I half thought Ninianne would avoid me after her confession, so it was strange to see her in the classroom the next day, hovering at the far end. She looked equally surprised to see me.
“Merlin summoned me,” I explained. “I awoke to a note under my door.”
“I doubt he intended it,” she said. “He has been up for several nights with the stars. He’s in no fit state to…”
A scuffling bang cut her off as the tower door swung open and the sorcerer flew in, hair wild, and shrouded in a tattered, shapeless black robe. It was Camelot’s Merlin—the mysterious mage of trailing hems and endless secrets—only lacking the control of his public image. His movements were jerking, erratic, a slash of febrile colour high on his cheeks. He halted at the sight of Ninianne’s unflinching light, clutching his frayed collar to his chest, black eyes burning like coals.
“I’m not late, and what’s it to either of you?” he said fractiously. “You do not know this work, the efforts I make in service of this kingdom. The discoveries of Fate that would remain unknown if I chose the life of ease that others do.”
“You hear no words of admonition here.” Ninianne’s voice was calm, pitched to soothe. “What did the night’s work bring? Have you eaten, or will you take a drink?”
Merlin ignored her and started towards me, but she laid a hand on his arm. I watched his gaze catch on hers, his demeanour stilling into enraptured pause.
“You have not slept,” she said. “Instead of teaching today––”
“No, my dear,” he interrupted. “I’m not in need of anything but to begin today’s lesson.” He smiled, his voice once again his own. “Will you stay, my faithful Ninianne?”
She hesitated, then joined me in sitting, her eyes never leaving the sorcerer. Instead of taking up his usual pacing, Merlin pulled out a chair and sat down between us. Unease shivered through me; for all our hours spent, it was the first time he had ever taken a seat in my presence.
“Where were we, Lady Morgan?” he said. “Ah yes, I gave you time to think upon your strengths, possible affinities. To help us in our shared quest for your education.”
His smile widened, tongue lightly touching his lips, as if my revelation was imminent and would taste delicious.
“All I remember is you sending me away,” I said. “And denying me what my brother wished me to learn.”
Merlin’s onyx eyes hooked into mine for a moment, giving rise to a sharp twist in my head. I rubbed my temples and felt thorns, but didn’t dare heal it away.
“Something wrong, my lady?” he asked.
“I am perfectly well,” I snapped.
“Lady Morgan might need to rest,” Ninianne said. “Given her condition.”
“She says she is well,” he replied. “And quite the Stoic with discomfort, it seems. A lot can be told about a person by the way they respond to pain. How much they fear it, or how much physical suffering it takes to make one commit a drastic act.”
“Is this the lesson?” I said with an air of boredom.
“Perhaps it should be.” Merlin reached into the pocket of his robe and drew out a knife with a large, curving blade and a rampant golden dragon for a handle; a relic from Uther Pendragon’s time, no doubt.
“No two people feel pain the same way,” he continued. “I’d imagine, Lady Morgan, that every individual’s body responds to injury and healing differently as well?”
I shrugged. “That’s the first, most basic rule of diagnostics.”
“Of course. Forgive my slowness—physic is not my strength, where it has been yours. I have often wondered if the pain felt by an individual affects the amount of healing they must receive.”
He placed the knife on the table and gave it an idle spin. It whirred on the dark wood, steel catching the low light. Ninianne shifted, clasping her hands together on the tabletop, her gaze on the dying autumn leaves outside.
I hesitated. “That depends on the injury.”
“Ah. So if I did this…” The sorcerer pressed his forefinger against the knife tip until a small bead of blood welled up. “We can assume, because the injury is small, that the amount of pain will also be small.”
“It’s not always so simple,” I replied. “But one might begin with this assumption.”
“I see.” Merlin sent the knife spinning harder, and it juddered sideways. “The pain would become a concern if the affliction was greater. Which would you, or a physician, think of first—the severity of the injury, or the pain of the injured?”
“There is danger in pain too,” I said. “One cannot just––”
“Which is it, Lady Morgan?” he insisted. “The suffering flesh, or the person it belongs to? What provokes you to the greatest action? Or shall we test it?”
His hand slammed down on the spinning knife. With his other, he grabbed Ninianne’s wrist from where it lay on the table, dragged it forth, and plunged the blade into her gleaming flesh.
Her scream was a sound more fearful and uncontrolled than any I’d imagined she could make. She sprung up in horror, trying to pull away, but Merlin used her resistance, dragging the blade through her arm towards her wrist, tearing through the delicate network of veins and down to the bone.
Dark-red beads wept over her forearm; blood the same colour as mine, that flowed the same, and would kill her if she lost it too fast. Water fairy she may be, but she could die from serious physical harm.
“Stop!” I cried.
Merlin sat back, knife dropping from his bloodied hands. “Make haste, Lady Morgan. Before she bleeds all over the table.”
I flew out of my chair and grabbed Ninianne’s arm. She was rigid with shock, her breaths hard and uneven. I put my hands on either side of the gaping cut, trying to keep my grip as the blood kept pouring, warm and sticky. Flesh was much harder to align neatly than skin, and she was already shuddering uncontrollably. I had never imagined she would feel pain this way, sudden and terrible and human like the rest of us.
“Breathe,” I said, fingers slipping in her blood. “Air in, air out. Close your eyes.”
Ninianne managed to steady her breaths and control her shaking, allowing me to line up the vessels and tendons. When all was ready, I reached for the warm golden force and her eyes snapped open.
Don’t, she insisted wordlessly, but I pretended it hadn’t reached me.
I focused on her suffering first, chasing the pain away before concentrating on knitting her flesh together, her veins, her skin. I felt her resistance dissipate as the euphoria of healing took hold, blood receding back into flesh, laceration fusing with ease, leaving only a thin red line on her skin and a horrifying memory.
“All right?” I whispered.
She nodded, still breathing hard, eyes jewel-bright with unspent tears. I placed my bloodied fingers over the scar to heal it away, but her other hand stopped me.
Leave it behind, came the silent command, and I understood. Scars remembered what the mind sought to forget.
“There it is—what she imagined she could hide.” Merlin’s buzzing voice crawled over my scalp. “Very impressive, Lady Morgan. Astounding, in fact.”
He approached us, eyes still tinged with a keen red fire, breaths short but deep, as if he was tussling with some new, unfathomable excitement.
“Go and clean yourself up,” he ordered Ninianne.
She let go of my hand and stood square to him, imperious as an empress. “I deserve an explanation.”
“Which you will have, of course,” the sorcerer said, but his eyes were on my face. “Later. Lady Morgan and I have much to discuss.”
“Lady Morgan should not have done that. I did not ask for her help.” Ninianne refused to look at me, and her sudden ingratitude stung. “What interests you in such an ostentatious trick? It has no bearing on your work for King Arthur.”
The haughtiness in her voice made the sting a burn. She didn’t like that I had defied her, but what choice did I have? I stared at her, seeking some sign of alliance, but she kept her eyes fixed on Merlin, light seething from her pores.
“Not everything of interest relates directly to our work,” Merlin said. “As a lover of knowledge, the wonder of this should not elude you.”
“I see no wonder here,” she said pettishly, and for the first time it seemed what I had once accused her of could be true: that Merlin’s amazement and his subsequent dismissal had stoked some sharp, unexpected envy within her.
“All the better, then, that you leave us,” the sorcerer said.
She looked at me, but her eyes avoided mine. “I’m sure Lady Morgan would prefer––”
“As Merlin says,” I cut in, “this is between him and me.”
I felt her surprise on the air. Pulling her carriage proud, Ninianne left without giving either of us another glance, room darkening in her wake.
I crossed my blood-streaked arms and faced the sorcerer. “So now you know, for what it’s worth.”
Merlin smirked. “It’s worth a great deal, to have the truth.”
“What a way to get it,” I snapped. “Debasing yourself, harming another. What if your suspicions had been wrong?”
“But they were not wrong, were they? You would never have told me otherwise.”
“You disgust me.” I turned away, unable to look at his self-satisfied face. “What do you care, anyway? Healing and physic don’t interest you.”
“It’s you I find fascinating, Lady Morgan,” Merlin said in my ear. He had moved closer without me realizing, his touch surprisingly hot as he took up my wrist, gazing at the darkening crimson stains. “Her blood on your skin…it calls to me. All this time I thought you remarkable, but there was so much more.”
I recoiled but my back met the table. He drew my hand towards his mouth; what he thought to do with it I did not know, but I pulled away, repulsed.
“Then harness my potential,” I said through a hard jaw. “Show me what you are doing for Arthur.”
Merlin eased back, smoothing over his demeanour. “Why would I consider that when you have disparaged so much of what I have tried to teach you?”
His return to inscrutability didn’t fool me. Gathering my mettle, I put my fingertips to his shoulder and brushed a feather from his robe. His eyes followed my hand, Ninianne’s blood singing from my skin.
“Because you know I have the ability to surprise you, and there are still marvels to uncover,” I said. “That is what you want, isn’t it—to share in my power? As I should share in yours, if we are both willing to bend.”
“I barely bend for kings, Lady Morgan,” he drawled. “Why would I do so for you?”
“Because Arthur demands it. Do what my brother wants and show me what I need to run this realm.”
His gaze snapped to me, sharp as a spider bite. “Know this, my lady—I have been at King Arthur’s side since long before he drew the sword from the stone, felt a crown on his head, or knew of his ambitious, fire-breathing sister. Nothing will change the fact that I am the one at his right hand.”
His arrogance stuck in my craw, affording me one last opportunity to step back from whatever danger I was running towards. But if I did not face this beast jaws first, it could never be slain.
“Then there is nothing to fear,” I said. “Teach me, Merlin. Cease to hold back and use me.”
The sorcerer gave me one last look of scrutiny, then his mouth curved into a catlike grin. “We begin tomorrow, Lady Morgan. I will bend and so will you.”