White lilies.
They stood on a table in the den, carefully arranged in a crystal vase, the blooms bobbing gently in response to faint air currents in the room...but to Isabela, it looked as though they were laughing, mocking them.
It couldn't be...could it?
"It can't be." Hawke had gone ghost pale, her eyes darting from the flowers to Bodahn and back.
The dwarf's face was apprehensive, not knowing what precisely was wrong. He and his peculiar son, Sandal, had been sent back from the Deep Roads expedition early after the boy had wandered off and Devon had defied Bartrand's edict to track the lad down and bring him back. As a result, the pair hadn't been around to share the fate of everyone else who had been present when they had located the ancient thaig.
Gratitude had led Bodahn to offer his services to the Hawke family; he was fiercely loyal to Devon, and Sandal, though not quite right in the head, had a talent for working lyrium enchantments into weapons and armor that came in quite handy. "I – I thought they must be from her suitor," Bodahn said falteringly. "She seemed pleased to receive them." The suitor that none of them had ever seen, though it had been nearly a month since Leandra had first spoken of him.
"It can't be," Hawke repeated, her haunted gaze turning to the pirate and Aveline. "We killed him. We killed DuPuis, and he was the one killing the women...wasn't he?"
"Of course he was," Isabela said immediately. He had to have been: they'd caught the bastard red-handed with his next victim, and practicing blood magic on her to boot. All his flimsy excuses about finding his sister's killer and kidnapping the woman to protect her had just been so much bullshit. When they'd pushed him, he had attacked, and they had killed him. Gascard DuPuis had been the monster stalking the women of Kirkwall, and he was dead, so the flowers couldn't be from the killer.
Right?
"It has to be a coincidence, Devon." Man-hands tried to sound authoritative, but her face was the color of chalk. "I'll instruct the Guard to look for her."
Hawke nodded. "Go to the Hanged Man," she instructed Bodahn. "Find Varric. Tell him what has happened, and tell him that I need his people searching for my mother. A thousand gold to the one who finds her safe." Her eyes flicked back to Aveline. "That applies to the Guard, as well."
Aveline shook her head. "It's their job, Devon."
Hawke waved her off. "Like you said, it's probably nothing," she said, her expression saying another thing altogether. "I've got the money to throw away if that's the case, but if not -"She swallowed hard, looking down. "Go," she ordered them curtly, striding toward the stairs and taking them up two at a time.
Bodahn hurried out, but Aveline hesitated. "You'll stay with her?" she asked Isabela.
The pirate nodded. "Like a bad rash,"she quipped with a smirk that she knew wouldn't make it to her eyes.
Aveline left, and moments later Hawke came down the stairs with her mabari at her heels and a skirt of Leandra's in one hand. Isabela followed her out the door, watched as she knelt in front of the hound.
"Mother may be in trouble," she told him, holding the fabric up for him to sniff. Falcon whined, regarding her somberly, then burying his nose in the cloth. "Find her, boy." The mabari wheeled and charged down the steps to the street, his nose to the ground, sniffing intently and jostling aside men and women on the Hightown streets as he passed. Indignant cries rose up, then stilled as one person after another got a look at Hawke's face.
Falcon paused, then began to circle widely, seeking the scent as Hawke and Isabela watched. He stopped, his whole body tensing, then took off at a run, baying excitedly and sending pedestrians diving for the safety of the sidewalk. Hawke sprinted after him, the pirate close behind, following the mabari as he charged through the Hightown market, past the archway that led to the Chantry and down the stairs, the streets growing narrower and dirtier with each turn as marble and granite gave way to sandstone and weathered, rough wood. He pulled up short again, shaking his head with a sneeze, then lowered his snout to the ground and began the circling pattern that meant he'd lost the trail.
"She must have been going to visit Gamlen," Hawke said, her eyes sweeping the stalls of the Lowtown market. Isabela started on the other side, visually sorting through the shoppers, searching for Leandra's grey hair and Orlesian dress, though she knew as well as Hawke that Leandra never shopped in Lowtown any more. "I forgot this was her day for that." Relief flooded her face, but to Isabela, it looked forced. "We'll likely find her there. Come on."
She started in the direction of Gamlen's hovel, glancing back at Falcon's bark. The mabari looked at her quizzically, lowered his head to sniff the dusty street once more, then lifted it again, regarding his mistress with obvious uncertainty. "It's all right, boy," she told him. "Got to be hard to keep a scent with all these people stomping around, but she's gone to Gamlen's. Let's go find her before I have to pay a thousand gold to some sorry sod who sees her on her way home."
She turned, but the mabari held his ground with a low whine. She glanced back at him with visible impatience. "Do you have her scent?" she demanded, continuing when the big head drooped, "Then come on. We'll find her with Uncle Gamlen." She turned again, and now Falcon did follow her, slinking in her wake, his head still low. Devon's face was set in determination, as though by will alone she could make her words true, but she would not meet Isabela's eyes.
They encountered Gamlen before they had gotten halfway to his home, arguing heatedly with a ragged looking urchin. "Damn it, boy! Have you seen her or not?" he demanded angrily, taking a step forward with an upraised fist.
The youth regarded him without fear, sneering as his hand fell. "And what do I get if I have?" he wanted to know.
"Mother?" Devon asked, her face strained.
Gamlen nodded. "She's over two hours late, and you know how your mother is about punctuality. I've been looking for her for the last half hour, but this brat," he gestured to the boy with a baleful glare, "won't say a word without being paid."
Which was likely the exact thing that Gamlen would do in a similar situation, and the flat stare that Hawke directed at him made it clear that she knew it. He dropped his eyes, muttering something as she turned back to the boy. "Talk," she told him, fishing in her pouch and passing him a handful of coins, "and if I find out you're lying, I'll kill you." The kid couldn't be more than twelve, but there was not a trace of a bluff in Devon's tone or manner, and the boy saw it.
For a second, Isabela thought he might run, but then he swallowed hard and held out a hand to take the coins. "Not lying," he muttered, his eyes widening as he inspected the coins. "Real silver?" he gasped, looking incredulously at Hawke. "Lady, I'm your man, through and through! I saw her up in the marketplace," he went on hastily, plainly seeing that Devon was not looking for oaths of fealty. " I seen her here before; she gives me coin sometimes."
That was Leandra, alright. Isabela exchanged a bleak glance with Hawke, then both of them turned back to the boy.
"She was coming this way, but then a man fell down right in front of her. Had blood all over him, and he was asking for help, but she was the only one that did. She helped him up, but he was all wobbly. It was funny -" He broke off, glanced fearfully at Hawke, swallowed hard, "- was then, anyway. He was leaning on her, and they were talking, and they went the other way."
"This man...what did he look like?" Devon watched the boy intently, and he squirmed, looking suddenly apprehensive.
"He was...a man," he mumbled. "He had hair, ears, a nose...he wasn't real tall or real short, though, and," he looked brighter, "I saw him dropping some kind of powder on the ground as they was walking off!"
"Something to confuse the scent, most likely," Isabela offered, not liking the implications. Whoever it was had known that Leandra would offer aid to someone in distress, had known that the family had a mabari that could track.
Devon glanced at her, nodding tightly, then turned back to the boy. "Spread the word," she told him. "A thousand gold to the one who finds her. Two thousand if she's unharmed. Go!"
"Have you lost your mind?" Gamlen demanded in outrage as the boy ran off. "He likely pulled that whole yarn straight from the Fade! She's probably already at the house."
"Go and check, then," Devon told him without turning around. "The reward stands for you, too."
"I wouldn't -" he started to protest, then broke off, his lips thinning and a rather wretched look coming over his face that almost made Isabela feel sorry for him.
"He does love her, I think," she offered cautiously as he slunk off toward his home. "At least as much as he's able."
"She wouldn't have been down here if not for him!" Hawke growled, but when she turned, her expression was one of bitter self-recrimination. "Or if I'd let him live in the mansion with us." She crouched before Falcon, catching his burly head in her hands. "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you," she whispered. "Let's go back and try again."
"Hawke! Bela!" Devon's head came up as Merrill ran toward them. The elf staggered to a stop, panting. "I was visiting Varric when Bodahn came and told him about your mother...I was returning the twine that he loaned me, since I don't need it anymore...though I suppose sometimes I -" She broke off, seeing Hawke's look of barely leashed patience. "Varric said to tell you that he'll have people combing the city, and I thought maybe I could help you look..." She trailed off again, looking distressed. "I mean, it's not that I'm good at finding things or people, but I - I wanted to do something!"
"It's all right, Merrill," Hawke cut her off with a wan smile. "I'm glad you're here." She glanced down at Falcon. "Go, boy." The mabari took off at a run, the three of them close behind.
Man-hands met them in the market. "Donnic is coordinating the search," she reported. "Any news?"
Isabela quickly summarized what they had learned while Devon stayed close to Falcon as the hound searched the cobblestoned street at the edge of the market, pacing in ever widening arcs.
"It doesn't sound as though she knew him,"Aveline said, eyes narrowed in thought. "That would mean that he's not the gentleman friend that Leandra spoke of; maybe this has nothing to do with the flowers. Maybe they really were just a gift."
"That's two too many 'maybes' for me," the pirate replied.
"Me, too," Man-hands acknowledged grimly, meeting her eyes in a rare moment of accord.
"But Hawke's mother is such a lovely person!" Merrill cried, watching Hawke and Falcon worriedly. "Why would anyone harm her? And Hawke...she's lost so much already." Delicate features settled into steely determination. "We have to find her. That mage that we killed...the one that was supposed to be the killer?" She went on, oblivious to the winces that her comment evoked in her two companions. "He said that there was a blood magic ritual that he could use to track the woman if she was taken. I know I don't have Leandra's blood, but Hawke is her daughter. I could try -"
The innocent way that she could talk about blood magic still sent shivers down Isabela's spine sometimes, and the pirate did not try to object when Aveline shook her head.
"It's too risky, Merrill...for you as well as Devon. Every time you turn to that demon for help, you give it an opening that it could exploit. Devon wouldn't want to find her mother at the cost of losing you."
Impatient anger flashed in the green eyes. "I'm not a child, Aveline. I dare say that I know the risks better than you do, and -" Her face fell. "And there is nothing else that I know how to do. I want to help!"
"Just be there for Devon," Aveline advised her. "She needs her friends about her right now, more than anything else."
"I - I can do that," Merrill agreed, just as Hawke's voice rang out:
"He's got it! Come on!"
They raced behind the dog through the narrow, twisting streets of Lowtown, scattering rats and people alike in their wake. By the third turn, all of them knew where they were going, though none of them wanted to admit it until the abandoned foundry loomed before them. A low groan escaped Hawke, and she charged past Falcon suddenly, headlong up the stairs and through the splintered door before any of them could react, her shout echoing off the stone walls.
"Mother!"
"Devon, damn it! Wait!" Isabela let Man-hands lead the charge, not being too keen on the idea of steel bootprints up her backside if she tripped. They found Hawke inside, pacing from empty room to empty room of the apparently abandoned structure like a caged animal.
"Why hasn't this shithole been torn down?"she snarled. "Where the Void is he?"Her eyes turned to Falcon, whose pacing was only slightly less agitated. He sniffed at the floor and made a sound somewhere between a whine and a growl, shaking his head and pawing at his nose and ears.
"Magic." Merrill's face was grave. "Blood magic. Very strong and very close." Her brow furrowed in concentration and her green eyes grew unfocused as she stepped to the middle of the floor, turning in a slow circle. "Below," she said suddenly, with the decisiveness that was only ever heard when magic was involved.
Below Lowtown lay Darktown and the Undercity...either of which made a perfectly logical destination for a murderous lunatic. It also explained how the bastard had likely eluded them when they had found his victims' remains here, years earlier.
"A hidden trapdoor, most likely," Isabela offered, deciding not to waste time wondering how many other victims there had been in the interim. They needed to make sure that Leandra was not his latest victim. She started circling around the perimeter of the room, eyes on the floor as she worked her way to the center, aware of the others fanning out to do the same.
"I found it!" Merrill's voice again, from one of the other rooms.
"And you were worried you wouldn't be any help," she told the elf, dropping to one knee and letting her fingers trace the edge of the door, seeking a latch, and any hint of traps. Merrill flushed a bit, but her features remained drawn with worry.
"It was concealed by magic," she explained as Hawke and Aveline arrived, "and it's warded, as well. When it is opened, he'll know it, and it may even trigger traps below." Hawke nodded in acknowledgment, and pushed Isabela back from the trapdoor. Producing a slim, hooked blade from the seam of one of her boots, she fished it through the nearly-invisible crack in the floor, releasing the latch and flipping the door open, then dropping inside with barely a second's pause.
"Damn it, Hawke!" Isabela narrowly avoided colliding with Falcon, pulled back to allow the mabari to dive through after his mistress, then followed, taking little comfort in the fact that Man-hands seemed to be no less put out by their leader's recklessness, if her language was any indication.
The fight was already on, Hawke squared off against a rage demon, heedless of the corpses dragging themselves upright from the filth that covered the ground. Aveline charged, her shield sending the nearest one flying, slamming into the wall and sliding down into a twitching heap that her sword quickly reduced to a bunch of dismembered, twitching limbs that would not rise again. Thick vines burst from the ground as Merrill chanted her spell, twining tight around two more of the corpses, holding them fast as conjured stones and bolts of arcane energy from the mage's staff beat them down.
Three down, two to go. Daggers drawn, Isabela danced and wove around and between them. They were clumsy, but quicker than they appeared, and the only way to neutralize them was to do enough physical damage that they couldn't continue to move. She hamstrung one, dodging its grasp as it collapsed to the ground; they were strong, too, and if they got a good grip, they could do a world's worth of hurt.
Falcon sprang on that one with a snarl, and the pirate spun away to engage the other, no longer hampered by the chance of an attack from behind. Quick as thought, she closed, blades driving in just so, and with a flick of her wrists, the head tumbled from the shoulders and bounced away, the body continuing to flail away until she ducked behind it and severed the tendons in the knees. Aveline moved in and finished it off, just as Hawke sent the demon back to the Fade with a final sweep of her daggers and sprinted toward a shadowed alcove. Isabela felt her heart lurch unpleasantly in her chest when she saw what had drawn the rogue's attention: a still form lying on a cot, covered completely by a blanket.
"Mother?" Hawke reached for the blanket with trembling hands and drew it back; the lurching sensation in the pirate's chest intensified at the sight of disheveled grey hair, but when Hawke lifted her head, her expression held a mix of relief and dread.
"It's...not her," she said, turning the form carefully onto its back, letting the light from the lanterns on the walls fall onto the face as they drew close enough to see.
Shit, shit, shit.
Alessa...the woman they had saved from DuPuis. Her eyes were open and unseeing, her features slack in death, but there was no mark on her to indicate how she might have died...until Hawke pulled the blanket down further.
"Sonofabitch." The words left Devon in a raw gasp, and she took a step back, panic rising anew in her eyes. Alessa's arms were folded over her belly in what would have been a look of peaceful repose, if not for the fact that both hands were gone, red meat and white bone glistening at the ends of the neatly severed stumps.
"Andraste's mercy," Aveline breathed, green eyes grim as they met Isabela's, not needing to voice what they all knew. The chances of this having nothing to do with the other murdered women had just dropped to nil. DuPuis had been innocent; the killer still lived...and he had Leandra. Staring at the corpse, Isabela felt a sudden urge to grab Hawke and drag her out of here, all the way back to Hightown, because there were, she was suddenly and morbidly certain, worse things than not knowing.
Not that it stood any chance of actually happening, because Hawke spun and started to charge forward again without bothering to look and see if they were following her.
"Devon, wait!" The note of iron command in Aveline's voice was one that invariably made her subordinates snap to attention. Hawke's expression was anything but subordinate, but she did turn back. "You're not going to help your mother by getting yourself killed, damn it!"
A logical argument, but Devon was not in a logical mood at the moment. "Or would you rather get Aveline killed?" Isabela put in bluntly, knowing that it was the only thing that might reach her. "Or Merrill? Would that be a fair trade?"
Anger flared in her eyes, then subsided as guilt and fear rolled in. " I've got to find her!" she insisted. "The rest of you wait here -"
"That's not what we're saying, Devon!" Aveline exclaimed. "We'll find Leandra, but the bastard already knows we're here. If we go running blindly into whatever other traps he's set up for us, we'll be playing right into his hands." She stepped closer, her expression grave. "We can't save her if we're dead."
For a moment, Isabela thought that Hawke would take a swing at the Guard-Captain, but she swallowed hard and nodded wordlessly, turning and moving forward again, this time at a slower pace, eyes searching floor, walls and roof for any hint of traps. Falcon moved just ahead of her, his breath a near-constant growl low in his chest as he found and followed the scent, lifting his head occasionally to shake it. Isabela moved to her side, seeing Hawke automatically adjust her pattern: the left side was the pirate's to search, the right was Hawke's. Aveline was right behind, sword drawn, and she could hear Merrill at her back, murmuring the words of what she assumed was a scrying spell.
Must've been, because it was Merrill who warned them of the next set of wards in time to allow them to be tripped one at a time, the singly summoned creatures easily finished off, but still costing precious moments to do so. Forward again. Another set of wards, another fight to delay them, and then -
"What in the Void is this?" Hawke muttered, moving cautiously forward. It was either meant to be a cutting parody or a creepily pathetic imitation of a drawing room: an expensive rug rolled out over the mud covered floor, and arranged on and around it, chairs, end tables, bookshelves, a wardrobe. Against one wall, an enormous canopy bed with velvet spread and curtains; against another, crates had been stacked together, covered in white lilies and candles that surrounded a gilt-framed portrait that made the hairs on the back of the pirate's neck stand on end.
"That's a pretty little shrine," Merrill chirped, her brow furrowing as she drew closer. "But...isn't that your mother, Hawke?"
"It is...but it isn't," Devon replied, her face shadowed with dread as she stared up at the image.
The shape of the face was right, and the mouth, but the eyes were blue instead of hazel, the shape just a bit off. It still gave Isabela a major case of the creeps. "If I ever make anything this pathetic, do me a favor and put me out of my misery," she said, her voice sharper than she had intended, knowing that telling Hawke that they should just get out of here would do no good, knowing that there were worse things than not knowing.
Devon glared at her, and for a moment, Isabela hoped that she would take offense, lash out. Man-hands was certainly glowering enough for both of them, but after a moment, Hawke's features softened back to their expression of worry, and she nodded. She understood what had prompted the ridiculous comment, and that was both comforting and discomfiting, as unsettling to the pirate as the picture, though for very different reasons.
"We have to find her!" Hawke spun away from the shrine, her eyes falling on the array of papers and books that surrounded one of the chairs.
"What we find here may give us a better idea of what he's doing, help us fight him when we find them," Aveline suggested carefully, clearly bracing herself for a fight, but Hawke only nodded, crouching among the papers and sorting through them, eyes flickering rapidly over the words written there.
"The books...seem to deal chiefly with blood magic and necromancy," Merrill offered hesitantly from one of the bookshelves. "That...doesn't sound promising." She cast an apprehensive look at Hawke, but the rogue had picked up a leatherbound journal, its pages covered edge to edge in neat, tightly spaced writing.
"Used quicklime to preserve her feet," she read aloud. "Unsure whether texture of the skin is to my liking. Will try other methods." Face set, she turned the page, continued. "Mharen - it's a pretty name. I saw her hands. Long, slender fingers. Fair skin, the hands of a lifelong scholar. Oh, to lock my own clumsy fingers in hers again..." Another pause, another turning of a page, then, "Today is our anniversary. Had hoped to complete my work before now, but one piece is missing. I'm so sorry, love. Please wait a little longer. I haven't forgotten my promise. When I see it, I'll know. I would know that face anywhere."
"Andraste's sweet mercy," Aveline breathed.
Her face chalk-pale and grim, Hawke kept reading. "It's close, now. My long wait is almost over. Am I doing the right thing? It all seemed so clear to me, but now... what have I become? When did this happen? Someone will eventually try to stop me. I've left too many clues for them not to. When they come, should I try to stop them? Maybe the Maker took her from me because I deserved to lose her. No. It's too late for me to stop, now. The Maker will need to stop me if he thinks I need to be stopped. No one else."
The book slid from her hands. "That's the last entry," she said flatly. "It's dated today."
She stalked forward again, and Isabela let the letter she had been examining, some fawning missive promising to drop off books - probably not 'Hard In Hightown', more was the pity - and signed only as 'O', fall to the floor as she moved back to flank her friend.
Further into the tunnels, and further still, until -
"You have arrived." A thin, ascetic looking man rose to his feet, stepping around a woman sitting with her back to them. "Leandra was so certain that you would come."
Leandra. Relief washed through Isabela. They just had to take out this fucker, and they could take her home. She exchanged a brief glance with Devon and faded wide as the other rogue sauntered forward, outwardly calm. Only the pirate, and perhaps Aveline, could see the tension coiled beneath the insouciant facade.
"Mother always did know me best," she drawled, her eyes flicking past her mother carelessly, hands swinging free at her sides, daggers within easy reach.
"And she spoke so fondly of you," the man responded, a creepily serene smile on his lips though his eyes were flat, dead. "Such a kind, gentle soul."
"He's a mage, Hawke," Merrill warned, nothing absentminded or uncertain about her as she moved to give herself a clear shot, her green eyes fixed on the man.
"I guessed as much," Hawke replied flatly. "Mother?" The figure in the chair stirred slightly, a muffled sound rising, but did not turn. Hawke's features hardened.
"What have you done to her?" she demanded, her hands falling to her daggers.
If the bastard appreciated the danger he was in, he gave no sign, offering the rogue a beatific smile instead. "I have done...what only the Maker has done until now."
Isabela ran through the possibilities in her head: abandoning the world, letting his bride be burned at the stake, smiting heretics...none of them sounded promising.
"I am Quentin," he stated proudly, "and you will all be witnesses to my greatest achievement. Do you know," he went on, strolling back towards Leandra, "what the greatest force in the world is?"
"I'm sure you're going to tell me," Devon replied tersely. "Let her go, and I'll listen to whatever you have to say."
He'd have to talk fast. Isabela hadn't seen that look in Hawke's eyes since Bethany had been taken to the Gallows; once Leandra was out of harm's way, his lifespan would be measured in seconds.
The walking corpse went on as though she hadn't spoken. "It is love, and I've proven it. The Maker took her from me, but I've brought her back, just as she was." His hand reached out to touch Leandra's shoulder, his face an obscene mockery of tenderness, and Hawke's right hand twitched, the dagger half out of its sheath. "Her hands...her eyes...and at long last, her face." He caught Leandra's hand in his own and she rose, her movements jerky and uncoordinated. Isabela felt her earlier foreboding returning with a vengeance, and when the clumsy figure turned...
"No." The raw, wounded sound that escaped Devon Hawke with that single word was one that the pirate hoped never to hear again. Her eyes were locked on the woman that was her mother...and yet not. The face was Leandra's, though slack and devoid of emotion in a way that the Hawke matriarch had never been, but her eyes were blue, like those of the woman in the picture.
Holy Maker, holy fuck, he took her eyes, the sonofabitch took her eyes! Nor was that the worst: a row of stitches encircled her neck, raw flesh showing in the gaps, while similar rings of suture showed at her wrists protruding from – was that a wedding dress? The words written in the journal made entirely too much sense now.
Hawke screamed - no words, only a choked cry of grief and fury – and launched herself at the madman, but a glowing barrier shimmered into existence, deflecting her blades, and demons sprang into existence all around the chamber. Hawke went through them like a hot knife through butter, attacking in a blind fury, Falcon raging at her side, while the rest of them fought to keep her alive, deflecting and drawing off the attackers that she ignored.
The pirate found herself back to back with Aveline – having a one-woman wall protecting your blind side was not an advantage to be ignored, while Merrill filled the chamber with entangling vines, crushing stone, flickering lighting, all of which obeyed her will unerringly, beating down one Fade escapee after another. The last one crumbled to dust, and Hawke spun and sprang toward Quentin.
The mage was reeling: summoning that many demons and controlling them in battle had taken its toll, but he glared at her defiantly, positioning himself between Hawke and Leandra. "No! You will not take her from me!"
Bad move. Falcon hit him low, snarling as his teeth sank in high upon the thigh, near the groin, releasing a gout of bright red blood. Hawke hit him high and took him to the ground, technique forgotten as she raised her right hand and brought it down again and again, the dagger plunging into flesh and bone, her face twisted in rage, control forgotten.
"Devon..."
Hawke's head came up, the fury on her blood-spattered face melting to a look of disbelieving horror, daggers dropping to the ground as she sprang to catch the figure that was crumpling like a marionette whose strings had been cut. "Mother." She cradled her awkwardly. "Just...hang on. We'll get you out of here and get Anders to fix you up."
Leandra shook her head, lifting a hand – Alessa's hand, Isabela realized with a lurch in the pit of her stomach – to touch her daughter's face. "I knew that you would find me." Her voice was a weak husk of itself, fading with every word, and her eyes -
Not her eyes, her eyes weren't blue, damn it, who the fuck did they come from?
The blue eyes were clearly straining to focus on Hawke. "I should have gotten here sooner," Devon choked out. "I'm sorry...I'm sorry!"
"Don't be," Leandra whispered. "If you hadn't come, I would have been trapped like this. Now I will be with your father...and Carver." Her features shifted slowly, painfully, into a look of distress. "But you'll be alone."
"I'll be fine," Hawke said, wiping her eyes with the back of a hand, smearing blood and bits of whatever it was that came out of demons when you stuck them across her face. "I always am." She tried for a smile, but it looked like it really wanted to be a scream.
"My strong girl." The voice was little more than a breath, grey lips managing a tender smile that made Isabela's heart clench, her eyes burn. "So...proud of you. Love...you...so much."
"I love you, Mother," Hawke said desperately as Leandra's head tipped back, stretching the stitches grotesquely, and the pirate found herself praying – truly praying to the damned Maker that they would hold, that Devon wouldn't be forced to watch her mother's head tear free from whatever body that bastard had sewn it onto. It held, but the dim light in the blue eyes faded, and the hand dropped.
"Mother? Mother!" Hawke shook the lifeless body: gingerly at first, then with more force. "Mother, please..."
Her head came up, eyes seeking them out. "Isabela, find Anders!" she cried out. "He's not far from here, is he? He can -"
"Devon." Tears streaked Aveline's face as she stepped forward and knelt beside the rogue. "She's gone." Her voice cracked on the last word. "I'm sorry...so sorry."
"No!" Hawke jerked away from her. "I can't be too late...not again!" She looked beseechingly to Merrill. "Merrill, help her, please! Do what he did! Use my blood!" Before any of them could stop her, she had snatched up one of her daggers and drawn it deeply across her forearm, bright crimson welling up to join the stuff already half dried on her skin.
"Hawke..." Merrill held up a restraining hand, shaking her head, green eyes bright with sorrow. "Oh, Hawke, no. Even if I could, it would not be her. Please lethallan...let her go." She sank to her knees on Hawke's other side. Devon stared at her for a moment, mouth working soundlessly and anger trying to surge in her eyes, but then she crumbled, her head bowing low over the corpse in her arms. Aveline and Merrill embraced her from each side while Isabela stood frozen, unable to move.
"My fault," Hawke whispered brokenly, rocking back and forth as Falcon tipped his head back to sound a mournful howl. "My fault...again. What am I going to tell Beth?"
Isabela stood outside the door to Hawke's bedroom, weighing her options. Hawke had held up throughout the process of bringing Leandra's body up from that shithole, breaking the news to Gamlen, writing a letter to Bethany and making the arrangements for the pyre and funeral. She had watched, her face a mask of stone, as the flames consumed Leandra's remains, had returned to the mansion and dealt politely – if distantly – with those who came to offer their condolences at the wake. She'd even let Gamlen in, though something cold in those deep-ocean eyes made the pirate suspect that it would be the last time.
But she had shattered when Bethany had walked in, shadowed by the broad shouldered bulk of the Knight-Captain of the templars. One minute, she had been nodding wordlessly at some inane tale that Varric was trying to distract her with, the distant look in her eyes making it plain that she wasn't hearing a word, and the next a stricken look had crossed her face. Isabela had turned to follow her gaze,
caught sight of Bethany, and when she had turned back, Devon had been gone.
And she'd really been gone. A search of the mansion had turned up no sign of her, leaving the rest of them to offer what consolation they could to Bethany. Her years in the Gallows had changed her, giving her features a maturity that achingly deepened her resemblance to her mother, but her eyes looked young and lost as she leaned into Aveline's protective embrace and squeezed Varric's hand gratefully.
"Take care of her, please?" she asked softly. The words were ostensibly directed at them all, but her hazel eyes were fixed on Isabela.
"We will, Sunshine," Varric said, saving the pirate from having to reply. "Any chance they'll let you out a bit more often than every couple of years?" This last was directed at Cullen, who was trying to be unobtrusive and failing miserably.
The templar shrugged awkwardly. "It was decided that, given Serrah Hawke's role in apprehending such a dangerous blood mage, a dispensation could be granted to allow Mage Hawke to attend the funeral. As to future such dispensations, I can't say, although Serrah Hawke is always free to visit her sister."
"I'd make it worth your while," Isabela offered with a sultry smile, sauntering toward him. The boy blushed bright red, his expression becoming just shy of panicked.
"It's n-not really my d-d-decision to make," he said hastily, backing away. "I'll just...w-wait in the foyer." Which had been what the pirate was really trying for.
"I've missed you, Bela," Bethany said, shaking her head with a fond – if sad – smile while Man-hands actually gave her a smirk of approval.
"I've missed you, too, Sweetness," Isabela replied, "but it's Hawke that needs you, damn her stubborn ass."
"She's blaming herself," Bethany replied softly. "She always has. Tell her to come and see me as soon as you can get her to listen to you...and don't let her do anything foolish. Promise?" She reached out to catch Isabela's hand, her gentle doe eyes beseeching.
And Isabela had promised...which was why she had remained in Hightown after everyone else had left, watching the mansion until a familiar shadow slipped over the rooftops and inside, why she had picked the lock on the front door, and why she was standing here now. Which meant that her options totaled exactly one. She turned the knob and slipped inside. The room was dark, but she could make out the familiar shape huddled on the bed. Falcon lifted his head, chuffed softly and lay back down again. Crossing the room, she seated herself on the edge, taking off her boots and curling her legs beneath her.
"Bethany is...well," she offered cautiously.
"Bethany is an orphan," came the flat reply, "and a prisoner in the fucking Gallows. Both because of me. Not how I would define 'well'."
"She's worried about you," Isabela pressed, finding herself sailing in unfamiliar waters without a map. "She wants you to visit her when you're able. She loves you."
A harsh laugh. "No need to worry about me," Hawke said mirthlessly. "Like I told Mother, I'll be fine. I'm always fine. It's the people I'm supposed to look after who are fucked." She shifted further onto her side, facing away from the pirate. "Go away, Isabela."
She could leave now; she'd seen Hawke safely in, delivered Bethany's message and been dismissed. But she couldn't leave, because even though she couldn't see Hawke's face in the darkness, she could see it in her mind: the brittle, wounded look of grief that the mighty Devon Hawke never showed to the world. When exactly she had stopped hiding it from her, the pirate wasn't quite sure.
She was a friend, and a – a good friend. Nothing more, because anything more than that just wasn't Isabela's style, but that was enough.
"No," she replied, quiet but firm, scooting up the bed until she was laying behind Hawke. "Devon, your mother loved you. You have that, at least." She'd told Hawke about being sold for a handful of coins and a goat, but what she hadn't been able to express was the feeling of watching your mother's eyes slide away from you to count those coins, examine the goat, because you were bought and paid for, and no longer any concern of hers. The bitch hadn't even said goodbye.
No response; she tried again. "And family is more than blood. You still have people who care about you." Careful, girl. "Like...Aveline," she offered awkwardly. "Varric. Merrill."
Silence. She moved closer, draping her arm over Hawke's waist and resting her head on the rogue's shoulder. "Do you remember when I added my embellishment to the bannister?" She'd had no idea what she was going to say until the words left her mouth, but she felt Hawke stir ever so slightly.
"Yes," she responded softly.
"And when you improved it?" She could still hear Leandra's voice, as calm as ever: It's quite detailed, dear, but if you're going to go to that much trouble, you should really try for accuracy. There's no way that poor girl could hold that position for any length of time as top-heavy as she is.
She felt Hawke draw a shaky breath. "I remember," she said with what might have been a weak laugh.
"And when she caught Merrill and Sandal swinging on the chandelier?" Bodahn had been mortified, she and Hawke had been laughing their asses off, but Leandra had just shaken her head with that unflappable smile and layered pillows on the floor beneath. "You and Carver must have really been demons growing up, to make her that shockproof."
"We were," Hawke confirmed, the laugh stronger. "Snakes and lizards in our pockets, and if we weren't fighting with each other, we were getting into trouble together. He was trying to get even with me for something once, and thought that a skunk in my bed was a good idea. He made it in the front door before it chewed through the bag and got loose in the house."
"Oh, shit!" That image was priceless. Bethany and Leandra had told her of Malcolm Hawke's deep, rich voice, and she suspected that voice would have been booming with laughter as his wife tried to chase the skunk from the house. "How long before the smell wore off?"
"I'm not sure," Hawke admitted. "I think our sense of smell gave out first, though, because the folk in town tended to give us a wide berth even after we stopped noticing the stink."
The pirate chuckled softly. "Remember when she came in and dumped the water over us?" she said after a moment.
"I'm not likely to forget that, since I had to sleep on a soggy mattress for the next few days," Devon replied wryly. "She liked you, you know," she added.
"She was the kindest person I've ever known," Isabela said quietly. How many women in Hightown would have accepted their daughter keeping company with a crude, foul mouthed, drunken pirate? And yet, when she had dropped by one day to find Devon gone, she had wound up spending an entire afternoon in the kitchen with Leandra, the woman trying to teach her to make scones, as though she were just another one of her daughters.
"She was the best person in the world," Devon said, a hint of unsteadiness in her voice. "She didn't deserve me for a daughter. She didn't deserve...this." An open tremor in her tone now, her breath hitching in her chest. "She didn't – ah, shit, Bela!" Her shoulders heaved, the sob tearing from her, releasing the first tears that she'd shed since the whole fucking mess had started, and even though it had been years – decades, really – since Isabela had last cried, she knew that these tears were as necessary as they were unstoppable.
So she remained where she was, wrapping her arms around Hawke from behind and holding her while she cried, stroking her hair and making quiet sounds of comfort until the tears tapered off and Devon fell asleep in her arms. She could have slipped from the bed and left, but it was late, and she was tired, and Hawke might wake up and want to talk again, and so she stayed, and eventually she drifted off herself, still wrapped protectively around Hawke.
