The next few days were a whirl of meetings and arrangements and following up on leads. Fae had trotted off to her room when they'd returned to Skyhold and remained there, taking requests for Seeing despite Ellethir's insistence on holding off on them for the time being. Cole had become harder to track, flitting from one hurt to another, doing things around Skyhold that made no sense at face value until someone inevitably ended up feeling better.

Solas had suggested giving Fae time, but Ellethir would not accept the Seer sealing herself away in her room again. So the Inquisitor went to Varric, who'd also been looking more dour than usual in recent days, and brought him with her into Solas' office to talk.

"We need to talk about Redcliffe," she began.

"That we do," Varric agreed.

"The amulet appears to be working," Solas said contentedly. "Cole should be adequately protected."

Varric snorted. "Have you talked to him since? Have you heard what he sounds like?"

Solas gave him an odd look. "He sounds like himself. Like a spirit."

Cole materialised out of thin air, sitting cross-legged on Solas' desk. "Nonsense words, like Bartrand at the end. Just need to hear the song again. Just for a minute." He looked straight at Varric, and smiled softly. "I'm alright, Varric."

"And by alright, do you mean you are happy, Cole?" Ellethir asked. "You no longer want that man dead?"

"No. I helped him forget," Cole replied, a hint of pride in his voice. "His pain no longer pulls at me, the weight is off, old chains fallen. And now there is work to do." He paused, pulling at a loose thread on his knee-patch. "You should speak to Fae. Scared, alone but surrounded, always. She won't let me help," he grumbled.

"I was about to suggest the same thing," Ellethir added. "It could have been a coincidence, we already know the Veil in Redcliffe is weak, and it was clear a demon was targeting her."

"Retribution," Cole named it.

"Yes, that makes sense," the Inquisitor nodded, frowning slightly in contemplation. "It must have sensed her distress, but I've seen her upset before, and she's never given any indication that she'd attracted the attention of demons in the process. But it was already talking to her, and it wasn't until she started pushing back that the Rift opened."

"Yeah, about that…" Varric started, rubbing the back of his neck. "She screamed. And it was your run-of-the-mill 'help, it's going to get me!' kind of scream. It's…I think I've seen her like that before."

"What?" Ellethir and Solas both said at the same time.

Varric grimaced. "I take it this is not something that normally happens to distressed mages."

"We are more likely to hear the temptations of demons wanting to make deals," Ellethir admitted.

"Especially in areas where the Veil is thin and the temptation for demons to cross over increases," Solas added.

"But opening tears in the Fade?" Ellethir said doubtfully. "There'd be so many more Fade Rifts if that was possible, especially with the extreme emotions of the rebel mages before the Breach was sealed. I've never heard of it, certainly not in my Keeper's training."

"Eh, well that's the thing," Varric exhaled slowly. "Last time, it was in Kirkwall. Years before the Conclave or any of this shit."

Ellethir ran her hand through her hair, and braced her palms on Solas' desk to lean on it. "So you're telling me now that this is something she's always been able to do? And you've never—and she's never mentioned it until now?"

"She was a kid. Well, an adolescent, at least. But everyone knows mage kids do shit they can't explain, that's usually how they figure out they're a mage in the first place, isn't it?"

"But there were other mages in your company at the time, is that not so?" Solas raised an eyebrow. "None of them could offer an explanation?"

"Well, yeah, but Hawke is an apostate raised by another apostate, Merrill's Dalish, and Anders…" he trailed off. "Well, the Circle's training was never a subject he liked to linger on. He'd taught Fae some basic healing, which she didn't even mention until later, but that was all. And it's not like we just left her to her own devices after that first…incident. Hawke started training her properly as a mage, but then all that shit with the chantry and the Annulment went down, and after that… most of her training came from experience, keeping the refugee encampment defended."

Cole vanished and reappeared in the doorway. "You need to talk to Fae," he repeated. "Her magic is old and she is young."

"Cole's right," Ellethir conceded. "We shouldn't really be having this conversation without her here, I should have found her first. I'll go and get her, she needs to get out of that room."

"You brought it up," Varric grumbled.

The next time there was a knock at the door, Fae knew she remembered to turn the sign over. "No," she called out.

"Out," came Ellethir's voice from the other side of the door.

Fae scrambled out of bed to answer the door, mostly out of surprise. She usually went to the Inquisitor, not the other way around. She answered the door, and Ellethir noticed her red-rimmed eyes and dark circles beneath them. "Ellethir?"

"We're going to talk about what happened at Redcliffe," Ellethir said firmly. "Let's go."

Fae pulled her boots on quickly, and hurried to catch up with the Inquisitor who was already walking across the battlements towards the stairs. "Go where? Is it Cole, is he alright?"

"He's fine, it's you we need to worry about." Ellethir meant to convey her worry as a friend who cared, but judging by the lack of verbal response from Fae, she wondered if her words came out harsher than she intended.

Fae's mind buzzed with possibilities, until her thoughts were interrupted by their arrival in Solas' office. The series of serious expressions that greeted her gave her a horrible sense of déjà vu. "I'm sorry," she said immediately. "I'm sorry."

Solas shook his head. "There's no need to be ashamed."

Fae chuckled half-heartedly. "Isn't there? I messed up, I let my own stuff get the better of me."

"That's kinda what we need to talk about, kid," Varric gestured for her to come in. "You screamed, and a Fade rift opened over your head."

Fae looked at her shoes. "The Veil is weak in Redcliffe, could have been a coincidence."

"We're not sure it is, kid. Do you remember that one time in Darktown?"

She looked up, putting two and two together. "With Evelina. A demon started talking to me then, too."

"Yeah, and the whole foundation of Darktown rattled around us."

"You think it's when demons come to tempt me?" Fae asked, directing her question mostly to Solas and Ellethir. "They can get through anyway?"

"Not exactly," Solas said matter-of-factly. "I would theorise that with your sensitivity to the Fade, the part of the Veil that is nearest to you is made weaker in times of great distress, allowing the Fade to slip through. You scream, and the Veil breaks apart."

Fae looked a little lost. "You think I can rip the Veil open just by screaming?"

"A scream is an output of pure emotion, and pure emotion is what spirits tend to react to the most. A scream is also one's will made manifest, and the Fade itself responds to the will of those it is strongly connected to. Namely spirits, and mages." Solas surmised. "That is why the Veil is weaker in places that have seen great hardship, especially by mages, and why demons are then close enough to possess them and become what you would call an abomination. As to why you are able to take one step further and tear through the Veil, not just weaken it, I cannot say."

"But if that's true…" Fae looked at Varric, eyes wide with alarm. "There were so many abominations created during Meredith's Annulment. Was it because the Veil was weak? Broken? Because I broke it?"

"No," Solas answered for him. "I have seen a great deal of Kirkwall's strife from my travels in the Fade. Much blood has been spilled in that place, and some of it has been used for the abhorrent practice of blood magic. The Veil is already dangerously fragile there, and has been as such for centuries. The abuses of the Circle mages forced to live there only tipped the scales that were already weighted against them. Whatever this incident you speak of was, it could not have caused such a catastrophic amount of damage to the Veil."

"Oh, well, that's something." Fae wandered around to the other side of Solas' desk and sat down, looking wan. "I didn't unknowingly cause the deaths of the people I was trying to save, it's just another thing that I can do that other mages can't do. Forget becoming an abomination, don't feel too much or you'll break the Veil." She put her arms on the desk and laid her forehead down on them. "Ok."

She felt Ellethir's hand squeeze her shoulder. "We'll help you. There has to be answers somewhere, right? Varric, Solas?"

"Sure."

"Of course."

Fae heaved a deep sigh. "Well, at least I work with the one person who can close Rifts, if I do happen to open one."

"Exactly. If we can find a way to protect a spirit, we can find a way to protect you, too," Ellethir wrapped her arms around Fae and rested her chin on the Seer's head.

"And the Veil?"

"And the Veil."

"A million tiny tears in a veil, and a million tiny stitches in a shroud."

Fae closed her eyes. "That's…creepy, Cole."