"This is it?" Seth asks, scanning the blackened buildings around them. "This is the land we're using?"

Dorian sighs. It's been years since he clapped eyes on this place, and it's even more depressing than he remembers. Burnt-out husks of stone overgrown with weeds and spackled with bird leavings. Rags and makeshift fire pits suggesting recent squatting. And cats. Many, many cats. Maggie is doing her best to be a good girl, sitting obediently beside Seth with her ears pricked, but it's clearly torture for her. She keeps licking her chops, and every so often she lets out a sad little whine. She really wants those cats.

"Not exactly the Dales, I'm afraid," Dorian says. "You'll have your work cut out for you, amatus."

"I'm always up for a challenge," Seth says gamely. "It's hard to picture a garden here now, but once we get these buildings down…"

Once they got those building down, they'd be left with a giant pit in the middle of Old Town. Dorian keeps this observation to himself. "Shall we take a look around?"

They pick their way through the rubble, and it feels a bit like the old days, exploring the ruins of some ancient temple. Seth is scanning for trinkets, and Maggie snuffles about happily, poking her nose into every rotted nook and crumbling cranny. Dorian is mainly concerned with keeping the hem of his extremely expensive cloak out of the filth. Glass crunches beneath his boots, and he's almost sorry he doesn't have his staff to help him negotiate the wreckage.

"Dorian." Seth's voice is muffled. He's gone through an archway into a building that still has most of its roof intact. "Look at this."

Dorian finds him squatting in the middle of the floor, dusting at the filthy tiles with his hands. He tsks and fishes out a handkerchief, but instead of wiping his hands with it, the elf wipes the floor. "That's silk," Dorian informs him tetchily.

"Whose fault is that?" Seth says, handing it back without looking up. "See what's under here?"

Dorian tilts his head. It's some kind of mosaic – and a rather elaborate one, from the look of it. "It's old," he says. "Very old."

All right, he's curious now. He drops to his haunches beside his husband.

"It looks like it's in good condition," Seth says. "I'll bet we could preserve it."

Dorian gives him a wry look. "This isn't Din'an Hanin. For all we know, this was a brothel."

"History is history. We should preserve what we can. At the very least, it would make a handsome centrepiece for the plaza, don't you think?"

"I suppose it would." Dorian wipes at it a little more – the handkerchief is already ruined, after all – while Seth continues poking around.

"I wonder what other treasures are hiding in here? According to the planning documents, some of these buildings are centuries old."

Dorian hums a vague acknowledgement, preoccupied by the mosaic. Practically everything in Tevinter is centuries old, if not millennia, and this… Exalted Age, he'd wager. Perhaps even older. There's something vaguely familiar about the design…

"What's this?"

"What's what?" Dorian replies distractedly. He wipes away a little more dirt, and then it clicks: he's seen this design before, in a bookshop near the senate grounds. It's the sigil of an ancient order, the Guardians of the something-or-other, mages dedicated to the preservation and protection of powerful magical texts. The order is long extinct, its sigil adopted by booksellers looking to lend themselves a certain mystique. This building was probably a bookshop, at least most recently. But the mosaic… This is the real thing. A thousand years ago, this building was something else entirely. A bureau, perhaps, of the Guardians of Whatever.

Belatedly, he registers a scratching sound. Seth is working at something with a pocket knife, prizing it up from the floor.

"What are you doing over there?"

"There's a hatch under here, hiding beneath the paving stones. I've almost got it—"

"Wait, don't!"

But it's too late. Seth has opened the hatch, and an ominous hissing sound is the only warning they get before a massive figure in dragon-wing armour flares up from the hidden cellar. It's a revenant, because of course it is.

It seizes Seth by the throat and hoists him off the ground, and Maker preserve him, Dorian almost faints. They're unarmed and unarmoured, and Seth looks so small and fragile in the demon's grasp that Dorian is sure his windpipe will be crushed in an instant. He draws on the Veil with such violent urgency that he feels the air buckle around him – but Maggie gets there first, leaping at the revenant with a snarl and fixing her jaws around the arm holding Seth. It's little more than a distraction, but it's enough for Seth to twist free and scramble back, clutching at his throat and coughing.

Dorian condenses the ambient air as best he can without the focusing power of a staff. "Ver revas!" he cries, and Maggie obeys, dropping to the floor even as the creature tries to slam her against the wall, driving its gauntleted fist into the stone with such force that it shakes loose a cascade of roof tiles. Dorian hits the demon with everything he has – which is not very much, unarmed as he is, but at least the thing is focused on him now, its winged helm turning in his direction. He feels a tug in the Veil – and then a tug in his belly as he's yanked by a magical tether, drawing him straight toward the point of a blade. Instinctively, he calls up force magic and pushes against the wall, arresting his momentum just in time to avoid becoming mage on a stick. Alas, he has absolutely no follow-up plan, and his mana is already drained to almost nothing, thanks to the inefficiency of casting without a staff.

If this is how Dorian Pavus meets his end – in an abandoned corner of Old Town reeking of cat piss – he is going to be very put out.

But he should know better than to underestimate his amatus. The revenant starts to raise its blade but finds it lacks the strength, which may have something to do with the silver-haired elf clinging to its back. It sinks to its knees with a clatter of steel, and Dorian watches as his slip of a husband carves a deep, deliberate trench across its throat with his pocket knife.

No one, whether demon or dragon or darkspawn magister, should turn his back on Inquisitor Lavellan.

"That's genuinely alarming," Dorian remarks as he watches the revenant sag slowly over itself, leaking reanimated corpse blood everywhere. "Also a bit arousing, if I'm being honest."

Seth blows out a relieved breath and drops to the floor. "It's lucky, is what it is," he says, fingering his already-bruised throat.

"Indeed. Important safety tip, amatus, which I feel remiss for not having mentioned before. This is Tevinter, my little magpie. One doesn't poke around under floors lightly. I take back what I said before, about this not being Din'an Hanin. When it comes to curses and demons and ancient booby traps, it is every bit as bad if not worse. So please. No more scrabbling about. Construction in this city is always slow and careful, and you just inadvertently discovered why."

"Consider me duly chastened," Seth says. Maggie comes over, tail wagging as if this was just another walk on just another Tuesday, and Seth gives her a good scritch, which she has more than earned.

Dorian tuts irritably when he sees the state of his hem. All that careful hitching, and now there's undead blood on it.

"One thing's for sure," Seth says, eying the crumbling walls around them. "This project is going to be more interesting than I thought."

"You have an interesting definition of interesting," Dorian says tartly, brushing ineffectually at his cloak.

"Poor Dorian." Seth kisses him. "Can I make it up to you? That Orlesian bistro you like is not far from here."

Dorian pauses. "The one with the cheese?"

"You can have all the cheese."

"And the wine?"

"That too."

Dorian plucks at a bit of plaster on his sleeve. "There's a rather nice spa on the way…"

"All right, Dorian. Spa too. Are you satisfied now?"

"Almost. This particular spa has private rooms…"

"Seriously?"

"I did say it was arousing…"

Seth rolls his eyes and loops his arm through Dorian's, and they walk back out into the sunshine.