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Lace has enough troubles of her own without borrowing others'. That's what she's been telling herself.
She still works as a scout for the Inquisitor, in contact with her network, dozens of teams scattered across Thedas. She has a lively correspondence with Josephine, who even now pulls off miracles of diplomacy and finance, and with the Divine (who sent her ma a handwritten verse for her name-day that Lace still needs to thank her for). She's been writing constantly to Dagna about the weird Stone magic she's developed, and getting passionate but cryptic replies about lyrium, with cartoons doodled in the margins from Sera.
She misses both the Inquisition's people and knowing they were part of a great movement, allied with royals and nobles and the Chantry, even if her role mostly involved tents in bad climates. She misses the high of climactic, world-saving victory, and resents being surrounded by demons and fighting impossible odds yet again.
And she's still more than a little angry with Varric for not even considering putting her in command. Not that she wants to make the big decisions, but… Rook. Even after a year and a bit tracking Solas with him, she doesn't understand him or why Varric had such faith in him. As far as Lace has been able to determine—Rook's cagey and squirms when asked about his past—his Dalish clan jumped at the chance to offload him on the Veil Jumpers, and then he fucked up there so badly that Strife is still furious with him. So much that all the Veil Jumpers avoid ever using Rook's real name (whatever it is; he's never told Lace) like his Dalishness has been revoked in their eyes.
He's not a leader, he's a liability. He got Lace injured, and Varric killed, and let the ancient gods escape. And maybe it's not fair to blame him for Minrathous, but Neve does. Lucanis, too.
Ugh. The worst thing is that aside from that, Rook's nice. He tries so hard to help Lace with her new powers: he's supportive, lending an ear if she needs someone to listen, or shutting up and weeding the plants if not. He makes sure Lucanis always gets his groceries and Bellara has parts and tools, he's thrown himself into developing griffon diet and exercise plans, he talks to Manfred like they're old friends and drinks Emmrich's suspicious Necropolis teas, he lets Taash 'train' (attempt to murder) him. He seems genuinely distraught by Neve's iciness, but he's scrupulous about staying out of her sight.
All of them have problems. And Lace doesn't know who'd make a better leader. If not Lace, with her ten-plus years as a scout and Inquisition experience, then probably Davrin, except that as a Gray Warden he's technically got a boss, who's a dick, but whose orders he's sworn to obey. She wishes she could talk to Varric about everything, the way she used to. No matter how shitty things were, he always made her feel that there was hope.
"You're a thousand miles away," Lucanis says. He sets a mug down on the table in front of Lace and settles in the chair across from her at the long dining table. He holds his own mug of coffee close to his face, breathing in the fragrance. Steam wreathes his face, and he looks like a proper Demon of Vyrantium. "Not sleeping well? Bad dreams again?"
Lace shakes her head. "Have you ever woken up just… mad at the whole world? I never used to be angry," she adds, and takes a long sip of the herbal tea he prepared for her. "I mean—I hated Corypheus, and Solas is a jerk, but… I'm not like this." She makes her free hand into a fist and taps the table, for emphasis.
"I had a year raging in a cage," Lucanis says, with a twisted smile. "And wondering whether that fury was mine or the demon's."
"Exactly." Lace breathes out and lets her shoulders drop. "I don't want to be changed, but it's too late, isn't it? And being stuck in this place means I can't take a good long walk in the woods, and look at the trees and the nugs and get my head straight."
Lucanis makes a sympathetic noise. "Still," he says. "What you've done with the conservatory, it is incredible. You have a real talent. I was going to," and his voice cuts off; he blinks, "ask—one moment."
"Don't hold it in," Lace reminds him. Emmrich has been trying to coach Lucanis and the Spite demon on how to communicate better. It's hard because Spite communicates in riddles; even Rook, who's not bad at puzzles, rarely gets what Spite's upset about. But Lace'll try to untangle his words, for Lucanis' sake.
Lucanis grimaces in frustration and helplessness, but he repeats the words from his head. "He says, Asking me. Hey kid. Blood and wolf." He blinks. "He said that twice. And the blood smells old, not fresh."
"So, Solas. And Varric. Solas is asking him about Varric? Or Rook should ask Solas something about Varric?"
"Go," Lucanis relays. His eyes have just the faintest violet glow. He stands, putting his drink down with a look of regret. "I think I must check with Rook. Spite insists."
"I'll come with you." Lace cracks her shoulders as she gets up; she'd been so tense before their chat. "Rook's weird about Varric."
"We all have our quirks," Lucanis says with dark humor, and holds the door for her as they leave the dining hall.
No one's in the library hall; it's too early. Lucanis is quiet as a cat climbing the stairs, alert and intent, a hunter. Lace wants to ask if Spite's still talking to him, but that seems rude.
They check Rook's room first, but it's empty. "The infirmary," Lace says, heart sinking. She tries not to go there.
When they'd staggered into the Lighthouse for the first time, Rook had been unconscious and Lace not much better, her head threatening to explode like gaatlok. Neve had had to take care of them all: healing Lace first, because otherwise she could have died, then trying to figure out how bad Rook was. She'd asked Lace if dwarves were cremated—if Varric wanted that—and Lace pointed out they didn't have a choice, being in the Fade and all. She held his hand and said the only prayer she could remember through her headache, and then Neve took him outside. She returned with a small leather bag of ashes, which Lace placed under his folded jacket on the bed.
Rook looks like he wants to cry every time he looks at that meager memorial and Bianca in pieces on the table. Lace tries not to be irked, but she is: she knew Varric longer and had so much in common with him. He'd been like a beloved big brother to her. Rook knew him a year, and got him killed.
She gives her head a shake, trying to knock the dark thoughts loose. She's not like this, not brooding or bitter. She has no idea where this anger wells up from, but she doesn't like it.
Lucanis pushes the door open and enters first, blocking Lace's view so at first she has no idea why he says, "Oh, no." But then he crosses the room in three strides, and Lace sees Rook sitting with his back against the wall—slumped over like a child's discarded toy.
He raises his head to look at them with syrup-slow confusion, and then says, "Sorry, I—" He blinks, and tries to straighten. "Am I late?"
"You're an idiot," Lucanis informs him, kneeling at his side and checking his pulse, and for injuries and fever, with practiced efficiency. "No, stay there," he adds as Rook starts bracing himself to stand. "Tell me what happened."
Rook tips his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. "Yesterday, in Hossberg, I remembered a Gray Warden worked for the Inquisition who might be able to help with the First Warden. I thought maybe Varric…"
"Thom Rainier," Lace interrupts. "Who I've been writing to." She'd have told him if he'd bothered to ask her.
Lucanis raises a hand. "Later." He gives Lace a quick apologetic glance, then returns to his study of Rook. "I am not asking about work. Are you hurt? Why are you sitting on the floor?"
Rook shakes his head minutely. "Dizzy."
"Thank you. Look at me, please." Lucanis shifts so Rook's not in his shadow and checks his pupils. Lace was out all day yesterday with Neve in Dock Town, but she's pretty sure that if Rook had been badly injured someone would have said something over dinner. Rook and Bellara had been out attending a Veil Jumper meeting and Lace was in bed before they got back, but if Rook was hurt in Hossberg, Bellara wouldn't have let him wander around like that. Strife would have definitely noticed if Rook was dazed… though he'd probably have been disparaging. "Have you taken any potions or poisons recently?"
For the first time since they found him, Rook nearly smiles, and Lace feels a pang. "I try not to take poison," he says. "So far I've been successful."
"Any open wounds exposed to the blight?"
That wipes the humor away fast. Rook spreads his hands, mute acknowledgment that of course that was a possibility. Hossberg, Rook always jokes, is full of his two favorite things: blight and water.
"We will find out," Lucanis says. "I'll take you to your room. Harding, if you could bring Davrin, please?"
"Sure," Lace says. She feels terrible for all the bad things she's been thinking about Rook since she woke up; she doesn't want him dead.
Lucanis hauls Rook to his feet and helps him walk to the door with a supporting arm around his waist. Rook protests, and Lucanis scoffs at him as they head slowly down the corridor.
"The number of times I've done this for Illario," Lucanis says with wry nostalgia.
Rook makes a noise of protest. "Don't compare me to your cousin."
"Do not act like him, then."
The teasing has a softness to it that makes Lace wonder abruptly if Lucanis is flirting, if he and Rook are something to each other. She's not sure how she'd feel about that. She might need to shoot him someday, no hard feelings. (One of them might need to take care of Rook, if he's blighted; the thought twists her up inside. If Varric were alive, he'd look the way he did when he talked about Kirkwall, like it was a wound that always pained him.)
Her spinning thoughts are interrupted by Lucanis snapping, "Rook," and then, "Fuck," as Rook sagged on the stairs. Lace stops to help, but Lucanis is already hefting a limp Rook over his shoulder with practiced efficiency.
"As I said, Illario," he tells Lace, giving her a slightly strained reassuring smile. "We're fine."
Doubt says the childish part of Lace's brain, but she nods and sprints to Davrin's room.
When they return, Davrin barefoot in a knee-length sleep shirt with a griffon swooping around him, Lucanis has Rook tucked into the corner of his sofa, wrapped up in his threadbare quilt.
Lucanis interrupts Rook's apparently-ongoing protest that he just needs sleep to say, "Davrin's here."
Davrin is a professional soldier and he has a commanding presence; Lace is relieved as he takes charge, giving Rook orders the way he does with Assan. He kneels to do a full physical exam and then settles back on his heels and pronounces that he senses no blight in Rook.
He's not judgment-free, however. "When's the last time you ate?" he asks. He pinches the skin on the back of Rook's hand, frowns, and takes Rook's pulse. "Or drank?"
Like a pendulum powered by relief, Lace's thoughts swing from worry and fear to irritation. All this fuss, just for that? Except… Rook had missed last night's dinner, and Strife was unlikely to offer refreshments from the Veil Jumper camp's limited resources.
"We had coffee yesterday morning," Lucanis says, as if trying to jog Rook's memory. "Before you left."
Rook nods. "We have coffee every morning." Flirting again?
"I am trying to cure you of tea-drinking," Lucanis says. Definitely flirting. "Dinner the day before was… Neve's fish and radish." Rook shakes his head. "Rook."
"Taash and I ran into darkspawn in the Crossroads. The sun never moved, so it was noon all day, until we got back and everyone was asleep."
Lace can't imagine that Taash chose to go to bed hungry after that; Lucanis looks equally doubtful.
"Most people have a stomach clock," he says.
"Not poor people," Rook bites out. "Not where I come from." The lines above his nose that only show when he's angry are clear, but then his eyes widen and he looks horrified. "I'm sorry. I don't want to fight."
"That," Davrin says dryly, "is what happens when you ignore your body." He claps his hands against his bare knees and stands. "I'm going to speak to Emmrich for a moment. Lucanis, could you bring some coffee? And Harding—keep an eye on him?"
"Sure," Lace says. If anyone'd asked her an hour ago if it'd be awkward to be alone with Rook, she'd probably have said yes. But the rapid shift of her emotions has depleted them, maybe; instead of the frustrated rage that's been simmering, all she feels is a kind of weary camaraderie. As the door closes behind them, she looks at Rook, hunched under the quilt in sullen humiliation, and is relieved that she doesn't want him to suffer. "Can I get you anything?"
He doesn't look at her. Since she's known him, he's never been good at asking for help, like he thinks it's important others know he's self-reliant. She's always written that off as standoffishness, but maybe it's just his truth.
"I can do your hair," Lace offers. "Where's your comb?" Rook points her to his pack, over by the windows, where Assan is craning his neck, mesmerized by the fish. In Lace's limited experience, griffons respond to commands like mabari. She orders Assan to go sit with Rook.
He runs and makes a flying leap onto the sofa, sitting on Rook and looking proud of himself for initiative. Lace tells him he's a good boy as she stands behind Rook and starts teasing out his tangles. Now that she has dreams—ugh—she has first-hand experience with waking up looking like a haystack from tossing and turning in her sleep. It's not as funny as it looks.
She wants to ask Rook whether he and Lucanis are a thing, but he's too vulnerable to be blindsided with her curiosity. Instead, watching as Rook scratches Assan's neck, she says, "You're good with him. Did you ever have a pet?" And then she recalls what he just said, about growing up poor and hungry, and wants to unsay the words.
But Rook makes an affirming noise. "There were a lot of friendly strays, like in Dock Town." He shrugs. "Friendly to a stray kid, anyway. We had each other."
Back when they were hunting Solas, Varric had insisted on two hot meals a day, every sunrise and sunset. He said middle age hit hard. You kids'll find out, he grumbled once, when they were camping outside Redcliffe. You wake up one morning with aches in the weirdest places and a craving for beans on toast. He'd looked at the plate Rook just handed him—probably berried fish with pickles again, Rook's spin on Dalish cuisine—and shook his head. Gotta tell you, this ain't it, kid.
Rook had taken the hit with a grin, and pulled a quarter wheel of Ostwick White from his pack. For you, he'd said, handing it over. I saw you making eyes at the cheesemonger yesterday.
Rook buys thoughtful presents like he's never considered keeping money for himself. He puts a coin in every beggar's outstretched hand; he stops to pet all the cats, and usually has strips of dried meat for them in his pockets.
Lace can easily picture Rook being the same as a kid, but he's made her wonder if anyone took the same care of him. She asks, trying to phrase it diplomatically, but the question still make Rook tense. "You don't have to talk about the past," she adds. "Not to me or anyone. But you can. If you want. Better than letting it eat at you, probably."
She was being earnest and didn't mean to make a joke; she realizes what she said only after Rook laughs.
"Shut up." She tugs his hair as a warning. "You know I'm terrible at this emotional stuff."
"You're not," he says. "You always know how to say the right thing."
Her conscience couldn't prickle more if it turned into a cactus. "I have terrible thoughts," she blurts out. "Ever since Solas' ritual. I'm angry and impatient. I think mean things about people, and I have to work to remember that that's not the truth."
"I'm sorry," Rook says, tipping his head back and twisting so he can look at her. Assan squawks in protest.
"I agree with the fluffball. Shut up about that." She gives in to impulse and hugs Rook, putting her cheek right up against his. "Solas had ten years to explain to us mere mortals what he was planning to do. He knows the Inquisitor and the Grand Enchanter and the Divine personally. But he thinks he's better than all of them put together, and no one can comprehend his genius ideas."
"He thinks we're his mistakes," Rook says. "If he slips up and forgets that, if he thinks of us as real people, he might not be able to be ruthless." He raises one hand to Lace's shoulder and gives a gentle squeeze. "I'm terrified that he's using me. I mean." He takes a breath. "He is using me, putting me into position like a game piece. But I don't know how or why, or when the endgame is."
Lace understands that all too well, and in a surge of emotional fellow-feeling nearly vows to punch Solas for him. But Varric tried, and failed, and she doesn't want to remind Rook of that; also, the door bangs open and Lucanis walks in with a kettle, Emmrich wafting behind him in a silky dressing gown, followed by Davrin and Manfred with laden trays.
"Are we interrupting?" Lucanis asks, stopping short when he sees them. He's good at masking his feelings, but he's reacting like he caught Rook in a compromising position.
Definitely jealous, and Lace will have to ask Neve and Bellara what they know about Rook and Lucanis later, but right now she snorts and gives him the eyeroll he deserves. "We're hating on Solas. Is that food?"
Assan is already rousing from his well-patted stupor and looking around for the source of the amazing smells.
"Let me just," Lucanis says, and quickly moves Rook's collection of eternally-burning fade-magic candles off the table so Davrin and Manfred can put their stuff down—a pot of ginger-scented soup, a pile of toasted bread, sliced ham, greens with mustard, at least three kinds of cheese, a tomato salad. Lace quickly unwinds the leather band from the comb's handle and uses it to tie Rook's hair back and up, out of the way. "We made a little of everything."
He sounds a bit embarrassed, as if he's just now realizing how overboard he's gone.
"There's enough for all of us," Emmrich says breezily. "Like a dinner party, but for breakfast. I sent wisps to the others, I hope you don't mind." He looks down his nose at Rook and raises his eyebrows, one hand curling in an arcane gesture. "Something light for you, I think, but balancing." Manfred holds out a bowl, which Emmrich takes, examines, and then fills with soup. He sniffs it once, critically, and then passes it to Rook. "That should settle you nicely."
Manfred hands Rook a spoon with a creepily encouraging hiss. Rook holds it in his free hand looking more trapped than grateful, so Lace goes over to the table and asks who made what, trying to be loud enough that everyone stops looking at Rook. Taash inadvertently helps her out when they stomp into the room with a wisp bobbing between their horns, saying, "Hey. Neve's thing got lost in my room."
"That was me," Emmrich admits, with a hint of pride, and he looks like he's about to explain further but then Neve and Bellara arrive.
"Ooh, food!" Bellara exclaims, eyes wide; Neve raises her eyebrows at Emmrich as she returns their wisps and says dryly, "I have enough of these as it is, thank you."
Davrin hands them all dishes and then busies himself keeping Assan out of the people food. Rook's room lacks chairs, so they all settle on the steps in front of the window, except for Lucanis. He's taken the seat next to Rook and murmurs something culinary at him, an explanation of herbs and humors and a recipe he'd enjoyed as a child.
"There's coffee," he interrupts himself after a moment. "Let me know if you want any."
"I'm fine," Rook says. The words come out sharp, and he catches himself with a wince. "I really am."
"So," Neve asks, stretching the word out with curiosity. "I missed something. What are we celebrating?"
"Rook forgot to eat and passed out," Lucanis says darkly.
"Rook," Rook says, "was busy trying to stop the world from ending."
"Good plan," Neve tells him with eyes widened in fake amazement. She's really good at sarcasm. But right now, Lace thinks, her teasing is—perhaps—a peace offering. A fragile step on the way to rebuilding their friendship. "Step one, knock yourself out. Step two… hang out in your head with Solas. Step three—?" She glances at Lucanis and gives him a nod of approval. "Good thing you were with him, so he didn't concuss himself again."
Lace frowns. Neve knows, and she hasn't talked to Rook in weeks. How self-absorbed have I been?
"I was in the kitchen." Lucanis' voice is flat, like he's giving a mission report, but Lace swears he's blushing. "Spite insisted I go. For all I knew—" He cuts himself off, but as a Crow, Lace knows he can imagine plenty of bad things that might have happened.
"Very clever of Spite," Neve says, seemingly sincere, but also doing him the kindness of changing the subject from potential death. "Does he like Rook, too?"
Rook turns his entire attention on the dregs of his soup as if searching for the elven gods under the lentils.
Lucanis flusters. "He says Rook is fun. He wants to talk to him. Rook," Lucanis sighs as if this pains him, "tells him jokes."
"Isabela called him a spirit of determination," Rook says. "What if he was determined to be happy?"
Lucanis shakes his head and looks over at Emmrich, then Neve, for support. "What kind of assassin is possessed by happiness?"
"I must confess to being fascinated by the thaumaturgical implications," Emmrich says, brimming with academic enthusiasm. He gets like that about magic. To Lace, it's like a blacksmith only seeing how beautiful the swords and daggers they produce are. But Bellara and Neve are neck-deep in demons and magic's horrible uses, and they try to set him straight. (Gently, because no one wants to tarnish Emmrich's almost childlike enthusiasm. But honestly, because messing around with this shit gets people killed.)
While that discussion fills the background, Taash leans over toward Davrin and quizzes him on griffon-training. Davrin turns half their questions back on them: how much flying does Taash think is developmentally appropriate? The griffons had instinctively groomed each other: how's he supposed to do that for Assan? How much feather loss is normal?
Taash gives him a flat unimpressed look but the twitch at the corner of their mouth gives away that they're amused. "Dragons have scales."
"I get that," Davrin says, exasperated. "But…"
Lace tunes them out, too, and looks over at Rook. He's dozing off, his head dropped at a terrible angle against his chest; Lucanis has rescued Rook's soup bowl and is attempting to get Rook more comfortable with his free hand.
Lace gets up and takes the bowl from him, setting it on the table and then giving Lucanis a hand Rook-wrangling. He ends up sitting in the corner of the sofa with Rook's head in his lap. For a moment he's at a loss as to where to put his hand, but then he gives Lace an apologetic look and rests it on Rook's shoulder.
"I hate this room," Lucanis confesses, voice low. "It looks like my nightmares."
Neve, apparently eavesdropping, raises a hand and the windows frost over. Being kind to Lucanis, or his demon, or both; she doesn't blame him for Minrathus, the way she does with Rook. They chat, he makes her coffee. Lace wonders, abruptly and with unwanted guilt that she resents, what it is about Rook that he gets under people's skins so easily and then just... accepts their judgment. Hatred, even.
I had a friend in Kirkwall, she remembers Varric saying after Rook got his ass handed to him in a bar fight outside Starkhaven. She had a punchable face, too. Rook was pinching his nose shut, trying to stop the bleeding, but he'd still taken the bait: yeah? He always tried to get stories out of Varric. Died saving us all in the end, Varric said. That's what happens to the good guys.
Rook had looked winded, and said he was sorry (he's always sorry), but then added, it's good I suck, then, I guess.
Lace doesn't put him in the same class as the Champion of Kirkwall, that's for sure. She thinks Varric hired him out of pity, because he felt bad that Strife kicked Rook out of the Veil Jumpers, and she's pretty sure Rook believes that, too.
It's why Rook tries so hard to help everyone in this room and all their allies. Like he's forever attempting to redeem himself for a lifetime of failures.
"So," Lace starts, looking at Neve first, but then directing her appeal to Davrin, then Emmrich. "What are we going to do? About Rook, I mean."
"Start with not talking behind his back," Lucanis says, a well-honed edge to his voice.
Taash leans forward to plant their elbows on their knees. "Yeah. Gotta be embarrassing. Anyway."
"I am a creature of habit," Emmrich starts, with an apologetic glance at Lucanis. "Since my student days I have kept a regular schedule, and despite this place lacking a diurnal cycle, I have been mostly able to stick to it. Perhaps I could…"
"The problem's not food," Bellara blurts out, then goes wide eyed. "Sorry, Professor Emmrich." Emmrich waves his hand graciously to indicate he's not offended and she should continue. "I talked with Strife and Irelin after the meeting last night, and they didn't know anything? About Rook? Like, if he had any brothers or sisters, or where he's from, but I didn't ask him, either. I guess… I assume people will talk about themselves, but he doesn't, and it feels. Lonely. To me."
"He lived in a city. Before the Veil Jumpers," Taash says.
"Told me he grew up Dalish." Davrin sounds… not like he doubts that, but like he knows as well as Lace does that if both things are true, it's not a good sign. She knows what happened to the Inquisitor's clan; how easy it is for a child with family and a home to become a stray.
Bellara winces, making the same calculation. "Oh."
"I beg of you," Lucanis says. He doesn't look like he wants to stab anyone, but Lace realizes with a mental oof that of course, if he and Rook are a thing, he probably knows more than any of them. If she's brutally honest, more than herself, even, despite having known Rook the longest. That smarts. "Do not do this."
"Seconded." Neve brushes her hands to shake off toast crumbs, but also the topic, metaphorically. She's got such a talent for theatrical gestures. That, and hats. "Every good detective learns that you don't treat the people you care about as cases that needs solving. Snooping breaks trust."
"He didn't trust us enough to say he wasn't feeling good." Taash says this dispassionately, like it's a plain fact, and that makes Lace feel worse.
But Neve just hums and looks unbothered. "He didn't have time, with Spite keeping such a good eye on him." She makes that sound suggestive, as if Lucanis is so smitten even his demon is affected. "Look. I know I'm showing my Dock Town roots, but sometimes there's simply not enough food, or too much work, or both. Save your worry for if it happens again."
"Which it won't," Lucanis says darkly.
"I'm gonna carry snacks," Taash says with a smirk. "Can't hurt."
Davrin snorts. "Assan will love you." (He's been quietly feeding Assan tomatoes and ham from his plate, and truffles from his pocket. If anyone on the team is an expert on snacking, he is.)
"Well," Emmrich says. There's a certain brisk quality to his tone that suggests he's attended too many meetings that went on too long and needed to be firmly wrapped up. "I've my ablutions to attend to, and then a full day of research and consultation with my colleagues in Nevarra. I expect we're all equally busy—my apologies, Lucanis, but I really must be going." With a commanding sweep of his eyes, he implicates everyone with his I. "Manfred will take the dirty dishes, but the leftovers will be good here, I hope?"
Translation: Emmrich has also noticed that Lucanis didn't eat because he was too busy fussing.
It's a laugh-or-cry moment. They're all kind of a mess. As she stacks up the plates and bowls, Lace takes comfort in knowing she's not alone. She's still angry at Solas and wishes Varric were alive and resents having magic and dreams stuffed into her head without her permission, and she's helpless to do anything about any of that. But churning all those thoughts around in her head only makes her feel worse and even more out of control. Even just being in a room with other people and knowing that if she talks they'll listen is… everything. Right now, it probably keeps her sane.
And she can be that person for Rook. His failure mode doesn't look like hers, but maybe they can relate. Even if they don't, she needs to look out for this Rook—the real one, trying so hard that he pushed himself past his limits—and not the dreamed-up Rook in her head who her anger has chosen to fixate on.
Varric would want that for them, she thinks; all his best stories were about overcoming obstacles. He might not be around to write this story's ending, but she is. She'll stick the landing, for him.