Fenris found the Gallows troubling in the best of times. The Tevinter-style architecture, the statues of tormented slaves, the general atmosphere of oppression all served to remind him of things he would rather forget.

There was also the fact that while he bore mages in general no great love, including the one he was chained to, he had grown to respect Hawke's sister, Bethany. If ever a mage was worthy of freedom, it was she. To know that she was imprisoned here did his mood no good, nor did the fact that Hawke and his friends had been denied their request to meet with her.

He was not overly enthused by the camouflage Hawke had come up with for the manacle chain either. He and Anders each held the handle of a bag that hung between them filled with Hawke's torn trousers collection. The manacle chain hung down into the bag, concealed by the ratty trousers that Hawke always picked up, insisting that they were still worth a coin or two.

"I'm sorry, Hawke," Cullen said, and Fenris believed the templar truly was sorry. "Bethany is still considered too dangerous to have contact with outsiders. Technically both you and she could be sanctioned for even asking."

"But we need some help," Hawke insisted. "Can't we talk to her for just a few minutes. Even just a note?"

Cullen looked pained, but shook his head. "No. It's out of my hands. She's an apostate, but even if she weren't, she's too new to the Circle to be allowed outside contact. It's for her own good, trust me."

Anders cleared his throat and Fenris jerked on the bag handle he held, earning a glare from Anders.

"Don't make this worse," Fenris hissed in warning.

Anders pulled a face at him before turning his attention back to Cullen. "Maybe one of the Formari? Even a—" He said it as though the words had be dragged from his throat, "—Tranquil who knows about metallurgy?"

Cullen considered the request before nodding. "I think I can allow you to meet with Padraic, but I will oversee the meeting."

Hawke grinned, but Fenris thought he still saw disappointment in his eyes. He had been hoping that this would be enough to finally see his sister for the first time since returning from the Deep Roads, and his hopes had been for nothing.

Nonetheless, he clapped Cullen on the armored shoulder and grinned that irrepressible grin of his. "You're a man among templars," he proclaimed. "We'll owe you a favor."

Anders grunted something under his breath, but Fenris was spared from clouting him over the head by Aveline, who interrupted anything Anders would have said. "We'll wait in the side courtyard."

She planted her hand in the small of Anders' back and gave him a push in the right direction, keeping her voice low as they left Hawke to accompany Cullen while he fetched this Padraic he had mentioned. "So help me, Anders," she growled, "if you turn this into a pissing match about mages versus templars, I will stuff your mouth so full of those trousers that you won't even be able to hum the Fereldan anthem."

Fenris felt his lips curve into the slightest of smirks. "Why wait?"

"You shut up too," Aveline snapped. "Don't goad him. If you think I want to get into a fight with every templar in Kirkwall because you two couldn't stop yourselves from touching things you shouldn't, think again."

"Someone's in high dudgeon," Anders said, perhaps aiming for a joking tone but only sounding peevish, "and she isn't even in chains."

Aveline's fair face flushed red, making her freckles disappear. She poked a finger in Anders' chest and leaned close. "No, she's the one who just saw Hawke have his hopes of seeing his sister dashed on the floor."

She poked him again, and Anders winced. Fenris thought he should be glad it was just her finger and not her sword.

"So when Hawke comes back, you should think about thanking him for remembering your problem when he has problems of his own."

Anders dropped his eyes and slumped. "You're right."

"What was that?" Aveline pushed with her finger in the center of Anders' chest. "I want to hear that again."

"You're right," Anders snapped, looking up and scowling. "I won't make trouble for Hawke here today, but if you don't get that finger out of my chest, I'm going to give it frostbite."

Maker forbid and mark the moment, but Fenris stepped in before Aveline decked Anders. "This will lead to fighting just as surely as his remarks about templars. Let us leave this for the ferry back to Kirkwall, then I will hold him for you."

Aveline growled and poked Anders one last time to make her point before she turned her back on him and stalked away to watch for Hawke and Cullen's return.

"Have you always made a habit of antagonizing everyone who might want to help you?" Fenris asked Anders while the mage rubbed the sore spot where Aveline's fingertip had doubtless left bruises.

"Only on special days where I have to ask templars for help," Anders snapped. "Because I live for ways to be able to say 'yes, ser, thank you, ser, and while you're at it, ser, may we exploit Tranquil mages, ser?'"

After that all three of them subsided into brooding silence until Hawke and Cullen finally returned with a man so large, he actually made Qunari look a bit on the puny side. He had blond hair that hung past his shoulders in matted skeins too regular to be from simple neglect and wore a close-cropped beard that rose high on his cheekbones to hide much of his face. He towered over both Hawke and Cullen and lumbered with a gait that reminded Fenris of a bear standing on its hind legs.

Fenris' first thought was that they had found some half-ogre to try to simply snap the chain with his bare hands, but poking over the huge man's shoulder, he spotted a staff so proportionally large that he might has well have simply uprooted a small tree and strapped it on his back.

This was the mage Cullen was going to let them speak with because Bethany was too dangerous?

"Maker's breath," Anders murmured. "What do they feed him? Whole cows?"

"I'll wait here," Cullen said, stopping far enough away to give them some semblance of privacy as long as they kept their voices low. "Just don't make me regret this."

"Would we do that?" Hawke asked cheerfully before adding, "Don't answer that."

Hawke led the giant over to his friends. "Padraic, this is Aveline, Captain of the Kirkwall guard, and these are my friends Anders and Fenris."

Anders tipped his head back to take Padraic's full measure and whistled before he remembered his manners. "Thanks for coming to talk to us, we had a bit of a cock-up and need some help."

"So I hear," Padraic rumbled, his voice sounding exactly as deep as Fenris had expected from such a large man. "Not that Serah Hawke explained why you needed someone expert on magical metals."

Hawke murmured something to Aveline to which she nodded, leaving them to engage Cullen in conversation.

Fenris noted that Hawke moved to put his body between Cullen's line of sight and the bag. "Show him," he told Anders and Fenris when Aveline had Cullen suitably diverted.

Together he and Anders put the bag of trousers down and pulled the chain out for Padraic to see.

"Ah," Padraic rumbled. "Now I see."

He reached out to take the chain in his hands and for the first time, Fenris saw why Cullen might think Padraic was not as dangerous as Bethany Hawke.

Padraic's hands were covered in burn scars so severe that the fingers on his right hand were clenched against his palm in a permanent fist; his left hand was marred by scars that ran in scarlet rivulets up into the sleeve of his robe. He might still be strong, but he clearly had lost the dexterity needed for any spellcraft but the most rudimentary.

He lifted the chain in his damaged hands and Fenris felt the lyrium in his skin react to a faint flow of magic from the mage. He gritted his teeth and struggled to keep the power from flaring through the markings.

Anders glanced his way and then to Hawke, communicating something that had Hawke suddenly gripping Fenris' bicep to draw his attention. If he had meant to help Fenris, he failed rather miserably.

Fenris nearly growled, his markings flaring so bright that Padraic dropped the chain and made a sound of surprise.

"Sweet Andraste," he breathed, and Fenris was surprised to hear reverence in his tone. "How do you live with all that lyrium?"

"How did your hands get scarred?" Fenris retorted, shaking off Hawke's grip and sucking in a deep breath to get enough control to push the burning power back into the lyrium.

"Forge accident," Padraic answered matter-of-factly. "I'm lucky I have hands at all." His eyes flicked over to Anders, then widened.

Anders was swaying on his feet, faint blue light leaking out of his half-closed eyelids. On his face was an expression of dazed bliss Fenris had never thought – or wanted – to see there.

Hawke cursed and glanced over his shoulder, shifting to ensure that Cullen couldn't see Anders.

Fenris did the only thing he could think to do other than, well, rip Anders' heart out. He had a feeling that would go over poorly. He pinched his arm, hard.

Anders blinked, so Fenris pinched him again.

Padraic watched the byplay with his brows drawn down in a glower. "What are you?"

Anders licked his lips and rubbed his sore arm. "I'm in need of a change of smalls is what I am," he mumbled before realizing what he had said.

If Fenris had thought Aveline's face had gone red earlier, Anders' face blazed so brightly that he half-expected his nose to start bleeding from all the blood rushing to his head.

Everyone dropped their eyes to Anders crotch. He came out of his daze enough to notice and spat a curse at them all, pulling his coat tight to try to hide from their looks.

"Not helping," he growled. "Back to the part where we get these Maker-forsaken cuffs off and I can go drown myself in the harbor in embarrassment. Now!"

Padraic shook his head, still frowning. "What was that?"

Hawke came to their rescue. "I've never seen that before. It must have something to do with the cuffs. Is there anything you can do to get them off? Not that seeing Anders have a spontaneous—"

"Hawke!"

Hawke grinned at Anders and shrugged. "Besides that, we'd owe you if you could help them. Maker help us if they're chained together too long. I can't keep them drunk forever."

Padraic looked dubious, but reached for the chain again. This time Fenris braced himself for the touch of magic that conducted through the metal, feeding into the lyrium marks at his wrist and from there into the rest of his body. He shuddered with the effort of keeping the marks quiescent.

Eventually Padraic released the chain and went to one knee to examine the cuffs themselves without actually touching either Anders or Fenris.

Fenris shifted restlessly from foot to foot while Padraic asked them to move their arms one way or another to give him a full view of the cuffs and all their markings. He kept darting looks at Anders, wondering why Anders had been so affected today when Merrill had apparently touched the cuffs with her magic the night before while they were drunk.

What if it wasn't the magic?

He remembered Anders' almost throwaway comment of months ago when they had fought together under Darktown: You don't even want to know what all that lyrium does to my head…

Padraic rose to his feet to tower over them again and shook his head. "Nothing I've seen, but I know where to look. Those runes look familiar, but we're talking old, old magic here. Even if I find anything, the best I can do is give you information."

He looked down at his twisted hands. "The magic's out of my reach."

Hawke shook his head. "Anything you can do is better than where we are right now." He produced an envelope seemingly out of thin air and tucked it inside Padraic's sleeve. "And if you could just see that Bethany Hawke gets that, I'd be even more in your debt."

Padraic shifted, and it was like mountain ranges suddenly moving. "You never stop with just one thing, do you?"

Hawke spread his hands out and looked utterly unrepentant. "If I did, I'd still be in Lowtown."

• • •

Fenris dragged a very reluctant Anders away from the others on the ferry ride back to Kirkwall.

"It was the lyrium, wasn't it?" he demanded, keeping his voice low.

"I wasn't expecting it," Anders said defensively. "It certainly wasn't intentional."

"That means yes."

Anders shrugged and leaned against the rail to watch the water passing below. "Probably," he admitted. "It's not something I like to advertise, but Justice has a bit of a… thing for lyrium."

"A thing?"

Anders's eyes went partially unfocused, as though he listened to something that Fenris could not hear. When he spoke, it sounded more like quoting than his own words: "I had a ring, a gift from a friend. I kept it as a reminder that 'even in misfortune, good can be found.' Perhaps we should all remember that lesson."