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Since Neve had come back to the Lighthouse, she’d barely talked to Rook.
Apart from that one thing, she’d fitted herself back into the team almost seamlessly. She’d been making a point of getting to know Taash and Emmrich. She had dinner with the team, told funny stories about old jobs, and complimented Lucanis and Bellara’s cooking. She chatted with Harding and Bellara and petted Assan. She came to team meetings, notebook in hand, and was her usual self: asking probing questions, looking for ulterior motives, searching for the connections behind the plots they were running into. She came out to the field and fought as effectively as ever and shared knowledge willingly. She did everything he could reasonably ask of her as a member of the team.
But they never talked any more.
Oh, she said hello as they passed for meals. She chatted idly about whatever task they were on when they were out. But if she was alone in the library when he came in, she picked up her book and went out. Every time Rook stopped by her office, she’d be preoccupied with something, saying it wasn’t a good time to talk. Sometimes he’d see her out chatting with someone else not half an hour later.
He could go and ask her why, but he knew why, didn’t he? It was about Minrathous, and Treviso, and the damned dragons. She’d said she understood, that he had to make an impossible choice, but she still seemed to blame him for it, without saying anything at all. It would have been easier if she had said something. Then they could have talked it out, had the argument, maybe come to a resolution.
As it was, he couldn’t very well be the one to bring it up. She had a perfect right to be angry. She’d been right about the Venatori and the risk of a coup. Her friends were the ones bleeding and dying in the streets, while her city lay stunned under the Venatori’s heel. In the moment, there hadn’t been time for a measured consideration of the issues, no time to do more than pick a crisis to run toward and hope for the best. Even knowing how it had come out, he couldn’t honestly say he’d choose differently. He’d sworn an oath and it still would have sent him to Treviso, to the shimmering canals so vulnerable to the blight. Minrathous and its legendary defenses damned well should have been able to fend off a dragon.
So what was there to say? Any apology he could make felt worthless, any explanation would just throw salt on her wounds. He couldn’t very well demand she open her heart, or even ask if they were still friends. Whatever they might have been moving toward, before, seemed well and truly crushed. The friendship he thought they’d had seemed gone along with it. Neve was nothing but organized, efficient, and perfectly polite, and Rook kept tripping over his own guilt or bouncing off her professional demeanor like it was one of her ice shields.
Which was just killing him a bit inside, that was all.
Sometimes he thought back to before, to the way her voice had softened when she’d talked about embracing the small victories, to the sun on her hair as they ate fried fish on the docks, and that was just never going to happen again.
He was going to have to get over it. That was the only way forward Rook could see. Neve was still an important part of the team. They needed her insights, her knowledge, her magic, her ability to see layers no one else did. Whatever regrets he had were his problem to deal with, not hers. She was doing her job, and he had to do his.
He’d come to this conclusion after hours of chewing it over in his mind and one vague, unhelpful conversation with Varric. There was no point putting this problem on anyone else on the team; she seemed to get along fine with everyone else, including Lucanis.
So, Rook squared his shoulders and headed to Neve’s office, ignoring the pit in his stomach. Neve had never turned down a request to join him in the field, so she wasn’t the problem here. He was, and he just had to get over it and treat Neve like anyone else on the team.
Neve was sitting at her desk, frowning at the notes spread out in front of her, tapping a pen idly on the edge of the desk. She looked up as he came in, and he started talking before she could say anything that might put a spike in his momentum.
“Neve,” he said, “I know you hate the Hossberg Wetlands, but there’s an abandoned manor out there that’s supposed to be cursed or haunted, and we caught a glimpse of those red Venatori crystals when we scouted the area. I want you to come take a look at it with me.”
Neve blinked, straightening up in her chair. “I never said I hated the Hossberg Wetlands.”
“The look on your face when we go there says enough,” Rook said. “And you have said you hate fighting darkspawn. Can’t blame you, honestly, but there definitely will be darkspawn, so… sorry about that.”
She pressed her lips together. “I don’t hate it. It’s just that I’m always getting mud all over my foot and it takes an age to clean off.”
“I’ll clean it for you,” he offered.
Neve’s eyebrows went up. Rook immediately wanted to kick himself. I’ll clean your foot for you? Where had that come from? She barely had any interest in having a conversation with him, he had no business presuming she’d welcome any further kind of intimacy.
“Be careful what you offer, Rook,” she said dryly.
It wasn’t a no. He fidgeted in place, unsure what to make of that. “So,” he said, getting back to the point: “Cursed manor? Venatori? Some wards to break? Sounds like the manor is a local mystery?”
Her lips twitched. “You do make a compelling case. I’ll get my things. You, me, and who else?
Rook congratulated himself on almost making her laugh. “Davrin. We’ll undoubtedly run into darkspawn on the way.”
She nodded. “Give me a minute and I’ll meet you at the eluvian.”
#
A thin layer of snow dusted the stonework of Grey Hold as they stepped through the eluvian. As usual, the skies were grey, clouds hanging low over Lavendel and dimming the day to twilight-dark. They spared a few minutes to greet Evka and Antoine – the latter still busy with the blight samples Rook had gathered the last time they were out this way.
Away from the Hold, the air was a shade warmer, making everything wet instead of snow-covered. The ground was sodden underfoot, squelching as they walked. Lavendel’s farms and pastures had been dry once, before the blight growth choked off the water upstream, rerouting the waterways, flooding the fields, and turning everything to mud. The damp cold seeped in even through armor. Around them, insects buzzed sluggishly and startled reptiles slithered into the water. Everything smelled sour with blight. Planting season should be starting soon; Lavendel would struggle to feed itself.
Behind Rook, Neve asked Davrin how long someone with blight sickness might have. Davrin answered gently, knowing she was thinking about the Viper, and maybe others in Minrathous. Rook, nettled, bit the inside of his cheek. She could have asked him. He could have answered as well as Davrin. He’d known Neve longer.
He shook his head, impatient with himself. He was being ridiculous. Neve could talk to whoever she wanted about whatever she wanted. He didn’t have any claim on her. This was just illustrating the problem: he had to get a grip and accept the way things were now.
When a handful of darkspawn emerged in the fog ahead, Rook took it as a relief.
He shouted a warning, but Davrin was already taking a defensive stance, drawing his sword and calling out a challenge. Assan sprang into the air, shrilling his own challenge. A handful of darkspawn jogged out of the fog: hurlocks with axes and javelins, and two spindly ghouls, top-heavy with blight growth.
Neve flicked her wand. The ground between Davrin and the darkspawn frosted over, ice crackling up over the creatures’ feet. Assan shrieked and dived toward the hurlock javelineer in the back, claws extended.
Rook raced toward the spindly darkspawn before it could explode. He set off at an angle from the others, catching its attention. It veered toward him, single-minded; he got into range, slashed at it, and darted away as it started twitching. He made it out of range just as it blew up, scattering caustic blobs of blight in all directions.
What great innovations Ghilan’nain had made in darkspawn, like they weren’t bad enough in the first place.
He went after the second ghoul, same maneuver: dart in close, slice into it, dance away before it went off. He felt a surge of sharp satisfaction as he spun out of range and took a swift look around. Assan finished worrying at the first javelineer and pounced on the second one. Davrin had just cut down one of the axe-wielders and was fending off the second.
A third ghoul ran out of the fog, some thirty feet away, headed toward Davrin and Neve and primed to burst. Rook sprinted toward it, splashing through ankle-deep water and sucking mud. He slashed at it from the side and tried to turn. He slipped in the mud, crashed down into the muck, landing on his shield arm. His shield sank into the sodden ground. He yanked on it, throwing up his free arm –
An ice shield snapped into place, casting a sudden chill over his face. The darkspawn exploded. Chunks of burning blight sizzled as they hit the ice. The ice melted slowly, raining chill water.
Rook’s shield came free with a heavy tug and a horrendous sucking sound. He almost overbalanced and fell down again, but managed to keep his feet. Another two hurlocks had followed the exploding ghoul and made it to Davrin, pushing him and Neve back; Rook ran in to join the fray, harrying the hurlocks from behind. Ice churned around the darkspawn’s feet, slowing them down. Rook took advantage to stab one from behind, through a gap in its patchy armor. Davrin slit the other’s throat.
Silence fell, broken by Assan’s triumphant screech. He trotted up behind Rook and beat his wings, preening.
“Good job, boy,” Davrin told him.
“Everyone all right?” Rook asked. When the others nodded, he added to Neve: “Thanks, that was just in time.”
“Well, you did promise you’d clean this off,” she said, gesturing. She’d had to move off the path at some point and was coated in mud up to the ankles.
Rook laughed. “Yeah, I did. I do keep my promises.”
Davrin snorted. “You might as well, you’re covered in the same crap.”
“Oh, I see someone’s still clean because he was just standing there…”
“Hey, I picked my ground wisely, unlike some people…”
They kept up the banter for a few more minutes, wiping off their weapons and setting back on their path, but fell quiet as spotted the first warding crystals, sparkling crimson in the faded light. The crystals were strung through a narrow, rising trail in the rocks.
Neve took the lead here, following the crystal network with her head cocked and her eyes intent. “There,” she said after a moment, and pointed: a shard of ice flew from her hand, striking the lone unwarded crystal hidden in a dark spot between the rocks. It shattered in a shower of ruby fragments, and Neve turned to the next in line. It was almost like pulling on a loose thread and watching the fabric unravel, as she quickly and methodically blasted through each crystal in the line. The last crystal broke a barrier, revealing a trail leading further on.
“These were fresh,” Neve said, hands on her hips. “Put here recently.”
“Venatori should still be close, then,” Rook said.
She nodded, her face set.
A few paces further on, they found another cluster of wards, more complex, winding through a tangle of passages through the rocky hills. At a junction of passages sat a larger crystal, pulsing in a slow rhythm with an audible hum. That was new.
“Darkspawn moving up behind us,” Davrin said, just as Rook felt the same jolt of recognition.
The darkspawn came at them from all sides, but the passages were narrow enough for Rook and Davrin to block two. A darkspawn javelin shattered one crystal as Rook ducked out of the way and struck at the ghoul charging toward him. A spray of ice blasted the javelineer, stray shards breaking another crystal. The ghoul fell under Rook’s sword, and a roaring hurlock with an axe pelted into its place. He took the blow of the axe on his shield, and ducked as a blob of blight the size of his head impacted and burst, sizzling drops flying everywhere. The double force of pushed him back a step, into the junction.
“Move!” Neve shouted.
Somewhere behind him came a concussive pop, as if a great invisible hand hit him in the back and shoved him forward again. The darkspawn’s axe scraped harshly against his shield. His ears rang, and he tried to shake it off, blinking away a moment of double vision. He just managed to block the hurlock’s next blow, and stabbed it, blade piercing through its hardened hide, slicing through flesh and organs. It collapsed, leaving Rook free to plunge forward and finish off the injured javelineer.
He turned in time to see Davrin cutting down his last opponent, and Neve breaking the pulsing crystal. “It powers up and then goes off,” she explained. “Wasn’t sure what it was going to do.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” Rook said, though admittedly he still felt slightly dizzy.
Neve raised an eyebrow but didn’t push any further. “Someone’s getting fancy with their warding crystals,” she said instead.
“Guess they really want to discourage visitors,” Davrin observed.
“Hard to believe there’s anything that valuable up here,” Neve replied. “I suppose we’ll see.”
She destroyed the rest of the crystals swiftly, unsealing the opening they’d been guarding.
The manor itself, when they found it, barely deserved the name. It was a broken husk of a building, the walls crumbling to pieces, the roof altogether rotted away. Some portion of the original structure remained, looming on the other side of a courtyard with a few fragments of elegant stonework still standing. The place had been built to take advantage of the natural cliffs of the highlands, now encrusted with blight. The courtyard contained yet another network of scarlet crystals and, finally, the Venatori themselves.
Neve hit the first of the Venatori mages while he was still shouting possessively about the manor’s treasure. Ice exploded into his face, spiking through his mouth and eyes and he fell, choking. A second mage hurled a bolt of lightning at Neve before Assan fell on him, screeching. Davrin met the heaviest of the Venatori guards in a clash of steel; Rook fended off a second guard, spinning so his sickle glanced off Rook’s shield, then catching him with a blow from behind. As the guard fell, Rook darted after the last guard, who was sneaking up to Assan from the side.
The last Venatori fell quickly, leaving them the only living things standing. A sluggish breeze blew through the open walls of the courtyard, and the humming of the crystals broke into another dull pop.
Drawn inside, breathed a low voice that seemed to emanate from the broken stones themselves.
“What was that?” Rook wasn’t entirely sure he was hearing the voice with his ears at all.
“We’re not alone,” Davrin growled.
“Ominous voices, what fun,” Neve said dryly.
Assan lashed his tail and warbled nervously.
They searched the building first, or what was left of it. The courtyard must have been a graceful receiving area once; now tendrils of blight and weeds grew through the stone, and the walls were tumbling to pieces. Two sphinxes flanked the short staircase to the interior, one of them headless. Up the stairs lay a floor of broad wooden planks, but the roof was gone entirely and blight had surged around the walls. The central doorway was blocked with a shimmering blue barrier.
You want to know more. The voice seemed to rumble through the floor.
“I’ll admit, my curiosity is piqued,” Neve said.
Rook suppressed a smile. She seemed to be enjoying herself, ominous voices and all, and her enjoyment was contagious. “Can you get the ward down?”
“It would help if I could see the glyph they set it with.”
To the left, another stairway led up to what had been the second floor. Climbing it now, the floorboards immediately underfoot seemed solid enough, but most of this story was simply gone, leaving a clear view into the area behind the barrier.
Rook looked down. A large desk sat below, scattered with papers and a few fresh candles, with some bedrolls in the corner; probably where the Venatori had made their camp. He thought it over for a second and then jumped down.
Neve said, “What are you –” and cut herself off.
The floorboards creaked ominously as Rook landed, but held. His left knee registered a small protest, but it held, too. “It’s not that far down,” he said, straightening. “The glyph must be on this side.”
Neve sighed, but sat on the edge of the intact floorboards and lowered herself down, hanging from both hands for a moment before letting go.
“No thanks,” Davrin said dryly, looking down at them.
“I’ll get the ward down in a moment.” Neve dusted off her hands and headed toward the warded doorway. Rook started leafing through the papers on the desk.
The voice sounded again, a warning or an invitation: What lies below.
“Anyone else think there’s something in the cellar?” Rook asked.
“Something’s playing mind games,” Neve said. “Ah, you’re right, here it is.” There was a crack like shattering ice, and Neve and Davrin both joined Rook by the desk.
“What have you found?”
“Someone’s notes.” He passed the paper to Neve.
She frowned, eyes scanning the text. “Not much to go on. Nothing’s signed. I didn’t recognize their faces. Lower ranking Venatori, I’d guess. Have to check with contacts at home to figure out who they were.”
There wasn’t much else in the building: an ornate fireplace, gilt and marble still somehow intact; some odd statuary; bits and pieces of furniture that must have been expensive, once. “They said in Lavendel that this place belonged to a Lord Gaspin,” Rook said, looking around. “Bought the place as a country house, supposedly vanished or something. I’m not clear whether it was cursed when he moved in, or he was the one who cursed it.”
“From the looks of the place, that must have been at least a hundred years ago,” Davrin said.
“Do you think there’s really a treasure?” Rook asked Neve.
She frowned for a moment, but her eyes sparkled when she met his gaze. “I think there’s something down there,” she said. “Something with a mind, that calls people to it.”
“Demon, then.” Rook thought about the Echo in the well. The people of Lavendel had dealt with enough already; they didn’t need one more thing on the outskirts of the village looking for prey. “Let’s take care of it.”
Neve nodded, quick and sharp. Davrin grunted, but assented as well, and they turned back to the courtyard.
The web of warding crystals in the courtyard was a complicated one, vibrating with power. Scarlet streaks ribboned through the air as they shattered each crystal in turn, taking care to avoid the larger ones as they burst. The last warded door was blocked with boards as well, hastily tacked in place. They broke through both and went down the short flight of stairs, finding another gleaming blue magical barrier.
“They really didn’t want anyone else getting through,” Rook observed.
“Too bad for them,” Neve said. The glyph was visible above the door this time, shining blue-white, strands of icy vapor floating around it. She broke it with a smooth, practiced movement, and the doorway lay open.
The cellar on the other side had clearly been a workshop of sorts. Though three walls were still lined with massive casks, more papers littered the tables within. Neve’s face hardened as she scanned through the notes. “Chasing status,” she said. “They’re very hierarchical, the Venatori. They thought whatever was here would bring them up in the pecking order.”
“Look here,” Rook said, showing her what looked to be a much older piece of paper, its edges brown and brittle.
“Mm. Lord Gaspin himself. Gaspin and the Venatori, both obsessed with that door they couldn’t open.” She looked at the bare wall.
It didn’t even look like a door, really. Just a wall, arches carved in, three glowing blue stones set above head height. It didn’t look like a door, but as you looked at it, the conviction crept in that there must be something on the other side. Something important. Something valuable. Something worth all the effort that had been spent getting here.
Neve, eyes on the wall, let out a long breath. “It’s probably just a demon, and no treasure at all.” She sounded like someone trying to convince herself of something.
“Tell me you’re not going to set up camp here trying to get through that thing,” Davrin said, long-suffering.
Neve laughed. “I won’t, don’t worry.”
Rook felt the pull of curiosity himself, along with the warmth of Neve’s laughter, too rare since Minrathous. At his hip, the lyrium dagger was vibrating. “No need to camp, I think.”
The dagger slid into his hand like it was eager to be used. It sang through the air, almost moving of its own accord, and the wall slid aside with a deep rumble.
On the other side, of course: the demon.
More curious minds, it growled, drawn like moths.
“Chided for curiosity? That feels personal,” Neve said, laughing.
The demon attacked in a shower of sparks. It must have been an old demon, and a strong one, but it was not a match for the three of them, even when it drew shades out of the air for support. It hissed and raged and lashed them with magic, but Neve twisted time around it and battered it with ice, and it shrank under their swords, and eventually expired with a last grating cry.
“A desire demon, I’d say,” Neve said, looking thoughtfully around. “Desire become obsession.”
“That seems like a warning,” Davrin muttered.
Or a lesson about letting things go, Rook supposed.
There were human bones in the room: six or seven people’s worth, disarrayed, and one kneeling before something that might have once been an altar, magic still holding them in place. The whole room looked faintly elvhen, green glass tile and old gold metal arching across the walls, but it didn’t look quite like anything they’d seen elsewhere. Another bit of aged paper lay in front of the kneeling skeleton. When Rook picked it up, the bones finally toppled into a pile. “Lord Gaspin, it seems.”
Neve took the note and read it, her forehead creasing. “Mm. Or he became the demon himself? Hard to say.” She handed the note back. “Either way, I think we’ve cracked the case.”
“And un-cursed the manor, with any luck,” Rook said. “Let’s head back.”
#
Back at the Lighthouse, Rook took off his mud-caked armor and left it in the courtyard in a heap while he took a fast bath. He was going to need to look into newer armor pretty soon; his was getting increasingly beat up, in spite of his own maintenance efforts and whatever magic the Caretaker was sinking into it. It was a secondhand set that Varric or Harding had scrounged up in the middle of nowhere when he was told to leave his Warden armor behind, and it had served him well, but it wouldn’t last much longer, the way things were going.
Clean and changed into fresh clothes, he went to Neve’s door and found her in her desk chair, bending down to do something he couldn’t quite make out. “Hey,” he said. “I’ve come to make good on my promise.”
She jumped at the sound of his voice and sat up. She’d taken off her coat and hat, and her hair was falling out of its knot, black strands loose against her cheek. “I didn’t think you were serious. You really don’t have to. It’s my foot, I can clean it myself.”
He shrugged. It had been a spur-of-the-moment suggestion, but he’d meant it sincerely enough. “I understand if you’d rather do it yourself, but I offered, so…” He spread his hands. “Here I am. A promise is a promise.”
Neve bit her lip for a moment and then sighed. “It’s actually stuck right now. I can’t get it off.”
“I didn’t even know it could get stuck. How does it work?” He came around the side of the desk to get a closer look.
“There’s a rune enchanted to keep it in place, but there’s also a lock-and-pin mechanism for security. Dwarf smiths don’t do anything by half-measures,” Neve said. “I’ve deactivated the rune, but the mechanism is stuck.”
Rook hesitated for a second, not wanting to presume, but if she needed help… “Can I take a look at it?”
“Would you? I hate to ask, but I’m in a bit of a jam.”
“Not a problem at all.” He knelt in front of her and bent down to see what she was talking about. He’d admired the metalwork before in passing, but hadn’t paid much attention to the mechanism.
“The pin’s here,” she said, pointing to the underside of the socket where her natural leg sat.
“Ah, yeah, I see the issue.” The pin was coated in reddish gunk, probably a mixture of mud and exploded darkspawn: “Looks like the mud has stuck it in place and dried. Let me see what I can do.”
The gunk had hardened amazingly. Rook picked at it, and then got out his belt knife.
“Whoa now, careful!” Neve said.
“I promise I am being very careful,” he said, as reassuring as he could manage. “I just need to scrape this stuff off.”
She exhaled and nodded. Cautiously, he managed to pick off enough of the dried crap to get a grip on the pin and wiggle it free. He held it up to peer at it. “I think the pin’s bent, too. No wonder you were having trouble.”
“No wonder,” she said.
Rook looked up. Neve sat with her hands flat on her lap, her eyes dark and inscrutable. He was abruptly aware of how close together they were, of how he’d had to reach between her legs to get the right angle to pull the pin. He sat back on his heels to put a little more distance between them. “So, um, I can try to straighten out the pin for you.”
“Aren’t you helpful?” Neve said, leaning back in her seat. “Sure.”
“I try,” he said, offering a smile to smooth over the awkwardness. “And I absolutely will clean it, if you want. This stuff is pretty nasty.”
She blinked. “You really are serious.”
Rook flushed a little, embarrassed. He probably should have just played it off as a joke. “Yeah. I need to clean my armor, too, so it’s not really any trouble.”
Neve pursed her lips for a moment and then shrugged. “Well, since you’re offering…”
“I am,” he said, and added hastily, “And I’ll be very careful.”
She raked her fingers through her hair, pulling it free of its twist. “Honestly, it’s pretty durable. Just don’t scratch the rune and it should be all right.”
“Okay, then,” he said, and carefully took hold of the metal foot as Neve lifted her leg out of it. He stood, hefting it in his hands and noting the weight.
“Legs weigh more than you probably think,” Neve said. “It’s meant to match the other one.”
“Nice.” A thought occurred to him. “Do you need anything?” She was going to be stuck there, unless she wanted to hop around the office on one foot.
She shook her head. “I’ve got my notes, I’ll be fine for a while.”
“I’ll get this cleaned up and bring it right back to you,” he promised, and left before anything could get more awkward.
Out in the courtyard, Rook took a seat by the Caretaker’s workshop and set to work. Water and a soft cloth and elbow grease, breaking off whatever mud and gunk would come loose, and then just rubbing with the wet cloth until the metal shone. Cleaning it by hand really gave him an appreciation for the intricacy of the work: functional and decorative, the metal curving smoothly to support a person’s weight, the fanged serpent shape elegantly detailed. Dwarven craftsmanship, Neve had said, but she hadn’t talked about how she’d gotten it. It had to have cost a small fortune.
He needed a small brush to clean out the mud caked into the engraved details of the serpent. While he was working on that, Davrin happened by. He stopped to watch, hands on his hips. “You’re really doing that, huh?”
“I did promise,” Rook said.
Davrin grinned. “Going to do my armor, too?”
Rook laughed. “I didn’t promise you anything.”
“No, you didn’t.” Davrin’s grin slid into a smirk. Rook chose to ignore it.
“Caretaker,” he said, and the spirit coalesced beside him, impassive as always. “Do you have a hammer? I need to straighten –”
“At need, dweller,” the Caretaker said, and Rook saw a new, perfectly straight pin on the workbench, precisely the size of the old bent one.
“Thanks, Caretaker, that’s perfect,” Rook said. The Caretaker had already vanished, but he liked to imagine it was pleased.
Davrin snorted and went on his way. Rook surveyed his work. He’d cleaned off the mud, but the metal looked a little dull in places. If he was going to do the job, he might as well do it right. He got out the jar of polish.
From start to finish, it took him around an hour; an hour Neve didn’t have to spend scrubbing away filth. He gave the leg a last wipe with a soft, dry cloth, inspecting it carefully for any missed trace of mud, and carried it back to Neve’s office, announcing: “Here you are, good as new, I hope.”
Neve straightened as if startled, lifting her eyes from the open notebook in front of her. Her eyes widened as she took in the fresh shine. “I’m not sure it’s been that clean since it was new. I haven’t polished it like that in months.”
“Hope that’s all right,” Rook said, abashed. He’d probably overdone it.
“Above and beyond, I’d say,” Neve said with a smile.
That felt like reward enough. Rook held the foot out in both hands. Neve took it the same way; their fingers brushed for a moment as he released the weight.
“There, promise fulfilled,” he said. “Now I need to give the same treatment to my armor. It’s never going to shine like that again, though.”
Neve smiled again, crooked and a little wry. “Your armor does seem to have seen better days.”
“It gets the job done,” he said with a shrug, and turned to go.
“Rook,” Neve said. He looked back over his shoulder. “Thanks,” she said. “I really didn’t expect… you didn’t have to.”
He’d wanted to, and couldn’t even entirely say why. To spare her the effort. To make it up to her for the mud and the darkspawn, if for nothing else. “Well, I did promise.”
“Right.” She looked as if she were about to say something else, and then thought better of it. She shook her head slightly, and her smile fell away, her face smoothing out into cool neutrality. “Good luck with that armor.”
“Thanks,” he said, feeling like he’d slipped and run into a wall he couldn’t see. Neve had already returned to studying her notes, serious, eyes down. He suppressed a sigh and left, reminding himself that they both had jobs to do. They’d worked together well that day, almost like before… but that was it. That was all there was going to be.
He was working on getting used to it. He supposed he’d get there, eventually.