Chapter Text
“So now there’s the Snakes too,” Rana sighed. She pinned Neve’s notes of shipments attributed to the Snakes in the Dock Master’s self-compiled evidence of corruption to their pinboard. A red string was tied between it and the dock worker schedule with the letter N scribed at the bottom.
Nonius. Whereabouts still unknown.
“As though Dock Town didn’t have enough to deal with.”
“You’re surprised?” Neve offered a mug of coffee to Rana, who wrinkled her nose and shook her head ‘no.’
“Don’t know how you drink that stuff.”
Neve sniffed in feigned offense. “Rook drinks it.”
Rana rolled her eyes. “Rook has ulterior motives. He’d drink poison so long as it was you that gave it to him.”
Choosing not to dignify that with an answer (since the only honest one was that Rana might be right), Neve took her coffee over to the pinboard to consider the pieces of information they had. Interviewing the dock workers, and the berth supervisor, hadn’t provided much of note. Ships that were unmarked, but generally not remarkable. Cargo that didn’t stand out; nothing that sounded, smelled, or felt unusual. She’d had Rook help her break into some of the warehouses, but searching the goods inside was a slow process if they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves.
So many questions remained unanswered. What had the Snakes brought through Dock Town? They must have wanted it badly to resort to a port where the Threads operated. Had the Threads actually taken anything from them? Or had other interests gotten into the ring, perhaps knowing the Threads were the most obvious suspects? If the Threads had taken it, why? What was worth potentially going to war with the Snakes?
All a chat with Elek had given her was that the Threads “had it under control.”
Very promising.
Three sharp knocks on her door interrupted her thoughts.
Three familiar, and unwelcome, knocks.
“How did you find my apartment?” Neve demanded as she swung the door open to see her brother in the sunsetting light, hands stuffed in his pockets and shifting his weight in a way that she recognized as a sign of discomfort.
“Elek,” he said simply.
Neve’s eyes narrowed as she wedged her body into her doorframe, making clear that he wasn’t coming in. “I’ve never told Elek where I live.”
“You didn’t have to. The neighbor girl who lives downstairs and brought you soup when you were sick? She told him.”
Little Lustica downstairs was a sweet girl, and Neve could easily see Elek’s concern — feigned or not — convincing her to give him information Neve hadn’t provided for this exact reason.
Her tone was sickly sweet. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to thank him.”
Her brother winced, and Neve smiled grimly. “So what do you want?”
A muscle in Caius’ jaw jumped, annoyed at her insinuation even when the assumption was based on reality. He hated when she accused him of only speaking to her when he wanted something or needed help.
Yet, ninety-nine times out of one hundred, that’s exactly what he did. And Neve wasn’t convinced the one time he hadn’t wasn’t a fluke.
“Can I come in?” He muttered.
And there it was. He’d have protested if she wasn’t right; his avoidance of her question was as good as an admission.
“And why would I let you in?” He and her mother didn’t have her address for a reason, and thick as he sometimes acted, Caius was not an idiot. He was perfectly well aware that she didn’t want him there.
“Because, yes, I have a message from Mum.” Great, it had gotten worse. “But I also have some information you might like. Call it a trade?”
Neve frowned. This was new for him; usually his demands were simply that. He’d never even pretended to offer something in return.
Well, he clearly already had her address. The demon was out of the Fade. “Fine.”
Neve stepped back into the room, letting Caius inside. He looked around the room awkwardly, eyebrows climbing his forehead when he laid eyes on her and Rana’s pinboard and Rana standing beside it.
“Caius, this is Rana Savas. Rana, my brother Caius.”
Rana blinked. “Nice to meet you. I…it’s nice to meet you.” She hadn’t said ‘I didn’t know Neve had a brother’ but all three of them had heard it. Caius frowned.
“Sure,” he muttered. He turned to Neve. “Can I sit?”
She gestured at the sofa. “Go on.”
“So, uh, where should I…?”
Neve rolled her eyes. “Start with this information. Whatever it is our mother sent you here for can wait a few minutes.” Or forever, more like, but she would cross that bridge once they’d gotten there.
“Alright. So, ah,” he looked nervously at where Rana had taken a seat at Neve’s table, pen and parchment at hand. “I heard you’d been down asking questions ‘round the docks.”
“Well spotted. I am a detective.” Neve chose to ignore Rana’s look of surprise at her sarcastic response.
Caius shifted irritably. “I’m trying to help you, Neve. Maker’s arse.” He mumbled it under his breath, a favored technique of his to avoid accountability for his words. If someone took issue with what he said, he had been talking to himself. But he always said it loud enough to be heard.
She crossed her arms over her chest, not willing to give him whatever response he might be looking for – whether anger or apology – and instead waited him out.
Or she would have, but for Rook choosing that minute to let himself in.
“Hey Neve!” He kissed her cheek and then nodded at her partner. “Rana.”
He took off the reinforced jacket he wore over his armor, turning to hang it by the door before dropping next to Caius on the couch. “And Caius. I didn’t know you were coming over.”
“Neither did I. And you’re here just in time,” Neve said. “Caius was just about to tell Rana and I what information he thinks he has that we might find of use.”
Rook raised his eyebrow in question as he leaned back on her couch comfortably, the picture of utter lack of concern. It wasn’t real, of course, there was an alertness in his eyes that belied the image, but it seemed to put Caius more at ease.
“Right, so, those Snakes? They’ve got a shipment coming in. Day after tomorrow. One that’s important to them,” Caius said. “Heard they’re sending at least half a dozen men to do whatever it takes to get their shit off the boat and back to the Soporatum.”
Well, assuming his information was accurate, he’d been right. That was information she wanted to have. She’d give him that.
“What is this shipment?” Rana asked.
Caius shrugged. “Does it matter? I figure, if you know they’re coming, you can just get the lot of them…”
Venhedis, the audacity.
“...while the Threads take the cargo,” Neve finished for him, glaring until he looked away from her uncomfortably. “I don’t think so. What’s the cargo, Caius?”
“I don’t know.” He looked down, to the left, and while his thumb worried against his forefinger. Liar.
“Caius.” The two Galluses stared at one another until he finally broke, as he usually did. He wasn’t completely without backbone, or so she suspected, but it was inconsistent at best.
“Lyrium. From Par Vollen.”
Rook met her eyes, surprise and question in his expression. When had the Qunari begun to deal in lyrium? And why would they be providing it to elements of the Tevinter Imperium? If they were trading with the Dwarves, who were neutral in Tevinter’s centuries of war with the Qunari, it likely wasn’t cheaper for the enterprising criminal underground to buy it from Par Vollen than from the Dwarves themselves.
Were the Qunari mining their own lyrium somehow? Was whatever the Snakes had brought in lyrium at all? And, if it was, was it actually untainted lyrium? Or was there something far more sinister in play?
“You know,” Rook’s voice was idle, as though making an observation, but Neve saw his fingers drumming against his thighs, “The Qunari murdered most of the mages of Ventus eight years ago.”
Caius looked away, uncomfortable.
“Slaughtered, really,” Rook continued conversationally, not giving any indication he’d noticed. “Can lyrium be tainted? Neve?”
As though he didn’t know. Neve smirked, though she was more angry at the moment than amused.
“It could.”
Rana nodded along. “It isn’t hard to do. If it is lyrium, that is. There’s a number of contaminants that can be introduced when lyrium. That’s why the Templars track it so closely; smuggled lyrium often isn’t safe.”
Caius looked like he was trying to sink into the sofa as Rook continued, “So it’s possible, then, that Par Vollen, with no love lost for the Imperium or for mages in general, might have done something to this lyrium?”
“Possibly. If it’s even lyrium at all, or from Par Vollen. How much of this alleged lyrium have the Threads already taken, Caius?” Neve asked pointedly.
He swallowed. “I don’t have exact…”
“We can start with an estimate,” Rana interrupted him, and he fell silent.
“Look, I didn’t think about…Ventus was a long time ago.”
“For you.” Caius started at the steel in Rook’s voice. “If it had been your neighbors, your parents, your sister who died screaming in Ventus, how long ago would you feel it was?”
Her brother swallowed as he dropped his gaze to the floor. His voice shook as he answered, “Right. Uh…we took two shipments. That’s why they picked us up. But,” he hastened to add, “we haven’t sold any yet. I don’t think.”
“Do you ever?” She couldn’t help how cutting her tone was. Of all the idiotic things she’d seen her brother, and Elek for that matter, do in the course of her life, this was easily the worst of them. Which was a high bar to clear.
Poisoned lyrium on the streets of Minrathous as Archon Tilani fought to reconstitute the Magisterium. And, moreover, to control the direction it would take as magisters vied for power amongst themselves. Altus families grappling with the loss of power and influence as the Venatori’s lands and assets were stripped and struggling to regain it? Builders who needed more magical power for reconstruction?
Tainted lyrium would spread fast and, due to the Templars’ currently stretched state, unchecked. Mass death or illness in the mage classes would create unrest. Pitting mages against each other, and emboldening angry factions in the Soporati to act against them all.
Tainted lyrium could topple their current government, unstable as it was, and then what?
Neve didn’t think it took a detective to predict what Par Vollen might use that for, even as weakened as they were without the Antaam.
“I’ll…I’ll talk to Elek,” Caius promised.
“It’s good money,” Neve glared at him, and he hurriedly continued, “but you’re right. It’s not worth it.”
Words aren’t worth anything, Lucia’s voice intoned in her head.
“I’ll talk to Elek,” Neve corrected. Pressure was building beneath her forehead, a combination of rage and bubbling frustration trapped and liable to become a headache. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Venhedis, Caius.”
“I get it,” he snapped.
Rana shook her head and stood. “I’ll go tell the others,” she said seriously, and Caius looked between the three of them like they’d just trapped him in a cage.
“The others? Who? Templars?”
“Fortunately for you, not yet. Thanks Rana.” Her partner nodded and took her leave, leaving her and Rook alone with her short-sighted sibling.
Rook stood and began taking off his armor on his way to the bedroom while Caius and Neve stared at one another like hissing cats circling in an alleyway.
“For money? Really? You would poison all the mages in the city for money?” Neve finally asked. She wished it sounded angrier than it did; there was nothing to be done to hide her disappointment though.
Caius frowned. “I didn’t think about it like that.”
“Did you think about it at all?”
His entire body tensed, and he snapped, “We aren’t all perfect like you, Neve!”
Rook was back in the room in an instant, down to his tunic and leathers as he stood just in front of her. Neve wasn’t sure if she was more appreciative or annoyed at the gesture. She could handle her brother herself.
But it meant something that Rook had taken on the burden alongside her without hesitation.
“Do you need to calm down?” It wasn’t a question, but instead an order.
“Maybe.” Caius looked around the apartment, eyes anywhere but where Neve stood. Time stretched out, against her will rather than with her assistance, as her brother reconsidered his position here and Rook stood like a bulwark between them.
It took several minutes for the tension stringing Caius tight to recede, his shoulders sinking lower as he exhaled, long and slow. Something about the familiarity of it, that in this they mirrored one another, hurt.
“What was the other thing you came for?” Neve asked. “What does Lucia want?”
Caius sighed, and shook his head. “I’m only telling you because she told me to. Okay? I just…want you to know that.”
It was always something unstable, her relationship with Caius, this narrow and winding path where they both tripped on rocks and roots that their mother had spent years placing before them. Having Caius do her bidding when Neve refused her demands, berating him when he wouldn’t go along with her by comparing him to Neve unfavorably. He had hated her, and Neve had judged him harshly.
And maybe they’d both been right to, if only in part.
But, then, she’d covered for him when he’d gotten in trouble, and he’d given her little things – pastries, baubles, things to make her smile – she’d have never had if he had not stolen them for her. There was something there.
It meant something.
They were still on that winding path, though. Rife with potential set-backs. And Neve wasn’t sure either knew how to get off it.
“I believe you,” she said tiredly, and even though he still looked battered he brightened a little. She couldn’t dwell on that now, though. Right now she just wanted him out of her apartment.
“She said she ran into someone who knew where Domus Mercar was,” Caius explained. “So she went by. She quite liked it and asked if…if Rook would give her a tour.”
Rook shot Neve an amused look, his lips curling into a smirk. “We’re all friends here, Caius. Tell me what she actually called me.”
Caius snorted. “Okay, she asked if ‘the disrespectful rich sleeper’ would give her a tour.”
Neve felt as much as saw Rook’s eyes on her, and when they finally met her own she could see him come to some decision. Not about the tour, she doubted he cared about that one way or another about Lucia’s demand, but the situation they currently found themselves in. He finally shrugged. “I’ve been called worse by better. I’ll let you know.”
Her brother looked surprised that Rook was even considering it, and Neve decided she would let Caius and her mother live in the fantasy that Rook would give them what Lucia wanted in this regard for long enough to get Caius out of her home without a fuss.
“Have a safe walk back,” she told him firmly, and Caius nodded in understanding as he stood.
“Right, yeah, and I’ll talk to Elek. Too. I…I’ll talk to him. I didn’t…”
“I know. Good night, Caius.”
Neve shut the door behind him as he left before leaning against it tiredly. She felt Rook place his hand on her back, gently rubbing it while she breathed. Slowly in through her nose, and then out through her mouth. Again. And again. And again.
Every step forward with her family was followed by another one back. For every example of Caius’ support, she had two more of his anger. And the more often they saw one another, the more often they antagonized one another.
Exactly how her mother had always taught them to. Lucia was convinced of her mistaken belief that pitting them against each other would make them work harder. When, in reality, it had driven them far enough apart that if Neve counted the number of years they hadn’t spoken at all she would need both hands. Her mother would say it was worth it. Anything for success, as Lucia defined it. Even if it meant sacrificing the very family it was allegedly for.
And now, on top of her mother and brother unceremoniously crashing into her life, there was the much more pressing issue of the Snakes, the Threads, and the alleged lyrium of purported Qunari origin.
Was it actually lyrium? If it was, was it tainted? Was it from Par Vollen? From the Antaam? Had someone bought lyrium off Tal-Vashoth and erroneously assumed they were purchasing it from Par Vollen?
Had someone sold the smuggled goods yet and Caius just didn’t know? He wasn’t exactly the most observant person she’d ever met. What if…?
She really should put on a pot of coffee.
Rook stopped rubbing her back to wrap an arm around her waist.
“Breathe, Neve,” he said, smiling to take any sting out of the instruction. She rolled her eyes but humored him.
Slowly in, slowly out. Nose, to chest, to mouth. Three times, five, ten, until she felt her shoulders drift down from near her ears and her heartbeat pounded more slowly in her ears.
“Should I get us some rocks?”
Neve flicked his chest and he laughed. “Is that a no?”
“Skipping rocks is for hitting a dead end,” she told him. “We have leads, I’m just planning how best to follow them.”
Rook shrugged. “Sure. Of course. But we should probably rest first. And eat something. My treat.”
“Hal’s?” Neve offered.
“Only if you walk there with me.” He smiled winningly, hands on his hips, and she couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled out of her as the tension that had filled her apartment since Caius’ arrival shattered.
Fresh air (or as fresh as the air in Dock Town got), cool ocean breeze, some food, and a small break to get her mind right?
How well he knew her would have made her nervous were it anyone but him.
If she’d learned nothing else from her family, she’d learned that the people who knew her best could most effectively wield the emotional knife. But, if she’d learned anything from Rook, it was that that same knowledge could also be used to lift her up above the fray. If knowing Neve too well had been used to unravel her relationships in the past, it was now being used to put her back together again.
She could do this. Rook was right. She just needed to clear her head, eat some fish, and then get back on the job.
Neve would sort out her family later. If such a thing was possible. The last week had left her battered and, if today was any example, itching for a fight. Nothing good would come out of meeting with them, either of them, for a while. For now, all she could do was rebuild herself and get back to it.
“Alright, Trouble. Take me to Hal’s.