The crates kept coming, dozens of them carted up the stairs to the library by diligent serving boys. The ravens in the rookery took offense to the clomping boots, and their squawking echoed around the tower.
"Please, stack them in the alcoves." Sinead ran ahead of the young men, pointing at previously delivered crates. "Don't just leave them anywhere on the floor. You'll block the flow of traffic."
The young men did as directed, then headed down the stairs for more crates. Soon their job was done, one of them gave her a piece of parchment to sign "So's the Lady Josephine knows you've received the delivery," and she was left with the additions to her collection. The Skyhold collection, she corrected herself.
She placed a hand on top of the pile of crates, a pile that reached her chin, her chest swelling with pleasure. So many new tomes to catalog and classify and shelve, so many old friends she had not seen since Kirkwall. She stifled a yawn, leaning on the crates. Despite her excitement, her body ached for sleep. Cole was off righting wrongs with the Inquisitor, and though the nightmares came less frequently over the month or so she had been at Skyhold, when they did come it took much longer to sooth her panic alone. Sleep eluded her the night before, and today she drowned herself in tea to keep awake and productive.
"Hey there, are you the Lady Archivist?" A red-haired dwarf with a cheerful grin and an effervescent voice peeked around the crates. "Oh, you look busy. I can come back later."
"I am the archivist. And all this can wait. It'll take time to sort through anyway." She still was not used to people calling her by her title, but the Orlesians expected decorum from their librarians and she found it helped to put on an air of authority. She straightened and bowed slightly. "What can I do to help?"
"Oh, I'm not looking for anything in particular." The dwarf took Sinead's hand and shook it, then stepped away and examined a nearby shelf. "I'm Dagna. Just came on board to help with enchanting. I studied at Circle Tower, which has an extensive library, and I wanted to see if the Inquisition measures up."
Sinead brightened. Inquiries about the library itself, rather than just the average request for novels with unhelpful indicators like, "oh, do you have that one book, I read the beginning but I've forgotten the title…I think it's red?" pleased her. It was a chance to share something she loved with someone equally interested. Unfortunately, Varric and Solas seemed to be the only laypeople with a desire to know about the inner workings of the library (the former because he was surprised by the amount of popular fiction she requested, the latter because the library was essential for his research). And Lady Josephine was interested, of course, but anyone who held the purse strings would have it in their best interests to know if the library was being run properly.
"Oh, we certainly can't match a Circle library at this time. It's a small collection, if bountiful in knowledge. But this," she patted the crates, "is the beginning of rectifying that. And I've been told there will be deliveries every week for the next month."
Dagna pulled a book from the shelf, looking at the spine where Sinead had marked a series of numbers. "Oooh, you're using the Tevinter classification system?"
"A modified version." Sinead's pleasure grew. "I've included the University of Orlais's extra classes, and their card catalog system." She pointed at a large chest of drawers at the head of the stairs, near where the creature researcher Helisma had set up her things.
"That makes way more sense than trying to look through a bunch of scrolls, yeah. I've heard Tevinter's libraries are like labyrinths – gotta leave a bread trail to every subject," Dagna said, replacing the book and reading the titles of its fellows. "What's your main focus? I mean, as a mage, I assume it's magic, but -"
"Mainly focused on lore right now," Sinead said, pulling the top off one of the crates. "But that's just a beginning. I want this library to be the pinnacle of research. Somewhere that anyone looking for information on the new and the exciting and the controversial can find answers, connections, questions they didn't think to ask. A place where research from all over Thedas can be found." She pulled out a book and handed it to Dagna. "This whole crate contains research on the Fade, some things from Tevinter that the Chantry banned for years. Isn't it magnificent?" She paused. "I'm so sorry, I went on and on. You're the new arcanist?"
Dagna was paging through the book with a hungry expression. "This is excellent," she squealed. "I've heard of the magisters researching the composition of the Fade, but I didn't know this book existed!"
"I know, Master Pavus recommended it when I was considering what to add to the collection! I was stunned by what Tevinter's accomplished. Wait, look at this." Sinead paged to the last chapter. "That is a whole argument about why thoughts affect the Fade. It's mostly speculation, but he went into the Fade lucidly often and diligently tested his hypotheses."
Dagna snapped the book shut. "You have to let me borrow this, like, right now," she begged.
"Of course! Wait –" She took Dagna by the wrist and led her to her work table, quickly looked up her main scroll of every library acquisition, marked the spine with the proper classification numbers and filled out a card, then handed it to Dagna. "It's yours for two weeks."
"Thank you so much." Dagna hugged the book to her chest. "I've been trying to link enchanting to the Fade for ages. You wouldn't believe how powerful a rune could be if it was perpetually feeding off the Fade. To know its composition –"
"Oh, wow, if you're even attempting such experiments with your runestones, your enchanting must be incredibly advanced." Sinead clasped her hands. "Would you show me your equipment? Physical research was never my passion, but it was always fascinating to watch. And I know Kirkwall was years behind everyone else – everything was stifled there."
"Are you kidding? It would be a pleasure. Come on, you've gotta see my setup!"
Dagna led her through the great hall and down to the Undercroft. A cool breeze circled the stone hollow of a room, and a gruff man sorted through a chest near the stairs. He frowned and nodded at Dagna as they entered the room.
"That's Harrit. Don't mind him, he's a big softy under all that grump. Hey, Harrit!" Harrit snorted and went back to his chest. Dagna dragged Sinead over to her rune-making equipment and enchanting tables. "Here's where the magic happens! Oh, that sounded kind of cocky. I mean, it's literally where magic happens. I'm not trying to say anything particular about my work. Though it is pretty good, if I do say so myself."
Sinead was in awe. The equipment was far more complicated than anything Kirkwall had. She reached out to the rune-maker.
"Careful! I use pure lyrium, and there could be trace amounts left," Dagna warned.
"Oh, that would be an unpleasant way to die." Sinead pulled her hand back. "Going mad and frothing at the mouth and so on. But look at the rune press – it's so deep, so many indentations. You must use nearly twice the lyium than conventional presses over the same surface area. Where did you get the specifications for this equipment? "
"It's actually something I designed myself." Dagna rocked on her heels with satisfaction.
"That's incredible, truly incredible. Brilliant!"
Dagna crossed her arms. "Okay, I gotta know. When did you know?"
"Know what?" Sinead was distant, still enthralled with Dagna's equipment.
"That you had to know."
Sinead turned to Dagna, laughing. "Know what?"
"Everything!"
Sinead thought for a moment. "I always wanted to know. I wanted to know how to make my magic safe, how to make it useful, how many words there were in the world, how to talk to spirits, how to make cookies, how to find my way alone through the forest." She smiled. "But when I joined Kirkwall's Circle, when I had access to a library the first time, I think that's when I realized just how much I didn't know. And how much I wanted to know before I went to the Beyond." She tilted her head, cocking a brow at Dagna. "How about you, Arcanist Dagna?"
"Oh, wow, that's like asking when I took my first steps." Dagna giggled. "But I knew when I was a kid that there was no way I'd spend my life in front of an anvil. No offense, Harrit!" Harrit grunted.
"You're smith caste? The caste system is fascinating. Limiting to some, a comfort to others. Reminds me of the Qunari."
"Must be fascinating to someone who didn't grow up under it, sure," Dagna said with a shrug. "Count me as one of the ones limited by it. And I'm not smith caste anymore – my parents consider me such a disappointment."
"Oh." Sinead's face fell. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to –"
"No, it's okay, trust me." Dagna patted Sinead's torso. "I guess it is sad and all, but I had to know, you know? Castelessness is better than not knowing."
Sinead grinned and took Dagna's hand. "Call me Sinead."
"I totally will." Dagna grasped her hand and shook it vigorously. "We are so having lunch tomorrow."
"Absolutely."
When Sinead went back to the library, she found a book propped on top of the crates – something she knew she had not pulled from the shelves or the new additions to the collection. She picked it up, and it crackled under her touch. It was old, the edges of the pages ragged. She opened it carefully, smiling. It was an old Dwarven book that named paragons she had never heard of – the language was archaic, and would take time to translate.
"Cole's home," she whispered, closing the book and walking to the shelf where she carefully stored books still needing repairs.
It started not long after she was made Archivist, after Cole's first ventures in Thedas with the Inquisitor and her main crew. When he returned, Sinead found a book laying on her pillow, a spell book on blood magic picked up from a dead apostate. At first she thought it was someone at Skyhold slyly informing her that they knew her little secret. But when Cole 'heard' her distress during a word game, he admitted leaving the book for her.
"You want every book," he explained, concerned that he had done something wrong. "Every book that you don't have. You don't have this one, and I knew the demons wouldn't change you like the man who used it. You only use the blood when you need to. With no malice."
His knowledge of Eluard's rule distressed her even more. She knew he would know of her blood magic, of course he would know, but facing the truth of it made it real, tangible. "If I'm found with this, it could cause trouble," she explained, holding the book out to him gingerly. "I…there are a lot of people here for whom using blood magic is the same as a person declaring herself a friend of demons. Of Corypheus, even, given how he used it to taint the Black City."
Cole thought a moment, and then nodded. "Yes. This book could hurt you. Some would understand. Others would not, and it would be bad. I'm sorry, I will get it right next time."
He took the book and tossed it in the fire. She held back a cry as the pages crisped up and the cover blackened. It hurt to watch a book burn, hurt to consider the knowledge she was giving up, but her fear of being discovered quelled her pain.
In the following weeks, Cole lived up to his promise. Every time he came back from missions with the Inquisitor, a book waited for her, something unique, or rare, or something that had not been ordered, or something so long out of print that she wondered if any catalogs knew of its existence. Some had very little research value – once he left an Orlesian romance so bawdy that she wondered whose boudoir he had stolen into to find it. Others were so invaluable that she was hesitant to tell Josephine of its acquisition lest the fair and honest lady send out inquiries to libraries and nobility about a missing treasure.
She only asked Cole once where he found the books. "The owners were dead," he said calmly. "They don't read where they are now." He said it as if it was the most rational explanation anyone could give. She decided this was one thing she did not need to know.
She knew she was not Cole's only target for his little gifts. She heard a kitchen girl talking in the once when fetching a quick snack about the mystifying change in mood of the stern cook. And another time two nobles in the library chatted about the strange appearance of a pair of gloves that one of them was sure was lost during his travels to Skyhold – a happy find, given that his late mother had gifted them to him. And every servant had stories of the Skyhold ghost who left treats for them, or extra soap and clean rags and water that they did not have to fetch for themselves, or hot tea after a long shift, if they climbed the stairs to the creepy rafters of the Herald's Rest and asked politely for a boon.
Still, it was nice that someone took notice of something she loved so much. And they were the first true gifts she had received since the day Rein stole a cake for her. No, she could not think of that. The day her mother gave her the hairpins, perhaps? No, being bequeathed a family heirloom by a dying loved one was less a gift and more a responsibility. And she did not want to think of that either. Then the day that Eluard gave her the word game, a gift given when she was learning how to read, to make a sport out of learning vocabulary.
In truth the books were the first gifts given to her without a sense of burden or reciprocation or purpose. They were simply given to make her happy. She felt that she had to repay Cole somehow, though she was not sure what to do for someone whose purpose and pleasure came from helping – aside from allowing him to help, of course. She pondered this as she opened the crates and started the process of classification and cataloging the new collection.
She found her answer a few weeks later. Dagna was late to meet her for lunch at the top of the main tower, and she began to eat, her stomach refusing to wait longer for its meal. Suddenly Dagna popped up through the trap door, startling Sinead and making her choke on her cheese.
"We are going shopping!" Dagna said gaily.
Sinead coughed, clearing her throat. "What? Where did this come from? And what about lunch?"
"Scarf it down, Natty. I ate on my way here." Dagna waved at her impatiently. "A merchant's set up by the stables! And from what I've heard, women who are friends go shopping together." She disappeared down the trap door.
Sinead stuffed the rest of her cheese sandwich in her mouth and followed Dagna down the ladder and the stairs to the grounds of Skyhold. When she finished chewing she said, "Who said that women who are friends shop together? I've never shopped with any of my friends, let alone the women."
"I don't know, it was something they did in Orzammar, I guess," Dagna said, leading her past the healer's tents. "To be honest I've never shopped with someone before, either. But it's an actual merchant at Skyhold. Don't you want to see what she has? Oh, I wonder if she has any rune crafting materials…"
The stall was modest, but well-stocked. Weaponry was stacked on stands, examples of armor hung from the canopy. Dagna attacked a large box filled with strange and magically potent artifacts that gave Sinead a headache. She politely looked over the wares, uninterested in most of them. She had no desire for anything – she was clothed and shod well, and armor was unnecessary. She supposed it would be good to update her staff – she had not done so since soon after the Annulment. But she had not yet saved enough coin for something worthwhile.
Absently she sorted through a stack of cowls and light helmets, running her hands over smooth silk and hardened leather. A wide brim at the bottom of the pile caught her eye. She tipped the pile and took hold of the brim, wiggling the helmet free from a steel scout hat.
It was metal, but she wasn't sure what kind. It had been dulled to a brownish gray, its only adornment a crest of serrated spikes fanned on the front of the crown. She flipped it, and found a thick lining of leather within to make a snug fit.
A smile uncurled across her lips and her eyes lit up. "It's perfect," she breathed.
Dagna looked up from the pile of goods she had collected and stacked on the merchant's table. "Oh. Uh, sure, that hat would…uuuh, I'll be honest, I'm not really a fashion expert, but I don't know if it's really…you?"
"Not for me," Sinead said, disgruntled. "I wouldn't be able to reach the shelves with this brim. Cole!"
"The ghost?" The merchant eyed Dagna warily. "Oh, don't worry, he's not a real ghost. He's just a spirit guy human thing who can make himself invisible and has this nifty trick where he makes people forget him. You've probably already met him and don't remember, haha!"
The merchant did not look reassured.
"I'm surprised you remember him," Sinead said, amused. "I'd think you'd want to poke and prod him if you met him. He'd make you forget for sure if you did."
"I tried! He told me things about my parents that no one else knows, pulled it right from my head! So fascinating," she said wistfully. "I just needed a little blood, maybe some hair…but he shied away, and I haven't seen him since. All I hear are stories. You know he was stealing daggers, right? Collected a barrel full of them. How great is that?"
"Varric told me, yes." Sinead laughed. "He wanted to stop people from hurting each other too much when they got into fights. No daggers, no stab wounds."
"See what I mean? Totally fascinating. Just the way he thinks, you know?" Dagna looked dreamily at one of the rune components in her hand. "Makes me wonder if the whole Fade is like that. You know, super literal. If I could talk to him again…"
"Oh, leave him alone, Dagna." Sinead bumped the dwarven woman with her hip. "He wants to help, not to be part of one of your experiments. I'll take the helmet, thanks."
She left Dagna at the foot of the Skyhold stairs and meandered to the Herald's Rest, twirling the helmet in her hands. The tavern was slow, the midday revelers gone back to their duties. The Iron Bull and his Chargers were the only patrons on the first floor, chattering loudly while the bard twiddled on her lute. She looked down so as to not catch anyone's eyes. She did not fear the Qunari's crew, but she barely knew them. The man named Krem had wandered into the library a few times looking for something decent to read, but the rest were only familiar faces and no more. The thought of being called over to talk to a raucous crew to amuse them in a slow tavern unnerved her.
She safely reached the blessedly empty second floor and scaled the stairs to the third quickly, hiding the helmet behind her back and not thinking of druffalos. She had never visited Cole's haunt before, only now realizing how strange it was that she never went looking for him. She looked around the attic, her heart sinking. There were barrels, boxes, and crates lining the wall, no doubt filled with the regular supplies of a tavern. There was no sign that anyone lived in the darkened rafters.
He is like a ghost, she thought sadly. He leaves nothing of himself behind. Just that feeling that everything is sunnier than you think it is.
At first she thought she was alone in the attic, which made sense – it was still daytime, still plenty of time to tweak things and make the world a little better. But as her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw Cole crouched in a corner, watching her from under his hat.
"Why aren't you thinking of druffalos, Sinead?" he said when he caught her eye.
She thought to ask him why he was here and not running his usual errands, or ask why he said nothing while she looked around the attic. But she checked herself and instead said, "I've brought something for you," making sure to keep the druffalos running around her mind. It was a silly thing – surely he could see the brim from behind her back. It was certainly wide enough.
"Why?"
Not what. Of course. "Because I found it, and I think you'll like it," she replied. "And also to thank you for the books. And also because you're my friend and I wanted to bring you something."
"So many alsos."
"I know. Sorry." She sat across from him, pulling the helmet from behind her back. "Surprise!"
He looked at the helmet quizzically. "But I already have a hat."
"Yes, but this is another hat," she said, deflating a bit. "You can have more than one hat."
"I know," he said, touching the brim of his hat. "But I like my hat."
"But." It was not going as she thought it would. She thought quickly. "But you take that hat with you when you're running around fighting red Templars and, and bandits and smugglers and things, right? But it's made mostly of leather. What if someone burns it, or lops off the brim with a sword? What will you do then?" His dismayed look nearly made her retreat and give up her case, but she barreled on. "This one's made completely of metal, and it also isn't as shiny as yours. Perfect for sneaking, you see? No one will harm this helmet when you're out in the field, and your hat will be safe and sound and waiting for you at Skyhold."
He considered her gift for a moment, then took off his hat, shaking out his lanky hair and trading her. He gingerly placed the helmet on his head. "It's light," he said, surprised. He tilted his head one way, then the other. "It stays in place. My hat shifts and stirs and sometimes blocks my eyes. It makes things hard sometimes."
"It looks dashing," she said, covering her smile with a hand.
His lanky hair was more pronounced in the helmet, white-blond and brushing his shoulders, bangs clearly hacked away with a dagger or knife from time to time for vision's sake. But she did think it gave him a certain air, though if she was honest with herself it was not exactly dashing. More like dangerous. It made her shiver a bit, playing with the floppy brim of his hat as realization unfurled in her. It was as if she held one part of him in her lap, the soft, comfortable bit that made him seem so harmless. And the helmet she gave him was the other part, the hardened part that was serious about his knives and their going into you if you needed to be killed.
"If you don't like it, I can take it back," she blurted, suddenly unsure of this gift.
"No, this is a good hat," he said, taking it off and placing it on top of a small chest next to him. He smiled that small smile that gave him such a strong veneer of humanity. "Thank you, Sinead."
She smiled back hesitantly, placing his hat back on his head. "You're welcome, Cole."