And the Great Conductor of the Choir heard him.

Silence 1:8.

'Smile and wave, you say,' Dorian sighed.

'You say that. I say fucking fuck,' Veldrin answered, shirking close to him.

'Appropriate,' the man whispered. 'And we're being had without ointment.'

In the hallway beneath the staircase they were standing on, Archon Radonis was exchanging casual pleasantries with Dorian's mother. He was probably the only man in the Imperium who could exchange pleasantries with his mother, Dorian thought, and the only man who could survive having the doors unhinged to bring in a thing that looked so obviously elven that his mother might have smashed it on the spot.

In a sense, he reasoned, on this one occasion he'd not have minded his mother's temper flaring. Smash the eluvian, forget about Solas, don't torture a child, don't chance awakening an Old God and start a Blight, and, among other minor things, don't break Veldrin's heart, if at all possible.

'Now we need to tell him something,' she whispered. 'He's made it unavoidable.'

'No…' he mumbled. 'You think? We have precisely two minutes to decide what we tell him, though, and I suggest it should not be the truth.'

'Would you find it terribly disturbing,' Vel said, casting a worried glance over her shoulder to the study where Leliana, Morrigan and Cassandra still sat, 'if I told you that I trust Radonis more than I trust Leliana, at the moment?'

'I would not find it disturbing, I'd find it short sighted,' he replied. 'Look,' Dorian whispered, 'he only supported us and the Inquisition against the Venatori because we were winning. He'd have supported the Venatori otherwise. There are plenty of those who sympathised with Corypheus and his lot still in the Magisterium. Radonis' old pupil, Cassius, is one of them, and if you think Radonis doesn't know where his sympathies lied, you are mistaken.'

'Hm,' Veldrin said, softly. 'I wonder how much he's needling our dear friend Cassius by doing this…'

'He's not needling him, Vel,' Dorian answered, 'he's putting Fereldan fire ants in his tender parts, and watching him squirm.'

As much as he's watching us squirm, he thought.

'I doubt Cassius saw this coming more than we did; this is a slap that will send him spinning and set his entire side of the Senate on fire. Which will set our half of the Senate on fire.'

And we shall have a lovely, lovely bloodbath, to which all are invited, while Radonis is free to do as he likes, from above.

'And I thought Cassius only hated us because of our sense of dress,' Veldrin breathed.

'You'd be half right to think that, your sense of dress is terrible – somehow, you've never let go of that Solas inspired apostate hobo vibe,' Dorian said, biting his lower lip to prevent himself from smiling, then looking away to disguise the growing hardness in his eyes.

She was a brave little sprite, he thought.

'I suggest we explain the eluvian,' Veldrin said. 'What it is, what it does…'

'That will just lead him to asking what it is doing here,' Dorian answered. 'Besides, I am unsure if I recall my lies from eight years ago – I might have reported it's ancient and non-functional elven voodoo, nothing to see here, move along…'

'Well,' his wife said, placing her cold, dead arm on the bannister, in sign that she was ready to descend. 'Make an effort to remember what you did invent, because at least one of us is still too pretty to die. We'll tell him what it is, this time…It's the means by which we shall bring Solas here to kill him. Because, regardless of what Leliana wants, and the risks it entails, we shall kill him, shan't we?'

She was also a curiously practical little sprite; no wonder he'd really sat for a painting with her, he thought, placing his arm about her waist, and noticing, with great satisfaction, that his mother had seen them both and had gathered the look of a caged bird of prey.

'Magistra Pavus,' Radonis exclaimed, standing a tad too briskly.

Maybe, Dorian thought, not even the Archon could bear his mother for quite that long.

'I seem to have found something of yours,' the Archon said, grinning from ear to ear. 'And it is large.'

'You honour my daughter in law too highly, your grace,' the dowager lady Pavus said. 'She is not a Magistra…'

'But she will be one soon; my intentions in what regard her must be the worst kept secret in Tevinter. Dorian,' Radonis greeted, offering his hand – Dorian shook it, actually feeling terrified. 'You have a lovely home, and a lovely family. If only we'd count new additions…And Veldrin, you look radiant.'

A radiant little sprite, Dorian thought…A radiant little sprite Veldrin was not.

His mother mercifully retreated, after Radonis gracefully but somewhat repetitively extended farewells, and promised he would visit again, very soon, and doubtlessly stay for dinner.

In the shade of the eluvian, the two humans looked particularly small – the thing was heavily warded, and radiated a cold aura. Dorian felt naught but the need to step away from it, yet Radonis had decisively approached it; to the Magister's great concern, he was scrutinising it attentively, neither showing any intent of sitting back down nor giving any hope that he might have been lured into another room of the house.

'A very beautiful antique,' Radonis remarked. 'Do you intend to have it restored?'

'If we can, we will,' Veldrin said, smiling. 'Your grace has ruined Leliana's surprise,' she outright giggled – the Archon chuckled, in turn, as if he'd somehow sensed the elf was not even lying.

'I thought she'd already given you a surprise,' he answered. 'I'd not like you to be overwhelmed by Sister Nightingale's attentions, just in case you forget that we care for you too – which we do, very deeply.'

He clenched his hands behind his back, expecting surrender, then, but a second later, prompting it.

'What is this, Dorian?' Radonis asked.

'It is called an eluvian,' Veldrin responded, in her husband's stead. She passed her right hand over the mirror's surface, and, responding to her barely there touch, the eluvian rippled as a clear pond beset by a sudden hail of pebbles. 'It is hard to even pronounce the word,' she followed, softly, 'as no one alive has heard it spoken; my accentuation might be imprecise. I've only seen its name written, and, as your grace well knows, elven is remarkably vague.'

'I am afraid I am not a scholar of it, either,' Radonis agreeably said. 'This word, and the device is describes, is not one of the many things the old Imperium borrowed from Elvhenan.'

Borrowed, of course, being the concept we all - except for the tiny pebble that is Solas - agree on, Dorian thought.

'One rarely borrows that which is of no use,' Veldrin shrugged. 'And this would not be of use,' she said, decisively turning her back on the mirror. 'By the time the Imperium found these, they would have been largely inoperable, and rendered so by the Elvhen themselves.'

'What they were,' she truthfully explained, 'was a means of transportation through the veil. This is why Elvhenan had no roads – we used these to move about.'

'A strange replacement for a road network,' Radonis said, frowning. 'How does one move caravans, or indeed, armies through such a thing?'

'They did not all look the same,' Veldrin replied. 'In my very brief experience of them, I have seen ones wide enough that a hundred knights might have passed, riding shoulder to shoulder. All dark,' she said, in truthful sorrow. 'You,' she said, meeting Radonis' glance, 'slam doors and destroy bridges when you go to war. The people smashed mirrors. By the time of the ancient Imperium, we'd smashed too many of them to count.'

Radonis nodded, thoughtfully glancing at the eluvian. 'Does it only respond to you, or can I or Dorian…'

'Magic is magic,' Dorian replied, finding his courage. He took a step forward, and held his hand to the mirror's surface without touching it – the eluvian rippled, just as it had with Veldrin. 'The disconcerting part is that since the method has long been lost, these are as vague as eleven turns of phrase; one cannot know where they will lead until one actively commits to reading the sentence to the end. Or, in this case, actively pass through them.'

'Fascinating – I do not even recall reading of this, Dorian,' Radonis stung.

Veldrin laughed. 'He had not yet worked his charm on me, thus he was…Excluded from the exploration of the first eluvian the Inquisition encountered for a number of reasons that I am certain your grace needs not be reminded of.'

'In other words,' Dorian shrugged, feeling more confident by the minute, 'they were as willing to share this with a Tevinter as we might be in sharing a copy of the Liberalum. Not the Brother Genitivi version of it…'

Radonis shuddered. 'Brother Genitivi wrote a Liberalum? Maker, no wonder the south thinks we are all walking demons. We should have the proper one distributed, once we sign with Ferelden.'

'So you should,' Veldrin said. 'In any event, Dorian is correct. Eluvians are pathways; sometimes wide, sometimes narrow; sometimes leading to great crossroads, sometimes but point to point links. Some entrances only. I think Sister Nightingale hopes we can restore this one into an exit only. An exit that can only lead to a trap through which death will swiftly follow, to the ruin of the upstart, but to our continued well being, and to the future friendships between our people.'

'We did not know of her plan until half past this hour,' Dorian hurriedly followed, 'and we are unsure if this is feasible. We…I,' he humbly said, 'am rather keen to keep my magical failures to myself. If we succeed in making this portal into a trap, we shall certainly seek your assistance in how to make it deadly. Thus far, we do not know…'

The Archon measured them both, his glance lingering on Veldrin's dead arm. 'So much death of once you once loved must hurt so.'

Veldrin swallowed dry, and nodded, keeping her head bowed. 'I never truly loved my arm, your grace.' She said, telling the truth with a lie. The tears in the corners of her golden eyes were real, however, and though Dorian had no illusion that Radonis was convinced of their hasty play, he also knew that Radonis was a delicate enough man not to press further. He had gotten all that he'd gone out of his way to find.

'I would remove myself to the company of old friends,' Veldrin said. 'As your grace knows, they are in the library, and I would…'

'Magistra Pavus, of course,' Radonis nodded. 'I meant no harm to you, nor wished a reminder of harm once done upon you. I'd not intended to linger, in the first place, just assure myself that you know I will help you in any way that I can.'

She nodded, and ran up the stairs, all too quick bare feet taking three steps at the time.

In the shadow of the eluvian, both humans were truly small, but only one of them knew it for certain.

'Don't try that again, Magister Pavus,' the one who did not see himself in true light said, in a sad and tired voice. 'I don't like wasting time on divining who is with me and who against me, and this kind of countering is beneath us both.'

'Your grace,' Dorian said, lowering his glance. He felt more ashamed than fearful.

Up next - we shall thank you for reading and commenting on this one, and there will be a new chapter tomorrow.