suddenly had she turned from confidante to disapproving classroom mistress. I opened my mouth to protest, but her eyes flashed wide—a warning not to reveal myself.
Merlin noted my indignance. “Do you disagree with Ninianne’s view, Lady Morgan?”
To deny my skills stung, anathema to my pride. I looked again at Ninianne by his side, her matchless face open and bright moments ago, now muted and impenetrable. In that moment, I knew less than I ever had before.
“I object to being summed up in so few words,” I said coolly, “but I cannot disagree.”
He glanced between us with faint suspicion, then sent Ninianne away with a flick of his hand, leaving me alone in the sorcerer’s domain.
Merlin interrogated me anyway, asking endless questions about my time in St. Brigid’s and in Gore, enquiring of my childhood education and the subjects, theories and manuscripts I was familiar with, while mocking the quality of teaching I had received. I told the truth about some of it, lied about the rest and, in turn, slyly uncovered a few truths of my own. It seemed he did not know of Arthur’s headaches and my healing of them, or of my safekeeping of Excalibur, which meant, at the very least, that my brother did not tell him everything.
“Glamour in all its forms,” he declared the following morning. “A broad and complicated art, a speciality of mine, and a subject of which you already have experience. We begin with the concealing mist, which you can so cleverly see through. It’s only apt you should learn to conjure it first.”
There was no more boring a prospect, no skill I wished to learn less, which became increasingly frustrating when I discovered I was bad at creating the damnable mist. The incantation was easy enough, but its key was based on the desire to conceal oneself, a dishonesty of intention that I could not seem to invoke. Day after day I sat there, gathering the cold, damp fog at my heels, only for it to sink back into itself and disappear.
“I’m surprised,” Merlin said after another week of filmy, shredded wisps. “I expected wondrous clouds from you.”
“Teach me something else,” I demanded.
“We cannot move on to greater things until you learn this. Remember, the key to any glamour skill is belief. Believe you want to disappear. Intend to exist outside of mortal sight.”
In the end, through the sheer force of wanting to disappear from the sorcerer’s tiresome presence, I conjured a large enough column of mist to step into and demonstrate I could carry myself hidden for a fair distance.
“You will never fill a ravine, Lady Morgan,” Merlin sniffed. “Perhaps I must learn to accept your limitations. That is, unless you have some particular affinity you would prefer to explore?”
The thought of healing made my hands prickle. “No,” I said. “What’s next?”
Pure glamour it was to be: controlling not, as I thought, the true appearance of things, but rather what others saw. It was once again based on belief, but exploiting the expectations of others to create a false image.
“It’s not easy to learn,” Merlin said. “But you will soon see that few forms of magic have as much value as this one.”
Sweeping a thin hand over his face, he overlaid his own visage with that of his younger self, then changed into a man I had never seen, a pretty young woman and, last of all, alarmingly, Arthur’s smiling, brotherly face.
Despite my disgust, whatever liar’s talents resided within me were well suited to pulling across the veil of glamour. Not with enough finesse for Merlin’s applause, but well done enough that he felt satisfied in his own teaching and we could faster move beyond a subject that didn’t impress me and I never envisioned needing.
It was a haste I would soon come to regret, because one grey, gusting morning, two months after we had begun our dubious journey into magical lies, Merlin decided to test my resolve.
“Transformation,” he announced. “The most difficult and involved of our arts. Not concealment, not glamour, but how to make one man’s face and body look and feel entirely like another’s. You know how impressive this can be.”
A cold rush of memory assaulted me: a Tintagel Castle corridor in the dead of night; the absence of the sea’s comforting roar; a hulking figure in ill-fitting skin, trailing mist; the face of the father I loved dearly worn by the man I would hate the most. Uther Pendragon, on his way to my mother’s violation and the destruction of our entire lives, enabled by Merlin’s corrupted skill.
Gall rose in my throat. “I will not learn that. Such devilry belongs in Hell, with Uther Pendragon’s rotting corpse.”
“My work at Tintagel was the most complete and wondrous transformation I have created—perhaps my greatest magical achievement so far.” Merlin’s voice was a drone, the sullen light making spikes of his advancing shadow. “What a way to describe the glorious feat of magic that brought forth King Arthur, whom you profess to love and consider a saviour of this world.”
“It’s not Arthur’s fault, your meddling in his birth and entire life,” I said. “He is a better man than the horrors you used to bring him forth. And I am a better woman. I won’t participate in this abomination—the knowledge can die with you.”
My vehemence didn’t move him. “You surprise me, my lady. I thought you were more ambitious than that. Not that you could learn anywhere close to that level of magic. The feat I performed for King Uther is a far more complex process than can be taught in a year. If you could master it at all.”
“Do not taunt me,” I warned. “I could master your demon magic and many other things if you were a decent teacher, but instead you only wish to goad me for your own amusement.”
Merlin put a hand to his chest in affected shock. “My desire to teach you is long-held and genuine—you know that. It’s you who cannot offer your intelligence in return.”
“There are a thousand subjects where I would excel,” I said. “Yet you have not sought to find them. You haven’t mentioned a word of the work you’re doing for Arthur, and it’s why he wanted me to come here.”
“Oh Lady Morgan, I wish I could enlighten you on the crucial work I am doing for the King, but I cannot help it if your abilities have been a disappointment.”
His mocking sympathy lit me up like a bonfire. Before I knew what I was doing, I reared out of my seat and charged towards him.
“My abilities are greater than you can imagine,” I snarled. “It’s you, Merlin. You’re holding back.”
He stepped closer, his narrow figure seeming to grow unnaturally, looming over me. “If I am so wrong, my lady,” he said, “then tell me what you have that is so valuable to my work. Show me why I sensed such potential in you.”
I glared at him, resentful of his insults, hindered by my limitations, furious that I was forced to come to this place at all.
Don’t, Ninianne’s voice intoned in my head, pausing me just enough.
Merlin sighed impatiently. “Clearly, my lady, you have nothing to say.” He turned away, heading for the tower.
“Where are you going?” I said. “This is the third time you’ve abandoned our lessons this week.”
“Go and play your games with Ninianne,” came the careless reply. “I have important work to do.”
He opened the door and departed without looking back, leaving me in my outrage and frustration, and smarting with the edge of my ambition.