"Do you remember the hospital? It sucked balls." Bea's voice a bit louder than anyone wanted, all of them wincing and shooting dismayed looks at the gates behind their backs as they slowly, cautiously, rolled oxygen tanks through the door while Dorian kept watch.

"I'm sure I can think of shittier things than a hospital, Mittens." Varric deadpanned in a soft, low voice. "Getting maimed by venatori attempting our daring, logic-defying reset of time itself would be one of them."

Bea dropped her tone to match Varric's, the volume more acceptable as she examined her cracked, dirty nails. "I did my history homework and you had bloody knuckles but you wouldn't tell me what happened."

Maria remembered that day, remembered how angry Bea got at Maria's stony silence. Maria couldn't tell her, couldn't come clean about the midnight lyrium deals she ran for the carta after her shifts at the bar. The thought of confessing how the bills got paid seemed harder than facing Bea's teenage mutiny or Nanna's bitter disappointment. She still thought she could hide it then.

"I'm tired of mortality." Bea's mocking, wicked grin still could just about light up a room, and really, this wasn't that different than Bea after smoking three bowls was it? If Maria ignored the red glow, if Maria ignored the putrid stench of death hanging around them, this was just Bea on a drug fueled binge where she waxed the oddest kind of philosophical. "I want to rip out all the red from my veins. I want to feel the music in my belly, I want to carve your name in Dwyka's chest…"

"Bea." Maria warned, righting one of the tanks. Hawke shot her a withering look over the tank full of exasperation.

"Welcome to the crazy train." Hawke muttered.

"The song means we woke up something that wasn't meant to be woken up. It's deep in the red, it lurks in the shadows, it snatches and feeds and…"

"Beatrix." Maria reached out, snatched Bea's thin wrist as her volume began to rise up again. Maria barely slammed her palm over Bea's mouth in time to muffle the hysterical laughter, her gray-red eyes brimming with mad sparks. Maria waited a beat of her heart, one more, before she removed it with a stern look.

It shocked her when Bea wrapped her own fingers around Maria's wrist, one scarred thumb tracing up the arrow lined with her initials and Fynn's. "They say we can make them all pay for what they did to you. What I did to you."

"You didn't…"

"Alright, this is going to have to be good enough ladies." Varric interrupted smoothly, settling the last canister with a pointed look at Bea. "Let's see if we can hold it together long enough to sneak over to that old apartment building."

"From there, it is a simple matter of dodging through the alleys to get to the hotel." Cassandra frowned tightly. "Perhaps five minutes if we encounter no obstacles?"

"Which building is this again?" Dorian asked, scanning the long, empty space between them and the nearest buildings. Hawke pointed over his shoulder at the one furthest to the left, the overhang casting the alley beneath it in shadows. Maria watched Dorian's eyes light up in delight.

"Ah, well that's easy enough." Dorian extended his arm down to Maria. "Care for a jaunt? I can slip us right through those charming shadows."

"All of us?" Cassandra asked, her brows knitting together. Dorian sighed theatrically and brushed an imagined speck of dust off his shoulder.

"Not at once, of course. That would require expending enough energy to surely have us noticed, but one at a time…" Dorian gestured to the apartment building. "It's just a short distance, I won't even break a sweat."

"Then I shall go first." Cassandra declared, snatching Dorian's hand from the air reprovingly. "To ensure that it is safe."

Cassandra, Maria thought, was as charmingly overprotective as ever. Dorian cast a look at Maria, but she nodded and he took Cassandra's arm instead. "As you wish, Seeker. Do hold your breath."

Cassandra wrinkled her nose in disgust, but Maria hardly saw it before the dark shadows surrounding both Dorian and the Seeker began to deepen, began to turn to inky blackness. On instinct more than anything, Maria twisted her wrist to snatch Bea's arm and haul her away from the portal surrounding the two humans.

Then, it seemed as if both Dorian and Cassandra dropped into a black hole, vanishing from view with not even a sound. Maria swung her eyes to the opposite side of the gates, peering into the darkness of the apartment building. She saw something move in the shadows there that seemed, suddenly, much darker. Yet, she couldn't quite make out any forms in the alley.

"Well, good sign." Hawke tapped one of the cannisters thoughtfully as she examined the gates above them, the figures up above it with their backs to them. "Cassandra usually starts shouting by now if it's gone to shit."

"So little faith." Maria nearly jumped out of her skin at Dorian's deep, warm voice coming from behind her. His tanned hand came to a light, gentle rest on her shoulder. "Your turn, Cadash."

Her answer came without thought, without consideration. "Take Bea."

"No." Both Hawke and Varric said, but it was Hawke that stopped to explain. "Bea can sense the monsters if they come. She needs to stay here until we're out of the woods."

"I can open the cans." Bea tore herself away, reaching tenderly for the canisters. "I can help."

"Course you can." Varric didn't look at Bea, didn't look away from Maria's eyes which she hoped reflected her rising temper. "Princess…"

He pitched his voice as low as when he soothed Bea and she decided, then and there, she wouldn't stand for it. She glared at him, putting as much flint into her gaze as she could. "What monsters?"

"Well, if I have anything to say about it, we won't be worrying about them at all." Varric spread his hands out defensively. "You're the important one here, Princess. Our last chance to hit the undo button."

She meant to argue more, she really did. She had all sorts of words bubbling in her chest about how assigning value to people was morally wrong and Maria didn't leave anyone behind, let alone her only family, but when she opened her mouth she saw Varric's eyes slide over her head to Dorian.

It was a warning, but it wasn't enough of one for her to stop what happened next. The shadows were becoming porous around her feet, Maria had just enough time to remember reading about quicksand in her childish adventure books, and how it laid in wait for unwary travelers. Maria's girlish imagination had conjured nightmares of her slipping through the earth, deposited into the graves of her ancestors who died of hacking black cough refusing to leave the stone that became their tomb.

She felt a jolt of fear, but it was too late. Maria sank into the shadows underneath her.

She emerged, tumbling, from a brick wall. She could taste mold and dirt in her mouth and she fought the urge to hack up whatever she swallowed as she fell to her hands and knees. If her legs weren't jello, she'd stand and sock Dorian right in the fun bits.

"You didn't hold your breath." Cassandra stood above her in the darkness, her eyes glimmering with something that may have been amusement. Maria pushed herself up off the ground just enough to peer up into Cass's shadowed face before she turned to look at the wall from which she'd emerged. She expected to see Dorian, but he was nowhere to be seen.

"Look." The Seeker jerked her head to the side while she extended an arm. Although their alley was nearly as dark as pitch, the shadows against the wall they'd piled the cans against were not as deep. She could clearly see her sister fussing with knobs, Hawke shifting her weight anxiously from side to side, and Dorian emerging from the deepest shadows with a cheerful bow.

Maria took Cassandra's arm and hauled herself up, watching closely as the small group discussed something among themselves. She couldn't hear the words, but it was clear that the decision was made among most of the group to send Varric next, regardless of his opinion on the matter. She watched Dorian take hold of Varric's duster even as she watched him open his mouth to argue.

In a matter of seconds, he too was unceremoniously shoved through the brick wall behind them. After his passage, the bricks shuddered and shivered, before settling back down. Varric sputtered and wiped his mouth on his dirty jacket.

"Nug shit." Varric swore. "Blighted stubborn witches."

"The Champion…" Cassandra began. Varric looked up, disgruntled.

"Said she's gonna come last. Something about destiny and what's in her fucking cards."

Maria peered out of the darkness, watched Dorian emerge yet again. He said something to Hawke, Hawke returned his answer, but Maria's eyes fixed on Bea instead. Her hands had stopped across the square, too still in the air above the cannisters. Then she watched Bea thrust her palm out to Hawke, a clear signal to be still. Hawke stiffened, Dorian following her lead.

Maria heard it before she saw it. The crash of something gigantic against concrete. She felt the vibrations under her feet and watched, breathless, as something massive came around the broad avenue's corner, lurching into the square. The creature's head, or at least she assumed it was a head, moved from side to side warily, scanning the square.

It was a behemoth made of red lyrium, as tall as three human's standing on each other's shoulders, with a massive club of red lyrium on the end of it's arm. The other, she noticed with a chill, ended in a wicked point. Somehow, by the grace of the Maker or fucking Andraste herself, it missed the three figures that flattened themselves against the old stone walls. Instead, dark eye sockets latched onto the shadows of the alley. It took one giant, slow step forward, eyes staring into the blackness.

Maria swore it was looking right at her. The grotesque sockets that held what, she assumed, passed for its eyes looked as if they'd been gauged in the crystal. Maria felt an arm snake around her waist from behind, Varric's breath against her ear. "Don't move." He hissed.

She couldn't, even if she wanted to. The only thing she could hear was her heart pounding in between her ears. Varric's chest was flush against her back, and a part of her noted in a hysterical, snarky way that she needed to quit getting pressed against him only in these terrifying, near-death experiences.

It knew she was there. It fucking knew, and she didn't know how it knew, but it knew. It knew and it was going to kill them.

"You are so not what we ordered. Where did you come from? Can you go back before we make a mess?"

Varric's grip around Maria's waist tightened and he heard him growl both Hawke's name and a rather creative combination of expletives.

"We need to move, Varric." Cassandra snapped quietly.

"No." Maria couldn't leave them. "What kills them? What…"

"Not much." Varric muttered.

The behemoth swung around and took huge, lumbering steps toward the voice. Maria could see in between it's misshapen legs the three figures against the wall. Hawke and Dorian to one side, Bea still beside the canisters where she could remain, hopefully, unnoticed.

The creature reared back its head and roared. Cassandra swore an oath and brought her gun up, pointing not to the behemoth, but to the gates where figures were beginning to move, to look at the intruders by the wall.

But not at the alley. Not at them. They, Maria thought coldly, were shadowed in darkness and safe. Half of their team…

Her baby sister…

As if Bea knew how Maria's thoughts had swung, she looked past the behemoth to the dark alley. Maria knew Bea couldn't see into the shadows, knew that she was as hidden from her sister as she was from the Venatori raising the alarm.

But she could see Beatrix. She saw the flash of determination in the strong lift of her chin, the way she pulled the pistol from her pocket. Bea's hands didn't shake, the movement was as graceful as one of her dances.

Maria opened her mouth to scream, but Varric's hand was over her mouth before she could draw breath, muffling her attempt to say something or do anything. She twisted against the solid prison of his arms, jerking even as he held her tighter. Panic fluttered to the forefront of her mind, made her remember the nightmare where Dwyka's hand turned to demon's claws and tore her mouth, made her think of all the times she'd been held down, pinned beneath his bulk, and she needed to be free, she needed…

She needed her sister. She needed to save her sister.

Bea said something, but Maria didn't hear it even though Bea's eyes were locked in her direction. Maria's baby sister had a gun in her hand, but all she could remember was holding that hand when they crossed Ostwick's streets on the way home from school, in the hospital as Nanna lay dying.

She remembered Bea's hands shaking while she wiped blood from Maria's face and swore she'd kill him, she'd kill him if he touched her again while Maria reminded her they didn't have a choice, they didn't have a choice, they didn't…

Bea looked past the behemoth into the shadows while she aimed her gun at the canisters. Her left hand reached to curl around the police badge hanging from her neck. Maria had just enough time to wonder if she held the gun the same way their father had when he put it to his head.

Then Bea pulled the trigger.

xx

Varric eulogized them all when they died. He had a journal full of names, dates, and a few sentences. Cole died trapped in a school bus full of children when they fled Haven. He heard from the kids they managed to pull out before the flames consumed it that he sang them lullabies while they burned. Rivaini, laid to rest in the sea she loved, free to travel its currents for all of time. Fenris, the man who learned to love what he'd been taught to hate and fear. Sunshine, their sweet Sunshine who never hurt anyone and was buried clutching at the last few daisies they could find.

Bianca died rather than abandon her technical lab like a captain going down with the ship. The last message she sent into the ether telling him she was sorry about Rivain, but she wouldn't make it.

And in his head, he added one more. Beatrix Grace Cadash, who died brave. Beatrix Cadash, who let the red lyrium seep into her veins, but never turned on him like his brother had. Beatrix Cadash, who died to save her sister.

Varric's throat burned and he wanted to look away, but he didn't. He owed her this silent witnessing of her own destruction. If his fate was to bear testament to their end, then damnit, he'd do it. He'd fucking do it. It didn't take much to ignite the tanks, but he knew it wouldn't. They caught blaze immediately, the spark from the gun all it took. Or perhaps, if it wasn't the spark, it was certainly when the bullet pierced the first tank. He was sure there was a reaction, one colliding with another, then another, all of them combining to send a fireball larger than anything Hawke ever summoned into the sky. But his eyes weren't fast enough to catch it. To him, it all happened at once. The explosion that toppled the behemoth and cracked its crystalline form also blew a hole into the walls of Redcliffe, sent a cloud of smoke billowing above. Varric could feel the heat of it against his face.

And in his arms, Maria's struggles ceased. He honestly didn't quite know how he'd managed to keep a hold of her beyond sheer determination, if he lived through this day he'd have bruises tomorrow for sure. He couldn't see Maria's eyes, but he knew they'd been open. He knew she hadn't looked away.

He knew it because he felt the wail behind the palm he'd clamped over her mouth. Felt the sobs begin to shake her form, felt the despair vibrate through her.

"Varric..."

And he closed his eyes, relieved in spite of the horror, that Hawke's voice was behind him. He'd hoped. He'd fucking hoped that they'd seen what Bea was about to do, that they'd take the chance she afforded them with her sacrifice. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Varric." Hawke whispered.

"Fasta vass." Sparkler's voice shook. "Venhedis, I…"

They needed to go. Now, before they lost what little head start and surprise they had. He knew it. He turned to look over his shoulder at Hawke as Maria Cadash fell apart in his arms. He needed to blink the tears out of his own eyes to focus on her properly. Hawke stared past him, Loki at her heels, jaw trembling with suppressed emotion.

"Was she herself?" Cassandra asked quietly. "At the end, was she…"

"Yes." Hawke answered, the fire reflecting madly in her eyes. "She said, she said… it's better this way."

And in his heart, Varric knew Bea hadn't been wrong. She had died herself in spite of the red lyrium in her veins. Wholly aware of who she was, what she was doing, and why. That's why she didn't look away from the shadows, as if she strained for one last glimpse of them before she died.

"We need to move." Varric whispered the words against Maria's neck, loosening his palm over her lips. "We can save her, but we have to keep moving. You've got to stick with us."

He fought the urge to press his lips against her temple. She turned, shaking, to stare into his eyes. Her own were pools of raw, angry devastation, rimmed in tears that hadn't fallen yet. They screamed, silently, in horror. Then she closed them, the silver tears that gathered on her lashes finally sliding past them.

Varric had promised, a year before, one thing to Maria Cadash's ghost. He swore he'd keep her sister safe and he'd failed, just like he failed to save her the first time.

He couldn't fail her again. If he loved her, he couldn't.

She ripped herself out of his arms, twisting to take one last look at the flames, the rubble that had become Bea's cairn. He remembered, vividly, Maria looking up at those gates with a haunted, heavy expression before they left it the first time. Like some part of her knew, like some part of her saw it.

"It should have been me." She whispered to the flames. "It should have always been me."

Getting to the hotel through the alleys was made easier, undoubtedly, by the fact it seemed everyone rushed towards the gates of Redcliffe, the commotion drawing Venatori to the sight of the disaster just like they hoped. The beaten, scarred building loomed over an empty avenue. Two guards still stood by the front door, but Varric knew better than to go through the front.

Thank the Maker he'd been so thorough about pulling data during their first cursed trips into Redcliffe. And thank Andraste's sweet tits he'd been able to pull enough electricity to power everything up and look one last time before this last foray, their slapstick rescue mission turned redemption.

The kitchen door was padlocked, but Hawke and her zippo made quick work of it. She melted it down and they stepped over the sizzling puddle of iron when Cassandra shoved the door open. Varric took one step into the room and, rather quickly, wished he fucking hadn't. The kitchen was a modern, industrial nightmare. Sleek, stainless steel ran from one edge of the long space to the other. Nobody had been using it to cook food at any time recently, Varric hoped, judging by the stench. On one of the shiny prep areas, a torso missing all extremities sat like a ghoulish movie prop. A long, horrific slash through the skin exposed intestines, muscle, bone. Flies buzzed above it and Varric saw what he assumed was a human heart on a scale next to it.

"Blood magic." Hawke blanched in the fluorescent light, the flame on her zippo burning a bit hotter and larger. "What in Thedas were they trying to do here? It's like a fucking murder pinata."

Dorian fluttered past, drawn to sigils in blood on the walls above them. He peered at it with disgust, shaking his head. "They're trying to… go back in time themselves. Unsuccessfully, it looks like."

Dorian pointed to another section of the wall where the bloody sigils had been smeared out. "They can't go far enough. It looks like… it looks like they want to go back to before the vortex occurred. But they can't because…. Because…"

Dorian's eyes flashed with a burst of understanding and her whirled to Varric, but his eyes were on the silent, haunted figure behind him. "Because, my dear, the vortex is powering the time magic. If we get you back, if we close it, they'll be unable to attempt this inane scheme ever again."

"Why go back to before the vortex?" Cassandra snapped uneasily, her gun pointed at the torso despite the fact it was rather too late for it to put up much of a fight.

"Because I wasn't supposed to be there."

Maria hadn't spoken since her last words at her sister's sacrifice turned pyre. Her voice, cracked and weary, sounded lifeless. Maria held Dorian's gaze, unblinking. "I got in their way and they didn't get what they wanted. I wasn't supposed to be there."

"The Maker put you there." Cassandra declared with the utmost conviction.

Maria's red rimmed eyes swung to the Seeker and she gestured with her pistol, to the torso cut open before them, the blood splattered over every surface. "Did the Maker do this?"

A hollow, defeated question. And yet, Cassandra's faith didn't waver. Varric never saw it waver. The Seeker stared down Maria with fiery determination. "And the Maker sent you to fix it."

The words were barely out of Cassandra's mouth and Maria's jaw was trembling, her hands shaking where they clenched around her pistol. "I barely remember my mother because she died when a drunk driver didn't fucking stop at a crosswalk."

"The Maker…" Cassandra broke in, but Maria didn't stop. It was as if she couldn't stop.

"My father put a bullet in his brain and my grandmother's cancer came from the fucking mausoleums full of tainted ground and useless ancestors she felt the need to honor. My husband bled to death in my arms and my sister…" Maria choked on that word, choked on all the grief and pain. Her eyes closed and she spat out the next words like they were poison. "Everyone who ever loved me is dead. What does the Maker have to say about that?"

The words rolled to a stop in the bloodstained kitchen, rife with the stench of malevolent magic. Any answer Cassandra could give would be nothing more than empty platitude, a prayer on deaf ears.

"Then make them pay." Hawke whispered from where she stared at the bloody sigils, her hands curled into fist and her face set in a grimace. "Turn your grief into fury and burn them. Make them regret it. Make them sorry for every single drop of blood they spilled. And when you stand in front of the Maker, spit in his damn face."

When they emerged from the kitchen, they found the ground floor deserted. They couldn't trust the elevators, anything that ran on electricity was probably fucked and in a place saturated with as much malevolent magic as this damn hotel…. Well, they'd be lucky if the elevators didn't open up to the void itself.

But the stairs were nearby and also, thankfully, abandoned. They made it up three floors before they ran into their first issue, and of course it was the fucking red lyrium. Shards of it turned the staircase into an unnavigable obstacle course of poison. "Blow it up?" Hawke suggested tersely.

"Too much noise." Varric muttered. "And we can't risk infecting these two."

"Red hasn't ever been my color." Dorian peered through the dirty glass window on the door leading to the third floor. "This hallway is dark, but I am not sensing anything more dangerous than the lyrium."

"There's another staircase on the other side of the building." Varric felt a twinge of pain in his head as he struggled to remember his blueprints. "The hallways curves left and should get us there."

"I'm inspired by your confidence." Hawke muttered.

He opened his mouth to tell her to bite his dwarven ass, but before he could Maria shoved Dorian out of the way and opened the hallway door, gun drawn. She paused in the darkness, peering down the long corridor before she stepped forward.

Varric fought the urge to reach out and haul her back into the stairwell. He'd forgotten this reckless side of her, and how it was certainly going to give him ulcers. He saw his thoughts mirrored immediately in Cassandra as she too shoved out the door to their Herald's side. "What are you doing?" The Seeker hissed.

"Moving." Maria replied numbly. Varric pinched the bridge of his nose while the rest of the group slid out after the other two women.

"You missed your cue, y'know." Hawke said softly.

"Never missed a cue in my life." He mumbled, stepping out into the eerie, quiet darkness. He tried not to shiver when he felt Hawke's hot breath on his ear, her hand sliding something into his coat pocket.

"There's one person left in this world that loves her." Hawke whispered. "And we both know it."

In a less life-or-death situation, he'd have elbowed her right in the stomach. As it was, he couldn't help his sarcastic response. "Oh, right. Directly over the disemboweled torso in the b-grade horror film downstairs. Your idea of romance, as always, is interesting to say the least."

Hawke just sighed. The sound almost covered the sound of something skittering in the darkness. Almost.

"That sounds charming." Dorian stopped in front of them so suddenly Varric nearly ran into the man's ass.

Hawke held her zippo up above his head and clicked it. The flame that sparked, far brighter than any flame had a right to be from a shitty lighter, threw the scene into sharp relief. Their small group huddled in the center of the hallway, Maria in the lead with Cassandra beside her.

The skittering was coming from above them, and slowly they all raised their heads to the ceiling. What he saw made him want to vomit. There were pieces of meat, probably human, hanging above them. Clinging to them were monsters that looked nearly like spiders, except instead of eyes they had nothing but gaping maws full of hundreds of sharp, pointed teeth.

The light seemed to have frozen them, but only for a second, the same way the horror had frozen their group. One demon let out a shriek, a high pitched wail that sent the others dropping onto the hallway floor, skittering across the ceiling, down the walls, each easily the size of the human torso downstairs.

Maria reacted first, her reflexes quickened by the fear plastered over her face. The one nearest to her received a bullet right in its maw and it dropped, splattering acidic blood that left the carpet at her feet smoking.

"Move!" Cassandra ordered, taking aim at another of the creatures. More were pouring in from the doors lining the hallways.

"Hawke…" Varric leveled his shotgun at one next to him. "Fire would be good right about now."

"Spiders." Varric couldn't spare the time to look into her face, but he knew she was shades too pale without even seeing her. "Why is it always…"

And with that, he heard the crackling in her hand grow, the whoosh of fire spreading. "DUCK!" He yelled, hitting one of the creatures with the butt of his shotgun as it approached.

The fireball that roared past sent the lucky creatures fleeing back into their rooms. The unlucky ones dropped, screaming in protest as they turned to cinders. Still, Varric could hear more skittering closer, drawn by the light, the noise, the smell of fresh meat.

So he did the only rational thing his mind could think to do. He shoved forward until he was beside Maria, her wide gray eyes as panic stricken as he knew Hawke's were.

"Run!" He roared taking her arm and pulling. "Go!"