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For a moment he wonders if he should've taken Davrin up on his offer to come with - to be the one to deliver the news to the Crows instead.
Viago is deathly still, his gray-blue eyes narrowed like an adder preparing to strike. The near silence - broken by the shaky exhale from Teia at the news - hangs heavily over the room.
"Vi," she says softly, touching the other Talon's arm.
Only then does the Fifth Talon seem to jolt - his whole body tensed and pulling away as if expecting harm. His expression turned ashen as he closes his eyes, "Excuse me." His voice tight. Anger or fear or grief or some mingling of all three makes the words thick - and then he has spun away out the window. Departing from the rooftops rather than chance another Crow seeing him in such a state.
Teia's brows furrow before she looks at Lucanis, "I will be back - he shouldn't be alone."
Lucanis nods and he understands the silent request that he wait. She'll come back to ask more questions once she's certain of Viago's safety. He watches in silence as his almost-an-older-sister follows her beloved out into the Trevisan night.
It leaves him standing alone in Teia's private set of rooms in the Diamond. The ones that belong to her and not the Seventh Talon. He's not stood in these rooms since before the Ossuary, but it makes him long for when life felt simple - obey his grandmother, complete his contracts, enjoy his coffee. This is where Teia brings her most beloved to simply be family outside the trappings of the Crows.
Looking around he can see the signs that this is where Viago has been living too: A pair of gloves too large for Teia drape across the back of one of the chairs. A case of vials labeled in a careful hand. One of the chairs positioned exactly to keep an eye on all windows and doors that had been closer to the fireplace once, a political treatise set on the side table the place marked with a battered looking eagle feather.
(“I thought I’d found evidence of griffons once - when I was little. Dragged my brother up and down a bunch of ravines before he finally told me it was just a pair of eagle feathers,” Rook admitted to Davrin before he flicked one of the strangely blue cattail reeds he’d brought back from Aralthan right as Assan pounced for it.)
Spite is preoccupied with something under the lounge chair.
"Spite," he tries - he's not sure he can juggle the demon's agitation over Rook's location again. Not while giving Teia the answers that Viago will deserve to hear when he's ready.
"It has gloves!" the demon seems delighted, wiggling his fingers.
A paw flashes from beneath the lounge. And then a cat emerges. It's young and lithe, mostly white with black splotches that color the top of its head and ears like a hood, black socks, black tail, and a large splotch across its shoulders and back like a cape.
It pounces happily at Spite's playing fingers.
He didn't know Teia had a cat.
Teia's footsteps are soft as she rejoins them - him, Lucanis corrects himself, trying to remember that not everyone is as relaxed over the knowledge of Spite as the others in the Lighthouse are. Teia’s seemed less wary than Viago is about the news of the possession but he hasn’t actually had a chance to talk to her about Spite since all this began. Other matters were more important.
"Come out of hiding now Viago is gone, have you?" she asks the creature who jumps up next to Lucanis once Spite stops playing (watching Teia) to demand pets from him.
Lucanis gives them a gentle scratch to distract himself from that hollow, yawning doom feeling that accompanies having to think about where Rook is and what he may be suffering...
"I didn't know you had a cat."
The creature is older than a year old, he thinks, so Teia must not have gotten them as a kitten for them to have not been here last time he was.
She shakes her head with a laugh, "He's no Cantori - far too fussy and prone to finding trouble. Even insists on wearing gloves, like he's copying his uncle - see? But someone had to look after him when we had Varric smuggle Nico away - Vi wasn’t really of the mind for taking care of himself, let alone a cat."
"Rook’s cat?" Spite seems pleased with the information as he goes back to playing with the cat the same way he’s seen Rook play with Assan or the street cats he sometimes stops to coo at between their never-ending tasks.
Teia raises a brow as the kitten baps at air playfully, nearly falling off the furniture in his enthusiasm.
"Spite," he explains softly. "I think he can see him?"
"Ah, cats ," Teia hums as she busies herself making coffee. "And Gloves is a mage's cat no less."
It's passable compared to what Neve tried to make him the other night, and he trusts Teia not to poison him. (Both because she has his trust and because if she ever has a problem with him in truth she'll resolve it with blades.) He takes a moment to focus on the notes of bitterness and the general heat of the liquid.
"You haven't given up," she notes - it isn't a question.
He still shakes his head to confirm, "We will get him back. Emmrich thinks he has found the prison's location."
Teia studies him, "Good," she tilts her head with a smirk, "Feel free to consider this a contract, First Talon: Bring Nico home."
Lucanis smirks a little, despite the threat in her tone, "Of course." He's never failed a contract before. This one he refuses to contemplate failing.
"Good - Vi's going to kill you if you don't."
Lucanis frowns, a feeling uncomfortably close to jealousy burning in his chest despite the circumstances: "I'd never even heard of Rook before...are they really that close?"
"He basically raised Rook. He is also a paranoid cabrón. Vi was rarely pleased that I knew about his precious little brother and favorite student.” Teia’s smile is fond even as she shakes her head at the behavior.
They both can understand why a Talon would wish to hide they had anyone they considered family away. There are far too few Dellamorte’s left for there to be any illusion that being family to a Talon is dangerous . Even being related unknowingly could be costly (one of his dead cousins had been a Cousland because his mother had left both the Crows and Antiva behind).
“He sent Rook away,” he still can’t help the defensive frown as he thinks about how lost Rook sometimes looks about his place as a de Riva.
Teia sighs, her eyes on the cat’s antics as she thinks about what to say, “Caterina and the other Talons wanted Rook’s head. He’d ruined months of work with a bout of impulsive heroism and hadn’t had the decency to die a martyr for it. They would’ve killed him if we hadn’t gotten Nico out of their reach and quickly.”
“Why does Rook think that Viago is disappointed?”
“Mostly because they both are idiots,” Teia rolls her eyes. “Vi was terrified - like he is now, and he hates anyone to see that he has a heart. He chose between his brother being killed by the Crows or a contract so impossible to pull off it was akin to death anyways. He didn’t think Varric would succeed.” She pauses to sip her coffee and then admits, “I thought it’d be a few years and then I’d get a letter from Nico asking me to move Gloves here to Kirkwall or maybe a quiet cottage in Ferelden near Harding’s mother.”
Lucanis looks at his mug. An exile in everything but name then, but Viago had seen it as the only way to save Rook. Could he have done that for Illario - if things had been different, if his cousin had been less of a good Crow and more of a good brother?
“Our Rook did it,” Spite smirks into the silence - pleased and proud of their love. He meets Lucanis’ eye, “He will beat Solas - we will help make sure it hurts! Then we come home and play with the gloved kitty and make trouble for the gloved Crow. And have coffee .”
Lucanis laughs despite himself. “I think that is a good deal.”
“The best deal,” Spite sounds altogether too pleased with himself at that.
“Dare I ask?”
“Spite was saying that Rook will pull the contract off - then we’ll all come home and make trouble for Viago and play with - is his name really Gloves?”
“A little trouble is good for him,” she agrees. “And when you two, ah, three? No matter, when you have children - Nico is not allowed to name them.”
“I - when ?”
“Children? How do we do that? Rook will have them with us?”
“Mierda.”