Author's note: Welcome to the interlude. I haven't had a chance to get started on the first part of chapter one yet, I have been writing the last chapter of another fanfic I have been writing for years now. So I thought I would drop you this tidbit while you wait. It is still a bit rough, but I have run out of ways to improve it on my own. Reviews and constructive criticisms are always welcome and will be put to good use.

Interlude- Thirty pieces of silver

Irving sat quietly at his desk. He pen was in his hand, but he did not use it, rather he stared blankly off into space. In his mind, he was reevaluating how he had done with his students. Three students in particular; Dylan, Jowan and Surana. If he had not felt guilty about Surana before, Dylan's choice -it could only be described as a defection- would have made him examine his actions again. He did not understand her failure at the harrowing. She had always been a strong mage and incredibly smart. She outpaced students even three or four years her senior, but it had not made her stuck up. On the contrary, she was a very modest girl. In short, she had been the perfect child and Irving had loved her dearly. He tapped his pen on the desk lightly. That was one of the problems of the Tower, he supposed. In addition to teaching powerful enchanters, they were in effect raising children as well. It had been many, many years now, but Irving could still remember his own family's farmhold and the night he was ripped away from them and placed in front of First Enchanter Simon. He could not remember his mother's face, but he remembered the stern First Enchanter that had come before him in almost every aspect of his life. Maker! Now there was a man who had been in the Chantry's pocket. Irving knew many of the students disliked and mistrusted the tests that he would spring on them, but Simon had been far worse to the children of the tower. When he had been promoted, and Simon had been forced by politics to choose him, he had promised himself he would be kinder. He would try to correct flaws, not hammer at students until they broke, and until Surana, he had felt for the most part he had done well. She had always been willing to learn and happy to teach, pliable, biddable. He should have caught it sooner. That unquestioning sympathy and compassion he had taught her was most likely used against her. It killed her. Irving couldn't help but feel responsible.

"Irving."

Greagoir pulled him out of this thoughts, he looked up at the Knight-Commander.

"The templars are finished scowering the north shore. It seems he's has help. Looks like he traveled by cart on the road to Redcliffe." Greagoir scowled at him. "You should have just let me proceed. As it was it was very clear that he was learning..."

"learning principles is not the same as learning with the intent to use, Greagoir. Even I know the principles." Irving rubbed his temples as Greagoir nostril flared.

It was kind of ironic actually that Greagoir reminded him of Dylan. If the world had been a different place, it would have been easy to mistake the two for father and son. Both were stubborn in the extreme, and set in their beliefs. Dylan had been a hard child to raise. He was forever questioning. Normally a great boon in a scholars life, Dylan's questions spilled over into questioning his betters, his elders and well, everybody. As a child, he had angered a templar almost to the point of being run through. Always asking about why templars could do magic; wanting to know why didn't that make them as bad as mages. Someone else had taught the seven year old the words "bloody hypocrites" but how was the templar supposed to know that? Dylan's major offense had not been that he had been needling the templar; it was that when the templar swatted at him with his sword, Dylan had fought back. Getting an electric shock through a suit of armor was painful, and if it had not been for Dylan's age and relative lack of strength, the man could have died. He had been all apologies, but the boy had not been sorry. Although that was one of the more colorful exploits of his youth, the defiance and stubbornness never waned. It had never even crossed his mind that Dylan didn't want to get out of the tower. He had actually planned to send him out it to the world with Wynne and a few other mages to investigate rumblings of plague in the north after they returned from Ostagar. The Primal school had always been Dylan's great joy in magic. It worried Irving. He had encouraged the boy's natural talent in medicine and healing, but he had not enjoyed it as Surana had. Surana had tempered Dylan and he suspected that Surana's wicked sense of humor was a gift from Dylan. She had been his tether. Patient enough when Surana was alive, after her death he had lost perspective. He was kind, charming and quick to offer a hand, all endearing traits that contributed to his popularity. But very few people in the tower actually knew Dylan Amell. Two of the three people he revealed himself to; Irving liked to think that Dylan had allowed him to see who he was rather than figuring it out when observing him, were gone from the tower permanently. It was a great loss of talent for the mages. Even if the choice was given, he knew Dylan would not return. The accusations in his eyes still haunted Irving. They said so clearly "This is your fault". He wondered exactly how much he knew about the plan to catch out Jowan.

"Irving? Are you even listening to me?"

Irving returned to reality with a snap.

"I said, there was too much of a ruckus to use our decoy again. We are going to have to find somebody else. You are knowledgeable on the students likes and dislikes, Irving. Who should we send for this time?"

"Just bring the girl in."

Jowan's little chantry mouse, no longer dressed in chantry robes, walked through the door meekly.

That was certainly a change. When she first agreed to lure confessions of blood magic out of students, she had sauntered in and explained what she was going to do, how she was going to do it and how much she expected for it, all before introducing herself.

"We no longer require your services, my dear, or those of your guild. Please send mistress Kadae my regards."

"Just as well," her voice sounded rougher, the affectation of a privileged chantry upbringing dropped entirely, "I no longer wish to be here."

He dropped the bag of silver on the table, 30 pieces in all. She reached for the bag, tested the money and counted it twice before nodding.

"What do you mean, we don't need the help of the order anymore? We never would have caught him out if Lily- My apologies- Lilium had not batted her eyelashes into Jowan's good graces!"

"There was too much of a spectacle, the mages will be wary now when starting relationships with strangers. Besides," he waved his hand for Lilium to go and watched as she gripped the bag with white knuckles.

"We went too far this time. Too many people have been hurt by this endeavor. We want to catch mages learning blood magic to use for foul purposes, not to protect a girl they think is in love with them. Nor do we want to alienate good mages in the process. Dylan was one of my best students."

"Blood magic should not be learned at all!"

"And we should not drive them to it. Go back to collecting your evidence the old fashion way, our getting creative has had adverse effects. Talk to Uldred when he gets back from Ostagar, he seems to have an uncanny ability for sniffing out wrongdoing."

Greagoir spluttered a bit more before leaving.

The girl had been remorseful, he noticed. Could she have actually fallen in love with Jowan? The worst of his students, it often took hard work from Jowan to get easy spells right. The only school in which he had really excelled was Entropy, which not many students took time to master beyond the basics. Perhaps that should have been the warning sign. Truthfully, the man was never powerful enough to attract much of Irving's attention, but his tight friendship with Surana and Dylan was. Why they preferred him to the more skilled and social of the tower's occupants was as mysterious as the man himself. He worked hard but not too hard, was always just at where he was expected to be. One of the reasons that Irving had put off Jowan's harrowing was because he had no idea what to do with him once he was harrowed. Where does one put a person so out of place? Perhaps that was why he was attracted to Lilium in the first place. For all her acting ability, she had always been slightly out of place in the chantry. Maybe she had been out of place in her own guild, who knew? The plan had never been to facilitate an escape, merely gather enough information to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was learning blood magic, maybe find out who his cohorts were. Jowan's words to Lilium had stuck in his brain, "I only learned to protect us."

He had meant to find the cause, not be the cause. Abruptly he stood from his desk, he needed to get out. Taking his time he wandered to the roof, part of him expecting to find Dylan there. It was empty, but for a few startled birds. The wind stung at his face. It was approaching dusk, the first twinkle of the night stars winked out at him from beneath pink clouds. Below him stretched the ground where Jowan was running from the Templars, Dylan was walking toward his future, and Surana was six feet underneath.

"May the Maker have mercy on you all."

He let the wind carry the phrase into the world.