He might have believed the conversation no more than a dream, except Feynriel began to appear regularly in his dreams after that. Not every night, but at least once every few days, Fenris would find the youth there, watching him. When Feynriel was there, the demons left.

"Why do they fear you?" he asked one night, standing and watching the shadows recede, like a tide going out and out and out and never returning.

"You remember what Marethari said I am?"

"A somniari," Fenris said, after thinking for a moment.

"Yes. A true dreamer. Not only can I walk in dreams, but I can shape them; change them. Demons are part of the Fade; I can shape and change them as well. Kill them; unmake anything they try to create. They fear me much as the Tevinter magisters fear you."

Fenris snorted, then gave Feynriel a suspicious look. "Do you shape my dreams?"

"No. I try to avoid doing that. It makes... ripples. It can attract notice I would rather avoid."

Fenris grunted. He sat down on the beach – the ground having become some sand-like substance, leading to a curve of something that was not quite water. The shape of it reminded him of a bay where he'd once sat watching the surf once, on Seheron, when he'd lived among the Fog Warriors, though it wasn't quite right. The trees backing it were entirely wrong, for one.

Feynriel walked over and sank down to sit near him, sand crunching under his feet.

"When you first came," Fenris said abruptly. "You said it was the demons gathered around me that attracted your attention, How did you know?"

Feynriel smiled. "It wasn't quite so direct as that sounds. You know of wisps?"

Fenris nodded. "The little flying lights mages can summon."

"Yes. They're creatures of the Fade – a spirit, but a very small and weak one. They're very simple little creatures, but they can can communicate, a little; not in words, but in feelings, or pictures. They're curious, playful, inquisitive... they go everywhere in the Fade. They like me, and I can sometimes ask them to do things for me – find a particular dreamer, for example. They sometimes let me know about things that they've seen. They kept bringing me images of this gathering of demons; it bothered them. So I came to see what was causing it."

"And found me."

"Yes. And found you," Feynriel agreed.

"You weren't looking for me?"

"No. Though if I'd thought of it, I would have; there are very few people who would be of any use in protecting me from the magisters, if they ever get on my trail."

"Are they likely to?"

"I don't know," Feynriel admitted, and frowned. "I have been very careful to hide my true powers; but a couple of times I've feared that I may have drawn attention. Not enough for anyone to identify me, but enough for them to at least suspect my existence, maybe. There have been things that might have been traps set for me, that so far I've managed to avoid. But I fear, always, whether I might have missed a trap. Whether someone is already watching me, waiting for me to reveal myself somehow."

Fenris grunted. "And you think you'll be safe here?"

"Safer, anyway. The further from Tevinter, the better."

"True," Fenris agreed.

The next time Feynriel came, his clothes were different; no longer the fine Tower tunic, but a simple shirt and pants of rough cloth, a rag tried around his head to keep his hair – lank and unwashed – out of his face, much like any freeman might wear.

"I have started the journey to you," Feynriel told him, when questioned. "I draw less attention, dressed this way."

He could track the movements the youth made, after that, merely by looking at his clothes. The rough clothing for a brief while, followed by the canvas leggings, rope belt and bare feet of a sailor. Feynriel's skin burned and cracked and peeled, at first, then tanned and freckled. He looked odd, there in the memory of Fenris' darkened room, scratching his red and peeling nose while sitting in a pool of moonlight streaming through the broken roof, snow dusting down from above.

He took to land again, eventually, somewhere in Antiva Fenris thought, judging by the colourful shirt and light cotton pants he wore, with rope sandals on his feet. His clothes changed from visit to visit for a while; sometimes that of a peasant, usually of a poor or only moderately well-off traveller. Once, for three days in a row, he appeared to Fenris dressed like a wealthy merchant. And then rags for two visits, followed by a return to sailor's garb.

Feynriel did not talk of his travels unless directly asked. But he looked worried, sometimes, and frightened once, and only relaxed a few times. It was dangerous, being a mage and travelling abroad; the templars were always vigilant, and even more so since the destruction of the Kirkwall chantry and the unsettled years that had followed it.

While they did not talk of his travels, they did talk. Of places Feynriel had lived in Tevinter; what he had done there, to earn a living, without exposing himself as a powerful mage. People and events he had seen. Things he had learned; his thoughts.

It was restful talking to him, Fenris found, not least because his presence kept the shadows and demons at bay. And unlike Anders, he had a knack for talking of mage-related things without getting Fenris' back up. Perhaps because he agreed that the magisters were a plague, whereas Anders had only ever seen Tevinter as a society of free mages, and ignored the dark and twisted underbelly.

While his nights were more restful now that Feynriel was so often there, his days were becoming steadily worse. The pain never left him now; it only varied in intensity. He was bedridden, too weak to even sit without aid. Aid which Aveline and Donnic continued to steadfastly provide, bringing him his meals, helping him to the chamberpot, bathing and redressing him. He was past feeling humiliation for needing such help; only grateful, that they loved him enough to care for him so carefully.

He had warned them, in the end, about the risk of him becoming a gateway for demons. He did not say what was the source of his fear; Aveline, he thought, was unlikely to believe information he'd had from a dream. Donnic might; but better if they just believed that he wished excuse to ask for a mercy-stroke if the pain grew too great; if they thought his expressed fear no more than that. He did not tell them of Feynriel, nor of his offer, nor that he was on his way. Not when he was not even sure if Feynriel could reach him in time; it was a very long way to come.

And if it came to it, and he did need to ask for their aid in dying... he wanted there to be no reason for them to hesitate. To put off the necessary thing by even one day, in the false hope of help arriving before it was too late.

He slept lightly now, only briefly dipping into dreams. Even there, he felt the pain of his failing body. He could see the worry in Feynriel's eye each time they met there; the mage knew, even without Fenris telling him.

And then, one morning, in a very short dream – a joyous smile. A glimpse of the passage through the neck, as seen from the deck of a ship riding the morning tide in to Kirkwall harbour.

"I'm here," Feynriel told him.