"Go away… I didn't do this… it wasn't my fault!"
Chiyo sat up, blinded by the brightness of morning. She reached for her head and cringed to touch a throbbing goose-egg beneath her hair. Fingers probing the lump, her mind reeled in search of a marker on time lost. There was no doubt to where she was, in the same bedroom where she'd woken up the last few days. But the how, now those were the details that needed to be sifted out through the sands of sleep.
With effort, she followed them back where they'd last left off, murkiest of all. The rest came up in scattered dredges, tangled in the net cast out into memory.
The glassy gray, accusing eyes. Collapsing naked into bed. Clothes and jewels shed off. The swish of running water. A hot drink. The stretch of empty roads. An engine's roar. A door clicking. White teeth offering help and sympathy. Midnight-colored dresses covered in starlight. An interruption. A hazy argument that roiled. The strength of two arms aiding her down the stairs. Hands that shook as they found her. The numbness that took hold while she stared at that face in the dark. Blood.
With a groan, the little elf drooped with an unsatisfactory, soundless flop.
She was beginning to miss the hard, squeaky coils of an old bed, the welcomed lumpiness of her pillows, the rougher grain of bargain-bin sheets that had been bought on sale and washed until the stitches pulled through.
Perhaps, what she wanted most was the comfortable sameness that came with each day. Of slippers waiting exactly where she placed her feet on the floor, the folded paper crammed into the slot on the front door, and a toaster that had to be pushed on twice but always left the bread perfectly golden.
Of not finding dead bodies and spooks and conspiracies around every corner.
That was home, miles and miles away, behind two national borders she couldn't cross.
Waking up on satin atop a mattress that was probably stuffed with down plucked only from the rarest, fluffiest birds by the hands of consecrated maidens might have been a luxurious dream for most. And for a moment, as Chiyo's kohl-smeared eyes were rubbed open, she hoped that the prior evening- the entire trip- had been just that.
A dream, and a bad one too.
The bruises on her shins hadn't come from fretful tossing and turning. And the dress soaking in the reddish water of the bathtub served as a bloated reminder while Chiyo splashed her face and scrubbed at her hands until they felt raw from cleaning.
So much blood. Stained into the beds of her nails and the bottom of her feet. Slick and viscous and nameless, belonging to a dwarf with his ribs carved up.
She remembered but bits and pieces now, reveries unraveling from reality. He'd haunted her dreams, hung from a meat hook through his ankle. Pointing a finger in accusation, swinging in the cold air. The dead man was waiting to be butchered.
Her stomach made no ardent demands for breakfast today, quiet and clenched behind the tight knot of her robe. She didn't deserve those tasty comforts anyways. A cup of tea, however, might manage to set something right. Though she was sure to mess even that up one way or another.
After your behavior last night, you shouldn't get anything but stale crusts for a week. Disgraceful. It's all the good food you've been eating, going straight to your head. Oysters. Of all things… and crabcakes. Oh, and whatever those little, crunchy lobster cup-things were. Shellfish makes one selfish. Or did you forget that too, right up there with manners and dignity?
Regardless of exactly whose voice berated her this morning, mistakes, awful, wretched ones, had been made. Apologies or not, it was too late to take any of it back. The best she could hope to do was not make them again.
With bleary eyes and several deep yawns, she trudged through the house to the kitchen, still dark and silent. Fumbling about on the wall, her hand found the light switch.
"Ohh, my head! Would you turn that off? Now."
Tucked into a nook with the curtains drawn, Dorian sat with his face hidden behind his hands. Wrinkled refinery littered the floor from the doorway where she stood to his table. One leg still bore a gartered sock, striped shorts bunched around his hips, and a collared shirt lay wide open to his navel.
"Did you sleep in here?" Chiyo asked, stepping around the shiny leather shoes left out to be tripped over.
"If it can be called sleep, I've only been back an hour or so." He groaned, using the tablecloth to shield his face.
"I spent more of my night looking for my guests than anything else. And then I come to find that snake of a woman loaned a pair of nobody-elves her coach and driver. I was distraught. What if you'd been kidnapped and forced to do her dirty work! It was awful. That alone gave me ulcers and conniptions, for your information."
"You don't know the half of it. And Lady Vivienne was nothing but pleasant and thoughtful… I think. She said something nice about you… or maybe it only sounded like a compliment. It will come back to me. Something about your hair..." Chiyo closed her eyes for a stretch, recalling the kindness of a lacy handkerchief, the warmth of a silky my dear whispered with concern, and a clandestine offer for a quick escape.
"I'm sure she spun it exactly as intended. Dear old Vivvy might call herself a patron and critic of the arts, but she's no better than a Chantry-loving, power-hungry, double-crossing whistleblower." With his little finger, he peeked behind the window shade at the front yard. "She has ears everywhere and now knows where we are staying. There goes the rest of my holiday… ruined."
In the sink she began to fill the copper kettle before searching through the cabinets for cups, finding everything but. Rows of spices labeled in neat Tevene, pots, pans, dried lentils, plates, tureens, and last, at the cusp of her limited reach on stretched toe-tips, she snagged a pair by their delicate handles.
"Well. If you are going to conspire with my enemies and make off with my scant friends, you should at least enlighten me as to why…" Dorian covered his mouth with a sickly gurgle that passed once his bearings were regained. "...Why I was blatantly abandoned while you did Maker know's what with our darling photographer? I'll know an excuse if I hear one. And I want details. Lots of them. A man that outwardly reserved must be an absolute savage in bed."
The tea tin she'd just popped open struck the counter, scattering sachets in all directions. Water began to overflow the kettle and the fine porcelain cups were nearly sent toppling in the upset as Chiyo reached for every calamity at once.
"My, my. Still a bit cattywampus are we? You're too easy to play with. So predictable and prim. Or… did I actually guess correctly, hmm?"
She refused to answer him as she slammed the wet pot to the stove and cleaned up her mess.
What would have happened if you'd stayed? Bite marks instead of bruises? Not waking up alone for a change? Would you even be standing here, when your morning could be better spent- Tea. Boiling. Scalding. Right now.
Everything she needed for the morning ritual had been found, but it wasn't any good to her if she couldn't get the gas burner lit. Chiyo pulled out drawers and opened canisters to no avail, but just as she began to mutter in frustration, a box of matches rattled as they were offered over her shoulder.
The red-faced writer turned to see Solas shoving his hand back into his pocket, wearing the same green-gilled exhaustion as the man still watching for spies outside in the bushes.
"You must be cursed to forever be an impossible ass. Give it a rest. Our night was trying enough as it were." The elf grumbled as he took a seat.
"And yet I'm still waiting for an explanation. Were you so successful in your quest that taking the rest of the day off seemed appropriate?" Dorian asked, given a cup that he took to spinning like a top once the window had lost his interest.
"We saw a wraith." Solas had no hesitation with his proclaim. "It killed someone."
"You think you saw a ghost." Chiyo corrected, standing close to the lit stove. "I stumbled upon a murder. A dwarf had been stabbed to death."
"I'd be more shocked if there wasn't a dead body or two produced, this is Minrathous after all." Mustache twitching, the Tevinter aristocrat took turns in glancing at them both. "So which is it? Were there spirits or not?"
The answers were offered simultaneously, but they were far from unanimous.
"Yes."|"Definitely not."
With a shared narrowed gaze, a heavy silence deadened the air but for the bubbling on the burner. It was the first time either had looked the other in the eye since the snafu in the wardrobe. Or spoken even, since they'd forsaken the Magister's estate bewildered and smeared in blood. They'd thought it prudent to leave, empty-handed, before any blame could be dealt for the death.
As the entire torrid event returned to her senses in full, the strained hold on their mutual decision to agree to disagree was promptly lifted, or more appropriately, blown off like a pressured lid.
"It was glowing and walked straight through my body then into a wall like nothing was there." Solas had already crossed his arms over his chest.
"Maybe if you'd had less wine I might've believed you." Her lips pinched and nose scrunched as she watched him bristle. "But that's not what I saw at all."
"Says the woman who fainted." Well, that certainly explained the bump.
"I didn't faint, I'd remember something like that. I must have slipped again." With a hard toss, she forcefully returned the matches. "Hitting my head still doesn't change the facts, my imagination isn't that good."
"Facts? Ha! This isn't some mystery novel scene playing out for entertainment. To even think that there were hired assassins present with such a singular goal is ludicrous. Going through all the trouble of becoming involved is overly complicated." His blue eyes turned hard and critical while he clutched the tiny cardboard box.
"And that's less plausible than a ghost cutting through a man's sternum?" Chiyo's hands found a hold on her hips. She too, could be stubborn. And he was pushing to see how much. Even hours later, after an entire night to process soberly, Solas' mind seemingly hadn't changed one bit. "It was dark. They were dressed in all black. Something physically knocked into me on those stairs."
"Maybe it had the energy or rare ability to manifest so corporeally. No flesh and blood person could possess the skills to pass unharmed through solid wood and stone."
"Oh come on. Where is your evidence? Precedents? Reason?" She could see Dorian hide a gleeful grin behind his fingers, but her focus remained unbroken. "You told me yourself that you've never seen a spirit present like that, not even what we saw in the catacombs. And that was also a first, out of how many hundreds only ever seen on film?"
"It could have been summoned. The mystic you mentioned-"
Chiyo cut him off, already her blood began to boil, whistling between her ears.
"That fraud probably did this himself! That's what my gut says. He had an 'aura about him'. It bothered me so much that I thought I'd been the target, remember? Funny how that came to mind, only for someone else to actually wind up dead."
There was no logic in this, in anything that he'd tried to debate. She'd accepted so much of his bizarre tales already, yet there was nothing to convince her of homicidal spirits working on behalf of sinister people. Greed, revenge, jealousy, any number of motives would have borne more weight.
"Not everything is paranormal. Conspiracy is far more likely. Are you honestly going to sit there and claim without a single shred of doubt that it couldn't be just normal every day, old-fashioned murder? He was a dwarf, well-off and of high standing by how much gold he wore. Someone is probably profiting from his death right now as we speak."
"Ms. Lavellan…" Dorian tried to interject.
"Not you too. Don't tell me you're on his side." Steam felt like it was billowing through her lips as the rest of her body cooked from within.
"No," he waved his hand, too far away to reach her. "Only that the water is done and your elbow is going to catch fire if you lean any closer."
"Oh... oh! Hot!" She was quick to turn off the gas and rescue the kettle as the hissy cry turned into a spitting, sputtering wail.
"Alright, let's pause this thrilling dispute for a moment, shall we?" Dorian held his cup steady as it was filled with a rose-tinted tea. "Do either of you have proof to support or refute anything that happened that can't be clouded by liquor and head injuries?"
Chiyo joined them at the table, her own cup in hand and welcomed the first piping sip of the fruity, floral blend. "Not exactly… The recorder gave us nothing and without the camera, we couldn't take any pictures. No one else was around when this happened to corroborate with either. Not anyone still alive."
Solas sighed and folded his hands in his lap. "We've merely our own accounts to go by, colored and skewed by separate experiences."
"Say what you really mean. We're biased." Another tongue-burning drink dislodged a few more heated choices in word for his particular regard. Obstinate. Paranoid. Fanatical. "But there has to be an answer in this. Somewhere."
"You know, I would almost be inclined to agree with you if I hadn't encountered what I did in the hallway." At least he appeared to be smoothing out his own ruffled feathers as they returned to not looking directly at one another. Maybe they could be civil so long as their eyes never again met.
"Hmm?" Chiyo left the hot edge of the teacup against her lips. Perhaps it would help burn off the tingling, phantom sensations that lingered on her skin while she stole a few lowered glances as he spoke. That mouth of his spelled trouble, even when it remained perfectly mute.
"That was the same dwarf. We saw him just before his demise, in the arms of a paramour." Solas ran his thumbnail along the rough striking side of the matchbox. "I have been curious of her involvement, whether she used their relationship to draw him away from the crowd for ulterior purposes. Betrayal comes from those kept closest and she had quite the knack for diversion."
"Now you're starting to sound like her," Dorian said after a long, curative sip. "I was wondering as to why I didn't see either of you at the séance-you missed a very heartfelt message from Felix's mother. It seems you were too busy peeping through keyholes like lechers to be bothered with the main event."
"Oh no, the view was much more-" Her foot struck out beneath the table and collided with his leg. She didn't let him even attempt to disclose what had happened in the slightest.
"Coincidental. Just a chance crossing of paths while we investigated, wasn't it, Solas?" Her laugh sounded fake even to her own ears as the other elf rubbed his sore shin. "They were drunk and messing around. What of it. People do all sorts of asinine things with bellies full of booze."
"Certainly. And many more do well enough sober." She'd never been so undone by such a minuscule quirk of a mouth before, curled just enough in the corner to make her heart leap high into her throat.
"Goodness, look at the time. Is it that late already? Excuse me, I really need to pack my things before we have to leave. Best get out of here before the Templars come knocking with questions, you know?" Tea left hardly half-finished, Chiyo pushed back from the table. She made it part way through another unbecoming chuckle and turned to march out of the kitchen.
What a professional! Astounding performance. They believed every word of that for sure!
There had to be something useful in her bedroom, like a long pair of stockings or a thick bag to smother herself with. If she weren't so terrified of drowning, there was already a bathtub waiting to claim her miserable soul.
[C.L.- Greetings from Redcliffe. Stop. Got your draft in this morning. Stop. Didn't I just warn you about chasing nug holes? Stop. Not sure what you were thinking when you wrote this. Stop. It's too risky to publish. Stop. Let me get back to you with a final decision. Stop. Tried to get you a temporary visa forwarded. Stop. But everyone in that office is a useless prick who couldn't wipe their a- without the proper stamp of approval. Stop. You should probably find another way home or somewhere to stay if you have any friends in that neck of the woods. Stop. We don't have much in the budget to keep you posted there on vacation. Stop. -V.T.]
She hadn't honestly thought this would happen, when she'd submitted her article in a last minute rush with enough extra postage to have paid for a week's worth of overnight fees.
And for them to respond so swiftly…
Solas needed to be the first to know. It was only fair.
But that also meant she had to speak forthrightly with the man.
The second message was postmarked hours later, nearly at the end of the business day. Had she been there to receive them so far apart she'd have likely wept her eyes out with the failure.
[C.L.- You're probably going to shit yourself. Stop. And yes I paid this guy extra to spell that word out. Stop. Your piece is going to have to be edited pretty heavily. Stop. But I think we can just barely slide under all those pesky censors if we handle it right. Stop. I'll print it as a teaser only if you have more to follow up with. Stop. Stay with this lead if he's got anything else to offer. Stop. The story is great but we need some real hard proof if it's gonna pack any punch. Stop. See if there is any solid evidence you can bring back. Stop. I want an anchor to all this that will really put grit in a few Chantry panties. Stop. There's some money being sent your way (not a lot) but you've worked on a shoestring before. Stop. -V.T.]
Chiyo sat on the stairs with the thin sheets of paper unfolded over her knees. She was trying not to read them, again, as she'd done since finding them on her bed once they'd returned to Qarinus. The telegrams and receipts left her with no freely-given answers, only choices, with but one she could decide on her own.
To leave and find a way home as a stowaway or vagabond, digging tunnels or hiding in a freight car full of sheep to blend in.
Otherwise, stay and earn her keep by continuing to work with a drifter who was almost more hassle than he was worth.
Chewing her cheek, Chiyo raked her fingers through her hair and stared at the door down below. She'd thought that if she sat there long enough, some form of enlightenment might find her and offer a sense of direction. There had to be a guideline or rule learned long ago that would serve to end the confusion, to return her to professionalism and impartialness.
Think of your job, your career. What's more important, some bizarre infatuation that will run its due course or making a name for yourself, one that they'll put in brass on those little placards for a desk that you don't have to share with three other people who leave crumbs everywhere. This is a chance to get your ridiculous little head out of the gutter, seize it! On your feet! That'a girl. Just go in there and act like nothing happened. Kiss? What kiss? Be professional, be calm, be a journalist.
Hesitant knuckles struck the wooden door. Chiyo waited, creasing the pages in a clenched fist.
"Come in."
Allowing herself inside, she came upon the photographer fixing an older, heftier camera to a tripod. He'd done some rearranging since they'd come back, having pushed the sofa away from the wall to drape a bright green curtain from the ceiling.
"You have good timing. I was about to find you myself." Solas didn't look up as he made several calibrations. "If you would, stand there in the center so I can check the focus. I'm worried about the color, though. Some shades of gray are difficult to reproduce."
"Doing portraits now?" Chiyo stepped in front of the fabric and adjusted accordingly with the guiding motions of his fingers as he peered through the lens. "Don't tell me you've given up on ghost hunting and have picked up a new vocation."
"Are you going to tease me all night, or shall you let me do this favor before I change my mind?" His clipped words were muffled from beneath a heavy cloth flipped over his head, but he snapped a few test shots even while she frowned.
"What kind of a favor? My nose keeps me off the front cover of magazines and I don't need any pictures with my dead relatives." It was then she saw a vivid stack poking out of plain brown paper and twine on his desk. Having traveled as far and wide as she had over the years, she'd know those colors anywhere.
Orlesian cerulean. Antivan emerald. Tevinter gold. Free March slate. And just like the one that had been stolen with her satchel, Ferelden crimson. "Are those passports?"
"Please don't… move." Solas sighed as she left her position and picked up one of the empty folders.
"What are you doing with all of these?" Chiyo held the red one up after flicking through the blank contents.
Official, right down to the stamped leather edges and seals, not an eyelash would have been batted if she'd seen someone present the booklet. If they were forgeries, they were damned good ones, but if they were stolen or smuggled, she almost didn't want to ask how he'd obtained them or by what means.
"The circumstances of my life occasionally require a certain degree of... untraceability. From time to time, when I know I am being followed, a new name and a few borrowed numbers go a long way to leave a cold trail. Though I seldom do this anymore, I believe there is reason enough to craft a new set."
"That and…" His hands remained on the camera, fingering the little buttons and twisting the bulb of the flash. "You said several times, very adamantly, that you wanted to go home."
"I was also coming too in a dark stairwell, laying in a dead guy's blood. And crying, thank you for reminding me of that part. Forgive me for the hysterics and the waterworks… and the yelling." Chiyo set the passport down and looked up to watch him fidget quietly with the instrument.
The swell of his lower lip slipped between his teeth. What words was he also trying to retain? Did any match those waiting in bondage behind her own tongue. But where had the pride gone from his shoulders, to make them so slack. What had dulled the normally honed edge over his brow and the charm that left her keen.
She saw then in him her own constant friend. Misery. The kind that only existed in obligatory honor and duty.
"I can't ask you to do this."
His offer was no small act of kindness, not with the weight of spending a decade or more in prison were he ever to be caught. Likely incarcerated without being given a trial. To do it for himself was one thing, but for someone he'd known scarcely more than two harried weeks…
"Innocence means little in Tevinter, so long as justice is conveniently served." The initial spark in his words had vanished, the lovely lilt turned at once dim and serious. "You should get away from here. Before anyone connects you with that hellacious death."
She could always recognize the heaviness of a farewell, long before being spoken. But this one was doing everything in his power not to say it.
"Then if you are going to be this generous, I'd like to ask something before you start finalizing all these goodbye plans." Chiyo brandished her own documents. She didn't need to consider her choices anymore. There'd never really been one to begin with.
Her path had been chosen long before she'd descended those stairs, or before the messages had been typed out across a wire.
"Would your tune change at all if I told you we are on the verge of being published? There's just this one little catch."
"Seriously?" Whatever plagued him lifted like a fog, he reached for the dangled papers and frowned as they were pulled back. "What do they want, a ghost mailed to them in a bottle? A member of the Cartel spilling everything on tape?"
"These are confidential, sorry. You don't have the clearance." She smiled wryly, shoving the whole wadded mass into her pant's pocket. "But you aren't far off. Proof. It's what everyone wants. They've also asked for a second article that's more than just your personal story. I need to see these connections for myself."
"No."
"What?" Her jaw dropped with the blunt rejection. "And why not? Is this because I still don't believe your theory on killer-spirits?"
"It's because you're already in enough trouble. I'm not going to lead you through more just to pad a career and give your boss fodder to sell a few more prints." Solas shook his head. Returned to his camera, he gave a solemn point towards a spot on the floor.
With a huff and a stomp, she took her place again. "If I wasn't writing an article, would that change your mind?"
"Not likely. I'd simply believe you mad." Back beneath the hood, Chiyo struggled to discern if he was actually mocking her before the light flashed.
She crouched forward as he made one last tweak while the bulb recharged and stuck her face but a few inches before the wide lens. "And if I said please?"
Flipping the black fabric away, he lifted his head with a narrow glare. For a moment, he simply stood there in contemplation. Then his fingers rose to rub his forehead as a lengthy breath hissed through his nose. "Then I would say you're not going to like where we'd have to go."
"Let's see, we nearly got thrown in the can when you and I first met. We've spent the night in a nasty old cemetery. You made me play tourist for four days with a busted nose. Jumped out of a hotel room you set on fire, and now I could be pulled into a murder investigation. Honestly, I doubt anything else is going to rattle me at this point." She skipped mentioning the interlude in the cupboard. It was easier to breathe around him without that idea plaguing her every thought.
"Come on, cameraman, give me your best shot." Chiyo held out her hand for a strictly business-like shake, a grin stretched near ear to ear. "I might just make you famous yet."
"Fine, but only if you never call me that again." His eyes rolled as he indulged in the gesture.
Hmm. She liked a fellow with a firm grip, even if it did last just a little longer than what would be considered polite. Or Necessary. But not a spot of pink mottled her cheeks like some infectious disease from touching him, and that alone was worth celebrating.
This was wonderful. Brilliant. Stupendous! A clean start, professional once again without any nuisances or hang-ups. Her chest felt light, her heart at ease. All her troubles vanquished. She'd finally conquered the demons that had threatened to ruin everything she'd worked so hard to attain for herself.
"So where are we going?" Chiyo beamed as he released her hand.
"It's confidential."
She deserved that one, she'd give him that. But his joke cast a small shadow of doubt on her short-lived reprieve.
"And pack your boots. Or get taller ones, actually."
Her smile promptly faded.
Just what, exactly, had she signed herself up for now?