The Deep Roads. Lilias stood outside the door, unable to move, not wanting to leave the bright sunshine for the darkness and chill of the Deep Roads.

Varric looked up at her. "Yeah, you and me both. But … what are you going to do? We—I—started this."

"We started this," she corrected him. "You had it right the first time. We have to finish it. I just need a moment before we go in."

Ahead of them, Dorian and Cassandra had already gone through the door, stooping a bit to avoid hitting their heads, and the Inquisitor followed them, with a quick, sympathetic glance backward at Varric and Lilias. She shook herself. "Bianca's waiting for you in there, isn't she?"

"I hope so."

Lilias nodded. "All right then. Let's not keep her waiting any longer than she already has." She followed Varric through the doors, and then through another set and down a long flight of stairs, the darkness folding itself more and more firmly around her with every step. For some reason, she thought of Alistair, still back at Skyhold, and wished he was with her. Foolish, foolish girl, she told herself.

At the bottom, she saw Bianca's upturned face, and wished she was in front of Varric to see what his expression looked like. Was he happy, or was he typically Varric, too cool to be enthused, even by the sight of the woman he so clearly loved?

"Finally!" Bianca snapped as Varric, and behind him Lilias, came into earshot. "I was starting to think you weren't coming."

"My fault," Thule said cheerfully. "Calls on the Inquisitor's time and all that."

Bianca glanced at him, not particularly interested, and then looked back at Varric, waiting for him to finish his descent.

He didn't reach for her when he came to the bottom; Lilias supposed it had only been a few weeks since they'd been together at Skyhold, but still.

"Nobody said you had to hang out in the dark, creepy cave until we got here," he informed Bianca.

She shrugged. "Well, I did wait, no matter what anyone said or didn't say, so let's get a move on. These idiots are carrying the red lyrium out in unprotected containers." There was a surprising pity in her tone; Lilias had never heard her sound so human. And no wonder—unshielded blue lyrium was dangerous to touch. Unshielded red? Whoever was in charge of this operation certainly didn't care if the workers survived it. Or hoped they wouldn't, which was a chilling thought.

Dorian moved closer to her, saying in a low tone, "Our enemies are taking themselves out through their own stupidity. Which ought to be a cheering thought, but …"

Lilias nodded. "Somehow it really isn't."

Varric glanced sharply at Bianca. "Are you all right?"

"Of course." She seemed affronted that he would even ask. "I know what I'm doing. But it does mean we want to hurry this up—we don't want to stick around here long enough for the lyrium to start 'talking' to us."

"That does not sound pleasant," Cassandra agreed.

As she led them farther down, Thule asked, "How did you find this operation in the first place? There must be hundreds of Deep Roads entrances."

"There are." Bianca glanced at the Inquisitor over her shoulder. "Where do you think Varric got the directions to the entrance he and Hawke used? I may be a surface dwarf, but I know my way around the Deep Roads as well as anyone." She frowned. "I've got to admit, though, I was pretty surprised to get here and find the place full of humans."

"And empty of darkspawn, I devoutly hope?" Dorian asked, giving an exaggerated shudder.

"I've seen a few. Not as many as usual, though."

Not much farther in, they were attacked for the first time. Dwarves, which rather surprised Lilias … but the Inquisitor's growl of "Carta" set her straight. The Carta must have sold or leased this section of the Deep Roads to Corypheus's operation. She hoped they'd been paid in advance.

But there was no time for consideration, because they were in battle, and Carta dwarves were no joke to fight. She and Varric and Thule were all familiar with the style, and Cassandra and Dorian picked up the differences in fighting well-trained dwarves quickly. Bianca stood off to the sidelines with a crossbow that looked like Varric's but was more stream-lined, and picked off individual dwarves calmly.

Once they were finished, and had determined that none of the dwarves carried anything in their pockets to tell them more about the operation, Bianca led them onward again. "So, this your everyday?" she asked Varric and Lilias.

"Beg pardon?" Varric asked.

"You know, skulking around in caves, shooting guys. I would've thought you'd both had enough of that in Kirkwall."

"We did," Lilias said sourly.

"Saving the world gets to be a habit, so I hear," Thule called back cheerfully.

"Perhaps you'd better ask your friend His Kingliness about that," Varric responded. He glanced quickly at Lilias, gauging her expression, and she looked carefully ahead of her, pretending there was nothing to her in any mention of Alistair. There certainly shouldn't be, after all. He cleared his throat, looking back at Bianca. "I do usually try to avoid the caves."

She shook her head, tutting at him. "You're a terrible dwarf."

"Just see my manly lack of chin hair."

"Ah, but you make up for it in chest hair." She looked speculatively at Thule. "Does he?"

The Inquisitor did seem remarkably hairless for a dwarf—completely clean-shaven, without even Varric's trace of stubble.

"Please!" Varric looked affronted, but his eyes were twinkling. "You'd have to ask the Seeker."

"I heard that," Cassandra said icily, not amused.

"I don't believe things have proceeded that far," Dorian said.

"And they never will, if things don't get prodded along."

The Inquisitor winced, looking apprehensively at Cassandra, stalking ahead of him. "Varric, I beg you not to help me."

"Stones, you're never going to get anywhere if you—"

"Varric!" Cassandra said, and that effectively cut him off, although he looked completely unrepentant. Lilias grinned to herself. Poor Thule, he had no chance of conducting this romance alone, not with this crew.

Bianca appeared bored by the whole line of discussion, and moved ahead, signaling them all to pause as she looked around the edge of a wall.

Behind him, Thule could hear Varric's low voice. "You know, this may be too close to the surface to really count as the Deep Roads … but have I mentioned that I hate the Deep Roads?"

Hawke's voice, chilled and thin, said, "Me, too."

"If we're counting," said Dorian, "you can add my vote as well."

"We're shutting up," Thule growled. "You want them to hear you all the way to Orzammar?"

"It's fine. No one's there that I can tell," Bianca called back, and they all followed her around the corner. Thule found himself walking with Varric and Bianca, but his eyes were on Cassandra, his mind worrying over the endless question of whether she'd rather be Divine than be with him, whether the book of poetry he'd had Dorian find for him and was painstakingly trying to memorize had been a mistake.

Next to him, Bianca bumped Varric with her shoulder. "I'm mad at you, you know?"

"Yeah? What've I done now?"

"That letter you sent me about the red lyrium was the first I'd heard from you since the Chantry explosion."

"You could not have failed to know if he was dead. The entire world would have gone into mourning without Varric's precious prose to sustain it," Cassandra called back.

"Maybe not the world, Seeker. Maybe just a small part of it." There was an undeniable smirk on Varric's face, knowing as he did that Cassandra herself certainly would miss him and his prose, despite what she might say.

"Nonetheless, I shouldn't have had to spend months worrying whether you were alive or dead," Bianca said to Varric, dropping her voice a bit so it wouldn't carry as far.

"It hadn't been that long, had it? Besides …" Varric hesitated, then said, "I worry about you all the time."

"That's sweet. A lie, but sweet."

"No, I really do."

She looked at him sharply, and Thule began to consider dropping back to give them more privacy—or he would have, if he wasn't so fascinated by this insight into Varric's relationship. "You don't have to worry about me. I'll be fine."

"And trust what's-his-name to take care of you? That'll be the day."

"Bogdan's got my best interests at heart."

"Best interests of your money, you mean."

Bianca chuckled. "You're so cute when you're jealous."

Varric didn't have a comeback for that one, surprisingly, and Thule bit back a laugh.

"Seriously, though," Bianca continued, "if you'd died in that mess, I'd have come back and dug you up just to kick your ass."

"And if I'd been sent to the Maker on a pyre?"

She shrugged, grinning. "What else? I'd have kicked your ashes."

Thule couldn't help it. "And died choking on a cloud of Varric dust?" He laughed, but neither of them did, and so he cleared his throat, hoping he looked properly contrite. "Sorry."

At last they came to a set of doors. One attempt by Cassandra proved they were going to have the Void of a time opening them unless they left and came back with the Iron Bull, but Bianca waved them all back, kneeling at the corner. "I built these doors," she said over her shoulder. "Looks like they shut this one from the other side when they heard the ruckus we were making."

Something she did moved some kind of machinery on the other side of the door, and it rolled smoothly to the side. She was good at what she did, Thule had to give her that.

Bianca stood up, smiling. Smirking, really. "Ta-da." She was just waiting for the praise, but none came.

"You built these doors?" Thule asked. "How many times have you come down here?"

"I told you I've used this entrance in the past," she said, irritated. "What was I supposed to do, leave everything falling to pieces?"

"People do."

"Only people who don't intend to come back … and aren't worried about being followed. You know about the Merchants Guild. They're cutthroat. Literally." She swept her gaze down to the hilts of Thule's daggers. "No doubt you've done some work for them in the past."

He couldn't deny that; never had. He shrugged.

"Well, then, you know they're perfectly capable of having someone follow me down here to arrange an 'accident'. Can you blame me for building a few things to help make sure that doesn't happen?"

"So … you coming down here made the entrance more visible?" Hawke asked.

Bianca glared at her. "I'm careful."

"Of course you are. She was just asking," Varric said placatingly. He looked up at Hawke, his face almost pleading. This was the only thing in Varric's life too sacred to talk about, this woman here and her fearsome skills. Thule didn't blame him for not wanting to see open hostility between her and his best friend.

"We'd better keep moving," he said.

Bianca looked around at all of them defiantly, as though she were just waiting for more criticism or suspicion. When none came she nodded, grudgingly, and led them through the door.

The doorway led into farther caverns, but here it was more clear that there had been significant use. Papers spread out on tables, attempts made to clean up debris from the corners. Bianca was putting her stamp on it. Varric imagined her down here, alone in the dark with one of her fancy torch holders attached to her wrist or her head or her shoulder, contentedly at work. Her need for solitude had always been important to her—he understood it, and to his credit, so did what's-his-name.

And what came out of it was sheer genius. His own Bianca was her crowning achievement, but she had done other things, advancing knowledge and building things that shouldn't exist, but did. "They should make you a Paragon," he said out loud.

Bianca gave him a fond look. "You would say that. But you know it would never happen—even if I am ten times the smith Branka ever was. A surfacer Paragon? That'll be the day."

"They've got to drag themselves out of the dark—and their heads out of their asses—eventually."

"Maybe, but not in your lifetime or mine."

"People are never fond of admitting that when someone does something different from the way they've always done it, it's often the right idea," Sparkler said. "Too often, they instead clap the poor unfortunate dissenter in irons … and throw away the key."

"Down!" Bianca called, and Dorian ducked immediately, midword, as did the others.

A rusty iron arrow embedded itself in the Seeker's shield. She yanked it out and grimly drew her sword. "Darkspawn."

Varric groaned. "Really?"

"It's the Deep Roads! What did you expect?" Stones snapped. His daggers were out and ready, and reluctantly Varric drew Bianca. He could cheerfully go the rest of his life without seeing, or needing to kill, another darkspawn.

The living Bianca took up a position next to him, drawing her smaller and lighter version of his darling. "Come on, Varric, it's just like old times."

"Is it? I don't remember us ever shooting things together." He aimed at a movement in the dark across a flimsy wooden bridge, letting a bolt fly, taking satisfaction in the gurgle the darkspawn made as it struck.

"You have to remember Bartrand's Guild dinner. We might as well have shot him."

Varric laughed, thinking of his brother's face, red with rage. And then he stopped laughing, thinking of his brother's face, red with lyrium, years later. "Yeah," he said softly, trying to match Bianca's light tone when he no longer felt light, "but this isn't nearly as dangerous as pissing off my brother."

Hawke and Stones were across the flimsy bridge now, so Varric held his fire. Shortly they came back, smiling in satisfaction, and were immediately accosted by Sparkler and the Seeker, respectively, looking to see if either of them were in danger of being contaminated by darkspawn blood.

Bianca took advantage of the momentary solitude to ask, "How long are you going to stick with them, anyway?"

"Oh, I don't know. As long as this shit is going on, for sure. Maybe longer. Depends. Until it gets boring and there are no more stories to tell, I suppose. Why?"

"Well, I was hoping I could convince you to stop by while Bogdan's gone. You have to see my new workshop."

Varric smiled to himself. She would, too, not thinking about how it would feel to know he wasn't technically allowed to set foot in that workshop, or how it would feel to know that above it, in her house, she slept with what's-his-name while Varric cuddled her namesake in a cold bed. "I'll see what I can do," he said noncommittally. "You do know your family would have me killed if I did that, right?"

"No! They've given that up."

"Uh-huh. You always say that … and there are always assassins."

"They'll get over it. Someday."

"Yeah, about the time I run out of stories."

He followed her down a narrow path, the others behind them, and into a room that was absolutely filled with her work. She spent a lot of time down here, then. On a shelf lay a twisted piece of metal. She picked it up, cooing at it. "There you are." Beaming in triumph, she turned to him, holding it up. "I made this to lock off the entrance, so no one else could get in, but then …"

Varric swallowed. He should have known. He had known—something deep in his gut had told him, and he had ignored it, because … Bianca. "But then you gave it to someone." His voice echoed in his ears as though it was coming from a long way off.

Next to him, Stones growled softly. "You?" he asked.

Hawke was shaking her head; Varric could practically feel it. It was sweet of her to be outraged on his behalf, but this was his fault, too. Whatever Bianca had done, it was because he had told her about this place. And the red lyrium. And everything.

"Don't you see?" Bianca said. "They won't be able to use this entrance again."

"Oh, we see," Stones said, in his dangerous voice, calm and reasonable.

"Bianca …"

She met Varric's gaze defiantly. "What?"

Stones started to speak, then looked at Varric and thought better of it.

"Andraste's ass, Bianca, why didn't you just tell me?"

"I … I thought we could just fix it."

"How is this even possible? What did you do?" It was as angry as he ever allowed himself to get, and he was holding on to his temper as hard as he could to keep it from climbing any further.

"When you told me the location, I went and had a look for myself."

"Of course you did." Hawke rolled her eyes.

Bianca ignored her. "I found the red lyrium … and I studied it."

Varric closed his eyes, briefly, nodding. How had he not known she would? Because she was Bianca. It was the answer for everything. "How could you?" he asked her, angry as much because she had compromised her own safety as because she had betrayed him. "You know what it does to people!"

"I know what I'm doing," she snapped. "And besides, I was doing you a favor."

"Well, please don't do me any more of those!"

"Come on, Varric, you want to know how this stuff works as much as I do!"

"No, I don't! I never did. I want it to go away and leave me alone. I'd have been happy to seal the thaig off and never think about it again."

"You could have been killed—or worse—and for what?" Stones asked. "What was so valuable it was worth risking your life, worth … this?" He waved his hand, encompassing the entire red lyrium operation that had already killed so many people, and would certainly kill more.

"Knowledge!" Bianca answered, as though the Inquisitor was especially thick not to have realized that himself. "You're not going to beat Corypheus with ignorance."

"And what did you find out?" Sparkler asked. He, too, thirsted for knowledge—Varric could see the curiosity glittering in his eyes. He didn't envy either of them that drive, or where it took them.

"It has the Blight," Bianca said. She was too excited by her discovery to be aware that no one, other than Sparkler, shared her enthusiasm. "Do you know what that means?"

"If it has the Blight … then it's alive. Lyrium is a living being!" Sparkler's tone was hushed, almost reverent.

"Great. Two deadly things combining to form something super-awful. That's what we're all excited about?" Varric said.

"What does this have to do with Corypheus finding the thaig?" the Seeker asked coolly, her uncompromising tone shaking Bianca out of the giddiness of knowledge shared.

"I … couldn't get any further on my own, so I looked for a Grey Warden mage. Blight and magical expertise all in one, right?"

"And?"

"I found this guy, Larius. He seemed really interested in helping my research. So I gave him the key."

"Larius?" Hawke asked sharply. "He wasn't a mage."

"He wasn't into research, either," Varric said. He and Hawke looked at each other, the same sickening thought in their minds.

"That's how he got out … somehow Corypheus possessed Larius."

"Can he do that?" Stones asked.

"It's the only answer that makes sense. Oh, Maker, this really is all our fault." Hawke's face crumpled in misery.

"You couldn't have known," Sparkler said, putting a comforting hand on her arm.

Bianca looked as contrite as Varric had ever seen her. "I didn't realize what had happened until you wrote about finding the red lyrium at Haven. I came here to see what was going on, and I found all this. Then I went to you." She hesitated. "I know I screwed up, but … we did fix it. It's as right as I can make it."

Hawke and the Seeker's disapproval was loud and clear; Stones was clearly pissed; Sparkler understood her drive for knowledge. And Varric? He didn't know what to think.

"This isn't one of your machines," he said to her. "You can't just replace a part and make everything right!"

"But I can try, can't I?"

If he hadn't known her so well, he might have thought there were tears glimmering in her eyes. Bianca never cried. There was too much of her own machines in her for that.

"Varric?" she asked, waiting for his response, but he didn't have one. "What am I supposed to do, wallow in my mistakes forever, kicking myself, telling stories of what I should have done?" Her voice rose as she attacked, his own modus operandi clear in her accusation.

"Oh, like I would ever write about my own mistakes," he shot back bitterly. She was one of them; she knew all too well that the real stories were the ones he never told.

The others had withdrawn back toward the entrance to the room, leaving them alone, but Varric didn't know what to say. He was angry, and disappointed, and tired of being duped by his own heart. "We've done all we can here. Bianca … you'd better get home before someone misses you."

"Varric." There was a plea in her voice that tugged at his heart—her heart, really; she owned it—but he couldn't listen to it. Not right now.

"Don't worry about it," he muttered, because he couldn't help it, because he knew he would forgive her the way he always did. He backed away from her, unable to look up, not wanting to see her face right now, and so he didn't see her leave the room.

He walked with Hawke all the way back out of the damned Deep Roads, vowing that this really was the last time. Never again. Hawke was silent, letting him stew, which he was grateful for.

Only once they were outside in the sunshine again, both of them breathing a sigh of relief at the warmth, did she ask if he was all right.

"Who knows," he snapped, then felt guilty for it. Hawke didn't deserve his anger; quite the opposite, really. "I mean, I'm glad to have answers, but … shit."

"Did you know?"

"No. Maybe. Sort of. I should have known, let's put it that way. The second she showed up here, I should have known. Part of me did know. I just …"

"I get it. Trust me, I get it," Hawke told him, and he wondered if she was thinking about His Royal Messiness.

"I'm sorry, Hawke. I let all this happen. I gave her the thaig. And … I am not good at dealing with shit like this."

"Don't you think I know that? Besides, I'm the one who let Larius live. Fenris was going to kill him, remember?"

Varric grinned. "So this is all Broody's fault? I can live with that." Then he sobered. "But I really don't, you know."

"Don't what?"

"Deal with things."

"I know. Neither do I."

"Fine pair we make. You know that if the Seeker hadn't dragged me here, I'd be sitting in Kirkwall right now with my feet up, scribbling my stories and pretending none of this was happening."

Hawke looked at him affectionately, and he felt warmed by her, glad that she was here. "No, you wouldn't. You'd have found a way to be where the best stories are. It's what you do." They walked along a little while, enjoying being together again, before Hawke asked, "You think you'll see Bianca again?"

Varric nodded. "I always do. I just hope she gives me a little time before she shows up again—I could use it."