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Neve waited as she waited for the person she called to pick up. As she waited, she played with the golden snake-shaped bracelet she wore on her right wrist, one that had a snake with five coils, until the rings stopped.
“Gallus, for the love of Andraste, this number is only for emergencies.”
“Good morning to you, too, Knight-Captain Jahvis,” she said. “This is indeed an emergency.”
She heard the man sigh. The templars didn’t like working with her just as much as she didn’t, but sometimes they needed to operate together in order to get cases solved.
Neve would never let innocents suffer because of the displeasure between herself and the templar order, and, if she was honest, Knight-Captain Jahvis was one of the less worse templars in Minrathous.
“What do you need this time?”
“Resources and intel,” Neve replied. “If you have someone to send work with me as soon as possible, even better.”
Knight-Captain Jahvris sighed. “Why do you need all these things?”
“I can lead you to arrest Liponius Pertinax.”
That immediately got the templar’s attention. Liponius Pertinax was one of the most infamous lyrium dealers in Dock Town, and he probably had connections in Hightown because all the evidence against him mysteriously disappeared.
Neve knew that many templars were corrupt—having far too many relatives in the order—but she also knew that Knight-Captain Jahvris wasn’t one of them. He didn’t like lending her resources or his subordinates’ time, reminding her often that if she wanted templar’s help she could just join the templars, but he wouldn’t be corrupted by Magister’s or rich people’s money.
Probably, he was the only high-rank templar who wanted to see Pertinax behind a cell’s bars.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“An agent, at least, and the authorization to use a templar car.”
Knight-Captain Jahvris didn’t hesitate. “Permission approved. As for our agents, everyone here is busy already, but I can see who is on call.”
Neve cursed under her breath. There was one person in the whole templar order she didn’t want to work with, and she hoped that she wasn’t among the agents on call. Maybe she was busy already—
“Knight-Templar Rana Savas is on call,” he said.
Of course, when would the Maker ever listen to her?
But Neve had no other choice. She asked, “Where can I find her?”
He told her Savas’s address and hung up. Neve put the street name on the map app on her phone and started walking that direction.
Twenty minutes later, she rang the bell on Rana Savas's apartment door. Since she didn’t open it within five seconds, Neve pressed the button again and for longer.
She knew she was being petty, but Savas always drove her insane and it was only fair if she tasted her own medicine for once.
Neve heard the sound of rushed steps and the other woman finally opened the door. She held her breath as she stared at her.
The other woman was wearing a Minrathous Technical University t-shirt, and the dark red tee was large on her, but it left her arms bare. Below it, she had black sports shorts that showed her strong legs from the knee down.
Neve had never seen Rana Savas wearing anything other than her templar uniform, and for a moment words didn’t come to her. She recomposed herself quickly and grinned. “Charming.”
Rana glared at her. “What are you doing here?”
“Did you by any chance forget you’re on call today?” Neve asked, then gestured to her MTU shirt and sports shorts. “Shouldn’t you be ready with your uniform on?”
“I didn’t receive any communication.”
“If only I had your number or email I could inform you in advance,” Neve said with sarcasm.
That was just one of their infinite quarrels: since they started working together, Rana had been adamant in not giving her any personal contact information. Neve claimed they needed each other’s contacts in case of emergencies, and she would never tire to show the other woman she was right.
“I’ll be ready as soon as I can.”
Rana slammed the door in her face, and Neve could swear the templar loved doing it. She waited a few minutes, and the templar opened the room with her golden, blue and red uniform. On her side, she was wearing her lyrium blaster.
“Tell me why you need me.”
As they walked out, Neve started explaining, “I was hired for a case, a stolen necklace. Easy enough, right?”
“Nothing is easy with you,” Rana cut in.
Neve ignored the comment as she followed Rana on the streets of Minrathous. They were close enough to the barracks that they didn’t need to drive there just to take a templar’s car.
“I found out soon enough that the person who stole it was the son of my employer, and he exchanged it for some lyrium. Take a guess who was the dealer he met.”
Rana turned to look at her bewildered. “Are you going to say that you need me to arrest Liponius Pertinax? The king of the lyrium dealing in Dock Town?”
“If we can find him.”
“What do you mean?” Rana asked, as she led her into the garage of the barracks.
Neve followed her inside, and she explained, “I followed my lead to him, but no one had seen Pertinax in days. I’ve checked his apartment building, but there is no sign of him there, either. He disappeared.”
Rana opened the car doors with her remote key and Neve immediately took the passenger seat. The templar followed her a moment later in the driver’s seat and turned the engine on.
“So you know where to find Pertinax, and need my help to find him?”
“I have a very good lead,” Neve replied. “But yes, I need your help. We find Pertinax, you arrest him and I make my client happy by giving her back her necklace. It’s a win-win for everyone.”
Rana had no way of contesting her logic.
“Where do we go?”
Neve gave her the address, and the templar raised her eyebrows. Rana, though, didn’t protest and drove them where she told her.
Rana pulled over on a street of an elven neighborhood, and a group of teenagers stared at the templar car. A mother dragged her child out of the way while the teenager group left.
As they walked, the crowd parted. Everyone stared at Rana’s templar’s uniform, and some even took suspicious looks at the lyrium blaster on her side.
“We’re not welcome here,” Rana said.
Neve pursed her lips. She hated when the templar was right.
They walked together to a park, where their arrival shifted the whole mood. Neve could feel the distrust and suspicion cast at them, but she recognized a woman in her forties as the person she needed to talk to. She walked towards the elf with Rana at her side.
“Neve Gallus, detective,” she introduced herself.
The elf glared at Rana. “I don’t talk to templars.”
Rana said nothing. For how much Neve teased her, the other woman wasn’t stupid and she knew perfectly what poor people, especially if not human, thought about the imperial templars.
She just nodded, sending a weird look at Neve, and walked away. There was something in her acceptance of the situation that pushed her to speak in her defense, but only when Rana was well out of earshot.
“She is one of the very few decent templars. She isn’t going to hurt any of you.”
Neve didn’t like giving credit to Rana, but it was the objective truth. The other woman never abused her authority, always tried to resolve situations by mediation and never drew her lyrium blaster unless her life was in danger.
“There are no good templars, just as there are no good Magisters,” the elf replied.
Neve couldn’t argue with her. She understood perfectly her point of view.
“I’m investigating Pertinax’s disappearance,” she said. “Have you heard anything about it?”
She knew. Neve noticed the way the other woman’s body tensed slightly, her eyes cast away from her face, her smile cracked a little.
Her question had hit right through the mark.
“Why are you asking me?”
“Partinax’s neighbours told me he met an elf woman, and they described you.”
Neve hoped that her lie would hold. She didn’t want to press the other woman into telling her what she knew, but when someone disappeared, timing was crucial.
“I won’t hurt him, I just want to make sure he’s alive.”
The other woman sighed. “I don’t want my name attached to this investigation, nor do I want to see templars on this street.”
“I can’t promise that templars won’t ever come here, but they won’t look for you,” Neve promised.
“I fear Partinax got involved in a deal with Venatori,” the elf said. “He mentioned that he’d found a job that would pay him more than usual, and that it was a bit more dangerous than usual, but then he disappeared.” She looked Neve in the eyes. “I see no other explanation than Partinax dealing with Venatori.”
Kaffas.
Neve should have suspected that her newest case would eventually lead her back to Venatori and Blood Magic.
Ignoring the pit in her stomach, she said, “Thank you.”
Neve walked back to the car, where she found out that Rana was waiting for her. The templar got in the car, and only when Neve closed the door she spoke.
“Those people don’t know you’re a mage, don’t they?”
Neve froze. “Why would you say that?”
“I’ve never seen an elf trusting a human mage like that,” Rana replied.
Neve said nothing. She had never used her magic to hurt or enslave elves, but she couldn’t blame them for being weary of mages in the Tevinter Imperium. She hadn’t said a word about the magic remnant she’d seen the elf woman running away from Partinax’s apartment.
Neve looked at the other woman. “Our case just changed.”
Rana raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“We’re going to deal with Blood Magic and Venatori, most likely.”
Rana was driving them out of the neighborhood, and she asked, “Where do we go now?”
Neve thought about it for a moment. She could look for Blood Magic traces, but they lived in Minrathous, where the use of Blood Magic was technically illegal, but, in truth, many mages used it for their own personal meaning.
To find the right lead to follow, she had to narrow her search first.
“Go to the Old Newspaper’s location,” she instructed the templar. “I know someone who may have some useful information.”
Rana pursed her lips. She knew perfectly who Neve wanted to meet, since she’d met him already other times they worked together.
“I don’t like your association with criminals.”
“Elek is a seller, not a criminal,” Neve replied.
Rana stared at her like she’d hit her head. “He sells stolen cars.”
Neve smirked in a way that she knew would annoy Rana even more. “You’re always so obsessed with details.”
Rana only pursed her lips. “Let’s finish this job soon.”
They spent the rest of the trip in silence, and Neve didn’t want to be the one breaking it. She knew they would only start their usual argument about Neve’s morality, where Rana would insist she only needed to go the legal route, and Neve would reply that she didn’t have time to wait for the legal way when people’s lives were at stake.
And yet, the silence was unbearable.
“Can we at least pretend to get along when we work together?” she asked, when they reached a red light. “We could be a good team—”
“Listen, Gallus,” Rana interrupted her, turning to look her in the eye. “Let me be clear, there’s no we. I’m working with you only because when you call Knight-Captain Jahvis I happen to be the only templar available.”
Her rage didn’t scare Neve, at all. If anything it made Rana look even hotter—not that Neve would ever admit she found the templar attractive.
But now there was a light in Rana’s green-hazel eyes that made her look more authentic, a real person under the mask of the perfect templar.
Rana didn’t break eye contact, and she had no intention of doing it, either. Neve’s heart beat against her chest as she wished the templar came closer—
A prolonged honk of a car horn made them both startle. Neither of them had realized that the light had turned green, and Rana started the car.
Neve wondered who could be bold enough to honk the horn to a templar’s car, and she wasn’t sure if she was annoyed or grateful. Thankfully, she didn’t have to wonder about her feelings any longer, because Rana pulled over in front of the garage.
“Be quick,” Rana said.
“Aren’t you coming with me?”
The templar stared at her with a piercing gaze. “If I ever find myself within twenty feet of Trevor I’ll arrest him, or punch him in the face.”
Fair enough, Neve thought. She had to be grateful that Rana hadn’t thrown a fit over the idea of meeting Elek, and she knew it was just because arresting Pertinax was higher in Rana’s priorities than taking it out on Elek.
“I’ll be quick,” she promised.
The garage looked like a legit business, with all the cars on display and mechanics that showed to clients the one better fit to their needs. Neve walked towards the young man she recognized, and he welcomed her with a broad smile.
“Gallus! What brings you here?”
Neve smiled back. “I need information. Do you know anything about Pertinax and a possible deal with Venatori?”
Elek crossed his arms. “And what do I get in exchange?”
“Not being arrested by the templar who is waiting for me out there,” she replied. “Isn’t that enough?”
“Not really. Yes, it would be a pain, but the Threads would get me out of jail in a few days.”
Neve pursed her lips. She thought fast about the latest discoveries of her cases.
“If I tell you where a few Magisters are meeting, would you consider it a fair deal?”
Neve usually didn’t condone stealing, but if some rich powerful Magisters—whom she was sure they used Blood Magic—had their vehicle missing, she didn’t really care.
Elek thought about it for a few moments, then he nodded.
“Tell me where they’re meeting.”
Neve held her hand out and he gave her his phone, where she put the exact location into the map app.
“Now, talk about Pertinax.”
“He did have a deal with Venatori,” Elek confirmed. “He was supposed to meet someone in the park of Hessarian Square.”
She nodded. “Thank you, Elek.”
Neve walked out, under the rain, and came back to Rana’s car. The templar welcomed her with an annoyed stare.
“I was about to barge in and arrest Trevor.”
Neve didn’t entertain her. “Go to Hessarian Square.”
Rana drove her there, and Neve directed her to the park mentioned by Elek. Rana followed her as she used her snake-shaped bracelet to reach the Fade and channel her magic—she had to study for a history exam that centuries ago, mages used staves, while now everyone used some wearable device, mostly jewelry.
“There,” she directed Rana.
The templar walked right behind her as Neve reached the remnant of magic and used her power to show it. The image of a human man in his late forties showed up.
The first time she’d used her magic like that in front of Rana, the templar had jumped and shouted “What the fuck?!”
Now, Rana was used to seeing things like that and looked unimpressed. The man in the memory looked around and ran.
Frowning, Neve replayed it over and over, but she saw nothing else. She then let go of the magic keeping the remnant alive and looked for Blood Magic traces.
She gasped. The sickening feeling of Blood Magic was overwhelming, and Neve gagged, trying to resist the nausea rising from the bottom of her stomach.
She felt Rana’s hands grab her arms, and Neve realized that she would have collapsed if it wasn’t for the templar.
“Thanks,” she said, not looking at the other woman.
“You’ve found traces of Blood Magic.”
Neve nodded. “Much more than I expected.”
“We must act fast, then,” Rana said. “Pertinax could be dead.”
Neve stared at the other woman as if she saw her for the first time. “Why do you even care? He’s a lyrium dealer.”
“Believe it or not, I care about Dock Town, too,” the templar replied. “Yes, I will arrest Pertinax the moment I see him, but that doesn’t mean I want him dead.”
Neve couldn’t say how shocked she was to hear those words. She knew that Rana was a decent templar, but it was the first time that anyone showed her that they cared about Dock Town and its people just as much as she did.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and then another, and another.
When the sensation of nausea calmed down, Neve opened her eyes and looked at Rana. The other woman looked as concerned as she’d never been. She realized that the templar was still holding her, and she abruptly got herself free.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Neve followed the traces of Blood Magic, checking for magic remnants, too, to be sure she was following the right one. Every once in a while, she saw a memory of Pertinax taken away by Venatori, of the man swearing that they would pay, of him pleading with them to let him go.
Rana was silent and followed her to what looked to be jewelry that sold channeling bracelets and necklaces, but it oozed Blood Magic.
“They’re inside,” she told Rana.
The templar slowly drew her lyrium blaster, and they walked cautiously to the door. Neve checked the area for magic wards and, finding none, she nodded to Rana.
They walked in and a clerk welcomed them with a wide smile.
“Good afternoon!” he greeted them. “What can I do for you?”
Neve felt Blood Magic behind the closed door on the back of the jewelry but none from the man.
“You should leave right now,” she told him. “We know the real business of this place.”
The man went pale and quickly left, giving one last, terrified look at Rana’s uniform. She let him go, but Neve was sure she would check the documents to find the name of the Venatori accomplices.
But that would happen later, now their priority was the Venatori hiding in the back room of the jewelry.
Rana slammed the door open with a kick, pointing her blaster in front of her and saying, “Templars, you’re all under arrest for using Blood Magic and dealing lyrium illegally.”
Neve knew that Venatori would never wait patiently for a templar to list their crimes, so she’d already prepared a barrier to cast around herself and Rana. She protected the other woman by blood magic shots and red lyrium blasts.
She quickly counted five Venatori and dragged Rana behind a column. She used her magic to cast a blizzard and slow them down.
Neve shot ice at the cultist as she saw Rana’s blue blasts hit another Venatori. The last one standing used Blood Magic to shoot blades made of blood to them.
She reacted too slowly, but she felt something—someone—push her down and hold her. Rana was shielding her with her body, but Neve didn’t want to let the templar get hurt.
She used her ice to freeze the Venatori’s whole body.
Rana slowly let her go, asking her, “Are you alright?”
“Yes,” Neve reassured her. “You?”
The templar reassured her that she wasn’t hurt, and together they walked to the bodies of the Venatori. Something they hadn’t noticed in the turmoil of the fight was that they were guarding a man tied up and with a piece of tape shutting his mouth.
Finally, she had Liponius Pertinax in front of her.
She and Rana freed him, and, when she took off the tape from his mouth, she asked, “Where’s the necklace?”
“That man up there took everything I had,” Pertinax said, pointing at one of the dead Venatori. Then, he turned to them and added, “Thank you, I thought I was going to die—”
“You’re under arrest,” Rana interrupted him.
She cuffed him and took him outside as Neve searched the bodies of the Venatori to find the necklace for her client. As she was searching the body of what looked like the boss of the group she felt a vibration from a phone notification.
She took the phone out of the jacket and saw the preview of a message from an unsaved number.
Come back with lyrium or don’t bother.
Neve wrote down that number on the note app of her own, then came back searching for the necklace—which was in the other pocket. She left the jewelry and felt the rain on her skin and hair.
It was a familiar sensation, and it made her feel instantly better. She saw that other templars had arrived, and that Rana was talking with a few of her colleagues. Pertinax was into another car, whose driver left.
Rana turned to her, realizing she was outside, and approached her. “Thank you for everything.”
Neve smirked.
“I will hold this over your head for ages.”
Rana sighed. “You could just take the driving license, I’m tired of driving you around all the time.”
“Oh, I have the driving license,” Neve said and, to answer the templar’s skeptical look, she took her wallet and showed the document. “I just hate driving.”
“Venhedis, you’re incredible, and no, it’s not a compliment.”
Neve laughed, a sincere reaction to defuse all the stress and adrenaline of the day. Rana, though, was looking at her in a weird way, and she realized her cheeks were warmer that they had any right to be.
“Give me your phone. Just for a moment,” the templar added, noticing her distrustful stare.
Neve reluctantly did as she was told, and Rana typed something and gave her phone back.
“That’s my number,” she said. “It’s for emergencies only. If you ever try to contact me for anything that isn’t about work, I swear to Andraste I’ll block you immediately.”
Neve couldn’t help but smile.
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Knight-Templar Savas! Gallus!”
They both turned to Knight-Captain Jahvris, who was smiling at them both.
“Thank you both for solving the case. Savas, you have to fill in a report and send it to me and the Knight-Commander.”
“Yes, sir,” Rana said.
She gave Neve a last look, as if she wanted to say something, but she said goodbye and left. Neve forced her attention back to the Knight-Captain, who was saying, “Thank you, Gallus. Are you sure you don’t want to join the templars?”
“No, thanks,” she replied. “Too many rules, and I have another case already.”
It wasn’t a total lie, because Neve had to go and give the necklace back to her client, and after that, her mind was already taken by another matter. The number who texted the dead Venatori.
Neve needed to investigate more, no matter how long she’d need to find an answer.