And Around Her Neck, A String of Comets

by EvanescingSky

Before the Jewel of the High Court, before Madame de Fer, there was just Vivienne, a young girl from Wycome. Everything else-well, that was her invention.

And Around Her Neck, A String of Comets

That day, the salty breeze blowing through Wycome was warm, just warm enough to be pleasant against the skin, to stir the leaves of the smaller trees and make the banners flutter. She was in the kitchen, at the square little table with the spindly legs, worrying her lower lip with her teeth, tapping her pencil against the table's edge as she ran through the expenses and income of the month. He was out at the bazaar, selling, but it was a slow day ("Just a slow day," he said, and he said the day before "Just a slow day", and if tomorrow he said "Just a slow day", she might weep), so she had stayed home to balance the finances. Coming to The Free Marches had increased their sales, but was it enough? Was it ever enough?

The sunlight outside was turning to a mild afternoon, gently shining through the windows to illuminate her equations. The door she had left open to catch the breeze and let the sounds of the market drift in as they would. None of it was enough to distract her from her work, not for now, not until—

"Mama!"

"Mm." She grunted in response to the little voice. All morning the girl had been pestering her! Too smart for her age, she watched with those big dark eyes whenever she was put off, like she knew Mama's placations were just those. He said the girl had the same look as her mother.

"Mama!"

"Not now, kitten." If they took in fewer vases from Rorik, they could save that money for a shipment of the brocade from Rivain, which always sold well. Assuming they could sell it off promptly, if she factored in the boost in price they could apply during the summer months…

"Mama!"

"I don't have time now, Vivienne!" She turned her cross gaze on the girl, who now stood beside the table, clutching something wet in her hands, her little feet bare and dirty.

"Look!" The girl thrust the thing up, and, hoping to mollify her so some work might be done, she took the thing. It was the wooden horse figure that had been entertaining Vivienne for days—wholly encased in ice. Her brow knit together at once, and she lifted the toy to examine it, her lips parting in surprise.

"What…"

"I did it." She turned her gaze on the girl of four summers, who stood solemnly by the table, hands at her sides, chin up like she was presenting her mother with a great feat.

"You…?" Again, she turned to the toy, and felt the heat draining from her face. "No. Oh, no. You can't be."

Vivienne knew that for some mages, whose families lived in Ostwick, or nearby, certain weekends were visiting days. For others, whose families were too far away, or could not take the time from their work to come (or who simply did not wish to come), these weekends dragged on endlessly as they watched in envy and grief while other families reunited, for however brief a time. Vivienne's family did not come. First Enchanter Tamika had told her they were from Wycome (no, they were from Rivain, Rivain, but Vivienne was from Wycome, where her feet had always been cold), but they had never seen the Ostwick Circle. Vivienne used weekends for personal study.

"Personal study" was her own invention, and it might be practicing a spell assigned by one of her mentors until she could make them exclaim with delight over her precocious skill, or pleading with one of the enchanters to show her something new, something they were not studying yet, or (on pretty days), sitting outside to draw, or sometimes spending the day in bed with a book. The book might be something from the library—a history tome, or an educational novel. Or it might be something contraband—a serial, or something with values the templars deemed inappropriate for their charges. Settling in with one of these for the afternoon made Vivienne's toes curl in a delighted thrill, knowing she had something she was not meant to have.

It was a reading day when Lucrezia burst through the doors of their dormitory, hit the floor on her knees in front of her trunk, and began digging wildly through her things.

"What are you doing?" Vivienne asked, lowering her book at the disruption.

"My essay! I forgot to bring my essay down! I have to show it to my parents." A frown pulled at Vivienne's mouth.

"Don't your parents live in Ansburg?" she said. That was too far away for them to be Visitors. Usually Lucrezia spent these weekends sulking in the library or, on occasion, playing marbles with Vivienne.

"Yes! But today they came!" She turned her shining face to Vivienne, her eyes aglow with joy as if someone had cast a spell on her. "So I must show them everything!" She uncovered the parchment she wanted and bolted back out the door, the scroll trailing behind her.

Frowning deeply, Vivienne sat up. She put aside her reading and searched the room for an appropriate textbook. Fatima had one, and Vivienne flipped to the back where the maps of Thedas were. She traced a path from Ostwick to Ansburg, and then from Ostwick to Wycome. Was it so much further? The tiny dots and triangular mountains on the map didn't make it look so.

There was a sudden ache in her throat, and she was very glad the room was empty. She had asked First Enchanter Tamika about the people who handed her off to the templars before, but if the first enchanter knew anything, she wasn't sharing.

"What were their names?" Vivienne asked.

"Do you want to see something?" the first enchanter said. "Come with me, I'll show you a new spell."

Crying was for babies, which Vivienne was not. She was not crying when she put Fatima's book away, her eyes just stung a little, like Enchanter Sayaka when spring came, and her eyes and nose turned red and swollen. She picked up the book she had left on her bunk, but it no longer interested her. Throwing it aside (it made a somewhat satisfying thwack against her pillow), she took several moments to breathe deeply until her eyes stopped watering, then donned her apprentice hood and left the dorms for the library.

Today was a personal study day, and she was going to make the most of it. When she was the most dazzling enchanter in all of Thedas, no one would ever be able to forget her.

"Vivienne will be joining us today," said Junior Enchanter Ephraim, gesturing for the girl to take a seat in the lecture hall. Vivienne offered a small bow and sat.

"This meeting is for mages and enchanters only," said Enchanter Tiffany. "Not apprentices who still have their milk teeth." A titter passed through the room, making the heat rise in Vivienne's face.

"I understand the confusion," Vivienne interjected before Ephraim could respond. "It hasn't been very long. I passed my Harrowing last night." She gave Tiffany a gracious nod and turned her attention to the Junior Enchanter, as if there were no more to be said, and paid no mind to the intakes of breath and gawking that followed her statement.

The issue was dropped, but not for good. When the room cleared out, Vivienne lingered outside the door, to catch word of what the enchanters were balking about. It was her, certainly. The first enchanter had warned her there might be grumblings about one so young joining the full-fledged mages, but she had also made clear that if Vivienne passed her Harrowing, she had proven herself.

"—can't expect us to trust a thirteen-year-old with matters of the Circle!"

"Matters of the Circle are entrusted to the senior enchanters and the First Enchanter," Ephraim rebuked, his deep voice resounding off the stone walls to lend a kind of auditory authority to his words. "Vivienne has passed her Harrowing: she is a mage. That makes her entitled to all lessons, meetings, and fraternities open to all mages. There is nothing in the regulations about the age an apprentice must be to become a mage."

"She's a child! How can she possibly be ready for the responsibilities?"

"I agree, this is unheard of. She's too young. I can't believe the first enchanter would allow her to take her Harrowing so early."

"Knight-Commander Theseus is having a conniption," said Junior Enchanter Deidre. "He burst in during the ceremony last night and I thought he would take her for the Rite of Tranquility right there. I warned Tamika against this. What does it prove? Especially after the last Harrowing we had here." Oh yes, Theseus had been there—Vivienne had looked right at him as she dropped back into her body, trembling, hollow, drained—she had looked at him and smiled, so he would know that she had won.

"If you wish to take it up with the First Enchanter, be my guest," Ephraim said. "But she does not appreciate her time being wasted, and clearly, the decision has been made. I will concede it is very rare—"

"It's more than rare," interrupted Enchanter Sayaka. "In all the Circle's history,"—and Sayaka fancied herself an expert in Circle history— "I can think of only two examples of mages who have taken their Harrowing so young. One of them went on to become an extraordinarily powerful mage. That was Grand Enchanter Jean-Claude. The other died, or was killed. The records are not clear. Both were a very long time ago." She left a pause that no one else chose to fill. "I'm not saying Vivienne's not talented enough to do what she did. But does the first enchanter really think she's ready? Does she mean to move her into the mages' quarters? Would she not be better off staying with the apprentices of her own age?"

"I can only assume the first enchanter has considered these things," Ephraim replied carefully. "I understand that it was Vivienne's choice to take the Harrowing now."

"We're letting thirteen-year-olds make their own choices now?"

"With guidance, yes." Ephraim spoke firmly. "Vivienne has excelled at every task presented to her by the Circle. All of her mentors believe she was ready to try her Harrowing."

"I can't believe the first enchanter let a child take the Harrowing! She could have died! She could have become an abomination! Now the first enchanter has gone and provoked the templars with her recklessness and what have we gained? A babe amongst the mages?"

"But she did not. As I said—if you wish to take your concerns to the first enchanter, that is your prerogative. I have seen Vivienne's abilities first-hand; I believe she will do fine among the mages. If your concern is being shown up by a child, perhaps you would do well to review your spellwork." There was a shuffling of papers then; Vivienne lingered as long as she dared, but caught nothing else of relevance before she skittered away, turning the nearest corner to hide from view of the doors.

She took and released her deep breaths quietly, not wanting to be overheard, and leaned back against the cold stone wall. The First Enchanter had excused her from lessons for several days following the Harrowing, as most mages needed the recovery time, but Vivienne had declined to take the reprieve. At the time, she felt certain that to disappear for several days after her Harrowing was just a sign she wasn't ready for it. Walking into the lecture hall, she had questioned whether or not she might be pushing too hard. Now, all she felt was a burning desire to prove that no faith in her had been misplaced—she was as good as the first enchanter thought she was.

Still, the memory of the Fade was right on her heels, and the demon there, with its beady eyes and thick arms and promises of fame, and glory, and recognition. Even knowing it was a demon, a part of Vivienne wanted to let it in, to believe it could help her, that she could keep it under control. But no one could ever control a demon—the older mages had told her enough stories of abominations to know that. There was nothing to be gained from toying with spirits and demons.

"What are you doing lingering around here?" Even without looking, she could have placed the accusatory tone—Ser Friedman. It was a tone one could usually use to identify templars—the voice of authority and suspicion rolled into one. "This is no place for apprentices to play."

"I'm not an apprentice," Vivienne said, straightening off the wall and pushing back the stomach-turning memories of walking through the Fade and the purring voice of the pride demon in her ear. "I'm a mage." Ser Friedman began to laugh, then her eyes narrowed and she scrutinized Vivienne more closely.

"You're the brat they put through the Harrowing last night, aren't you?" Vivienne's brow turned down likewise and she thrust her chin out.

"I was listening to Junior Enchanter Ephraim's lecture on constructs in the Fade." Ser Friedman scoffed and shook her head.

"Putting kids through the Harrowing. What's next? You'd better watch yourself; don't go expecting any special treatment because the first enchanter's using you to make some kind of point."

"I am special," Vivienne said.

"Being a pet project of the First Enchanter doesn't make you special," Ser Friedman told her. "Doesn't make you any different than any of the other brats got scooped out of some nothing town to come here. You've got some lessons to learn, kid."

"Someday I'll be first enchanter," Vivienne said. Where the proclamation came from, she wasn't sure. It wasn't something she had laid claim to before, but she was certain of one thing: first enchanters never had cold feet.

"And then you'll be Theseus' problem," said Ser Friedman. "Until then, you're mine. Stop loitering." She jabbed a hand towards the stairs. Without further protest, Vivienne went, but she did not hurry. She had every right to be there, and even Ser Friedman's sour temper could not change that. She had passed her Harrowing, and no one could take that away.

The first enchanter's office seemed so much smaller than it had when Vivienne first stood before her. There was not much Vivienne recalled about that meeting, but she could vaguely remember the feeling that she had worked into another word entirely. Fifteen years…sometimes, it felt like it had been just days. As she stood before the first enchanter's desk, she saw the preponderance of gray in Tamika's hair, the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes, the slouch in her shoulders. Once, Vivienne had thought First Enchanter Tamika was indominable. Now there was an air of weariness about her, and it occurred to Vivienne that the first enchanter was old.

But I will never be a tired old woman, she thought.

"I know you are young, and you have spent most of your life here," the first enchanter said. "But Vivienne, you know we cannot offer you the opportunities you could have elsewhere. You are one of the most—no, you are the most talented mage I have ever had the pleasure of mentoring. And I know that Ostwick is not big enough to contain you. Montsimmard will offer you so much more."

"I believe it's the right decision," Vivienne agreed. "I trust your judgement, of course. And it will be interesting to make my home in a new Circle."

It was not the first time Ostwick had tried to do away with her. Not long before her Harrowing, when she was still twelve, Knight-Commander Theseus decided her precocious talent was not suited to the Ostwick Circle, and had tried to have her transferred to Kirkwall.

No one wanted to be transferred to Kirkwall.

Vivienne had begged not to be sent away; in desperation, she had wept to First Enchanter Tamika, but the first enchanter's hands were tied if the templars had made a decision. The situation had gone so far as having Vivienne's things packed up and loaded onto a wagon before the knight-commander received notice that, due to ongoing political trouble in Kirkwall's Circle, they were not in a position to be accepting a powerful child apprentice unless there were no other options. Theseus had relented, and Vivienne remained at Ostwick.

This time was different.

"You will excel, I have no doubt," the first enchanter said as she stamped Vivienne's travel papers. Already, she could see the knight-commander's looping signature at the bottom, along with his own personal stamp. "Are you excited?" she asked, slipping into a more casual tone as she handed over Vivienne's papers. A faint smile danced around the young mage's lips.

"I have always wanted to see Orlais," she said. Long past were the days she had dreamed of visiting Wycome: her sights were set on greater things now.

"See that you don't end up getting involved in their Great Game," Tamika warned. "It has a habit of swallowing the unwary whole."

"Am I being accused of being unwary?" Vivienne asked, her tone lighthearted.

"I would never," the first enchanter said with a slight smile. "But I would hate to see you fall victim to the vicious politics of the Orlesian nobility."

"I have no intention of falling victim to anything, first enchanter," Vivienne reassured her with a slight bow as she rolled up the travel documents. "Demons, or nobles." First Enchanter Tamika nodded to her and rose to her feet.

"I have absolute faith in you, Vivienne," she said. "You have done Ostwick proud, and you will continue to do so in Montsimmard. Do write, I am interested to hear what you accomplish there."

"Of course, first enchanter," she said. "I'll miss you all here." She would not. There were a handful she might miss, but that feeling was nowhere near the surge of excitement that rushed through her when she considered arriving in Orlais. Everything the first enchanter said was true—there was so much more opportunity in Montsimmard. Vivienne had been vibrating like an agitated beehive to take to the road as soon as she and the first enchanter had agreed on her transfer, and having it nearly in hand—rolled up in the document she had been handed—made her breathless, as if she had to get out the door before Theseus found some reason to stop her from going, or something happened to prevent her departure. "You've been so good to me." This was true—Vivienne appreciated Tamika's guiding hand, even if they had occasionally butted heads over Vivienne's pride. She would not be going to Montsimmard if it were not for the first enchanter—at least, not now.

Tamika came around her desk to give Vivienne a quick embrace.

"Take care of yourself, child," she said.

"And you, first enchanter," she said, returning the hug. "Come visit me sometime, won't you?"

"As if these people here would ever give me the time to go on a vacation," the First Enchanter said, pulling back.

"Surely the first enchanter can divine a necessity for traveling to another Circle," Vivienne said with a coy smile.

"Certainly she can, but should she?" The first enchanter shook her head. "Yes, you'll do quite well in Montsimmard. Goodbye, Vivienne."

"Goodbye, first enchanter." Vivienne took her leave, transfer papers clutched in her right fist, feeling she could walk on air down to the stables. Her things were packed, the carriage was being prepared, her phylactery had been brought up from the store room and given to the templars…it was truly happening. She was going to Orlais! Vivienne paused in the hall outside the first enchanter's office to clutch the papers to her chest and sigh, resisting the urge to squeal with delight like a child.

She bounded out the front doors of Ostwick's Circle of Magi, out into the fresh spring air, and breathed deeply as she strode past the templars that formed her travel guard. A new chapter of her life was starting, and she could not wait to kick off the refuse of the last paragraph. The sun was rising; she had no time to stare back into the fading darkness.

"You want to take an apprentice?" Senior Enchanter Beryl barely made it sound like a question—somehow, it came out sounding like an insult. Vivienne gave a nod, clasping her hands behind her back as the senior enchanter grilled her. She addressed Vivienne in the Common Tongue, scorning Vivienne's efforts at mastering Orlesian.

"Yes, I—"

"You're nineteen. You've been at Montsimmard for two months. Do you think you're ready for that?" From the way Beryl stared at her over the half-moons of her glasses, her wrinkly brow flat, Vivienne could tell she had an answer for that already.

"I do."

"And what makes you think that?" Beryl's accent made the drawl on what seem to extend out particularly far and especially condescendingly. The light shining through the blue and white stained glass behind her desk would have been lovely, if it had not been beaming down on such an obstacle.

"I have been a mage for six years," Vivienne said. "I was one of the youngest—"

"—mages in history to take her Harrowing," Beryl droned. "Yes, we are aware, madame. I did not ask for your qualifications to be a mage. I asked what makes you think you can mentor a child?"

Vivienne blinked and tried to re-gather her thoughts.

"I see you haven't joined a fraternity," Beryl went on, scanning down Vivienne's file. "But you've been a full-fledged mage for almost seven years. Why is that?"

"When I find a fraternity worth joining, I will join it," Vivienne replied, a frosty tone creeping into her voice. The persistent nagging over her refusal to join a fraternity—from every blasted corner of the Circle—grew ever so wearisome. Beryl did not look particularly impressed with this answer. "There is quite a lot that I can teach a young apprentice," she went on.

"Like how to be naturally talented?" Beryl asked. A frown creased Vivienne's face. Her vision for the way this meeting would go was not playing out very true to planning.

"How to work hard, for one," she said.

"We already have enchanters who can teach a mage to work hard," Beryl said. She set down Vivienne's application atop her file from Ostwick and folded her hands on the desk. "Do you want to know my thoughts?"

"Please, senior enchanter." As if Vivienne could stop her.

"Frankly, mademoiselle, I think this is a power grab. You want to be promoted faster than you see it happening, and taking on an apprentice is a way to prove your worthiness to the senior enchanters. You have no interest in mentoring a child and there is very little you could offer an apprentice as your own experience is extremely limited. The Ostwick Circle is small and, as my understanding rests, perpetually under-funded. You may have been a dazzling star there, and First Enchanter Tamika is certainly keen to make a name for you as her apprentice, but you are accustomed to being a big fish in a small pond. You aren't in a pond anymore, Madame Vivienne. You're in an ocean. Our apprentices are not tools, they are children. They need to be guided by mages with the patience and experience to teach them the skills they will need to pass their Harrowing.

"You are an extremely gifted mage, no one can deny that. But you are barely more than a child yourself and your success, as I've said, rests primarily in your own inborn talent. That is not something you can teach a child. They either have it, or they do not, and most of them do not. If you were willing to sit in with some of the other enchanters, observe their lessons, and learn something yourself, then perhaps we can revisit this." She picked up Vivienne's application and gave it a shake.

"And how long for that, senior enchanter?" Vivienne managed to tack on the title without gritting her teeth too much.

"Five years," Beryl replied.

"Five years!" Vivienne regretted the exclamation as soon as it left her mouth, but she couldn't bite it back. Five years!Vivienne's breast burned with indignation. Nothing wrought greater insult than accusations with truth in them. Vivienne had no love of children, and little desire to sit with a ten-year-old through lessons in which they may or may not be interested. Possibly she would end up with one like herself, keen on the magical arts and willing to study as often as necessary to master the material, but it was just as likely she would end up with one like Odile's apprentice, who had spent half his lessons with her this year throwing spitballs at her and making fart jokes. Vivienne had met the boy once, and found it hard to resist the urge to encase him in ice within the first five minutes.

But five years! Vivienne had been itching to move up the ladder back in Ostwick; what had she come to Montsimmard for if not the opportunities? Had she been hasty? Impatient? Beryl certainly thought so, but she was old, and she had disliked Vivienne from the start.

"Five years," Beryl repeated. "I suggest you rethink this plan, unless you have some underlying love of teaching that I have not yet observed." She stared Vivienne down over those stupid spectacles and Vivienne stared back, trying to summon a searing retort that would justify her to this crotchety old thing, and realizing, over the course of several moments, that she had nothing.

"Perhaps I will do that, senior enchanter," she said at last, snatching her application back off the desk. "Thank you for your time."

"Andraste guide you," Beryl said, by way of dismissal.

Andraste hang you, Vivienne thought savagely.

Odile was sympathetic when Vivienne ranted on about the rejection of her application, but Odile also had enough patience not to immolate her own apprentice, so Vivienne did not take this to mean she agreed. The pride demon agreed most thoroughly, and felt that quite a bit more could have been said to Beryl on the subject of her criticisms, but Vivienne stomped the sorry creature down. It had not bested her at thirteen, it would not best her now.

"But Vivienne…isn't that exactly what you were trying to do?" Odile asked when Vivienne finally sank down onto a divan, out of steam for venting.

"Of course it was!" Vivienne exclaimed. "But how could she see that? And how could she prove it, if I went to another senior enchanter about it?"

"Why don't you do that?"

"I've thought about it," Vivienne said. "But that would mean making an enemy of Beryl. I'm not sure I want to do that yet, if I don't have to." She let out a sigh and burrowed a hand into her hair. The day she had come to Montsimmard, she had decided it was time for a change, and let out the cornrows she had worn her hair in throughout her time at Ostwick. Now she wore it loose, or twisted into an elegant knot, with a variety of Orlesian decorations to pin into it. That day, she had worn a brass butterfly encrusted with false jewels, chained delicately to a little flower.

"What are you thinking?" Odile asked, leaning forward, as Vivienne lapsed into silence.

"I'm thinking perhaps she had a point. Perhaps there is a better way to do this."

A letter from First Enchanter Tamika reminded Vivienne to be patient. As eager as she had been to leave Ostwick behind, it had taken her years to reach the point where the transfer took place. If she rushed now and made enemies of the wrong people, she would only make her own life more difficult. It had been foolish to argue with Beryl, especially as a number of the enchanters felt Vivienne was too used to special treatment in Ostwick. The templars agreed, judging by how often they searched her quarters for contraband and questioned her in the halls. Vivienne realized how used to Ostwick she had been: There, she had known all of the mages, the enchanters, junior and senior enchanters, and the templars too—which ones were lax with the rules, which ones could be won over with charm, which ones would miss contraband right under their noses as long as the mage in question showed a suitable amount of deference. At Montsimmard, she had stridden in with that same confidence, and it had taken her a month to realize how many times she had mis-stepped. She could not afford to keep being so careless, unless she wanted cold feet for the rest of her life.

The first point of order was ingratiating herself, with enchanters and templars alike. She was the newcomer here, she reminded herself. Just as she had to prove herself to Tamika and the Ostwick Circle, she needed to prove herself to Montsimmard. When there were jobs to be done, Vivienne was the first to volunteer (even when that job was assisting with repairing the dam for the man-made repository at the city's edge, a muddy, wet job with altogether too much bellowing from the mundane workers involved), and she fought to sweeten her tongue, and familiarized herself with the writings and works of the enchanters in Montsimmard's Circle.

She thought of her Harrowing, and the pride demon, curling its fingers around her shoulder, reassuring her that she was so much smarter than everyone else, that she knew best, that she was right. When she thought of this, she bowed her head to the enchanters and thanked them for their advice, and checked out more books from the library.

When Odile and Tristane tried to invite her along for a few not-entirely-sanctioned wine parties, Vivienne turned them down—she had work to do. It was the study of knight-enchanting that truly captured her, and within the first year, Vivienne found she had read every bit of literature Montsimmard had on the subject. She went to Beryl.

"I wondered if there might be more writing on the knight-enchanters at the White Spire," she said.

"I'm sure there is. I will write to the head of their library and see if they would be willing to send some things over for you," said the senior enchanter. Vivienne expressed her genuine thanks, and within two months, Beryl handed over a new stack of books, advising Vivienne to take care, as they would need to be returned to Val Royeaux by year's end.

Senior Enchanter Giulia, a wizened old woman who claimed she remembered the Qunari invasion, learned of Vivienne's interest in the field, and was intrigued enough to venture down from her room, something that rarely happened, given her frequent hip pains.

"Have you ever considered taking up the study in practice?" Giulia asked her one day when Vivienne was in the library, trying to focus on one of her White Spire books.

"There are no knight-enchanters in Montsimmard," Vivienne said. "And I have not yet read enough to teach myself." Giulia made a dry, choking sound that alarmed Vivienne for a moment before she realized it was laughter.

"Silly girl! They don't tell you anything important. I was a knight-enchanter." Vivienne pried her eyes off her book to look at the sun-spotted face of the woman beside her, her wispy white hair drawn up in a bun, her mouth caving in with an absence of teeth.

"Were?" she asked.

"Too old to do much of it anymore," Giulia grunted regretfully. "But I remember it all." A smile pulled at her saggy face. "I was so proud the first time I went to the field. The soldiers felt safe behind me, nothing could touch us. It takes a certain kind of person to be a knight-enchanter. That's why there are so few."

"You went to battle?" Vivienne turned away from the book.

"Of course I did. All knight-enchanters receive dispensation from the Chantry to serve alongside the army when the need exists. You've never seen a group of soldiers so pleased to see a mage." Another papery chuckle.

The pride demon wrapped its claws around Vivienne's ribs. You can do it yourself. You don't need this old hag. How much have you learned all on your own? You have your books, your theories! Let them say you taught yourself to be a knight!

"Would you teach me, senior enchanter?" Vivienne asked softly, placing a hand over Giulia's. "Could you show me what you know about knight-enchanting?"

"First, I need to see what kind of person you are. There is no room for mealy-mouthed mages in knight-enchanting."

For three months, Giulia pondered over her choice. She sat with Vivienne in the library, instructed Vivienne to walk her around the gardens, and dismissed the mage who usually served her to have Vivienne apply the spells and salves that soothed her aching joins and frail muscles. Vivienne forgot about Odile and Tristane and Ibrahim; there were only her duties with Giulia, her tasks for the Circle, and the studying she did back in her rooms at night.

Giulia agreed to teach her.

Three years had passed since Vivienne's arrival at Montsimmard when the invitation came: embossed, hand-stamped with the emperor's own seal, with the words beautifully calligraphed onto the thin parchment. Three senior enchanters had been present when the First Enchanter opened it. By the end of the day, every last apprentice was whispering about it.

Vivienne was determined to go.

"An invitation to the palace!" Ibrahim exclaimed as they huddled around one of the tables in the dining hall, each clutching a hot beverage. A half-eaten plate of pastries sat in the center, flakes scattered around the table the evidence of their feasting. At the entrance, the templars stood sentinel, as always. There had been grumbling amongst them as well, about the invitation. "I don't believe it. We never get invited anywhere."

"And to the Wintersend ball!" Odile added. "I wonder who the emperor is trying to impress?"

"Or frighten," put in Daniel. "Perhaps he thinks having mages at the party will put his enemies on edge."

"Please, they'll be turning parlor tricks for a bunch of drunken nobles," Vivienne said, waving a hand. "Emperor Florian needs some entertainment and he thinks he'll make his ball special by having some well-behaved mages throw up some dazzling lights or make someone's hat disappear. He'd do just as well to hire a street magician."

"I think you still want to go," Odile said, turning a sly gaze on Vivienne. "A big party, a fancy dress, all the politics? That sounds right up your alley, Vivienne."

"I'd hardly say no to the chance to wear a ballgown and see someplace new," Vivienne said, taking a sip of her coffee. "But would any of us?"

"I would," Daniel said. "I think it sounds like a bore. Like you said, I'm sure they won't have us doing anything actually interesting. Besides, I'm sure they'll only send senior enchanters."

"You're probably right," Odile sighed, and Ibrahim rested his chin in his hand.

"Don't be so glum, darlings. We'll have a fine time here, we always do, don't we?" Vivienne smiled. "And when our little delegation comes back, I'm sure they will have some fine stories of revelry and foolishness for us."

The first thing Vivienne did when she excused herself from the table: visit the office of First Enchanter Yves.

"If you're here to apply for the delegation going to the Wintersend ball, you aren't the first," Yves said wearily as he scribbled notes across a scrap of parchment. "I'm sending senior enchanters only and that's final!" He looked up from the parchment and his hackles cooled. "Oh. Vivienne."

"My poor first enchanter," Vivienne said with a sympathetic smile. "Are they pestering you terribly? You look exhausted and it's not even noon!"

"They've outdone themselves today," Yves said, rubbing his eyes. "Gossip has always passed through this place like a Maker-damned sieve, but this is remarkable even for us. There were only three people who saw me open the invitation! And now, I swear, the entire Circle knows!" His quill streaked ink across his right cheek as he massaged his brow.

"Your shoulders must be positively aching from the stress. Do you want a spell for that? Giulia had one she liked me to use."

"Sweet Andraste, I would like to think I'm not that old!" Yves exclaimed. He dropped his quill and leaned back in his seat with another sigh. "This is an extraordinary opportunity for the Circle. I'm not sending some green mages to gawk at the nobles and stuff themselves. Whomever goes is representing all of us, and we are playing a high stakes game here."

"The Grand Game," Vivienne said, sidling up to the desk and perching herself on the edge. "I'm sure they would all tell you they're ready. Most people believe they are better at the game than they are."

"Does that not include you, Madame Vivienne?" the first enchanter asked, raising his eyebrows.

"My dear first enchanter." The smile that unfurled across Vivienne's face was a sight to behold, a performance all on its own, and her eyes danced. "I am every bit as good as I believe I am."

"Giulia had quite a lot of faith in you," Yves said, picking his quill up again to brush the feather over his lips. "You know you were only the second apprentice she trained in knight-enchanting?"

"She had mentioned another," Vivienne said.

"Yes, poor lad. He failed his Harrowing, and she swore she'd never take another unworthy apprentice. He was sent off to the Circle in Ghislain about fifteen years ago, he serves as a master of horse there." Yves shook his head, and Vivienne imminently foresaw him going off on a lengthy tangent. She cleared her throat quietly and Yves' eyes refocused. "But you're here about the ball, aren't you?" He gave Vivienne a knowing look.

"What else?" she said, smiling again. "You know I would make you proud, first enchanter. Would Emperor Florian not like to see what his only knight-enchanter in Montsimmard is like? Ferelden is quiet for now, and Tevinter and the Qunari occupying each other…but it may not always be so." Yves swept the quill aggressively across his mouth, chewing his lip. At last, he lowered the quill to his lap.

"You know what Aleksander said to me about you when you came here?" he asked.

"What?"

"If you'll excuse the coarseness, madame, he said: that girl's got balls of iron." Vivienne couldn't help a short laugh. "And he was right. You have audacity, Vivienne."

"I don't plan on wasting my life considering all the things I wanted and never got," she said simply. Yves nibbled on the end of his quill.

"You really want to go to this ball? Why?"

"To play the Game, of course," Vivienne said. "Life outside the Circle is not the same. There is opportunity there, first enchanter. Opportunity to advance, as individuals, and as a whole. Florian has asked us for a reason. It is never as simple as providing party tricks. A man that asinine would never survive as emperor. There are goals, and plots, and motives. I want to know what they are." Yves regarded her for a long moment, and Vivienne resisted the urge to speak again, instead leaving the first enchanter to his thoughts.

"I will consider it," he said at last. "Giulia thought well of you, and I still respect her. She was at Montsimmard longer than any of us. But." He pointed his quill at Vivienne. "Do not speak of this. If other mages and enchanters hear of it, this is no longer on the table. Do you understand? I will not have two dozen mages beating my door down over why they can't also be an exception."

"My lips are sealed, first enchanter," Vivienne said, sliding off the desk to give a slight bow. "Would you like that spell for your shoulders?"

"No, thank you. I need to make my selection of the senior enchanters who will be going to this thrice-damned ball. You may go, Vivienne. And remember: no one hears of this."

"Hears of what?" Vivienne gave him a look of calculated innocence, and took her leave.

Vivienne went to the ball.

Under strict orders from First Enchanter Yves, none of those who had been chosen to attend the ball were permitted to share the news, and no one wanted to jeopardize their place by breaking the rule, so it wasn't until the day they departed for Val Royeaux that it became common knowledge. As Vivienne packed her valises, she could not stop the smile that continually broke out on her lips, or the songs that kept rising to her tongue to hum as she worked.

Many mages, herself included, came to the Circle penniless, and had few opportunities to earn. Nearly everything of theirs belonged to the Circle, technically. This did not pleased Vivienne, and she found that doing favors for mages who had funding from outside the Circle, or going the extra mile in their jobs for mundane Orlesians could result in a bit of extra spending money. If that failed, secrets always abounded in Orlais, and someone would play for them—to spread, or to keep quiet. With this, she had managed to get herself a few small treats, and most importantly, a dress. It wasn't the one she wanted, but there was not the slightest chance of her going to the emperor's Wintersend ball wearing her Circle robes.

The trip to Val Royeaux took nearly a week, and Vivienne knew she was missing the outraged looks of envy on Odile and Ibrahim's faces. The thought made her laugh to herself as the carriages rolled away and she vowed to remember plenty of details to bring back to them.

They spent two days in Val Royeaux before the ball. The White Spire hosted them, and Vivienne drank it in. Rolling through Val Royeaux for the first time was as awe-inspiring as arriving at Montsimmard had been the first time. Vivienne began by fighting the urge to gape out the windows at the city as it rolled by, and then gave in, putting her face right by the window so that she could see the gilded spires glinting all around them.

"First time in Val Royeaux?" asked Senior Enchanter Sadaat. "I remember my first time!" She and Senior Enchanter Priyanka laughed and Vivienne was too busy taking in the city to feel self-conscious. The White Spire was every bit as impressive, and First Enchanter Marianne welcomed them graciously into the space.

"Our home is your home," she said, her accent distinct among those born and raised in Val Royeaux. "If there is anything you need, please speak with my senior enchanters."

"Will we have access to the library?" Vivienne asked. First Enchanter Marianne turned her attention to the young mage.

"Of course you will. I encourage it! The exchange of information among mages is vital to the growth of the study. Let me show you to the guest quarters." As soon as she had left her valises behind, Vivienne sought out the library. Sadaat was rooming with her, and settled down for wine and cards with Dorothea, looking for a rest after the lengthy trip. They seemed entertained by Vivienne's energy, or perhaps nostalgic for their own firsts.

Vivienne had marveled at the size of Montsimmard's library the first time she had set foot in it. The library at Ostwick had satisfied her for years growing up, and it was perhaps a fourth or a third the size of the library at Montsimmard. The White Spire's library dwarfed Montsimmard, not only in the number of books, but the sheer size. It was three stories, with an open center and windows on the ceiling that allowed the frosty winter light to shine down on the mages and apprentices scurrying about the shelves. White marble characterized this room more than any other in the Spire and the beauty of it felt testament to what mages accomplished when they were not being assailed by the ignorant.

One of the librarians pointed her towards some relevant tomes, and Vivienne got to work picking them out. She piled them on a table near the railing on the second story, so she had a good view of the activity down below. Any weariness she might have felt after the trip from Montsimmard had vanished in the wake of her excitement. When she was done with the books, she would freshen herself up again and head to the dining hall. There was an entire college of new connections to meet, First Enchanter Marianne not the least among them.

The old pair found her a couple hours later, taking notes out of a thick encyclopedia.

"Are you Vivienne?" the man asked. Only the sound of her name roused Vivienne's attention, and she looked up to see a gray-haired man, hunched over a walking stick, and beside him, a woman who might have been a relation, or might have just been equally old that they appeared similar.

"Yes, I am. What can I do for you, monsieur?"

"You're the knight-enchanter?" the woman asked.

"Indeed."

"Then you were Giulia's last apprentice," the man said. "My name is Hugo. This is Clothilde. We were friends of Giulia's." He offered his hand and Vivienne hastily rose to press it, followed by Clothilde's.

"Are you knight-enchanters as well?" she asked.

"Not us, but we helped on the sides, and we saw Giulia on the field," Clothilde said. "She was something to behold." A smile spread across her face. "I was so glad to hear she had taken an apprentice. You know, her health was going when you arrived at Montsimmard."

"I wish I could have done more," Vivienne murmured, looking down at the table. Hugo shook his head.

"We always thought…" He licked his lips and looked over at Clothilde, sharing some silent conversation. "We always thought you kept her on through those three years. Training you was something that gave her purpose. We lose that, at our age. Feels like you're just…existing." Pain needled Vivienne's chest. The months since Giulia's passing had been more difficult than she had imagined they would be. The passing itself had been quick. One day Vivienne came early, to wake Giulia with breakfast, and the woman simply did not wake. Vivienne had shocked herself by breaking into tears as she grasped the old woman's cool hand and registered the loss.

"Please, sit, if you have time," Vivienne said, clearing her books away to the chair next to her. "If you would like to talk about Giulia, I have time…"

Vivienne's plans for study were dashed—she spent two hours talking with Clothilde and Hugo, until they were tired out and she had to rush back to her room to try to neaten herself for dinner. She couldn't say she would have sought out old friends of Giulia's if she had known they were there (and truly, it was foolish of her not to have considered Giulia would have friends at other Circles, if they were still living), but she was again surprised by how much she enjoyed the stories. Talking about those days seemed to breathe life back into Clothilde and Hugo, and the three of them laughed together as if they had known each other for years by the time Vivienne escorted them out of the library.

"Where in the world have you been?" Sadaat whispered to her as she slid into her seat for dinner.

"The library," Vivienne murmured. First Enchanter Marianne was speaking, announcing their visitors, and just as Vivienne settled into her chair, the first enchanter waved a hand in their direction and the entire delegation rose to identify themselves. Marianne then identified the delegation from the White Spire, and bade them move over to join their companions from Montsimmard, that they might become acquainted before the ball.

"Vivienne!" Priyanka called to her from down the table after the first course had completed. "What was that spell you used on your hair at the last party we had? Ivy here is dying to know!"

"I'm happy to share it," Vivienne said. "Provided you can get me one of those ballgowns I saw on the way in." Priyanka and the mages from the White Spire laughed.

"If it works, I'll do you one better," Senior Enchanter Ivy declared. "I'll lend you one of my own." What dresses a mage of the Circle might have, Vivienne imagined did not amount to much. But she could see that Ivy's hair texture was similar to her own—she would benefit from the spell.

"I'll stop by after dinner," she promised. "I never use anything else for parties now." At least, she wouldn't until she'd worked out a better spell—Vivienne never let herself fall into complacency.

Three hours later Vivienne was starting to feel the long trip from Montsimmard and the excitement of the arrival at Val Royeaux. But Ivy, despite being more than twice Vivienne's age, was just getting started. She picked up a decanter of wine for her room and swept Vivienne along.

"Now, this is a spell of your own invention?" she said. "My goodness, what beautiful hair you have. Very healthy. I see you take good care of it."

"Thank you, madame. The spell is mine. I found that other spells didn't work well for me, so I came up with my own."

"Good! That's the kind of initiative I like to see in young mages. None of this sitting around, bemoaning your position…" Ivy waved a hand and made a face. "Repulsive. I like women of action. Are you planning on taking an apprentice? Are you old enough? I can't tell anymore; you all look so young to me."

"I'm twenty-two," Vivienne said. "And I…am not sure that mentorship is the path I should be on."

"Tsk. You won't get anywhere without having had a least one apprentice," Ivy said. "Take my advice—get one, beat some sense into them with a Circle textbook, and move on." Vivienne shielded her mouth as she tittered, and looked away. "And don't be so coy, you're too clever to play the blushing maiden," Ivy added. "Men will never buy it. You have sharp eyes. Coquette will never work for you." She let them into her room. "Now, show me this spell."

Ivy seated herself before a small vanity, and Vivienne stood behind her to work the spell. She took her time about it, carefully weaving it in and combing Ivy's hair up into one of her more elegant knots. Ivy handed her pins as necessary and exclaimed regularly, to criticize or praise the direction Vivienne was going.

"Look at that," she said, reaching up to touch her hair with Vivienne was done. "That is fine work."

"It will hold all night," Vivienne said. "Or longer, if you need it."

"You think I need my hair to last through to the next day?" Ivy asked, twisting around to give Vivienne a sharp look. Vivienne kept her face carefully neutral, and only had to hold it a moment before Ivy cackled. "You have great faith in my prospects for the night!" Vivienne let her face ease into a smile and Ivy went to her armoire and threw it open. "Now, I believe I promised you a dress…"

Walking down to the front entrance of the White Spire, Vivienne felt, for the first time, like the glittering jewel she had dreamed of being as a child. The eyes on her only bolstered her confidence and she kept her chin up and her eyes forward, joining the two mage delegations waiting to depart.

"Is that the dress Ivy lent you?" Priyanka asked as she looked over Vivienne, looking so much like one of the little hand-crafted cakes served after a proper Orlesian meal, her dress a lush confection of delectable colors and delicate jewels. She'd put her coiffure spell to use on herself as well, twisting her hair up into something suitably showy for the night. No cold feet for her! "This is beautiful! How generous of you," she said, turning to give Ivy a nod.

"Oh, it's nothing," Ivy said, waving a hand. "Pretty gems and dresses are how my family apologized for never visiting."

"My family never apologized at all," Sadaat snorted.

Vivienne still wore the Circle insignia, prominently displayed, but what a relief it was that the First Enchanter had never decreed—as Marianne seemed to have done—that all the mages ought to match. Everyone from the White Spire was wearing a dressed-up version of their usual robes, though one of the enchanters was presently going around with a tray of masks, so they would not be entirely uncouth. The Orlesian mask tradition still seemed strange to Vivienne, but the mages of the White Spire seemed entirely at ease as they selected one apiece of the black masks the White Spire had provided and tied on their masks for the evening.

Yves must have coordinated with the White Spire, as all the mages from Montsimmard were similarly supplied with black masks, giving them further uniformity. Vivienne reluctantly picked up one the lacquered masks and tried to accustom herself to looking through the eyeholes on their way to the palace—it simply wouldn't do to trip over her own feet because she wasn't used to having such a limited view.

The Imperial Palace was Val Royeaux in miniature—as if someone had taken the entire city and crushed it down into one palace. All the opulence, all the color, all the people—this was something on a scale Vivienne had never seen. She found herself wishing her companions from the Circle were with her, so they could observe and exclaim over it together. There were murmurs among the mages who had never seen the Imperial Palace before, soft whispers that echoed Vivienne's awe.

Why, in the name of the Maker, should she settle for Montsimmard, when this was here?

First Enchanter Tamika had warned her about Orlesian politics when she left Ostwick, but Vivienne thought she had gotten quite the hang of it during her few years at Montsimmard. A few hours into the ball, she was understanding that whatever petty games the mages played amongst themselves in the Circle were a public house wrestling match to the all-out war that Orlesian nobility waged during their social events. If there was one thing Vivienne despised above all else, it was being laughed at. Next to being wholly irrelevant, being made to feel a fool put every nerve in her skin on a pin-prick point. Daniel might have had a point about the night—between her age, the discovery that she was from the Free Marches, and there mere fact that she was a mage, the Orlesian nobility seemed content to dismiss her as a naïve bumpkin, an entertaining toy that the emperor had brought in for their amusement, that they would bash about until they had broken it, and then move onto the next thing.

"How are you enjoying yourself?" Sadaat asked when Vivienne escaped to the sidelines for a drink. Not that this was an admission of defeat—just a momentary retreat. If these people thought they had done her in, they were sorely mistaken. If she took a beating tonight—well, more than she had already—she was not going to let it heal without learning something from it.

"It's so much more than I imagined," Vivienne replied. Sadaat didn't seem much for dancing, but Vivienne had seen her entertaining a group of nobles with a light trick and her watchful eyes seemed to be constantly picking up details in the scene around them—as opposed to some of the other mages, clustered by the wall and being avoided by the other partygoers. Although, referring to it as one scene wasn't right—there were a hundred scenes taking place in that hall all at once, to say nothing of what was happening in the wings and the gardens. There was so much, and it was intoxicating; Vivienne let go of her irritation at the superiority of various duchesses and comtes, and breathed in the opportunity.

"I heard you have a fine trick to show off." A woman in a jade green mask spoke to Senior Enchanter Sadaat. "We want to see it as well." She nodded to the women beside her, in matching plum-colored gowns.

"Oh, that's a dull thing," Sadaat said, waving it off. "You should see what Madame Vivienne can do." She turned their attention to the young mage.

"Well, let's see," said the woman in the jade mask. Vivienne smiled and set her goblet down. Something to impress them, but not enough to frighten. The pride demon grumbled. What could she…?

"If I may?" She held her hand out for the wine goblet held by one of the women in plum. Confused, but intrigued, she handed it over. Vivienne flicked it upwards, sending the wine shooting up towards the ceiling; the ladies gasped and hurriedly stepped away. A twitch of her wrist and the contents froze solid, plummeting back downwards. She held the goblet out away from her dress, and just before the frozen chunk of wine came down, she melted it and it splashed back into the goblet. Another twist of Vivienne's hand collected the droplets that had gotten lose and swept them back into the cup. "This vintage is best cool, isn't it?" she said, handing the cup back over. While the women agreed it had been a fine trick, Vivienne looked to Sadaat. Surely, pathetic wastes of her talent like this were not the only reason Emperor Florian had invited them!

Before she made it back into the fray, there were others who wanted tricks. Vivienne used Sadaat's light show, with a flare of her own. She made tiny soldiers of ice re-enact a battle on one of the serving tables. She even made a comte and a marquis who despised each other switch voices for several minutes, something that had half the audience cackling in glee and the other half gaping sympathetic horror.

"You have quite a talent." The voice that addressed her from the corner of her vision was smooth, but with a touch of hoarseness that came with age—another lord, come for another trick.

"Would you like to see something as well, my lord?" she asked, using every ounce of her willpower not to sound as bored as she was.

"I was rather hoping to have a dance with you." Now Vivienne looked at him fully. An older man, from what she could tell, with a white and black mask, edged in gold, and a fine plume in his hat. A quick glance around showed none of the other mages immediately on the dance floor. They were not here for that—they were here for entertainment that no one else could provide. Emperor Florian was anticipating their official performance later in the night.

Nobles did not ask mages to dance.

"It would be an honor, my lord," she said, bowing and allowing him to lead her onto the floor. "Regrettably, we aren't asked to dance very often." The lord took her hands and led them into the dance, slipping them neatly in among the couples already twirling about in sprays of brilliant color.

"Bah, the people here wouldn't know worthwhile company if it challenged them to a duel," said the man.

"That would be most unwise on our part," Vivienne remarked.

"Why? More fool them if they think those silly tricks are all you're capable of." Vivienne smiled. Her mask that evening covered only the top half of her face, leaving her nose and mouth bare, which was a relief—she disliked full-face masks. How anyone could walk around with their own breath dripping onto their face, she didn't know.

"Because it would be quite rude to cause a death at the emperor's own party," she said. It was on the edge of something much too daring to say—that a mage might harm someone—but the man laughed loudly enough to draw attention from couples on either side of them.

"On the contrary, I think it would liven the evening up immensely," he said. "I have a few suggestions, if you were looking. But if death is over the top, I'm sure a sound thrashing would suffice."

"When I gamble, I never play for low stakes," Vivienne replied.

"Is that so?" Behind the mask, the man's eyes squinted as if he were grinning. "Your life must be quite interesting, enchanter."

"Only a mage, my lord," she said. "I do my best." There was so much more she could have said, but no one wanted to listen to a young mage's boasting—if Vivienne wanted to keep the lord interested, better to hold back for now (even if Ivy might accuse her of playing the coquette).

"Only a mage? And the first enchanter sent you as part of the delegation from…?"

"Montsimmard."

"Montsimmard! You must have made quite the impression," he said, lifting his arm so they could spin appropriately. When they came back together, his hand rested on her waist. "But I have little trouble believing that."

"You're too kind, my lord," she said. "I do pity poor First Enchanter Yves; you know half the Circle was tearing his door down trying to get themselves to the ball." Not too much talk about herself—revealing everything now would ruin the sense of mystery.

"Truly? I suppose this is one of the better balls of the year; His Imperial Majesty spares no expense for the Wintersend ball."

"You can't imagine we are often invited to parties," Vivienne pointed out.

"That's a shame, I think you're delightful," he said. "I'll tell His Radiance so as well." A delicate smile passed over Vivienne's face. She could ask now for the man's name, but it might disrupt the flow of conversation and she was hesitant to do so. A connection here would be invaluable; she needed to step carefully.

"How kind of you, my lord," she said. "We should like to be invited back, at His Radiance's leisure."

"I should like to have you back," said the noble. "It's so rare that anyone new comes to these parties. And mages! That's something different."

"Is there not the court enchanter, my lord?"

"Bah, the court enchanter." The man snorted. "The man's a glorified jester. The only thing he does is run around performing tricks for His Imperial Majesty's guests. I'm not convinced he knows how to do much else. But I suspect you are capable of quite a bit more than making ice toys."

Vivienne smiled again, and said nothing.

The emperor moved to the dais, doubtless to summon his mages for their official show of the evening, and the musicians began to quiet down.

"I believe that may be my summons, my lord," Vivienne said, stepping back.

"Ah, more's the pity. It was a pleasure, madame," he said, bowing low enough that Vivienne's eyes widened in surprise. "Perhaps we will speak again later."

"I would enjoy that," Vivienne said, as coyly as she had ever managed, giving him a curtsy and a nod before floating off to reunite with the rest of the Montsimmard enchanters.

"You're making friends," said Senior Enchanter Wolfgang as he finished off a goblet of wine. "That was the Duke de Ghislain you were casting a spell on there."

"Oh?"

"His daughter is married to His Radiance's nephew, Grand Duke Gaspard," Wolfgang said. Vivienne suppressed a quick intake of breath and restrained her smile. Luck had favored her that night!

"He used to be quite the wild one," remarked a countess at Wolfgang's side. "I heard he even trained as a bard, before assuming the head of the Ghislain estate. Of course, that was a lifetime ago."

There was not time to say more before the mages had to report to Emperor Florian for their introduction. With a booming voice that belied his age, Florian welcomed the delegations of mages from Montsimmard and the White Spire, who were so kind enough to provide entertainment for the assembled.

The dance floor was cleared so that the mages could put on their show. Montsimmard went first, with the performance they had practiced back at the Circle, under the direction of Senior Enchanter Beryl, who had not elected to submit herself to travel to Val Royeaux. It involved a lot of throwing ice and fire about, and making everything quite a bit more dramatic than it had to be. The gasps and cries of the crowd made it feel worthwhile, and Vivienne enjoyed enrapturing the same people who had earlier made such condescending remarks about her time in the Ostwick Circle.

The White Spire went next, and naturally, as Val Royeaux's own Circle of Magi, outdid themselves. Even Vivienne was transfixed by the whirling staves and brilliant lights, spinning around to keep them in sight as the White Spire's mages took their show all throughout the ballroom. The matching outfits did do something for it as well, but Vivienne was not sorry to stand out amongst her own group. The emperor's guests cheered and broke into vigorous applause as the mages of the White Spire collected back in the center of the ballroom to conclude their performance.

The emperor thanked them for their performance, wished all of Orlais a happy Wintersend, and bade his guests continue on with their merry-making.

The duke made good on his intention to speak further with Vivienne, which surprised her a little, but not as much as how quickly he did it, as if he had been anticipating the end of their performance so that he could steal her away before someone else wanted to see a flashy parlor trick.

"Now that was a performance worth watching," he said, and Vivienne turned away from the group she had been observing. The other mages continued to cluster, so Vivienne stood away from them.

"I'm glad you thought so," she said politely, nodding to him.

"But I still suspect His Radiance has not yet grazed the surface of your talents," he said. "Tell me, madame, are you terribly exhausted? Or would you grace me with another dance?" Vivienne had been told before she knew what she wanted—she was beginning to get the sense the Duke de Ghislain was of the same sort. Far be it from her to turn him down—she could make something of this, if she was thoughtful about it.

"I do believe the Comtesse de Brevin was looking for one as well…" she said, idly scanning the crowd as she meant to find anyone.

"Bah, the Comtesse de Brevin tromps about like a nuggalope trying to do a jig," said the duke. "She has walked away, the foolish woman, and I am here." He offered her his hand with a twinkle in his eye, and Vivienne accepted. The Comtesse de Brevin had said no such thing, but the duke's reaction was reassuring.

After the third dance, Vivienne remarked, "I believe there are some trying to get your attention, my lord."

"Ah, yes. I had told the Duchess Chantilly that I would give her a turn tonight," remarked the duke without releasing Vivienne's hands.

"I should not keep you then," she said. "She looks quite intent. I suppose I have been rather greedy tonight. I should not like to be gored on my first trip to Val Royeaux."

"Be as greedy as you like, madame," said the duke. "I shall not stop you. I see the Duchess Chantilly a dozen times a year. She can have her chance some other ball. Not do I believe she has horns long enough to gore you." Vivienne's immediate impulse was still to pull away. Snubbing a duchess was no small thing, and now Vivienne was involved. Nor did the Duchess Chantilly appear to be the only one the Duke de Ghislain was standing up.

But leaving now would not change that the duke had put them all off to give his time to Vivienne. They might forgo acting against her, but the dislike would remain, and pettiness had more than its fair share of influence in noble politics. Then, if she was involved, she might as well be involved. After all—she did not play for low stakes.

"By your leave, my lord, I shall," she said.

Vivienne and the duke did not part company again until the mages were gathering to depart, and even then, the duke pressed Vivienne's hand and took the better part of fifteen minutes to bid her goodnight.

"Goodnight, my lord de Ghislain," Vivienne finally exclaimed in some exasperation, not without a laughing note in her voice. "I must return to the White Spire now."

"It will shine out all the brighter for your presence," he said. "But madame, now, I must bid you stay a moment, as you have my name, but I do not have yours."

"You shan't keep me with that trick, my lord," Vivienne said, wagging her finger at him and making the nobles observing the scene chuckle at her cheekiness. The Duchess Chantilly had left over an hour ago, the clatter of her shoes like a warhorse's hooves against the cobblestones. "I am Vivienne, knight-enchanter to His Imperial Majesty Emperor Florian. And now I must go, or we shall never make it back to Montsimmard."

"What was that?" Priyanka exclaimed the moment they were back in their carriage.

"Vivienne, do you know what you just did?" Sadaat asked. "Made an enemy of the Duchess Chantilly, for one. I doubt she'll forget that."

"If the Duchess Chantilly is too weak to merit the duke's attention, that is no fault of mine," Vivienne declared.

"I can't believe he did that," said Senior Enchanter Dorothea, shaking her head. "I've never seen anything like it. Dismissing his partners to dance with a mage!" Given the gray streaks in her hair, Vivienne took this as a fair measure of severity. "You didn't put a spell on him, did you, Vivienne?"

"I didn't need to," Vivienne said.

"Playing the Game is no joke," Priyanka warned her, her dark eyes flashing with concern.

"She's right," Dorothea said. "Playing the Game is like mounting a wild horse. Once you are on, you may find it impossible to get off without being bucked."

"Then I will tame the horse," Vivienne said.

All anyone talked about—at least to Vivienne—was the ball. Her friends had spent the entire day after her return wringing her for details about everything from the molding in the palace to the books in the White Spire to the perfumes preferred by the most noble Orlesians. In exchange for frequent refills of her wine glass and a great deal of exclaiming over her cleverness, Vivienne answered every question and expounded in as much detail as she could (stooping, here and there, to exaggeration where memory failed) on any aspect of the visit that interested them.

On the fourth morning, as she made her way to breakfast, she ran into Odile on the stairs, and was nearly knocked on her backside.

"Vivienne! I was just coming to get you," Odile exclaimed breathlessly. "You had better come downstairs at once!"

"What's happened?" she asked. Refusing to be caught up in Odile's excitement, she followed at her usual sedate pace behind her friend.

"Oh, just you wait and see," Odile said, with something that appeared to be glee. A slight frown turned down Vivienne's lips, and she paused to make sure her hair was arranged, though she had done it only minutes earlier. She never left her room in the morning without preparing—certainly, she was not one of those mages who wore bedroom slippers to the dining hall.

Odile raced down the stairs, despite Vivienne's own ponderous step, and was waiting in the entry hall by the time Vivienne caught up with her. The first thing—the only thing—she saw were the flowers. Peonies of every color imaginable were stacked on every available service—shocking pink, a yellow so bright it almost hurt the eyes, baby blue, purple not quite dark enough to be called 'royal': it looked like a field of them had exploded in the front hall, and First Enchanter Yves appeared at a loss as more men continued to enter, with more armloads of flowers.

"My dear first enchanter," Vivienne exclaimed. "What in the Maker's name is all this?" She would have believed it a prank of one of the mages or apprentices if it were not such a costly one—none of them could afford so many flowers just for a jest. Besides her, Odile was snickering, and excited apprentices peered in from the sidelines, giggling and exclaiming over the excess.

"It's for you," Yves said, thrusting an open note over at her.

"For me?" Blinking, Vivienne took the card, but before she could make much sense of it, something in the doorway caught her attention. Lifting her gaze from the sharp, slanted writing on the card, she observed the Duke de Ghislain enter the Montsimmard Circle. He stopped before her and presented her with a single pink peony.

"Madame Vivienne," he said. "I do hope you excuse my tardiness. It took some time to gather the necessary florists and get them to Montsimmard." In general, Vivienne did not care for being caught off-guard, and she was still trying to process the scale of the bouquet being presented to her, but the sheer commitment impressed her. Mages and enchanters clustered in the doorways, wanting to see what all the fuss was about. She didn't need to look over at Odile to imagine the grin on her face.

"I will excuse it, monsieur," she said, taking the peony from him. The last of the florists and serving men entered and formed nearly a complete ring around the entry hall, unsure where to deposit their flowers.

"Grand!" The duke beamed. The mask he wore covered less than his choice for the ball, and Vivienne had to concede his smile appeared quite genuine. "I came to invite you to the Ghislain estate. My wife Nicoline and I will be having a soiree soon, and the party truly will not be worth having without your presence, Vivienne."

Vivienne turned immediately to the first enchanter, on whom her fate depended; he threw his hands up, to Vivienne's delight.

"And how, in the name of holy Andraste, am I meant to say no to this?" He waved his arms around the small army of florists. "Go, go, Vivienne. Represent us well." Vivienne tried not to smile, but the expression pulled insistently at her lips.

"Very well," she said, nodding to the duke. "I look forward to visiting the Ghislain estate, Your Grace."

"Wonderful, wonderful. In that case, I will not keep you. I have come uninvited and I know you keep quite busy in the Circle. I look forward to our home being illuminated with your presence, madame." He bowed to her and Vivienne tried to wrestle the flutter in her chest under control. This was no time to lose her head like a silly schoolgirl being put in charge of a group project for the first time—a connection with a duke could provide advantages to her the first enchanter never could. This was a chess match she did not intend to lose, and she was not going to get sloppy with her playing now.

"Safe travels, Your Grace," Vivienne said. The duke took his leave, and the florist nearest to the first enchanter looked to him.

"Where should we put these, first enchanter?"

Yves groaned.

Spring had barely touched Montsimmard when the first mage fell ill. A fever, and she was confined to her room. Her roommate was relocated and one of the mages talented in healing magic was sent to care for her. Vivienne did not pay overmuch attention to the event, unremarkable as it was: she was planning her outfit for the Ghislains' next party. An off-hand remark at the last event about her limited wardrobe and the duke had poured coins into her hands to get something for her next visit. Lately, she had carte blanche from the first enchanter to attend any and all events put on at the Ghislain estate, which was scandalizing the Circle almost as much as the rest of Orlesian high society.

But at some point, the feeling in the Circle over the ill mage shifted. Perhaps it was when the roommate also took ill. Perhaps it was when the blood blisters were discovered on the first patient. Perhaps it was when the nurse went to the first enchanter with trembling hands and spoke in whispers about her notes.

Certainly, when the first patient died.

Knowing how the close quarters and limited airflow of the Circle might exacerbate the situation, First Enchanter Yves immediately ordered the quarantine of the roommate and anyone who was known to keep regular contact with her, but it was too late.

Within two weeks, Emperor Florian ordered a complete quarantine of the Montsimmard Circle.

Shortly after that, life in the Circle started to fall apart. Their efforts at maintaining their normal schedules began to dissolve. Classes were cancelled and apprentices lingered doe-eyed and sometimes weepy around the chaise-lounges; mages murmured together in the halls, as if afraid to raise their voices; the senior enchanters did not sleep. Everyone wanted to go home, but no visitation was permitted.

Despite the first enchanter and the emperor's efforts, the illness had already spread its tendrils into the surrounding city. After the first dozen deaths, the mayor began sending the ill up to the Circle. The whole left wing of the Circle was becoming an infirmary and the few healing mages willing to enter it were nearly dead on their feet from the work.

When the first enchanter went down, it was inevitable the senior enchanters began to follow. Yves lingered just three days before expiring. Panicked, the remaining senior enchanters wrote to the White Spire, the Circle at Ghislain, even the Divine, pleading for aid. The Chantry sent supplies and the White Spire promised healers, who had not yet arrived when the downward spiral continued. Emperor Florian ordered his soldiers to keep the quarantine, preventing anyone from Montsimmard from leaving. The templars, who had planned to maintain the quarantine themselves, were shocked to realize they were being shut in with the mages.

Odile was with Vivienne and Ibrahim when she collapsed. Ibrahim carried her down to the makeshift infirmary, Vivienne on his tail, and they handed her over to the nurses. Joy, who answered the knock, started to break down in tears when they presented Odile.

"Another one?" she cried.

"Please, she needs help," Ibrahim said, propping the semi-conscious enchanter up. They were the only ones in the hallway; anyone who was not ill avoided the entire area around the wards where the sick slept fitfully, moaning and crying out even in their sleep, like ghosts haunting the Circle.

"We can't do this," whispered Joy, reaching out to take Odile from Ibrahim. "There are not enough of us, and—" She broke off to cough wetly. Her grip on Odile tightened and, shaking her head, she dragged the enchanter into the ward and shut the door.

"We're dying," Vivienne said softly. Ibrahim looked over at her and she met his eyes with her decision already made. "The people coming out are too weak to help with anything. The mages we have in there are not enough."

"Vivienne, no." Ibrahim was shaking his head. "You can't."

"I must." She took a ribbon from her waist pouch and began tying her hair up. "Ibrahim, where are the rest of the senior enchanters?" He threw his hands up.

"No one wants to take responsibility for this mess," he said. "The ones who are alive are just trying to keep the healthy people away from the sick."

"Where's the knight-commander?"

"Last I looked, she was directing the sick from the town," he said.

"Tell her we need more healers," she said.

"I think they've done that already."

"We need to tell them again."

"Don't do this," Ibrahim said. "You could die, Vivienne. How many people have you seen come out of there?"

"Either the Maker is with me, or He is not," Vivienne declared. She strode to the infirmary and wrenched the door open.

Vivienne had not trained primarily as a healer, but she had learned field skills as part of her knight-enchanter training. Giulia would expect her to be putting them to use—Vivienne was sure she would approve. One of the dead-eyed nurses gave her a run-down of their procedures, and Vivienne rolled up her sleeves.

Caring for the sick was not a glamorous job, and it got less so by the day. The plague began as a fever and spread to bloody blisters that broke out across the body and regularly burst, expelling blood and pus. The gums swelled and bled, the skin took on a grayish tint, and often the victim perished within days of the first boil.

Two of the healers had fallen ill already, one of those was still working. One of the more charitably inclined templars had joined them in the infirmary and served by turning patients over and hauling supplies in and out as necessary. A few others cleared the refuse away from the hall.

"Hold on, my dear," Vivienne murmured to Odile as she swabbed her down. "You're not giving in just yet."

Vivienne lost track of time in the infirmary; the work was constant. If she was not wiping blood and pus off the patients, she was checking the especially still ones to verify they still lived, or she was scrubbing the floor or preparing laundry, or she was desperately trying to bring fevers down. It might have been days, it might have been a week when Joy took ill. Vivienne guided her over to an available bed, and the remaining mages looked to her in absence of their guiding hand.

She left messages in the hall, pleading for more aid from the emperor, from the Chantry, from the other Circles. Still, she opened the doors to find more sick left outside. Another shipment of supplies from the Chantry helped, but it could not stem the fire already raging.

Whatever else was going outside, Vivienne did not know—her world had shrunk down to the makeshift infirmary and its unending needs. It wasn't until someone left a message back that Vivienne learned another infirmary had been established in the right wing of the Circle, as other towns sent their ill off to the epicenter of the outbreak. Half a dozen templars were laid up there as well, leaving the emperor's guard to make sure no one took advantage of the situation to flee.

It was a foggy morning, and Vivienne was asleep against the window (it would just be a moment, she'd just close her eyes a moment, she had thought), sitting beside Odile, when she registered the rocks hitting the window. Startled awake, she jumped from her seat and wrenched open the window.

"Who's there?" she cried.

"Vivienne? Vivienne!" The woman in question rubbed at her eyes with one hand, scraping the gunk from her eyes to see clearly.

"My lord?" Was that the Duke de Ghislain down in the muddy, empty moat that surrounded Montsimmard? "What are you doing here?"

"Vivienne, thank the Maker!"

"There is a plague here, Your Grace! What are you doing here? Montsimmard is under quarantine by order of His Imperial Majesty!" You old fool!

"I know!" the duke called to her. "I could not rest Vivienne, I could not sleep, not knowing if you were well or not." Vivienne hung her head; this man had no sense!

"Now you know, and you must go!" Vivienne said. "This place is not safe."

"What will you do?" he asked.

"I am under quarantine. I will stay and do what I can."

"If you must stay, then so will I!" the duke declared.

"No!" Maker, would he not leave her in peace? Could she not at least take comfort that one person was not trapped in this hive of plague? "No, you will fall ill and die. You must return to Ghislain. Your curiosity has been sated, now you must go."

"And wait in suspense to hear if you have fallen ill? No, I can't do that, Vivienne. You cannot keep me out, only the first enchanter can do that."

"He's dead." Vivienne's dry voice cracked, and she swallowed hard, trying to steady herself.

"Where is the knight-commander?"

"I don't know, I haven't seen her for…I don't know. Days, I think. Possibly more."

"I'm coming in, Vivienne." The duke started to circle around to the front of the building.

"Your Grace! My lord de Ghislain!" He ignored her shouting and Vivienne slammed the window shut in a rage. Gathering her robes, she hurried as quick as she could out to the front hall. She passed two templars on the way; they leaped out of her way, which was more gratifying than it ought to have been. She caught Bastien before he entered, and she thrust her hands out to stop him. "If you are coming in, you must keep away from the sick," she said. The duke took a step forward and Vivienne moved back. "And you must keep away from me, too," she said. "I have been in the infirmary."

A frown turned down the duke's mouth and she could see something dark and heavy in his eyes: he was concerned for her. It might have been apparent, that he had come all the way from Ghislain, through towns where people were dropping dead left and right, but seeing it on his face was something different.

"Are you alright, Vivienne?" he asked.

"None of us is alright, Your Grace," she said. "We are doing our best."

"You don't have to keep addressing me that way," he told her.

"It is appropriate, Your Grace," she said. "Please. Allow me." Gesturing for him to come along, she took him to the edges of the left wing, to a guest room reserved for low-level mages or accompanying serving men, and let him in. "If you mean to be here, you must stay in this room," she said.

"Vivienne—"

"No, this is final, Your Grace," she said. "This is the only way we can ensure your safety."

"And what of yours?" Vivienne rubbed the space between her eyes, and failed to stop her shoulders from slacking. But she recovered herself, taking a deep breath to stave off her weariness.

"I am fine," she said. "I have not fallen ill yet, and I do not plan to." She left the duke to his own devices, warning him not to let anyone into the room. A note in the hallway alerted the templars to bring more food with the evening meal—or whomever was delivering, lately. It had been the templars when Vivienne first went in, but she had not seen many of them in the front hall, and a number were laid up in the infirmary.

In the evening, she returned to the duke's room and knocked to alert him to her presence.

"Your Grace?" She grabbed hold of the door handle in time to stop him from opening it. "No, you can't let me in," she chided gently. "I just came to see if you had gotten something to eat."

"Yes, they came by with rations earlier," he said through the door. "There's not much there though, is there?"

"No one wants to make deliveries here," she said. "And I don't know who's left cooking."

"How are you holding up?" With a low sigh, Vivienne released the door handle and slouched back against the wall beside the entrance. She slid down to the floor and folded her arms over her knees so she could rest her cheek against them.

Vivienne was exhausted.

"I've been better, but I could be worse," she said.

"How did you end up in there?" he asked. "Are you a healer?"

"No, not particularly," she said. "But no one else was volunteering, and this plague will kill us all if we don't stop it."

"Maker's breath. When we go to war next, I pity the foe that has to meet you on the battlefield, Vivienne."

"Do you pity them? I won't." She smiled a little, picturing the duke's grin. "It was a fool thing of you to come here," she added, sobering up. "The duchess must be out of her mind."

"Oh, I'm sure she thinks I've taken leave of my senses," the duke agreed. "But I think she was already certain of that, where you are concerned."

"It's not kind of you to do such a thing to your own wife, my lord," Vivienne scolded without a drop of venom.

"Vivienne, how long will you persist with this 'my lord' and 'Your Grace' business?" he asked. "It's terribly proper of you, and I can't stand it." A papery laugh came from the mage in question and she broke off coughing, muffling the sound in her sleeve so as not to worry the duke.

"I heard that you've also been a minstrel, my lord," she said. "Why don't you give me a song? It's so dreary in here all day with nothing but work." Already they had discussed in passing the duke's time spent as a bard, but she preferred to parse out the stories she heard about him, lest she reveal all she knew in one play.

On the other side of the door, she could hear his laughter. "You hear a great many things, don't you? It's true, I was. Before I was a bard, I spent a year or two as a minstrel. Here, I've got one for you." He broke into the chorus of Enchanters, and Vivienne covered the smile on her face in the empty hallway. Somehow, she had not expected the duke to have any talent, but his smooth baritone—though rusty with disuse—more than did justice to the song. "Have I driven you off now, madame?"

"No, I'm still here," she replied, making no effort to dim the smile now.

"Good, I have another for you." And he went on to sing Once We Were in its entirety. The door between them prevented his ego from being aware that Vivienne drifted off during the song; even if she explained how grateful she was for the moment of shut-eye and the peaceful song to accompany it, she did not think it would have soothed his feathers. She came to as the duke announced the end of the song, and dragged herself to her feet with all the energy of one mounting the steps to their own execution.

"I must go now, my lord," she said. "Thank you for the song, that one is a favorite of mine. Sleep well. I will try to stop by again when I can. Do try to write the duchess, so she might know you've at least arrived safely."

"Yes, I should do that. Goodnight, Vivienne. Be sure you get some rest, you will be no help to the Circle if you collapse of exhaustion."

"I promise to lay down for at least a half-hour," she said with a teasing note in her voice. "Goodnight."

There was an exhaustion during that time that Vivienne had never known. Not in all her late-night studying, in all her preparing for her Harrowing, in all her harshest training under Giulia—never had she felt the type of bone-deep weariness that pervaded her every step in the infirmary. Once in a while they were able to release a convalescent patient, but few had the energy to return and help. A few junior enchanters from the White Spire had come, and they were managing the right-side infirmary, primarily occupied by civilians. They picked up a few more templars willing to work more closely with them to keep the cycle of laundry and supplies going, and maintain the relative cleanliness of the rooms, but magic was always needed, and the supply of mana potions, even restocked by the White Spire and the Chantry, dwindled and dwindled and expired. Half Vivienne's day was spent in a stupor, and there were times she feared to sit that she might never get up again.

Just a couple days from the duke's arrival, Vivienne paid him a visit in the afternoon, and received no answer to her knock. Stifling the immediate panic that threatened to swell her throat shut, she reminded herself she came at irregular times, and perhaps he had not heard, as he had not been listening for her.

"Your Grace?" she called, knocking again. No answer. "Your Grace?" It was difficult to swallow. The duke was not a young man—an illness like this could spell the end just as it had for several of the senior enchanters. "Bastien!" Vivienne fought to keep her voice from becoming a wail as she hammered on the door. "Bastien!" The door was locked, as Vivienne had bade him do, but it was a small matter for her to break it down.

"Vivienne!" The sound of a voice on the other side buckled Vivienne's knees and she slumped forward against the door. While she tried to make her throat work and form words again, the duke said: "I knew you would let go of that 'Your Grace' business eventually." She was torn between laughing and hanging the man out the window by his ankles.

"How dare you make me worry like that," she said at last, straightening up. If she had meant to be playful, there was no hiding the indignation in her voice.

"Forgive me, my lady," he said. "I was asleep."

"Asleep! And so you sleep like the dead?" Vivienne demanded.

"So I do. I snore too, for the honesty. The duchess can't stand it. Will that put you off?"

"No more than your taste in art." A laugh from the inside, and the handle of the door began to move. Vivienne grabbed onto it.

"Vivienne," the duke said gently. "Do you really think this door will be enough to keep me safe if the Maker has decided my time is here?" She pinched her lip between her teeth, still gripping the handle. "If I will die, I would die giving you whatever aid I can," he said. "I am no mage, but it seems to me you need all the help you can get, and sitting around here with my feet up won't do anyone any good." Gradually, Vivienne relaxed her hold on the door handle and stepped back. The door swung open to reveal the duke, slightly rumpled from several nights in such conditions, but otherwise as healthy as when Vivienne had last seen him. The moment he saw her, a smile spread across his aged face. "A wonder the sight of you hasn't healed them all already!"

"If you mean to help, I have work for you," she said, her seriousness not budging for his flirtations. "There is much to do, always." The duke bowed to her.

"I am in your service, Madame Vivienne."

"First, I will have you write. We need help. This problem is not for mages alone. You will write to any contacts you have who can offer us money, food, supplies, or healers—magical or mundane. Any nobles who have land around Montsimmard are served by the plague being contained—therefore, their money is well-spent making sure we are able to confine and care for the sick here at Montsimmard. Then, when you have given those letters to the templars to send, you will come to me. I have other things for you to do."

The Duke de Ghislain was of a noble family directly connected by marriage to the emperor himself. Nobles did not take orders from mages, and even a noble as well-tempered and worldly as Bastien would have limits. But Vivienne did not have time to baby him or soothe his ego into doing what was necessary. If he wanted to help, she would treat him like help, and if he abandoned them for it, she would do without him.

But he did not protest her tone or her words, merely went to fetch parchment and a quill from an available templar. Within a few hours, he found her in the infirmary, bent over an apprentice whose fever had not broken in nearly twenty-four hours. The poor boy was starting to fade, but he was not done fighting, and if this was one fewer letter they would have to send to a soon-to-be grief-stricken family, it was worth all her time.

"What can I do?" he asked, and in later years, Vivienne would swear that was the moment she fell in love (she would swear to Bastien—to others, she always picked a flashier moment—a jewel he had given her, a party he had thrown for her, something particularly romantic he had said at the summer home—etc.).

"Laundry," she said. "We need laundry. The sheets of the sick need cleaning, and the bandages and cloths too."

"Laundry?" That was more the reaction she had expected. "Vivienne, I don't know…"

"Alexis!" A teenager came hustling around the beds, her stringy blonde hair stuck to her face, blood crusting the cuticles of her nails. "Show His Grace how to do the laundry—without magic. Once he's washed it, you will dry it, and then he can help us change the beds."

"Please, madame, I'm so tired," Alexis simpered, turning her pale, red-rimmed eyes up to Vivienne. "I'm just so tired."

"I know, I know," Vivienne said, grasping the girl's shoulders. "You're doing so well my dear, I couldn't be more proud of you. Just do this one last thing, and you can sleep. Show His Grace how to do the laundry, and I will take care of drying it. You can rest. One more thing, Alexis."

The young woman nodded, and Vivienne turned a fiery gaze on the duke.

"You asked to help, this is how you will help us," she said. "If that is a problem, then you may take your leave now, my lord."

"Not a problem at all, madame," Bastien said, putting his hands up. "I will take care of it."

And he did. Their latest round of letters to the other Orlesian Circles and the Chantry roused further support. Senior Enchanter Ivy in the White Spire had long been agitating for greater support for Montsimmard, and finally broke through to the rest of the Circle leadership. Two carriages of healers arrived, freshly stocked, and once the White Spire had done so, Ghislain followed suit. The Chantry sent sisters—not just to administer last rites, but to aid the healers wherever they could.

When word came of their arrival, Vivienne was nearly weak with relief.

"Thank the Maker," she breathed, staggering against one of the beds. She found Bastien in one of the auxiliary rooms, scrubbing the floor, on his hand and knees. "Oh, I can do that, my lord," she said. "Have you heard? The Chantry is sending sisters to help. The other Circles as well."

"That's splendid! It's about time!" The duke looked up, and Vivienne saw he had abandoned his mask. "I can manage this. Mind you, I'm glad I don't have to do it every day." He rubbed his lower back.

"Here, let me get it," she said. "You don't need to do that." She waved her hand and the brush resumed its work on its own, but at such a slugging and ineffective pace it would have been embarrassing in another context. "Oh. Forgive me," she said, observing the feeble scrub brush with faint surprise. "I…we've run out of mana potions and I…" Vivienne swayed on her feet.

"Vivienne? Are you alright?" Stiffly, the duke got to his feet, as Vivienne reached out for one of the beds.

"I just need to…sit…for a moment…" She thought to take a seat on the edge of the patient's bed, just for a moment, but she realized too late she must have missed, she was just falling.

"Vivienne!" Bastien caught her before she hit the floor, and that was the last thing she felt.

When Vivienne awoke, she was in a meadow, surrounded by beautiful, coral-toned flowers, their sweet scent wafting around her. Was this the end, then? Andraste had come to meet her? Ibrahim had been right after all.

No...no it wasn't a meadow—

Sitting up was far more of a struggle than it had any right to be, so Vivienne surrendered and just lay there. The room must have been in the Circle; it had that look. Not dead, then. Probably. The room was packed with flowers and the bed across from her was unoccupied. Had someone taken her up to the mages' quarters? Was this her room? No—none of her things were here. She turned her head to observe one of the flowers, and then it registered.

They were peonies.

Vivienne laughed, and it was the sound of her laughter that brought one of the Chantry sisters in to check on her.

"Good to see you awake," she said. "How are we feeling?"

"I'm quite well, thank you," Vivienne said. "What's happened?"

"You collapsed in the infirmary. We thought you had taken ill, but it seems you were just exhausted. Some more rest and you should be fine." She glanced around the room. "The Duke de Ghislain paid you a visit, but he had to return home."

"Yes, I see…" A little smile danced around Vivienne's lips. "How long has it been?"

"About four days."

"Four days!" Again, Vivienne struggled to sit up, but the sister urged her to lay still.

"Rest, madame. The sick are being tended to. I heard from the other mages at Montsimmard what you did for them. The victims are in good hands now, and you will need to rest."

"Was the quarantine lifted?" she asked. The sister shifted uneasily in her seat.

"No, not yet."

"But you said the duke had returned to Ghislain."

"I suppose the emperor made an exception," she replied. Vivienne frowned, but there was nothing she could do about the lax judgement of their superiors now. And she was not displeased to have Bastien away from the epicenter of a plague.

"I will have to thank him for his kindness," she said. "Tell me, do we have a proper list of the dead yet?"

"I have two of the sisters assembling it," the woman reassured her.

"Good, we will need to inform the families…"

Early in the final month of summer, when Vivienne was spending more time at the Ghislain estate than at Montsimmard, the first bard came. Vivienne was on the chaise-lounge on the veranda, penning a letter to First Enchanter Marianne when the woman caught her by surprise. With no reason to expect trouble, Vivienne had let her guard down, even though Bastien and Nicoline were out, and she knew the household guard did not pay as much attention to her rooms as to the rest of the estate. The weather was lovely for laying about: heavy and warm, the sun laying a comforter over all of Ghislain so that one just wanted to stretch out and nap.

She had a bottle of vintage white from the Ghislains' wine cellar and a half-drunk glass stood attention by her parchment. Out around the veranda stretched Nicoline's flowers and shrubs, carefully attended by the estate gardeners. They were a flush of yellow, pink, and green against the wilting brown of the grass. Two months in the summer heat and it was only truly dedicated watering that kept the flowers alive—such attention was not reserved for the lawn.

The bard moved quickly. She had been informed of her target—she must have—as she gave Vivienne no chance to stop her. Her feet were silent on the sunbaked tiles as she slipped up behind the enchanter and wrapped the garrote around her neck. One moment, Vivienne was debating a turn of phrase in offering a small favor to the first enchanter, and then, the wire was biting into her throat, air cut off, choking, dying. Vivienne flailed helplessly, reaching out for anything, anything to put the assault to an end. Her staff was back inside; she had no reason to need it out there. Black spots danced sickeningly across her vision; she couldn't tell if the wire was cutting through her flesh yet but if it wasn't, it would soon.

This was it? After everything, to be garroted on the back porch of her lover? What had she achieved? What had she accomplished? What had she worked for, to meet such an ignominious end?

No!

No, it would not be like this. Not now, not yet. The feeling swelled up in Vivienne until she forced it out in an explosive burst of magic that sent the bard flying backwards, breaking straight through the glass doors, back into Vivienne's rooms. The furniture was knocked aside; the travel desk sailing into the railing of the veranda, her notes and supplies scattered to the floor. The enchanter staggered off the couch, choking and sucking in air, blood seeping from the wound around her throat. The bard lay dazed on the floor, and Vivienne knew she needed to be taking this moment to get the upper hand, but she could not make her body do anything but desperately gasp in the oxygen of which she had been deprived.

The two women recovered around the same moment, and Vivienne registered she was still without her staff. The bard sprang back to her feet, the garrote stretched between her hands. Vivienne looked her up and down, this puny, drably dressed little worm, who thought she could put an end to Vivienne so quickly and quietly.

"I see you made it past the guards," she observed, wiping away a streak of blood from her neck.

"Was that meant to be a challenge?" the bard asked. "The duke doesn't put much stock in your safety, does he?" Empty taunting; was this woman so uninformed as to think she could put Vivienne off her game that way? Vivienne began to approach, and the bard started to circle, looking for another chance to get her wire around Vivienne's slender neck.

"You aren't going to attribute it to your formidable talent?" Vivienne asked, arching a brow. "Most bards would exaggerate the danger of the guard."

"I don't need to exaggerate," said the bard. "My talent speaks for itself." She lunged, and Vivienne shoved at her, but the bard was stronger than she expected, and pushed back; Vivienne would not be able to fight her off with her hands alone. A current of electricity pulsed across Vivienne's skin and with a gurgled shriek, the bard let her go.

"It's speaking very quietly today," Vivienne said, seizing her staff from where it sat propped against the wall by her desk. "Now, how about—" Making another effort to gain the upper hand through surprise, the bard was on her before she finished speaking. Vivienne could feel the wire going about her again and she quickly lashed out with another current of electricity. The bard gritted her teeth and hung on this time, so Vivienne turned her hand to fire and pressed it against the bard's face, her palm making contact with the woman's bare neck and jaw, fingers slipping up beneath the edge of her full-face mask. The smell of burnt flesh wafted into the air and the bard screamed, giving Vivienne the chance to fling her off into the desk, scattering her papers and pens across the floor and overturning the chair. She was on her feet again admirably quickly, skittering away to be out of reach of Vivienne's staff, should she choose to use the wood itself as a weapon.

"My dear," Vivienne said, a catlike smile curling up on her face. "You won't win this fight. Not now. Your best option is to escape with your life." She advanced, and the bard scurried backwards, turning her gaze to the shattered glass doors and the gardens beyond. As she turned to run, Vivienne threw up a forcefield where the doors had been; the bard bounced off and went crashing into an end table, flailing like a windmill, throwing a candelabra to the floor along with a number of books. "Let's not be hasty. I don't have to kill you."

"And why wouldn't you?" the bard demanded, snapping the garrote between her hands again as Vivienne stepped closer.

"Because I believe we can make an exchange," she replied. "I'm sure whomever is paying you is offering a tidy sum. But what would you prefer: a one-time fee, or an alliance that could benefit you for years to come? It's not a hard choice dear, if you're anywhere near as intelligent as you should be in your role."

The bard was hesitating, considering. Her alternatives were few: make a miraculous escape, or play cat-and-mouse with Vivienne in a confined space until the enchanter managed to end her, or cripple her beyond the ability to fight. Either way she had failed in her job; she was not so foolhardy as to think she could manage to off her target now. Her flesh was searing where Vivienne had touched her with a flaming hand, and would need medical attention quickly.

"I can give you some elfroot for that," Vivienne remarked, gesturing to the half-a-handprint on the bard's throat. That was it; she lowered the garrote. "There's a good girl." Turning her back on the bard for just a moment—tensed and alert, should the woman change her mind— Vivienne rifled through her things until she uncovered an elfroot potion. "Here you are. That should dull the pain."

The bard snatched the bottle from her hand and let go of the garrote to uncork it and chug it down.

"Now, why don't we all calm down and talk?" Vivienne selected a fresh bottle of wine from the dresser that had gone undamaged in the fight, snagging a pair of wine glasses from the tray there, and poured them each a helping. For a moment, she frowned at the destruction; had she not been able to better control that blast? What an uncouth mess. She took a seat on the chaise-lounge again (the only piece of furniture on the veranda undisturbed), her staff leaned against it beside her, and gestured for the bard to have a seat on the overturned couch nearby.

The bard skulked out to the veranda, and sat on the very edge of the couch.

"Don't look so alarmed, darling, if I wanted to kill you, I would have done it. Here, have a drink." She waved her hand and floated the other glass of wine over to her guest. "Now, let's talk."

"Vivienne? Vivienne!" She could hear Bastien panicking the moment he entered her rooms.

"Out here, Bastien," she called, waving a lazy hand over the back of the chaise-lounge.

"What in the Maker's name!" He burst through the shattered doors, boots crunching through the glass, and Vivienne couldn't help but smile at the bewildered look on his face. "What happened here? Are you alright?" Those soft hazel eyes were dark with worry and Vivienne's smile lingered.

"Yes, yes, I'm f—"

"You're bleeding!"

"It's old, don't mind that," she said. "This is Aurelie." She gestured to the older woman, on her second glass of wine, and thankfully more relaxed, with some reassurance Vivienne wasn't making an elaborate plan for her death.

"Was it she who attacked you? I'll see her executed. Where are the damn guards?"

"Don't be so dramatic, my dear," Vivienne sighed, waving a hand. "We're not having her executed. She's going to do a favor for me."

"She just tried to kill you!"

"Oh, Bastien!" Vivienne exclaimed, as if he were being particularly slow and pedantic. "We're past that!" The duke observed the two women for a moment, then folded his arms and settled his gaze on Vivienne.

"Who sent her?" he asked.

"We'll get to that," Vivienne said. "Aurelie, tell His Grace what you told me, about the household guard."

"They didn't stop me," Aurelie said dully, with her execution possibly back on the table. "At least one of them was bribed. I don't know which one. I assumed it was the captain, but I can't say for sure."

"That man!" Bastien seethed. "Where the devil is he? I'll have his head myself!" Vivienne had never seen Bastien in such a fury; she hurried after him as he strode off to the compound, dragging Aurelie along with her, and collecting Nicoline in the commotion. Bastien threatened to have him killed, although they had only Aurelie's word of his potential guilt. For a few minutes, Vivienne thought Bastien would gut the man himself there in the hallway. The duke raged that anyone considered his mistress worthy of less protection than his wife; if it was not bribery, it was gross incompetence, and still worthy of punishment. Certainly, he was fired—until Vivienne persuaded Bastien otherwise.

If the man was innocent, they did no good by firing him, and still had a viper in their midst. If he stayed on, he might help them discover who had done it. If he was an enemy, he might be persuaded to their side, or be wrung for more information. Anyway she cut it, Vivienne saw no benefit to expelling him from the house.

"I don't understand this," Bastien sighed, throwing himself down on a sofa. "You were almost assassinated and somehow we're doing nothing but cleaning up the mess of the room."

"Did you want to ride to my aid on a white steed?" Vivienne teased, settling herself beside him and carding a hand through his hair, sweeping the hat off his head.

"Bah! As if you need anyone's aid!" he said. "How did you manage to talk that woman out of her job? And persuade her to work for you?" Vivienne smiled.

"I can be very persuasive," she said.

"That, I can believe." Bastien took her hand and pressed a gentle kiss to her fingers. "She's made the right decision, of course. The Comte de Morrac! That petty beetle, I can't believe he would dare!"

"Never you fear, I'll take care of him," Vivienne soothed, to ease the wrathful furrow in Bastien's brow. Now that things had calmed down, she could not confess to being surprised—the nobility had been agitating for months about the brazenness of Vivienne's relationship with Bastien. A mage with such freedoms set their teeth on edge, no matter what they said to her face; it was up to Vivienne to soothe them for now, and destroy the ones who could not be reasoned with.

"I'm terribly sorry about this, Vivienne," he said, forgetting momentarily about the insolent comte to fret over her again, as was proper. "I'll see to the guard, but if you prefer to return to Montsimmard, I'll have the carriage fitted tonight."

"So eager to get rid of me, are you? I thought you relished a bit of excitement," she replied.

"I prefer that excitement not come in the form of assassins sent to your rooms while I'm not around," he said, though he didn't argue with her on the general point. Vivienne just smiled again, serene as could be. She had cleaned up the cut to her throat, and hidden it behind a gauzy scarf, but she had seen Bastien's eyes flick to the wound several times. "But of course I don't mean to get rid of you," he said, grasping her hand with that potent look of smoldering adoration that made Vivienne's heart sigh in contentment. "If I had my say I would never return you to the Circle."

"Don't be greedy, Bastien," she said, tapping his chest lightly.

"I thought we had agreed we were both terribly greedy people?" he said.

"We are, but you must try," Vivienne said with a laugh. "Or I will wake to find you've left some poor tulip farmer's entire stock in the front hall!"

"Tulips! How gauche, I would never!" Bastien smiled, and they had a good laugh over the booby who had thought he could take out Vivienne with one paltry bard.

When First Enchanter Sadaat summoned Vivienne to her office, she would have been foolish not to have had an idea what it was about, but she still played the ignorant as it suited her, which lasted well through the small talk Sadaat opened with and into the meat of the conversation.

"I'm sure you know why I've called you here," she said, folding her hands on the desk. Vivienne gave her a look of innocence that did not quite manage to be sweet or disarming.

"I'm afraid you've kept me quiet in the dark, fist enchanter," she replied. Sadaat lowered her head, giving Vivienne a look that did not, for a mouse's heartbeat, buy that.

"Then let me ask you this: are you aware of how much time you spend at the Ghislain estate?" Vivienne gave a casual shrug.

"The duke requests my presence frequently," she said.

"He is playing a dangerous game," Sadaat said, a sharpness in her voice that startled Vivienne, though she kept it controlled. "But nowhere near as dangerous as you, Vivienne. The templars are not happy. Half the time I look around you aren't here." She paused, but Vivienne did not fill the silence. "This has to stop."

"Have I neglected my duties in the Circle?" Vivienne asked.

"Not necessarily, but you might do more if you were here," Sadaat said. "I see you still have not joined a fraternity. It's very unusual."

"As I've said before," Vivienne, trying to keep her tone from getting testy, "when I see a fraternity worth joining, I will join it."

"The knight-commander is asking questions," Sadaat said. "No, she's past questions. She's making demands. And the nobles are as well."

"What is it they want, exactly?"

"They want you put in your place," Sadaat said bluntly. "They see a mage swanning about court, carrying on an affair with a duke—of one of Orlais' oldest noble families, for that matter—and they are unsettled. They want you back in the Circle." Sadaat let out a quiet sigh. "And at this point, I am inclined to agree."

"First enchanter?" Vivienne straightened, girding herself for a fight she had hoped to avoid. "Surely I have done nothing wrong, or you would have told me."

"Appearances matter, Vivienne. Yves gave you an extraordinarily long leash. That time is at an end. You've taken this as far as you can. How long did you really think this could go on?"

"As long as I could make it," Vivienne replied candidly, folding her hands in her lap. "First enchanter, if it pleases the templars and the nobles, I will spend more time here at the Circle. I will publish another treatise, if you like. Five, if you prefer." She could feel the ice creeping into her feet, freezing her toes, snaking up her ankles. "Or perhaps you would rather have a volume."

"No. I need you here, Vivienne. Not playing housewife to some noble and agitating the templars." The pride demon was growling in her ear, and Vivienne clutched her hands together, digging her nails into her flesh.

"If I could speak to the templars," she suggested, forcing her voice to remain even.

"I have made a decision, Vivienne." The leeway for argument in Sadaat's voice was gone. "I enjoy you, but this is not a suggestion. This is an order."

"First enchanter, please," Vivienne said softly, leaning forward. "The templars mean well, but I have done nothing but serve the Circle."

"I'm sorry, Vivienne." A slight grimace passed over Sadaat's face, and she ran a hand over the top of her head. "I don't want to do this, you've been an asset to Montsimmard. But this is how it has to be. You are a mage—sometimes, I think you forget that." Vivienne sat still as stone, jaw clenched, as the pride demon roared in her mind, drowning out Sadaat's apologies and excuses. "You may go, then."

Snapping to, Vivienne rose to her feet, slowly moving towards the door. She paused as she turned, resting a hand against the back of the chair.

"Will you reconsider, at least?" she asked. "It would mean a great deal to me."

"This is out of my hands, Vivienne," Sadaat said. "You've wrung your leash out as far as it will go. It's time to come home."

Vivienne passed through the halls like a thundercloud, the fury radiating off of her enough to repel anyone foolish enough to come near her until she could shut herself in her room, where the pride demon unleashed.

She knocked her books off the table, hurled the parchment against the wall, seized old correspondence and shredded it to pieces, only throwing herself down in her chair when she had wrought enough destruction to calm the blind red howling of the beast in her mind. She bit her lip until it throbbed with pain, and envisioned allowing herself to scream until the windows shattered; until all of them, every blasted window in the entire Maker-damned Circle blew out of its framing and rained glass down through every last room and hall.

Good mages stayed in the Circle. Good mages didn't talk back to templars. Good mages didn't play with forbidden magic. Good mages didn't interest themselves in politics. Good mages didn't have children. Good mages didn't dream of a life outside the Circle. Good mages were seen, and not heard. And especially good mages were neither seen, nor heard.

No matter how hard she worked, no matter how powerful she was, no matter that she could have wreaked Montsimmard down around her ears in her rage, and leveled the town around it to soothe herself, there was someone else with their foot on her neck. The magic hummed in her breast, burning at her fingertips, searing against her skin and she wanted to let it go, she wanted to tear it all down in a glorious conflagration and let anyone try again to tell her what she could and couldn't do.

Taking deep breaths, Vivienne beat away the pride demon. She forced herself to pick up everything she had disturbed, reprimanding herself for her pathetic childishness before she sat down to write. First, she wrote to Bastien, informing him of her confinement and implying the end of their affair should the situation continue. Three times she re-wrote the letter, seeking to evoke the proper amount of protectiveness, longing, and urgency. It was possible he would simply accept that it was over, that it was too difficult to carry on so with a mage, but if Vivienne knew Bastien, she doubted that would be the case. When she was satisfied with every last word, she folded it up and stamped it.

Next, she wrote to Senior Enchanter Ivy at the White Spire. They had maintained some correspondence, and Vivienne hoped she might have advice, or strings for Vivienne to pull that might ameliorate her position.

Then, she sat still for several minutes, looking at the folded letters, and the various other notes and books on her desk. Every cage had a way out, every maze had an end. Sadaat and Knight-Commander Moreau might think they had shut her away for good, but Vivienne was not a sheep to be corralled, she was not a bitch to be chained; she would not sit quietly and let life pass her by because on someone else's say-so.

A leash could be pulled from both ends.

With her rage cooled and turned to calculation, Vivienne neatened herself, and resolved to speak with the knight-commander before sending her letters. Let her say she had undertaken nothing in haste; careful planning had gotten her this far; if she kept her wits, there was a way out here too.

Smoothing her robes, Vivienne quitted the room—cleaned of all evidence of her temper tantrum—and made her way down to the templar compound to knock on the knight-commander's door.

"Enter." Vivienne pushed the door open and the knight-commander frowned. "Yes, mage? What is it?"

"Knight-Commander Moreau, I thought we might speak a moment, if you have the time," Vivienne said. "I am Vivienne, you may remember from the plague outbreak…"

In the end, Vivienne did not send her letter to Bastien. That was her cudgel, to which she would not resort until her own tricks had failed. Ivy acknowledged that much of what Sadaat said was true—Vivienne was bending the Circle rules nearly to the breaking point, and she would have a hard time persuading the first enchanter she should be allowed to do so. Winning over the knight-commander was a good starting point, but had she considered a less scandalous affair?

Winning over the knight-commander was a start, but the knight-commander herself faced pressures. From the templars under her command—not least of all, Knight-Captain Arnaud, who was one of the more vicious little men Vivienne had ever encountered, perpetually straining at the bit to sink his vile teeth into some foolish mage—as well as the higher-ups in the Templar Order and the Chantry. It was time, Vivienne thought, to pay a visit to Montsimmard's Chantry.

Strings to pull, favors to promise, secrets to wield; playing the Game was an art, a dance, a battle. What Vivienne did not take away in victory, she stocked in lessons. She had tasted of life outside the Circle and would not be thus confined again, not like some feeble mage with no ability to control herself, not like some fool with barely enough magic to lift a quill. Vivienne had sworn when she put down the pride demon that nothing would ever master her, and she meant to hold to that. If she had to run Montsimmard herself to ensure her freedom, she would do it.

Within three months, she paid her next visit to the Ghislain estate.

However foolish and grasping he might be, the Comte de Morrac was not the only one among the Orlesian nobility who had taken enough umbrage at Vivienne's audacity to decide she needed to be taught a lesson. The Duchess Chantilly, for one, had never forgiven Vivienne the slight at the Wintersend ball, and sent no fewer than five bards to either humiliate or kill her.

By the fourth one, Bastien had entered Vivienne's study to find the man encased in a cube of ice while Vivienne penned a letter at her desk and said only, "Another one?"

"Duchess Chantilly again, I'm certain," Vivienne had replied. "He's starting to melt; can you have the guard get him out?"

Vivienne did not let these frequent attempts on her life stop her from…well, anything. She continued to make use of her rooms in the Ghislain estate—which were unquestionably hers by then, proven by her efforts at redecoration going unopposed by Duchess Nicoline—and she continued to be observed publicly in the company of Duke Bastien. The scandal had spread across all of Orlais and First Enchanter Sadaat informed Vivienne each time she received a new letter complaining that Montsimmard allowed its mages too much freedom and that something should be done to stop her.

(The crudest of these raised the unwelcome possibility of the reproduction of mages, and Vivienne took extra pleasure in burning those).

Despite this, she managed to avoid a repeat of the first enchanter's efforts to confine her to the Circle. The right knife twisted in the right place could bring about surprising allies.

Bastien fumed on her behalf, but woe on anyone who suggested to him that he was making a mistake. He did not have Vivienne's head for diplomacy, and Vivienne had seen him shred both a marquise and a particularly arrogant baron who made the fateful decision to comment negatively on Bastien's choice in mistresses.

None of this slowed either of them down, or even tempered their openness on the subject. Bastien took Vivienne along with Nicoline to any event she cared to attend; twice, he had been strictly advised in the invitation not to, and he chose not to attend those events. In solidarity, Nicoline too, stayed home, and even shared a laugh over the idea of the Marquis DuRellion's face when he realized Bastien had simply passed on the invite.

It helped that Vivienne's network of ears was growing. With each mage of any rank she won over, with each bard she pressed into her service, with each noble she charmed, her ability to foresee potential problems grew like a witch's scrying glass. From her seat in the Ghislain estate, she was crafting her castle, with caution and care.

A great part of that was socializing, which was why she was out in town having evening drinks and hors d'oeuvres with the Baronesses Elodie and Miriam, and the Lady Sidonia. It had taken her months of planning to coax both the baronesses into attending a public outing with the Duke de Ghislain's mage mistress, but she had finally done it. She had hoped to wrangle the Comtesse du Bayard into it as well, but she had put Vivienne off, doubtless assuming that she was a passing fancy that Bastien would do away with in time. It was Vivienne's intention that was not the case—or at least, that he would not cast her aside until she had crafted a suitable landing pad.

"…and the poor thing was just torn apart," Miriam was saying, shaking her head. "It was terrible, I could just cry. In our own province, too! Tsk."

"Untrained mages face hazards not only from themselves," Vivienne said with a frown. Stories of apostates or child mages set upon by frenzied townsfolk were not uncommon, per say, but always upsetting to hear. Vivienne had a particular distaste for them—it was such a waste, of talent, of life! That child could have accomplished things, but he never got the chance. "That is what makes Circle training so important." Why the baronesses had decided that the brutal murder of a young mage was suitable conversation for their mage companion, Vivienne could not say, but she supposed it might have been simple carelessness.

"You were trained at Montsimmard, yes?" Elodie said.

"I trained first at Ostwick, as a child," she said. "I'm still at Montsimmard now."

"I hear you're not there so much anymore," Elodie remarked, as Miriam exclaimed, "Ostwick to Montsimmard! That's a step up, isn't it? I hear the Free Marches are…rustic."

Vivienne cast a faint smile on the table.

"I go where I am needed," she said. Elodie laughed, and Lady Sidonia joined her, possibly only to indicate that she too, had gotten the joke.

"Wasn't the Comtesse du Bayard going to join us today?" Lady Sidonia then asked, to Vivienne's immense irritation.

"Her ladyship had a previous engagement to keep," she said. Being stood up or put off by the Orlesian nobility was not new—plenty of them were pleased to put Vivienne in her place without the use of bards. Lady Sidonia was either stupid—which was very possible—or trying to curry favor with the baronesses by embarrassing Vivienne. Either way, Vivienne would repay that inane little remark at a later time. "But I imagine I will be seeing her at Nicoline's next party—you will be there, won't you?" she asked, turning her attention to Miriam and Elodie. "I know Her Grace is looking forward to seeing you." An exaggeration, perhaps, but Nicoline would not be rude enough to argue if either of the baronesses mentioned it, and they would leap at the idea that a duchess looked forward to their company.

Lady Sidonia shut her idiot mouth as Elodie began to wax on about some past party of the Ghislains' for which Vivienne had not been in attendance. She was interrupted by the arrival of a young man in neat, but inconspicuous dress, who hovered at the edge of the table until Vivienne beckoned him over.

"My lady," he whispered, although Vivienne had told him she was not a noble, "there is a problem."

"Something amiss, Vivienne?" asked Miriam.

"It seems so," Vivienne said with the barest hint of a frown. "What is it?" Renaud's eyes flicked around the table and he leaned in to whisper to Vivienne again.

"We've just caught word—someone is moving on the Ghislain estate."

"But I'm not there," Vivienne said.

"I know, my lady," he said. "Perhaps their information was—" Vivienne rose to her feet.

"I'm so terribly sorry, my dears, urgent matters," she said. "Please, bill this to my account. It will not make up for this rudeness, but you should at least enjoy the rest of it." Two years, she fumed privately as she strode out of the restaurant, Renaud at her heels. Two years of this! How long would they persist in trying to dissuade her, in trying to harm her or, Maker forbid, Bastien, in an effort to break them apart?

"Find Aurelie if you can," she instructed Renaud. "She might be able to get there before I can."

"We'll just need to prepare the carriage, ma'am," said the stable hand, to which Vivienne exclaimed there was no time for that! There was the household guard, but Vivienne could not sit back and rely on them when she knew trouble was coming. There was no one better suited to protecting Bastien than she.

"That won't do at all," she said. "Just give me one of the horses." The moment it was saddled, Vivienne was astride the beast, and off into the evening. Horseback riding was not something most Circle mages were much accustomed to, but Vivienne made an effort not to think about how quickly she could snap her neck being flung off a horse at full gallop. She could not fathom how knights rode so steadily; she felt as if she were constantly a heartbeat from being careening sideways off the thing. But all that mattered was making it back to the Ghislain estate as fast as she could—if anything happened to Bastien because Orlais disapproved of her…

Taking the corner up the estate drive, she almost did go flying right off the horse, and she clung to it with all her strength, her heart beating at tattoo against her ribs. The frantic ride had only given her time to imagine all the worst possibilities, the most gruesome things she would have to tell Duchess Nicoline, the state she might find him in when she arrived, the sheer cruelty of which some were capable…

"Bastien!" She hit the ground at the center of the drive and drew her staff, throwing the front doors open with a blast of magic. "Bastien!" Whichever sorry fools had taken it upon themselves to accept a hit job for the Ghislain estate, Vivienne was going to make them sorry, their comeuppance had arrived. There was no one who could harm her new family with impunity.

The house was quiet and empty, and Vivienne rushed from room to room, and the pride demon reached its hand down her throat. Look at that, you knew best, and now look what you've done. You got cocky playing the Game, and now your lover will pay the price, and his family too. What a fool you are! If you had only played better, this would never have happened!

"Bastien! Ba—" Coming around a corner into one of the sitting rooms, she ran headlong into the duke himself. They both jumped in surprise and Bastien caught her hands against his chest, staff and all.

"Vivienne! What are you doing here?"

"Bastien!" Vivienne became aware that she was shaking. "Wh—are you alright?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" He tipped his head curiously to the side, mask-less at this hour of the evening, and squeezed her hand lightly, pressing her palm against his chest.

"Renaud told me—" Never mind that Bastien did not know who Renaud was, "—someone had sent another bard here." She pulled away from him, twirling her staff. "They must not have arrived yet. Tell the household guard to lock down the entrances and notify me of—"

"Ahh, you must mean the twins," Bastien said. Vivienne turned to him with a perplexed look. He waved her along, so she followed him into the green library (the official name for the little study with all the plants, making it look a bit like an indoor garden) where two bards—a man and a woman—lay still and bloody on the floor. Vivienne just stared, and Bastien gave a short laugh. "Did you forget I had also trained as a bard, my love?" he said.

"I…" Yes, that was true. Bastien had been good at it too, from what Vivienne understood—good enough to train under the legendary Black Fox, before he gave up his wild child ways to head up the Ghislain estate. "How dare you make me worry like that," she said at last, turning an indignant gaze on him.

"Were you hoping to ride to my rescue?" he teased. Vivienne tossed her head and turned sharply on her heel to march off, not caring to shrink down her staff first—let him remember how powerful she was— "Come now, my jewel, I'm sorry," he laughed, reaching for her arm. "Let's go back to you running to my protection. I promise I will behave perfectly helplessly for the next bards who turn up, so you can destroy them on my behalf. One of them did cut me here, if you would like to give me a spell for it." Vivienne shook him off in irritation, still trying to calm the rattle of her heart. Bastien reached for her again, turning her about to face him, and she looked at him, for a moment, as if she meant to give him a good whack with her staff. "Forgive me, Vivienne," he said softly. "I did not mean to worry you. I thought you were still out with the baronesses."

"I left them to their desserts," she said. "When I was informed, I came straight back here."

"I'm impressed the carriage managed to get back that quickly," he said. "I had just finished cleaning up. Myself; the twins will need to be identified before we haul them off. I didn't find anything identifying on them; they covered their tracks well."

"I didn't take the carriage," Vivienne said stiffly. Her hysteria seemed like nothing more now—not only were the household guard about to offer aid, her own damn lover had been one of those accursed bards. Vivienne did not care to think of herself as someone who panicked. It was so pathetic.

"Then what, you rode yourself?" Bastien was putting the two things together and his eyebrows lifted in surprise, before he laughed. "Vivienne, I didn't know you knew how to ride properly!"

"I don't," she huffed, wriggling out of his embrace. He knew that—why else would she so often have declined to go riding with him, pleading headaches or poor weather or work to be done?

"And still you came for me!"

"Clearly a mistake, Your Grace!" Purposeful strides took her away from her wretchedly amused lover and into the nearest drawing room, where she could feign like she was looking for something amongst the books. Bastien followed her into the room and leaned against the bookshelf, blocking a good half of it, and looking at her with a cocky little smirk.

"You were trembling," he said.

"You'll have to try harder than that to make sense. I don't parse out inane ramblings." Vivienne plucked a book of the shelf to flip through. She stopped at a random page to scan it, reading nothing.

"When you came in, when you were calling for me. You were trembling."

"I most certainly was not."

"You were."

"I was not!" A laugh burst out of the duke.

"I know you were, or you would have a better defense," he said with glee. "Oh, my love, you were worried about me! Your poor, defenseless, useless noble lover!" Heat burned Vivienne's cheeks and she shut the book with a snap, turning her wrathful moue on Bastien, who pulled the strings on her mask and delicately removed it, setting it aside on the bookshelf. He reached out to trail the backs of his fingers down her cheek.

"Useless is a fair word," she said.

"Not so useless that I would disrupt your long-earned evening with the baronesses for something so petty as a couple of sub-standard bards," he boasted.

"Oh…" Vivienne fumbled for a suitable reply, hating that he had managed to catch her off her game.

"Oh?" That smirk!

"Oh, damn you," she said at last, as good as a surrender. She caught his beloved face between her hands and kissed him, something he responded to with altogether too much enthusiasm for the way she had be receiving him prior.

"Could it be?" he said when they broke apart. Vivienne had allowed him to wrap his arms around her, which was giving him much too much leeway, but she would push him off in a moment. They were, after all, in a common room of the house. "Madame Vivienne is in love?"

"Oh, do stop talking. You're embarrassing yourself, Bastien."

"For you, that is a price I would gladly pay, madame." Vivienne allowed him another kiss, and they went to remove the bards from the study to be picked up for burial by the chantry sisters.

In the year after Celene Valmont's coronation as her Imperial Majesty the Empress of the Orlesian Empire, she convened a meeting of the Council of Heralds, so as the head of the council, Bastien was called to Val Royeaux. He took Vivienne, who reminded him so sweetly how long it had been since she had had occasion to visit Val Royeaux. Nicoline would stay and oversee the estate, where Laurent was due to pay a visit while his father was out of town. On their trip into the capitol, Vivienne did wonder if she should not have stayed to speak with Laurent de Ghislain. Cultivating a relationship with him could end up being crucial to her survival. She disliked contemplating Bastien's death, but he grew no younger with the years, and someday, she would lose her bulwark against the hostility of the Orlesian nobility. As much as they loved to raise someone up, that had nothing on the unmitigated rapture they got from tearing someone down. There was much that Laurent could take from her if he chose, and that unsettled her, as did the idea of meeting with him with only his mother present. That was something that would need tending—soon. For now, she would enjoy her little outing to Val Royeaux, and she would buy herself something nice for the next soiree.

Empress Celene opened the gathering with an intimate luncheon for the council members and guests.

"Your Grace," she greeted Bastien as he entered, giving her a low bow. "Ah, but no Duchess de Ghislain today?"

"She wished to stay and receive our son, Your Radiance," he said. "This is Madame Vivienne, of the Montsimmard Circle of Magi." It was daring enough for Bastien to bring her, let alone introduce her to the Empress of Orlais, but Vivienne gave a deep curtsy and bowed her head.

"Oh yes, I've heard of you, Madame Vivienne," she said.

"Your Radiance must have very sensitive ears, to hear of something so small," Vivienne said. The pride demon whined, but Vivienne hushed it. A certain amount of kowtowing to those above her was a small price to pay to ingratiate herself, and it was a necessity.

"Small? As I understand, you've made some rather large waves, Madame Vivienne," Celene said, while Vivienne tried to determine if that was reproach in her tone, or mere amusement. "Thank you for coming." That was a dismissal, so Vivienne and Bastien left the empress to take their seats at the table.

She made small talk with all of them over the course of the meal, allowing each member to discuss their holdings, their families, their interests. She was feeling them out—it was a clever ploy, and did not need to be carefully concealed, as it made sense for the empress to want to know her council members. What surprised her was when the empress addressed her again. Anything beyond an initial greeting was treating her as a fair guest, which was more than Vivienne had ever expected.

"Now Enchanter Vivienne, you are quite the scholar," she remarked. The table turned towards Vivienne, who offered her thanks, and the empress went on. "I read your treatise on the revival of the Chenanceau school of casting."

"Did you? I would love to hear your thoughts, Your Radiance," Vivienne said. If the empress had read and had any thoughts, Vivienne would be surprised. Nicoline had mentioned, once, that Celene had some interest in the occult, but that did not necessarily translate to support for or interest in the Circle.

"I think it was one of the cleverest pieces of magical writing I've read in a very long time," said the empress, and even Vivienne looked surprised. That surprise did not stop the wheels from beginning to turn at once—it was never wise to let an opportunity pass by.

"You do me great honor, Your Radiance," she said.

"I particularly enjoyed your commentary on the knight-enchanting field," she said. "In fact, there is something I would like to show you. If you'll excuse me," she said to the rest of the table, rising to her feet. "The rest of you continue on with your meal; when I return, we will discuss the running docket." Vivienne managed to exchange a glance with Bastien as she got to her feet and followed the empress out. He was terribly wide-eyed, but she tried to calm him down with a look before she and the empress left the room.

When they returned, her expression was surely enough to comfort Bastien that his lover was not going to be made Tranquil or executed or banished from Orlesian high society, or any of the other nasty things he might have worried about. There was no time to discuss it before the guests were sent away so the empress could meet privately with the Council of Heralds, but as soon as Bastien had a moment alone with Vivienne in their quarters, he had to know.

"And enchanter, about our discussion—I'll be in touch," Celene said to Vivienne as the guests began to clear.

"I will await it most patiently, Your Radiance," Vivienne promised, bowing out along with the other guests. The meeting with the Council of Heralds went on for several hours before Bastien returned to their quarters.

"What did the empress want to talk to you about?" Bastien demanded the moment he entered the room.

"Oh, Circle matters, darling," she said from the desk where she was reading through correspondence from the Marquise de Montsimmard. "Nothing to worry about. I was surprised she had read that treatise."

"So was I," Bastien said with a frown. He sat down on the sofa to look through the notes from the meeting. "Is that what she wanted to talk to you about?"

"No, not really."

"Vivienne." He put the notes down. "You were gone for almost an hour, with the empress. Tell me, do I need to be concerned?"

"Not at all," she replied.

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

"Do you trust me?" she asked, turning away from her desk to look at him. "There is nothing to worry about, Bastien. We just had a little conversation. She's feeling you out, and that means me as well. If Nicoline was here, I'm sure she would be doing the same thing."

"She didn't take anyone else's guests out of the room," he pointed out. Vivienne gave a graceful shrug.

"I'm a mage, dear. That warrants additional suspicion." Bastien let out a gusty sigh and ran his fingers back through his hair, which had wholly completed its transition to gray. Distinguished, Vivienne called it.

"You would tell me, if we had reason to be worried?" He looked directly into Vivienne's eyes.

"Of course, my love."

Bastien let the subject drop for the remainder of their time in Val Royeaux, and the trip back, but Vivienne could tell it was not off his mind. It was hard to blame him for that, but Vivienne offered no further explanation on her meeting with Celene, even when Bastien brought it up at dinner. She would not speak of things that were yet to come to fruition; if and when there was something to tell, then she would share.

"The visit with Her Imperial Majesty went well?" Nicoline was saying as she sliced up a sliver of ham.

"Quite well, Celene doesn't seem like she's trying to shake anything up," Bastien said, and Vivienne knew from the look on his face this was not foremost on his mind. "Just feeling us out, now that she's in charge." After a pause where they went on eating, he added, "The stranger thing was that she wanted to talk to Vivienne." Nicoline looked up at once, turning her attention to the young mage.

"Oh? And what was that about?"

"I shouldn't know," Bastien said. "I wasn't told."

"It was just some Circle business," Vivienne said to Her Grace. "I'm sure she is only concerned over a mage in my position."

"Then there is reason for concern!" Bastien exclaimed, bringing his spoon down on the table.

"No, Your Grace," Vivienne said. "I have reassured her. There's nothing to get yourself in a twist about. Like you said, Celene is just feeling all of us out. She wants to know where we stand, now that we all answer to her."

Two weeks later, the valet was bringing in the mail, when he announced there was something for Vivienne and Bastien caught sight of the imperial seal of House Valmont.

"Give me that." He took it from the valet before he could set it aside for Vivienne, and examined the sealed envelope.

"Are you going to open that?" He looked up to see Nicoline observing him from her seat with something akin to reproach on her face.

"Why shouldn't I? She hasn't told me anything about that meeting with the empress. The empress, Nicoline! She's a junior enchanter at Montsimmard, what does the empress want with her? I don't like it." He turned the envelope around for more clues, but there were none. "What's that look for?" he asked, when he saw Nicoline persisted in her observation.

"Nothing."

"Not nothing! That's a look. What?"

"Far be it from me to pry into the lives your mistresses, but opening a woman's mail…" Nicoline shrugged. "If you did such a thing to me, I would be furious." Bastien frowned down at the Valmont seal, rubbing his thumbs over the envelope. "And I would not want to be on the receiving end of Vivienne's temper," Nicoline added. Bastien sighed, and set the envelope aside.

"You're right, you're right…I lose my head where that woman is concerned."

"You do. It's been entertaining to watch." He looked up sharply and saw a smile glittering on Nicoline's face.

"That makes two of you," he said. Turning to the valet he said, "Go and let Vivienne know she has mail. She'll want to see this as soon as possible."

"Yes, Your Grace."

Vivienne came promptly, and made straight for the purple-sealed envelope. He watched her delicate fingers pry open the seal and unfurl the parchment, and the smile that stretched itself out across her face, those beautiful brown eyes sparkling with something like pleasure, mixed with hunger. Vivienne was planning.

"What does Her Radiance have to say?" he asked. "Good news?"

"Her Radiance has appointed me Enchanter to the Imperial Court of Orlais," Vivienne announced, a prim little smile curving her lips up. She lifted her eyes to his and the pride in them was unmistakable.

"Court Enchanter," Nicoline said. "What happened to the old one? I seem to remember he wasn't very good."

"His career is going in a different direction," Vivienne said, glancing over the letter again before folding it back up.

"Congratulations, Vivienne," Bastien said, rising to give her a kiss on the cheek. "But you must tell us what you said to her!"

Vivienne knew what Bastien and Nicoline had not wanted to say about her dubious promotion: Enchanter to the Imperial Court was a joke. It was a nothing position for a jester of a mage who served to prance about and entertain the empress and her family with silly tricks and self-deprecating antics. The duke and duchess had enough grace not to say such things, but Vivienne did not need them to say to know it was there. But then, they must think, to what else could a mage aspire?

They had no idea.

The talk with Celene in the library had begun forming the plan in Vivienne's mind. The empress found her entertaining, and perhaps she truly did enjoy Vivienne's scholarly efforts, but she had the limited view of all who were born into power. She would hand over this laughable title as if it were a great honor, and Vivienne would be satisfied, and go on amusing her with fun facts and glowing lights.

Vivienne had no intention of playing the fool to anyone. But as she knew already, one had to begin with a certain level of groveling to get anywhere. How many insults had she taken from the duke and duchess' friends, family, and acquaintances since her arrival in Ghislain? Some of them had come to regret their slights since then—three years on when Vivienne was not only still with Bastien, but steadily amassing popularity. So if she had to dance a jig and make the empress snort, she'd grit her teeth and do it—it was a position in court. She would stand beside the seat of supreme power in Orlais, and if one could not see the value in that, they were incurably stupid.

And so, Vivienne was ushered in as the new court enchanter to a bit of fanfare and an evening's festivities. It was a lighthearted event, dominated by Vivienne's ice spells—crafting sculptures of the empress' guests, making snow whirl about on the dance floor, momentarily freezing in place the feet of a man who had offended a marquise. The kind of tomfoolery that was expected of the position.

The court loved her simply for being livelier than the old court enchanter, who, possibly worn down by decades in a worthless position, had been little more than a body to move from place to place during parties. But Vivienne swirled into court like a blast of winter air, sparkling and sharp and fresh. She was young, and strikingly beautiful, and she designed her own gowns and even her own armor. Now, she made them to match the theme of Celene's parties, and even collaborated with the empress' own seamstress on a particularly elaborate number for the Wintersend ball that year.

The mage fraternities were then clamoring for her membership; she had received no fewer than two dozen letters from the Loyalists, the Isolationists, the Aequitarians, even the Lucrosians, few in number as they were. Each one made her smile as she penned a polite and/or cutting refusal, or simply dropped the invitation into the fireplace.

The work kept her away from Ghislain for much of the time, and she exchanged frequent letters with Bastien, who waxed on about how he missed her as much as he praised her performance in court. He had never held her back, but reading his effusions of affection both soothed and exacerbated the ache in her own heart.

Don't forget me, she signed one of her letters in a fit of sentimentality. This letter she destroyed, choosing to write another that omitted that particular bit of blubbering. Instead, she told him that she understood if the strain was too great, and he chose to move on. The answer he gave was worth the doubt she had about sending it:

I have waited my entire life to feel for someone as I do for you. There were passing passions before, but I have never for a moment doubted that you are real. I had thought love, as it is written in songs and poems, was something only a handful of people truly find, and my time for that was long past, until I saw you casting spells at the emperor's party, looking so talented, and so very, very bored. I am yours, now and forever, Vivienne. I will await your return to the estate with as much patience as I can muster.

He included in the envelope a single pressed peony, and Vivienne would never, to anyone, have admitted that both the flower and the letter were locked in her desk drawer. The separation was necessary, but that did not make it easy.

Winning over Celene was her first goal. The empress was inclined to her already—she would not have offered the position otherwise—but Vivienne meant to secure her approval. They discussed the treatise, and Vivienne's work as a knight-enchanter. They discussed the history of magic in Orlais, and Vivienne explained her theories on magical study to the empress. She published several articles at the University of Val Royeaux—and each she gave to Celene to read before she gave it over for publication.

The empress was charmed. Rumor had proven true—Celene was fascinated with magic and the occult, and delighted to be "let in" to Vivienne's world in the Circle. For nine months Vivienne wrapped the empress around her finger and ratcheted down. Only when she felt secure that no one would be able to immediately pry her form the empress' good graces did Vivienne pay a visit back to the Ghislain estate.

Bastien was out, paying a visit to one of the lesser estates in the province, but she was assured he would be returning in a few days. In the meantime, Nicoline was throwing a soiree and invited Vivienne to join them, so she spent two hours getting ready and joined Her Grace and guests for the evening. With the travel from Val Royeaux rinsed from her face, Vivienne floated amongst the partygoers with conversation but none of the parlor tricks –those came only at the behest of the empress herself now. She detested the presentation of her magic as nothing more than something to entertain a few bored nobles for a minute or two. As the court enchanter, not to mention a knight-enchanter, no one should expect such pathetic amusements from her.

It was a pleasant enough evening at the soiree, and there was comfort in being back at the Ghislain estate, which was more home to her than Montsimmard by then. Naturally, it didn't last.

Comte Gerard stopped before his seat as Vivienne was explaining the influence of the Nevarran Circles to Vicomtesse Solange, and refused to sit.

"Something amiss, my lord?" Nicoline asked lightly, tapping a finger against the table.

"Yes," he said. "I cannot believe you would offer us such insult, my lady."

"What insult have I offered you?" Nicoline's voice suggested the level of entertainment she found in this exchange: quite little.

"It was bad enough to have her present at the party, but to place us at the table with this bed-warming mage your husband keeps leashed up here," he said, jabbing a finger at Vivienne. Heat flushed her breast as she stared down the comte. His rank outstripped hers by a mile; if Nicoline was content to let the insult lie, Vivienne would be the unreasonable one for making a fuss.

"Oh, do sit down, Your Lordship," Vivienne said. "You are being unforgivably rude to our host." A glance in Nicoline's direction and Vivienne evaluated her response. That night, she wore a full-faced mask in a lovely plum-pink color, so Vivienne relied on her posture and the fact that she said nothing after that.

"I will not dine with such despicable company," the comte declared, looking still at Nicoline, and paying no mind to Vivienne. Nicoline's eyes met Vivienne's for just a moment, and the enchanter gave an elegant shrug.

"Then you shall not dine," she said, reaching for her goblet. Still, Nicoline said nothing, just waved the servers forward with the food.

"How dare you speak to me in such a way." The comte turned his slit-like gaze on Vivienne. "I will not be slighted by some Circle peasant who cowers behind a duke far past his prime."

"Now my lord, you have overstepped," Vivienne said in a low voice, rising to her feet. "You have impugned the honor of both your hosts—"

"No more than they have impugned mine!" the comte cried. "I demand satisfaction!" A duel was surely not how Nicoline wanted her evening to go.

"I'm afraid you shall not have it," Vivienne said, expanding her staff merely for the show of it before she froze the comte's feet to the floor and cast a silencing spell over him. Nicoline's guests watched in terrible fascination as the ice spell crept up the comte's feet, crawling over his knees, sliding its way up his torso. It stopped shy of his heart and lungs, leaving his arms free to wheel about as he screamed silently at her and tried to free himself. "You should learn to mind your tongue, Your Lordship. Then you might have one worthwhile quality." She turned to Nicoline. "I apologize, Your Grace, for the disruption. If it pleases you, I will leave you and your guests to dinner." She should be glad you stopped the spell, said the pride demon.

"That's not necessary, Vivienne. What a bore he was. Come, let's go to the Nevarran dining room while the comte thaws out." The servers were redirected to the new dining room, and the party relocated for their meal. Keeping the pleased smirk off her face was difficult: that the duke's wife had not stepped in to prevent Vivienne from taking her satisfaction from a comte was a powerful nod to Vivienne's place. She was not expected to brook insult in the Ghislain estate, and the duchess would not protect those who chose to antagonize her.

"I don't hold it against you, with the comte," Nicoline remarked later that night, when the guests were abed or traveling home. Vivienne looked up from her reading as the duchess took a seat in one of the available striped armchairs with a glass of wine.

"Thank you, Your Grace," she said, momentarily closing her book.

"He rendered himself far more obnoxious than you ever have," she said. She took a sip of her wine and went on: "I've seen a great many mistresses in my time. It's the way of the court. I've had lovers of my own. You could have chosen to be much more of a problem for me than you have. You still could, and I'm not sure you won't, but you haven't yet, and I do appreciate that. Besides, it entertains me to see Bastien make a fool of himself to impress you." A smile curved the corners of her lips, and Vivienne ceased tensing for a fight.

"He excels at that," she said. "I have been most grateful for your hospitality, Your Grace. You could have chosen to be far more hostile to me than you have been."

"The house felt empty when our children moved out." Nicoline looked to one of the paintings that hung of Laurent and Calienne in their youth, standing at attention in their finest clothes. "For a while, it was nice. Peace and quiet, no nannies running about…but it is an awfully large place to live for just the two of us and the servants. You do bring excitement with you."

"Is that a compliment or a criticism?"

Nicoline laughed.

"Both," she said. "I will say, I had never thought to witness so many assassination attempts in my own home. I have to admire your persistence. I think I would have given up after the second one. Particularly if it was the one at the opera house." Vivienne smiled serenely.

"I never give up, Your Grace. Only redirect."

"Well, I imagine you've made a nice little story for yourself tonight," she replied, nodding. "Gerard may find himself very short of invitations anywhere."

Naturally, the story grew, multiplied, and made its way back to court.

Marquise de Chevin claimed Vivienne had frozen the comte solid on the spot for insulting her and the duke.

Baron de Roche whispered to anyone who would listen that Vivienne was a notorious duelist and would destroy anyone who spoke ill of her.

Duke Isidore d'Arlesans applauded the court enchanter's zealous defense of the de Ghislains and was overheard describing how the comte had drawn steel at the duchess' own dinner table.

When Grand Duke Gaspard returned to Val Royeaux, the empress timed his arrival with a party she was throwing, and insisted on introducing him to her new court enchanter. Celene spent the party surrounded by guests, as she always did, but when the Grand Duke arrived at the edges of the circle, she waved him in.

"Cousin, here, here," she called. "Come and say hello to my new court enchanter. This is Junior Enchanter Vivienne, of Montsimmard." She gestured to the mage at her side, and Vivienne gave a bow to the Grand Duke.

"It's an honor, Your Highness," she said.

"Ah yes, the new court enchanter." The Grand Duke inclined his head. "I've heard stories about you, Madame Vivienne. Quite the woman of iron, aren't you?" A smile pulled at Vivienne's mouth, although the Grand Duke did not make his words sound especially complimentary.

"I do my best, Your Highness," she said. "It would not do for the empire's knight-enchanters to be made of tin." Titters ran through the assembled nobles and the empress nodded in approval.

Following Vivienne's ejection of a Tevene courtesan—and there could be no mistake, the man had been disinvited from Val Royeaux for his quarrel with Vivienne, even if it was the empress who had sent him away— Vivienne returned briefly to Montsimmard, as the Marquis and Marquise de Montsimmard had extended an invitation to a ball they were throwing for their son's birthday. It would be wonderful, they said, to have a mage from Montsimmard's own Circle there.

"It was so lovely of you to come, Madame Vivienne," said the marquise when she arrived. "You've done so well, haven't you? Court enchanter to Empress Celene! The Circle is positively euphoric." Vivienne doubted that very much; most mages were well aware the position of court enchanter was for little more than a trained monkey when Vivienne took it over. But the marquise was making an effort to flatter her—a good sign.

"It was kind of you to invite me," Vivienne returned. "I've been away too long from Montsimmard. The province looks to be in excellent health, Your Grace."

"Certainly, when one thinks about that terrible plague on the Circle three years ago! Well, almost four, now! You must have been there for that, weren't you?" The marquise turned limped green eyes on Vivienne, tilting her head back to meet Vivienne's gaze.

"Yes, it was an unfortunate affair," Vivienne agreed. "I am so glad to see the Circle and the towns have recovered so well. You and His Grace are to be congratulated."

"Thank you. We've done our best. His late Imperial Majesty did not offer much in the way of aid…" That was the nearest thing to a criticism Vivienne heard out of the marquise for the rest of the evening. Kind people were so dreadfully dull at parties. She brought Vivienne into the ballroom to introduce her to the guests, and the marquis spotted them immediately.

"There she is!" he exclaimed, raising his goblet. "Montsimmard's own Madame de Fer!"

"Are you all settled? Will you be alright on the way back?" Vivienne was bundled up in her wagon and Bastien had not ceased fussing.

"Darling, please. It's a bit of chill. I'll be fine." As if to punctuate Bastien's concerns, the wind moaned overhead, blasting a frosty flurry at them. "Don't you think I'm used to ice by now?"

"I really think you should wait," he said. "Come on, Vivienne. Come back inside, we'll have some hot cider and you can write to the first enchanter that the weather was too bad for you to travel. She doesn't want you risking your life. If you won't risk the driver, you shouldn't be going either!"

"I will not sit by while the Circle votes in a new first enchanter and miss my chance to have a say," she said. She had not spent years shaping the scene, and the last several months pinging around Orlais and doing favors and writing enough letters to cramp her hand to not be there when the decision was made. "Don't fret so much, Bastien," she said in response to his frown. "I'll write you as soon as I can."

"Let me go with you, then," he said again.

"No, this is Circle business. You'll be bored to tears. I can manage the wagon. Please dear, I need to leave as soon as possible if I am to arrive in time."

"Alright, alright." He sighed. "I can't stop you anymore than I could halt a charging wyvern. Be safe, Vivienne." He placed his foot up on the step of the wagon and leaned in to give her a peck goodbye. "You may not frighten yourself, but by the Maker sometimes you do frighten me," he said. "Come home in one piece."

For a moment, Vivienne simply lingered on the word home. She touched his mask; then, giving into a moment of sentimentality, pulled it off to place a gloved hand against his cheek and study his familiar face before returning the kiss.

"I'll be back before you can miss me," she promised, handing him the mask back.

"Well you've already failed," he told her, stepping down to the snowy ground. Placing his hand lightly over his heart he said, "I will be whole when you return again, my lady."

"Then I shall endeavor to do so as quickly as possible," she said. "I trust Nicoline will take care of you in the interim. Adieu!" She snapped the reins and started off for Montsimmard.

She arrived at the Circle as the winter snow reached Montsimmard, as if the Maker were a wrathful child shaking a bag of flour over the entire province. A few shielding spells had kept her dry, but the cold had sunk into her bones with each day on the road, so that when she dismounted in the evening she felt as stiff as Giulia must have coming down the stairs. It did not in the slightest dissuade her; she drove relentlessly on until she could leave Bastien's horses with the Circle stable.

"I can't believe you made it all the way from Ghislain," Tristane remarked when they were settled in one of the lounges with something hot.

"Is it just me, or have the templars gotten less friendly since I was here last?" Vivienne asked, wrapping her hands around the mug of cider. The glaring was hard to see sometimes, with the helmets, but they assisted in the impression by being vocal. They had a purpose, but there were times it seemed they were a little too keen on keeping their charges away from the rest of the world.

"Yes, and yes," Ibrahim said. "You know just how pleased they are about what you've been up to."

"I thought we were past that," Vivienne sighed with feigned weariness, and Ibrahim rolled his eyes. If it wasn't her old antics bothering the templars, it was something new.

"The court enchanter is not meant to be a political position," he said. "And that First Enchanter Sadaat allowed you to as good as move into the Ghislain estate…it's not done, Vivienne. And you know the knight-captain has never liked you."

"The knight-captain's opinion is worth as much as his intelligence," Vivienne scoffed. Hopefully her terms with Knight-Commander Moreau were still good enough to ward off her grotesque attack dog. Having been on the receiving end of his irascible temper, Vivienne considered him a liability to the Circle. Some templars were entirely too free with their smiting. "The knight-commander has no complaints."

"Then it's personal on both ends," Tristane said, gazing into the fire. "I think you got the better end of the deal. I should have thought to have an affair with a duke."

"Why stop there?" Ibrahim asked. "You might as well go for the Grand Duke."

"Too much effort," Tristane declared. "Anyway, wouldn't that make me distantly related to Vivienne?"

"It's never too late, dear," Vivienne said.

Voting for the first enchanter took two days, presided over by Sadaat warning them all what a wretched job it was and picking at the gray hairs that had grown more numerous with each year she spent in the position. Perhaps it was not such a great surprise when she stepped up to announce the results.

"The tallies are in, the templars have complained, and you have, thank the Maker and his holy bride, your new first enchanter: Court Enchanter Vivienne." She gestured and Vivienne, aglow with triumph, rose from her seat to nod to the former first enchanter. "Welcome, first enchanter," Sadaat said. "Now we all get to see you in these robes."

"Oh, that won't do at all." The response was automatic. Even for her return to the Circle Vivienne had not donned her Circle robes—she wouldn't be going back to those drab, pitiful things if the templars threatened her life. Sadaat laughed and stepped down from the podium.

"They're your problem now, Vivienne!" she exclaimed, with a little too much glee for a jest.

There were questions, of course: How did the templars let this happen? How would she do the job when she was already court enchanter? Wasn't she awfully young for this?

"You do know this means you cannot go on spending all your time at the Ghislain estate," Sadaat warned her.

"I know," Vivienne said. Becoming first enchanter meant a good chunk of her time necessitated being in the Montsimmard Circle.

"I'm sure the duke will be disappointed."

"The duke won't be around forever," Vivienne said crisply. "And I do not mean to sit by waiting for him to leave so that I may then wail that I have lost everything." Whether by death or by boredom, Bastien would leave her someday, and she did not mean to be wholly at the mercy of his son when that happened.

"I will say this," Sadaat said, "I thought you had put your foot in it when you helped him snub the Comtesse Chantilly at the Wintersend ball. I was sure you had gotten in well over your head, and that Yves made a mistake sending you with us. It may be the Circle has made a mistake voting you in as first enchanter. But you have done well so far. You have a remarkable talent for being in the right place at the right time."

"Oh enchanter," Vivienne drawled, a smile curling up her lips. "Do you really think I live my life by coincidences?"

It was spring when they held the service. Just the early weeks, the air still frosty in the mornings, the birds just creeping out of their nests, along with the bears. It seemed wrong, to have a funeral in spring—when everything else was coming to life, that they should be mourning a death felt unfair.

Calienne and Laurent did the noble thing, which was not to cry, and Bastien was too drained, Vivienne thought. With his children married, his wife now dead, and Vivienne busy being both First Enchanter of Montsimmard and Enchanter to the Imperial Court, he suddenly found himself alone in the estate much of the time.

Out of respect, Vivienne had offered to keep away from the service, but Bastien would not hear of it.

"You were her friend," he said. "If Calienne and Laurent want to throw a fit about it, they can do so in their own homes." Ten years had been enough to quell whatever misgivings Nicoline might have maintained over Vivienne; for a time, the three of them had lived quite contentedly together.

So Vivienne went, dressed in a new black gown, and wore a veil from her hennin that hung over her black lattice mask. At the service, she sat with the other guests, not with Bastien and the family, and kept away from them during the reception.

At best, she expected to be ignored, but she did make a point of letting each of them know how sorry she was about Nicoline's passing, and what a fine woman she had been

"Thank you, madame," was all Calienne said. Gaspard paid her respects, and went with his wife.

"It was thoughtful of you to come," Laurent said. "Mother spoke well of you." He said nothing more on it, turning instead to light conversation, but it was reassuring. With Nicoline gone, Vivienne received yet another reminder that Bastien was over sixty years old, and would be following his wife in a matter of time. Being on strong terms with Laurent at that time would be ideal, but it was a delicate dance.

"Thirty-six years," Bastien murmured when the guests were gone. He sat down on the edge of his bed and ran a hand back through his hair, jerking off the mask to toss it aside. "We were married for thirty-six years." Vivienne sat delicately on the bed, keeping a good foot of distance between them.

"Anyone who knows you that long will leave a mark," she said. Then, softly, after a pause: "Would you like me to leave you?" Perhaps now was a time for him to be alone with his thoughts of his wife.

"Maker, no," he said. "I don't want that at all." He reached for her and Vivienne moved closer. "She was a good woman," he said. "A good mother. My friend." On the last word, his voice cracked. Slowly, his arms went about Vivienne, and he leaned into her, hiding his face in the crook of her neck, behind the veil. Aching with sympathy, Vivienne rubbed his back and wished she had a spell for taking away the pain. Quietly, Bastien began to weep, and Vivienne embraced him.

"Oh, my darling," she whispered. "I wish I had a potion to fix this." Here, she was as useless as anyone not gifted with magic: all she could do was offer her comfort. And so, they sat, and Vivienne took a month to return to Montsimmard.

When Montsimmard fell, Vivienne was in Val Royeaux. The speed of her return did not delay the inevitable: by the time she arrived, the mages had had their fight. The rebels were gone, the remaining mages fled or in hiding. Spending the entire trip to Montsimmard bracing herself for what she might find was only marginally effective. The destruction at the Circle outdid anything she had seen there before.

Guilt and rage pierced her breast as twin arrows as she surveyed the mangled furniture, the scorch marks on the walls, the floors, the ceilings, the emptiness of the halls, the pools of water where ice might have melted—the bloodstains. I was the first enchanter, she thought. I should have been here. I should have been here to protect them. To stop this.

Instead, her mages had been set upon by their own, and Vivienne had been miles away at the imperial court, believing people had more sense than they did.

Ashes drifted in the rays of light beaming through shattered windows and holes in the walls as Vivienne made her way to the library, thinking to ferret out any remaining loyalist mages who might have survived this latest Circle debate. Where carpet muffled the sound of Vivienne's shoes, the Circle was silent. The apprentices, she thought, with ice flowing through her veins. Where had all the apprentices gone? One could never make it to the library without hearing their chatter, their laughter, their noise. Often, she found it bothersome, but now the absence of it was deafening.

The smell seeped into her nose as she crossed the threshold into the library and her arm flew up immediately, to shield her nose with her sleeve. It turned Vivienne's stomach and she stopped to collect herself, but did not allow herself the weakness of leaning on the splintered door. It was unmistakable and sickeningly permeated every corner of the room: the odor of rotting meat.

I should have been here!

Glass crunched under her feet as she moved forward, and something else, something harder than glass. Vivienne looked down, crouching to study the tiny objects. It took several moments of observation before she could identify that she was stepping on finger bones. Buried in the tiny heaps of ash, little fingerbones.

The archivist.

I should have been here!

"Hello?" she called into the uneven light. "Is anyone here?" Had the rebels seen fit to lay waste to anyone who disagreed with them? Or had they simply panicked, as the fools they were, and slain their way out the front doors?

Vivienne looked up, and around, at the library in which she had spent so much time. Bookshelves were knocked down, maps torn askew; someone had smashed the case containing an illuminated manuscript and the book was gone. Had the books on knight-enchanting been looted as well? Were her own writings still present?

"This is First Enchanter Vivienne, is anyone here?" In the tent between one leaning bookshelf and another, a charred corpse that Vivienne could not identify. She could, however, recognize the signs of lightning. Fury choked her for a moment and her fingers curled into a fist. This was their vision of freedom? One where mages who disagreed with them were dispatched like criminals? "Ibrahim? Tristane? Marjorie?"

The library was empty of any life. She found a despair demon lurking at the far end behind some shelves, and destroyed it before searching the rest of the Circle. Her own office had been ransacked and, judging by the damage, set on fire, though somewhat ineffectively. The rebels must have been in a rush to get out, so their fuck you to the first enchanter had not been given as much attention as it might have been. Still, the desk had been broken to pieces, her correspondences were gone—likely part of the ash dusting every remaining surface in the room—including the letter from Bastien she had preserved from her early days as court enchanter. The apoplexy she might have normally felt over any invasion of her privacy, of someone going through her things, was much dimmed in light of the severity of the situation.

I should have been here!

There were loyal mages left in Orlais, and Vivienne made it her goal to collect them. Montsimmard became a haven for mages who had not wanted to rebel, or for those who had been caught up in the chaos and wished to leave it. It seemed Vivienne was finally joining a fraternity, simply by default: the Loyalists were the only ones left.

"This chaos cannot continue!"

"That seems rather obvious, mother."

"This is on your head, first enchanter!" The knight-commander jabbed his finger at Vivienne.

"My fault? My dear, you do recall that it was I who rallied the Loyalists? We are the only mages still here. We are the only ones fighting on your side."

"And yet you offer shelter to these runaways!"

"Are we to have no compassion now?" demanded Mother Horeau. "Mages are the Maker's children as well!"

"These mages are out of control," declared Duchess Yvonne. "Compassion for them may doom the rest of us. If you throw open the door, snakes will get in."

"No one has 'thrown open the door'," Vivienne replied dryly. "There are plenty of mages caught up in this chaos who are not looking to start a war with anyone. Will you condemn them along with the guilty? That's what these rebels have chosen to do; will you take their lead?"

"Enough!" Duke Isidore pounded his fist against the table. "This partisan screeching gets us nowhere! We must find a solution. The Chantry has failed." He cast a disparaging look at Mother Horeau. "The templars are running rampant, the mages just as bad. Do you know how much damage has been done by this rebellion?"

"Where are the Seekers of Truth in all this?" demanded Senior Enchanter Tierza. "Is it not their duty to reign in these overzealous templars?"

"The Seekers are working on the situation," said Mother Horeau.

"Oh! Working on it! While our fields burn and our people are slaughtered?" said Duchess Yvonne. "What precisely are they working on? One would think the Chantry would be more concerned, given that the White Spire lately tried to assassinate Most Holy!"

"The templars are trying to get a grip on the mages, because the Chantry has declined to act," accused Knight-Commander Eriksson. "They did nothing to stop these mages from declaring heresy and breaking with the Nevarran Accord. Now Lord Seeker Lambert has declared it void. It is the Chantry who fails to protect you, madame, and the Seekers will be next!"

"If the templars have forgotten their duty, that is not the fault of the Chantry!" Mother Horeau snapped.

"The templars remember their duty, mother," Eriksson said, exhaling sharply. "It is to protect civilians from mages run amok. I look out around Thedas now and what do I see? Mages run amok. Taking over holds, burning fields, killing innocents. Attacking templars, seeking to break down the Circles!"

"No one is saying the mages don't need to be brought to sense," Vivienne said. "These rebels are a threat to all of us. But to even begin negotiation-"

"Negotiation!" Duchess Yvonne let out a high-pitched cackle. "You think these animals can be reasoned with? There can't be negotiation, first enchanter. They have made their choice."

"Then you will kill every last mage you find?" asked Tierza softly.

"If that is what it takes to restore order," said Knight-Commander Eriksson.

"This is not the answer!" exclaimed Mother Horeau. "Wholesale slaughter is never what the templars were intended for!"

"Then what did the Chantry give us the Rite of Annulment for?" demanded Eriksson. "It was to stop precisely this sort of thing. Perhaps if Knight-Commander Meredith had not been slain by the Champion, we would not be having this conversation!"

"You cannot blame the Champion for this!" Tierza raised her voice. "Knight-Commander Meredith had no right to annul Kirkwall's Circle for the actions of a rogue apostate!"

"The templars must return to the fold of the Chantry!" Mother Horeau said. "They are as guilty of heresy as any mage when they act against the direct orders of the Divine."

"The templars will do what is necessary," Eriksson insisted. "And you do not have enough Seekers to stop them, mother."

"The Chantry does not—"

"The Chantry owes us—"

"Without the support of the empress—"

"—templars are drunk on power—"

"—cannot return a mage thus corrupted to the Circle—"

"—will get nowhere without calmer heads and common sense—"

"—complete waste of our time!"

"—cannot believe we are serious considering this!"

"—then you can very well kiss my boots!"

Vivienne shoved her seat away from the table and got to her feet.

"And where are you going, first enchanter?" Duchess Yvonne demanded.

"I see no reason to continue this conversation," she said. "The results of the Conclave will dictate our path forward, and it is clear that nothing separate will be achieved here. Eriksson is right about one thing—this has been an utter waste of time, and my time is too valuable to be wasted, Your Grace."

"So you will run away, then? This is your problem as well!" said Duke Isidore.

"Run away? Hardly. I will return to Montsimmard with the mages of sense and we will try to find another way to calm this disaster," she said. "If that means fighting on our own, so be it. Good day, Your Grace." She waved her hand to fling open the door and strode out, sending it snapping shut behind her. The duke burst out on her heels.

"Madame! Negotiations are far from concluded!" Isidore chased her down the corridor. "Madame! Unlike the empress, we will not be charmed by your parlor tricks!" He grabbed onto her arm to stop her departure, but Vivienne's attention was arrested by the sight of a terrible storm brewing outside. There had been clouds hours ago when they first went into the hall to have their discussion, but nothing like the storm she saw unfurling across the sky now. Nor was it like any storm she knew of—the colossal funnel forming in the clouds radiated a repulsive green light that made spots danced across her eyes if she looked straight at it too long. Isidore was still talking, but Vivienne stepped nearer to the window to observe the bizarre phenomena rapidly taking shape.

"First enchanter!" the duke bellowed. As if in response, the windows before them shattered before the force of the storm, and Vivienne quickly raised her hand, forming a force shield to deflect the glass. Duke Isidor cowered behind her shield as the windows burst.

"Alas," Vivienne breathed. "It seems more urgent matters demand my attention. Now run along, dear." Casting one last awed gaze at the storm, Vivienne turned sharply and made her exit, heels crunching through the class, leaving the duke gaping at the tear in the sky.

"Are you sure you'll be alright?" Vivienne asked, placing a hand over Bastien's as she sat on the edge of the bed beside him.

"Would you call off the party if I said no?" Bastien asked, chuckling. Vivienne frowned and said nothing, so Bastien turned her hand over and gave it a squeeze. "Who's fretting now? I'll be fine, Vivienne, I'm just tired. I don't have the energy for these soirees of yours—they always end up being a battleground!"

"Are you saying you don't enjoy my parties, Bastien?"

"I enjoy them because you are so in your element there, my dear," he said. "Watching you wage war on unsuspecting nobles and petty royalty is greater entertainment than anything else I've seen. And tonight, I have no doubt you will be in fine form. I'll be sorry to miss it."

"If you wanted to come down just for a while…" Bastien shook his head and coughed, rubbing his chest vigorously. Vivienne placed her hand gently over his heart, her fingers massaging.

"I'm just terribly disappointed I'm missing whatever you plan to do with that fool Alphonse," he said, and a smile flickered across Vivienne's face.

"What the marquis chooses to do is his own decision," she said promisingly.

"I doubt that very much," Bastien said. "Will you ever say what it was he did to so agitate you?" Vivienne's smile tightened. If her gown had not snagged on that loose nail, if she had not stopped to fix her hem so that it might be perfect when she entered the parlor, she might never have heard—

I do hope Duke Bastien puts out the lights before he touches her. But then, she must disappear in the dark.

"I will come and tell you everything when it's over," Vivienne promised. "Do you want me to send for the nurse? She can bring you some smelling salts."

"Bah, the nurse and her smelling salts! Unless she can get me on my feet to see this performance of yours, don't trouble her." Bastien drew in a rattling breath and Vivienne could see the shadows under his eyes like pale bruises. Her last potion had not done the trick: further study and experimentation were needed. With the Inquisition, she might find access to additional resources to aid her quest to cure Bastien's heart of whatever ailed it. She could not stave off death forever, but by the Maker she would try, and she would stop this illness from taking him from her. None of this she said to Bastien; she would come to him when she had a solution, not before.

Vivienne leaned in and pressed her forehead to Bastien's, clasping her hand on his neck. He closed his eyes, placing a hand over her wrist.

"I shall stay up extra late, so you may come and tell me the details," he said, but Vivienne did not respond. She knew he would be asleep when she returned to his rooms. It had become troubling so quickly—this time last year, he had been in hale health, particularly for a man of his age, but these days, even the simplest tasks seemed to drain him of energy.

"If there's anything you need—" she said at last, finally pulling away.

"Hush, Vivienne," Bastian said. "Go, work your magic. You are so wonderfully, wonderfully clever, my dear." He pushed through the strain in his voice. "The Inquisition would count themselves lucky to have you, and I can think of nowhere else to find you at the end of the world than on the front lines." He smiled, and picked up the mask Vivienne had left on the bed, handing it over to her. "Your armor. Now go, the world needs you."

Taking in a deep breath, Vivienne tied on her mask, gleaming with an opal inlay, and rose to her feet.

"Ah, there's Madame de Fer," Bastien said approvingly, bringing his hands together. "I believe you have an appointment with Marquis Alphonse."

"Marquis Alphonse has an appointment," she said. "I should go and see if he's made it."

"Indeed you should! Off you go. I will expect you to save some of those tiramisu cakes for me."

"I shall save you a whole tray, darling." Vivienne leaned over to kiss Bastien's forehead, then grabbed her staff, and headed downstairs to greet her guests. With any luck, the Inquisition had arrived.