Isehris stood in the darkness and wore it like a shroud, watching and waiting. People walked past her, some close enough that she could have reached out to touch them. None of them saw her. None of them looked. There had been a place like this in Hasmal, when she was a child. In fact, there probably places like this in every city across Thedas, but Isehris was thinking of just one. It had been a small space between the buttress of the city wall and the building that rested up against it. The shadows fell there at all times of the day. Very like the place where she now stood, a grown woman and no longer a child. She could stand there and watch the door of a tavern. It was a busy place, the first part of the city that many visitors to Highever would see, an excellent place for a tavern.

Her childhood in Hasmal had been filled with fear. Yet that shadowy alcove by the city walls had been a special place of terror. A small echo of that terror fluttered somewhere inside Isehris now. If she allowed herself, she could remember the way her bare feet had been simultaneously numb and stinging as she ran through the streets, desperately looking for somewhere to hide; the way her heart thumped in her throat and the way she just could not quiet her breathing no matter how hard she tried. She had scrambled into the dark corner and crouched low as the watchmen came chasing. She had hugged her knees tightly as they stopped by the gates and looked around, arguing about which way she had gone. She could plainly see their eyes casting around. "Don't look at me… don't look at me…" she had murmured under her breath as if she was talking to them. She whispered to them and to herself until she couldn't tell whether the whisper came from her any more. They hadn't looked at her, and they had moved on.

Isehris was no longer a child, she was no longer crouching and she would not be afraid. She didn't speak the whispers to herself any more, either, but she heard them. They were always there, just on the edge of silence, and they swelled as people passed.

Two sailors strode by and then turned into the tavern. Warm air touched Isehris' face with the smell of ale and cooking. Absurdly, it occurred to her that she had never been inside that tavern back in Hasmal, no matter how many nights she had spent lurking in the shadows outside it. Mauro had insisted on it, especially after he knew how well Isehris could hide. 'Runner' Mauro worked for one of the many gangs operating in Hasmal's slums. His job had been to 'run' the urchin pickpockets that came under their wing. The spot by the walls had been too ripe with rich pickings to allow Isehris to avoid it. Drinkers went in with full purses, and some gamblers came out with them. Most were merry and unwary.

As she stood and waited she did her best to recall the old routine. It was all about choosing the right mark and the right time. Moments after the first two sailors passed, a group of five more appeared through the gates. One of them was talking loudly and the others were laughing as they ambled towards the door of the tavern; merry and unwary. She found herself instinctively measuring the distance between her and the shemlen. She felt, rather than thought about, the moment when it was just right for her to take three long, smooth strides to walk behind them. As she fell in with them the whispers grew until she heard them as a constant murmur. They soothed her that it would be alright. No-one would notice her. She was safe. They whispered that she was just another member of this group, just one of them. There was no need to look around. Isehris' eyes darted between the sailors and her body started to mimic their gait, their pace, the way that they held themselves. It would have been so easy to cut a purse and stride away before any of them noticed. She realised that she had already noticed the fat leather pouch on the hip of a man to her left. Old habits were never really forgotten.

Instead, she walked with them as they went in through the tavern door. Despite herself, she felt a moment of trepidation as the first man went through. Being out on the streets beyond the alienage after curfew would earn you a beating. Sneaking into shemlen homes would get you killed. Yet none of them wanted to pay any heed to the cool darkness behind them as they entered the welcoming warmth of the tavern. There was no need to push or deflect as she followed them in. All she had to do was stay quiet and slip aside of the door as it swung closed.

The common room was a large one. A long bar ran along one of the walls, opposite a large hearth where a fire glowed, throwing light around the room. Wood-panelled booths enclosed a row of tables along the wall opposite the door. At least ten round tables were spread between the wooden pillars which stood at regular intervals to support the ceiling. Those nearest the hearth were filled with people. The whispers in Isehris' ear buzzed as attention turned towards the door. She deftly glided into the shade behind a pillar and waited, focusing on the surface of the wood against her hand. Then she slowly backed up into the corner of the room, furthest from the light and warmth of the fire. There was little reason for anyone to look over in that direction. With a slow, deliberate breath she let go of a little of the tension in her body. The hissing whispers receded to the edges of her mind.

From her new vantage point she could observe every part of the common room, and see all that came and went. She knew the man she was seeking. She knew that he would be here tonight. What she didn't have was the faintest idea of what he looked like. She watched the men she had followed in join the others by the fire. One clasped hands with another in an aggressive show of affection, while another moved over to what seemed to be an empty space on a bench closest to the fire. As he went to sit down he suddenly jumped up into the air and staggered away as a large ginger cat lashed out, arched its back and hissed at him. The others laughed uproariously. "That seat's taken, mate. She always sits there!" one shouted.

The tavern was half empty. A place so close to the docks of a city should have been full of different people and different accents. All the voices here were Ferelden. That made some sense. Highever's docks were as empty as this tavern. She had waited for weeks for a ship sailing from the Free Marches to Highever before she had finally settled for a crossing to Amaranthine and a walk overland. Most of the men here came from the five sleek warships standing at the docks. Some of them still wore their leather armour, stamped with the device of a bear on their chests.

As time passed and her mind cleared she began to pick out notes in the cacophony of conversations. There were stories of sexual conquests and fishing catches (both accompanied with hand gestures), complaints about officers, jokes at each other's expense and lots of rumours. They were easy, comfortable exchanges that she had overheard a thousand times before, like the beats of a familiar song. When you knew the rhythm you could pick out how each individual instrument played along in turn. So, too, with the players in the conversation. Isehris watched each of them and saw their part in the piece. This one always leaning forward, hands always moving like a conductor. These others jumping in on his cues, playing off his theme. These two raising their pitch each time the other one quiet, just nodding along to the beat. It was a game she had played many times before as she had watched from the shadows. It gave her a measure of each one.

The minutes swam past, and eventually the door swung open again. An older man with a stick and greying beard strode in. He was wearing old, simple clothes that looked well cared for, and he made his way towards the fireplace with a metronomic tap of his stick on the floorboards. When his path was obstructed by the wide back of a leather-clad sailor, he tapped the man on the ankle. "Gangway, boy." he said in an expectant tone. The big sailor turned and looked down incredulously. As Isehris watched she couldn't decide whether the big sailor had stepped back before or after the old man had started his tick-tock steps through the space where he had been. Confidence was its own kind of magic. The big man stepped backwards into another and sloshed his drink down his front. "Have a care, grandfather." he complained.

The old man reached the fireside bench where the cat sat and tapped his stick on the floor. The big cat looked up, slunk down off the bench and then leapt up into the old man's lap as he sat down. "I'm not your grandfather as far as I know, boy. Though I can't swear to it." he groaned as he stretched out his leg and stroked the cat.

Isehris was looking for a regular, but she was more or less sure that this was not the man. He had attracted the attention of everyone in the tavern, for a start. She very much doubted that the man she was looking for would do that. "Don't mind old Wallace" said a man playing cards at a table a few feet away from the hearth, "He's virtually part of the furniture."

"I see you in here often enough, Mackie." retorted the old man, apparently named Wallace. "You can make up for your lack of respect for your elders by fetching the beverage that the fine lady of the house no doubt has ready for me at the bar."

The card player, Mackie, shared a wry look with the barkeeper, a tall woman with a hard, weathered face and grey stubble for hair. Her thick arms were richly decorated with colourful tattoos. She placed an already filled tankard on the bar and nodded wordlessly. Mackie rose from his seat to fetch it, before walking over to the man with the cat and putting it down at the table beside him. "There you are, your lordship."

"That's better. You are forgiven." replied Wallace. Isehris was certain now that he was not that man she was seeking.

It took perhaps half an hour of waiting and watching for her to begin to doubt her judgement. He should be here at this tavern tonight. She had been assured that she would find him here. She had been told that he would be discreet. Yet so far the only one that stood out from the warship crews was 'Old Wallace'. Isehris was beginning to plan, with a sinking heart, how to approach him without being noticed when the door opened again. A very different kind of man walked in. He was clean shaven and of average build. He wore a short cloak that buttoned across his chest and a peaked hat that covered his hair. He took in the gathering of sailors without interest. Then he turned over to the dark corner where Isehris stood. Unlike the others, he looked, his eyes scanning around the room from top to bottom. Isehris kept her gaze low, only watching him from the corner of her eye. Attention is a two way street and her weaving would not protect her if she focused on him too directly. The whispers rose and she gave them shape with her thoughts. 'You can't see me. You will look right past me.'

He looked right past her, but he cast another glance back over his shoulder as he walked to the bar. She held her ground and his gaze glided over her again. Only when his back was turned did she lift her eyes to watch as he went straight to the bar and laid a handful of gold coins on the counter. The barkeeper took the coins and gave him in return a bowl of thick stew, a bottle and a leather document case. He took these with him to a booth in the opposite corner of the room. Sitting with his back to the wall, he uncorked the bottle and took a sip, took out a document and started to read quietly. She had found her man.

She was about to approach him when something in the hubub of conversations caught at her consciousness. "It was that grey warden. They were seen!" Without thinking she froze to the spot and summoned the whispers to bring her weavings back into place, hoping it was not too late to hide her from view. All the other voices in the room drained away as she focused on the group of men sitting around a table near the fireplace. To her relief, none of them were looking at her. "No. It was demons, I heard." said someone, a different man to the first that had spoken.

"Well of course, demons!" retorted the first speaker, "Why do you think they put all the mages out there on an island? They summoned a whole army of demons and killed half of the templars." he continued, leaning in over his ale, "That's why no-one heard anything from Kinloch since Ostagar."

"Maker, the whole world is falling apart." a third man shook his head in disbelief.

"See now, that's where the story gets better" continued the man leaning enthusiastically over his drink. "I heard that the grey wardens arrived, flew in on griffons to land on top of the tower, killed the demons and led the templars off South to fight the darkspawn." Isehris noticed the other sailors turning their attention towards the storyteller and he was getting louder to match his audience, moving his hands to illustrate his tale.

"That's not how I heard it." called a man leaning by the hearth. "I heard that it was the mages what marched South."

"Weren't you listening? They were all possessed and turned into monsters." the storyteller replied.

"There aren't any griffons around any more either." jeered the man by the hearth.

"That's what they said about dragons, isn't it? If there's no truth in it then why have Howe and the Regent got a bee up their arse over these grey wardens?"

"Yeah. I heard that the grey wardens were in Redcliffe. That's how they fought off the darkspawn down here." Another, different man at the other edge of the chimed in.

"I heard that the grey wardens killed the King too, so what you heard can crawl up my arse." yet another man shouted raucously.

The old man, Wallace, tapped his stick on the floor as if to announce himself before he spoke. "I know why Howe is worried about the warden." he said with a half-smile perking his whiskers. "He knows they're coming here for him, because I heard that the grey warden is young Lord Fergus himself. He led his troops out of the wilds and now he's marching back home with Arl Eamon and the templars with him."

There was a moment of stunned quiet before someone spoke up. "You're drunk, old man. The Couslands are all dead."

"The Couslands ain't dead as long as their name is on that castle." Wallace waved his cane at the wall in what might have been the direction of the castle.

"Names change. No-one's coming back from Ostagar." the big sailor growled.

"What would you know about it, boy?"

"I know a damn sight more than a cripple would."

Wallace creaked up to stand straight. The cat leapt down from his lap. "I got this wound from a chevalier at the Battle of Denerim, you arrogant little pup." he tapped his leg with his stick before stabbing it at the big man. "I saw that bastard over the side and into the sea for my trouble, so I won't be disrespected by an Amaranthine thug."

A sailor from the card table got up and put himself between Wallace and the big man. "Leave him, he's just a harmless old man."

"Harmless, am I?" Wallace pushed his stick into the card player's back. "You've heard me tell the story of Denerim Harbour often enough, Mackie," he said as he glared indignantly at the card player, "but maybe I should tell it again. There were plenty of our turncoats working on the enemy's boats then, too."

Mackie bunched his fists and stepped towards Wallace, "You take that back, old man."

He was interrupted by a loud, ringing clang from the bar. Everyone turned over to the tattooed tavern keeper, who brandished a long wooden club at them. "Anyone who makes any more trouble tonight is getting seen out, and not politely. Wallace, you can sit down and shut up, or you can leave. Just because you're a regular doesn't mean I won't bar you if you keep stirring. Clear?"

There was a murmur of acceptance from the sailors and Isehris relaxed a little. The one called Mackie glared at the old man and nodded to the big man, leading him away and over to the card table. Wallace stayed standing, fuming silently. After a few moments he strode off to the door muttering something about disrespect, slamming the tavern door on his way out.

Across the room the quiet man in the buttoned cloak, who had been quietly watching the scene just as she had, went back to his stew and his letters. Isehris waited until the tavern keeper turned away to walk past the bar. Then she slipped into the booth and carefully sat on the bench opposite quiet man. The creak of the wood made him look up. Isehris met his eye and saw the familiar moment of surprise as he noticed her. "Are you Reid?"

He blinked and looked around him, perhaps checking to see if there anything else about his surroundings that he had missed. "Who are you?" he replied without answering.

"Someone who was told that I could meet the representative of a discrete guild of like-minded people in this tavern."

His eyes narrowed at her, "And who told you this?"

"Anton Muret, of Ostwick. Am I in the right place."

At that he set down his spoon and leaned back on his bench. "Are you a templar?" suddenly he was checking the rest of the room, especially the exit. Now Isehris was certain that she was in the right place. She was surprised by the warm rush of relief that washed over her. "I'm a mage." she reassured him, and pulled down her hood, showing him that she was an elf. There were no elf templars. He relaxed a little, at least enough to look less like he was about to hurl a fireball at her. Still, he looked wary.

"What is it that you want?"

"I want to find the Mages' Collective." he flinched as Isehris spoke the name aloud, compulsively checking around the room once again. "You know that they are more likely to look over here if you keep doing that." Isehris said. She had her back to the rest of the common room, but she was hidden behind the panel of the booth. Reid was still visible to some. He stopped his furtive glances and looked her in the eye. "Did you know that Muret has been taken by the Chantry? He has already given up some of our number to them. You will have to excuse me if sneaking up on me and invoking his name makes me a little nervous."

"That had nothing to do with me." Isehris was almost sure that this was mostly true.

"Maybe so, but if he told you were to find me then who else has he told? For all we know he could have given us both up." Reid looked ruefully at his stew and ale, then up at Isehris, "Dammit I liked this place… Don't contact me again."

He started to rise. Isehris' hand shot out to grab his. "Wait." she hissed. "I was very careful. I know that I wasn't followed."

He tugged his hand away, but he looked surprised at the strength of Isehris grip. "Let me go." he growled.

"Think about it," she continued as if he hadn't spoken, "Muret was taken weeks ago. If he informed on you they would have come for you already."

Reid was only partly mollified, "How can you be sure that you weren't followed?"

"You didn't see me did you? You walked straight past me. No-one else saw me either. I would have known if they did."

He sat back down, slowly. "Who are you?"

This was better. This was progress. "My name is Isehris."

"You're a Marcher?" he looked her over speculatively, "Which Circle did you escape from? Ostwick? Starkhaven? It can't be the Gallows. You would never have made it this far."

"You don't know what I'm capable of." she retorted, "Anyway, I didn't escape. I was conscripted. I'm a grey warden."

Reid raised an eyebrow. "Are you the one they were talking about?"

Isehris hesitated before answering, "No."

"Are there more wardens coming from the Marches?"

Isheris shook her head and quickly changed the subject. "I need to stay hidden, and I need to make contact with the Collective."

Reid leaned back against the wall and folded his arms. "You saw how much trouble comes with wardens. We already have enough to worry about from Arl Howe without hiding something he aren't a free sanctuary for waifs and strays."

Isehris gritted her teeth. She had seen that dismissive look on the face of too many like him. She had told him that she was a grey warden, but all he saw was an elf girl. She was not a frightened child anymore. She would make him see that.

"I am not a waif or a stray!" Her voice reverberated inside her skull as her words came through her clenched teeth. Though she thought she heard a rumbling echo speak the words with the rage she felt underneath her indignation. Reid tilted his head. Had he heard it too? No, Isehris decided. He was probably just surprised to be challenged by an elf. She needed to calm down. She needed this man's help. She took a deep breath. "Listen. I can look after myself. I'm not a recruit or an apprentice, I'm a full warden battlemage. I've seen the deep roads. I have knowledge and skills to share. All I need is a place to lie low and some…" she paused. She could not sound too desperate, "Some assistance in my research."

He looked at her thoughtfully. "You say that you can come and go without being seen?"

"I can."

"Then maybe I can help you. It won't be easy getting out of Highever, and you mustn't be found. Come and see me again here in a week's time. Then I might have something for you."

There was no point in saying anything further. Isehris pulled up her hood and slipped out of the booth. As the hood covered her head she felt her posture change. It happened without a thought. Her chin and her shoulders dropped. Her arms hung at her sides and allowed the folds of the cloak envelop her. The sounds of the tavern were muffled and the faint rush of distant voices became louder. She first moved into the shadows in the corner of the room, the place had become quieter and more watchful since Wallace's quarrel. Though she had been here for over an hour her skin was suddenly crawling to be gone. Her mission was completed and she had no business being here. Still, she forced herself to move slowly. Her head was down and she watched the others from the corner of her eye. Step by agonising step, the door moved closer. She was five or six paces from it when it burst open with a bang. Her heart leapt into her as a troop of six soldiers stamped noisily into the room towards her.

The commotion was like a tidal wave inside her weavings. The sounds of the material world diffused into thudding echo and the forms of the room around her blurred and rocked. Isehris could see the shape of a soldier moving straight towards her, but she could not tell how much was caused by the shemlen walking and how much by the distortion of her own vision. 'Stay calm' she told herself silently, 'It is just an entropic feedback in the weaving working on my own senses. Everything is still where it was'. She closed her eyes and stepped to the side. Her hand found the rough wooden pillar. She stepped up against it and opened her eyes to watch the refracting shape of the soldier passing her. She blinked. The swimming vision cleared and the shapes resolved into men in mail. Each of them carried a shield emblazoned with the device of a bear. They sauntered around the common room, none of them looking her direction. The tavern patrons were all looking down into their drinks or their cards. Only Reid was glancing in her direction, but was casting his eyes around as if he was searching and could not find her.

She leaned back against the pillar and her hands found a grip on it. It felt very solid and very reassuring. "Now. Move now." she whispered to herself, then forced her arms to push off. It was only seven steps to the door. The temptation to look over her shoulder was overwhelming. 'Just keep moving'. Three steps. She could imagine eyes looking at her back. She could hear a voice shouting "Stop! Thief!" It was as vivid as it had been when she had been eight years old and had heard it in reality. The cold flash of panic was almost as real too. Her hand reached out in front of her to open the door. It felt as though it belonged to someone else. Slowly. Don't rush. She carefully pushed the door open enough to slide out into the cold night air.

When it closed behind her she felt the impulse to run. It made her whole body shiver with tension to resist that impulse. She was not a frightened child any more. She was a warden. She had walked in the deep roads. Why did these streets dredge up fears that she had almost forgotten she had? One foot in front of the other, nice and slow. She dropped her head and watched her feet. The cloak around her barely moved as she walked. That was good. 'I am not here. I am not even a breeze.' she thought to herself and to the world. "Forming a thought makes it real inside the weaving." Isehris could hear her teacher's excited, urgent voice reminding her. That summoned a bitter lump of anger in her belly. That was good too. Anger had always made her forget her fear. "I am not a child." rumbled a voice on the edge of her hearing.

Isheris passed through the gatehouse. The moon was reflected in the ripples of the sea behind the masts of the ships and the waterfront was wide and open. No-one was out on the docks at this time of the night, and Isehris did not have far to go. Past the warships there was a row of warehouses. They were so close, but she was moving so achingly slow. Her breath was loud in her ears as it misted in front of her. Her muscles flexed of their own accord and her cloak now shivered around her as she stepped. "There's no-one here to see me. I could let the weaving go and run." She said it aloud in an attempt to convince herself, but a hundred voices whispered 'No'. Safe here. Hidden here. No-one will see.

When she reached the side door of the warehouse all she could hear was the chattering, drowning out the sound of the waves. Her hands reached out of the cloak at took hold of the lock. She looked at it and remembered that she had locked it back into place when she had left. How long ago had it been? "I need to hex this." Saying things aloud helped her to keep hold of her own thoughts. The hex was simple entropic working. She closed her eyes and imagined the padlock slipping open, and pulled. As she did she felt the thing crumble into fragments of rust which poured down her hand. They were strangely hypnotic as they fell like snow to the cobbles. Isehris stared at her hand and thought about what to do next. She shook herself. "Open the door and go inside." She pushed the door open and the rusty hinges screeched. Once inside she pushed it closed again. For a while she just leaned on the door with her eyes closed. She pushed her hood back off her head and rested her cheek on the wood. She took a breath and felt it fill her chest. She let it go and felt it pass out of her mouth. There was no-one here. She was alone. The voices became a little quieter.

The warehouse was stacked with bales of wool. There were rows of them piled high to the rafters. Isehris took another deep breath and moved her hand to the nearest one. She counted them off as she walked along the rows. She found that she could remember exactly the right number. Her mind calmed as she got nearer to the right place. Somewhere at the back of the warehouse she had pulled away several bales to make steps. Climbing them she found her way up, over and into the hollow she had made for herself amongst the stacked fleeces. She dropped down and picked up the loose bale to put it back into the gap she had come through. She breathed a sigh of relief as she closed the wall of her sanctuary. Here she had a little haven filled with all things she owned in the world. It wasn't much, but the floor wasn't hard and the roof didn't leak. Certainly Isehris had slept in far worse places in her life. It was luxurious compared to the tiny coffin-space where she had stowed herself away on the crossing from Ostwick. She could not remember the last time she had slept as comfortably as she had for the last few nights.

She sat down in her fleece-lined fortress, far from the eyes of other people, and leaned her back against a bale with her legs folded underneath her, just breathing and allowing herself to feel the solidity of the packed fleeces beneath her, the rough hessian against the back of her neck, the pull in her chest as she breathed in. As she listened to the silence the voices still whispered to her. "Don't try to fight them. Just focus on the real and let them pass through you." said her teacher's voice. She let that voice pass away too. She was no longer a child. She didn't need a teacher any more. She didn't need any of them. All she wanted was to be left alone and her freedom, and she would take what she wanted for herself.