Archive of Our Own

At twenty-two, Garrett Hawke was currently considered Hightown’s most eligible bachelor. Wealthy scion of the Amell family, eldest son and adequately mansioned, reasonably attractive, quite well-dressed, unrelentingly charming in social situations, especially at local Wintersend parties—Garrett was fully aware of the image he cultivated, and despite the occasional unforeseen entanglement, he continued to cultivate it. Once again, what the doting mothers and enterprising fathers of Kirkwall’s nobility didn’t know probably wouldn’t kill them.

And what his doting mother and enterprising father didn’t know—that he was currently seven sovereigns in debt to a topside dwarven businessman who made his home in Lowtown’s illustrious Hanged Man taproom and inn—probably wouldn’t kill them, either.

Probably.

Though sometimes it was hard to tell, with Mother.

‘See you same time next week, Hawke?’ asked the topside dwarf—whose name was Varric; he didn’t have a beard, choosing instead to display his wealth of lush body hair slightly lower, on his barrel-shaped chest—raking his winnings in over the table.

‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Varric,’ Garrett said.

‘And I wouldn’t be able to pay my rent without a little help from my friends in Hightown,’ Varric replied.

Now, Garrett knew what Mother would say, how inappropriate it all was for someone of Garrett’s standing, and dangerous besides—and she didn’t even know how terrible it smelled in the establishment, how near-fatal drinking a tankard of its ale was, depending on the special that day. If she discovered any of that, then she’d really be scandalized. As for Father… Well, he might not approve, either, but he’d understand—if he ever had occasion to find out, something Garrett currently wasn’t planning on allowing—since wild hearts needed to roam free, wherever the wind called them, however the fancy struck.

As long as Garrett wasn’t doing something really dangerous—like, for example, defending himself with a few conspicuous fireballs—there wasn’t much to complain about. Since, for all purposes, Garrett wasn’t a mage—just Hightown’s most eligible bachelor.

Garrett whistled all the way from Lowtown to Hightown in the fading afternoon sunlight, achieving a jaunty pace, greeting acquaintances as he went. It was a fine day between the height of summer and Wintersend, a month that mercifully exhibited neither one of the extremes of Kirkwall weather. He took a detour at the very outset of his journey, spending a few moments in a dark alcove with the newly-titled ‘Lady’ Elegant—the only young woman of such noble bearings Garrett wanted anything to do with—and nodded to a group of templars he recognized as Carver’s friends, even going so far as to flirt with both Ser Keran and Ser Ruvena, just to keep them on their plate-mailed toes.

Carver hated it when he did that. I would appreciate it, brother, Carver could often be overheard saying, if you would stop making everyone I know fall madly in love with you. But Garrett liked keeping him on his toes, too, so it was all very necessary.

‘Hello, Mother,’ Garrett said, swanning in through the front door and giving her a kiss on the cheek. ‘Don’t tell me I’m late for dinner again?’

‘If you’re ever not late for dinner, we’ll have to assume you’ve died,’ Bethany said brightly, embracing him. Closer to his cheek, she whispered, ‘The seneschal is here. Try not to muck this up. I’m so tired of you embarrassing me.’

‘You’re tired of it?’ Garrett whispered right back, smiling all the while. ‘How do you think I feel?’

‘Very satisfied with yourself, actually,’ Bethany said.

And she was right, after all.

In the dining room, the good Seneschal was indeed sitting with Father, their esteemed guest for the evening looking as sour and gormless as ever. Garrett’s smile widened even further. ‘Seneschal Bran!’ he said. ‘How delightful to see you! Father,’ he added, and, ‘oh, please, Seneschal; there’s no need to stand on my account. Remain seated. We wouldn’t want to put any undue strain on your legs.’

Father gave him a look—the look, more like, the one that suggested Garrett was the reason he had white streaks at his temples, and Mother was completely gray already—but the impact was lessened somewhat by the amusement lurking just beneath it.

‘Garrett,’ Father said, nodding. ‘So good of you to join us.’

‘I had rather thought I was early,’ the seneschal agreed.

‘Well, we’ll do our best to forgive you,’ Garrett assured him. ‘Punctuality is so difficult a skill to master. I myself struggle with it, from time to time.’

‘Garrett,’ Father said again.

Garrett’s smile reached critical proportions. Seneschal Bran looked like he was starting to balk under the shine of so much teeth.

‘Why don’t you pour me a brandy,’ Father suggested. ‘And one for yourself. And one for Saemus Dumar—you remember the Viscount’s boy, of course.’

‘Serah…Hawke,’ Saemus said, a little too deep, then cleared his throat. ‘Ah—Garrett, that is.’

Garrett’s smile was now snowballing past the point of no return; it threatened to take over his entire face, crack it clean in half, his jaw swinging about like one of the shambling corpses rumored to lurk in the sewers and tunnels below Darktown. Of course he remembered Saemus Dumar; who could forget the eternally serious child with whom he’d suffered through countless lessons in Thedas history, a ubiquitous presence at all the parties, a somber shadow with a knit brow who’d never done anyone—but especially himself—the favor of crying when Carver played Catch the Qunari with him during the many summer solstice festivals of Garrett’s misspent youth.

‘Of course I remember Saemus Dumar,’ Garrett said. ‘Didn’t we just see each other at the, ah, you know—’

‘My birthday celebration?’ Saemus supplied helpfully.

‘Yes, the very thing,’ Garrett said. ‘Wonderful party, by the way; I really enjoyed it.’ He poured Father the brandy he’d requested, and one for Saemus, delivering the drinks to their rightful owners before, blessedly, having the chance to pour one for himself. ‘I especially enjoyed the bit where you went round asking all the guests to sign that petition you had—what was it about again? I’ve signed so many petitions…’

‘The current dilemma of the qunari compound in the docks,’ Saemus supplied once again, still helpfully.

‘The very thing,’ Garrett repeated. ‘I thought it was all quite noble.’

‘You fell asleep while I was explaining my position,’ Saemus reminded him.

‘To better contemplate the quite noble points you were making,’ Garrett said. ‘Ask my sister; I do it all the time. A mark of the highest respect, I assure you.’

‘Dinner is served,’ Mother said, the doors from the kitchen opening wide. Either Garrett was hearing things, or Father actually whispered ‘Thank the Maker.’

*

The meal passed uneventfully enough, despite Garrett’s best efforts to the contrary. The food was sublime—Mother had access to all the best cooks, plus a few she’d poached from the Harimanns once their help started to leave the estate, due to difficulties with the ever-difficult Lady Harimann—although the conversation was considerably less so. Garrett brought out all his best material, specifically the jokes he’d learned from Varric just that afternoon in the Hanged Man, and there was a moment when it really seemed as though Seneschal Bran was going to choke and die right there in their dining room. It was the most scintillating part of the evening, in Garrett’s opinion. At least Mother loved him too much to murder him.

It didn’t take Bethany long to corner Garrett in the den, after he’d seen both the seneschal and Saemus out with a wink and a nod and a sigh of relief.

‘What on earth was that all about?’ she demanded, eyes alight with pure irritation, the mark of a truly loving sister. ‘Do you want the viscount’s son to think there’s madness in our family? Because that’s certainly how you were acting tonight.’

‘Better madness than magic, I’d think,’ Garrett said. ‘Which is exactly what they’d discover if Mother and Father married you off to Saemus Dumar. What a brilliant plan! I can’t believe I didn’t think of it first.’

‘…If they what?’ Bethany asked.

‘If they made the next Viscountess of Kirkwall an apostate,’ Garrett said, enunciating the syllables very carefully. His sister wasn’t stupid, but she’d grown up sheltered, especially for a mage. She didn’t share her brother’s inclination to go looking for trouble, which was honestly for the best, since Garrett hadn’t yet been put in the uncomfortable position of needing to kill anyone for hurting her in some way.

She had also never even been to the Gallows. Technically, Garrett wasn’t supposed to have been there, either; there’d be no mistaking him for his father’s son now that he’d grown into his looks, and it was hard enough convincing people none of the younger Amells had inherited their father’s power.

Fortunate for all of them that the Amell name still carried some sway in Kirkwall, enough to keep Father’s position safe. In fact, that likely had something to do with the seneschal considering a union between their houses. Or perhaps it was less the name, and more all the wisely invested money, or the land-holdings in the Free Marches, or the business deal with a dwarf planning a very lucrative trip to the Deep Roads that Father had just brokered. Money was the only thing more important in Kirkwall than Knight Commander Meredith herself; it couldn’t buy love, but it could certainly curry favor, and the latter was all Garrett wanted from life at present.

‘Father wouldn’t do that,’ Bethany said, shaking her head firmly. ‘Mother wouldn’t, either. Besides, if anyone around here should be looking to get married, it’s you. You’re the eldest. I’m sure they won’t even consider me until you’ve settled down.’

‘True, but I wouldn’t look half so lovely in a wedding gown,’ Garrett said. He stretched out his legs and settled back into his chair. ‘Too hairy.’

Bethany giggled despite herself. She and Carver shared a hair-trigger temper, but the nice thing about Bethany was that she was just as quick to forgive as she was to take insult. The same couldn’t be said of her twin. And now that he had all that templar armor, one would think he’d be better able to deflect—but, sadly, no.

‘I suppose you’re in the same boat as I am, then,’ Bethany said, leaning against the mantle with a sigh. ‘Carver’s the only one without any…difficulties, and he up and joined the bloody templars.’

‘Helpful having a man on the inside, though,’ Garrett pointed out. ‘And he’d never turn you in, so don’t worry. You’ll always be safe. Me, on the other hand…’

‘I suppose,’ Bethany agreed. She looked around the room, then sighed. ‘Do you think Mother ever imagined she’d be living in her ancestral home with three apostates and a templar son in the Gallows?’

Garrett shook his head. ‘You know what Grandmother always said,’ he sighed. Then, to make Bethany laugh, he put on his best Grandmother Amell face, a twisted rictus of extreme displeasure, and hooked his fingers into spider-legs, reaching out for her. ‘That’s what she gets, for marrying a Fereldan.’

‘Yes,’ Bethany agreed. ‘Very appropriate conversation for four year olds, wasn’t it?’

‘Good luck to the Maker, now that she rests with him,’ Garrett said.

*

Talk of betrothal, even imagined, always made Garrett’s feet itch. The next day he left the house soon after waking, taking the long walk down to Lowtown to stretch out his limbs and forget about his many, many troubles. He stopped to peruse Elegant’s wares, not just the ones on sale, then had a long chat with an Antivan merchant about the price and quality of leather these days.

‘I wouldn’t see my own mother clad in some of the shit they sell in Hightown, if you’ll pardon my saying so, serah. You want something good, you come to Vincento.’

Garrett assured him that he would, then moved on to the next distraction. It was far too early for the Hanged Man, unless he wanted to help Corff scrape the really dedicated drunks off the floor, and he had no desire at all to visit Uncle Gamlen. Somehow, even though the man dropped by every week to secure his stipend, he’d managed to run all his money into the ground—it was the only task to which he was even remotely dedicated. He lived in a very charming little Lowtown hovel now, just around the corner from the alienage.

The best thing about Uncle Gamlen, however, was his utter lack of pride and shame; he always made it abundantly clear that he blamed both Leandra and her family for his place in life.

‘If she’d had less bloody children, my stipend would be double what it is now—or triple! One for every brat,’ he always muttered on his way out, only after he’d been given his dues.

Charming man, Gamlen. Garrett’s favorite uncle—because he was Garrett’s only uncle.

‘How’s the trade on qunari cheeses these days?’ Garrett liked to ask, always the one to see him out. Gamlen distressed Mother; Garrett didn’t mind being the one to remove him bodily from their lovely mansion. He also wasn’t above kicking a man when he was down, especially if that man saw fit to be rude to his mother.

Seeing as how there wasn’t much to be done in Lowtown during the morning—it was more the sort of place one was meant to visit at night—Garrett’s restless wandering brought him further down-city, through the complex network of hexes that made out-of-towners thoroughly uncomfortable, all the way to the docks. It stunk of bilge and the promise of another chokedamp, but at least he could freely observe the comings and goings of new arrivals to Kirkwall. They were always so fascinating, traveling with their entire lives packed into crates, often looking green and seasick as they stumbled off their boats. None of them had to worry about the shadow of the Gallows looming in the distance. They probably didn’t give it a second thought.

‘Is that… Serah Hawke?’ a familiarly deep voice asked from his left. ‘I never imagined I’d see you up and about this early.’

Maker no, Garrett pleaded silently. But unfortunately, when he turned, it was Saemus Dumar addressing him. Who else would have that voice? Garrett shielded his eyes from the sun; the lad was standing on the steps of the qunari compound, although for once he wasn’t alone.

‘I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,’ said Saemus’s companion, in a thick Starkhaven accent.

‘Sebastian Vael,’ Saemus introduced them, gesturing to his companion, and then, to Garrett, ‘this is Garrett Hawke. Not exactly the right place for formal introductions, is it?’

‘Ah,’ Sebastian said. ‘An unexpected pleasure, indeed. Garrett Hawke—that would make you an Amell, as well, wouldn’t it…?’

‘Mother really ought to have kept the name somehow, since everyone’s so obsessed with it,’ Garrett confirmed. ‘Except having two surnames always feels so clumsy. Awkward to introduce yourself at all the parties, too. Are you one of the Vaels from Starkhaven, by the way? I’m not sure I ever heard of a Sebastian—are you, by any chance, illegitimate?’

Sebastian blinked. Garrett didn’t blame him; he was always a lot to take in for the first time, and Saemus uncertainly rearranged some of the scrolls he was carrying, thick, incredibly dull-looking rolls of parchment Garrett neither wished nor cared to guess the contents of.

‘The third and youngest son, actually,’ Sebastian replied, after taking a wise pause to collect himself. ‘Neither the heir nor the spare.’

‘But something else that rhymes with both those things, I hope,’ Garrett said. ‘Rare, perhaps? No; ‘the rare’ doesn’t make much sense. How about the bear? Or the pear? Or the dare or the snare—’

‘I never really thought about it,’ Sebastian admitted, still delicately trying to maintain a diplomat’s poise while navigating around the snares Garrett was having so much fun laying for him. ‘But then, I also had no idea the eldest son of the Amell family was a poet.’

‘No,’ Saemus said. ‘Garrett’s actually always like this.’

‘Don’t listen to him,’ Garrett counseled, watching the broad, tall forms of the qunari behind them, standing implacable vigil in front of their compound. If they were eavesdropping—which, knowing qunari, they weren’t—then they really weren’t making the most of the free show. ‘Saemus has no idea what I’m always like, do you, Saemus? Don’t tell me you were trying to get these qunari to sign your petition.’

‘Saemus was graciously showing me first-hand what the qunari in Kirkwall have suffered since their arrival on its shores,’ Sebastian explained. ‘It is a plight of which, until today, I knew very little, and now, with proper guidance, I admit I feel…illuminated.’

‘Illuminated, bored out of your mind; remarkable how often those two come together,’ Garrett said, weighing one on each hand. ‘I doubt the qunari would enjoy thinking of themselves as the wretched oppressed, however. They seem a bit too proud for that, don’t you agree?’

‘But it isn’t that at all,’ Saemus said. He took the last few steps down to even ground, fumbling once more with his scrolls. Little did he know Garrett had no intentions of being illuminated, not that morning nor that evening nor any other time of day. ‘It is not their position, but rather ours which I seek to explore and—dare I say it—to correct. I did try to make it clear in the petition, but there is much we could learn from them—even open dialogue would do more than what we have embraced now, a blind and stubborn prejudice. Many hate the qunari because they do not understand them, but understanding is not something that springs up overnight—it takes time, and dedication, and the willingness to listen—’

Garrett could see that, if he was allowed to continue, Saemus would likely carry on in this fashion all day. He was getting excitable, his cheeks flushed, his eyes all bright and feverish, and so much enthusiasm really couldn’t be healthy for him.

Out of charity, Garrett decided to throw him a bit of a fireball. A purely metaphorical one, of course.

‘What about all the Fereldans?’ he asked casually.

‘I…what?’ Saemus blinked. As expected, being stopped mid-sentence had caused him to forget what a sentence was.

‘The refugees,’ Garrett said. ‘Or haven’t you ever been to Darktown?’

‘Darktown,’ Sebastian repeated, then quickly cleared his throat, likely to hide his all-too-obvious horror at the brazenness of a place that actually called itself Darktown. Maybe, in Starkhaven, no one named the parts of their city that helpfully, so that no one would ever not know what, exactly, they were going to get from each. But Kirkwall was unlike any other place in Thedas. It was surprisingly forthright that way, just like the members of the exclusive club known as ‘prostitutes who worked at the Blooming Rose’; they, too, lacked the artifice necessary to call themselves anything other than what they were.

Except for Idunna, the Exotic Wonder From the East. But everyone allowed her that peccadillo, probably because they felt sorry for her that she hadn’t quite caught on, even to this day.

‘I…no,’ Saemus said, still having trouble with sentences. ‘The docks are one thing, but my father—’

‘Oh, of course,’ Garrett said, ‘absolutely; Darktown is far too dangerous for a member of the Viscount’s family. And even for the Vael’s third son too, I’d wager.’

‘But not for an Amell?’ Saemus asked.

Once again, it was the same, sheer stubbornness of character that had never allowed Carver to give up whaling on him that Saemus exhibited now; it was an incredibly annoying trait in anyone, Garrett often found, but he supposed it did make Saemus slightly more likable than a collection of stiff scrolls and meaningful causes.

Leading two unprepared tourists through Darktown wasn’t exactly what Garrett had planned on doing with his morning—in fact, he hadn’t made had any real plans at all, and for that reason, it was easy enough to recalculate. Give the little prince from Starkhaven a glimpse of what Kirkwall was really like, and show Saemus that if he wanted to dedicate himself to everything he considered worthy, he’d end up with no time left to eat, or sleep, or pass around petitions—now that cause, in Garrett’s estimation, was noble indeed.

‘Shall we?’ Garrett said cheerfully.

‘Lead the way, serah,’ Saemus told him.

*

After their impromptu tour of Darktown—its collection of the destitute and the diseased, the bitter and impossibly smelly—it was finally an acceptable hour of the day to head to the Hanged Man, which was where Garrett planned on going, if Saemus Dumar ever released him.

‘I had no idea,’ he said. ‘This is my father’s city, and I had never even stepped foot in it until today.’

‘Always revelatory,’ Garrett agreed. ‘Well, it’s certainly been something—long, I think, fits best—but I—’

‘You think about more than you let on, serah,’ Saemus continued, while Sebastian attempted to wipe something brown and very sticky off his fine leather boot. ‘This… I cannot say this is what I was expecting.’

‘It is called Darktown,’ Sebastian said, an attempt at ‘helpfully’ that fell just short of its mark. He’d managed to smear the stain across the entire side of his boot without ever actually coaxing it to leave. ‘Your people are nothing if not literal. It leaves one with exactly the right idea of what to expect.’

‘This from the man out of a land called Starkhaven,’ Garrett said.

‘My people stopped the Second Blight, messere,’ Sebastian informed him. ‘I imagine the land did look quite stark after that.’

Even Garrett couldn’t think of a proper retort. Nothing killed a conversation quicker than bringing up a Blight.

‘My eyes have been opened,’ Saemus said. If he was at all aware of the exchange happening right in front of him, it didn’t show on his face. ‘Garrett, if I could beg just a moment further of your time…? I’d appreciate the opportunity to discuss some of your ideas—in greater detail.’

Garrett felt the trap snap shut just seconds after he’d tripped the wire. No matter how he normally spent his waking hours, there were certain dangers even Garrett Hawke preferred to avoid. The most dangerous thing a man could do was give off the impression that he had ideas, especially with someone else who also fancied himself an idea person.

Doubly-especially around someone like Saemus Dumar, who was harder to scrape off your boot that whatever it was Sebastian had stepped in.

‘It would be my pleasure,’ Garrett said, neatly hiding his dismay. A wonderful thought had just occurred to him. It was worth at least seeing how it panned out. ‘And I think I know just the place for a serious political discussion.’

*

Past noon, the Hanged Man was fair game for anyone. There was a group of Rivaini raiders spending their stolen coin in one corner of the bar, plus the usual assortment of unsavory characters: guards drinking away their patrol shifts, members of the Coterie enjoying a quick pint in between their feuding with the Carta, and a few men and women who dressed like nobles, but swore like sailors, and weren’t fooling anybody.

It was impossible to pick a favorite group. Garrett liked them all so much, each in their own, special way.

He led Saemus and the Starkhaven prince to his favorite table, equidistant between the door and the bar. It was always a good idea to have a clear line of sight toward a ready getaway in the Hanged Man; one never knew when it might come in handy.

Unfortunately, there were no obvious signs of violence brewing. There were no open knife-fights, or really anything that might send two enterprising politicians packing. There was, however, a fresh splatter of blood across the floor that seemed promising. Garrett saw Sebastian shoot it an uncertain glance as Saemus settled down happily enough at the table. He tucked his dusty scrolls in next to him with the same care that mothers normally reserved for their newborn children.

‘I have heard of this Hanged Man,’ Saemus confided, as though they were about to discuss some qunari ritual he’d only ever read about. ‘Is this really what a bar is like in Lowtown?’

Sebastian took a silk handkerchief from his pocket and unfolded it deliberately, putting it on the seat in front of him before he sat down. ‘I confess, I had no idea I’d be getting such a thorough tour of Kirkwall.’

‘The mark of any city must be measured by its poor,’ Garrett said, waving to Norah, so she’d know to bring his usual. Then he signaled with three fingers, for three usuals, and made another gesture that hopefully she interpreted as please spit in it twice and not meet me out back later. ‘Someone said that, but I can’t recall who at present. …Probably someone poor, no doubt.’

‘Indeed?’ Sebastian asked. ‘I was not aware that the writings of the destitute were so widely followed.’

‘Every now and then, one of them says something monstrously clever,’ Garrett explained, ‘which is why it doesn’t do us any good to go on pretending they don’t exist right below our feet.’

‘Yes, about that,’ Saemus intervened. ‘I’ve been thinking, Garrett—’

‘Three jiggers of the house’s finest whiskey,’ Norah said, setting the cups down firmly on the table. ‘For Serah Hawke and his very fine friends.’ She gave Sebastian a liberal once-over, sauntering away with a newfound spring in her step.

‘Drinks first,’ Garrett advised. ‘Politics after.’

With any luck, he’d manage to drink both of them under the table, before Saemus had the time to draw up an appeal for any committees.

*

As it turned out, Saemus was a large boy, big-boned, more than capable of holding his whiskey. After the first choking incident—after which he spat a tooth, not his own, onto the table—he managed to maintain some semblance of sobriety. His face flushed from his chin all the way to the tips of his ears as he attempted to speak about Fereldan refugees and the qunari compound, in the same breath as one another. Sometimes he got the two confused in his excitement, whereupon Garrett listened very carefully and very thoughtfully to a discussion of ‘proud Fernari customs’ and did his weather best not to burst out laughing.

Sebastian, in the meantime, seemed to have the right idea about it all: he’d bravely downed Corff’s Wednesday Whiskey in one go, then promptly passed out face down on the table, drooling liberally.

‘Do you think…he’s dead?’ Saemus asked tentatively. He didn’t sound sad about it, just mildly nervous. Not the kind of political disruption he’d been planning all along—the clever lad wanted to start closer to home, fix the problems in Kirkwall before he turned his sights to Starkhaven.

‘The dead don’t drool,’ Garrett assured him. ‘At least, not that much they don’t.’

‘Have you seen many dead people drooling?’ Saemus asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ Garrett said. ‘Dozens of dead droolers in my time, possibly closer to hundreds.’

‘You live such an exciting life,’ Saemus said dreamily, resting his chin on both palms. ‘No wonder there’s so much gossip about you. Not all of it something to approve of, but all of it…something. You do get around, Garrett, don’t you?’

Garrett did, and even more than Saemus knew, but he chose not to bring up any of the finer points. ‘Tales of my dashing heroics and questionable morals, I hope,’ he said, testing the waters casually. If ever there was a time for secretly a mage to come out, it’d be now, or rather right after Saemus stopped hiccupping.

‘You sound like a rake,’ Saemus informed him, ‘and someone who would be very fun to spend a few weeks with, but as a lifestyle, I’d probably go mad.’

‘Yes, well, now you know how I feel,’ Garrett said. ‘Now let’s drag this poor dead bastard back to the keep where you both belong, shall we?’

*

With Saemus’s broad shoulders and Garrett’s expertise in lugging drunken people to various, distant locations, they managed to get Sebastian all the way to Hightown with one of his boots and both his arms, and that was an accomplishment in and of itself. Garrett deposited him at the front door, well aware of how many guards were staring at him through the narrow eye-slits in their helms, and wiped his hands together in satisfaction, pausing for only a few seconds to catch his breath. The blighter’s archer’s armor had been heavier than it looked.

‘You’re just going to leave him here?’ Saemus asked. The brisk exercise had mostly sobered him up. ‘And I didn’t even have the chance to tell you about my—’

‘One of these fine, upstanding guards can help you with the rest of it,’ Garrett said. ‘Just tell your father that you were showing Sebastian all of Kirkwall’s rich hospitality, and tell Sebastian that you’ll keep it hush-hush for him, you know, the deplorable way he behaved in the seediest taproom in all of Lowtown, that you’ve had the barmaid taken care of, that his family will never learn the truth, and everything will be just wonderful. You’ll see.’

‘Sometimes I wonder if you shouldn’t be next in line for the Viscountship,’ Saemus murmured.

Garrett paused again, just to give him adequate time to marvel. ‘I wonder at that myself,’ he said, with a jaunty salute, ‘but then I remind myself how bored I am by politics.’

He set off down the steps, picked a few blossoms off a flowering vine for Bethany and Mother on his way, and was back home just in time for dinner; the flowers in Mother’s hair put her in such a good mood she didn’t even ask why Garrett smelled of sawdust and ale and the sweat of a Starkhaven diplomat.

*

The next morning, when Garrett descended the main stairs, passed through the front hall, gave the hounds a loving moment of his time, wiped the dog spit off his face and collar, stole an apple from the kitchens, and appeared in the dining room, Father was there. Waiting for him.

Ominously.

‘He…llo,’ Garrett said cautiously, stopping short just before his slippered foot landed on the other side of the threshold. He took a step back instead, and leaned against the door frame.

‘Garrett,’ Father said, and then, even more ominously, ‘son.’

‘I’m not the father,’ Garrett said quickly.

The corner of Father’s left eye twitched. ‘Let us hope not,’ he murmured, ‘but, somehow, that isn’t what I was hoping to talk to you about.’

All this hoping and talking and hoping about talking, Garrett thought darkly. He chewed his current bite of apple and swallowed it, but it stuck high in his throat, suddenly losing all its juicy flavor. ‘All right,’ Garrett said. ‘But I’ll just…stay out here, for the moment, if it’s all the same to you.’

‘Quite, quite,’ Father acquiesced. ‘You needn’t be so nervous, Garrett; I’m really very proud of you.’

Hastily, Garrett ran through his mind all the things he could have done recently to inspire a statement as weighted and particular as that. Cards at the Hanged Man; losing a great deal of coin to a dwarf; sleeping with a templar, but that was during Summer Solstice while very inebriated, and so it didn’t count; getting a delegate from Starkhaven obscenely, fall-down drunk and depositing him at the Viscount’s front door without so much as an explanatory note… The list went on and on, but none of it involved anything remotely inspirational as far as pride was concerned.

‘Of course you are,’ Garrett said, instead of anything more specific, a tactic to stall for extra time in the hopes that his father would, eventually, put him out of his curiosity. ‘And I’m proud of you, too, Father. For, you know, everything.’

‘I’d always thought,’ Father continued, ‘that, given your…circumstances, you’d never choose a path this visible. And I was grateful,’ he added, voice turning a bit sad, ‘because that lack of notoriety would benefit you, but I was regretful, too, and always felt somewhat guilty, that you should put so much aside due to… Well, due to fear. A perfectly understandable fear, but a shame and a waste of your talents, nonetheless.’

‘Oh, waste,’ Garrett said. ‘That’s such an ugly word, father, you know I prefer the term squandering.’

‘But nonetheless,’ Father concluded, brightening at last, ‘I am proud. That you would volunteer for such a position… I have never been so proud, not even the day you were born.’

‘Volunteered for what?’ Garrett asked. A bit of apple got caught in his throat, and he coughed, trying to dislodge it. There were several positions he’d volunteered for over the course of recent weeks, although none he’d want his father to know about.

Somehow, he got the distinct impression that whatever was going on in this conversation, it didn’t have anything to do with them.

‘A position on the Refugee Committee that the Viscount’s boy is organizing, of course,’ Father said. ‘You didn’t imagine you’d be able to hide it from me, did you? Saemus brought the news to us himself this morning. A fine young man… Now, I know you have a certain image of yourself that you like to project, Garrett, but frankly, neither your mother nor I see any real need for it. Certainly not within these four walls. You can be honest with us, you know.’

‘Oh, yes; I can’t imagine why I’d need to pretend to be something other than what I really am,’ Garrett agreed. He flicked his forefinger and lit one of the candles on the side table with a miniscule jet of flame. The curtains were all drawn in the dining room, and the servants busy in the kitchen with the preparations for breakfast. Even if it was a stubborn, foolish, ill-advised gesture, it made his point so much more eloquently than words ever could.

True to form, Father’s face grew pinched and tight beneath his beard.

‘I merely thought that congratulations were in order,’ he said. ‘As I said, I was—am—proud.’

‘And I’m entirely certain congratulations are in order,’ Garrett assured him. Point made, he could return to the topic at hand, baffling though it continued to be. ‘Just as soon as I figure out exactly how I got myself into a position worthy of such accolades.’

*

Unfortunately, Seneschal Bran was lying in wait for Garrett at the Viscount’s Keep; he latched onto Garrett immediately, forwarding him on to Saemus without any chance for preparation or, barring that, escape.

In another life, the seneschal might have made an excellent bounty hunter. Except in place of throwing a good punch and knocking his quarry unconscious, he pinched.

‘You’ll find him waiting for you quite eagerly in the conference hall,’ Bran said, all but pushing Garrett out of the front-most vestibule where other, less-fortunate nobles had gathered that day to wait for an audience with the Viscount.

‘How much longer do I have to wait?’ demanded one of them as Garrett was ushered by.

‘The viscount must be terribly busy,’ said another.

‘There’s been some mistake,’ Garrett tried to tell Bran. Under normal circumstances, he wasn’t the sort of person who could be led anywhere, but there was something to be said for watching the seneschal get flustered. The man was just so satisfying to annoy. ‘I haven’t volunteered for anything. I haven’t even seen Saemus since yesterday, so I’m almost positive all this is nothing more than a mistake—’

‘I think you’ll find the younger Dumar quite capable of accomplishing a great deal between one day and the next,’ Bran said. He gave Garrett an unappreciative once-over. ‘Unlike some people.’

Then, before Garrett could offer a retort that would both scandalize and charm him in the same breath, the seneschal shoved him out of the hallway and through a set of double doors. They snapped shut firmly behind Garrett; Bran did not follow him in.

‘Such a way with people,’ Garrett commented, adjusting his cufflinks. ‘Whatever you’re paying him now, It can’t be enough. He should really get a raise.’

‘Serah Hawke,’ said a voice Garrett was becoming conditioned to fear, or at the very least, avoid. ‘I’m so glad you could join us. Really, I can’t tell you—this means the world to me.’

‘Hello, Saemus,’ Garrett said. ‘I don’t suppose you’d mind telling me what it is I’m joining you for? Since it means the world, and all.’

‘Oh good,’ said another voice, from near the door. ‘And here I thought I was the only one confused by the nature of this meeting.’

Garrett chanced a furtive look in the speaker’s direction. She was tall and broad-shouldered, with ginger hair and a smattering of freckles across her face—all promising attributes, but far less promising was the expression of severity on her face, coupled with the uniform she wore, recognizably that of the Kirkwall Guard.

‘I did send informational pamphlets to each of you,’ Saemus said, looking between them with some concern. ‘Didn’t you read them?’

Garrett shared a look with the guardswoman. It was evident that in matters of Dumar literature, they were very much on the same page.

‘Garrett Hawke,’ Garrett said instead, holding out his hand.

‘Aveline Vallen,’ the guard said, nearly crushing the proffered appendage in her iron grip.

‘Guard Captain Aveline is a Fereldan herself,’ Saemus said proudly. ‘I thought, given her position and her background, she might be sympathetic to our cause. Or at least, to one of them.’

‘Our cause?’ Garrett asked.

‘If this is about the qunari again, Saemus,’ Aveline warned.

Now, Garrett decided, was the perfect opportunity to make an ally. With the two of them teaming up against whatever it was Saemus had planned, they could manage to forgo having to humor him altogether. ‘Did he ask you to sign his petition?’

‘Yes,’ Aveline confirmed, ‘he did. And, as he might recall, I chose not to sign it, since I never put my name to something I haven’t investigated myself first.’

‘Ah,’ Garrett said. ‘And here I signed it just to get him to go away.’

The look Guard Captain Aveline gave him made Garrett wonder if they would be allies after all, or if they’d suddenly wandered into enemy territory without him realizing it. Honestly, a man could say just one wrong thing and have someone turn on him completely. Some people were so judgmental.

‘This is going well,’ Saemus attempted hopefully.

‘I’ve been through worse,’ Garrett agreed. ‘Though when I can’t, at the moment, remember.’

‘I do wish that we could start right away,’ Saemus added, glancing to the door. ‘I know I invited the others.’

‘Others?’ Garrett asked.

‘Nobles, mostly,’ Saemus said. ‘Some who seemed quite interested in my more radical ideas for reformation, as Father calls them, when I spoke to them about the subjects on my birthday. Perhaps…’ Saemus rubbed at the back of his neck, suddenly coloring. ‘It would seem they were only humoring me.’

‘And here we are,’ Aveline concluded, ‘the only two poor fools mad enough to accept the invitation. No offense, Saemus.’

‘Three—’ Saemus began, then cut off. ‘Ah. I see. Because I didn’t exactly invite myself. Yes, of course.’

Garrett drummed his fingers impatiently against the conference table, then resigned himself, and pulled up a chair. There was no point, as far as he was concerned, to be doubly uncomfortable during this fascinating meeting of the minds, and he leaned back on two of the chair’s rungs, resisting the urge to go all out and put his boots up in front of him. Something about the Guard Captain suggested that, if he tried it, she’d remove his feet from not just the table, but also his ankles.

‘You’d best start,’ Aveline suggested. She remained standing, because some people liked to suffer, with heavy armor involved. Very impressive.

‘It was more Garrett’s idea than mine, really,’ Saemus began. He cleared his throat, spreading a few loose pamphlets on the table. ‘Have you read any of these? Take back our streets, is how they begin.’

*

By the time Garrett was finished reading through Saemus’s collection of publications by the so-called ‘Friends of Kirkwall,’ he never wanted to see the following words again: refugees, Kirkwall, Free Marches, Marchers, and friends.

‘They’re certainly prolific,’ Garrett admitted. ‘And tenacious.’

‘And one of the most dangerous forces in Kirkwall, I’d wager,’ Aveline added. ‘There’ve been fires in Darktown, you know. Not set by Coterie or the Carta, and certainly nothing to do with the qunari problem. No—it’s the fine, upstanding citizens of Kirkwall like these, who don’t even know how to spell the things they hate so much.’

‘A beautiful speech,’ Garrett conceded. ‘And I’m glad I could open your eyes, Saemus, to the fact that Kirkwall has more issues with intolerance than you’d heretofore realized. But I still don’t see where I come in. If you want to arrest a few bastards, surely the good Guard Captain would be happy to oblige you?’ He smiled benignly at Aveline, who crossed her stiff, metal arms over her stiff, metal chest, and refused to be won over.

‘Because you know about it,’ Saemus said, ‘and because you’re charming.’

‘Flattery only gets you so far,’ Garrett warned him.

Saemus was past the point of blushing now; he was already feverish with his imagined plans, with changing the way things were and his ideas and everything. ‘That isn’t what I meant—you see? You’re much better at talking than I am. Which is why you’re so necessary.’

‘You need me to…talk about Darktown?’ Garrett asked, just to make sure he was getting everything straight.

‘To begin with, yes.’ Saemus bundled up his leaflets again, frowning as he ran his fingers over the smeared ink, the angry TAKE BACK OUR STREETS right underneath his thumb. ‘Talk to the nobles in Hightown about Darktown. Help them to care—help them to see. But also talk to the refugees living in Darktown. Their needs should be heard, not assumed.’

‘Are you sure about this?’ Aveline asked. ‘It’s a risky proposition, and it won’t win much popularity for you, either.’

‘You’d know all about winning popularity, wouldn’t you, Guard Captain?’ Saemus said.

Aveline’s eyes held, for the first time that afternoon, the faint—and faintly pretty—hint of a smile. Garrett was absolutely stunned. ‘You have a fair point,’ Aveline said. ‘I’ll lend my aid, when I can. But being Guard Captain does keep me busy. Serah Hawke will have to lend his aid, too.’

Garrett couldn’t help it; he had to laugh. He was also used to the bad kind of attention being focused on him; when both Aveline and Saemus rounded on him, he didn’t balk in the slightest, but rather wiped a single tear from the corner of his eye with a delicately curled knuckle.

‘Something you’d care to share, Serah Hawke?’ Aveline asked.

‘It’s just all very funny,’ Garrett explained, ‘watching the two of you act like I’m actually going to do this absolutely demented thing.’

‘Help others, you mean?’ Aveline’s expression could have cut through stone. ‘Yes. That is hilarious.’

‘You showed me that place for a reason, Garrett,’ Saemus said softly. ‘I know it. And I believe you also know it, whether you will admit to it or not.’

Garrett held up his hands. ‘All right, look,’ he said, ‘before we go about assuming my plight and making judgments on my character, let’s cut to the chase: I don’t like doing things. Especially not when I feel I have to do them. It takes all the fun out of everything and I become irritable and difficult. Yes, I know, I’m singularly charming, but I’m no martyr, and I prefer it when I’m tolerated by people, not reviled by them.’

‘If it’s popularity you’re worried about, you could assist me in seeking an audience with the Arishok,’ Saemus suggested. ‘If my dealings with the qunari have taught me anything, it’s that popularity is ultimately meaningless within their culture. As it should be, I think. They might not like you, Garrett, but they certainly wouldn’t dislike you either. It simply isn’t a concern.’

Garrett had to hand it to him. Saemus had a knack for pointing out how a terrible situation could be made even worse. Perhaps the boy was a born politician after all.

‘And,’ Saemus added, just a sly little aside, completely natural, ‘your mother did seem excited about the prospect when I delivered the message myself this morning.’

He was good. He was devious. He was exactly the sort of person Garrett didn’t want to work for, but suddenly couldn’t avoid working with.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ Garrett said. It was clear that Saemus wasn’t about to let this idea go—he was as dogged as one of those Fereldan mabari Father was always on about—and if Garrett didn’t move quickly, he was looking at a long and miserable future of being accosted at dinners and parties. And Garrett liked dinners and parties; he liked the drinking and the flirting more than almost anything else. But there would be none of the latter and all too much of the former if he spent every social engagement between now and Satinalia fending off Saemus Dumar’s reformation advances. ‘I’ll see what I can do about potentially speaking to some people in Darktown.’

‘Well, that sounds promising,’ Aveline scoffed. ‘How politically-minded of you, too.’

Garrett held up his hand. ‘I wasn’t finished yet. Because if I’m going to be a member of this endeavor, then I’m doing it on my terms. And I’d like to recruit a consultant.’

‘You’d like to what?’ Aveline asked, making it clear that she’d heard perfectly well, and already disapproved.

‘What we need is to take on someone who isn’t from Hightown,’ Garrett continued, for once thinking faster than he could speak. If Saemus liked the way he talked as much as he claimed, then there was a chance he might just go for the idea. And if Garrett was as good at this as Saemus seemed to think he was, then it’d be easy to convince him. ‘If anyone sees a person like me or Saemus sniffing around Darktown, their first thought isn’t going to be sharing their problems. They’re more liable to cut our purses, if not our throats. Not to mention if they saw the Guard Captain coming, they’d probably run in the other direction.’

‘I…think I see your point, Garrett,’ Saemus said uncertainly.

‘So you understand why a middleman’s needed,’ Garrett said, cheerfully pressing the advantage. ‘They can talk to the refugees without seeming condescending, and no one wakes up to find that the Viscount’s son’s been murdered and tossed in a Darktown sewer.’

‘I wouldn’t be doing it for my own safety,’ Saemus said quickly. ‘Such concerns are immaterial in the face of real problems. But it would be valuable to have the insight of someone who’s lived the very life we’re trying to improve. I had attempted to arrange something similar with the qunari, but they prove somewhat difficult to—reason with.’

‘I can’t imagine they would be so tricky,’ Garrett said. ‘Qunari? Never. I’m shocked. Anyway, it just so happens that I already have a man in mind for this consultant’s position we’ve just created.’

‘Why am I not surprised?’ Aveline wondered. ‘You know, Hawke, if you weren’t already rich, I’d suspect you of being a charlatan.’

‘Every man needs his hobbies, Aveline,’ Garrett told her with a wink.

*

That same afternoon, Garrett deposited Varric’s advance onto his table in the Hanged Man. All seven sovereigns of it.

‘What’s this?’ Varric asked. ‘Mommy’s purse-strings weren’t supposed to loosen for another two days, by my count.’ He smiled, the same shit-eating look he got right before he laid his cards bare in Wicked Grace and dragged the entire pot over to his end of the table. ‘Unless you got your allowance early for being such a good boy.’

‘Unlikely,’ Garrett said. ‘But, fun as this little chat already is, I’ve got a proposition you might be interested in.’

‘Oh?’ Varric leaned back in his seat, steepling his fingers. He hadn’t reached for the money. Not yet. ‘Well, I can’t say I’m not intrigued. Coming from you, it’s gotta be good. So: am I to understand that this lovely little pile of coin doesn’t come from you directly?’

‘And why would you assume that?’ Garrett asked.

‘Because you’re tighter with your coin than a Merchant’s Guild bookkeeper?’ Varric ventured. ‘Honestly, Hawke. It’s a little weird, coming from a gambling ne’er-do-well from Hightown like yourself.’

Garrett pulled up a chair at Varric’s long table. He’d made sure to close the door behind him in order to discourage anyone from wandering in unexpectedly. Despite being born in Hightown, Garrett knew Lowtown, better than he knew the back of his own hand. There were people in the Hanged Man willing to sell their mothers for a cut at what he’d just dropped onto Varric’s table. Just because he was a noble didn’t mean he’d just got off the boat.

‘What do you know about the Viscount’s son?’ he asked.

*

Once it was all out there on the table, Varric counted himself in—not for the coin, he said, though he did take the advance, but because the whole enterprise was starting to look ‘interesting.’ Dwarves, Garrett already knew, had a strange idea of what constituted ‘interesting’ in the first place. He’d just never thought their definition included anything resembling charity, or anything not resembling bad ale, nug jokes, and various hair tonics to keep the braids in their beards so thick.

‘We’re working with the Guard Captain on this one,’ Garrett informed him, a part of the deal he’d wisely refrained from sharing until after Varric accepted the position.

Varric whistled. ‘Hoo boy,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard about that one, Hawke. You’re gonna be sorry.’

‘Because she’s built like a battering ram and kicks like a horse?’ Garrett asked.

‘No, because your usual brand of roguish charm isn’t going to mean even an ounce of nug-shit with a woman of that caliber,’ Varric corrected.

‘Which is exactly why I’m bringing you,’ Garrett told him. ‘Since your brand of roguish charm apparently works with everyone. But, my untrusting and very short companion, I’ve already got a plan for how to deal with her.’

The plan, as it stood, was beautifully simple, and, more importantly, fun. Or, it would be, if they implemented it correctly. All they had to do was show up at the Guard Captain’s office, with Saemus’s express permission, in writing, and attend the guards on one of their more dangerous Darktown patrols.

‘You’re crazy,’ Varric told him, in a way that Hawke chose to interpret as a compliment.

‘Why does everyone insist on calling me mad these days?’ Hawke wondered aloud. ‘I’m really no different than ever.’

Aveline also called him mad—and a few other things, besides—which was why Hawke had needed Saemus’s permission in writing. When handed over, the scrap of parchment with the Viscount’s seal at the bottom looked awfully close to an official order. Aveline might not have liked it, but she’d signed onto this project same as Garrett, and a woman of her caliber, as Varric called her, couldn’t say no when presented with the proper paperwork. However much she might have wanted to.

The best part was that it wasn’t even forged.

‘The patrol is mine,’ Aveline capitulated at last. ‘You’ll go with me.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ Garrett asked, but Aveline placed her entire, plated body between him and the duty roster—and she was more like a fortress wall than a battering ram; Garrett could see the similarities far more clearly now.

‘This is my guard,’ Aveline said. ‘And I am always sure.’

*

‘So a dwarf, a Hightown noble, and the Guard Captain walk into Darktown,’ Varric said.

But it wasn’t the beginning of a joke—at least, not the joke that Garrett was currently living. It was more like the middle, something that came in between educating Saemus and cursing himself for having so many bright ideas, like educating Saemus. There was only so much time a man could spend in Darktown in one month, and the more Garrett was down in the cursed place, the more he started to have…feelings. Not the sort of feelings he got when he stepped into the Rose and drew in the fine, comforting aroma of perfume and powder; not the sort of feelings he got when lying in Elegant’s embrace, tracing the curve of her breast and nipple; certainly not the sort of feelings he’d had last Summer Solstice, flirting with a charmingly guileless templar recruit named Keran all evening. No; they were the same feelings of frustration and helplessness he felt whenever he had to pretend using a knife or a broken barstool in a Hanged Man bar fight was natural to him, when he forced himself every blighted hour of every blighted day to ignore the arcane energy that pulsed hot and desperate as the very blood through his veins.

Darktown was full of shadows; a man could blend in and disappear, and some people liked that about the place. The Coterie certainly did. It was dangerous there, and dangerous things usually made Garrett feel at least marginally more alive than usual, but then he’d accidentally catch the eye of a refugee orphan or Ostagar veteran, palms outturned, begging for coin, and the feelings returned, more persistent and more outlandish and more downright unnecessary than ever before.

On the whole, Garrett hated feelings—because there was nothing that could be done with them, no way to satisfy their demands. They asked for too much, and gave nothing in return, and Garrett supposed he understood why Saemus felt like he had to do something, since otherwise he might as well admit there was nothing he could do at all.

‘The Hightown noble says, what am I doing here,’ Garrett continued.

‘The Guard Captain tells the dwarf and the noble to shut it or get going,’ Aveline finished.

Already, they made a magnificent team. One might even say the combination of skills, talents, and attitudes was magical.

‘Whatever you say, Red,’ Varric said. ‘Where to first?’

‘Just stay quiet, and try to stay out of official business,’ Aveline instructed.

‘But what I’ve always wanted is to assist the guard in one of its most dangerous patrols for absolutely no compensation and no real reason,’ Garrett said, with a roll of his eyes. ‘Lead the way, Guard Captain Aveline.’

It wasn’t surprising in the slightest that the way was littered with bodies, with trash and oftentimes excrement; Garrett knew that sort of thing didn’t bother Saemus the way it would any normal person, so there was no reason to wish he was with them, too, droning on about how important this mission was and how much it would mean to the city. Three was a much more solid number than four. Three was company, in Garrett’s opinion, while four was a crowd, his own personal spin on a more popular saying.

He trailed comfortably in Varric’s wake. The dwarf was wide, and of a perfect height to clear debris ahead of him.

‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing back there, Hawke,’ Varric said. ‘Better hope my finger doesn’t slip on Bianca and give you a brand new bolthole in a very uncomfortable place.’

‘You wouldn’t,’ Garrett said.

‘I might,’ Varric admitted. ‘That all depends on how lucky you are, not how lucky you’re feeling.’

Garrett considered his position: traipsing through Darktown with a dwarf and the captain of the guard when he could have been topside, drinking with Madam Lusine and getting a backrub from Serendipity. Say what you would about her, but the woman had strong hands.

No; luck didn’t even factor into tonight. Not in the slightest.

It wasn’t the worst day an apostate could have in Kirkwall. But it was high on Garrett’s list.

*

It was during a battle with Carta thugs—Aveline bravely taking the brunt of each hammer blow onto her shield, and Varric backing her up handily with Bianca—that Garrett gave his merry band of researchers the slip. He’d have been lying if he said he hadn’t been looking for an excuse to do just that, but the fight turned out to be a better justification that he could have hoped for.

There was just too much uncertainty in a brawl; they were dangerous for more reasons than the chance that he might catch a dagger in the thigh or even the gut. Garrett could pick up a sword—there was no physical reason why he couldn’t—but it would always be second nature to him, and he didn’t want to give himself any false impressions of his own abilities.

Besides, Garrett honestly didn’t know how his latent power might react to a true threat.

Maybe nothing would happen. Or maybe he’d freeze every man on the battlefield where they stood, and be dragged off to the Gallows for simply defending himself. That would be the end of the Amells and the Hawkes: Mother, Father, and Bethany in one fell swoop. It wasn’t just his own future Garrett had to protect.

Few were the things that Garrett feared more than Guard Captain Aveline Vallen, but they did exist.

He made his way north from the ambush, toward where the Ferelden refugee camps were at their most dense. It was where he’d brought Saemus on their first trip to the slums together, although this time, Garrett had taken it upon himself to dress less conspicuously for the venture. He wore a battered leather jerkin over a relatively plain shirt, one that bore a few stains from its previous outings to the Hanged Man. The two daggers strapped to his back might as well have been made of wood, but their presence was an important piece of the costume.

Without the right props, an actor couldn’t fulfill his role. And tonight, apparently, Garrett was filling the role of sad bastard wandering around Darktown. It was almost depressing how readily he blended in. Barely anyone gave him a second glance as he moved down the narrow paths between the steep staircases, thick Darktown dust coating his boots. He passed by a woman with honest gray eyes begging silvers for her orphans, and an elf with impossibly large ears—even larger than usual—shilling poisons from a stall.

It made a perverse kind of sense that the only trade that flourished in Darktown would be death. Somehow, Garrett wasn’t at all surprised.

The best part about being here—and there weren’t many—was that the bits and pieces of conversation he picked up on made little to no sense, slices of lives Garrett would never live, and never fully understand.

‘The lantern’s lit,’ muttered a man with a thick mustache to his companion, a woman wrapped in a dirty piece of sheeting; she had a cough like something that’d dragged itself, half-alive and seeking vengeance, from the Fade itself. The man was tugging her in the direction of one of the staircases Garrett hadn’t yet traveled down, a new and exciting dirty corner of Darktown if ever he saw one.

‘You’re sure it’s safe?’ the woman asked, glancing around. Garrett made a point of suddenly seeming very interested in a patch of rubble next to his feet.

‘It will be, so long as you don’t go running your mouth,’ the man said, pulling her along. ‘Come on. It’s been a whole day since he took more in. I’m not letting that fool Darby beat us to the punch.’

Intrigued, Garrett continued to listen as the woman gave an indignant huff, then shambled off down the alley. The sound of grit crunching beneath their boots grew distant, and Garrett moved at last, not willing to lose sight of them.

Something secretive happening in Darktown? It had to be more interesting than simply roaming the streets, waiting for a member of the Coterie to decide they recognized his purse or, less likely, his face from Hightown.

Delicately sidestepping an unconscious drunkard and doing his best to pretend he couldn’t see the child crouched next to him, Garrett followed the unlikely couple, as much like a shadow as he could manage without having ever undergone proper shadow-training. Or really, training of any sort. His marks, if they could be called that, were too busy arguing to notice they’d picked up an interested straggler, and as they drew closer to their destination, Garrett realized they weren’t the only ones heading in the same direction. What had formed in the streets of Darktown wasn’t exactly a crowd, certainly nothing close to an exodus, but the already narrow pathways felt much narrower the more limping men and coughing women and ragged children joined the trail.

The lantern’s lit, Garrett repeated to himself, only to discover a moment later that the overly mysterious bit of accidental poetry wasn’t just a metaphor. Hung low over a distant door, just up another flight of uneven steps, was the lantern in question, and refugees were slipping in, but no one was coming out.

Never one to allow a closed door to stop him, Garrett blended in amongst their ranks, jostled by impatient strangers inside the mysterious room a moment later, heart practically in his throat from all the excitement.

Was it something as dramatic as a secret meeting to take over Kirkwall, or was it something as innocent as a Fereldan country dance? Garrett wasn’t even sure Fereldans had country dances; he’d never been as interested in the place as his father was, a neighboring country that sported Blights, darkspawn and dirt as its chief attractions. Not exactly Garrett’s style.

Craning his head to see past those already gathered, Garrett managed to make out a few things over the overwhelming smell of body odor and, beneath that, sweat and blood. Cots lined the high-ceilinged room; lanterns bathed it in pale light; there were people of all ages gathered on broken crates and make-shift beds, coughing and bleeding everywhere Garrett looked. The last detail explained the blood and sweat; everyone else explained the body odor. Garrett lifted a hand to cover his nose and mouth. Whatever these people had—probably a dazzling array of local and foreign diseases both—he didn’t want to catch it and bring it home to Mother.

It was obviously some sort of clinic, if the number of sick and grievously injured were anything to go by, but Garrett could see no way the business would be profitable.

‘There he is,’ someone whispered beside him, and Garrett was forced to switch his focus quickly in order to determine who this he was.

The crowd shifted, and Garrett shifted with them; then, there was a hum of energy that echoed in Garrett’s chest like the rumble of close thunder, a bright flash of light, a woman’s tremulous whimper. Garrett had only to follow the light and see the man behind it as it faded, a scruffy looking fellow in a dirty coat, bent over one of the cots, holding up a staff.

It was the staff part that made Garrett really take notice.

it wasn’t as though it was anything special, just a tall stick, really, dyed a gaudy red color, only a little bit carved, with some metal at the top, more like a spear than anything—except it was unmistakably a staff, because it was glowing, and spears didn’t glow. Generally. Even if Garrett wasn’t an expert on them.

‘Ah yes,’ Garrett whispered back. ‘That’s…’

‘The Grey Warden,’ another stranger replied, all too eager to show off special information. ‘The healer.’

‘Yes, the healer,’ Garrett agreed, attention once more on the topic of conversation, not the conversation itself. The staff was still distracting him, but his mind finally caught up with what he’d just heard. ‘…the Grey Warden?’

‘So they say,’ the first stranger said, shaking his head. ‘One of them. Here. Looking after us for free. There’s good things in this place, I tell you, but there isn’t much.’

Garrett made a noncommittal noise of agreement. When he tried to take a step closer, just to see what it was this Grey Warden Free Healer was doing with his latest patient, a group of women elbowed him right back into place again, all of them craning and watching and holding their breath.

It was like what the Chantry only wished their sermons could be, Garrett thought. But the attendance rate was low these days, and the prayers themselves quite boring. Everybody knew how they ended already.

This, however, was a live performance, something unpredictable happening right before their eyes. Garrett stared as seared flesh and broken bone mended itself, just beneath the healing light of the Warden’s hand, pulse after pulse of energy sent down from his fingertips to knit muscle back together and save a young man’s ruined leg. He had to twist a fair bit to keep his line of vision from being broken by shuffling shoulders and dirty heads, everyone else in front of him getting a far better view, but what glimpses he was given were impressive, to say the least. It took him too long to realize his mouth was hanging open, and he shut it quickly, but no one was looking at him to catch the inglorious moment. He might as well have not been there at all.

For all intents and purposes, he wasn’t there, and he was probably going to have to slip out soon, anyway—before Varric and the Guard Captain got worried, and broke down the door to rescue him.

The longer Garrett stayed, the more pronounced the twitching in his fingers became. And that was a disturbing side effect he didn’t want anyone to notice, or think he needed healing for.

Reluctantly, Garrett picked his way back through the crowd, doing his best not to step on toes or take it too personally when colorful Fereldan insults were hurled at him for getting in the way. The air was starting to get too rank and too close inside the place, anyway. He didn’t want to stay there for longer than he had to, and he certainly didn’t want to be here if the templars caught wind of all this.

How they hadn’t yet was another mystery for another day.

*

He met up with Aveline and Varric some narrow twists and turns southward, both of them looking slightly the worse for wear after their run-in with Coterie thugs.

‘Not missing any teeth or fingers, I hope?’ Garrett said, even friendlier than usual. And he was always friendly. They should really be grateful for his persistent good spirits.

‘And where were you during all that, I wonder?’ Aveline asked. ‘Off polishing those daggers of yours?’

‘Doing my job,’ Garrett replied. ‘My civic duty. Chatting up the locals. Getting all the dirt. I’m a pacifist, you know; fighting goes against my strict code of morals.’

‘Saw you punch a pirate in the face that one time,’ Varric said. ‘Took out his two front teeth over that fine young thing at the bar. Didn’t realize pacifists could do that and still be pacifists.’

‘When they’re enormous hypocrites, they can,’ Garrett replied. ‘Shall we leave this place at last?’

‘We would do well to remember how fortunate we are that we can,’ Aveline reminded him. ‘Not everyone can head up top when they tire of slumming it.’

‘Which is the very reason we’re here,’ Garrett agreed, with ruthless good nature. ‘Wouldn’t you agree, Varric?’

‘That and the coin,’ Varric said. ‘Been a pleasure, Red.’

Aveline took them in, first Varric, then Garrett. Her contempt was clear on her face. Apparently whatever training she’d undergone to become Guard Captain, diplomacy lessons hadn’t been a part of the program. ‘Unfortunately, gentlemen, I can’t say the same.’

*

Rather than gravitating toward his warm bed at the end of the night, having earned the reprieve from ‘slumming it,’ as Aveline said, Garrett found himself at the Hanged Man instead. He didn’t feel tired in the slightest, and all he could see when he closed his eyes was the arc of forbidden magic dancing across his eyelids. That healer was operating right under the noses of the templars. Did he have any idea the danger he was putting himself in?

Likely not. That was a Fereldan for you—as thick as the mud their country was famous for.

‘Uh oh,’ Varric said, cutting through his thoughts.

‘What?’ Garrett asked. Generally, if the dwarf thought something was bad news, it was a good idea to focus.

‘You,’ Varric said. He hooked Bianca off his back, rolling out his shoulders and popping his neck. ‘You’ve got a look about you. All thoughtful. Like you’re going to be pretty much useless for gambling tonight.’

‘Why Varric,’ Garrett said, ‘don’t tell me you wouldn’t leap at the chance to take even more of my money.’

‘Yeah, but it’s no fun when you just give it away,’ Varric said.

‘I think I know one or two people who might argue with that very honorable philosophy,’ Garrett said, leaning back against the far wall of Varric’s room. Just over his shoulder was a dwarven wall carving that had probably come from Orzammar itself. Garrett had never asked. What with one thing and another, he’d never felt any great need to delve too deeply into the personal lives of the people he met in Lowtown. Delving too deeply was what had caused the first Blight, after all. Speaking of which… ‘I heard a strange rumor in Darktown, by the by. While I was off looking for information.’

‘You mean when you left me and Red to fend for ourselves against a gang of Carta thugs,’ Varric corrected.

‘Details,’ Garrett said, waving his hand. ‘Don’t tell me you aren’t at least a little interested. You love rumors.’

‘I also accept hearsay, gossip, chitchat and tall tales,’ Varric said. But he’d pulled out his favorite chair and was settling into it, which meant he’d taken the bait and the hook. ‘But rumors are a specialty.’ He spread his large dwarven hands beatifically, like a statue of Andraste herself. A shorter, squatter version, anyway. With infinitely more chest hair. ‘Proceed.’

Garrett yawned, examining the dirt under his nails. ‘Supposedly, there’s a Grey Warden in Darktown.’

‘Sure there is,’ Varric said. ‘Now pull the other one.’

*

It was late into the night and heading into early morning when Garrett finally left the Hanged Man, preparing himself to make the long journey from Lowtown to Hightown, and the far more arduous journey of scaling his own mansion’s wall to sneak into his own bedroom. There were days when the stairs seemed insurmountable, but the alternative—sleeping in the taproom beneath Corff’s counter—was even worse. Garrett had no desire to be robbed blind while he slept, and if he was going to wake up without pants, then he at least wanted to be conscious enough to enjoy the process of losing them.

Varric had promised to look into the Grey Warden, and Garrett hadn’t even been tempted to mention his status as an apostate. That little detail would no doubt come to light when Varric leaned on his various contacts, but there was no reason for him to think Garrett might be interested in it. Let him assume Garrett was some foolhardy glory-hound, just one of many thick-skulled hero-worshippers looking to feel special by getting personal with his very own Grey Warden.

In the dark, with nothing but a few slumbering drunks and meandering prostitutes to distract him, Garrett remembered the healer again: the flash of his magic, and the certainty with which he directed his energy. He’d been trained to use it somewhere. Maybe even somewhere that wasn’t the Circle, since he certainly wasn’t Circle-bound at present.

Garrett’s right hand twitched, and he shook it out. The arcane heat that always dwelled within him surged, then dwindled, along with the long-quashed need to do something about the impulse.

Father had taught him and Bethany how to hide their magic—how to control their powers—but never how to use them.

Better that they didn’t know; there’d be fewer accidents that way. If they didn’t even have an instinct in the first place, there was less of a chance they’d ever act on it. And, so far, neither of them was possessed, though one of Garrett’s favorite pastimes in his childhood was waking Carver in the middle of the night, pretending he was an abomination. The look of terror on Carver’s face, all that screaming, the occasional wetting of the bed—priceless. No game that came after ever quite lived up to its excitement. Garrett just had to wonder at familial loyalty, and why Carver hadn’t yet turned him in as understandable revenge for what was, ostensibly, a form of sibling torture.

There were times when Garrett suspected his parents did wonder if they’d done the right thing. But he’d grown accustomed to living this way, always vigilant, never comfortable—he’d trained himself to wake at the first signs of a nightmare, and never allowed his sleep to go any deeper than the initial, shallow stages of the Fade. If a demon ever did start up a conversation with him, he’d learned from all those parties he’d been to how to get out of an unwanted social situation. He had no reason to believe he couldn’t out-talk one of those things. Presumably they weren’t very chatty, anyway, too busy searching for bodies to posses, mages who harbored secret desires and untold bitterness, neither of which Garrett actually had.

He kept his emotions just as shallow as his dreams, and with good reason. If he didn’t want anything, there was nothing the demons could hope to bargain with.

Bethany clearly dealt with it her own way, a different way, since the consensus was she was much less insufferable than Garrett. But on some unspoken agreement long in their past, they never talked about their methods with one another. It was part of their pact to keep everything private—Garrett knew that once you opened up to one person, the urge to do the same with others grew exponentially, until your restraint spiraled hopelessly out of control.

Garrett gripped one of the thick green vines in his hand, levering himself up over the uneven limestone windowsill of the first floor sitting room. No lights were lit inside; his entire family was asleep. They knew he was out gallivanting, and they accepted it, spoiling him in whatever ways they could because, ultimately, they pitied him.

And that was just the way Garrett liked it.

*

He decided not to tell Saemus about the free healer quite yet. As forward-thinking as Saemus was, apostates were a polarizing issue, and it was more than possible Saemus would wish for qunari understanding in one breath and advocate more stringent dealings with Kirkwall’s mages on the other. One could never tell without coming right out and asking, and that was a topic Garrett knew better than to address.

‘The Guard Captain…’ Saemus began. ‘Aveline, that is—she told me this morning that you found little of note during your attendance of her patrol?’

Garrett fell into step beside him as they made their way mostly unhindered through the halls of the keep. They passed Sebastian in the hall, who seemed eager to get Saemus alone again to further his own political agenda, but Garrett waved with his fingers and left him in the proverbial dust.

‘Did she tell you I abandoned my post and did absolutely nothing all evening, too?’ Garrett asked.

Saemus glanced side-long at him, then quickly away. ‘Not exactly in those words, but yes.’

‘There were a few leads,’ Garrett promised, ‘and I was following them. My job, my terms. Have a little faith, Saemus. My contact in Lowtown is looking into those loose ends as we speak—or his contacts are looking into them, I suppose.’

‘Contacts of contacts,’ Saemus said, and shook his head. ‘All this seems very convoluted.’

‘No wonder people so rarely ever get things done,’ Garrett agreed.

After his visit with Saemus, he headed back to the Hanged Man to check up on Varric’s information, ran into Gamlen on the street on his way, and humiliated him in front of a younger lady friend. All in a day’s good work.

‘You’re looking bright-eyed and even more proud of yourself than usual today, Hawke,’ Varric said.

Garrett pretended he wasn’t extremely interested in the healer in Lowtown. He toyed with the broken edge of his thumbnail, something he’d been picking at all the way from the Keep, and settled comfortably into one of Varric’s chairs without needing to be invited to sit down.

‘Making my uncle hate me more than he already does always puts me in a good mood,’ Garrett explained.

Varric nodded sympathetically. ‘Family,’ he said. ‘Say no more. Guess you’re here for the news about that Grey Warden in Darktown, huh?’

‘Oh, right,’ Garrett said. ‘I’d almost forgotten about all that. Well, as long as I’m here…’

‘Look, Hawke, that pale approximation of innocence might work on pretty things all the way up there in Hightown,’ Varric said, pulling up a seat for himself, ‘but you’re gonna have to do a whole lot better if you want it to work on me.’ He adjusted one of his cuffs, then leaned back in his chair with a deep sigh. ‘Well, as it so happens, I do have news, but I don’t know if I should tell you.’

‘Why?’ Garrett asked.

‘Because you’re the type of bastard who’d probably sell his own mother out, just to have a good time.’

Garrett did his best to look appalled. ‘Never,’ he said. ‘Not my own mother. My dogs, maybe, and my closest friends, but not my mother. Who could do such a thing? You must think I’m a monster, Varric.’ He purposefully refrained from employing the word abomination—no need to go putting ideas into that enormous head Varric carried around.

‘Hey,’ Varric said reasonably, holding up his hands for a truce. ‘It takes all kinds.’

While Varric looked him up and down with a scrutiny that bordered on the overly-familiar, Garrett did his best to look honest. Looking honest and being honest were two very different things, and Varric was no doubt searching for the latter when the former was all Garrett could possibly hope to achieve, but finally Varric sighed again. ‘Can’t get a read on you,’ he said. ‘There’s just something I can’t figure out.’

‘And now you know what really works on those pretty things all the way up there in Hightown,’ Garrett told him.

‘I’ll pin you down one day, Hawke,’ Varric promised. Only the way he said it, it sounded more like a threat. He sighed, easing up only somewhat on his scrutiny. ‘I guess I wouldn’t have told you I had a lead in the first place if I wasn’t planning on passing the information along.’

‘Precisely what I was thinking,’ Garrett agreed. ‘You’re too smart for that, Varric.’

Varric chuckled. ‘You’re really laying it on thick today, you know that? Fortunately, flattery will get you everywhere with me. As it turns out, there is a Grey Warden camped out in Darktown. I pulled some strings, greased some palms, and talked to a woman named Lirene, who told me he’s been healing Fereldan refugees ever since he docked less than a year ago.’

‘Didn’t know Wardens made healing their business,’ Garrett said, examining Varric’s wall-carvings. ‘Aren’t they more about Blights and darkspawn? Maker, what is it with your people and geometric shapes? Would it kill you to use a curved line once in awhile?’

Varric gave him a look. Sometimes, under those sharp eyes, Garrett was forced to wonder how much of his charade really worked on Varric, and how much was merely tolerated under the pretense of friendliness. ‘He’s a mage. A bloody spirit healer, or whatever you people call them. And he does all his work for free, so you can imagine how keen the Fereldans are to hang onto him. You have no idea the mess I almost stepped in just asking questions about the guy. If I wasn’t a dwarf, they’d’ve probably killed me thinking I was a templar.’

‘I suppose there aren’t any dwarf templars,’ Garrett mused. ‘They’d all be tripping over their skirts.’

‘Funny,’ Varric said, in a tone that meant he thought it was anything but, yet could still appreciate the skill it took to make a joke like that on the fly. ‘Anyway, that’s about the long and the short of it: Fereldan apostate, living in Darktown and peddling his wares for free. I bet the Coterie just loves that. Between them and the templars, you’ve almost got to wonder if this guy’s got a death wish.’

‘He is a Grey Warden,’ Garrett said. ‘I naturally assumed people like that always had a death wish.’ Arms crossed, he drummed his fingers against the crook of his elbow. ‘Well—I suppose I’d better go and speak with him.’

‘Uh, hello?’ Varric asked, rapping his gloved knuckles on the table. ‘Is Hawke in there? Have you been listening to anything I just said? Between the chantry, the Coterie, and the masses of Fereldan refugees lining up to protect this poor bastard from the two previously-mentioned threats… I’d say the safest thing to do would be to flee in the other direction. Quickly.’

‘I’m touched you’re that concerned about my safety,’ Garrett said, putting a hand to his chest. ‘But, as Saemus Dumar pointed out, I was the one to bring Darktown to his attention in the first place. It only seems fair that I continue to investigate any promising leads.’

‘That all depends on where you’re looking to be led,’ Varric said.

‘My impression of Darktown was that everyone in it wanted to kill everyone else,’ Garrett told him. ‘If there’s someone there doing the opposite, then I think it might be interesting to talk to him. Simple as that.’

Varric grunted. It was obvious from the look on his face that he thought this was a bad idea, and even more obvious that he knew he couldn’t talk Garrett out of it, and wouldn’t waste his time trying. ‘You know, half the graves in Kirkwall are filled with nobles who thought something might be interesting.’

‘Honestly, Varric, you worry more than my own mother,’ Garrett said, standing up. ‘Either there’s something about my parentage you aren’t telling me, or you’re mere minutes away from confessing your undying love.’

‘Keep dreaming, Hawke,’ Varric said, calling after Garrett as he slipped out the door.

*

Garrett didn’t allow himself to think much on the walk between Lowtown and Darktown. There were too many good reasons for him not to go, and he was afraid they might prove all too convincing. This was a foolish endeavor, stupidly reckless, and what was he even hoping to achieve?

It wasn’t as if he needed healing, and he certainly wasn’t Fereldan. He didn’t have any personal tragedies about the Blight to share, no lost parents or lost mabari. The people in the refugee camps were starving, their faces streaked with grime, fingers blackened from picking through rubble for food. Even dressed-down as he was, Garrett didn’t resemble them. He had absolutely no reason to be chasing down this Warden.

There was a group of small children in the alley just before the clinic, trying to erect some sort of makeshift tent with three rotted planks and a moldering old sheet.

‘Wait ‘til Evelina sees this!’ one of them crowed. ‘Maybe she won’t have to worry so much, once she figures we can look after ourselves.’

‘Evelina ain’t coming back,’ said another. ‘The Circle took her in, remember? She’s as good as—’

‘Don’t,’ said the eldest.

Garrett hurried past them.

The lanterns above the Warden’s clinic weren’t yet lit when he arrived; it was still early evening, and Garrett supposed he should have expected that, since most furtive business of this sort was usually done in the relative privacy of darkness. Garrett stood in front of the twin doors, realizing how incredibly stupid this plan had been. Already he could sense thoughts winging their way to him, and with those thoughts, doubts. Not that he wanted to be too draconian with his own personal life mottos, or too strict in enforcing anything really, but this might well be his last attempt. If he had the chance to think it through a little and realize not just how stupid but also how embarrassing it all was, then it was more than likely he wouldn’t return to this part of Kirkwall ever again.

And it wasn’t as though he could simply lift his hand and knock. What was it Varric had said before? Both the templars and the Coterie had reason to want the man dead, and the local refugees had reason to want him alive, and being caught between such opposing forces—not to mention being caught lurking around the area, looking decidedly suspicious—wasn’t a clever strategy in the slightest.

Garrett dropped his hand, turning away from the door.

‘He’s not in at the moment,’ someone informed him as they passed by. ‘Might want to check again later.’

Garrett looked after them, mouth opening to say something grateful; he saw feathery pauldrons, a worn jacket, the flash of white bandages, and he shut his mouth again.

Was it? No—it couldn’t be. And yet…

It was possible it was all an illusion. Maybe the Warden had other magics he employed to keep the templars and the Coterie and whoever else was a little too curious for their own good off his back and out of his hair. He’d have to, in a place like this. Or Garrett might follow the familiar figure and find himself led into a back alley where a group of rowdy Fereldans were waiting, wielding large sticks, all-too prepared to throw rocks at the enemy. Another fine strategy for protecting the place.

But Garrett had had rocks thrown at him before, and such fervent curiosity as this always won out over common sense. Mage, templar, Coterie or Carta, Kirkwaller or Fereldan, it was human nature to do the stupidest thing possible, even—or especially—when presented with a less interesting option to do something much smarter.

Garrett moved at once into action, hurrying after the receding figure. It was the healer he’d seen, definitely, the unnamed and un-enterprising Warden of Darktown. He noticed immediately he was being followed, and wisely chose to turn down a dark corner; less wise, Garrett realized, when it was revealed there was no one else there but the two of them, a narrow back-alley that must have cut around behind the clinic.

No angry Fereldan mob, at least. That was reassuring.

The Warden drew to a halt a few paces in front of him, then held up his hands slowly to show there was nothing in them. ‘You don’t look like Coterie,’ he mused idly. ‘And you aren’t dressed like a templar. They’re never clever enough to wear something different, are they? So… If you’re from the Wardens, would you please tell those blighters once and for all that I’ve had it with the Deep Roads, and under no circumstances will I ever be going back?’

So he really was a Warden, Garrett thought.

‘So you really are a Warden,’ Garrett said.

‘Hm,’ the Warden murmured. ‘And you…aren’t.’

‘Me? Never,’ Garrett said. ‘Perish the thought. How uncomfortable it all sounds.’

The Warden snorted, something that might have been closer to a true laugh if, Garrett suspected, the job description of being a Warden wasn’t quite so miserable. ‘You have no idea. It’s really even worse than it sounds. …Are you going to put one of those daggers in my back, or can I very slowly turn around now? It’s awkward having a conversation with an assailant when you can’t even see them.’

Garrett reached up to touch the pommel of one of the weapons in question, then couldn’t help but laugh himself, with the absurdity of it all. ‘You mean these? Oh, no. I don’t really know how to use them,’ he explained. ‘I just wear them in the hopes that people will think I do, and then they’ll leave me alone.’

‘Well,’ the Warden said. ‘In that case.’

Carefully, he lowered his hands; then, he turned around, looking just as tired and drawn in the shadows of the Darktown back alley as one would assume upon hearing what he did for a living.

‘That’s what you get for being helpful, I suppose,’ he said wryly. ‘Let me guess: you recognized me? But…’ His eyes narrowed, brow furrowing. ‘You don’t look like you’re from around here.’

‘Because I’m not covered in dirt or missing any limbs?’ Garrett asked.

The Warden’s mouth twitched unevenly. ‘Precisely.’

‘But, if I’m not a Fereldan, and I’m not dressed like a templar, and I’m clearly not Coterie material, then what am I doing here?’ Garrett asked helpfully.

‘Precisely again,’ the Warden said. He was still tense and wary; despite not carrying his staff, which he couldn’t very well do in public, his arms were poised and ready. One wrong move, Garrett suspected, and he’d catch a fireball straight to the chest. It was all very thrilling.

However, the Warden’s question—or rather, Garrett’s question, which the Warden had deemed acceptable and adopted as his own—did give Garrett pause. What was he planning on saying, exactly? What had he hoped to accomplish here? Mostly, he’d only wanted to spy on him again—get a free look at the action, as though the serious healing that went on behind those bolted doors was nothing more than entertainment for a bored Hightown noble. Putting it like that wouldn’t go over well; people who made sacrifices rarely ever wanted to think of them as amusing. And Garrett was positive the Warden would be no different, however well-worn the laugh-lines at the corners of his eyes were.

‘Well,’ Garrett said, making up his mind quickly. In the absence of a clever lie, it was always best to resort to being honest. So long as you were still clever about it. ‘As it happens, I’m part of a committee.’

‘A committee,’ the Warden repeated drily. Garrett couldn’t blame him for his dubious expression, since the excuse sounded weak even to his own ears. Damn the truth. It was never as convincing as everything else.

‘Yes, you know,’ Garrett said, a half-smile passing over his face, ‘one of those lovely things where the city’s elite gather together to argue about everything, agree on absolutely nothing, and then pat themselves on the back for a good hour or so about all the changes they’re making in Kirkwall.’

‘I know what a committee is,’ the Warden said. He looked Garrett up and down, a hint of wry amusement flickering in his eyes. ‘So… You’re the city’s elite, are you?’

‘Garrett Hawke,’ Garrett said, holding out his hand. He probably ought to have done that earlier. At the very least, he could be grateful that Varric wasn’t here to see him making a complete ass of himself. ‘But my family—we’re the Amells. You might have heard of us.’

The Warden’s face brightened with interest. Not an unexpected reaction. ‘Ah! Are you any relation to the— You know there was a Fereldan Grey Warden who stopped the Blight by the name of Amell. Are you related?’

‘We’re cousins,’ Garrett said. ‘I was eight when the templars took him to Fereldan. My aunt Revka locked herself in her room and cried for days. Most people shake hands when one’s offered, you know. Or at least give their names.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ the Warden murmured. It didn’t seem as though he was apologizing for his lapse in etiquette. Then he thrust his hand forward, catching Garrett’s and shaking it ably. He had a firm grip, long fingers and smooth skin. Not exactly what Garrett had expected from a skin-and-bones healer in Darktown. ‘I’m Anders. As you can probably tell, I don’t have occasion to conduct many conversations outside the confines of the clinic. I’ve rather forgotten the art of it.’

‘Doesn’t seem like a half-bad trade,’ Garrett said, nodding his head in the direction of the place.

Anders smiled thinly. ‘Most days I can almost believe that.’ He plucked at a loose thread in his sleeve for a moment, then glanced toward Garrett again, with a little more wariness . ‘What exactly…does a committee want to do with me?’

Not for the first time, Garrett had reason to think on what a terrible idea this had been. What was worse, all his usual skill in lying seemed to have gone up in smoke. He stared at Anders, his scruffy face and his ragged clothing, the gray feathers on his shoulders and the threadbare places in his coat. Anders stared back.

‘I mean, I hope this isn’t the Grave Punishment Committee or the Get Rid of Free Healers Committee,’ Anders suggested. ‘Or the I Don’t Like Anders Very Much Committee, although I hear that one’s closed to new members these days, what with all the popular demand.’

‘I wanted to talk to you,’ Garrett admitted at last, hoping it didn’t sound as flaming stupid to Anders as it did to him. ‘Can I buy you a drink? We’re looking into the quality of life for Fereldans in Darktown, and I thought to myself: who better to speak with than someone who’s seen it all firsthand?’

‘Right,’ Anders said. ‘After at least a year’s worth of refugees pouring in, the Viscount decides to form a committee just now to deal with the problem. Very timely of him.’

‘It wasn’t the Viscount, actually,’ Garrett confessed. ‘It was more the Viscount’s son. And it wasn’t initially meant to be about the Fereldans—the boy has a fondness for the qunari way of living, you see; it’s all very Hightown of us—but I convinced him he’d be better off starting small.’

‘Starting small,’ Anders repeated. ‘With Darktown.’

‘Did I mention I’d be buying?’ Garrett asked.

*

A few miles of incredibly awkward conversation later, and Garrett had himself his very own audience with the free healer from Darktown.

Anders pressed himself comfortably enough into the corner at the back of the Hanged Man’s taproom; Garrett had deliberately chosen a table out of the way, where there was less chance of a bar fight erupting around them. Less chance of anyone he knew catching sight of them, too. The Hanged Man had a way of attracting people who wanted nothing more than to make your business into their business, then turn a profit on it, and Garrett was more than happy to avoid lining their pockets.

‘So…’ Anders said, cradling his jigger of whiskey carefully between both hands, like he was afraid it was going to crawl away from him. With Corff’s Thursday brew, you could never be too safe.

‘So,’ Garrett agreed. Being back in the Hanged Man had to bode well for him. Here, he was in his element. He could revert to his usual charming self. Not quite the same as a garden party, but equally comfortable.

‘Not to seem paranoid, but… Am I allowed to ask how you heard of me?’ Anders asked. ‘If you know about what I do, then presumably you also know why I’d be keen to avoid notoriety. Not that I’m ungrateful for the acknowledgment, or the free drink. Whatever this drink may be. It’s just a bit of a…sensitive topic.’

‘The templars will never hear of you from me,’ Garrett promised.

‘I can’t actually count on the fingers of both hands the number of times someone has said that to me and lied about it,’ Anders told him.

‘You can’t count?’ Garrett asked. ‘That’s dreadful. I’m sorry to hear it.’

Anders made a face, not exactly sour, not exactly disgusted, but not exactly impressed, either. It was half-way between a grin and a frown and didn’t know which direction it wanted to end up choosing. Garrett flashed some teeth but the smile lacked its usual edge, and Anders turned his attention to the whiskey in his hands instead.

‘And then, of course, there’s always the possibility that you’re trying to poison me,’ he went on, taking an ample whiff. Garrett winced; he should have warned him not to do that, no matter how tempting it was. Anders’s face wrinkled up, and he turned a few interesting colors, but without hesitating he took a long pull of the drink, and moaned, and hesitated, and suddenly looked delighted. ‘This is…tremendously terrible.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Garrett agreed. ‘It’s the worst you can find anywhere.’

Anders took another, less tentative sip. ‘The worst I’ve ever had. Maker, that hits the spot.’ He shook his head, hair coming loose from its tie, his whole body trembling from the impact of the flavor, but he was holding up admirably against the worst Corff had to throw at him. For someone who didn’t look like he’d had a decent meal in days, it wouldn’t be surprising if the actual alcoholic contents of the drink suddenly crept up on him, taking him down in one fell blow. Or maybe Wardens had excellent tolerance? Garrett had done his best to tune all the stories about his cousin the hero out, so he really didn’t know. ‘They don’t serve terrible whiskey in the Circle,’ Anders continued, looking downright pouty, ‘so it’s something of a delicacy for those of us who finally get a chance to taste it.’

‘Wouldn’t know anything about that,’ Garrett said, light and blithe. He lifted his tankard. It was time to change the subject. ‘To committees, then?’

‘To awkward toasts,’ Anders agreed. Then, he added, ‘And to drinking poison, apparently.’

*

As expected, Anders got very drunk very quickly; though he’d been in Kirkwall for a year, as he’d said, all the healing and looking after refugees and running from the templars had kept him busy enough that he’d never made it into the Hanged Man’s part of Lowtown. And, luckily for Garrett, Anders was a chatty drunk—he told a long and complicated tale about a cat he’d had, one Garrett’s cousin had given him, who kept getting into trouble in the Deep Roads, as one would expect when you brought together two such natural enemies as cats and darkspawn—and Garrett listened to his stories with unprecedented fascination. Half of them made no sense, and Garrett would’ve wagered good coin that almost all of them were mostly or completely fabricated, but Anders waved his fingers when he spoke, and his voice slurred delightfully on the word darkspawn, and it was all very appealing.

‘Well, well, well,’ Varric said, interrupting the blissful moment, and completely ignoring the dark look Garrett shot his way as he pulled up a seat without being invited. ‘This is different from your usual type, isn’t it, Hawke?’

‘Oh look!’ Anders said, clapping his hands. ‘It’s a dwarf with no beard. At least I hope it’s a dwarf with no beard, because if it isn’t then my eyes need to be checked. …Or I’ve just insulted a very short person.’

‘Varric Tethras, at your service,’ Varric said, a little too smooth.

‘My very own dwarf for services!’ Anders crowed. ‘I love the Hanged Man.’

‘What’s not to love?’ Varric asked.

The picture that Anders was painting of himself was one of a very lonely person, desperate to talk to someone, probably equally desperate to have the break from his usual nighttime business. He went over some of his aforementioned stories now that Varric was there, and—just as Garrett suspected—certain key details changed, becoming even more ludicrous, but Varric ate the whole thing up with magnanimous good-nature, while Garrett took more and more liberal pulls from his own refilled tankard.

‘…which is when I said, no, no no, no more,’ Anders finished, bringing his palms down hard against the table. His own tankard jumped with the force, sludge slopping out over the brim and staining the wood. ‘And, in my infinite cleverness, I thought, well, everyone’s doing it these days; why not? I’ll go to Kirkwall!’

Varric shook his head. ‘If only you’d read the literature first.’

‘But,’ Anders continued, turning back to Garrett and fixing him with a wonderfully cross-eyed smile, ‘there are committees here.’

‘The good kind of committees,’ Garrett added. ‘Not the I Don’t Like Anders Very Much ones.’

‘So I’ve heard,’ Varric said. ‘But you know committees never get anything done, right? You might not want to get mixed up with one, undo all the legitimacy you’ve worked so hard to establish in this city.’

‘Don’t worry, beardless dwarf,’ Anders said, ‘I am feeling incredibly legitimate right now.’ Then, without further warning, he threw up under the table.

*

‘It happens all the time,’ Garrett assured him, walking him back to the clinic despite his embarrassed protests that he didn’t need a chaperone, and also, that he wanted to crawl into a back alley and die of shame. ‘Corff’s whiskey is something a man has to develop an immunity to over time. Over a very, very long amount of time. You can’t just dive in like that unless you’re built on the inside like a qunari.’

‘But also,’ Anders said, a little more sober now, ‘I have something to admit, Garrett Hawke, and it is this: I cannot hold my liquor.’

‘No,’ Garrett replied, attempting to sound shocked. ‘I never would have guessed that.’

Darktown was just as charming by night as it was by day, since there really weren’t many places there where you could tell what time it was anyway. A few of the refugees appeared to recognize Anders and Garrett didn’t know what to do with that specific kind of attention, people smiling, seeming unreservedly and unapologetically grateful, as though they truly thought Anders was the Hero of Ferelden and not Cousin Amell. Anders was pleasant to them and didn’t balk at being treated like a martyr, but things never became too overt, since even his greatest admirers seemed to recognize the need for being conspicuous.

There were a few people waiting outside the clinic when they arrived, as well, and Anders did his best to tie his hair back, smoothing out the front of his coat, wincing when his thumb caught on a hole.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘How do I look?’

Garrett leaned forward, tugging a vomit-stained feather off his shoulder and flicking it away. ‘Like…a…’ For the first time, he was unable to think of something suitable.

Anders waited, at first tentative, then slumped and rolled his eyes. ‘Indescribable. I see,’ he said. ‘No—better that you don’t say anything at all, isn’t it?’

‘I’m usually far more charming than this,’ Garrett said.

‘If you have to point it out, generally, that doesn’t bode well for you,’ Anders observed.

‘Don’t insult me like that—not in front of the refugees,’ Garrett said. Now that Anders had appeared, the group gathered in front of the clinic was growing, people trickling in either by themselves or two by two. There was a boy with a dirty bandage wrapped around his leg, and a woman with a rasping, endless cough who made Garrett feel contaminated just by being in the same space as her. He needed to get away. All this Darktown air was making him woozier than whatever Corff had served him, and twice as brainless.

‘Right,’ Anders said, reaching up to light the lantern above the doors. He did it so quickly that Garrett couldn’t tell whether he’d used flint or magic.

An appreciative sigh went up from the crowd. Garrett had never seen someone work a group like Anders did with so little effort. He hadn’t even done anything—just lit a lamp. Even the mummers hired for garden parties didn’t hold attention so effortlessly. It wasn’t that Anders had an imposing air, and it certainly wasn’t his magnificent presence; he was merely working for the good of people beyond himself. It was noted, and appreciated, and rewarded in kind.

That almost never happened, in Garrett’s experience.

Saemus could learn a lot from him. The Viscount could probably learn a lot from him, not to mention everyone else.

‘I suppose I’ll see you around, then?’ Anders said lightly. He unlocked the doors, then glanced over his shoulder to look at Garrett. Maybe it was the poor lighting, or his recent nausea, but it almost seemed as though his expression was hopeful.

‘Certainly,’ Garrett said without thinking. ‘There’s a lot more we could discuss. …Maybe you’d like to have dinner sometime?’

‘Oi,’ called a refugee, passing by as he filtered into the clinic with the others. ‘You want to flirt, do it on your own time. My boy’s arm near fell off thanks to that mining job he took, and you want to stand around distracting the only healer who’ll take the time to see us? Why don’t you just piss off.’

Anders coughed, hiding the quirk of his lips behind one hand. ‘I’ll be with you in a moment, Fingal. You have my word.’

‘I can assure you that the committee was not formed with flirting in mind,’ Garrett said, after the man—and his righteous anger—had passed into the clinic.

‘You don’t say,’ Anders murmured. There was a flush in his cheeks, no doubt from his strenuous night of drinking and vomiting. ‘Even I can’t imagine the nobles in Hightown have quite so much free time as all that.’

‘We come close, some days,’ Garrett told him. ‘But I prefer to keep all of my flirting unofficial.’

‘Good to know,’ Anders said. He seemed distracted now by the refugees, preparing himself mentally for a night of what had to be utterly exhausting work. Garrett was tempted to stay and watch again, but he’d already made himself too visible here. Even if people thought his fixation was on Anders and not his magic, it was still too risky.

He hadn’t been careful for twenty-two years just to throw it all away now.

*

‘Varric tells me you’ve been spending time with a known apostate,’ Aveline said, coming up on him like a bad hangover.

Really, that was what Garrett got for hanging around the barracks. He’d been looking for a delightful fellow he’d made the acquaintance of while trawling the Hightown markets—Lieutenant Jalen always made it so much more entertaining to run errands for Mother. But Garrett’s luck seemed to have taken a permanent vacation from Kirkwall, with no word of when it would be returning, and it wasn’t the delightful lieutenant he’d found, but rather the not-so-delightful Guard Captain who’d found him.

Wasn’t that always the way?

‘Since when are you and Varric having conversations without me there?’ Garrett asked, hoping to throw her off the mark early. Enough feinting and it was possible to make a person forget they’d ever wanted to speak with you in the first place. ‘You need a chaperone with that dwarf, Aveline; he’s a menace.’

‘Since he started petitioning me to help him steal ownership of the Hanged Man,’ Aveline said. ‘And I daresay I can take care of myself, Hawke.’

‘Then I daresay I can do the same, Aveline,’ Garrett said, with his most winning smile.

‘Hmm,’ Aveline huffed. Something about being in her presence made Garrett feel as if he understood intimately what it must have been like to face down an ogre in Ferelden. Tension was hidden in he every well-oiled joint, like a crossbow ready to fire. When she made up her mind to loose arrows, Garrett wanted to be as far away from her as possible. And hopefully behind a very large shield. ‘Do not think to take advantage of Saemus Dumar’s…’

‘Idiocy?’ Garrett supplied.

‘Mind your tongue,’ Aveline retorted sharply. ‘That’s the Viscount’s son you’re talking about.’ Then she sighed, crossing her arms. ‘Yes. His idiocy. He’s a good lad who’s fast becoming just about as unpopular as his ideas. The last thing he needs is some layabout noble taking advantage. Do you hear me?’

‘Loud and clear,’ Garrett promised. ‘You needn’t worry. This latest venture isn’t costing him a dime.’

‘I wonder,’ was Aveline’s crisp reply.

There was no love lost between them, and Garrett made a note that Lieutenant Jalen would now have to be met solely in the Hightown marketplace, and not on home ground. It was also growing increasingly more tempting to meet Saemus elsewhere, since the combined forces of Aveline and Seneschal Bran—two tremendously different people who nonetheless managed to be united in their shared opinion of Garrett—were making the Viscount’s Keep a dangerous place for him, these days.

Fortunately, Saemus was more than willing to join Garrett at the Hanged Man, neutral turf that Seneschal Bran wouldn’t be caught dead setting foot in, and which Aveline only occasionally visited, truly believing her presence would keep its patrons on the straight and narrow. It gave Garrett the advantage, and it gave Saemus some timely life experience, and it gave Varric a good laugh that, according to him, he really needed, what with Lowtown being so full of shit-thrifters these days.

Garrett knew better; he was more than certain that Varric had taken a liking to the lad, sweet and serious as he was. He’d also taken a liking to Anders, and had nicknames for both of them: Saemus was Porcupine, and Anders was Blondie, and Garrett was extremely offended.

‘Why don’t I have a nickname, Varric?’ he asked.

‘Because you’re doing just fine without one,’ Varric replied.

The first meeting of Saemus and Anders was a tricky one to navigate; there was only so much Garrett felt was his place to tell, and Varric was equally cagey, an excellent partner when you didn’t want somebody to know everything right away. Saemus and Anders shook hands and Garrett did his best to make Anders sound mysterious and self-sacrificing while introducing him, and Saemus’s eyes filled with the very stars from the sky while both he and Varric took notes.

‘Don’t look at me, Hawke,’ Varric said. ‘This whole thing’s gonna make a good story one day—you mark my words.’

Fantastic, Garrett thought. He drove a mean bargain and he fancied himself a bard. The next thing he knew Varric was going to reveal he was also a blood mage, and a dragon, and the Witch of the Wilds.

‘And I just want to be certain I’m not getting any of the details wrong,’ Saemus explained. ‘You say—you offer your services to the refugees free of charge?’

‘Every time someone repeats that, I feel more and more insane,’ Anders admitted.

‘Well, you are,’ Garrett said, garnering a sour look from everyone, because it hadn’t exactly come out as charming as he’d meant.

They talked business for a while, with everyone dancing around the topic of what it was Anders really did, until Saemus finally started getting suspicious. Who wouldn’t? All he knew so far was that Anders did something good for Darktown’s ever-expanding refugee population, and they were all very grateful to him for it, and it was a service no one else provided, yet the specifics were all murky, with everyone coughing and clearing their throats whenever it was brought up. But just before Saemus opened his mouth to ask what Garrett knew would be the unavoidable question—Anders, I beg your pardon, but are you a wanted apostate operating outside of Circle jurisdiction? Because if you are, I find that rather disturbing—some real dancing started up, with a few travelers playing the spoons and a wheezing old accordion in the far corner by the fire. Immediately after the music began, so did a barfight, and they all wisely snuck out the back entrance while Varric provided cover for them with Bianca.

‘What is that thing he was shooting with?’ Anders asked.

‘The love of his life, apparently,’ Garrett replied.

‘How curious,’ Saemus said. ‘Is the Hanged Man…always like this?’

‘So I’m led to believe,’ Anders said. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’

‘It truly is,’ Saemus agreed.

After that Garrett walked Anders back to Darktown again—it was ridiculous how many times he’d gone there now, especially when he didn’t have to—while Saemus split off and went back to Hightown straightaway. To, as he said, make sense of all this, and create ‘a proposal his father would have to take heed of.’

‘He seems like an…honest person, anyway,’ Anders said, a bit apprehensively. ‘There are very few of those anywhere, but I’d say especially in Kirkwall.’ He chewed at his lower lip. ‘But I do wonder how wise it is to involve politicians. Ever, generally, but also considering…who I am…’

Garrett attempted to think of the right, comforting, helpful thing to say, or, barring that, at least something marginally witty.

‘Are you always this self-centered?’ he managed, which was obviously the exact opposite of what he’d been looking for. Well done, as always. Even running high on a barfight and Corff’s finest, his charm wasn’t working the way it should. Maybe it was broken; maybe Anders had broken it. He knew it wasn’t an apostate thing, either, because he was always able to be perfectly fascinating in his conversations with Bethany. She practically adored him. ‘Try thinking about something other than yourself for a change.’

Anders gave him an odd look—which was rather justified, considering what an ass Garrett was being—then chuckled halfheartedly. ‘My apologies. I suppose it does give one an overinflated sense of their own importance when they get singled out to do work with a committee and everything.’

‘Maker, if I never hear that word again it would be too soon,’ Garrett groaned.

‘It does have a certain bureaucratic stuffiness to it,’ Anders admitted. He grimaced slightly as they passed into Darktown, that precise threshold where they ducked underneath a moldy plank and the stench hit them all at once. Garrett didn’t exactly blame him. The place was basically built into the sewers, and the only thing that cleared the streets of rats was the chokedamp rolling in.

That was the cause of the Fereldan refugee woman’s cough, as Garrett had later discovered. The air in Darktown often wasn’t air at all, which of course explained the very poor smell.

All in all, it was the perfect place to set up a clinic.

Garrett walked Anders to his front door, stepping nimbly around a drunk and a dog curled up at the foot of the stairs, offering a hand to Anders without thinking, which Anders accepted equally quickly. Thankfully, it was late enough that there was no one crowded in front of the doors, although Anders hesitated in turning his key.

‘Were you…serious about dinner before?’ He glanced at Garrett sidelong, before becoming very interested in his doorknob. ‘I find it difficult to tell when you’re making fun of me, and since we were interrupted before, I couldn’t be certain…’

‘I thought that was just your very polite way of avoiding the topic,’ Garrett confessed.

‘No; I’m not at all clever enough to arrange something like that beforehand,’ Anders said. When he smiled, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes grew more pronounced. It seemed to indicate, to Garrett, that he was indeed clever enough. ‘And refugees are notoriously difficult to organize. Like trying to herd cats, I’d say.’

‘I’ll see you at eight, then,’ Garrett blurted. Normally he liked to wait for the other party to make their assumption first, but apparently he wasn’t at his best tonight. Or any other night, when Anders was involved. Maybe he had some sort of arcane aura that was interfering with Garrett’s natural thought process.

Or maybe it was just all the committeeing.

*

Three things occurred to Garrett as he made his way from Darktown, fake daggers on his back and a spring in his step. One, he was going to have to tell Mother; two, he was going to have to tell Bethany; and three, Anders was going to come to Hightown wearing what he always wore, and that, before anything else, was going to be an unmitigated disaster.

Did he even own other clothes? Garrett had never seen him wearing anything besides that hopelessly patchwork coat, complete with what had to be dozens of dead pigeons perched on his shoulders. He was also rather suspicious that the laces in Anders’s left boot were broken, and he was holding the leather together with bandages, as though that was an acceptable substitute for simply buying himself a new pair.

It was one thing to hold a person together with bandages, but the method tended to lose its charm when applied to clothing. It didn’t matter to Garrett, of course, but people in Hightown loved nothing more than to stand around and talk about their lessers.

At least their estate was removed from the other manors. The last thing Garrett needed to hear before dinner was the Comtesse de Launcet’s well-pitched shriek at the sight of Anders, dressed as he was, marching up the walk like a scarecrow come to life.

Nothing ruined Garrett’s appetite faster than an Orlesian noblewoman going into a fainting spell.

*

‘There you are,’ Bethany said, finding Garrett the following afternoon. He’d taken refuge in the study with Father’s library to steel himself for the coming evening. Even their books were startlingly, even painfully normal; no one would ever guess that the Amell estate housed three apostates, because they’d all taken such great pains to hide the truth beneath a lovingly crafted façade of stultifying boredom. Maybe having Anders over was Garrett’s own small form of rebellion, albeit a belated one. ‘I don’t suppose you can tell me what’s going on? Mother said you invited a guest to dinner, and I can’t think of anyone you’d go out of your way to eat with.’

‘It’s Saemus Dumar,’ Garrett said, not looking up from a tome of Elvish lore. ‘I’ve decided to give the pair of you my blessing.’

‘Garrett,’ Bethany said. ‘I don’t think that’s very funny.’

Garrett still refused to look up. ‘But I do,’ he said, and laughed to prove it.

‘Everyone knows what to make of your sense of humor.’ Bethany dropped to the ground in front of him, chin on his knees, staring up into his face with unflinchingly innocent eyes. ‘Can’t you at least give me just a little to go on? …It’s not really Saemus, is it? I thought you hated him.’

It was impossible to lie to her when she was like this, and, even worse, sometime after her fifteenth birthday she’d realized she could put such a natural gift to her advantage. Unstoppable, a force to be reckoned with. Garrett sighed. ‘I don’t hate Saemus,’ he corrected. ‘I make fun of him. There’s a difference.’

‘Carver doesn’t seem to think so.’ Bethany folded her hands beneath her chin, the beginning of a triumphant grin underneath all that innocence. ‘Now stop distracting me. I want to know everything!’

‘Everything, is it?’ Garrett arched a brow. ‘And here I thought you wanted just a little. Your story’s changing awfully quickly.’ Bethany dug her chin into his kneecap, hard, and Garrett winced and yelped and put his book aside. Bethany’s chin was incredibly sharp, practically a weapon; Garrett was too young to be injured in this fashion. ‘Fine—ow! Fine. Fine. Stop hurting me with your face. If you must know, I’ve invited someone much more interesting than the de Launcets and Saemus Dumar and the seneschal and all of Carver’s dull templar friends put together. Not that that’s saying much,’ Garrett added, doing his best not to grin right back, ‘but still. I think you’re going to like him.’

‘But who is he?’ Bethany asked.

‘Just someone,’ Garrett said vaguely. ‘Someone I met in, ah, somewhere. A Grey Warden. No one too important.’

Bethany’s expression lit up for all of a second, then settled into a frown just as quickly. ‘Well you don’t need to be rude about it. If you want it to be a surprise, you can just say so.’

‘Oh,’ Garrett promised her, ‘you’ll be surprised. Trust me.’

*

Bethany didn’t trust him, but she was surprised. In fact, they all were, including the hounds, whose unpredictable fits of barking made Anders jump irresistibly every time. That and all the tales of the incomparable Ser Pounce-a-lot made one thing clear, at least: he definitely wasn’t a dog person.

All in all, Mother was shocked by what Anders was wearing—though Garrett saw, with some relief, that he’d found the boots a mysterious benefactor had left for him, and the only bandages he was still wearing were the ones wrapped around his forearms. Father was shocked that Garrett actually knew someone he could introduce as a friend, and Bethany was simply shocked, spending the first fifteen minutes of their conversation just staring. Very rude of her, as far as Garrett was concerned.

‘And you’ve met my vocally challenged sister,’ Garrett said, some of the comfort of being home allowing him to relax just a little more than usual. This was his world, his life, his realm as some intolerable types liked to say, and surely that would make a difference in his recent inability to sound like a human being whenever he opened his mouth. ‘A terrible accident, really. One of the dogs ate her tongue when she was very little. If only we’d had a good healer back then…’

Bethany kicked Garrett, very hard, in the shin—so hard it made tears spring to Garrett’s eyes—but the joke did get Anders laughing, and it also broke the ice.

‘What I don’t understand is where someone like you could have met my brother,’ Bethany said, elbowing Garrett out of the way to pour Anders a brandy.

‘Someone like me?’ Anders asked, with a self-deprecating arch of his brow, and Bethany flushed.

‘Someone decent, I mean,’ Bethany explained. ‘Someone who isn’t completely awful.’

‘Just a little awful, then,’ Anders suggested. ‘That’s…better than I usually hear, actually.’

‘Well,’ Bethany said, ‘you’d have to be, just a little, if you know my brother.’

‘May I have a brandy as well, Bethany?’ Garrett asked, feeling decidedly ignored.

Bethany didn’t even turn to look at him. ‘Go right ahead, brother,’ she said.

Garrett refused to pour himself his own brandy on principle until Bethany sat next to Anders on the couch and continued to ask Anders for his entire life story, beginning from the moment he was born, which seemed rather intrusive, in Garrett’s opinion.

He had to wonder if it was all worth it just to give the man a solid meal. At least he behaved himself when they finally sat down to eat, catching Garrett’s eye whenever Garrett fed the dogs scraps under the table; he only told one of the raunchier Grey Warden stories, about a pungent dwarf who said ridiculous things while inebriated and was, apparently, always inebriated, thereby always saying ridiculous things. Mother and Father laughed, and Bethany laughed even more, and Garrett drank more brandy, and Anders complimented them all on having a lovely home, far better than he deserved to set foot in.

‘Nonsense, Anders,’ Father said.

‘You seem like a very fine young man,’ Mother agreed.

‘What is it that you do again?’ Bethany asked, for—by Garrett’s count—the twenty-third time.

‘Now, Bethany,’ Garrett said, attempting to kick her underneath the table. ‘It isn’t really polite to ask the same question so many times.’

‘Ow!’ Anders said, jerking upright, and Garrett quickly retracted his foot.

‘Bad dog,’ he tutted. ‘Very bad.’

Anders gave him another one of his crooked looks, then turned back to Bethany. ‘I’m…a volunteer. In Darktown, actually. Your brother met me while he was working for that committee.’

‘The one Carver bet me three sovereigns he was making up?’ Bethany was practically glowing. Wasn’t it just her lucky day.

‘No; the committee’s quite real,’ Anders confirmed. ‘And a good thing, too. I think, in the right hands, it could make an honest difference for the refugees.’

‘You work…down there?’ Mother asked. ‘Garrett, you’ve been…?’

‘Not working,’ Garrett said quickly, as if she’d suggested he was murdering puppies and feeding them to orphans. ‘Just…observing. Absorbing. Taking in the sights and smells. Especially the smells. Have you ever been to Darktown, Mother? It has a particular odor.’

‘Oh dear,’ Anders said. A look of tentative realization crossed his face. ‘Have I inadvertently ruined your reputation?’

‘Yes,’ Garrett said. He wasn’t feeling so bad about kicking Anders underneath the table now.

‘Not at all,’ Father insisted, smiling winningly. Mother always said that Garrett had inherited his smile from Malcolm Hawke, but she’d never deigned to mention how irritating it was to see it worn on someone else’s face, not in the mirror. ‘I’d long suspected my son had hidden depths—though I scarcely imagined they extended all the way into Darktown. That’s very deep, indeed.’

‘There’s no extending,’ Garrett muttered. He helped himself to another liberal sip of wine, having graduated from brandy to something red and aged and tremendously expensive. ‘The depths are, in fact, very shallow. And choked with toxic gas.’

‘Oh, he’s just being an idiot,’ Bethany said, rolling her eyes. ‘Don’t you pay any attention to him, Anders. He’s always like this. I can’t imagine how he wound up on that committee in the first place.’

‘I feel rather fortunate that he did,’ Anders admitted. ‘Or else I might never have met you all.’

It was a disgustingly touching moment, one met with a timely interruption as the table rumbled—a hound running into one of its legs in her excitement to get more scraps. Garrett did his best to look innocent, and not at all like his fingers were in danger of being devoured by hungry dogs.

‘You have Saemus Dumar to thank for that,’ Garrett said, spearing a piece of meat with his fork. ‘He’s a lovely boy, Saemus. Bethany’s going to marry him, you know. They’re practically engaged and she’s head-over-heels in love with him.’

‘Brother,’ Bethany said.

‘Well,’ Mother interjected, with just a hint of steel. She had a keen sense of timing, and always knew just when to jump in to prevent a pitched battle from erupting at the table. ‘How lovely. I suppose I’d better call for dessert?’

*

In the end, Anders ate two portions of dessert, and wisely stuck to one glass of brandy for the night. As much as Garrett enjoyed a spectacle, there was a time and a place for such things, and the answer to both was usually the Hanged Man. Garrett liked the place, but he didn’t want—or have—to live there.

After dinner, Father and Bethany all but kidnapped Anders and dragged him into the study, asking him questions about Ferelden and the Wardens and broodmothers and other appropriate after dinner topics that would surely make him eager to come for dinner again. Garrett watched them from the doorway, feeling neither welcomed nor excluded.

All three of them—Father in his armchair, Anders in Garrett’s usual spot and Bethany on the floor in front of the hearth—were hidden apostates. But they looked like anyone else’s family and friends after dinner: the firelight warmed their skin just the same, and Father’s slippers bore chew-marks from the hounds. None of these details were particular to mages. When Anders laughed at something Bethany said, he threw his head back, and Garrett could see a scruffy patch where he’d missed shaving beneath his neck.

Not one of them looked like the danger the templars were always warning about. Garrett felt the ebbing thrum of the magic constantly at his fingertips, and clenched his hand tighter around the goblet of his snifter.

‘You have a wonderful family,’ Anders confided later, when it was time to see him to the door. At least the rest of the Hawkes had seen fit to allow Garrett that small gesture. They’d conveniently made themselves scarce, after remarking at least a hundred times how they wished Anders would come back, and it was so rare for Garrett to have anyone he considered a friend, making Garrett sound depressingly lonely and not at all desirable. He was going to have to speak with them about that.

‘The dogs are all right, I suppose,’ Garrett admitted. ‘The people…’

‘I mean it,’ Anders said, letting his hand brush Garrett’s arm, for emphasis. ‘They’re lovely. I’m still not…entirely sure that I did much good advancing the plight of the Fereldans. I’m afraid I got rather distracted just talking about myself.’

‘Yes; Bethany has that effect on people,’ Garrett assured him. ‘Next time, maybe.’

‘…Next time,’ Anders agreed, slowly. ‘Well! I suppose I’d better get back to my hovel. You never know when the templars might decide to stop by for tea. Or someone could wake up in the middle of the night with their leg down a mine shaft and require emergency care. Actually, that did happen to me, once—’

‘You can tell me on the way,’ Garrett said, leaning back inside to grab his coat. ‘I’ll take you there.’

The last thing he needed was for the templars to snatch Anders up on a night they spotted him leaving the Amell estate. It was just common sense.

*

‘Your sister, I believe, is interested in joining the committee,’ Saemus told Garrett a few mornings later, on their stroll to Lowtown, and Garrett tripped enormously over a loose cobblestone.

Sebastian Vael, whom Garrett was still unable to figure out—whatever it was about him that insisted he attend such dealings when he could have no possible investment in their outcome—had been walking neatly on Saemus’s other side, while Garrett had plucked a bloom off a flowering vine to toy with as he sauntered along. Three of Kirkwall’s most eligible bachelors together—one, technically, not from Kirkwall at all, but according to Bethany there was a great deal of interest in the third prince from Starkhaven of late—and Garrett had been reveling in all the free attention.

At least, until Saemus dropped that firestorm in their midst.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Garrett asked.

‘She seemed quite interested when she dropped by the other day,’ Saemus explained. ‘She was asking me all sorts of questions—another keen mind in your family, Hawke.’

‘How dangerous,’ Sebastian said, with just a touch of humor to flavor his already too-rich accent. ‘If she’s anything like you, Hawke, the results of having two such individuals on the same team, in the same place, could be disastrous.’

For once, they were in agreement on something. Garrett forged bravely ahead, his suspicions about Bethany’s motivations causing him to feel particularly ungenerous. ‘We absolutely can’t have that, Saemus,’ he said. ‘Too many dwarves spoil the armor. Do you see what I’m saying?’

‘Enlighten me,’ Saemus suggested.

Garrett didn’t mind if he did. ‘It’s all too bureaucratic,’ he went on. ‘Once Bethany signs up, that’s all well and good, but then others will think it’s the popular thing to do these days—support the Fereldans; far easier to support than, apparently, the qunari, or the elves, or whatever the latest thing is—and they’ll all want in on it. You’re going to be the next Viscount, after all, and if they have reason to believe joining on will curry favor with you—’ Garrett glanced meaningfully over Saemus’s shoulder, at Sebastian, who was suddenly very interested in studying the cloud formations, ‘—then they’ll think this is the perfect opportunity to start sucking up. Besides, if you let just anyone join, we’ll have to put things to vote all the time, and nothing will ever get done, not to mention the little problem of quality control when it comes to ideas…’

‘She’s your own sister, Garrett,’ Saemus said. ‘Do you really think she’d be that detrimental?’

‘Unpredictably so,’ Garrett confirmed.

Saemus shook his head in wonder. ‘And here I always thought the more interest we could muster, the more powerful our cause would become.’

‘Well, if you really want the time alone with Bethany, surely you could just come to visit. I could even arrange to leave you both together for the duration of the evening, if you’d like; I’m on your side, Saemus,’ Garrett replied tartly, the implications of which made Saemus turn red, and ended the conversation very quickly.

It wasn’t something Saemus brought up again that day, because there were plans to go over, numbers to address, drinks to be shared and then regurgitated by all in the Hanged Man, while Anders described for them how many refugees he looked after in a week, on average. The estimate was overwhelming. Garrett felt exhausted just hearing about it. He noticed the patch on Anders’s neck still needed shaving, and wondered how he could so consistently miss it, and why no one told him about it, none of his best friends the refugees in Darktown. Maybe it was the lack of light; it must have been difficult to shave by a solitary lit lantern while looking over your shoulder all the time for the arrival of templars.

‘It does seem like a lot, doesn’t it,’ Anders said, looking a bit haunted. It was all for show, but Garrett suspected there was also some truth behind it.

‘Here,’ Garrett said, sliding the rest of his drink Anders’s way. He needed it, even if it wasn’t good for him.

‘Why not see if you can raise the funds?’ Sebastian suggested distantly. ‘No doubt others would be willing to volunteer, if the cause is really so just. Perhaps you might enlist the aid of healers from the Gallows, and Saemus could manage to make this less of a side project, and more of a bid for change.’

At the mention of the Gallows, Anders managed to choke on what he’d been about to swallow, and Varric slammed him heartily on the back, making his whole body shake.

‘I’m not sure if that would be…’ Anders attempted, wiping his mouth. ‘I mean, it’s really not…’

‘…The kind of enterprise that would be aided by official interference,’ Saemus jumped in quickly. ‘At least, not anything so obvious. I believe what aids the refugees more than anything is the knowledge that one of their own is helping them, not because he must, but because he can.’

‘Well, that and how everything Anders offers is completely free of charge,’ Garrett added, a little more realistically.

‘Sometimes I wonder if there’s any poetry at all within you,’ Saemus said.

‘Oh, but there is,’ Sebastian reminded him. ‘A veritable whirlwind of rhymes, that Garrett Hawke.’

Garrett affected a half-bow in his seat. What a compliment.

‘Well, as for me, I’m out,’ Varric said. ‘All this talk makes me feel like I’m at a Merchant’s Guild Meeting, and since I only attend those when I absolutely have to, I’m gonna go do something that doesn’t make me feel like banging my head against the wall to make it all stop. Blondie—care to join me?’

‘In banging your head against the wall?’ Anders asked, sliding out of his seat. ‘Varric, how could I refuse?’

*

‘I wonder sometimes if there’s anything I can do to help,’ Saemus said, looking weary, but ever thoughtful. Garrett stopped short of the steps all the way up to the Keep, not particularly in the mood to climb them for what had to be the thousandth time in the past week.

‘Short of sharing your allowance with the donation box?’ Garrett asked. ‘I doubt it. But that isn’t the sort of grand, obvious gesture you’re looking for, is it?’

‘Setting a personal example is often the first step,’ Saemus agreed. ‘But it won’t move people to change. Kirkwall is a city of old prejudices, Garrett. One needs only to visit the qunari compound by the docks to see that. They’ve made no move against anyone, but are hated simply for being here—not somewhere else, where they presumably…belong.’

‘Surely you didn’t need the qunari around to see that,’ Garrett said. ‘There were templars and mages here long before them—not that any of it is my business, of course, but I hear they’ve got a lock on being hated for existing. Mages, I mean.’ He wiggled his fingers illustratively, for emphasis. And hopefully distraction.

A look of deep contemplation crossed Saemus’s face. Surprisingly, it wasn’t all that different from the other expressions he usually wore. ‘You make a fair point. The qunari aren’t the only ones who suffer in the face of the chantry’s teachings.’

‘Now, I never actually said any of that,’ Garrett pointed out.

‘I have found that when it comes to having a conversation with you, Garrett, that it’s far more interesting to pay attention to what you don’t say than what you do,’ Saemus confessed.

‘Sounds dangerous,’ Garrett said, and meant it. The last thing he needed—or more importantly, wanted—was all of Saemus Dumar’s probing attentions focused on him and the things he said. Not to mention all the things he didn’t say, which were even more dangerous.

He wasn’t looking to be anyone’s cause. If he was, he’d be making a stand in the Gallows with the other wretches there.

‘I’ll have to talk some things over with the guard captain,’ Saemus said. ‘She spoke to the seneschal about requisitioning some templars recently, if I’m not mistaken. She may have some valuable insight into how to appeal to the chantry.’

‘You’re going to ask Aveline for advice on how to make a diplomatic overture?’ Garrett asked, barely concealing his horror.

Saemus laughed; it sounded strained, a bit like an old dog being stepped on, but Garrett kept that little detail to himself. Despite his age, it was rare to hear Saemus do something so carefree. Even if he didn’t have any intention of marrying Bethany in the future, it still couldn’t hurt to have him loosen up. For his own good, of course.

‘She has a certain brisk efficiency that I admire greatly,’ Saemus said. ‘It is the same certainty of spirit I’ve found in the qunari.’

‘Probably better not to compare her to the qunari where she can hear it, though,’ Garrett cautioned.

‘Indeed,’ Saemus said. He regarded the steps to the keep, then seemed to make up his mind once and for all to climb them. ‘Thank you for this, serah. As always, you’ve left me with a great deal to think about.’

‘So long as your thinking doesn’t end up starting a holy war,’ Garrett told him.

*

After days of meetings and what was beginning to seem like endless trips to both Darktown and the Viscount’s Keep—no two more different places in all of Kirkwall—Garrett was more than ready to return to a staple of his normal life: Wicked Grace Wednesdays with Varric and whoever else felt man enough to take the dwarf on. Garrett’s pockets were jingling with sovereigns just waiting to be lost in the pot, and this time, when his fingers twitched, it was out of excitement for the cards.

Spending all that time with Anders hadn’t been healthy for him, not just because of Anders’s constant proximity to every single one of Darktown’s diseases. What Garrett needed was a break from apostates and magic. He intended to drink until he couldn’t see straight, then have a helpful, hopefully handsome, guardsman carry him home when he was thoroughly sloshed. There was one such helpful and handsome sort by the name of Donnic who’d been by the Hanged Man a few nights for cards. Garrett had already decided he’d do just fine.

Except when Garrett made his way up to Varric’s room—pausing only to make a pass at Edwina, who rolled her eyes and threatened to call the guard in question—the dwarf was quite alone, standing in the center of his favorite rug with Bianca strapped to his back.

‘Good. You’re here,’ Varric said. ‘I was starting to think I’d have to send out a search party. Or homing pigeons.’

‘There are no more homing pigeons,’ Garrett said, sadly. He had a bad feeling growing in the back of his mind, but he did his best to quell it. No point in worrying unnecessarily until he knew he had to. He’d get wrinkles that way. ‘Anders killed them all to make his coat. Is there a reason you aren’t dealing right now and offering to buy my first drink?’

Varric winced. ‘Funny you should bring up Blondie. We’ve got some trouble.’

‘What kind of trouble?’ Garrett asked. Once again, he reminded himself there was no reason to panic without cause. After all, there was no shortage of trouble in Darktown. The chokedamp could have rolled in unexpectedly. There might’ve been a Coterie brawl that was preventing Anders from opening the clinic. They didn’t know. He couldn’t assume…

‘The kind that starts with a capital t,’ Varric said. ‘And I think you know what else starts with t.’

The words tea party died on Garrett’s lips. It would have been a comeback for the ages, but Garrett simply couldn’t do it.

Templars. The noise from the taproom faded to a dull roar in Garrett’s ears as he thought of their gleaming armor and their polished swords, their somber helms, the foreboding clank of their heavy armor. Every apostate in Kirkwall these days was assumed a blood mage for reasons of safety, thanks to Knight-Commander Meredith. It didn’t matter how much good they did elsewhere, how many lives they saved in Darktown, the way their eyes crinkled at the corners in amusement and self-deprecation when they told a very bad joke.

‘How quickly can you get us to Darktown?’ Garrett asked.

‘Oh, I know a few shortcuts,’ Varric said.

*

Whether Varric considered Garrett a liability or not didn’t exactly come up as they took the back-alleys and more complicated hexes, Varric’s knowledge of the lower city keeping them completely out of sight from any curious onlookers. It was a compliment that Varric would assume Garrett could take care of himself where templars were concerned—a compliment Garrett would be the first to admit hadn’t been earned and probably wasn’t wise. Varric would have done much better to enlist Aveline, whose sword and shield would prove far more helpful, but of course Aveline’s opinion on rules and justice weren’t quite as flexible as Garrett’s.

That might have influenced Varric’s decision.

Garrett had always assumed that the one thing he feared most—when he was forced to be honest with himself—was waking one morning to learn the templars had come for his sister, his father, and then, for him. Yet here he was now, running straight toward them.

It was all very perplexing.

It was also still frightening. Garrett had no intentions of crossing his little daggers with a templar’s heavy broadsword; perhaps Varric would provide cover and Garrett would help, in his own way, by telling a few jokes or lying through his teeth, or whatever it was he presumably did best, if there was anything. Garrett’s skills had always bordered on the vague and unnecessary end of the spectrum. They’d certainly never been employed to help anyone other than himself.

But in Darktown, none of that really mattered. Garrett found himself resenting the refugees he passed—where were they now that their precious healer was in danger? Did their loyalties only extend so far as what they were given? He knew it wasn’t a fair assessment of their character, as a whole; it was more likely they simply didn’t know the man they so admired, so needed, was in any sort of danger. But that didn’t mean Garrett couldn’t still hate them.

There should have been someone with Anders at all times, someone willing to sacrifice his own comfort and safety in order to safeguard his. The work he did was important, too important to squander. And it was selfless, and abysmally stupid, and Garrett realized all too late that he was starting to think like Saemus Dumar—in terms of comparison, of necessity, of good-will and rewards based on merit.

A cold chill passed through him. It wasn’t just the long-buried chokedamp, or the stink of mold on Darktown’s stone walls.

‘And here we are,’ Varric said, coming to a stop in front of a dead end, a cul-de-sac that opened onto a stretch of the river, sunlight blotted out by a jagged cliff-side view.

Garrett looked around, a little wild, then back to Varric. ‘Varric, scenic as this is—’

‘All right, all right; don’t get testy with me,’ Varric said, before Garrett said anything inappropriate. Good dwarf, Varric. He leaned forward and toed open a sewer grating.

Garrett blinked. Smoke—a sickly green color—belched out from the tunnel below. ‘…Down there?’ he asked.

‘Why—afraid to get your boots dirty, Hawke?’ Varric asked. ‘When it’s all said and done, won’t Mother just buy you another pair?’

But Garrett, for whatever reason, and certainly not to prove a point to a beardless dwarf who’d already made it clear he was impossible to impress, climbed in first.

*

It was as one would have expected in the sewers below Darktown: dank, damp, and thoroughly disgusting. Garrett was soaked up to his ankles in something more viscous than water; the stench never once stopped making him gag.

Varric, on the other hand, seemed as at home as he ever did, because he was comfortable no matter where he went, fitting right in from Lowtown to Hightown to everywhere in between. And, apparently, sewers, which weren’t in between, but rather ran much lower. Garrett wouldn’t have been the least surprised if it turned out Varric had actually been born in one; he was even so brazen as to whistle during the slog, a jaunty tune that pretended to keep one’s spirits up but only served to remind Garrett how dire everything was. The cheerful melody coupled with the squelch of his boots as he waded through a river of literal shit was a universal paradox Garrett could hardly miss.

Besides which, it made him nervous.

He felt like a walking target down here, even bathed in darkness as everything was. Garrett couldn’t see his own hands in front of his face, swinging his arms about wildly and even touching the walls to guide him on his way. His palms were slimy, his cuffs soaked, and at any moment the situation might have the gall to get even worse.

Nothing ruined one’s day like a little templar raid.

‘How can one city need so much sewer?’ Garrett whispered, hating himself for the whine in his voice.

‘What can I say? Kirkwall’s got a lot of shit.’

Garrett laughed, but it wasn’t a loud laugh, or a pleasant one. He wanted to find Anders; he wanted the whole templar problem to be one big misunderstanding; and he wanted to know what Anders was even doing down here in the first place, since it wasn’t as though templars or normal people or anything other than giant rats frequented the area.

Then again, Anders had proven himself to be exactly the opposite of normal. Normal people didn’t work tirelessly for the good of others. They looked after themselves first, understanding the fragile social etiquette that depended upon everyone minding their own business because they could trust their friends and acquaintances to do the same. The minute you couldn’t trust someone you knew to look after himself, the whole precarious system fell to pieces.

You started caring. And that was a worse offense than the slime on Garrett’s hands, or the muck under his boots.

Varric’s cheerful whistle died out as the tunnel took a sudden turn, branching into two separate paths. One seemed angled to travel further underground, and the other was obviously made to leave to the surface.

‘That’s new,’ Varric commented with a little sniff—like he really thought Garrett would believe he didn’t know every one of Darktown’s passages inside and out. ‘What do you think, Hawke? You wanna flip me for it?’

‘You aren’t serious,’ Garrett said, rounding on him. ‘We’ll take the left-hand passage.’

‘And what happens if Blondie’s to the right?’ Varric asked. ‘I know you just love traveling in my company, Hawke, and who doesn’t, but let’s face it—you’re gonna have to fly solo on this one.’

‘That’s pointless,’ Garrett said. He was growing nervous about how much time he was wasting by arguing, but Varric didn’t understand. ‘I don’t even have a sword of my own, Varric. These daggers might as well be made of wood. Some rescue that’ll be! I’ll just walk up to the first templar I see and ask him very nicely if he wouldn’t mind lying face-down in shit, shall I?’

Varric shrugged. ‘You’ll have to improvise,’ he said. ‘In fact, I hear you’re pretty good at it.’

There was no way to argue further without making him suspicious. No one feared templars quite the same way a mage did, and his keen awareness of that fact meant Garrett was forced to let the matter slide. He stared at the tunnels critically, before arbitrarily choosing the one on the left once more. Taking the high road, for the first time in his life.

Dwarves presumably fared better underground anyway.

*

They’d only been separated for what felt like minutes before Garrett began to hear scuffling in the dark of the tunnel. It didn’t sound like Varric coming to tell him he was wrong, and that he’d run into a nest of giant spiders and of course they should stick together from hereon out. No, it was the unmistakable noise of plate armor scraping against a stone wall, and the rhythmic clank of boots on the ground as they ran.

Unbidden nausea welled up in Garrett’s stomach, and he did all he could to suppress it. How many times had he heard that very sound in his dreams? In Kirkwall, the templars were more terrifying than the threat of demonic possession. They certainly seemed more real than demons. Mages turned to demons to protect them from templars: that had to say something.

Of the entire family, it was Carver who’d feared abominations the most.

Garrett remained frozen in place, quickly thinking over his options. It was dark in the tunnel. Clearly no one had seen him yet. He could always turn back; no one would be the wiser. No one was even expecting him here, save for Varric, and he could always tell the dwarf he’d gotten turned around, lost in the complicated network of twists and muck. Garrett was a good liar. Everyone said so.

Yet his palms practically itched with the desire that was always hot within his blood: to protect himself, to light the path ahead, because he could, and because it would be so natural. The revered mothers of the chantry liked to say that it was a sin to ignore the gifts the Maker had seen fit to bestow, but they never preached of magic as being a boon. Only a curse.

Someone shouted up ahead; the sudden noise galvanized Garrett into action, and he took off running. Toward danger, for once, and not seeking some way to nimbly avoid it.

He passed another open channel, and a grate that opened onto a sewage drop-off. Someone called out again, and it was louder this time, the voice clearer. It didn’t sound like Anders—one of the templars, quite likely. And wouldn’t it be a hilarious coincidence if one of these templars was Carver?

A bright light flashed off the wall ahead of Garrett, illuminating the wood and stone. Whoever had been calling let out a scream.

‘Shit,’ someone muttered, low and nearby.

‘Surround the apostate!’ a female’s voice barked. Well, that wasn’t Carver, no matter how he screamed like a girl. ‘He can’t get us on every side.’

Now was absolutely the time to run away—if one was planning on running, in any case. But Garrett was not planning on running.

He rounded the corner, heart in his throat alongside the rising bile. There were at least six templars crowded into the open space at the end of the tunnel. They’d backed someone into a corner, and had their shields out, swords poised above them, ready to strike.

Looking around quickly, Garrett saw that there had been eight templars, but two corpses lay smoldering on the ground, their armor twisted and blackened. The smell of their burnt flesh and the warped, hot metal was overwhelming, but Garrett had long since stopped breathing through his nose in the sewers.

‘Don’t—don’t push me!’ said a voice, and Garrett felt something ripple through his body like lightning, white-hot and fierce. It was Anders. ‘Don’t make me do something we’ll both regret.’

‘So it can talk,’ scoffed another of the templars. Between their armored bodies, Garrett could see Anders flagging back against the far wall. He didn’t have his staff, and there was a new hole torn in his coat, probably from a previous scuffle. His hands were raised, face tense, waiting for the blow to come. Clearly, he was prepared to try and take as many templars down with him as he could, but there was no chance of events turning in his favor.

Even Garrett wouldn’t bet on six to one odds.

‘Finish him,’ said the woman. ‘The Knight-Commander doesn’t want any free robes preaching to the housebroken ones.’ Metal scraped against metal as the templars drew back their swords.

‘Wait!’ Garrett yelled. As though that would be a compelling enough argument—but it wasn’t about what Garrett had to say, and rather about what he could do. Danger and disaster were all a part of instinct, and so was defense. Without warning, raw lightning tore out from the center of his chest, through his arms and his palms, arcing like wildfire to elegantly fry the templars who’d half-turned, startled by the sound of his voice. Their bodies seized up like rusted water-clockwork, then fell to the ground like so many useless cogs. Dimly, Garrett was aware of Anders’s eyes widening, and of him throwing up some kind of arcane shield to keep himself safe from the radius.

One of the templars managed to dodge. Also operating on the purest need for defense, he lunged for Garrett with his sword raised, only to be torn apart when Garrett jerked his hands. There was a brief moment during which absolutely nothing happened—no screaming, no blood, only silence—before the blood did come, pooling around crushed metal in the sludge beneath Garrett’s feet.

Garrett’s knees went weak. His body was rather displeased with so much exertion, and the air was still charged with electric power, but more than that was the realization that he had just killed six—six—people, one of whom might still prove to be Carver, and even if none of them was, they were still people, even if they were templars.

Garrett might have known some of them, but he didn’t even have to know any of them.

He turned away from the glow on metal, the crackle and burn of his raw spell, and added to the unpleasant mixture of sewage in the tunnel by vomiting.

How embarrassing. It hurt, and it felt like it was going on forever.

Then, light flared closer to his face. Somehow, Anders was standing over him, rubbing his shoulder. ‘Get up,’ he said, fingers traveling, grabbing Garrett by the wrist. ‘We can’t stay here.’

‘No,’ Garrett agreed, afraid to touch Anders with his hands, ‘because this is a sewer, and it smells very bad down here—’

‘Don’t,’ Anders said. He gave him another tug, hauling him to his feet with more strength than he should have been capable of exhibiting, leaving Garrett to wonder when it was he’d sat down, and whether he was going to have to burn this pair of trousers. He was also afraid to look at Anders’s face, to see what he thought, to confront that combination of pity and fear he’d seen even in his own father’s eyes the day they’d learned what Garrett was—his own father, who was his blood, who bore the same burden, who was supposed to know everything. ‘Don’t,’ Anders repeated, but he didn’t gentle, and Garrett was half-dragged after him, back through the tunnels the way he’d come.

*

The sewers let out in Darktown, where it wasn’t out of the ordinary to see anyone covered in dirt and shit and Maker only knew what else. People in Darktown minded their own business; that was part of the problem Saemus was trying to tackle, but for the time being, Garrett was grateful for it. He was also grateful to be out of the sewer at last, back somewhere that was at least a little bit familiar, though he’d never thought he’d ever harbor fond feelings for Darktown at all, much less be glad to be there again.

He could feel Anders looking at him, thinking; thoughts, as always, were dangerous, just as dangerous as feelings, and when Garrett reminded himself once more that he had neither of those things he couldn’t help but laugh at his own, bold stupidity. But still, despite how embarrassing it must have been for Anders to keep watching him, Anders also refused to stop watching.

Garrett wanted, very badly, to sink like a shade down through the ground in response to such unflinching scrutiny—but that would have taken him back into the sewers, so perhaps it was a terrible escape plan after all.

Instead of saying anything outright, Anders guided him back to the clinic, while Garrett told himself he couldn’t be grateful that the only person who now knew he was an apostate was also an apostate. It wasn’t enough that Garrett had gotten lucky—if you could call everything that had just happened lucky, which Garrett wasn’t sure you could. What if Varric had seen him? What if one of the templars was still alive? Anything could have happened; the secret he’d guarded so carefully since he was thirteen, nearly ten years, almost half his life, was no longer his secret, or his family’s secret.

He fought the urge to vomit again, and managed to win; Anders tugged him through a smaller door close to the clinic’s main entrance, pulling him through a hall so narrow Garrett felt like the walls were caving in on him, and into a quiet, stark sort of room, with stacked bunk-beds in one corner, and an assortment of crates in another.

‘Sit down,’ Anders said, talking to Garrett like he was a child, and Garrett sat, on one of the crates, while Anders found a towel and began to clean him. He rubbed at the dirt on Garrett’s face and in his beard and hair, streaked over his neck, then knelt down to clean his hands—Garrett noticed, dimly, that they were still shaking, and he tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t obey or even listen.

Anders clamped his fingers around Garrett’s wrists, still holding the now very dirty towel.

‘Now,’ he said. His voice was soft and even and gentle, a healer’s voice, the sort of voice you wanted to hear right before dying because it would make you believe everything was going to work out. ‘We should probably discuss a few things, shouldn’t we?’

Garrett opened his mouth, then closed it again, pursing his lips. Even here, in the dark little room in the back of Anders’s clinic, there was no reason to believe it was safe, or private, that someone wasn’t listening.

Anders scooted a bit closer along the floor. ‘Like, for example, that you’re a mage,’ he suggested, assuming wrongly that Garrett needed the help with deciding on a topic.

‘I am not,’ Garrett said. ‘Where would you even get such a ridiculous idea?’

‘It’s the sparklefingers,’ Anders said. ‘It gives us away every time, I’m afraid.’

‘We need to talk about your worrisome hallucinations, more like,’ Garrett told him, all the while trying to drown out the way us sounded. As though he was a part of something, something far more inclusive and important than a committee.

‘You’ve kept the secret very well,’ Anders said. He rested a hand on Garrett’s thigh, as though he didn’t realize Garrett’s thigh was still covered with sewer muck. Anders, too, was still covered with sewer muck. He hadn’t even bothered to clean himself yet. ‘But I know what I saw. Do you think you can’t trust me? The secret’s mine. It’s ours. It’s every apostate’s. You aren’t alone, Garrett—you never had to be.’

‘What were you doing in the sewers?’ Garrett asked, voice cracking.

‘Going for a nighttime stroll,’ Anders said. ‘With some of my oldest friends. Look, Garrett—’

‘Don’t,’ Garrett tried. It had worked so well for Anders in the sewers, after all.

‘This isn’t something you can outrun,’ Anders said, gently. ‘I think I’m a fair example of that, if nothing else.’

‘Very comforting,’ Garrett said. If Anders was trying to make a case for what it might be like to live as a mage, and using himself as an example, then he either had a very poor memory or he was feeling terribly optimistic. No one else Garrett knew had to wade through shit—both metaphorical and unfortunately literal—just to avoid the templars. ‘You don’t understand.’

‘Now that’s not entirely fair,’ Anders began, sounding indignant. A pinched look of frustration passed over his face, and he drew in a breath, squeezing Garrett’s thigh. Something underneath his hand squished loudly. ‘…Fine. Maybe you’re right. I probably can’t understand your exact predicament. I certainly wouldn’t know what it’s like to spend more than half my life hiding my magic. I can’t even imagine how difficult…’ He trailed off, then lifted his eyes to meet Garrett’s. ‘Your parents must know. They…have to know. …Don’t they?’

‘I can’t really answer that,’ Garrett told him. Admitting his parents’ knowledge made them complicit, and he wouldn’t do that. Not to Anders; not to anyone. It was everyone’s secret, and there was no reason for the entire family to suffer just because Garrett had been careless.

He shuddered, clenching his hands into fists as he remembered what had come out of him—what he’d done to those templars.

His stomach heaved, but there was nothing left in it. Anders didn’t even make a move for a bucket. Instead, he shifted his position, abandoning the washcloth to sit next to Garrett. He put a hand on his back, against the big muscle beneath his shoulder-blade, and rubbed up and down. Garrett let out a massive sigh, slumping forward to rest his muck-covered elbows on his shit-covered knees. Something in his chest jolted, like a painful hiccup, but he managed to subdue it with deep breaths. Anders’s fingers kept working as Garrett drew air into his chest, hand traveling down the length of his spine and up again in slow, practiced motions.

‘I’m sorry,’ Anders said, under his breath. It was barely a whisper. ‘I didn’t mean to put you on the defensive, or make you feel backed into a corner. Maker knows—especially after tonight’s fiasco—that’s the last thing I want. You don’t have to answer any of my questions. You just…took me by surprise. That’s all.’

‘Father always said I had hidden depths,’ Garrett quipped bleakly. His voice sounded strained, even to his own ears. There was nothing sadder than someone cracking a joke when he sounded as though he was facing execution; gallows humor was never really Garrett’s thing. And Gallows humor, even less so.

To his credit, Anders laughed softly. ‘And here I thought he was referring to a soft heart, or some other unfashionable characteristic that you keep far less well-hidden.’

‘I resent that,’ Garrett said. He let his hand drift from his own leg, brushing up in thanks against Anders’s thigh. There, he thumbed over the new hole in Anders’s coat, tracing the frayed edges of the fabric.

‘I suppose when you have one very big secret, it makes all the smaller ones seem less important,’ Anders ventured. He glanced sidelong at Garrett, who allowed his expression to betray nothing. ‘Look—I know I said you didn’t have to answer any of my questions, but…would you consider listening to something I have to say?’ Garrett shrugged. Anders continued. ‘Magic doesn’t have to be something you shove under a rock and stop thinking about. In fact, it’s actually rather dangerous if you do that. Without the proper training…’

‘I know how to avoid demons,’ Garrett said raggedly.

‘I won’t ask how,’ Anders said. ‘But there’s so much more to it than avoiding demons, Garrett. You’re denying an entire part of yourself. You won’t be able to keep it hidden forever. Not without understanding how to use it—not without knowing where it comes from.’

‘It comes from the Maker, or so I’m told.’ Garrett raised his eyes to meet Anders’s gaze, not sure whether he was prepared for what he’d see in them. Even now, he was doing his best to regulate control of his emotions. He couldn’t afford another outburst like he’d had in the sewers. He couldn’t want things, with the same clawing desperation he’d felt in those tunnels.

But he was no better at regulating those than he was at his own latent powers. In other words: it wasn’t really working.

‘I’m serious, Garrett,’ Anders told him, brown eyes unflinching. There wasn’t even a hint of wrinkling at the corners. ‘Something like that could happen again, at any time, in a place a lot more populated than the sewers. I don’t know who you learned from, and I don’t want to know, but they did you an injustice. You can’t just scrape by like this.’

Garrett felt exhausted; he felt raw, torn up and stomped on. There was an odd metallic taste in his mouth, and a faint ringing in his ears that hadn’t dissipated ever since the tunnels. He flexed his hands, feeling the promise of arcane fire beneath his skin, just below the life-lines in his palms. ‘What do you suggest?’

*

Magic lessons. Magic lessons. That was Anders’s suggestion, and there was no immediate answer for it. ‘Think about it,’ Anders had suggested, then went to pump some dirty water into a basin for them both to clean up.

The offer followed Garrett all the way home and into the next morning. No matter how stupid an idea it was—and impossible to boot—Garrett couldn’t get it out of his head.

Then again, demons made offers all the time that were presumably just as tempting; it didn’t mean it was ever a good idea to accept them. Garrett took a long bath before he went to bed, then another when he woke, and the grime beneath his fingernails was at least soaked away, even if Garrett might never feel truly clean again.

‘Would you get out of there already?’ Bethany shouted through the door, threatening to knock it down with all her banging. ‘Honestly, Garrett, it’s worse than if I had a sister—a very vain sister!’

Just like always, Garrett thought, and ignored her, sinking deep beneath the soapy water, his feet sticking out over the porcelain rim and dripping suds all over the floor.

The trouble was that everyone in the house was acting as though everything was perfectly normal when it wasn’t—but how could they know it wasn’t if Garrett didn’t tell them? He attempted, over breakfast with Father, to open his mouth and say something, casually, like Well, Father, I became a ruthless killer just last night, everything the templars are taught to fear, everything you told me under no circumstance could I become, and would you pass me another apple? They’re really coming in delicious from Antiva this year, don’t you agree? No matter how Garrett tried to phrase it, the words simply wouldn’t come; there was no way to soften the blow, and no need, as far as Garrett saw it, to make his family worry when they didn’t know the whole story and might get the wrong idea.

As badly as Garrett wanted his father to tell him that what he’d done had been the right thing, he had a feeling Father wouldn’t see it that way at all. Why have you ruined our lives? was a phrase that kept coming to mind, and the more Garrett stalled—the more Father talked about how nice the weather was, and mentioned how glad he was Garrett was finally branching out a bit beyond the usually poor company he kept, and asked him how that special committee was coming—the more difficult it became to say anything, until finally it was impossible, and that was the end of that golden opportunity.

Anders had said he’d done the right thing. Earnestly, whole-heartedly, with a sincerity in his voice no Hightown noble could ever achieve. It just wasn’t natural to them. ‘They’re templars,’ Anders had explained. ‘No templar is ever quite right, but most of the ones here—you have to know this—happen to be rather insane.’

‘Especially my brother,’ Garrett had replied. ‘Who’s also a templar. As you may recall.’

So far, there was no news of Carver being dead, and Garrett felt relieved, along with a lot of other things. Most of those feelings gave way to guilt eventually, to the point where he had to pour himself a stiff drink before noon. Mother caught him at it, and said ‘Oh, Garrett,’ in that disapproving voice of hers, which was when Garrett knew he had to get out of there, and make a poor impression on the people he didn’t have to live with instead of the ones he did.

Except Garrett wasn’t quite ready to see Varric just yet; he had to work at least a full twenty-four hours on a suitable lie for him. Presumably Varric hadn’t found the templars, since, well, Garrett had found them, and for all he knew the dwarf was still slogging through the sewers and having the time of his life about it. There was absolutely no way Garrett could tell him the truth, so he’d have to come up with a convincing story that made him seem like the incompetent bastard he was supposed to be. Then, he’d have to make sure Anders knew the story, too, so their stories would match—but talking to Anders meant he’d need an answer for Anders, and he didn’t have one yet, and it was all going to give him a tremendous headache.

It was a cold day in Kirkwall indeed when Garrett’s best choice to spend the day was—of his own accord—visiting Saemus Dumar, but there was only one person in the world left who might make him feel better about himself, and that was Sebastian Vael.

The poor man was still laboring under the misimpression—and Garrett did think he had it all figured out now—that siding with Saemus would give him some kind of political clout back in Starkhaven, especially when Saemus finally ascended the Viscountship. Sebastian was in this part of the Free Marches looking for allies, perhaps for himself, perhaps as a bid for one of his brothers, and as thanks he’d been dragged along to the most wretched parts of Kirkwall proper. Now all Garrett had to do was convince Saemus the conditions in the local mine, flavorfully called ‘The Bone Pit,’ were unacceptable, and watch as Sebastian continued to make his good impressions all the way through treacherus mine-shafts filled with shambling corpses and giant spiders.

The thought warmed Garrett to his very soul. His smile was almost convincing when he caught sight of himself in a guard’s polished breast plate.

‘Aveline,’ he said, as he passed her by on his way to speak with Saemus.

‘Hawke, we need to talk,’ Aveline began.

‘I would, Aveline, really, you know I’d drop anything, but I have a meeting with Saemus, and it’s so important, and I’ll speak to you after maybe, yes, very good,’ Garrett said, dealing with her the same way he would with a tenacious dwarven merchant: by not stopping, and keeping his gaze fixed forward, refusing to make eye contact.

He made it to Saemus’s favored spot in the Keep without any further incident, only to find him with Sebastian, both of them in a heated discussion in which the words ‘qunari’ and ‘cause’ were heavily and frequently invoked.

‘Why, Sebastian!’ Garrett said cheerfully. ‘You almost look as though you care about something you’re saying.’

‘Hawke,’ Sebastian said, with a nod of his head. He seemed to be gaining resilience, at least against Garrett’s usual attack; he was going to have to shake things up a bit soon, keep the man from getting too complacent. ‘And a good morning to you, as well.’

‘Garrett,’ Saemus said, having the audacity to look relieved. ‘I heard there was some trouble last night. But you’re quite all right?’

Garrett turned in a neat circle. ‘All my limbs and everything,’ he said. ‘Why—who told you? Aveline hasn’t gone sweet on me, has she?’

Sebastian snorted, and Saemus said, ‘No, that’s not…very likely. It was Varric, actually.’ By means of explanation, he added, ‘We keep in touch. But it’s good to see you’re well today, serah. I knew it couldn’t have been serious. There is the air of nothing serious about you.’

‘I’m glad to see it comes across,’ Garrett said.

‘We were just about to visit the qunari compound,’ Sebastian added innocently. ‘Perhaps, Serah Hawke, you would like to join us?’

Oh, he was a wily one. Garrett was caught, without even the pretense of a reason for why he couldn’t come along. He’d shown up at the Keep, which was just as good as signing his entire day over to Saemus. Maybe he had been looking for a distraction, but Sebastian had no way of knowing that. He was just being spiteful.

Anything to keep from suffering alone.

Garrett was going to remember that for later. He’d have his revenge in one form or another; the Bone Pit wasn’t going anywhere.

*

For all he’d heard about the qunari compound—and that was a great deal, thanks to Saemus—Garrett had never actually been inside it before. It was a walled-in enclave at the docks, blocked off by a high wooden gate, though it was unclear whether the gate was meant to keep them in or to keep passersby out.

Judging by the qunari standing guard on the outside, they had their own ideas about it. Wisely, no one had yet volunteered to argue with them.

‘I have business with your Arishok,’ Saemus declared bravely. He didn’t appear to be at all bothered by the fact that the qunari he’d addressed was nearly twice his size. He was a good, if very strange man, Saemus. His bravery would either make him popular, or get him killed.

The odds were still too even for Garrett to lay money on them.

‘Enter if you must, basra,’ the qunari said.

The gate opened, and Garrett stepped through it, trailing Saemus but just ahead of Sebastian. The inner workings of the compound weren’t anything particularly notable. In fact, it all looked much like the rest of the docks, save for the lack of sarcastic dockhands and fishy prostitutes. Qunari warriors stood ranged in the limited space, ashen arms crossed over their broad, painted chests. Some wore long, deadly looking spears on their backs, and it was the little details like that which made Hawke think it was probably a bad idea to stare. Saemus hadn’t thought to give them a crash course in qunari etiquette before they’d come. In fact, knowing him, he’d likely planned things this way. No doubt he wanted both Sebastian and Garrett to get the authentic qunari experience: feeling as if they might piss their pants at any moment if the Arishok so much as sneezed.

Did qunari sneeze? Garrett wondered. He had no idea.

The Arishok himself was an intimidating fellow, all the way up on that dais, staring down at them like they weren’t even there. Garrett certainly didn’t envy Saemus the responsibility of speaking with him.

‘Now…’ Saemus said, shuffling the scrolls in his arms until he could pick out the one he was looking for. ‘I’m going to present the Arishok with my proposal for a delegation to visit the Keep—a peaceful exchange of ideas. Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to, but you’re here as my guests; I doubt anyone will bother you.’

‘What fascinating places you’ve lead me to this time, Saemus Dumar,’ Sebastian said. It was clear from the tension in his body that he was on high alert, but he’d been cautioned against bringing his bow. Neither Garrett nor Saemus had come armed, either, although the memory of what Garrett could do should this envoy turn sour was burned fresh into his mind.

It wouldn’t come to that. He would never perform magic in public. Not even to save lives, though there was a voice in his head—one that sounded suspiciously like Anders’s—that wondered whether or not such a promise was true.

‘It is my intent to open minds, serah,’ Saemus said, with the shadow of a smile. ‘What manner of man would I be, if I did not start with my friends?’

‘Friends,’ Sebastian repeated, but Saemus had already turned away, steeling himself to speak to the Arishok with stars in his eyes and a song in his heart.

There were times when Garrett wondered about Saemus’s true parentage. He’d met the Viscount, and it seemed impossible that a man so uninspiring could father a son like this.

‘Shanedan, son of the Viscount,’ the Arishok said.

Garrett tuned out admirably quickly; not after the first word, but the first sentence. He shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned back against the sandstone wall, not even the slightest bit interested in what the qunari had to say. After a moment, Sebastian took a position next to him, though his posture was none so relaxed. There was something about listening to the qunari speak that sent Garrett into a stupor. Three long, deliberate syllables, and his mind was already elsewhere—on the spear-throwers over their heads, or the qunari standing watch over the dockyards. Those little details he nonetheless couldn’t get out of his mind.

‘I was under the impression that this compound was for qunari use only,’ Sebastian murmured out of the corner of his mouth. It was unclear whether he was trying to conceal their conversation from the qunari, or he’d frowned so much over the course of the last few weeks that his face had finally stuck that way.

‘Why, are you thinking about purchasing a home here?’ Garrett asked. ‘The qunari drive a hard bargain, so I’m told.’

‘No,’ Sebastian said, nodding to his left. ‘There’s an elf here. Don’t look—he’s been watching us since we arrived.’

Idly, Garrett allowed his gaze to travel to his boots, then followed a dancing bit of pale debris as the wind tossed it along the ground. Then, still maintaining the appearance of idleness, he lifted his head in the right direction, casting about lazily for the elf in question.

Sure enough, just as Sebastian had described, there was an elf watching them, and he looked like no city elf Garrett had ever seen. He was no servant, the type that scurried through the markets of Hightown for their lords’ and ladies’ shopping, nor the type that stuck to the alienage, rarely even coming out as far as Gamlen’s house nearby. He seemed tense, constantly shifting, wearing armor that Garrett thought looked quite painful: stiff, spiked shoulder-pads and equally cruel gloves. Despite all that, in true elven fashion, he wasn’t wearing any shoes.

Now that, if anything, was a glaring oversight.

All in all, with his white hair and pale Dalish markings and the giant sword strapped to his back—not to mention the fact that he met Garrett’s gaze with a look of such piercing intensity Garrett couldn’t help but flinch—he was a remarkable sight.

‘What do you suppose…?’ Sebastian murmured.

‘I don’t suppose,’ Garrett told him. ‘It makes things so much easier—and besides, I prefer to be surprised.’

Sebastian merely shook his head, and Garrett continued to half-stare, half-avert his eyes. Despite what he’d told Sebastian, he was interested. Not supposing, merely studying. The elf was making it difficult, however, because he didn’t have the dignity to pretend he didn’t notice Garrett watching him. He twitched and moved and shifted his weight from side to side, and all the while he continued to look at Garrett like he was a barrel full of rotten fish—completely useless, and equally foul.

‘Panahedan, son of the Viscount,’ the Arishok finally said, his voice low and sonorous, echoing in Garrett’s chest. ‘You are Basalit-an.’

‘Panahedan,’ Saemus said, without bowing, and to Sebastian and Garrett, with a flush of triumph, he added, ‘I think… Well, I think that went remarkably well.’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Garrett said. ‘Now what about that elf?’

Saemus had no skill for dissembling, and he looked at once without an attempt to be more subtle. Yet he didn’t startle at the elf as Garrett had, and it seemed to Garrett that the elf was less disgusted with him, allowing an imperceptible nod of recognition. ‘I’m not sure,’ Saemus admitted, turning back to them. ‘There are some here who have converted to the qun—elves mostly, so I’m given to understand, and the qunari welcome them. Viddathari. Perhaps he’s one?’

‘He looks more like a bodyguard,’ Sebastian said.

‘And I doubt the qunari need one of those,’ Garrett added. ‘I mean, just look at them.’

Saemus shrugged. ‘The qunari accept those who accept the qun,’ he said. ‘It is something you either understand or do not understand.’

‘And now you’re talking in platitudes, just like our new friend the Arishok,’ Garrett said, steering them out of the compound, which to be perfectly frank was starting to make him feel uncomfortable. It wasn’t that the qunari were staring at him—no, it was that they weren’t staring at him. They didn’t care he was there at all; he might just as easily have not existed.

Being so blatantly ignored wasn’t worse than being hated—Garrett certainly didn’t want to be hated by the qunari—but it inspired a physical reaction close to indigestion. It didn’t sit well with him. Having someone overlook him was one thing; it’d happened to him before. But this was more than a regular shunning. It was closer to an erasure, and it made the fine hairs on the back of Garrett’s neck stand on end.

Naturally, Saemus was completely unperturbed. The whole thing had breathed new life into him, and he seemed to Garrett to have suddenly grown taller, marching through the docks’ winding streets with new purpose.

‘And yet,’ Saemus admitted to Garrett later, ‘I wonder if I’ll have such luck talking to my own father about the matter.’

‘You were able to single-handedly negotiate a meeting with the Arishok himself, and you stand intimidated by a conversation with your own people—with your own father?’ Sebastian shook his head in disbelief. ‘You underestimate your abilities, Saemus.’

But Garrett, despite everything, actually understood his trepidations. People were always so funny like that.

*

‘So,’ Varric said, when Garrett finally decided it was time to drag his sorry ass to the Hanged Man for the necessary follow-up visit. ‘How did the sewers treat you? Heard you did all right by yourself.’

‘Did you?’ Garrett asked, helpfully not answering his question. He lowered himself into the seat across from Varric instead, and toyed with his well-worn deck of cards, something to keep his hands busy and his gaze steadily focused. It was the number one trick for how to keep from having a tell, and Varric would know that and see right through it, but it didn’t matter.

Anyone would be nervous discussing the sewers and a near all-out templar attack. Especially a callow Hightown noble who’d never been a real fight in his life—because watching barfights happen to other people from a safe distance, up the stairs or through a window, really didn’t count.

‘Yeah,’ Varric continued. ‘Blondie said you were pretty hopeless, though. Said he had to save your sorry ass and his, and it made the whole thing ten times harder. Wished you hadn’t shown up at all.’

‘Said all that, did he?’ Garrett asked.

‘Well,’ Varric admitted, ‘I’m paraphrasing.’

Garrett shuffled endlessly. ‘You always do.’

‘Of course,’ Varric added, ‘he was lying through his teeth the whole time, and he was terrible at it—funny, but terrible—but if something special went on down there that’s top secret between you two love-birds, then I’ll just wait until you’re both good and ready to tell me about it.’

‘Varric,’ Garrett said. ‘Oh, poor, befuddled Varric. Did the sewers drive you mad, or does it run in the family?’

‘Just shut up and let me beat you at cards,’ Varric suggested.

*

Garrett, being a giver, did exactly that. No one appreciated all the work he did toward keeping everyone happy. They thought he was selfish; they never realized he did everything for the good of others. Like Varric, for example: how would Varric feel about himself if he didn’t have Garrett to humiliate in public? And Garrett simply allowed it, with a smile on his face and a friendly demeanor. Not many could do that, especially not while incredibly sodding drunk.

‘You’re incredibly sodding drunk, Hawke,’ Varric told him. ‘Why don’t you go find yourself a nice, cozy ditch, huh? It’ll make you feel better.’

‘You’re not my mother,’ Garrett said. ‘You’re a dwarf, is what you are. Be downright upsetting if you were my mother—your chest is far too hairy for polite society. And I’d probably be short.’

‘Those are all very excellent points,’ Varric said, finally relinquishing to a hearty chuckle. ‘And if I didn’t have such respect for your sainted mother, just for raising you on a daily basis, I’m sure I’d be able to come up with a few improvements for your upbringing.’

‘Varric,’ Garrett said, raising his hand, like he was in the middle of a diplomatic convention and required permission to speak. ‘I have something incredibly important to tell you. I must unburden myself—I’ve been holding back from speaking, but I think I’m just going to have to say it outright.’

Varric fixed him with a look of serious contemplation. Either that, or he was doing his damnedest not to laugh in Garrett’s face. ‘Don’t tell me you’re about to confess your undying love.’

‘No.’ Garrett leaned forward. ‘I think I have to leave before I get sick on your rug.’

‘How about you do that?’ Varric suggested, shuffling the cards. ‘Otherwise, I’d have to ask you to walk all the way to Orzammar and back just to get me a replacement. It’s a genuine export from the real undercity.’

‘Is it really?’ Garrett asked, blinking blearily down at the carpet with renewed appreciation. ‘I didn’t know they made rugs out of body odor and nug shit.’

‘Well, I’m pleased as always to be the vessel of your education,’ Varric said. ‘Now scram. Night like this? All the best ditches fill up fast.’

*

Garrett left the Hanged Man, but he couldn’t seem to find his way into a ditch. It wasn’t that all the best ones were taken like Varric had threatened—that lying, exaggerating dwarf—but rather that his legs just kept on moving. They carried him all the way from Lowtown into Darktown, where the air was fetid and warm. It made Garrett cough. He was probably going to develop some manner of horrible, blistering disease from all the time he was spending down there lately. And then he wouldn’t even be able to visit the one healer in Kirkwall whose fault it was in the first place. Rude, that’s what that was. Unfair.

Groups of drunks were sprawled out in the streets, and Garrett got his boot caught under one of them, nearly falling over himself.

‘Sod off,’ the unfortunate man in question muttered, lifting his hand to swat at the air.

Garrett, obliging soul that he was, did just that.

Darktown felt especially blurry tonight. Its staircases and its crowded alleys seemed to smear together into one shit-covered, indistinct landscape in Garrett’s mind. It left him with only a very vague impression of his surroundings, not to mention the direction he was headed in. If Coterie thugs had taken it upon themselves to rob Garrett blind, he probably wouldn’t even have been able to stop them. They’d have been disappointed, though. Varric had made sure to clean out Garrett’s pockets before he’d left the tavern. Varric, just like Garrett, was always looking out for other people.

Garrett was nearly at the top of the stairs, lurching against the splintered banister, when he realized where his traitorous legs had carried him. Maybe it was inevitable. There was only one destination worth heading to in Darktown, and that remained true whether Garrett was drunk or sober. And maybe his condition would make the necessary conversation he needed to have with Anders somewhat easier, too. Garrett could let him down gently about this whole magic thing, and then maybe they could…play cards, or something. He didn’t know. He wasn’t all that certain what Anders did in his off-hours, though he wondered sometimes at night, just before drifting off to sleep.

The lantern wasn’t lit, but that didn’t deter him in the slightest. Garrett knocked on the decaying wood with the flat side of his fist. It wasn’t the gentlest way to announce his arrival, but he already knew Anders wouldn’t mistake him for a templar. The templars never knocked. They’d just kick the door down and be done with it.

After a few seconds of raucous banging—during which Garrett began to wonder whether Anders really had gone out, and if so, where, and why, and with whom—there was an indelicate grunt of annoyance from inside the clinic.

‘We’re closed.’

‘Even for emergencies?’ Garrett slurred.

There was a pause, followed by the sound of the door being hurriedly unbolted. Anders appeared on the other side, looking rumpled and exhausted. There was a glazed look in his eyes that suggested he might have been sleeping.

It was official. Garrett was an ass, and also a bastard, and should have been face-down in a ditch somewhere, and all those other things.

‘Garrett?’ Anders asked. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘I’m avoiding you,’ Garrett announced.

‘I…see,’ Anders said slowly. He stepped back from the door, gesturing him inside. ‘Well, in that case, since you seem to be doing such a good job of it… Perhaps you’d like to come in?’

‘I can’t come in if I’m avoiding you, Anders,’ Garrett told him. ‘That would make no sense.’

Anders looked confused, and also sleepy, a crease along his cheek and a yawn twisting at his mouth. Garrett swayed on his feet. ‘All right,’ Anders said, reaching out to guide Garrett inside. ‘I’ll just forget this little incident, how about that? And you can start avoiding me again tomorrow. Once you’re no longer making a spectacle of yourself in the street.’

‘No; avoidance doesn’t work like that,’ Garrett attempted to explain, stumbling into the clinic, wincing at the sound of Anders throwing the latch behind him. It was dark and the air was close, too warm, eternally smelly; how could anyone sleep down here? Why would anyone want to sleep down here? And really, why did Garrett keeping coming back? ‘You really have to commit. Fully. Wholeheartedly. Forever.’

‘Well, that’s a pity,’ Anders said. He stretched and moved deeper into the clinic, sitting down on one of the many empty cots, rubbing at the back of his neck. His thumb scraped against the stubble on his throat, making a very quiet, very entrancing sound. Garrett propped himself against one of the pillars in the room—more like a cavern, really, something hewn into the very rock—and the world, for a time, did stop spinning.

‘Whassapity?’ Garrett asked.

‘Why don’t you sit down?’ Anders suggested, patting the cot beside him. ‘Less height for when you fall. Oh, believe me,’ he added, covering another yawn with his palm, ‘I’ve had my fair share of tumbles, and they do seem like a good idea at the time, but you always wake up with such bruises in the morning. Bruises on bruises, really.’

‘Will you heal me?’ Garrett asked.

Anders didn’t yawn, but something happened with his mouth, something Garrett couldn’t understand. He stumbled forward to the cot, trying to see, bracing himself on Anders’s shoulders.

‘I don’t know if I can,’ Anders said.

Garrett shook his head. ‘I have no idea what you’re saying.’

‘Most of the time, neither do I,’ Anders replied. ‘So! Why are you avoiding me, Garrett?’

‘I think that’s extremely obvious at this point, Anders,’ Garrett said. His fingers tightened in a handful of feathers. Anders was doing his best to pointedly look everywhere other than Garrett’s face—probably, Garrett realized belatedly, trying to avoid the stink of his whiskey breath—and Garrett laughed unhappily, which he knew as he did it would only make things worse. ‘What were you doing in the sewers, Anders? You never told me.’

For a moment, Anders was silent. This close, Garrett could see the tension in his jaw, the exact, dark color of his stubble, a few flyaway hairs standing on end from the humidity, hair tousled from sleep. His collar wasn’t done up, revealing a stretch of pale throat, a wrinkled shirt beneath the coat. He chewed at his lower lip, which was chapped, and Garrett watched him with a fierce intensity, knowing there was meaning in it, waiting to understand.

Then, Anders said, ‘I can’t tell you.’

Garrett barked another hoarse laugh. ‘Can’t, or won’t?’ he asked. Anders didn’t reply. ‘Because you already know everything about me, don’t you? And I hardly think— I hardly think that’s fair, is it?’

‘Garrett, you’re incredibly drunk—’ Anders began.

‘Of course!’ Garrett agreed.

‘—and as charming as it is, and as much as I wish I was drunk too in this moment, I’m not, which means I still have possession of whatever restraint the Maker saw fit to give me at birth. Not much,’ Anders admitted, ‘but some, and it’s for your own good. Really.’ He reached up to pat at Garrett’s chest, a soothing gesture, but also clearly putting some distance between them. Garrett hated that; he was always only at arm’s length. ‘I can’t tell you.’

‘It’s not fair,’ Garrett repeated. He tried to explain why—that he’d risked his life without second thought to find Anders in those sewers, that he’d risked his safety for Anders’s safety, that he’d likely do it the same way all over again if he could, and now Anders didn’t trust him, and why didn’t he trust him? But nothing came out, just a few hoarse breaths, his fingers spasming against Anders’s shoulders. Anders finally turned to face him, chapped lips and dark stubble and all, looking tired and sorry and the sorry part was the worst, because the more Garrett knew he deserved to be pitied the more he hated getting it.

‘Every mage says that, at some point or another, you know,’ Anders told him.

‘I’m not every mage,’ Garrett said. He bent his forehead against Anders’s, and Anders sucked in a quick breath, his body tensing. Garrett could feel it, something recognizable, a tacit agreement, a shared want, the way a body reacted—no matter whose body it was—to the closeness of another body it was attracted to.

Garrett felt himself take a tumble, just as Anders had predicted.

But he was closer to the ground now than he was before, and he stopped himself along the way, one knee braced against the cot next to Anders’s thigh. Anders held on to the front of Garrett’s vest and Garrett lifted his hands to Anders’s face, fingerpads sweeping over the stubble at last. It tickled. Anders turned his face against the touch, something Garrett hadn’t expected, his lips parting, all of him waiting. Garrett’s eyes widened, the opposite of what they were supposed to do, and because he was—as Anders himself said—incredibly drunk, he crushed his mouth over Anders’s without thinking about what a monumentally stupid thing it would be to do.

Anders whimpered and went limp, so that Garrett nearly fell on him and that wasn’t what he wanted. He struggled to stay up and Anders struggled to hold on and the kiss itself was a struggle, Garrett’s tongue sliding messily along Anders’s teeth.

He was better than this. Normally, he was graceful, eloquent and charming. He could make someone want to kiss him without ever revealing his own feelings on the matter, and if the object of his affections fell down, it was only because they were swooning into his arms.

Anders had him off his game in a bad way. Whenever they were together, it was almost like a demon took possession of Garrett: a spirit of babbling lunacy, which made him say all the wrong things, and do all the worst things. His banter was sloppy. This kiss was even more so.

Perhaps even more shockingly, however, was that Anders didn’t seem to care. His mouth opened under Garrett’s, and the hand in Garrett’s vest dragged him closer, so that they both nearly did fall over onto the cot together. Garrett swayed, and Anders lifted a hand to his face, palm cupping the line of his jaw, rubbing against his beard. His fingers were shaking. Anders’s hands never shook, not when he was healing someone with a wound bad enough to make Garrett feel ill, and not even on the night he’d run afoul of the templars.

It was definitely Garrett’s whiskey breath. Though it’d never taken down a better man than Anders.

He shifted his weight forward, coaxing Anders back onto the cot. Gradually, Anders caught on, though he seemed reluctant to take any action that would move him further away from the press of their bodies, hot, together. He kept a firm grip on Garrett’s vest, tugging him forward as he wiggled back, slipping both knees between Garrett’s legs. In that position, Garrett had to straddle him to get up onto the bed, which wasn’t all that bad a place to be. In fact, he rather liked it. He let his weight rest against Anders, hips rubbing up against the burgeoning curve of his erection trapped beneath his trousers and that tattered coat.

Oh, Garrett thought, but somehow managed to keep from saying it aloud. So he was doing better than he thought.

He rocked his hips again, experimentally, and Anders moaned, fingers scrabbling at Garrett’s vest in a sudden attempt to get it off. Garrett rolled his shoulder, trying to be helpful, though most of what he accomplished was managing to get his left arm hopelessly tangled. Undaunted, he started on the buckles of Anders’s coat with his right hand. They were odd brass loops attached to straps of leather, but once he figured out the way of them, they snapped open easily. Anders’s shirt beneath was worn and impossibly soft; Garrett felt his stomach muscles tense and leap when he touched him there.

He nipped at Anders’s lower lip, and Anders slid an arm around his waist, pinning him close at last.

‘This…’ Anders said, turning his face aside with a gasp. His breath was warm and damp against Garrett’s cheek. ‘This has to be a terrible idea.’

‘Think we should stop?’ Garrett asked. He pushed Anders’s shirt up, bunching the fabric at his chest and rubbing his knuckles over his bare stomach. Anders had a smattering of freckles next to his navel, a trail of pale hair traveling like an arrow beneath, and his skin was impossibly pale.

He shuddered, hips shifting hungrily beneath Garrett’s weight. ‘Maker, no. You don’t have any idea how badly I’ve wanted to do this.’

Only Anders, Garrett reflected, would find it in himself to make such a confession without the excuse of alcohol. There was no one else Garrett knew who could be such a tease in one moment, then so open with his feelings the next. It was strangely indecent. Because of that, it was also strangely arousing.

‘So when you said you wanted to teach me how to use my magic…’ Garrett ventured, fingers slipping lower down Anders’s stomach.

‘This is not what I—’ Anders’s hand clenched in the fabric of Garrett’s shirt at the small of his back. His eyes fluttered momentarily shut as he let out a sharp whine. ‘Those were—are—entirely separate desires.’

Garrett rocked his hips forward again, spreading his legs to settle his weight back onto Anders’s thighs, away from his erection. His fingers scrabbled at the laces of Anders’s trousers as he tried to remember first how knots worked, and then how to untie them. Anders clutched at his shoulder, making a strangled sound in the back of his throat. Despite his reluctance, it was clear that stopping altogether still rated somewhere higher on the list of bad ideas than doing this in the first place.

Finally, Garrett pushed his hand beneath Anders’s trousers, drawing aside his smallclothes to palm his erection. Anders’s body went rigid and his back arched above the cot, his fingers scrabbling helpless lines over Garrett’s chest. Garrett rubbed at the wet slit at the head and felt an answering punch to his gut as Anders moaned and twisted his head to the side, and Garrett rubbed him there again, again, while Anders panted stupidly, biting down hard on his lower lip.

Garrett’s hands were shaking. He noticed that as he attempted, one-handed, to get his own belt undone, the loops far too complicated, the metal catching under one of his nails. He finally slid it free and left it hanging open, bending lower, attempting to grip both their dicks in one hand. It wasn’t his finest work, nowhere near it, the heady thrill of vulnerable skin crushed against vulnerable skin making Garrett pant stupidly too, but Anders thrust hard into his clutch and the friction was splendid, diabolical, obscene.

‘Maker,’ Anders groaned. His motions were a blur, the cot creaking, Garrett’s face buried against his cheek, choking on a mouthful of feathers, hips jerking unevenly as he stroked his palm over them both. He felt the flush of Anders’s dick against his, the pulsing of the beat in the vein, the raw energy, positively arcane. Anders had never struck him as a particularly religious man, and Garrett mumbled something, close to no or that’s not my name, nice as that would’ve been, and if he was, there was so much he’d change… But his words were so slick and so distant he didn’t know if they came out as anything beyond a few choked breaths before, inevitably, he came, all over Anders’s stomach, the fine trail of hair widening where the skin was so soft, and so fair.

Normally he didn’t do that, always waited to be certain the other party was finished first, like a signal he didn’t really need but honestly wanted. Since, after all, he was a giver. A selfish giver, but the point remained.

Now, it was beyond his control, his muscles limp and his head dizzy, while Anders gripped him at his biceps, then spent himself into Garrett’s sticky palm.

It was all very unsanitary, absolutely deplorable for a sanctum of healing and salvation. Garrett dropped his head, burying it against Anders’s shoulder, listening to the dull, rhythmic thump of his heartbeat below and the way Anders’s chest rumbled, the way his breathing hitched and caught somewhere very deep. Anders’s skin was warm and his fingers carded helplessly through Garrett’s hair, clenching and releasing and clenching all over his scalp. It felt good, like Garrett imagined the hounds did after a nice scritching, when they flopped over onto their backs and shamelessly begged for more.

Garrett heard himself sigh instead of flopping, happy and satisfied and all-too-pleased, in a place so sleepy and grateful for everything the panic couldn’t possibly set in yet, not before he was unconscious, then conscious again.

He’d always assumed falling asleep next to someone—technically, closer to on top of them, but did it really matter?—would be an uncomfortable tangle of sharp angles and awkward elbows, of knees accidentally slamming into something far too vulnerable to weather the abuse, and in a way it sort of was, but there was an intimate pleasantness to it that overpowered all his self-conscious instincts. Garrett felt comfortable down to his bones, and still a little drunk, giddy as a child, not at all lonely. Anders patted him all over his head, down the back of his neck, his damp shoulders sweaty beneath his shirt. Their bellies were pressed together, swelling with each breath, and Garrett fell asleep just like that, with Anders for a pillow, chest to cheek.

*

He woke the moment he realized what had happened, somewhere in a dream, body frozen with sheer horror.

Still half beneath him, Anders mumbled and stirred and tightened his arms around Garrett’s lower back, but he didn’t open his eyes. His breathing remained even, something no one could possibly fake, and Garrett remained silent and unmoving and panic-stricken for longer than he’d ever admit.

Then, slowly, he began to peel himself away from the body beneath his. Everything he’d taught himself over the years couldn’t be unlearned so quickly; this was second nature to him now, and his body was thankfully moving without any need for direction, or even confirmation, from his brain.

Again, Anders shifted and muttered something, not even words, just weary nothings. Garrett froze again, staring down at him, and when Anders rolled away Garrett felt both gratitude and disappointment.

Despite the creaking of the unsteady cot, the clang of Garrett’s belt buckle as it knocked against something metallic on Anders’s open coat, he made it off the bed and onto his feet. The world swayed. He was still wearing his boots. His vest was gone and he had no idea where it was, but it was going to have to be sacrificed, left behind, man overboard, and so on.

Garrett reeled away from Anders’s side and steadied himself on a low beam nearby—after smashing his head into it. The one thing he’d be able to say for himself later, once he was free from all this, free in the stagnant Darktown air just outside, was that he didn’t hesitate. Not when it came to all the wrong actions. Decisiveness was a talent to be praised, after all.

He heard the latch catching behind him as the door slid shut and did up his belt with an ungainly little hop. It was just the hour of late night but also early morning where no one else in the entire city was still awake, and no one could see him embark upon the long walk of shame back to Hightown, past all the good ditches, which by this point were already taken.

*

Garrett’s hangover in the morning was gargantuan; the Maker was punishing him for being the worst person in Thedas by having the dogs bark constantly; he annoyed Bethany in some mysterious way, probably by throwing a pillow at her when she tried to enter the room, and calling her pure evil, or something, and she opened the curtains without warning to agonizing sunlight, hands on her hips and a smile of triumph on her face.

‘I have the worst sister in the world,’ Garrett groaned, trying to shield his face with the covers.

‘Not at all,’ Bethany said, ‘but I do have the worst brother. Where were you all night?’

Garrett cracked open a red-rimmed, bleary eye. He knew without the aid of a mirror that it was bloodshot. ‘It’s very sweet that you really can’t make it all up on your own,’ he replied darkly. ‘What an innocent you are.’

‘You have only yourself to blame,’ Bethany replied, in a moment of unanticipated accuracy, the depths of which she’d never even know.

‘You know, Bethany,’ Garrett said, ‘with an attitude like that, you could have a very long and fulfilling career—in the chantry.’

Bethany was unaffected. ‘Funny you should mention that, because Carver has chosen to spend his day off here instead of at the Blooming Rose. He’s waiting downstairs.’

‘Carver’s here?’ Garrett asked stupidly. He felt he could be excused, because apparently he was stupid. Really, he could just add it to the growing list of proof.

‘Downstairs,’ Bethany said, throwing the pillow back at him. That was a little sister for you. They never forgot a slight. It hit Garrett right in the face, and smelled of his own whiskey-drool. ‘Do hurry up and get dressed, would you? I’m sure he’s anxious to see everyone.’

*

Garrett would never get used to the sight of his younger brother in templar armor. The instinctive shock of nerves he experienced at the familiar sun-shield insignia was always offset by Carver’s head coming out the top of it. Maybe that was how Carver had always felt when Garrett had played the abomination game in the night: confronted by something he hated and feared, but in the guise of someone he loved. The very root of the most unavoidable strain of prejudice.

Then again, it was Carver. Expecting any kind of deep thinking out of him would only lead to disappointment.

‘Hello, Brother,’ Carver said, standing at once with a clank that sent a shiver down Garrett’s spine. ‘You look like twice-baked shit.’

Mother frowned, and Father covered his mouth to pretend he wasn’t laughing.

‘Always a pleasure, Carver,’ Garrett said, reaching out to shake his hand. They shared their usual struggle, each trying to crush the other’s palm in their grip. Today it was Garrett who conceded, and not just because Carver hadn’t taken off his armored gauntlets.

He was doing his best not to be sick in the middle of the sitting room; it was a task that took all his focus, and he couldn’t afford the distraction of having the bones in his hand crushed to paste.

‘This is a wonderful surprise,’ Mother interjected, as Bethany entered the room to sit, hounds trailing in her wake. ‘We were just discussing plans for next month’s Satinalia festivities, Carver. You will be able to get the time off, won’t you? Your presence in society has been greatly missed by more than a few young ladies.’

‘Indeed,’ Garrett said. He managed to lower himself into his seat without putting his head between his legs—an admirable feat, by anyone’s standards. ‘You could give them all tips on how to wear skirts without looking too thick around the middle.’

‘Brother,’ Bethany said. The shrill tone of her voice was pitched precisely to set his head throbbing again. They were going to have to talk about that.

‘What’s the good word from the Gallows?’ Father asked, clearly hoping to avoid a row.

Carver grew sober. ‘Things haven’t been good,’ he said, having the audacity to look mature and serious while Garrett looked like the remains of a once-loved rake. ‘We lost a few men trying to route a group of blood mages from Darktown. We got them, in the end, but they took down our advance guard as well.’

‘Oh, Carver,’ Bethany said. ‘You weren’t with them, were you?’

‘And you’re sure they were blood mages?’ Garrett said, unable to stop himself. ‘That’s not just what Meredith assumed, for safety’s sake?’

‘Garrett,’ Mother said, which meant now’s not the time. She’d always done her best not to make Carver feel out of place for being the only child born into their family without magic, but as a result, she’d also made it rather evident that he was her favorite.

‘They killed eight men,’ Carver said. ‘But I’m told it all turned out right, in the end.’

Garrett’s stomach soured, his throat feeling tight. It was true that he’d never been such an ass about Carver’s stories before. He’d never taken them personally, since he’d never had any reason to. But now not only did he know the details of the incident in question, he was one of the alleged blood mages Carver was talking about. Only he wasn’t an abomination. He was just a man—just a mage, trying to make it through life without ever claiming mastery or even slight understanding of his powers.

‘I don’t know if I like the sound of that,’ Mother said, worrying at her hands in her lap. ‘My baby putting himself in such danger—are you sure this is what you want to do with your life?’

‘I can think of nothing better,’ Carver replied, and meant it so wholeheartedly that Garrett wanted to punch him.

‘Can’t you?’ he asked.

Carver met his gaze. ‘It doesn’t seem to me that you can,’ he replied, then added, very pointedly, ‘brother.’

Things were about to get serious when there was a knock at the door, and Bethany excused herself, slipping out of the den to answer it. She dealt with her feelings of fellowship for the mages Carver killed in her own way; no doubt she welcomed the chance to escape and compose herself while Garrett and Carver practically had a pissing contest right there on Mother’s favorite Orlesian rug.

Garrett belched into his hand, feeling mild relief settle into his gut.

‘Lovely,’ Father said.

‘It’s Saemus Dumar,’ Bethany called from the other room. No doubt she wanted to give them a chance to stop talking about apostates and templars, just in case a member of the family said something they’d later regret. In front of the Viscount’s son, no less. Might as well wear an I’m a mage sign around your neck. ‘He’s here to see you, Garrett.’

Head pounding, stomach at odds with itself, Garrett struggled to his feet. He couldn’t remember a morning he’d ever felt worse. Now the reason for all his feeling worse had come to the door.

Garrett was going to have to have a little word with Saemus Dumar about the wisdom of his committees. Just as soon as the room stopped spinning.

‘Viscount’s son,’ Garrett managed, with as much triumph as he could muster, one-upping of all Carver’s accomplishments as best he could given the circumstances. He might have looked like something Carver scraped off the bottom of his boots after a rough patrol, but he was still going to meet with the Viscount’s son, and that looked good on paper. If Saemus was going to make his life a living misery, then Garrett might as well milk some good out of the situation. ‘Here to see me. Personally.’

As expected, Carver’s expression soured, and Garrett felt good about himself by comparison, and all was right with the world.

At least until Garrett met Saemus in the hall.

‘…You aren’t dressed,’ Saemus said, appearing mildly panicked at the realization.

Garrett glanced down at what he was wearing: his comfortable at-home robes in the Amell colors, which might not have been very formal, but certainly hadn’t garnered any disapproval previously. ‘Aren’t I?’ he asked. ‘Usually when someone says that, I haven’t got any trousers on. Is this a nightmare—am I dreaming?’

Saemus made a noise of slight frustration, coupled with a nervous laugh. ‘It isn’t that you’re—naked—’ He pronounced the word uncomfortably, almost like he was gargling and choking at the same time, ‘—but rather that… You’re not planning on wearing that to the audience with my father, are you?’

‘…To the audience with your father?’ Garrett repeated.

‘To the audience with my father,’ Saemus confirmed.

They weren’t really getting anywhere with this—just saying the same nonsensical thing over and over again, while Garrett’s temples throbbed—so Garrett attempted another tactic. ‘What audience with your father, Saemus?’ he asked.

‘Oh, Garrett,’ Saemus said, and laughed again. ‘That is funny.’

‘Is it?’ Garrett asked.

‘You’re always amusing, I will give you that,’ Saemus said. ‘If you needed me to wait, you only had to ask. I’ll just…stay down here, shall I, and it is a busy day at the Keep—they’re always busy—so I’m sure Father won’t mind. If you ask me, he’ll be grateful for a reprieve.’

‘…I’ll go get dressed,’ Garrett decided. Once that was over with, and they were well on their way, he could find out what in the flames was actually going on.

*

As it turned out, Garrett had apparently agreed just the day before—while he’d been distracted by all the murderously impassive qunari and the disturbingly interested elf—to helping Saemus convince his father to entertain a qunari-Kirkwaller conference at some point in the near future. Garrett had absolutely no memory of doing this, although Saemus was very insistent it had happened. Then again, Saemus was also convinced Garrett was just having him on by pretending he didn’t remember anything, and Garrett supposed that what Saemus Dumar didn’t know, at least in this case, wouldn’t hurt him.

‘You’re right,’ Garrett said. ‘All quite the big joke. Isn’t it funny? Ha ha. I’m hilarious, even when I’m not trying.’

Especially when he wasn’t trying, apparently.

‘That’s exactly the kind of attitude you’ll need with my father,’ Saemus replied, still looking nervous all over, but also far more determined than Garrett had ever felt about anything. ‘I have faith in you, serah. Together, we can accomplish something.’

‘Together’ meant not just the two of them, but also Sebastian Vael, who was probably delighted just to be in the same room as the actual Viscount rather than coddling and babysitting the future one, and Guard Captain Aveline, who was probably itching to get back out on the streets and knock more deserving heads together. There was also Seneschal Bran in attendance who, judging by the look on his face, had just learned what it was Darktown smelled like.

Garrett’s headache was all but faded. However, his mouth tasted like dry cotton. His stomach was empty and Saemus was tremendously brave, but it was plain from the outset that Marlowe Dumar had no intentions of speaking with even one qunari, much less an entire delegation of them. And maybe he was smarter than the rest of them, or maybe he was just like Garrett, too caught up in the safety and simplicity of the way things were to realize they were supposed to change, that he could take charge of changing them.

*

‘It wasn’t that bad,’ Sebastian said, when it was all over, and the Viscount retired to his private chambers with something close to the vapors, the seneschal scurrying after him.

‘This politician is lying to you, Saemus,’ Aveline cut in. ‘It was exactly as bad as you’re thinking.’

‘No,’ Saemus said firmly. ‘It could have been worse. He did listen—even if it was only to humor my project, to make some formal gesture toward validity, it was a start. We’ll simply have to keep trying—all of us—until he is able to listen.’

Weary, beaten down, made anxious by his brother’s earlier visit and his own inadvisable actions, Garrett finally decided on something—the first real decision he’d made since the start of all this madness. He’d had enough. Of pretending they might get anywhere, of fighting against the odds, of doing things for high risks and no rewards just to make themselves feel better about their own tenuous sense of morality. Only, of course, it hadn’t made Garrett feel better about anything; it had only served to make him feel worse. He needed to put an end to this, now, before he lost all control, and something terrible happened.

Which, if they kept fighting, it would.

Viscount Dumar had absolutely the right idea about everything. It wouldn’t make him a great man; it wouldn’t help him be remembered in the history books as a daring martyr who took a chance, a brave and an insane chance, and everyone should respect him for it, even though it had killed him. But it would probably make him very comfortable, and that seemed appropriately appealing.

‘I’m out,’ Garrett said. ‘And I don’t mean I’m tired and I’m going home and I’ll see you tomorrow to discuss what comes next. I mean I’m done. I’m finished. It’s been interesting, but it’s also been spectacularly daft, and I’ve wasted about all the time I have to waste on this ridiculous—’ The word came out, so long and slow and dramatic, that Garrett wondered if it would ever end, ‘—committee of yours.’

‘What?’ Saemus asked, and that was a mistake, because Garrett rounded on him.

‘It was even worse than you think it was, Saemus,’ Garrett said. ‘It wasn’t bad; it wasn’t a catastrophe: it was nothing. This entire plan? Nothing. Its likelihood of success? Never anything. My faith in your ability to change Kirkwall? Nonexistent. This was, without a doubt, the best exercise in self-congratulatory nothingness the Free Marches has ever seen. And, as I said, I’m done with it. But really, Saemus, I do have to thank you for letting me play along with this little charade. I’ve always wanted to devote weeks, no, months to nothing and get nothing in return. So, all in all, goodbye, and see you not again.’

‘Now, hang on a moment, Hawke,’ Sebastian said, bristling even though he hadn’t been the recipient of Garrett’s ire. And he just as easily could have been. Garrett had a few choice words for the third prince of Starkhaven, as well. ‘We’re all more than a little frustrated at this point, but that’s no reason to lose our heads. And there’s certainly no call to be so rude about it.’

‘You know, I don’t recall asking your opinion,’ Garrett said. He’d long since passed the point where he stopped to consider his words before they came out of his mouth. His headache had receded beneath the ferocity of his heartbeat pulsing in his ears. His neck was sweating. His face felt warm. ‘Would you like to know why that is? Because it doesn’t matter. You aren’t the heir or the spare—so quite frankly, it’s hard to care what you think. There, what do you know? I suppose I am a poet after all.’

Saemus’s eyes widened. Garrett turned away before he had time to see the shocked look on his face turn to anything else, like hurt. If he stuck around now, he was going to unleash on Aveline next, and then Aveline would kill him, and what few good instincts remained in his possession warned him against that. He stormed off down the hall, perfectly aware that he was acting like a child, and also perfectly unable to stop himself. What did it matter, really? This had all been a pointless exercise in patting themselves on their own backs. It was doomed to failure from the start. Garrett was angriest with himself for humoring it as long as he had.

At the very least, perhaps a man like Sebastian could turn this to his advantage. He’d been patiently going along with Saemus’s ideas up until now. If anyone deserved to reap the benefits of Saemus’s sudden and total disillusionment, it was the third prince of Starkhaven.

‘Hawke!’ Aveline caught him at the foot of the stairs—physically caught him, otherwise he wouldn’t have stopped—metal hand clamping down hard on his shoulder. She dragged him around to face her. Garrett wisely went limp, like an animal caught in the mouth of a hunting dog. He was fully expecting to confront a woman fourteen feet tall, white hot and smoking with rage, but instead she looked merely…disappointed.

It was something of a let-down, honestly.

‘Hello, Aveline,’ Garrett said.

‘Are you proud of yourself after that little display?’ Aveline asked. She released Garrett, but only to cross her arms, and look even more disapproving. ‘Cutting down someone brave enough to stand up to his father and go against everything he’s been taught—does that make you feel like a big man?’

‘No,’ Garrett admitted. ‘But it was incredibly satisfying.’

*

After the debacle at the Viscount’s Keep, the only dilemma Garrett had was where to go in order to celebrate. The Hanged Man was out, since the Hanged Man had Varric, who would make all sorts of Disappointed Mother faces at him. What was more, it was in Lowtown, and Lowtown was far too close to Darktown for comfort. It was obvious to Garrett now that he’d been suffering from a surplus of towns of late, as well as committee business. Popular opinion was right: there was nothing but misery to be found in the lower city. If not his, then inevitably someone else’s. But it would all bring him down in the end.

Embracing that philosophy wholeheartedly, Garrett put Kirkwall’s sewers out of his mind entirely. High society was more than pleased to welcome him back into the fray. For six nights in a row, there wasn’t a manor party that didn’t have Garrett Hawke in attendance, holding a glass of something pale and insipid in one hand, and someone’s silk skirts in the other. He told amusing stories by candlelight, charming mothers over meals of poached quail and greens. He flirted with his peers and their servants alike, behaving scandalously enough to charm his hosts, but never tripping over the line and into crass.

Without the weight of that committee like an anchor around his neck, Garrett’s timing was back to being perfect.

If he needed a drink after those somewhat tepid social gatherings, he visited the Blooming Rose. When he was in the mood for something more exciting than a night spent among Hightown’s most eligible daughters, Lady Elegant introduced him to one of her friends from the old days. Athenril was an elf who ran a smuggling ring, and she appeared to do a great deal of her business in front of the Blooming Rose. She was clever and sharp, and an absolute tiger between the sheets, but more importantly than that, she was exactly the kind of person Garrett couldn’t bring home to meet his parents.

He’d had enough of those. They were clearly a mistake.

Mother proved his point almost a week later, by setting aside the matter of her Satinalia plans to ask whether they’d be seeing any more of Anders.

‘I doubt it,’ Garrett said, curtly. He leaned down in his chair to scratch one of the hounds beneath his chin.

‘Well, why not?’ Mother asked. ‘He seemed like such a lovely young man—and if you don’t mind my saying so, Garrett, he could probably do with the free meal.’

‘I wasn’t aware we were a charity now,’ Garrett said. ‘But, if you want to start, by all means—let’s start with the little ones, shall we? How about the ones with big eyes and torn trousers, who take your money and don’t look back, and don’t require follow-up visits?’

‘Garrett,’ Mother said, with an old sadness creeping into her voice. Likely she wanted to ask when it was he’d become such a miserable, heartless person, whether it was something she’d done or hadn’t done or if it was something that had happened to him elsewhere, beyond her ken.

But it wasn’t that; it had nothing to do with Mother. Garrett had simply been born this way, destined to a life of shallowness and immediate satisfaction, because going deeper meant getting mired, once again literally, in all the shit life had to offer.

There were some people in the world like his cousin, who gave themselves over to fate yet at the same time took risks—who both saw and were given opportunities most people couldn’t even fathom. It was as though they were standing at the top of a cliff, looking down at all the little fools arranged below them, and—not even knowing whether they’d fly or fall—they took a chance on leaping. How they managed to do it was quite beyond Garrett’s capacity for understanding, which was why Cousin Amell was the Hero of Ferelden, and Garrett was the joke of Kirkwall, sleeping with a smuggler who didn’t even like him, much less have any respect for him.

‘You’ve become mean, Garrett,’ Bethany told him one night, one of the rare few when he was actually at home. He’d been spending time with the dogs, who still loved him, but only because he bought their loyalty by spoiling them; he hadn’t expected an ambush. He ignored what Bethany was saying, crouched by the fire, scrubbing his thumbs against the wiry, drool-wet muzzle fur of his favorite hound. ‘You weren’t always mean. You used to be funny.’

‘You used to tell me I wasn’t funny,’ Garrett replied tartly. ‘Maybe that’s why I got so mean.’

‘You’re going to blame me now?’ Bethany asked, folding her arms over her chest, shaking her head. ‘Eventually, Garrett, you’ll run out of people to blame.’

Garrett refused to rise to the bait; he had no desire to argue with her. He waited for her to leave in disgust, then slipped out of the house even though he hadn’t been planning on it; he had tremendous sex with Athenril, got his purse cut on his way back home through the hexes, and didn’t even feel the old cut of adrenaline and fear at being robbed.

The thing was, there was really nothing left for anyone to steal. Money could be replaced, and no matter how many reasons he gave his own parents to dislike him, they’d still say the same thing: they were glad he was all right, and he should really be more careful next time—not understanding Garrett’s life was too careful, that being careful was the prime cause and the prime symptom of whatever was currently ailing him.

*

Satinalia came as it did every year with a tortured mess of planning and worrying, a frenzy of gift-buying and coin being thrown about with great abandon. Garrett did his best to stay out of it all as he currently stayed out of everything, agreeing constantly with Mother on decorations as she changed her mind again and again, agonizing over color schemes and what kinds of lanterns were currently the most in fashion. When she asked for his opinion, Garrett blatted words randomly that meant nothing and merely served to confirm what Mother had already, in her heart of hearts, decided on doing, and when the house and the garden were ready it looked like they were in the middle of a Dalish camp, not Kirkwall proper in late spring. All they needed was the Halla and the transformation would be complete.

The Halla came in the form of wooden statues, painted white, utterly hilarious, terrifying the hounds, and Mother set them up around the garden where Garrett liked to throw little wads of parchment out the window at them on nights when he couldn’t sleep. It confused the gardeners and the mystery was a healthy distraction for Mother, who herself was driving everyone else to distraction in the last few days leading up to their party.

Everyone was going to be there—and when mother said ‘everyone’ one couldn’t just assume she meant everyone in Hightown, but rather everyone she’d ever spoken to, ever met on the street, ever glanced at in passing. She might likely invite people she’d never met at all, husbands and brothers and daughters and distant cousins, anyone who was bored, anyone who was alive, anyone who wasn’t. Based on certain conversations Garrett had been forced to endure in the past, the Amell Satinalia party was a favorite of Kirkwall’s recently deceased. This one was no exception, as the doors had barely been opened to the public before Garrett found himself suffering a conversation with the deadly Ruxton Harimann, Thedas’s single most repressed individual, about—what else—the weather.

Bethany hated Garrett now, because he’d given her every reason to hate him, and she wouldn’t come rescue him no matter how many times he gave her the signal. He nodded helplessly while Ruxton continued to weave his sleeping spell—‘I had no idea how many different types of clouds there were, Ruxton, do go on,’ Garrett murmured—until, just over Ruxton’s shoulder, Garrett caught sight of someone he hadn’t seen in weeks. The hair, the hopeful gaze, the determined set of his mouth, the easily flushed cheeks and pale skin—and a bit of a sunburn on his nose, likely from so many walks to and from the qunari compound—Saemus Dumar was unmistakably himself, arriving with Sebastian Vael at his side, as though the two were really even friends.

When Saemus caught Garrett watching him, he looked quickly away. It was as much a condemnation as it was anything else. Garrett assumed it wouldn’t mean anything, that it would glance off him like water rolled off a duck’s back, but it stuck in his throat along with a bit of rosemary from the chicken, and made his eyes water.

‘They say it’s going to be a curiously warm summer,’ Ruxton Harimann droned on, seemingly unaware of any discomfort on Garrett’s part. ‘I assume it’ll lead to a poor harvest—is that Sebastian Vael?’

‘It is,’ Garrett said, with a fake note of surprise in his voice. As though he’d only just noticed their entrance. ‘I simply must go and greet him. You know how it is, I’m sure—hosting duties.’ He made a face that he was sure would be lost on someone like Ruxton Harimann, then extricated himself rapidly from the conversation. If it could even be called a conversation at this point, as opposed to a death sentence.

Given the choice between eating his pride and approaching Saemus and Sebastian, or spending another moment talking with Ruxton about the year’s prospective wheat crop, Garrett’s choice was painfully obvious.

Or perhaps that was: painful and obvious.

Sebastian’s face darkened like a storm cloud as Garrett approached. Saemus glanced toward him once, then buried his nose in a graceful flute of champagne.

‘Saemus,’ Garrett said, nodding toward him. ‘And your majesty. Welcome to my humble home, and a very happy Satinalia to you both.’

‘Young master Hawke,’ Sebastian said. ‘I’d like a word, if you wouldn’t mind.’

‘Just one?’ Garrett asked. ‘That doesn’t sound so objectionable.’

Sebastian fixed him with an exasperated look, then inclined his head toward a more secluded area of the garden. ‘If you please.’

Garrett, expecting to be snubbed and more than a little confused by the opposite occurring, allowed him to lead the way, snagging his very own drink from one of the servants bearing trays. As the day segued from early evening to true night, the servants had run around lighting all the wicks of the party candles, so that now the courtyard was awash in a soft glow. Mother had ordered hundreds of lanterns for the gardens; some of them dotted the grass in a scattered pattern, and some hung from the trees. In Garrett’s opinion, she was only asking for someone to kick one over and start a house fire. At least that would make for a memorable end to the night. Best Satinalia Ever, they’d call it.

‘You aren’t leading me back here to kill me, are you?’ Garrett asked, brushing aside a branch of flowering wisteria.

Sebastian stopped next to one of the life-sized Halla. They made a rather ridiculous picture together, the third prince in all his finery and the legendary Dalish beast. Garrett took a liberal drink from his glass, then let out a sigh.

‘Look, Sebastian, if you wanted a cheap excuse to get me alone, I feel obligated to tell you that you aren’t my type.’

‘Isn’t it exhausting to behave this way all the time?’ Sebastian asked, rounding on him finally. ‘Doesn’t it make you tired, pretending to be something you aren’t?’

‘That’s making an awful lot of assumptions, isn’t it?’ Garrett said. His fingers tightened around the stem of his glass. ‘I had no idea we were all such close friends.’

‘I know you, Hawke,’ Sebastian said. ‘You may not like it, but that’s what happens when you spend time with someone. You get to know them, for good or ill. In my experience with you, it’s been a lot of ill, but I wouldn’t bother to say anything at all if I thought for a second that was all there was to you.’

Garrett’s mouth felt dry. He swallowed. There was no one to save him from having this uncomfortable conversation because he’d alienated all his friends and most, if not all, of his family. This was rapidly shaping up to be far more excruciating than any conversation Ruxton Harimann could manage to slough off the top of his head.

‘Illuminate me,’ Garrett suggested.

Sebastian hesitated. No doubt he wasn’t sure if such an undertaking was worth the effort, or frankly even possible. ‘I know what I’m about to say may come across as rather trite, but—I am you, Hawke. You and Varric both had a jolly time mocking me for my status in my family, and I don’t begrudge you that, but did you ever stop to consider that I might have a similar story to yours? You’re the eldest in your family, but the way you behave…’ He paused, fingering one of the Halla’s horns thoughtfully. ‘I know what it’s like to be afraid of the things you really want, Hawke. You avoid thinking about them, tell yourself you could never have them anyway, and then do your best to just—numb the pain with wine and women. Am I right so far?’

‘Not just women,’ Garrett said, leaning sideways against the nearest tree. The problem with the champagne flutes was that they didn’t hold enough alcohol. Nothing really compared to the tankards Corff used at the Hanged Man, except Garrett wasn’t going back to the Hanged Man, so it didn’t bear thinking about.

‘I wanted to be the ruler of Starkhaven,’ Sebastian confessed, not rising to Garrett’s bait. ‘I knew I could do it better than my brothers—but I also knew that my place in the family might mean that I’d never get to do it at all. In fact, I was certain it wouldn’t, barring some unforeseen tragedy even my own ambitions couldn’t convince me I truly wanted. Confronted with that certainty, I turned to drink and to whoring. I was a wild boy, who brought shame to my family.’

‘It’s a pity I didn’t know you then,’ Garrett said. ‘We’d have gotten along famously.’

‘Do you know why it is I spend so much time with Saemus Dumar, Hawke?’ Sebastian asked, suddenly switching tacks.

‘Does it have to do with the way you’re fondling that Halla?’ Garrett asked. ‘Because I’d just as soon have you keep it a secret, all things considered.’

‘He listens to my ideas,’ Sebastian said. ‘He encourages me to be more than I am. Not less. There was a time when I thought someone might have been doing that for you, too, but… It seems you’ve lost your way.’

‘Preposterous,’ Garett said. ‘I never had a way.’

‘We all have a way, Hawke,’ Sebastian said. ‘And I was nearly certain I would be lucky enough to watch you find yours, a rare enough thing for anyone.’

Garrett had no reason to hold back on the massive rolling of his eyes that came naturally to such a statement, and so he did it, full-bodied, from his shoulders to his toes. Sebastian was curiously patient in response, standing before him like part of the garden display. He matched the Halla. Garrett attempted rolling his eyes again, but when Sebastian refused to respond the way he was supposed to—by disgustedly leaving—Garrett had no idea what tactic to employ.

‘Are you quite done?’ Sebastian asked.

‘I suppose so,’ Garrett mumbled.

‘Will you apologize to Saemus?’ Sebastian added.

Garrett weighed his options, toying with the champagne flute, staring down at the grass, his toes bathed in pale, warm light. He could spend the rest of his life being this person—the wild boy as mentioned in the parable of Sebastian Vael, forever humoring all the Ruxton Harimanns of Kirkwall while the powers of Thedas rose and fell around him—or he could square his shoulders, sit on his pride, and accept that he’d been wrong, about everyone and everything. Sebastian included. And the last part of the equation was really the strangest.

‘And here I thought you were just a scheming politician,’ Garrett said. ‘You sly dog. You tricked me, and I think you did it on purpose.’

‘I am a scheming politician, it’s true,’ Sebastian admitted, glancing in some other direction. ‘But no one is ever just anything.’

‘Wrong again,’ Garrett said. ‘Ruxton Harimann is, for example, just boring.’

It appeared, for a brief moment, that Sebastian was about to smile, but it might have been an illusion of the unsteady light. ‘No,’ Sebastian said, ‘Ruxton Harimann is not just boring.’

‘Have you ever spoken to the man?’ Garrett asked. ‘Because if you haven’t, let me assure you—’

‘I’ll save you the trouble, Hawke,’ Sebastian said, ‘for I have spoken to the man, and to call him just boring would be a grave understatement.’

‘I’m beginning to like you,’ Garrett told him, pushing off the Halla to gain some momentum.

‘Maybe one day I might be able to say the same in return,’ Sebastian replied.

*

Saemus was adrift in the sea of lesser people as he always was, caught in a deadly snare laid by Ruxton Harimann, which appeared to be an initiation process for the evening. Satinalia just wasn’t Satinalia without the stilted conversation and the desire to hide from someone. Sebastian manfully stepped between them, steering Ruxton Harimann away, a sacrifice so beautiful Garrett was nearly moved to tears. It was inspiring; it led a man toward a path of greatness.

‘I think I’ll…’ Saemus said, after a long, awkward pause.

‘…Go for a walk with me?’ Garrett supplied, threading one of his arms through one of Saemus’s. ‘Excellent. The pleasure is all mine, I assure you.’

He guided the perplexed Saemus through the garden, past Bethany engaged in serious conversation with Father and—perish the thought—the Knight-Captain of the templars, past Mother pretending not to hate Lady Harimann, past other people Garrett would have spent the rest of the night acting as though he remembered their names or cared about whatever pale drivel they were currently passing off as conversation. A few lazy moths were fluttering around a particularly large lamp and Garrett stopped before it for a moment, staring with consternation into his empty glass.

This was harder than he’d anticipated—harder still because he hadn’t really been anticipating it. He’d never intended to apologize at all. And if he started with one, he was going to have to continue with so many others; the first would be only the beginning. They all piled up before him like the distant peak of Sundermount, casting a daunting shadow over the proceedings.

Time passed. Garrett tightened his grip around his wine glass. The lights flickered. The garden held so much laughter and music and a distant breeze. Garrett wished he’d thought to get Saemus a half-Satinalia, half-apology present, or at the very least, another glass of wine.

Saemus sighed deeply.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘You tried. I can see that.’

‘I really did,’ Garrett agreed, even letting himself sound grateful.

‘I think asking any more of you would be detrimental to your health,’ Saemus added.

‘Yes,’ Garrett said. ‘I would probably die right here.’

‘You were even right in some ways,’ Saemus continued; that he was so capable of acknowledging and accepting his own flaws made Garrett look like even more of a spectacular bastard by comparison, ‘and you were wrong in others, but if I am unable to accept criticism of the highest order from my peers, then I don’t deserve to consider myself with any esteem. It was…a necessary thing, that you challenged me, Serah Hawke.’

‘Garrett,’ Garrett murmured. ‘You call me Garrett.’

Saemus hesitated. Then, he smiled. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘So I do.’

‘Shall we leave this awful party and get some drinks at the Hanged Man, then?’ Garrett suggested.

Saemus hesitated again, this time as if to say this was Garrett’s party, at least partially, and it made no sense to him why he’d insult it so obviously.

‘My treat,’ Garrett offered. ‘A gift for Satinalia. Happy Satinalia, Saemus.’

‘One would almost think you planned this,’ Saemus murmured.

Garrett hadn’t, but it was nice to have the vote of confidence. ‘Let’s go find the rare heir’s spare and take him to our Lowtown lair,’ Garrett said.

*

By some miracle of the Maker, or possibly Satinalia, Garrett managed to extract Sebastian from Ruxton Harimann’s hold, and the three of them made their way to Lowtown together. The Hanged Man was in particularly fine form that evening, filled with the dregs of society who wanted to celebrate but didn’t have their own venue. The noise was audible from an entire hex away, piecemeal music and raucous laughter, as was the smell of Corff’s stew.

Garrett pushed the door open, one arm around Saemus’s shoulders, the other linked through the crook of Sebastian’s elbow. For whatever reason, they’d gone to a great deal of trouble to repair relations with him. Even if Garrett didn’t understand it, he supposed he might as well commit to the notion. Especially since Sebastian was clearly so desperate to remain his friend.

Anything else would just make things uncomfortable for everyone. Apologies might be required again. Garrett was quite keen to avoid those at all costs, especially since he was so bad at them.

The scene inside the Hanged Man was like every dream Garrett had had about the place since forswearing it. There was a group of guardsmen crowded together at a table too small for them, downing their drinks and cheerfully shouting over the music; in the corner sat a hard-faced group of mercenaries playing a game of cards; and by the fire there was a group of men and women dancing to the ragtag band. Corff was pouring drinks nearly as fast as they were being downed, and both Norah and Edwina were stepping lively to get them out in a timely fashion.

Sebastian drew in a deep breath, then made a face like he’d forgotten not to breathe through his nose.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘It certainly has an air of unmistakable authenticity.’

‘Come on,’ Saemus said, slipping free of Garrett’s arm. ‘I think I see your friend Varric.’

Norah smiled prettily at Garrett as she passed, and it was once she was out of the way that Garrett caught sight of the dwarf in question. He was sitting at a table near the bar, playing cards with a Rivaini woman Garrett hadn’t seen before. By the looks of her, she’d just come in with a raiding party out of Llomerryn.

‘Maybe his Satinalia gift to us can be losing at a few hands of cards,’ Garrett agreed, starting in their direction.

It would be good to surprise Varric, get the jump on him for once. And he was fairly certain that the dwarf would be somewhat easier to apologize to, since Varric was a decent sort, and understood the simple fact about people that some were more complicated than others. Humans especially. Garrett allowed Saemus and Sebastian to lead the way, casting a glance back toward the counter to try and determine how he might get in ahead of the other drink orders.

A flash of tousled blond caught his attention. Something tickled in Garrett’s throat. His chest suddenly felt tight. A scruffy face, a long nose, and those blighted gray feathers shifted behind all the other people in the taproom; Anders moved toward Varric’s table, carrying three jiggers of whiskey. He deposited one in front of Varric, and one in front of the pirate, lifting his own glass to toast her half-way. She half-turned in her seat, so that Garrett could see that she was just as beautiful as he’d allowed himself to imagine—as well as amply endowed—then put her hand on Anders’s arm and muttered something that sent her into peals of laughter.

Anders, damn him, had the audacity to laugh as well. It wasn’t an uncomfortable laugh, or one that pitied his company. He wasn’t here on behalf of some half-fabricated committee. He seemed to be enjoying himself, genuinely, which was the worst possible thing he could’ve done while Garrett was watching.

Garrett swallowed. His skin felt hot and prickly, despite the fact that his clothing was light. He hadn’t bothered to change in between the party and Lowtown, so he was still clad in his Amell finery, light cotton shirt and an embroidered jacket. And now he was going to ruin both by sweating straight through them. Distantly, he became aware that he was standing in the middle of the room, neither moving toward Varric’s table nor the door. In short, he was behaving like a perfect jackass.

But when had that knowledge ever stopped him before?

‘Garrett?’ Saemus called expectantly.

Anders’s mouth traced the shape of his name, repeating the syllables a moment before realization hit him. He turned before Garrett could do anything—but what exactly could a man do in a situation like this one? Disappear in a puff of smoke?

Garrett didn’t know how because he’d run from Anders’s offer of magic lessons. Just like he’d run from Anders altogether, stalking out in the night like a bloody thief.

Garrett lifted his hand in a half-hearted wave. Anders turned back to the table.

Well, that was to be expected. With a sigh, Garrett resolved himself to keeping the course he’d set. He moved with heavy feet to Varric’s table, pulling up a seat on the other side of the Rivaini, where Varric was already dealing him in.

*

Three games later, Garrett had learned all sorts of interesting facts. For example, the Rivaini’s name was Isabela, and she’d met Anders once already, in Ferelden; Varric’s Satinalia gift to everyone was to trounce them just as thoroughly as always; and Anders didn’t believe in the silent treatment.

In fact, what he seemed to believe in was the talkative treatment, which was somehow even worse than being outright ignored.

‘—so he comes crashing in through the doors of the Pearl looking like a drowned rat,’ Isabela said, in the middle of some story or another that Garrett hadn’t been paying attention to at the start.

‘The Pearl’s a famous brothel in Denerim,’ Anders interjected, for the benefit of the listeners.

‘Don’t stop now, Rivaini,’ Varric said, writing in his notebook. ‘I want details.’

‘Oh, you’ll get details,’ Isabela promised, not bothering to ask if anyone else at the table wanted them. Garrett certainly didn’t. He made a gesture that Sebastian should cover Saemus’s virgin ears, and Sebastian looked offended; perhaps that particular motion meant something very different in Starkhaven. ‘I’m not the sort who skimps on those out of modesty. Do I look like the sort, Varric? Do I look like someone with any modesty?’

‘Perish the thought, Rivaini,’ Varric said lovingly. It was blatantly obvious he liked the pirate better than he liked Garrett. Traitorous, wretched, turncoat of a dwarf.

‘Well,’ Isabela told him, pausing to take a pull of whiskey to wet her throat. It seemed to Garrett that she’d been monopolizing the conversation for hours, possibly days now. ‘I was in the corner with a few…friends, minding my own business as one does in the Pearl, when this one appears and promises us—I shit you not!—to give us the night of our lives.’

‘Well, I had to protect myself,’ Anders explained. ‘The templars were after me. I needed to be behind closed doors. …And being in the arms of a few beautiful women in the process didn’t seem like such a bad idea at the time, either.’

‘Yes, but as good as he was, he might just as well have invited those templars to join in,’ Isabela practically purred, her eyes sparkling. She was so beautiful—and Garrett was completely unable to enjoy any of it, her rich, warm voice and her rich, dark skin. He tried to focus on some more banal detail, but even the golden stud beneath her lower lip was taunting him. Garrett didn’t have a golden stud anywhere. ‘I swear, it was one of the best nights of my life—oooh, tell them about the electricity thing!’

‘The electricity thing?’ Varric repeated, looking like he was about to propose marriage then and there.

‘The electricity thing?’ Saemus also repeated, looking none too different from always, only with eyes that were significantly wider.

‘It wasn’t on purpose,’ Anders protested, but Garrett knew him, and he knew better. The man was lapping up all the attention like a cat at a saucer of fresh milk. ‘It just sort of…happened.’

‘It ‘just sort of happened’ four times in a row, by my count,’ Isabela said.

Sebastian cleared his throat. Garrett spilled his drink. Anders’s face was flushed and Varric was looking at him with new appreciation and Saemus clearly didn’t understand the more delicate points of the topic at hand, which was fine by Garrett, because who wanted to be the man who explained to the Viscount the reason why his son knew a little too much about Rivaini pirate stamina?

‘Four… Four times in a row?’ Sebastian said finally.

‘What can I say?’ Isabela leaned back in her chair, slowly uncrossing her legs. ‘Maybe it wasn’t all Sparklefingers-over-there’s doing. It’s been known to happen before and after—without the electricity thing.’

‘I see,’ Sebastian choked.

‘…But the electricity thing certainly helped,’ Isabela added thoughtfully. She tapped her full mouth with her finger in thought, a saucy little action that would have had Garrett very interested, if he didn’t want so very much to leap across the table and murder her.

Maybe he wasn’t being fair. Anders had likely slept with other people, not just Isabela, apparently also in the same night but presumably at other times, too; it wasn’t just Isabela Garrett wanted to murder. And, if he was being honest, she seemed like a very funny pirate, not that Garrett had met many pirates; she was intelligent and agonizingly attractive and definitely, definitely touching Anders’s foot with one of her own underneath the table.

Garrett couldn’t take it anymore. It had been going on for ages. He did the only thing he could and jerked his foot, viciously, while keeping his upper body perfectly still.

‘Ow!’ Anders said, incredibly loudly. Then, flushed and disgruntled, he demanded, ‘Why are you always kicking me?’

Everyone was staring at them. Garrett lifted his shoulders and mouthed that he had no idea what Anders was talking about and he was clearly hallucinating.

‘Some men do that when they want your attention,’ Isabela said, breaking the relative silence—the silence at their table, rather, because all the other tables were the exact opposite of silent. ‘It might lack subtlety, but it gets the point across, I suppose.’

‘Anders is clearly hallucinating,’ Garrett said, this time out loud, so that no one would be able to ignore him.

Something angry passed over Anders’s face for the first time; the combination of the heat in the taproom and the poison in his drink causing him to lose his cool at last. Garrett attempted to blithely weather the expression with a blink and a smile, but then everyone began kicking him underneath the table, and frankly, it hurt.

‘Ow,’ he said, trying to kick back. ‘This is all—very immature of the lot of you—that was my shin!’

‘You’re being very kind,’ Anders said, sliding his chair back as Garrett continued to be bullied horribly, ‘and I can assure you, I’ve never had friends willing to kick someone for me before; it means a lot. Really, it does. But I think I’m going to go. Before I lose… Before I lose any more coin to Varric.’

Then, true to his word, he stumbled past Edwina and the mercenaries playing cards and Corff at the bar and the guards at the table by the door, with Garrett staring helplessly after him.

Garrett had to wonder why it was that the people he always wanted to lie through their teeth were never committed to their lies, and the people he didn’t want to follow through always did, and he turned back to his cards in the vain hope that things could continue as they had been. At least he wouldn’t have had to watch the gorgeous pirate with the perfect breasts flirt with Anders anymore.

‘Well that’s just silly,’ he said, ‘because everyone knows you’ve been cheating to help him win. Don’t they, Varric? …Varric?’

But no one was answering him.

Garret knew exactly what he’d see when he looked up from his hand: everyone would be staring his way, equal parts disappointed and disgusted, and Garrett would say a few pointless but hilarious things, and his companions would laugh or not laugh as they saw fit, then tell him in various different ways what a fool he was, and more hilarious things, and more truth about him being a bastard, and so on, and it would all be very tedious.

‘I’ll just go after him, shall I?’ Garrett said, folding unceremoniously.

‘You might want to apologize a little better than you did to me,’ Saemus said as he left. ‘Just a suggestion. Garrett.’

*

Fortunately—or perhaps exceedingly unfortunately—Anders didn’t seem all that knowledgeable about how to make a proper getaway. Instead of being halfway to Darktown already when Garrett found him, he was standing in the alleyway behind the Hanged Man, seemingly lost in thought.

Either that, or he’d picked an oddly inappropriate time to take a nap. But Garrett didn’t think he’d be so lucky.

As could only be expected, Anders didn’t look up when Garrett approached, but judging from the way his body tensed, he knew he wasn’t alone.

‘Look—‘ Garrett began, an admirable start to any apology.

‘No,’ Anders murmured. ‘That’s quite unnecessary. You had it right the first time. Or rather, I suppose I had it right the first time, when I said it would be a terrible idea. You caught on rather late, but that doesn’t mean it’s not for the best.’

Garrett blinked. ‘What?’

‘I was trying to spare you the awkwardness of having this conversation, actually,’ Anders said, lifting his head. ‘But it seems you’re too stubborn for your own good. I don’t know why I’m surprised; stubborn seems to be your defining character trait. After ‘selfish’ and ‘nug-brained.’’

‘I feel like we’re having two different conversations,’ Garrett said, already at a loss. Another patron stumbled through the door to be sick in the alley, and Garrett took the opportunity to draw closer to Anders, moving them upwind from the chaos. Anders scowled, but it wasn’t clear whether it was a reaction to the vomit, or his proximity to Garrett. Hopefully Garrett hadn’t fallen below vomit yet.

‘You know,’ Anders said. ‘I would have understood you leaving. The cots aren’t exactly comfortable, and we both have our separate lives. I’m not…’ he trailed off, the flush in his cheeks evident even by the meager lighting from the few lamps scattered around the hex. ‘I’m not some sort of idiotic romantic who’s given unrealistic expectations after one night of drunken fumbling. In fact, I’ve experienced a great deal of drunken fumbling in my day, and in my experience it’s almost always confined to the night itself. Not the morning. Or the days after, or anything like that. There’s nothing wrong with going that route…particularly. But then you disappeared off the face of the landscape, and—well, what was I supposed to think, Garrett? I started visiting the Hanged Man regularly just to see if I couldn’t catch sight of you there. Do you know how embarrassing it is to have Varric know exactly who I must have been waiting for? I haven’t shared my personal affairs with a dwarf since I was a Grey Warden. And even then, it was mostly to traumatize him, not actually seek advice.’

Garrett drew in a breath, then let it out. He tried again, but found that he still didn’t know what to say. In truth, he hadn’t considered what it might have been like for Anders. He hadn’t allowed himself to, because thinking about it would have made it impossible for him to stay in Hightown all that time, or look at himself in the mirror to keep his beard trimmed. Garrett ran a hand through his hair, fingers trailing to rub at the back of his neck.

‘I’m an idiot,’ he said at last.

Anders fixed him with a wary look. ‘I’m not particularly inclined to disagree with you on that.’

Garrett moved closer to lower his voice. His fingernails were digging crescent wedges into his scalp. There were so many good reasons he didn’t normally spend the night, just like there were so many good reasons he usually slept with people who didn’t care for him. But ultimately, when all was said and done, Garrett was as terrible at talking about his feelings as he was at having them. That was the reason to trump all other reasons.

Behind them, the sick man had staggered to his feet; when the door to the Hanged Man swung open again, light and music flooded the alleyway. Anders looked exhausted and mildly inebriated. He was holding himself up against the wall, arms crossed as if specifically to ward off Garrett’s advance. He could have just thrown up an arcane shield, Garrett thought, and winced.

‘I quit the committee,’ he said. It didn’t cut straight to the heart of the matter, but it still went a ways toward explaining his actions.

‘You what?’ Anders asked, uncertainly. Like he wasn’t quite sure where this was leading.

‘Lost my head,’ Garrett confirmed. ‘Called Saemus Dumar all kinds of horrible things, and when Sebastian intervened I said them to him, too. I picked a fight with my own brother—he’s a templar, you haven’t met him, or have you?—about mages, and Bethany won’t even speak to me anymore.’

A look of understanding crossed Anders’s face, though the next moment he looked as though he wished it hadn’t.

‘Oh, Garrett,’ he murmured.

‘Exactly!’ Garrett said, loud enough that it sounded deranged. ‘That’s what my mother says, as though she can’t believe she raised anyone so selfish, and I just…’ He stopped himself in order to gather his thoughts, before he let himself get carried away. ‘It didn’t have anything to do with you. Or rather it did, but the problems were all on my end.’

‘Is that…an apology?’ Anders asked.

‘I’m sorry,’ Garrett confirmed.

There was a long, unbearable silence. Garrett wished he could see Anders’s face at any point in its duration. But he couldn’t; the light in the alleyway was far too dim, and Anders was no longer in stark profile, a long nose and an uncertain mouth, but facing him, eyes hidden in the shadow from a windowsill overhead.

Finally, Anders let out an uneven breath. ‘…I owe Varric money,’ he said.

‘What?’ Garrett asked. Not the most original reply, but it was all he could think of.

‘Varric,’ Anders repeated. ‘I owe him money.’

‘Who doesn’t…?’ Garrett said, still baffled.

‘He told me you’d come around to apologizing eventually,’ Anders explained. ‘I told him you wouldn’t, everyone else agreed with me, and he said he liked it when the odds were that uneven, so he went in five sovereigns. Five sovereigns! We all thought he was crazy, but he’s about to make a—a fortune. And here I just lost one.’

Garrett paused. He licked his lips. He felt his heart, still beating nervously, finally catching up to the rest of him and realizing how anxious and terrified he still was, how humiliating the act of actually saying those two words was, and how relieved he felt now that he’d finally said them. ‘...’Everyone else?’’ Garrett settled on at last. ‘And who, exactly, is a part of this ‘everyone?’’

‘Oh, you know,’ Anders replied vaguely.

‘No,’ Garrett said. ‘I don’t. Which is why I was asking. If someone’s betting on my shortcomings as a man, I’d like it if I could at least know who they are, especially if I’m prevented from making a profit on my own misery, myself.’

Garrett didn’t have to see Anders to know he was rolling his eyes. ‘Saemus, Sebastian, and Aveline,’ he replied. ‘…And Isabela, too. She hadn’t met you yet, but she’d heard stories, and she went in on it just the other night, saying it would be…fun. All of us, against Varric. Just one dwarf! One very, very short dwarf. And of course he was right all along.’

‘Everyone should have known what they were getting into,’ Garrett said, with a shake of his head. ‘I’d never side with you, Anders.’

‘Thank you,’ Anders said, delicate and tart. ‘How…something.’

‘I meant in a bet,’ Garrett clarified. ‘You always lose spectacularly.’

Anders sounded not at all mollified. ‘Of course that’s what you meant.’

‘I already said I was sorry,’ Garrett reminded him. ‘Do you know I didn’t even tell Saemus I was sorry! And I said the most evil things to him—really, I wouldn’t use that word lightly.’

‘Did you sleep with Saemus?’ Anders asked.

Garrett blanched. ‘Maker, no,’ he said. ‘That would be like—I don’t know, like sleeping with a kitten.’

‘Well then,’ Anders replied.

Time for another silence, Garrett predicted, and unsurprisingly, there it was. Beneath it was muffled music from beyond, drunken revelry, bursts of light as the Hanged Man’s front door banged open and a few patrons stumbled out into the crisp night air. Anders lifted a hand to rub at his brow and pinch the bridge of his nose. The apology hadn’t gone the way it was supposed to, since everything still felt awkward and unhappy, and that was one more unfair thing in Garrett’s life of continual, unrelenting unfairness. How much better could he do?

He knew he should have bought gifts. Gifts usually helped with most people. Saemus might not have needed them—he was simple that way—but Anders was clearly more high-maintenance.

‘Honestly, Garrett,’ Anders said. ‘I wasn’t prepared for this. I didn’t want to do this.’

‘How do you think I feel?’ Garrett asked, knowing as he spoke the words they were, once again, the wrong ones.

Anders tensed. ‘Sometimes I wonder how one person can be so selfish,’ he said.

‘With a great deal of difficulty and constant practice,’ Garrett told him. ‘Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t easy. I really have to work at it.’

‘I tell myself,’ Anders continued, ‘that you can’t possibly be as bad as I remember, that when I just see you again I’ll have some insight into the inner workings of the good man I saw in the sewers, but it never comes, and I never know whether I want to kiss you or kill you—’

‘You can do both,’ Garrett suggested. ‘So long as you do the former before the latter. If you did it the other way round, it would be quite creepy, really.’

Anders made a noise, an angry one, and Garrett reached out to touch him, and his fingers closed around a handful of feathers, pulling Anders in fast. Garrett crushed their mouths together—it was good, better than he remembered, because he wasn’t completely pissed out of his mind this time, and both of them had whiskey breath, and it all matched. Anders whined in his throat and Garrett kissed him, over and over again, Anders’s stubble scraping the stiff hairs of his beard, Anders’s fingers seizing tight in the thin velvet of Garrett’s Satinalia waistcoat.

At last, Anders pulled away panting, and Garrett pulled him back, giving him no time to breathe, no time to relax, shoving him against the crumbling wall at his back and holding him there, close against his chest.

‘You’re making a convincing argument for kissing,’ Anders wheezed.

‘I’ve been known to make a few convincing arguments in the past,’ Garrett said.

*

When they came back into the Hanged Man, just long enough for Anders to settle his debts and Garrett to settle his tab, with Anders tugging at the hem of his coat to even it out and Garrett pretending to be very nonchalant, the looks their friends gave them were positively lewd.

‘Dirty minds,’ Garrett told them. ‘You all disgust me.’

‘I’m just feeling jealous,’ Isabela replied, with a sidelong glance across the table. ‘Aren’t you feeling jealous, Sebastian? It’s so awful feeling jealous, especially when you don’t really have to.’

‘All I’m feeling is five sovereigns lighter,’ Sebastian replied, coloring beneath his high collar.

‘Fascinating,’ Saemus said, also adding his coin to the growing pile in front of Varric on the table.

‘Here,’ Garrett said, tossing some coin in that general direction. ‘I owe Anders for, ah, some healing last month—’

‘Blondie runs a free clinic, Hawke,’ Varric reminded him.

‘Then you can wait for him to pay up never, or take my money instead,’ Garrett replied.

Varric, knowing a good deal when he saw one, wrapped his arms around his pile of gold, and slid it closer to his chest. ‘You know how I love a bargain.’

‘I don’t want to know what’s going on over here,’ Anders said, approaching. ‘So I don’t think I’ll ask. However…’

‘We were just leaving,’ Garrett confirmed, slipping an arm around Anders’s waist and hooking his thumb beneath his belt. Anders made a motion like he was thinking about slapping Garrett’s hand away, but curbed himself at the last minute, coloring instead, his palm falling to rest over Garrett’s wrist.

‘You mean you aren’t staying?’ Saemus asked. ‘It’s far earlier than you usually see fit to call it a night, Garrett—ouch! …So that’s what it feels like to be kicked under the table.’

Isabela whistled, and Garrett found himself softening on her. Maybe. Just a little.

‘Happy Satinalia, Anders,’ she said, wiggling her fingers in a farewell gesture. ‘Don’t you worry about these two, Hawke. I’ll see to it that they’re taken care of.’

‘You’ll note she didn’t say she’d see them home safely,’ Anders observed, as Garrett hurried him toward the door.

‘It sounds to me as though someone might be opening his Satinalia present early this year,’ Garrett confirmed. He circled quickly in front of Anders and opened the door, and they both stepped out into the dark.

*

He took Anders home for the first time since that single dinner, and maybe Anders wouldn’t understand it, but that too was a gesture of apology. The unspoken subtext was that Garrett couldn’t run out on him again because he’d already be home, and there was nowhere else for him to go. Anders could choose to leave this time, if that was what he felt like doing. It was too complicated to explain his reasoning, but Garrett hoped at least some of it might come across.

At least Anders didn’t fight him when he realized they were heading up-town, instead of down.

The Amell Satinalia festivities had long since wound to a natural end, although there were still servants in the gardens, extinguishing the lanterns and cleaning up the food. Garrett chose not to make Anders climb the wall and instead snuck him in past the piles of gifts, ushering him upstairs to his room. Bethany and his parents had already turned in for the night; that meant the second floor was mercifully dark, and quiet save for the clink of dishes from downstairs, or a dire, scraping sound as the servants dragged the Halla inside.

Garrett let Anders into his room first, then crossed to close his open window. His curtains were drifting lazily in the late-night breeze, the glow from a few lanterns still visible from the second story.

Anders perched on the edge of his bed, looking around, curious despite himself.

‘So this is your room,’ he said. The expression on his face said, where you grew up learning it was all right to be such a terrible person.

Garrett sighed, crossing the floor to take a seat at Anders’s side. To his surprise, Anders kissed him without warning, moving with a swiftness Garrett had never seen from him, fingers grasping tightly at his shoulders. He made an aggravated sound, then pushed closer until he’d practically worked his way into Garrett’s lap, and it was that bravery which gave Garrett the sudden impetus to start kissing back. He slipped his tongue between Anders’s parting lips, lifting a hand to rub his thumb against that prickly spot Anders always missed when he was shaving. The man needed a better mirror, or someone to watch while he did his morning routine.

Garrett thought about what it would be like to have Anders, scruffy and undone in his bathroom, stripped to the waist and shaving in front of Garrett’s mirror, bare feet on the Orlesian tiles, shoulders damp from the bath. He moaned and tugged Anders in closer, forcing him to either spread his legs or rearrange himself.

Anders wriggled into position, his body going agreeably limp. Then he nipped at the corner of Garrett’s mouth and pulled away, hands firm against Garrett’s chest for leverage. He wasn’t too far—he’d leaned his cheek against Garrett’s, and Garrett could feel him panting against the shell of his ear—but because of how close they were, it was impossible to read his expression.

Suddenly, it seemed entirely likely that he was still thinking about killing Garrett now that he’d kissed him, and he’d just been waiting for a more private venue to execute his plan.

But it turned out to be nothing deadlier than more talking that Anders was building himself up to, chewing his lower lip as he mustered the words, and the courage.

‘I feel obligated to tell you that something like this…’ he began, gesturing between himself and Garrett, ‘…usually doesn’t work out between two cowardly people. And it just so happens that I am an incredible coward. Or rather I was. Used to be. Am trying to quit the habit.’

‘Which means you aren’t anymore?’ Garrett asked. He was honestly curious. If there was a trick to it, for example. Something magical, or maybe a potion he could drink.

Except nothing in his life was ever that easy.

Anders shrugged, though the gesture was anything but carefree. ‘Once you cut and run from the Grey Wardens, it’s difficult to feel truly…daunted by anything. Although the templars here certainly make me rethink that philosophy. Sometimes multiple times a day.’

‘So…’ Garrett said, speaking to hide how loudly his heart was pounding. He hoped Anders couldn’t feel it through his hand on his chest.

‘So,’ Anders said, not giving an inch.

Why not? Garrett had already dedicated himself to growing up, there in the garden beneath the wisteria with Sebastian Vael and a Halla presiding the decision. Maybe it wouldn’t be that painful. It couldn’t be more painful than committing himself to more committees.

‘You can teach me,’ Garrett muttered. ‘But I still think it’s a damn fool idea.’

‘Much smarter to try and ward off demons by pretending that you don’t want anything at all,’ Anders said. He laughed when Garrett gave him a startled look. ‘You really aren’t as clever as you think you are.’

‘But couldn’t I still be a coward if you’re trying not to be?’ Garrett asked, reaching up to undo the tie holding Anders’s hair back from his face. ‘We could each be…half-cowards for a while, until you work your way up to being not a coward at all, at which point I can go back to being a coward full time. Doesn’t that sound nice?’

Anders shook his head. His hair fell into his eyes, tangled and messy. Garrett brushed some of it back, thumb against the wrinkles creasing the corners of his eyes, and Anders didn’t blink, just perched there in Garrett’s lap, staring. Judging. Also liking what he saw, if the twinkle in his expression was anything to go by, lurking just below the surface of his disapproval.

‘I won’t be a good student,’ Garrett warned.

‘I might not be a good teacher,’ Anders parried. ‘But I think… I think we might owe it to ourselves to try.’

‘To try and fail?’ Garrett asked. Where had he heard that plan before?

‘Trust me, I’ve had worse ideas,’ Anders replied.

‘Oh good,’ Garrett said, falling back to the bed with Anders on top of him. ‘This sounds like it’s going to go just marvelously.’

*

Garrett woke the next morning with Anders sprawled out at his side, face buried in the pillows to avoid the shaft of sunlight creeping across the bed from the open window. Garrett had forgotten to draw the curtains the night before, and he observed the few freckles on Anders’s pale back and shoulder-blades with a sleepy fascination, waking slowly to the sight of Anders’s body. At one point Anders twitched, sensing eyes on him even in his sleep, and Garrett waited until he saw one eye crack open just a slit before rolling him over and burying his face between Anders’s thighs.

Afterward, panting, hips still hitching and rising and falling in lazy, sloppy motions, Anders told him, ‘Now that’s how you apologize.’

‘Well,’ Garrett replied, dropping back onto the pillows, ‘I couldn’t very well do that with Saemus in public, now could I? Not in front of my own Mother.’

Anders attacked him with one of his own pillows, and the sound of them laughing probably woke everyone in the mansion.

It wasn’t as awkward as Garrett assumed it would be bringing Anders back down the stairs again, through the main hall, in front of everyone—and not, as Garrett had first suggested, hoisting him out the window to make his way down via vine trellises and footholds. The hounds made Anders jump and Bethany outright stared like she’d been raised by wild animals, but Father simply asked if Anders would like something to drink, perhaps some breakfast, wishing him a bountiful Satinalia before inquiring after how he’d been faring since the last time they’d met.

‘You really ought to come by more often, Anders,’ he added, bending down to feed some ham to the dogs right off the plate, just the way Mother always scolded Garrett for doing. ‘This was a house made for five, not four. Besides which, my son seems to like you, and I was beginning to believe he was incapable of liking anyone.’

‘Nonsense,’ Garrett replied. ‘I like the dogs.’

‘Yes, Garrett,’ Father said, ‘but the dogs aren’t people.’

‘That’s exactly what’s so wonderful about them,’ Garrett told him.

‘That was the first time I’ve had breakfast in months,’ Anders admitted to Garrett at the door on his way out, the chill morning air starting to be warmed by the sunlight. Anders’s face looked pinched, squinting out of the shadow of the Amell estate. His hair was tied lopsidedly, a lock of it coming untucked from behind his ear. Garrett hated his coat. He was, despite all that, a knee-weakening sight. ‘Shall I, ah, see you…soon?’

‘Probably too soon,’ Garrett admitted, but it felt nice to finally tell the embarrassing truth.

*

There wasn’t much room in Kirkwall for two apostates to practice illegal magic outside the jurisdiction of the templars and the Circle. Anders took a tremendous risk just by having the necessary literature, not to mention assuming Garrett would have the attention span to read so much writing when what he really wanted to do was tear things apart with unhindered power.

‘Oh, saying something like that doesn’t concern me at all,’ Anders said dryly. But he locked Garrett in the room behind the clinic until he finished his reading; there was nothing else to do in there but lie on one of the narrow bunks, the one that smelled the most of Anders, and read about spells and specializations until Anders finally came back in to explain more about spells and specializations.

Garrett groaned at times that he knew too much, that he preferred it when magic made no sense at all, because Anders was very serious about the whole endeavor and refused to be distracted by kissing. He’d lied at the outset; he was a good teacher, if sometimes impatient or vague, but Garrett hadn’t lied, and he was a terrible student, and it was all very uneven, very clear which of them was the better person.

Still, now that Garrett was learning, he did need to find practical applications, and Anders eventually agreed to take him on some of his frequent trips through Kirkwall’s sewers, shepherding lost apostates from the Gallows or other parts of the city to various locations in the Free Marches. It was better than slipping out at night to waste time and money at the Rose; it was also uncannily close to being noble and self-sacrificing and good, what with all the shit and the danger and the total lack of recognition, but everyone had to start somewhere, and Garrett didn’t want to begin with the Circle.

If Anders regretted taking Garrett on as a student, it only showed sometimes, when he pinched the bridge of his nose wearily and called him hopeless and cursed the Maker for ever being so stupid as to think this would work. But Garrett knew that was all just one part of his teaching system, and tried not to let it bother him.

*

An accident in the mines meant that Garrett was released from his lessons early on Wednesday. He shuffled home in high enough spirits, his sleeve carefully rolled down to conceal the charred strip of skin where he’d accidentally set himself on fire. Anders had hit him with a timely burst of ice, and they’d managed to save the shirt, but it ached, maybe in a good way.

The last thing Garrett needed was to come rolling home shirtless and smelling of raw energy. Mother would be suspicious, but Father would know, and that was so much worse than keeping secrets from them.

When he crossed the threshold of his estate, he was confronted by a rather peculiar sight: Varric, seated in the den with Father, drinking brandy out of a cup that was just slightly too big for him.

‘Ah, Garrett,’ Father said, inclining his head in greeting. ‘You’re home early.’

Garrett crossed his arms over his chest, leaning sideways in the doorway. ‘Really, Varric,’ he said. ‘Isn’t this a little much? You’re following me home now? I might have to involve the city guard, because this behavior… It’s worrisome. I’m legitimately concerned.’

‘Your outstanding debts have all been paid in full over the last week or so, Hawke,’ Varric said, saluting him with the snifter. ‘As it happens, I’m here to see your father.’

‘Just tying up the remaining details on that Deep Roads expedition,’ Father explained. ‘It’s due to leave in roughly a week, which I confess is something of a relief.’

‘There were times when it seemed we might never get it off the ground,’ Varric agreed solemnly, with a tip of his snifter. Garrett wasn’t fooled for an instant. The bastard was feeling all too smug right about now, and no doubt felt he had some sort of right to it.

‘This is the dwarf you brokered the deal with?’ Garrett asked.

‘Actually, it was my brother,’ Varric confessed. ‘Bartrand Tethras. You’ve never met him, because his kind of attitude doesn’t go down well even with a stiff drink. But he’s got a mean head for business, and it just so happens he’s the one heading up the expedition.’

‘He sounds utterly delightful,’ Garrett said. ‘Just like the sort of person anyone would be head-over-heels to be in business with.’

‘I have been assured by the younger Master Tethras that despite his demeanor, his brother can be trusted to keep the best interests of his investors at heart,’ Father said.

‘Assuming that what you’re interested in is money,’ Varric added.

‘Have I ever given you any reason to assume otherwise?’ Garrett asked. He favored Varric with a cocky grin, then nodded to his father. ‘Just passing through. Needed to…change my shirt.’

Three of the hounds came bounding up the stairs with Garrett as he retreated to his room. The various aspects of his life were beginning to collide in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant, though it did make him wonder whether the Maker and Andraste were both having a laugh together at his expense.

*

It was somewhat easier to approach the Viscount’s Keep these days, now that he knew he wouldn’t be pounced on to make any committee-related decisions. It wasn’t that Garrett had abandoned the committee entirely, but it had settled comfortably into the hands that could truly mold it into something meaningful, maybe even something real. Those were not Garrett’s hands, which were having difficulty controlling fireballs these days, but rather Saemus’s, who had always been meant for the task, who’d likely been born to it the same way Garrett had been born to magic.

The man in question was predictably easy to find, hovering on the dais above the entryway, pointedly holding himself separate from his father’s quarters upstairs, and even the seneschal’s office.

‘Garrett,’ he said, waving. The way Saemus smiled made it seem like he’d either forgotten all the mean things Garrett had once called him, or he simply didn’t care. Maybe that was what it meant to have a friend—that an apology would actually be accepted for what it was. Even if it didn’t sound like one at all.

Garrett didn’t entirely know, since he’d never hung around past the calling names and hurling insults stage. That was how he knew a relationship had run its course; that was certainly how things had tied up with Athenril, although secretly Garrett was fairly certain they both knew she deserved better than someone whose mind was always on another person in bed.

‘Saemus,’ Garrett said, sauntering up to him and making a mess of his hair. The delicate hints about Saemus’s chosen style had fallen on deaf ears, so he’d decided to step up his game, venturing into hands-on territory. ‘You’re without your spare chair pear today. Has he fallen ill?’

‘Sebastian? No,’ Saemus said, after taking a minute to work out just who it was Garrett was referring to. ‘It’s the strangest thing, actually. He told me this morning that he was going to the chantry to pray and reflect on his life. Isn’t that odd? I’m told he arranged a meeting with the grand cleric and everything.’

‘He never did tell me what happened on Satinalia,’ Garrett said. In his own estimation, he was doing a fair job of concealing his shock. ‘Maybe he got…a little more than he bargained for with his gift, if you follow me.’

‘I’m sure I don’t,’ Saemus confessed.

‘And that’s why I like you, Saemus,’ Garrett pronounced, clapping him soundly on the back. There was no reason yet, and probably ever, for Saemus Dumar to have to learn what sometimes happened when you lay down with Rivaini pirates on Satinalia eve.

Even perfect breasts were cold comfort when you woke up with an itch and a rash in the morning.

‘Since you’re here—and since, as you rightly pointed out, Serah Vael isn’t—would you be so kind as to look over some literature I’ve written up, Garrett?’ Saemus asked. He had a certain sleight of hand when it came to changing the topic that would serve him well when he took his father’s place.

‘I would be happy to,’ Garrett said, lying through his teeth, and happy bloody belated Satinalia, he thought.

*

Hours later, head reeling with facts about qunari and the qun, Garrett nearly walked smack into a suit of armor that was blocking his passage out of the keep.

‘Hello, Hawke,’ the breastplate said.

‘Hello, Aveline,’ Garrett managed.

The breastplate shifted, and took a step back, and of course it was Aveline, and of course she looked like she wanted to murder him. But, Garrett reminded himself, Aveline always looked that way, just like Seneschal Bran always looked like he’d just caught whiff of a festering wound, just like Anders always looked like he’d been chewed up by a wild bronto.

‘Just seeing Saemus,’ Garrett continued, smoothing his hair quickly. ‘Because we’re friends, Saemus and I. Me and…Saemus…together again, just like old times.’

Aveline looked unimpressed, and still murderous. Just like old times, then.

‘Look, Aveline,’ Garrett said, ‘I practically abased myself at his feet, begging for forgiveness, in front of all of Hightown and some of Starkhaven and an entire herd of Halla. And, as if that wasn’t enough contrition, I just listened to him explain the Qun all afternoon.’

‘Clock in a few more hours,’ Aveline told him, ‘and then we’ll talk.’

‘Can’t wait to chat with you again,’ Garrett replied, throwing her a grossly underappreciated wink.

*

Garrett made his way back home alone, a spring in his step, enjoying the fine weather, doing his best to let his mind go blank and flush out every bit of the useless and pompous information he’d just learned. The Qun was definitely for people like Saemus—smart people, deep people, people who wanted to think about things, although there were times Garrett wondered if the Qun was actually for people who didn’t much like thinking at all. But no matter how you looked at it, the Qun wasn’t for him.

What was for him remained to be seen, but everything—the meeting with Varric that morning, the jolly fun he’d had with Saemus that afternoon, the days and nights he spent with Anders humiliating himself regularly—was starting to add up. Garrett could feel it, like a sneeze that was about to come, perched just on the tip of his tongue.

Father was in the study when Garrett passed by, standing by the fire, holding a half-empty glass with the hounds curled at his feet. He looked, Garrett thought, unexpectedly small, with the white hair at his temples only spreading further these days. He was certainly smaller than he used to be, while Garrett himself had become larger, and Garrett leaned in the doorway, wondering why he’d never asked before how awful it was for him not practicing all the magic he’d once learned, the magic he still instinctively knew.

He had Mother, of course, and according to some people love meant more than anything. And he had children whom he also cared about deeply, would have done anything for, not to mention the hounds. He had business ventures that occupied his time, that he was really very good at, and, presumably, more freedom than any other mage in Kirkwall—save for his two apostate children, a freedom he’d brokered by himself, a much harder bargain to drive than any with even the shrewdest of dwarves. And things could be far worse—they could have been living in Darktown.

But there was still something that rankled, something that felt sour about the situation. Father, Garrett understood, had really given up everything.

‘Father,’ Garrett said. ‘I’ve decided something.’

‘That’s a noble start,’ Father replied, looking up slowly. ‘Only one thing?’

Garrett paused. ‘No,’ he amended, ‘two things.’

Father gestured to a chair, but Garrett remained standing, and he lifted a brow curiously. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You know you can speak freely here.’

‘But only if I close the door,’ Garrett added, and did so.

Now that he’d committed himself—there was that awful word again—it was somewhat harder to begin, and Garrett paced over to the window, tugging at a golden tassel to buy himself some extra time.

‘First things first,’ Father suggested.

‘Yes,’ Garrett said. ‘All right, Father. Firstly: I want to become a charity.’

Father, gratefully, didn’t burst out laughing, or even ask for clarification. ‘And the second thing?’

‘I’m going on the Deep Roads expedition,’ Garrett explained. ‘Because… Because Varric will be so lonely without me. And someone has to protect our investment from that bastard of a brother he’s got.’

It hung in the air between them, Garrett awaiting the refusal he knew would come, preparing all his arguments for why it was necessary. In the Deep Roads there would be more than enough chances to learn, first-hand, what he could do with his magic—and there would likewise be very few witnesses. He’d held back on practicing on people because, well, using the spells he seemed to have an affinity for would have killed them quite quickly, and that would be nothing beyond messy, not to mention somewhat difficult to explain to their families. But in the Deep Roads, all Garrett would be killing was darkspawn, an activity generally believed by all to be a good thing.

Also, it would make Carver spectacularly jealous, and that certainly did sweeten the pot a great deal.

Garrett waited, poised, all his muscles coiled like a cat’s, about to pounce. Father drew in a deep breath, rubbing at his beard with his thumb.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid you’re going to be the one who has to tell your mother, because I’m not mad enough to be in Kirkwall when she hears about it.’

*

Garrett did tell Mother, and Mother did shout quite a bit, so much so that Bethany came running in and the hounds started barking and the servants needed to bring water and a fan and open the windows. Garrett slipped out in the chaos, and caught sight of the front door swinging shut just as Father made his escape; he followed him, and the two of them had a real night out on the town. Or on Darktown, rather. They visited Anders’s clinic, so that Father would know what it was he was investing a small fortune in, and it was ghastly as always, completely unsuitable for people in general.

Afterward, Anders and Garrett took Father to the Hanged Man, because Garrett had decided he could use just a few hours of fun, and he told a few jokes that even made Isabela blush. Certainly, Garrett was beyond humiliated.

They came back home drunk and knocked over one of Garrett’s least favorite statues in the hallway. It would forever be one of Garrett’s most favorite memories, the sort he’d take with him into the Deep Roads and hopefully not leave there with his own taint-ridden corpse.

Thoughts like that were what made it so difficult to tell Anders that he was going. That, along with the memory of how Mother had reacted, kept Garrett from mentioning anything until at last Anders cornered him two nights before the expedition, while he was buying a round for everyone at the bar.

‘I hear from Varric you’re going somewhere,’ Anders said, over the gossip and the shouting and the brawl in the far corner. ‘And I can’t help but think, that’s funny, since I had no idea about this little vacation you’ve been planning.’

‘Ah,’ Garrett said unhelpfully.

‘Was it supposed to be a surprise?’ Anders continued. ‘Rather: was it supposed to be a good surprise? ‘Congratulations, Anders, I’m taking you to sunny Antiva?’ Because right now, as you can see: I’m not smiling.’

‘You’d do awfully in Antiva,’ Garrett confided. ‘You’d get all red and peely and I’d get to rub lotions on you. Maker, why didn’t I think of Antiva? We should go to Antiva someday.’

‘You’re avoiding the topic,’ Anders pointed out.

So he was.

‘I’m going to the Deep Roads,’ Garrett confessed, all at once, but none too easy anyway. ‘I know what it sounds like, but… I’ve got to learn to defend myself sooner or later.’ He gave Anders a meaningful look, praying he’d be able to interpret it. And while he was praying, it seemed like a good idea to throw one out that Anders wouldn’t suddenly decide he was tired of all Garrett’s shenanigans, precisely when he’d made up his mind to try and start being a better person. ‘And… I don’t know what Varric’s told you about his brother, but he sounds like a dwarf of rather dodgy and suspicious moral character. Someone’s got to look out for Father’s investment, and I don’t know about how he is with you, but I personally can’t bring myself to trust that dastardly Varric much, either. Especially since we aren’t just supporting ourselves anymore, but a rather charming little clinic in Darktown.’

Anders gave him a sharp look, but it began to soften in rapid increments, until Garrett was left with the face of someone he liked very much, gazing at him with an expression that could even be termed fond. Appreciative. A little bit yearning.

‘You’ll wait for me, won’t you?’ Garrett asked, reaching up to chuck him under the chin.

Anders caught his hand before he could manage it. ‘Don’t press your luck.’

But he dragged Garrett in by the collar of his shirt after that, and kissed him with a force that was always startling from someone who looked like a stiff wind might do him in. Isabela let out an appreciative whoop from their table, and both Varric and Saemus banged their tankards together, stirring up an enormous ruckus.

It was a monumental pain in the ass to have friends that actually watched and cared about what he did. Garrett was still reasonably sure he wouldn’t trade them for anything. He knew what the other side of that deal looked like, and he wasn’t ever going back.

*

The morning of the expedition, Father dragged him out of bed at an ungodly hour. It was too early to exist, much less exist alongside dwarves, but somehow Garrett managed to put both boots on the right feet, and jam down what approximated a healthy breakfast before he dashed out the door.

‘Be careful,’ Mother said, attempting to force his inner organs out through his mouth, judging by how tightly she was squeezing him in her motherly embrace.

‘Come back quickly, brother,’ Bethany said, kissing him on the cheek. ‘Because the hounds will miss you,’ she added, with an impish gleam in her eyes.

Varric and his bastard of a brother were already waiting in the courtyard of the merchant’s guild. There were a pair of surface dwarves there who looked to be in charge of supplying the expedition, and a few more hirelings, although it seemed they were still waiting on the rest. Varric brightened as Garrett sauntered into view, waving him over to speak with him privately.

‘I spoke with Bodahn—our man in charge of the goods, that is. He says he’s got a staff that’ll suit you just fine, and he can give it to you once we’re safe underground—away from the sodding templars.’

‘Good man, Varric,’ Garrett said, clapping him on the shoulder. He made a reasonable attempt at hiding both his nerves and his gratitude—this would be his first time working with a staff, not to mention his first real, conscious efforts at directing magic against living targets. He was nervous, but Anders had taught him well.

Garrett had confidence in Anders’s abilities as a teacher, if not in his own abilities as a student.

‘All right—who invited the refugee?’ demanded Bartrand, showing little understanding for the delicate tenderness of the touching moment his brother was currently sharing with his close friend Garrett. He had also a voice like a knife on a whetstone, that one; very unpleasant.

Garrett’s pulse sped up, and not just because of the sudden look of complete, ineffable smugness on Varric’s broad face.

And there he was: Anders, rushing across the courtyard, a staff and pack strapped to his back. He was red in the face and breathing hard, as though he’d run all the way from Darktown. Garrett’s eyes wouldn’t let him believe what he was seeing. He stared even as Anders got closer, as he became more and more obviously himself, and Varric moved away to deal with his brother, who was hollering about supplies and unforeseen complications and plundering the Deep Road entrances with firm, dwarven excavation thrusts.

‘Anders,’ Garrett said, stupidly.

‘Yes, well,’ Anders said, panting. He paused momentarily to catch his breath, holding up a hand. ‘It occurred to me that you could use someone with a veritable plethora of Deep Roads experience to come with you on this idiotic venture. And what else am I using my Grey Warden abilities for? Nothing, that’s what.’

‘What about the clinic?’ Garrett asked.

‘I’m assured by my business associate that it will be well taken care of,’ Anders confided.

Garrett thought about his father in any part of Darktown, tending to the sick while they stained his velvet smoking jackets and ruined all his fine leather boots. Somehow, he found it was an image that made him smile.

‘You didn’t really think I’d let my worst student out of my sight for something this important?’ Anders added, somewhat nervously. As though he was worried Garrett would disapprove.

‘Worst?’ Garrett asked, lifting his hand to fiddle with the leather strap of Anders’s rucksack.

‘Absolutely,’ Anders confirmed.

‘And here I thought I was your only student,’ Garrett mourned.

Anders’s lips twitched. ‘That, too,’ he said.

‘Everything all squared away?’ Varric asked, heading over slowly, probably half-expecting them start kissing each other, tearing each other’s clothes off, that sort of thing. If only that would happen. Garrett should be so lucky—but, unsurprisingly, he wasn’t, and all clothes remained un-torn, at least while all the dwarves were watching. ‘Bartrand’s usually easier to placate once we’re on the move.’

‘Square as square can be,’ Garrett assured him.

Anders sighed, eyeing the evidence of the expedition all around them. The expressions of the men ranged from anxious to anticipatory, while Anders merely looked resigned. ‘I suppose there’s no sense in wasting daylight—particularly since we won’t be seeing it for weeks,’ he said at last, having accepted the inevitability of this sort of future. If he could put up with this, Garrett had to assume, then he could put up with anything. Including, but not limited to, Garrett himself. ‘Have I mentioned yet that I hate the blighted Deep Roads?’