"That's not what I asked," she said gently.
He paused, then nodded again, slower this time. "I'm fine."
Elara hadn't spoken yet. She was watching the now-dark sigils with a sharp, assessing gaze, committing their patterns to memory the way she always did when something mattered. When she finally turned to him, her voice was calm, but there was steel beneath it.
"That wasn't random," she said. "Morgana didn't just 'happen' to walk you into a situation where the academy decided to run diagnostics."
Merlin didn't argue. "No."
"She set this up."
"Yes."
"And she didn't warn you."
"No."
Elara exhaled through her nose, controlled, precise. "Then this was never about measuring you. It was about seeing how you'd respond when something larger than her pushed back."
Nathan folded his arms, expression dark. "And?"
Merlin met his eyes. "I responded."
That earned a quiet snort from Adrian. "Understatement of the year."
