Max slept like a rock the night after the scenarios and missed his early-morning workout for the first time in over a year. He was more annoyed with himself than was perhaps entirely warranted. Before he'd started at the Academy—the one in Ostwick, not this one—his uncle Edward, a decorated Knight-Commander, had sat him down for some frank advice.
"Everyone of note at any Circle knows who the Trevelyans are. You're going to get treated better and promoted faster because of your last name," his uncle had warned. "But unless you've been justifying those promotions by working twice as hard as anyone else, your career will be dead in its tracks before you turn thirty."
Max had briefly been tempted to just let his career stall out. But then he weighed the appeal of laziness against the heat he'd take from his family, and decided on daily workouts at dawn and saying yes every time a crappy assignment came along. But today, he was grateful to have the extra rest that came from missing his usual training, because after breakfast Greagoir had not one but two crappy assignments for him.
"Meredith Stannard is calling in a favor. I'm not sure I owe her favors, frankly, but it's less annoying to simply give her what she wants," Greagoir explained wearily after summoning Max to his office. "The Detective will be here at ten. Give him the tour, make him feel important, then walk him into your office for a redacted copy of Guerrin's transcript. We'll have it on your desk."
"Can't we just give him the whole thing? He's going to notice bits missing," Max warned. "And it's not like Alistair was a problem trainee. Wait, was he?" He'd liked the younger man, but he couldn't pretend to know everything about him—he had only been tapped as Cullen's partner during Alistair's last year at the Academy.
"No, no, nothing like that," Greagoir said with a dismissive shake of his head. "A few reprimands for smarting off to instructors, but nothing terrible. We just prefer to keep details of the Academy's training confidential. Classified. You understand."
Yeah, I understand that I'm being asked to hand half a document to a guy who already thinks we might have something to hide, Max thought wryly. Guess they think I'm likeable enough to pull it off.
He'd think about Greagoir's other assignment—investigate threats against the Grand bloody Enchanter with her frostily silent protégé by his side—later.
By nine-fifty-five Max was standing in the visitor's entrance to the main Circle building, his silver-grey suit neatly pressed and his tie cinched snug around his collar for once. The door opened, releasing a blast of cold air into the entryway, and Max couldn't help staring at the man pushing it open.
The Detective—it had to be the detective, he was wearing tailored black wool and a somber expression—was an elf, covered in silver tattoos. He was also one of the best-looking men Max had ever seen, his olive skin smooth under the markings, his features chiseled and symmetrical, his mouth fuller than most elves' and his wide eyes a startling dark green.
Max forced himself not to study the pattern of tattoos curving around that face. "Detective Leto? I'm Agent Maxwell Trevelyan," he said, offering his hand as the Detective stripped off his gloves. "I'm one of the Agents who works with Academy trainees at this Circle."
The detective brushed his palm against Max's in a strange half-handshake. Max felt a jolt that had nothing to do with the Detective's good looks. Lyrium. Andraste's ass, it's that Detective. Of course it is.
"A pleasure, Agent Trevelyan," the elf replied evenly, in a baritone voice that would have made a much uglier man desirable. He met Max's eyes but did not return his smile.
"I'm here to show you around and help tell you a bit about Alistair Guerrin's time at the Academy." Max wondered how long it would be before the Detective realized the second part was a lie.
"I appreciate the time." Detective Leto brushed a few ice crystals from the lapel of his coat. "Shall we begin?"
"Of course," Max said quickly, trying to imitate the other man's no-nonsense tone. "Please, follow me."
Fenris had only met a handful of Templars since leaving Tevinter. Most of them were rather like Meredith: Pale, severe, somewhere in their forties. The man waiting for Fenris in the entryway to the Denerim Circle's main building, however, looked more like the star of a movie about Templars than an actual, real-life Templar Agent. He was in his late twenties, tall—at least six foot three—and broad-shouldered, with deep brown skin, a neatly shaved head, and a small black goatee. He wore the silver-grey Templar suit, tailored to perfection, and a red tie that set off the crisp white of his shirt. His smile was easy and charming, which immediately put Fenris on edge. He was always uncomfortable around people who were used to being liked. He had little experience with that feeling himself.
"So. This is the main office building," Agent Trevelyan said as they walked east, down a brightly-lit hallway lined with doors. "The mages keep their offices in the west wing, and the Templars in the east. The top two floors contain our laboratories and training facilities. The adult Agents and Enchanters sleep in the large dormitory to the south. As a trainee, Alistair would have slept in one of the smaller dormitories to the west. We keep the mages and the Templar recruits as separate as we can, while still allowing for Templar help and supervision should the younger mages need it."
"I see," Fenris replied, for lack of anything else to say. Is this a tour? Why is he giving me a tour?
Agent Trevelyan seemed to sense the thought. "We thought it might help you to get a sense of the day-to-day here at the Circle."
"Ah."
Not for the first time, Fenris's minimalist responses seemed to make his companion uncomfortable. "So. Uh. You're a friend of Meredith Stannard's?"
Fenris had no idea how to answer that. "I owe her a debt," he replied uneasily. "And yes, I voted for her." He assumed that, at least, would please a Templar.
Agent Trevelyan chuckled. "Well, thanks for that. I didn't know her well myself—I only got here about two years ago, not long before she left. But things have been a lot calmer around here since she became a Councilwoman."
Fenris had to conceal his surprise. He had assumed that the Templars would be disappointed to lose someone with Meredith's skill and passion.
The Templar didn't seem to notice Fenris's reaction as he pushed open the right half of the double door at the end of the hallway. "This is our armory. As you may know, the Templars …"
"Use swords. I am aware," Fenris finished, looking around the room. Blades of every shape and size, all gleaming and sharp, glittered at him from neat racks lining the massive, windowless room. They were organized by length, with the shortest daggers towards the back of the room and the largest broadswords near this door. Every blade was tagged, and a stack of filing cabinets towards the back suggested careful records.
"Right. It turns out guns don't mix well with the Templar arts," Agent Trevelyan continued. "A Smite packs a punch. It'll snap a trigger in half or shatter a firing pin if you're carrying a pistol—and that's if you're lucky and the gun doesn't explode in your face."
Fenris lay an experimental hand on the hilt of one of the large broadswords close to the door. For a while, he had carried something similar—though not nearly so pretty as this one, which was clean and bright and bore no signs of wear. He had stolen his blade from a pile of belongings being carted out of a dead man's home somewhere in rural Orlais during his time on the run. He now found himself wondering if the dead man had been a Templar.
"We don't get many elves in the Templars, but the ones I know tended to go for the daggers," Agent Trevelyan said, politely trying to caution him away from embarrassing himself.
Fenris felt his annoyance surge. With practiced ease, he drew the broadsword from its rack and lifted it to the light, as if to examine it closer.
"Or you could just grab the biggest sword in the room." Agent Trevelyan's eyebrows climbed his forehead. "Wow. I need to know more about your training regimen."
"My 'training regimen' involved having raw lyrium forced underneath my skin. I do not recommend it," Fenris said coolly, returning the sword to its proper place. "The pain was agonizing."
For the first time, Agent Max Trevelyan seemed at a loss for words. He stared at Fenris, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open, abashed. "Oh. Um. I'm sorry."
Fenris grimaced. I am annoyed, but that is no reason for discourtesy. "Agent Trevelyan, may I be blunt?" he said, turning to face the Templar. "I simply want to know more about Alistair Guerrin's time in the Templar Academy. I must imagine that a Templar has more important things to do than play tour guide. I am content to take the transcript and follow up when I have more specific questions."
For a moment Agent Trevelyan was still, then something shifted in his posture. He loosened his tie a bit, seemingly unconsciously, then locked eyes with Fenris. "That transcript is going to be about eighty percent blacked out. And that's if they're still a bit scared of Stannard. If they're not it might be closer to ninety."
Fenris raised his eyebrows. "Was Mr. Guerrin's time at the Academy so notable?" For a moment, he had the wild hope that he was close to solving the case—here, perhaps, was the secret that would justify paying money to kill a bartender.
But the Agent shook his head. "Not at all. They just don't want anyone outside the Templars to know the details of how we're trained." He frowned. "What did Alistair do, exactly?"
"Nothing," Fenris assured him. "He was the victim in a shooting. Attempted victim, I should say," he added, realizing Agent Trevelyan's face had tensed with concern. "He was not injured. But we are looking into the possibility that it wasn't random."
"Glad he's all right," the Templar said seriously. "He seemed like a nice guy. But off the record, there wasn't anything remarkable about Alistair that I'm aware of, except the fact that he declined his commission."
"Is that rare?" Fenris asked.
"Well, yeah." The Agent seemed surprised by the question. "The trainees get up at five a.m., sit through lectures and tests in the morning, and then have hours of physical training in the afternoon. You don't pass all your courses and make it to the end unless you're serious."
That matched with Alistair's description, more or less; the bartender had said that being a Templar trainee involved having fireballs thrown at your head every day for three years. "Could Alistair's family connections, perhaps, have persuaded the Templars to make his path easier?" Fenris suggested. He pulled out his notebook, half expecting the Templar to object, but no objection came.
Agent Trevelyan shook his head. "No. Cullen Rutherford runs this branch of the Academy. If he thought Alistair was trying to skate through on his father's name Cullen would have personally drop-kicked him out the front door."
Fenris drew a circle around Cullen Rutherford's name. "What do you remember of Alistair?"
The Templar frowned thoughtfully. "Jokes, mostly. Bad ones. He kind of kept to himself and acted like he was hanging on to his spot by his fingernails. But he was always solidly in the top half of his class. He had a lot of natural talent with the Templar arts. He could break spells better than some of the Agents, and they're taking lyrium."
Fenris scribbled down talent with Templar skills. He had to admit that surprised him. "Do you know why he kept to himself?"
Agent Trevelyan paused a moment before answering. "I didn't know him well. But I think he didn't like it here very much. Most of the trainees fall into the same handful of categories. Ambitious law-and-order types, anti-magic fanatics, adventure-seekers, and screwups from wealthy families. The screwups usually wash out in the first year. None of that described Alistair." Another pause. "I do remember that he talked to the mages more than most trainees do."
A spark of hope flared in Fenris's chest. Finally, something unusual. "Could I speak to the mages he knew?"
The Agent's eyebrows drew together. "I mean, more than usual is still not very much. But I'll see if I can remember anyone who might have known him well. In the meantime, why don't we go get your mostly-useless copy of his records?"
Max's head was spinning as he led Fenris out the back door and towards the training facility where he and Cullen kept their offices. Fenris Leto must have been a damn good detective. Five minutes under that intense, disapproving stare and he'd cracked like an egg. All right, he hadn't spilled anything important, but he was pretty sure he'd said more than Greagoir wanted his underlings handing out to any Detective who came knocking.
That thought annoyed Max. It was outright stupid that the Templar leadership would be so stubborn about helping a Guard investigation. Alistair Guerrin could have been one of them—and more to the point, he was a decent man aside from the bad jokes. He had a right to know why someone was trying to kill him.
Career dead by thirty, he reminded himself.
But what the hell. One day of minor insubordination wasn't going to cancel out years of glowing records. Probably.
Max was feeling rather pleased about his minor flirtation with rebellion until he pushed open the door to the office he shared with Cullen. Cullen wasn't in, but Enchanter Mei Surana was perched on the edge of a plastic office chair, her hands folded expectantly.
Something about Enchanter Surana made Max nervous. Maybe it was the fact that he'd never seen her show more than half an emotion. Or maybe it was the fact that she could shatter bricks with an ice spell in the time it took most mages to summon a snowflake. Max wasn't sure if it was ironic or inevitable that someone with her chilly personality had such talent with cold magic.
"Enchanter," he said respectfully as she stood.
"Agent Trevelyan. I had hoped to steal a moment of your time, but I can come back later." Her eyes drifted to Fenris.
"Enchanter Mei Surana, this is Detective Fenris Leto of the Denerim Guard. He's here investigating an attack on a former trainee," Max said easily. Polite social interactions, he could do.
His eyes fell on a plain white envelope on his desk, tottering on the peak of a pile that he'd sworn he would clean up soon. "Ah. Here's your terrible transcript, as promised."
Fenris opened the envelope flap with one swipe of his thumb, then pulled the document half-out and grimaced. "Eighty percent. It appears Councilwoman Stannard still has some influence," he murmured.
Max chuckled. Then something occurred to him. "Hey, Enchanter Surana. Do you remember a trainee named Alistair Guerrin? He finished this summer and declined a commission."
The Enchanter shook her head, setting her straight black hair swinging around her shoulders. "I'm afraid not. He would have left around the time I transferred back here."
Fenris spoke up, then. "We believe he may have had friends among the mages. Can you think of anyone who might know who they were?"
To Max's surprise, he saw a spark of interest in the Enchanter's expression. "Yes. But it will not be a pleasant interview," she warned. "His name is Anders. He has something of a reputation for clashing with Templars. He's also the biggest gossip in the Circle. If there's anything to know about your trainee he probably knows it. But he won't be able to resist antagonizing you, or Agent Trevelyan." Her mouth almost—but not quite—curved in a smile. "I believe the usual phrase is 'problem with authority.'"
Max was pretty sure that was the longest speech he had ever heard Mei Surana deliver.
"All right. Let's talk with Anders." Max flashed the Enchanter a grin. "You too, if you're free. Maybe he'll be nicer with a fellow mage in the room."
Surana's expression indicated that she doubted it, but nevertheless she joined the two men as they filed out of the office.
Fenris felt a bit as if he had accidentally ventured into a cavern, and was winding his way deeper and deeper into its depths as he tried to get out. This was what he had wanted—to learn more about Alistair Guerrin's time at the Academy, to see if his years there might hold the key to this mystery. But spending this much time close to this much magic was starting to make him tense. Mages here were better controlled and better monitored than the ones in his Tevinter homeland, admittedly, but he could not help his instinctive unease—especially with the cool, superior Mei Surana trailing behind them as they walked.
Anders was not in his office, which did not appear to surprise Enchanter Surana. They sought him out in the dormitory next, a large brick building with windows attractively framed in white wood. Fenris was surprised at how shabby the inside was, however. The carpet in the halls was worn and grey, the paint fading, and the hallways dark and old. Magisters in Tevinter lived in luxury, but evidently mages and Templars alike were restricted to much plainer quarters in a Circle.
"Here," Enchanter Surana said at last, stopping in front of a plain wooden door in the middle of the third floor. By some unspoken agreement, she stepped aside for Agent Trevelyan to knock.
The big Templar rapped his knuckles against the door frame. "Enchanter?" he called. "It's Max Trevelyan. I need—"
The door flew open before the Templar could finish his sentence.
Anders was a slender man around thirty with sharp, handsome features and a messy blonde half-ponytail. He was wearing the usual Enchanter suit pants but had not put on his jacket; his sleeveless undershirt revealed a torso covered in wiry muscle. Over his shoulder, Fenris could see a narrow, rumpled bed in a dark room with only one small window.
The mage's mouth twisted sardonically as he looked at Agent Trevelyan, his expression somewhere between amusement and contempt. "Morning, Max. What did I do this time?"
"Shockingly, nothing." Agent Trevelyan grinned, seemingly unaware of the other man's annoyance. Fenris was beginning to suspect, however, that the obliviousness was largely feigned. "We're hoping you can help with something. This is Detective Fenris Leto of the Denerim City Guard. And of course, you know Enchanter Surana."
Anders nodded briefly at Surana before focusing his gaze on Fenris. "Detective. We so rarely get visitors in the Circle. You should have called. I would have put on a shirt." He gave Fenris an obviously fake smile.
He is trying to make me uncomfortable. It was going to take more than that, however.
Fenris met the mage's eyes coolly. "I apologize for arriving unannounced," he replied. "I am investigating an attempt on the life of a former Templar trainee."
Amell arched an eyebrow. "Am I a suspect?"
"Should you be?" Fenris countered, pulling out his notebook.
"Ah. Agent Trevelyan must have told you that I don't play nice with the Templars. Not nice enough for their taste, anyway." Anders snorted.
Enchanter Surana suddenly spoke up. "Actually, I was the one who mentioned your name. They think Alistair Guerrin might have had friends among the mages. I told them if he did, you would know."
Anders's eyebrows rose. "Enchanter Surana, I'm flattered you think I might be useful." He sounded almost sincere. "What was the name again?"
"Alistair Guerrin," she replied. "He graduated from the Academy last summer but declined a place among the Templars."
Anders crossed his arms and leaned against the doorjamb, his eyebrows drawn down thoughtfully. "I do remember him. Good-looking guy, kind of a joker, right? He was pretty chummy with the mages. Asked them how they were doing, what their names were—you know, inappropriate personal questions like that." He looked over at Agent Trevelyan. "Usually Max and his friends do a better job of teaching the trainees that mages aren't people. Guess it didn't stick with Guerrin."
The Templar stiffened, but didn't respond.
"Would you describe any of the mages as particular friends of Mr. Guerrin's?" Fenris asked, his pen poised.
"Nope. Thing is, most mages don't want to get that close to Templars either." Ever so briefly, Anders's eyes flicked over to Surana. "We'd return the pleasantries, sure. But no one really wants to be friends with someone who might slap you with a Tranquil's brand in a few years." He shrugged. "Sorry I can't be more help." He did not sound particularly sorry.
"I appreciate your time, Enchanter," Fenris lied. "Here, I'll give you my card. Please call me if anything comes to mind."
Anders accepted the card with an odd smile. "Don't worry, Detective. I'll definitely hang on to this."