Morgana did not emerge immediately.
That, more than anything else, told Merlin how seriously she was taking what had just happened.
He pushed away from the tree and resumed walking, posture composed, pace unremarkable. Anyone watching from a distance would see a student returning to the dorms after a long day, thoughts likely on homework or sleep. Only the subtle tension in his core betrayed him, the way his mana refused to fully settle, like water disturbed by something that had passed beneath the surface.
He made it three corridors farther before the air changed.
It wasn't pressure this time. It was absence.
Sound dulled, footsteps losing their echo. The lanterns along the wall dimmed fractionally, not extinguished but subdued, as though the space itself had decided it no longer required illumination. Morgana stepped out of nothing and everything at once, her presence slotting into reality with such seamless authority that the corridor seemed to exhale in relief.
