9:26 Dragon

Denerim, Ferelden

i.

The shems said no one was meant to die in the purge. King Cailan was an advocate for all his people, they said, but those people must be law-abiding. If none of the elves had resisted when the arl's men came through, the dissidents would have been expelled without trouble, and those persons who just needed a stern warning would have been released from Arl Urien Kendells's dungeons within a few short weeks.

Because everyone in the alienage was just going to sit down and take it when men with swords and axes kicked down the doors to their homes, smashed in the windows of their shops. They were all just going to let a bunch of shem thugs cart people like Alarith, Juniper, Queriza, and Tolliver Nollrey away, and kick a whole bunch of the others out of Denerim entirely.

Of course they weren't. Arl Urien knew they weren't. He wasn't surprised when people died in the purge. Probably happy. The king might like playing champion of the people, but everyone knew the arl was the real power in Denerim, and he'd always hated the alienage and everyone who lived there.

So, here they were, packing Soris's things into bags to take back to their house, because no one was meant to die.

It was at least better than if Soris had had to go to the orphanage, Tirrian thought. That place was awful. There were never enough workers. The kids were always hungry, and more than a few of them did grow up the kind of thieves and murderers the shems ran purges to drive out. They didn't have a choice, because some shem had killed their parents in a purge. Or they'd been frozen to death some winter or worked themselves to death down by the docks. The orphanage kids were always as ready to tear each other apart as anyone else. They sometimes had rickets or scurvy or some kind of worm, and they always, always had headlice. Most of them died before they were old enough to get out.

And Soris was almost, almost old enough to get out. He was fourteen. Already had a job. Just couldn't make enough to pay the rents on his parents' place was all. So, Dad had agreed to double up with him, and home would have four people again.

But it wouldn't be anything like it had been back when Mum was alive.

Soris stared at the hearth of the place where he'd grown up, at Aunt Lindra's good pots and pans and the stoneware she'd brought from the Waking Sea alienage all those years ago. The arl's men had taken Uncle Tomald's tools and broken a lot of the furniture. Soris was selling most of what was left, holding it against his marriage and settlement, when he could get a better job. But it had to sting.

"Alright?" Tirrian asked him.

"Let's just get out of here," Soris said. Tirrian wanted to hug him, but she had a feeling that if she tried, he might punch her. That's how she'd felt a lot of the time, after Mum. So she shouldered one of his two sacks and headed out the door.

"It won't be so bad with the rest of us, will it?" she offered. "I mean, you were over all the time before anyways."

Soris glared at her. "As your cousin," he spat. "Not your charity case."

Half of her wanted to haul off and smack him for being so rude, except Tirrian figured that if it'd been her having to move in with Uncle Tomald and Aunt Lindra because Dad had been killed in the purge instead, she wouldn't be handling it much better. So she took a breath and held her temper. That was what family did for family. "Way I see it, you'll be buying food at market like the rest of us. One more person to share the chores. I won't mind having to scrub the floor a little less."

Soris didn't answer.

Tirrian tried one more time. "We're family, Soris. We look out for each other. You, me, Dad, and Shianni."

"I'd've just as soon made do with the family I had," Soris said. "And I think Shianni would have too."

Tirrian could feel herself turning red. And you think you're the only person in the world who's lost someone? she wanted to yell. You think Dad and me and Shianni aren't sad about Uncle Tomald and Aunt Lindra and the other five folk who died? You think we aren't furious?

But sometimes Dad was right. Sometimes yelling didn't help a thing. Soris was just going to have to be mad for a while, and they were all going to have to deal with it. That was how things went.

"Come on," she said. "Let's get your stuff moved into the house."

ii.

"Alright everyone, pony up," Shianni said, pouring her purse out on the table to sort with the others. "Got a two-silver tip this week from some Rivaini ambassador."

Tirrian slid her eighty-two coppers across the table. She always felt like a burden on payday, even if she knew she did do most of the work at home to make up for it. No one would hire her yet for any long-term job, so she had to make do with what she could scrounge up. She salvaged. She fished and hunted clams down by the waterfront, and she looked after the neighbors' children, all the while knowing she was still the baby in her own family, that all the others were still paying for her.

Of course, Dad brought in the most. He was grown; and the shemlen all seemed to trust him even if he was an elf. He'd had steady work as long as Tirrian could remember, and even had a couple pay raises over the years. He placed his week's pay on the table, already separating out what he put aside every week for the Chantry, the rent, and savings for Tirrian and Shianni's dowries. He'd help Shianni decide how to spend the rest of it, but for the most part, she'd taken over coin allocation for the family since Mum. Dad had let her because he was nice that way.

But when it was Soris's turn, all he pushed across the table was a silver and some change. Shianni raised her eyebrows at him. "That's all?"

"No, it's not all. Gave the rest away," Soris told them. He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms, clearly telling the rest of them, And that's all there is to it.

Shianni didn't like being told that was all to anything, whether a person said so out loud or not. "To who?" she demanded. "You're part of this family, Soris. We all depend on the money you bring in."

"Which is why there's a silver seventy-eight on the table," Soris answered. "Bit more than it'll take to feed and clothe me this week, so you're still doing better than when I wasn't here, aren't you? What I do with the rest of what I earn is none of your business."

"Uncle Cyrion!" Shianni protested, turning to Dad for support.

Dad looked hard at Soris, then back at Shianni. "We never said this was a collective, Shianni. Soris living with us isn't conditional on his turning in every copper that he makes." He looked around at all three of them. "We pool our coin each week to make life better for all of us, but I never want you three to feel it's necessary. I need very little from you to make the rents upon our home, or to buy the food, clothes, and fuel we need to survive. Everything you bring in does help; nothing goes to waste. But I'm the adult here, and not only are you three still children, you ultimately belong to yourselves. I appreciate your help, but your coin is yours. You determine what you should do with it."

Shianni scowled. "Then I might save all mine next week to buy a lace dress for rest day, how would that be?" she muttered. She threw up her hands. "Fine. If Soris wants to hoard his coin to spend on dice games or whatever, it's none of my business. I get it. Selfish pig."

"I gave some to Widow Sera, if you must know," Soris snapped. "The rest to Sister Tela at the orphanage, for the Wood kids and Ivy Gardener. I didn't have enough for the others."

They all went quiet. They were the family members of the other people who had been killed in the Purge. Shianni was mortified. "Soris—" she said, extending her hand toward him.

Soris shoved his chair back, stood, and stomped away from the table. "Save it. I don't want to talk about it." He stalked across the room, opened the front door, and left.

"Not everyone in the alienage had someone to come to like Soris," Dad murmured. "Mark everything down in the books, Shianni. I'll go talk with your cousin." He stood up and left the house.

Tirrian looked back at Shianni. Her other cousin had gone red too. With her hair, it left her red all over. "I didn't mean to make him mad," Shianni muttered. "I just thought he wasn't being fair. We both put everything into the family purse."

Tirrian shifted. "Sure, but Dad's right, isn't he? It's 'cause we choose to do it. And you know Mum let you buy those paints I never use that one time, and I've gotten stuff for me sometimes too. I guess Soris wants to help the other families who got parents or husbands or wives killed in the Purge. It's . . . I wish I'd thought to do it." She was embarrassed she hadn't done, really, and not for the first time, she thought how her cousin Soris was a whole lot nicer than she was. All she'd done after Mum's death was mope and rage. Soris was doing plenty of that, but he was also thinking of everybody else in the alienage.

Shianni was quiet for a moment. "Me too," she admitted. "D'you think Uncle Cyrion was telling the truth before? That he doesn't need any of what we bring in every week for us to make it?"

Tirrian hesitated. After Shianni had first moved in, Mum had told her how important it was Shianni feel that she was part of their family. She said the chores and all were part of it, that Shianni couldn't just feel like she was staying with them because her parents had died of the fever, that she needed to feel like she helped. And after Shianni'd got old enough to get a real job and start giving to the family purse, Tirrian had seen that Mum was right. Shianni had been better after that. Tirrian didn't want to contradict Dad, but she didn't want Shianni ever to feel like she did sometimes—extra, like she wasn't needed and didn't help. And she wasn't completely sure Dad had been telling the truth, either. "He needs some of it," she said. "I think sometimes he's stretched pretty far. I mean, we live here instead of one of the smaller houses because Mum worked too, and with four of us . . ." she spread her hands out on the table. "Some of the other alienage families live in one-room houses, without chimneys, even. They have to buy all their hot meals at the market, and that's more expensive long term. Because the rest of us help out, we don't have to do that. We're warmer winters, and Dad can save so you and me get good husbands someday. Or so Soris and the rest of us can give some help to Sister Tela, or to other people who need it."

"Right," Shianni said, looking happier.

"I think what's more important is the actual putting it all together every week," Tirrian admitted. "Remembering we're a family, and you writing it all down. It's amazing you keep our records, 'Anni. Positions as clerks, scribes, and assistants like Dad pay a lot better than jobs down on the docks or working in some noble house. You know? If we all know how to keep accounts, we can do better later on our own."

"If anyone will hire an elf for a job like that after the purge," Shianni said.

"Why not?" Tirrian asked. "Better than doing it themselves." That got a ghost of a smile from her cousin. "Figure out what you're going to say to Soris, hey?" Tirrian suggested. "I'll finish getting supper."

iii.

Tirrian was bone tired, but so proud of herself she thought she might explode. Everything on the table tonight was there because of her. Every bit. She'd found it by the river or by the bay or paid for it at market with the coin she'd got selling what she'd found by the river or by the bay. She'd sold baskets woven from river reeds, watched other kids in the alienage. Finally, she'd had enough.

She'd washed the good tablecloth, and even bought a flower from a flower seller to put in a pot in the center of the table. Then she'd spent the past seven hours cooking mussels, pancakes, and a nice clam soup for them all.

It was Dad's birthday. There hadn't been a whole lot to celebrate lately, but tonight, things were going to be nice.

Mum had taught her—when you had time, when you had occasion to, you made things nice for family. It meant even more than cooking a fancy dinner. For special times, Mum had used to get everyone to dress as nice as they did for a Chantry festival. Time together was a gift, she'd said, and it was better to present it to one another in the best possible wrapping. It was a way of showing you cared.

So when everything was just about ready—just needed the hour or so before everyone would get home to simmer and warm, Tirrian washed her face, neck, and hair. She changed into her spare dress, sat down by the fire, and started combing.

Clean, her hair had the look and shine of wheat at harvest on a sunny day, and if it had the texture of the grain as well, well, it was one of the only features Tirrian had from Mum, so even when she wrestled to get it all into braids for working or despaired of getting the curls to do anything like what she wanted at all, she still felt grateful. Still, she didn't remember it being so difficult when she was smaller.

She'd just managed to twist and pin her front hair back out of her face when Dad walked in. He walked over to her, and though he looked as tired as she was, he put on a smile for her and slid his arm behind her back. "Something smells good in here."

Tirrian hugged him back and rose up to kiss his cheek. "It better," she said. "I've worked hard enough on it. Happy Birthday, Dad."

His smile only grew at that, and Tirrian felt proud and happy. Dad did a lot to make sure she and Shianni and Soris were alright. It was always about what they needed, what would make things better for them. And lately, she'd noticed that sometimes, that meant he worked so long he got sick. That sometimes, because she and Shianni and Soris kept growing and needing new clothes, Dad kept the same ones a fourth or fifth year running. It was right for a parent to sacrifice for their children, but it wasn't fair, and Tirrian thought that sometimes, they ought to get a thank-you.

"Looks like we're almost ready," Dad said. "I guess I should get into uniform."

"Clothes are mended and laid out for you on the bed," Tirrian told him, gesturing toward Dad's shelf in the front room. She and Shianni had begun sharing the big bed since Soris had moved in, and Dad and Soris had taken over the shelf bunks she and Shianni had used to sleep in.

"Looks like you've thought of everything," Dad grinned, and went to change.

Tirrian had just finished her lower hair, and Dad had come back into the main room and begun laying out the place settings when Shianni got home. Her face was pale and pinched and irritable, but Tirrian saw it lift and brighten when she smelled the food on the fire.

"Ooh! That's right! It's your birthday, Uncle Cyrion! Are we going to eat until we burst our pants, then?"

"That's the plan," Tirrian called to her cousin. "Think you can make yourself look halfway civilized for it?"

Shianni laughed. "It might be a reach, cousin, but I'll do my best. Maker, today was just the worst! There was this shem nobleman on the docks, big fat gentleman all the way from Antiva. He held three ships out of port because his precious goods had to unloaded just so. Wore so much perfume he smelled like the whole Queensgarden, but by the time he left for the markets, we had a line of angry merchants two blocks long to talk down."

Shianni and Dad chatted about their days, with Dad asking about priority unloading at the docks and Shianni heartily abusing her boss's procedures and saying what she'd do if it were up to her—and the nobles didn't get her fired or chucked in jail for good sense. Shianni came over to let Tirrian brush and arrange her hair, and they were all laughing when Soris finally got home from his new job by the wharf.

Tirrian tried to keep from making a face when Soris walked in. Soris's new job was cleaning fish for market. It was right around the corner from Shianni's job at the port, but it wasn't nearly as clean as hers was. Shianni had to deal with merchant pileups and disgruntled importers and market representatives, with shipping accidents and the occasional falling crate and resulting damage claim. Soris came home every day smelling like fish guts. But work was work, especially when you were just starting out. Someday soon, Tirrian might end up doing something even worse.

"Right. Uncle Cyrion's birthday," Soris grunted after a moment in the doorway. "You all look like you're dressed for something important. I don't have to do that, do I? I'm half starved."

Tirrian bristled. "Yes, you have to—"

Dad held up a hand. "It's fine, Soris. Sometimes we try to commemorate household occasions, just among ourselves. But if you're not feeling up to it, that's perfectly alright."

"Might be nice if you could put in the effort to wash, though," Shianni said. "Just because your job smells like dead fish doesn't mean our house should."

Soris looked at them all, then turned on his heel to head out to the river. "Fine."

He came in dripping but smelling much better, but his mood was a damper on the whole entire house. He couldn't even make himself smile for Dad's birthday dinner.

Physical presents were for festival days. They were too expensive to buy for friends and family every time somebody had a birthday. So Dad wasn't getting any presents but the dinner tonight. For birthdays, they had a different tradition. They gave gifts of words. Everyone went around the table and said what made the person whose birthday it was special—what gifts they gave to the speaker, just by being around. As the eldest of the children, Shianni went first.

"Uncle Cyrion, you might be the kindest person I've ever known," she said. "When Soris and me lost our parents, you didn't send messages of condolence or a few coins to help us, you took us into your home. You made us a sister and brother to Tirrian, as well as cousins. You share everything you have with us. You're saving for a dowry to get me a husband someday. You're gentle and generous. Everyone looks up to you. You make our house a home, and I love you so much. I hope you know that."

Dad reached across and squeezed Shianni's hand. "You're going to make me weep, niece."

"And set an impossible standard for the rest of us to follow," Tirrian muttered. "You know you're the one of us with the words, and you go off and say something like that?!"

"I'm just being honest!" Shianni protested.

It was Soris's turn next. He swallowed, looking at the table. "My dad always respected you, Uncle," he said. His voice was choked. "Said you'd probably be named elder, after Valendrian. I . . . appreciate what you've done for me. Sorry I don't often show it."

Tirrian hurried to take her turn before Soris ended up weeping. He couldn't be as genuine in his thanks to Dad as Shianni could. Not yet. But he wouldn't want to shame his uncle with tears that showed how much he wished he was in his own home with his own father tonight. "I'm a brat sometimes too," she said. "I know it. I can be stubborn and . . . and vicious . . . and I can have a horrible temper. But you always forgive me, Dad. You always show me and all of us we can be better. Mum taught me to fight for justice and stand up for what's right in others. You taught me what the right thing looks like. You taught me what it means to be a neighbor, a friend, and family to others, and what it means to show patience and courtesy to strangers. I don't think I'll ever be as good at it as you are, but . . . I try. Because of you."

Dad squeezed her hand too. Now he was weeping, but it was better for Dad to weep than Soris, and he was weeping happy tears. Tirrian could tell. "You three children are the joy of my life," he said. "You honor me—not only with your words but with who you are growing to be: hardworking young people of character and integrity, a credit to your family, to the alienage, and to the People."

"Alright, enough with the sappy stuff. Let's eat!" Shianni cheered.

"Indeed! Let us eat!" Dad agreed.

But a few minutes later, it was clear Soris wasn't eating. Dad was having second helpings, and Shianni was on thirds, but Soris was still pushing around the mussels on his first plate, and he hadn't touched his stew. He just kept staring at the table.

Tirrian frowned. "Don't you like supper, Soris? I didn't get the seasoning wrong for you, did I?"

Soris's cheeks went pink. "I'm sorry, Tirri. I probably would've gobbled everything a few days ago. It looks good, but I just—" he wrinkled his nose. "I'm sorry. I know you worked hard on this. It just smells—" he broke off.

Shianni's face, which had been screwing up as she wound up to defend Tirrian's cooking, cleared. "Hey, Soris, I'll swap you your bowl of stew for these three pancakes," she said. "I probably shouldn't have any more bread anyway, or they'll be able to roll me down to the warehouse tomorrow."

Tirrian realized the problem then. It was the fish. Soris didn't smell like dead fish anymore—but his supper did. And after spending the day covered in fish guts, it was more than he could take.

Soris scraped the stew from his bowl into Shianni's and began nibbling on her pancakes. Shianni shot a look at Tirrian, but Dad was looking at Soris, and now Dad's birthday dinner was completely about Soris—about how much he missed his family, how he hated his new job, and how miserable he was. He hadn't said any of it, but they all knew.

He couldn't keep it together for one night? Not even for Dad?

Tirrian shoved her fork through her food, ripping through a pancake and sending a mussel spinning off into the salt cellar. "Sorry," she muttered.

No one said a thing.

iv.

"Tirri Bright-Eyes," Sister Jainey said. "It's been some time since you've come and talked with us."

Tirrian kept her eyes on the bins of clothes in front of her. "Been busy."

"You've grown," Sister Jainey tried. "I imagine your father will be finding a home for you soon enough. Will you be traveling to another alienage, do you think, or will he try and settle you here with us in Denerim?"

"That's a few years down the road yet, Sister," Trirrian answered. "No man down here finds his daughter a husband before she's learned to work, and it'll be two year or more till the sh—till the humans will be looking to hire. Your pardon." Without looking up at the sister, she bobbed a half curtsey and moved down the row. The jackets here were too small. They might fit Soris now, but if he grew any, he'd be out of cloth again, and he went through it faster since he'd taken the job at the wharf.

"You almost said something then," Sister Jainey said, moving with her. "'Shem.' You were always such a nice little girl, Tirrian. I hope you haven't picked up low, common ways of speaking."

An ember of anger beneath her ribs ignited into flame. Tirrian pasted on her human smile to hide it—blank, inoffensive. Nonthreatening. "It might be hard for a girl to speak nice, surrounded by low, common people," she said. She bobbed again. "Sister."

Sister Jainey had always been the oldest of the Chantry clergy to come to Chantry Day in the alienage. She was more than older than the others now—she was an old woman, and she was often one of the only sisters to come, with one or two of the Templars. Tirrian had never liked her much, always so finicky about leaving the alienage before dark. She liked her less now, with yellow spreading on her fingernails and her hair turning white. She'd started to smell, and she walked slow, but she talked as loud as ever, on and on about the goodness of the Maker.

She had the actual gall now to look at Tirrian with remorse in her little black bird's eyes. "Child, I meant no offense," she said. "I would have thought you knew that. We were always friends. I know the last few years have been difficult, for your family and many in the alienage. But don't let your light go out." She held out a clawed hand. "Come, let's talk. The Maker will hear you if you seek his favor."

Tirrian threw down the shirt she'd been examining. It'd look horrible on Soris anyway. "Here," she snapped at the sister. "He'll hear me if I seek his favor here. You'll say you're my friend. Here. If I step foot in Your chantry tomorrow—" she laughed. "Well. Then all bets are off. Your sanctuary will call the watch on me. You won't stop them, and it'll be their mercy I have to deal with, not the Maker's. So. I don't need the Maker's favor. Just some clothes for my cousin."

Sister Jainey's face fell. "Soris Tabris. Tomald and Lindra's son." She walked across the square, to another pile of sacks. "These clothes over here should fit a young man of his size."

Tirrian nodded her thanks, crossed over to the sister, and began sorting through the garments. Right away, she found a tunic and two pairs of leggings that might suit Soris.

"There's a great deal of anger and mistrust between our peoples just now," Sister Jainey murmured in an undertone. "The Arl of Denerim takes a hard line, and the more he presses, the more desperate and violent your neighbors grow. They feel as though they have no choice. Many of the brothers and sisters at the Chantry no longer feel safe within these streets." She looked around at the square. Several elves like Tirrian were rummaging among the Chantry donations, stone-faced and silent. A few more sat around the massive tureen of soup the sister had brought, but they were the thinnest, angriest elves in the alienage, and not one of them spoke to the Templar on guard. No children played with the toys, which lay alone at the base of the vhenadahl.

Tirrian shrugged. What did Sister Jainey expect, with Uncle Tomald, Aunt Lindra, and four others dead? With Alarith and a handful of others still in the arl's dungeons?

"If neither of us move to bridge the gap, to join our hands in friendship and not anger, there can be no hope for the future," Jainey murmured, almost to herself. "The Chant will stay in the city centers, in the human neighborhoods, and will never sound around the vhenadahl. The Maker did not say, 'If humans everywhere sing the Chant, I will return to the world.' He desires the songs of all. I do not know how to right the wrongs of the ages, or the wrongs in this city, or even those south of the river. I cannot shield you from the fears and prejudice of the human congregation." She looked back to Tirrian. "But—if you ever leave the walls of your alienage, if you step into my Chantry—I will greet you, Tirrian Tabris."

"So long as I watch my low and common habits," Tirrian challenged her.

Sister Jainey closed her eyes and bowed her head. "Maker forgive us all. Have you found what you needed?"

Tirrian examined the clothes—the leggings, two shirts, a pair of shoes, and a jacket, all mended at least twice and soft with wear, but none badly patched and all with more wear left in them. She nodded.

"Thank you," she said then. "For still coming. After the Purge and all. And thank you, on behalf of my family." She started to curtsey again, then gave her hand to the sister instead. Sister Jainey still smelled bad, but somehow, her voice didn't seem as grating now. Human old people were still a lot uglier than elven elders, but she supposed if Valendrian's and Dad's gray hairs were worthy of respect, so were Sister Jainey's.

Sister Jainey took Tirrian's hand between two dry, cool palms and pressed it. "You've Cyrion's kindness as well as Adaia's light and thirst for justice," she said. "Don't forget you're the child of the Maker too. My best to your father and your cousins."

Tirrian nodded, adjusted Soris's new clothes over her arm, and left the square.

v.

Tirrian didn't like how many people had shown up to Old Man Greggory's warehouse down by the docks. The building only had the one entrance, and there were a good dozen and then some between her, Shianni, and Soris and that entrance. Most of them were drunk.

She pressed her arm sheaths, nervous. She wanted hands on her knives in case the watch showed up. In case of something else. But if she drew steel, she could cause a pretty big something else all on her own. Soris had one of his dad's old knives on him. But Shianni was unarmed. And a good third of the people here were human.

"Good King Cailan lets his nobles run roughshod over the people of our nation!" Thom Blacking shouted from the packing box someone had found him to stand on. "The same people who threw off the Orlesians for his father, the same people who formed the backbone of Maric's Resistance! We gave Ferelden back to the Theirins, thinking it would mean freedom! But what do we have now? A bunch of fat, steel-happy overlords—raising rents, seizing property, raping women, breaking families apart to force into their service! Tell me, countrymen: Are our Fereldan nobles any better than the Orlesians?"

"No!" The shout rang out from all around Tirrian and the others. Shianni shouted with them. Soris didn't shout, but his face was just as angry as many of the drunks.

"I see some of you doubting," Thom said, more reconcilingly. "Believe me, I would have never thought we'd be here fifteen years ago! King Maric kept the nobles in line. He was a proper king. But Cailan's weak! And who suffers for it? The people who make up the bulk of Ferelden! Hear here Wendil Bobbs. You know him, you know his work! His shop, which has some of the best-quality cloth at some of the fairest prices on East Side!"

A human stepped out of the crowd, up to the front near Thom, and faced the rest of them. He was a little man, balding on top, with a long, droopy brown mustache. His jacket and tunic were well made, Tirrian saw: common-cloth fabric, but it fit him well and looked like it had been sewn to last. "The arl commissioned uniforms for his men from me three months back," he said. "I was honored. Clothing the garrison for the Arl of Denerim himself. I turned aside orders from a score of folk to work on those uniforms. Completed them five days ahead of schedule too. Only to be paid what it cost me for the fabric, and sent about me business when I asked about compensation for all the time and work I'd paid. A loss of near a hundred sovereigns, and that's not counting what I lost on the paying work I could've done for me friends and neighbors. If me family makes it through the winter with room, board, and shop intact, it'll be a bleeding miracle. For the honor of clothing Arl Urien's garrison." Wendil spat, and went back to his place in the crowd, and several people made angry or sympathetic noises.

"Thank you, Master Bobbs," Blacking said. "An honorable shopkeeper and craftsman, near beggared for fulfilling his commission for our Arl of Denerim," he shouted. "Oh, he treats his men very well! Takes the shirts from our backs to clothe them. And how does he fill out their ranks? Hear here Clive Parser, wounded and disabled in the war against the Orlesian invaders! When his goodwife—patient, diligent, faithful woman—died three years ago, Mr. Parser was left with only his two sons to provide for his daily needs. And what's happened?"

Another man, elderly, shaking badly and leaning heavily on a cane and the arm of a middle-aged human woman, was led forward. "The arl conscripted my boys—Jergen and Percy. I wouldn't have minded his taking one. I served in Arl Urien's contingent, and that of his father, during the wars. It en't wartime, neither. My boys send home their coin, same as they do when they was working in the town. But I don't need their coin, I need them, and not just the odd rest day when milord sees fit to release 'em. I went to him. I said, me, 'Milord, can't you see our situation? Couldn't you show mercy and give one of them back to me, or let them live at home instead of the barracks?' He has two score and ten men lives in that castle, and more round the city besides. He don't need both my sons. Not full time. He had me escorted from the premises."

Parser's neighbor or helper led him away. The shouts were louder this time. Several men and women shook their fists or smashed their bottles on the ground. Tirrian gripped both her cousins wrists. "I want to go home," she murmured.

"You crazy?" Shianni asked her, pointing. "Look! He's bringing up Verity Hollis!"

Tirrian looked. Thom Blacking had called his first elf forward. Verity Hollis, who lived a couple alleys over from the rest of them. A few of the shems complained about hearing from a knife-ear. A few called rude things up at her. Others shushed them, wanting to hear what Verity had to say. "I wasn't part of the crowd Urien wanted to shut up last autumn," Verity was saying. "I never had steel any sharper than a bread knife in my house. Did my job, took care of my family, and minded our own business. And I felt sorry for the folk who got killed or taken during the Purge, but I told myself they must've deserved it. Then my neighbor, Tolliver Nollrey, came back to his home last week."

Shianni's fist clenched under Tirrian's hands. A lot of the elves in the warehouse started muttering, faces dark. They'd all seen Tolliver when he got back from Arl Urien's dungeons.

"The skin was falling off his bones from starvation," Verity told them. "What of it hadn't been scarred by the torturers or eaten by poxes and parasites he caught in those vermin-ridden dungeons of Urien's. They kept him there for months. He never had a trial. No one made compensation to his wife and children all the time he was locked up or when he came back, and with the condition he's in, it'll be weeks yet before he can even think about going back to work. Tolliver Nollrey will never be the same. No one deserves that."

It was dead silent for a three-count after Verity stepped back into place. Then more shouts erupted, louder than ever, curses on the arl and his men, curses on the king who allowed this. At the front of the crowd, Thom Blacking let them yell. It was hard to see in the dim warehouse lamps, but Tirrian thought he was smiling.

"Hear here Soris Tabris!" he shouted over the din. "A lad who works down on the wharf! His aunt was already killed by the city watch a couple years back, but it seems he hasn't lost enough!"

Tirrian whirled on Soris. She'd had no idea this was why Soris had wanted to come, that he'd arranged with Thom Blacking to speak. He jerked his hand out of hers and strode to the front, though, pale and shaking. He looked so little, next to the others who'd spoken. Next to everyone in the warehouse. That was Blacking's point, Tirrian thought. He'd had all these men—and they were mostly men—listen to a shopowner, someone the humans would think was like them. Then a little old man, then a woman. Now he wanted them to hear from someone like Soris, who, if he wasn't a child anymore, still wasn't anything like a man yet. Every speaker was meant to make people here angrier and angrier. The crowd was getting more dangerous by the minute. Now Soris was right in the middle of it.

"I . . . uh . . . my parents died in the Purge," he said. "They were killed. My dad was a woodworker. He had tools in his shop. Knives and things. He taught me and some of the other kids to defend ourselves, after they killed my Aunt Adaia, who used to do it. He would—he would stop bullies and thieves who got after us on the way home from work or the market. He never—he never actually hurt anybody, that I know of. He told us never to pick fights, actually, because the hu—because uh, because the watch doesn't treat everybody fairly. And my mum, she never did anything at all. She was a cook's assistant.

"I don't know what happened that morning," Soris admitted. His voice was dead. "When the men started coming, Mum sent me to my Uncle Cyrion and my cousins. They were . . . they had orders to leave kids alone, and I guess she thought I'd be safer with them, where there were two others, than I'd be with her and Dad, where I was the only one. But when the fighting was over and, uh, and I went back home, they'd broken down our door and shattered our windows. Destroyed most of Dad's equipment. And he and Mum were both there—uh, they were gone."

The crowd surged. It roared its rage to the rafters. Something clenched in Tirrian's stomach, and she lunged forward. She elbowed two men who had to be twice her size and an elf woman out of her way to get up to the front and yanked Soris back to stand with her and Shianni. "We need to leave," she hissed to both her cousins.

One or two of the crowd was reaching out for them—trying to touch Soris, to squeeze his arm or clap his shoulder, to comfort him or tell him he'd done well. Or something worse. There were a lot of drunks in the crowd.

"No more!" Thom Blacking bellowed across the furious knot of people. "I say no more! No more poverty in our streets! No more corruption in the forces meant for our protection! No more fat cats gorging themselves on our lifeblood and the blood of our children!" The crowd punctuated every sentence with shouts of their own. They raised their fists and made threatening gestures at nobody—at the nobles and fat cats who weren't here.

"I say it's time to let the arl and the king know just what we think of the state of our city, what they're doing to our people!" Thom shouted.

"Let's go," Tirrian said again. She had a death grip on Soris's arm with her right and her left hand on the hilt of a knife. As the red-faced crowd roared louder than ever, and one man went so far as to smash another packing crate up for clubs, Soris finally looked back at her, white faced. He nodded.

"Come on, Tirrian!" Shianni protested. "Aren't you mad?"

"Be mad if we stayed here," Tirrian insisted. Her stomach clenched again, and she took her hand off her knife to grab Shianni too, at the same time a blond-bearded shem did. It could've been enthusiasm. Maybe he wanted to share his excitement and just had to grab somebody in the moment. Tirrian didn't wait to find out. She kicked him in the shins, left him swearing, and dragged both her big cousins out of the warehouse by the arms, apologizing hastily whenever she bumped into anyone on the way. As they made their way out of the door, she heard the sound of more crashing wood and yelling behind them.

Shianni's protests had dried up the second the bearded shem had tried to grab her. She was as white as Soris for another five blocks. Then she let out a shaky laugh. "It probably won't go anywhere," she said. "They'll go into a bar to get more drinks and shout some more, get into a huge fight, and go home with a few new lumps and bruises, right?"

Tirrian stared at her and said nothing. She just kept walking. She hadn't let go of either of their arms yet. Right now, she needed to hold on.

"I didn't know how it would go," Soris told them. "Tirrian, I swear. I didn't know they were going to suggest . . . that."

"Treason," Tirrian said flatly.

"Treason," Soris agreed. "Thom just said he was getting some friends together to talk. About how it is on East Side and ways we might be able to make it better. I thought . . . maybe a neighborhood watch, or . . . he said some of the humans who live around the river might want to help us. It sounded . . ." He broke off.

Tirrian squeezed his arm, then let him go. She relaxed her hold on Shianni and slipped her arm through her cousin's instead of clutching it.

"I was in until the very end," Shianni said. "If it really had been a neighborhood watch or a talk with the humans about what's wrong back home, I'd still be in. Someone has to do something. Why shouldn't the arl and the king hear about how we feel down here? Not treason. Not rioting. Just tell them."

Tirrian shook her head. "They don't care unless it does them good," she said. "Those shems wouldn't of cared either, if Thom hadn't started with a human tailor. And Thom only cares because there's a lot more of us that's unhappy and wanting to do something than there are humans. You see him up there? He was loving it, being the center of that mess." She shuddered, remembering Thom Blacking's little smile, the way he strutted and preened on top his little box, using story after sad story to get the crowd as mad as possible.

"Thom's always been decent to us before," Soris objected. He was quiet for a moment. "I didn't think he was like that."

"But what if he wasn't?" Shianni persisted. "Soris, Tirrian, listen—what if he wasn't? What if it hadn't gotten all . . . the way it did. What if it had just been a neighborhood watch or something? I don't know, a way to convince the humans, or the nobles, or whatever that it's good for them to treat us fairly? Like Tirrian was saying. Like, what if when Wendy Whatshisface found out that the arl wasn't going to pay him what his work was worth, he could get some friends to agree to help him out, and a few other tailors agree not to help the arl until he raised his pay? Or, what if every time city took someone in who didn't deserve it, four or five of their neighbors promised to go to court and say they didn't deserve it? Like they were doing in there today, but legal."

"It'd never work," Tirrian said. "Like anyone down here has the coin to spare to give a tailor who takes a hundred-sovereign loss, or would spare it if they did. Like you could get enough people to testify in court that city was rotten that they wouldn't all be terrified of doing it."

Shianni tore her arm away. "Well, if no one does it, all this shit is going to keep happening, Tirrian!" she said. "Andraste's ass, your mum got murdered! Soris's parents got murdered. And everyone just let it happen! The laws are supposed to stop things like that. When they don't, someone has to say something!"

Tirrian looked at her cousin, and for a second, she saw her mother, even though Shianni was related to Dad not Mum and didn't look a thing like Mum had. She'd always thought she'd be the one to grow up like Mum, not Shianni, arty Shianni who had been too shy to talk to anyone but the family when she'd first come to Denerim and cried every five minutes, it seemed. But there she was, and here Tirrian was, Dad instead, even with Mum's old knives up her sleeves.

She hated herself a little for it, too, but she said it. "They don't have to say treason. And if it's wrong for them to murder people, it has to be wrong for us too, and that's what Thom and them want, or where they'd go, anyway, even if they hadn't said it yet. They were out to make somebody bleed, by the end."

It wasn't half so nicely said as Shianni's little speech, even with her swearing, but it worked anyway. Tirrian saw Shianni wilt a little and hated herself a little more. She walked off, down the uneven cobbles, keeping to the lamplight, heading back toward home.

Soris skipped a step to catch up with her. "I guess we don't need to give the arl's men another reason to kill us, right?" His voice was dark, and bitter too. He was backing her up, but Tirrian found she hated that even more than what she'd said herself.

"If they want to kill us, they'll try to kill us," she said, loud enough for Shianni, shuffling along behind them now, lost in thought, to hear. "They don't need a reason. If they do try again one day, I give myself full permission to try and kill them right back. But until then, I'm going to be better than they are. I won't be a murderer just cause they are, and if I live in this country, under the nobles in charge here, I'm going to act like it." She felt a little awkward. "That's all."

Shianni slipped her arm through hers again, having, apparently, forgiven her. "Soris is supposed to be the goody-goody, not you," she teased. "Thanks for back there," she added. "I think it could've been rough, if you hadn't pulled us all out."

"I guess things do change," Soris remarked. "Tirri getting us out of trouble instead of in." He nodded his own thanks. "You always were the wild one before, though, cousin. I guess if you think something or someone's going too far, we should listen."

"I think you both want to do the right thing," Tirrian offered. She sighed. "And I wish it had been different back there, what you wanted it to be. Or that I thought anything like it might work. For Mum. For all of us. I just—" she looked hard again at Shianni. "D'you think you could do it better, one day? What Thom should of been doing?"

Shianni laughed at her. "Cuz, I always think I can do it better. Sometimes, I'm even right."

"And you were brave," Tirrian told Soris. "Talking like you did about your parents, whatever it turned into. Whatever Thom's reasons for asking you."

Both her big cousins engulfed her, and the three of them kept home.