Notes: Thank you so much for all the interest and support for this story!

I apologize for one thing about this chapter, namely that it doesn't contain what you were probably hoping it would. That's coming, though!

I'm introducing an AU mini-plot about the house, Gamlen's behavior, and Meredith's influence on Dumar in this chapter, as you will see.

Chapter 17: Home Is Where Heartache Isn't

The group marched into the house together. Caitlyn made sure to place Mal on his pallet and close the bedroom door behind her so that he could sleep, but that already seemed in danger. It appeared to her as if her mother and her uncle had been arguing again; her mother looked defeated and near tears, while Gamlen glowered at her. A surge of anger filled her at the sight, and any possibility of being diplomatic about the will vanished. Yes, this might come to shouting...

"Well," she said, her voice cold, "we just got back from the family estate, after recovering Grandfather's will, and"—she gazed at her uncle with contempt—"it contains some very interesting information." She nodded to her brother, who stormed over to their mother and handed the document to her.

Leandra unrolled the scroll and began to read it. When she reached the pertinent parts, her face curdled into a combination of fury and melancholy.

"They didn't die angry at me," she murmured, her eyes momentarily brimming with tears, but only briefly. She whirled on her brother with a vengeance. "They left it to me—and you burned through it after they were gone!"

Caitlyn could hardly believe her eyes. This was her mother, actually taking on Gamlen?

He, for his part, looked like the child with his hands in the cookie jar. He could not dispute the contents of the will or her charge against him, so instead, he turned on his niece and nephew. "You went in there and—what? Murdered a bunch of people to get it, I'd bet! What am I going to do now if the City Guard come down on us all—or the Templars?" he added with a glare at Caitlyn and Anders.

Carver balled his fists, ready to have it out once and for all. A small flare formed in Caitlyn's right hand and vanished into the air. "That is one of the most transparent attempts to deflect guilt that I have ever seen," she replied to him. "The people in there, as you pointed out earlier, were a slaver gang. You think that the good folk of Hightown will complain to the guard about the 'murder' of their benevolent, harmless neighbors?" She stormed ahead until she was inches away from him and jabbed him in the chest with her finger. "You can have nothing to say for yourself now. You stole Mother's home. The least you can do is be silent about it and accept that we've found you out!" Furiously, she sneered at him, then tried to still her rage as she addressed her mother. "Perhaps you can petition for an audience with the Viscount now," she suggested. "Request in writing an audience with him where you could present him with the will and ask for the house and title, at least, to be reinstated." She gave another incensed glare to her uncle. "The rest of the fortune can't be recovered, of course, but you might at least be able to have the house."

Still stunned from the contents of the will, Leandra waited a moment before nodding, looking overwhelmed. "Yes," she said, her voice taking on a tone of purpose and resolve that Caitlyn had rarely heard from her before. "You're right. I should do that."

Gamlen's attempt to change the subject and start a fight with Caitlyn, Carver, and Anders—since he obviously believed Anders to have been part of the raid—was already forgotten. He had never looked so sheepish and diminished in his niece's eyes, and she was thrilled.

I would have gone back to Anders' clinic, she thought, recalling that kiss and the underlying promise of his saucy request for her to stay the night, but he won't have the pleasure of driving me out of this house tonight. She stole a glance at Anders. He looked mildly dashed that she seemed set on staying here tonight, but he was also visibly pleased for her family.

Feeling bold, she took Anders' hand. "Would you stay the night?" she asked him, gazing into his eyes. She did mean the devotion implied in her body language, but she also wanted to flaunt her affections before her uncle, who had had such a problem with them.

I wanted her badly, he thought for a second, and we can't take each other here... but I can control myself. "Of course, love," he replied.

Gamlen did not dare comment, though he was visibly irritated at the territory game that his niece was playing. Leandra heard the last word and her face lit up, an expression that broadened even more when the young couple shared another sweet, if brief, kiss in front of everyone.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Are you truly back together now?"

Anders tightened his grip around her waist and smiled at Leandra. "We are." He gazed at Caitlyn, brows quirked. "Aren't we? I haven't presumed too much, have I?" he teased her.

She laughed and wrapped her own arms loosely around him. "Yes we are, and incidentally, you haven't presumed enough."

She was not actually sure what, specifically, she meant by that, if she meant anything specific at all, but from the way Anders' eyes popped open in surprise, it was clear what meaning he took from it—and he was shocked that she would hint at that in front of her relatives.

Leandra completely missed the salacious interpretation of her daughter's words, however. She was manifestly delighted at the news.

So was Caitlyn. She realized, with some surprise—she had almost forgotten what this was like—that she was feeling happy again, and not just about the possibility of the fine house. That helped, quite a bit, but ultimately it was just the possible culmination of something she had planned soberly for a year. She was happy mostly because it made her happy to be with Anders. It even... made her less angry, she realized, or at least, less filled with unfocused anger or anger directed at comparatively petty slights. Her sense of rage—injustice, she thought wryly—at the system that had hurt them both would never go away, but that was different, and it did not threaten her relationship with him or her happiness. Having this with him again helped to calm her anger about lesser things. We really will raise our child together as well, she thought. It was not too late for Mal to grow up seeing what I saw with my own parents, and he will have that. And if I have made Anders happy by being with him, being affectionate to him, supporting him, teaming up with him for our people, then that gives me joy too.

For the first time since she had come to Kirkwall, it truly seemed that things were beginning to turn around. After a very subdued late-night meal and dips in the washtub for the three who had been out, she was ready for sleep. She pulled Anders onto the pallet and nestled close to him that night, rubbing his back and running her fingers through his hair to lull him to sleep and make sure he knew how much she cared for him. It seemed to her that her unwarranted anger at him really had dissipated, and what had replaced it was not a crippling guilt that would block the relationship, but a desire to make it up to him—her own mistreatment, but also, the suffering he had endured for so long.

Beside her—cuddling her—he understood what she was doing and correctly guessed her reasons. It was wonderful to have her next to him as he slept once again, and to know that they had a future after all. Maker help him, but it was also nice just to have the warm body of someone he cared for next to him to cuddle through the night. There had been nobody since Karl, and he had realized that it was also thus for her—possibly, in her case, even longer, unless she had let Leliana spend the night in the Hawke cabin. It was all very pleasant—but on this particular night, Anders had to try not to let it become torture instead. He had wanted her, back in the clinic. He had meant for her to stay the night, and for the two of them to have become lovers again. If he focused too hard on what had not happened, their cuddling would become torturous.

The occasional allusions of the other Wardens to "Warden stamina" in bed were alien to him thus far. He was also rather skeptical, since Oghren had been the one who made that particular reference most of the time—but Nathaniel Howe had once chimed in that there seemed to be something to it, so Anders could not dismiss it altogether. However, it wasn't something he had had the chance to experience. He hadn't thought about it much at the time; his days in Amaranthine serving the Wardens were a blur of depression, duty, fighting, and survival—physical and emotional—and desire had not had any space to breathe in that mix. Even if he had wanted to pursue one-night lovers or even outright sex-for-hire in Amaranthine, which he simply could not while his mind was fixed upon reuniting with Caitlyn and then—at the last—Karl, he doubted he could have "performed" well. Depression above all had killed that drive for him at the time... but that was different now, and he was now rather interested in finding out if Grey Wardens really did have extra stamina between the sheets. She would like it if he did, wouldn't she? He hoped so.

Not tonight, though, he told himself, trying to still these thoughts. He could not act on them here, so it was best not to stir them up. He and Caitlyn were together now; they would have other opportunities.

Leandra sent a formal request for an audience with Viscount Dumar the following day. No one expected to hear back from him immediately, and in any case, other matters soon consumed Caitlyn and her companions—much to Anders' dismay. These matters kept her from having any time to even talk about moving in with him again.

Caitlyn had urged Merrill to act as a leader in the elven alienage, rather than to seclude herself in her house with her cursed mirror and blood magic. Part of it was to keep her busy with something other than chatting with a pride demon for advice on repairing the mirror, but she also really did think that her friend should do this for the other elves. Before she was exiled from her clan, she had been training to be a leader, a Keeper. She should do this, although her "clan" would now be different—and furthermore, the more Caitlyn saw of the alienage, the more appalled she became.

Poverty and unemployment were just as widespread there as they were among the Fereldan refugees, and apparently for the same reason: Kirkwall bigotry against them rather than any actual deficiency in their abilities. The Chantry did have collections for the poor, or so it claimed—it certainly solicited coin that allegedly was for the poor—but Caitlyn had never spoken to a single Fereldan or elf who had ever received any charity from the Kirkwall Chantry. The reason that the shopkeeper Lirene had given her, bitterly, was not that the Grand Cleric didn't care, but that she was a very weak person who allowed a small group of powerful people in the city to bully her and self-righteously consoled herself that it was holier to be meek than combative.

Caitlyn did wonder if that were truly the case, since she was officially in charge of Meredith Stannard and had apparently not stirred to stop the Knight-Commander from illegally making Karl Tranquil. But whether it was weakness or complicity, it was worse than exasperating, and Caitlyn privately resolved after hearing it that once she became a Hawke of Hightown, she would lobby hard for a replacement Grand Cleric once she knew who might be a possibility and she had a candidate she could live with.

For now, Merrill was her eyes and ears in the alienage. It was a good idea, and Caitlyn was glad she had tasked her friend with this once Merrill reported that there had been a couple of elves who had expressed interest in the Qunari occupying a compound in the Docks district, and specifically, who had the idea their lives might be better off under the Qun.

Caitlyn had her own opinions of the Qun philosophy and specifically the Qunari implementation of it in their homeland, and only one opinion of hers was charitable. It was good to hold that everyone deserved work that was well-suited to their abilities, she had to acknowledge—but in practice, they did not follow that ideal. Mages among the Qunari were chained around the neck, their mouths sewn shut, the horns on their heads that their race usually had sawed off. They were not educated or allowed to do any practical magic or healing, but were merely used as blunt-force weapons in battle. It was almost as bad as the Rite of Tranquility, and worse in some ways, because even the Tranquil could read, study, manage shops, and craft with raw lyrium. The very name for mages in the Qunari language meant "dangerous thing," illustrating that they were seen as things and not people. Then there were the Qunari beliefs that women should not fight, that it was all right for the state to designate certain women for mandatory breeding—state-enforced rape, in her opinion—and that families and romantic love were low and base, not allowed in the Qunari homeland.

No—the Qun had absolutely nothing to offer Caitlyn or anyone like her, and she was glad that Merrill was keeping an eye on those who might be enticed by it, since there was a contingent of Qunari residing in the city for some unknown reason. Caitlyn had urged Merrill to counsel the elves against it, too, emphasizing the Qun's prohibition on marriage and family, since the alienage elves feared magic and might not be swayed by that argument. For now, she hoped that Merrill's influence would improve alienage life at least somewhat. She had urged Anders to teach the elf the basic healing spells if the elves did not feel comfortable venturing into Darktown to see him.

Merrill was also keeping an eye on other matters. She had come to Caitlyn with news that an elven woman was harboring her apostate mage son Feynriel—who was not an elf, since his father had been human—but that the young man's nightmares were starting to frighten her. This had led to what Caitlyn initially came to fear was a trap or a wild-goose chase, involving questioning the young man's merchant father, a surprisingly mage-sympathetic Templar named Ser Thrask, a former Templar who apparently aided runaway apostates, a ship captain who turned out to be a slave broker, and—at last—the slaver himself, leading to a fight. In the end, Caitlyn, Anders, Merrill, and Varric had urged the young mage to seek out the Dalish clan, where he wanted to go rather than the Circle of Magi. He hoped that he would be welcome there because of his magical talent and elven blood, even though he looked entirely human. Unhappily, Merrill privately confided to Caitlyn that he very well might be, since the Keeper, her former teacher, no longer had a pupil to train to carry on her legacy.

At least some coin had come of the adventure, plus the satisfaction of keeping at least one mage from the clutches of Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard—and a very interesting letter that explained exactly why the first Templar, Ser Thrask, was sympathetic to an apostate mage.

"The hypocrite!" Anders exclaimed upon reading the letter. "He had a secret apostate daughter whom he protected from the Circle, while being party to locking up other people's daughters—other people's sons!" He, or Justice, felt a pang of righteous outrage at the thought of Mal in that place. It would never happen, he vowed again to himself.

Caitlyn saw it differently. "His daughter is dead because she tried to flee Kirkwall and got captured by that slaver we killed. You heard Thrask after he learned where we sent Feynriel. He said that the Dalish train mages at least as well as the Circle, and in fact seem to have far fewer abominations. I think he's all right, Anders—I really do."

"He is still a Templar. He is part of that system, part of Meredith Stannard's Circle."

"He must think that he can better protect the mages in the Circle from her by being there to check the bad ones among the ranks. Yes, the entire system should be changed—but I honestly think he can be trusted. He did protect his own apostate daughter, but he's sent other apostates to his former colleague too."

"Who then directed them to slavers and slave brokers."

"He didn't know that was going on. My point is, I think Thrask is truly all right and it's not just that he thinks all mages except his blood should be treated a certain way. He's been kind to others too. Maybe he is like the one Carver was named for, the one who helped my parents escape."

Anders breathed heavily. If he were honest with himself, part of this reaction was the spark of jealousy at the fact that she was singing praises of this man—and his increasingly pent-up frustration that they still had not gone to bed again yet. "What exactly do you have in mind for him?" he managed.

"A source of information about the goings-on in Meredith Stannard's own territory," she said, "and, potentially, an ally among the Templars who wants to see the Circles changed. His daughter died trying to get out of this city, because she didn't think she could live here safely as a mage. He is mourning now, but that could motivate him greatly later." She sighed. "I don't like Templars as a rule either, Anders," she said, touching his arm gently. "I realize exactly what they did to us."

"You didn't suffer directly at their hands as I did," he whispered. "They wouldn't let me write to my mother or read letters from her or keep anything of hers except a pillow. She had to have a dying priest smuggle me her ring. They blasted me to the ground when I was trying to honor your father. They cut my arm and took my blood. They locked me in a room for a full year, with no company. They tried to destroy the spirit that saved my life multiple times over. And they made my best friend Tranquil."

Her heart went out to him, and she instantly folded her arms around him gently, resting her head on his shoulder. "I know," she said. "I know you suffered much more than I did—which is why I must be the one to take on anything political to do with them, any cultivating of allies among them. I don't ask you to be a part of that if it's too much—but I do think I have to. It won't be easy for me either... but it will be easier for me than for you."

He returned her embrace, resting his head gently on top of hers. She was right, he knew—despite Vengeance-Justice's drive to kill every single Templar in Thedas, Anders knew that it couldn't be done. The Templar Order existed and had to be dealt with. He recalled his own classification of them into three groups: the Rolans and Merediths who despised their charges; the bulk of them who saw mages as inherently weak and the system as necessary but did not take joy in it; and... he supposed... the Thrasks. He had always distrusted those in Ferelden who seemed too friendly with mages, but perhaps if it was not just useless, potentially predatory chumminess... Thrask did help harmless apostates, after all, and seemed to have no problem with a mage living outside the Circle as long as that mage got proper training from somewhere. Perhaps he might even be persuadable to the idea that apprentices who did have to be trained away from their families, because they had no one who could teach them, could be allowed to leave once they had learned how to control their magic. The Templar had not exhibited any hostility or suspicion toward Anders either, respecting him as a trusted Grey Warden. I suppose the true test will come if he ever sees Caitlyn doing magic, he thought direly.

And that, he realized with a start, was the rest of his dissatisfaction with this. It was true that he didn't personally want to deal with any of them except in combat, even a mage-sympathetic one; it was as though the symbol of the Templar Order itself set him off to some degree. But he was also worried for Caitlyn. If she was wrong that Thrask could be trusted—if her inclination to turn him into an information source and an ally exploded in her face as soon as she cast a spell in his sight—

Then I will kill him. Or I will do as she permitted me and conscript her into the Wardens, he thought grimly. They will never take her away or Mal, ever.

He hugged her tightly. "Just be careful," he burst out.

She understood at once and squeezed him back. "I will."

Anders continued to be frustrated in his wish to rekindle the intimate part of their relationship. Caitlyn spent the night at her family's house night after night, perhaps out of a determinedly dutiful attempt to retain the familial relationships that she still had. He hoped that it was that, rather than that his place in Darktown was so unpleasant that she never wanted to lie down there ever again—though he sadly granted that as a possibility. He stayed in Lowtown with her, sleeping cuddled against her on the little mattress on the floor, but there was little that they could do with Leandra's bed on one side and Mal's on the other.

There was also little opportunity during the waking hours. She and her brother went on jobs frequently, to scrape together every bit of coin that they could while also doing a vigilante's part to reduce crime in Kirkwall—since the Viscount and other authorities have so little interest in doing so, he thought darkly—and so her visits to his clinic were usually not alone. If Anders had not been determined to sleep beside her at night, he would have considered staying in the clinic alone to see to his personal needs. He couldn't understand how she was tolerating that herself, in fact. Surely she did, in fact, want him too? Though if she doesn't want that yet, it would explain why she doesn't want to come back to the clinic, he thought.

It would happen when it happened, he resolved. He had waited four years for her. He could wait a few days—or weeks—longer.

Anders was working in the clinic and watching Mal while Caitlyn and Carver went out with two of their companions to clear out a gang at the Docks. It had gone well, with no one suffering a serious injury that needed attention, so they had not needed to pay him a visit afterward, and Caitlyn did not want to cut short Mal's time observing his father work as a Healer, since that interested him so much. Thus Anders was not present at the Amell-Hawke house for what followed.

After parting with Aveline and Varric at the pub, the siblings returned to the house and stepped inside. They instantly realized something was wrong at the sight of their mother, bent over on the divan, her hands over her face, while Uncle Gamlen stood beside the wall looking sheepish and, for once, guilty.

Carver was about to go to him to ask what had happened, not wanting to upset their mother further, but Leandra rose up at the sound of the door. She gazed tearily at her children.

"The Viscount's seneschal replied to my petition for an audience," she whispered. She shook her head. "He... rejected it."

Caitlyn and Carver were horrified. "He wouldn't even agree to a hearing?" she burst out. "Why?"

Leandra shook her head again. "The letter was very simple. He gave no reason, just a refusal. I... don't understand. The Amells were a noble family of Kirkwall, and very recently. Gamlen himself held the title and mansion until a few years ago." She sighed heavily and covered her face again.

Caitlyn picked up the letter that was unfolded beside her mother on the divan. She read it, and it was as her mother had described: a very simple, curt, formal refusal of her petition to be heard. If Caitlyn had to guess, she would have doubted that Viscount Dumar had even seen her mother's petition, for the very reason that her mother had just stated: The Amells had been nobility. Someone else is seeing to the Viscount's business, apparently with his permission—the letter did bear the official seal of Kirkwall—and making decisions without consulting him, or perhaps without telling him the truth about what people are asking of him. Who, though? And why would Mother have been rejected?

She passed the letter wordlessly to her brother, who read it quickly and then almost crumpled it in his hand before smoothing it out and tossing it to the floor contemptuously. "Dumar, or whoever is managing his affairs for him, must have a prejudice against Fereldans," Carver spat. "I can't think of any other reason to refuse to even hear you."

"I am not Fereldan by birth," Leandra began to protest.

"But you married a Fereldan man and had children who have lived in Ferelden all their lives until a year ago," Caitlyn said. "Carver may be right, Mother."

"But this means that you and Carver really will have to go into the Deep Roads to buy it back," she said miserably. "Oh, my dears—I didn't want you to have to do that, I truly did not."

Caitlyn sighed. She had allowed herself to get her hopes up as well, and now they were dashed. She and Carver shared a quick glance before sitting down on either side of their mother. "It's all right," she reassured the older woman. "We'll be fine."

"They're the Deep Roads," she exclaimed. "There is nothing 'fine' about that!"

"The Blight never crossed the Waking Sea," she said, "and Bartrand Tethras will have plenty of support in any case. It'll be fine. We'll get the house back; we'll just have to do it the hard way."

A knock sounded on the door. "That's Anders and Mal," Caitlyn said, rising to let them in.

Leandra ran her fingers through her silver hair. "I hate to be so rude," she mumbled, "but I just need to go to bed. Please make my apologies for me, Cait—you don't mind, do you? I hope he won't mind either..."

"I am certain that he won't," she reassured her mother as she let them inside.

Mal was drowsy and ready to go to sleep after briefly playing with the dog. While he did, Caitlyn explained to Anders in a low voice what had just happened.

Anders had a different theory as to why the Viscount's people had refused Leandra. "It might be anti-Fereldan bigotry," he said with a nod to Carver, "but it might also be that someone there has a problem with mages. It's widely known in Kirkwall that your father was a mage, after all, even if they don't know that you are one."

"Or a combination of both," she said, groaning. She heaved a sigh. "All right. We'll have to follow the original plan."

It was to be another night of frustration, Anders recognized. She absolutely would not be in the mood tonight, after a blow like this, but he could not leave her after such a disappointment either.

Caitlyn poured herself into her work, determined to acquire the buy-in coin for the Tethras expedition more than ever. The next job that came her way was from the moderate Templar who had supported mages, Ser Thrask. Apparently the Circle of Magi at Starkhaven had burned, and a group of mages had escaped in the chaos and were believed to be hiding near Kirkwall. A mage-hating extremist named Karras was on their trail, Thrask told Caitlyn and her associates—who included Anders at this particular time, since he was unable to turn aside from a case involving mages. If this Ser Karras caught the group of apostates first, they would be punished severely, probably made Tranquil, and possibly killed outright, whereas Thrask sympathized with them and would take them under his wing.

In the system of caves where the apostates were hiding, Anders confronted Caitlyn. "Are you really going to hand these mages over to that Templar?" he asked her in a low voice, eliciting a glare from Carver at the question.

"I don't know," she confessed. "I'd rather not, if we can contrive a way to avoid it. I agree with you that even if Thrask is a good man, he is not the Knight-Commander, and he doesn't have any authority over what other Templars do—let alone Circle policies. And for all we know, this Ser Karras is going to be waiting for us outside the cave when we come out. He is on their trail."

After an encounter with a single mage named Alain who was disillusioned with his fellows and wanted to go to the Circle with Thrask, a fight involving the leader of the group who had turned to blood magic, and a bargain with the lieutenant, Grace, to lie to the Templars that the mages were all killed, that was exactly what Caitlyn and her associates found when they returned to the mouth of the cave. Thrask was surrounded by Karras and a pack of apparently like-minded Templars, who made it very clear that they intended to kill all the apostates as he had feared.

Caitlyn cast Anders an uneasy glance. This was exactly the kind of situation that would cause Justice to burst out. So far, though, the spirit was staying in the background—or Anders was controlling it just enough.

She was concerned about the numbers and makeup of her team against a group of Templars. In addition to Anders and Carver, and the extra mage Alain, Merrill was with them, and a Holy Smite from a Templar might incapacitate all four of the mages, leaving Carver to fight alone unless Thrask took their side. She didn't want to risk that... but informing Karras that her team was there on Ser Thrask's behalf was exactly the wrong thing to say. Thrask was soft, Thrask favored mages, Thrask was a traitor to the Templar Order—Caitlyn knew as soon as the man's face curdled with rage that this was going to come to a fight.

It was a brutal, ugly, difficult battle. Merrill used blood magic against Karras and his group more than once, and Caitlyn desperately hoped that Alain and Thrask—who were both fighting with her—did not notice, or that Merrill's Dalish variant of it was different enough that it was not obvious what it was. Thrask did recognize from the elven tattoos on her face that Merrill was a Dalish mage, and he seemed to have no problem with that. He also, she realized, was seeing her do spells for the first time. What would come of this? When Alain went back with the Templar—assuming they won the battle—would he insist that she go along too? Would it then come to blows between him and Anders, who absolutely would not stand for it, or Carver, for that matter, who was protective too in his brash, resentful way? Would Justice come out if Thrask did try that? Caitlyn thought the odds of that were pretty good. It had to take all of Anders' willpower to keep the spirit from "helping" him in this battle right now...

Thrask went down with a nasty gash that went all the way through his right bracer. Karras then turned to Caitlyn, the most powerful mage of the remaining defenders, and engaged her. He was wounded already, however—she had to give Thrask credit for that—and she instantly took advantage of the slowness of his blows.

Carver finished off his opponent and turned to his sister to aid her. He slammed Karras with his greatsword, not cutting through the armor but stunning the man just long enough for Caitlyn to freeze him solid. Another blow from the sword ended him, and with him, the fight.

Anders was visibly resentful of it, but he managed to heal Thrask's injuries, allowing the man to get back on his feet. He grabbed his staff and held it in front of him warily, watching the Templar with suspicious eyes.

Thrask was distraught at what had just happened, both that he had killed other Templars and that it had been necessary in order to do the right thing—that the Order he had sworn himself to really had come to this, at least in some of its members. Anders clearly did not want to hear it, and turned aside in disgust to try to control himself.

At last, Caitlyn spoke up. "Well," she said crisply, "you undoubtedly noticed how I was fighting, Ser Thrask."

Anders whirled around, staff still held in front of him. "And you had best leave her be," he warned. "I will defend this woman if I must—though she's perfectly capable of defending herself, as you saw. You don't want to end up like them, I hope," he said with a sneering glance at the dead bodies of Karras and his team.

Caitlyn did not wait for Thrask to respond to this display of overt menace and aggression. It felt very strange to be the one attempting to be nice and diplomatic while Anders threatened and snarled, but it seemed that when it came to Templars, that would be the case. "You accepted Dalish-trained mages and harmless apostates who have tutors or learned how to control their magic. My father, who was a mage, trained me, and I am no more of a threat to peace than this mage who wishes to go back to the Circle with you."

"That's right," Anders said aggressively. "And furthermore—since you had a mage daughter whom you protected, so that she could live as an apostate her whole life—"

Alain looked at Thrask in surprise. "You did?"

Thrask nodded. "She is gone now, but yes, I did."

"You should know, Caitlyn and I have a child. A child who would be without his mother if you succeeded in taking her away—which, I should repeat, you won't."

Thrask sheathed his sword and held his hands out in surrender. "I have no intention of bringing you back to the Circle against your will if you are trained already and clearly are not harming anyone," he said. "I noticed that you were a mage before you entered that cave, in fact. I saw the staff on your back. Since you are a child of Malcolm Hawke, who half of Kirkwall knows about, it didn't exactly shock me." He turned to Alain. "May I have a private word with them?"

The Starkhaven mage stepped aside. "Of course."

Thrask gestured for Caitlyn and Carver—and, after a moment's thought, Anders—to draw closer. Merrill stepped back to stand near Alain, though she did not seem to want to get too close.

"I learned about what came of your mother's petition to the Viscount," he said grimly.

"Wait," Caitlyn interrupted, her mind instantly deducing a few things. "That was supposed to be private. Are you saying that the Templars have people—"

Thrask nodded. "To hold onto power and influence the direction of secular law in the city, the Knight-Commander passes herself off as the Viscount's 'friend.' She has sent some of her favorites to the Keep to 'help' him with administrative duties. The Templar who rejected your mother's petition is a zealot named Mettin, Ser Mettin, and he makes it his personal job to harass and punish 'mage-sympathetic' people wherever he thinks they may be in Kirkwall."

Caitlyn was stunned. She had entertained Anders' idea that the Viscount's people had rejected Mother's petition because of the mage blood in her children and her elopement with a mage, but she had assumed that they really were the Viscount's people. She glanced at Anders, who was breathing heavily. Very faint flashes of blue were appearing beneath his skin, and Caitlyn took his hand gently to try to calm him. The absolute last thing they needed right now was for Justice to appear. He gazed gratefully at her and squeezed her hand back.

"There is no doubt in my mind that Ser Mettin did this because of your mother's elopement twenty-odd years ago," Thrask continued. He scowled at the ground. "I became a Templar to protect mages. From themselves and from demons, so I believed at first—but as I spent more time in the service, I came to see that more often, it meant protecting mages from other people who hated mages, including, increasingly, my fellow Templars."

Anders was taken by surprise at that, but something still bothered him about Thrask's words. "Perhaps mages wouldn't need protection from other people if there weren't zealot Templars and clerics who spread lies about us," he said tightly.

Thrask sighed, unwilling to verbally assent to that, but also unwilling to disagree. "I have tried to keep watch on these zealots to the extent that I can and interfere with their plots, especially inside the Circle. Ser Mettin is one of them, at least here in Kirkwall. Karras was another, and as you saw, his preference was outright murder."

"And good riddance," Caitlyn replied, scowling. "I just hate that you'll have to give some excuse for their deaths that will make them look like heroes who died fighting against the dangerous apostates." Beside her, Anders glowered at that idea.

"There is a third 'leader' of this group, named Otto Alrik, who is... very fond of the Rite of Tranquility. I have not yet been able to prove that he abuses it..." He scowled again, rising to his feet and heading toward Alain. "Right, then. I'll keep your secrets if you'll continue to keep mine, including the knowledge that I am collecting and sharing information on other Templars."

Caitlyn thought quickly before extending her hand for Thrask to shake. Anders' eyes widened in visible alarm at this, but he apparently understood that the only alternative was to kill Thrask, and even he was not willing to do that.

Thrask and Alain headed back first, followed by Caitlyn and her companions after a period of waiting. Along the way, Anders spoke up again.

"I'm astonished that that Templar was so willing to speak against his fellows, even naming names," he remarked.

"I was surprised too," she said, "but I think he means what he says. He never hated mages, of course, but people can indeed sometimes be swayed to change their minds about something if they witness atrocities—which he must have."

"I don't want to trust any Templar," Anders continued, "but I hope I'm wrong and you're right about this one! I will fight any Templar who tries to take you away, but I also hope you're right because it is more hopeful for our cause if even one of them could be made to be more reasonable."

"I was named for a Templar who aided my parents by helping my father escape," Carver put in. "He smuggled Father's phylactery away. There are some who are all right."

"A few," Anders said grudgingly. "But there are many others who are like that Karras—or the others he named. Or the one in Ferelden who... well, you know."

"On that subject, I was expecting Justice to show up," Caitlyn said.

Anders stared ahead. "He almost did."

"I saw flashes of spirit light."

He nodded. "I was struggling to keep him from taking over. He was outraged at that bastard Karras when he said he intended to kill the mages, but I was able to channel his rage through my own mind this time."

She smiled encouragingly at him and stopped on the path, taking him by the arm and forcing him to stop too. To her brother's disgust and Merrill's shy approval, she planted a kiss on his cheek right there. "I'm proud of you," she said. "I knew you could handle it."

Anders' blood was already up from the fight, and specifically the fact that it had been a fight to defend a group of free mages. He was feeling pleased, for the most part, about the outcome—though he wished that Alain had chosen to stay with his associates—and this was stirring other feelings in him once again too. Working together with Caitlyn for the same goal, helping their fellow mages, did that to him—and he hoped that her sudden urge to kiss him meant that she was having those feelings stirred up too.

Tonight, he promised himself. You have done your duty to your family, if you think you do owe them a duty to live with them. Just give me this, love.

After Merrill departed for the alienage, the rest of the group headed to the house in Lowtown for dinner—but a very unpleasant scene met their eyes when they entered inside.

A man in leather armor was towering over Uncle Gamlen and Leandra, demanding something from them. Carver reached for his blade, and Caitlyn and Anders readied their staves, but the sounds caught the man's attention. He whirled around and glared at them.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he spat. "I'm not here for blood and I don't intend to hurt any of you lot unless you force it. I am here on behalf of the Carta, to collect a gambling debt that this man owes the house—and if I don't come out of this shack, others are going to follow me. Many others."

All good feeling from the expedition to help the Starkhaven apostates was gone now. Caitlyn's eyes met her mother's. "Where is Mal?" she demanded angrily.

Leandra nodded in the direction of the bedroom door. "He is in there with the dog. I didn't want him to—"

Uncle Gamlen was scrounging under the divan. To the dismay and outrage of all three young people standing, he brought out a small box—the Deep Roads expedition funds! Caitlyn thought. She could hardly bear to watch as her uncle opened the box and counted one, two, three, five, ten, fourteen gold, putting the sovereigns—our sovereigns!—into the debt collector's hands.

We were already ten short, she thought in misery, but it was possible to earn that. Twenty-four, though? That leaves us with barely half of what we need to buy in, and the expedition is only a few weeks away. We can never earn it back now. Despair threatened to choke her as the collector pocketed the gold, turned aside, passed by the trio, and slammed the door behind him.

Caitlyn seethed with rage. Sparks began to pop behind her eyes, and she knew that flames were bursting from her palms. She advanced on her uncle. "That was our money!" she roared, snatching the box away him—too late.

"That bastard was going to—I don't even know, probably sell me to get the coin from me!" Gamlen protested hotly.

"You'd deserve it!" she burst out, to the shock of everyone present. Anders looked askance at her, and her mother gazed sorrowfully at her face. She ignored all of it. "You sold Carver and me! All right," she said, cooling off ever so slightly, "I wouldn't want you enslaved. But if the Carta indentured you to pay off your own damned debts to them—"

Anders placed a hand on her shoulder and rubbed gently. "Caitlyn," he said.

She continued heedlessly. "It wasn't enough for you to do that to us, of course. Nor was it enough for you to burn through a fortune—and the value of an entire mansion—to support your habits of drinking, gambling, and whoring. Oh no—you also had to thieve from us, the money we earned trying to fix this corrupt crime-ridden pit of a city, that would have paid for the expedition that would have given us the estate back!"

Gamlen scoffed. "You can always earn more."

"It's too late," she retorted. "The expedition is three weeks away. We cannot earn twenty-four sovereigns in that time." She stared at him in disgust and fury. "I hope you're satisfied. Your selfishness has crushed our hopes and plans for good now!"

"I offered you my house! I have helped you; it won't hurt you to help me occasionally."

"We already have! And this isn't about helping you with food. You don't have to gamble! You choose to incur these debts and then make other people pay them off for you! And don't act as if offering us your house is such a great and unusual sacrifice. If the Blight had been in the Free Marches and you had come to Lothering instead, we would have welcomed you—because that's what families are supposed to do for each other! Not be parasites!"

Gamlen ignored that. "If I hadn't been here, your brother and your mother would probably still be shut up in the Gallows, or shipped back to Ferelden, or scrounging in Darktown for crumbs—and you would have been sent to the Circle while your brat was taken away from you and raised in the Chantry!" he spat.

Behind her, Caitlyn felt Anders tense. "Shut up," he said, his voice cold and deadly. "Don't you dare say that again."

Gamlen sneered. "Why are you even here?" he barked. "You're not actually part of this family."

He glared back, otherwise utterly ignoring Gamlen, then turned to Caitlyn. "Caitlyn, do you want to—"

"Yes," she said at once. She did not even need him to finish asking the question. She knew what he was going to say, and her mind was made up. "I do." She turned back to her uncle. "I'm leaving," she announced, "and I'm taking Mal and Baldwin with me." Passing the money box to Anders, she glared at her uncle one last time. "I am sick of your vomiting in alleys, coming in drunk, bringing in women that my child asks about, and now, stealing from us to pay off your gambling debts. I'm gone and I will not be coming back." She gazed regretfully at Carver and her mother. "You two know where I will be, and you're always welcome there."

She stormed into the bedroom and began to pack. Even after a year in Kirkwall, she had few belongings, and they all fit into a pair of crates, one for her and one for Anders to carry.

Mal rose from his bed and rubbed his eyes. "Mamma?" he said. "What's going on?"

"We're going to your father's place," she said, trying to keep her voice gentle.

He noticed that she was filling the crates. "To stay?" he asked, putting two and two together.

"Yes, to stay," Anders replied as he entered the bedroom. In spite of the appalling domestic scene that he had just witnessed, another part of him was jubilant that she and Mal would finally be leaving this wretched environment behind and coming to live with him. He also intended something else once they got there, something that should perk her mood up well—if she accepted it.

Mal smiled and got to his feet to try to help his mother, though there was little that he could do. It really had not taken her long at all to pack.

They emerged from the bedroom, the dog trailing behind and Mal clinging to his mother's skirt, when she remembered that she had packed the money. Glancing guiltily at Carver, she said, "I... want to take the Deep Roads money with us. No offense. It's not that I don't trust you."

"No, I know who you don't trust," Carver replied. "And... it may not be hopeless, Cait. Maybe the Carta or someone would lend us the extra money..."

She sighed. The Carta probably would, in fact—but did she really want to take out a loan from the unscrupulous dwarven criminal guild? If it will get me into the expedition, I'll do it, she decided. The treasure should be large enough that they can be paid off.

"Caitlyn," Leandra pleaded as she, Anders, Mal, and the dog headed for the door, crates in their arms. "Please—reconsider—"

She turned around and gazed sadly at her mother. "I'm sorry, Mother," she said, meaning it as far as her mother's feelings were concerned, "but it must be done. This is never going to get better, and... if you look at it the right way... we should have been living together for four years now."

Leandra looked miserable, but she did not argue further. With a parting glance, Caitlyn and the others walked out the door.

Mal was eager to go right back to sleep as soon as his belongings were unpacked in Anders' clinic and a bed was set aside for him, pushed against the wall and warded by Anders with a glyph once again. The mabari Baldwin sat down near the main entrance to guard it.

Anders and Caitlyn unpacked the rest of the items from the crates, setting them in the small alcove that was Anders' personal room. When they reached the box of money, he stared at it for a moment, then opened it up.

"He took fourteen gold from you tonight?" Anders asked her. "And you now need twenty-four to buy into the expedition?"

She nodded wretchedly. "Carver may be right about a Carta loan. I hate the thought of it, but..." She trailed off as Anders began to rummage through a crate of his own. He opened a sack and began to count money from it, dropping the pieces into the box. "Anders!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing? How can you afford this?"

"I've saved up quite a bit since I was conscripted into the Wardens. I was paid well and had virtually no living expenses, since they provided food and shelter," he said, still counting money into the Hawkes' box. "I send reports back to Amaranthine, and Commander Cousland just sent me my quarterly stipend here in Kirkwall, in fact—and a very nice note expressing how delighted she was to learn that you and Mal survived after all."

"Anders," she repeated, astonished, as he finished counting the gold and silver into the box. "You really didn't have to—"

He closed the lid of the Hawkes' box, set it in his crate next to his money bag—which still had coin in it—and then leaned over to kiss her. "Yes," he said, briefly breaking the kiss, "I did. You don't need to borrow money from the Carta."

"I'll have to tell Carver the next time I see him," she said, choking up as she fell into his arms willingly. "He should know—anything he makes from now on is his—Maker, thank you so much—"

"Thank the Maker, or thank me?" Anders teased.

She threw her arms around his neck. "You've done so much for us," she said in a whisper, her voice almost breaking. "For me." She buried her head next to his neck, feeling him rub her back in gentle circles. "I don't know how I can pay you back for all of it..."

"Well, that's the beauty of it," he said lightly. "With me, you don't have to." He raised her head gently and smiled at her. "Just being with me is enough, love."