The fireplace had gone cold. When was the last time it was even lit? He couldn’t remember, only fought his way out of his boots and then his clothes. He could see Bull’s breath on the frigid air. 

When he stifled a groan, his hands wrapped around horns, Bull grabbed his thighs harder and swallowed around his cock. He could hear the laundress humming to herself in the room across the hall, the lad who brought coal to the kitchen for the morning meal. But every sound he made was rewarded so he grunted with each careful nudge of Bull’s fingers inside of him. When he came his wordless shout echoed off the cold walls.

Cock in hand, Bull stood to lean against the wall, one massive arm propped above his head. He mouthed at Bull’s chest while he jerked off.

“Tell me what you wanna see, baby.” Bull was unreserved, loud and entirely focused on the show he put on. He bent even lower to bite his ear, stubbled chin scraping. “I’m gonna lick it off you. Where do you want it?”

Weak-kneed and overwhelmed, tingling after his own orgasm, he laughed at the ticklish swipe of Bull’s tongue on his stomach. Bull dressed without hurry, but didn’t so much as sit on the edge of his bed a moment. 

He crawled onto the lumpy mattress, already half asleep. “What the fuck was that?” he said into his pillow.

“You’re more drunk than I thought if you forgot already, Thom.” Bull’s mood was lighter but suddenly reserved. Distant.

“Fine,” he sighed.

At the door Bull thought better of it, turned around. “I want him to lose something, too.”

“So now you’re even.” It didn’t hurt, not exactly. Fair trade, as far as he was concerned and better than paying for it.

“Nah. We’re miles from even.” Bull poured him a cup of water, left it on the floor in arm’s reach then pulled a quilt from the end of the bed to cover his legs. “He didn’t love you like I loved my guys.”

He didn’t like loud clubs, not even when he was a lad. It was a pain in the ass to order by mouthing things to the barman so he just tipped his head back when he looked at his end of the sticky bar. He felt like a creep. The kid wore a harness with steel rings over the nipples and not a lot else.

The few people not dancing were mostly slapping the shit out of each other in one way or another. They had their own circles camped out. The faint slap of a leather paddle against bare thighs from a wooden x frame cut through the music. He glanced that way a few times but gave up trying to look like he wasn’t watching. Plenty of people were watching. That was probably the point.

On the plinth the lads came down flushed and sweating with money sticking out of their knickers and the tops of their knee high boots. As the next song blended into the end of the last the people on the floor jostled one another until a very drunk woman climbed up, gyrated for ten seconds, accepted a fiver from her mate and jumped back down in giggles.

Cleared out a bit now that the professionals were on break, he could see a beautiful man, there wasn’t another word for it, he was a stunner, pull himself up with grace. He danced easily with a vanishingly thin silver lead attached to another chain around his throat. At the other end of the lead his partner or master whatever they called themselves collected his tips. The only place to put them would’ve been the short pants unbuttoned and about to fall off his hips but it looked like nothing but magic was holding those up.

A Qunari approached them with a cocktail balanced in one hand. She leaned down so she could speak into the master’s ear then gently tucked a bill into their hand before she took the lead. Pretty Boy slithered down to the dance floor and followed along two steps behind. Colored lights behind the chair she chose showed only her silhouette. Her horns curved forwars and then up at a sharp angle. Tassels on each horn bobbed with her nod of approval for the lap dance she’d bought.

Squeals of shock startled him into looking at the wooden frame again. An older woman was strapped down for a dwarf with a cane that whistled through the air. He missed the rest of the Pretty Boy’s ass about to fall out of his shorts becuase the dance was over. The Qunari made a beeline for the bar, done with her show. She wove through the dancers with a smile and stopped to spin lazily in the arms of a tall thin man dressed like the last survivor of a shipwreck - black tattered everything. Thom realized too late she was going to belly up to the bar right beside him. It was the only open space. He sat up straighter.

The barkeep slid a fresh cocktail into her hand without being asked. Her nails were long and polished. Delicate gold rings wrapped around her thumbs and middle fingers highlighted her grey skin. He stopped staring at her and watched the dwarf work instead.

“You’re next?” She glanced at him, her drink cupped in both hands.

“What?” It was hard to hear and his brain needed a moment to remember how to talk to a pretty woman.

“I said,” she moved closer until she stood between his spread knees. The toe of her shoe bumped the leg of his barstool. “Are you next. With Carla?”

He shook his head. She smelled good enough to eat - expensive perfume and a little bit of cigarette smoke in the silk wrap she wore over a very short white dress.

“Carla’s great with a paddle, too, if you like thump.”

“If I like what?” He took a swig of beer to give himself something to do.

“You’re new,” she smiled. “Newbies don’t usually come alone.”

“Saw a poster,” he lied. “Thought I’d see if it’s for me.”

She tilted her head. The jeweled caps on her horns caught the light again. “Is it?”

He drained his beer, put the empty on the bar and shrugged.

“We get a lot of military types,” she placed her glass carefully on a napkin and wrapped her chilly damp fingers around his wrist. She pushed his cuff up to show all of the old army tattoo there. “Army guys tend to like the harder stuff.”

“What do you like?” he blurted out, frozen in place. He wasn’t used to being chatted up so aggressively and wondered if she might be a hooker. Out of his price range, he reckoned.

“Contrast. Adoration. Worship.”

“Who’re you looking to worship?”

“You’ve got it backwards,” she laughed and let go of him. “I’m Lu. Let me buy you a drink.”

Thom glanced around for Sera, for anybody who wasn’t trying to get or give someone else an erection or a bruise. This girl was too pretty, too clever for his old hide. “Thom. I was just…just going, you know. It’s not my kind of place.”

She nodded and reached over the bar, the kid in the harness handed her a bag and a fur coat. “I’ll walk you out.” She said it like he’d already agreed, so he did. Lu shook her head when he fished his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. “I’ve got it.”

Outside she put her arms in her pale pink coat. The silk thing she had on before was stuffed into her handbag. In the bright light of the marquis he saw she had a tattoo of Kios on the back of one calf. Against the backdrop of smokers all in black rubber or red corsets Lu looked like a birthday cupcake. Pink fluff on top and white velvet stretched tight over strong thighs.  

“Thanks for the beer,” he said.

“Sure,” she winked and nodded at the wall behind him. “I’m compensated in booze a lot these days.”

He looked at where she indicated and noticed the beautiful woman on the advertising for tonight’s event was her, done up like royalty. Flowers in her hair, ten pounds of gold jewelry and a dress cynched in over a skirt of feathers. She held a crop against one long grey thigh in fishnet.

“Friends of friends is how we get things done around here. If a promoter actually paid someone I’d die of the shock.” She lit a cigarette and tucked the lighter in a pocket. “So,” she exhaled into the breeze above their heads, “which side of town are you?”

“River East.”

“Me too. I’ll walk you.”

Her heels clicked on the sidewalk. Grit blew on the air from the roof of an abandoned factory, tickticktick against the shop windows at his side of the street. Her hand tucked into his elbow squeezed. He glanced at her on his left then again at their reflection in a window. Her lips were painted bright pink.

The oversize bag she carried swayed at an off cadence so that something hard and heavy slapped his kneecap.

“What’ve you got in there, bricks?”

She laughed under her breath, “Only my flashlight.”

“Ah, the old MagLite shampoo,” he said with a nod. Crude but real effective.

“This is me,” Thom took his hands out of his pockets and turned to face her on the front path. He’d forgotten to leave a light on and Sera wasn’t home yet so the house was dark. It looked even worse lit up, though.

“It’s got character,” Lu said politely.

Before he could apologize - for his shabby house, for taking her away from her party, for his old fashioned blue jeans, Lu tugged him into a kiss. She held onto one side of his collar and pulled him against her by his belt loop. His fingers sank into the cold fur of her coat until he could hold her hips tight. She was fleshy under there, balanced like a dancer on her sharp high heels. They necked like a couple of teenagers, stumbled up the front steps to the old porch swing. Lu straddled his thighs and bit his bottom lip. She smiled down at his grunt of pain.

“Too hard?” Lu wiggled closer. Somewhere under all that fur coat were knickers, she was almost close enough for him to grind his cock up against her.

“Fine,” he said around a panting breath. Thom squeezed her ass, just to see if that was all right. Lu dove back in for another kiss. She wormed a hand under the hems of both his shirts. He sucked in his belly out of embarrassed habit before she grabbed a handful of the hair under his navel and twisted.

“Fuck!” He grunted into her open mouth, suddenly as hard as he’d ever been.

Lu let go and rubbed a slow circle over the stinging spot. “That’s what I thought,” she smirked.

A bright blue cab pulled up to the curb, barely missed the recycling bin that stuck out off the sidewalk.

“Gotta go,” Lu kissed him slow and wet.

“That’s your cab?”

“Sweetheart, I’m on the other side of town.” She stepped back and pulled her dress back down over her ass.

“Oh.” He thought maybe he should stand up, walk her to the car or hold the door for her or…something. “Should I call you?”

“Mmhmm,” she lit a cigarette clenched in a wicked smile. The snap of her lighter turned him on almost as much as her hard nipples through her white dress. Lu plucked a business card from her pocket and left it on the porch railing with a tap of fingernail against the dusty paint. “I expect you to,” she said over her shoulder from the darkened curb.

The interior light of the cab lit her up when she slipped inside. She tossed her hair over her shoulder so that he barely heard the tasseled horn caps jingle before the door shut. She didn’t look back as he rubbed his face in disbelief.

Somewhere between the Chantry and the timbered wall around the town, harsh voices, male and Ferelden cut through the cold. By the time she cleared a line of thorny bushes only one man was in view, the flap of a tent falling closed on a uniformed back. The tents next to it were buttoned up tight but she could hear boots scuffing the floor inside. Dorian’s distinctive laughter rang out as he gathered up books from the dirty snow.

“Lovely,” Evelyn sighed, pulling a bundle of scrolls from a bush. “Here,” she handed them over. “I see a few more in there.”

“I’m surprised.” Dorian bent to pull his bags from the muck around a tree trunk with a little chuckle. Not a hair out of place, he flicked wet snow away with a ripple of magic.

“By what?” She found a fallen branch to tease the papers from between thorns until she could reach them. Smelly, hulking morons. Prats.

“I thought for certain you would swoop into that tent and tell those nasty Dog lords where to put their bigotry.” He accepted the damp books, stuffing them in a saddlebag with more force than necessary - the only evidence of anger. “You seem like the type.”

She shrugged. “You’re capable of fighting for yourself. If I learned anything from my mother’s poor example it was that being shrill doesn’t get you far with men. I have the wrong accent, the wrong nose and the wrong set of tackle for those prats to care what I think.”

Either through luck or magic she was glad to see none of his gorgeous clothes were muddy.

“If I start now I will be haranguing Harritt tomorrow for putting them up to it. If I’m going that far, next it will be that slime selling the worst of the new swords to gullible peasants on the road.” Shouldering the smaller of the two bags, she turned toward the path. “Harritt has a right good bollocking coming his way. But not now. I need him working eighteen hours a day. Which he is less likely to do if he has been tongue-lashed by the uppity Ostie.”

Dorian nodded with a sigh. “Where are we going?”

“I’m hungry, Flissa should have something edible in the tavern.” She turned back to look at him where he had stopped. “Are you coming?”

His wry grin firmly in place, Dorian held out a hand for his bag. “Thank you, Evelyn, but I’ve had my fill of Haven’s hospitality for one evening.”

“A Blight on Haven’s hospitality. This is Ostwick hospitality on offer, since I was raised properly. You need somewhere to sit out of the cold while I find you a bed.” As he opened his mouth to refuse Evelyn dropped his bag to the gravel at her feet. Crossing her arms more for warmth than fuss, she blew her hair out of her eyes. “I have some thoughts on it already, so I don’t need your opinion. We have been traipsing back and forth through the Hinterlands for three bloody weeks running errands for illiterate farmers who would rather see us eaten by bears than loan out a few flea-ridden blankets for their frozen neighbors.”

A deep breath and she reminded herself to watch how loudly she spoke. Don’t be shrill, Evie.

“This I would actually like to do,” she said in a kinder tone. “For the person who saved their sorry arses from a very red, very pointy future where it rains demons.”

Dorian frowned at her, smoothing one corner of his mustache.

“Be a lamb. Go. Sit. Order wine for us while I find Leliana.”

He picked up the second bag, something inside it rattled and gurgled. He settled it across his arm and sketched an elegant little bow. “I defer to your judgment, Herald.”

His loose-limbed gait was lit by the glow of the tavern’s doors as he called over his bare shoulder, “Have you been practicing a speech like that for my inevitable eviction? I thought it went well.”

Prat. She wondered why he had ever agreed to bunking in with the men by the Chantry. Surely he would be more comfortable sharing a tent with other mages?

Leliana held court under a makeshift tent and she only ever left when it was too cold outside for sealing wax. Her ravens complained, hopping away and clicking their beaks until their mistress gave in and went indoors. Tonight she wasn’t alone in her corner of the room she shared with Cullen (though Evelyn had never seen him at the desk set aside for him) and her guest’s scent filled the space: attar of roses.

She was middle aged, which was odd. Evelyn had never seen Leliana in conference with a woman who wasn’t ancient or distressingly young. Evelyn recognized her as one of the merchants who had been trickling into Haven. She wore cheap boots and a good frock that was very much wearing her and not the other way round.

As the door closed behind her Evelyn took a seat on a rickety chair. “I didn’t think she was your type.”

“A clothier?”

“A woman her age. Our age. Don’t pretty young things make better sources?”

Leliana smiled at her as if she was a dim student. “Inara is perfect. She has a wealth of secrets at her fingertips.”

“What does it benefit to know who buys new stockings this week?”

“She has three children. Every evening she hears three different reports from opposite ends of Haven as they eat supper. Tavern girls are suspect but irresistible, as is the comfort of telling an old woman your problems. No one feels pressed to confess or to impress a woman like Inara, it is true, but neither are they careful with their words nearby. She hears a great deal.”

“She sounds very Ostwick.”

Leliana sat beside her, eyes intent. “Yes. Have you spoken to her?”

“No, not as such.” Evelyn watched the ravens preening their feathers rather than look her in the eye. “It is a very big city, and a big market.”

“Fiona’s right hand man, Mathis, was in the Ostwick Circle with your brother.”

“I haven’t found anyone who remembers him. Lorans would have been a decade ahead of him.”

Mathis had promised to keep an eye out among the refugees for anyone who mentioned an apostate at the right places in the right year. Evelyn had almost immediately regretted asking, as she found Mathis was distractingly handsome. In a dry-winter-air sort of way. He was wiry, made of sharp angles with hooded eyes. The elements hadn’t been kind to his skin but Evelyn had already noticed the way many apostates basked in the sun or turned their faces up to the first drops of rain. He was weathered beyond his years. He spoke in italics - low and with specific purpose.

“There are certain rumors circulating among the merchants and a few of the sisters who came from Ostwick.” Leliana said. “Would you like me to stop them?”

“No- not at all.” Leliana was a sharp knife without hesitation, and the dispassionate way she asked things like that made Evelyn queasy. “The more this place becomes a real town, the more likely there are Ostwickers. It can’t be helped.”

She nodded, her lovely red hair swinging over her shoulders.

“But now that you mention it, are they saying the sort of thing I should expect?” Evelyn’s face felt hot but she forced herself to stop nervously rubbing the rough spot on her cheek. As long as she was shooting every day it would never fade, anyway. When Leliana said nothing, she added, “Am I a Merry Widow or unlucky and forever in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

The cold slap of Sigurd’s arm against the puddled tile of his bath, his eyes gone cloudy from hours under the soapy water came back to her. The body had looked like a fish spilled out of a herring boat, blue and limp as his valet howled in grief, pulling him from the tub, patting his cheeks until thin trickles of pink water ran from Sigurd’s nose to join the puddle under his head.

“Accidents happen.” Leliana said softly. She must have mistaken Evelyn’s nerves for fond memories, because she smiled in her chilly way.

Isn’t that what every Ostie wants, a dead husband and a house empty but for his money?

“It was an accident.”

“Of course,” Leliana nodded again. “That was unworthy, I must be overtired.”

“Please don’t trouble yourself, three years has been enough to accustom myself to his loss.”

There was a comforting back and forth to this: to smiling around the bile rising in her throat, to watching the woman across from her judge their relative positions and ultimately decide there was nothing to be gained by hostility. Like being home again.

“These arrived yesterday but I forgot to send them along.” She gave her a bundle of letters. The seals all looked intact but as she flipped through them Evelyn doubted very much someone like Leliana would allow her staff to do a poor job of snooping.

“Wonderful, thank you.” Her father’s loopy hand was on three of the five, and one of the smaller letters was sealed with two circular indentations - the eyepiece of a sextant pressed into the wax. Her fingers went cold at the sight of Pietro’s crabbed penmanship spelling out her name. “I won’t keep you further but I did stop by for a reason.” She tucked the letters away and balanced carefully on the line between asking and demanding Leliana find a permanent place for Dorian. She left with a key in her pocket to the cabin Josephine had been saving in case someone important arrived.

Pietro’s letter was what she expected: polite but full of old anger, all tied up with a bit of pleading.

…and that you are well? The things we hear about Haven keep me awake nights.

I know of course, you had nothing to do with the Divine. I would tell anyone who asked - and I would remind them with a fist if they needed it. The Conclave is all anyone wants to talk about from the moment we hit port. It’s been so long since we spoke and my letters might not reach you now, I know that too.

It is our boy I worry for. Only three. To be without his mother so long it can’t be good for him. I am not stupid enough (but I am stupid, there is no arguing that, for I have written this letter over three times now and it is stupid to send it at all) to set foot in Bowman’s Bastion. I wouldn’t want his first sight of me to be one of the guards frogmarching me into the canal.

There’s a chance you’ll never see this, and a good chance you won’t answer even if you do read it. Maker knows any pleading from me has always fallen on deaf ears. Still, he has a father and I’m a good one, Nell is always saying so. If you aren’t coming back I will go to the Bann and hope he can be reasoned with. Our boy won’t be an orphan as long as I am here.

-Pietro

I would rather you weren’t dead - but not answering because you still hate me. Just so there isn’t any confusion.

Evelyn wiped her eyes on the edge of her shawl and held the parchment in the flame of a torch jutting out near the main gate. Siggy, I’m so sorry my grubby little grub.

She held the burning letter until her fingers were singed. The small pain helped push aside the image of his fat baby hands gripping her thumbs. Better to think of Sigurd instead. Sigurd dead in a puddle on the floor. She had never once set foot in his bath before that morning. Better to think of the surprising number of bottles and jars on his windowsill, the gleam of his razor or the way he had left his clothes in a pile by the copper tub.

At the time she had felt fear, not relief or even a grim enjoyment. But in that moment she knew there was not enough to justify a dead husband - not even to the girls she had grown up with, who loved her and almost to a woman would be happier as a widow themselves. Sigurd had never raised a hand to her, never embarrassed her in public. He hadn’t cared enough to bother with her, good or evil.

“Herald, if you’re going out, begging your pardon, we’re supposed to go along.” The guards on duty tonight interrupted her thoughts, glancing at her then at the gate.

“Thank you, but I won’t be long.”

“Err, Seeker Pentaghast was specific-”

She smiled and slipped through the open space. They muttered behind her but kept their posts.

Someone was pulling a clanging, creaky pile of metal away from the low stone barrier around the darkened smithy. Blackwall - who else would be working this time of night? 

A few steps farther and she had decided not to speak, but he looked up so that it was more awkward to pretend not to have noticed him. He never spoke to her in the same tone twice. If only they could come to a consensus she wouldn’t need a five minute warning to compose herself.

“Good evening.” Close enough now to see a rusted cage clearly against the snow, Evelyn wrapped her shawl tighter. “Warden Blackwall, what is Harritt doing with gibbets?”

“Lady Trevelyan.” A nod of his dark head and he hefted one onto the bricks with a grunt of effort, then turned away again. “Scouts found these. Harritt can use the iron for other purposes.”

“Much better purposes.”  She entered the smithy proper, moving closer to the fire built up along the far wall. She had to nudge a ginger cat aside gently until it gave up rubbing its head on her boot.

“You don’t approve?”

“Of these? Dying of thirst in the hot sun?” She couldn’t quite keep her voice level. “No. I’m odd that way.”

Blackwall pried stalactites of rust away with pliers and tossed them into the slag pile without looking, his face sour. “Criminals earned their punishment. Their victims deserve justice.”

“These don’t dole out justice.”

“Ostwick had its fair share of crow’s cages hanging by the gates last time I was there.” He made a dismissive noise and snapped more rust away. “But ladies must have their own idea of justice, then.”

Evelyn picked at a loose stone while she decided how much to say. He watched from the corner of his eye but stayed quiet. Not one to fill an awkward silence. Which was a shame, the novelty of his Markham accent - heavy and gritty as a millstone - was a pleasure.

“I was frogmarched past the good people of Haven the day I woke up. I assure you - some were looking to tie me to a stake or worse.”

“You know the Seeker wouldn’t have allowed it.”

She let that go as there was no use arguing with him over Cassandra’s supposedly perfect judgment. But he hadn’t been introduced they way she had. Waking up to a furious woman in armor jabbing the tip of a sword under her chin had left an impression she would never shake.

“Harritt and Seggrit didn’t want justice that morning. They wanted to see a Marcher lady thrown into the lake with a stone round her neck. If there had been a few of these ready,” she poked the jumble of iron staves on the workbench. “By now I might be nothing but bones with the birds pulling my hair out for a nest.”

“You may have a better idea of justice than some.” He looked at nothing but his work, though his voice was diffident. “Harritt seems to have made peace. He’s crafted you good armor.”

Taking it for the truce it sounded like, she shrugged. “I was raised to keep a manor. It takes a deft hand and I won’t always like the people we need most. This little endeavor can’t afford to waste anything or anyone. So, thank you for taking these apart.”

He turned away to stoke the fire, pulling off his gloves. Half his face was lit up red by the glowing coals. Evelyn knew she was staring as she crowded closer to warm her hands but couldn’t stop herself. The memory of his normally fierce expression instead glowing red with lyrium and horrified confusion needed to be driven away. A Blackwall afraid was nothing she ever wanted to see again.

“My lady?” His eyes darted between hers and the fire.

“There were a lot of these hanging around Alexius’…future.” Though it made her skin crawl she forced herself to look back at the rusted wreckage of someone’s prison. “Dozens. All full.”

“I have to ask.” Blackwall began untying a cord wrapped around the old gibbet. “What was I like in that dark future you saw?”

“You were heroic.” It was the easiest answer and one which seemed to satisfy him. She was surprised he thought she might have said otherwise.

“At least I was some use in the end.”

“You were more than some use. You thought you were mad. We had a difficult time convincing you we had moved ahead a year.”

“Having a hard time believing you now.” He shook his head and finally picked up the cat trying to eat his twine. “Enough, moggy, give over.”

“What is the last thing you remember?” And why have you waited three weeks to ask me about this?

“Talking to that dodgy ‘vint.” Blackwall cleared his throat and put the cat back on the hearth. “I remember a hole in the air, and you and the other ‘vint,” here he sneered but said nothing worse, “You both vanished for… ten seconds then came back looking like you’d been in the wars.”

She leaned back against the warm stones of the smithy as the wind picked up. “We came back in the cellars - dungeon I suppose. You were the easiest to find. Despite not believing I was real you were more than ready to chop your way through Alexius’ guards. You knew your way around. I think-” She winced, ashamed of herself. No one wants to hear about how they met a grisly end, Evie.

“You think? Tell me, then.” The tension in his shoulders as he braced himself against the hearth said he expected the worst but still wanted to hear it.

“There was red lyrium inside you.”

“You said it was everywhere, growing out of the walls, even.”

“Yes and some of the bodies we saw were worse than others. Fiona was- it was awful. Ah, you were not so far along. Your voice was strange, there was a metallic echo to it. Like talking into an empty milk pail. I found you in a cell alone and afraid.” If it was anyone else Evelyn would have put a hand over his on the stones but the Warden didn’t invite liberties. She kept her hand to herself. “Which was…more unnerving than the glowing red eyes. I think you were down there a long time. I’m sorry.”

“If I had a chance to cut some down, it’s enough.” His eyes, their own pale blue now of course, were harder than normal under his heavy brows. “What was it in the end?” A gust of wind caught them again, Blackwall stepped to the side until he was blocking most of it.

“We needed time to use the spell. Dorian wanted, um…he didn’t understand what we were up against. But you did and of course none of it stopped you turning right back around to guard the door.” She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering despite his kindness in keeping the worst of the wind off her.

“Then there was the bit where a demon kicked the door to splinters and I saw you thrown in like a big bearded ragdoll before Dorian jerked me back to the here and now.” With a forced smile she stood up straight and turned the edge of her shawl up against her ears. “I could have done without seeing the last part. Would you mind terribly if we talked about something else? There is no sense in worrying about something which - as far as everyone else in the world is aware - never happened.”

“Suppose so.”

“But since I’ll always know, I do think I should get you something nice. What does the average Warden-About-Town like?”

“Wouldn’t know.” He went back to work and the wind caught her full force again. Blackwall’s perpetual frown had carved two parallel lines between his brows that deepened now.  “I’m a warden who rarely sees a town.”

“A bottle of something strong, then?”

Even as the words left her mouth she wanted to turn and walk out of the smithy. This was exactly how things had gone with Pietro. Buying him little gifts: the Antivan sextant, a fur lined cloak for the cold air on the sea in winter… And all because he had wanted them, he had wanted something from her. After years of Sigurd wanting only for Evelyn to disappear the sight of a man happy to see her, pleased to hear her voice, was wonderful. The moment Pietro mentioned a fondness for something she began making a list in her head of where it could be found and how to get it home then on to him. Sending a boy down to the harbor with a parcel was too obvious so she had to be creative. Infidelity was a trifle in Ostwick - unless and until you made a mess of it.

Oh Maker he’s asked me something. What was that?

“Of…of course.”

“Only if it doesn’t delay us, mind.” He fiddled with the pliers, looking up through a fall of messy hair.  “But these are things I think the Inquisition could make good use of, the Wardens don’t waste much.”

“Yes, of course.” Ugh. Maker. Maps…well. He has to show me the map if he wants whatever it is. “Leliana can have your…um, your items added to the surveys. Her scouts seem to find the oddest things.”

“Sister Nightingale? Busy, I would wager.” Blackwall put his pliers down to take a sip of something in a tin cup kept warm by the glowing coals. “I won’t bother her with this.”  

He noticed her looking and offered her a cup of her own. She sighed over the steam. “Ah, proper tea.”

“Rare thing down here.” Blackwall nodded. “Don’t know where the quartermaster keeps finding more.”

“I asked nicely.” Her first sip scorched her tongue. “These people drink hot water and call it tea. But I also think Sera nicked a block from Redcliffe castle.”

“Sera? She doesn’t drink tea.”

“You never jotted anything down on that wishlist of contraband she thinks Josie doesn’t know about?”

He poured himself more tea. “Might have done.”

“You could have asked for something more daring. Sera thinks you hang the moons.”

“Sera’s mad,” he said fondly. “Mad as a cut snake.” The cat leapt up onto the anvil and butted his elbow, purring. “Shoo,” he said but didn’t push it away.

“Proof.” Evelyn put her cup down on the bricks. “You inspire great loyalty in the small and sneaky.”

“A cat is a poor judge of character.”

“This is what I like about you, Warden,” she laughed. His startled flinch sloshed tea over the edge of his cup. “Your sunny outlook. You’re oddly charming for a man I found wandering the forest.”

“I’ve always found myself more odd than charming.” His smile was faint and aimed at the cat trying to climb his shoulder. “But I’ll take a compliment from a lady. They’re hard to come by these days.”

“Compliments or ladies?”

“Both.”

He laughed like a drain and it made her stomach flop over. Stop that. The last thing she needed was to make a ninny of herself over a doomed Markham...something. Convict, pirate, perhaps something as mundane as a third son or just a man who didn’t like the idea of a life in Markham’s silver mine.

A low whistle - three notes the mages in their camp by the lake used to signal one another all was well - interrupted the quiet that followed.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, leaning against the anvil, thumbs tucked into his belt.

Evelyn found some of Adan’s sweets in her pocket though Blackwall declined. She tucked one under her tongue to buy herself time to sound nonchalant. “Gathering my courage to sprint to the tavern before the warmth wears off.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” He sighed. “Why were you at the Conclave?”

“Oh, I wanted away from Ostwick for a little while.” She waved a hand dismissively. “Same city, day in and out, it was tedious. Do you get back to Markham often?”

“Shall we stand here and lie to one another, then?” He scowled and scratched at a streak of grey in his beard.

“Yes, but it will have to be quick. Tomorrow I’m off for Orlais to poison the Empress’ soup, now that I’ve snuffed the Divine.” She reached out far enough to scratch the cat’s ears instead of looking up. “Your turn.”

He wrinkled his nose but went along after a moment’s thought.

“When I was eighteen I won the Grand Tourney with a sword I stole from a Chevalier’s tomb. I tried to return it later but there was an elf inside the tomb shitting on his bones, so I left him to his work and sold the sword instead.”

She accepted defeat with a laugh. “Thank you for the tea, I really must dash. I’m star- hungry.”

“Come on, then.” Blackwall banked the fire.

“Erm…I was thinking of the tavern.”

He shrugged, not looking up from the coals as he shoveled ash over them until they went dark. “Suit yourself. The kitchen will be making supper for the night watch. Pies.”

Both men at the gate were stiff and bright-eyed as they passed. Best behavior. She wondered if they were who Blackwall caught selling her chopped off braid as souvenirs after Redcliffe. Two kitchen girls bobbed curtseys as they crossed ahead of the gate with arms full of food.

“When I was younger I had a very romantic notion of kitchen girls.”

“So did I.” His quiet laugh was filthy and it made her hair stand on end.

“No, not like that. A pretty girl with sad brown eyes delicately crimping the edges of a single pie with a lattice crust. She sifts flour, thinks of her love gone to sea for months at a time, sometimes she braids bread dough into his initials.”

He gave her a look that was somewhere between pity and disbelief. Daft Ostie bint, that look said.

“It sounds dreamy when you’re fifteen.” Evelyn opened the door to the ramshackle kitchen Cullen’s soldiers had made from a barn and kept adding wood and shingles to as Haven became more crowded. “And when you’ve never seen people trying to feed an army.”

Military efficiency ruled inside. The night cook was a tall Orlesian woman in a flour spattered apron. She rolled a slab of cold dough out into something the size of a bath sheet then flipped it over onto six waiting tins. Her helper cut between the pans, missing cook’s hands by less than an inch with the knife as she poured filling into each and folded the corners over. The smallest boy ran them to the oven, pushing the tins back with a charred paddle as long as he was tall. Six pies built as quickly as they would be eaten.

She wiped her hands on her apron before greeting Blackwall with a spate of her native tongue, though Evelyn got only a quick curtsey. They all fell into Orlesian as she pushed food into their hands and insisted they sit on sacks of millet between the two warm ovens to eat. It was the only spot where someone wasn’t peeling, boiling or skinning something.

“Where did you learn Orlesian?”

“Orlais.”

“Nothing more specific? Just Orlais?” Evelyn caught a squishy cooked carrot as it fell out of the meat pie.

“Soldiers move around.”

Disappointment must have shown on her face because he chewed quickly and said, “I…er, I rather liked Ghislain.”

“It’s no Val Royeaux but it is pretty,” she agreed.

“Best thing to come out of Val Royeaux was Sera. I won’t miss it.” He shifted until he could face her without awkwardly twisting. “Sera’s a good teacher, yeah?” He polished off the last of his pie and began on an enormous chunk of buttered bread dripping with jam.

Butter may be in your food, darling, but never on it. She could hear her mother twenty years past, whispering as her uncle slapped butter on top of the fish on his plate.

“She ought to be, for the amount she is paid.”

Blackwall finished his pudding before he answered. “Wasn’t supposed to mention the money,” he muttered and wiped his fingers.

“She didn’t. The Iron Bull mentioned the money. Very offhand,” Evelyn rolled her eyes. “Very casual. Something about how Josephine was relieved you had found something to do with the pay you keep forgetting to pick up.”

“I told her- asked the ambassador to do something useful with it or put it in the poor box.” He scowled. “But she kept it in a drawer.”

“Is there a vow of poverty for a Warden?”

“Don’t need coin. I’m fed and supplied, I drink on the Inquisition’s tab.” He shrugged.

“But you work twice as hard,” she insisted. “You’ve trained the recruits, helped build, you should be paid for your effort. For that matter, I should join in with them, and stop being so afraid of swords.”

In her more juvenile moments Evelyn had given some thought to private training, if there was such a thing. The boys and bruisers Cassandra brought into Haven were eager to strip out of their shirts on a sunny afternoon of hitting one another with sticks. They needed no encouragement to show swooning farmers and tavern girls a welt or healing scar. But Blackwall kept himself laced up tighter than a Rivaini grandmother. Disappointing.

“No, you stick with Sera, she’ll make you quick. That girl’s a killer - draws blood and disappears. I can’t teach you anything but how to keep your knees bent and take a pounding.”

He sat up very straight on their sack of millet, mouth opening and closing like a fish before he squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh.

“Well, I already know how to do that,” she drawled, just managing to keep a stiff upper lip.

Blackwall groaned under his breath and opened his eyes on a pained laugh. “Didn’t mean it that way, my lady.”

She felt herself grinning at his tongue tied splutter.

“You’re - er…you’re welcome to train with the recruits. You are, after all, in charge.”

“Oh,” she folded the tea towel her pie had come wrapped in. A giddy sort of idiocy pushed her along. “Where do you start? Grip? Not too firm, though it depends on the sword, I suppose.”

“Now you’re taking the piss,” he shook his head. “Sera’s a bad influence.”

“Last week she showed me the proper way to blend Soul Rot, or rather, she attempted.”

“Poison’s not a thing to muck up.”

“Which is just what I told her.” Evelyn leaned back against the warm bricks of the oven. “You don’t grow up in a Bann’s house and not hear about poison. We may not play the Game on a grand scale but there are still the occasional intrigues.”

“Why play at all?” His nose wrinkled up and he began fiddling with a dagger he kept tucked into his boot.

“It doesn’t make sense from the other side.” Evelyn shook her head. “Ostwick doesn’t care about anything but commerce. If something slows trade we do away with it. We’ll never be on par with Val Royeaux, but duels and plots don’t provision a ship. At payday a stevedore doesn’t care how well his employer dances.”

Luckily she was stopped in the middle of what was becoming a dull ramble about her home, as a pair of soldiers careered around the corner, giggling with fingers entwined. Both stopped dead, staring at Blackwall.

“Ser! Sorry Ser, we’re off duty! That is-”

Neither of them looked like they could decide if it was worse to be caught necking in the kitchen by him or the Herald of Andraste.

Evelyn slid down off of the stack of grain. “We were just leaving.”

“That was decent of you,” he said when they were out in the cold again. He squinted at her a moment.

“You know, that would be more complimentary without the sound of surprise. Never mind,” she said when he made to speak over her. “I will say something beastly tomorrow and put us back on proper footing. They only have one chance to be young and in love, I’m pleased to get out of their way tonight.”

“We start at first light,” he said, putting on his gloves. "Threnn will pull some gear for you. If you're serious about it."

“Beg pardon? Oh! Yes, I hear them all groaning and whingeing as they walk past in the mornings.” She held out her stack of letters, the first excuse that came to mind. In no world would she be out on the shore before dawn only to make a fool of herself with a wooden blade. “I’ve an awful lot of correspondence to catch up on, so if I’m not there start without me.”

Lu’s thumb shifted over the phone’s screen until a tinny voice blurted out into the otherwise quiet livingroom. “You working on something?”

“Mmhmm,” Lu tossed the phone onto the sofa and picked up her scissors. “I need both hands for this.”

There was definitely a moment of nerves. Not that he thought she’d do anything fucked up…not exactly. But they were damned sharp, the sun gleamed off the blades and the points were pointy. The scissors were cold on his leg as she cut a line up his jeans.

“So what have you been doing today? Any thing good?”

“Went shopping, but I didn’t see anything I had to have.” Lu leaned over his spread legs to upend a canvas bag. Out came a pair of jeans identical to the ones she had just cut off of him but without the wear and tear. A button down, too. At least he wouldn’t go home starkers when she was done with him. She split his tee shirt up the middle.

“Is it gonna be hot tonight?” The voice was muffled under the pile of ruined pants Lu threw over the phone. “I got some of those leggings, the pleather looking ones but I don’t want to sweat my ass off. What are you wearing?”

Lu stood gracefully now that she had finished cutting his clothes off, her painted toes curling into the carpet, the long lines of muscle in her calves making his mouth water. She tucked the phone between her shoulder and ear again. “I’m back, I’ll send you a picture. Hang on a second.”

To think he used to be the kind of bloke who hated a fuck to know where he worked. Lu already knew more about him than…anybody, really. A couple quiet questions at the right time and he’d spill his guts to her without fail.

His nose itched. He scratched it but the moment she saw his arm move she snapped her fingers loud as a gunshot in the quiet. Her pointed finger turned him red. He obeyed. He put his hands back behind his head. She left him there on the floor, his cock half hard at the sight of her ass up her shorts when she went into her bedroom.

Thom watched the reflections of trees and traffic below on her windows. Any minute now she would come back, come back and fuck him. He only had to be patient. The scissors were on the table. She knew he liked the threat of something sharper than her nails.

She came back in a soft dress that swirled around her thighs. He had a few seconds to appreciate the smooth grey skin coming his way before she straddled his shoulders and sat, her warm cunt over his cheek until she shifted so he could lick her.

Maker, she hadn’t said a word to him, hadn’t even looked down yet here he was with her soft soft lips mashed against his own. Thom ate her cunt like a man starving, trying his best to make her moan, or sigh, or even stop talking about that damned show.

But Lu was better at this game than him. Her skirt moved away from his eyes enough that he could see her and yes, she was flushed. Her mouth opened in a silent moan that was fucking hot, but she carried on her conversation just the same. He sucked at her, flicking her with the tip of his tongue until she shuddered so hard the tassels on her horn caps jingled.

“Mmhmm, the blue dress with the laces up the front, hang on I’ll send you a pic. Talk later, bye.” She stood up. 

He growled in frustration.

Lu pointed down at him, the long pink nail at the end of her elegant finger trembling the slightest bit. She mouthed the word ‘Warning’ when he glared up at her.

He could give the kind of look that made strangers cross the street to get away from him but Lu didn’t flinch. She matched him glare for glare.

Lu fetched a lipstick and a mirror from her purse in the hallway, he watched her, felt the vibrations of her heels through the floor. Lu sat on his hips. A puff of air from under her skirt as she settled smelled like her, like her sweat and his own spit all over her cunt. Wet and slick against him, she wiggled until his cock was tucked in tight between her slippery lips. Again, she ignored him as she painted her mouth. She rocked against him, just teasing and gods did it make him want to shout, to grab her hips and demand she get on with it.

He shivered under her, his legs going tense. Lu smiled at her own reflection and arranged her braid just right over one shoulder. She rose up on her knees and stood his cock up with the hand not holding her lipstick, then sank down onto him so slow he ground his teeth.

While he stopped himself making a sound and getting in trouble she snapped a picture on her silly flat phone. Another, and another until she had one she liked.

Maker, she was just going to pretend he wasn’t inside her. Lu smiled at the phone in her hands and tilted her head just so for one last photo. She typed something quickly with both thumbs, and the phone beeped. She put her mirror down on his bare chest.

He yelped at the freezing cold metal against his skin.

Lu backhanded him, blue eyes gone narrow. “I said quiet.”

Oh Maker, she would kill him if he let her down but he was a second from coming. His mouth stung, and sight of her hand coming down on him always sent lightning to his balls. Everything tingled. The tickle of lace on the edge of her dress gave him goosebumps as she rocked up and settled back down on him fast and hard. She wiped at the corner of his panting mouth, her thumb came away bloody.

Lu lifted the dress so he could see himself sliding inside her and he was done. Lu could make him come like he hadn’t in years - hard and so fast he couldn’t breathe right afterward.

She watched him get his wits back with a smug smile, her cunt squeezing him as she used one of her million sex toys. This one was small and lavender and buzzed like a hornet.

Thom pushed himself up to sit without slipping out of her. She let him kiss her, her throat, the pretty line of her collarbones. He licked and sucked at her skin until she came with a little laugh that turned into a shivering curse when he bit her ear. Lu turned the toy off, held it to his aching mouth and he licked it clean.

“Mmmm.” Lu kissed his sore cheek gently. “That’s going to bruise up, I think.” Her hands slid up and down his bare back, suddenly cold now that he wasn’t on the fake fur rug any more.

"Feel all right, sweetheart?" Lu kissed his other cheek, between his eyebrows, the corner of his mouth. "How's my best boy, hmm?"

His face went hot. She laughed at him but didn't take her eyes off his until he answered her question.

"Good. I'm good." Balls empty, head empty. He felt good in his shivery aching body, with her warm weight on his thighs.

"Everyone’s going out for tapas tonight. Want to come?”

“No." He shook his head. "What’s a tapas?”

She laughed and smoothed his beard over his chin. “Itty bitty food.”

“ugh. No.”

“All right. Will you eat me out again before I leave?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Something about his face was funny to her because she kissed him with a smile.

***