He lights the candles. In a metal box on the table, he lights a small fire and watches it catch on.

Everything is prepared on the table. Every ingredient, every piece of equipment he needs. It has begun to rain. He can hear the rain drops hitting the roof and the windows. There'll be no more patients coming to the clinic tonight. Maybe ever.

He warned her, but despite that she'd trusted him. He'd told her he would hurt her. But she hadn't listened. He was an apostate, a fugitive, but she loved him anyway. And that's why he hates doing what needs to be done. But she's also the reason it needs to be done.

And that's why he hates the Templars.

For being a mage, they would seal her in the Circle. For being a mage, they would make her tranquil if they deemed it necessary, or if they just wanted to. Never mind her talents or the many spells she knew. Never mind her family, the one that she'd been willing to leave Ferelden for, the one she'd belonged to, the one she'd lost and grieved. Never mind the childhood she'd had, another little girl in Lothering years before the Blight would come. Never mind her wit, her compassion, her wishes, her dreams, her smile- they would have taken everything from her if they'd wanted to, in an instance. Just for being a mage.

The Templars would have taken that little girl from Lothering, from Leandra and Malcolm and Carver, her and the mage sister who'd died in Ferelden. They would have locked her up, there, never allowing her to go free. Like they did with all mages, for the rest of their lives, however long or short those lives may be. She would have lived her life supervised by Templars. Constantly being watched for signs of blood magic and signs of demons. For suspicious behavior, or any behavior that could be used to manipulate you. They would have woken her up in the middle of the night to bring her to the Harrowing, a rite that could be as much of a death sentence as a rite of passage, and the threat of tranquility would always, always, have been held over her head, despite what the regulations said.

That's why it's necessary. That's why it needs to be stopped.

The Knight Captain had said that mages weren't people like the rest of them. But they were. They are. He's never known a mage who wasn't also a man or a woman. They feared like the rest of them. They felt like the rest of them. They wanted to live however they wanted, they wanted to work, to travel, to fall in love. And they all knew that they never could. Those things were just a dream for most mages. The way, despite all things, she is just a dream for him.

He opens the bags of the ingredients, one by one, and pours them into the mortar. And he begins working. Sela Petrae and drakestone. Heating, filtering. Glass beacons and glass pestle. Crushing and mixing. Working carefully, his forehead beaded with sweat, Justice urging him to continue, reminding him of the cause. His manifesto is spread out over the floor, long forgotten, reserved for a time when he thought papers and words would be enough.

He does not want to do this. But he will anyway.