Chapter Text
1. Anders & the Clever Fox
9:28 Dragon - 9 years before the Mage Rebellion
“There has been,” said Anders, throwing open the door to Max’s tiny office, “a bad decision.”
“Oh?” Max was curled up under the slit window, reading a slim book bound in green cloth. Both his elbows nearly knocked against the walls. Anders had to duck to step inside. Really, Irving had given the young Enchanter a broom closet to work in. Max didn’t seem bothered by the cramped space, any more than he seemed bothered by Anders barging in. He didn’t even look up from his book. “Has this bad decision befallen you, or Jowan?”
“I don’t climb stairs for Jowan’s problems.”
“I see. Well. You know I can’t do pregnancy tests or cure itches. You’d do better on your own.”
“You’re such a prude.”
Placidly, Max flipped a page.
Anders sighed in a huff and pulled the door shut behind him. It whined like a bitch on its hinges. How Max could stand working in this glorified cupboard, forgotten by the Senior Enchanters, not even permitted to cast without Wynne or Irving’s supervision, after he’d behaved himself for 20 years, blazed through his Harrowing, and earned his Enchanter’s rank with new research, Anders didn’t know. Matsendra Surana had the patience of a Divine.
Anders sat down heavily in the chair across from Max.
“No one’s pregnant. Or itching.”
“Good.”
“I hexed the Knight Captain in a very rude way.”
“Eddie Hadley? I always thought he was rather tame. What’s he done to you?” Max dog-eared his book and set it down on the desk beside his teapot (shaped like a pumpkin, a gift from Wynne) which he touched gently with the back of his hand. A second later, the pot was whistling and gushing out steam. Unsupervised magic. The tiny rebellion made Anders smile.
“Anders? What’s happened?”
“Oh.” Anders shook himself. “Nothing.”
Max poured two cups of tea and passed one across the desk. Anders took it gratefully. It was piping hot and smelled like a flower garden. Or how Anders imagined a flower garden would smell. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever smelled one, before the Circle or during his escapes. Max was watching him, his eyes dark and bright. Worried, Anders thought.
“Hadley did nothing,” he repeated. “That’s sort of the problem. He hasn’t hurt anyone, doesn’t take advantage, isn’t bright enough to catch me. As far as I know, he doesn’t even smile at girls.” Like Cullen went unspoken. “But I’m just—I’m so sick—”
Anger rose up, hard and sudden, in his throat, and he took a gulp of tea to wash it down. Too much, too fast. It burned his tongue. “Ow! Hot!”
“Careful,” said Max. It was a warning about the tea and the Templars, Anders assumed. The Tower’s walls were thin. Anders dropped his voice to a whisper.
“I’m so sick of them all doing nothing. I hate them watching and listening and touching—”
“Touching?” Again the look of alarm and pain from Max.
“Touching my damn things!” Anders hissed. “Going through my books looking for—I don’t know! Odes to blood magic? Deathroot recipes? Love notes? A secret diary where I write Greagoir eats mice when no one’s looking in scary red ink over and over? I’m sick of Templars. I’m sick of—” His eyes were burning. He wasn’t sure if he felt like crying or gagging or throwing Max’s teapot against the wall. He took another sip of tea, smaller this time, and swallowed hard.
He wasn’t lying to be tough or anything. Hadley hadn’t done anything. Just his stupid fucking job. But Anders hated him for it. He hated the way that fat-faced stranger had joked around while pawing through his clothes and books, like they were friends. Like he hadn’t also done nothing when Ser Imogen was caught in the apprentice quarters after hours, or when Ser Abbott was leaving cuts and bruises on all the young elves, including Max, or when Ser Cady pulled his earring so hard it tore out and bled all over, or when he couldn’t find Karl for days and days—
The heat in his eyes was painful now. He took a shaky breath.
“I need to run again. I need to.”
“Is that wise, Anders?”
He could see the disappointment in the curve of Max’s mouth, and the disapproval. His friend would never understand. He loved the Circle. He thought it loved him back. He would stay inside this closet, reading and making tea, until his hair was white and white dust settled on the fine brown tips of his ears and he died and some Tranquil came and found him here and threw his body and his research in the lake. (They wouldn’t save it. Max was putting glyphs together in patterns no one ever tried before. The Chantry never liked mages that learned.)
“No,” said Anders. “It’s desperately unwise. Of course. Will you cover for me?”
Max drained his cup of tea in one swig, like a pirate knocking back a shot of rum. “Is a fox clever?”
Looking at his friend, red-haired, sharp-faced and canny but so happy with his cage, Anders didn’t know. Max had been clever, when they were kids. When they played pranks on the Templars and he sold contraband in the apprentices' bunkroom. Certainly he’d always been smart enough to get out of here if he really wanted to. But since he moved up here he was quiet, boring, content with himself. Content with Irving's flattery. Content with the Templars. Anders would never love him less, but...
“Thank you,” he said. He slid his teacup across the desk and stood. With one hand on the iron doorknob, Anders stopped. “Will you follow me?”
“I don’t think so,” said Max. His smile was distant. He said the same thing every time. “You’ll travel faster alone. Besides, I’m not crazy and I have the mysteries of the cosmos to solve.” He patted the cover of the green book he’d been reading— Isseya’s Runes— and Anders was struck cold and dumb again with the image of Max’s research torn up, sunk in Lake Calenhad, the white pages dissolving like petals in black water.
“Naturally,” said Anders. “I wouldn’t want to get between you and the cosmos.”
“If anyone could make the stars jealous...’’
“Har har." For once, Anders wasn’t in the mood for fake flirting. "Bye, Max.”
Anders left the broom closet. He didn’t feel the need for parting gifts. Max still had the jewelry Anders had given him the first time he ran away, and the books Anders left with him for safe-keeping the second and third times. (Once borrowed, he’d never known Max to give a book back, ever.) And he knew, though he’d never say so out loud—he knew he’d be back soon.
Still, Anders’ fourth escape from Kinloch Hold was the slickest so far. He strolled out through the loading dock, swam the lake, and ran off shivering under the stars, and the Templars didn’t catch up for a week.
When they did they dragged him from the bushes and Ser Cady beat his shoulders and the backs of his knees to knock him down and then called him a maleficar shit and punched his head while friendly Eddie Hadley searched his bag, and Anders thought suddenly, as if Cady’s fists had knocked the memory into place, of Max enjoying Isseya’s Runes. Isseya’s. He knew about Isseya. Isseya was a blood mage who tamed griffons. That was not a book for Enchanters who lived meekly and mildly in broom closets, no Ser. And Max’s desk was piled high with notes.
Someday—maybe someday Max would follow him, and a whole company of Templars wouldn’t be able to take them both. Anders felt sure of that. And then, maybe then, they’d all of them wish that they hadn’t done nothing.