"Will this let me know you?"

Leliana's lips moved as she slit Commander Rutherford's throat.

Finley couldn't breathe. It wasn't because of what she was seeing—she knew it was a dream, horrifying as it was—but rather because of what had ensnared her in it.

A demon.

A demon was in her head.

And if it was, that meant she was connected to the Fade for a prolonged time, which meant others might take note.

Dealing with crazed demons at the rifts was nightmarish enough. But the ones still in the Fade? They were sane, and they were—

It laughed softly in her ear, and she whirled around to find Commander Rutherford standing behind her, head tilted slightly, unnaturally. His smile wasn't right.

As soon as she'd thought that, his lips dipped into a frown and then back into that half smile she was so used to.

She gulped.

This was wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

She wanted it out of her head.

How had it even gotten in?

She knew she hadn't said yes.

She would never say yes.

Not to a demon.

She remembered heading toward Redcliffe and then…templars? She'd been trying to keep everyone alive, trying to pay attention to the dozen warriors that Commander Rutherford had sent with them, trying to keep up the three she was more acquainted with, as well, and then…

Then…

She could remember pain. She'd been interrupted mid cast, and it had been like no spell interrupt she'd ever suffered before. Granted, she hadn't been hit with one in a few years, thanks to her meticulous crafting of shorter spells.

Still, she'd been knocked out. A few fleeting, disjointed memories of rocks and trees passing by and templar boots walking dotted a muddy expanse of memory. A few groggy escape attempts speckled her haphazard memory, as well, though they'd always ended with more of that awful pain—that red lyrium really did do something to the templars…stronger wasn't an adequate description.

How long ago had that been? Had the templars brought her to a demon? Had the templars been overwhelmed by demons from a rift?

Was she lying beside one now?

Just promise me that you will be careful.

She'd botched that one, hadn't she?

"Your memories of his lips are rather…clear," the commander whispered, his voice a low, tempting purr. There was more to it, though, a second voice, hideous and warped, talking in time with him. His gaze narrowed, frown returning. "Or is that only because a templar's frown means their sword is about to be drawn?" His hands rested on the pommel of his blade.

Trying not to succumb to her panic, she darted back, raising her bow and shooting an arrow into the false commander. It hit him where his heart should have been. That calculating expression shifted into a pained, questioning look—brow raising in confusion, lips parted ever so slightly with an unspoken question—as his fingers gripped the arrow. He fell to his knees, still staring at her as though he couldn't understand why she would attack him.

For the briefest second, she thought perhaps he had been real after all. That she'd killed the real Commander Rutherford.

He faded out before he hit the ground.

She notched another arrow, searching the room for Leliana. She wasn't real, either.

Instead, she heard an all too familiar laugh.

Sera paced out from behind one of the pillars, swinging her arms slowly, lacing her fingers in front of her and then letting them swing back, only to repeat the motion. "Crazy, innit?" Her eyes widened a bit too much, her smile too crooked. "You think you're soooo special because of a little mark, but really, it's all in here." She tapped her head. "And I'm already in." She let out a gleeful cackle, just a note too high.

Again, as the thought registered, the apparition adjusted itself accordingly.

A heavy arm wrapped around her neck, pulling her backwards. She could just make out Leliana's hair falling beside her, her hood keeping most of it back. "So tell me, will this form let me know you?"

She couldn't breathe.

Struggling against her own fears, she gave a sharp kick back into Leliana and then shot the image of Sera. Again, she watched a friend fall, confused and betrayed. Blood bubbled up from her lips as she managed a single, "Why?"

She didn't wait for the next illusion to show up. She couldn't do this.

Racing to the edge of the room, she forwent the door, launching herself out the window. Instead of the tree she'd been aiming for, she stumbled into an old camp, the fires burning brightly as a dozen other mages huddled together, grim hopelessness etched into their faces.

Her own hair fell shorter around her, barely reaching past her shoulders. She was younger, seventeen.

A mage she hadn't thought of in a long time stepped up to her. "You are certain the darkspawn are headed this way?"

"Yes," she whispered without meaning to.

Even as he nodded, turning to help prepare their small alcove for the coming incursion, she saw the earrings on his ear were wrong. He had one too many. It disappeared as he turned back to her, his eyes pure black. "Did they really hold out? Or is that just what you tell yourself so that it doesn't hurt so much? Were you really as helpful as you remember?"

Darkspawn were everywhere, picking off mages as they were separated from one another, dragging away the injured. An elf she'd known well sobbed, her nails tearing against the soil as she tried to stop herself from being taken.

Her hair was a shade too light.

It's the demon, she told herself. Closing her eyes as tightly as she could. Try not to think about this. I know they made it. They survived.

"Did they?" A grotesque voice whispered. When she opened her eyes, an ogre was leaning toward her, its teeth bared, hunched over and ready to lunge. Its eyes were dead.

Taking in a deep breath, she whirled away and took off running, leaping over corpses and darkspawn both. As she passed them, she could see them flickering out of existence.

The ground shook, and she could feel the ogre's focus on her.

"If I'm to die, it will be on my terms." The demon's voice whispered in her ears. "Choice is important to you, isn't it? You must be the one to decide your fate, no templars, no Inquisition, no darkspawn, no Maker. The choice must be yours…"

Swerving to the side, she leapt off the cliff that the camp had been based beside—they'd hoped it would create a choke point for the darkspawn, when they'd chosen it. She fell through the air, feeling the wind in her hair, that familiar, friendly tug.

She'd barely hit the ground when she heard the clink of metal and had to roll to the side to dodge a templar's sword. It was getting too far into her memories.

Now, she was younger still, maybe thirteen. Her clothes were threadbare, and her feet were sticking to the mud—one of the most miserable parts of the Wilds' summers. There were three templars, and for a moment her heart sank.

Then she remembered that those men had been in earlier memories.

Even as she saw a hideous, fanged smile beneath one of the templar's helms, she cursed herself.

What was it that the damned thing had been going on about?

Knowing her?

She was giving the damned thing exactly what it wanted.

Her memories. She was teaching it who she'd been, how she'd been.

She shot the templars, frustration beginning to overtake her panic. She couldn't let herself end this way. Not when…

It would almost be helpful if…

No.

She could beat this creature back if she just—

The song birds were crying.

No, no, no.

Don't let it get that.

Don't let it—

"This way, quickly."

The voice was gentle, foreign. She didn't trust it.

"He mimics the ones you know. I won't do that. It wouldn't help. This way. Before he finds the way first."

Even though a part of her was screaming not to, she shot after the voice, if only to outrun those awful cries. This time, she didn't even need to jump before the scenery changed. She was standing in front of a vast expanse of blighted land, the flowers and grasses that had once interrupted the miles and miles of forest gone. In its place, the soil was barren. What little plant-life did grow was brown and twisted and sick. No animals dared go near it.

"I'm sorry I couldn't get to you sooner." The voice was behind her.

She whirled around, an arrow notched. She didn't know what she'd expected—one of her fellow apostates, a darkspawn, a templar? However, that wasn't what she found. A young man stood there, his blonde hair so shaggy that it covered his eyes. An odd, floppy hat spanned over him, stretching out to his shoulders. His clothes were patched and worn, and daggers hung on his hips.

He held his hands up, as non-threateningly as he could. "Helpful whispers, twisted smiles. Not right, not right. No. Shouldn't be more than one in a head. Can't be like her. Get out, get out—" He took a slow step toward her. "I will, I promise. I know I shouldn't be here. But I had to come in to help you. I'm sorry."

She aimed her bow at him, breathing heavily. "What are you?"

"I'm…help." He took another step forward. "He wants to be you, but only you can be you. He doesn't understand, and that makes him angry. So he hunts for new people to be. Maybe he'll get it right with you…" He shook his head. "I won't let him."

Whatever this creature was, it wasn't human. He gave her a faint smile. "Of course I'm not human. I couldn't help if I was."

She stiffened. "You're in my head."

"We all are," he replied, motioning around. "You knew that. You…oh. I'm sorry. You mean your thoughts." He paused, picking at one of his sleeves. "Well, we're all in that, too. Or trying to be. He can't quite get it right. That's why he needs you to remember."

Despite it being glaringly obvious that the creature in front of her was something that belonged in the Fade, it's voice didn't have the same undertones that most demons held. Her reminded her more of the few wisps she'd dared to talk to over the years, always so careful not to offer anything other than stories.

They had been simpler creatures than most demons, benevolent and curious, helpful and harmless until provoked.

This creature was much more than a wisp, but…

"What is he? The one trying to be me?" she whispered.

"Envy," the young man stated. The world began to shift. He looked around, frowning. "He's found us. Don't think about what happened here. Think about anything else. Think about something that never mattered, something that wasn't yours to begin with. Think about—"

The world was twisting. She could see the Black City hanging in the sky as the scenery changed. With a blink, she was in a tower. It was old and falling to ruin. The few books still on the bookshelf were ready to turn to dust at a touch. Greenery had overtaken much of the remaining walls, with vines and mosses and tiny, gentle white flowers.

The young man was gone, though even as she let her shoulders slump in weary relief, he came up the stairway at the far end of the room. He looked around, nodding slowly. "Yes, this is good. No real memories to learn from here." When he looked at her, she could just barely make out a blue eye under his hair. It was too blue. Almost gray. "Not human. Not right. Don't let it get close. Is this how it was for her? A friendly, harmless hand hiding claws and teeth. I know you're afraid, but I will help you, if you'll let me. He can't keep up this game, if you keep thinking of places that don't help. This one is good, but you need to keep going. Keep moving. He'll get tired." He smiled at her. He was standing right in front of her. How…? "Even demons can exhaust themselves. And don't worry, you still have to say yes."

Her whole body went rigid, all the air rushing out of her lungs at once. She didn't move, didn't blink. Instead she stared into that blue eye, feeling like it somehow knew every little detail already. If he did, then that meant the other one—

"No, he can't see in so well. He's too…busy. He wants to be you, but he doesn't understand. He doesn't know what it's like to care, to hurt. You confuse him." He motioned with his head toward the window. "Go. He can't keep up forever."

She started toward the window, but stopped when she had one foot on the frame. She looked back at him. He still stood where she'd left him. "You swear you'll leave," she whispered.

"I don't need a way in," he offered. "I'm already…here is not right. I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like—No. No, no, no. Spinning words and too sharp a mind. Questions answered before they're asked. They can't see. Don't think. Don't let them—" He was standing beside her, one hand on her bow, lowering it. "I'm sorry. I didn't…mean it like that. I meant your world. I don't need a way in." He shook his head frustrated. "What I mean is I won't need to stay once he's gone. Only you should be in you. Go somewhere safe. Somewhere empty."

The walls were beginning to melt. He nodded toward her. Even as he did so, an idea formed. She thought she saw him look worried just before she turned and launched herself out the window. As she did so, the envy demon lunged up from where it had been scaling the wall outside to get to them, her. It flailed its limbs like a deformed spider, all angles and no grace, grasping for her. She threw her weight against it, flipping herself over, into the abyss, and falling, just out of its reach.

She landed in the foyer of the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Mages chattered away on one side of the room, templars on the other. Hateful glares seemed the only expressions anyone was capable of, and even most of those were laced with fear. That wasn't her concern.

She started running toward the back of the room.

The young man was running beside her. "This is a very bad idea. This place is claimed. We should go somewhere else."

She skidded to a stop, turning to look at the creature…spirit? The chatter around them had stopped. It was all very, very…hazy. "You said to go somewhere empty."

The young man flinched at her words. "I didn't mean…this is wrong. Wrong, wrong. Peeking in minds. Seeing what shouldn't be seen."

She narrowed her eyes. That wasn't what she'd been thinking at all and there was something more to his voice. Just a hint of an undertone. Had she been as panicked as she was earlier, she likely wouldn't have noticed it.

More than that, his eyes were sky blue, not hint of gray in them.

This wasn't the one who'd been helping her.

With a curse, his face twisted. Any semblance of a human visage disappeared as he lunged forward. She dodged out of Envy's reach, stumbling on the floor as she raced toward the back of the room, to where she'd been heading.

The place where the memories stopped.

There was no gradual change, no moment of wavering reality.

She simply stood on the edge of an abyss, jagged rocks spiking into a sickly green sky, darkness everywhere. This place was too familiar, but she couldn't quite…

A great rumbling filled her ears, making the air itself tremble.

A willing guest. How quaint. But I must play the proper host. How would you have me welcome you?

Even as she realized that perhaps the envy demon had had it right about not going here, she felt clawed fingers slipping over her shoulders. She didn't need to look down to know she would see slender, purplish arms as she felt lips near her ear.

Dear lost little lamb. It's time you wake up.