.

.

Carver halted, eyeing the sign to the Blooming Rose with apprehension. "You don't really need me for this, do you?"

Vivian gave him a perplexed look. "Don't be ridiculous," she said. "If you're worried someone is going to rat you out, I already know you're in here all the time. I won't tell Mother." The teasing way she drew out the word 'mother' pissed him off, but that happened every time Vivian opened her Maker-damned mouth.

"I don't care about—this isn't about that," he tried to protest. "I just don't see why we need a whole mob to ask some prostitutes about the last time they last saw a couple of idiot templars."

Anders and Varric either didn't notice or didn't care that the siblings had stopped walking. They continued into the brothel without pausing their conversation about… whatever stupid shit Varric and Anders talked about. Vivian regarded Carver silently, which was never a good sign. Her eyes were the same color as Bethany's. She looked more like Bethany's twin than he ever had.

"Quit staring at me," he snapped.

Vivian finally gave him her widest, most shit-eating grin: "I promise I won't seduce your favorite one, okay? Does that help?"

"No."

She rolled her eyes. "Look, just quit being a whiny bastard for five minutes so we can get in and out." Vivian trailed after Varric and Anders and called over her shoulder: "You're used to getting in and out of here pretty fast anyway, right?"

"I hate you so fucking much," Carver complained, but he followed her anyway. He would never hear the end of it if he left now.

Carver did what he did best, which was stand behind Vivian looking short-tempered while she wheedled information out of people. At least when she was harassing other people, she was leaving him alone.

A few questions later, they found themselves face to face with Idunna, the something-something of the East or maybe the West. Everything was normal until the door closed behind them. The air somehow felt thicker with each word Idunna spoke, and Carver's limbs felt pleasantly heavy like he'd had a few drinks. She was probably the most gorgeous woman he'd ever seen, with striking pale eyes and almost certainly really great tits. He wished Vivian would shut up and leave her alone, because she definitely wasn't going to bring her tits out if Viv kept bothering her. It was hard to care about the conversation when Idunna was right there, and he couldn't remember why they were there in the first place. Maybe he should pick Vivian up and physically throw her out.

"Just do one more thing for me," Idunna purred to Vivian. "Draw your blade, and bring it gently across your throat."

Vivian obeyed. There was something… not quite right about that, the sight of his sister holding a knife to her own throat, but Carver couldn't put his finger on why.

"I…" Vivian sounded scared. That triggered another distant alarm in his head. Had she ever sounded scared before?

"I will not… be… toyed with," she finally said, jerking the knife away from her neck. As she did, the heaviness in Carver's head seemed to solidify before cracking into a million pieces and falling away. Idunna fell to her knees and begged for her life.

"What foul magic was that?" Vivian asked furiously.

"Blood and desire in equal measure. An art I learned from…elsewhere."

"Blood magic, then."

It wasn't the first time they had stumbled across blood magic in Kirkwall, not by a long shot, but it was the first time Carver realized it could be so insidious. How was a person supposed to defend against magic that could worm into their head and take control before they even realized there was a threat?

He said as much, that maybe the templars weren't entirely wrong to be worried if mages could do shit like that, after they followed Idunna's information to a den of blood mages in search of the missing templar recruit. He and Vivian got into yet another bitter argument.

"You think the templars should take me, Carver? Is that what you're saying?"

"That's not what I meant! Stop putting words in my mouth." Maker, it was impossible to talk to her about anything.

"I wouldn't have to if the ones you said were less stupid. Why not call the templars on me? If you think there's a chance that I could do something like this, why not have them lock me up? You can tell the knight-captain when we take Keran back, and then you won't have to deal with me anymore."

"You really think I would do that to my own sister? That's really what you think of me, after everything?"

Vivian got quiet after that and wouldn't look at him. "Do you trust me?" she asked, well after Carver thought the discussion had ended.

"Of course I trust you," he said with exasperation. Carver waved his arms to indicate the blood mage den around them: "I know you would never do something like… all of this, alright?"

"How do you know? You don't know what I'd do if I had to, if I was backed into a corner," Vivian said. She still wasn't looking at him. "If the only other choice was my death. Or your death, or Mother's. What would you do then?"

Vivian picked a bad time to give brooding a try, and Carver wasn't in the mood for it. He didn't want to think about whatever she was going on about. She had been acting off ever since they had dealt with Ser Karras and those Starkhaven apostates. "Will you just drop it?" he snapped.

Vivian had, surprisingly and maybe for the first time in her life, dropped it.

.

.

Carver looked down at Astrid. Her eyes and her mouth were open, giving her a look of shock in death. Blood still oozed slowly out of her opened throat, but the deluge was finished. It was impossible not to think about the sight of Vivian—his bold, bright, unbelievable asshole of a sister—poised to cut her own throat just like Astrid had. Just like Adara had made her do.

Lily hadn't been spouting madness after all.

Carver stood very still, waiting for a sense of certainty that never came. He was shaken by what he had seen, but he was more shaken by the realization that whatever these feelings were that he had for Adara, the ones that made him follow her across the kingdom on a really stupid mission without a moment's hesitation, the ones that drove him to protect her when she refused to protect herself… they were still there. Unchanged. He wasn't afraid of her. What the fuck did that mean?

"Hawke," Nathaniel's quiet, even voice interrupted Carver's personal crisis. Nathaniel indicated Carver's side, where Zevran's knife had found a gap in his armor. "How bad is it?"

"It's fine," Carver said a little numbly. It hurt like a bitch, actually, but he wasn't going to bleed out from it. The mages in their party didn't seem like they were presently in the right frame of mind to take a look at it, so it could wait. His personal crisis probably needed to wait, too. He couldn't just keep standing here like an asshole, so he trudged towards the mages while Nathaniel went to Zevran.

Adara was on her knees in the middle of the courtyard with her bloodied hands buried in her hair, shoulders shaking as she cried. Vicious blood mages don't cry when they kill people, he thought, but maybe he was just hunting for excuses.

Jowan knelt at her side with a hand on her back. "I didn't know what to do," she was saying to Jowan through hiccups. "I wasn't strong enough, I didn't know how to stop Zevran without hurting him, I didn't… I couldn't watch Carver die. Any of you."

Carver felt as though he'd been punched in the gut. It was the first time he considered that she had done it to help him, and the guilt that gave him definitely didn't make his feelings any less complicated. Jowan looked up when he heard Carver coming but didn't otherwise acknowledge his presence.

"You don't need to explain yourself. To me, or to anyone," Jowan said to Adara gently.

"What did I do? Maker, I heard her, I felt her. I didn't need to— what did I do?"

"What you had to," Jowan said. His voice was as firm and reassuring as it was physically possible for him to make it. "Fights get messy in terrible ways. That's what you've told me before, right? We're alive. That's what matters." As he spoke, he gently pulled Adara's hand out of her hair and inspected her forearm. Jowan's hand glowed with bluish light, and he set about trying to close the long gash on her arm.

Her tears had mostly subsided into shuddering hiccups, and Adara lifted her head. When she saw Carver standing there, she averted her eyes. "You should let Jowan look at your side," she said after a minute, clearly struggling to reclaim her commander voice.

Carver snorted. "Absolutely not." Jowan gaining a bit of confidence and a few healing spells was all fine and dandy, but Carver still wasn't going to let Jowan's magic anywhere near him unless he was on death's door. Jowan rolled his eyes.

"I'm going to check on Zevran," Jowan announced once the cut on Adara's arm was closed. He gave Carver a warning look that was probably supposed to be intimidating before heading over to Nathaniel and Zevran. Carver refrained from snorting again, if just barely.

Carver sat down next to Adara on the flagstones, and they were quiet for a long minute. "So… that didn't really go as planned, huh?" he finally said.

"You could say that," Adara said miserably. She let out a shaky sigh. "I know what you must think of me now."

Carver pulled his mouth to one side, trying to pull a conclusion out of his complicated tangle of thoughts. "You're still you." The same commander he respected. The same woman he made love to. "Even if you are a… a blood mage."

"I'm not a blood mage," Adara said immediately and vehemently. "I just… I've done it a few times." Her voice grew smaller as she spoke, as if realizing the distinction between 'blood mage' and 'mage who does blood magic sometimes' did not exist in any meaningful way.

"I don't want to do it. I've never wanted to do it. But when my only other option is to die or to lose someone that matters to me…" she closed her eyes tightly. "It's not really a choice."

Carver recalled Jowan's words to him on their disciple hunt: Once she claims you as someone she loves, there is nothing she won't do to take care of you, whether you want her to or not. Whether it's good for her or not.

He thought of Vivian, too. You don't know what I'd do if I had to, if I was backed into a corner.

Maker, he wished he could talk to Bethany.

Words were complicated, and he didn't have the right ones, so he didn't try. He pulled Adara to him and wrapped his arms around her tightly. He was uncertain and afraid—not of her, but for her—but maybe if he just held on to her tightly enough, nothing else would matter.