The next morning, a faint light suddenly lit up the circle of swords set in the middle of Merlin's workshop.
The weapons vibrated slightly before their surfaces began to glow. A silhouette materialized at the center of the circle, then the light vanished, leaving Emrys alone in the room.
He instinctively adjusted his clothes and stretched his arms.
He had a smile on his face.
He was in a very good mood. The day before, after returning to his mother, he had spent a good part of the evening talking with her.
They had talked about this and that, brought up a few memories and touched on several subjects they hadn't had the chance to discuss during their reunion.
"Here I am!"
No answer.
He waited a few seconds, then turned his head in the direction where he could sense the workshop's different rooms.
"Merlin?"
Still nothing.
She's in another room.
Emrys followed her aura to a neighboring room. He crossed the threshold without hesitation, then stopped dead.
Merlin was sitting at a large table covered with grimoires, parchments and objects, some of which gave off a faint magical energy. Several books lay open in front of her, while others were piled dangerously close to the edge.
Notes were scattered between the pages, some held in place by small metal objects, others simply abandoned on the wood.
The sorceress herself had her head resting on her arms.
She was asleep.
Emrys stayed silent for a few seconds.
"Seriously?"
He approached the table and reached out toward her shoulder. His gesture stopped just before he touched her.
He frowned.
No. Bad idea.
He had no idea what safety measures Merlin might have installed in her workshop. After all, he was in the home of a sorceress who had probably spent several centuries experimenting with all kinds of spells, potions and magical mechanisms.
Who knew what might happen if someone touched her while she slept?
A defensive barrier might activate. A counterattack spell might trigger. There was even a possibility that one of the objects laid out on the table was designed to react to the presence of an intruder.
Emrys had no desire to discover the extent of her imagination at his own expense.
He slowly withdrew his hand.
"I'd better keep my distance."
He stepped back and crossed his arms.
Then an idea crossed his mind.
Structural Grasp.
Emrys sketched a smile.
It was the perfect moment to use it.
If the analysis worked, he would obtain valuable information about a sorceress whose abilities were still largely unknown to him. If it failed, she would undoubtedly wake up.
Either way, he came out ahead.
He began to concentrate his magical energy.
Then he stopped.
A displeased expression appeared on his face.
He had just remembered Nimue's words.
"You do it without asking whether the other person agrees. Imagine someone looking at you from the inside. Your body, your magic, your history. Without asking, without warning. Would you like that?"
The day before, his mother had explained to him that some of these actions were inappropriate.
He had understood her reasoning perfectly.
He would simply have preferred that this lesson not come back to him at such a badly chosen moment.
Emrys released his magical energy.
"Tss."
He dropped the idea and thought of a simpler solution.
Since he couldn't touch Merlin and had no intention of analyzing her body behind her back, there was only one thing left to do.
He clapped his hands.
Clap!
The sharp sound echoed through the room.
Merlin sat bolt upright.
"Huh? What?!"
She lifted her head so fast that several strands of hair fell in front of her eyes. Her hand instinctively searched for something on the table, almost knocking over a small vial in the process.
Emrys took a step back.
"Good morning."
Merlin blinked several times before turning toward him.
"Ah... Faker."
She ran a hand over her face, trying to chase away the last traces of sleep.
"I wasn't expecting you so early. You're really an early riser."
"I don't need to sleep. For me, night and day hold no particular interest."
Merlin straightened up in her chair.
"Ah, that's right. I remember Nimue told me something like that."
Emrys tilted his head slightly.
"Nimue?"
She raised an eyebrow.
"Yes. That's the name of the Lady of the Lake. She never told you?"
He stayed silent for a moment, searching his memories.
"As far back as I can remember, she's always been called Mom."
Merlin stared at him.
Then a small laugh escaped her.
"How cute! You sound like a four-year-old."
Emrys's smile vanished at once.
"I was in a good mood until now. I advise you not to ruin my day with your mockery."
"But I'm not mocking you!"
She was smiling far too much for her defense to be credible.
He's really cute when he talks about his mother like that.
The thought crossed her mind with a spontaneity that surprised even her. However hard she tried to keep a detached attitude, every little detail about Emrys seemed to awaken a disproportionate reaction in her.
Emrys, for his part, perfectly perceived the emotions stirring in her.
He stayed silent for a few seconds, then let out a long sigh.
Okay. This time, I give up. This woman is completely insane.
He had no intention of spending his morning trying to understand what was going on in Merlin's head. He already had enough problems without adding a new one to the list.
"Can we start the tests?"
That question seemed to bring Merlin back to reality.
"Of course!"
She stood up so quickly that her chair scraped the floor.
"Follow me. I've prepared a room where we can work in peace."
Emrys followed her.
He heard Merlin move a few objects on the table, close a grimoire and pick up several parchments before stacking them into a tidier pile. She now seemed perfectly awake, and her enthusiasm for research had taken over again.
He briefly wondered whether she had really slept.
Then he decided it wasn't his problem.
They crossed a corridor and entered another room.
Emrys couldn't see it, but the place was filled with vials, some clearly empty, others containing liquids whose properties were unknown to him. Containers of various sizes filled the shelves, while several instruments were laid out on tables covered in marks and traces of old manipulations.
Some objects gave off a relatively weak magical energy. Others, however, had far more complex signatures.
One of them even emitted a regular pulse, as if it were driven by an internal mechanism.
Emrys turned his head slightly.
"What room are we in?"
Merlin, who had just set her parchments down on a table, froze.
"You really can't tell?"
He gave her a smile devoid of the slightest warmth.
"I remind you, in case you've forgotten, that I'm blind."
"I know very well that you're blind."
She crossed her arms, looking intrigued.
"But so far, it doesn't seem to have caused you many problems. You move around easily and confidently, you avoid obstacles, and you're able to react to movements you can't even see."
Emrys didn't answer right away.
Merlin tilted her head slightly.
"So, how do you do it?"
He understood at once that she wasn't asking this question to help him regain his sight.
She was simply curious.
A curiosity that, in Merlin, sometimes seemed more dangerous than magic itself.
"Is the answer useful for me to regain my sight?"
"Not directly."
"In that case, I have no interest in answering you."
Merlin raised her eyebrows.
Her smile grew thinner.
She stared at him for a few seconds, then a calculating smile appeared on her face.
"Very well. Since you want to play this little game, I'll be perfectly clear. I offered you my help because your case interests me. If you refuse to cooperate with me, I see no reason to continue this research."
Emrys didn't react right away.
It was, of course, a bluff on Merlin's part.
Merlin had absolutely no intention of abandoning her research. Her interest in him was far too great for a simple reluctance to answer her questions to be enough to make her give up.
But she wanted to obtain information.
And she intended to use his desire to regain his sight to get it.
Normally, Emrys should have realized this, but he didn't know whether he could rely on Merlin's illogical emotions to get an idea of what she was thinking. So he couldn't tell whether she really meant what she said.
Is she seriously trying to blackmail me?
He could have refused.
After all, he didn't need Merlin to keep living. He could carry on with his activities, consult other mages and look for a solution by his own means.
Only, he also knew his mother.
Nimue had been very clear the day before: Merlin was currently their best chance of getting answers. If Emrys ended their cooperation over a simple quarrel, his mother would not fail to point out that he had let his stubbornness compromise his chances of regaining his sight.
And he had no desire to endure a sermon lasting several hours.
He sighed.
"Fine. I'll answer you."
Merlin skillfully hid her relief.
"I'm listening."
"Since I became blind, my other senses have developed to compensate for the loss. I learned to use them to perceive my surroundings, then I reinforce them with my magical energy to obtain more precise information."
He paused for a moment before continuing:
"That's what lets me move around and react to my surroundings without needing my eyes. I mainly use the vibrations of the air to detect obstacles. And my other senses to get more details."
He had chosen his words carefully.
This explanation wasn't entirely false. His blindness had indeed pushed him to perfect his other means of perception, and his magical energy played a role in his abilities.
But he almost never relied on his senses to replace his eyes. He had trained himself to do it, yes. In case he ever lost, by any means, the ability to use Observation Haki.
But that was only his tertiary means of perception, with Haki being the primary one and Structural Grasp the secondary.
Emrys simply had no intention of revealing these secrets to a sorceress he had known for far too short a time.
Merlin looked at him in silence.
Her mysterious smile was still there, but her expression had changed. She seemed to be weighing each of his words, comparing them with what she had been able to observe since they met.
Then she tilted her head slightly.
"Are you finished?"
"Yes."
"Perfect. Now that you've lied as much as you wanted, you can give me the real explanation."
Emrys stood still.
A silence settled over the room.
Then he sighed once more.
"At least I tried."
Merlin crossed her arms.
"It was a good excuse, but your movements don't match the means of perception you just described."
He sighed.
"Before giving you information this sensitive, I have a condition."
Merlin's smile faded slightly.
"Which is?"
"You must promise not to disclose anything to anyone without my consent."
She blinked, surprised.
"You're really going to settle for a simple promise?"
Emrys slowly shook his head.
"Of course not."
Merlin seemed satisfied with his answer.
"That's much more plausible."
Emrys continued:
"The promise we're going to make won't be a simple promise."
Merlin frowned slightly.
"What do you mean by that?"
Emrys held out his hand.
The air distorted in front of him, and a dark mass gradually appeared in his palm. The object took shape, revealing a black, cylindrical stele whose surface seemed to absorb the surrounding light.
He held it in front of him, perfectly still.
Merlin stared at the object.
She could feel that this stele was no ordinary object, but she couldn't yet determine its function.
Emrys turned his face toward her.
"This is the Code of Hammurabi."