Despite being interrupted by Garevel before the morning could get really good in bed with Adara, it hadn't been a bad day so far. The weather was mild, breakfast was good, and Carver was able to spend most of his time in the yard sparring with whoever was around. Leo was always a reliable sparring partner, nearly Carver's match in size and strength. Nolan ran his mouth too much and the way he could flank Carver was irritating as shit, but Carver managed to disarm the rogue twice that morning.

All in all, Carver was feeling pretty damn pleased with himself as he headed towards the hall in search of something else to eat. He paused by the chapel when he heard weeping coming from inside, peering through the door which had been left slightly ajar. It was that ex-sister from Aeonar. She was sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped around her knees as she sobbed bitterly.

"I don't want to do it," she said aloud to no one through her tears. "Maker, please don't make me do it."

Carver looked around. Shouldn't someone be keeping an eye on her? He hesitated. It didn't feel right to ignore her, but he could think of few things he wanted to do less than try to comfort a traumatized Chantry sister in the middle of a personal breakdown. Surely he could find someone else to deal with this. Frowning, he changed course to go find a guard or the seneschal or somebody. Food would have to wait a bit.

He was getting pretty deep into his pity party about having to delay his lunch and wasn't paying attention as he wove through the maze of corridors. Nathaniel Howe must not have been paying attention either, because he rounded a corner at high speed and smashed into Carver hard enough to bounce off him and fall to the floor.

"Shit, sorry," Carver said, holding out a hand to help him up. "Hey, is somebody supposed to be watching that sister? She's crying in the chapel."

"What? We can't leave her alone." Nathaniel frowned and took off for the chapel at an even faster pace than he had been going before. Carver followed with some consternation; it was hardly that serious, right?

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"I sent scouts to look for the messenger who came with her. They didn't find him, but they did find a dead templar off the road into the city. He had this on him." Nathaniel held up a sealed letter. "It's from Aeonar. Knight-Commander's seal."

"There was another messenger?" Carver asked slowly, struggling to see where Nathaniel was going with this. He wasn't stupid, despite what his sister might say, but he was used to letting someone else be the brains of the operation.

"I think someone killed Lily's escort and replaced him," Nathaniel said, his mouth set in a grim line.

"Why would—"

"I have a couple of ideas, none of them good," Nathaniel said. He stopped in front of the chapel and cursed to find it empty. A little ball of dread began to grow in Carver's stomach in response to Nathaniel's distress. "Find the commander and stay with her. Just in case."

"What's Lily going to do, cry at somebody? She looks like she'll fall apart if you look at her too hard."

"I would love to be wrong," Nathaniel said grimly. Not that he was ever not grim, at least in Carver's experience. "I'll get the guards searching. She can't have gone far."

The men parted, and Nathaniel's paranoia was infectious enough to get Carver to move at a fast clip through the corridors. The commander's office seemed like a good place to start; Adara had been heading in that direction the last time he'd caught a glimpse of her.

He passed by Jowan and ignored him as usual, but it was too much to hope for that the mage wouldn't stick his beaky nose in Carver's business. Jowan had obviously taken note of his drawn expression and rapid pace.

"Is something wrong?" Jowan asked.

"Nathaniel thinks your girlfriend is up to something."

Jowan followed him. Maker damnit. "She isn't my girlfriend anymore. What do you mean, 'up to something'? What's she doing?" Carver ignored Jowan's badgering questions until the smaller man finally darted in front of him and put out his hands to force Carver to stop walking. "Tell me what's going on."

"I will punch you in half. Move," Carver said.

Before he could follow up on that threat, he heard a muffled wail coming from the direction of the commander's office. It sounded an awful lot like the sister's weeping in the chapel and was followed by a few ominous thumps. Carver swore and shoved Jowan aside. Jowan was still at his heels when he shoved the door open, and Carver's heart dropped when he saw what was inside.

.

.

Jowan was too horror-struck to move as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing: blood everywhere, Adara on the floor, and Lily—his Lily—sobbing as she reached for a knife. Hawke didn't hesitate. He wrapped an arm around Lily's waist and roughly hauled her away from Adara. Lily's scream was shrill with dismay, and she struggled in Hawke's arms like a wild animal.

Hawke wrenched the knife out of her hands and threw it across the room. "Take her," he said, shoving Lily hard in Jowan's direction before going to Adara's side.

Lily stumbled into his arms, and Jowan was unexpectedly face to face with the woman he loved. The woman whose entire life had been destroyed because she made the mistake of trusting him. The woman who also must have lost her mind and gone after Adara with a knife.

Lily's eyes widened as she recognized him, and that seemed to shock her out of whatever madness had taken her. Maker, her face was so pale and thin, her skin almost waxy. Jowan started to touch her cheek before stopping himself. They stared at each other for what felt like ages.

"Jowan?" she asked finally.

"Lily. It's me. It's—" He started to say that it was alright, but he could hear the way Hawke was pleading with Adara and knew with nauseating certainty that nothing was alright.

Jowan wasn't sure what reaction he had expected from Lily, but it wasn't for her to throw her arms around him and cling so tightly that it hurt while she broke down sobbing. "I had to, I'm sorry, I didn't want to."

Jowan raised his voice to be heard over Lily's sobs. "Is she okay?"

"Does she look fucking okay to you?" Hawke snapped at him. No, she did not. Adara was lying painfully still in Hawke's arms, head lolled to one side. He could see her chest moving occasionally as she breathed in short, jerking gasps, and the only color in her face came from the blood on her lips.

Others were arriving, drawn by the commotion. One of them was Nathaniel Howe, who cursed loudly and hit the door frame with the heel of his hand. "I'm getting Oliver," he said before taking off at a sprint.

That's right, this wasn't like after the attack in Amaranthine. There were proper healers among the Grey Wardens, and at least one of them was currently at the Keep. Jowan had seen Oliver just that morning in the dining hall. If Nathaniel could find him in time, then maybe…

Lily tried to keep holding onto him as Seneschal Garevel directed two guards to escort her away. "It's okay, they won't hurt you," Jowan said to her.

"We'll lock her in the chapel," Garevel said grimly. "Until someone can deal with her."

Jowan was numb with shock as he watched the guards lead Lily away before turning his gaze to his best friend dying on the floor. He fell to his knees beside Hawke and stared at her helplessly. "Adara?" he asked quietly. There was no answer, of course there wouldn't be. There was a terrible rattling sound coming from her chest as she struggled to breathe.

"Got her in the lung, I think," Hawke said thickly, brushing bloodied strands of hair out of Adara's face. "You're a mage. Do something."

"I-I'm not a healer! I don't know how!" Jowan said, shaking his head. They needed a mage who wasn't so Maker-damned useless, not him.

Her chest rose and fell, and then didn't rise again.

"Figure it the fuck out! Do anything!" Hawke growled. "She'll be gone before Oliver gets here."

.

.

"We'll be gone before anyone even notices us!" Adara insisted.

"You're just saying that because you weren't the one who had to scrub the bathroom floor after the last time," Jowan hissed back.

She flapped a hand in the air dismissively. "That's because we brought Keld last time, and he isn't sneaky at all. We'll be fine." Large brown elven eyes looked up at him hopefully—way up, for Jowan had gotten taller almost overnight. Now he was all gangly limbs with a voice that cracked and made the other apprentices their age giggle at him.

"Please! I just want to try one more time." The smile she gave him looked ridiculous thanks to the gap where her last baby teeth had fallen out and new ones had yet to grow in all the way.

Jowan finally agreed. He always agreed in the end, and so did she. They tried to talk each other out of some of their wilder ideas, but they never let one do anything without the other.

They crept up the stairs to one of the floors that was high enough to have a window, one of the floors where they weren't allowed. Adara pressed her hands against the wall and stared up at the window. "Give me a boost."

Jowan was tall enough now that if Adara stood on his shoulders, she could just barely peek over the bottom of the windowsill. There wasn't much to see from their isolated tower in the lake, but it was worth trying to find things to remind themselves that a world existed outside the Circle. "See anything?" Jowan asked, his voice strained.

"Not today. Just the lake. Oh, wait, there's a bird!" She pointed excitedly, not that he could see. "It's a big white one. Like in that poem about the sailors and the ice."

Jowan scoffed. "Can't be, that bird was too big to be real."

"Well, I see it, so it must be real. I wish you could see it too. I'll draw a picture for you."

A templar had caught them then and dragged them by their collars to one of the enchanters, who made them write lines for the rest of the day. Later, Adara drew a picture of a gigantic white bird that was large enough for both of them to ride on its back. Jowan had teased her for it, because the bird definitely couldn't have been that big, but he hung the picture up by his bunk anyway.

It was still hanging there the day he lied to her and left her behind.

.

.

"I'll try," Jowan whispered. For once in his life, there probably wasn't a way to make it worse, right?

His hands shook as he held them over Adara's chest. The blue glow that emanated from them looked sickly. He could remember the way a healing spell was shaped and the way the Fade was supposed to feel when he plucked at it. He had always been rubbish at actually doing it, though.

"Just… just keep her here," Hawke said with a hitch in his voice. "Until the healer gets here. That's all you have to do."

"Oh, that's all!" Jowan snapped. "That's all! Just stop her from dying! But only for a minute! So that's all!" His voice grew more and more hysterical, and he could feel his magic faltering.

Adara had always chided him for giving up when things got difficult. Of course you won't be any good right away, but you don't stop trying, she must have told him at least a thousand times. Jowan drew in a deep breath. Adara had saved his life so many times; surely he could manage to do it in return just once. Just this one single time, Maker, please.

The spell was just as difficult as it had been the last time he'd tried it, but this time he didn't let the wriggling threads of magic escape his grasp and flee back to the Fade. He clung to them tightly, clumsily forcing the energy to go where he needed it. Jowan didn't have the first clue how to close up the hole in her chest or fix whatever damage had been done inside, but he didn't have to. The healing spell only needed to give her body enough strength to keep going for just a little bit longer. Just keep her alive, he told himself. He may have even said it out loud. When he dared to look at her face, her lips were slightly less blue, and he allowed himself to feel the tiniest bit of hope.

It was only a few minutes before Nathaniel and Oliver burst into the room, the mage nearly shoving Jowan out of the way in his haste. If he told Hawke to get out of the way, Hawke ignored him. Oliver barked out orders that others hurried to carry out, but Jowan couldn't hear them. He trembled all over with exhaustion and deep relief.

"I did it," he said with disbelief. Adara was still alive, at least for now.

She had a chance.