The photographs covered her desk like spilled cards.
Morgana stared at them long enough for the images to blur: the gallery in Vienna where she'd grown up, the horse paddock behind her family's estate, the face of a girl she barely recognized—herself.
She closed her eyes.
And the city fell away.
---
Flashback One: Before It All
There had been a time when her life smelled of varnished wood and expensive oils, of old paintings and new champagne.
Morgana Thayle was the only daughter of a prominent art dealer. She had studied languages in Florence, music in Vienna, history at the Sorbonne. The world had been wide and safe.
Until one winter night when her father's gallery burned.
The investigation found embezzlement, fraud. By dawn, the Thayle name was ruined.
Everything—money, estate, future—vanished in a single night.
She remembered standing outside the ashes, holding her father's watch in her hand, realizing for the first time that she was alone.
---
Flashback Two: The Recruit
The next years were hunger and reinvention.
She became a translator, then a codebreaker. She learned to disappear, to make herself useful.
And then one day, a man came to her desk with a quiet voice and a badge she didn't recognize.
"Your mind is wasted here," he had said.
That man was Adrian Locke, now her Director.
He gave her a choice:
Leave everything behind, or come with him.
---
Flashback Three: Marrakesh
Seven years ago, Marrakesh had been her trial by fire.
A stolen shipment of antiquities—coded manifests she was supposed to translate.
She was young, clever, too sure of herself. She sent a piece of intel that should have saved lives.
Instead, the mission turned into an ambush.
A young operative under Emil's command didn't make it out.
Emil never forgave the betrayal.
And Locke—her Director—had shielded her, at a cost she never understood. Until now.
---
Present – Prague Hotel
The alarm on her phone pulled her back to the present.
A message: Return to London. Debrief. Now.
---
London HQ
The jet was silent. Callen slept across the aisle; Morgana watched the clouds and thought of Marrakesh.
At HQ, the Director was waiting.
Tall, severe, but his eyes softened when he saw her.
"You should have told me Emil contacted you," he said.
"You should have told me Emil worked for you," she countered.
A flicker of surprise. "That was classified."
"And Marrakesh?" she asked. "Was that classified too?"
---
The Rift
For a moment, the mask slipped.
"Everything I've done," he said quietly, "was to keep you safe."
"That's the problem," she said. "You built me to be a weapon—and then kept secrets from me, as if I was still that girl you pulled out of the ashes."
She stepped back before the conversation turned personal.
Behind them, Callen watched, silent, piecing things together.
---
Flashback Four: The Proposal
That night, alone in her apartment, Morgana remembered the night Locke asked her to marry him.
It wasn't romantic. It wasn't fireworks.
It was after a mission had gone wrong, in a hotel room, his voice low:
> "If there's ever a way out of this life, I want it with you."
She had said yes because, at the time, it felt like salvation.
Now she wasn't so sure.
---
Present – End of Chapter
As she lay awake, the photographs from Emil replayed in her mind like a silent film.
Somewhere in Prague, Emil was waiting for her next move.
And for the first time in years, Morgana wasn't sure whether she was fighting for her Director—or against him.