Thank you all for reading! Particular thanks to suilven for her betaing!

Alistair had come out to the garden for a breath of fresh air, and so that he could stop staring at Lilias long enough to figure out what to do about her and their suddenly altered relationship that didn't seem to have changed at all. Across the expanse of the growing greenery, he caught sight of Lilias's friend Merrill on her knees at Morrigan's door. He looked swiftly around for Morrigan, but didn't see her. Hopefully she was far from here, brewing potions or ordering around the kitchen staff, as he understood she did occasionally.

In a few long strides he had closed the distance, grasping Merrill's arm and hauling her to her feet. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Go away. This is none of your concern."

"She'll have wards, you know. She's not foolish. Whatever you want to get in there to see so badly, she'll have protected it."

"I can get around her wards."

"And what then? If you want it this badly, it'll be something she'll know you took." He was rather pleased with that leap of logic, and Merrill didn't deny it.

"I don't care," she said stubbornly. "You have no idea what's at stake, what I've done—what I would still do to get my hands on a working eluvian."

"Eluvian?"

"It's a mirror. An ancient elven mirror with magical properties—oh, never mind what it is," she snapped impatiently. "All you need to know is that it's in there and I need to get in there, too."

"Hawke would kill me if I let anything happen to you. And something surely will if you go around messing with Morrigan's belongings."

"Hawke would never harm a hair of your head. She loves you too much, although why I'm sure I couldn't say. Now will you let me go!" It was a demand rather than a question, punctuated with a stamp of Merrill's bare foot.

But not even the thunderclouds building in the elf's green eyes or the sense of building magic that his latent Templar skills could detect in her could distract him from what she had said. "Loves me? Is that what you said? She loves me?"

"Oh, what kind of an idiot are you? Of course she loves you—that's why you hurt her so badly, and why she couldn't go to you when she needed you." Merrill rolled her eyes at him. "And people call me dense."

"Look," Alistair said, thinking rapidly. He had to get her away from here before Morrigan came back and found them there—the witch would be sure to guess that they were up to no good, and if she had an ancient elven artifact squirreled away, she would have to know that was what Merrill was after. "You set up a chance for me to talk to Hawke and make things right between us, and I'll get you in to see that mirror."

Merrill looked at him suspiciously. "Do you promise?"

"On the honor of a Grey Warden," he told her.

She seemed satisfied with that. "All right. Let me talk to Hawke, and I'll meet you back here after breakfast in the morning."

Alistair agreed, and they parted ways, leaving Morrigan's door alone, hopefully in time to avoid her finding out they were there. How he was going to convince Morrigan to let the Dalish elf into her quarters, he had no idea. Would he never be done letting his rash tongue get him in trouble with women?

Leliana sat back in her chair and propped her feet up on her desk as she read over the scout's report from Emprise du Lion. She smiled at the description of the way Alistair and Lilias had looked when they were found in the cave the morning after the storm. So, was her old friend finally finding his way? She hoped so. He had done enough penance, for a crime that wasn't really his to begin with. He was a bumbling fool, but he meant well, and he had paid long enough.

Heavy footsteps creaked on the stairs, and she swung her legs down and sat up, one hand on her hip near the dagger she kept there. When she saw that it was Blackwall, she relaxed.

They stared at one another, neither blinking. "I never asked you why you did it," he said at last.

"No, you didn't."

"So?"

Leliana shrugged. "I owed a debt."

"To whom? The Hero of Ferelden?"

"Perhaps."

"She died. I should have done the same. Besides, I am no Warden."

"You're more of a Warden than you give yourself credit for."

"No. I'm not," Blackwall said heavily. "I am a monster and a criminal, and I deserve nothing so much as to die for my crimes."

"No one deserves to die."

"I do."

Leliana got to her feet. "Justinia would have said that anyone can atone, if they work hard enough at it. I believe you have made it your life's work since Blackwall was killed to live with honor, to make up for what you did."

"And it was never enough!" he cried. "Never. It never will be. And now I have to live with that pain even longer, knowing I couldn't even die properly."

"Is that why you were going to let Celene put you to death, because you wanted to escape the pain?"

"Yes, then, if you will have it so," Blackwall growled. "I'm a bloody coward as well as a murderer and a liar. I sully the Inquisition by my mere presence. Your precious Inquisitor knew it; he was willing to let me die as I deserved. Why couldn't you have left well enough alone?"

Leliana looked down at the toes of her boots. "I couldn't. I …" She shook her head. "Everyone deserves another chance."

"I've had my chance. I hid in the wilderness and threw it away."

"You came with the Inquisition and fought at the Inquisitor's side," she countered. "You saved his life, you worked for the good of all Thedas against Corypheus."

"There are others to carry on that work for me."

"Yes, perhaps, but there are a dwindling number of others who are willing to be Grey Wardens. Thedas needs as many as it can get—men and women of strength and courage and honor who will lift their blades against darkspawn and the Blight."

Blackwall snorted a laugh. "And I thought I idolized them. You and your king really fell for the Hero, didn't you?"

"Everyone did," Leliana agreed softly. "She brought out the best in everyone she met—and the worst, too. But she fought, as you do. And she was needed, as you are."

"And that's the best reason you can give me?"

"It's the best reason I have," she said simply. "It will have to be enough."

"I wish to the Maker it was," he said, and left her there alone with the ghosts he had reawakened.

Behind Lilias, the door to Cullen's office closed. She didn't turn; the soldiers and scouts had been in and out of there for hours as she sat on the battlements, and none of them had disturbed her. But this time she didn't hear footsteps, and eventually she heard someone clear their throat behind her, a shy, hesitant sound.

She looked over her shoulder and saw the dwarf who worked in the Undercroft standing there. "I'm sorry, am I disturbing you?"

"No, not at all. I was just …" What was she just? Thinking? Brooding? Dreaming? Wishing? It was hard to say. "I'm sorry, though, I'm not sure I've ever heard your name."

"Dagna. And you're the Champion of Kirkwall."

"Lilias, please. I'm not sure the Champion of Kirkwall ever existed. Want to join me? Or … are you afraid of heights?"

"You should see how far down the lava is in Orzammar," Dagna said, climbing up onto the wall next to Lilias.

"What brings you up to Cullen's office?"

"Oh, I was just bringing him some reports." But Dagna's blush said it was more than that.

"Have you known him long?"

"Yes. Since Kinloch Hold."

"Oh." Lilias knew only what Alistair had told her about what had occurred in Ferelden's Circle, but it sounded horrific. "Were you there when—?"

"No, but Cullen was."

"I see." It explained a lot, actually, about the way Cullen had been in Kirkwall, and the way he was now. He had wanted to punish the mages, nearly as strict as Meredith, when Lilias first met him; now he seemed to want to atone for the man he had been in Kirkwall. He was much kinder, much gentler, much less sure of himself. At least, off the battlefield, she thought, remembering how he had been at Adamant.

Dagna must have been able to see some of the progress of her thoughts in her face, because the dwarf was nodding. "It was very hard for him."

"And you became friends afterward?"

"The Hero of Ferelden made it possible for me to leave Orzammar and study in the Circle. I arrived after … everything had happened. I spent a lot of time listening to the surviving mages and Templars."

"That must have been a different sort of education than you'd intended."

"You would think so, but … it's as important to see how magic can go wrong, how people are affected by that, how they recover, as any other area of study." Dagna looked at Lilias with curiosity. "I heard you're the Hero's cousin. You look like her, a little, only more … open."

"Really?"

"Yes. She was very … certain of herself, sure she had the answers, always. You … you seem like you're okay if other people disagree with you."

"I certainly don't think I have the answers." Lilias's gaze fell on Alistair, far below. She had thought something had changed between them, that night in Emprise du Lion, but apparently nothing had.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"Have you ever felt something so strongly for someone, and they were completely oblivious to it?"

Lilias was startled. It wasn't something she had expected from the dwarf, who looked like a cute little girl but sounded like an intelligent woman. She rather suspected many people made the error of thinking Dagna's looks were who she was. "Yes. Yes, I have," she said honestly.

"What did you do?"

She laughed bitterly. "Flailed around, hid, pretended it was nothing, got angry. Nothing particularly productive." Looking at Dagna, she asked, "What did you do?"

"Waited. And waited. And waited some more. Every once in a while I think he'll see—but he never does," Dagna said sadly.

Somewhat belatedly, Lilias put two and two together. Cullen. Dagna was in love with Cullen. Well, she wished her luck with that; for as long as she'd known him, Cullen had carried only one woman's name on his heart, just as Alistair did. "It's worse when they love someone who's gone and can't forget her."

"Yes," Dagna agreed vehemently. So she knew. Of course she did. "Worse yet when the person deserves to be loved that way."

"No, she doesn't. She doesn't." Turning to look Dagna full in the face, Lilias said, "My cousin played games with people's lives. I can't even count the number of people who have never been able to move on with their lives because she kept them on a string."

"She wasn't like that!" Dagna protested.

"Yes, she was. Look at the King of Ferelden. At Sister Nightingale. For the Maker's sake, look at that apostate that came back with us from Orlais! None of them can let her go."

"Because she was a presence."

"Because she was a poison. Yes," Lilias said decisively, "because she was a poison. And if it's the last thing I do, I'm going to exorcise that poison from at least one person. And you should, too."

Dagna looked over her shoulder, her face sad. "I wish it was that easy."

"Try it," Lilias told her. "Maybe it will be."