"The Lord Seeker is a demon."

Shane's declaration was placid and artless, but there was enough hysteria in the war room already; she didn't care to aggravate the situation by being theatrical.

Commander Cullen, Josephine, Leliana, and Cassandra had been bickering about whether to ally with the mages or the templars since the moment Shane returned to Haven from Val Royeaux. She had been standing at the war table with her hands behind her back waiting for the heads of the Inquisition to cease tearing into one another so she could actually finish delivering her report, but it had gotten ridiculous. Restless for resolution, she had skipped to the interesting bit. All four of the assembled party spun on her abruptly, first assaulting her with silence then all starting to squabble at once. Shane sighed and rode it out.

"This is nonsense!" Cassandra shouted loudly enough to silence the others. "Seekers cannot be possessed!"

"Right," Shane agreed, "but that's not what I said. The Lord Seeker isn't possessed by a demon; he is a demon."

"Is…that something that can happen?" asked Josephine, glancing from Cassandra to Leliana. Cassandra shook her head; Leliana shrugged.

"I know demons can torment people into seeing…falsehoods," Commander Cullen put in with a pained expression, "but I've never heard of one truly living as someone else."

"It's rare," said Shane. "Many demons can shapeshift or cast glamours, but they don't know how to be human. This must be a particularly studious demon to be able to trick the templars into thinking it's actually the Lord Seeker."

"But it cannot trick you?" asked Leliana, appraising Shane from the shadow of her hood.

"No," said Shane squarely. "It cannot."

The moment the Lord Seeker had entered the town square in Val Royeaux, the back of Shane's throat had burned with a thick metallic itch. The air smelled like ash. Her ears buzzed. The doppelganger looked blurry and warped around the edges as Shane's eyes struggled to reconcile what they were seeing with the truth. The demon walked a little too fluidly yet swung its arms a little too stiffly. When it spoke, it worked its mouth like it was chewing its tongue. How did no one notice?

"I knew something was amiss!" said Cassandra, pounding a fist into the table. "The Lord Seeker would never behave so dishonorably." She beamed with vengeful hope, but Leliana quashed her elation with efficient pessimism.

"If a demon is masquerading as the Lord Seeker, the real one is likely dead."

Cassandra opened her mouth as if to respond hotly, but her countenance fell, and all that came out was a small, "Oh."

"Hang on," Commander Cullen said, pressing his fingers to his temple and turning to the Herald. "You mean to tell me the Templar Order is being influenced by a demon, and you didn't expose and destroy it? You let it just…walk away?"

"It may not have been the cheeriest option, but it was the best one at the time," Shane responded with more conviction in her voice than she actually possessed.

"How?" The commander barked while gesturing indignantly.

Shane bristled.

"I didn't think attacking the Lord Seeker in the middle of a thick crowd of innocent people and within spitting distance of the White Spire was a great idea," she huffed. She could picture the doors to the templar headquarters flying open to emit a torrent of armed templars all eager to incinerate her with their holy wrath.

"The Herald is right," said Josephine. "We can't be sure the witnesses would see the truth of the situation, and the templars would surely have come to the defense of the Lord Seeker. A confrontation could have turned the Chantry, the Templar Order, and all of Orlais against us…more so than they already are."

"I was concerned about the crowd's safety, not its testimony, but thank you Josephine, that is a good point. They might have even assumed I summoned the demon myself."

The commander sighed and ran a hand over his face.

"So we should ally with the mages," reasoned Josephine succinctly, as she had been all evening.

The commander glared at her.

"The Lord Seeker may be compromised, but surely there are still loyal templars who would come to our aid," he said.

The room once again simmered with tension. Shane was not eager to resume the exhausting fight over mages and templars.

"We shouldn't be thinking about who could be the greatest ally but the greatest threat," said Shane, placing her palms on the war table. "Demons are bad, but they're also falling out of every hole in the sky. I'm more worried about the Tevinter magisters the mages are involved with."

"You would leave the templars to the machinations of a demon?" asked Cullen.

"I'm loath to let this false Seeker go," said Shane. "but there is an invading force of Tevinter mages in Redcliff. How many wars is Thedas already tangled in? Three? The mages and templars are trying to kill each other, Orlais is bleeding over a needless civil war, and then there's whatever is going on between Tevinter and the Qunari. I don't want to sit back while these magisters start a war with Ferelden. I will deal with the Lord Seeker later. I'm approaching the mages."

Shane wasn't sure when she had become the one to make decisions for the Inquisition, but the rest of her associates acquiesced. They drew up a plan for her journey to Redcliff then parted ways with solemn nods and few words. Shane wondered whether Commander Cullen would be able to forgive her for choosing to meet the mages instead of the templars but chided herself for the thought. She would do what she thought was best for Thedas.

What I want doesn't matter.