Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Josephine had returned from Val Royeaux with the Inquisitor, and she'd brought with her four wagonloads of heavy wool fabric and yarn, politely extorted from some noble or another. Cullen had not seen her except in passing in the two days since she'd come back, but he had felt the effect of her return—Leliana and Cassandra were more relaxed. Fewer nobles came to him with their concerns. He did not have to haggle on his own with merchants. She took on far more than her share of the burden of maintaining their supply lines into the mountains, and it was a relief.

On the morning of the third day, he shook the ache from his bones, and climbed the ladder down to his office to find a box of Orlesian pastries on his desk. He was being summoned to an interlude, and Maker help him if he did not go. We have much to catch up on, Josephine would be saying. I do hope to see you.

As if he'd had a choice to begin with. As if he and Leliana weren't going to fold in the face of her disappointment, and attend her blasted tea parties. Lateness was acceptable, but absence was not. With the dagger-point of a lyrium headache digging into the backs of his eye sockets, Cullen dragged himself up from his desk and made the walk down to the throne room.

Today would be a good day, he ordered his body, pressing his fingers into his brow as he went. His neck was already stiff, but this was normal. No tremors, no fevers, no vomiting. It would get him through this interlude, then his correspondence, then his meetings, then the evening drills, without a single problem, and he would go to bed and have a dreamless sleep. It wasn't too much to ask.

So early in the morning, the throne room was quiet: no tittering Orlesians. No pilgrims or petitioners. Only a few messengers, drawing straws to see who'd get the bad assignments that day, a pair of silent, yawning guards, waiting to be relieved, and a lone serving girl, setting a pot to boil on the hearth.

This made it very, very easy to hear the indistinct shouting coming from behind Josephine's office door.

It was not strange, in and of itself: interludes frequently became heated. The better part of reconnecting as friends and colleagues was having and settling necessary arguments before they had the chance to fester into resentment. Cullen moved closer to the door, holding his sword to his side. Josephine wouldn't notice an eavesdropper, but Leliana surely would.

"It was a trap, Josie!" Leliana was saying. "If twenty men had set upon you when you entered the Boisvert mansion, the Herald would not have been enough."

"But twenty men did not fall from the ceiling to attack me," Josephine said. Her tone was level and pleasant—the tone she used when some noble or functionary blatantly insulted her. If Cullen so much as recognized it, Leliana knew it, intimately. "I was not poisoned, or strangled, or shot through the eye by a distant crossbowman on my way to buy the shoes you admired, or any of the dooms you imagine might befall me at any moment."

"You should have told me," said Leliana, "you should have involved me. Finding a sponsor, gaining the favor of a judge and a royal minister, Josie—if you think I will condone this foolish gamble, you are mistaken. "

"I have the use of four judges in Val Royeaux alone. I do not need you to condone anything."

Now their voices were very close together. Quietly, Leliana said, "We can discuss this later. The Commander will be by at any moment." Then there was a long, long silence. Cullen nodded at the night guards as they walked by on their way to a much-deserved rest, and nodded at their replacements, too.

There were things he was not meant to know about Leliana and Josephine's operations, just as Josephine did not need to concern herself overmuch with the scouting missions that Cullen sent soldiers along with, and Leliana didn't need to know of every line-item on the army's budget the way Cullen and Josephine did. Still. It was only polite, and not cowardice at all, to give them a moment to calm down before he joined them. When the serving girl who'd been lighting the hearth approached him with a tea tray, he smiled through his headache and took it from her.

"You're late, Commander," Josephine said. She was seated at her desk, in her massive pink chair, her cheeks flushed—from her argument, surely. Her hair was piled atop her head, and she was in a yellow gown, high-necked, with lace at her throat and at her wrists. No jewelry, but for the gold hoops in hear ears. The effect was austere, and dazzling.

Leliana had moved both armchairs so that they faced the door. She looked up from the reports she must have meant him to think her was engrossed in. "I've brought the tea," he said, and she nodded. He set it on Josephine's desk, and turned around, and the entire room swayed. He locked his knees—he was not going to fall, he told himself. The dizziness would pass momentarily, and the tea would settle his churning stomach.

"Wonderful," Josephine murmured, and swept from behind her desk to pour. Cullen sat in the unoccupied chair. "There is the question," she said, handing Leliana a delicate cup, and Cullen a large mug, from the same set, "of how we're to allocate Boisvert's wool."

Cullen reached out to take his tea, and he felt his hand close around it only on a delay, as though his body had come unmoored from his mind. He felt the heat seconds after he felt the texture of the porcelain, and he could not smell it at all, let alone taste it.

Today would not be a good day.

But it would not be the worst day. His grip was steady, at least, and the ensuing argument ran along familiar tracks. The refugees needed blankets, Josephine said. Harding's people in the Hinterlands and the Emerald Graves needed better gear, new cloaks, Leliana said. The mountain patrols, Cullen said, the soldiers in the valley, they had suffered this past winter, and shouldn't have to suffer through the next one. It was domestic: Josephine pacing back and forth while she gave them the speech she'd no doubt been rehearsing since Val Royeaux, Leliana utterly still in her chair, but for when she held out her cup for a refill; and still, he could hardly hold the thread of conversation. It was a relief, when Josephine and Leliana fell into the tones of their previous argument, and ignored him entirely.

"You're quiet, Commander," Leliana said. "You haven't been indignant on the army's behalf even once."

Cullen groped for words, tried to recall what they'd been saying these past ten minutes. He'd thrown his lot in with Leliana in the last interlude, and so it was Josephine's turn, now. "The Lady Ambassador is right," he said, and pinched the bridge of his nose, as though it would alleviate his headache, and not merely reassure him that he was still possessed of a body. He counted the seconds until he felt the pressure of his own fingers, and when he did, he went on: "Everyone needs blankets, not just the refugees. Winter will come early this year, but not so early that we can't acquire more cloth."

Josephine paused in her pacing, and she and Leliana frowned in unison. Then Josephine looked toward the fire and said, "I will have runners sent to the camps to offer work for those who can knit and sew, if you will both condone it."

Leliana's nostrils flared. "Surely, it is not for me to condone your actions," she said.

He closed his eyes. The room was so warm. If their fight was to have a second round, and they were angry enough to have it in front of him, perhaps they wouldn't notice if he dozed off for a moment.

But there was a knock at the door, and Cullen flinched and sat straight in his chair. "I'll handle it," Josephine said, and set her writing board down on her desk.

"Pardon me, my lady," said the messenger: the Orlesian girl Josephine favored. Cullen had come to know, and to dread, the sound of her polite taps at his office door. "There is an urgent summons from the Herald."

"And what has the Herald been told about summoning us from our interludes?" Josephine said. She brooked no interruptions between the hours of seven and nine: no juvenile pranks, no visiting nobles wishing an audience, nothing short of another Venatori army on their doorstep, and even then, the Venatori might be persuaded to delay their attack until after teatime.

"It was—quite urgent," the messenger said.

"And is that all she said?"

"Ah, there was more to the message, but surely, I could not repeat it in the presence of Sister Leliana. It was—blasphemous. Her Worship will arrive within the hour." The messenger bowed deeply and beat a swift retreat.

He had not touched his tea yet. He took a sip. It had gone cold, and he could hardly taste it, in any event. "This will be about Caer Bronach," Leliana said. "She wanted our plan of action a week ago. I will gather the reports, and meet you." But she did not leave the office before she put a hand on Josephine's shoulder and, presumably, gave her another meaningful look. Josephine shook her head, and Leliana sighed and left.

"We will set up the table," Josephine said, and swept across the room to finish the last of the tea. She closed her eyes with pleasure, and Cullen struggled to his feet. His legs held him. The episode would pass—perhaps even by the time Cadash showed up. He fixed himself on the yellow of her dress, the wisps of hair curling at the nape of of her neck, and followed her through the door.

Months and months, and they had still not fixed the hole in the passageway's wall. It was not essential to the keep's defense, and no visitors to Skyhold would ever see it; only the innermost members of the inner circle were allowed in the War Room to begin with. He paused to feel the sharp spring air on his face, to center himself.

But it smelled dreadful. "Has Sera been through your office recently?" he asked, and pinched his nose. It did not help that it was a familiar, somehow. "Maker's breath, what has she set off this time?"

Josephine turned around to look askance at him. "It does not smell any different," she said. "

"Perhaps she's left a fish to rot under the rubble somewhere," Cullen said, looking about for signs of displaced stone.

"Commander." She took a half-step backward, body angled away from him, as if to run. "There is no smell."

He straightened and looked out the hole in the wall once more. Josephine took another step away from him, and his stomach twisted. He knew this smell, intimately.

It was Lake Calenhad—Lake Calenhad, in high summer.

His stomach had not stopped twisting, and he welcomed the sensation. First this, then the tremors, then the chills and aches. It was physical, and undeniably real, and therefore he found it far more bearable than mood swings, or the eerie numbness that had come over him earlier. There had been a hole like this in the wall of Kinloch Hold, after the tower was reclaimed. Some maleficar had used Maker-knew-what magic to bore through the ancient stones. The surviving mages had scouraged the Circle with fire and ice, but, with bands of darkspawn still roaming the countryside and Denerim in ruins, it had taken months for Greagoir to find stonemasons willing to make the journey from Denerim to Lake Calenhad.

He could think of the Tower, now, without feeling the phantom hands of desire demons trailing down his neck, his chest, his thighs. Progress, after a fashion. He'd shed one madness in favor of another, of his own choosing. It was a bitter thought.

"The lyrium?" Josephine said, and moved cautiously toward him.

Of course she knew. He told Cassandra when he was having a particularly difficult day, and then, as if by Andraste's own hand, his office would be silent as a grave for hours. Cassandra's particular charms could only account for so much. "Yes," he said, and allowed her to take him by the elbow and lead him into the war room, where prying eyes, however unlikely, would not see him.

"I'll be fine," Cullen said.

"Has this happened to you before, this—hallucination?" said Josephine. He shook his head, and her face was unreadable. "You're shaking."

His attention had drifted; she'd come inside his guard without his noticing, and taken one of his trembling hands in hers. He flinched and held her wrist, instead—strong wrists, underneath that fine fabric. She winced, but felt his forehead with the back of her free hand. He'd never been so near to her for so long; the circumstances were regrettable, but the smell of her perfume, some flower, Andraste's Grace, it cleared his mind.

He steadied, and only then did he become aware of the tightness of his grip. He released her imemdiately, and she rubbed at her wrist, frowning. "I've hurt you," he said.

Josephine shrugged. "It's nothing, Commander. I am not made of glass, despite—" She pinched back her words with a fierce look, one that was not directed at him. "It is nothing," she finished.

With clumsy fingers—surely, she could not want him touching her right now, but she didn't push him away—he undid the tiny buttons of her sleeve and rolled the cuff back, to assess the damage he'd done. There, a thumbprint, on the back of her arm, and perhaps more would rise later. "We should go to Cassandra," he said. "If this is the first sign that my mind is slipping...."

"You would like to be relieved of your command sooner, rather than later," she said. "'We' should go to Cassandra?"

"You saw," Cullen said.

"So quick to flay yourself," said Josephine, offhandedly, examining the back of her wrist. If she was angry with him, he would know how to react; were she tearful, he would be far less uncomfortable than he was now. But she gave him nothing, and that was the worst of all.

"I—perhaps—not today," he said, unable to stop himself babbling in the face of her indifference. He dropped to one knee before her, penitent. He had thought he'd be stronger, when this moment came, he had thought he'd leave behind his command as he'd shed all his former selves. But one more day of having the most righteous purpose he'd known, that was all he asked. "If we must go to her, and we must, and we will—one more day."

"My Creator, judge me whole," she said, pressing her palm to his forehead, a Chantry sister's benediction. He had seen Leliana and Cassandra in the chapel in this exact position, before Cassandra went into danger with the Inquisitor.

"Find me well within Your Grace," he said, the words tumbling from his mouth, "touch me with fire that I be cleansed; tell me I have sung to Your approval."

"I'm sure I can't sing half as much of the Chant as a—former—templar can," Josephine said. "Stand up, Commander, you're being melodramatic."

Cullen met her eyes, and somehow, she was halfway to a smile. "Says the Antivan," he said.

"Antivans are never melodramatic," Josephine said, "the rest of the world is needlessly stoic. And—very well. Not today." She touched his forehead again, and he was better, stronger, than seize her hand and press the kiss of faith to it. He was no templar, and she was no sister. She did not offer absolution, only a reprieve. "Would you like me to make your excuses for you?"

"I'll be fine," he said, and pushed himself to his feet.

Malika Cadash, Herald of Andraste, claimed to have been a mere bookkeeper for her house: too lowly and insignificant to attract any notice from the great dwarven families who'd sent representatives to the Conclave, and therefore the perfect spy. It could have been true: the Inquisitor rarely raised her voice. She was well past forty. For every move the three of them made, they had to woo her, with documentation, cost-and-benefit, figures, and maps, and they all kept their books of account constantly at hand for spot inspections.

The first time she'd faced Cassandra in a practice bout, she'd shown herself to be far more than a bookkeeper.

She had lost, as everyone lost to Cassandra—it was only the natural order of things—but Cullen, who had spent a decade sizing up recruits, recognized a trained killer when he saw one. But her administrative genius outstripped even Josephine's. Her decisions about how to best spend their coin put arrows in quivers and shields on his soldiers' backs, which made her a puzzle Cullen had no real desire to solve.

In the field, she wielded a battle-axe half her own size, but at Skyhold, she carried a short and well-loved sledgehammer at her hip. She ran her thumb over its head now, listening to Leliana deliver a report from her people at Caer Bronach.

"I imagine it as a funnel, a clearing-house, for all of the information we gather in Ferelden and the Free Marches," Leliana said. Of the three of them, she was Inquisitor Cadash's clear favorite, and while it rankled some days—today, it suited him just fine. He might even make it through this meeting without drawing the Inquisitor's notice. "I have the capacity to coordinate all of our operations at Skyhold, and I have been, but why should I? Charter is the best of my field officers, and it is time to see what she can do without my direct oversight."

"And what about Orlais, Nevarra, and Tevinter?" the Inquisitor said.

Josephine removed Leliana's markers from Denerim, Tantervale, and Starkhaven, and put them back down on Val Foret, Hunter Fell, Cumberland, Minrathous. The Inquisitor nodded her understanding. "We will need to disguise its purpose," Josephine said. "Commander Cullen has sent his people there already, but I want the keep cleaned and rebuilt as a waystation for Ferelden nobles on their way to Skyhold—a taste of the Inquisition's hospitality and generosity. And an opportunity to gather information."

The Inquisitor turned to Cullen. "And the soldiers you have there, Commander?"

Cullen's mouth was dry, and his head pounded. He swallowed hard. Josephine consulted a page of Leliana's report, and leaned over the war table to place Charter's markers along the Storm Coast, and up, into the Free Marches. Ansburg, Tantervale, Wycome, Ostwick—Kirkwall.

In doing so, her hand brushed his trembling one, the contact hidden by her wide skirts. His duties were here. Kirkwall was only one city, and no longer his entire world. "The usual mix," he said. Josephine's hand closed on his pinky for the barest instant—such kindness was cheap, he supposed, when she held his future in her hands—but still, he found the strength to go on: "The young, the faithful. Veterans of the Blight. Knights without banns, templars without Circles, mercenaries looking for coin. They have a cause in us, and that should be enough to unite them, for the moment."

"I see," said the Inquisitor, neither approving nor disapproving. It was maddening, when she did that. He felt Leliana's eyes on him, too. "Let's cut this short," she added. "Ambassador Montilyet, Commander Cullen, you're dismissed. Sister Leliana, I need to talk to you about my and Josephine's last visit to Val Royeaux."

Josephine stiffened, and she marched from the room without so much as a glance at Leliana. Cullen followed close at her heels, shutting the door behind him. Now he had to go back to his office and face the rest of his day, with a head throbbing so hard his teeth ached, a hand that was shaking too badly to hold a sword. He would manage. He always managed.

"You're being shut out of some operation," he said, once they were in the throne room. Josephine leaned on the wall by her office door. The room had filled up: Varric by the fire, surrounded by a group of elven children. Masked Orlesians in their whites and their pale blues and yellows, pointedly snubbing the Ferelden nobles.

"That is—one way of putting it," Josephine said. "Are you well?"

Let her change the subject. If she didn't see fit to tell him, it was none of his business. "It doesn't matter," he said.

She scoffed, and then she pressed the back of her hand to his forehead, in full view of the entire room. Cullen felt his ears turn red—but, Maker be praised, no one was watching them. "You're burning," she said.

"I suppose I am," Cullen said. He was so cold, but he could work through this. If he stopped, if he allowed himself to wallow, it would consume him.

"And what happened before, in the war room—you are not fit to work today. Up, to your office. I will take care of everything." Cullen opened his mouth to protest his fitness, but Josephine turned her smile on him, and he, like everyone else, crumbled like a rotted timber. Josephine's particular magic was to make the crumbling seem like the most natural, desirable thing in the world. "You deserve a rest," she said softly. "Come along, Commander."

"Of course," he said, and marshalled his wits against her charm. If Leliana and the Inquisitor were keeping her from an operation she wanted a hand in, this was merely her way of asserting her control over a bit of the Inquisition. And it would be useful, for her to get a glimpse of how the army was run, beyond the Inquisition's budget. "Lead the way."

His body felt heavy, impossibly heavy, by the time he sat behind his desk.

"What needs to be done?" Josephine said, taking in the state of his office.

He did not have anyone to impress with it, and he'd kept it spare: a few bookshelves, filled with treatises on supply lines and field tactics, to bridge the gap in his knowledge between running a stationary garrison, if a very large one, and leading a true army. She ignored these, and bent to examine the bottom shelves, where he kept the scant dozen books he'd brought with him from the Gallows. They were old, crumbling, nothing that would be missed—volumes of chess theory, weather-beaten handbooks of retrograde analysis he'd solved a hundred times over, commentaries on famous games. She straightened, and gave no indication of the conclusions she'd drawn from them. Andraste preserve him, he hoped against hope they were good ones.

"I have meetings," he said, "three meetings. Four, if Ser Barris comes back from the valley today. Guard rotations to write. Correspondence to send, and drills to run."

"Then I will clear your schedule," she said. "Can the correspondence wait until tomorrow?" Cullen nodded. "And how hard can it be to write a guard rotation?"

Maker, she really did mean to take care of everything. He stood, supporting himself on his desk, and his office tilted like a drunken sailor. He regretted it immediately, but he locked his knees and took a deep breath. "You have your own duties to attend to Lady Ambassador. I couldn't take you from them. Clearing my schedule will do, I only need a bit of rest—"

She guided him back down to his chair with a gentle hand on the side of his neck. She put her finger on his lips to silence him. On their own, the gestures would have been nothing. Combined, they obliterated him. He kept his hands balled into fists at his sides, unsure what to do with them.

"Commander, I have an entire staff to take care of my work," she said, "all of whom would be honored and overjoyed to draft letters on my behalf."

He was so tired, and so cold, and quite suddenly he could see no good reason to argue that he had a staff of his own, and that he was quite capable of delegating. He flexed his hand, and felt the motion on a delay once more. Josephine waited, patiently. He touched her hip, as much to steady her as to ground himself in her solidity. He slid his hand up to the severe dip of her waist, unhidden by her usual wide belt, feeling the rasp of his gloves on her dress. She felt—good. And here he was, pawing at her like an animal. He withdrew his hand. "Do what you must," he said.

She was the brightest, most real thing in the room. "Of course," she said.

Rylen was suddenly given charge of the evening's drills, and was therefore forced to scramble to learn unfamiliar squadrons. Knight-Captain Briony, back from dueling some Orlesian or another on Cullen's behalf, received a messenger telling her to take the afternoon and night off, and to make her report in the morning. Lord Jean-Gaspard and his chevaliers were called out on an emergency patrol halfway down the mountain, and Ser Barris's templars found themselves detained, searching the valley for a trio of missing Chantry sisters.

"Ambassador Montilyet is only observing," he said, to everyone who looked askance at Josephine. "As I'll be observing her at work over the next week."

"Lest we lose sight of shared goals in the fog of petty differences," Josephine said primly, which got a laugh; because all of Skyhold knew the contents of her disappointed notes to Cullen and Leliana, and because Josephine had the gift of putting people at ease. But it was more than that—it was a conviction that bent and shaped reality to her will: I am your friend, it said, when she asked after the provenance of an Avvar mercenary's curved sword. I have every right to be here, it said, when the messengers hesitated at the sight of her before they addressed Cullen. This is where I belong; how could you think otherwise? it said, when she looked over Cullen's shoulder and murmured a question into his ear.

And then it was over. Cullen slumped at his desk, trying to ignore the way it wobbled. When he found out who'd shortened one of the legs, he'd have their head mounted on his wall. "I cannot thank you enough," he said.

It wasn't half the work he had to do, of course. He needed to see how the templars were settling in, after Therinfal. They were all so young—some of them had yet to receive their first draught of lyrium, thank the Maker, and they never would, if he had his way. He had to inspect the building of a garrison, down in the valley. There were rival blacksmiths to placate, terrain maps to familiarize himself with, angry letters from Grand Clerics to reply to. He'd held himself together this long, and now his stomach was only unsettled, his headache only a distant ache. It was a curious weakness, a lightness. If only he'd heed the call of the little vial in his drawer, he would not have to feel like this. All of the colors would be brighter, all of the flavors would be stronger. To be able to perform a smite as easily as breathing, to no longer be wracked with fever and chills—

Josephine felt his forehead once more, and her hand was small, and cool. It pulled him back into himself. "Let's take a walk," she said. "Shall we?"

Which was how Cullen found himself in her sitting room, being stripped of his armor.

Her rooms were in the most easily defended part of Skyhold, nearest the tunnels and escape routes. He'd signed the papers for the merchants who'd delivered her furniture, and personally accompanied them through the keep—a show of force. Beyond this, he'd never had reason to enter them. He had not been expecting so much gold. Gold hangings on the wall, gold pillows on the armchair, an armoire inlaid with gold leaf, with a line of dolls atop it, keeping watch over the room.

Josephine pulled off his vambrances and set them down on a little table. They looked ridiculous sitting there, atop a lace doily, next to a vase of daffodils. He was too large, too clumsy for this room. "You've had practice," he said, if only to break the silence.

"After Haven," Josephine said, "Leliana and Cassandra needed help. One learns."

And the rest of her time, she'd spent nursing the wounded, holding the hands of the dying, a small crossbow at her side, linens and silks exchanged for an Inquisition scout's uniform. She'd balked when Cassandra presented her with a dead woman's armor, but she had not complained.

Leagues away from Haven, Josephine sat him down in the softest armchair he'd ever felt, piled him with blankets, rang the bellpull in the corner of the room to order them tea and hot broth, spread his papers out on a table inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and set to work writing Skyhold's guard rotations.

Or she tried to. "You can't let those two companies overlap," he said, leaning forward to point at her scrap paper for the mountain patrols. "Most of the men are from Gwaren, and they dawdle at shift change."

"Maker's breath," Josephine muttered, setting the sheet of paper aside and beginning anew. She chewed her quill when she was frustrated, and tucked her hair behind her ears, regardless of whether it had come loose. Cullen had not known this, and he tucked away the details for future use.

"'How difficult could it be to write a guard rotation?'" he said, in his best imitation of her accent.

She scowled, but there was no true anger in it. "I cannot understand," she said, "why they don't all have fixed postings."

"That's because you've never stood guard for hours at a stretch, Lady Ambassador," he said, sipping at his mug of broth. His stomach protested, but even his stomach was subject to Josephine's will. "There are good postings, and there are bad postings, and there are those postings where you're sure you're being punished by the Maker himself."

Josephine raised a curious eyebrow, and he nearly told her: in the Gallows, the night watch over the apprentices had been the worst. It had been objectively worse for the apprentices, of course: a hundred or more children stuffed into a long, narrow room, and a full third of them sniffling and sobbing at any given time. It made one long for the unnatural stillness of the Tranquil, who breathed in unison in their sleep. But there were things she did not need to know. Against all odds, she thought him a good man.

When he didn't respond, she said, "You try to accomodate their preferences?"

"I'd go mad," he said. "They'd become complacent—there's nothing like a bit of discomfort to focus the mind. But if you accomodate them once in a while, they'll be happier on a posting they hate."

"And you know all of them, and their preferences?" She did not sound incredulous, only curious. In his office, he had felt her brimming over with unasked questions.

How to explain it, to someone who had never led as he had? An embassy staff, a fleet of merchant vessels—they both went into danger at her command, but they were not an army. It was no small thing, to look a young woman or man in the eye and know you might one day give the orders that led to their deaths. He owed it to them all, to know as many of their names and their faces as he could. "One learns," he said, at last.

"Moving them, like your chess games with Leliana," Josephine said. "This is why I don't play."

"I could teach you, if you like."

"I do such things all day," she said, and sounded weary. "I don't want to do them in my leisure time. And besides, I would trounce you in public, as is my nature. The embarrassment would be crushing."

"You always win," he said, putting his forearm over his eyes. Again, the lightness, the sense of unreality—the mug in his hand was real, he reassured himself. It was hot, and he was holding it. He was half a fortress away from his office and that locked bottom drawer. This would pass. It always passed. "Even at cards."

"I cheat," she said. "Which is to say, we all cheat—possibly, you were the only person at the table playing honestly. And I deal, because I am the best of them."

"And everyone allows it?"

"Solas and the Iron Bull are remarkable card counters. Dorian, Sera, and Blackwall collude in the betting, to drive up the pot between them and push middling players out of the game. Varric and Vivienne prefer to mark their cards. I should teach you."

"To cheat?"

"To win."

She hadn't just won, that night: she'd dismantled him. Everyone at the table had thrown perfectly good hands and sacrificed their money for the pleasure of watching his destruction. He'd found his armor on his desk the next day, with a note in her hand: There is no such thing as a 'tell,' Commander.

She'd worn his cloak around Skyhold for the next week. Do join us again, the next note said. The fur collar had still smelled, faintly, of her perfume. But he'd been busy, and still suffering jibes from his captains. Josephine had not brought it up, even when he'd passed through the Herald's Rest and seen her fleecing the Iron Bull and his Chargers.

"I don't think it would be wise," he said. Being alone in this room with her, even weak as he was, was unwise. He should not have come to begin with. He should have sent Josephine from his office, and gone straight to Cassandra to confess what he'd done. "I should leave."

"Are you aware of where you are, at this moment?" she said.

The tone of her voice made something in him snap to attention. It was, he realized, his tone of voice, when he addressed his soldiers. She had picked it up in the scant few hours she'd spent at his side, and it was a comfort. "I am," he said.

"Are you in control of your actions?"

"I am."

"Good. Then you are not a danger to me."

It was optimistic of her. He didn't miss the way her hand went to her wrist when she spoke, and perhaps she meant him to see it. "Are you proving it to me, or to yourself?" he said.

"To both of us, perhaps," Josephine said, spreading her hands wide in some Orlesian gesture she and Leliana shared, which he'd never quite caught the meaning of. What will be, will be, perhaps, or Attack me, if you dare. "We cannot mince around one another forever; we've an army to supply, somehow, between us. If you begin foaming at the mouth—the lock on my bedroom door is dwarven-made, and very strong, you see. Quality workmanship pays for itself, given time."

Never mind that the lyrium still in his body meant he did not have to touch her, or be in the same room with her, to hurt her—never mind that. She kept her eyes unblinkingly on his face the whole time, and then she stood, as though to fetch more tea from the sideboard.

Instead, she went around the back of his chair and put her hands on his temples, rubbing lightly in circles. "We must trust one another implicitly. The Inquisitor—she is the Maker's chosen, a power in her own right, but we move her; and we stand together, or we do not stand at all." Cullen let his eyes drift shut. The words smacked of a rehearsal, something she would say to Leliana, later, when they were arguing over whatever they were arguing about. He did not need to concern himself. Josephine's fingers probed the side of his neck, feeling for the tension he carried there, and began to work it out. "There is no one else in all the world who can understand what we do. You, and I, and Leliana—we are a species of three."

He had been sole Knight-Captain, in a Circle that had sorely needed at least a half-dozen more, and then, all at once, he had been Knight-Commander. A species of three. He need not ever be alone again. None of them need ever be alone. It appealed—too much, perhaps. "Harder, if you would," Cullen said.

"I'm speechifying, Commander," Josephine said, but she obliged him. "It happens so rarely. You could at least sound impressed."

"I see you've been spending time around Dorian," he said, eyes still closed. Her hands, her strong hands, dug into a knot, and he grunted from the pain, and then the relief. "I'll make it up to you. Shall I enlist the Singquisition to follow you around and applaud when you speak?"

"While I appreciate your heartfelt offer," she said, "I can only imagine them practicing 'Andraste's Mabari' while I'm relieving an Orlesian dowager of her silverite mines. My reputation would be in tatters."

There was a current of pensiveness, under her good humor, and it reminded him that he, and his meetings, and his guard rotations, were her distraction for the day. She bade him lean forward, and went to work on his shoulders. It meant nothing: she was Antivan, and for ever putting her hands on his elbow, his shoulder; she did the same to Cassandra, Leliana, and the Inquisitor, the Iron Bull, even Sera, when she would sit still long enough.

"Stay here the rest of the day," she said, her voice gentle. "Catch up on your correspondence. You are not expected anywhere, barring an emergency. We will have dinner sent up."

To you I give dominion, he thought, and nodded his agreement—but it was his choice, not hers. It would not be so bad, just once. So long as he remembered: she was being shut out of something she wanted desperately to be a part of. He was something she could manage and control. She cared for him as a colleague, and cared how effectively he performed his duties. He would find out what Leliana and the Inquisitor were up to, and were so determined to keep Josephine from.

And so they worked in silence. Just as Josephine finished the guard rotations, there was a pounding at the door. Another runner—a Vashoth girl, not an inch under seven feet tall, wearing an ostentatiously large Chantry sunburst around her neck. "For the Commander," she said, handing over a stack of papers.

Before he could wonder how the runner knew where to find him, she stepped aside to reveal Leliana. Never let it be said the woman didn't know how to make an entrance. She brushed her way gracefully past Josephine and swept into the room to survey it—pieces of Cullen's armor scattered all over Josephine's dainty furniture, his sword propped against the chair. Anyone could look down their nose, but only an Orlesian could make you feel half an inch tall without speaking a single word.

"This is where you two have been hiding," Leliana said. "Commander. I see you have not descended entirely into madness."

"And I see you've subverted every runner in Skyhold," Cullen said. "Did you threaten mine until they told you where I was? Or do you already own all of them?"

"Perhaps they would not be wooed from your side so easily if you were not so charmless."

"If you two are finished exchanging barbs," Josephine said, "you will remember that the runners are a common resource, under our joint oversight, and therefore do not belong to any one of us. And, despite this, that they love me best of all."

"You cheat," Leliana said, "you feed them."

"I keep a bowl of sweets on my desk," said Josephine, with a dismissive shrug. "If they wish to indulge when they deliver my messages, surely, I could not dream of stopping them."

Josephine had rolled up her sleeves while she worked. Cullen saw it, the moment Leliana caught sight of the handprint on her forearm. Leliana's entire countenance went still and languid, the way it did before she broke a Venatori spy's kneecaps. She was not looking directly at him, but the air between them thickened, and he was in no condition to defend himself.

"Explain this," she said. Josephine opened her mouth. Leliana held up her finger. "Explain this, Commander."

"There was a vision," he said. "Of a sort. I was reminded of the Circle. In Ferelden." Leliana's eyebrows rose. "After—after the fall. I handled the Lady Ambassador—roughly."

"And you did not go directly to Cassandra?" Leliana said.

"That is hardly fair," Josephine said. Whatever game they were playing, today—he was nothing more than another convenient excuse for them to argue. "He has his wits about him. He has been fine for hours. We watch, and we wait. I will not see him dismissed on the grounds that he may be deteriorating."

"Josie, you have problems of your own," said Leliana, crossing the room to examine her bruises. Then she murmured something in Orlesian, and all Cullen could understand of Josephine's response was a vehement Mais non! Leliana was nearly of a height with Cullen, if not taller; the top of Josephine's head came up to her chin, but she was towering, when she pulled herself from Leliana's grasp and crossed her arms.

But he was not worthy of Josephine's kindness, or her defense, regardless of her motives. The man he'd once been had done monstrous things, and thought himself the Maker's own sword. You never drifted far from the core of yourself; you only added layers. What the Knight-Commander had seen in him—a frightened boy, a piece of clay that she could mold in her image—was not so different from what Cassandra had seen in him, when she'd met him in Kirkwall.

Leliana looked over her shoulder at Cullen, something not wholly on the side of the Maker in her eyes. Then she turned back to Josephine. "I will bring you a salve, tomorrow," she said. "We wait, if you're prepared to face Cassandra down when she is out of charity with us."

"As I am the only one who can, I will take on the burden," said Josephine.

"I'll handle her on my own, thank you," Cullen said. "We've all argued with her."

"And how often do you win?" said Josephine. "When she finds out, she will assume we've been working to keep your grave condition from her, and have only come to her because the situation is too dire to conceal. She will be furious, and she will break herself against me before she ever makes it to either of you."

When she put it like that, when she sounded like a military treatise, he could not find it in himself say no.

Leliana left them, after a great deal of plying in Orlesian on Josephine's part. Josephine was silent for a long while, and she moved on to writing her own letters, her quill pressed hard into the pages: whatever had passed between her and Leliana in Orlesian had upset her, more deeply than she'd already been upset. But they were only colleagues, and, surely, she would rebuff any attempt on his part to comfort her.

"Sleep here, if you wish," Josephine said, at long last, well after the sun went down. "I'm certain my armchair is more comfortable than your own bed." She felt his forehead one last time, then swept off to her bedroom, and closed the door.

He stayed, and he slept, and was troubled by no fewer and no more nightmares than usual. Rage demons—mages he'd worked with in Kirkwall, becoming abominations—the usual run of horrors. Halfway through the night, he was woken by the sound of Josephine's sitting-room door opening. He was well-trained enough to not flinch, to stay still and peer under his eyelashes at the intruder.

A shock of red hair in the moonlight. Leliana, come visiting after dark. She paused to look at him, picked her way across the chamber to Josephine's bedroom door, leaving it partway open. He heard Josephine's sleepy murmur of recognition, and the sheets rustling as Leliana climbed into bed next to her. He strained to hear what they could be talking about, so late.

"—DuParaquettes may not be grateful enough," Leliana said. "You do not know what resentments the last century has bred in them."

"I don't care," said Josephine.

"I have been cruel. I have treated you like a green girl who does not know her own mind. Allow me to make it up to you," Leliana said.

There was the unmistakable sound of a hand being slapped away. "The Commander is n the next room, Leliana," Josephine hissed. Another murmured protest, swiftly silenced. Cullen remained motionless, eyes wide open, staring at the sliver of moon hanging outside Josephine's balcony. His mind was clear. The little gasp, the acquiescent moan, Leliana's hum of satisfaction, the creaking of the bedframe, were all absolutely real.

"This changes nothing," he heard Josephine say, when Leliana was finished with her. "You're still going quite against my wishes."

"Then I have not made it up to you well enough," said Leliana. "Let us try again. But if you think I'll leave you alone with him, after today—"

"Then stay," Josephine said. "And close the door."

"He's still sleeping," said Leliana. "I hear him breathing—I would know, if we'd woken him. You trust me, don't you?"

Cullen's breath came shallow, and the only mercy of the situation was that he was lyrium-sick, and therefore softer than a bowl of porridge. "I do," said Josephine. The muffled thud of a heavy nightgown hitting the floor. An appreciative sigh. "Close the door."

At some point, he must have slept. He woke with a start, to the smell of fresh tea in front of him, and a plate with a single piece of thick, unbuttered toast. He was better-rested than he'd been in months, for all that he felt in desperate need of a bath. He took the slice of toast with him and went to the open door of Josephine's bedroom, and peered in.

Leliana was in her mailed tabard, hood drawn back, on both her knees before Josephine. Josephine's foot rested on Leliana's thigh, and she waved away a pair of black boots Leliana offered her in favor of the little gold slippers she already wore. She was radiant, in a white dress trimmed in the same gold as her shoes, her hair loose and wild. She sat down at her vanity, and Leliana braided and pinned it back neatly, with the expertise of long practice.

They had been friends for years. They had always been close. This was a lover's closeness. Aside from a bit of stiffness in Josephine's shoulders—easily explained away by her lingering anger with Leliana—there was no sign either of them had truly thought him awake last night.

"Good morning," he said, feeling curiously vulnerable without his armor.

Josephine's bedroom was as ostentatiously nautical as her sitting room was ostentatiously golden—rumpled blue-and-white sheets patterned with anchors, the vanity done up in what looked like driftwood—but it was elegant. He felt grubby and provincial just stepping into it. Leliana ignored him in favor of finger-combing a tangle from Josephine's hair, and Josephine said, "Sit down."

The bed was wide enough for two Iron Bulls to lay abreast. He sat on the very edge and tried not to get crumbs on the stone floor.

"I feel much better today," he said. His hands were still shaking, and his mouth was still dry, but when he looked at the edges of things, the armoire, the row of vials on Josephine's vanity, they felt right, felt real, and that was a small relief. Leliana pinned the last of Josephine's hair away and daubed a bit of perfume on the side of Josephine's neck, and put the leftover on her own. "Thank you for all your help."

"It was nothing," said Josephine.

"Your hair is a disaster, Commander" Leliana said, finally meeting his eyes in the mirror.

"I didn't hear you come in, Sister," Cullen said, but he ran his fingers through his hair, reflexively.

"Better," Leliana said. It was not an answer. She put a few of Josephine's leftover hairpins on her glove, for later. "Josie, let him borrow your pomade, the servants say he's running out."

"You spy on my toilette?"

"And now I know you think of it as your 'toilette.'"

"Maker's breath, you're like children," Josephine said, standing and smacking Leliana on the shoulder. "I can have more breakfast sent up, if either of you wish to do something more productive with your mouths."

Cullen managed not to drop his toast: Josephine didn't make innuendos. She did not even acknowledge them when they were made in her presence, regardless of who they came from. Leliana remained impassive, and followed Josephine out of the bedroom.

Breakfast was—better. They spoke only of the Inquisition's business, the distribution of wool, of the housing of new recruits for the summer and the disposal of Skyhold's waste, and not at all of lyrium, or hallucinations, or whatever had happened in Val Royeaux. It was only a temporary truce, and it would break down as soon as they were not all in a room together.

Inquisitor Cadash was kind enough to not interrupt them until after they'd finished eating.

"Don't you three look cozy," the Inquisitor said, leaning against the doorframe. She walked with a cane, today, and he'd never been able to tell whether her intermittent limp was real or an affectation, to make enemies underestimate her. Bad hip, she'd claimed, when he'd plucked up the courage to ask about it. Worse, when it's about to rain. Andraste's tits, soldier, don't you have some latrines to dig? And that had been the end of that line of inquiry.

"I promised I would not say anything to Cassandra," Leliana said, setting her teacup noiselessly back on its saucer. "I said nothing of the Herald."

"Should've plugged that loophole when you kids had the chance," the Inquisitor said affably. "Ambassador Montilyet. Sister Leliana. Me and the commander here need to have a private chat."

And with that, their peace was over. "My salon is yours," Josephine said, and seized Leliana by the arm and dragged her from the room.

He'd never been alone in a room with the Inquisitor, he realized. She wasn't as actively frightening as Leliana, or as imposing as Madame Vivienne, but she had a presence well beyond her stature. In her more fearsome moments, she reminded him of the Knight-Commander—but the Inquisitor was utterly in control of herself at all times.

To his surprise, the Inquisitor only sat on a low couch and stretched her arms over her head, until her shoulder joints both made sickening pops. "I'm too damn old for this hero shit," she said, patting her left shoulder. "Dislocated it, on the way back from Val Royeaux with the Ambassador. Would've been worse if Bull hadn't knocked the guy's head clean off, and if Solas wasn't there. Viv, Dorian, they can't heal for shit. Solas can't, either, but he kept me on my feet and fighting until we could get it back in the socket."

Then she pulled out a vial of with a chunk of what Cullen knew was raw lyrium, and turned it over and over in her hands.

"See this? Dagna made it for me—so I can carry it around with going nuts from exposure. Reminds me of where I came from, now that I'm tearing my rotator cuffs for the greater good. And, look, I don't know much about its alchemical properties," she said, "or how mages use it in enchantments. Frankly, I don't care. But I know how many sovereigns an ounce of it goes for in five different cities, and I know what a strung-out runaway templar itching for a fix looks like. They're dangerous, see—you meet in broad daylight, you bring backup, and you put an arrow straight through their eye if they so much as twitch funny at you."

"Of course," he said, trying to drag his gaze from the vial in her hand. It didn't work. Here she was, speaking casually about killing men and women who may have been his former comrades, and all he could think of was the damned lyrium.

"Yeah, yeah—'Is there a point to this, Your Worship, or are you fucking with me?' Of course there is, and of course I'm not," the Inquisitor said. "I'm getting there; don't rush an old dwarf when she's reminiscing. The point is, I've seen your kind about to break, and you're nowhere near that point."

"As you say, ser." He managed to meet her eyes and nod, mechanically.

"You're not listening to me," the Inquisitor snapped. "Been feeling paranoid—any more paranoid than usual, that is? Strange blackouts? Sleepwalking? Bloody noses? No?" Cullen shook his head mutely. She put the lyrium back in her pocket, and he bit back his sigh of relief. "Good. You're fine. And you're discharged from duty when I say you're discharged, so stay off the shit, get some rest, and then get back up on your Maker-fucked feet and lead my armies."

"By your command, Inquisitor," he said. It was a relief, to have the matter settled for him, to have this taken from his hands. "And my—conduct? With the ambassador?"

"Is that what you're worried about? Getting the boot because you held her hand too hard? You two can work that out on your own." Then her expression softened, by inches. "Look at me, kid. It doesn't matter who went into the Breach. The Breach spat Malika Cadash out. Whatever we were before—"

"We are now the Inquisition," Cullen finished, by rote.

The words were dust to him, but she looked pleased with him, for the first time in their conversation. Skyhold, she'd said once to her assembled inner circle, wasn't just a fortress. It was a promise, that they could all be better than what they'd been. That all of Thedas could come together under one banner. And if we can fix up this pisshole before winter hits, we can do anything, she'd said. We all need that promise. Hell, maybe I do, more than anyone. 'Whatever we were before'— you all know the line. Burn it with me on my pyre, if there's enough of me left to burn when this is over.

"That's a lad," she said, now, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Rest up. The garrison at Caer Bronach is overdue for an inspection, don't you think? You're headed out at the end of the week. Ambassador Montilyet's going with you, to oversee the renovations."

"And keep an eye on me?"

"Sure," said the Inquisitor. "Something like that."

He had two names: Du Paraquette and Boisvert. The Comte Boisvert was a well-known investor in the fabric trade, from Ander wool to Rivaini cotton, according to Madame Vivienne's well-informed tailor, a sharp-tongued elven woman who took him in for a fitting with only a little bit of disdain. The man had no pecadilloes that the tailor knew of. A dead end. There was no reason why a trader might have attacked Josephine and the Inquisitor, when they were guests in his own home.

But the tailor didn't know anything about a Du Paraquette in the Orlesian peerage, or the merchant class, which meant he needed a real spy.

"Come on, Curly," Varric said, "we both know you didn't come here to get the latest news from Lowtown."

The Herald's Rest was mostly empty, this time of day. Varric had made an office of a corner table, and Bianca sat on the chair next to him, as a deterrent, or because he genuinely thought his crossbow deserved its own seat at the table. After a decade of crossing paths with and accepting bribes from Varric, Cullen was inclined to believe the latter.

"Right." Cullen took a sip of the ale he'd ordered for the both of them, forcing himself to lean forward, to slouch. It was what Josephine did: mimicking the posture of the person she spoke to. It did not feel natural to him, nor did it seem to have any observable effect on Varric. "I need a favor," he said. "A discreet favor."

Varric looked at his crossbow, and then back to Cullen. "Need a loan? Do you still owe Ruffles that ten sovereigns? Or was it twenty, I can never remember."

It was fifteen, and Cullen had settled the debt within a week. "No."

"Is it something illegal? Because, as we both know, I'm nothing but a humble businessman—"

"Maker, no," Cullen said. "I just need—a bit of news." They'd danced this dance before. Varric would happen to know someone who knew someone who'd robbed someone who knew the location of a truly dangerous maleficarum in Darktown; Cullen would happen to be at the Hanged Man to overhear him let it slip, and would happen to leave a sovereign behind on his table. After the Circle's fall, they'd graduated to having entire conversations. "About a family. The Du Paraquettes."

"Never heard of 'em." Varric rifled through some papers on his table, casual. "Orlesians?"

"Presumably."

"Anything in particular in mind?"

"Just—anything you find interesting."

"All right, Curly," Varric said. "If you want me to do your legwork for you, first off, you're going to have to narrow it down, because I don't think you want to hear about the weird cousin who got caught with their pants around their ankles in a field of druffalos, because, I shit you not, every Orlesian family's got one. And then you're going to have to tell me why you're coming to me, and not to good old Nightingale."

Which was to say: Varric smelled a story, here. There was no harm in leveling with him, up to a point. "Anything you can find out," Cullen said, heart in his throat, regardless, "about the Du Paraquettes and the Montilyets."

"I see," Varric said. "Now it's interesting. And Nightingale sent you to ask me to dig in, because she thinks I work with you better than I work with her? Hell, we'd all do anything for Ruffles, but if it's you and me on this one, it's you and me." If Cullen had learned anything at all from Leliana and Josephine, it was to simply nod and allow people their assumptions when they suited his purpose. And so he nodded. Varric scratched his chin and went on, "Vendetta? Blood debt?"

"Presumably," said Cullen. "Discretion, Varric."

"Sure, sure. When have you known me to not be discreet?" At Cullen's incredulous look—all of Kirkwall had known the Champion was a mage, despite, or because of, all the coin he'd paid to the templars to keep them off her back—Varric only threw his head back and laughed. "I know someone in Val Royeaux, who knows someone—"

"Who robbed someone, who knows someone. Yes."

"Just like old times," Varric said. "Right?"

"I should hope not," Cullen said, and took his leave.

Perhaps subterfuge agreed with him, or perhaps this was the first day in a month he did not have a headache, because he left the tavern with a spring in his step. Cassandra had summoned him for a talk, before he left. The sunshine was wan, but it was warm on his face; the stairs to the chapel did not bother his aching knees half so bad as they could have.

In the chapel, Cassandra had been drafted by a half-dozen templars to sing the Chant with them. Ser Barris, back from Josephine's diversion in the valley and looking no worse for the wear, sat at her right side. Not one of the rest looked a day past twenty, and all of them gazed worshipfully up at Cassandra.

It was not for her singing voice. O Creator, see me kneel, Cassandra began, in her quavering, hesitant alto, for I walk only where You would bid me. In this, she was recruit who did not know where to put her feet. It made her human. And the templars joined, Stand only in places You have blessed—sing only the words You place in my throat. Backed by two competent sopranos and Barris, with his deep, round voice, she did not sound entirely terrible.

Cullen failed to notice Leliana, wedged between two of the broader girls, until she opened her mouth to sing.

He had been in choirs all his life. On his best days, he was even an excellent singer. In his first year as Knight-Captain in Kirkwall, he had led the singing of the Chant for Divine Beatrix herself, during a Wintersend service. It had been the greatest honor of his life—a wheelwright's son from Honnleath, standing beneath a golden statue of Andraste Victorious in the grand cathedral, looking down into the eyes of Most Holy. But Leliana's voice, when she sang, My Maker, know my heart, was transcendent. Barris tried to join her for half a line before he was firmly hushed by one of his fellows. Take me from a life of sorrow, she sang, gentle and mournful, and full of hope. Lift me from a world of pain. Judge me worthy of Your endless pride.

Leliana's pause after the verse lay heavy on the room. Her raised eyebrow: Join me, Commander, it said, if you think you can keep up.

The same lines he had spoken with Josephine, he sang now. My Creator, judge me whole. He was not warmed up, and his voice cracked on the first few words, but Leliana's steady regard did not let him falter. Would not let him falter. A certainty came over him: that they were creating something beautiful, and that their voices joined as if they had been made for one another's; but that this sparring, as surely as if she'd come down to the practice yard and drawn her twinned daggers. And that he was not a match for her—had never been a match for her.

"I should never have introduced these two," Cassandra said to the slack-jawed templars, when they were finished. "Maker's breath, look at them. A pair of show-offs."

"Seeker Pentaghast is only angry because she sings like a rusted door hinge," Leliana said. One of the braver templars dared crack a smile. "And this is at her very best. At the morning services in Val Royeaux, when the spirit of faith truly moved in her, she yowled the Chant like a hungry cat."

Cassandra rolled her eyes and shooed Leliana and Barris's templars from the room. The two of them had a history, and for all that he and Cassandra were friends, he would never achieve such easiness with her. As a fighter, he would never be her equal; as a Seeker, she was his superior officer.

"Your infant templars have attached themselves to me," Cassandra said, when they were alone. "They seem to have mistaken me for a Revered Mother, or one of their Knight-Captains. And, unfortunately, for a competent singer."

"The world has disappointed them so much already," said Cullen. Their officers had tried to turn them into monsters. The Inquisitor had dissolved the Order entirely, which he had argued bitterly against, to no avail. But after a thousand years, and what the templars had become, it was for the best. He had to believe that. "What's another?"

Cassandra's brow furrowed. "We will show them a better way," she said, as though it was that simple. And for her, it was. She set her mind to something, and she accomplished it. "That Barris—I like him. Are you well?"

"As well as can be expected," he said. The Inquisitor would have spoken with her by now. She must have known the answer.

"Bullshit. Answer the question, Cullen."

"My head feels clearer than it has in months." He bent to light a candle on the altar, and to avoid her gaze. "A side-effect of the Lady Ambassador's forcing a good meal and a solid night's rest on me, I'm sure. She enjoys playing the lioness."

"It is not play, with her," said Cassandra, far more sharply than the situation warranted, he thought. "She is not so overburdened with gentleness as she seems. Why do you think she and Sister Leliana are such good friends?"

Friends. He had tried to put the sounds of her and Josephine's lovemaking from his mind. His colleagues' affair was none of his. That Leliana had sang those particular words with him was only coincidence, he told himself, sternly. The templars had already been singing Transfigurations when he'd walked in.

"I had imagined it was their mutual love of breaking nobles over their knees," he said. "And hats. I have never heard two people talk about hats at such great length. If Dorian or Vivienne come sniffing around—unbearable."

Cassandra frowned. "This is not a joke," she said, "in Val Royeaux, too many people underestimated her. They see her standing next to Leliana at a party and say to themselves, 'How dangerous could she be? Surely, the woman with the legions of assassins waiting to cut my throat in the night must be the true threat.' And did you know—for years, when she crossed my path, I did not like her?"

"I can't imagine you disliking a diplomat," said Cullen. "Perish the thought."

The sarcasm flew past her. It generally did, when she was in a talking mood: he may as well have not been there. "She was too good, I thought. There was nothing for Leliana to see in her—she must have been an informant, an agent, selling out her country for advancement in the Game. But she is her own," Cassandra said, contemplative. "She has always been her own. And, fortunately for you, Crestwood is too small to boast a milliner's shop. You will take one of Leliana's ravens and write me the moment your condition changes for the worse."

"Of course," Cullen said. Cassandra gave him one of her probing looks. Only a year ago, before he'd fought at her side, he would have quailed before it. Void take him, there was a part of him that still wanted to, that was more comfortable with cringing in the face of authority and carrying out orders than it was with giving them. "I mean it. I will."

"Back to work with you, then," she said. "I will see you in drills, later?"

"I could never miss a chance to be trounced by the Hero of Orlais herself," he said. She made her third most disgruntled noise at his use of that old title, and punched him gently in his side. It was as good as an embrace, coming from her.