Anders swallowed and glanced down at Neria. Some things were still fuzzy, but she wasn't - the dark hair, the beautiful dark eyes and the determined expression were all so familiar. A Reaving. Maker's breath - Orlais, the Council... why was it so hard to get it straight in his head? And a pride demon? The last Reaving he'd gotten a desire demon.

"This is my demon, right?" he muttered to Neria. "What did you get?"

She didn't take her eyes off the enormous form in front of them. "Desire," she said.

He snorted. "Huh. Wonder why I got the upgrade."

She glanced at him and raised an eyebrow. "Do you really?" He frowned at her, but she was looking back at the hulking form in front of them. "Why is it just standing there?"

Anders examined the demon, who was indeed, simply standing and waiting. "You don't want to fight?" Anders said. The demon spread what passed for its arms.

"The longer I keep you here, the more likely I shall keep you forever," it said, its deep rumbling voice surprisingly calm.

"I take it you've done Reavings before," Anders grumbled. "Well, we're not staying, so you'd better defend yourself."

The demon threw back its head and laughed and its form changed - and Anders' mother stood before him. He rolled his eyes. "Why do they always try that trick," and raised his hands to strike.

Neria's laughter joined his as they bombarded the demon with spells. It continued to shift forms - Tobias, Neria's elven lover, Maeve, Jairo, Felix, two elves Anders guessed were Neria's parents, Oghren, Miranda, Nathaniel, but they'd done this too many times, the Fade had lost its power over them and before long the demon shifted back into its old form.

"You win," it said, before fading away.

"I never know if we've actually killed them or just sent them running away for a while," Anders mused, brushing hair out of his eyes and grinning down at Neria, who grinned back.

"So are we done?" she asked.

"Indeed," a new voice came to them. Justice - his helm gone and the strong features and dark hair of a young man exposed. "Although you should be aware they tried to cheat you. The demons were primed with more information than usual. As such I doubt my intervention will be mentioned, but should it be.."

"We'll have something to throw back at them," Neria said, satisfaction evident in her voice.

"Thank you, Justice," Anders said, looking at him curiously. "What's with the face?"

The spirit lifted a hand to touch it, smiling slightly. An odd expression - completely unlike any he'd seen the spirit wear before - especially considering the only times he'd seen the spirit able to make expressions were when he was inhabiting other people - wistful and amused all at once. "I never knew I had one," he said.

Anders took in the dark eyes and full lips. He was very very familiar looking... but something else as well... "Kristoff," he said finally. "You look like a combination of Neria and Kristoff. So I would hazard a guess that you didn't have a face before now."

Neria was smiling. "I'm flattered," she said.

"You should go," Justice said. "I will see you again." Anders reached out and shook Justice's hand, before Neria gave a small sound and wrapped her arms around the ghostly body. Justice's face took on an expression of almost comic surprise and Anders couldn't repress the laugh that shook free of him as Neria hugged the spirit.

"Thank you," she said, her voice slightly muffled against Justice's breastplate. "You're a true friend."

The spirit looked down at the top of Neria's head, bafflement and pleasure replacing surprise. Anders mimed giving a hug and the spirit awkwardly put his arms around the tiny elf and patted.

"Come on you," Anders said then. "Portal time."

She nodded and released Justice, calling forth a portal at the same time. Once again, they took hands and went through it together.


There were few things more disconcerting than coming to consciousness with the point of a sword pressed into one's throat, although Pounce's fish breath was probably high on that list and something Anders experienced with regularity. This was the third time he'd come to this way, however, and he raised an eyebrow at the helm of the Templar holding the weapon, convinced it didn't get better with repetition.

"They're awake!" the voice was muffled by the metal that encased it and Anders was reminded of the first time he'd heard Justice speak, in the Fade in the Blackmarsh that was.

If he never had to enter the fade again, he would be a happy man.

The implications of their awakening was rippling through the council chamber. If they were awake, they had passed their Reaving. If they had passed their Reaving, they weren't blood mages.

If they weren't blood mages, the Grand Divine had called down retribution on innocent mages and templars. If they weren't blood mages, the proposal to decentralise the mage's towers had in fact, legitimately passed.

Anders slowly sat upright, looking across the brazier of now used lyrium to see Neria doing the same. The two First Enchanters who had conducted the ritual were both stepping back from the centre of the chamber, obviously to take their places with their fellow mages.

The rumble of voices became a roar, then a slow clap started somewhere near Miranda and Alistair, that was taken up by the entire chamber. As Anders and Neria got to their feet, cheers joined the claps and several shouts could be heard from the warden's section. Anders caught Neria's eye and grinned at her, then, because some things are impossible to resist, he clasped her hand in hers and lifted it in the air in a gesture of triumph, and dropped them both into as flamboyant a bow as he could manage, unsteady and weary as he was.

Take that, your holy crankiness, he thought, then pulled Neria close into an embrace that was fierce and strong.


Back at the warden compound he was caught up by Miranda and Alistair, giving them an account of what had transpired in the fade, and so when he slipped up to their room she was there before him. She was cross legged on the bed, a large book propped between her knees as she popped what looked like cherries into her mouth from a bowl on the bed next to her. She looked so much the picture of the diligent Circle mage that he had to clamp down on an almost irresistible urge to ravage her without warning.

"What's the book?" he asked instead, lightly.

She looked up and smiled at him with such genuine delight that he felt his heart lurch. "Irving gave it to me," she said, closing it and passing it to him, shifting up on the bed to make room for him and picking up the bowl of cherries. There was another bowl on the side table into which she was skillfully spitting the pips. He raised an eyebrow at her. "What?" she said. "Jowan and I used to have competitions," she explained. "It was so rare to get fresh cherries in the Tower - when we managed to pilfer some we liked to make a ritual of it."

He smiled, thinking of her and the dark haired mage as teenagers, taking simple delight in something precious. "I bet you two were complete terrors," he said.

"Oh, Jowan didn't usually pick me to get into trouble with," she said. "He had other friends who were more willing to break the rules."

"But he asked you to help him escape the Tower," Anders pointed out.

Neria nodded, chewing her lip thoughtfully. "I always wondered why," she said.

"Maybe he trusted you the most."

Her lips turned down at the corners. "Much good it did him."

Anders looked down at the book, then opened it and scanned the contents. "A gift from Irving, you say? Cullen gave me something from the old man as well."

"Really? What?"

He felt in his pocket for the small packet and took it out without looking, still studying the tome. "What did he give you this for?" he murmured. "Did he want you to take over as first enchanter? Why give you these rituals?"

She had gone tense, he realised, and he looked up to see her studying him intently, lower lip caught between her teeth. "The Rite of Tranquility is in there," she said slowly. "I... thought he might..."

"Might what?"

"I thought he might have wanted me to reverse it," the words spilled out in a rush.

Anders eyes opened wide and he shut the book hastily. The Rite of Tranquility. When he'd found out about it, in the Tower, he'd nearly screamed in horror. That some mages actually went through it willingly...

"Have you looked at it?" he said. She nodded.

"I don't see why it wouldn't work," she said. "It would need... a mage with excellent healing though." She wasn't going to ask him, he realised. He put the book behind them on the bed and took her hand.

"Well," he said. "It's a good thing I'm around then, isn't it?" She lifted her eyes, which were full, he noticed, and smiled tremulously for a second, before looking back down at his other hand.

"So, what did your daddy give you?"

He poked his tongue out at her and dropped her hand, pulling on the string that held the small package closed. A bundle of paper fell out, together with a single, ancient, brass key.

Letters from the dead, he thought, seeing the writing on the folded paper. His own name, in Irving's hand. Why do I keep getting letters from the dead?

He opened it and started to read.