It had been more than ten years since she'd stood here. Strange to be back. Much like any mage, her life was split sharply into before and after; and the dividing line ran through this room. The empty spot on the pedestal was now filled with a statuette of Andraste. Of course. Aside from that, not much had changed that she could see. She could put a name to every one of the portraits that occupied most of the wall space. The big one over the fireplace had no doubt been through three or four updates since she had gone to the Circle. Grandmother, parents, siblings, siblings' spouses and offspring – no Themis. Of course.

Her parents – not surprisingly – looked older than she remembered. Her father still stood tall and straight, and her mother's hair was still the deep red all her daughters had inherited. But they were not so imposing as they once had seemed. Bedraggled, muddy, and clutching her robe together at her chest, she thought she cut an even less prepossessing figure herself.

"Disgusting," said Bann Trevelyan. "I blame myself. I should never have allowed that band to get so big – I'll send troops out first thing tomorrow."

Themis decided not to mention her suspicion that he'd have moved faster had it been a band of renegade mages. She tried not to think too hard about why her cousin Oswald had decided to attend this meeting in his templar regalia even though he just happened to be on a family visit. "They lost several today – and their leader. Hopefully mopping them up won't be too much trouble."

"Well, you'll need an escort back to the Circle in any case."

Deep breath. She'd been expecting this, but it would have been nice to be disappointed. "That will cost me two days, minimum, and I have a schedule to keep." Another thing she wasn't going to mention – if she returned now, there would be no replacement delegation. "If you -"

"Nonsense, girl. You're in this state one day out – you can't think you'll make it all the way across Ferelden."

"I'll do it or die trying – the Conclave's worth the risk. You can talk to the Chantry in town and get me a few templars to replace -"

"Enough -"

There was a confused babble from outside. Themis had a moment of disbelief when she heard the one voice that was cursing especially loudly; but when the Orlesian window to the garden burst open, sure enough it was Farron being dragged in by a little gang of family henchmen.

"Caught him at the window, my lord," said one.

Kalina Trevelyan, seated on the chaise-longue by the fire, fixed her daughter with an icy stare. "Who is this?"

"He's with me." Why had she said that? Was it that her mother had assumed some wrongdoing on her part, just because the trespasser had a mage staff strapped to his back? She frowned at Farron, hoping she was the only one who noticed him hiding his surprise. "He was supposed to wait by the gate until I sent for him. I'm sorry."

Her father sighed. "Well, he can stay here for tonight and go back with you in the morning." The henchmen let go of Farron, who brushed himself off disdainfully.

Themis straightened her back. "I'm sorry, no. I'll accept a bed for tonight with thanks, but tomorrow I'll be going into the city. With or without your help."

"I don't think so," the bann frowned.

Her cousin had started edging forwards; it was an effort of will to hold her ground. "I'm afraid what you think doesn't matter. I have the First Enchanter's permission to attend the Conclave. Nobody in this room holds the authority to return me to the Circle tower against my wishes."

"Have you got that in writing?" asked Cousin Oswald.

"In writing?" Farron blurted. "This is your family!"

"Quiet, Farron. I have no obligation to prove anything to a knight-recruit, and in any case I wrote to you when I was first chosen for the delegation over a week ago. Don't you remember?" No sooner were the words out of her mouth than another question occurred – had they read it? When was the last time one of their letters had made reference to anything in hers? All those missives over the years, telling them how well she was doing in her studies, how much praise she won from her instructors, how well her Harrowing had gone; all her efforts to convince them that a mage daughter didn't need to be a shameful thing – how many of them had her parents even bothered to look at?

"We'll see what the Knight-Commander has to say." Oswald closed the remaining gap between them in a few swift strides and gripped her forearm.

She looked down at the gauntleted hand, than back up at the closed faces all around her – except for Farron, who seethed openly. What was she feeling?

"I am an exemplary mage," she said slowly. "I have never done anything to earn your mistrust." And it was true.

Her father opened his mouth, and she had no interest in what he had to say. Something buried deep inside her stirred, something patient and powerful and huge.

Smells of hot metal, burning leather and cooking meat; Oswald stumbled back, gasping and clawing at his suddenly cherry-red gauntlet. The fire roared up, her parents retreating from the heat, the Nevarran hearthrug starting to catch and the family portrait to blister.

"Get a move on, idiot!" Farron, staff in hand, grabbed her elbow and hauled her through the garden door and out into the night, blasting aside the one man with the presence of mind to make an attempt to stop him.

By the time they were half-way through the rose garden Themis' mind had caught up with events, and she started to keep pace.

Then Ardri was running down the lawn beside them. "What in flames happened in there?"

"Milady's parents are bigger pillocks than she is, that's what happened."

"So you set the house on fire?"

"She set the house on fire. Get us to that place you said we could spend the night, I'll fill you in."

"You mean she's coming with us?"

"Yes, she is."

"Well, hasn't this been an interesting day."

Reaching the opposite side of the lawn, they plunged into the slightly better cover of the orchard.

"Excuse me," panted Themis. "What were you two doing here?"

"Well, I was burgling the place, and Farron was supposed to be my lookout."

"Farron? You can let go of my arm now."

Themis concentrated on keeping up until they reached the estate wall, where they paused to catch their breath.

"So," she said, "you needed money, and you used me as a distraction to sneak in and rob my family."

"That's about the size of it," said Farron.

"You realise I'm honour bound to be upset with you about this."

"Planning on doing anything about it?"

"No."

"Fine, then. Come on, I'll get you over this wall."

"Great," said Ardri. "You know what you two have done? You've doubled the price of getting a ship, if we manage it at all."

"It's not that bad..."

"Don't you give me that, Farron. They now know that there are mages running around loose, and where we're trying to go. Cousin Oswald will have half the city templars on the docks, the other half searching the city. On top of that, I had to cut my thieving short because you got your stupid self caught. I'll have to get creative - and don't think you're tagging along, princess. Or keeping that rightfully-stolen mirror."

Themis was dolefully contemplating her bedraggled hair. She'd got up early in order to make it extra nice for the journey, and by now she should have been at sea with the rest of the delegation, not crammed into some dirty flophouse room with two people who despised her, and worrying about her hair because if she didn't, she might start thinking about all the dead people she'd known more than half her life.

Not to mention that she was a fugitive - sort of. The knight-commander was a fair man, and even though he'd opposed the journey in the first place, if she got a chance to explain he would recognise that Themis had acted within her authority and Oswald had exceeded his. Only there was the matter of her lashing out in retaliation and setting the local bann's house on fire. And being seen in the company of a mage who definitely had not been out of the Circle tower with permission. And the burglary... on the whole, it would be much safer all around if she did her explaining by letter from a good long way away. Hopefully things would calm down before she got back.

"That's all right," she said, still eyeing her reflection in the silver hand mirror. "Your way sounds far more risky than mine, anyway."

It felt quite naughty, how much she enjoyed the pause that followed.

Finally Farron said, "And would your way involve strolling down to the docks and up to the captain of the Bright Lancer, and trying to convince him that you're the last survivor of the group he was expecting yesterday?"

Themis raised her eyes from the mirror and pulled out a rarely-used tool, the How-Dare-You-Question-Me-Peon stare which was something of a trait with Trevelyan women. "I know I'm a little new at hiding from templars, but can we please proceed from the assumption that I am not entirely stupid?"

Farron blanched satisfactorily, but Ardri retorted, "Your performance back at the manse notwithstanding? Let's hear it, then."

"Ah, the manse. Funny how much you can tell from family portraits - and who isn't among them. I was missing, naturally, and so was my dear scandalous Great-Aunt Betrice.

"She had a servant once, you see, or so the story was whispered when they thought none of the children were listening. Very close, very trusted, they'd practically grown up together. and I don't think anybody honestly believes Betrice didn't know this woman was a mage - although everyone pretends they do."

"Wait, I know this one," said Farron. "She got found out, taken to the Circle and put through her Harrowing before she was ready, as they so often are when they're caught late on."

"Maybe. I don't know many details – even her name – and it's not as if I could ask. Whatever happened, Great-Aunt Betrice is now officially the family black sheep, and will be happy to take the chance to spit in the templars' eyes. Furthermore, her late husband was a merchant – and her home has a private dock. I know it's not foolproof, but... even if she won't actually help, I don't think she'll turn us in."

Farron frowned. "Us? I'm not seeing any upside to you bringing two more along."

"You're joking, right?" Ardri huffed. "Noble ladies don't travel alone. She needs someone to play her servants – which I for one am happy with, seeing as it sounds like it'll be a much cheaper ride with a much smaller chance of ending up on a slow boat to Tevinter."

"Plus, I get to repay you a little for saving my life."

She could see the struggle on Farron's face, but it wasn't long before he sighed resignedly. "Fine. I'm the one always saying mages should stick together. I'll act your bloody manservant - as long as anyone's looking."

"You will act the bloody manservant all the time," corrected Ardri. "There's precious little privacy on a boat, and I won't have our cover blown because you just had to get some of your nasty little digs in when you thought nobody was listening."

He scowled, then turned back to Themis and said, "You better not push your luck, that's all."

"Andraste forbid." She set the mirror aside.

"Stop scratching."

She looked down and realised that, once free, her right hand had gravitated immediately to her singed forearm. The gauntlet's grip had been leather, but enough metal had been in contact to leave a constellation of holes in her sleeve and blisters beneath.

Farron took her wrist, pushed her sleeve up and soothed the discomfort with a touch. "Honestly. What kind of idiot lets a templar walk straight up to them?"

"I don't know, the kind that doesn't make a hobby of provoking templars? Besides, he was my cousin. I hope his hand's going to be all right."

"You hope..." He rolled his eyes. "After the way he treated you. You really are a sheep."

She pressed her lips together. "He was doing what he thought was right."

"Right?" he snarled, dropping her arm. "Do you know what the penalties were back home for aiding runaway mages? My family could have been slaughtered for helping me get out, but they did it anyway. Your family couldn't wait to get you shut away again, even though you weren't asking them to risk a flaming thing! What you said was true - you're everything the Chantry says a good mage should be, and they still wish you'd just disappear. If they really think treating you like that is right, they're idiots. Me, I reckon they just find it convenient."

"Yeah, well, my family sold me to a burglar long before anyone knew I was a mage. Our kind need to make family where we can - there's a reason they call 'em fraternities, you know."

"May I borrow a knife?" Themis took Ardri's proffered blade, propped up the mirror and started cutting her hair off.

"Why did you do that?"

"Because I was angry. I think I did a lot of things without realising they were because I was angry."

"Is that what a Circle education does for you in the south? Glad I missed it."

"We aren't actually forced to suppress our feelings that thoroughly. That was just the way I dealt with things – and I think in some ways it left me more vulnerable to corruption, not less. Can't properly control something I'm refusing to admit exists."

Dorian swirled his wine glass thoughtfully, his back against the balustrade on the Inquisitor's balcony. Of the many eccentricities he'd found in foreign climes, the idea that magic was something to be ashamed of was the one he had the hardest time getting used to. He turned his head to make play he was looking out over the mountains, whilst actually studying the Inquisitor out of the corner of his eye. She was lounging on the sofa they'd dragged out into the sun, in an attitude he found just a smidgen too relaxed to be convincing.

"What used to be in the spot on the pedestal?"

She snorted. "A vase. Had herons painted on it, if I recall correctly. One day I knocked into it while I was, well, being an eight-year-old and my grandmother was in full flow about how old and valuable and irreplaceable it was and what a bad girl I was for running around - and the bloody thing exploded into many, many little pieces."

Dorian snickered.

"Yes, yes, I can see the funny side now, but at the time... Maker. Ashen faces all around, banished to my bedroom... then strange men in lots of armour come to take me away. At least they were polite, and didn't put me in chains - benefit of being a Trevelyan. One day I was looking forward to moving up to a bigger pony and wondering whether my friend Irena had got better from her cold, then in a single moment that life was just over, and I was having to start a new one in a new place with a load of strangers."

He thought ruefully of how his own powers' manifestation had been cause for rejoicing. "And would all this rather poisonous influence be to blame for you overdoing the self-control?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'm still working through everything."

"You know, when you get right down to it your parents' crime was much the same as mine."

Themis sat up, tucked her feet under herself and contemplated the amount of wine left in the bottle. "How so?"

"Letting one thing they didn't like blind them to what a bloody wonderful offspring they had."

"I suppose." She frowned. "Of course, they might just have had a point if the one thing had been a habit of disembowelling small children, or something."

"Yes, but it wasn't."

"Not far off in my parents' eyes," she said with an unusual bitterness. "Tell you what, I'm lucky they didn't have any say in whether I got made Tranquil. I think they'd have preferred that to having an actual mage in the family."

Dorian almost objected, almost protested that only a true monster would want their child violated in such a way; but just before opening his mouth he remembered what his father had tried to do about his own one thing, and shuddered. "Probably could have convinced themselves they were doing what was best for you."

"Oh, undoubtedly. There was a time I'd have agreed - in theory. The Tranquil seemed so peaceful, and there was I in turmoil because I'd always been taught that magic and mages were a stain on the Maker's creation, and always thought I couldn't possibly be one because I was a good girl..." She drained her wine. "About a glass left. Half each?"

He held his glass out. "You wanted to be made Tranquil?"

"Oh no. In practice there would have been much kicking and screaming. The idea terrified me. Still does." She topped up her own glass and set the empty bottle on the floor. "I imagine there's been gossip about the yelling-at-Cullen incident not so long ago?"

"The funniest version is that you singed his eyebrows off because you discovered he'd been sneaking around with me."

"Where do people get this stuff? Anyone can see his eyebrows are fine. And he'd run a mile if a man propositioned him - yes, even you."

"Hmm." Dorian smoothed his moustache. "A challenge."

"You try anything and I'll have you clapped in irons."

"Promise?"

"By female templars."

"Bah. Spoilsport."

"Anyway, entertaining mental images aside, the reason I was shouting at Cullen was that Cassandra told me that the Lord Seekers had always known that Tranquility was reversible."

"And you... blamed Cullen...?"

"No, it's complicated. She and I were discussing Tranquility, and finding out that the people who were supposed to be watching the people who watched us, finding they'd been lying for so long about something so important... thinking about how holier-than-thou the templars always were, and how thoroughly they got corrupted... how hard I'd worked to keep myself and my magic under control, and how none of that seemed to matter when the templars finally turned on us... something inside me just – cracked. At first there was only the anger, and I went away from Cassandra because I thought we'd just get into a screaming match, but I had to yell at someone so I went to Cullen and he calmed me down because he wouldn't give me anything back. So I started explaining why I was angry, and... then there were other things." She chewed her lip. "I'm not sure I can explain it properly. I'd been taught that the Chantry and the templars locked up mages because it was necessary for their own good and everybody else's, and a mage having a problem with that was a sure sign they were corrupt."

"Ah. So you believed that feeling upset about your situation was wrong."

"Wow. I wasn't expecting you to get that so easily. No offense."

He sat down next to her. "I am not even going to tell you how old I was before I started to wonder whether I actually deserved the constant sniping about my posture, my grooming, my manners... please, move along."

"So I wasn't only suppressing anger, I was suppressing unhappiness, resentment... any feeling that suggested anything was wrong that wasn't me, meant there was something wrong with me, and that way lay blood magic and demons." Pause. "Did that even make any sense?"

He took a few moments to untangle the sentence. "Slightly more complicated than thinking one is just an ungrateful brat, but yes, I think I've the gist."

"Right. So I end up believing, down to my bones, that everything that is done to me is right and proper and deserved, and I go on believing that – on some level – even after everything falls apart. And when my defences finally start to break down, it's like the anger's the ogre that cracks the wall and there are all these other things trailing into the breach behind it. And one of the first... fair enough, my family had to send me to the Circle. I won't fault them for that. But they were... from the moment that vase exploded, I wasn't really family any more. I was so busy suppressing everything, somewhere along the way I'd forgotten how much it hurt. It really, really hurt."

Dorian stared down into the last of his wine. This conversation really was rather close to the bone. "Are you in contact with them?"

"In a way. Same as it has been ever since; distant, formal. The first couple of times I answered the letters myself, now I delegate." She sighed. "I don't know, maybe I'm being petty. Holding onto a grudge..."

"Don't be ridiculous, old girl."

"A strange remark coming from you."

"Beg pardon? My father took time out from his busy schedule, travelled for weeks and then sat around in some backwater foreign inn, without even knowing whether I'd show up. Oh, and let's not forget the sincere apology when he finally got a word in edgewise. Have yours done any of that?"

"An apology? I don't think they even think they did anything wrong."

"Precisely, and I'll tell you something else. Even if they did all that and more, you still don't have to force yourself to forgive them if you don't feel ready. Forgiving happens on your schedule alone; and if some self-righteous harridan tries to tell you different, feel free to tell her in precise anatomical detail where she can stick it – or send her to me and I'll tell her."

"You're working on a rapprochement with your father, but you're still mad at Mother Giselle."

"She's never going to apologise for trying to deceive me."

"Another one who doesn't see what she did wrong. Oh, Maker. I'll have to watch her. She'd pull the exact same if mine asked her to."

He watched the lengthening shadows. It would be time to go inside soon. "So, I hear you're headed out again tomorrow?"

"Yes. Cole's not going to be happy until we've found a way to make that protective amulet work. And don't think I've given up on finding out why he thought you needed a wooden duck with wheels on, either."

"Humph. And you're the one trying to teach him the concept of privacy."

"Also the concept of 'Do as I say, not as I do'," she smirked.

"He'll be a real boy in no time."

Still smiling, she leaned her head back, gazing at the darkening sky.

"Maybe you should teach him about anger, too," he mused. "Anger's very human."

"Right, that's all we need."

"Isn't it? Anger carried me across a continent and onto your doorstep just when you needed a dashing mage; and look where yours got you."

"Maybe you're right. Maybe Cole isn't the only one who's still learning how to be a person."

"I don't think anyone ever truly finishes doing that. Some more than others, I admit." He raised his glass. "To all the feelings."

She eyed him askance for a moment, then shrugged, clinked and knocked back the last mouthful. "Even the scary ones."

"The ones you need the most."