Chapter 171 – The Magic That Should Not Turn
The gentle hush of late evening wrapped around the hotel suite like a private spell. City lights blinked softly through the half-open curtains, casting a fractured gold glow across the room's quiet luxury. A tray of empty tea cups rested on the corner table. A worn travel book sat open and forgotten near the foot of the bed.
Alex leaned back against the couch, his shirt half-unbuttoned, his black hair still slightly damp from the shower. He stared at the ceiling, arms behind his head, letting the silence linger.
Across from him, Ciel stood by the window, the dim light tracing the edge of her profile like brushstrokes on glass. She wore a soft, oversized cardigan — pale lilac — that made her look more human than divine, and her bare feet made no sound as she stepped away from the view.
"You're unusually quiet," she said, glancing at him. "Did I break you with too much peace today?"
Alex chuckled. "Just thinking."
Ciel raised an eyebrow. "About?"
He hesitated.
"Time magic."
She blinked once, then walked toward him with a subtle shift in posture — a small, elegant change that made her seem less casual and more like the timeless being she truly was.
"Did today feel too fast?" she asked softly, sitting beside him.
He nodded. "Maybe. I know I've learned a little already — slowing perception, anchoring moments… but I still don't understand how it truly works. I've seen you reverse things. I want to understand that."
Ciel tilted her head, her gold eyes glowing faintly. "That's not a spell. That's a concept. A manipulation of causality flow. Reversal isn't just about motion — it's about state."
Alex sat up straighter. "Can you show me?"
She didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she reached toward the small glass of water resting on the table beside her. With a simple flick of her finger, the glass slid off the edge.
It hit the floor.
Shattered.
Before the shards even settled, her hand lifted — graceful, precise — and a single word slipped from her lips in a language that hummed through time itself.
The glass rose.
The pieces gathered.
Water flowed backward.
And in seconds, it stood whole again on the table — untouched, undisturbed.
Alex stared.
"You reversed it."
Ciel nodded. "Temporally, yes. But the space remained constant. Rewriting time is about control, not force. Do you want to try?"
He hesitated — but only for a moment.
Then nodded.
She summoned a second glass. This time, she gently cracked it in half and set it on a towel.
"Start by visualizing the broken state… then pull it back."
Alex crouched beside it, placing one hand on the towel, the other hovering near the fractured glass. He closed his eyes.
In his mind, he could see the structure. Every shard. Every line of energy. He understood the sequence of its destruction, the way each molecule split from strain.
And then he pulled.
Hard.
Too hard.
Magic surged through his veins like a dam breaking.
Ciel's eyes widened. "Alex—!"
But it was too late.
A blinding pulse erupted from his body, followed by a sudden, crushing silence.
The world shuddered.
And then—
Nothing.
Somewhen Else
Alex opened his eyes to grey skies and wet stone beneath him.
Wind hit his face — not city wind, but the sharp, open air of highlands. He groaned, pushing himself upright, blinking against a sudden drizzle.
He was in a courtyard.
A broken one.
The sky above him churned with stormclouds.
He staggered to his feet.
"Where… am I?"
He turned — and froze.
A woman stood at the far edge of the courtyard, her long silver-white hair billowing in the stormwind, tied with a ribbon that fluttered like a dark flag. She was regal, cold, and absolutely still.
She looked at him with pale, sharpened eyes.
"Who are you?" she asked, voice laced with authority.
Alex swallowed, still dizzy.
"I don't know how I got here," he said, not fearfully, but with the tone of someone trying to solve a puzzle while missing all the pieces.
She narrowed her eyes.
"Your name."
"Alex," he said.
"My name is Alex."
Rain misted against the broken flagstones, soft as breath. The air was damp with the scent of salt and moss, thick with silence that wasn't quite natural — like the world itself was watching.
Morgan Le Fay narrowed her eyes.
She didn't move, not even when the strange man took a cautious step forward.
"Alex," he'd said.
"My name is Alex."
She said nothing in return. Her gaze scanned him — his posture, his clothes, the lack of weaponry, the way he stood slightly off-balance, like the ground beneath him wasn't where it was supposed to be. His magic aura was unrefined, unaligned with any school or faction she recognized — yet impossibly vast, like a sea hidden under cracked glass.
Too much power. Not enough control.
She didn't lower her hand.
"You don't belong here," she said quietly.
Alex exhaled, steadying himself. "Yeah, I'm… aware of that."
"Are you a conjuration?"
"No."
"A Fey trick?"
"No."
"Then what are you?"
He hesitated. Rain beaded on his sleeves, clinging to the foreign fabric of his coat.
"Human," he said honestly. "But probably… a little lost in time."
That, at least, gave her pause.
Morgan's hand twitched, though her fingers still held latent energy ready to strike.
"Time," she repeated, tone colder. "You claim to have crossed time."
"I didn't mean to," Alex said. "One second I was in a hotel room. The next I was standing here. You saw it happen."
She studied his face — the way he kept his voice even, his shoulders level. He didn't look like a liar. He didn't flinch from her stare. Most who saw her turned away. Many knelt or groveled or begged.
He looked back.
Calmly.
"What magic were you using?"
"Temporal reversal," he said. "I was trying to repair a broken glass. Someone taught me the basics—"
"Who?" she asked, her voice sharp.
He hesitated. "Her name is Ciel. She's… skilled with time magic. Someone I trust."
Morgan's expression didn't shift, but the temperature in the air seemed to cool further.
"A mage? A scholar?"
"More like an expert," Alex said carefully. "She understands time magic in a way few others do. But I wasn't ready. I put too much mana into the spell — a lot more than I should have — and then everything folded."
Morgan's eyes narrowed. "How much mana?"
Alex met her gaze. "A lot."
That was an understatement.
She could feel the lingering residue on him now — mana so dense it had left echoes in the air. Either he was lying about being untrained… or he was something far more dangerous.
After a long pause, Morgan slowly lowered her arm. Her magic didn't fade, but it settled. Her judgment was not forgiveness — it was restraint.
"You're either a fool," she said at last, "or something more dangerous than I've yet seen."
Alex gave a dry, almost sheepish smile. "People keep saying that."
For the briefest instant, her lips almost twitched.
But she did not smile.
Instead, she turned without ceremony.
"Come," she said. "Before the old spirits mistake you for an intruder and do something regrettable."
Alex blinked. "You have guards?"
"No. I have ghosts who think they're guards."
Inside the Castle
The interior of Dunhyre Keep was no warmer than the rain outside, but it carried a different kind of cold — one woven into the stone, ancient and aware. Torches flickered with blue-white flame, enchanted by Morgan's own hand. The halls curved in strange angles, their geometry subtly warped — as if the architecture had been folded to match the temperament of its mistress.
Alex followed her in silence, his steps echoing against the stone. Portraits lined the walls, their faces long since faded or removed. Some had been slashed clean through. Others, erased by more careful magic.
Finally, they reached the long library hall — its walls packed with heavy tomes, half-ruined grimoires, and scrolls bound with copper thread. Morgan gestured for him to sit — not with courtesy, but command.
He sat.
She did the same, opposite him.
"Start at the beginning," she said. "And don't lie."
Alex nodded. Slowly, carefully, he explained what he understood: learning the surface of time magic from Ciel, the excitement of trying it on his own, the accidental surge of mana far beyond what he intended, and the feeling of the world folding in on itself.
He didn't explain who Ciel really was.
Didn't explain the world he came from — not yet.
Morgan listened without interrupting. Her pale eyes were unreadable, her fingers steepled beneath her chin.
When he finished, she stood without a word and walked to the tall, arched window. Her voice, when it came, was softer — not gentle, but quieter. Like a storm after it has already drowned the world.
"I have studied every branch of magic the world allows — and many it forbids. I have summoned spirits older than thrones. I have watched the stars move out of pity for me. I have bent the bones of kings to ask what tomorrow will cost."
She turned back to him, the firelight dancing in her silver hair.
"But never — not once — have I seen time undone by accident."
Alex remained quiet.
"You are not ordinary," she said again.
"No," Alex replied. "But I don't know what I am yet. I'm still figuring it out."
Morgan stared at him for a long moment.
Then finally, she gave her verdict.
"You will stay here."
Alex blinked. "I will?"
She nodded. "You arrived in my domain. I don't trust you. But I also don't believe you're lying. Until I know more… you stay."
Alex opened his mouth — then closed it.
"Fair," he said. "But if I'm staying, I want to learn. About this time. About you."
That surprised her.
Most visitors wanted to run.
Or hide.
Or bargain.
But he looked at her — cold, beautiful, feared Morgan Le Fay — as if she were a person.
Not a threat.
And that unsettled her more than any spell.
"We'll see," she said, voice cool as polished steel.
She walked past him, her footsteps silent even on the stone. Just before she disappeared into the corridor's shadow, her voice drifted back — elegant and edged:
"Sleep lightly, Alex. The last man who lied to me never woke up."
Chapter 172 – What Should Never Have Been Touched
The days passed slowly in Dunhyre Keep, carved not in hours but in silences.
Morgan did not trust him.
She made that clear in the way she watched him from across the room, in how she never let him wander unaccompanied, and in how her footsteps never echoed when she followed just behind.
Alex was given a room in the west wing — sparsely furnished, but clean. He never asked for more. He didn't complain when the food was plain or when the spirits that lingered in the halls whispered around his bed. He didn't question the enchanted locks on his door at night.
He understood.
He was not a guest.
He was a puzzle.
And Morgan Le Fay did not like unsolved things.
The Mornings
Each morning began the same.
She would enter the library — robes flawless, ribbon in place — and gesture for him to sit.
"Tell me something I don't know," she would say.
And he would.
Not about the future. He avoided that. But about perspectives — about stars from a modern lens, about metaphysics and memory, about machines without mana and how people lived without kings.
She listened without blinking.
Then asked better questions.
Sometimes she would test him — hold out a scroll of ancient script and say, "Translate this." Or conjure a sigil midair and demand, "What do you feel?"
At first, her tone was always measured, laced with polite contempt.
"Do your kind always speak so casually to royalty?"
"Would you speak to Arthur this way?"
"Does your world not teach men to bow?"
Alex didn't rise to it. He remained calm. Honest. Unshaken.
And that bothered her more than if he'd begged for favor.
The Afternoons
In time, she let him walk the halls freely — with wards that tracked him, of course.
He would find old ruins beneath the keep, echoes of spells etched into the walls by her younger hand. He never defaced them. Sometimes he repaired the stone quietly with transmutation techniques she'd never seen before.
One afternoon, he left a small clay cup outside the door to her study — its cracks restored by touch, its surface gently smoothed. No note. No spell.
Just respect.
She stared at it for a long time before finally letting it float into her hand.
The Evenings
Evenings were quieter.
Morgan would sit in the observatory tower, speaking with no one, her eyes on the moon.
Sometimes she would find Alex already there, sitting against the parapet wall, just watching the stars.
He never disturbed her.
But he never left, either.
She didn't ask why.
And that, perhaps, was the first question she truly meant to ask.
It was on the seventh night that she spoke to him without prompting.
They sat by the brazier in the lower study chamber, the fire casting warm shadows across the stone.
She didn't look at him.
"Why don't you fear me?"
Alex glanced at her. "Would it help if I did?"
"No," she said immediately. "It would make you predictable."
There was a pause.
He answered gently, "Then maybe I just don't want to be predictable."
Her eyes shifted toward him then — slightly narrowed, searching. "You're not from here. Your mind isn't shaped by our world. Even the way you speak… you don't carry a kingdom's weight on your tongue."
"I carry weight," he said quietly. "Just not one you can name."
She didn't reply for a long time.
Then, finally—
"You're the first person to speak to me without obligation in over a decade."
Alex didn't smile. He just nodded.
"Then let's not make it a habit of silence."
Morgan looked into the fire.
And for the first time since he arrived, she didn't feel alone in the room.
Alex started cooking on the eighth morning.
Not with magic.
Not with formal announcement.
He simply asked the castle's spirits — softly, politely — for access to the unused kitchen in the south wing. The ghosts didn't answer with words, but they left the old hearth unsealed, the storeroom unlocked, and the utensils polished as if they remembered a time when people laughed here.
At first, Morgan didn't react.
When he brought a plate to the study chamber — herb-roasted root vegetables, a soft cheese pastry, and a cup of hot broth — she stared at it like it was a trap.
"You cooked this?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.
Alex nodded. "The pantry still had some good things. And I know a few preservation tricks."
Morgan gave him a long, silent look.
"You're feeding me."
"You didn't ask," he said. "But I thought you might be tired of conjured bread and ghost-kept wine."
Her eyes narrowed — not in anger, but in evaluation.
Then she took the plate.
Sat down.
Ate in complete silence.
When she finished, she said nothing, but didn't push the plate away either.
And the next day?
She was already seated at the same table when he returned with lunch.
By the Third Meal
"This is very good," she said softly, inspecting a slow-cooked soup with a piece of smoked duck resting on top. "It's too balanced. I can't tell what's in it."
Alex gave a faint smile. "Compliments are optional. Ingredients are not."
"I'm used to meals being tools," she replied. "Poisoned. Blessed. Strategic."
She took another bite.
"This… is indulgent."
But she didn't stop eating.
By the Fifth
She asked him if he could make tea.
He said yes.
She asked if he knew how to prepare dried snowroot without bitterness.
He showed her.
They stood together in the kitchen — her in black velvet, him with sleeves rolled up — and stirred side by side, speaking only in brief exchanges.
Morgan didn't know what surprised her more: the fact that he knew how to cook with technique and care… or the fact that she let him.
The Moment She Noticed
It was during a quiet evening — fire flickering, rain barely audible against the high windows — that she caught herself watching him.
He had sat on the floor beside the brazier, arms resting on his knees, telling her a strange story about a street vendor who made noodles so spicy they could unseal sinuses and cleanse guilt.
She should have rolled her eyes.
She should have told him to be quiet.
Instead—
She laughed.
Just once.
It startled her.
And she quickly silenced herself.
Alex paused but didn't comment. He only smiled faintly, and kept talking.
Morgan turned away.
Her heart was quiet.
But not as cold.
That Night
She sat in front of her mirror longer than usual.
Her hairbrush paused halfway through a silver strand.
She wasn't thinking of Arthur.
Or her exile.
Or the kingdom that forgot her.
She was thinking of the way his hands moved when he sliced vegetables. The warmth of tea between them. The way he looked at her without fear. Without reverence.
Just… as if she were real.
She touched her ribbon.
And whispered, to no one at all:
"Alex."
Chapter 173 – The One Who Was Left Behind
The sun over Dunhyre Keep was gentle that morning — too gentle.
Morgan had awoken early, long before the ghosts stirred, long before the stormlight kissed the towers. She walked the empty halls alone, her fingers brushing the cold stone, trailing faint sparks of passive magic as she passed.
Something felt wrong.
Not in the castle.
Not in the wind.
In him.
When she found Alex in the courtyard, he was standing in the exact center of the old circle — the place where he had first appeared. He was watching the sky, shoulders relaxed, expression calm.
But his hand—
His hand was flickering.
Not the way illusion magic flickers.
Not the way a ghost fades.
It shimmered like glass in a dying fire — there, then gone, then there again.
"Alex," she called, her voice too steady for what she felt. "What is that?"
He looked down.
Paused.
Then gave a weak smile.
"I think… it's time."
Morgan walked toward him.
Slowly.
Carefully.
As if the wrong step might shatter the moment.
"You said you didn't know how to return."
"I didn't," he said softly. "But maybe the spell always knew. Maybe time's just pulling me back."
She stopped a few paces away.
"No."
Her voice was low, dangerous.
"You don't get to disappear."
"I don't want to," he said, more honest than anything she had ever heard.
He stepped toward her — and his foot left a faint ripple in the stone beneath him.
"Then stay," she demanded.
"I can't."
"You will."
Magic surged around her like a second heartbeat.
She raised a hand, not to strike — but to bind.
"I'll stop it. I'll stop time itself if I must."
"Morgan—"
"Don't say my name like it's a goodbye."
She stepped forward and grabbed his wrist.
But her fingers slipped through him.
Just slightly.
Just enough to make her hand tremble.
"I won't let you go," she whispered.
"You never had to hold on," Alex said. "I was already yours."
Her eyes widened.
"Then why—why is this happening?"
"I don't know."
And then — the worst thing of all — he smiled.
"But I'm glad it was you."
And just like that—
He vanished.
No flash.
No sound.
Just gone.
The space where he stood collapsed inward like a memory being erased.
Morgan Fell to Her Knees
The wind screamed through the courtyard.
She didn't.
She couldn't.
She simply sat there, staring at the place where time had stolen the one thing that never looked at her with fear.
And for the first time in years, she felt cold.
Not the kind she controlled.
But the kind that crept under skin and into bone — the kind that never left.
She pressed her palm to the stone.
And whispered a spell with no words.
A curse.
A cry.
A refusal.
"If the world would take him from me… then I will take the world from them."
The Legend That Followed
They said Morgan Le Fay turned wicked after that.
That her heart blackened with jealousy and rage.
That she became a seductress, a schemer, a monster wrapped in a woman's skin.
That Merlin, heartbroken and wary, tried to seal her.
That Arthur — the brother who never knew her — dealt the final blow.
None of them knew the truth.
None of them knew her love was not a weapon.
Until it was taken.
And all that remained…
Was the memory of a man who smiled at her like she was real.
Present Day – Somewhere in the United Kingdom
The mirror cracked.
Not from impact.
Not from age.
But from inside.
Morgan Astrelle stood in front of it, trembling — her hand still raised, her breath shallow. The ribbon in her hair, once pristine, now shimmered with thin, glowing threads of magic that had not stirred in over a thousand years.
She dropped the brush in her other hand.
It struck the marble floor and rolled, forgotten.
Her eyes — once pale blue — now flickered with the gold of ancient memory.
And then, she remembered.
It didn't come slowly.
It came all at once — like a flood bursting through a dam that had stood against time itself.
She remembered the stone towers.
The nights by the fire.
The way his hands moved when he cooked.
The way he said her name when no one else had ever spoken it like a promise.
She remembered his vanishing — the light, the tears she wouldn't shed, the rage that cracked the sky.
She remembered being Morgan Le Fay.
Not a metaphor.
Not a legend.
Herself.
She fell against the table, clutching the edge, her nails biting into the wood.
The world spun — not from vertigo, but from collapse.
Everything she'd built as Morgan Astrelle — the school, the family, the facade — it all cracked under the weight of what had been sealed inside her soul.
"You forgot me…"
Her voice was low, rasped, not her own — or rather, not just her own.
"No… you didn't forget. You never had the chance."
She turned toward the mirror.
The reflection no longer looked entirely modern.
She saw it clearly now: the past and the present layered into one.
The cruel girl who loved too deeply.
The cursed witch who was never truly evil.
The child who cast a spell that shattered her own heart.
And now — the woman reborn, standing in a world where he lived again.
Her breath slowed.
Her trembling stopped.
The rage did not return.
Instead, something colder settled in her chest — quieter, more focused.
She didn't scream.
She didn't cry.
She smiled.
Just slightly.
"You're here, aren't you… Alex?"
Her fingers rose and touched the black ribbon in her hair.
"I lost you once."
Her reflection shimmered faintly — her old eyes staring back through centuries.
"But this time… even time won't take you from me."
Chapter 174 – The Girl and the Witch
It began as a whisper.
A subtle hum beneath her ribs, like the rustling of old parchment or the crackle of an ancient spell reactivating after centuries of sleep.
Morgan Astrelle had felt odd all morning. The tea was too warm, the sun too soft. She had dismissed it as fatigue. Perhaps her mana had been stirred by some ritual from the eastern covens. Or perhaps it was the boy's name echoing in her dreams again.
Alex.
She'd heard it in sleep. In memory. In bone.
But now, standing before her mirror — brush halfway through her long silver-white hair — something cracked.
Not the glass.
Not her voice.
But something deeper.
The seal.
Ten Minutes Earlier
Morgan gripped the edge of the vanity table, knuckles pale. The brush fell from her hand, forgotten on the floor. Her reflection blurred.
The room remained silent, but her heart began to pound as if something ancient had just begun to breathe again inside her chest.
She had read about Morgan Le Fay.
Every girl born into magical nobility knew her name.
The evil witch of Camelot.
The sorceress who cursed kings, seduced enemies, betrayed kingdoms.
Whispers of her vanity, her cruelty, her wrath.
Even in modern education, her name came with footnotes of darkness.
"The Destroyer of Avalon."
"The Betrayer of Arthur."
"The One Who Could Not Be Loved."
And now — that name whispered from inside her.
At first, Morgan Astrelle thought she was losing herself.
She staggered backward, her breaths sharp and shallow, hand rising instinctively toward her ribbon.
"No," she whispered. "No, I'm not her. I'm not—"
But the memories came anyway.
Not like a dream.
Like a truth returning.
A castle by the sea.
A brother who never looked back.
A boy with dark hair and quiet eyes who called her name like it belonged to him.
The ache.
The smile.
The vanishing.
Morgan collapsed to her knees, gripping the edge of her bed like a lifeline.
Tears welled — not from grief, but from fear.
"If she returns… will I still love him?"
She had tried so hard to grow into someone calm. Controlled. Someone worthy of love.
But Morgan Le Fay — the true Morgan — was not that.
She was cold.
Jealous.
Cruel.
She hexed rivals without flinching.
She controlled what she could, and destroyed what she couldn't.
Morgan Astrelle had always feared that side of herself — the one people whispered about in hallways and kept at a distance.
And now, she realized…
That side had always been there.
Not separate.
Not awakened.
Just dormant.
She sat in silence.
Minutes passed.
Until the mirror shimmered — not by spell, but by memory.
And in its reflection, she saw herself fully for the first time.
Not just Morgan Astrelle.
Not just Morgan Le Fay.
Both.
And neither one was innocent.
But neither one had ever stopped loving him.
Not through a thousand years.
Not through the curse.
Not through death.
Morgan stood slowly.
Straightened her back.
Wiped the tears from her face.
Her voice, when she spoke again, was steady.
"She didn't take me over," she said to no one.
"She was me."
The room seemed to hold its breath.
Morgan picked up the brush from the floor.
Tied her ribbon again.
And for the first time, wore it not as a symbol of obedience — but as a vow.
The air in the room shifted — not from magic, but from resolve.
Morgan Astrelle stood before the mirror, hands folded over the vanity, her breathing steady at last. Her reflection no longer frightened her. The flickering fragments of who she had once been — the sorceress cloaked in legend and vilified by history — no longer loomed like a threat.
She was still her.
And always had been.
The fear had faded.
What remained was clarity.
Morgan Le Fay… was not a mask.
She was the blueprint.
She remembered how the world had twisted her into a villain for daring to be powerful and unloved. They had made her a monster because they couldn't understand her. Because she didn't cry. Because she didn't beg. Because she was cold and brilliant and alive.
And now?
Now they would remember her again.
Not as a legend.
But as a woman.
Morgan crossed the room and sat on the edge of her bed.
She rested her palm on her chest — just above where the soul-knot spell had once flickered and failed.
"I cast that spell to make him remember me," she whispered. "And I forgot myself."
Her voice didn't tremble.
She let the silence answer.
Not as a punishment.
But as permission.
She stood again and moved to the tall window, her eyes sweeping the rain-washed garden below.
From this view, it felt like she could almost see the edge of time itself — the path where fate had once stolen the boy she loved, and the future where he lived again.
He was out there now.
Older.
Wiser.
Still hers.
He never remembered…
But he came back.
And this time, she wouldn't lose him.
Not to magic.
Not to fate.
Not to fear.
She opened the drawer beside her desk and pulled out a sealed envelope — a letter she had written years ago, back when her hands still trembled at the thought of being forgotten again.
She tore it in half.
Then burned it with a flick of her fingers.
She no longer needed to be remembered by force.
She would be remembered because she was real.
Morgan returned to the mirror one last time.
She adjusted her black ribbon.
Then looked herself in the eyes and said:
"I am Morgan Le Fay."
"I am Morgan Astrelle."
"And I love him — cruelly, fiercely, honestly."
Her reflection didn't flinch.
It bowed.
And finally, she smiled.
Not because she had buried her past…
But because she had reclaimed it.