Merlin didn't flinch. Not outwardly.
Inside, the words hit with cold precision.
Something is following us.
Not someone.
Something.
He didn't turn. Didn't reach for mana. Didn't move even a millimeter—because reacting would only confirm whether the follower was a threat.
Morgana watched him with the stillness of a blade held just above skin.
"Don't look," she murmured. "It will notice."
Her tone held a faint curve of amusement and warning, as if she expected him to ignore her just to prove something.
He didn't.
"…What is it?" Merlin asked quietly.
"A distortion," Morgana said. "Old. Sloppy. Trying very hard to pretend it's unnoticed."
She raised a single finger and traced a lazy circle in the air.
A pulse of violet mana rippled out in a perfect ring.
Something in the trees flinched—so subtly most mages wouldn't have sensed it. A shiver in the foliage, a hitch in the mana flow, a faint scrape of a foot on bark.
Morgana sighed.
"It lacks manners."
Then she vanished.
