Four days later, outside the main western gate of Denerim, Ten gathered her people around for a brief lecture on city etiquette. "Wynne, Lelianna, Zevran,I am going to go ahead and assume you know how to act here," said Ten, "But the rest of you. Walk fast. If you see something you think is strange, you glance, you move on, and you keep your reaction to yourself. Don't gawk at the buildings, don't talk to anyone trying to sell you something. Don't make eye contact with beggars. And I cannot stress this enough - do not step in the puddles."

"It hasn't rained in days," said Morrigan.

"They're not water," said Ten.

"I don't think I like it here."

They had set up camp outside the walls alongside about half a dozen refugee families too traumatized to notice what a very strange group they were.

"I am going to see some… associates," said Ten, "I left in a hurry. Lot of unfinished business. Lelianna, you're good chasing down our solitary monk?"

"I'm taking the assassin," she said, "He does a solid break and enter."

"That I do," chuckled Zev, "In more ways than one."

"Young man, do you ever stop?" asked Wynne dryly.

"Only when requested," replied Zevran, "And that is a rare occasion indeed."

"Please, take him anywhere I don't have to listen to the constant innuendo," said Ten, "Everyone else?"

A chorus of annoyed agreement came from the rest of them, each convinced they knew exactly what they were getting into. Except Alistair, who shook his head, "You are not running off by yourself in this city. The rest of us nobody knows, but you? You've gone out of your way to make yourself downright notorious. The guard will be on you like flies on a corpse. Especially after your last stunt."

"Lovely analogy," said Ten, "You know you ought to go have tea with my dad while we're here, the two of you would get on splendidly, thinking of ways to keep me in line. Look, I can't stop you, you're grown, but if you insist on following me around you are going to learn quite a few things you can't unlearn, and I don't know if you've the stomach for it."

"No fair trying to lose me in a blind alleyway," he said, "Or are you planning to have some of your cousins rob me?"

"Rob you of what?" she chuckled, "Have you not noticed we're flat broke? All right, come on, you can live vicariously through someone who actually has friends. First, of course, I need to stop at home. Make sure my cousins haven't burned it down," she said, "Come on, eyes straight ahead, if you gawk at the man in the dress over there I will push you into the river. There's a bridge further up, through that alley there."

"Why can't we take that one?" he asked, pointing at the large, well-crafted bridge of white stone at the south central end of the district.

"We're… not really supposed to use that one," said Ten, "Unwritten rule. Someone will have something to say."

"You… what do you mean you?"

"Elves, of course," she said.

"They have special bridges you can't use?"

"Again, it's unwritten," she said, "Like we can't really go to certain neighborhoods after dark or wind up hung from a tree. Some sections of the city are just off limits if someone doesn't know you…"

"That's really…"

"Horrible I know," she said, "But needs must, come on, try not to knock down any old ladies."

She bustled through the crowded markets, down the alley, past the warehouse where Soris worked, then across the rickety wooden bridge that spat them out by the gate of the Alienage.

The gate was closed.

"They can't possibly still be locked down," Ten muttered. She reached up and pulled the bell outside the sentry box beside the gate, feeling the blood rush to her face as she remembered that last time she'd been in that sentry box.

After a few minutes, Officer Kennit's face appeared in the window of the sentry box. His eyes went wide with recognition and he hurried through it and out into the street by the river where the two of them stood. "Arlessa! You're… alive," he said.

"Long story," she said, "What's going on here? Why's it locked down? Still me?"

"Not directly," the aged guardsman sighed, "After the Grey Wardens came to snatch you up, Arl Urien completely lost his mind. Started trying to agitate the population to purge the Alienage. He couldn't punish you, so he wanted to punish your family….relax. Nothing too terrible happened. He just locked it down, and it probably would have passed, but… some genius decided to shoot him down in the middle of a speech in the square outside his estate."

"Someone, who's someone?" asked Ten, "Elves aren't allowed weapons, we all know that."

"Yes, well, we all know how effective that rule is," Kennit said, glancing at the hatchet by her side.

"They just decided it was one of us," said Ten.

"It was the most convenient explanation."

"How bad is it?" she asked.

"Well, Teyrn Loghain has decided he's in charge. He brought in some inbred from Amaranthine to take over the arldom, I'm not sure if it's meant to be temporary. Either way it's been chaos. So we do what we've always done, escort those of you who work outside the Alienage to their shifts, bring them back at the end."

"Anyone I care about die?" asked Ten.

"No," he said, "Lieutenant Villais brought on several more guardsmen, kept the mobs out. The new arl thinks it's to protect the city from the elves, but…"

"Lieutenant!" exclaimed Ten.

"What, you think he wouldn't have gotten a fat promotion, bringing the Vengeful Bride to justice?"

"I suppose that tracks," she said, "Is he around?"

"He's taken the evening shift, no doubt you'll find him here after sunset," said Kennit, "He'll probably be quite happy to see you. He hasn't been the same since the news came out of Ostagar."

"Really," she said, trying not to visibly squirm.

"And, in all honesty," said Kennit, sighing and running his hand through his iron-gray curls, "I'm quite happy to see you as well."

"So I suppose I don't have to worry about you alerting your compatriots that I'm in town," she said, "Not even for a fat promotion?"

"Lass, I am seventy-two years old," he said, "All I want is to sleep in the guardbox until I can't anymore, then collect my pension and waltz off to my pyre."

"Well, thanks for that, I guess," she said.

"Anyway, your cousins would burn my house down," he said, chuckling, "And… in all honesty, I've spent more of my life in this sentry box than anywhere I've actually lived. I watched you grow up. My job is peace, and bringing you in now would certainly not bring any peace."

"I suppose getting in there is too much to ask for," sighed Ten.

"That is a bridge I dare not cross," said Kennit, "I'll let your dad and your uncle know you came by. Neither of them truly believed you'd died out there, it'll be nice to bring someone some good news for a change."

"Thanks, Kennit," she said.

"Be careful out there, Arlessa."

"I will."

Ten turned and walked out of sight of the sentry box before she heaved a great sigh.

"What was that about?" asked Alistair, "Why'd he call you 'arlessa'?"

"Nickname," Ten semi-lied, "I was always acting high and mighty, after all. Well, I suppose tea with my dad is out."

"Did I hear that right? Someone assassinated Arl Urien?"

"Yes. It does make sense that it would be one of us," she said.

"It makes more sense that Loghain saw an opening to bring in someone loyal to him and blame it on the least popular folks in town," Alistair said.

"You know," she said, looking at him in surprise, "About one out of ten things out of your mouth is actually really smart. You should try to up that ratio."

She had made herself a list of things she intended to do while in town and cross referenced it with the neighborhood she was in. The Alienage was situated on the low ground near the mouth of the river, where it would flood before any other area of the city. To the west, up river, were the terracotta roofs and small balconies of the Antivan quarter, to the south along the coast was the steep and treacherous hill where the second-most-ragged slums stood.

"All right, while I was at Redcliffe I took the liberty of going through some of the arl's things. You know, just in case there was something we needed to know that they were not going to tell us."

She had not divulged the dirtiest of secrets, she wasn't sure how he'd handle the fact that she'd let Isolde go after only two beatdowns, knowing that she was behind her husband's condition, and didn't feel the need to justify herself for that. But Alistair was, after all, nosy as all get out and got personally offended when he was not let in on every tiny detail of every tiny plan. So she figured she would give him a small secret and hope he was satisfied.

"You rifled through his desk?" Alistair asked.

"Yes, I rifled through his desk. We have no idea when or if he's waking up. It's where we found Fra Genotivi's address here, where I sent Zev and Lelianna to visit. There was another Denerim address in there though, I want to drop by and see what is going on with that."

"What else did you find?"

"He's got some woman on payroll," she said, "It was strange, everyone else was either castle staff or someone with a title. Except for Fra Genotivi, and this one other name." She squinted at her own handwriting. "She's in the slums up there." She pointed to the great cliff to the south, where dilapidated buildings were built all the way up to the rim.

"She have a name?"

"Goldanna MacCathaíl," said Ten, "Why, does that mean something to you?" She looked up and Alistair had visibly blanched, "That looks like a yes and also like that 'yes' has scared the absolute shit out of you."

"Well, remember after we got on about that business at the mage's tower, and you asked me where the demon in the Fade put me, and I told you about that one half sister?"

"Really!" Ten exclaimed, "So why do you suppose Eamon's paying her twenty sovereign a month?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," said Alistair, "Maybe he felt bad about… all that unpleasantness."

"What do you know about her?"

"She's got about ten years on me. Married twice. Five kids."

"Suppose she's blond like you?" asked Ten, the gears turning in her head. Slums. Five kids. Second husband. Always desperate for money.

"I wouldn't know," he said, "Probably."

"I don't know if you want to be along for this bit," said Ten.

"Why wouldn't I? She's the only family I have, I'd been meaning to look her up before. You're not leaving me out of this one."

"Ah, well… I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I think I know her," she said, "It didn't occur to me at first, but I've put two and two together, and I'm pretty sure she used to be a regular customer of mine, when I had my alchemist's stall. I just… don't want you to be disappointed."

"Why would I be disappointed?"

"I don't think you're going to be welcomed with squishy hugs," said Ten, "She's had a hard life. Hell, I did nothing but help her out and she had a few unkind words for me."

"Why would she have gone to an elfin alchemist?"

"I was… discreet. If she'd gone to the ones in her neighborhood her husband would have figured it out," said Ten, "And I have a soft spot for women in her… position."

"Position? And why would her husband care if she needed medicine? Or was she trying to poison him?"

"Alistair… how do I put this. Most women don't have five kids because they wanted five kids," she said, "Some do I suppose. My aunt Lydeia sure seemed to pop them out. But I digress...in any case, I helped her with… managing to not have any more."

"How'd you manage that?"

She sighed. "Do I have to explain to you how babies are made?"

"Maker's breath, Teneira, would you just tell me what's going on?"

"This is so not men's business," Ten sighed, "But there are certain… herbs, certain mixtures of plants that can end a pregnancy before it reaches its usual conclusion. The Chantry doesn't outright denounce it, but it's not something most women like to talk about. Especially not with men. And sometimes men, when they learn they don't get to decide how many children or when, they get violent. So it's best kept a secret. You understand now?"

"You're right, I really wish I didn't know that," he said.

"I want you to understand. She has had a hard life," she said, "And the thing about people with hard lives, they don't always have the energy for kindness."

"You had a hard life."

"Yes, and we all know what you think of me," she said, "So imagine me but with five brats I don't want and a husband who thinks a romantic evening is blackening my eyes."

"I really hope you're wrong about who she is."

"Oh, Alistair," she sighed, "Even if I'm wrong, nobody who lives on that hill has had it easy."

"All the same. Family. I know you take it for granted, you only complain about your dad every time he comes up, but I've never had that. There's kind of this hole where they ought to be, you know? I'd just like to fill it in with something, even if it's... not the nicest something."

"I know," said Ten, "I know. Come on, it's a steep climb, no sense in wasting the daylight."

"Say, is that supposed to be you?" he asked, pausing as they reached the base of the long, winding road that lead up to the hill.

She looked to see where the cliff face, perpetually covered in graffiti, boasted an enormous painting, a cartoon silhouette of a woman wearing a bridal veil and carrying an ax in one hand.

"Well!" she exclaimed, "I suppose it is."

The roads wound a spiral around the hill, and they climbed up and up, circling the sheer cliffsides. Now, this was curious, on another cliffside, this one facing the harbor, someone had painted another bride.

Stencils, she thought, I wonder what it means…

They emerged off of the winding street into full sunlight at the top of the hill. It was mostly derelict apartment buildings, some with the roofs all but caved in. Ten consulted the address she had written down, and looked around.

There was another one, painted on the side of a warehouse perched on the cliffside. Well that's odd. People in this part of town have no love for the elves… or did they finally realize who their true enemies are?

In the middle of a block they found what they were looking for. She had only gotten a couple of sideways glances on their way up the hill. There was nobody who hated elves quite like a poor human, she had learned, and she was grateful that she was armed to the teeth for this particular journey.

"Fuck is at my door?" a woman's raspy voice cried out. She recognized that voice. She had been correct after all.

"It's Ten the alchemist," said Ten.

The door was wrenched open and a haggard looking woman in her thirties stood behind it. "Well shit, come in off the street before you get rocks thrown at you."

Ten stepped gingerly into the house, the smell of old laundry and stale food smacking her right in the face.

"Kids, get out, dinner's in two hours."

"Is that the elf that comes to take us away if we're bad?" the eldest of the bunch, a redheaded nine-year-old of indeterminate gender with two front teeth missing.

"Yes," said Ten, "So you'd better mind your ma and do as she says or I'll bake you in a pie."

The house was… something. Five kids, Ten reminded herself, can't expect it to be clean. Not like you grew up in splendor. Didn't grow up in squalor, either, though.

"You need something for the… uh… wildlife?" Ten asked, glad for the boots on her feet as a swarm of cockroaches dove for cover ahead of her footsteps.

Goldanna shooed the last of her children out of the door. Ten counted them. She was still at five, youngest old enough to run, thank the Maker.

"What could you possibly be doing here?" Goldanna demanded, "I thought you were executed. I lit a candle in the Chantry for you."

"You needn't have done that," said Ten, "Though I appreciate the sentiment. The Grey Wardens came and snatched me from the gallows. Which is, oddly, why I'm here."

"What could I have to do with the Grey Wardens?" the woman asked skeptically, "Only battles I have are the weekly knockdown dragouts with the sot I married, and every time I lose, I have another baby."

"Andraste's right tit, you're still married to that man? You want something to put in his food?" Ten offered.

"Unless you're going to come up with his weekly wages, it's he stays put or the little ones get hauled off to the Chantry and I to the workhouse."

"Well just say the word if you change your mind," Ten sighed, "Anyway, what I was getting at is that the Grey Wardens put me in contact with this gentleman here. Who is, I have it on good authority, your long lost half brother."

Goldanna looked at Alistair sharply as though seeing him for the first time, "You?"

"Hi."

Ten watched her expression change. Guarded, then miserable, and then incandescent with rage. "Oh that devious… And what the fuck is that to me? The son of the king who forced himself on my mother? The one who killed her? Why would I want to see that?"

Ten tensed. This was worse that she had thought. Out of the corner of her eye she could see her companion positively wilt at the pronouncement.

"Surely you can't blame him for that," Ten said, "Childbirth is dangerous. You know that better than I."

"Childbirth! Is that what he told you?" she turned her glare on her brother, "Our mother didn't die in childbirth. She fucking offed herself. Took a running leap off a cliff, I watched the guards scrape her off the rocks."

Ten glanced up at Alistair. By the horrified look on his face, he had been lied to - if indeed, this Goldanna was telling the truth, which Ten was not a hundred percent sure of.

"And you," she spat, pointing her finger at Alistair without looking at him, "They told me you died. Paid me off. Twenty sovereign a month seemed like a fortune to a young girl, but it doesn't stretch so far these days. But of course, it was all a gambit, one of those ridiculous games you fucking nobles play to grab more power. And of all the indignities, you show up just as the payments stop. Is this some sort of joke?"

"I didn't make that happen," Alistair protested, "I didn't…"

"What, you thought I was going to be just thrilled that you live? To remind me that nothing's gone right in my life since I was eleven years old?" she countered, "That it was marry the first and second idiots who asked for my hand or be put in the same position our ma was? Why are you here? Could have taken a flying leap myself, for all any of you cared."

"I thought…"

"You thought wrong. Get the fuck out of my kitchen."

"It's not his fault," Ten said.

"Then you can get the fuck out of my kitchen too. What are you doing here, Ten the Alchemist? Don't you kill lordlings? Don't you have an ax with his name on it?"

"Hey, give it a rest," Ten said, "I've always been square with you. I have never once had an unkind word for you. Half the time I didn't even take your coin. You owe me several favors at this point, so fucking stop."

Alistair looked like he'd been slapped. "Where does your husband work?" he said finally, "I want to have a word with him."

"Warehouse at the edge of the cliff there, but right now he'll be getting drunk at the Goshawk Pub at the end of the block," Ten said, "Redheaded son of a bitch named Driscoll."

"How did you know that?" they both asked, in the exact same tone of voice.

"I know he works at that warehouse because my cousin Morran works there and complained about a fellow named Driscoll who was always drunk on the job," she said, "I know your husband is named Driscoll because you only complained about him beating on you every time you came to my stall, which you did on no fewer than seven occasions. I know he's a redhead because it's just numerically improbable you'd have five ginger kids with anything else. I know he's at the Goshawk because Morran said that's where all the lads would go at this hour. Except him and the other elf because the bartender's a racist prick. And I know he's a son of a bitch because… well that part's obvious."

"Goshawk," Alistair said, "Ten, do not even think of leaving without me, I'll be back." He got up, and walked out.

"What's he going to do?" Goldanna asked.

"I honestly have no idea," Ten said, "Look, the monthly stipend stopped because the arl's been sick and for reasons you must understand, his wife was not appraised of them. I don't have twenty sovereign on me, but I'll see what..."

"Like I'd take charity from a…"

"Think really carefully about finishing that sentence."

"What, are you going to beat on me too?"

"Give it a fucking rest," Ten said, "Tell me, when have I ever been anything other than decent with you? You could be here with eight brats and another on the way by now. I could have said, at any point in the last five years, fuck off, I don't serve your kind, you don't have the money. But I didn't."

Goldanna was quiet a long moment. "You're right. And that made me angry, thought you were taking the piss. Like you were all self satisfied, oh, here's a human who's even lower than I am. Then I heard you went and made mincemeat of Arl Urien's son and I realized you actually were… just a decent sort."

"You were just another girl in a bad place," said Ten, "And there but for the grace of the Maker would I have been."

"I wasn't exactly nice to you. I'm not exactly being nice to you now, am I."

"You're not," Ten said, "But see, the thing is I really don't give a shit, call me whatever you want, I'm used to it. Alistair, though…. He doesn't really get it. You really didn't have to talk to him like that."

"Put yourself in my shoes," said Goldanna, "My childhood wasn't perfect, my mother scrubbed floors, I mended clothes, but it was a life. It was comfortable. Better than my kids have it. And then, she doesn't come back to the quarters one day. I go looking for her. Heard the screaming first. And I… I couldn't do anything about it. I was a child. And he was the king."

"All right, you've impressed me, that is the officially the most fucked up thing I've heard today," said Ten.

"Don't look at me like that, you know exactly how I felt. I heard what they did to your little sister."

"Cousin," said Ten.

"Same difference. They said you found her afterwards and that's when the chopping started. It made you so angry you murdered three men. If I'd had an ax and just a little more pluck…"

"I guess I do know," said Ten, nodding slowly, resisting the feeling of nausea, lower and quieter than it had hit her on that night, but churning her guts nonetheless.

"And how will you feel if your cousin has a kid from that? You think you could love that baby?"

"I… honestly don't know," she said. Shianni, of course, would not be having a kid from… that. She knew where the stash of abortifacients was. Unless she wanted to. Shit. How would I feel?

"So don't sit there telling me to be nice to the spit and image of that… man. Sure, your friend is all innocent and upstanding now, maybe, but careful of giving that one a taste of power. Last thing we need is another Maric. Best thing that could have happened was for that line to end as it did."

They were interrupted by a crash from outside. Not exactly close, but not far either. They ran to the window to see that the window of the Goshawk Public House, at the end of the block, had shattered out into the road. And the thing that shattered it - a cowering, glass-covered mess of a man - was in the middle of it.

"I really hope that's the right redhead," asked Ten.

"It is," said Goldanna.

"I'm going to guess your husband didn't just throw himself through the window of the bar," Ten said. So much for getting out of this neighborhood in one piece.

"No, I don't suppose he did," said Goldanna, putting her hand over her mouth.

The two women exited the house, Ten's hand on her hatchet. By the time they reached the inn, a redfaced Alistair had walked out the door and was looming over the shrinking Driscoll.

"What do we say?" he asked.

"I'll k-keep my hands off your sister," Driscoll blubbered, holding his arms over his head to ward off the blows that were surely coming, "I'll never raise a finger to her again. I swear!"

"And what's going to happen if you do?"

"You're going to r-rip my arm off and b-beat me to death with it."

"That's right, though I think I specified 'from the socket.'" Alistair said, satisfied. He saw the women standing there, reached down and picked the man up by the back of his collar, turned him, and dragged him up to the two women so he was about two feet from them, "And now what do we say."

"I'm sorry, l-light of my life," he said.

"What else?"

"N-no more pints. I'll hand my wages - all of them! All of my wages! - to you straightaway ev- every week."

"Good man. And now what are you going to do?"

"G-go back to work and stop d-drinking."

"Well done. A prize for the star pupil."

He threw him to the ground in front of his gobsmacked wife. Grateful to be released, Driscoll did a little half-bow, half-cringe, wiping the blood from his forehead, and then turned and limped down the street to his workplace.

"Well now there's two of us that can't drink at the Goshawk," said Alistair, cracking his knuckles, all of which were split and bleeding.

"Might be time to get out of this neighborhood," Ten said, nervously watching the rest of the patrons file out into the street, disappointed the brawl was over, "Before the torches and pitchforks come out."

"They'll calm down in a few days," Goldanna said, "Look, Alistair, if you really want, come and see me when this is all over. We can figure it out. And I'm sorry for what I said. If that's worth anything."

"I… don't think so," he said, "I wish you the best, I truly do, but my presence has clearly disturbed you, and I try not to go where I'm not wanted."

Goldanna nodded slowly, and turned to go back into her house.

"No, for real though," Ten said, as the bartender, an enormous man with a bald pate and forearms the size of ham hocks followed his patrons out and surveyed the damage, one hand on his head and the other on the base of a very large crossbow, "We should get out of this neighborhood."

"Yes, I'll find somewhere else to get drunk," Alistair said, "Thanks for trying to prepare me for that but it was…"

"We really need to get out of here," said Ten, tugging on his sleeve, "Come on!"

She led the way, dodging into an alley, hopping fences and cutting through courtyards until they got to the unpopular, steep, and very rickety stairs that led down into the Antivan quarter below. She slid down the uneven bannister when she could, took the stairs two at a time when she couldn't, and at the base of the stairs, doubled back into the shadow of the cliff.

"So, are you going to give me a lecture about how it's not appropriate to beat strangers in the street?" Alistair asked her when he finally caught up to her.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Ten said, looking warily up the staircase above them, "That was about the most socially acceptable thing you've managed in weeks."

"Why Ten, I rather think you actually approve."

"What can I say? I'm a fool for a well-deserved beatdown. Come on, let's go find somewhere we're not about to get a bolt through the eye and I'll put a bandage on those knuckles. And we'll get you that drink."

"Well shit, you're actually being nice to me. The last time I busted my own knuckles you told me to fuck off and lick my wounds all on my own."

"Well last time you busted your own knuckles you were shadowboxing and somehow forgot there was a tree in front of you," said Ten, "You deserved to sit with that one. Come on, we're in the right neighborhood, and I have a brilliant idea."