Chapter Three

An Invitation Is Given and Accepted

-.-.-

The vampire is prone to be fascinated with an engrossing vehemence, resembling the passion of love, by particular persons. In pursuit of these it will exercise inexhaustible patience and stratagem, for access to a particular object may be obstructed in a hundred ways. It will never desist until it has satiated its passion, and drained the very life of its coveted victim. But it will, in these cases, husband and protract its murderous enjoyment with the refinement of an epicure, and heighten it by the gradual approaches of an artful courtship. In these cases it seems to yearn for something like sympathy and consent.

—Carmilla, J. Sheridan LeFanu

-.-.-

"You needn't glare so, Fenris. I told you Donnic gave them nothing."

"That they have come at all means they are too close. I should move on."

"I've already got men at every dock and port keeping an eye out. If anyone asks about you Varric and I will be the first to know."

"Anyone else, you mean."

Aveline sighed, leaning back in her chair, and passed a hand over her eyes. There was an inkstain on the heel of her hand, just past the white cuff of her shirtwaist, and Fenris was willing to wager that there was a matching one on the knee of her long curry-colored skirt. "I know I've said it before, but I wish you'd let me bring Hawke into this. Much as it pains me to admit it, she can go places I can't."

"No," Fenris said firmly from where he stood at the window. Aveline's office was well-appointed, the tall windows letting in great spills of sunlight that poured across her overfull desk. She'd let him look through it, once, the first time she and Donnic had had him to dinner a few days after their meeting in Southwark; he'd found her surprisingly busy for an amateur detective and a woman besides, her folders crammed to the tearing point with contacts and half-finished lines of inquiry and requests of assistance for everything from lost fortunes to lost husbands. This was his third visit, two weeks to the day after first meeting Hawke, but this time his purpose was solely professional. "I do not trust her."

"Even after last night? That was the fourth job you've been on with her. You didn't even have to hold back for any humans."

"Even so."

"You know she'll find out anyway."

"But not from you."

"No," Aveline said, and sighed again. "Not from me."

Fenris turned back to the window. The street below was full this afternoon, men and women alike enjoying a surprising burst of clement weather; bicycles swerved through the crowd, their tiny bells filtering quietly through the window-glass, and in the distance a train's whistle sounded high and long over the gleaming river. At last he said, "I find myself – surprised you come so readily to her defense."

"You know she saved my life."

"But not your husband's," he said without thinking, and regretted it at once.

Two green-upholstered chairs were set facing her desk; Aveline stood and pressed her hands to the small of her spine where her shirtwaist tucked into her skirt, then smoothed her orange and gold tie and crossed to lean against the back of the chair nearest Fenris. "No," she said, and a shadow passed over her face. "She didn't."

Fenris winced. Aveline and her husband were two of the few people he respected in this city, and it disturbed him to think of how quickly he had come to value her respect of him in turn. "Forgive me," he murmured, but she shook her head.

"Wesley has been at peace a long time, God rest his soul, and I've made my own peace with that. It wasn't easy – I can't tell you how many times I called his name or began a letter before remembering he wasn't there to answer, but Hawke's jobs – and her friendship – kept me busy enough to get through it. That was one of the hardest times of my life. We've been through too much together for me to get stuck now on her being something she can't help."

Fenris, unswayed, made a noncommittal noise.

Aveline didn't seem to notice his reticence. "Besides," she added, her cheeks flushing just slightly beneath her freckles, "last year – it was Hawke who helped me win Donnic."

"As I recall," came a voice from the doorway with some asperity, "I helped too."

Fenris and Aveline turned as one. There was a Gypsy woman at the door – a woman, Fenris thought, in every sense of the word – with one lace-gloved hand still outstretched to the brass handle. Her skin was dark and tanned darker, her black hair piled in loose waves upon her head to set off her heavy gold necklace and earrings; her navy and white day-dress was cut far too low and too snug for common decency, though the wicked smile on her face gave Fenris the impression that she was not in any respect common – or decent. She looked, in fact, beautiful, and like a woman who knew she was beautiful, and when she dropped into Aveline's unoccupied chair it was with a predatory grace as easy as a great cat's.

"Hello," she said, grinning, and dropped her head sideways upon her hand. "I'm back."

"Isabela," said Aveline in welcome and longsuffering both. "I thought you were gone until next week."

"Good winds, good crew," she explained, and with a smirk added, "excellent motivation."

Aveline lifted a hand to forestall her. "I don't want to know."

"It was only one—"

"I don't want to know."

"I was really bored—"

"I don't," said Aveline, each word clipped into its own sentence, "want – to – know."

"Spoilsport," Isabela said with a pout, and sank back into her chair.

Aveline watched her critically, as if trying to gauge whether or not she would attempt to continue her story; when no further explanation was forthcoming, she turned to Fenris. "Isabela owns a trade vessel, The Siren's Call. She was halfway to Morocco when that business with Danzig cropped up. Isabela, this is Fenris, your erstwhile replacement."

Another one of Hawke's then, he noted with some bitterness, but nodded. "Good morning."

Isabela fluttered one lace glove in response; then, with a second, sharper glance, she rose in a rustle of water-soft silk and came to lean against Aveline's shoulder. "I'm Isabela to my friends," she purred, her open gaze both frank and appreciative, "but you may call me Captain."

Aveline rolled her eyes. "Stop it. Be nice."

"I'm always nice. What are those markings?"

She reached for his chin; Fenris caught her hand halfway, his grip hard, his voice harder. "None of your concern."

"Ooh, and he's just brimming with cold insolence under all that white hair. Wherever did you unearth him, big girl?"

He bristled, but Aveline shook her head. "Don't listen to her. She's an idiot."

"I'm right here, you know."

Aveline slid her elbow sideways into Isabela's arm without looking. "Oh. So you are."

Isabela rolled her eyes and plucked at Aveline's loose white sleeve. "And every time I come back, here you are again, shrouded head to toe like a nun. Why do I buy things for you if you never wear them?"

"You never buy me things. You talk me into buying ridiculous clothes no decent woman would ever wear in public, then run off and laugh at my embarrassment."

"Oh, yes. That does sound more like me."

"Shut up," Aveline grumbled, but it was not without affection. "Anyway, Fenris, as I said, don't mind Isabela. She might rob you blind if you're not looking, but get her daggers at your back in a fight and nothing will get through. She'll still rob you blind, of course, but at least you won't die."

"Do stop. You'll make me blush." Isabela winked, her dark lashes fluttering coquettishly over cheeks as likely to blush as his. "So Hawke's coerced you to join her merry band of misfits, hmm? Staying long, do you think?"

"No."

"Fond of dancing? I know a few places that don't shrink at taciturn glowers."

"No."

"Drinking, then. A friend of mine runs a reasonably respectable pub, if you don't mind eating off clean tables."

"I have a tab with Varric already," he said, amused despite himself. He did not tell her that Hawke was covering the tab as additional incentive; nor did he tell her that the first night she'd opened it he'd had a full bottle of the Hanged Man's most expensive wine in petty vengeance.

"What do you get the man who has everything?" Isabela sighed, pouting again, but Aveline nudged her away from her shoulder.

"There's a meeting tonight at Hawke's," she said to them both, "about the next assignment. Eight o'clock. You should both come."

"Sounds boring," Isabela said at the same time Fenris said, "No." They glanced at each other a moment, alike in both intent and intention, then turned back to Aveline.

She looked at them both a moment, one eyebrow lifting to her hairline. Her gaze swept across Isabela's face, then to Fenris's, inexorable and searching like the white glare of a lighthouse beam, exposing their flimsy excuses and withering them into nothing. "Eight o'clock," she said, her voice mild.

"Oh, fine."

"If you insist."

"I do," she said, standing, and then she herded them both with open arms towards the open door. "Now, if you don't mind, some of us have actual professions to tend to."

"Bad luck on your part," Isabela muttered, but if Aveline heard she ignored it, shepherding them through the hall and parlor and grand foyer to the sudden noisy sunlight of the London street, clapping Isabela's hat crookedly on her head as they passed it draped on a pot of cheerful marigolds. With one final push and a cheerful smile, she closed the door firmly in their faces.

The lock clicked.

They stood a moment, looking at each other. A feather on Isabela's hat tore its way loose in a stiff breeze; then, when that breeze died abruptly away, it floated wearily to the ground and sank into a muddy puddle at their feet. Silently, they both watched it sop up the water and turn a sad, despairing sort of brown.

Fenris glanced up. "I believe you said something of drinking?"

"It's barely noon."

"I am aware."

"I knew I liked you."

-.-.-

Evening arrived too quickly, and the walk turned out far too short, and at ten to eight Fenris found himself standing before a generous townhouse in the Italianate style off Belgrave Square. The walls were made of pale stone – he could not discern in the darkness if it was grey or light brown – but the small terraces and the windows were trimmed in wrought iron, intricate vines of soldered ivy unfurling across the railings as if they intended to root there.

He drew in a breath, considering. Her door appeared innocent enough, painted white and flanked by bright, welcoming lamps above six narrow steps, a stamped image of every other perfectly ordinary house on the row. Cheerful voices rose inside – and Fenris turned on his heel. This was idiotic; this was the rankest folly, and if he wished to preserve what little was left of his objectivity and ever fulfill his original purpose with Hawke he could not enter her home, could not sit at her table and share her company in the guise of a guest. Some rivers were too wide to cross; some lines had to be preserved.

The door opened behind him.

Light pooled at his heels like a spill of honey, warm and golden and fluid at the edges of the shadow thrown before him, and he turned. A short, slender figure stood silhouetted in the door, and a young girl's voice said, "Please, sir, won't you come in?"

Fenris hesitated, as trapped as if she'd caught him with a snare. "I –"

"Mistress Hawke said you might not wish to stay. She's waiting inside." Then she said, "per favore," and Fenris scowled, irritated, wholly defeated by that tone in that language, by a memory of a hopeless appeal he knew too well.

The maid beckoned again; he strode towards her without speaking, noting in silence her uncertain, pale face, her green eyes too large for her head, her blonde hair pulled into a neat white cap. She dipped a hurried curtsey as he passed her, her hands knotting into the apron tied over her high-collared dark dress. "The library, sir," she said when he glanced at her. "If you'll – follow me, sir."

"Mostrami la strada," he told her, and her face brightened as if he'd given her gold.

She smiled as she led him down one hallway and then another, as she opened one of a pair of tall arched doors leading into a high-vaulted library. "Signore," she said, curtseying, and withdrew.

"Fenris!" came Hawke's voice from inside, and with a sigh, he followed it into her domain.

Her library was large, paneled in rich wood, the high ceilings barely making way for the enormous bookshelves that lined the walls. A broad stone fireplace was built into the northern wall; Hawke stood beside its small merry blaze now, smiling, dressed in black lace over cream. Two elegant walnut armchairs flanked a long, low sofa laid before the fire, all of them upholstered in textured burgundy; Varric reclined in one of the chairs in a dinner jacket, a glass of something amber in his hand, and Aveline, in blue, sat at one end of the sofa beside a man Fenris did not know.

The man looked tall from where he sat, would look taller if his shoulders were not hunched as if under a heavy weight. His hair was a ginger blonde, longer than Fenris's own but tied away from his face; his nose was straight and long over a mouth that bore lines of a once-easy smile. His eyes, when he looked up at Fenris's entrance, were brown and weary, a match to his worn and well-patched brown suit. Altogether, Fenris thought, he had the appearance of a man who had lived far longer than he wished.

Hawke came forward at his entrance, her eyes bright again, and gestured at the open seats. "Sit anywhere you like, Fenris. We're just waiting on a few more and then we can get started. Have you met Anders yet? He is, as you are so fond of saying," she added, lifting an eyebrow, "one of my kind."

Fenris gritted his teeth and turned his head, ignoring Anders's outstretched hand, ignoring the resigned twist to Hawke's mouth as she handed Anders a refilled glass of red wine. "Another soul to convert," she told Anders lightly.

"There always are," Anders said, and his voice was softer than Fenris had expected. "You'd think by now I'd be used to the feeling of absolute futility."

"There's a reason they call them hopeless causes."

Anders laughed at that, an easier sound, and Hawke tipped her glass against his. "Anyway, Merrill's around here somewhere too. You might as well meet all us nightwalkers at once and get it over with."

"There are more of you?" Fenris said, aghast, wondering with clenched fists why he hadn't yielded to his last shred of sense and fled the night he'd met Hawke. A guest in her house, now – and trapped with who knew how many monsters, all of them with death in their faces and the taste of blood in their mouths. He had the lyrium still, and his revolver was a reassuring weight against his side – if this went badly, if he needed – there was still hope.

"I'm glad you saved this to spring on him, Hawke, if just to see the expression on his face." Varric toasted him with a calmness that infuriated Fenris – mostly because he himself felt like a copper spring wound tight enough to snap – and then glanced over his shoulder at the wall. "You there, Daisy?"

A woman's foot appeared suddenly, a delicate white kidskin boot dangling from the top of one of the enormous bookcases; the lace edge of a petticoat followed, and then light green satin embroidered with sage leaves, and a moment later a woman descended lightly down an oak-wood ladder to the ground, a thick red book tucked under one arm. She blinked at the group a moment like a deer regaining its bearings; her short hair was black, braided closely around her ears, and her green eyes were wide and luminous in the candlelight. "Goodness," she said at last, a Welsh accent lilting her words, "has it really gotten so dark already?"

"That's just Fenris's mood," Hawke told her, and the wisp of a woman twirled to stare at him in unfeigned surprise.

"Oh!" she said. "Hello! I didn't realize we had another one. I mean, that someone else had arrived. I'm Merrill. I'm also – does he know? What we are, I mean?"

A vampire with the mind of a cloud. Fenris swallowed down a number of curses, then said, "I – am aware."

"Wonderful! Although I suppose if you're here with Hawke you must have known. That makes things so much easier. None of that pretending to have been in the south of France for the summer or going about with a parasol at all hours."

"Fenris is not overly fond of us," Anders said then, speaking to Merrill but with his eyes on Fenris, and in them Fenris saw the rough light of open challenge. "Are you?"

"Well, that's silly," Merrill said almost to herself as she perched on the arm of the sofa beside Aveline. "You might as well hate the stars for shining, or the leaves for changing with the seasons."

"My reasons are my own," Fenris said, more sharply than he meant to, but he stood in a room with three – three! – of them, the newcomer, the outsider, the friendless one. Aveline and Varric he might still come to trust – but in this place they were Hawke's first and foremost, and if they turned against him too he stood no chance at all. "I have seen too much of the power your kind wields when they are given freedom."

"And so you think we deserve to be hunted? To be staked and burned and killed for being nothing more than what we are? We can't even step outside at night without fear of discovery!"

"When there is nothing left of humanity in you, there is nothing left worth saving."

Anders inhaled at that, anger tightening his mouth, but Hawke stepped between them. "Settle, gentlemen," she said. "There's ample time for this later."

"Then let us be done with this," Fenris said, and scowled at them both. "Or have you more disagreeable surprises in store for me?"

"Only one," Hawke said, her head turned towards the door behind him; a moment later he heard the footsteps as well, and the door to the library opened mid-argument.

"—I'm just saying give it a try. You'll never know if you like it otherwise."

"The last time you said that I couldn't look my sister in the face for a week."

"Sometimes that's just the price you have to pay for – oh, look, everyone's here already."

Isabela winked at him, and despite himself Fenris felt something of his tension bleed away. A woman stood beside her in deep blue, young and lovely, her dark eyes lifted to the ceiling in both amusement and exasperation. "Bethany," said Hawke, and the young woman looked across the room, her lips still turned up in a smile. "Fenris, I'd like you to meet my sister."

For the first time in his imperfect memory, Fenris found himself grateful for the mask of impassive detachment he had once so dutifully practiced in another life. It settled over him now, smoothing his brow, flattening the harsh lines of his mouth as Hawke's sister nodded to him as she crossed to the fireplace, the both of them as cold and unliving as stone. A thousand thoughts raced through his head like the fiery tail of a comet, impossible to grasp and just as impossible to slow: he wished to flee – he wished to kill every one of them – he wished to break every breakable thing in this room, to bury his head in his hands and laugh like the fool of Fate he must be to have found himself here, trapped, allied with four of the very things he hunted, that had hunted him for ten years.

"Are you all right? You look a bit queer." Merrill gazed up at him, her eyes wide and concerned, her head tilted like a bird's. "May I get you a glass of wine?"

"No," he said; then, bitterly, "Yes," because if he could not be free he could at least step further from stark sobriety. Merrill disappeared and he dropped without ceremony into the flanking armchair nearer the door, raking a hand roughly through his hair.

He did not realize Aveline had moved closer until her hand dropped onto his shoulder. "It's not so bad once you get used it," she said softly. "They're all good people, just…caught in unfortunate circumstances. You can trust them."

"My experience proves otherwise," he said shortly, and Aveline withdrew her hand, but for both her sake and his own he mastered himself enough to give her a brief nod. Then Merrill was back with his wine and Hawke was pulling away from her sister by the fireplace, and some invisible, indefinable signal passed throughout the room to mark that the true business of the evening was at hand.

-.-.-

Bethany settled into the open place on the sofa nearest Fenris, offering him a cheerful smile he could not return, and Hawke gave a brisk nod. "All right," she said, "now that everyone's here –"

"—and Fenris is appropriately traumatized—"

Fenris glared at Isabela, and Anders let out a quiet, derisive snort, but Hawke continued as if she had not been interrupted. "—we can begin. I promise I'll keep it short."

"Thank you."

"There are two orders of business tonight: cultists and Russians. Has anyone got a preference?"

"How large are the Russians?"

"Quite."

"Ooh, and how large are the Russians?"

"I wouldn't know."

Isabela leaned back against the sofa, grinning. "Don't worry. I'll find out."

Aveline rolled her eyes. "A service to us all, I'm sure. I suppose we're starting with them, then."

"Fair enough." Hawke crossed her arms. "Three months ago, a large company of men washed up on the side of the Thames just east of the docks. They spoke very little English, but what little they said indicated they'd been shipwrecked in a storm and needed shelter. Is this sounding familiar to anyone?"

Bethany frowned. "I heard they'd wrecked – but I don't remember them leaving again."

"That's because they haven't," Aveline told her. "They cordoned off a few blocks right on the riverside and have been there ever since."

Merrill propped her chin on her hand and asked, "What are they waiting for?"

"Transportation home," Hawke said, and shrugged. "So they say, anyway."

"And no women?"

"Not a one."

"But then why should we bother them? They've not done anything horrible to anyone yet, have they?"

"Not yet," Hawke admitted, "but I think we should keep an eye on them anyway. Three months and no ship? And – there are rumors. Of revolutions and revolutionaries, and socialists after the style of the philosopher Karl Marx."

Unable to help himself, Fenris let out a snort of unamused laughter. Hawke looked to him, startled; and the others did as well, their expressions ranging from open interest to barely veiled annoyance. "Capital is dead labor," Fenris said, his eyes on Hawke, his lips twisting on the words.

She blinked; then Merrill clapped her hands. "Oh, I know that one! 'Dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.' How apropos!"

Bethany shook her head as Varric laughed, and suddenly wishing to be elsewhere, Fenris drained his wineglass. Hawke leaned one elbow against the mantle and grinned ruefully at Merrill. "Why I am not surprised you're fluent in dead German revolutionaries?"

"It was in your library, Hawke. Besides, I like his writing. Vergegenständliche Wissenskraft – it's very strong."

Anders stood, one hand in his pocket, his eyes distant, and moved to look out the night-black window that faced east. "And you think they might try to spark a revolution here?"

"Don't get any ideas," Hawke told him, only half-laughing. "And – I just don't know yet. I just think we ought to keep abreast of the situation."

There was an abrupt, jarring pause. Fenris glanced to his right – and in his peripheral vision, Hawke did as well – and a moment later, Isabela looked up from where she'd been picking at her thumbnail. "What?"

Hawke blinked, visibly flustered. "Nothing. You're just going to – really? Nothing?"

Isabela shrugged, leaning back and crossing one foot over the other, and after a pregnant pause, Hawke continued. "Well—all right, then. I suppose if we're through with Russians we can move on to the cultists."

"Oh, yes," said Isabela with a languorous wave. "That sounds much more fun. And as if it pays better."

"They certainly do seem to have deep pockets," Bethany mused. "But – it's not going to be another of those terribly-named bandit groups, is it? Like the one with all the short men who called themselves the Undercuts?"

The Undercuts—"You are joking," Fenris said to her uncertainly.

Aveline burst out laughing, and even Anders grinned from the window. Bethany put one hand to her face. "Oh, no. I wish it were. There were the Undercuts, and the women who painted themselves to look like bits of buildings and windows – what did they call themselves?"

"The Invisible Sisters?"

Isabela gave a mock shudder. "Ooh, those were long nights. And that group of nasty little bloodsuckers that went around under the name Redwater Teeth. Imaginative as bricks, they were."

"Language! There are bloodsuckers present, madam."

"Stow it, Varric."

The order of the room dissolved, then, into laughter and old stories and good-natured ribbing. Fenris caught bits and pieces of conversations as one voice raised, and then another: Varric, he discovered, had once shot a wooden pillar three times before realizing it was not an enemy; Aveline had accidentally knocked Anders into the river on two separate occasions. Bethany was fond of her sister and Merrill was fond of everything, and Isabela had once made it halfway to the Cape of Good Hope with nothing more than a single bosun and a dinghy.

Hawke stood apart from them all. Fenris watched her, his empty glass raised to his lips, as she watched her friends, the whole of them laughing and talking over each other like a family who had been separated too long. There was a curious smile on her face, somehow delighted and wistful at once, and the sight brought suddenly to his mind a half-wisp of a memory – a woman's face, turned to him – or a girl's, with eyes like his, hooded with sorrow. Then Isabela gestured wildly and Hawke ducked under her arm, grinning, saying something quick in response that made Isabela laugh – and as she straightened again her eyes caught Fenris's and stayed there.

He lowered his glass and stood. Hawke looked at him, her smile slipping away to leave something truer in its place, and in response he inclined his head and walked to the door, ready to be through with this place, past ready to be away from a people who understood nothing of the danger they meant to him—nothing of the fear they forged in his heart. He did not need them to keep his safety, he thought, moving swiftly through the long hallways that led to freedom; he refused to place himself in the debt of four creatures of their kind. Hawke herself was threat enough.

Four! Four in one room, and him with them, and no drop of blood spilt. Fenris would not have believed it before this night – but then, he admitted to himself, before this night he would not have counted one of Merrill's ilk among them either. His chest burned with lyrium, with the power he'd loosed earlier, quietly, in case they'd tried to turn against him – but they had not, hadn't even mentioned the markings despite his certainty they could discern their nature. It agitated him that he had let them live; it agitated him further that he sensed even now his own reluctance to kill them. To kill Hawke.

There was freedom in their deaths. Fenris had learned that long ago.

Orana was nowhere to be seen as Fenris gained the front door, and when he let himself out the coolness of the night air struck him like a blow. He paused on the second step down, gulping down deep swallows of air, cold and cleansing; one hand found its way to the wrought-iron railing at his hip and he gripped it like a man drowning, struggling to steady himself, struggling to make sense of a company that defied his history by its very existence. A decade of flight – of slaughter – and still could he win no peace?

"Fenris?"

Her voice was at once infuriating and wholly expected, and Fenris fought the urge to turn and face her, to throw in her hands all his hatred and frustration and old grief at once. Instead, he turned his head only enough that she might see the line of his jaw in the lamplight. "What do you want?"

"I thought I'd ask you that question."

The stars were bright tonight, clear and distant and impassive; Fenris searched them blindly, wondering if somewhere among them hid the calmness he craved. "I have little tolerance for your games tonight. Speak your piece and go."

"No games," she said, and he heard her step closer. "You just left so quickly. I…wondered if you'd come back."

He did not answer; he did not know himself. Time passed them by, slowly, minutes stretching into each other until he did not know if they had been standing there a moment or an hour. There was no movement around them, no sound, and a cloud passed over the stars to dull what little light they gave. At last, he said, "I have no reason to stay."

They both knew he did not mean only this evening, and Hawke's shadow, thrown across his feet by the dim candles still burning behind her, shifted. "Do you have reasons to go?"

"Without number," he said bitterly, and saw the shape of her shoulders shift again. "I am not a man to whom God gives easy respite."

"Is it something I can help with?" she asked, her voice soft, and as gently as a bird her hand came to rest on his shoulder.

Fenris snarled – he could not help it – and shoved her hand away, whirling on Hawke where she stood, backing away from her down the steps until she could not reach him. "Forever your help," he snapped, stung by the offer, by his wounded pride, longing to leave her heart as heavy and uncertain as his. "Forever you taunt me with your generosity. Have this coin, have this room, have these acquaintances—" he flung his arm out, mocking, dispelling the memories of her overtures. "How many hooks must you sink into my soul before you are satisfied?"

Hawke's jaw was set, her chin lifted, her left hand fisted in a black shawl pulled tightly around her bare shoulders. "Had I known it would offend you so badly, I would have kept it to myself. I only meant—"

"—to help, yes," Fenris sneered, and when he blinked he saw not Hawke's face but a man's, aged, bearded, his mouth marked with the lines of old, cruel smiles. He shook his head and the image vanished. "I have had a thousand offers of help from your kind before, and not once did it mean anything other than my suffering."

Hawke's mouth twisted in sudden hurt, and Fenris could not tell whether it was for herself or for him. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to hurt you. The last thing I wanted tonight was to chase you away. I thought—"

"You did not think. You wanted only to display your newest acquisition." He laughed, short and sharp. "And so, knowing what marks my skin, you present me to a room full of dead things."

"The lyrium—"

"—has made me a target for all of my living memory. Lie to yourself if you wish, but I have little interest in throwing my life away for the sake of easing your conscience."

"Good God," Hawke said then, crossing her arms, and the frank irritation in her voice was startling enough that Fenris backed down another step. "It's like arguing with a wall. Would you stop interrupting me and listen?"

He opened his mouth, but no words came – Hawke glowered at him, and when he still could not find speech he gritted his teeth and nodded.

"I asked you here tonight for a very simple reason. It's not grand, and it's not even particularly altruistic, and it certainly has nothing to do with your lyrium." A muscle jumped in her throat but she continued, holding his gaze as if she had her hands to his face. "I just wanted you to meet my friends. My family." Her voice softened. "My sister. And I wanted them to meet you."

Fenris blinked; she shrugged one shoulder, uncomfortable at his open disbelief, and the black shawl slipped to her elbow. "As I said, it wasn't very noble. I only thought that you'd been fighting so well with us that you deserved a chance to…I don't know. See the beast in its natural habitat."

The truth struck him like a thunderbolt.

For several seconds Fenris forgot to breathe, astounded by the revelation, furious that it had taken him so long to realize it. He swallowed once, and then again, and when Hawke met his eyes again he forced himself to find his voice. He said, "You invited me to your home."

Her home, where her sister lived, and where her servants lived, and where she lived, where she slept, where she thought herself to be safe – and him, Fenris, who had tried to kill her the night they had met, who had never spared her more than acrimony and his blade at her back. She had invited him to her home.

He said, his throat dry, "Why?"

"Varric would say my natural inclination for dramatic situations."

"The truth."

"You're a good swordsman. A great one. We could use you on a more long-term basis."

"Hawke."

She hesitated, glanced away; then all at once she seemed to come to a decision, drawing in a breath, drawing herself up to face him full on. Somehow, Fenris realized, he had moved back up the stairs towards her until he stood only one step beneath her, until he could see her face and the expression on it. She said, plainly, "I trust you. I'd like you to stay."

Ah.

He shook his head, amazed. "You trust too easily."

"One of Anders's favorite grievances."

And— "I do not care for many of your friends."

"I'd be disappointed if you did. That would be too easy. I just want you not to kill them."

He shook his head again, bewildered, and sighed because he could do little else. "I do not understand you."

"You don't have to," Hawke said, quietly. "Just stay and fight with me."

He watched her face, searching for some hint of that bloodlust he was so familiar with, for the flicker in her eyes that would herald her inevitable betrayal – but there was nothing, no darkness, no hidden snare, only open honesty and a touch of embarrassment as she tugged her shawl over her shoulder again. Fenris was not sure what to do with honesty.

And yet, somehow, he thought he might care to find out.

At last he said, "There are – certain people hunting me. If I remain here, they will come." She nodded; he hesitated, then added, recklessly, "I may eventually need –"

"My help?" Hawke said, and when he smiled she laughed.