He'd avoided telling people about Justice since their partnership had begun because he hadn't wanted to hear the accusations of 'demon' and 'Abomination' that were sure to follow. He'd more or less held to that strategy for the three years of their partnership, and even when he'd starting being unable to control himself around Templars, he'd told himself that it was okay. If the Templars were trying to take him in, they deserved it. They knew the risks. He hadn't been about to go back to Kinloch Hold and endure what was sure to be his longest stint in solitary cells, maybe the one that finally broke him, and he would actually kill himself before he let the Templars of the Gallows get him.

He'd thought about it more than once in his life, but planning successful escape attempts had kept him from it during his time in the Circle. Now, the healing skills he'd honed in Amaranthine's tent city and the particularly Dalish tricks he'd learned from Velanna served the same purpose, since the only time he was safe going out in public was in Hawke's company. He could even see Templars when she was around and Justice would let them pass, because Anders had managed to convince him that Hawke would always put things right.

Sometimes Anders remembered that, even in those horrible moments when the Templars had come for Renald and Caron's cronies had turned on Justice, never once with the Wardens had he seriously thought about suicide. It had crossed his mind- he wasn't sure if it was ingrained habit that his eyes would sweep around the room and catalogue all the ways he could kill himself, or if it was just something off about how he was- because sometimes thoughts just happened. Kirkwall was still better than the Circle- just about anything was better than the Circle- but still, in Amaranthine, he'd never done so much as keep a knife handy against the worst-case scenario of the Templars cornering him without support.

The Wardens had been safe, even in those awful moments. Nathaniel had come running into his tent bound and determined to help him run away as the others stood watch to keep the Templars occupied; and Justice had fought alongside everyone else at the Keep. Caron's cronies hadn't exactly been Wardens, not to Anders. They wore the colors and had taken the Joining, but they didn't have any loyalty to the Commander. They'd never even met him. They might as well have been Templars, or Orlesian soldiers, or militant Chantry lay supporters- they hadn't been his sort of Wardens, the Commander's Wardens.

And now the Commander had just walked into his clinic, and looked at him like he was so relieved to find Anders alive but sad to realize that he'd run away and hadn't even sent word that he was all right, but Anders knew that he wasn't the same person the Commander was missing. Caron's people hadn't been his sort of Wardens; but now he wasn't, either.

He was an Abomination, and had been since he'd accepted Justice, he'd just been denying it, telling himself that his newfound devotion to saving all mages was the natural progression of his own circumstances. But if he'd really been dedicated to saving mages, Hawke wouldn't have had to talk him down from killing Ella- Bethany's favorite apprentice Ella, whom she'd never see again because the whole Circle would have known that Ser Alrik had gone after her, and Ser Alrik wouldn't be coming back. Ella hadn't had her Harrowing yet there had been no reason for her to suspect the existence of Fade spirits that weren't demons-

Hawke had told Ella to get out, and Anders had told Mistress Selby to send someone after her, to help her get out of the city. Usually he'd do it himself, but Ella would never trust him now. The rest of the Mage Underground would have to do this themselves.

Anders couldn't. He wasn't even sure that he should associate with the Underground any longer, much less Hawke and her group. Hawke had named Justice a demon he was finally ready to accept the truth, which meant that he was an Abomination and he owed it to everyone else's safety to just kill himself already. Otherwise, the people he'd always tried to help would be tarred with the same brush. The Chantry would never listen to apostate mages led by an Abomination and no one would trust Hawke or Aveline or Varric if they were tainted by association to one.

He would do it, kill himself; except Justice wouldn't let him.

You must do your duty. You are not allowed to do otherwise. I promised.

Justice- Vengeance didn't even have to say it again. The once had been enough, after running from the Gallows lyrium tunnels and Hawke catching up to him as he tried to clean the clinic up for whoever would get it after she killed him; and then when she refused to get rid of him for whoever would get it after they'd found him bled out or drowned or hung somewhere.

But when he'd tried, after Hawke had left, telling him that she'd find a way to fix him and he knew he had no other options left, his demon had thundered it at him and driven him to his knees.

Nathaniel didn't mean it like this! Anders had screamed back at him. He meant that you were supposed to keep me from distracting myself worrying about Caron's people so I could do a thorough investigation of Amaranthine! Or to keep me from running away! And we did that!

We have a duty above all else. The Templars cannot stand. The Circles cannot stand.

No, Anders had thought to himself, because it was useless to argue. Vengeance got what Justice wanted. I was scared of the Templars and the Circle, and angry; and you wanted someone held to task for trying to kill you.

The one thing that he could almost find comfort in, in this situation, was that to Justice, the Grey Wardens were the Commander, in a way much more literal than Anders's feelings on the matter. The Commander had found Justice in the Fade, identified himself and Anders and Sigrun and Oghren as Grey Wardens, and agreed to help. Anders wasn't sure that Justice had entirely grasped that 'Grey Wardens' weren't just a sort of mortal spirit whose purpose-name was 'killing darkspawn' instead of 'Compassion' or 'Pride' or 'Mercy'. Certainly he'd approved of Anders going into the Deep Roads, even though there hadn't been any Templars to fight there.

Just a couple of things different, and maybe he wouldn't have come here. He would still be in Amaranthine, and all of the other Grey Wardens- all of his friends- would be dead at his hands because of what Caron had ordered. If the Orlesians had tried to kill Justice with Warden techniques instead of Templar ones, it could have happened.

Anders had thought that since he couldn't stop himself, and Hawke had refused to stop him, that the only way to go was forwards- go farther, go faster, do the things the other mages shouldn't do because they had to stay respectable and clean of spirit, conscious, to have half a chance of making a case that would work. If he- if he threw himself into fighting Templars, turned full vigilante, ambushed groups when they were going after apostates and escapees or when they were collecting children- if the other mages didn't have a record of killing people, Templars-

He could be the martyr for the cause. It was all he was good for, all he was worth, anymore, because of his own stupid decisions.

Except that the Commander had just walked into his clinic, and now he had another chance out. This was the man who'd razed through the demons of Kinloch Hold, who'd never hesitated in killing an Abomination but had put himself between the Templars and the uncorrupted mages they would have killed. The man who'd found a serial escapee standing over the dead bodies of the Templars who'd come to drag him back, and believed it when he'd said that that it wasn't his fault. Always trusted him completely.

"Anders. Anders. You're alive."

He'd opened the clinic and been seeing to the couple of people who had shown up. What must they think now?

"Commander Mahariel," he said. "I- I'm sorry, I really- I didn't mean to-"

Maker only knew what the man was thinking in that moment, or what Anders's own face looked like, because the Commander shifted his hold and pulled Anders into a hug.

No one hugged him here. Renald had, and Sigrun had usually been up for it if he'd asked, and Karl would have if only Anders had gotten here in time-

He hadn't thought about Karl in a long time, he realized suddenly, and Karl had been the whole reason he'd run to Kirkwall specifically. He should have been thinking of him every time he saved a mage, helped someone escape the Kirkwall Templars.

Except something like Justice or Vengeance didn't care about people, just The Cause. Demons would prey on people's feelings towards others, but once they'd wriggled their way into a body, they didn't need to rely on that any longer; and the illusions, the reassurances, the friendly words- all discarded, because the demon had better things to use their energy on.

Anders hadn't thought about Karl since the handful of days just after finding him Tranquil in the Chantry, bait for a Templar trap; and he broke down crying as much for his old friend's death as for his own.

It turned into a group hug, because once Anders started clinging to Theron and sobbing into his shoulder, Nathaniel had snapped out of it and hugged his old friend from behind.

"Group hug?" Alistair had asked. "I like hugs, group hug!"

And then he'd thrown his arms around everyone's shoulders so he could reach them all, even though he'd never actually met Anders.

"I think he's done for the day," Delilah told the other people in the room. "No, I have coin now- here, go to the apothecary, I'm sure he'll be around tomorrow-"

The doors were shut and the crossbar dropped in place. Anders didn't cry himself out until some time after that.

"It's all right," Theron said, once it seemed like his wayward Warden would actually be able to reply. "I'm not mad."

"We thought they killed you!" Nathaniel exclaimed. "What happened?"

"They went after Justice," Anders told them, tone bleak. He clung a little tighter at the memory, and Theron squeezed him comfortingly. "I was sure they were going to go after me next. I don't know if they actually were I just- I panicked and then they were dead and then I couldn't go back to Caron so I panicked again and dressed Kristoff in my armor and dumped Justice's into the harbor and then burned everything until you couldn't tell who was who any longer-"

"Caron's dead," Nathaniel interrupted suddenly. "Anders, I-"

"He just disappeared," Theron explained. "Only a couple of days after that. I don't know for sure what happened to him."

It had the upside of being, quite technically, the truth; and he'd like to keep it that way. He wasn't going to ask Nathaniel about his suspicions, and if he tried to bring it up again, he'd talk right over him again.

"Amaranthine is safe for you now," he said. "Come home, Anders."

He felt Anders take a deep breath, and then his Warden pulled away. Everyone shuffled position to give him room, and Theron noticed that Anders couldn't meet his eyes.

"I've made a horrible mistake," he said. "I can't come back. When they went for Justice, I- I've known people before who were killed by Templars. I didn't know him well, but I knew he wasn't a demon and didn't deserve to be killed. So I invited him in. To me. I just couldn't stand to see anyone else I knew killed by Templars and the next thing I remember after Justice is all those other Wardens dead and I told myself it was fine for a long time but now I can't be around Templars without losing myself and I've- it's my fault I was trying to help I didn't want him to die but I did something worse- Justice- Vengeance- he's a demon now because of the things I've thought, the things I feel and I know I look functional but I'm not. He won't let me kill myself and I'm not in control and Hawke wouldn't- I can't go back, Warden-Commander. I need you to kill me-"

"No!" Nathaniel exploded.

"Please," Anders asked, and Theron didn't know what to do. "You cared enough to save me from the Circle and now I need you to save me from myself. If you don't do it, I'm going to have to find some way to get myself killed for The Cause, because I'm not going to be able to hold out much longer against Justice. Vengeance. I realize that now. I almost killed this mage I was trying to save from the Templars. She's only an apprentice and all she did was call Justice what he is and if I'd gone in there alone like I'd planned, I would have-!"

"'The Cause'?" Theron asked. He trying to stay calm and reasonable but this was one of his people, the ones he was supposed to be charged with, one of his clan. They'd thought Anders was dead and he wasn't, but for the first thing he asked was 'kill me'-

"Mage rights," Anders said bitterly. "Mage justice. That's what it started out as- what it's supposed to be. But now it's just vengeance for a life in the Circles. For my life, for the people I've known, Karl and Renald and- that's not what it should be, the rest of the Mage Underground I just about getting people out of the Gallows. I know some of them run away to other Circles and the Senior Enchanters cover for them. The Templars here-"

"Are out of their minds on lyrium?" Alistair suggested. "We'd noticed."

Theron did a quick check of the rest of the room. Nathaniel was still obviously upset, Zevran was holding his opinion and his expression, Delilah and Kallian were looking very thrown, and Alistair- was not going for his sword?

"I think it makes it easier to lose control," Anders said. "Having lyrium everywhere. It weakens the Veil but even then there's just something wrong about this place. I don't understand- there's nothing that Kirkwall touches that it doesn't eventually destroy-"

'Including me,' Theron could hear very clearly.

"We just got you back!" Nathaniel said forcefully. "We're not going to just kill you- we're going to find some way to fix it, we're good at fixing things-"

"You can't fix this!" Anders yelled. "You can't fix demons! You can only kill the people possessed!"

"I met someone who said they could."

Everyone but Alistair and Zevran, who'd been there, stared at him.

"Yeah, well," Alistair said, crossing his arms. "He's dead now. They're both dead. And unless you're backing out of that whole 'no blood magic' thing, in which case we're going to have a talk-"

"We don't need blood magic," Theron reasoned. "You just have to send someone into the Fade to fight the demon there. The problem is it takes so much lyrium- but we have that much lyrium. Many times over. Anders just comes back with us to Amaranthine-"

"It won't work, Commander," Anders said. "I've been in the Fade since- this. Justice wears my body there. We're inseparable."

That was an interesting tidbit.

"What happened that you were in the Fade?" Theron asked.

"There was this elven-blooded boy, Feynriel, who was a special type of mage," Anders explained. "A somniari, it's some kind of Tevene thing. He could enter the Fade at will, control it much better than other mages. He got- caught, in his dreams, by some demons, and his mother asked Hawke for help. We'd saved him from slavers and the Circle before and sent him to the Dalish, so the local Keeper sent Hawke and I and some others into the Fade to save him. I don't remember any of it. I was Justice the whole time. But we saved the boy. He went off to Tevinter to see if they could help him there."

"Well…" Alistair said, rubbing his chin. "Okay, that's when you're sent into the Fade, but you'd be like that mage boy in this situation, right? Couldn't we just get in there while you're dreaming, and then you and Justice would be different people again? Different bodies, I mean? You're clearly still separate people. I've never heard of an Abomination that asks to be killed before they can hurt anyone. That's not really how they work. Right now, you're still just in a lot of trouble."

Theron looked at him in surprise.

"You're… not against this?"

He'd thought for sure that Alistair would have been urging him to do what Anders had been asked. The only time he'd been at all hesitant to do something about demon- an Abomination- had been at Redcliffe, and that had been entirely for emotional reasons. He'd never met Anders before this.

"I mean," Alistair said, and shifted uncomfortably. "I'm not- if it was anyone else, I don't know-"

He heaved a sigh.

"It's just that he's one of yours, Theron. Both of them are. And I know how you feel about that."

Theron hadn't been this accommodating at Redcliffe. He thought he'd made his peace with it, but- maybe not. Somehow, he'd have to find a way to beg Alistair's forgiveness without hurting their relationship.

"Thank you," he told Alistair, because right now wasn't the time to bring it up. That was something for later, in private. "Nuvas ema ir'enastela, lethal'in."

Alistair's mouth quirked up into a small, abashed smile.

"Just don't let any Dalish catch you saying that, huh? They might decide to kill the unworthy shem to save you. Or maybe they'd kill us both. That would be really inconvenient. Who would look after the Wardens without us around?"

"I like to think I'm good at my job," Nathaniel said.

"You're a child, Howe, a child," Alistair told him.

"I'm older than you."

"Not in experience. You've never even seen an Archdemon. And only by two years!"

"Children, children," Zevran said. "Father loves you both just the same."

"What?" Theron asked, at the same moment that Alistair gave him a very affronted look and exclaimed: "Not funny!"

"Zevran," Theron sighed.

"But they bicker like brothers, no?" Zevran asked. "And you are the one in charge."

"Even if he was older than me," Alistair said. "Which he isn't, I'm still the most senior Warden here! And anyway, I've known him longer than you!"

"By a scant few weeks."

"They were very intense weeks!"

"Anders," Theron said, deciding to let the others argue- bicker- if that was what they really wanted to do. "Which clan was this? Are they still nearby? If they are, I can ask a favor, and we won't need the lyrium."

"Oh, they're still there," Anders said. "They've been here even longer than I have. I don't know which clan it is, but their Keeper is called Marethari if that helps any."

Theron felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach, and Zevran and Alistair stopped talking at hearing 'Marethari'- they knew that name too.

"About," Theron started to say, and then had to stop and swallow down the lump in his throat. "About this tall? Vallas'lin for Sylaise-"

He realized that Anders wouldn't know, and started miming the proper curves of the tattoo mask on his face.

"Yes? Maybe?"

"Where are they?"

"They're camped near the top of Sundermount-"

"Right," Theron said. "I'm going. How do I get there?"

"It takes a couple of hours to walk up there, you won't make it before dark-"

"I'm Dalish," Theron said, more sharply than he'd intended to. "If I can't walk up an unfamiliar mountain in the dark then I didn't deserve to get my vallas'lin! That's my clan, Anders!"

"And they will still be there in the morning," Zevran told him soothingly. "'Ma vhenan. They have survived this long without you, and you without them, and you have promised dinner to that Fenris already, remember? We can go in the morning, and then you will have all day for Anders and seeing everyone again."

"Imagine the look on Sigrun's face if come back to Hightown in a couple of days and she realizes that Anders wasn't dead and you didn't tell her right away," Alistair said, and no, they couldn't have that.

"First thing in the morning," Theron grudgingly agreed. "And I mean first thing. As soon as they open the gates for the morning, we're leaving."

"I'm supposed to be on a ship in the morning," Nathaniel said. That was probably a complaint, not a reminder.

Theron looked to Delilah.

"Do you mind putting it off for a couple of days?" he asked. "It will be a slower boat, but I'd like Nathaniel here for this."

"Anders saved Emily and I," Delilah said. "He's saved a lot of people. Albert and I can wait as long as you need us to, if it means saving him."

Good.

Anders was looking around at them all with an indescribable expression on his face.

"All right, Commander," he said. "If you think it could work. But if it doesn't- promise me, please."

"I won't let you hurt anyone else, Anders."

They spent a little more time in the clinic to allow Anders to pack up his things, because now that they'd found him Theron was bound and determined not to misplace him again. It was a maddeningly protective feeling, and he realized that he'd have to apologize to everyone a lot more thoroughly than he had before about the time that he'd been missing. This was awful. It felt like Anders would just disappear if he wasn't looking at him.

He'd really, really have to apologize more to Zevran and Alistair. Especially Alistair, since he had Connor to talk about again.

"No, not that way," Anders told them, when Delilah tried to lead them back the way they'd come. "Through here. It's faster, and- there's something that needs Wardens' attention. Wardens who are better at Warden things than me."

They followed him through a series of passageways until they emerged into an estate cellar, familiar in generals if not specifics from Lord Harimann's mansion.

"Are we allowed to be in here?" Alistair asked doubtfully.

"I know the woman who owns this place," Anders said. "We're fine."

"Oh!" Delilah said. "So this is Hawke's cellar?"

Anders nodded, and led them up to the main floor. The cellar didn't open up into the kitchen, but a back room at the end of a hallway.

"Who is Hawke?" Theron asked. She'd been brought up a number of times by now, and was apparently quite important, but no one had bothered to explain.

"She's," Anders said. "I don't really know how to describe her. Maybe a mercenary vigilante, an adventurer-for-hire-"

They were almost at the end of the hallway when an older woman rounded it ahead of them, and startled badly at the sight of a group of armed strangers in her house.

"It's okay, they're with me," Anders told her. "We're just taking a shortcut."

The woman gathered herself and smiled welcomingly at them.

"I'm used to Anders turning up unexpectedly, but usually he doesn't bring guests," she said. "Welcome to my home."

"Commander, this is Lady Amell," Anders introduced them. "Leandra, Theron Mahariel, Arl of Amaranthine and Warden-Commander of Ferelden."

"Anders!" she gasped. "You brought the Hero of Ferelden up through the basement?"

"Sorry, Leandra."

"You should be," she mock-scolded him. "Now go fix yourself something from the kitchen as punishment."

He very almost smiled at that.

"Yes, Leandra."

"Go on, shoo."

Theron watched him scurry off.

"You take care of him?" he asked.

"I do," she sighed. "Maker knows he doesn't do it himself. That boy needs someone looking after him, and well- I had a son, once before the darkspawn; and my husband was an apostate. He hated living in the Circle as much as Anders did."

"Thank you, Lady Amell."

"Oh, call me Leandra. All of my daughter's friends do, and you clearly mean the world to Anders."

"Theron, then," he said. "I do?"

"I can tell he's been crying." Leandra said. "But he almost smiled. He wouldn't do that if you had been the one to make him cry, which means he was crying with you, and I've never known him to do that before. Once I caught him in the kitchen in the middle of the night sniffling, and he clammed right up when I came in. He doesn't cry where people can see him, that boy, but he did with you. And he took you through his escape route. He trust you more than he trusts my Marian, and he went into the Deep Roads with her."

"He did what?" Alistair asked.

"It's why we're here," Leandra explained. "I wasn't in Kirkwall when my parents died, and my brother- he lost the estate and the family fortune trying to settle his debts, and my daughters and I didn't arrive from Ferelden with anything. We lived in Lowtown for two years until Marian won a place as a partner in an expedition to the Deep Roads to go looking for old treasures in places where the darkspawn wouldn't be, because of the Blight. She came back with a fortune."

Well, that was likely their problem right there! This expedition must have brought up a lot of things from the Deep Roads to get the sort of money needed to buy a place like this, and any one of the items they'd recovered might have accidentally carried some Taint with it. It just depended on what they'd found.

"I think we'll have to speak to your daughter about that," Theron told Leandra. "It might help us solve a problem that's been vexing us for a couple of days."

"Of course," she agreed. "Marian isn't here right now, she and her friends went chasing some rumors in the market. They're always off doing things like that. But I can tell her you were, unless you'd like to stay for dinner-?"

"We have a previous arrangement," Theron said. "But thank you. Would two days from now be a good time?"

"I'll make it be a good time."

Anders came back from the kitchen with a plum and a hunk of bread he'd stuffed a bit of cheese and recent meat scraps in. He held them out for Leandra to inspect.

"Good enough," she told him. "But don't leave without getting a basket from me- and I mean it when I say it's for you. I know your patients don't eat enough, but that's what I help Lirene for. Magic is work, just like anything else, and if you don't eat you'll make yourself sick."

"Speaking of Lirene-" Delilah spoke up from the back of the group.

"Del!" Leandra exclaimed. "I didn't see you there, I'm sorry."

"It's fine," she said. "Wardens are very distracting. Leandra, this is my brother Nathaniel, we were just down in Lowtown speaking to Lirene about how the Wardens could help out-"

She drew her brother and Leandra off to the side, and Theron turned to Anders.

"You had something that needs Wardens?"

"This way."

Anders led the rest of them to a room in another part of the house, and looked surprised when it opened.

"They forgot to lock it," he muttered to himself. "Amazing."

And then Theron got his third shock of the day, because standing there was the eluvian that had started everything, at least for him.

"Where did you get this!"

"So you know what it is?" Anders asked. "It's not mine."

"This thing almost killed me," Theron said. "It did kill one of my best friends. This is why I joined the Wardens."

He heard Kallian say "oh," very softly.

"This is that mirror?" Alistair asked. "Why is it in someone's house?"

When he'd gone to retrieve a piece of the eluvian to find Morrigan, he had wondered where the rest of it was, but he'd assumed that the darkspawn had taken it- maybe even the Architect. It had been Tainted, after all.

"Oh," Ander said. "Then- I'm sorry to tell you this, but- did you know Merrill well?"

"She was my other best friend," Theron said, not liking where this was going. "Tamlen, Merrill, and I- we were family to each other. None of us had our parents any longer. Tamlen was like my brother, and if I'd stayed, Merrill and I would be married by now."

Zevran touched his hand lightly.

"You love her?" he asked, and Theron grabbed his fingers.

"Yes," he said. "Not like you. She's a sister to me, and- it wouldn't have been about love. She's going to be Keeper, and my father was Keeper before Marethari. It would have been the best chance to have a mage child born in Sabrae. You don't get a choice when something like that is at stake."

He pulled Zevran closer.

"'Ma'sal'shiral, 'ma'len. Not her. Never her. Never anyone but you."

Zevran turned a little pink in the cheeks- good, the point had gotten across.

"I always feel a little weird when they do that," Alistair confided to Kallian. "Like, am I supposed to leave? I wouldn't before, but now I know what they're saying when they call each other those names."

"I didn't think the Dalish were anything like city elves," Kallian said, which wasn't really a reply at all. He'd have to ask about it later.

"You don't have to leave," Theron told him, still looking at Zevran. "You don't call people these things if other people aren't meant to know."

"Commander?" Anders said, sounding very reluctant. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this. But I don't think Merrill's going to be Keeper. She- left. She's got her own problems. A demon taught her blood magic."

"She what."

"She never listens when I tell her it's not worth it!" he said. "She brought the mirror with her in secret and tried to get the Taint out of it, and she says the blood magic the demon taught her got rid of it, but the thing just feels like magic to me and I can't tell. The magic overwhelms everything else."

"It just smells like a lot of magic in one place to me, too," Alistair said. "Theron?"

He couldn't feel any Taint from it, but-

"You said blood magic?"

"Yes."

It made logical sense, even. Just because he'd killed the Architect didn't mean he hadn't listened to him, and he remembered what the emissary had said. The Joining and the Awakening were flip sides of the same process- and both were a sort of blood magic. It seemed like the more they learned about the Taint, and the Blight, and even the Wardens as an institution, the more it was all caught up in blood and forbidden magic. All Merrill would have done here was replace one type of blood magic with another, and not even a less dangerous one.

"It doesn't work," Anders told him. "Merrill's always complaining about it."

"Good," Theron said, and drew his sword. It had been Duncan's and he got a little spike of satisfaction from the knowledge that the same blade that had shattered this mirror in the ruins was the same one to do it now in this room.

The crash and tinkling of glass stopped, and the room seemed very quiet.

"She won't like that," Anders said.

"She doesn't need to," Theron told him. "Would Leandra have a sack we could take? I'm not leaving this here."

Anders was a little surprised at how willing he was to let the Commander try to fix him, when he hadn't been with Hawke. Maybe it was because the Commander was who he was, while Hawke- wasn't that. Not in a bad way. But too different. She exuded competency and a willingness to kick ass, not a feeling of trust and security and responsibility. Or maybe it was just the bias of his experiences with them, because plenty of people seemed to trust Hawke on sight for some reason.

Or maybe it was because now that he'd had a minute, and realized that because the Commander hadn't killed him on the spot, he now had the chance to see at least some of his old friends. He could spend time talking to Nathaniel. He could get hugs from Sigrun. He could ask the Commander for more funny stories from the Blight year. He didn't know who else was here, but knowing that there were even just three Amaranthine Wardens around who knew him was… nice.

Hawke and the others were friends, of course. Well, maybe just Hawke and Varric and kind of Aveline. But they'd never known him when he was him. They'd only known him as a runaway Grey Warden apostate with a demon problem.

Once the Commander had gathered up the mirror pieces, he led the group into a part of Hightown Anders remembered from going after Bartrand. In fact, the abandoned-looking mansion that turned out to be their destination was right across the square from Varric's brother's place.

Someone had unboarded the windows and stacked a bunch of crates out front. The Commander moved towards them like he was going to check them, but Zevran and Alistair each grabbed an arm and held him back.

"No," Alistair told him. "You don't need to do that. We don't need to do that. Let trash stay trash."

"I am certain that Sigrun went through them herself," Zevran said. "You teach your lessons well."

The Commander really did. Anders found that he was having to restrain himself from checking the crates as well, just in case. It had been a habit he'd picked up working for the Commander, and he still remembered the first time he'd gone out with Hawke and Varric and Aveline on a job, the one where they'd picked up Merrill. Neither he nor Merrill had realized that the other three had been staring at them until they'd already thoroughly taken apart the first cave where they'd run into giant spiders. Merrill had gone to look over the spiders, and habit had just… taken over. Merrill had explained it as a Dalish thing to the others, and complimented him on his foraging abilities. Then the others helped out on the rest of the caves, and the habit of it had just spread as they'd added new friends. It had financed the majority of Hawke's buy-in as a partner on the Deep Roads expedition, even if Hawke still categorized most of what they found as 'junk'.

Bonding over thorough looting could have been the start of a beautiful friendship for him and Merrill, but blood magic tended to put a damper on happy fuzzy feelings.

Before the Commander could protest, the mansion door opened, and a woman he didn't recognize swept out a large pile of dirt into the street.

"Commander!" she said, surprised to see them. "How did it go?"

"Very well," he replied. "Viktory, this is Anders. Anders, this is Viktory Arend, one of the mages we Joined when we lost you."

Anders could see her knuckles go white from clutching at the broom handle.

"You said he was dead!"

"Happily, it turns out we were wrong," the Commander said. "How's dinner coming?"

"Lockhard is helping Sigrun cook," Viktory reported. "When I was in there last, she was explaining to Fenris why it was unacceptable that he didn't have any pots or pans. Everyone else has been cleaning. We got the kitchen and a couple of rooms around it clean enough for now, and I've almost finished the foyer."

"Good," he said. "Viktory, I'm going to leave this sack by the door, and it is not to go out in the trash. Don't even touch it."

"What's in it?"

"Magic that should have been left well alone."

It took them a bit to locate the kitchen- Anders got the impression that no one really knew their way around yet- and they were ambushed by a small child on the way there. He never would have guessed that Thomas Stockard was Nathaniel's nephew. The kitchen, once they got to it, looked rather hastily cleaned and bare. The pans were clearly new and the food out on the counter was probably the sum total of all edibles in the house. Sigrun was standing on a short bench to reach the stovetop, and was brandishing a frying pan, explaining something about it to a thin elf with strange tattoos-

It couldn't be- but no, was he really surprised? If anyone could just turn up and stumble across Hightown's 'Dalish warrior ghost', it was the Commander.

"Sigrun!" Alistair said loudly as he reached the counter and plopped Leandra's basket down on it. "We brought you a present!"

"That's nice, Captain Alistair, thank you-" she started to say, and then shrieked in joy when she turned to greet the Commander.

"ANDERS!"

Most people never got to experience getting tackle-hugged by a dwarf, and in Anders's opinion, all of them were missing out. He hugged Sigrun tightly around the shoulders.

"We thought you were dead it's so good to see you Nathaniel got all guilty when we went out to Amaranthine where have you been how have you been oh you haven't been eating have you we should have gotten more food between you and Fenris-"

That must have been the ghost elf, because he made an 'ahem' noise.

"Oh, oh right," Sigrun said, and pulled back enough to be able to look at the Commander. "Sir, there's a little problem. Fenris assumed we didn't have any mages with us."

Anders could feel the anger rising, and Justice, and no no no not here-

He pushed Sigrun away and backed up, almost out of the room.

"Commander," he said through his clenched teeth. His vision was going blue on the edges. Fenris was watching him- a split second of alarm, and then narrowed eyes in distrust and anger-

The Commander stepped between them, close enough that he was the only thing Anders could see.

"He was a slave to a Magister," he said. "His problem isn't with you. Breathe. Let it go. Magic is his Templars."

"That's not the same," Anders bit out. That hadn't helped.

"Isn't it?" the Commander asked. "Tevinter Magister, Anders. Blood mage. Slavery. Think about it."

He did, and it made him want to kill something.

"This is not working," the was Zevran, close by. "Theron, come away-"

"Anders," the Commander said, not moving. "Anders, you know who you are. Be that person. Fenris isn't going unprotected or unavenged. I promised to help him kill the Magister that owned him."

That was- he would make that enough.

It was a tense minute or two, but he managed to force it down.

"Good job," the Commander said quietly, once Anders had unclenched his fists and leaned back against the wall, eyes closed. "It's going to be all right, Anders."

"He was cracking blue," he heard Fenris say reproachfully.

"We're going to get it fixed tomorrow," the Commander said. "And if we can't, he asked me to kill him."

A gasp from Sigrun- Lockhard and any other Voshai who were hanging around were probably just looking at him searchingly.

"Will you?" Fenris asked, and Anders held his breath.

"I won't want to," the Commander said after a few long seconds, and Anders let it go. "Fenris, if you're not comfortable with our mages around, I can ask them to stay away. I don't want to order them to- they're just as much Wardens as the rest of us, and just as vital. But this is your house, and you can tell them to leave. That's your right."

"You watch them?" Fenris eventually asked.

"Yes. I trust them, but they're not allowed to do whatever they want just because they have power. If those were the sort of people they were, I wouldn't have them as my Wardens."

That didn't make Anders feel like a very good Warden, but, well, he'd already deserted and taken stolen property with him, it wasn't like that was news. He'd have to remember to get those maps back from Varric so he could return them.

"They can stay," Fenris said. "Tell me if you are going to bring more. And I don't- I will not be socializing with them."

"That's perfectly fine," the Commander said. "Thank you, Fenris. I'm sorry I didn't consider that before, I should have."

Anders opened his eyes and caught a flash of Fenris's pure confusion and surprise before the elf shoved it down. Classic Commander right there- throw them with kindness and sincerity and good manners. It worked every time.

"Sigrun?" the Commander asked. "How long until dinner? I have a change of plans to announce."