three cats in a trenchcoat

Already, crates are being unloaded; there is movement on the ship and on the dock. There is a sense of relief in the air, of a shred of normalcy appearing and clung to. Neve pauses at the gangplank, letting two people carrying a large crate between them move past her.

"Taash around?" she asks.

"They're in the hold," the man replies. "You a friend of theirs?" The question is asked before the sailor gets a good look at her, but she sees the moment he recognizes her, the way his head ducks in apology.

"Yes."

"You're welcome on deck, just watch your step."

This is what she likes best about the Lords of Fortune: they're not ones to make a fuss. To put on airs for her. Neve waits for another crate to be moved and then hurries up the gangplank. She steps over to the cargo hold, the hatch moved away, and glances down into the gloom.

"Well, look what the tides dragged in," she says, a hand on her hip.

Taash glances up, and their face lights up with a smile. They ride the next bit of lifted cargo up to the deck, jumping down and pulling Neve into a bone-crushing hug in one smooth motion. "Here I thought I'd have to come tracking you down."

"As though I don't know every ship that comes through this port." What she doesn't say is that it's far easier these days with how few of them there are.

"I need to finish up here, but can we get drinks after we're finished?" Taash asks.

Neve smiles. "I know a place."

Neve melts into the background. There's a peculiar comfort in being surrounded by people, but mostly below their notice. The Lords know who she is, but they don't much care, and their indifference feels almost luxurious. So, she sits back and watches the crew.

A pair of shoulders brushed in passing, lingering a heartbeat longer than the crowded deck requires. Lovers, or trying to be. One sailor drags his feet just enough that someone always reaches the next task first. Laziness, maybe, or an exhaustion so old it's become habit. Two women chart careful courses around each other, never close enough to risk having to interact. A power struggle, a fallout from an argument? Tiny mysteries, petty grievances, monotonous problems that plague all people no matter whether they call a ship or city home.

She finds, with a start, that she'd forgotten how much she missed them. There was a time when her days were spent mostly untangling cases of jealousy, infidelity, lies, and dishonesty. Cases so small they barely deserved the word. She used to complain about them, think them tedious, spending her days wishing for work that actually mattered.

Now, she finds herself a little wistful for those early days when she was still making a name for herself. The days before she was searching out the dead in a city of corpses. Funny, she thinks, Minrathous didn't beat the hope out of her all at once. It started by making those petty little problems seem inconsequential.

She isn't sure which crime is worse.

It is in this moment that she has the prickling feeling of being watched, an awareness snaking up her spine. She can feel it, this attention on her. It's uncomfortable, but never malicious. She glances around as though she'd be able to find the source, but already, she knows that she won't. Off in the darkness of the water, she sees a series of soft glowing lights, bobbing with the waves. They could be wisps, or a trick of the light. It's hard to say. She tries then reaching back, as though turning her attention back on them might give her answers, but the moment she does, the lights and the feeling dissipate.

"Ready?" Taash asks, appearing at Neve's side.

She twists away from the water, from whatever had been out there. "Absolutely."

Neve replaces her handkerchief, and Taash ties their own, and together they leave the relatively clean air of the docks and head back into Dock Town proper. Neve leads the way through the serpentine streets, asking questions as they go.

"How was the trip? Always glad to see you in one piece."

Taash shakes their head. "Still looking for the patterns. No single route seems to work twice. There's no relying on the old maps or navigation. You just have to know your shit."

"Any trouble beyond rough seas?"

"No. We used to see Qunari dreadnoughts all the time, especially coming through the strait. But…it's just nothing. You'd think with Tevinter ripping itself to shreds, they'd want to capitalize on it, but they don't. No offense."

How many hundreds of years of fighting, and now that Tevinter is destroying itself from the inside, even the Qun don't want it? It feels unfathomable. It's just another thing that has changed in this world.

"None taken."

"How're things here?"

Neve shrugs. "About the same."

"A lot of those crates are full of food. Grain and rice, you know, the stuff that can feed a lot of people."

If they have the means to afford it, is something Neve doesn't reply. But by this time they're approaching the Metropole. Since it's not raining, the place looks less like it's falling apart. It's late enough that they've stopped serving dinner and people have tucked themselves into corners to sleep in the main area, but mostly those who come here for aid drift back to wherever they call home for the evenings. It's the only time of day where the Metropole feels like the Shadow Dragons'. It's the only time it feels like it used to before.

Somehow, it is still too empty.

What was left of the Shadow Dragons have worked tirelessly to rebuild Minrathous. Walls have been rebuilt, streets cleared, storefronts reopened. But people are harder to replace. Even before Elgar'nan walked the city in the flesh, the Venatori had been stringing up her fellow Shadows in the streets, from bridges and walls. They'd done their work thoroughly. Still, those who were left had worked with Solas in the end, had stood as the last bastions keeping Minrathous from falling completely. A war of attrition that made their numbers even sparser, scattering them into obscurity. Besides, with the Archon abolishing slavery, the Shadow Dragons have become yesterday's enemy. The magisters and slaveholders with enough coin simply packed up and fled to the outer cities of the Imperium, where they pretend the decree is temporary and history can be waited out.

Judging by the papers, the lie is holding.

Taash, at least, is enough novelty to fill the silence. They're as recognizable here as Neve is, but infinitely more welcome this evening. Shadows pop out to say hello, hungry for news out of Rivain, for evidence that the rest of the world has returned to normalcy. Neve lets Taash shoulder the hope, and she slips behind the bar instead. Reaching for a bottle of whatever has been scavenged or made for a little oblivion. There are few options. The one she finds has no label. Homemade, judging by the cloudy amber liquid. It smells potent enough to strip paint, and she has to turn her face away before pouring two fingers into a pair of chipped glasses.

Neve's reappearance at the table scatters the last of Taash's well-wishers, and for that, she's grateful. She just wants time with her friend without interruption. "Can't vouch for the quality, but should get the job done."

Taash clinks their glasses together and drinks it down in one gulp, only grimacing slightly. "You seen anyone else lately?"

Neve nods. "I was in Treviso a couple weeks ago, and then visited Emmrich and Willow in the Necropolis."

"Did you actually manage to see Lucanis, or did he just send someone to the villa gate to tell you he's 'indisposed'?" Taash asks, voice pitched low with judgment.

Neve feels a sort of absurd desire to defend Lucanis even though the way he's treated all of them is at its core indefensible. "He was there. Almost wish he wasn't though. He seems worse. The Crows have stopped sending aid though. It's just Lucanis."

Taash frowns. "Seriously?"

"They can't do it forever, and we don't have anything they want….except the Crossroads."

Taash crosses their arms. "The Crows want the Crossroads? For what?"

"Trade."

Taash considers that. "It would solve a lot of problems if it was even possible. Bet the Caretaker would love that. How'd they figure they'd move shit without a fucking floating boat?"

"Viago suggested we ask the Caretaker what it wants."

Taash shakes their head. "That's vashedan. The Crossroads doesn't belong to us…"

Neve nods. "I know…I've just been thinking that maybe….maybe they should get used. Some of the mirrors are near enough each other…we could move goods more easily…speed along rebuilding…keep people from starving."

Taash listens to every word, their frown growing deeper. "Fuck."

Neve can't see any other answers. Trade isn't going back to the way it was before, that much is certain. The Crossroads were once used to house people, to keep them safe. Why not open it to trade and the Antivan merchant princes? Neve is tired of living atop a mass grave, and if this means they don't add any more bodies to the tally of the dead, isn't it worth it? Especially if they managed to find and ask the Caretaker. It should have been Rook's call, but in her absence, perhaps if the rest of the team agrees….

"I'm all out of good ideas these days. All I've got are bad ones."

"Well, I don't like it."

Neve sighs. "Me either." They let the subject drop. Neve sips at her drink, relishing the burn.

After a moment, Taash leans forward, voice pitched low and hope shining in their eyes. "Any updates on…you know?"

The drink turns to lead in Neve's stomach. She knew they'd be asking, and she wishes she had more to give them. She wishes, not for the first time, that she had good news. That she could tell them there was hope, that Harding was definitely alive. That they would find her. In the wake of Minrathous, Taash had held out hope for Harding's return. It made sense. Bellara had come back to them, Rook too, if only for a short time. Why not Harding? They'd all looked for her around every corner in the city, but there had been nothing. Neve had promised them they'd find her.

"Nothing since we last spoke."

Just a series of dead ends. Tearstone, what was left of it anyway, had been scoured with no sign of Harding…or even the blight pool she'd fallen into. Neve has spent the intervening months casting as wide a net as she dares, contacting Orzammar and Kal-Sharok, hoping for something, anything. She's come up empty every time. Orzammar had never been friendly, but Stalgard's simply stopped answering her letters. She can't say she blames him, exactly. It has been eighteen months - maybe she is just chasing ghosts.

Taash looks unsurprised, but Neve can still feel the disappointment, the way they carry this old hurt. She doesn't think that time heals all wounds; she thinks that maybe they just get better at burying them, obscuring the pain from everyone else. Grief is a funny thing. Some days, Neve wakes, and it's as easy to carry on with life as it was before all of this, but there will be a sound or a smell or a corner of her city that is so irrevocably changed - that it hits her with a force that feels as though it will destroy her entirely. And she must carry on anyway. They all must.

"I'm sorry." As though it's enough. As though she could make the words big enough to be a balm for this wound.

Taash waves the apology away, but Neve can see the disappointment in the lines of their shoulders. "I know you're trying. If there's something to find, you'll find it."

Their vote of confidence is equal parts reassuring and guilt-inducing. "I hope you're right."

There's some movement at the open entrance of the Metropole, and old habits die hard. Neve's hand is already on her stave as she turns more fully, only to realize it's Davrin walking in with Assan a step behind. He looks tired, but there's an unmistakable relief when he sees them. She's already on her feet, as is Taash, so they can greet him properly.

Neve has never been one who was big on physical shows of affection. She didn't grow up in a family that hugged or even said they loved each other. But there is something about the way she feels upon seeing her friends in one piece that she cannot contain in words, that feels safer instead to press between their bodies. And if Davrin holds her a little tighter than is strictly friendly, or if she stays a moment longer than she would for anyone else - neither one of them mentions it. Instead, she steps behind him to greet Assan.

The griffon is nearly as tall as she is, and he clicks and squawks and twists his neck enthusiastically into her hands.

"Not doing your pull-ups, I see," Taash says, knocking at Davrin's chest.

Davrin meets the teasing with a tired but genuine laugh. "Not exactly a lot of opportunity for that walking the roads in Ferelden."

"What brings you here? Is everything alright?" Neve asks, suddenly realizing that his unexpected arrival can only mean that he brings bad news.

Davrin's mouth tightens into a line. "Looking for you, actually. Something strange happened while I was in Ferelden."

It's not what she was expecting. "What do you mean something strange happened?"

"My team and I were in a village in the mountains. The people there were drugged and then the chantry was set ablaze with them in it….and we got there too late." Beside him, Taash swears, but Davrin continues. "In the night…I heard some scratching beneath the window of the house we were staying in. This is Nevarran grave script, right?"

He pulls out a notebook and holds it out to her. She stares at the symbols, willing them to match what she's seen in her own apartment. She's stared at them and Willow's translations enough over the last couple weeks to know them by heart. They aren't the same, but he's not wrong. This is grave script. "Yes. It is."

"There's one more thing," Davrin says, and produces a leather-bound journal. He flips to the last page. "The apothecary who we think helped drug everyone before they sent the chantry on fire? This was his."

Scribbled all over the final page is one single word: Rook.

It feels like being handed another piece to the puzzle she's been working herself to the bone to solve. "We need to get to the Necropolis."

***

If the Volkarins are annoyed with the propensity of their friends to arrive at their home at increasingly strange hours, they are too kind to say so. The only sign of their surprise is the casualness of their attire, clothing slightly more rumpled than usual, as though it was thrown on in a rush. Neve would feel bad, but the moment Willow had realized what news they brought, it had no longer mattered. It had been easy enough to send word to Bellara as they stepped into the Crossroads, for her to meet them at the Necropolis eluvian. Neve had warred with herself the entire way about whether she should also send word to Treviso, but in the end, she'd decided not to. She doesn't know what this is, only that it must be connected to Rook in some way. Instead of answers, she simply carries more questions, and it feels like a cruelty to try and offer Lucanis any hope that might be snatched away.

Still, it feels wrong.

They're all crowded in Emmrich and Willow's shared office. It's more cluttered than the last time she was here, as though Willow has redoubled her efforts since the last visit. Neve is not ignorant of the fact that Willow had activated the silencing wards on Johanna the moment they'd all stepped inside, though. Neve glances at the skull in distrust, wondering what poison Hezenkoss is filling Willow's head with whenever they're not around.

The group waits in near silence while Willow reads through the papers Davrin brought, Emmrich craning over her shoulder. Neve watches Willow's brow knit tighter the more she reads.

Beside her, Bellara's fingers are laced with hers, holding on so tightly it borders on painful. It's good to see her. Better than good. Bellara has pulled back a little since Minrathous, since being blighted. Every time Neve sees her, she's looking for signs that it's returned, that whatever had been done to the blight in Minrathous hasn't held. But her skin is clear, her eyes bright. Some miracles came late; the guilt stayed.

Bellara was there at the end. Too spent from holding back Elgar'nan to change what came next. Neve knows that Bellara has always been good at blaming herself for what happened in the end. They're all fluent in that language: the if onlys. If only they'd been faster. If only they'd seen it sooner. If only they'd had one more spell. If only—

Neve carries her own guilt close to her chest where no one can ask after it. When Minrathous first fell, she'd blamed Rook. It had never really been her fault, not really, but Rook had made a decision and her city had suffered, and she'd wanted someone to pay for it. Someone to feel it as much as she did. It had been easy to twist it onto Rook, easier still because she'd accepted it. She hadn't pushed, and she hadn't argued - she'd just taken it. Every unkind word, every cold response, the guilt is overwhelming knowing that Rook had so easily sacrificed herself, in the end. For Minrathous, sure, but for all of Thedas, too. How could she have ever doubted her commitment? How could she have ever accused her of not caring enough?

Bellara seems to have sensed the shift in Neve's thoughts; she squeezes her hand, and it brings her back to the here and now, to Willow's confused expression.

"They're names. Familiar names. But I don't know why I know them."

Davrin folds his arms. "Why would names appear below a window in Ferelden?"

"Why would random grave epitaphs appear in Neve's apartment?" Bellara asks. "It feels like…some sort of message."

Taash leans back in their chair. "Shit's weird. You said the names were familiar. Are they like…in the Memorial Gardens or whatever?"

"Are these names important somehow? I thought it might have been some ward or something," Davrin says. "But….taken with all those people dead in the chantry…feels like something worse."

Bellara shivers at the mention. Taash and Neve had already heard the story, so they'd been prepared when he'd laid it out for Emmrich, Willow, and Bellara. Still, there's nothing to be done about the horror of it. She wonders what else he's seen in the months he's been away. She's not certain she wants to know.

"While those names could certainly be from the Memorial Gardens….they feel more familiar than that. Were they in an article we've read recently, my dear?" Emmrich asks.

"Could be," Will says before twisting and staring at the bookshelf behind her. "Epitaphs and names….epitaphs and names….what if…" Suddenly she approaches a stack of books beside the nearest bookshelf.

Neve catches sight of the title of the book. Sees Rook's name — Camina Ingellvar — etched across the front of it in golden letters. "What is that?"

Willow sighs. "A scholar had all of Cam's scholarship rebound and published a few months ago."

"Don't worry, Willow already gave him the what for at the faculty soiree," Emmrich says proudly.

Mourn Watchers are ridiculous. "You think the answer is in there?"

Willow opens to the page. "The epitaphs and the names. They're from the Shadowed Catacombs where Cam did her dissertation."

Neve remembers; she's read it. Once, in another life. It had been a sort of joke. Emmrich had earnestly supplied them all with copies, thought it was a shame that they'd never read Rook's scholarship. Neve had read through the dense descriptions and explanations enough to ask questions and tease her friend at their book club meeting. Rook had turned a rather alarming shade of pink when she realized what Emmrich had done.

Taash sighs loudly. "Congratulations, you're being haunted by academic scholarship."

Willow opens to a page and twists the book around. "The names match, the epitaphs from Neve, too."

Davrin shoots a glance over her way, and Neve meets it; it's clear they're thinking the same thing. "How far are these catacombs?"

Perhaps, whoever or whatever is sending these messages to them, they're trying to send them to this place. Trying to get them to go and see. Neve knows that no matter what the group's response, this is a trip she'll be making anyway.

"Assuming they haven't moved, perhaps an hour into the depths of the Necropolis?" Emmrich replies.

"Anyone want to take down odds on if they've moved or not?" Neve asks. She's keeping her tone light, bored, but internally something is shifting in her. This really is a lead. This really is something.

Willow's hands rest on her hips. "Well, I'm not getting any sleep tonight anyway. I vote we go."

"There really is no time like the present," Emmrich replies with excitement.

***

Neve has never spent enough time in the Necropolis to discern the different forms of darkness. Rook had always been able to measure the hours in the perpetual gloom, and logically, Neve knows it is the middle of the night, but it could be midafternoon for all the sky looks the same to her. The lifts that take them down into the deep are slow, rattling things. This is a section of the Necropolis that she has never ventured into, and that is true for all except Emmrich and Willow, who kindly answer all of Bellara's many questions as they descend deeper into the gloom.

Taash has taken a seat on the floor of the lift, is toying with one of their axes. "Do you think we should have grabbed Lucanis first?"

At the mention of his name, the entire car falls silent. Willow meets Neve's eye before answering. "No, I think it's best we investigate first."

Taash shrugs. "If this was all about Harding and not Rook….I'd want to know. Even if there's nothing to find."

Bellara bites her lip. "I don't think that's how Lucanis feels…I don't know. He doesn't really talk to me."

"He doesn't really talk to anyone, Bel," Neve says, trying for reassurance. "I think…I think we all just remind him of her, and I think it's too hard."

"What it is, is shitty, but I don't disagree with Neve and Willow. Let's figure out what we're dealing with here first, and then…we'll loop him in. If there's anything to loop him in about," Davrin says. He glances about as though looking for Assan in the half-darkness, but they'd left the griffon happily making a mess of Willow and Emmrich's garden. He's too large to fit in the lift anyway.

But even that image isn't enough to banish the uneasiness Neve feels, can see reflected in everyone. There's something of betrayal there too, but perhaps there will be nothing to find. At least Lucanis is saved the hope that's rising in her the farther they drop into the depths.

When the lift finally shudders to a stop, and Emmrich's magic opens the metal grate, they follow him out onto the sand-covered stone. Davrin steps close to her, and so she hangs back.

"I think we need to be ready for a fight," he murmurs.

"Why?"

Davrin shakes his head. "I get that you've been having this weird benign haunting shit, but there's no way that whatever this is isn't all linked to that chantry burning."

"You think there was more to it than blind religious belief?"

"I think the apothecary in that town got possessed by a demon," Davrin replies. "And I think we're willingly following its clues."

"It feels better, doesn't it, to assign every cruel and terrible thing to a monster or a demon? Sometimes people are just as bad. You don't know it was a possession and neither do I, but you couldn't have saved them either way."

"Ever take your own advice?" Davrin asks, with a sideways glance at her. There's a faint smile on his lips and something that looks like fondness in his eyes.

Neve manages a smile then, too. "Not if I can help it. I wouldn't exactly count that as one of my better attributes though."

The Shadowed Catacombs are far larger than anything Neve pictured in reading Camina's dissertation. It becomes immediately apparent why she'd spent the better part of two years here identifying the dead. This place holds none of the tableaux of the Memorial Gardens; instead, the bones of the dead have been carefully and meticulously stacked, running the length of the tunnels. The skulls of the dead have been arranged in arches and shapes throughout. They are lucky that magical fires burn in the sconces so that they can see, but they cast long, grotesque shadows on the ground and around every corner. Neve clenches her stave a little more tightly.

The feeling of being watched has returned, and she glances about, but it seems not even the wisps have followed them this far.

"Do you feel that?" Neve asks.

Bellara and Emmrich are the only ones who nod. "The Veil here…it feels…." Bellara shakes her head, as though unsure how to describe it.

"Chaotic," Emmrich supplies.

"Honestly, I'm just surprised this place is where we expected it to be," Neve says. Perhaps it is the cynic in her, but she'd expected to find the catacombs missing, gone, this to be another dead end in a long, long series of failures.

"We should keep moving," Willow says.

No one argues.

As they move deeper, a sense of disquiet descends on the group. Neve feels it before she understands it — a pressure settling over her. Every instinct honed in Dock Town, every case that began with the feeling that something wasn't right, rises like ice beneath her skin. The tunnel they're in opens up to a larger chamber, deep and shadowed.

Ahead, something moves. Not quickly, but laboriously. At first it's only a disturbance in the darkness, the suggestion of a body where there shouldn't be one. At first it is shadow, and then it is something more concrete, the silhouette of familiarity. One step. Another.

Each stumbling forward movement looks stolen, looks like a struggle. The figure stumbles, keeps going, hand pressed against their ribs. The other hangs uselessly at their side, fingers grasping the air as though reaching for something that is no longer there.

Neve's pulse pounds in her throat, her breath caught in her lungs. The figure draws closer.

It can't be.

The woman lifts her head, and for one impossible moment, Neve doesn't recognize her. Her body is thin, emptied. But then the light catches her face, the scar across her nose, the stubborn set of her mouth.

Rook.

Willow surges forward before anyone can think to stop her, before they can discern whether this is an apparition or a demon or some other trick of the Fade. The woman who is Rook stops as if struck. Fear flashes across her face first; recognition follows so quickly it hurts to witness; her lips part.

"Will?"

It is more the memory of a voice than true sound, but then whatever has been holding her upright finally gives way. She folds where she stands, like a marionette with its strings cut, and collapses entirely.

By then, Willow has reached her, is pulling her into her lap with trembling hands, and it is only then that Neve realizes this isn't a trick.