Archive of Our Own

In retrospect, it wasn’t the best of ideas to use magic in front of the members of the city guard, right there under the shadow of the Gallows. Especially not when you were an apostate—not even if it was, ostensibly, to help.

Father had always kept them away from Kirkwall and the Free Marches for a reason; with his children and himself to protect, even Ferelden’s Circle, he insisted, would provide more freedom than the Kirkwall Gallows. The threat of that terrible place lingered like a shroud in Garrett’s worst nightmares, from the moment he woke one morning into puberty and magic until the day the templars finally took him, right there in the Gallows docks.

Even the slaughter he’d seen at Ostagar, the sight of an ogre murdering his little sister, didn’t have quite the same weight as the Gallows—not in his imagination. The simple fact of the matter was that he’d seen the former; they’d lost so much of their power because they’d happened to him already. What might come to pass was so much worse than what already had, or so Garrett once believed.

‘Brother—!’ Carver shouted, and Mother stared after him, trembling, with something terrible and unfamiliar in her eyes, but the templars took Garrett anyway.

‘So much for one good turn deserving another. Don’t you think you could do us both a favor—you the paperwork, me the imprisonment—and forget all this ever happened?’ he said, even though there was no one to pretend for anymore—not Mother, not Carver, not Father or Bethany. There was only Garrett and the Kirkwall templars, and the latter seemed to share a piss poor sense of humor.

*

Carver, Garrett discovered, joined the templars not a day later; Garrett almost forgot himself and took offense, until he realized it was Carver’s own helpless way of trying to look after him, and then he just felt sorry for them both. Now they each had a trial by fire—in a manner of speaking—to look forward to: Garrett, a Harrowing, and Carver a Vigil.

When you looked at it that way, you discovered templars and mages weren’t all that different. They were even—though Garrett didn’t dare express this opinion to just anyone—rather alike.

‘We all wear skirts,’ Garrett told a small group of the others: sisters from Lothering who were terrified, an older man who’d already undergone his Harrowing in the Ferelden Circle, and a cynical city elf from Kirkwall proper who’d been in the Gallows since, he said, the Dread Wolf was still roaming the land. ‘We’ve all got massive chips on our shoulders. And most of us don’t like blood magic, anyway. By those standards, we should all get along, shouldn’t we?’

‘But we don’t,’ the city elf said.

‘It’s kind, what you’re trying to do,’ the older mage said later, sometime after dark. He introduced himself as Karl Thekla, and Garrett hoped—in that childish place he’d always protected, where he still believed things would turn out for the better, or at least somewhere close to right—that he might have known his father.

He didn’t, but he was certain Malcolm Hawke must have been a fine man.

‘Ah,’ Garrett said. ‘Thank you. He was, now that you mention it.’

*

Garrett had faced down darkspawn and outran the Blight itself; he’d fought an ogre and lived to tell the tale, and just so happened to meet the Witch of the Wilds. A woman who, he liked to remind himself, seemed rather fond of him. Not many of the older mages in the Circle could boast to half of that.

And so the Harrowing shouldn’t have meant more to Garrett than a walk in the park during springtime, but he woke sweating and gasping for air every morning in the week leading up to the test anyway. The templars were delightfully understanding about it, always careful to mention the number of apostate ‘recruits’ they’d been ‘forced’ to ‘dispose of’ during similar Harrowing experiences.

‘You just can’t get proper training outside the Circle,’ one of the ringleaders explained to his subordinates during a routine inspection, all the un-Harrowed lined up with their eyes fixed on their own toes. ‘None of this lot will be able to make it through, and when they come out the other side as vile abominations, it will be our honor in the eyes of the Maker to rid the world of their poison.’

‘Ser Alrik,’ Karl explained, once he’d finally left. ‘You’ll be better served if you stay out of his sight, and thereby out of his reach.’

‘Until, of course, he’s ‘forced’ to ‘dispose of’ me after my Harrowing,’ Hawke reminded him.

The faintest of smiles tugged at the corner of Karl’s mouth. ‘Yes. Until then.’

‘Well,’ Hawke said. ‘No trouble at all, really. I rarely ever stand out in a crowd.’

*

Now and then, he caught sight of Carver across the courtyard. Neither of them met the other’s eyes. It was almost like Garrett didn’t have a little brother at all.

But that was impossible, as Garrett had been there when he was born.

*

Not all the templars were terrible; there was a fine ginger gentleman named Thrask who looked after them, and on the eve of his Harrowing, Garrett was surprised to see it was Thrask there attending, rather than Ser Alrik. His life didn’t usually shake down that way.

‘You will enter into the Fade,’ First Enchanter Orsino told him. ‘There, you will encounter a powerful demon. Defeat it, and you will have passed the test.’

‘Fail, and you will become an abomination,’ Knight-Commander Meredith said. ‘My men will slay you on sight. Do not fail, apprentice.’

Garrett bristled at the title, but there was nothing he could say. A mage who hadn’t passed his Harrowing was considered something less than a full mage, something more than your average menace. He’d just have to prove his father’s training meant more than what any circle could teach.

There were worse fates than the Harrowing, after all. Being made Tranquil, for instance; or being dead. Put into those terms, his path was clearer than ever.

Garrett touched the lyrium, and the world turned itself inside out.

*

In the Fade, everything was washed in the same, bland yellow-brown color. The scenery was like what one found in the real world, but with eerie hints of wrongness to it, super-imposed on what Garrett’s mind and heart tried to recognize. Boats floated high in the sky. Statues scattered the landscape. Demons shifted and slithered in the hills, beyond Garrett’s reach, just out of sight.

Pass the test, and you can go, Garrett reminded himself. Pass the test, or die.

*

His demon was a spirit of Desire. She had curved horns and large, lavender breasts. She fondled herself as she offered Garrett everything he’d ever wanted: the power to leave this place on his own; the power to destroy the Gallows brick by brick and take the freedom he craved; the power to seduce the public and become viscount of Kirkwall, putting him in a position to grant mages their autonomy.

‘I could use my power to give you all this, and more,’ Desire said, thumb flicking her jeweled nipple. ‘All I ask in return is a moment of your time.’

Garrett braced himself. There was a vein of raw lyrium nearby, should he need it to augment his powers. His head felt clouded, but that didn’t make his decision any less clear.

‘There’s only one thing I want,’ he told the demon. ‘And it isn’t any of that. You must be losing your touch.’

‘Oh?’ she asked, practically purring. ‘You decisive types always make it so easy. Tell me then, sweetheart. What is it you want most of all?’

‘To defeat you and get out of this blighted nightmare,’ Garrett said, ice spells already flashing from his fingertips.

*

When he woke, he was bathed in sweat, and he’d been moved downstairs, to a dormitory he didn’t recognize.

‘Good,’ Ser Thrask’s voice said. Garrett sought him out in the dim light. He was standing by the closed doorway—standing vigil, just as he’d done over Garrett’s Harrowing. ‘You’re awake. There was a moment when I feared… But I can see you’ve proven yourself quite capable.’

‘Is it over?’ Garrett asked. Now that he was up, a throbbing headache had set in at the base of his skull.

‘It is over,’ Ser Thrask confirmed. He nodded his head in respect. ‘You are a mage of the Circle now, Garrett Hawke. For good or ill.’

‘You don’t sound all that happy about it,’ Garrett said. But at least Thrask didn’t have a blade to Garrett’s throat.

*

Karl found him at dinner. His normally-drawn face looked even more pinched than usual.

‘Please don’t tell me that expression is on my account,’ Garrett said, tearing into a roll. ‘It was easy. Like a stroll in the park. A stroll in a demon-infested park.’

‘What?’ Karl was preoccupied. A moment later, he shook his head, taking a seat at Garrett’s side. ‘Forgive me, no. I am…not myself tonight.’

‘It’s the soup, isn’t it?’ Garrett fished a lump out of it, holding it up to the light to inspect it more closely—what it once was, the abomination it had become. He wished immediately that he hadn’t. Sometimes, you could look a little too close, learn a little too much. And sometimes, curiosity ruined dinner completely. ‘Just like someone’s mother made it, I suppose, but certainly not my mother.’

‘Ah.’ The worry lines didn’t fade from Karl’s face, but he relaxed somewhat, and suddenly he was wearing a fond look Garrett didn’t like at all. The last thing he needed was for someone to do more than just tolerate him—since he had a troublesome habit, Father used to say, of getting into scrapes with no plans for getting out of them. Do that on your own, and you risked only yourself. Do that with others who cared about you nearby, and you bargained more than was your right to put on the table.

‘As for me,’ Garrett said, pushing his bowl aside, ‘I’m sticking to the bread. Unless it has pieces of mysterious meat in it as well, and then I’ll probably starve. Those blighted templars! I bet they eat better than the viscount.’

Karl fidgeted with the hems of his sleeves—Garrett thought he saw something like a flash of parchment disappear into one of them—then picked up his spoon. That look just wouldn’t leave, no matter what Garrett did to discourage it. It was a curse and a burden, being this charming.

‘Just now,’ Karl said, stirring his soup distractedly, ‘you reminded me of…someone.’

‘Someone delightful, I hope,’ Garrett said.

‘Someone memorable, more like,’ Karl said. ‘Now eat your soup.’

Garrett sat up a little straighter before tucking in. ‘Yes, ser,’ he promised, faux-meek.

*

The days blurred together, all of them the same, distinguished only by fresh, unnecessary tragedy. Desperate mages attempted escape so routinely Garrett had to wonder if they truly believed they’d ever make it past the gates; they were brought in and joined the tranquil serving the Knight-Commander soon after. One of the sisters from Amaranthine didn’t make it through her Harrowing. Garrett had no idea how to comfort the one who had passed in the slightest, and furthermore, he didn’t particularly wish to try—because it was so difficult, and failing was a wretched prospect—but she took up with the city elf, and they comforted one another better than Garrett could have hoped.

‘It is…extremely foolish,’ Karl said of it, shaking his head, but there was the faintest of sad smiles playing around his lips.

‘Oh, no,’ Garrett said. ‘Not foolish. That’s the worst possible thing to be! Well, except for… How dreadful.’

They side-stepped the more visible tranquil in the Gallows market, checking to see what Solivitus had on sale that afternoon, nodding politely when they passed a group of young templars, keeping their focus somewhere around their feet. So much looking down was a trial, but Garrett managed it, and learned so much about masonry in the process.

He didn’t search for Carver, who—rumor had it—was undergoing his Vigil in a few days’ time. The sun was bright, the atmosphere cheery. Not exactly the type of weather for being pent up behind high stone walls and foreboding bars, but Garrett wasn’t going to join the army of the defeated the Knight Commander had amassed the same way normal people collected statues or decorative pillows.

‘What’s dreadful?’ Karl asked, on the steps back to the compound.

‘You’re a romantic,’ Garrett said. ‘The worst kind of friend to have, in my opinion.’

Karl cleared his throat. ‘And here I thought it was the flighty, or the fickle, or the immoral. How wrong I’ve been all these years in picking out companions.’

He had a sharp streak a mile wide, hidden like steel underneath his mild-mannered exterior. And more and more, Garrett was starting to wonder how well he truly managed to hide it.

*

The Gallows were never quiet for long. Knight-Commander Meredith called for the latest group of escapees to be executed, an outrage that sparked the normally cool-headed First Enchanter Orsino to storm out of the dining hall.

He didn’t return as expected the next day, nor the day after that. It wasn’t Garrett’s place to worry about it, but he saw the faces of his brethren in the halls and their libraries. They were worried. More than that, they were frightened. He’d never seen so many mages gathered in one place together before, and yet their bonds, their shared suffering, only served to make them weaker. As a single man, Garrett’s father had seemed stronger—and possessed of more conviction—than the entirety of the Gallows put together.

Little wonder he’d run away.

*

After the executions, it became harder to look out for others with the same passion as one looked after oneself. The group Garrett had come in with began avoiding one another, like they were afraid they’d be called out next just for indulging in the offense of repeated conversation. It was bad to look united, even worse to look like you might be gathering forces—or something equally stupid.

Last Garrett had checked, mages needed friends just the same anyone else. But they weren’t just the same anyone else. Here, they were feared, and because they were feared, they were constantly watched.

Not having anyone to talk to left Garrett with a great deal of time on his hands. He’d never been the type satisfied by sitting around reading books in the library, enjoying the adventures other people—sometimes not even real people—once had. He took to prowling the halls until late in the night. It didn’t cure his restlessness completely, but it was better than seeking out the company of others. The Knight-Commander had yet to enforce a curfew—but it was coming, and it seemed wise to take advantage of this small freedom while it lasted.

Lost in thought, he’d somehow managed to wander all the way down from the mage’s prison towers to the templar hall.

‘Shit,’ Garrett muttered, then made to turn around. The last thing he needed was to be considered an incendiary person just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that did happen, although the constant run-around was making him feel decidedly paranoid.

Down the stairs and around the corridor, someone cried out in the dark.

Double shit, Garrett thought, but he was smart enough not to say it out loud. He hadn’t involved himself in anything remotely controversial since his apprehension—so unlike him; whenever he got the urge, he tempered his hot-headedness by thinking of Mother—but he knew a scuffle when he heard it. He was practically an expert in scuffles, both as an idle pastime and a grave offense, and always as a participant.

‘Please,’ a girl pleaded—Garrett recognized her voice. The surviving sister. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it. I wasn’t sneaking out.’

‘Skulking around in the shadows after dark?’ her assailant asked; Garrett knew his voice, too. Ser Alrik. There wasn’t a demand in his tone, just a vague amusement, a pleased tut, tut. ‘Maybe I’d like to believe that. But after our most recent escapes… You do know what happened to that lot, don’t you?’

‘I was with a friend,’ the girl said. She was still attempting to reason with him, which seemed either brave or incredibly stupid. ‘We lost track of time, that’s all! I was already heading back to my rooms when you found me.’

‘Meeting someone,’ Ser Alrik repeated. Garrett padded softly down the stairs, far enough to see the man’s eyes glinting coldly in the moonlight. His bald head did the same, but it wasn’t as funny as it should have been. ‘A convenient excuse. But I can be merciful, I assure you. Your death is the last thing I want.’

The girl sucked in a breath. She was practically sobbing with relief. ‘Thank you, ser. I truly didn’t intend—’

‘The rite of Tranquility is the only mercy for mages as stubborn and willful as you,’ Ser Alrik continued. ‘Not only a lesson to yourself, but to your peers.’

‘No!’ the girl blurted. The panic in her voice was evident. ‘I passed my Harrowing--’

‘Rules can change, if the need is present,’ Ser Alrik said. ‘You’ll find that the Tranquil serve many needs.’

Garrett thought of Bethany, and what he might do if it were his sister trapped in the dark like this, with no one to stand between her and the templars. He thought of how Carver had joined to look out for him; he thought of their mother’s face as the templars had dragged him away.

This girl had been someone’s sister once too. If Garrett had died in the Harrowing, he’d have wanted someone to look out for the people he left behind.

If he thought too much about the consequences, he’d never act. Garrett raised his staff and tried to tell himself it was what Father would have done.

He just hoped he wouldn’t be seeing the man anytime soon, to confirm that for himself.

Something flashed in the dark from the other end of the hall, startling Garrett from his thoughts. The templar’s eyes rolled back in his head. The girl cried out, and Ser Alrik fell to the floor in a boneless heap. Garrett moved quickly toward him, holding his staff out in defense. He tapped Ser Alrik’s chestpiece once, equal parts baffled, horrified, and curious.

The man—not dead, something Garrett hadn’t expected—let out a snore.

‘Who’s there?’ Garrett called, lifting his head. He’d seen the light. There was another mage here with them, one who hadn’t wasted time on hesitation or self-doubt.

The person in the darkness coughed, then hurried toward them.

‘Quickly,’ he murmured, friendly face taking form in the darkness. ‘We can’t waste time, now.’

‘Karl?’ Garrett said, flabbergasted.

‘That is my name, yes,’ Karl said. He drew the girl close, and she was brave enough not to cry, though Garrett saw her shoulders shake. ‘And better that no one hears it.’

‘He’ll think I…’ The girl twisted free of Karl’s arms to stare at Ser Alrik. ‘When he wakes, he’ll tell the Knight Commander that I cursed him, and then—’

‘They can’t do that if you aren’t here,’ Karl said. ‘Come with me. Quickly. There’s another way.’

*

There wasn’t any time for the usual questions—no but how from the Amaranthine girl, no protests at leaving her new lover behind. Garrett didn’t blame her for her eagerness, her willingness to comply. Karl allowed him to follow and to be perfectly honest Garrett was mildly afraid of him, in the same way every man had to be afraid of the things and the people he’d come to admire.

Karl trusted him. It was a good feeling to have, even if Garrett didn’t yet know what he was being trusted with. The expectation itself was enough for the moment—to know that Karl didn’t believe he’d sell them out.

The thought had never crossed Garrett’s mind, if only because it made no sense. The templars would just as soon turn on him for being there, even if he did see fit to betray his fellow mages.

But Karl’s trust didn’t go very far. They’d made it halfway through the compound, near to the holding cells for naughty boys and girls, when Karl stopped. ‘I’m afraid I can’t let you go any further, Garrett,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing personal—better for you that you don’t know.’

‘A secret escape passage for abused mages and you want to keep it from me?’ Garrett sighed. ‘Story of my life.’

Still, he didn’t feel like wasting time and endangering an innocent just on principle, or for his own benefit.

‘Later,’ Karl promised. ‘Make sure no one sees you on your way back to the dormitories.’

‘Yes, ser,’ Garrett echoed. The flash of light in Karl’s eyes made it clear he’d caught the reference—and that, Garrett decided, was quite enough excitement for one night.

*

The Amaranthine girl’s escape from the Gallows caused, understandably, a not-so-minor uproar. The templar patrols doubled in response, and Ser Alrik was mad as a mabari bitch in heat, since he’d been the one responsible, and no man ever enjoyed publicly losing face. Garrett had always been a deft hand at diamondback—after years of lying to templars about Bethany, he’d all but eradicated any personal tells—and Karl, placid as ever, smiled in the Ser Alrik’s face during questioning, adopting a pale, humorless tone when he answered, without so much as a flinch or a twitch.

He was good. Garrett saw him now in a whole new light, and liked him even more for it.

For a steady while there simply wasn’t a way to discuss what had happened and be certain they were speaking in private; the walls were made of stone but templars were all ears, and so were frightened mages, and Garrett’s curiosity was liable to kill him by the time Karl clasped him on the shoulder, leaving a scrap of parchment tucked in the fabric of his robes on his way to breakfast.

Finally. It had only taken an agonizing six days—nearly a full week.

According to the note, they were to meet that night in the library, in a section Garrett recognized as one for ancient magical treatises written by Thedas’s most long-winded and underappreciated historians. No one ever ventured into that part of the stacks; the books were far too boring for even the most dedicated of students. Sometimes a mage or two popped down for a quick tryst, but the current atmosphere of the Gallows wasn’t one that encouraged love affairs of the physical or emotional kind. With the threat of being made Tranquil constant and omnipresent, nobody was kissing anybody else.

More was the pity. Garrett rather fancied the young templar recruit Keran, but that seemed right out of the question, at least for the time being.

After days of tedium tempered by fits of anticipation, Garrett was more than happy to have the excuse to sneak out. He missed Mother’s nagging and Carver’s complaining, the sound of his dog panting and—perhaps most of all—Bethany, who snored the loudest of everyone, a sound that Garrett had come to think of as synonymous with a satisfying night’s sleep.

That was the problem with the Gallows—everything was too bloody quiet all the time. Except for when mages were begging and sobbing for mercy, or screaming in terror. Garrett wasn’t certain which was worse.

‘So,’ he said, running his finger over the dusty spine of a massive tome. ‘Not only are you a romantic, but you’re also a renegade. I would never have guessed it.’

‘Yes,’ Karl admitted. ‘And that’s rather the point.’

‘How did you do it?’ Garrett asked. Karl’s hesitation spoke volumes, and he blew the dust off his fingertip as he sighed. ‘Of course. You can’t tell me; it’s far, far too dangerous. Is that it?’

Karl nearly smiled. ‘Do you blame me?’

‘Do you blame me?’ Garrett countered.

‘I blame the Knight Commander here,’ Karl said simply. ‘The institution itself. Sometimes, I blame my own magic, or Andraste for the revolution she inspired, or the Maker himself—when I’m in the mood for it. Is that what you wanted to hear?’

‘A bit more than I wanted, actually, but I’ll live,’ Garrett said. ‘So long as the templars see fit, in any case.’

‘I didn’t think you’d last,’ Karl said, ‘but you’re good at laying low.’

‘That’s not something I’ve heard often,’ Garrett admitted.

‘I’ll wager it’s something you’ve had to do often enough, though.’ Karl smiled when Garrett blinked at him in surprise. ‘Yes, it is that obvious. Apostates have a certain look to them—a certain rebelliousness. In my very advanced years I’ve come to recognize it. You must have been remarkable at skirting danger to avoid the templars this long into adulthood.’

That had been Garrett’s father’s doing, more than anyone else’s, certainly more than Garrett’s. Malcolm had fled the Circle, and Malcolm had known how to avoid the templars. He’d passed his knowledge down to his children; he’d sacrificed everything to keep them free.

Fat lot of good it had done them in the end. In any case, it wasn’t an explanation Garrett felt like getting into. Not while he was still in the Gallows, anyway.

‘Is this the part where you ask me to join your merry band of misfits?’ Garrett asked instead, hopeful.

Karl bent to look through the shelves into the next aisle, making certain it was clear. ‘I could hardly ask anyone to put himself in danger, to sacrifice himself without cause.’

‘‘Without cause?’’ Garrett repeated. ‘Surely you don’t believe that.’

Karl straightened, holding a book in his hands. His gaze was on it instead of on Garrett. ‘There are some who’d argue that the Circle is a comfortable life. We’re given a home and regular meals. We are….protected from demons, as well as from ourselves.’

‘Been talking to a lot of Tranquil lately, have you?’ Garrett asked.

Karl coughed delicately to cover his laugh. There weren’t many who’d be willing to joke about the state of the Tranquil, and even fewer who would laugh at those jokes, but as far as Garrett was concerned there was no reason to dance around the subject. Wailing and crying about it wouldn’t change anything. In fact, Karl deserved to laugh if anyone did, since as far as Garrett had seen, he was the only one actively trying to make a difference.

Father had also been an inappropriate laugher. And a good man, too. The two weren’t mutually exclusive traits.

‘Tell me, Karl,’ Garrett asked, when he was finished laughing, ‘is it worth it?’

Karl’s face sobered. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes seemed to deepen, as did the furrow in his brow. ‘Freedom is always worth it.’

‘It’s just that it seems…odd,’ Garrett clarified. How Karl had managed to live to his ripe old age with so many seditious habits lurking beneath the surface was beyond him. He obviously hadn’t had anyone sensible around to talk him out of his dangerous ideals in the Ferelden Circle. Then again, Fereldans were always encouraging bad behavior. How Garrett missed Ferelden. ‘I thought for certain this was the big recruitment speech.’

‘I’m not big on speeches,’ Karl said, shaking his head. ‘You’re young—you have your whole life ahead of you to make reckless decisions of your own. It’s a lot of risk for very little reward. Almost no reward, actually. Unless you consider a job well-done its own reward, in which case…’

‘I consider jewels to be their own reward,’ Garrett said, cheerfully. ‘How about those?’

‘Well,’ Karl said, ‘unfortunately, the Mage Underground isn’t as well funded as, say, a lyrium smuggling ring. Though we do share a few of the same tunnels.’

‘The Mage Underground,’ Garrett repeated. ‘Fantastic. It even has a name.’

*

In the days that followed, the templars cracked down even harder. They still didn’t know how the girl from Amaranthine had disappeared, and someone on the inside had apparently destroyed her phylactery. That, more than anything, had the templars panicking. The Knight-Commander did the sensible thing, as she always did, and began accusing people of blood magic—of holding her people in thrall, enlisting their aid through nefarious means. She arrested three men and two women, only three of them mages, and one of whom Garrett had seen conversing with Karl in the library on multiple occasions.

‘We came over from Ferelden together,’ Karl told him later, even though Garrett hadn’t asked. ‘If she was a blood mage, I’ll eat my staff.’

‘I knew a girl in the Pearl who used to advertise that she could swallow her staff,’ Garrett mused. ‘Almost the same thing, really. But, as it turned out, the story was apocryphal. And I had so been looking forward to trying it out.’

‘Do you always begin conversations this way?’ Karl asked.

‘Only when I really like someone,’ Garrett assured him.

‘Lights out,’ Ser Thrask said, making his rounds in the halls. After the arrests, Meredith had finally instituted a curfew. All mages caught out of their beds after dark would be suspected of treachery—as though they weren’t suspected of treachery already, for the simple reason of having been born mages.

Thrask paused at the alcove where Karl and Garrett were talking, then nodded subtly toward the former. ‘I’d move along, were I you, messeres. There’s no reason to stir up unnecessary trouble.’

‘But we’re so young,’ Garrett said; Thrask had a sense of humor, remarkable for someone who’d worked in the Gallows this long. ‘Well, one of us is, anyway. Remove unnecessary trouble, and all we have are selfish intentions and callow behavior.’

‘Ah, youth,’ Karl said, with a shake of his head.

Thrask nodded, once. ‘As you were,’ he told them crisply, and left them to adhere to the curfew as they saw fit.

*

Garrett was and was not completely shocked to learn that Thrask was a part of the resistance: shocked because it seemed implausible to him that any templar, no matter how privately kind, would ever risk his position for anyone so obviously beneath him; and not shocked, because Thrask was more than just privately kind, and it made sense to have an inside man. Otherwise the cause would all be bluster and blunder and Tranquility, and despite his own better intentions, Garrett would have known not to sign on.

‘Thrask has my personal assurance that none of the mages we liberate are dangerous, in the way Meredith believes,’ Karl explained. ‘He’s a good man, and a rare man, and if any blame for this falls on his head, there will be suffering indeed.’

My lips are sealed, Garrett mouthed, threading an invisible needle with invisible thread and making as though to sew his mouth shut, just like the qunari were rumored to do with their mages.

As Father always said: At least you could have it worse, Garrett. Such assurances were stuff that Garrett’s nightmares had once been made of, but at least they stayed in the Fade after he woke up. The best part about nightmares was that you weren’t supposed to be living them.

‘I’ll pretend you didn’t just do that, and maintain my middling-to-fair opinion of you,’ Karl offered.

‘Splendid,’ Garrett said. ‘Good man.’

*

Garrett’s first job as the Mage Underground’s newest recruit was simple enough: he was to make sure no one entered Karl’s room, pretending the poor fellow was sick with something; Thrask had been instructed to direct most of the nighttime patrols through other halls, away from Karl’s room; and thus Karl was able to sneak out past curfew. With any luck, Garrett’s theatrics wouldn’t be needed at all, although he was more than prepared to whip them out at a moment’s notice.

It wasn’t exactly the grandest of jobs, but, Garrett assured Karl, he wasn’t interested in being the hero of their little tale. Keeping his head on his neck and his connection to the Fade was all he really wanted in life, with a few more private pleasures included—he had standards, after all, and he’d spare Karl all the sordid details.

‘Splendid,’ Karl murmured dryly. ‘Good man.’

The rest, however, was up to Karl himself, the only person—cocky, self-sacrificing bastard—he was willing to risk in such a capacity. He would either be caught by the templars on his way to the prison, or he wouldn’t be caught—but he intended to free both mages and wrongfully accused templars that night, and Garrett almost believed without a doubt that he’d do it.

Yet doubt remained, of course; Garrett was nothing if not extremely practical. He knew firsthand how plans like these so often went awry, and to say he wasn’t nervous would have been a brazen lie.

He’d say it anyway, if anyone asked—but the truth was obvious enough to him, where Father had been convinced it counted most. Garrett, on the other hand, wasn’t as sure about that. But it was just a triviality, something to entertain his racing brain as he waited in the darkness.

And the wait in Karl’s room was interminably long. Garrett read the first and last pages of a few of his books, but he wasn’t able to concentrate on anything for longer than a sentence, and the tales of yore offered no real distraction. He held off on snooping in Karl’s personal chest and under his mattress for, he thought, an admirably long time, but once moonlight was slanting across the stone floor, Garrett was elbow-deep in a secret panel underneath Karl’s bed, eyes glancing over a very detailed private correspondence with someone who only ever signed his letters with a simple A.

Garrett wasn’t perfect. He’d never pretended that he was. He’d never betray Karl’s cause, but Karl’s privacy was a different matter. And the boredom coupled with his nerves were really too much to ignore his naughtier impulses, of which he had so many.

The letters weren’t particularly ribald; they were about the mages, and how to save the mages, a ceaseless, painstaking list of the plight of the mages, of every terrible thing that had happened to every mage who’d ever had the misfortune of stumbling into Kirkwall, maybe even into the Free Marches. Tranquility wasn’t the main abuse; there were other anecdotes that turned Garrett’s stomach, made him almost grateful Bethany had died before they ever made it to the Gallows docks. There were times when the ink splattered and the writing grew shaky; Garrett could only imagine this mysterious A person becoming so impassioned with the topic that he spilled the contents of his inkwell, could no longer control the trembling of his writing hand.

And, at the end of every letter, the now-familiar Keep safe. I promise I will come for you. A.

In a strange way, despite the narrowed scope of contents, there was something intimate about those words, and Garrett tapped the corner of his chin before ordering the papers just as he’d found them, finally returning them to their proper place.

Karl would likely know he’d been snooping—if Karl was lucky enough to return to his room at all. Then, they’d have a nice chat, and Karl would see the error of his ways in not taking Garrett along on his suicide missions through the Gallows prison ward at night, and he’d bring Garrett with him on all future endeavors. It was a brilliant plan, downright diabolical.

Garrett commended himself for his cleverness, then settled in to wait, doing his best to forget all the things he’d read.

He was doing what little he could for these people—all of them strangers he might never even meet. He didn’t have to torture himself in the process, now did he? He wouldn’t have wished untoward suffering on them; hopefully, they’d have the decency to think the same of him, if they ever had reason to think of him at all.

*

At some time just past midnight, there was a sharp rap on the door. Garrett saw shadows pass across the bars, and then, a familiar face.

‘Brother?’ Carver asked. He looked white as a Wintersend moon.

‘Can’t be,’ Garrett said. ‘This isn’t his room.’

Carver snorted and opened the door, then started across the floor. Garrett braced himself, not knowing whether to expect an embrace or something a little more violent.

In the end, it was neither. Carver halted just short of Garrett, armor clanking unmistakably in the dark. Whatever he’d planned on doing, he hadn’t been able to screw up the necessary resolve. Classic Carver, through and through.

Carver cleared his throat. ‘Thrask said they needed you downstairs, but he wouldn’t tell me why.’

‘Good man, Thrask,’ Garrett said. He stood up, amazed at his own skill in keeping his voice even. They’d never discussed a contingency plan—or if they had, the senior members of Underground had done so without Garrett present. For their safety or for his—what did it really matter? All Garrett could do now was try not to picture everything that could go wrong with Karl’s rescue. He didn’t know the details of that, either; there was no way to anticipate his own side’s actions, much less the opposition’s.

All he knew was that if Thrask was asking for him, something must have gone wrong.

‘What are you involved in?’ Carver asked. He looked angry, or possibly constipated, which just meant he was worried; he never did know how to show it.

Garrett did his best—with help from the shadows and the faint moonlight—not to let it show how much he’d missed him. It would only go to his already oversized head. Positively freakish, really.

‘You’re better off if I don’t tell you,’ Garrett said, already heading for the door. If he really was going to throw his life away playing hero for the Mage Underground, then it was just good sense for Carver to stay as far away from trouble as possible. As far away from him, in other words.

Mother would still need one son to look after her, at least.

‘Brother…’ Carver began, just as Garrett passed him by.

Garrett stopped, but he didn’t turn around. That was always the kicker. If he did turn, he wouldn’t see Carver as he was now, but a much younger variant, with skinned knees and wide, hurt eyes. Garrett hadn’t been able to protect Bethany from the ogre; the very least he could do was protect Carver from himself.

‘Trust me, Carver,’ he said. That had never worked before, but that was no reason not to try again.

‘I don’t like this,’ Carver told him. ‘Any of it.’

‘For once, we agree on something,’ Garrett said. Then he slipped out into the hall, neither willing nor able to linger. It wasn’t exactly the heartwarming family reunion Thrask might have planned by sending, of all people, Garrett’s own little brother for him, but then he didn’t know the Hawke family.

This had been the best Garrett could hope for.

*

Despite his better judgment—and that was what the whole affair was, really, despite his better judgment—Garrett’s made his way down to the prisoner’s quarters, heart pounding. He wasn’t the sort to worry unnecessarily, but he was also well aware of his status in the pecking order.

Garrett had no illusions about his place in the Underground. As it stood, he was little more than a vague, distant accomplice—not anything close to a ringleader.

Was it something like this that had driven his father to flee the Circle at last? Had he finally grown sick of the nerves and the anxiety—always waiting for the other boot to drop, the blade to come down on his neck?

Garrett stole silently through the corridors, moving quickly, as though the templars were already on his heels. He’d left Carver upstairs to fend for himself without knowing whether he’d followed, or run off to rouse the Knight-Captain.

He would’ve liked to say that he had more faith in his brother than that, but the truth was, Garrett knew Carver a little too well. There was no predicting what he’d do when there was a chance to make a name for himself. He was still young; they’d never gotten the chance to talk about how the loss of Bethany must have affected him.

She was Garrett’s sister, but she’d been Carver’s twin. Perhaps he felt a little as though he’d been made Tranquil himself, forever cut off from something that’d once been a part of him. Mother had been near mad with grief—what about Carver? Was he mad, too?

Garrett had to banish such thoughts as he drew nearer the holding cells. Despite the many things currently on Garrett’s mind, Karl deserved no less than his full attention. After all, it was what Bethany would have done—and Father too.

Nearby, Garrett could hear the low mutter of voices; he couldn’t quite make out the words, but the tone was familiar enough. A sense of dread crept over him as he halted at the end of the hall, peering around the corner. There was Karl, though he had his back to Garrett. The cell beside him was empty.

So his charge had escaped—he’d accomplished that much, and it was no small feat. But Garrett understood now why Thrask must have sent for him, because Karl was still here. He hadn’t left with the other prisoners. And, not surprisingly, he’d been caught.

The flickering light of a single torch gleamed off the approaching templar’s bald head. Garrett felt a twist of some sick revulsion in his gut.

‘Well well,’ Ser Alrik said. ‘The Knight-Captain always says it’s the young upstarts who cause trouble, but I’m more than happy in this case to prove him wrong.’

‘You’ll prove nothing,’ Karl replied, ‘not even to yourself, Alrik.’

He sounded tired. It wasn’t the same as sounding resigned.

Garrett recalled, all too easily, a time when Karl had acted first, asked questions never. It was inspirational, if totally mad, but in this hour—in this place—it made more sense than anything else. Acting out of desperation was never the most sensible of options, but sometimes, it was necessary to do what your instincts demanded.

And, Garrett admitted almost immediately after that first revelation, it was also what Father would have done, to save a man who deserved to be saved, and sacrifice one who deserved anything but.

The specter of Father hung heavy in the Gallows air. Karl held his ground—of course he didn’t beg, or plead, or even bargain, but bravery could only last so long, and against these odds, it didn’t mean much in the first place. Garrett knew what he had to do; a moment later, he did it, raising his staff with far less mercy in his heart than Karl had shown once.

Lightning crackled through the hall.

All that metal armor, Garrett thought distantly—it could be so dangerous.

*

Karl didn’t ask Garrett what he’d done; that was all too apparent, and the despair and shock and satisfaction he felt as they stepped over Alrik’s dead body didn’t particularly need words to be understood. They both understood it together, like the magic in their blood.

Garrett also felt well and surely fucked, but powerful, and also smart, and even a little good. Better than usual, anyway. One less bastard in the Gallows; one less sadist bent on torturing the mages here. How could that possibly be a bad thing? Thrask would remain, and templars like Thrask following his fine example. And templars like Alrik would also remain, with this doing little to change their outlook. But one dead man—who warranted death, in Garrett’s opinion, far more than so many others who’d found it before him—made all the difference in the world, at least to Garrett.

He hadn’t done it to save Bethany; Bethany was already dead. He hadn’t done it to save Carver, because this man was on Carver’s side. And he hadn’t even done it to save himself.

‘Come,’ Karl said.

There was no choice left. Garrett had killed a templar, not exactly in cold blood, though his blood did feel rather cold at present.

They ran.

*

The sewers were exactly as Garrett would imagine sewers would be—filled with stink, with damp, with rot and waste. What Garrett hadn’t expected were the giant spiders.

‘Is this normal?’ Garrett asked, tearing thick ropes of webbing off one side of his robes, then wiping spider guts off the other. He shuddered as his hand brushed against a large, furry leg with a sharp pincer at the very end, sticky with blood and, probably, venom.

‘Kirkwall has a bit of a spider problem, so I’m told,’ Karl replied.

‘Spiders and templars,’ Garrett said. ‘What will they think of next?’

‘Fine place to spend your retirement,’ Karl murmured dryly, and fried a slim black one the instant it dropped from the ceiling, just over Garrett’s shoulder.

*

In some ways, it was like fighting at Father’s side again, except then it had been training: battling shades on the outskirts of the Brecilian Forest, learning how to work with Carver at their side, learning how not to catch an allied swordsman in your cone of cold. Sometimes Garrett froze Carver ‘by accident,’ and Bethany melted him, and Carver’s blue lips and chattering teeth made Mother insist they weren’t to do it again—but Father always talked her around, always told her, with Garrett eavesdropping while he pretended he was asleep, that as long as they were able to find joy in it, they could still be children, could still be happy.

Then again, Father hadn’t imagined Garrett would end up spending hours in the sewer system that ran beneath Kirkwall. ‘City of Chains,’ Garrett muttered, ‘because City of Shit was already taken, apparently.’

‘It’s better than being dead,’ Karl said, letting them stop in a less pungent area for some much-needed rest.

‘Is it?’ Garrett asked. ‘Is it really?’

‘You’re right,’ Karl said. ‘Perhaps we should just turn around and head back to the Gallows, shall we?’

‘Unending network of the city’s refuse, or facing the Knight Commander after pulling a little stunt like this.’ Garrett pretended to weigh his options. ‘No. You’re right. This is better.’

Karl smiled in the shadows. ‘But only barely,’ he admitted.

*

They met up with the freed templars and mages sometime after that; they’d been ambushed by another group of spiders—some greater force must have been controlling them, as Garrett had never seen spiders act this smart in his entire life, with such a sensitive grasp of fine, tactical maneuvers.

‘The reserves have arrived,’ Garrett announced, with more cheer than he felt, the smell of charred spider flesh momentarily overpowering the bubbling stink of urine.

One of the templars, a young man Garrett recognized as Ser Paxley, was badly hurt; Garrett held him down as Karl tended to the wound, little flashes of healing light in a dirty alcove.

‘Thank you, ser,’ he mumbled feverishly. ‘The second time I’ve said it tonight.’

His fellow templar, a younger woman with short hair, tried to wipe at the sweat on his brow. It was futile, but she kept doing it anyway—reminding Garrett of how awful it was, in turn, to have no magic whatsoever. Terrible as the demons were, miserable as a life on the run could be, unbearable as living in the Circle clearly was, Garrett couldn’t imagine what it was like not knowing his touch could heal Mother if she was wounded. How did anyone live with such dire uncertainty, such helplessness in the face of even simple injury?

‘You’re a good man, serah,’ the girl said.

Light flickered—Garrett heard footfalls, saw the swinging beam of a lamp. He reached for his staff.

‘For a mage, you mean,’ their company said.

‘Is that—Anders?’ Karl asked. There was a joyful note in his voice that Garrett had never heard before.

The arc of lantern light swung unsteadily. Garrett shielded his eyes, squinting at the man behind the beam. Anders. But in a play of deep shadow and bright light, he was difficult to make out. ‘Karl?’ he said. ‘Maker, it’s really— But…what happened? You weren’t supposed to come with this group… Did something go wrong?’

‘What a welcome,’ Garrett said. ‘You’d think there was only one of us here.’

Anders’s eyes flicked over to Garrett, as though realizing he was there for the first time. ‘There are more here than what you said to expect in your letter, Karl. Something must have gone wrong.’

‘I’m sure there will be time enough for explanations later,’ Karl promised. He rose to his feet, reaching out to clasp the man’s shoulder, then holding him close. ‘Right now, it’s more important not to linger here.’

‘…Of course,’ Anders said slowly. He relaxed visibly, some of the more obvious tension in his shoulders melting away. ‘I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to become distracted. Follow me, everyone.’

‘Can we really trust him?’ asked the templar recruit. She helped Paxley to his feet, bolstering him with a shoulder pressed under his arm. The freed mages, in contrast, wasted no time filtering past them, hurrying after Anders and the wavering beam of light he held.

‘Looks like we don’t have much choice,’ Garrett said.

He fixed his eyes on the bright spot ahead of them, illuminating all manner of refuse that Garrett would have preferred not to think about, and certainly never wanted to see. The walls of the tunnel were slick, thin in some places and no doubt hiding more spiders. Swiftly, he moved to follow Karl, leaving both Gallows and the Circle behind.

If Father had ever encountered anything like this during his own escape from the Circle, he’d failed to mention it in any of his stories. Perhaps he’d decided it was all too frightening for innocent children, and hoped to spare them the awful truth.

Little did he know his own son would one day be ankle-deep in green slime—carrying on the family tradition.

*

Anders led the templars and other mages through the passages all the way to a hidden cavern exit on the Wounded Coast. There they met with a woman named Selby, who promised to guide them safely out of Kirkwall.

‘My mother…’ one of the mage girls protested. ‘She’ll wonder what’s become of me.’

‘The Underground will make arrangements,’ Mistress Selby promised. ‘We’ll notify her of your safety—once you are safe.’

Garrett felt the stirrings of uncertainty. He couldn’t very well leave Mother all on her own with an uncle he barely knew and didn’t trust for a second. He still remembered how she’d fallen to pieces after Bethany’s death, and it wasn’t as though Carver was in the best position to provide for her anymore. It would be too cruel a cut to leave her with no one to depend on.

He still didn’t even know where Uncle Gamlen was keeping her in the city. It wasn’t as though they’d written to him.

Karl put a hand on Garrett’s shoulder. The pressure of his touch was grounding; it brought Garrett easily back to earth, the smell of the sea and the sand beneath his ruined boots. The night air was damp on the coast. A faint breeze stirred Garrett’s hair, and the apostates drew closer to one another, huddling together for solidarity more than warmth. Whether or not they’d been strangers before this, strangers or enemies, it didn’t seem to matter anymore.

‘Come with us,’ Karl murmured, very kindly. ‘These decisions will seem easier once you’ve had some sleep.’

‘With us?’ Anders said. A perturbed look flashed across his face—he didn’t bother to hide it. ‘Karl—that wasn’t part of the plan.’

‘Plans change, Anders,’ Karl told him. ‘You of all people should know that.’

‘Back to Kirkwall, you mean?’ Garrett asked. ‘Why, Karl—that’s the best idea you’ve had yet.’

*

The only good thing about heading back through tunnels they’d already been through was that they were treading on spider corpses this time, instead of having to make new ones. Karl stumbled over a fat body with too many legs, and Garrett steadied him. Anders looked back immediately, his lantern swinging a wide arc in the narrow tunnel.

‘We’re nearly there,’ he murmured. ‘Then maybe you can tell me what happened. I’m sure it’s a fascinating story.’

He stalked off ahead into the distance, illuminating a path that ended in a ladder to the surface.

‘Where is there exactly?’ Garrett whispered.

‘Darktown, as I understand it,’ Karl said.

‘You’ve never been there before?’ Garrett asked.

Karl gave him an appraising look, then shook his head. ‘There was always a greater need for me within the Gallows than without.’

‘That’s what you get for playing hero,’ Garrett told him.

Karl’s benign smile was back; it disappeared from view as he turned his attention once more to the path ahead. ‘We’ll see if it was all worth it when we get there,’ he said.

*

The sewers opened up to a pile of rubble, then something Garrett was convinced had to be yet more sewers, until Anders signaled they’d arrived, and it was time to tread more carefully than ever. Garrett was forced to re-evaluate his initial assumption—the ground in front of him was in fact a street, not another twist in the tunnels, but there was no natural light to see by, and the air was just as close, just as dank.

They passed a few refugees, pikes and torn cloth turned into tents, children reaching out to them with palms upturned, begging silently for coin. Garrett had nothing to give them; he was too bone tired to want to give them anything, anyway. Then they ascended and descended a few sets of rickety, molding stairs, past a bored elf half-asleep next to his wares, and Anders unlocked a door that entered into an unlit room, while Garrett’s eyes tried to focus on anything familiar in the darkness.

‘Well,’ Anders said, lighting the lamp again and setting it on an overturned crate. ‘Here we are. The clinic.’

Karl’s expression was mild as ever, but Garrett thought he could detect just a hint of what Garrett himself was feeling hidden below the surface: disgust; confusion; weariness; a touch of disbelief for good measure. They’d come this far, and now they were in a place that looked more like a cave than an actual room, dirty cots strewn across an equally dirty floor. ‘You said it was bad, Anders. But I never thought…’

‘It has its charms,’ Anders replied simply. ‘At least it’s clean.’

Garrett wiped his finger against the wall and immediately regretted it. ‘Is it?’ he asked.

It was, in retrospect, a good line that came at the wrong time, for immediately Anders’s attention shifted. He had a piercing gaze, something about it abnormally unflinching and therefore unsettling, and Garrett lifted his hand in a wave.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Didn’t mean to insult your…whatever this is. Clinic, was it? I do hope it’s a free one.’

‘It is, actually,’ Anders said.

Garrett wiped his fingers surreptitiously on a nearby curtain that looked cleaner than the rest. ‘Why am I not surprised?’

‘Anders, this is Garrett,’ Karl explained. ‘New to the Circle, and even more newly free of it. He…assisted my escape.’

‘Is that so?’ Anders’s expression softened. ‘I see. Then…we are in his debt, apparently.’

‘I’d ask to cash in now, but honestly, I’m not in the market for moldy crates,’ Garrett said. He offered Anders his most winning smile, but for some strange reason, it wasn’t working. Probably because he was so tired.

‘You did this for a reward?’ Anders asked, incredulous. ‘You’re a mage yourself! Freeing your fellows is a privilege, not a chance to turn some coin.’

‘If that’s how you sell it, there’s little wonder you don’t have potential recruits banging down your door, begging to join up,’ Garrett said. ‘Maybe you ought to work a little on your sales pitch.’

Karl cleared his throat. A clever man knew how to talk his way in and out of an argument; a wise one knew how to avoid the argument entirely. Garrett already knew he fell into the former category, while Karl fit best into the latter. ‘I know this wasn’t what we planned, Anders,’ he said, ‘but as you expected, there were…complications. The falsely accused managed to escape, as you already know, but I was caught, and were it not for Garrett, I have little doubt I would have been made Tranquil—by Ser Alrik himself.’

Even Garrett couldn’t muster a smile at that, and he watched as Anders’s expression changed, hardened, muscles in his jaw grinding tight.

‘Now,’ Karl continued quickly, ‘despite this not being as we planned it, there are those still within the Gallows who will take up where I left off. They are loyal to the Underground. The cause is not lost, Anders.’

‘But every day, it grows ever closer to being lost,’ Anders bit out, ‘until we will no longer be able to recognize it.’

‘We saved three mages today, and two good templars,’ Garrett felt obliged to point out. From the way he was dressed, the pinched wrinkles at the corners of Anders’s mouth and eyes, Garrett didn’t have much reason to suspect he was the type to look on the bright side—but the fact of the matter remained, this was a triumph. ‘Not to mention how many deadly, giant spiders we killed—surely that has to mean something. The sewers of Kirkwall are once more safe. We ought to be commended for that alone—are they aware of the infestation, or do they keep them as pets, or breed them for export or something I’m not aware of?’

‘This isn’t a joke,’ Anders said. ‘Freedom itself is at stake. How can you make light of something so important?’

Karl moved between them. ‘I remember you used to joke once, Anders,’ he cautioned, gently.

‘And I was a fool for it,’ Anders said.

Garrett felt suspiciously as though he’d wandered into some older argument, like stepping right on top of a well-oiled trap. He extricated himself from the immediate line of fire and pretended to examine a stain on a pile of threadbare linens. Even that looked comfortable to him, though his interest was piqued by the conversation on which he hoped to continue eavesdropping.

‘Some people make light of the things that weigh most heavily on them,’ Karl said. ‘It doesn’t mean they should be punished for the burdens they bear, or how they choose to bear them.’

‘Yes, well,’ Anders said, reminding Garrett of a hungry cat being scolded. ‘I’m glad you’re safe, Karl. I’m glad you weren’t… Not for my sake.’

‘All in all,’ Garrett agreed, to ease the tension, ‘a very successful evening. Except for the part where both of us happen to be on the run, and Kirkwall isn’t exactly apostate friendly, but I’ve got a Mother here I can’t abandon—oh, and I’m covered in spider slime.’

‘Spiders don’t have slime,’ Anders informed him. ‘They have glands, glands that produce spider-silk, and though it might feel slimy, it’s actually sticky. There’s a difference.’

‘It’s on my skin,’ Garrett retorted. ‘I think I know what’s slime and what isn’t.’

‘As I’ve said, while it may feel slimy—’ Anders began.

‘Do you want to touch it?’ Garrett asked, holding out his arm. ‘Tell me whether it’s slimy or not?’

‘Do I want to touch your imagined slime?’ Anders gave Karl a dark look, for having brought Garrett into his life. ‘Thank you, but I think I’ll pass.’

‘You’re really missing out,’ Garrett told him. Now that he’d taken firm hold of the idea, it was difficult not to run with it. ‘It has a viscous quality that has to be experienced for oneself. It’s impossible to describe.’

Anders did what anyone would have done, Garrett supposed, under the circumstances. He turned toward Karl, and ignored Garrett completely. ‘I can’t believe this is the best you could do—even by accident. Are you certain you brought him along on purpose? The Circle must really be beyond hope.’

‘I’m standing right here,’ Garrett reminded him. ‘And that is cold.’

‘You don’t believe that, Anders,’ Karl said. The pronouncement had an air of finality to it—as though he was used to being the one to put an end to such arguments. ‘And we are all the richer for it.’

Anders still looked like he was tempted to indulge in further argument. A lean desperation hung about him, coloring his movements—it had something to do with what he was wearing, clusters of ratty feathers bunched at his shoulders, bandages wrapped like makeshift patches around his already patch-worn coat—but he didn’t seem as bone-weary as Garrett felt. He didn’t even have the decency to look slightly tired, like Karl. On the contrary, every action was imbued with a ferocious, nervous energy. He tapped his fingers against his thigh, and paced up and down the narrow length of the clinic between the filthy cots.

Now that his focus was on someone else, Garrett found it easier to study him in the light. Slender hands, dark stubble coating his cheeks, and a sallow tone to his skin that no doubt had to do with spending too much time in his Darktown clinic. Free clinic, no less. One of those self-sacrificing types, then. No wonder he was so crabby.

‘Get some rest, but don’t get settled,’ Anders said finally. ‘Karl and I will need to discuss what’s to happen next, and you’ve already ensured you’ll be a part of it. For better…or worse.’

‘I enjoy a tone of confidence,’ Garrett replied, all too willing to take this opportunity to sleep.

*

Things happened rather quickly after that, the way they always did when Garrett was exhausted. It felt as though he’d barely put his head down onto a mud-streaked pillow—at least, Garrett hoped that was mud—before Karl was shaking him awake again.

He knew it was Karl, because Anders wouldn’t have been so gentle about it.

‘My apologies,’ Karl said, once he was stirring. His mouth was drawn tightly in a sharp line, but his eyes were still gentle. ‘I simply thought you might want to be conscious for our goodbyes.’

‘Our what?’ Garrett’s voice sounded thick and muzzy, even to his own ears. In the background, Anders was pacing again. Or pacing still—it was possible he’d never stopped.

‘Ser Alrik is dead,’ Anders said. ‘Surely you can’t expect something like that to pass without consequence. The world is better for it—and never doubt that I believe that—but the templars will have an answer. It isn’t safe for Karl to remain here. For either of you to stay here.’

‘Which is why I’m leaving,’ Karl continued. ‘I can’t risk the clinic. It’s too important.’

‘Hmm, well, that’s very nice,’ Garrett said, ‘but I’m not leaving my mother.’

‘Yes, I remember,’ Anders told him. ‘Your mother, who has nothing at all to do with our cause. You’re very heroic.’

‘Anders,’ Karl cautioned.

‘Your pardon,’ Anders said. He spread his hands wide, in a gesture of welcome. The smile that passed over his face made him look as though he was suffering a bout of terrible indigestion. ‘I’m so glad to have another apostate working with me on the outside. I anticipate we’ll accomplish many great things together.’

‘And here I thought you’d let go of your sense of humor altogether,’ Karl said. ‘There is hope in the world, after all.’

‘No,’ Anders said faintly. ‘There isn’t, really.’

A charming reaction, to be sure. Even if they hadn’t been on the same side—sort of; if Garrett even had a side at this point, beyond one that was given to him as a pre-established default—he couldn’t have been less impressed. ‘Working? With you?’ Garrett snorted. ‘Didn’t you catch the part where I said you need to think about your sales pitch first? No thanks—count me out.’

‘See?’ Anders turned to Karl for support. Karl remained immovable as a very small mountain, and about as talkative as one, too. ‘He doesn’t want it. I told you he’d refuse. And that’s as it should be; I’m fine on my own. With help like his, one doesn’t even need enemies.’

‘Again,’ Garrett said, ‘as a figurehead for a cause, Anders, you’re not doing yourself any favors.’

‘I don’t care about myself,’ Anders snapped. ‘This isn’t about me.’

‘I find it usually is, with would-be heroes and selfless martyrs,’ Garrett said.

‘It is about every young mage in Thedas taken from their mothers before their time,’ Anders insisted. ‘Forced into a life they do not understand at an age where they are not yet ready, given choice after choice that is no choice at all!’

‘A good speech,’ Garrett admitted, ‘but a bit heavy-handed. Might want to work a few jokes in there, just to win the crowd over before you clobber them about the head with all that doom and gloom and metaphor.’

Karl cleared his throat. ‘If you’re both quite finished?’ Garrett lifted his hands in deference, and Anders shifted the position of his folded arms, apparently capable of holding his tongue. Sometimes. ‘Garrett, you said you won’t leave your mother here. I know how you feel; it’s admirable you won’t abandon her. But where do you think you’ll go? You left the Gallows along with me after Ser Alrik’s death. To the Knight Commander, it’s as damning as a confession. Believe me when I say she will dedicate all she has to hunting you down. To get to you, she’ll stop at nothing. She’ll go through your brother; she’ll find your mother; she can’t let you go, because while you yet draw breath, you must be made an example of. And so your options are limited. It isn’t as though you can walk up to your mother’s front door and let yourself in. The templars will already be stationed there. Someone will turn you in.’

‘As if I didn’t regret helping out already,’ Garrett said, though he included a private look for Karl to let him know that—despite the obvious, despite the sensible, despite all reason—he actually didn’t.

‘I’ve done what I can,’ Karl continued, ‘working with a contact I have in Lowtown. An ex-templar—’ Anders made a noise of disgust. ‘—who’s loyal to the cause. He’s proven himself countless times, Anders; his actions can attest to that. In any case, we’ve procured…a body.’

‘Oh, good, a body,’ Garrett said. ‘Just what I always wanted. Thank you so much, Karl.’

‘For you, yes, but not in that sense,’ Karl said. ‘It was burnt—rather badly, in fact; the features are indistinguishable. I took a few of your affects while I was sleeping—a necessary sacrifice, I assure you—and the corpse was left, so I’m told, directly in the path of Lowtown’s morning patrol. Once the city guard finds it, Garrett Hawke will be presumed dead. Knight Commander Meredith will no longer be looking for him.’

‘Ah,’ Garrett said. He swallowed. He thought of Mother, and what she’d do—if she’d feel it, if she’d believe he really was gone, or if she’d know it couldn’t be true. He didn’t know which was better—or rather, which was worse. ‘Well. I see. Interesting. I’ve always wondered what it was like to be dead. It feels remarkably similar to living—would someone pinch me?’

‘It’s the closest thing to freedom I’m able to give you, with your restrictions,’ Karl said. ‘I’m sorry, Garrett. I wish… No, it doesn’t matter now.’

‘No,’ Garrett agreed. ‘It doesn’t.’

‘This way, you can continue to keep an eye on your mother, and your brother, if you wish,’ Karl concluded. ‘And Anders—despite what he thinks—could use the help. Someone who does know—how did you put it?—how to craft the sales pitch.’

‘Karl,’ Anders said.

‘Yes, Anders?’ Karl asked.

Anders looked to Garrett, accusatory, then back to Karl. This time, his expression was unchanging, without even a hint of acceptance. ‘There’s no way to tell if he won’t betray us at the first opportunity. No one wants to live as a dead man.’

‘Again,’ Garrett said, ‘I’m right here. I can easily hear—and take offense to—everything you’re saying.’

‘Garrett saved my life.’ Karl almost smiled at that. ‘I will always be in his debt. I think I owe him this much, don’t you? Besides,’ he added, with a sly glance Garrett’s way, ‘he’s remarkably good at killing templars and giant spiders.’

It was one of the finest recommendations Garrett had ever been given. In the midst of everything else being a total mess, it was a heartening vote of confidence.

*

Karl left through the sewers—‘Never thought I’d be thanking Tevinter slavers for anything, but this certainly is convenient,’ Garrett said—heading toward another point in the Free Marches where the vast system of tunnels also emptied out. Freed mages would be able to go to him before they headed anywhere else, another contact in the ever-widening network of the Mage Underground.

‘I’ll keep in touch,’ Karl promised. ‘If only to make sure you haven’t killed each other.’

Anders snorted, but the sound was mirthless.

‘Am I going to be living here?’ Garrett asked, once he and Anders were alone in the clinic. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I do like the ‘free’ part of the clinic, but in this case, getting what you paid for isn’t exactly a good bargain.’

‘This way,’ Anders said, and led him through a door in the back, to a room that was only slightly tidier—and much smaller—than the clinic in the front. There were no less than four bunks stacked three beds tall against the far wall, which Anders explained he kept for mages loyal to the cause, apostates who needed a place to stay, and other allies; it wasn’t for the refugees, like the rest of the clinic. The refugees also didn’t know about the trap-door beneath their feet that lead to a holding cave, where the underground hid some of their own ‘smuggled goods’—though they were trading in freed men and renegades, rather than slaves or lyrium.

‘Here,’ Anders said, and tossed Garrett a pillow. ‘Get some rest. You look like you need it.’

He didn’t have to tell Garrett twice. Already he was moving to the bottom bunk, collapsing onto the thin mattress. ‘That’s the first nice thing you’ve said to me since we met, Anders,’ he mumbled, burying his head beneath the pillow. ‘I won’t forget it.’

*

He slept for a long time, and woke starving, not to mention still a little slimy. He rolled over onto his back, blinking while he took a good half-second to remember where he was. The bed creaked ominously when he moved; there was barely any natural light in the room, and his body ached from his shoulders to the soles of his feet. Not the Circle. And not a new home, either. It smelled of dirt and mold, though when Garrett turned his face against the pillow, something clean and soapy lingered there, beneath all the rest.

The clinic; Anders; Karl; the body they’d arranged to have discovered in place of his own. It all came rushing back at once, details that were too bizarre to be real, yet too…chronological to be a dream. Garrett was dead, and his spirit had been sold into indentured servitude—not to the smugglers Kirkwall was famous for, but to the less notorious Mage Underground.

Garrett groaned, then sat up, rubbing his forehead with the pads of his thumbs.

The door opened, and Anders stepped in from behind a tattered curtain. He was carrying a broken crate full of clean bandages, and there was a streak of blood on his neck. A moment’s distant investigation revealed it wasn’t his own.

‘Good, you’re awake,’ Anders said, sweeping past him without a second glance. ‘You managed not to sleep away the entire day. I’m nearly finished with a patient, and then I think we should talk.’

We should talk. Never words Garrett wanted to hear. Maybe it was the entire experience of waking up in a strange environment without a friendly face to turn to, but something felt off. Then again, Anders had a way of making things seem more serious than they really were.

He wouldn’t be half so bad if he’d just lighten up. Laugh at a few jokes, make a few jokes of his own. That sort of thing. Humanize himself.

‘You know where to find me,’ Garrett said.

Anders did glance over at that. To Garrett’s surprise, his expression wasn’t nearly as hard as it had been the night before. He looked weary, but no longer frustrated, on the verge of possible murder. ‘Yes, well… You might want to take the opportunity to bathe.’

‘Because of all the spider slime?’ Garrett asked, not one to miss an opportunity.

A thin, tight smile passed across Anders’s face. ‘Yes. I’ve heard it can be quite viscous.’

He’d turned away before Garrett could wonder at his change in mood, his feathery shoulders held firm as he passed through the door and back into the clinic. Either Garrett was disoriented from sleeping too late, or that really had just happened. He shook his head, catching sight of the pillow beneath his arm for the first time. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble in order to sew a pattern onto the casing. The embroidery was threadbare in places, the fabric careworn; it was obviously someone’s memento or keepsake, with all the stains and wear of something well-loved and much-used by whoever owned it.

Not Anders’s, surely, or he would never have given it to Garrett to drool on. Still, it was something to think about. Or to ask Karl about, when they saw each other next.

Garrett pushed his thin coverlet aside, swinging his legs around to the edge of the bed. He hadn’t even taken his boots off before crashing into bed. He reached down to undo the laces, so stiff with muck and grime it was a wonder they didn’t snap off.

It was only then that Garrett realized Anders had refrained from mentioning just where he was supposed to go to wash up.

*

A mere hour later, Garrett had made what felt like two very important discoveries: it was just as bright in Darktown at noon as it was in Darktown in the dead of night, and the water from the pump came out brown unless you waited a few minutes before splashing it all over your face.

‘It’s not the color I mind so much as the smell,’ confessed a refugee, using the same pump. He had blond hair of an awkward length, and an unfortunately high voice.

‘Get used to it,’ Garrett advised. It was as much a counsel to the boy as it was for himself. He’d only been in Darktown for a day, and already he’d encountered so many new and fascinating odors.

*

Garrett returned to the clinic some time after that. His hair was damp, and he’d settled the demands of his stomach with a pastry he’d bought from a Coterie barker. She’d assured him it was real meat inside, but it tasted mostly like sawdust and nug, and more sawdust than nug, at that. Garrett had eaten some interesting meals in his time—the worst had been just after Ostagar, when some of the stragglers were forced to eat slain mabari straight off the battlefield, while thinking of his own warhound led Garrett to dine heartily on grass and roots, instead. But the mystery pastry in his hands was high on the list—and might have been higher, if he hadn’t been hungry enough to eat it no matter what his imagination told him might be inside it.

Anders was waiting for him upon his return. He even went so far as to grab onto Garrett’s arm, dragging him bodily in the door, and slamming it shut behind him.

‘Are you insane?’ he demanded.

Garrett blinked, then looked over his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry—are you talking to me?’

‘You can’t just wander freely in Darktown—dressed like that—the day after we finish a job,’ Anders told him. ‘It cheapens the sacrifices we all make to keep one another safe.’

‘So…you were either worried for me, or you want to get me out of my clothes,’ Garrett summed up. Just for confirmation. ‘Either way, I’m flattered. What would Karl think?’

Anders made a derisive sound in the back of his throat, but his cheeks flushed. Now that was interesting.

‘This still isn’t a joke,’ he said quickly, before Garrett could comment on the blush. ‘You’re dressed in mage robes when so much of Kirkwall is against us. Maker, you are new at this.’

‘You said to wash up,’ Garrett pointed out. ‘Where else was I supposed to go?’

*

After Anders introduced him to the pump in another back-room of the clinic—‘Where do you think I get my water?’ he’d asked, arms folded, and Garrett had to admit this particular vintage was slightly less brown—Garrett accepted that he felt a bit sheepish about the whole thing. Not sheepish enough to apologize, but still. He sat on a crate, surveying the assorted, abandoned clothing Anders had gathered for him to wear instead of his robes, bits and bobs of leather armor and half a metal pauldron, breeches, a leather vest and jerkin, and a pair of new boots with only two holes in the bottom. At least they weren’t completely destroyed by spider slime.

‘Don’t suppose I should ask where these came from?’ Garrett said, dangling the boots by one hooked finger. ‘Or why this shirt’s got a stain that looks a great deal like fresh blood?’

‘Off dead bodies,’ Anders replied—even though Garrett had specifically not asked. Quite the opposite, in fact. ‘Mostly from the Coterie, I’d imagine. Some refugees too, probably. There’s a collection box by the front; people take what they need, and give what they don’t, and that’s where I found it. You’ll look appropriately patchwork—not at all like a wanted apostate.’

Garrett snorted. ‘Just like a refugee who got dressed in the dark, then.’

Anders came dangerously close to cracking a smile. ‘You are a refugee,’ he said. ‘And since we are in Darktown, I think it’s safe to say both hold true.’

Garrett leaned on the pump. If Anders thought he was putting all this on without at least washing it first, then he lacked an imagination alongside a sense of humor. ‘Dead, and wearing dead people’s clothing.’ Garrett shook his head, waiting for the water to come out a little more clear, a little less chunky, before he bothered to start scrubbing. ‘Well, I suppose it has a certain internal logic.’

‘So long as you don’t get all of us killed,’ Anders cautioned. Then he paused. ‘If it doesn’t fit, there’s more in the box. This was just…the best I could find on such short notice. And something from the Carta would hardly do, since—well, you’d look rather funny dressed like a dwarf.’

‘Even dwarfs look rather funny dressed like dwarves,’ Garrett agreed. ‘Do you realize you just made a joke, by the way? That was the second one today—Karl would be so proud.’

Again, Anders colored. ‘There’s a time and a place,’ he said. ‘Last night was neither.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Garrett said.

‘I do,’ Anders replied, and closed the door a little too loudly behind him on his way back into the main room. It must have been nice, Garrett thought, to be so certain about anything, but also a little frightening, too.

*

Garrett washed his new clothes and dried them with a bit of magic—just a touch, the sort of practicality Father always allowed them to take, even when they were on the run, since after all magic was made to serve man—and did his best not to feel utterly ridiculous when he stepped out looking like twelve different people all sewn together.

‘Now this outfit,’ Garrett told Anders, ‘is a true abomination.’

A fantastic joke—but Anders didn’t seem to think so. If looks could kill, Garrett would have been dead already. Still, after a long moment’s hesitation, Anders steered him toward the nearest cot, where a refugee orphan was currently bleeding.

‘So, Garrett,’ Anders said, ‘what do you know about healing?’

*

The healing arts had never been Garrett’s specialty—despite Carver’s incessant teasing that mages weren’t real soldiers in battle, Garrett had been born, it seemed, for battle magic, a force mage just like his father. Bethany had been the healer, though Garrett had learned early on how to do a few curative spells here and there. It didn’t come naturally to him; it made him sweat a great deal, in fact, more than he liked to sweat over anything. But practicing something difficult did hone his other skills—and helped him with his patience, which also didn’t come naturally to him.

As the day progressed, Garrett became all too aware of just how much help in the clinic Anders needed, even from a shoddy healer like Garrett.

The plight of the Fereldan refugees, Garrett decided by supper, was more immediately dire than the plight of the mages. And, considering Ser Alrik, that was truly saying something.

Garrett stopped to eat, but Anders, he noticed, kept moving, from cot to cot, as though there was no end to his stamina. The refugees gathered in the clinic treated him like Andraste herself had returned to Thedas and was walking these hallowed, cot-formed halls. They had no reason to care whether he was funny or not, as he was giving them something far more precious. Care; time; understanding. And the healing bit—that must have helped, too.

A mother of one of the patients had brought something far tastier than the nug-pastry—for Anders’s stomach, but she was finally convinced Garrett’s would be an acceptable substitute—and Garrett ate it quickly, wiping his hands on his leather-clad chest, returning to Anders’s side before he’d properly digested everything.

‘No, not now. You’ll tire yourself out,’ Anders said, waving him away distractedly.

‘And you won’t?’ Garrett asked. ‘You’ve been at it all day. You’re no good to these people half-dead.’

‘And you’re all dead,’ Anders reminded him. ‘If you really want to help, go keep watch by the door. Make sure the templars aren’t coming.’

‘You know, the last time I was supposed to keep watch was just the other night,’ Garrett said, letting Anders draw his own conclusions. He wasn’t about to mention the Gallows in front of these desperate people—Fereldan or no, in Anders’s thrall or no, there was always someone willing to sell, always someone willing to turn a hero into a martyr. Andraste had been betrayed, after all.

‘Yes; goodbye, Garrett,’ Anders said.

Garrett slunk over to the door and peered out through uneven slats. No one but an elf sleeping, sprawled on the ground, and a little boy picking through his empty pockets. Maybe he wasn’t sleeping. Maybe he was dead.

Garrett hated Darktown.

The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like Karl had been granted the better end of the deal. A fresh start in the Free Marches, with no cause and no willing victim of a figurehead to be lashed to. He’d have gotten along much better with Anders, if the brief glimpse Garrett was given of them in the night had been any indication.

What was the story there? It wasn’t any of Garrett’s business, but there wasn’t much else to do but speculate while on watch for an enemy that hadn’t shown yet. Garrett wasn’t a nosy person by nature. He stayed out of the affairs of others, mostly because he hoped they’d do the same for him. Nothing good could come of poking after someone else’s personal sob story.

At best, it could land a man dead in Darktown, treating everyone’s oozing scabs for free.

*

As the evening wore on, the number of clinic patients did begin to thin out. They left in groups of twos and threes, brothers with their sisters, cousins and lovers. Some had poultices clutched to their wounds, and there was one very unfortunate lad who’d lost an eye and had to have bandaging wrapped about his entire head. Garrett saw a woman fall to her knees in gratitude in front of Anders; her face was streaked with dirt and tears, and it took at least two other refugees to help her to her feet again.

‘Bless you,’ she whispered, kissing her fingers and holding them up toward the ceiling. ‘You do the Maker’s work, here.’

Garrett looked away before he could see Anders’s reaction as the grateful woman was helped, still weeping, out of the clinic. She’d been around the same age as Mother, and Garrett couldn’t stand to see anyone cry so obviously.

Eventually, he was going to have to come to terms with things as they were. He was dead, after all, and for all he knew, his family had already heard about it. There was nothing at all he could do for them in his current state, so there was no point in thinking about them so damned often.

Little had he known he’d wind up in a position like this. As a child, all he’d wanted was to get away from his family. And now, he was imagining countless brilliant plots for getting back to them again.

Anders stood some ways further into the clinic, folding dirty blankets. If he was at all perturbed by his patients’ blatant and desperate affections—bordering, at times, somewhere closer to abject worship—then it didn’t show on his face. Maybe this sort of thing happened to him every day and it was all so pedestrian to him now. Maybe it just seemed extraordinary to Garrett because he was new to the place. And maybe all Fereldan refugees really were that desperate, looking for anything to keep them afloat.

Garrett made doubly-sure the doors were locked, then picked his way through the maze of cots to reach Anders, taking the next blanket to fold for himself.

Garrett Hawke hadn’t been raised to rely on the charity of others. That probably had something to do with why he thought the free clinic was such a bad business venture.

‘They’ll be building a statue of you any day now,’ he said. There was a brown patch on his blanket that looked to be a burn, and thankfully nothing more serious than that. He rubbed at the charred edge, then pinched the fabric with a familiar sweep of his arms, twisting it into a neat little square.

Anders didn’t miss a beat. ‘And yet the people who have enough pull to get statues built don’t usually frequent the free clinic in Darktown being run by an apostate.’

‘Two apostates,’ Garrett said. He lined up the corners of his blanket neatly, then added it to the stack. ‘It feels good to be able to say that again. Being a Circle mage just didn’t suit me in the slightest.’

‘You…were an apostate before now?’ Anders asked. There was some curiosity in his tone, obviously despite himself.

‘All my life,’ Garrett admitted. ‘My father kept us moving around Ferelden to avoid any of us getting caught. Fat lot of good all his caution did for me, though. Off the boat in Kirkwall no more than five minutes, and I used a spell to defend myself.’

‘You were attacked?’ Anders asked sharply.

‘Not me,’ Garrett admitted. ‘The city guard. He’d promised to help us get into the city, and I figured one good turn deserved another. I certainly wasn’t expecting to be thrown into prison for it. At the very least, I thought he’d stand up for me. What a joke.’

‘The templars here are far more vigilant than they ever were in Ferelden.’ Anders smoothed his hand over the stack of blankets, seemingly lost in thought. ‘That’s what Karl used to say.’

‘Right,’ Garrett said. ‘Karl. What’s going on there?’

Anders’s attention shifted immediately. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘I saved his life,’ Garrett explained, folding another blanket, ‘which means I’m either a frightful busybody, or I at least had some investment in him personally. He’s a good man,’ he clarified, finger catching in a hole. He wiggled it around idly, trying to read Anders’s expression. ‘Karl Thekla. So I was just wondering, you know, since there’s obviously some history there…’

Anders sighed. ‘It isn’t what you’re imagining.’

‘It isn’t?’ Garrett wiggled his brows. ‘How do you know? Are you a blood mage? Don’t tell me you’re reading my thoughts right now; I feel extremely violated, if that’s the case.’

‘I would never resort to blood magic,’ Anders replied, without a hint of mirth, ‘no matter what corner I was backed into. It is a desperate, terrible act, committed by those who have lost all hope. It is not right,’ he added, voice deepening with tense conviction. ‘It is not…just.’

‘Yes, all right, I understand,’ Garrett said. ‘You love mages, but not blood mages, and you do know what a joke is, but only sometimes. Except all this is getting in the way of the point as it stood before your little lecture’

‘The point being my personal life, which has absolutely nothing to do with you?’ Anders asked. Garrett nodded. ‘Ah, of course; how foolish of me to think we could avoid that topic simply because I wanted to avoid it.’

‘Gossip,’ Garrett said with a shrug. ‘Sometimes it’s all you’ve got to get you through the day.’

Now it was Anders’s turn to study Garrett’s expression, and Garrett did his best to look handsome, giving good profile, until at last Anders gave up. Just as Garrett had intended. ‘As I said, it really isn’t your business. But… You’re Fereldan, aren’t you?’

‘Judging by how often people here call me ‘dog lord?’’ Garrett sat next to the pile of blankets, making himself comfortable, one arm draped over the stack. ‘I certainly hope so.’

‘But you were never in the Circle,’ Anders continued. Again, Garrett nodded. ‘You can’t possibly understand what it was like to grow up there—how difficult it was to find anything that meant something, without having it taken away from you the moment the templars learned about it. So much was taken away from us, no matter how young we were—no matter how lonely. But Karl…’

Dimly, Garrett realized this was suddenly going too far—venturing into unknown territory, offering unexpectedly personal information. He’d assumed Anders would stammer and stutter and blush again, in that strangely pleasant way, and say something sharp, then avoid the topic altogether after that, dodging every time Garrett brought it out again to tease him with it. But he hadn’t, and it was now far too late to change the subject; Garrett had dug this hole for himself and, standing at the bottom of it, had no one but himself to blame for how uncomfortable it was all the way down there, the tactical disadvantages such a position gave him.

‘Karl was the first,’ Anders finished.

‘All right then!’ Garrett said. ‘No wonder you’re so protective of him. Well. Well. How very—well.’

‘Does that bother you?’ Anders asked, suddenly keen, but not quite sharp.

‘No,’ Garrett replied, as honest as he ever was, ‘of course it doesn’t. Why should it? I’m from Ferelden, remember? Believe me, I’ve had my share of— Anyway, I just didn’t think you’d be so…forthcoming with the information. People usually aren’t,’ he added. ‘By which I mean people like you usually aren’t.’

‘People like me?’ Anders’s lips twitched. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Ah, Garret thought; where to even start? ‘Unfunny people,’ he decided, thinking fast, ‘who wear dead birds on their shoulders and run free clinics in Darktown, and don’t eat their supper.’

‘Only sometimes,’ Anders said.

‘And don’t eat their supper only sometimes,’ Garrett amended. ‘But also: people who aren’t brothel employees.’

Again, Anders’s lips twitched. He made a noise like he was coughing except, Garrett realized with a slim spark of triumph, it was actually a laugh. ‘I almost was a brothel employee once,’ Anders said. ‘I’ll tell you about it if you pass me that basket.’

*

Anders fell asleep on one of the patient’s cots after finally eating, halfway through a tale about very nearly being hired by the Blooming Rose’s enterprising Madam Lusine. Garrett resisted the urge to cover him with a blanket—the blankets had only just been folded, after all, and it seemed a shame to undo all their hard work for such a careless reason.

*

Now that Garrett had clothes that would allow him to blend more naturally into a Darktown crowd—in other words, now that Garrett looked like a bit-player in a third-rate traveling theatrical troupe, or the punchline of a refugee joke—he was able to run errands, while Anders continued to sacrifice all he had to his work in the clinic, so that it was a wonder he ever had time to help the Mage Underground at all.

Over the course of the next few days, Garrett saw Anders sleep only twice—he saw him sway on his feet a few times more than that, but there was another refugee who always got to him first, putting a hand under his elbow and helping him remain upright. Garrett watched, but didn’t involve himself, instead keeping anxious relatives distracted by exhausting his enormous repertoire of dirty jokes from across the Fereldan countryside.

‘I would appreciate it if you’d stop telling little girls about the pirate from Seere,’ Anders said, as Garrett surreptitiously shoved a hunk of bread into his hands. When Anders put it aside, Garrett picked it up and repeated the process, until finally Anders began to eat it, presumably just to get rid of it for good.

‘The one who was buried in beer?’ Garrett asked innocently. ‘And sat on his helm, surveying his realm, with the pegs of his wheel in his—’

‘Yes,’ Anders said, ‘that is the one I was thinking of.’

‘But it all rhymes so well with rear,’ Garrett mourned. ‘You can’t blame me for wanting to share it.’

‘You will be remembered as one of the greatest poets of our time, I’m sure,’ Anders said.

‘Probably not,’ Garrett agreed. ‘But it did make her laugh.’

‘Nonetheless…’ Anders tore a piece off his bread and crammed it into his mouth. Garrett felt a certain, unmistakable satisfaction at the sight. ‘Nonetheless, I would prefer if we retained only our reputation for healing, and not other, more suspect practices.’

‘If she’s living in Darktown, she’s heard worse,’ Garrett promised him.

*

That night they were joined in the back room by an adolescent boy and his sister, a story that hit just a little too close to home for Garrett’s comfort. He sat in a corner, making up a bed with what passed for fresh sheets, while Anders spoke to the children.

The girl was a mage, and they wanted to get out of Kirkwall—maybe travel to Cumberland, which was filled with opportunities for those interested in farming or other, less glamorous trades. It was hardly the bustling urban hub that Kirkwall or even Starkhaven offered, but as far as safe places in the Free Marches went, they could do worse.

They’d fallen asleep after eating dinner, and after Anders’s best efforts to pass along his food to them. Garrett had cut those efforts off right at the pass, and nearly everyone had gone to bed with a full stomach.

When Garrett’s grumbled, he rolled over in bed to face the wall.

The runaways had taken one of the top bunks, with Garrett on the bottom of the opposite set, but Anders still hadn’t turned in for the night. The light in the clinic was still on, and Garrett could see his shadow passing back and forth from underneath the door. He was pacing, probably trying to work out which contacts could be most trusted, and who’d be willing to take them on in Cumberland.

What he didn’t realize was that he wouldn’t be of any help to anyone if he up and dropped dead of exhaustion.

Andraste’s ass, Garrett thought, with a roll of his eyes followed by a quick apology. The Maker was already predisposed to disliking mages; Garrett wasn’t particularly religious, but it couldn’t hurt to hedge his bets, either.

*

Garrett woke, still hungry, when Anders finally made his way into the back, even though he was doing his best to creep across the floor. He rolled into bed in the dark, without undressing, and lay face-down beneath the covers.

‘Don’t you even want a pillow?’ Garrett whispered.

Anders startled, then turned his face toward Garrett. Loose pieces of hair framed his face, lying scattered across his forehead. ‘I didn’t realize you were awake.’

‘I wasn’t,’ Garrett said. ‘But I do have a pillow, if you want one. It’s very fancy. I think you’d like it.’

‘Are you…really teasing me right now? In the middle of the night? About the state of my pillows?’ Anders asked.

‘Just keeping you on your toes,’ Garrett told him. He wrapped both arms around the pillow, burying his face against the busy needlework and lace. ‘It’s your loss, you know. This is the only thing in the whole clinic—in all of Darktown, even—that doesn’t smell of mold and stale piss.’

Anders snorted, and Garrett heard him shifting around beneath the covers. His boots hit the floor one after another, thumping softly against the dirt floor of the clinic. ‘Goodnight, Garrett. Try not to wake the children.’

*

They rose at dawn to escort the refugees from Darktown to a rendezvous point just outside the city walls. Anders carried the young girl in his arms, her eyelids still heavy with sleep. She clutched at his murdered bird shoulders as she dozed in and out through the tunnels, a set-up that forced Garrett to bring up the rear with her brother. The tunnels were silent at this time of day, and the air hung heavy and damp in the dim light. Garrett guided the boy around dewy ferns with tangled, sticky fronds, around the rotten spots in the slippery wooden steps.

Every now and then, he caught the lad looking at him out of the corner of his eyes, fearful but curious.

‘You’ll protect her,’ Garrett told him, when Anders dipped ahead of them, around a bend.

The boy blinked, then nodded sharply. ‘Yes, messere.’

‘She’ll need you to,’ Garrett added. ‘Even when you’re tired, or when you don’t feel like it. Even when you argue. Your family’s all you’ve got; you depend on them first. Now, there might come a time when you meet someone pretty, and it seems like they’re more important, and maybe one day they will be. But for now…’

The boy nodded, gripping the dagger Garrett had found for him in Anders’s donations box. It had been difficult for Carver, Garrett remembered, to be the lone blade in a house of mages, but he’d risen to the challenge. He could only hope that this boy, too, would prove himself equal to the task.

‘I understand, messere,’ the lad promised.

*

‘What did you say to him?’ Anders asked, much later, after they’d made the trade-off, and they were picking their way back through the sewers in the dark.

‘To watch out for spiders,’ Garrett lied.

‘Of course. All that spider slime,’ Anders said. ‘Now I remember—how could I forget? You’ve really got to get over that. Surely you’ve been through worse? You were in the Gallows, unless Karl was mistaken.’

Garrett thought about it, then shook his head. ‘Can’t think of anything off the top of my head,’ he said finally. ‘Well, there was Ostagar, which I hear is commonly considered to be quite traumatic amongst its rare few survivors, but between that and spider slime, I think the latter’s far worse. For me, personally.’

Anders paused. ‘You were at Ostagar?’

‘In more of a chaperoning capacity.’ Garrett rubbed at the back of his neck with his free hand, something suspiciously slime-like dripping onto it from above. ‘Someone had to look out for my brother. But it just goes to show you: the best don’t always survive where the worst do.’

‘I could’ve told you that,’ Anders said, but he didn’t sound as accusatory as he might have, and Garrett grinned. ‘What are you smiling about?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ Garrett replied. ‘It’s only that someone very cranky just paid me a compliment.’

‘I think I was tricked into it,’ Anders said.

‘Ah-ah,’ Garrett informed him. ‘There’s no taking it back now. It’s meant so much to me.’

‘I was afraid of that,’ Anders muttered, with a dry sort of humor.

Garrett chanced a look at him—in profile, he was all nose and shadow, eyes narrowed, on his guard, but slowly coming around toward relaxing. And in the sewers and everything. Garrett felt monstrously powerful, like the first time he’d discovered all that sparkle at his fingertips. ‘And here I thought you weren’t afraid of anything.’

‘And here I thought the only thing you thought about was spider slime,’ Anders countered. ‘The more I talk to you, the less you make sense.’

‘The mark of a subtle man,’ Garrett said.

‘You’re certainly…something,’ Anders admitted, but the way he said it, it didn’t exactly feel like a compliment to write home about.

*

They ran into spiders with only a moment’s warning; clever as the spiders in Kirkwall were, they hadn’t figured out how to be silent, and their ambushes were always preceded by the hiss and splat of sundered webbing. Anders froze three where they hung and Garrett blasted them with a field of energy, shattering them into a collection of spider pieces. Fat torsos and melting legs littered the floor, and Anders waited while Garrett caught his breath, and also untangled his leg from a patch of well-concealed spidersilk.

‘I’ll see your Ostagar,’ Anders said, entirely unexpectedly, ‘and raise you the Deep Roads. …Do you need any help with that?’

‘The Deep Roads?’ Garrett asked. He wrenched his leg free, losing his boot in the process, and did an ungainly circle-hop before he managed to regain his balance. ‘What were you doing down there? No, wait, don’t tell me—I’d rather guess. Was it…freeing darkspawn mages?’

‘Ha ha,’ Anders said. He puffed up; with those feathers on his shoulders, he looked like he was preening. If Garrett hadn’t known him any better, he would have guessed this was a pause for maximum effect, for the sake of unnecessary—but very delicious—drama. ‘I’ll have you know it’s because I was a Grey Warden.’

Garrett knew that letting his jaw drop would be giving Anders untold satisfaction—this was exactly the reaction he’d anticipated—but there was simply no other way to respond to such a revelation. ‘You’re a Grey Warden?’ he asked. He made it extra breathless, just so Anders would puff up again.

Just as expected, he did. Then, not quite so expected, he deflated.

‘Was, not am,’ Anders said. ‘It’s a long story, and—’

‘And we have a long way back,’ Garrett reminded him.

‘All right,’ Anders said. ‘Fine. But only if you don’t turn it into a limerick.’

*

Anders found out about the limerick later, when a wide-eyed girl with pigtails told it to him, very sincerely, during her weekly check-up. Garrett attempted to busy himself by fixing a broom near the back, and he thought it had worked, until the last patient left for the evening, and Anders rounded on him, showing no errant signs of mercy.

‘‘There once was a magic Grey Warden,’’ Anders began.

Garrett glanced around the clinic only to find it was completely empty. No witnesses; no one to call to for help. His staff was in the back room, hidden beneath a pile of straw and some moldy planks, just in case of a raid—what passed in these dumps for a routine inspection. What he wouldn’t have given for some fine templar interruption now—the clinic was about to become a crime scene, with Garrett as the victim, he was sure of it.

‘No one has any loyalty these days,’ he said. ‘What is Kirkwall coming to?’

‘Just for that,’ Anders told him, ‘you’re scrubbing the floors tonight.’

‘Anything for you, Anders,’ Garrett told him, falling to his knees. ‘You are the one bright light in all of Kirkwall—’

‘Stop it,’ Anders insisted, batting Garrett’s hands away as he clutched at the front of his coat.

Garrett, of course, had no intentions of stopping. ‘You’re going to save us—save us all,’ he continued, hooking his fingers around the brass buckles that kept the whole thing together. ‘Oh, Anders, you must have been sent to this place by Andraste herself—’

No fewer than three cots were destroyed in the ensuing scuffle, but Anders’s cheeks were flushed red by the end of it, and his throat was raspy with laughter. Garrett couldn’t help but remember something Father had once said—Your sister is a healer, Garrett, but that doesn’t mean she won’t need another kind of healing someday, something only you can give her.

‘All right, Hero of Ferelden,’ Garrett said, reaching down to haul him to his feet. ‘How do you feel about some supper?’

*

Garrett was out the next day delivering herbs and poultices to a Darktown apostate named Evelina when one of the many urchins crowded into Darktown came running right up to him. Urchins were always doing that lately. This one latched onto his sleeve.

Garrett tutted. ‘If you’re looking to cut my purse, I’ve got a few pointers for you; this tactic will never work.’

‘That ain’t what I’m here for!’ the boy squawked. He managed to sound both indignant and out of breath. ‘Lirene’d tan my hide good, she would. No, there’s trouble—trouble at the clinic! The Coterie’s been muttering all morning about the templars sniffing around, and they say that since Messere Anders doesn’t pay them for protection, they don’t see why they should have to discourage them any.’

Garrett dropped the poultices, clean herbs and bandages falling to waste in the dust. He didn’t think about them after they’d fallen, either: the wasted coin, the wasted supplies. All of that could be replaced—later, sometime later. With the lad just a few steps in front of him, Garrett took off at a run, moving swiftly through Darktown’s narrow alleys and steep, sudden staircases. The place was a maze of tight corners and Carta thugs just waiting for a chance to jump the unaware, and that wasn’t counting the shambling tent villages built by the refugees. They spilled out into the streets, their campfires choking the already-close air with smoke.

‘Where’s he going in such a hurry?’ grunted a bad-tempered refugee as Garrett tore past.

Garrett told him to do something very rude to a dog and his mother, in that order, but also at the same time. Then, he kept running.

By the time he reached the clinic he was gasping. He’d always considered himself to be in rather fine shape, but the combination of sudden panic coupled with the rather long sprint had left him breathless. There were no templars outside, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Templars could be quick and quiet as a nightmare when they snuck up on you. And Anders didn’t take care of himself; he was always exhausted; he didn’t have the reflexes if they came up on him suddenly.

Bracing himself, Garrett pushed open the door.

It was the usual rabble of sick and wounded in Anders’s care today. There’d been some minor incident at a mine where a few Fereldans worked, and there was a pregnant woman who kept insisting she was due ‘any day now,’ although the way she looked at Anders made Garrett think she was just looking to lock down a new father for her baby.

No one even paid Garrett any mind when he entered. There was no reason for them to do so—over the past few weeks, Garrett had become something of an institution at the clinic.

There was, however, one person markedly absent. Garrett’s chest hurt for no reason at all, his breaths suddenly sharp as a dagger in his chest.

‘Hawke,’ someone murmured softly, by the door.

He turned around quickly, not bothering to cover up his panic. It was Lirene, the woman Anders bought most of his common medical supplies from. She was also a part of the Underground, Garrett suspected, despite not being a mage herself. Because of that, Anders always spoke very highly of her, and because of that, she’d always made Garrett feel wary.

‘Check the tunnels,’ Lirene said. She didn’t question what had him huffing like he was the one due any day now; she just seemed to know. Which meant that Garrett should have known—but he hadn’t. ‘He left about fifteen minutes back, helping a last-minute escapee. I thought there was something funny about the job, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. If you run, you should be able to catch him.’

‘I won’t come back alone,’ Garrett promised, just under his breath. He wasn’t sure who needed to hear it more: Lirene, or someone a little closer to home.

*

Like Darktown, the sewer tunnels were just as dark by day as they were at night. Garrett didn’t bother with stealth, kicking open the cellar door and jumping down the ladder, remembering only at the last second to shut it behind him. He’d taken his staff from the clinic, doing his best to hide it from view on his way, and he ran his hand over the familiar shape, fingering the familiar hand-holds where the wood was most well-worn. I won’t come back alone, he’d promised Lirene. And, he supposed, he’d also promised himself.

He cast a spell for light, holding dark blue flames in the palm of his hand, and set out.

It didn’t take him long to hear a shout echoing from further into the caverns. A deep voice rang out, and something rumbled like thunder. Bright light flashed from a passage to Garrett’s left—were they making it this easy to find them on purpose?—and he hurried in that direction, narrowly side-stepping a newly planted leghold trap. As Garrett drew closer, he could hear someone issuing frantic commands, and the sound of metal-on-metal—swords being unsheathed.

‘Surround him! He’s just one man, for Andraste’s sake!’

Garrett’s instincts responded much the same as when he’d sprung to Karl’s defense. His heart skipped a beat, his body a coil of tension and promise. Then, he threw himself into battle, without a second thought for consequence. Sharp spells of deadly ice exploded from his fingertips, followed by a fist of stone from the head of his staff. Out of the corner of his eye, he registered Anders, a faint glow encircling him. Was it some sort of protective ward? It made the air taste bitter and sharp—or maybe that was all the templars bearing down on them, all that sweat on metal.

The details didn’t matter. Garrett moved to place himself between Anders and the templars, casting a spell to drag them all into the same spot. While they staggered, stunned, he brought down the very air from above in a single blast, sending their armored bodies scattering throughout the cave.

‘You will regret the day you ever sought to set your hands on a mage and imprison him!’ a voice bellowed, just at Garrett’s back. It nearly shattered his concentration; it sounded exactly like an accusation from a nightmare.

Garrett paused, midway through a spell, wrestling it back into cooperation before a wide arc of ice surrounded them, freezing a few more enterprising templars in their tracks. With the barrier up, Garrett turned; two elven boys were huddled beneath a rocky ledge, and standing in front of them was Anders.

Or, at least, was someone who looked like Anders. But his eyes were different, the white-hot blue at the center of a flame, dark mist roiling around his chest and arms. His staff was raised, skin veined with pure light, a sheer power that burned when Garrett looked at it. He ducked out of the way just in time for lightning to pulse from the head of Anders’s staff; dirt from above filtered down on them as the very foundations of the tunnel shook from the blast. The far wall of the cave exploded; a stalactite broke free from above, shattering at Garrett’s feet. Another dropped and impaled a templar through his thigh, where there was little more to protect him than one of those infamous templar skirts, and pinned him to the ground.

He shouted, once. Then he stopped shouting, buried under a fresh pile of rubble.

There was no one left alive in the tunnels now save for those who were supposed to be on Anders’s side, and yet the ground still trembled beneath Garrett’s feet. The very walls were still crumbling.

Garrett ducked to the elves, putting his own body between them and the chaos. ‘Don’t close your eyes,’ he told them. ‘It’s worse—whatever you’re imagining is always worse.’ Then, he turned to Anders, reaching out without thinking, to touch him through the mist.

His body was cold—the same creeping cold Garrett had felt during his Harrowing, the deeper he traveled into the Fade. For a moment, it seemed as though there was nothing holding Anders’s clothes together, no body beneath the familiar feathers and threadbare coat. Then, the muscles beneath Garrett’s palm tensed, and the person that wasn’t Anders turned on him, staff still raised high.

‘There’s no one left,’ Garrett said. ‘You’re done, whatever this is—you’ll kill us all if you continue!’

‘You,’ the voice that wasn’t Anders’s voice said, with Anders’s mouth, wearing Anders’s body as its own.

Garrett could see into its eyes, but there was nothing inside them at all; even with all that light, they illuminated nothing. For the first time in his entire adult life, Garrett found himself in the position of being speechless—a dry throat and an open mouth, fingers still clutching at a handful of feathers.

Do something, Garrett, Garrett told himself. Really, anything would do, so long as it was anything, and not nothing at all.

‘So,’ he said, voice cracking as his lips twitched into a grimace of a smile. ‘I take it you’ve…heard of me?’

The light flickered; pale eyes widened. Anders’s lips parted, and then he made a noise, like a gasp or a sigh or simply a dreaming breath. Garrett didn’t even blink once, but still he couldn’t quite catch the moment when everything changed—back to something normal, the way things were supposed to be. Anders was Anders again.

He staggered forward, bracing himself against Garrett’s outstretched arm. ‘The children—’

‘Alive,’ Garrett told him. ‘No thanks to some people.’

‘We have to get them out of here, before more come—’

‘Then let’s go,’ Garrett said, reaching down to help them to their feet. Anders lingered, uncertain, expression twisted into something unrecognizable and near total collapse, and Garrett looped his thumb through the buckle just over his belly, tugging him forward. ‘We’ll discuss all of that later. It’s time to move on.’

*

The rest of the journey was made with an urgency Garrett hadn’t felt since he was on the run with Bethany; not even he, a trained professional, could avoid taking all this seriously. They dropped the elves with a group of Dalish up on Sundermount, and Garrett didn’t even bother asking questions on their way back through the tunnels, taking a long route back to avoid any more trouble.

It was Anders who finally broke the silence.

‘Who did this?’ he asked. ‘Do you know?’

Garrett’s voice was grim. ‘Coterie,’ he replied. ‘Not getting the cut they want for us using their tunnels. And here I thought they belonged to everyone. We’ll just have to find a way to make sure that never happens again.’

It was easier said than done, and Garrett did his best not to be distracted by wild revenge fantasies, keeping his attention focused on the task at hand rather than invisible templars and Coterie thugs lurking just around every corner.

By the time Garrett helped Anders up and out of the tunnel and they slipped past the clinic, keeping to the shadows, sneaking in through the back entrance, he’d been silent for so long his throat was starting to hurt.

Anders sagged against the nearest wall, bracing himself between it and one of the bunks. There was no Fereldan to rush to his side now and prop him up, except for maybe Garrett, but he crossed the distance with a little more trepidation than sheer eagerness, and touching Anders now was slightly complicated by what had occurred the last time he’d tried it.

‘I suppose you’re going to ask what that was about just now,’ Anders said quietly.

‘Not if you answer me first,’ Garrett said.

Anders bowed his head. ‘Damn.’

‘Can you blame me?’ Garrett asked. After some thought and a private battle that felt much longer than it really was, he rested his hand against the small of Anders’s back.

For whatever reason, Anders didn’t shrug him off. ‘No,’ he admitted instead. ‘And that’s the whole problem.’

After that he was silent for a few more moments, and Garrett gave him that time to collect his thoughts, though the anticipation was all but killing him.

‘Any time you’re ready,’ Garrett said, which really meant, please start talking soon.

‘While I was in Amaranthine, I met the spirit of Justice,’ Anders began, ‘inhabiting a body outside of the Fade.’

*

It was a lot to take in at once, or even in bits and pieces. Garrett didn’t really know what to do with the information, so when Anders finished talking he suggested they both sit down, which they did, on the edge of one of the bottom bunks, side by each.

There were at least a hundred questions swirling through Garrett’s mind, all of them good ones, most of them mildly to overtly offensive. It was just impossible to know where to begin. The dangers of demons had been foremost in Father’s teachings, but he’d never mentioned what might happen if a spirit took it upon itself to possess someone. Garrett had never imagined he’d be trying to recall any part of those dusty old lessons, but he found himself casting back through his memories, searching for something that would shed some light on the moral dilemma. Spirits were the Maker’s first children, and just as demons embodied the sins of man, there were spirits who embodied their virtues.

Neither were human. Both had come before man.

Personally, it all sounded rather suspect to Garrett, like a distinction that didn’t really mean anything once you got down to the meat and potatoes.

Anders’s arms were braced against his knees, fingers laced loosely between them. He cleared his throat lightly. ‘This is normally the part where you accuse me of being an abomination and suggest we stop speaking for good.’

‘Are you an abomination?’ Garrett asked, turning to look at him. It had been one of his chief concerns, but he also knew what a weighted term that was to throw around. He wouldn’t want to assume.

He knew what they’d say in the Gallows, but Garrett had seen enough of their ways for a lifetime. He didn’t agree with them on almost every other thing—so why start now?

‘Maybe.’ Anders let out a breath. He glanced at Garrett, then tentatively shifted closer on the bed, seemingly heartened by the lack of outright reprove, the lack of shouting and personal effects being thrown. ‘I don’t… It certainly wasn’t what I intended. What we intended, when we decided to…’

‘You and your friend Justice,’ Garrett supplied. He was still trying to get all the pieces together in his mind.

‘We didn’t know what would happen,’ Anders said. ‘We couldn’t have known.’

‘He doesn’t seem to like me very much,’ Garrett confessed. The time for putting a comforting hand on Anders’s shoulder seemed to have passed. He let his palm rest face-down on the bed between them instead.

‘What?’

Tread carefully, Hawke, Garrett told himself as Anders tensed up, the way Mistress Selby cautioned him at the end of each of their encounters.

‘It’s nothing, I’m sure. Well, I doubt I can be sure, not knowing the ways of spirits as well as I might—you may recall I wasn’t gifted with a Circle’s education—but I do know when a man recognizes me. Or a spirit, in this case,’ Garrett amended. He wasn’t prone to rambling, but then, it wasn’t every day he wound up sitting in a bedroom with an abomination—possible abomination—right there next to him. Anyone with even a little common sense—and despite popular opinion, Garrett did have just a little—would worry about an impending smiting. He didn’t want to be smitten. Or was that smited? Smitten didn’t exactly have the proper ring to it.

‘Ah,’ Anders said. He bowed his head, but not before Garrett caught sight of the tips of his ears flushing pink. ‘That is… I believe I know what you mean. He considers you to be something of a…distraction from our purpose. From our plight.’

‘Technically, it’s not his plight,’ Garrett pointed out, before he could stop himself. ‘What does a spirit know about oppression?’

‘Plenty,’ Anders informed him.

‘You could use a little distracting,’ Garrett continued.

He didn’t know where his sudden conviction came from, but he couldn’t help it: he was unexpectedly indignant on Anders’s behalf. No wonder he ran himself regularly into the ground—because he had a spirit riding side-saddle and calling all the shots. But Anders wasn’t some mystical being who could devote himself wholeheartedly to a single cause, without needing to eat or sleep or smile, occasionally. He was just a man. Spirits—and demons—didn’t seem to understand much about human bodies, about their strengths and, more importantly, their limitations.

‘Is that so?’ Anders asked lightly.

‘It is so,’ Garrett confirmed. ‘Even Karl knew how to have more fun than you, and he’s practically ancient.’

‘He isn’t—’ Anders began, then stopped when his voice grew thin. He was trying not to laugh.

Garrett decided to press his advantage. ‘Don’t get me wrong; he’s still quite the troublemaker for his age. All I’m saying is that you really need to examine your priorities.’

‘How do you know I’m not also…ancient, as you say?’

Garrett knew when a man was fishing for a compliment. He grinned, hand drifting sideways to rest against Anders’s leg. ‘You mean aside from how obviously youthful and enchanting you look?’

‘Well.’ Anders’s cheeks were pink. ‘Perhaps Justice is preserving me from within. Keeping me from ageing. I could be a hundred years old, for all you know.’

‘I’d put you at about twenty-five,’ Garrett told him, giving him a quick up-and-down first.

Anders snorted, rubbing at the wrinkles lining the corner of one eye with his index finger. ‘Liar,’ he said. ‘Or should I say flatterer?’

‘What, then?’ Garrett asked.

Anders hesitated, thumb skirting over the back of Garrett’s hand, a little pulse of heat at the fingertip, skin to skin, magic to magic. When Father had warned Garrett away from flirting with abominations, surely he hadn’t meant it in such specific terms. ‘Thirty,’ Anders said finally, a bit tartly. ‘Which I’m sure to you also seems ‘practically ancient.’’

‘As old as time itself,’ Garrett agreed. ‘Well, it’s not so bad. I’m twenty-two, by the way.’

It was intriguing to note that—despite the gravity of their current topic—that one little piece of information was what finally made Anders groan.

*

Garrett ultimately decided to let the issue drop, though it featured prominently in his dreams—or rather, his nightmares—as they followed: Justice, ten feet tall, five feet wide, broad-shouldered and sparkling with raw, arcane energy, looming above him in the Fade, the cold pull of him more terrifying than the promise of templars, or Knight Commander Meredith, or even Garrett’s least favorite of all his enemies, the giant sewer spider. It was the tenor of his voice, the way Anders disappeared somewhere beneath or behind him, and the knowledge that he was always there, incredibly powerful and, apparently, always disapproving.

Yes, a smiting was sure to come at some point or another, and Garrett wasn’t particularly looking forward to the experience, different though it would be. Different itself was an understatement.

He had the common sense not to hurt Anders’s feelings—or Justice’s, Maker forbid—by keeping his distance; instead, he managed to pretend that everything was the same, and go about his business as though nothing had changed. But Anders was intelligent enough and rather sharply perceptive, and surely he had to know that such a revelation would make things awkward, at least for a time. Anders, too, kept his distance; in return, Garrett kept him well-stocked in bandages, ran errands and made his usual deliveries, but he also wrote to Karl for assistance, without letting Anders in on it.

Need some of your contacts, old boy, the letter read. Having a bit of a Coterie problem. Any advice?

A few days later, Karl put him in contact with an ex-templar named Samson, presumably the same ex-templar who’d given Garrett the lovely and thoughtful gift of his very own dead body; Karl also told him to speak with a Fereldan named Callum, another refugee who was just as interested in keeping Anders safe as Garrett was.

Well, maybe not just as, but he was a broad shouldered sort, with a gruff voice and salt-colored hair, an older man who didn’t mind starting scuffles with local muscle. Plus, he was a deft hand with a sword, and Garrett had truly missed working with someone who could bash at things while holding up a shield, someone to stand solidly between him and very violent enemies.

‘You… Let me get this one straight,’ Samson said, during their first nighttime visit to plan things out. His voice sounded like bilge and gravel, a deep, husky want in his throat. ‘You want to threaten the Coterie? Here? In this blighted city?’

‘What can I say? I’m in the market for dying a second time,’ Garrett confirmed. ‘It’s not as though they’ll know it’s us.’

‘Round these parts, Coterie knows everything worth knowing,’ Samson said. ‘No way to get past that, staff or no.’

‘Good thing I’m already dead, then,’ Garrett said. ‘Can’t kill someone who’s dead already, now can you?’

‘You’re mad,’ Samson told him, like Garrett wasn’t the first person to know that, but there was a touch of contemplative respect in his voice now, and he rubbed at the stubble on his chin. ‘I’ll look into who was behind that raid for you, sure, but it can’t get traced back to the clinic unless you’re wanting it razed to the ground.’

‘Some days I wonder,’ Garrett sighed, but he wasn’t fighting for the clinic, exactly—rather, it was the people in it. That made it just a little bit easier.

*

‘Where were you today?’ Anders asked, waiting by the door when Garrett slunk in.

‘Ah,’ Garrett said. What a good question. He wondered if one of Justice’s special abilities was seeing right through a lie, then decided to chance it anyway, leaning against the door and pretending to inspect one of his nails. ‘Just…out. On some…personal business.’

‘Personal business?’ Anders repeated.

Garrett had to think fast. He grabbed blindly for the first plausible excuse that came to mind; as he opened his mouth, he knew it was a mistake, but it was already too late to stop himself. Remarkable that, no matter how many times something like this happened, he still hadn’t perfected the art of preventing it. ‘Blooming Rose,’ he explained, words escaping of their own accord, completely out of his control. ‘I was…at the Blooming Rose. A bit embarrassing, really, but it’s been such a long time, and what with things being so stressful lately… Well. A man has needs, you know.’

Anders arched a brow. ‘I…see.’ The pause that followed made Garrett feel a little like he was being smited—or rather, being smitten. Not in the way he’d ever expected, though. No fist of the Maker, no chain lightning, no cave-in at the clinic. Just an uncomfortable silence and an unpleasant sense of foreboding. Garrett attempted a smile; he almost thought he saw Anders flinch. Finally, after an interminable silence, Anders spoke again, his tone harder. ‘I don’t understand how after everything you’ve seen, you can still be so irresponsible!’

‘Pardon?’ Garrett asked.

‘With the templars sniffing around, and the trouble with the Coterie, you went to the Blooming Rose.’ Anders turned, stalking deeper into the clinic. ‘Justice is right about you.’

‘I thought you couldn’t have a conversation with him,’ Garrett said, following him. He was displaying an obvious lack of survival instinct, but he’d talked himself into this mess. There had to be some way of talking himself out of it again.

‘That is— That’s hardly the point,’ Anders said, grabbing some bandages down from where he’d put them that morning, out of reach of small and sticky hands.

‘Fair enough,’ Garrett said. He leaned sideways against the wall, watching but not helping. He got the feeling that Anders was only fussing because he wanted something to slam around. If Garrett tried to help, he’d probably get his hand bitten off.

A crate of poultices came down next and, sure enough, Anders banged it hard against the table. ‘Take it easy,’ Garrett suggested. ‘There’s only so much those half-broken crates can take before they become all broken, and then they’re of no use to anyone.’

‘Yes, and that’s another thing,’ Anders said. He wasn’t even looking at Garrett anymore, but seemed instead to be caught up in a sudden fury of organizing things. Garrett had seen arguments between his parents that went on exactly this way, Mother slamming dishes around in the sink with her back to Father as he tried to reason with her, and was brushed aside for the more immediately important table setting. Clearly it was some kind of master stratagem of which Garrett was heretofore unaware. ‘How can you possibly justify spending at least fifty silvers on something so absolutely unnecessary and selfish? You’ve seen the need here—most of these refugees don’t even have two coppers to rub together! There’s so much good you could be doing, and instead you choose to visit the Rose.’

For a man who regularly spent his time in the sewers, or covered in other peoples’ blood, Anders somehow managed to make the Rose sound more vile than all the bodily fluids of Thedas put together.

‘Men…have…needs,’ Garrett said. He’d definitely chosen the wrong lie. The more Anders spoke, the more he realized it.

‘Selfish men give in to them,’ Anders retorted. ‘People who don’t understand how difficult it is—do you know how hard it’s been to remain here? I’m lucky when the Carta gets powerful enough to distract the Coterie for a few months, to say nothing of the templars figuring things out on their own once in a while. And then when they disappear— Someone had to send them, you know. They’ll wonder when their team never returns, and so they’ll send more.’

Something flickered in his face; hot white light shone from his eyes. Anders’s voice changed on the last word, and Garrett took a step back, natural instincts for self-preservation finally kicking in.

It couldn’t have been a coincidence that Justice was showing up more frequently these days. Only a spirit could be that fanatical—whereas even someone as dedicated as Anders had limits.

‘You’re glowing again, Anders,’ Garrett said firmly.

Anders halted, posture faltering as the light drained out of him. He shook his head, fingers pressing in against his left temple. When he stumbled, Garrett didn’t move to catch him. The table was already there, and doubtless would do a better job.

They stood together in silence for a long moment, before Garrett’s other, less self-preserving instincts took over. He crossed the room with trepidation, putting one hand on Anders’s back and the other beneath his elbow. To his surprise, Anders didn’t fight the suggestion of aid, but instead moved easily under Garrett’s touch.

Garrett guided him to one of the nearby cots and got Anders seated onto one of them; he went down hard, even though Garrett hadn’t been particularly forceful about it.

‘I’m sorry,’ Anders murmured. He wasn’t looking at Garrett, but rather at a stain on the far wall. ‘I shouldn’t have… You’ve been a great help. And certainly your time is your own. I wouldn’t want you to feel as though you’re imprisoned here.’

‘Because you’re in favor of freedom for mages,’ Garrett reminded him. He crouched in the dirt in front of Anders, the better to look him in the eyes.

He seemed exhausted, but himself again. A sliver of wry amusement passed over his face.

‘Yes, Garrett, Anders said. He reached out to touch him on the shoulder, fingers drumming nervously against his lone armored pauldron. ‘Because I’m in favor of freedom for mages.’

*

In the end, neither of them apologized. Garrett confessed neither his lie nor his perceived selfishness, and Anders wouldn’t admit that maybe he’d gone overboard with the all the glowing and yelling. But especially the glowing. The yelling could continue, so long as Garrett was certain Anders was the one doing it.

‘It won’t happen again,’ Garrett promised, once they’d finally gotten up. ‘I don’t see what the big fuss about that place is; there’s hardly anyone worth paying for. Of course it’d be a different matter if you were working there…’

The words were out of his mouth before he could rethink them, not considering that it might be something Justice would take offense to again. But the reaction he got was pure Anders. His face turned a mottled shade of red, then he threw a roll of bandages at Garrett’s head.

Sometimes it truly was difficult to remember he was thirty, and not somewhere closer to Carver’s age.

‘What have I told you about wasting supplies?’ Garrett said, tutting.

‘Knowing you, probably something nonsensical,’ Anders muttered. But when he stole a glance up, his eyes were warm.

*

Karl’s letter was followed by Karl himself, some scant few days later. If Garrett hadn’t already gotten their backstory from Anders, that would’ve confirmed it for him.

‘It’s almost as though you don’t trust me with him,’ Garrett commented. He’d been charged with the task of getting Karl settled in the back without alerting too many of the clinic patients; the man was looking well enough, although it was strange to see him dressed like a farmer from Starkhaven.

Even though Garrett would never admit it out loud, it was a relief to see one of the people he’d saved return to Kirkwall in one piece. All too often, it was almost like the children and apostates they sheltered disappeared as soon as they passed through the opposite end of the tunnels.

Doing good was one thing, but there was nothing as satisfying as seeing the proof right there in front of him. Garrett had helped Karl, and now Karl’s life was better. It allowed him to think that maybe he’d improved dozens of lives just the same way, and that Anders’s pinched face and early wrinkles were all worthwhile.

‘I can see why it might look like that, if this were a social call,’ Karl said mildly. ‘But it isn’t. Selby needs someone to move a relative of hers—and for some reason, I had the impression that you were far too busy starting a gang war in Darktown.’

‘Not a word to Anders,’ Garrett said. He knew they’d known each other longer, and that he had no right to expect such loyalty, but he was asking for it anyway.

The last thing Anders needed was another concern beyond his clinic, his spirit, and his cause.

Karl fixed him with a bemused look. ‘What do you take me for?’ He lowered his voice as something thumped near the closed door, from the larger room of the clinic proper. Anders doing his best to eavesdrop on them, no doubt. ‘I wasn’t born yesterday.’

‘And you have the beard to prove it,’ Garrett replied.

*

Karl left in the dead of night, after sharing a meager dinner with the two of them, one in which Garrett did his best to prove to the man Anders was in good hands, and Karl appeared to approve. Of the arrangement, if not the meal.

‘Worse than what they served us in the Gallows, isn’t it?’ Garrett asked.

‘I hadn’t noticed,’ Karl said gracefully, but there were plenty of the more gristly bits of supper hidden in his napkin.

Anders lit the lantern outside the clinic while Karl readied himself to head back, ably keeping up appearances that he was here for a social call, not to make sure they weren’t at each other’s throats, that everyone was in one piece, that no one was missing any necessary appendages.

‘If you ever have need of me, I’m only a letter away,’ he reminded them.

‘A letter and a very long walk,’ Garrett added.

‘Thank you, Karl,’ Anders murmured. He wiped a few crumbs from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve. ‘Things are perhaps…not as dire as I’d imagined they’d be.’

‘Another compliment,’ Garrett announced proudly. ‘That’s the second one he’s given me.’

‘And here I was afraid you’d have difficulty working together.’ Karl shook his head, before pulling up his hood to obscure his face. ‘It just goes to show that an old man’s worries are often unfounded.’

Garrett elbowed Anders in the side helpfully. ‘There, you see? There’s no reason for you to worry so much, either.’

‘Did you just…call me an old man?’ Anders asked, while the sound of Karl’s cheerful whistling echoed up to them from beneath the trap door.

*

Word spread quickly in Darktown that someone had finally made a move against the Coterie. Most figured the struggle would peter out in a matter of days, but after three weeks, the Coterie had lost some of its best assassins and alchemists, corpses littering the sewers, some even found in the open streets. Garrett managed to time a few of his disappearances around his deliveries, so that Anders wouldn’t grow too suspicious.

Not to mention the Fereldan woman with the eternal pregnancy had finally come in with real labor pains. That had almost bought Garrett a whole day.

There were plenty of volunteers eager to assist the cause—one that had nothing to do with the freedom of the mages, and everything to do with the safety of Darktown streets. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers—many of the refugees had family they wanted to protect; some simply had nothing to lose. Callum and Garrett did their best to vet the eager members of the anti-Coterie alliance, and Garrett alone did his best to convince himself upsetting the balance of power in Kirkwall’s thriving underworld wouldn’t prove to be absolute madness or, at the very least, an unspeakably unwise move.

But with the Coterie focusing on their new problems, a free healer in Darktown suddenly dropped to the bottom of their list of concerns, and Garrett did what he could to keep himself the master of each small raid, leading his ‘troops’ with a ruthless efficiency borrowed from Carver’s lieutenant at Ostagar. Of course, said ‘troops’ were dressed in rag-tag armor they often looted from the very members of the Coterie they’d killed, stripping the bodies and leaving them where they’d fallen, and only a few were as well trained as the men at Ostagar had been. Some of them had been soldiers, at least. The others simply fought with conviction granted them by desperation.

The only requirement to join was a strong constitution and a hidden face, scarves wrapped around noses and mouths, only their eyes showing during a strike.

It was all very dashing, a lifestyle Garrett had never imagined for himself, but while Anders made a difference in the lives of the refugees on one end of the spectrum, Garrett supposed he could do the same thing on another. He’d never been born for healing; he’d told Anders that himself.

And it wasn’t as though he could just do nothing. Anders was right about that, although once again, all the glowing did nothing to promote his cause. Garrett invested his time—and his own safety, not to mention the safety of others—to make Kirkwall a safer place.

And not just because his mother was currently living there, although that did play a significant part in all of it.

*

A near tactical miss—an inevitability Garrett hadn’t strategized a contingency plan for—were those few members of Coterie bands who managed to escape. After all, no one could have a perfect record; Garrett was no rebel Andraste of the Darktown sewers.

But then, to Garrett’s complete surprise, it turned out survivors were necessary to the creation of street lore, as stories of The Red Hawk began to circulate. A funny little coincidence, Garrett thought when he had the spare time for thinking; the masked hero was named for the insignia on Garrett’s stolen breastplate, a red bird about to take flight. In the grand tradition of the Black Fox and the Dark Wolf, the Red Hawk quickly became a local legend; whispers of the name in Darktown came to be synonymous with justice, and freedom, and vengeance, and all those traits that made for an excellent story but an equally troublesome lifestyle.

Garrett dropped to the bunk to rest between raids; not even an hour later Anders was shaking him awake again, in need of assistance with a particularly feverish patient. Garrett held the poor bastard down while Anders tried to heal the infection in his leg; he was a particularly feisty one, thrashing about so hard he managed to clock Garrett right in the face.

‘Coterie poison,’ Anders said. ‘Do you need me to see to the bruise?’

Garrett tried not to meet the patient in the eye in the few moments of consciousness he had left. ‘Very fascinating,’ he murmured, distracted.

‘More and more men coming in with wounds like this,’ Anders said, a little more sharply. ‘It must be why the Coterie’s been so busy lately. Too busy to pass information on to the templars, anyway.’

‘So busy lately,’ Garrett agreed.

‘Also, I’m thinking of getting naked in a bit and riding through Darktown on my very own griffon,’ Anders added.

Without missing a beat, Garrett turned to face him. ‘Well that would be disturbing,’ he said. ‘Besides, how would you get a griffon to come all the way down here? I don’t think he’d like it very much in a place like this, Anders. Griffons are noble beasts. Also: extinct.’

‘You weren’t listening before,’ Anders insisted. ‘I know you weren’t.’

‘Ah, but you said naked,’ Garrett explained.

Anders rolled his eyes. ‘Of course. My fatal error.’

‘Still, if you do decide to go through with it,’ Garrett said, ‘please let me know. I’d kill to see that.’

*

Finally, a full six weeks into the plan—with seven Fereldan casualties, four Fereldan deaths, and countless Fereldan bruises tucked under their belts—Garrett finally made a misstep and caught himself a dagger to the gut. He kept himself healed as best he could for the remainder of the fight, then collapsed into Callum’s powerful embrace, clutching at the edge of his shield.

‘Not Anders,’ he said, and then, presumably, he fainted.

Being unconscious didn’t allow for him to remember much of what came next; when he finally opened his eyes to see Anders above him, he babbled something incoherent about Callum and Fereldans and refugees and blight and damnation and, this one multiple times, treachery. Especially treachery.

‘Shh,’ Anders said, stroking a cool hand over Garrett’s brow. ‘Don’t.’

He didn’t say anything about wanting to smite him, about how much they needed to talk once Garrett was all better. Garrett stared into Anders’s face, and decided from the tight-knit worry in his expression, the unhappy lines around his mouth, and the way he swam back and forth, in and out of focus in Garrett’s vision, that there was only one explanation for such tenderness.

Garrett was dying.

‘I’m dying,’ Garrett said. ‘Again. Don’t tell Mother, it’s going to make her so upset—’

‘You’re not dying, Garrett,’ Anders assured him. ‘Not unless you keep talking.’

‘Really?’ Garrett asked.

‘No,’ Anders said. ‘But it was worth a try, wasn’t it?’

‘Knew you had a sense of humor,’ Garrett said. Everything swam together in a blur in front of his face, signaling that he was probably about to pass out again. At least he could feel smug while doing so. He attempted a cheery smile.

‘Shut up, Garrett,’ Anders said, gently.

Miraculously, Garrett did.

*

The dreams a man had when he was injured—when there was healing magic being performed on him—were always vivid and delirious. Garrett dreamt of his mother, naturally, of what she’d say if she could see him like this; there was Carver too, and whether or not he’d be all right in the Gallows, without Garrett there to watch his back.

Last of all was Bethany. She would have found it monstrously heroic to die for the sake of a Fereldan apostate Grey Warden—so many things, all of them ridiculous separately, and even more so when put together. But Garrett had never shared her romantic notions. He fought against the dreams, struggling to wake up. Alive or dead, he didn’t want to think about his family. Not when he couldn’t return to them.

He woke with a start, nose to a dirty clinic wall, Anders’s embroidered pillow beneath his head. When he moved, he didn’t feel like he was going to be sick and pass out for the third time, so that was something of an improvement. Anders was a gifted healer. Much better than Garrett. Maybe even better than Bethany.

When he tried to sit up, however, there was a scuffle of movement from behind him. ‘Don’t—!’

From seemingly out of nowhere, Anders appeared, applying a not-so-gentle pressure to Garrett’s shoulders, forcing him to lie back. Judging by the slightly swollen look on his face, not to mention the creased wrinkles across one of his cheeks, he’d also been sleeping.

‘Hello.’ Garrett’s voice came out rough and rasping. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’

‘No,’ Anders said. His eyes were already gentling, though, and Garrett could see that the set of his mouth wasn’t nearly as firm as usual. ‘You don’t get to do that. You can’t be charming and evasive and then show up with a knife in your gut.’

‘I took the knife out,’ Garrett said. Anders’s hands were still on his shoulders, so he reached up to tug at one of the spare bandages Anders kept wrapped around his wrist. It was a delightful addition to his whole ensemble. Maybe it even served a purpose; this way, he’d never meet a mage he couldn’t help. ‘So I could do some healing myself. You know—get the hard part out of the way, so to speak.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Anders said. ‘What would I ever do without help like yours?’

‘Don’t try and imagine it,’ Garrett advised him. ‘It’s far too frightening.’

His fingers moved from Anders’s wrist to the thin stretch of skin at the heel of his hand, just before the palm. He stroked the tiny round bone that started at the root of his thumb, grounding himself in the moment. He was alive. He was no longer bleeding. The others had made it out all right, Anders wasn’t shouting or smiting, and the Red Hawk would live to fight another day.

It was almost too good to be true.

Anders shifted, settling one of his knees on the bed so that he could be more comfortable, presumably without moving his arm away. Such kindness should have made Garrett suspicious, but his reflexes weren’t at their best today. The dagger in his stomach should have been the first indication.

‘So,’ Anders began, his voice dangerously cheerful. ‘How about you tell me everything you know about the Red Hawk?’

‘The who?’ Garrett asked. ‘What a funny sort of name!’

It wasn’t his finest retort. But then, Garrett wasn’t all that used to being ambushed before he even made it out of bed.

*

The explanation came out in reluctant fits and bursts and hesitant details, drawn from Garrett like shattered metal from a wound. Anders didn’t yell or pace, which was somehow more frightening than if he had. He just loomed over Garrett’s bed, looking like he was thinking about killing him. Or worse.

‘Are you mad?’ Anders asked, the next time Garrett had to pause for breath. ‘I’ve just realized that I never asked you that before—I always just assumed that you were possessed of all your mental faculties, no matter how foolishly you behaved, but this… You took on the entire Coterie for me?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t put it exactly like that,’ Garrett said. ‘Although I certainly didn’t do it for this blighted clinic. Which I am coming to hate.’

‘Yes, you’ve made your feelings on helping other people quite clear,’ Anders said. ‘Except you haven’t really, because now I hear you’ve gone and become some kind of Darktown vigilante behind my back.’

‘Not behind your back,’ Garrett assured him. ‘That sounds so secretive. Just in the general space…over your shoulder. Where you didn’t happen to be looking, because you’re always so focused on the task at hand.’

‘You mean the plight of the mages,’ Anders said.

‘The very same,’ Garrett confirmed.

‘And all this time I thought…’ Ander trailed off, his mouth twisting miserably. ‘I’ve behaved like a perfect ass.’

‘No one’s perfect,’ Garrett reminded him, reaching out to pat his leg.

*

It wasn’t until much later, while they were preparing for bed, that Anders froze in the middle of taking off his coat.

‘Does this mean that…the night I thought you were at the Blooming Rose, you were really…’

‘Rallying the poor and penniless to fight for our cause,’ Garrett confirmed. ‘Yes. That. I rather hoped you wouldn’t think of it.’

‘And you just let me act like…like that?’ Anders moved toward him, then turned away before he’d even crossed half the distance between them. Yet another person who wasn’t sure whether to thank Garrett, or hate him—it happened a lot, left people feeling decidedly in-between. ‘You just…allowed me to yell at you for that?’

‘I was the one who lied,’ Garrett pointed out. ‘Generally, a person wants someone to believe the lie, when they’re lying, and if the lie is believable, they don’t go out of their way to correct the person they lied to so they understand the truth.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ Anders said, ‘for explaining that, yes. Now I feel much better.’

‘That’s good to hear,’ Garrett said. ‘I was starting to worry you’d be down about it all day.’

Anders shifted tactics. ‘You must think I’m an idiot. After all, why should I know what you’re doing? Maybe you’ll turn to the Carta next, or rid Kirkwall of its little qunari problem. Why not do it all?’

‘That’s a bit much at one time, isn’t it?’ Garrett asked. ‘Mages and Coterie, then Carta and qunari on top of that… I mean, maybe someday, but right now the Coterie are keeping me busy, and when they’re not, I’m helping the plight. I’m a little full up.’

‘You shouldn’t be doing this,’ Anders said. ‘You could get hurt—you did get hurt, actually.’

‘That hasn’t stopped you from doing what you do,’ Garrett pointed out. ‘And neither have I, for that matter. Have I ever said, ‘Anders, cease this madness at once? You’re completely insane, you’re starting to worry the children, and it’s far too dangerous?’’

‘No,’ Anders admitted.

Garrett nursed the beginnings of a headache, fingertips pressed hard against his temples. That, apparently, was the final straw; Anders couldn’t resist being a healer of mages now and always, and Garrett heard him cross the room, felt the creak of the floorboards beneath his feet, saw the shadow pass over his lap, and finally felt Anders brush his hands out of the way, huffing softly as he did so.

‘Here—let me do that,’ Anders said.

Garrett dropped his palms to his thighs. ‘If you insist.’

Anders’s touch was warm as ever, and the headache faded as quickly as it had come, dimming to a gentle hum beneath the sound of Garrett’s heartbeat. Then Anders brushed at some of the hair at Garrett’s temple, and Garrett turned against the touch, marveling at the simple, clean, gentle feeling of it, the way Anders smelled so much better than the rest of the clinic. Of all the things he’d sacrificed, bathing and decent soap weren’t on the list. He wasn’t completely hopeless—not yet.

Garrett rested his cheek against Anders’s hand, and Anders petted him idly, tenderly, rubbing at his scalp.

‘Is that better?’ he asked, his voice low.

Garrett nodded. ‘Indescribably,’ he said. ‘Possibly indecently.’

Anders chuckled, a pleasant, low rumble, but his hands stilled, cupping the back of Garrett’s head. ‘I have to ask…’ He paused. ‘Am I…making all this up, or is something really happening? Between…us?’ he clarified. ‘Before you tell me there’s something happening everywhere, and I’ll have to be more specific.’

The clever retort died on Garrett’s lips. ‘Do you make things like this up often?’ he asked instead.

Anders scritched a little harder. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Well… Sometimes, but—no. Not really. I haven’t…in a while, I mean. I’ve been somewhat busy.’

‘Too busy to fantasize?’ Garrett asked.

‘It’s harder to do something like that when your own thoughts aren’t private,’ Anders replied wryly. It was a fair point. ‘Justice doesn’t exactly approve of… Never mind. You’re avoiding the subject.’

So he was. ‘So I am,’ Garrett said. He reached up to run his fingers over the bandages at Anders’s forearm, cautiously mapping out new territory, feeling the familiar staff-calluses on his fingers snag against the rough fabric. ‘Before I answer that… Does Justice happen to know when I’m lying? I mean—is it one of the things he can do, as a spirit?’

‘No,’ Anders said. ‘But I can tell.’

‘Then…you’re not imagining it,’ Garrett told him.

Again, Anders’s hands stilled—they were usually always moving, tending to someone, unrolling bandages or folding sheets or brushing the hair back from a patient’s brow. A healer’s hands, and a healer’s work was never done—part of the reason why Garrett was always glad he wasn’t one. Garrett liked to rest every now and then. Maybe even more often than that, which was why this revolutionary lifestyle didn’t exactly suit him.

And yet, back in Ferelden, he had always been moving. Whether it was one day or one month spent in-between travel, traveling itself was the only constant. Maybe he was just trying to get a little of that excitement back. Or maybe it was all he knew how to do.

When he thought of how bored he’d been in the Circle, it all started to make sense. His actions in the underground, his deliberate choice to chase down one of the most dangerous organizations in the city…

The bed frame creaked as Anders lowered himself to the mattress, tentative, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. ‘What are you…thinking about?’ he asked. ‘You’re being awfully quiet and I have to say it’s starting to frighten me.’

Garrett bumped his shoulder against Anders’s side, steadying himself for when Anders bumped him right back. ‘I know this might be hard to believe,’ he said, ‘but I was thinking.’

‘No,’ Anders said.

‘It has been a long time for you, hasn’t it?’ Garrett asked, and Anders colored, looking away.

‘You don’t have to rub it in,’ he muttered.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Garrett said. ‘Maybe you just need a trip to the Rose.’

‘I think I’ve already made it rather obvious that I can’t afford it,’ Anders said sourly.

‘They wouldn’t let you in the door looking like that, either,’ Garrett confirmed.

‘…And it occurs to me suddenly that you aren’t very good at this either,’ Anders observed.

‘Maybe I’m just not trying hard enough.’ Garrett reached over, hooking his index finger beneath one of the brass ring fastenings on Anders’s coat. The fabric beneath it was impossibly soft; below that he felt the muscles of Anders’s stomach jump.

‘Garrett,’ Anders said softly. It was remarkable that he could be so gentle, and yet house such a nightmare inside of him.

More than anything, Justice was what had held Garrett back. It wasn’t Coterie thugs, or his own very minute sense of selflessness and nobility. It was just the idea that in the middle of it all, Justice might decide to make a guest appearance. Could he even do something like that? Garrett had no idea. He wasn’t sure he could handle it, if he did. But this was also the first time it’d occurred to him that maybe the Justice situation was what had been holding Anders back, too. After all, by his own admission he’d been thinking about it. Or not thinking about it, but that all still meant that there was an ‘it’ to think about in the first place.

‘Men have needs, remember?’ Garrett shifted on the bed. Once he’d made the decision to move, he moved fast, straddling Anders’s waist with his knees on either side of his hips. Anders looked startled. Then, the expression faded into something hopeful as his lips parted, and no half-expected protest came out. Excellent. Garrett really didn’t want to think he’d read the situation completely wrong, though with all the signals Anders had given him, it didn’t seem possible. ‘It’s not as though I can afford the Rose either.’

Immediately, Anders scowled. ‘Oh, that’s terribly romantic—’

Garrett cut him off with a kiss, deliberately lowering his weight onto Anders’s hips. Anders made a strangled sound, like he was crazy and still trying to finish whatever it was he’d been saying. Thankfully, he gave up soon after, choosing to sink into the embrace instead.

That was good. A man with resolve that unshakeable could seriously make Garrett doubt his skills. It’d been awhile, after all. Some of them could be rusty.

Anders struggled for a moment to hold himself up and reach out at the same time. One of his warm hands found its way into Garrett’s hair, fingers threading through the places where it was longer on top, then shorter at the back. His mouth opened eagerly, and when Garrett pressed the advantage to deepen the kiss, he moaned. The sound went straight to Garrett’s cock, an area that had been neglected for far too long, what with all the mage oppression and free healing and gang eradicating he’d gone and made himself a part of.

In that sense, maybe he was just as bad as Anders. In fact, he was probably worse, since Garrett didn’t even have a spirit to blame it on. He was just a man, doing things because he decided they were the right thing to do. Sometimes principles were just as dangerous as demonic possession.

Garrett went to work undoing the fastenings of Anders’s coat, allowing himself to be pulled close and held there as Anders spread his thighs for better leverage. He pushed himself up again, rubbing the length of his erection against the sharp bone in Garrett’s hip. His hands raked down along Garrett’s back, fingers scrabbling against the piecemeal leather armor, digging in to hold on tight.

If he really hadn’t been fantasizing about this before now, he was certainly doing a fantastic job of making Garrett believe otherwise.

After he’d gotten Anders’s coat off, Garrett’s fingers slid between them to work on the laces of his trousers. Anders made a noise of protest in the back of his throat, a desperate, whimpering sound that nearly made Garrett forget the whole thing. His fingers fumbled, tangling in the laces, before renewing their purpose. He cupped Anders through the fabric, palming the swelling curve of his cock.

Anders gasped, moving greedily against the touch as Garrett ran his thumb in slow, thoughtful circles.

‘Garrett—please.’

It was hard to ignore a simple request like that. Garrett nodded, tonguing the rough stubble at Anders’s throat before slithering further down his body. Anders clutched at him, seemingly afraid that he was leaving altogether, then let go once he realized the direction Garrett was headed.

Garrett hauled Anders’s trousers down. He put a hand on his knee, tugging him close enough to rub his beard against the sensitive skin of Anders’s inner thigh. Anders shivered. Even here he smelled like soap, warm and clean and distinctly himself. But he also smelled of a man when a man wanted something, of being hard, of aching for someone, and Garrett ran his tongue over the head of his erection because he really couldn’t resist, or draw it out any further, or make it last too long. He hoped Anders’s fantasies hadn’t involved prolonged bouts of foreplay. Garrett was feeling too impatient to indulge, and there was nothing like a near brush with death to make a man eager to get to the point before it was too late.

His eyes flicked up to try and find Anders’s face, but Anders had covered half of it with the crook of his elbow; the fingers of his other hand sunk into Garrett’s scalp, and his whine of pleasure was muffled in the back of his throat, then against fabric and skin.

A clear enough indication. This was right. Garrett was right. Everyone and everything was right, except maybe Justice, who didn’t like him, and could bugger off for all Garrett cared. In fact, it would have pleased him very much if he did.

He worked his tongue in the same circles his thumb had traced, slow but not exactly precise. Anders’s hips shuddered and tried to buck, then stopped before they began to thrust in earnest. That was when Garrett took the length of him deeper into his mouth, all the way to the back of his throat, a practiced motion that hadn’t gotten much practice lately. It was better than using words to say it was all right, that Anders was free, for however long this lasted anyway—Garrett was no romantic, never had the time or the inclination to cultivate those instincts, but that was how something like this was supposed to be. Without reservation, without constraint.

If it was self-imposed or otherwise, it didn’t matter to him one bit, so long as he blasted the damn thing to the Void and back, while Anders scratched at his shoulders for purchase, crying out in the night.

*

They only had a little trouble meeting each other eye to eye the next morning. Anders busied himself as always, covering up more skillfully than Garrett had expected, but he saw the hint of a flush on his cheeks, making his ears pink, and also the mark on his throat his collar didn’t quite cover, and that was enough. Garrett handed him a roll of fresh bandages when he least expected it, letting their fingers brush together—it served him right when he felt the dangerous tingle that followed, meaningful enough that he had to get out of the clinic for a while afterward.

Mistress Selby was her usual self, the first stop on his delivery route. She’d clearly heard about his little run in with the Coterie earlier, too, since she kept trying to check him for scars or signs of poison or fever.

‘Mistress Selby,’ Garrett finally said, when he could stand no further scrutiny, ‘I must inform you that if you are looking for a night to remember with me, you’ve made your intentions known just a little too late. Truly ironic, the way these things happen, but I’m afraid to tell you I have other engagements.’

‘You mess with that one, there’s going to be a line of Fereldans from the clinic all the way to Hightown looking to have your hide,’ Mistress Selby replied curtly. ‘Just so you know. Fair warning for a man who’s done me a few good turns in his time.’

‘Why, Selby—you insufferable gossip!’ Garrett said, one hand pressed to his chest in shock, but no matter how he tried to pry more information out of her—what she’d heard, who she’d heard it from—she was locked up tight as a Coterie chest. The wicked little wench was torturing him on purpose, just a taste of the punishment he’d get if he did as everyone assumed, and broke Anders’s heart.

Why they thought things would go down like that and not the other way around was beyond him. Maybe it was Anders’s sweet, gentle, unassuming healer’s face, while Garrett insisted on looking like a scoundrel all the time, not to mention dressing like one. As though he had any real choice.

Still, he should have known someone would’ve figured it out already. News traveled a little too fast in the undercity, what with all the people who didn’t have jobs of any kind.

*

After Selby, he visited Evelina, who was doing well. He didn’t mention Anders—he’d had enough of unexpected ambushes for one day; he didn’t want to know how many people already knew about his private life—and instead suggested she bring her boy Cricket to the clinic soon, since he was looking a little pink around one eye. Then he checked up with Tomwise to hear the latest news, avoided a Coterie meeting in progress when he saw one of his recruits pretending to be unconscious in order to eavesdrop, and returned to the clinic just in time to see Anders sitting to one side of the patients, actually eating lunch.

‘Hungry?’ Garrett asked casually. ‘Worked up a, uh, appetite?’

Anders colored again, then hissed a curse. ‘Bit my tongue,’ he explained, as Garrett sat next to him.

‘Yes, well, you’re going to have to learn to be more careful with your teeth in the future,’ Garrett told him, dropping his hand to Anders’s thigh, where it had longed to rest ever since morning.

All of Darktown knew about them already, apparently. There was no point in pretending to be demure when it wouldn’t suit either of their personalities.

And if certain other Fereldans who had their eye on their favorite free healer took notice, well then. Who was Garrett to keep their fires burning for a cause that was now clearly and utterly lost? Better to let them down swiftly and mercifully, rather than allowing the torches to remain lit with no hope left.

Anders startled, then leaned in against Garrett’s side with less reluctance than he’d been anticipating. ‘I suppose that answers the question of whether or not you were planning on acting like nothing happened.’

‘According to local gossip, it’s been happening for some time already,’ Garrett confided. With anyone else, he’d have stolen a bite of whatever they were eating, but Anders needed the meat on his bones. Watching him eat was almost as satisfying as having the food in his own stomach.

Almost.

To his surprise, Anders laughed. Judging by the look on his face, it was just as much a shock for him as it had been for Garrett. When was the last time Garrett had heard him laugh? Had he ever done it, within the confines of the clinic?

‘Want to let me in on the joke?’ Garrett asked.

‘No, no, I’m sorry; it isn’t funny exactly,’ Anders said, wiping the crumbs from his mouth. ‘I’d just forgotten what it felt like to be the subject of normal gossip for a change. Something beyond ‘the apostate running the free clinic in Darktown.’ It’s…nice.’

‘Nice,’ Garrett repeated.

‘Incredibly gratifying?’ Anders tried. ‘Startlingly normal?’ When he lifted his eyes, the entire rest of the clinic fell away. There could have been refugees pouring in without their arms, or being chased by screaming abominations, and Garrett likely wouldn’t have noticed. At least, certainly not right away. ‘You’re embarrassing me in front of my patients, Garrett.’

‘Then you’re really going to hate this,’ Garrett observed, squeezing Anders’s thigh in warning. He leaned in to kiss him, tongue swiping over the stubble beneath Anders’s lower lip. He tasted like the chicken he’d been eating for lunch, and something familiar beneath that. Anders stilled, fingers rustling in the paper wrappings of his lunch.

Someone across the clinic let out a wolf whistle. Garrett pulled away, feeling satisfied with himself.

‘Well,’ Anders said. Two spots of color had appeared high on his cheeks, and his breath was warm against Garrett’s mouth. ‘I suppose there’s something to be said for one distraction.’

‘Just one?’ Garrett asked. ‘I had plans for at least seven.’

*

Somehow, they managed to get work done after that without embarrassing themselves any further. Lirene gave Garrett a look that suggested she’d string him up by his dangly parts without thinking twice about it if he harmed even a single hair on Anders’s head, but there were one or two refugees who seemed like well-wishers. At the very least, they weren’t convinced that Garrett was out to break Anders’s heart immediately.

It wasn’t much, but he’d take it.

That same day, Karl crawled out of the sewers looking like he’d been eaten by a spider, then spat out as silk. He was all the living proof Garrett would ever need that spiders did indeed produce slime, only Anders was—conveniently—too busy to see him. If Garrett had his suspicions about Karl’s timing, he kept them to himself. He wasn’t quite so self-centered as to assume his love life meant any great difference to the members of the Mage Underground, even if his talks with Selby and Lirene had proven otherwise.

‘One would think we’d be able to come up with a better mode of transportation,’ Karl grumbled.

‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ Garrett reminded him.

‘And fugitive refugees shouldn’t complain about the sewers that guide them to freedom, is that it?’ Karl asked. He was smiling, however. A dry change of clothes could do wonders for a man’s mood. Garrett had carefully refrained from mentioning Anders’s trick with the donation box and the dead bodies, because what Karl didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.

And besides, as he optimistically pointed out, now they almost matched.

‘But you fill it all out better, of course,’ Garrett added. A little excess flattery never hurt anyone.

‘Garrett, what did Lirene say to you?’ Anders demanded, rounding the corner. ‘I know she can be rather off-putting, but I do have some patients out here that I could use your help with. I’m sure so long as you can keep your hands to yourself, there won’t be a—ah!’ When he spotted Karl, Anders cut himself off quickly, though not quickly enough. ‘Karl! What a lovely surprise. Lovely and…unexpected. Did we know you were coming?’

‘No,’ Garrett blurted. He cleared his throat and stood. ‘I mean—you can’t expect a world traveler like Karl to pay much heed to our less important schedules, Anders. He’s a rolling stone that gathers no moss. A bird without a nest. A masterless mabari, forever roaming the Kocari Wilds.’

‘How poetic,’ Karl said. ‘I had no idea you were a man of so many talents, Garrett.’

‘That’s me,’ Garrett said. ‘Talented and incredibly busy, as you can see. We’ll catch up later, Karl. I’m sure you can’t wait. I know I can’t.’

Distantly aware that he was rambling, Garrett lunged for the door to make his escape. Anders attempted to move aside, but only ended up stepping into his path. They engaged in an awkward dance of trying to get out of each other’s way, Garrett all too aware of how close he was coming to Anders’s body each time. Finally, he gave up, and Anders shot him a private look of amusement, warmth flooding his eyes.

‘Ah,’ Karl said. There was a horribly knowing tone to his voice. ‘Now I know why it felt like I was intruding.’

‘No you don’t,’ Garrett said, all too quickly.

‘Oh, but I do,’ Karl insisted.

‘And I think you need your eyes checked,’ Garrett said. ‘Fortunately for you, we just so happen to be in a house of healing. Anders, if you please? Karl’s eyes are giving him trouble.’

‘I’m not as old as all that yet,’ Karl said.

From behind Garrett, Anders let out a strangled giggle.

‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ Garrett muttered.

‘I have patients…’ Anders said reluctantly. His voice was thick with suppressed laughter—or the agony of suppressed humiliation. ‘I have to get back to them. Karl—you’re welcome to stay as long as you like. We should all have dinner. It’d be nice to catch up.’

‘He just wants you to tell him all the best stories about slaughtered templars and triumphant mages,’ Garrett explained. ‘Poor Anders, so lonely in this wretched clinic, desperate for someone to talk to. Isn’t that right, Anders? Tell Karl how lonely you’ve been lately.’

Karl skillfully ignored him. ‘Of course, Anders,’ he promised. He even managed to look innocent, like an ordinary older gentleman, the kind Garrett’s mother might take notice of in the street. He waited until Anders had disappeared back into the main body of the clinic, then turned his focus to Garrett. ‘You needn’t look at me as though I’m a dragon come to roost. If I’m being honest, Garrett, it’s you I should really talk to.’

Garrett pulled the door shut. Then he leaned back against it, crossing his arms. ‘I’ve already gotten the speech from Mistress Selby. ‘Don’t harm a hair on his precious apostate head’ and all that. Lines from Darktown to Hightown, angry refugees with pitchforks after my hide, the works. The votes of confidence are all quite heartening, by the way. Nice to know what my friends really think of me, if I can even call them my friends.’

‘Not at all,’ Karl said. ‘I’m more worried for you than I am for him.’ Garrett was suddenly listening sharply. Was it possible that Karl knew the whole story about his old friend? The troublesome little detail, that he might potentially have been an abomination? Karl took a step closer. Garrett held his breath. The wisdom of the ages was about to be imparted to him; he was almost positive. ‘…Anders has broken a fair share of hearts, in his day.’

Garrett reflected on what he knew of their shared history—young Anders breaking the heart of younger Karl—and opted to react in the most mature way available to him.

‘Eugh,’ he said, holding up his hands, putting as much distance as he could between them. ‘Too much information. I’m glad you trust me, Karl, but there are some secrets even I don’t want to know.’

Karl laughed. It was rather good to see him like this: tan and healthy and happy, practically blossoming in the Starkhaven countryside. The sight was even better than a whole pile of jewels.

What was it Karl had said once, about a job well done being its own reward?

‘Speaking of information,’ Karl said, once he’d wound down, ‘that’s the real reason I’m here.’

Garrett relaxed, marginally. ‘Yes, I think you’ve made that rather obvious. Don’t worry: my heart’s still in one piece. For now, in any case; I can’t say what it’ll be like tomorrow, certainly not if the Coterie ever gets hold of me, and apparently now I’ve got to worry about Anders as well. Do you know, some days, I wish the spiders would finally have their way with me?’

‘Garrett,’ Karl warned.

‘Yes, ser,’ Garrett replied.

Karl didn’t even crack a smile. That was exactly what Garrett liked so much about him; he had impeccable timing. ‘I know you must be terribly disappointed to hear that the Mage Underground doesn’t revolve entirely around your love-life,’ he continued, ‘but I’m told we’ve made another ally. He’s a dwarf who lives in a Lowtown tavern; goes by the name of Varric.’

‘Varric,’ Garrett said, committing the name to memory. ‘I’ll arrange a meeting, next time I’m topside. But I’m guessing he’s not a mage, what with being a dwarf and all—which means Anders probably isn’t going to like having him signed on.’

Karl smiled at last. ‘Isn’t it a lucky thing you’re so convincing?’

*

Anders found Garrett later in the evening, coming up behind him as their patient load wound down for the night. Garrett was sorting poultices when he felt a slender arm slide around his waist from behind, and he leaned into the touch, letting an assortment of herbs fall to the table.

‘What did you and Karl talk about?’ Anders asked. Sneaky. Karl was right about him.

‘You,’ Garrett replied. ‘How you’re the most famous heartbreaker in all of Ferelden, and how you’re going to leave me a shattered, hollowed-out husk of a man once you’re through with me. Also: dwarves.’

‘Oh,’ Anders said. He nodded, sharp chin digging into Garrett’s shoulder. ‘Congratulations, I believe you’re making even less sense than usual.’

Garrett patted at his hand. ‘Of course I am.’

‘He was warning you about me?’ Anders asked. When Garrett nodded, his voice sobered. ‘You should probably listen.’

‘I never listen,’ Garrett told him. As if he didn’t know that already.

‘Are you sure it doesn’t bother you?’ Anders asked. His voice was muffled against Garrett’s back, the bridge of his nose digging in between his shoulder-blades. ‘And before you go asking me to clarify that too—I’m an apostate, possibly something even worse than an apostate. I don’t have a job that pays more than pastries. I work all hours of the night. I don’t shave, and I’m not exactly the type most people bring home to their mothers.’

‘I don’t have a mother,’ Garrett reminded him. ‘I’m dead. Remember?’

‘You still have a mother,’ Anders murmured.

‘Dead and currently locked in a vicious turf war with the Coterie,’ Garrett added. He reached an arm around behind him to pull Anders in close. ‘Add in that I’m an apostate, too, and I have terrible table manners, and your own list no longer looks quite so daunting.’

Anders nodded, although he didn’t say anything. Garrett could feel the gesture against his shoulder.

‘I’m supposed to go tonight—I’m meeting a woman in the alienage,’ Anders told him, after a pause. ‘Your friend Thrask pointed me in her direction. She needs help with her boy. Named…Feynriel, I think.’

‘And I have a wonderful date with some sewer tunnels and guild assassins,’ Garrett said. Anders’s arms tightened around his waist, tugging him closer, a short, unflinching embrace. ‘So. Meet you back here when it’s over?’

Anders splayed his fingers wide against Garrett’s stomach, lifting his head to kiss the back of his neck. ‘You’d better,’ he said.