The hallways were surprisingly empty of Freemen or Red Templars, but they'd made their presence known. There were candlesticks, shattered statues and empty painting frames all over the ground, forcing the party to watch their step. Ellethir heard something. The windows to the central courtyard were open, as were the windows to the room adjacent from them, and the faintest murmur of a conversation was audible, coming from that room. She signalled to the group to stay quiet, then quickly manoeuvred through the window and ducked low, half-crawling through the courtyard to hide underneath the next window and listen in.

"Sister Costeau is dead," she heard a low voice say. "Ser Auguste is dead. If this continues, the Red Templars will leave us before we can leave them, and we'll lose everything we've worked for. We must do something. Send all the men out, everyone who can fight. I will speak to Duhaime when he arrives, and then I'm heading to the Exalted Plains. There are still some Freemen hiding out there. We can regroup." He paused. "What is it, Emery? What are you looking at?"

"There's a rabbit spying on us beneath the window," another voice sneered. "Show yourse—" he choked, and there was a loud thud.

Ellethir looked to her companions, where Sera was poorly stifling a giggle behind her hand, and sprung to her feet. "Wait—!"

"Kill them all!"

The door next to her opened, as well as several others. At least twenty Freemen poured into the courtyard, and Ellethir could barely hear herself over the brawl. "We're not the enemy, we—"

Maliphant looked to her just as Cassandra's sword pierced his side. A furious dagger-wielding Freeman came charging at Ellethir, and while she fought her new attacker off, Maliphant collapsed to the ground, and stopped moving.

"Damn it, Sera," Ellethir panted a few minutes later, taking stock of the carnage that surrounded them. "Why didn't you wait for my signal? He was talking about breaking the Freemen's deal with the Red Templars."

"You were spotted, I was protecting you," Sera answered bluntly. "Too late for the stupid Freemen now, anyway, they've already done the damage."

"Next time, wait."

"Alright bossy boots. Buuut, if it makes you feel better…" Sera held her hand out. "Found a fancy keyyy," she sang. "Don't you wanna know what it opens? There's always good stuff behind fancy keys."

"Sera's right, we should give the place a look while we're here," Blackwall agreed. "There must be something if they've been hiding out here."

Ellethir kneaded her temples. "Alright."

"I'll see if I can sense anything weird," Fae volunteered.

"Wibbly feelings," Sera corrected her.

"Sure, that works."

They began with the dining room, then the kitchen, then the servant's quarters.

Varric swiped a letter from the servants' kitchen's dining table as they passed. "No need to pay off some greasy dwarf since the red stuff isn't from the Deep Roads. Must be killing them. Someone struck lyrium up here and they're not getting a piece," he read aloud. "Well, it's doing a lot of killing, all right."

"The Maurels must have left in a hurry when the civil war began," Cassandra observed. "It looks like they barely spared enough time to pack."

Sera snorted, reading a journal she'd found while she walked. "Lord Maurel sounds very close to his favourite manservant. Veerrry close."

"Must you be so vulgar, Sera dear?" Vivienne sighed.

"What? Don't act like you don't know it happens, Vivvy."

As they passed by the bedchambers, Varric wrinkled his nose. "Ugh, you smell that old metal stink? That's gotta be red lyrium. Don't suppose they've got a stash here? Hopefully one that isn't still part of a person?"

"Maybe that's why I can kind of feel it," Fae shuddered, squeezing her eyes shut for a few seconds. She headed to the right, and the others followed. The door to Lord Maurel's office stood ajar, and she pushed it open all the way, determined to find what she was looking for. There were additional doors on either side of the desk in the middle. She tried the one on the right, first. Locked. "Sera, the fancy key?"

Sera slotted it into the odd grooves where the keyhole should have been, and the door clicked open. An antiquated laboratory greeted them, and in the left corner, several buckets full of red lyrium shards.

"Looks like someone's been experimenting with things they shouldn't have," Varric grumbled.

"This isn't it," Fae shook her head distractedly. "It's not here."

"What's not here?"

"I don't know, but this isn't it. Can you try the other door with the key, Sera?"

"Course."

The other room was full of paintings and jewellery boxes and other valuables, but none were marked with signs of being Maurel property. There was a portrait of a finely-dressed man, staring glumly at them. Cassandra turned it over. "Lord Giroux Lemarque. Perhaps this villa was originally owned by the Lemarques."

"Look!" Sera dragged out a shield painted sky blue and gold, with the image of a falcon and a house's words on a painted ribbon. "That girl must've been right, Fairbanks is a noble. Poor sod."

Dorian held up a book. "It's certainly interesting to keep a standard tome on Orlesian heraldry in a magically locked storage room rather than with the rest of the library."

"Just as interesting as holding onto the journal of a local midwife," Blackwall held up his find. "A young noblewoman turns up at the door in the dead of winter, heavily pregnant, and tries to pay for her care with a gold medallion that belonged to the child's father. She even talks about them by name. The woman is Bernice, and she calls her boy Evariste. Her healthy, living boy, mind you. Says she's keeping the woman on as her apprentice."

"Evariste? Now that's an Orlesian-sounding name," Varric hummed. "Wonder where he got 'Fairbanks' from."

Blackwall flipped through the pages again. "Ah. The midwife's house. Fair Banks cottage. There you have it."

"Do we think Lord Maurel was hoarding all this to protect House Demarque's reputation?"

"Blackmail, more likely."

"Yeah, figures."

"Fae? Have you found what you're looking for?" Ellethir asked.

Fae didn't respond. She'd found what she'd been looking for shoved into a trunk full of bedclothes; a small knitted hat, embroidered E.N.

A deathly pale woman lay on a pallet of cushions by a fireplace, sweaty strands of dark hair clinging to her face and neck. She whispered something in Orlesian to an elderly woman who sat nearby in a rocking chair, working on sewing the letters onto the hat in her hands. She was humming contentedly, but stopped to respond softly to the woman's question. Fae struggled to understand most of it, but she caught the words "sleep," and "baby." The young woman shook her head wearily and yawned, but laid her head back down. Fae instinctively yawned too, and went to wipe the sleepy tears from her eyes. Then the women and the fireplace were gone, and she was crouching over a trunk once more.

"Well, then," she stood up, shaking the beginnings of the pins-and-needles feeling out of her feet. "I know we said we wouldn't look into Fairbanks' past, but I think we should at least give him this. It was important. And we should probably tell him about the rest of this stuff. Just in case somebody else tries to blackmail him with it."

"It is his inheritance, after all, as the last of his lineage," Vivienne agreed.

"Bring the blanket, we can help him organise moving the rest when we've explained how we found it."

Fairbanks was pleased to hear of their success in Villa Maurel, but groaned when Ellethir asked to speak with him further in private. "This is about the Lemarques, is it not?"

"It is," Ellethir agreed apologetically, handing over the knitted hat. "This belonged to Evariste Lemarque, the Seer tells us. That is, you."

Fairbanks ran a hand through his hair. "I know who I am. I have always known. And Villa Maurel…" he shrugged, trailing off. "I had hoped there would be nothing left to find since the Maurels came into its possession, but alas, wishful thinking gets us nowhere. I do not know how Lord Maurel got his paws on this, but there you have it."

"There's more heirlooms, I thought you might like us to have them brought here, or wherever you'd like them to go," Ellethir offered. "To make sure they don't fall into the wrong hands again."

He shot her another wry smile. "Like Clara's, you mean. Honestly, her intentions are good, but she is young and idealistic. She believes that being noble gives you power, freedom. She is wrong. It is just another cage. She told you the story of Lord Giroux Lemarque, my late grandfather? The man turned his back on his only child and murdered her one true love, for appearances," he grimaced. "I have no desire to be associated with that, but I appreciate your efforts on my behalf." He thought to himself for a moment. "…I would prefer that Clara remains disappointed in your lack of success in this venture," he added under his breath. "Do you understand?"

"I do. Your secrets are safe with us."

"With the infamous Sister Nightingale, perhaps?" he grinned. "Thank you, Inquisitor. Ah, I should mention, Inquisition scouts arrived not too long ago, I expect they have news for you."

The news imparted by the scouts had Ellethir hopeful and Sera rolling her eyes and begging to remain at Argon's Lodge. The sails of an aravel, standing out in contrast to the verdant landscape, had been sighted at a location referred to as the Sun's Bastion. At first, it was assumed to be a whole Dalish clan, but the presence of a lone aravel suggested otherwise, on top of the scouts being able to get close enough to see it without meeting resistance from clan guardsmen.

Rather than find herself trapped in the same cyclical argument with Sera about tolerable levels of "elfyness," Ellethir acquiesced and summoned the party without her to make contact with the Dalish, quietly hoping that they were the missing Enasa clansmen that Keeper Hawen wanted back.

Guards or not, the Inquisitor's party still found themselves face-to-face with the heads of several arrows when they made their presence known at the ruined stone courtyard where the aravel stood.

"Keep your distance, strangers," one of the Dalish archers warned. "Or, better yet, leave."

"I'm Ellethir, of Clan Lavellan," Ellethir greeted him. "Are you of Clan Enasa? Keeper Hawen is looking for his missing First, among others."

"What are you doing with your hand, sister?" Another asked, eyes narrowed.

"This? I'm not doing anything, it's an injury of a magical nature," Ellethir replied lightly. "Long story."

Another man hopped up onto the brick wall. "Strange magic on your hand, sister? You must be the shems' Inquisitor, although thanks be to Mythal, you're no shem. Yet they call you their leader." Rather than scoff or order them away as they expected, the man deftly dropped down into a crouch and righted himself, slinging his staff behind his back and extending a hand towards Ellethir. "Strange indeed, this Inquisition we've heard of in recent days. I'm Taven, First of Clan Enasa. Forgive my brothers' caution. We weren't expecting anyone. Well, we expected shems, as usual, but not…this," he waved his hand over the unusually diverse group gathered before him. "Did you say you've spoken with Keeper Hawen?"

"We have."

Taven laughed. "I imagine he didn't have a kind word for me. Perhaps he will change his opinion upon my return," he nodded to the set of large doors a short distance away, currently being assessed by two more clansmen.

"What is this place, exactly? What are you hoping to find here?"

"This is Din'an Hanin, resting place of the Emerald Knights who guarded the elven borders. Most fell during the Exalted March of the Dales. Along with our homeland," he shot a pointed glare at the humans in the party.

"I grew up with the tales as well," Ellethir said fondly, and Taven's attention snapped back to her.

"Good. They should be told. The knights once walked this place. Can you imagine? Other than that, we don't know what we're looking for. We're just…looking," he shrugged, glancing back at the doors.

"Are you being vague deliberately? Would you keep the secrets of this place from one of your own?" Ellethir put on her best 'listen to your Keeper' voice.

"Not from you, sister, from them," he gestured to the party once more. "And it's not that anyway, we just…haven't actually found anything yet. This place has been sealed since the Second Age."

"The Glory Age?" Cassandra's eyebrows furrowed.

"We don't call it the Glory Age," Tavin scowled. "Your kind destroyed the glory in it."

"I only meant—"

"What do you hope to find here, Tavin?" Ellethir interrupted.

Tavin scowled a second longer at Cassandra before answering Ellethir's question. "The truth. Elven accounts of the old kingdom of the Dales, or the Exalted March. Do you know what that could mean? So much of our history's been lost. To regain knowledge that hasn't been rewritten by the Chantry and their precious Maker…" Ellethir could practically feel Cassandra's temperature rising before Taven trailed off himself. "I should stop talking," he said sheepishly. "If the tomb turns out to be empty of anything besides our ancestor's bones, I'll really look like an idiot."

"Perhaps we can help?"

"We have limited time and resources, darling, we should be returning to Skyhold presently," Vivienne reminded her.

Ellethir acted as if she hadn't heard, but Taven shrugged again. "It's fine. Our initial work will be tedious anyway, and my party's more than capable of searching the ruins." The other clansmen stood a little taller and prouder at that. "Perhaps I could send word if we find something, and you could pass it onto Keeper Hawen?"

"That we can do," Ellethir bowed. After the two groups parted ways, Ellethir politely reminded Vivienne how she felt about deciding what was worth Inquisition time and resources, and Vivienne politely countered that she only ever desired to be of assistance.