Chapter Text
October 2008
The sky was dark over London. The moon was making a half-hearted attempt to break through the clouds, and a chilly autumn breeze sent fallen leaves skittering along the pavements. Under the artificial glow of the streetlights, several things were happening at once.
Arthur was hunched over at his kitchen table, squinting his way through a stack of spreadsheets in the dingy half-light of his flat, trying to ignore the growing ache in his neck. The company’s yearly budget was troubling him; for the life of him, he couldn’t work out where so much money was going. So far, every attempt to follow a line of inquiry had left him at a dead end or caught up in a web of red tape. Uther had dismissed his concerns of embezzlement, but it wouldn’t be the first time his father had ignored something while it disappeared before his eyes.
Merlin was running. The sole of his left shoe flapped annoyingly where it had come away, and he skidded on a dropped crisp packet as he rounded another corner. The sirens following him were growing louder, piercing the night air but doing nothing to drown out the sound of his own heartbeat thundering in his eats. He vaulted over a pile of bin bags and double-checked the Distortion charm he’d managed to cast over himself before the alarms went off.
Headlights lit up the street as a black van rounded the corner after him. He cursed and picked up the pace.
Morgana was staring into a mug of lukewarm tea. Morgause had set it on the tale in front of her almost twenty minutes ago, but it was still untouched. She’d tried to stop herself obsessing, stop her magic bleeding over, but the past few months had made it harder and harder to ignore the faces that followed her, watching her from puddles and mirrors and darkened windows – anything reflective was fair game. Now, Uther stared up at her from the depths of the murky liquid. He looked sad.
Morgana picked up the mug and went through to the kitchen, where she carefully poured the tea down the sink. Morgause frowned from behind her computer, but said nothing.
Uther’s head of security stood rigid on the other side of the desk, babbling about a possible perimeter breach. Every so often the man – what was his name, Jackson? Johnson? – took off his glasses and started cleaning them with his tie before cramming them back onto his face, shiny with sweat. Uther ignored him in favour of the photo on his desk. Igraine smiled sadly at him from behind the frame’s carefully polished glass. He could feel Morgana’s baleful stare on the back of his neck. They both knew what he was doing.
In a dark attic flat, Sefa stood at the window and stared up at the night sky, straining to catch sight of the barest hint of wings flapping. She could feel the anxious tension the others were radiating. Edwin was doing push-ups on the floor and muttering in what sounded like Russian. Gilli was slumped over at the table, flicking through one of his spell books with glazed eyes, probably not taking in a word of it. Above them, they could hear Aithusa prowling around on the roof – her restlessness was getting worrying, even with her assurance that she’d stay hidden and inside Iseldir’s wards.
Sefa sighed, and squinted harder into the darkness. This whole underground resistance thing was wreaking havoc on her nerves.