Thank you all for reading! Particular thanks to suilven for her speedy and thoughtful betaing, and her patience with my increasing numbers of typos!

"Hawke, come on. Let's get you home."

"No. Anywhere but there. I can't … It's so empty, Varric. It echoes." She shook her head at him. "Don't take me to a place that echoes. Tell me a story."

"All right, if you promise to drink this." He put a cup of coffee on the table in front of her.

She wrinkled her nose at it, but took a sip anyway. Corff made terrible coffee, which was probably why it worked so well as a sobering agent. No one wanted to have to drink more than one cup.

"Which story?" Varric asked her.

"Tell me … about Bianca."

"Now, Hawke, you know I can't."

"Why can't you? Are you under a spell? Is there a curse on the story?"

"What, and my tongue shrivels up and falls off if I talk? I think I've told you too many stories." He chuckled.

"Then at least tell me why you can't speak of it."

He hesitated, looking at her across the table. "Because … well, it's a long story."

"Yes, and one you won't tell. All I'm asking is why you won't tell it."

"For safety, all right?"

"Whose safety?"

"Oh, no, you don't. I told you why I won't tell, but beyond that you'll just have to wait and wonder like everyone else."

"Will you tell me someday?"

"Maybe."

"You're mean, Varric." Lilias pouted at him.

"Believe it or not, Hawke, I've heard that one before."

Lilias frowned at the note in her hand in Varric's ornate script, asking her to come up to his room. She hadn't been to his room since the Hanged Man, and what a long time ago that seemed. Here in Skyhold, he mostly held court in the main hall, and kept to himself otherwise far more than she remembered him doing in Kirkwall.

He was a darker man now than he used to be—what he had seen in Kirkwall and after, the Conclave, the red lyrium, slowly but surely they were changing him. Look how he had been drawn into the Inquisition after all this time swearing that he was done doing his bit to save the world, all his talk about putting his feet up and writing his way into a cushy retirement. But here he was.

At least Thule seemed to understand what a treasure he had in Varric. Lilias had watched the two of them bantering, the genuine friendship that appeared to lie between them, and had been glad for her friend that he had landed here, in the company of someone who valued him.

She knocked on his door.

"Who is it?" His voice was unusually hard and suspicious, and Lilias's eyebrows flew up at the sound.

"It's me, Varric. Just like you asked."

"Are you alone?"

"Who would be with me?" she asked bitterly.

"Daisy?"

"Oh. No, she's in the library."

"She would be." Finally he opened the door, just enough to poke his head out and peer suspiciously up and down the hallway.

From within the room, a woman's voice said lazily, "Now, Varric, I told you, no one knows I'm here."

"Yeah, you said that." At last he looked at Lilias. "Come on in."

Inside the room, lounging in Varric's bed, wearing one of his tunics and it looked like nothing else, was a female dwarf, who was smirking at Lilias in a way that immediately put her hackles up.

"Uh … Hawke, this is, um … Bianca."

Lilias turned to stare at him. "Bianca Bianca?"

"Actually, it's Bianca Davri," drawled the owner of that name. "You must be the Champion of Kirkwall."

"Lilias Hawke. I haven't been champion of anything in quite some time."

"Yes, I suppose that's true." Bianca got to her feet, moving toward Lilias with a lithe grace she envied. "Varric worries too much."

"He's had reason to, the last few years."

Bianca nodded. "So I've heard."

"He told you?"

"He tells me everything."

The two women stared at each other. Lilias had imagined once or twice what it might be like to meet Varric's famous Bianca, but it had never occurred to her that it would be a combative experience. She had thought they would bond over their mutual love for Varric, but Bianca seemed to feel … threatened? No. She wanted to assert ownership, to stake a claim on him, but she wasn't threatened by Lilias in the least. Well, Lilias determined, she wouldn't be threatened, either. After all, where had this cocky little dwarf been all that time in Kirkwall? Not at Varric's side when he needed her, that was for sure.

"So you've been friends a long time, then," she said to Bianca.

"Everyone's a friend of Varric's." Bianca smiled at him, running a finger down his arm. "You have met him, haven't you?"

"Quite a few times, yes."

Varric was looking between the two of them with concern. "Maybe we should … get down to business."

"There's business? I thought this was merely about the pleasure of finally meeting someone I've heard so much about," Lilias said.

Bianca smiled. "You've heard nothing at all about me. I know Varric."

"You might be surprised."

"Not a chance."

"Anyway," Varric put in, "Bianca came to Skyhold because she's got a lead on where Corypheus got his red lyrium."

"She does?" Lilias frowned at him. "Why are you talking to me instead of to the Inquisitor?"

"Look, Hawke, we started all this. We need to finish it."

"Yes, we do." Lilias sighed. "Tell me."

Bianca hopped onto the end of the bed. Lilias took the one human-sized chair Varric kept in his chambers, and Varric paced back and forth between Bianca the dwarf and Bianca the crossbow.

"The red lyrium is coming from Bartrand's Folly, the thaig Varric found."

"How is that possible? No one knew about that place but us!"

"It's hard to say. The other people we hired could have said something—"

"The useless muscle? I'm not sure any of them could read a map."

"Scoff all you like, but even the dumbest guy can have a surprisingly good memory when treasure's involved. Or Bartrand could have blabbed enough to someone to get them started on their way."

That sounded more plausible. Or it would have, if Varric hadn't looked so worried, and been so careful to avoid her eyes.

Lilias looked at Bianca instead. "How do you know?"

"I found a Deep Roads entrance where strange humans were carting out red lyrium. It was crawling with them, like ants. Or deepstalkers."

"In the Free Marches?"

"No. In Ferelden."

"That's an awfully long way from the thaig," Lilias said skeptically. "That was in the Free Marches."

Bianca laughed, rather smugly, Lilias thought. "The thaig is actually in Orlais; you just lost track of how far you traveled because the Deep Roads offer you a straight line rather than having to go around the surface obstacles. The entrance is in Ferelden, a place called the Hinterlands."

Lilias tried to put aside her turmoil and her grief and her instinctive dislike of this woman who seemed to think she owned Varric and think like the Champion of Kirkwall. "Do we think this is the only entrance they're using to get to the thaig?"

"Navigating the Deep Roads isn't like the surface, like I said. Between the shortage of accurate maps, the cave-ins, the darkspawn, the lava floods … It's a miracle they found one entrance. I doubt they've managed to find more than one. And why should they?" Bianca shrugged. "When the one they found is working for them just fine."

"Miracle," Varric muttered. "I can think of less positive words."

"Stop beating yourself up over this," Bianca told him. "It's not your fault!"

"That's easy for you to say."

"We need to shut this down," Lilias said decisively. "We'll have to talk to the Inquisitor."

Varric looked at Bianca. "Don't worry, we'll leave your name out of it."

"It's fine. I trust you." They shared a look for a moment, a look that told Lilias that these two had a long history and a deep connection. She tried to forgive Bianca for … well, for not being what Lilias had imagined she would be. "I'll keep an eye on their operation until you and the Inquisitor can come look into it. If you're going to shut it down, I'm coming to help."

"Are you sure?" Varric went to her, putting his hands on her shoulders. They had both entirely forgotten Lilias, who got to her feet and tiptoed from the room.

Before the door closed behind her, she heard Bianca say, "I'm here to help, no matter what it takes."

She hoped it was true.

Cullen knelt in front of Andraste. He wanted to pray to her, to ask her for the strength to endure that he so needed, but the words wouldn't come. The Inquisitor and Cassandra were so certain of themselves, so certain of him, but what could they really know? Neither of them had ever taken lyrium, much less tried to give it up. Cullen knew very few who had, and most of them had gone mad and died. He wished he understood why he hadn't; if he could understand that, perhaps that would give him the strength.

He heard a noise behind him and turned to see Dagna standing there. "Copper for your thoughts."

"Don't waste your money."

"On you? What better use could I have for it?" She came toward him, kneeling down in her own turn, although Cullen didn't believe she followed Andrastean beliefs. "If I could relieve your troubles, I would consider any sum a bargain," Dagna said softly.

Cullen glanced at her, frowning. "You shouldn't say that."

"Why not? Cullen, let me help you."

"You can't." He looked down at his hands, noticing the small tremors that shook his fingers. "No one can."

"That's impossible. There's help for every problem, if you just know where to look. And you have no idea what I'm capable of." She made the statement simply, and without pride.

"Perhaps not. You understand lyrium, I imagine."

"Better than almost anyone alive." Again, it was a statement of fact. And the truth—there was a reason she had been chosen to be the Inquisition's Arcanist, and it wasn't just because Cullen had recommended her. "Let me take some of your blood and study it."

Cullen shifted, his mind immediately flying to blood magic, to the Tower, to the demons—

"Not like that," Dagna said softly. She put a hand on his arm, turning to look at him earnestly. "There's no magic in it, Cullen. No magic. Just … science. I know many look on science as being akin to magic, but you are far too intelligent for that. Let me study your blood and see if I can find a way to ease the symptoms."

"Surely you have other things to do."

She held his gaze. "There is nothing more important than you are. Not to me." In the depths of her green eyes, he saw something he had never seen before—that this dwarf at his side, whose cheer and good humor had gotten him through so many long nights, was a woman, with a woman's feelings. Cullen felt like a heel for never having seen her that way before, and for having missed somehow the fact that her feelings for him were not comradely. He shivered … and not from the lyrium this time, but from an awakened awareness of her.

He withdrew his arm from underneath her fingertips before he could allow the surprise of the moment to lead him into suggesting things he was far from sure he felt. He was no good for any woman, anyway, much less someone as innocent and trusting as Dagna.

"Cullen?" There was uncertainty in her voice—she had to know what she had revealed, and she was nervous, afraid, of his reaction.

"I would very much appreciate your help," he told her. "Thank you for the offer. For … being here."

"Always." She got up, and in a different voice, her work voice, she said, "Come to the Undercroft in the morning, before you've eaten or drunk anything, and I'll get started."

And she left him there, at the feet of Andraste, still speechless, but for an entirely different reason.