A/N: Thank you for reading! I took some time to go back through the story to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything before continuing on, hence the time between updates.

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The Fade swirled around her as Finley stood there, peering out from the ledge she stood on. Books hovered frozen in the air from where they had spilled from their shelves, and little lights flitted around in the corner of her eyes, shivering and making odd chiming sounds.

Were they crying?

The mark flared on her hand, and she abruptly snapped her eyes open to find that she had somehow managed to doze off while riding. Slumping her shoulders a little, she peered down at her hand, lips twitching into a frown.

The mark had gotten bigger.

She was sure of it, though she wished desperately that she could ask Solas to take a look at it and tell her she was being paranoid. Surely something like this wouldn't get bigger...magic tended to dissipate as time went on.

Unless...had falling in the Fade somehow charged it? They hadn't sacrificed anyone...

"Keep your back straighter."

Finley side-eyed Lady Vivienne before reluctantly straightening out of her slump.

She hadn't slept well since falling into the Fade, more than a little sure that the Nightmare would be waiting for her if she did, and she didn't know how to fight off something that powerful. Not alone.

She rolled her shoulders one at a time and then gripped the saddle knot—they'd told her the name for it, but she hadn't listened—as she nearly fell off. "I don't like this. It feels too open."

"My dear, you're going to have to learn to ride a horse," the first enchanter retorted. "Maker's breath, but if Sera can do it—if the Iron Bull can do it, so can you. You didn't do too poorly when I first met you."

Ah yes, when she'd come back from Val Royeaux, she had managed to stay on her steed, hadn't she? The death grip of terror had helped her keep upright then. Now that she was more relaxed…

Well, more relaxed around horses, at least.

She'd been doing well enough on the horse she'd taken to meet with the rebel mages, but then...she wasn't sure what had happened to that beast, but someone had taken it instead and every other horse she tried to ride was so...uncooperative.

Finley's gaze slid toward the others slowly. Sera was already sticking her tongue out at Lady Vivienne with her hands held up beside her face, fingers splayed in a taunting motion. How she was able to stay on her horse was a miracle.

And then there was Bull. Where they'd found the behemoth of a horse that he rode on was beyond her, but he'd been pretty thrilled to show her. He'd dubbed the horse 'The Beast', ignoring what the stable hands had tried to tell him was the real name.

Lady Vivienne had brought the mare that Finley was currently on specifically for her. It was a calm steed, apparently used to dealing with inexperienced riders.

As it was, FInley had only nearly fallen off three times this morning, as opposed to tumbling all the way.

"I don't like the saddle."

"If you have to ride into court with someone else holding you up, it will be quite detrimental for the inquisition," Lady Vivienne said, voice even as ever, that serene look she always wore when she was dealing with someone who mildly annoyed her in place.

Finley couldn't fault her for being irritated, honestly. Since their failure to see eye to eye on Cole, Finley hadn't been sure how to approach the first enchanter without it seeming forced. And with her out and about, there hadn't been much time for gathering with the other mages to work on wards and the like, either.

It had left them at a bit of an odd standoff—at least in Finley's mind.

She'd been relieved when Lady Vivienne had come to her with a way to leave Adamant Fortress early, though. Especially since the other mage hadn't even brought up Cole or acted like anything was amiss between them.

She'd had that sort of thing happen plenty in the Wilds. When no one wanted to apologize because no one felt they were in the wrong, but they still valued one another's work.

That Lady Vivienne could do as much was a tribute to her person, surely.

At least Finley had felt that way at first.

Now, with the first enchanter's insistence on her riding her own steed and being good at it...

As much as Finley would have loved to argue that she could just walk into court instead, she refrained. They'd already had that argument three times in the last three days, and her fellow mage won it every time.

Quicker each time, too.

Sera was loyal to Finley's side, with suggestions of flipping through windows as introductions or misdirection and then simply being there.

She was also of a mind that locking all the nobles in the ballroom—whatever that was—and tossing in a few jars of bees would be a good idea, as well, so Finley wasn't sure how well her other suggestions would be received.

Lady Vivienne did have more patience than FInley had ever seen, though. Both dealing with Sera's taunts about her noble status and rehashing the same explanations to Finley over and over.

She likely felt like she was dealing with children.

If it had been Finley, she would have left the two of them somewhere in the woods by now.

Somewhere where they weren't likely to be eaten immediately, of course.

Bull had actually commented on something to that effect the day before, and Lady Vivienne's response had been a simple smile and the words, "If I'm honest, they're not terribly different from certain nobles I've had the pleasure of speaking with."

Bull had laughed at that, and Finley had wondered if that was a good or bad thing.

And so Finley straightened up as best she could, and watched the beast below her as it plodded along. She wanted to argue that the poor creature deserved more than to be bound and burdened with whatever a human wanted to toss upon them, but honestly the creature didn't seem to mind much.

And it was actually fairly good at slowing down and moving in ways that countered Finley's usual toppling. Like it had trained specifically to deal with those as inept as she.

It was curious.

Just as she was considering that perhaps there was something to these domesticated beasts after all, Bull let out a low whistle.

"Is that the meeting spot?"

Finley looked up, expecting to see several mages already on the way to them or ready to defend their temporary home.

Instead, it was merely an old, falling apart tower, sticking up like a thorn out of desert.

It felt oddly hollow once she focused on it, though she couldn't explain how.

In the very least, she should have felt some sort of magic curling around it—defensive spells or just the magic from the mages themselves.

There was nothing.

Rather than answer Bull's question, Lady Vivienne held up her staff. The head glimmered a moment before bursting into a brilliant flare. She held it up for a full minute before letting the light fade. "Perhaps they've moved on."

Finley could understand that. They were still in the desert and the vegetation and animal life were scarce. There wasn't much in the way of food for more than a couple people, and if there were an entire cluster of mages here, they wouldn't have lasted long without supplies of their own.

Despite protests, Finley was off of her horse as soon as she could be, darting across the sands to the doorway that led into the ruins.

What stopped her—quite abruptly—was the overwhelming smell of decay that assaulted her senses the second she was near the door.

Ash and decay seemed to be something she couldn't get away from since being marked—she tried not to think of the thing that was most definitely blood magic on her hand—and it seemed that this little endeavor would be no different.

Her heart sank. Holding up a hand, she motioned for the others to wait and darted to the wall, choosing to hoist herself up along the crumbling bricks rather than attempt to go through the doorway, lest it be trapped. When she reached the first hole that offered a clear view in, she baulked.

Bodies lay strewn about the main room. Many were in some variation of the Circles' robes. Taking in a breath of fresh air, she held her breath and carefully stuck her head into the area and looked around.

The bodies weren't too far into decomposition, though they had been dead a few days, from the smell of it.

She pulled her head out of the hole and scaled a bit higher until she found somewhere she could slip in.

She came in on the stairway leading to the upper levels of the tower and recoiled when she stepped on dried blood. As she danced away from it, checking her foot for any sticky remnants, Sera crawled in after her, taking advantage of Finley's dismay to note where the blood was and avoid it.

"I told you to wait."

"Pish," Sera rolled her eyes, already holding her bow and an arrow in hand, even as she scowled at the tight corridor. As her eyes alighted on a bloody handprint on the wall, she shifted, uneasily. "This ain't more demony shite, is it?"

"I don't feel any magic," Finley murmured. "There should be something. Remnants from spells or…" She wandered up the stairs. "Did the others wait?"

The look Sera gave her was all she needed to know that no, they had not.

Closing her eyes for a moment, Finley took in a breath and then opened them. "There could be a trap."

"And Cully Wully and them would string us up if we let something happen to you."

Cully Wully.

Sera had made a nickname for the commander, had she?

Finley wasn't sure that Cullen would particularly mind if she didn't show back, after Adamant.

Well, aside from the need of the mark.

He had been so ready to defend her against those ridiculous accusations, so ready to tear Warden Alistair a new one for being ridiculous. It had been like...how he was before the Cole ordeal. When they'd been close.

And then she'd tried to allay some of Warden Alistair's fears and something in him had just broken.

Worse still, she didn't understand why. Had she not explained that plenty of people took the name Flemeth? That she'd known many Flemeths? That the Flemeth she was talking about was just like her—plenty of names given to her by others that she responded to when she felt like it?

Witches weren't real. Not the ones from the old legends anyway.

Fuck's sake, Finley had been called Flemeth a time or two by the occasional lost fool. Did that make her the great Witch of the Wilds?

And her Flemeth aged. She couldn't be some immortal being, when she was clearly aging as a normal woman would.

Unless what Alistair had said was true…

But it wasn't. It couldn't be. Flemeth was one of the good ones, one of Finley's people.

And that Cullen would act so strangely after hearing that…

She was quite mad at him for being mad.

And Cassandra.

She hadn't lied.

Well, not about that. Specifically. Withholding information hardly counted.

Shaking off the frustration that built up whenever she thought of Cullen or Cassandra or the talk they were going to have when she got back, Finley started up the steps, her own bow ready as well. Sera followed on her flank.

The place was so entirely silent.

What struck Finley as odd, above all else, was that there were no signs that anything had come in to feed on any of the bodies. There hadn't been drag marks in the entry room, nor had there been any signs of chewed off limbs or missing bits. No footprints through the carnage—not even human-shaped.

The next room wasn't as bloody as the first, but there were still bodies and clear signs of fighting. Finley stopped next to a charred part of the wall, reaching out and feeling it. It was cool to the touch, without any physical ash.

"Magic?"

"Without the magic," Finley murmured. When she saw the suspicious look on Sera's face, she shook her head, reaching up to run her fingers through her hair and frowning when she reached the end far sooner than she was used to. Warden Blackwall had cut it for her before she'd left, to even it out. "There should be some feel of residual magic from the fight, excess lingering from the spells." The whole reason that using magic in one spot tended to thin the veil. "This, though…"

"It's all empty inside," Sera whispered, shuddering. "It's not right here."

"No, it's not."

"Which means magic." When Finley paused, puzzled, Sera motioned around them, making a face. "Only way to get no magic is to magic it away, yeah?"

Even as Finley nodded, considering that was likely enough, and something she had been wondering about herself, Lady Vivienne appeared in the door they'd come out of.

"Are you musing over a cloaking spell, darlings?"

Finley furrowed her brow and motioned around them. "One this big? It's got to cover the whole tower."

"I suspect it would take a few more syllables than you're comfortable with, but it's easy enough." Lady Vivienne moved swiftly into the room and lightly touched one of the bodies with her staff. It didn't move.

Instead, it looked like her staff swept through it.

Finley's brow shot up. The remnants of a fight were an illusion?

Turning back to the blackened spot in the wall, she ran her finger over it again, feeling to see if there was anything there she couldn't see. When she didn't find anything, she pressed her hand against the wall, ready to dispel.

A thought stopped her, however.

How many times did mages she know cast spells that seemed simple, only for the majority of the spell to be in the backlash unleashed after it was negated?

With a spell of this...magnitude…

She wasn't about to set off whatever that might entail.

Letting her hand drop beside her, she motioned ahead. "Is there a point in exploring with this up?"

Lady Vivienne allowed herself a small, genuine smile before it was gone, hidden behind a well tempered visage. "Whatever's powering the spell, it seems to be coming from above."

"Your mages?"

"They're hardly mine, darling," Lady Vivienne moved to join Finley and Sera as Bull came up the stairs and into the room, shuddering as he commented about finding the source of the smell. Not a mage. "I doubt they're still here, but maybe we can find where they've gone to."

And so they wound their way up.

By the time they reached the third floor, the whole lot of them had forgone skirting around the carnage, instead walking through it.

Sera let out a cackle as she announced that she was standing in someone's bits, and Finley paused to glance back at her and shake her head, though it did bring a small smile.

So long as she could stay in the present and not think about what was awaiting her in Skyhold, she could almost feel…

She wasn't sure the word for it.

Bull was the one to find the spell, lifting a banner away to show softly glowing runes in the wall. When Sera teased him about it, he nodded to the window nearby. "This is the only thing moving with the wind."

Finley could see it well enough as she walked over and hummed to herself softly. If they took the spell at face value, it would be a simple thing to dispel after all.

Lady Vivienne reached it first, and hesitated as she appraised it. "The good news is that this is Circle magic." When Bull asked how she knew, she pointed to the way it had been set up. "We learn this sort of structure in the Circles. Tevene spells—and apostate spells—are built differently."

"Weaker?" Sera called from across the room where she was inspecting another bloodied handprint. It looked the exact same as the first they'd seen.

Considering it, Finley looked at the nearest body and realized that their facial features were...very generic.

And matched another body a few feet away, down to the crooked nose. The only reason she hadn't noticed before was that one had an eye missing and the other's jaw hung open in a scream.

Did they even look like any actual people?

"What's the point, then?" When all eyes went to Sera, she shrugged and motioned around. "They're here. They know we're coming. They leave. They make all this shite like they're dead. No note, no map, just…" She kicked at one of the illusory bodies, letting her foot swish through the man's chest.

Were all the bodies men?

Curiosity aside, Sera had a good point. Finley crossed her arms. "Red templars maybe?"

"Would have dispelled this," Lady Vivienne murmured, turning away and inspecting their surroundings through squinted eyes. She held her staff in front of her and ran her hand over its head. After a moment, the world shifted around her, showing a world that was almost identical to what they could see, though the body nearest her was missing a section of its arm. Instead, the floor was empty. "Let's leave that illusion in place for a while, shall we? On the off chance the caster is still nearby. This must be hiding something."

Rather than offer to teach the spell to Finley, she instead made a separate light and hooked it, for lack of a better word, to her bow. Finley felt a bit like a child, though she figured out most of the spell easily enough as she peered down at it. As much as she would have liked to deconstruct it right there, she opted not to, instead walking along the wall opposite the one Lady Vivienne was inspecting.

"There."

Bull's voice sounded just behind her as something small slipped back along the wall, disappearing into the illusion.

Finley darted forward as Sera hissed about not wanting to find demons.

Even as she found the doorway to a staircase leading up to another floor, a blur was shooting out of it.

She dodged to the side quickly, finding it easy enough as their attacker seemed to have a limp that they were trying very much to ignore.

They being the qunari woman who had just dodged Bull's axe and arced up behind him daggers angled to slice into his shoulders.

As Finley cast a shield, Lady Vivienne cast a rooting spell, ice slithering up qunari's legs. Her braids flung out around her wildly as she twisted and broke free from the ice. It aggravated the poorly wrapped gash on her leg, but she kept her footing.

However, the snare had been enough of a distraction that Sera's arrow thudded into their shoulder just as Bull swept the blunt end of his weapon into her and pinned her to the ground.

Finley had barely taken a step toward them when a fireball shot past her face. It hit the wall beside her and exploded in a rather weak display of magic.

Whirling with the light, she found the culprit standing at the base of the hidden stairway. A child, no more than six, stood there, terrified.

With more fire already on his fingertips.

"Wait." Finley dropped her bow and held her hands up in surrender. "Wait."

As the second fireball thudded ineffectually against Finley's ward, Sera darted around the child and hoisted him up by his waist. "Stop it you. We're here to help."

The child wailed.

A staff came down on Sera's shoulder, and she dropped the boy with a cry.

As soon as his feet hit the ground, he ran over to the qunari and started attempting to assault Bull with tiny fists to save her. Bull in turn, plucked the mage up by the back of his tattered robes and held him in a air, a tactic that seemed like a solution until the shield on Bull ate a fireball aimed for his nose.

"Enough of this," Lady Vivienne snapped.

"Y-you will stay—stay back."

Looking back at the stairway, Finley frowned. A girl, maybe thirteen, was holding Sera to her with a staff, though it was clear from Sera's expression that she could untangle herself easily. Instead, she was looking at Finley for what to do.

"We're here to help—"

"Stay back!" the older mage child's voice cracked as she interrupted Lady Vivienne, and she tried to tighten her staff against Sera's throat.

Sera rolled her eyes and flipped the girl over her shoulder, pinning her down as soon as she hit the ground. Lightning crackled ineffectually against a shield tossed on Sera—though it was a close enough call that some of Sera's hair stood on end. She shuddered and cursed under her breath.

"We have food," Finley said, interrupting Lady Vivienne's chide at Sera and latest attempt to talk to the older mage girl. Her eyes darted from the girl to the boy and qunari that Bull was still handling. Even as she noticed that the qunari was trying to left her dagger for a good shot, Bull was holding her arm down. "If you can keep your spells to yourself for a bit, you can have some. If you can tell us what happened here, I'll heal you."

Bull laughed, though the cluck from Lady VIvienne sounded clear disapproval. She moved forward to take the little boy so that Bull could deal with the qunari better. "They are children, inquisitor."

"They are capable mages," Finley corrected. She'd meant to assert that if they wanted something, like food and healing, they'd best be willing to give something to get it. Thus was the way the world worked, in every corner.

Instead, however, the littlest of them let out a sharp gasp, his latest fireball dissipating from his fingertips before Lady Vivienne could cancel the spell herself. "Inquiser?"

Even as the older girl snapped that they couldn't believe everything they heard, Sera motioned to Finley and she held her hand up, letting the mark crackle.

"You're inquisition then?" the qunari woman asked, relaxing against Bull's grip in surrender. "We've been waiting for you."