Well, since apparently Merlin is asking him directly, never mind. Though she will still offer a claw to help out. If nothing else than to toss them into the rift for a timeout if they can't put on their big kid scales for ten seconds.

She'll mostly be in the rift gathering evidence and begrudgingly joining the search and rescue, but she was in the palace for a while working on remedies for the kids affected by the illness. He could probably run into her prior to rift shenanigans?