Chapter Text
“It’s enough having one pouting, scowling assassin. It’s another matter having two.”
Even when she’s pacing, Neve looks put together. She’s a woman at work, a case between her teeth, and she’s not like to let go of it until it’s emptied of all its secrets.
“What do you propose we do about it, my dear?” Emmrich asks. He sets down his coffee. Gravely, as he does.
Next to these other elegant mages, with the natural flourish of their movements, Bellara feels like a bundle of fraying nerves.
“Situation’s tricky. They aren’t the most observant,” Neve says, pausing in her pacing. “Despite being a pair of trained Crows.”
“Matters of the heart often prove elusive. It is a clarity some only find after they have passed.”
“Emmrich, are you suggesting that we kill them?”
“Nothing of the sort! I am merely expounding on the depth of tragic unawareness confronting us.”
“Confronting them, you mean. We could simply let sleeping crows lie.” Neve looks ready to write it all off and let the case go cold. And she never gives up on a case unless it’s really hopeless.
“I mean, crows don’t really lie —“ Bellara starts. Neve scoffs and mutters, “Don’t they?” but Bellara breezes past it, “but. That’s not the point. I have an idea."
She stops herself, suddenly unsure. It’s ridiculous. It would never work.
Neve sighs and settles back into the chair next to Emmrich at the dining table.
“Go on, Bel,” Neve says, world-weary but fond, hair down and still elegant as always.
The sight distracts Bellara for a moment more before she regroups her thoughts and straightens out the column of her ideas. She needs them in order. This is a plan that will take tactics and strategy. Maybe some luck too.
She may have to consult the spirit in the Nadas Dirthalen. Even if it ignores her questions half the time and calls her a ‘witless fool’ the rest of the time.
“Well, Bel?”
“Right. Sorry.” Rook’s always standing up for her. For them. This is the least she can do for him. “So, you know how the next book club is coming up…"
Meanwhile, in Rivain:
Rook is wading in the clear blue waters of the Rivaini coast. In the shallow part, of course, the sea at waist-level for him.
The water’s lower on Taash, who towers over him.
"So, you like him?"
"Yep."
"Like… really like him?"
"I'm not saying it again, Taash."
"How he smells?"
"Sorry, what? I mean, I guess."
"Like coffee."
Rook is looking at the islands on the distant horizon, the clouds in the sunny sky, anywhere but at their face and he can still hear the wrinkle of Taash's nose.
"Like coffee," he agrees. "And cinnamon, and sea salt."
He flexes his fingers, the ones broken during his Crow training echoing a phantom pain. There are ghosts buried in bone, memories in old fractures. And Lucanis is his kindred spirit in all the same ways, haunted by the same pains.
But to resist torture, they were taught it. Intimately. He may as well put his training to good use and grit his teeth against the unrequited feelings.
Rook sighs. "He smells like Antiva.”
Taash grunts.
"Neve's right. You are a sap."
Rook returns a grunt.
"Never said I wasn't."
At that moment, he spots Harding on the beach coming to join them, her wooden clogs held up in one hand.
Taash waves, a little too excited, before catching the look on Rook's face and quickly putting their hand down again. They sink lower in the water too, like they can drown their feelings in the salt and sea.
He knows from experience that doesn't work and grins.
"Takes one to know one."
Taash dunks his head under the water.
"Rook! You're back. How was Rivain?"
Bellara bounces off one of the seats in the center room, putting down the sheaf of papers in her hand on the table. Rook is briefly distracted by the amount of red ink and crossed out lines on it. More notes on etheric transfusion and Fade spectral resonance, he's sure. He’s not that kind of mage, and he won't pretend to be.
"It was great! Deepstalkers, Antaam, dragons, Shathann." Rook counts them off on his fingers like a laundry list of escalating evils. "Did I miss anything, Taash?"
"You almost drowned." Taash rolls their eyes. "Had to fish you out."
"Right. Drowning." Rook holds up five fingers in the most sarcastic wave. "Also, you were the one who drowned me!"
Taash makes a rude Rivaini gesture and walks off upstairs to their room, leaving him with Bellara.
"Oh! I'm sorry you drowned. But I was actually hoping you'd join us later, after you're done un-drowning." Bellara's oddly nervous as she wrings her hands; even her ancient elven gauntlet’s thrumming and wobbling a bit. She’s usually nervous, but rarely around him. And that makes him nervous.
It’s easy to blame the Fade for everything, and he does. If he could blame it for falling for Lucanis, he would. He had an easier time resisting demons in the Fade during the Crow version of the Harrowing.
But it’s easier to distract himself with their problems over his own.
"Everything all right?" Rook asks. "Tell me about it."
"No, I mean, yes, everything's all right! Just hoping you'll join us for book club tonight. I know you're usually too busy. But I think you'd like it tonight. I'm presenting a serial I started writing."
"That's lovely! That unfinished one in Minrathous really got to you, didn't it?"
She nods, refusing to meet his eyes. Rook chalks it up to nerves. He remembers the first time he reported back to Viago about a completed contract, how desperate he was for validation. He’s always had the crippling affliction of trying to chase the unattainable.
"I'll get right on that, as soon as I change out of these clothes." He pinches his soaked shirt where it's sticking to his torso.
Bellara tilts her head at the gesture, eyes lingering on his chest before they brighten. "Sorry, actually, we're starting earlier tonight. You have to come right now."
"Okay," Rook says, elongating the O.
He did ask for a distraction. He makes a note to self to be careful what he wishes for in the Fade.
Bellara surveys the gathered food and friends. Dinner's demon hair pasta, courtesy of Lucanis, with her halla cakes for dessert. (Harding had put together a plate of ham and jam slam finger sandwiches for an appetizer, but curiously, the plate had gone missing. As had Manfred, come to think of it.)
She catches Lucanis linger on Rook’s chest. In lieu of completely changing, Rook’s taken off his jacket, leaving him in a thin white shirt. It leaves everything and nothing to the imagination. She smiles, pleased for a theorem to be proven true, satisfaction increasing with each second he’s distracted.
Once he’s finished setting the table - nearly dropping a plate as he leans over Rook - Harding and Neve have already switched their usual seating arrangement. They flank Rook on either side, forcing Lucanis to take the seat across from him.
Everything going to plan so far. Right down to the timetable. (Bellara had taken thorough notes.)
“Welcome, everyone!” Bellara says from her spot at the head of the table this evening.
The assembled crew all turn their heads to her. Okay. No reason to be nervous. Half of them are already filled in on her plan.
“So, I've been writing my own serial. Well, I had help. But I was hoping to get more of it. The help, that is.” Bellara takes another deep breath. “Most of it’s going okay so far. It’s the romance bits. Not the steamy ones. The serious bits, I guess.”
“And you want our help with that?” Lucanis asks. “Does it involve knives? Or coffee? If the answer's no, I'm not sure I’m qualified to provide an expert opinion.”
“You like to read romances for fun, though,” Rook says. “You told me.”
Lucanis appears stumped that Rook remembers. Not sure why. Rook can recite his favorite recipes by heart. Without missing a beat or an ingredient, too.
“Right, so. Is everyone ready?”
Her plan feels remarkably similar to tinkering with an artifact in Arlathan. It could either disable the barrier between them or level the entire Lighthouse.
But hey, if that happens, at least it’ll be over quickly. Maybe Emmrich is right and they’ll have an easier time getting together in death.
“Okay. This is Dock Town After Dark, part one.” Inhale. Here goes nothing. “It was a dark and stormy night in Minrathous. Detective Bishop and his partner Wolf were hot on the trail of the city’s most notorious blood mage…”
“Wow,” Harding says, blush high on her freckled cheeks, upon conclusion of the reading. Left at a cliffhanger, just like the serials do.
“Yep,” Taash says.
But Bellara isn’t interested in hearing their feedback or observing their responses. Not concerned about the two of them getting together. No further intervention required but the passage of time. Not the case for the subjects of her actual inquiry, to whom she directs her attention.
“I enjoyed the attention to detail,” Lucanis says. “The descriptions of Bishop were quite evocative.”
“You mean erotic,” Taash says. “Wolf and Bishop should be doing it. Don’t know why they haven’t.”
Bellara didn’t have time to recruit Taash into their planning, but it looked like they were on the same page anyway.
“It’s the first chapter,” Davrin says. “It’s about the thrill of the chase. Hunting and being hunted.”
She makes a mental note to write that down.
“He’s right,” Lucanis agrees. “You don’t want it over too quickly. You want to leave the reader close to the edge.”
Not the area she expected Davrin and Lucanis to find common ground. Still. Davrin hadn’t been recruited either. Like Neve says, a Dock Town beggar can’t be a Hightown chooser.
“It’s boring,” Rook pronounces. “I love you, Bellara, but the world’s ending. I don’t have time for a slow burn. They should’ve kissed at the end.”
“Rook, you wasted plenty of time yesterday taking Assan to ‘stretch his wings’ and hunt for truffleworts.”
“That’s different,” Davrin interjects, at the same time Rook says, “I was teaching him how to be a Crow.”
“How did you manage that? I’m sure Viago would love to see it,” Lucanis says.
He catches Rook’s eye, and their gazes lock, so intensely it’s like they’ve seized each other by the collar. The rest of the world seems to fade around them, narrowing down to the detente between two assassins passing in the night. Neither knowing the other is their mark.
“I can show you sometime,” Rook replies, rocking back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head. He has the same satisfied smirk he does when he thinks he’s said something very funny, to a very important person, at a very bad time. He wears it well.
Bellara starts to smile herself as Lucanis leans forward, pulled like Rook has his strings fisted in his hands. His eyes trace the lines that make up Rook: the flex of his arms, the muscles of his chest, the dip where the wet shirt clings to his hips like the hands of a lover.
Just when Bellara thinks this might be it - the moment they finally tip over into the abyss and either take flight or die falling - Lucanis snaps out of his spellbound state.
“You’ve never had patience. Even as a fledgeling, by Viago's account.” Lucanis punctuates his point with the knife in his hand. One Crow lecturing the other. “Davrin's right. You're not appreciating the slow burn.”
“You don’t keep a fire burning by ignoring it. How is Bishop supposed to know Wolf likes him?”
“Wolf is dealing with a Desire demon in his head. He cannot control himself. How can he give only part of himself to another? Bishop deserves better.”
“Then he should stop wasting time brooding and tell Bishop that. Let him decide.”
Their voices rise with the tension between them. Rook is a mage of lightning and fire, and the air around him feels suffused with static and choked with heat. Bellara starts to fear that things may literally become explosive. (Not something she had a contingency for. Maybe should've.)
Lucanis looks away and drops the knife on the table. Crosses his arms, like he's hiding his heart from the crossfire.
“He doesn’t want to hurt him.”
Rook draws a breath, and it's like all the heat and static rush back into him. Leaving the air empty with unused potential.
“He already has.” Rook takes that moment to gather himself and get up from his seat, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles out of his soaked shirt. “Speaking of hurt. I should go reply to the missive from that angry demon we kept killing. You think if I throw it off a cliff into the Fade and yell, ‘oh, Formless One,’ that he’ll get it?”
Bellara knows when Rook’s trying to cover up an emotion. He starts rambling, like she does. Deflecting with humor. Covering his tracks before he escapes the situation.
She shares a panicked look with Neve, but she’s calm and collected, assessing Rook like a real chess piece on her board. Bellara wishes she had her composure as the situation rapidly unspools from her control.
“And I really do need to get out of these clothes. The heat’s making it worse. Thanks again, Taash.”
“Offered to teach you how to swim,” Taash says.
“After you tried to drown me.”
“Mm.”
Rook pulls at his collar, baring the flushed skin there, the sheen of sweat. He looks like he’s considering whether to take it off right now.
Bellara’s racing mind catches onto the first observation it can occupy itself with. Lucanis, staring. Like an assassin undressing the anatomy of a kill. At the drop of Rook’s throat. The pulse on the side of his neck. Finally, it settles, resting at the juncture of his collarbone. (Suprasternal notch, comes a voice in the corner of her mind, the one that likes to sit with Emmrich in his study, going over anatomy with an excitable Manfred.)
A weakpoint for Rook – and for Lucanis. The signs are all there, visible on his skin and form. Dilated eyes. Catch in his breath. Flush, rising up his neck, a restless fire he tries to keep banked.
Why deny it? Why reject reason and feeling?
“If you all need me, I’ll be in the library. Bellara, I didn’t mean to be so critical of your work. You’re brilliant. It's all me. I've no patience or appreciation for literature, apparently."
Rook makes his escape at last with none of the subtlety expected of his profession. Taash shrugs and says they’re gonna find him. Something about beating up a training dummy and blowing off steam.
In the awkward silence that follows, Davrin excuses himself to go feed Assan.
But even in the disastrous aftermath, Bellara can't help but analyze the remaining Crow. He is drinking his second cup of coffee - of the meal, no, definitely not the day - and holding onto the mug with both hands. Like a lifeline. He finishes it in one swift swallow.
"I'm going to Treviso before the night market closes. We're out of onions," he tells them, as if onions are the secret weapon to defeating the risen gods. Or to warding off his feelings.
Leaving Bellara with Neve, Emmrich, Harding, and the shards of her shattered plan.
"I'll get the wine," Neve says.
“Crows are so dramatic,” Harding says, after they’ve cracked open Neve's favorite Tevinter port and finished clearing off the table. “Leliana used to tell me she didn’t understand the need for all the flair. ‘It is not such a bad thing to be seen, but it is another to stand out and be remembered at the scene.’”
“The flair is the point. Crows want to be remembered.” Neve hums, pensive. de Riva and Dellamorte, shaped by the same training. Hiding in plain sight. Not recognizing their shared tactics in the other. “Sorry it didn’t pan out, Bel. Not all leads do.”
Neve’s not surprised, but she is sorry. For them. For Bel. She takes it hard, failure. Doesn’t know it won’t let go until it’s released.
Neve does, too, but she never expects things to go her way. That’s what the back-up plans lying in wait are for.
“Thought I had it. Really don’t understand why it didn’t work. People are supposed to find meaning in metaphor. In allegory.” Bel slumps in defeat and balls up her serial in a clenched fist. It drops to the table, spent. “Probably made it worse.”
Neve leans over, taking the crumpled piece of paper, and flattens it out. First lead doesn’t usually pan out, but it tells things. Gives context to clues.
They gave themselves away, just not to each other. But they can’t keep their eyes shut forever. Something always gives.
“You hit too close to home. Spooked them off. Sometimes people know you’re on their trail, even when they don’t know they’re quarries in the first place.”
“You can lead a halla to water, but you can’t make it drink,” Harding chimes in. It has the quaint air of one of her Fereldan idioms.
“Halla are intelligent creatures, they would never have that problem.” Bel bites furiously into one of her leftover halla cakes, snapping off the sugary antlers.
Neve hates to see Bel upset. And she hates letting a case go unresolved when the answer’s right in front of them.
Sometimes the case chooses the person to solve it, she thinks.
“I’ll handle it, Bel.” Connections, clues, context. Neve starts stringing them together in her mind. “Emmrich, I’ll need Fred for this. If it’s not a bother.”
“You may ask him yourself, but I am sure he will be delighted to be at your service. Although I must admit, I haven’t any idea what you plan to do with said service.”
“I’ve got to keep some secrets, don’t I?”
She’s not hopeful. Her glass is usually half empty. But that doesn’t mean she won’t try.
Neve Gallus gets to work.