What they find is a blood mage. A blood mage!

"He's evil," Alistair hisses at the Lady Cousland as they withdraw to confer over whether to release him or not. "He poisoned Arl Eamon, he works for Teyrn Loghain, and he's a blood mage! You can't trust him!"

"Is this the Templar or the warden, speaking, Alistair?" Morrigan asks archly, while Leliana intones, "We all deserve a second chance." "And was it not just a scant few days ago you were begging Ailis to save another caged man's life?"

"I wasn't begging—that's not the point," Alistair says. "He's why a whole village was under siege by the undead."

"And yet you were willing to free a qunari that killed a family. Tell me, Alistair, where is your threshold for second chances? Bigger than a family, smaller than a village? Or shall we be honest and say 'tis magic you find unforgivable?" Morrigan needles.

"From what I understand," the Lady Cousland says slowly, "it was Connor who unleashed the demon, and it was not something Jowan taught him."

"Who knows with maleficars?" he questions. "He could have been training Connor to be like him!"

"A man desperate to regain his place in the world wouldn't do that," the lady says, then claps her hands. "Nevertheless, I've decided." She turns back to the cell. "Ser mage, I unlock your door. You will come with us to the upper echelons of the castle to seek out Isolde and Teagan."

"A-and fight the undead?" the mage shrinks. Despite himself, Alistair can't help but feel pity as he looks upon the man: dressed in but torn robes, his face and body a mass of bruises, the man looks pathetic. He also looks like he hasn't eaten in days, and—Alistair feels his heart clench.

"Yes," the lady says decidedly, "and fight the undead. You are a mage, so I'm certain you can fire an energy bolt or two. Leliana, would you please give him some bread and cheese."

Faced with the Lady Cousland's utter command, the mage really had no choice. He accepts the food Leliana gives him, with a murmur of thanks, and when he is done chewing and swallowing, is given a piece of wood by Morrigan in turn.

He turns it over and over in his hands, surprised.

"Calenhad found it," Leliana volunteers, smiling at him in a friendly manner. "Morrigan tells us it's a fairly powerful staff in its own right. Good for firing your energy bolts, no?"

The mage manages a smile. "Yes. It is…good." He flexes his hand and forms a ball of green energy at the tip of the staff.

"Don't even think about it," Alistair warns, readying a holy smite. Morrigan snarls and steps conspicuously away from him.

The green energy forms slowly into a white lily. The mage looks at it with agony on his face, then hands the flower to Leliana. She exclaims in delight, while Alistair scowls.

He does let the smite dissipate, though.

xxx

The worst thing about fighting the undead is, well—

They're the undead. Meaning they were once alive. Meaning Alistair has just cut down the kennelmaster, who used to sneak him bits of meat before feeding the mabari, and he is now crossing swords with old Tom, who was a drunk but a fair guard.

Taught him the same trick he's using just now, the one that trips an opponent so you can point your sword at his throat and say "Yield!"

Except old Tom won't yield, and Alistair has to look at him as he plunges his swordpoint into the man's throat.

Old Tom gurgles, and is still.

Don't think about it, Alistair tells himself sternly, and follows his leader along the hallways of his youth.

They find and free Valena, the smith's daughter, which is, well, good. Maybe that old drunk can stop moping now. Leliana hands her a flask of wine and some bread before she leaves. Pinned by several incredulous gazes, she defends herself, "She was weak! Perhaps the wine and bread will help her run faster."

"Or distract her that she falls and becomes easy pickings for the undead," Morrigan drawls.

Why, oh why, doesn't his lady—the lady, rather—just send her off to crawl into a bush and die?

Leliana laughs and pats Morrigan's bare shoulder, causing more incredulous gazes.

The mage holds his own, too, despite being weak from days without food and, oh yes, the torture. He seems to be strengthening as he battles, actually. Alistair watches suspiciously as energy leeches from a corpse and surrounds the mage's body. As he watches, the bruises on the mage's face heal.

"'Tis no more dangerous a magic than I use, Alistair. Have no fear," Morrigan says to him aside. "Or do you think I will allow harm to come from one of Ailis's charity cases? When I spend so much time cleaning up your messes?"

"You've never cleaned up camp a day in your life," Alistair accuses, but. Maybe he stops watching the mage so obsessively.

But still. Morrigan. Die.

xxx

They unlock the courtyard gate, letting Ser Perth and the other knights of Redcliffe enter. Of course, as soon as they do that more undead and oh, a revenant rise up, and in moments they're battling for their lives again.

"I prefer darkspawn," he pants to the Lady Cousland as his sword clangs against the revenant's shield.

"Really?" she asks breathlessly, driving her sword up through the revenant's throat. It staggers, but parries Alistair's next hit. "With all the growling, and the smell?"

"The undead smell too," he points out.

"But the undead don't smell rotten," she says, and twists to behead a corpse attempting to slip a dagger between her ribs. "It's odd really…undead should smell like corpses."

"With the whole castle full of them for days? They'd never get the smell out of the tapestries, my lady."

She laughs, and slams the pommel of her sword onto an oncoming corpse's head. "You never call me by my name, Alistair," she says, and a spell from Jowan ices over the corpse, leaving it struggling on the ground. "Why is that?"

"I, uh—" Alistair is utterly discombobulated. Then the revenant stumbles, and he sees his chance. He cleaves its head from its body.

Goodbye and good riddance, he thinks viciously.

"Alistair?"

He looks at her, lovely Lady Cousland with her braid coming undone, steel-blue eyes looking at him inquiringly. "I suppose…you never said I could," he says slowly.

Then another wave of corpses come, and they are much too busy fighting to speak.

xxx

They enter the main hall with the knights, and—and—

Alistair feels like throwing up. Bann Teagan being made a toy is bad enough, but Connor being a plaything for a demon is even worse. He watches with horrified eyes as Connor surveys the lot of them, no sign of the boy within his grey eyes.

"I came to see Arl Eamon," the Lady Cousland says composedly, in response to the question of her presence there.

"So you're a concerned well-wisher!" Connor says in a voice too deep for him. "Then you really didn't have to kill all my soldiers."

"I really did," the Lady Cousland says. "They were endangering your arling, your responsibility, Connor."

"It's not Connor!" Lady Isolde bursts out hysterically. "That's not Connor, that's not my baby, don't refer to him as if—"

"Quiet, Mother!" Connor snaps. Then suddenly, the boy staggers.

"Mother?" he says in a tiny, childlike voice. "Mother, where am I? What's happening?"

"Oh thank the Maker. Connor!" Lady Isolde rushes toward him, throwing her arms around him, heedless of Lady Cousland's cry of, "Don't! It could be a trick!" "Connor, baby, stay this time, stay!"

"Jowan? Jowan, help me!" Connor cries out, seeing his tutor standing there with them. "How do I make her leave?"

Jowan steps forward, hands outstretched. "Stay calm, Connor," he soothes. "Try to clear your mind. A stronger mind may have more chance of keeping a demon at bay—"

"You! You did this to Connor!" Lady Isolde cries out hysterically. "Stay away from him! Stay away from my baby!"

"And then what do I do?" Connor asks urgently. "Hurry, I can feel her coming back! Jowan please, Jowan help me!"

He begins to struggle against his mother's embrace, trying to reach his tutor. Then all of a sudden he goes perfectly still.

"Such a fighter," Connor purrs, "but when will he realize I only let him out when I want to? No one tells me what to do."

"Noooo-one tells him what to do!" Bann Teagan echoes.

"Quiet, uncle!" Connor snaps, and pushes his mother's arms roughly away. "Get away from me, fool woman!"

"This is horrible," Leliana says in an undertone. Mistress of understatement, she is. "Is there no way we can help?"

"An exorcism?" Ser Perth attempts. He grips his sword tightly, fingertips turning white. "But young Lord Connor, a demon…it would be a mercy to…"

"I don't think an exorcism could help," Alistair says doubtfully. "I mean, I was never a full Templar, but the demon's hold is too strong. Look at him."

And indeed, the demon is in full control again, insulting Lady Isolde's looks and extolling Lady Cousland's. "Half your age and pretty, too!" he sneers to his mother. "I'm surprised you don't have her executed in a fit of jealousy."

"Connor…" Lady Isolde says weakly, but can do nothing aside from that.

And, of course, moments later they're thrown into a fight.

"Nonlethal!" the Lady Cousland cries. "They're not dead yet, so maybe we can break them free of the demon's hold!"

"Must we?" Morrigan sulks.

"We must," the Lady Cousland says cheekily. She leaps forward and engages Bann Teagan into battle.

"Maybe all we need is to kill the demon," Alistair mutters to no one in particular, striking the flat of his blade against the guard he is fighting. "But how do we kill it without killing Connor?"

Leliana whizzes by, daggers at the ready—she's probably deemed her arrows too deadly for this battle. "It does seem like violence is the solution most of the time," she agrees sadly.

Jowan, near the back of the room, overhears them. "It's possible," he says, freezing an opponent up to his torso. Morrigan casts a sleep spell on the frozen man. "Using a ritual, we can travel to the Fade and kill the demon there, like in the Harrowing for Circle mages."

"And like the Tevinter magisters did," Leliana observes warily.

"We go to kill a demon, Leliana, not the Maker," Alistair points out. "Why don't we do that, Jowan?"

"Isn't the demon in Connor already?" the Lady Cousland asks. It's odd to watch the deadly woman in nonlethal battle, even though Alistair knows she won last year's tournament in Denerim. Seeing her struggle with Bann Teagan, Jowan and Morrigan rush forward, spells at the ready. "Explain to me how we kill the demon without killing Connor."

"It approached him in his dreams," Jowan explains, encasing Bann Teagan's feet in ice. The bann tugs his feet free and spins to avoid the pommel aimed at his head. "If we enter the Fade and kill the demon there, Connor will be freed from its control."

"Sounds perfect," the Lady Cousland says. "What's the catch?"

"It requires," Jowan pants, "a great deal of magical power—lyrium, really. And I doubt the village Templars have that much lyrium in store. No one but the Circle does."

"But Kinloch Hold is days away," Leliana says. "How will we get there and back before the undead attack once more?"

One of Jowan's ice attacks holds, and Morrigan swiftly puts the bann to sleep. The Lady Cousland sheathes her blade.

"Once he wakes," she nods to the bann, "we will discuss our options."

xxx

In the midst of the battle, Connor ran off, leaving his mother on the dais of the main hall. The woman remained there for the entirety of the battle, doing nothing but sobbing as battle raged under her.

Alistair catches Lady Cousland's face twist, and he thinks his might be twisting, too. Morrigan's observation comes back to him: a trapped animal that won't fight back. A trapped animal that doesn't know it can fight back.

The arlessa was oh so good at tormenting a small boy, but hadn't the strength to do the right thing and send her son to the Circle for training. And now her village was ravaged and her son was demon-possessed. Not for the first time Alistair rues the day an "Orlesian ninny" fell for the arl of Redcliffe, and had that love reciprocated.

They discuss their options, which boils down to:

"We can't go to the Circle," the Lady Cousland says. "The undead could attack again tonight. We need this settled before sundown, else Redcliffe is lost."

"You can't mean to kill my baby!" the arlessa shrieks. She curls in on herself, sobbing hysterically. "You can't mean to kill a small boy!"

"Connor is my nephew, and I am loathe to lose another so soon after the first," Bann Teagan says slowly. "But he is…an abomination. Death…would be a mercy. It would send him to the Maker's side."

"Teagan!" Lady Isolde cries out in utter betrayal.

"Think of your arling, not just of your son," Lady Cousland says to Lady Isolde, harshly. "You are an arlessa. You have a responsibility!"

"You—you know nothing of responsibility!" Lady Isolde cries.

Alistair winces. Before anyone can say anything, he says, "Actually, my lady…this is Teyrna Ailis Cousland of Highever." He places a slight emphasis on Teyrna, as if to tell the Lady Isolde, "Actually, she's responsible for far more than you."

Lady Isolde is stricken, but regains herself. "Then you must understand! Didn't your brother have a son? Wouldn't you do anything to save your nephew?"

The Lady Cousland snarls wordlessly, and advances on Lady Isolde, hand on Champion of Swords. "You foul, loathsome—" she starts.

Alistair steps forward between the two women, facing her. "My lady," he begins.

She snarls at him. Daringly, he takes her hand.

"Ailis," he says. "Please."

"You go too far, Isolde," Bann Teagan says to his sister-in-law, frowning. "Surely you do not mean to sacrifice everyone in Redcliffe for the sake of an abomination?"

"He is not an abomination! He is not always the demon you saw!" Lady Isolde sobs. Mutely, Leliana hands her a handkerchief. "You saw it, sometimes he breaks free, sometimes he—"

"Sometimes the demon loosens its hold in order to taunt you, you mean," Morrigan drawls. "You are blind, woman. The entirety of your husband's lands would be better off if you sent your son to the Circle in the beginning. And you see nothing, blame everyone but yourself!

"Nevertheless," she says, gliding forward, "there is a solution, and Jowan knows it."

"J-Jowan?" Lady Isolde whispers, eyes glistening with tears. "You know something? You can solve this? Why didn't you say something sooner?!"

Jowan's head is bowed. "There is another way to enter the Fade without the use of lyrium," he says softly. "And that is…through blood magic."

He looks up, as if he is willing himself to be strong. His eyes lock upon Lady Isolde's. "But the blood required…it asks a lot from a sacrifice. All of it, in fact. If someone is to step into the Fade to save Connor, someone else has to die to power the ritual."