Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The more powerful Venatori were, the more arrogant they became. They believed no one would dare breach into their hideouts, thus their protective wards were weak and easy to take down.

Neve needed just a few minutes to deactivate them.

She opened the warehouse door and walked inside, her staff held in front of her to attack. Two Venatori were talking to each other, and Neve disposed of them before they even realized what had just hit them.

Easy. Almost too easy.

Not lowering her guard, she opened the door they were guarding. Another Venatori tried to attack her.

Neve turned him in a frozen statue with a bare wave of her staff.

She looked around. There were several tables, and she examined the papers on those.

They were payment logs for list of objects things with names of clients.

Neve took all of them with the plan of giving them to the Shadow Dragons, who would chase down all the people dealing with Venatori. She searched the room some more, but she couldn’t find what Quintus sent her looking for.

Her fellow Shadow Dragon had asked her to find a pendant that could push back on Blood Magic, and it was the reason why she’d ended up here in the first place.

Neve had debated leaving the case she’d been working on with Rana for weeks for a whole day, but they’d both convened that Quintus may be more willing to help if he owed them a favour—and only the Maker knew how much they needed all the possible aid to solve the case.

Now Neve had a crippling doubt: could she be wrong?

No, she told herself. Blood Magic artifacts were Neve’s area of expertise, and she’d checked it more times than she could count.

Also… Yes, the accountant books were incriminating, but none of them justified such a display of Venatori to guard them.

They had to be hiding something else.

Neve closed her eyes and took a deep breath to empty her mind and find a new focus. She opened them and carefully observed the environment, trying to take in account what she hadn’t noticed before.

There had to be something—

A crack on the floor.

Neve get closer to it, pulled a rug away, and found a hidden hatch. Just as she'd thought.

She deactivated the magic ward closing it and climbed down a ladder.

The room downstairs was dimly lit by a lantern, which barely shed any light on a table. On it, there were books, papers and—

The pendant Quintus was looking for.

Neve grabbed it, but there was a high-pitched scream and someone shouted, “Stop or I’ll kill you!”

She was faster. Neve turned around and killed the Venatori in front of her with an ice spike before he even had the time to raise his staff.

Another scream made her jolt.

Neve held her staff tighter walked closer to the far end of the room, where the dim light from upstairs barely arrived, and finally saw the source of the screams.

There was a cage, and inside it was an elf—a child who couldn’t be older than five. The little girl stared at her, terrified.

Around her neck, there was a wire with a wooden plate with one word craved in.

Slave.

Rage almost blinded Neve. She hated slave owners in general, but she felt a special kind of hatred for the ones who owned children. 

“Don’t be scared,” she said, trying to look reassuring. “I’m here to help.”

The child didn’t seem to have listened and kept staring at her with terror. Neve approached the cage and used magic to open the lock.

The child pushed herself against the opposite wall of the cage.

“Nae! Ga rahn s’dael! Ga rahn!”

Neve recognized the elven language she’d heard from both Bellara and Davrin, back from when the two of them talked to each other at the Lighthouse.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak elven,” she said.

The child stared at her with the exact same terror of before, and Neve understood: the child didn’t know the common tongue.

Her problem was that she couldn’t have conversations in elven, or even form simple sentences. Neve knew just a few words her friends taught her, not enough to calm down a terrified child.

She tried to remember the word for friend, and said, pointing at herself, “Falon.”

The little elf’s expression didn’t change. 

You pronounce your vowels too closed, Bellara had once told her.

Neve tried again, loosening the pronunciation of the vowels and trying to emulate how her closest friend said it. 

“Falon.”

This time, the child’s eyes softened. Neve had finally made it.

She reached out her hand, but before the little elf could do anything she heard someone else coming. 

Neve didn’t even turn around. She waved her staff and she knew the person behind her was frozen and dead. 

The child’s eyes widened and she took Neve’s hand. 

Neve helped her out the cage, saying, “You’re free now.”

The little girl looked at her, confused, and that was the definitive confirmation that the little elf didn’t speak the common tongue.

Neve tried to use her healing magic to check on the child, but she looked at her with terror, screamed and tried to run away.

That broke Neve’s heart.

Of course, a slave would be scared of a human using magic on her. Who knew what she’d seen her owner do.

The hatred for the child’s owner grew even stronger, if possible.

“I mean no harm,” she said, even though the child couldn’t understand her.

There was only one person who could help her talk to the child and thankfully she would arrive in Minrathous soon.

But first, she had to calm down the child and take her out of the warehouse.

Neve put her staff away. She showed her open hands to the little elf, keeping them well away from the staff.

“No magic.”

She felt guilty because she could cast with her hands just as fine, but Neve needed to take the child out of that warehouse.

The little girl looked at her, but didn’t get any closer.

Neve pointed at the ladder. She hoped that the child understood what she meant.

Thankfully, she did.

Neve looked as the little elf walked towards the ladder. She didn’t like the idea of the child seeing the bodies of the Venatori, but she barely spared them a glance.

Somehow, that bothered her even more than the child staring in horror at the dead men. How normal was for her to see corpses?

Neve didn’t give herself time to dwell on her thoughts. She followed the child, keeping herself just close enough to catch her if the child slipped. But nothing happened, and once on the upper floor, Neve gestured to the front door.

The child let her lead, to Neve’s utter confusion. She was terrified of her until a few minutes ago, what had changed her behaviour?

She didn’t let her confusion cloud her. She took the child outside and the little elf let her guide her to the pawn’s shop without as much as a protest.

The Shadow Dragons gave her some curious looks, seeing her with a child, but quickly went back to their duties.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t that uncommon for them to free children from slavery and take them there as a safe place.

But that wasn’t the only reason why Neve had taken the child to the Shadow Dragons. Bel had told her she had to meet her publisher in Minrathous that day, and she could ask Ashur and Tarquin if she’d came already, and if she hadn't, there was the Eluvian that could take her to Arlathan—

She heard Bellara’s voice before she saw her, and that felt like a huge relief.

“Bel!”

Her friend was busy talking with Ashur and Tarquin, and all of them turned around to see her.

“Hello Neve, how are you? I didn’t expect you here, I thought I would meet you after the—” Bel’s eyes moved to the child. “Who is she?”

“I need your help,” Neve explained. “She only speaks elven.”

The child, recognizing Bel as another elf, tentatively walked towards her. Bel knelt to be at her same height and started talking to her in elven. The little girl seemed relieved to hear a familiar tongue, and replied to what Bellara was saying.

They both spoke too fast for Neve to even tell her words apart.

“Venatori kept her in a warehouse,” Neve explained to Tarquin and Ashur, but she knew her friend was also listening.

“What bastards,” Tarquin said.

Neve was going to agree, but something else attracted her attention. A greenish light.

She turned to see Bel use her healing magic on the child, and then dispelled the enchantment.

“She is fine. Physically, at least,” Bel said.

That was a huge relief. 

Noticing how uncomfortable the kid looked with so many eyes on her, starting from Tarquin and Ashur, Neve said, “Let’s move in front of the hearth.”

Bellara said something to the child, and the three of them moved in the alcove in front of the heath where Magister Pavus, before becoming Archon, used to stay.

The little girl sat on the armchair Bel pointed at her and looked at them both, and Neve couldn’t stop herself from saying, motioning at the place, “Safe.”

“Safe?” the child asked.

“Eth,” Bel supplied the corresponding word in elven. 

The child seemed more relaxed. Bel said something in elven, and the child let her get close. Neve looked at her friend taking off the wire that held the wooden plaque from the child’s neck.

Bel gave it to her, and Neve examined immediately. Besides the word Slave, there was nothing else that could trace it back to anyone.

Just to be sure, Neve examined it with magic, but she found out the wood had no enchantment.

She threw it in the fire, then looked at Bel and said, “Please, ask about her and if she has family we can take her to.”

Bellara did what she was told, and the child replied. Neve saw her friend’s expression change into confusion, then the conversation went back and forth until the child paused for a few moments before saying something.

“She is four,” Bellara said. “She doesn’t know if she has any family left, all she can remember is living as a slave. And…” Bel’s expression changed into pure heartbreak. “I don’t think she has a name. She asked me if slave or elf are names.” 

Neve felt a deep sorrow for the little girl. She was too young to remember her family, and the bastards who enslaved her never gave her a name, like she was some kind of object.

“We should give her a name,” she said, almost as in an impulse. “I’m not addressing her like her owner did.”

She saw Bel’s face lit up, like when she found the solution to fixing an ancient artifact. 

“What about Enora?”

Neve raised her eyebrows. Bel was usually quick to come up with names for the characters in her stories, but this one was probably the best she’d ever come up with.

“I think it’s a beautiful name,” she said honestly.

Encouraged by her, Bellara knelt in front of the child and talked to her in elven. The child nodded and said something that made Bel smile.

“She really likes the name, too. She is Enora now.”

Neve smiled.

One problem was solved. Now, they could think about the rest.

“Is there a room where we can bathe her?” Bel asked.

“Yes, of course,” Neve said, and she showed her the way.

The hideout had a bathing room for slaves who needed it or for people who just came back from missions, and Bel talked to Enora a little before going there.

While her friend bathed her, Neve noticed some scars on the child’s arms and back, and left the room to avoid freezing the water by accident.

She asked Lorelei for some children’s clothes, and had to fight a little to convince the merchant to accept the money. She took the new clothes to Bel and threw away the ones Enora was wearing when she found her.

Neve wouldn’t allow any reminder of slavery to be around the child.

Then, she took place at a table to write a letter to Dorian Pavus.

In the two years he’d been Archon of Minrathous, he’d passed a controversial law: Dorian had given himself the authority to free slaves from every owner.

For the first time, Neve took advantage of the new law.

She double checked her request to make Enora a free citizen, and when she was satisfied with it, Neve gave it to one of the other Shadow Dragons telling them it was a urgent message for the Archon.

When Bel and Enora left the bathing room, the child now clean and wearing her new clothes, Neve smiled. “Ask Enora if she wants me to cut her hair.”

Bel translated to the child, and she nodded and said something.

“She wants it at her chin’s length.”

Neve gestured to sit on a chair, and went to get a knife. She was used to cutting the Shadow Dragon’ hair: many former slaves needed it, and over the years she’d made good practice.

Sometimes it also happened to cut children’s hair, and Neve remembered it as a nightmare. Kids always moved and fidgeted and wanted to talk, making it near impossible to work.

Enora, instead, was perfectly still while Neve cut her hair. She didn’t even flinch having a blade so close to her neck and Neve thought about her scars.

Maybe it wasn’t something new for her.

The thought disturbed her, but she finished cutting the child’s hair just as Bel arrived with some bread and a glass of water.

“We don’t know when she was fed for the last time,” she explained, as if she should justify feeding a child in need.

“You’re right, we should have probably done it sooner.”

Seeing how fast Enora was in grabbing the bread and water, Neve felt even more guilty to not have given it as soon as she stepped into the pawn shop.

As the child finally ate, she asked Bel, “Do you think Strife, Irelin or some of the Veil Jumpers can find out if she has some family left?”

“Yes, I think so. I will tell her as soon as she finishes eating, you know, I don’t want to overload her. Enora must be going through some stress we can’t even imagine.”

It was that care that always stuck Neve—and, in the last few months, made her feel a weird sensation in her chest.

“True. Let's give her a few minutes to relax.”

Neve saw someone crossing the room, and excused herself from her closest friend. She reached Quintus, the pendant holding in her hand.

“This is yours.”

He was radiant. “Thanks, Neve, you have no idea how much I need this.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“What do you need it for?”

Quintus winked.

“Classified mission for the Archon. When it’s over, I’ll tell you about it over a beer at the Cobbled Swan.”

“I count on it,” Neve said.

The man gave her a last goodbye and left.

Neve felt a familiar touch on her arm that made her heart go faster against her ribs. She turned around to meet Bel’s concerned expression.

“Bel? Is something wrong with Enora?”

“No, no. It’s just… I hope it’s not a problem for you, but Enora isn’t going anywhere if you’re not with us.”

That surprised Neve. She assumed the child would have used immediately the chance to go stay with other elves and leave humans behind—including her.

“Oh, really?”

Bel looked uncomfortable. “I don’t want to upset you, but…”

Her friend let the words falter. Neve took her hand, ignoring the weird way the contact made her feel, and said, “I won’t be upset, I promise.”

Bel took a deep breath.

“I think she believes you’re my owner, and now you’re her owner, too.”

For a moment, Neve couldn’t even hear anything.

A slave owner.

Bel a slave. Her slave.

That explained Enora’s sudden obedience. She thought Neve commanded her to climb on the ladder, leave the warehouse, walk towards the pawn shop…

“I’m so sorry, Neve, I didn’t want to offend you.” Her expression was remorseful, like when she accidentally made her devices explode. “I told her you don’t have slaves and you fight for their freedom, but I’m not sure she believes me.”

The worst thing was that Neve could see the child’s logic: in her eyes, they were a human mage who told an elf something in a language she didn’t understand, and then the elf translating back and forth.

She had no reason to believe Bel was doing so of her own volition and not because she was forcing her.

That was too much. Neve had to lean on the wall.

“I’ll come with you in Arlathan,” she said, closing her eyes as if it could somehow made her forget that Enora believed her a slave owner.

Bel put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly. “I’m sorry, Neve, I should have—”

“It’s not your fault,” she interrupted her.

Maybe her tone came out a bit sharper than she’d intended, because Bel let her go and Neve heard her footsteps go away, and she felt even worse.

A four-year-old child believed her a slave owner and now she’d also hurt Bel, which somehow hurt as if she’d received a punch to her stomach.

Neve wondered how much worse her day could go.

***

The Eluvian took them to Arlathan, and Neve saw Enora hold Bel’s hand tight.  

The Crossroads must have been disturbing for her, but now, in Arlathan Forest, she looked even more distrustful than she’d been on the boat floating over the void carried by the Caretaker—and, to make the trip even worse, there was an awkwardness between Neve and Bel that had almost never existed.

Now, Enora looked around confused and suspicious, despite Bel kept telling her things in elven, and that was when it hit Neve.

Enora had spent so much time as a captive that being in an open space like a forest was disorienting.

She clenched her jaw and followed Bel to the Veil Jumper’s camp. The first to see them was Strife, who reached them immediately.

“Bellara, you’re back already!” Strife said. “We thought you’d stay in Minrathous for a few days.”

Bel gave him a tight smile. “I will stay in Minrathous, I still have to meet my publisher—but Neve and I need your help first.”

Only then he moved his gaze the child who was with them. 

“Her name is Enora,” Neve said. “And she doesn’t speak the common tongue.”

Strife looked at Bellara with his eyebrows raised. “Enora? Like your grandmother?”

Neve shot a questioning look at Bel, but she was looking at the older elf. The idea she was purposefully avoiding looking at her stung more than Neve expected. 

“Neve saved her from a slave owner. It’s quite a long story—and you know how much I like telling long stories—but I think we need some more privacy. I mean, I want Enora to feel safe.”

The man agreed.

He guided them in a more isolated part of camp, where they would have more privacy. Neve saw that Enora looked around mesmerized: probably it was the first time she ever saw so many elves in one place.

Free elves, Neve corrected herself.

They all sat in front of a fire, Enora keeping herself as close to Bel as possible. Neve sat a bit further from her, and she saw the child relax.

It hurt a bit.

Bel started talking in elven and she could only guess her friend was explaining who Enora was and what had happened to her, and Strife sometimes cut in the same language. Enora was following the two adults’ conversation, but she remained silent. 

At some point, Bellara turned to the child and said something, and Enora replied. She was involved in what Neve assumed was a conversation where both Strife and Bellara asked her questions, and she replied. 

“We tried to ask Enora if she remembers names or symbols from her family,” Bellara told her at some point, addressing Neve for the first time since the discussion they had in the pawn shop. “She said she doesn’t know. Her former owner’s basement is all she knows.”

Neve felt her rage rise. Enora was so little, and yet she’d suffered incredible pains and hardships.

It wasn’t fair. But, after all, Neve had learned a long time ago that life wasn’t fair.

“We can find out if some village has information, so we can track someone of her family,” Strife said. “In the meantime, Enora can stay here.”

Neve nodded. It was the sensitive thing to do.

Bellara translated what the older elf had said in elven, and the child replied. Both she and Strife turned to Neve and she couldn’t resist asking, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“She doesn’t want to leave your side,” Strife explained.

That was the last thing she expected them both to say. Enora had showed her how much she didn’t trust her—not that Neve blamed her. From the child’s perspective, she was just another human mage who could hurt elves for no reason.

It didn’t make any sense for her to want to stay with her.

“Are you sure this is what Enora said?” Neve asked. “Tell her I don’t own her, she is free to stay here.”

Bel nodded.

“I did—I explained her again that she is free now. She says she wants to stay with you because you’re powerful.”

Enora had seen her kill Venatori. The fact that she wanted to stay with her after that…

It was the worst solution ever. Neve didn’t know if she was ready to have a child in her home yet. She worked desperate hours and was out most nights.

She had a huge case with Rana.

Neve was about to voice it all, to propose another solution, but—

She looked at Enora and, for the first time, Neve realized the extent of her terror.

The idea of ending up in slavery again after tasting a few hours of freedom had to be the worst thing Enora could imagine. Neve thought about her scars, and she decided she would never let the child fear of ending up in a similar situation again.

But still, there was another huge problem she couldn’t solve by herself.

She turned to Bel. “I don’t speak elven. Bel, would you like to help me?”

It had been an instinctive thought. Bel could obviously talk to the child, Enora trusted Bel already and she was Neve’s closest friend.

She didn’t think how Bel could take it, and regretted not taking her feelings in consideration, especially now with the tension from the previous discussion.

Bel only looked surprised, but said, “Yes. I will. Help you, I mean. If that’s not a problem for the Veil Jumpers.”

“We can delegate your work for a couple of weeks,” Strife said. “We’ll look for Enora’s family and let you know.”

“She can learn the common tongue while she is with us,” Neve added. “At least, the basics for conversations.”

“Excellent idea,” the older elf commented.

Bellara translated to Enora, and the kid looked slightly better.

Two weeks, Neve told herself. She could handle the situation for two weeks.

***

Two years ago, she lived in a cramped one-room apartment smaller than her Lighthouse office.

Now, thanks to one job made for the First Talon of the Antivan Crows, Neve could afford a much nicer place with her bedroom, a guest bedroom when anyone of the Veilguard (mostly Bel) came to visit her in Minrathous, an office and a living room with a kitchen.

(Truth be told, Neve had tried to refuse all that money, but Lucanis hadn’t wanted to hear any of it.)

It was good because it meant Enora could stay in the guest bedroom, but that also implied—

Neve tried not to think about it as she and Bel bought some more children’s clothes in the Central Market. They also stopped to buy some groceries on the way home, because Neve didn’t have enough food for three people. 

All the time, Enora always kept herself just out of Neve’s reach. She looked around, suspicious, and every time they met a mage she stepped away from them—a couple of times, Enora realized she was too close to Neve and she quickly took her place besides Bel.

Neve felt a pang of pain looking at her. The poor child had gone through a lot, and Neve didn’t want to stress her out more—even if involuntarily.

Once they finally got home, Neve took down the protective ward around her apartment. She noticed that during the spell, Enora had hidden herself behind Bel.

Of course. A human using magic was a trauma for her.

Neve invited them in, and Bel took the task of preparing dinner as Neve fixed the bedrooms. Her friend took Enora to the living room as Neve restored the protective wards around the apartment and added some new enchantments—some improved safety spells that made her feel better at the idea of Enora staying in her home.

Since Bel’s visit had been planned a few days ago, Neve had already changed the bedsheets in the guest bedroom, but she went to her own room. She tried not to glance at her own double bed, a self-treat for finally moving into a decent apartment, and she walked towards her personal drawer. She traced a rune to lock it and only felt safe when the soft glow disappeared.

If Bel opened it by accident and saw all her collection of sex toys …

The idea was enough to make Neve feel like dying of embarrassment. She changed the bedding and came back to the kitchen, where Enora was observing Bel cooking.

Neve’s wards around the apartment were meant to keep burglars away, so the spell didn’t register cats as threats and they could get as close to her apartment as they wanted. She saw Enora was distracted by a cat walking on Neve’s windowsill, and held her breath.

The cat, though, left immediately.

Neve smiled, but she needed to finally do something else.

She approached Bel. She heard Enora say something, and her friend immediately turned around.

Neve hugged her.

“I’m sorry for how I acted earlier,” she said.

It was the simple truth. She hated the weird awkwardness between her and Bel, and she knew a sincere apology could make up for that.

Bel held her close, too. “You’re forgiven. I mean, I understand why you reacted like that. You spent good part of your life fighting Blood Magic and slave owners, I can’t imagine how you felt to be accused of being one.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Neve loved holding her friend like that, having their bodies so close together—

The smell from the pan had them separated, and Bel turned her attention back to the meat and vegetables before they burned.

They had dinner in a relaxed silence, and when they finished, Bel took the child to the guest bedroom. Neve followed her more for curiosity than to be useful: after all, she couldn’t speak Enora’s language.

The child immediately asked Bel something, and her friend replied. Enora looked like whatever Bel told her hadn’t convinced her totally, but she let Bellara put her in bed.

Neve had to admit her friend was good: she tucked Enora under the blankets, told her what she assumed was a goodnight in elven, and sat on the edge of the bed until the child fell asleep.

Which, to be honest, was maybe a couple of minutes.

Enora had to be exhausted.

Neve and Bel left the room and closed the door as trying to make as less noise as possible.

Once back in the living room, Neve sighed. “Do you want some wine? Taash gave me a red Rivaini the last time they visited.”

“Yes, please,” was Bellara’s surprisingly fast response. “I need it.”

Bel visited her so often that she knew exactly where all the things were. By the time Neve took the bottle of wine, her friend had already put on the table two glasses.

“What did Enora ask you?"

Bel raised her eyes and she could see all the sadness behind. “It’s—she wasn’t sure if she could sleep on a bed. She asked me if not sleeping on the floor would upset the hum—you.”

Neve pursed her lips as she opened the bottle of wine.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said—”

“Don’t apologize,” Neve cut her off. “I want to know the truth, no matter how much it hurts.”

Bel reached out with her hand and held Neve’s. That simple contact made her feel immediately less worse about the whole ordeal.

“You are an amazing person,” Bel said. “You're not like them. Slave owners, I mean.”

“I know,” Neve murmured.

She held Bel's hand tighter, because Bel had the power to always make her see the brighter—or less dark, at least—side of things.

Neve smiled, her heart beating faster and Bel being so close to her—

She let go of her friend.

“How full do you want your glass to be?”

Her friend grinned.

“As full as possible.”

While she poured the red wine in two glasses, almost to the brim, Neve attacked the practical side of the new arrangement.

“How will we organize with her? I’m working on a case with Rana—a big one. I did a favour to Quintus today, but I need to be back on track tomorrow.”

“I can stay here,” Bellara said. “I mean, I rescheduled the meeting with the publisher for next Tuesday. I can write a few episodes of my serials.”

Bel had started publishing her stories on several papers, and they had a discreet success. Not enough to only live from the profit, but enough to have a constant influx of money.

Neve couldn’t be prouder of her.

“Good idea,“ she agreed. “I also think we should take Enora to see the city, she will learn the common tongue faster if she is immersed in a context where people speak it.”

“That’s a great idea—like all your ideas, I mean,” Bel said, sipping her wine. “Do you think she will learn enough to have simple conversations in a couple of weeks?”

Neve shrugged.

“I don’t know, but I was told children are very fast at learning new languages. Maybe she will surprise us.”

Bel nodded, but she didn’t look at her. Her gaze was lost in her thoughts, and her fingers drummed on the table even more than usual.

“Bel, what are you thinking about?”

Her friend startled, as if she’d just been caught doing something she shouldn’t.

“I was just wondering…”

Neve waited for her to elaborate. Her friend sighed and finally looked at her in the eyes.

“Enora said she has no memory of her family or her clan, so I wonder… how did she learn elven? You would think she would learn the common tongue if she’d never met anyone from a dalish clan—or if she was too little to remember them.”

Her friend made an excellent point.

Neve, of course, had no answers.

“Maybe from other slaves? But that wouldn’t explain why they hadn’t taught her the common tongue, alongside elven.”

Bel bit her lips, too, probably following her same reasoning.

Neve could explain why a master wouldn’t want Enora to learn the common tongue: she wouldn’t be able to ask for help or testify the horrors she witnessed; but slaves should want to help each other and teach her the tongue which could be more useful if somehow she ran away—or someone else freed her.

The more she thought about it, the less sense it made.

Besides that, there was something else about Enora that bothered Neve. She couldn’t quite grasp what, though.

“Another glass?” she asked, noticing that somehow she and Bel had already finished theirs.

Maybe she should be worried about how fast they were drinking.

Bel eagerly handed her the empty glass, and afterwards Neve filled her own, too.

Maybe she was too hasty, but a drop ran through the external side of the glass and Neve almost laughed imagining Lucanis’s face if he knew how badly she poured wine, and the drop looked like a tear—

There.

That was the answer she was looking for.

“She doesn’t cry,” Neve said.

Bel raised her eyebrows.

“Do you mean Enora?”

Neve nodded.

“Think about it: today she’d been through some incredibly distressful situations. She saw fights, deaths, the Crossroads and we almost left her with the Veil Jumpers—I don’t mean it in a negative way,” she said noticing Bel’s upcoming protest, “but still it’s a group of people Enora doesn’t know. Her whole world has been flipped upside down in the span of a few hours, and yet, she hasn’t cried even once.”

Bel was silent for a few moments. “I agree, it’s not normal. I mean, I’m no expert with children but now that I think of it, some of the Veil Jumpers have kids and they cry for everything…”

Her friend trailed off, her eyes widening as when she realized something.

“I think… I think I have an idea about why Enora doesn’t cry, but you won’t like it.”

“Tell me anyway,” Neve insisted.

Bellara sighed.

“Okay, I don’t mean it as an insult, but imagine it from her point of view. I mean, she was a slave until a few hours ago, so do you really blame her for not wanting to show herself vulnerable in front of a human mage?”

No, she couldn’t. Who knew how many shitty things she had been taught.

“You’re right,” she just said. Then, she remembered how Enora had acted when she approached Bel from behind and asked, “What did Enora tell you when I apologized before dinner?”

“She alerted me that you were coming,” Bel said, then she added, “I am so sorry, but she probably thought you were going to attack me from behind and—oh, gods, I’m making this even worse.”

Neve reached out with her hand and held Bel’s. It stung, of course, but she could see the child’s reasoning.

“You’re not. I told you I want to hear the truth, no matter how painful. I won’t lie and tell you it’s good to hear these things, but I understand where Enora is coming from.”

Bel smiled, that beautiful smile that almost made her believe good things would happen in real life and not just in novels.

But real life wasn’t like that.

“I don’t know if it’s good for Enora to stay here,” Neve blurted out. It was surely the wine’s fault, because this was the kind of thoughts she never shared with anyone. “I’ve never dealt with children, frankly I have no idea of what I should do. She doesn’t really trust me and she is here just because she saw me fight Venatori.”

Bel reached out with her hand and grabbed Neve’s.

“Some of the Veil Jumpers have children, as I mentioned,“ she said. “I will send them letters first thing in the morning. Also, she won’t stay here long, just a couple of weeks.“

Neve nodded.

A couple of weeks with a child in the guest bedroom and Bel in her own bed.

Neve ignored the way her heart beat and the warmth in her lower belly at the idea of sharing the bed with her closest friend—

Damn alcohol. She wouldn’t feel like that if she was sober.

“I think we should go to bed, too,“ Bel said. “I mean, you look wrecked.”

She was right. Never realized she barely had the energy to keep her eyes open, and she couldn’t find any excuse to delay the moment she would share the bed with her best friend.

Neve led her in her room, trying to push away her feelings.

Since she’d moved in this apartment, no one had shared her bed. In the last two years, Neve had been too busy between the reconstruction of Minrathous and her cases with Rana to tie herself emotionally to someone else, and for when the heat in her lower belly was too strong to be ignored, Neve had a whole drawer full of sex toys to make up for that.

Chasing away those inappropriate thoughts, Neve took off her metal leg—she sighed in relief when her stump wasn’t restricted in the prosthesis anymore—and changed into her night clothes without looking in Bel’s direction.

When she was ready, she turned around and she held her breath.

Of course, she had seen Bel with her hair down very early in the morning, or when she stayed up all night. But every time she saw her long hair loose, Neve always thought she was as beautiful as the first time.

Bel lay next to her, on the opposite side of the bed, and Neve could already feel awkward—

Bel suddenly turned to the door’s direction.

That worried her immediately: elves’ hearing was much sharper than humans’. Neve reached the Fade out of pure instinct.

“Bel? What’s that?”

“Enora is awake,” she said, making Neve’s tension evaporate. “I’ll go check on her.”

Bel left the room and Neve heard her talk in elven, then she came back with Enora.

“I told her she can come here if she has nightmares,” Bel said. “Is that okay?”

The implication made Neve’s heart break. The child had no idea how to ask for help or comfort.

“Of course,” Neve said.

Bel came back on bed next to her, but Enora didn’t follow. She stared at them both, and Neve thought that probably it was the first time she saw two women in the same bed.

Enora spoke to Bel in elven and Bel nodded. She replied, and the child said something else pointing at Neve.

“What is going on?” Neve asked.

Bel’s look was the prelude for something bad.

“She asks if you allow elves on your bed, or if you want her—and me—to sleep on the floor like slaves should.”

Neve bit her lips. It wasn’t the child’s fault, of course, but she hated deeply the bastards who made Enora feel less than a thing.

“Tell her she is never going to sleep on a floor again,” she said. “And that she can sleep on this bed every time she wants to, as long as she knocks on the door first.”

Bel translated, and only then Enora followed them on bed.

She was relieved to have some kind of buffer between herself and Bel. Neve worried for a moment about the child’s reaction to her stump, even though she wore a protective sleeve. But, as she got under the blankets, Enora she didn’t seem affected by the sight of her shorter leg.

Was it normal for a child, or had Enora seen amputations?

Neve didn’t want to answer that question.

The child took place close to Bel and said something. She turned to Neve and said, “Enora wants me to translate a question for you.”

That surprised Neve.

“Of course, tell me.”

The child said something, and Bellara looked shocked and uncomfortable.

“Bel? What did she ask?”

“She asked, if any other mage should capture her again, would you kill them?”

Neve looked the child in the eye. She didn’t like making promises to children, but Enora expected an answer, and she carefully said, “Bel, tell her that anyone who will try to put her in a cage again won’t live to see another day.”

Bellara looked at her in a weird way, but translated her answer. Enora seemed to relax, and replied to Bel—Neve didn’t need to know the language to understand it was a thanks.

Enora settled herself between them, but closer to Bel, and closed her eyes.

She fell asleep immediately.

It was a disturbing thought that what made her sleep so soundly was the promise of a murder.

What a day, Neve thought.

When she’d woken up that morning, she’d expected to do her job for Quintus, meet Bel for dinner in the Cobbled Swan, and sleep in two different rooms.

Sharing her comfortable double bed with Bel and a child was something that not even her wildest dreams could conceive.

“Neve, are you sure you want to do this with me?” Bel asked, distracting her from her own thoughts.

She looked as concerned as Neve had ever seen her. For some reason, that made her want to reach out and hold her.

“Why wouldn't I be sure?”

Bel sighed.

“You know I will screw up somehow, and the rest of the Veil Jumpers can help you with the kid.”

Neve’s whole body rejected the idea. There was no one else she could show the domestic side of her, no one else with whom she felt comfortable removing her metal leg around, no one else with whom she’d share the bed.

She also hated when Bel thought so poorly about herself. Bellara was the most amazing person she’d ever met, even though she herself couldn’t see it.

“There’s no one else I trust enough to do it,” Neve said. “You won’t screw up.”

That made Bel smile. 

“Thank you. Goodnight.”

Neve’s apartment had magic lanterns, and she’d taught Bel how to turn them on and off with her magic the first time she came over as her guest.

So Bel turned them off.

In the dark, though, Neve remembered about something she meant to ask her.

“You didn’t tell me Enora was your grandmother’s name.”

In the dim light, coming from the window, she saw Bel’s cheeks become red. “Oh, it was just a stupid idea I had.”

That piqued Neve’s curiosity. “Why would it ever be stupid?”

“It’s just…” Bel’s voice faltered, and she avoided looking at Neve. “When my grandmother died, all our clan attended her funeral because she was so loved.” She brushed Enora’s hair behind her ear with a gentleness Neve had only seen her use with the most fragile Fade crystals. “I mean—I know it can’t fix everything she went through, but I thought she deserved the name of someone who’d been greatly loved when she was alive.” 

Bel turned so that she was now staring at the ceiling.

“I’m sorry, I told you it was something stupid.”

To Neve, it was incredible how her closest friend could always find a new way to amaze her. 

“Bel, it’s not stupid. I think it’s beautiful.”

The sleeping child stirred, but didn’t wake up.

She looked at Bel, who was staring at her. For some reason, the thought made Neve feel her cheeks warmer.

“Thank you. For not thinking it’s stupid, I mean.”

“Nothing you think or do is ever stupid to me,” Neve replied.

Bel made a surprised face that made Neve want to reach out and—

“We should sleep, for real this time,” Bel said.

Of course.

Neve adjusted herself. The bed was quite big and both she and Bel fit in comfortably, while Enora was so little she could fit between the two of them with no issue.

Well, this was going to be her life for the next two weeks. Better getting used as soon as possible.

But, for how much Neve loved having all that space for herself, she realized she didn’t mind sharing her personal space with Bel and Enora.

“Goodnight,” she said, trying to push those thoughts out of her mind.

“Goodnight, Neve,” Bel replied.

Neve must have been more tired than she realized, because, for the first time in years, she fell asleep immediately.

Chapter Text

“You what?”

Rana looked like holding in her laughs was the hardest thing she’d ever done. Neve regretted telling her about Enora already, but she’d thought her friend and coworker deserved the truth after she bailed on a whole investigation day.

Neve rolled her eyes. She loved Rana, and their friendship had survived a lot of years, secrets and opinion divergences, but sometimes she couldn’t stand her.

“Are you really going to make me repeat it?”

Rana, who was clearly having most fun than she’d had in months, smiled broadly.

“Yes, please. The story of how you ended up with a child is the best thing I’ve ever heard.”

Neve scoffed. 

“It’s just a temporary solution, in a couple of weeks Bel and I will meet Strife, and he’ll take the child to what’s left of her family.”

For some reason, that made it even funnier to Rana.

“You and Bellara are taking care of a child together.”

She said like it was a punchline for a joke, but Neve didn’t have time or patience for that. She swore to herself to find something to taunt Rana with, but now she had something more important to think about. Neve focused her attention on the board, where she was pretty sure there were new notes. 

“If you have finished mocking me, can you please tell me what you found out yesterday? I think those papers are new.”

It had all started with a murder no one cared investigating for, unfortunately a common factor in most of Neve’s cases. 

The victim was a man in his forties and he’d been clearly killed with magic. Examining the remnants, though, didn’t give Neve a hint about the murderer, but it showed a symbol. A round shield with two swords crossed on it.

Rana had drawn a sketch of the symbol that was at the centre of the murder board. A research about heraldic had turned out to be fruitless, because no family had that symbol as a crest.

Another victim, a young woman this time, had been found on the other side of Dock Town a couple of weeks later, and Neve and Rana would have never connected the two of them if an analysis of the magic remnants hadn’t produced the same symbol.

At that point, Rana had asked to some of her former colleagues among the templars if there were other victims whose murderer had never been found, and an exploration of the places where the bodies had been found had given them the same symbol—even if fainter than the ones of the most recent victims.

On the board, from the symbol placed at the centre, five branches connected to other notes with the names of each victim, where they’d been found and where they’d been killed.

They were men and women of all ages, but all of them seemed to have only one thing in common: they were poor people who’d lived in Minrathous for just a few weeks before being killed. Two of them came from Rivain, other three from Antiva; they probably hadn’t had time or way to make friendships with the neighbours, because no one seemed to know the victims. Some neighbours claimed they saw the victims walking around, but never talked to them; other times, when Neve mentioned the name of the victim who lived in that specific area to the people in the houses next to them, she received blank stares and a “Who?”

At some point, Neve thought she had the solution of the case at hand. She’d taken the skull of the latest victim to Nevarra, but the trip to the Necropolis had led her nowhere. Emmrich’s spirit whispering had only revealed that the dead woman’s memory had been erased.

“The murderer must be a powerful mage if this spell keeps the memories away even in death,” Emmrich had commented, putting a hand on her shoulders. “Be careful, Neve.”

She took her friend’s advice to heart, but…

The whole situation was just frustrating.

And now, instead of the usual four red lines departing from the sketch of the symbol, there was also a fifth.

“As you’ve already noticed, I found another body,” Rana said. “I can’t see the remnants of magic, but the modus operandi is the same. Poor woman, coming from out of Tevinter, no neighbors knew her.”

Neve sighed. She would examine the crime scene later for a confirmation, but Rana had probably made a correct guess.

“Tell me more.”

Rana checked a notebook on her desk. She kept her notes in a rigorous order, each of the case they solved together had its own notebook with dates, names and places, all written in a clear and precise handwriting.

Neve couldn’t say the same. Her own desk was a clutter of papers from all the cases they worked on, some of them were missing because she had them in her home office, and others were hanging on the board. The handwriting she wrote them in was chaotic and almost impossible to read to anyone who wasn’t her.

“The name is Alida Nevrus, probably mid-twenties, from Rivain. She worked as a seamstress and her employer describes her as a kind woman. She’s lived in Minrathous for three months before she was killed. Her neighbours barely knew her name.”

Neve stared at the board, where on another paper sheet Rana had written down a more schematic bullet list of the information she’d just told her. She took a step towards it, as if the board could give her the answers she was looking for.

“Why would a murderer target them?” Neve asked.

It was a rhetorical question. She and Rana had spent hours trying to make hypothesis, because they couldn’t understand why all of those people had been killed by the same murderer.

And, by missing that information, they couldn’t stop the murderer before they hit again.

The fact itself that there had been another victim the day before left a bitter taste in Neve’s mouth.

If only she and Rana could have figure out before what was going on, they could have prevented this unnecessary death.

“Let’s go,” Rana said, taking Neve back to reality. “You should analyze the scene of the crime to confirm she’s a victim of the same mage, we’ll figure something out starting from there.”

Neve accepted the proposal.

She followed Rana through the streets of Dock Town until she led her to a narrow alley. There were beggars to whom Neve couldn’t resist leaving a few coins and promise them a hot meal if they told the owner of the Cobbled Swan that Gallus was sending them.

They all thanked her and wished her Andraste would watch over her.

When she and Rana finally arrived in front of the door of a dilapidated building, they saw a young man with templar armor pacing in front of it.

“Hello, Rodric,” Rana greeted him.

The man immediately assumed a formal pose, with his back straight and his arms along his sides. “Good morning, Savas.”

She chuckled. “You don’t need to act like that, I’m not your superior anymore.”

Rodric had been one of the recruits trained by Rana when she was still with the templars and even now, two years after Rana had left them, he hadn’t stopped addressing her as if he was her subject.

Rana always complained about the unnecessary formality of the young man, but Neve found it useful: the templar still respected Rana enough to give them information and let them examine the crime scenes without fuss, unlike most of his colleagues.

“You’re right, Sav—Rana. Do you need anything?”

“I need to make an inspection with Neve,” Rana said. “Can you let us in?”

Rodric took a step aside.

“Of course, but please, don’t let anyone know.”

Neve smiled at the young man. “Don’t worry, we’ll leave soon and won’t tell anyone.”

She followed Rana into the building and up three flights of stairs, then through a door no one closed.

The most unsettling thing was that the cramped one-room apartment looked perfectly normal. Nothing was out of the ordinary, if one ignored the mold on one corner of the ceiling. The table had three chairs, on one there were needles, wires and some fabric. The little kitchen corner was perfectly clean and the bed made.

It felt like walking into the apartment of someone who was going to be back in a few hours.

“She was found here,” Rana said, pointing at the space between the table and the kitchen.

Neve knelt to examine it better, but there wasn’t even a drop of blood on the floor. No way to tell a young woman had been killed here.

She took her staff and checked on the remnants of magic. As she expected, instead of the images of the last moments of the victim and the murderer, she saw the shimmering image of a round shield and two swords.

“Sounds like you were right,” Neve said, even though she hadn’t doubted Rana’s instinct for a second.

Having the confirmation only added more confusion to the case.

Out of all the five victims, there were three men and two women. Their age ranged from mid-twenties to early-forties.

The only thing that linked them was the fact that they were all from outside Tevinter and were poor.

Neve got up and opened the small closet’s door.

“It doesn’t seem like anything was stolen,” Rana said, understanding what she was doing.

Neve acknowledged her friend’s observation with a sign, but didn’t stop examining the closet. There was something odd in the disposition of clothes. The poor woman didn’t have many, but the ones on the bottom of the stack were folded with care, while the ones on top were crumpled and wrinkled like they’d been thrown in the closet in a hurry.

“She was a seamstress, you said,” Neve told Rana. “Do you know where we can find her employer?”

“It’s close to the Central Market. Do you want to go there now?”

Neve took a notebook and a pen.

“Yes, just give me the time to make some quick annotations.”

Neve scrambled some observations in her notebook and they left the apartment, thanked Rodric for allowing them to get inside and left. The Central Market was as busy as usual, and Neve followed her friend as she walked through the square directed to a shop with an insignia that promised the best tailoring services in Minrathous.

As soon as they walked in, the owner bolted up.

“I told you everything I know yesterday,” the old lady said, addressing Rana. “Will I have templars coming here every day now?”

Rana sighed.

“I’ve already explained it, I’m not a templar—”

“I can recognize your lot by the way you carry yourselves,” the old lady interrupted her. “You templars have that attitude as if everyone of us owes you an explanation.”

Neve chuckled.

“Once a templar, always a templar,” she teased Rana.

The old lady finally seemed to notice her and recognize her. “Wait, you are Neve Gallus!”

“In person,” Neve confirmed. “Can I ask you some questions while my friend waits for me outside?”

Rana rolled her eyes, but left the shop.

“Oh, I can’t believe the Neve Gallus is here in my shop—”

“I’m sorry, can I ask you something about Alida Nevrus?” Neve interrupted her. She never loved being put on a pedestal, especially when she needed to work. “It will be important to find out who killed her.”

“Of course, poor woman,” the old lady said. “She was so young and kind.”

Neve took her notebook and got her pen ready.

“Did you notice if she started acting different from usual lately?”

The old lady shook her head. “No, she seemed normal.”

“What kind of worker was she?”

“Always on time, she was a great seamstress and I gained more clients thanks to her. I’ve been sad to hear she’d been killed.”

Neve had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from asking if she was sad because the young woman had died or because she lost someone who made her make more money.

“Was she an ordered person?”

“Yes, she always divided the clothes for the clients and they were always ready on time.”

Neve wrote that down and said, “Thank you for your time. Have a nice day.”

“Will you catch them?” the old lady asked.

Her gaze was so intense Neve regretted suspecting she was just sad because she’d lost a money maker.

“We will do whatever we can to catch them.”

Neve left the shop and met Rana outside.

“Any luck?” her friend asked.

Neve made her sign to walk and Rana followed her.

“I think the murderer took something from Alida.”

Rana raised her eyebrows. “I don’t want to sound cruel or cold, but you have seen where that poor woman lived. What could anyone steal from them?”

Neve shrugged. She just had a suspicion, she still hadn’t figured the how and the why.

“I don’t know, maybe a family heirloom or something she’d taken with her from Rivain,” Neve said. “But I think she was hiding something in the closet.”

“Why do you think so?”

“She was an ordered and precise woman, like you,” Neve said, looking at her friend in the eye. “Would you ever leave crumpled clothes in your closet?”

Rana stared at her as if she’d just hit her head. “Are you seriously basing your hypothesis on the fact that some of her clothes weren’t perfectly folded?”

“We have nothing else up to now,” Neve replied. “At least, now we can start following this lead. Maybe we can find out something else about the other victims, too, and find the murderer.”

Rana didn’t say anything for several moments. “They could have had something from Antiva or Rivain that Venatori or ill-intended mages could use for rituals. It does make sense.”

Neve stopped in front of a paper seller and gave her a pat on the shoulder.

“You can start working on it from here, I’m going to meet Bel for lunch. We want to show Enora the city.”

She expected Rana to insult her under her breath or, at least, to protest. Instead, she grinned. “Of course, now you have a child to take care of together.”

Neve sighed.

“I told you already, it’s a temporary—”

“Yes, yes, whatever,” Rana interrupted her. “I won’t make you skip lunch with Bellara and your child.”

“She is not my—” Neve started, but then scoffed. Rana wouldn’t listen anyway.

Her friend told her to be back in the agency in a couple of hours, and Neve approached the paper seller.

Neve always purchased the newspapers where Bellara published her serials, even though she had already proofread all of them. 

Up to now, Bel had four ongoing series: The Hardest Choice, a forbidden love story between a qunari and a Fereldian scout (Bel assured her she had both Taash’s and Lace’s permission to publish it); A Trevisan Matter, an intense family drama with plot twists, love and betrayals (Lucanis was the biggest fan of this and Bel always sent him the episodes in advance); The Wild Hunt, an adventure story about a lone monster hunter and his loyal mabari that had most success between men and boys (Davrin sent long notes about the description of each monster); and A Necromancer’s Heart, a romance with horror elements set in the Grand Necropolis (for which Emmrich always sent compliments and suggested Bel to add more necromancy in the next issues).

Once, more than one year ago, Neve had asked Bel why she hadn’t written a serial based on her, at which Bellara had seemed taken aback.

“It’s just—” she’d replied, not looking her in the eye. “You are already often in the newspapers, nothing I could make up will be as interesting or exciting as your real cases.”

It was a valid reason, but it had stung a little to be the only one of the Veilguard to not be the inspiration for Bel’s serials—even Rook had a recurring character based on her in A Trevisan Matter.

She bought the newspaper with the latest issue of A Necromancer’s Heart and walked towards the harbor. 

When Neve left the house in the morning, Enora was still sleeping and she looked even smaller on the double bed—neither she or Bel had wanted to wake her up—and agreed to meet in front of Hal’s booth for lunch. She’d also showed Bel the ward enchantments she’d used for the house, so that she could deactivate and reactivate them by herself.

Neve spotted them both, and when she finally approached them, she saw that Bel was translating back and forth between the Hal and Enora.

“Oh, Neve, hello! I was just talking with Bellara and the little one,” he greeted her.

In the last two years, he’d come to know Bel almost as much as her because it was the first place where she always took Bel when she came to Minrathous.

“I heard Bel translating for you,” Neve said.

Hal turned some fish on his stove and addressed Neve with an awkward smile. “Yes, the child—Enora, right?—saw me and started speaking in elven, but unfortunately I only know the common tongue.”

Bel’s concerns of the night before came back to Neve’s mind. Hal had lived in Minrathous all his life and, despite being an elf, he couldn’t speak elven.

How did Enora learn the language, then?

“I’ve already ordered our sticks,” Bel said. “I’ve paid, too.”

That was unacceptable. “What, no Bel—”

“I’ve just been paid for the last issue of The Hardest Choice, it sold so much more than we thought. I just want to do something nice for you, since you’re letting me stay in your place,” she interrupted her.

Neve was about to protest that she could stay in her place how much she wanted, but she didn’t. She was still getting used to have people doing kind things for her without needing a reason to.

Neve smiled and thanked her. Bel smiled back in a way that made her heart beat faster and her cheek flush, so she turned attention to Enora. The child was looking at her, but as soon as she realized Neve was looking, Enora took her gaze somewhere else—which turned to be a cat.

It stung just a little bit.

Hal gave them their sticks and Neve guided her friend and the child on her favourite beach. They sat in front of the sea, with Enora getting close to Bel and staring at the water in a weird way.

She remembered how the child had seemed disoriented in the Arlathan Forest yesterday, and Neve realized she’d never seen the sea, either.

In hopes to distract her, Neve handed Enora one of the sticks.

The child directed her distrustful frown to the food, but Neve didn’t mind it.

“Fried fish,” she said, pointing at it.

“Fried… fish?” the child repeated. 

“Yes, little one,” Neve said with a smile.

Bellara chuckled.

“You are teaching her the important words.”

Enora seemed slightly more at ease, but she only ate the fish when Bel told her something in elven and after she saw Bel bite her own portion of fish.

She didn’t trust the food handed her by a human, Neve realized. She had no time to be bitter about it, though: Enora finished the fish at an incredible speed and she found herself chuckling.

“She likes it,” Neve commented.

Enora told something in elven to Bel, who then smiled at Neve. “She says it’s the best thing she’s ever had.”

Neve smiled, happy for that small victory. As long as the child stayed in her house, she would buy her all the fried fish she wanted.

“Tell her Hal is really the best,” Neve said.

Bel translated to the child, and for the first time Enora didn’t look at Neve as if she was suspicious of her.

She saw her friend pass an arm around the child’s shoulders, and asked her, “Are you going to be busy this afternoon? I wanted to take Enora to see the city so she gets used to the common tongue.”

“Yes, I am,” Neve said. She couldn’t help but feel a little of apprehension at the idea of sending two elves alone in Minrathous, though. “Stay close to the Cobbled Swan, it’s safer.”

“I will,” Bel promised. “I’ll see you home, then?”

The idea made Neve smile. “Yes. See you home.”

She said her goodbyes to Bel and Enora (the child seemed relieved to see her leave, which stung a bit Neve for how much she understood where she was coming from) and came back to the agency.

There, she started the tedious and painful task of putting together her notes on the case. Neve always told Rana she had her own sorting way, but it was a nightmare to look for the papers she needed on the stash on her desk. Also, she probably had some in her home office.

Neve felt Rana’s judgmental stare from the other desk. To her credit, Rana restrained herself from commenting for most of the afternoon, until she said, when the sun was setting, “Your lack of organization is reprehensible.”

“I think I have some of the notes at home,” Neve said, with the only result of making her friend’s gaze even sharper. “I’ll go check. I’m also tired, anyway.”

“I imagine having a child now is difficult, but that doesn’t mean you can’t organize your notes in a way that makes sense.”

Neve ignored her comment, wished her friend a good evening and left. When she came back home, Bel and Enora hadn’t arrived yet. She walked into her home office, which was even messier than the agency because there wasn’t Rana to keep clean one half of it.

On her desk, among her case notes, there was also her personal stuff. The paper on top of the pile, indeed, turned out to be a letter dated last week.

Dear Neve,

Do you remember what we talked about last time? Do you have news?

-Your friend, R

Yes, Neve had news for her friend and she’d already told herself to answer the letter, but once again she put it aside to look for the case notes she needed.

She dug into the pile of papers to look for every scrap of information about the victims to try to gather enough information about possible heirlooms that could have been stolen. Neve was so immersed in the tedious job of reading and separating the useful notes from the rest that she didn’t even notice when Bellara and Enora came back home until the child suddenly came into the office with Bel behind her.

“Enora!” Bel was saying, then she regarded Neve with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, Neve, I told her not to disturb you when you’re working.”

Neve observed the child, who was looking around the office and—

She felt a pang in her chest when she understood what Enora was doing. She walked on the other side of the desk and put a hand on Bel’s shoulders to ease her concerns away.

“Don’t worry, I think she needs to see I’m not hiding slaves anywhere.”

They both turned to the child, who was examining the desk, the papers on it, and the murder board (smaller than the one at the agency).

“Oh, I think you’re right,” Bel said, then took her hand. “She will understand you’re not like her owner. She just needs some time.”

Neve pursed her lips. She would never blame the child for her feelings, but it was impossible not to feel hurt when Enora looked much more at ease when she understood there weren’t hidden slaves in her office.

She held Bel’s hand tighter.

“I hope so.”

Her friend said nothing, she just squeezed her hand.

That simple gesture made Neve feel slightly less worse.

***

Having Enora come into her home office became a habit for Neve. Bel asked her if she wanted her to take the child out, but she didn’t mind as long as Enora didn’t disturb her work.

The child, at first, looked at her with suspicion, but then it was slowly replaced by curiosity. Neve realized, with no small amount of pride, that Enora wanted to find out what she did for a living.

After all, she’d never met a human mage who wasn’t a slave owner, or a Venatori, or both, so Neve’s detective work was something the child had never seen before.

At first, Enora stared at her from a corner in the room, looking at Neve as she wrote down notes, looked for papers or gathered her ideas on the murder board. On the second day, Neve gave her an armchair from where to look at her, and Enora whispered “Ma serannas”, which Bel later confirmed to be a thanks.

Those two words made her smile.

One day, Enora jumped down the armchair and approached the murder board that Neve was studying. It was a little replica of the one in the office, but with less details and with only papers that had her own messy handwriting, and it helped Neve to keep track of her knowledge and intuitions.

Enora was just a little further away than Neve’s arms, and she stared at the murder board, too.

Neve couldn’t help herself but smile, and she asked, “Are you a little detective now?”

The child didn’t answer. She’d started picking up some words in the common tongue, but that sentence was still too complex for her.

Enora looked at her, confused, and then came back looking at the board.

Staring at the board, trying to find a connection between the victims or after she hang some new note with a scrap of a hint or a hypothesis, with Enora next to her became a rather pleasing habit.

In general, Neve noticed, Enora was an extremely silent child. She talked with Bel in elven, but Neve almost never heard her when she walked around and she noticed Enora only after she’d already arrived in a room.

“Do you hear Enora when she walks around?” she asked Bel one day.

Her friend seemed surprised by the question, but she had to think about it. “Yes, I hear her, but very faintly. Can’t you hear her?”

Neve shook her head.

“That’s weird,” Bel said. “I mean, usually children are chaotic, or so they say.”

They referred to all the Veil Jumpers who had replied Bellara’s letters. As she’d promised that first night, she’d sent letters to all the Veil Jumpers she knew had children, and in a few days they had been flooded with—often conflicting—advice about how to take care of a four-year-old.

Sometimes, when Neve needed a break from the case, she read the letters, but she quickly put them down because reading all those opposite advices about children gave her a headache and some anxiety.

What if she somehow did something irreparably wrong with Enora before Strife found her family?

Neve didn’t want to think about that.

Enora seemed mostly fine, and she focused on that. She and Bel could handle her for two weeks.

One day, though, she had doubts about it for the first time. Neve was looking at the board, where she had added notes about the latest conversations she’d had with Rana about possible heirlooms, when she heard Enora scream.

Neve jumped from the shock. She’d never heard such a sharp shrill coming from her, and she had barely the time to recover that Enora had already bolted out the office yelling a word in elven.

Neve followed her, her heart pounding in her ears, and she saw that Bel had already reached her and was holding the child. Enora was shaking in her arms and tried to hide her face in the crook of Bel’s neck, still repeating that same word she screamed just seconds ago.

“Bel, what’s happening?” Neve asked, her heart still beating fast both from the fright and from concern. “What is she saying?”

“Spider,” Bellara translated.

It was a partial relief to realize that Enora had common fears for a child, but it was shadowed by another thought.

Enora had seen dead Venatori and hadn’t reacted like that.

Seeing her trembling and screaming for a spider was unsettling.

Bel’s hand traced soothing circles on Enora’s back as she murmured something in elven, while Neve came back into the office to see that a small spider was crawling on the windowsill. She opened the window and used a paper sheet to help the spider out, and when she came back to Bel and Enora, she saw that the child had stopped shaking, but wasn’t letting Bellara go.

“Don’t worry,” Bel said when she noticed her. “I think I can handle this.”

Neve felt incredibly thankful. If she was alone, she wouldn’t have had any idea of how to handle the situation.

Later, Enora came back in her office, but she seemed nervous and Bel followed her telling her things in elven. Her words, though, didn’t seem to calm Enora down.

“Bel? Why is Enora so anxious?”

Bel looked at her in a way that immediately had her concerned.

“I don’t want to upset you, but Enora thinks you’re angry with her—I told her you’re not, of course, but I think she needs to hear it from you.”

That surprised Neve, more than hurt her.

“Why should I be angry with her?”

“For earlier,” Bel clarified. Enora looked at Bel and said something in elven, and she took a step closer to her. Bel addressed Neve with an apologetic expression. “She thinks that elves shouldn’t act like that with human mages.”

Bellara’s hypothesis that the child didn’t want to show herself vulnerable in front of her because she was a human mage seemed more solid than ever.

Neve wasn’t even hurt by Enora’s belief. She knelt in front of her to be at her same height, and she immediately grabbed Bel’s hand.

“Please, Bel, translate everything I’m going to say.”

Her friend nodded and passed her thumb on the child’s hand’s back in a soothing gesture.

“I will.”

Neve looked straight into Enora’s eyes, which made her hold Bel’s hand even tighter.

“I’m not angry. Never feel sorry for showing your emotions. I don’t care what your former owner taught you, you don’t have to hide your feelings with us.”

Bellara whispered in the child’s ear, and Enora nodded. She didn’t dare let Bel go, but she didn’t look at Neve with as much terror anymore.

That same evening, after dinner, Neve approached Bel. Enora had already fallen asleep, so she took the chance to talk with her friend.

“You’re amazing with Enora,” she said.

Bel seemed surprised to hear that. “Do you think so? I feel like I have no idea of what I’m doing with her most of the time.”

That confession stunned Neve. She would have never said so.

She put her hand on Bel’s shoulder. “I don’t think I could do it without you.”

Her friend smiled in that way that always made her feel a warm sensation in her chest.

“When I have doubts, I try to remember what my parents did with me and Cyrian,” Bel confessed. “I mean, I try to keep in mind everything the others said about children, but sometimes it’s just easier to use my own experience.”

Oh, that made sense. Neve didn’t have loving parents, and she struggled to remember them taking care of her or being supportive even when she was a child.

Was this why Bel was so good in taking care of Enora, while she was such a mess?

“You’re not your parents,” Bel said. Sometimes, she could read her so well it was almost scary. “I can talk to Enora, that’s why it’s easier for me. When she speaks more the common tongue, it will be easier for you, too.”

Bellara’s words always made her feel better about herself. Neve found herself smiling and said, “Thank you, Bel.”

Her friend was so beautiful, she walked close to her, they were alone and Neve’s heart was beating fast—

She took a step back. Bel was her friend, nothing more.

“I’m tired,” she just said. “I think I’m going to sleep.”

Bel nodded. “I will write some more. Goodnight.”

Neve left the room, but that didn’t didn’t calm down her heart or didn’t ease the sensation that she’d somehow missed a chance.

***

Since the spider incident, Neve noticed that Enora looked for Bel’s contact more and more. It was either hold her hand, or sit next to her, or to have Bel’s hand on her shoulder. When her friend hugged her, Enora looked at ease.

It was the first time she experienced touch in a reassuring way, Neve understood.

With Neve, instead, her progress was much slower, but she didn’t blame the child. After all, she had seen human mages being cruel in ways most people didn’t see in a lifetime and Neve didn’t expect her to overcome all her traumas in the span of a few days.

She always tried to show herself kind and respectful of the child, though, and Enora seemed to appreciate it a little bit. But she noticed something else, too.

Neve didn’t speak elven, but when the little girl talked with Bellara, she never pronounced her name.

“She refers to you as the human,” Bel confirmed. “She thinks it’s disrespectful for elves to call human mages by name—I told her it’s not,” she anticipated Neve’s argument, “but I think it’s what her former owner taught her and it’s not something she can unlearn easily.”

Neve hated her former owner even more, but now they weren’t a problem anymore. Dorian Pavus had approved her petition for Enora’s freedom and had sent her, under her request, a copy of the documents. Neve read it one night after she was done studying her case notes, and her tired mind hadn’t registered errors, but just to be sure the day after she asked both Bel and Rana to double check it.

At first, Rana protested because they had many notes and newspaper articles to study already, but as soon as her eye lay on the first page her attitude changed. She acted as if Neve had just handed her the funniest joke in Thedas.

Every time she met her, Rana smirked in a weird way, like she was waiting for the perfect moment to drop the punchline.

Annoyed by her gaze, Neve asked her, “How is our search of possible heirloom stolen?”

“Well, not great since the hypothesis that the victims were robbed is based on literally nothing,” Rana replied, “but that gave me a more plausible idea. If I’m right, I will let you know.”

“Good,” Neve said.

Finally, they could make a step towards the discovery of the murderer. She wanted to stop them before they killed anyone else and that evening she came back home feeling much better than she had in the last few weeks.

Neve had feared that the nights with Bel would be awkward, but instead they were… fine. They’d only happened to go to sleep at the same time the first night Neve took Enora home; their schedules were so chaotic that either Neve went to sleep when Bel had already been sleeping for hours, or the other way around. Sometimes, Bel didn’t sleep at all and Neve found her writing in the living room, and seemed shocked to realize it was morning already.

“You should sleep,” Neve told her knowing full well how hypocrite that advice sounded.

Indeed, Bel looked at her with her eyebrows raised. With her hair down, her tired expression and her smile—

Neve had to restrain herself from touching her friend. She forced herself to tear her gaze off those beautiful lips.

“I think you should follow your own advice,” she replied instead. “You haven’t slept more than a few hours, no offense, of course.”

Neve dropped the subject and prepared coffee for herself and tea for Bel, ignoring her own heartbeat against her ribs.

Against what she’d assumed the first night, Neve didn’t spend two weeks sharing her large double bed with Bel and Enora.

Enora had no problem sleeping in the guest bedroom most of the nights. Sometimes, though, Neve was awaken by the knock on the door and the mattress bending under Enora’s weight. In the morning, if Neve was the first one to wake up, she found Bel with an arm wrapped around the child’s little body, as if to protect her from nightmares.

It was so cute it made her feel a weird sensation in her chest. Neve tried to be even more silent those mornings to not wake them up.

Sooner than she realized, two weeks passed.

Neve found herself strangely sad at the realization, but she pushed it away. It was only because of the case that up to now had led them nowhere, not because she was going to leave Enora with her family and go back to seeing Bel every few weeks.

***

Coming back to Arlathan Forest seemed less traumatic for Enora, this time. Maybe it was because she knew already what to expect, or because she’d started to see the world outside her former owner’s place, but the child seemed much calmer when they finally arrived in the Veil Jumpers camp.

Strife immediately arrived to greet them, then he looked apologetically at Bel.

“I’m sorry, Bellara, I told you we could delegate your work for a couple of weeks, but there are some devices we couldn’t fix.”

Immediately Bel’s whole attention was focused on him. “What is the problem?”

“We can’t contain their outbursts of energy, there is something we can’t balance in the crystal resonance…”

Neve lost track of the talk about Fade crystals, energies and resonance, both because it wasn’t her competence and she couldn’t follow, and because her gaze was attracted by Enora. The child looked at the other elves in the camp, and Neve followed her gaze to find out what she was looking at.

She felt her heart ache.

Enora was looking at families who took care of their children.

Neve looked at them, too: there were a man and a woman with two children, a toddler who sat on his father’s shoulders and an infant who was sleeping in the mother’s arms. Not far from them, two men were teaching a child who was maybe a couple of years older than Enora how to make flower crowns, and they talked and laughed.

What made it painful to watch was that Enora wasn’t even envious, no: she was looking at the families with curiosity, as if she didn’t know what to expect from them.

She didn’t, of course.

Neve wanted to hug her, but she wasn’t sure how the child would react to that. She slowly reached out with her hand and put it on the child’s shoulder.

Enora looked at her, surprised, but didn’t reject her touch.

“Neve, Enora, follow us,” Bel told them.

The child immediately ran after Bel and Neve followed the group. Strife guided them to the first malfunctioning device, a Fade crystal that was sending sparks around, and her friend knelt in front of it to start tinkering.

Enora seemed impressed by that and started telling Bel a lot of things in elven, to which she replied.

“I can listen to you if you talk in the common tongue,” Bel said, as Strife guided her to the next. “You can tell us what you found about Enora’s family.”

The older elf sighed.

“It’s not good news.”

Neve felt her blood go cold at that. “What did you find out?”

“We found a burned village on the furthest fringe of the Forest, no survivor left. The ashes were old and scattered around from the winds, so we believe it’s been attacked even before the gods came back. We think that’s the village where Enora’s family came from.“

Neve was glad that Enora hadn’t learned yet enough words in the common tongue to understand what Strife had just said. Bel gave her a look that told her she was thinking the exact same thing.

“How can you have only found out about this village, if it was attacked before Ghilan’nain and Elgar’nan tried to destroy the world?” Neve asked.

Strife didn’t seem offended by the question. “The Arlathan Forest is huge and full of dangers, some villages live in total isolation. It’s a miracle we found it, at all.”

Neve nodded and didn’t ask her next question because they all needed to climb over a small rock raising. She helped Enora, who was eager to follow Bel and continue their conversation in elven, to climb on it and she addressed Strife only when she was sure the child wouldn’t hurt herself.

“What makes you think Enora is from that village?”

“We aren’t totally sure, but it’s the most likely. We asked information to other villages and none of them has missing children that could have ended up in the hands of slave owners in Minrathous.”

That made sense.

The child could have learned elven from her family and they could have been killed by some bastards who then sold prisoners to Tevinter mages, not caring if said slaves were small children.

Neve ground her teeth so much it hurt. Only when she felt the pain she stopped.

“So doesn’t Enora have any alive relative?” Bel asked.

She then turned to Enora, who was trying to get her attention talking to her in elven.

Neve smiled at the sight.

“If they’re alive, we haven’t found them yet,” Strife went on, as they stopped next to the second malfunctioning device.

Bel approached it, and when Enora tried to do the same, but she put her arm out and said something in elven that made the child take a few steps back. Enora said something else, and Bel replied.

“What are they saying?” Neve asked, curious.

Strife chuckled. “Enora is asking a lot of questions about the devices and Bel answers them without watering down the explanation for a child. She tells her about the energy flow and crystal resonance the same way she would explain it to you or me.”

Neve smiled. Typical of Bel.

“And Enora?”

The older elf laughed. “She asks more questions.”

Of course, the child was as curious and as smart as Bel.

It was an endearing thought.

When Bel was finished, and the crystal now looked stable, Strife guided them towards the last malfunctioning device.

“I need to ask you more time to find if Enora has some relatives who can take care of her,” Strife said. “If we don’t find anyone, we’ll look for someone willing to adopt her.”

That was a relief. Enora needed to be loved and Neve wanted the child to have someone to take care of her, even if it wasn’t her blood family.

Neve exchanged a look with Bel, and her friend gave her a thumbs up. It was amazing being on the same page.

“She can stay with us until you find her a family,” Neve said. “Enora started picking up some words and simple sentences in the common tongue, she will be able to speak more fluently in a few more weeks.”

As Bellara tinkered with the last device, Neve took one step closer to Strife and asked, lowering her voice, “Can I please ask you not to tell anyone of the Veilguard about Enora? Not even Emmrich.”

The elf raised his eyebrows. She knew she was asking him to hide information from his husband, and Neve didn’t like that.

“I don’t want the others to get the wrong idea,” she clarified. “Imagine how Emmrich would react if you told him about Enora living with me and Bel and then informed him someone else had adopted her.”

Strife nodded, finally seeing her point.

“I won’t tell him,” he promised.

Neve was surprised by the relief she felt.

“Thank you, Strife. I knew you would understand.”

Bel finished tinkering with the last device and Enora turned her river of questions at her. She seemed happy to answer to each and every one of them, and Strife joined their conversation, too.

Neve felt like an outsider. It was weird seeing the scene in front of her and not being able to understand a word, and she wondered if Enora felt like that when she and Bel talked in the common tongue.

For a moment, she saw Bel’s expression change, but then she looked as relaxed as usual. Neve stared at her, but her friend wasn’t looking at her, too busy talking in elven at a speed Neve couldn’t follow.

A noise attracted everyone’s attention. A beautiful halla appeared in the clearing in front of them.

Enora looked at it, eyes full of wonder. She tried to take a step, but in a moment Bel’s arms were around her, stopping her from running to the halla as Bel whispered something in her ear.

It was probably the best thing Neve had ever seen. She didn’t even realize she was smiling until Strife told her, “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Neve nodded, not sure if he was talking about the halla or not.

A few hours later, when they came back to Minrathous, Bel told Neve, “I need to meet my publisher for the next issue of The Wild Hunt, I think they didn’t understand where I want to go with the plot.” Her gaze shifted to concern as she added, “Are you sure you can manage a some time alone with Enora? I mean, if you don’t feel like it I can always reschedule the meeting to another time.”

“Yes, I can do it,” Neve said. “Just tell her what’s going on.”

Bel spoke briefly with Enora in elven, and the child nodded.

“I’ll be back before dinner,” Bel promised, said goodbye and left.

Enora walked by Neve’s side, a bit closer than she was used to have her, and they reached her apartment. After two weeks, the child still took an instinctive step back when Neve casted her spells, but she didn’t hide herself anymore.

Neve took it as progress.

Once they walked inside and Neve reactivated the wards, she heard Enora’s voice saying, “Neve?”

She turned to her. It was the first time the child addressed her directly by name.

Enora looked like she couldn’t believe what she’d just done.

“Yes?”

Under her gaze the child took courage and said, slowly, “Who… is… Cyrian?”

Even though she’d picked up simple words, Enora was still very insecure when talking the common tongue.

Neve knelt in front of her. She decided she would answer in elven to put the child at ease, since she knew some basic words.

“Cyrian… uhm… Bel’s…” Come on, she knew the elven word for brother. “Lethallin.”

That seemed to surprise Enora. “Lethallin?”

Neve nodded. 

“Where…” Enora hesitated, but Neve gave her an encouraging nod to make her understand she picked the right word. “Is… Cyrian?”

Oh.

Of course Neve should have expected that question.

“Cyrian… din?”

She hoped she used the right word, even though Neve wasn’t sure if din was either death or dead.

Enora seemed to understand what she was trying to say and nodded, but doubt crept over Neve.

Where had she heard the name of Cyrian?

She remembered Bel’s sudden change of expression. Maybe that was when Strife had mentioned her brother.

Since she couldn’t answer her own question, she went back to the home office, where the child followed her.

Neve wondered how it was for her to see more and more notes she couldn’t understand, but she always seemed mesmerized by the board.

The idea that someday, when she was older, Enora would want to become a detective too filled her with dread, but it also sparked an emotion she couldn’t quite place—

The noise of the front door opening made Enora bolt outside. Neve followed her to see the child talk to Bel, and her friend knelt to be at her same height. Enora hugged her, making some soothing circles on her back, and said things in elven to Bel.

Bel looked surprised and said something that looked like a question, and Enora replied. Then, she shot a weird look at Neve, who immediately felt guilty.

Had she been wrong to tell Enora about Cyrian?

Regret and doubt rose inside Neve, and to distract herself she went to the kitchen to make some dinner. Contrary to her expectations, Bel didn’t confront her immediately, but well after dinner she knocked on the office’s door.

“Neve? Can I come in?”

She expected it. “Of course.”

Bellara walked in, took the armchair that usually Enora sat in, and took place in front of her.

For the first time, Neve wondered if the people she interrogated felt like that.

“Now that Enora is sleeping I want to ask you something, but please don’t take it in the bad way. Did you tell her about Cyrian?”

There was no reason to lie and Neve was looking forward to tell her the truth.

“Yes and I’m sorry. I should have asked you first, instead of just telling her.”

She was worried it would hurt Bel, but her friend waved away her concerns.

“No, it’s not that. I am fine with you telling her the truth, I think you don’t have to hide things from children. I mean, at some point they will find out the truth and resent you for not telling them sooner. It’s that…”

Bel let her words falter and Neve waited for her to elaborate her thoughts.

Her friend sighed.

“Isn’t she too little to understand the concept of death so well?”

Neve looked at her in the eye. It was something that had bothered her since the first time she’d met the child, when Enora hadn’t even glanced at the corpses of the Venatori she’d killed.

It was validating not to be the only one who found Enora’s acceptance and understanding of death odd.

“She hasn’t lived a normal childhood,” Neve said slowly. “Who knows what she’d seen.”

Bel winced. “That’s what disturbs me. Do you think her former owner made her watch executions? That would be so fucked up and—”

Neve reached out with her hand and held Bel’s, interrupting her rant. But in reality, she needed her friend’s contact to placate the horror that had come over her, too.

Bellara was looking at her as if she needed her words like a rope saving her from drowning.

“For how terrible it is, we can’t change what Enora went through. We can only control how things will go from here, and now Enora is safe with us and we’ll find her a family that will love her unconditionally.”

That seemed to ease Bel’s feelings.

“Yeah, you’re right. Like always.”

Neve wanted to reach out and—

“How is it going? Your case, I mean.”

She was looking at the papers scattered on her desk.

“Not good,” she admitted. She didn’t feel the need to lie to Bel. “Rana maybe found a lead and I really hope she is right because I have no other idea of how to find the murderer before they strike again.”

Bel held her hand tighter.

“You will find them. You always do.”

Neve smiled. When Bel talked to her like that, she almost felt like she could do anything.

“Thank you, Bel. It means a lot to me.”

There was this weird feeling in her stomach, it wasn’t desire but something different she couldn’t define.

“Since Enora is staying with us a little bit longer, I think we should make a plan,” Bel said. “I mean, just to be sure we’re on the same page.”

“And we don’t tell by accident about the other’s relatives?” Neve joked.

“I’m not angry about that, I mean, I just think we should tell each other what to do so we aren’t unprepared—”

“Bel, I agree,” Neve gently interrupted her. “From now on, we always talk before making a decision about Enora.”

Bel smiled.

“Perfect plan. Now, if you excuse me, I need to draw some diagrams.”

Neve let her go, despite leaving her hand was the hardest thing she’d done lately.

“For the Veil Jumpers?”

“Yeah,” Bel confirmed. “If I’m staying here for some time, it’s better I send diagrams of the devices I’ve fixed today so they know what to do if I’m not in Arlathan.”

Of course, besides helping her friends, not working on elven devices must have been a torture for Bel.

But she didn’t want to have her go.

“You can stay, if you want to,” Neve offered. “I can make space for you here.”

Bel smiled and Neve thought she was really the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen.

“I would really like that.”

She and Bel spent a good part of the night working on their respective tasks and Neve realized how much the company of her best friend made her feel less lonely.

Chapter Text

The first thing Neve and Bel discussed about Enora was the issue of the common tongue. The child preferred speaking elven, but she would need to overcome her insecurities if she was going to become fluent.

Bel encouraged her to speak it with her and Neve, promising they won’t judge her for any mistakes.

They needed a few days to convince the child to speak the common tongue more, but since Enora started doing it, she started learning it at a speed that left Neve surprised. She considered the child smart, but she hadn’t thought Enora was at this level.

When the child heard a word she didn’t know, she asked Bel to explain her the meaning. Sometimes she did, other times she just told Enora the corresponding word in elven.

In a few weeks, Neve could finally communicate with the child without using Bel as translator.

“Oh, yes, I’m so happy you can talk with your kid,” Rana said one day. “But you can tell me about the little Gallus’s progress later, now I have important news on the case.”

“Tell me,” Neve said, eagerly.

She had been waiting to hear this since Rana had first mentioned her lead, but the former templar had needed much more time than she thought to get her information.

In the meanwhile, they’d researched more the families of the victims in case they could find a lead on the possible heirloom. It turned out that most families weren’t rich, it was the opposite, and the victims had probably moved to Minrathous to get a better life.

That made the whole case even sadder.

Rana motioned her to approach the desk, where she had several papers disposed neatly. She half-expected her friend to lecture her about how much she needed to keep her desk just as ordered, but instead she jumped straight to the case.

“I thought about your hypothesis of someone stealing from them, but you saw in what conditions their living places were, and our research led us to find out they probably don’t own anything worth stealing.”

Neve nodded. “Yes, I think this is the most sensible conclusion.”

“However…” Her friend went on. “I noticed something odd and I decided to do some more research.”

Rana stopped talking. Neve needed a few moments to understand it was a dramatic pause.

“Really, Rana? The suspense?”

The former templar sighed. “Well, for once I can surprise you with a good lead.”

“Do that again and I swear I won’t stop talking about Enora and every single word she learned in the common tongue for the next hour.”

Rana had to take that threat seriously, because she asked, “Do you remember the conditions in which we found Alida’s apartment?”

Neve slowly nodded.

“What did you notice except for some crumpled clothes in a closet?”

Neve thought about it. They’d been there a few weeks ago, but she still remembered perfectly the sense of odd order she’d felt when they inspected the place, as if the owner was going to walk in soon.

“The place looked normal,” she said.

“Too normal, right?”

Rana showed her a paper that Neve had believed to be a newspaper article, but at the bottom of the sheet there was the imperial templar’s seal.

A crime report.

Neve decided she would buy an amazing gift for Rodric his next birthday.

“The victim has three stab wounds on his chest,” Rana started reading, but then she jumped down, pointing halfway through the report. “Nothing out of the ordinary was found in the apartment, the floor was perfectly cleaned with no trace of blood.”

Neve’s heart started beating hard and fast in her chest. Rana had found a good lead.

Her friend took another report and started reading, “The victim was found on the floor, a stab wound in her abdomen. There is no sign of infraction. The apartment is clean, even where we found the body.”

Rana finally raised her gaze to meet Neve’s. “What if you’re right and they were taken something, but instead of some kind of family heirloom it’s blood?”

That made so much sense.

Blood Mages were everywhere in Minrathous. Not just Venatori, but many young and inexperienced people tried to use blood to enhance the power of their spells.

“That’s possible,” Neve said.

Rana pushed her some papers. “I’m checking if in the days close to the murders there had been also Blood Magic rituals.”

Neve took a stack of papers and went to her desk.

She went through the news of several days before and after the bodies of the victims were found, but the papers turned to be useless. At some point, Neve smiled when she saw one of them had an old issue of A Necromancer’s Heart, but she came back to the news section.

“Any luck?” Rana asked several hours later.

Neve shook her head.

“You?”

“Neither.”

Neve stared at the papers in front of her, so many and so confusing that she was started to get a headache.

What if some rituals had happened, but they hadn’t made it to the newspapers?

“I will ask the Shadow Dragons if they have some information about Blood rituals,” she said.

Rana nodded.

“Good call. If you see him, say hi to Tarquin from me.”

In the two years Neve had introduced her to the Shadow Dragons, Rana had formed an incredibly solid friendship with Tarquin. They’d been polite acquaintances back when they were both templars, but spending two years helping each other with the reconstruction of Minrathous first, and the cases later, had brought them much closer.

Neve knew that they met every Saturday at the Cobbled Swan for a few drinks. She was just as certain that, in the last few weeks, she hosting Enora in her apartment had been their main conversation topic.

Neve wrote down the names of the victims, the zone of Dock Town where they’d been found, and the date. She then took a look to the board and said, “I will take this sketch to Tarquin, maybe as an archivist he’ll find something more.”

Rana shrugged. “I’ve asked him already, but he said he doesn’t know any family who uses that symbol. I think he also searched ancient Tevene families, but he found nothing.”

“Maybe the symbol is not a family crest,” Neve suggested, observing it. “What if it’s an organization, like the Inquisition in the south?”

Rana seemed to think about it. “I say we need Tarquin’s expertise.”

Since they had nothing to lose and no idea from where the symbol came from, Neve took the sketch of the shield and the crossed swords off the board and, together with her other piece of paper, she walked towards the Shadow Dragons’ hideout.

Tarquin read her notes and took a look at the sketch.

“I can check our registers, but it will need a few weeks,” he said. “Especially if you also need me to look up this symbol.”

“Maybe if I borrow the reports it will be easier,” Neve replied. “Rana and I can consult them while you look up this symbol in the archives.”

The man nodded. “I will find reports from two weeks before to two weeks after these people were found. If Venatori are involved, we’ll intervene too.”

Neve let all her relief show.

“Thank you, Tarquin. You’re a good friend.”

The man smirked. “You know, we should catch up some time because I want to hear everything about you and little Gallus.”

He and Rana definitely talked about her.

Neve fought not to roll her eyes. “We’ll talk another time.”

Tarquin left and only then Neve noticed a group of three girls who were all looking at her and talking to each other.

They were young, so young she even doubted they reached eighteen yet. They had to be new recruits, because Neve was pretty sure she hadn’t seen any of them.

They must know about her either from the other Shadow Dragon’s tales or from the newspapers, Never reasoned.

Finally, one steeped out of the group and walked towards Neve.

“I’m sorry, but the other day I saw you talking with Vora’shivan, the author of A Trevisan Matter, so I guess you’re friends, and I wanted to ask… who will Leocanto take to the masquerade ball in the next issue?”

Neve almost laughed in relief. She and the other two girls weren’t there for her, but for Bel’s serials.

“Vora’shivan has a no spoiler policy,” Neve explained, being careful to use Bel’s pseudonym and not her real name, “she could lose her contract if spoilers about her next issues were spread through town.”

The young woman seemed a bit disappointed, but she understood.

“Thank you anyway.”

Neve watched as she came back to her friends and told them the news. Shadow Dragons knew that Bel was the author of some of the most popular serials, but they both deemed it safer if people knew her only by her pen name.

If living in Minrathous had taught something to Neve, it was that one was never too safe.

While she waited for Tarquin to come back from the archives, Neve noticed someone else. Quintus was talking with two other Shadow Dragons much younger than he was, and she approached him saying, “I didn’t know you were back.“

He smiled at her as the two younger men took their leave. “Hello, Neve! Yes, the mission was accomplished.“

“Will you tell me what you were sent to do?”

“Still can’t talk about it,” the man replied with a wink. “The Archon wants to keep it a secret some time more.”

Fair enough.

“No problem, but remember you owe me a beer.”

“I won’t forget,” he promised.

Neve motioned to the two younger men he was talking to. “Are you going in another mission with them?”

“Oh, no, they were friends with Domitius.”

Domitius was Quintus’s son. He’d died two years ago while helping some defenseless citizens from Elgar’nan’s Blight. He was barely twenty.

Quintus always said with pride that his son had saved four lives at the price of his own, but Neve had seen him enough times at the Wall of Lights to know that, under the surface of the pride Shadow Dragon, there was a grieving father.

Her thoughts dwelt on how she would feel if one day she came back home and realized she would never see Enora again—

Neve pushed it away. Firstly, it was disrespectful to Quintus putting his grief on the same plane of missing Enora. Secondly, she knew someday Strife will inform her and Bel that he found either some of her relatives alive or someone willing to adopt Enora.

Still, Neve felt she could relate to him, even if partially.

“If you want to talk, you know I will always listen.”

“Thank you, but I don’t need it,” Quintus said. “If you excuse me, I need to meet the Archon.”

Neve said goodbye and saw him leave.

Tarquin arrived with some notebooks and Neve took them all, thanking him profusely.

Since that day, she and Rana not only started studying the reports looking for Blood rituals, but they went to check for traces in person.

The last thing they wanted was to waste time and have another victim.

They studied the Shadow Dragons’ reports during the day, and at night they reached the victims’ apartaments. The templars had seized and locked the apartments to everyone else, but Neve didn’t need to get inside.

The apartments were always the first place where Neve reached with her magic, past the walls, in search of Blood Magic traces, but she never felt the wrongness of that kind of spell. After making sure that the apartments were clear, they always moved to the nearby streets where Neve started her scans again.

Rana always stood lookout in case Venatori or criminals arrived to disturb them, a hand on the sword at her belt and her bow just within reach. Most times, she was the one telling Neve to go back home because she was clearly too tired to keep scanning for Blood Magic.

Neve always came back home when Enora was fast asleep, and sometimes Bel was sleeping too. Most times, though, her friend was awake and working on her newest project, and always welcomed her back home with a bright smile that somehow made Neve feel slightly less tired.

That night, instead, when she walked into her apartment, Neve was surprised to hear the voices of Enora and Bel talking in the common tongue. She went into her bedroom where she found the child sitting next to her friend.

“Don’t worry, here nothing will hurt you, da’len,” Bel was saying. Then, she raised her gaze and saw Neve. “Oh, you’re back!”

Enora turned to look at her and Neve tried to address her with a reassuring expression. She untied her hair as she said, “I didn’t expect you two to be awake.”

“Enora had a nightmare,” Bel explained.

As if to confirm that, the child put her little arms around Bel’s neck, hiding her face on the woman’s shoulders.

“I dreamed spiders,” Enora murmured.

Neve took off her metal leg, feeling finally better now that her stump was free, and changed into her night clothes as Bel caressed the child’s back in a soothing manner. Then, Neve settled herself next to Bel and caressed the child’s back, too. Enora was more accepting of her touch now, but she looked at her surprised.

Probably, she would find a human mage’s kindness weird for a long time still.

“There are no spiders here,” Neve promised.

The child seemed less tense, and she couldn’t resist asking something that had been on her mind for weeks.

“Why are you so scared of them?”

Bel shot her a questioning look, but she was distracted by Enora who was looking for her hand to hold it with her own.

“Spiders are bad. They walk on my arms and legs when I want to sleep.”

She didn’t need to look at Bel to feel all the hatred she had for the person who’d enslaved Enora; Neve kept looking the child in the eye as she promised, “Spiders will never to walk over you when you sleep here. Bel and I will keep you safe.”

Enora looked at her as if she wanted to believe her so bad it hurt. She looked at Bel, who told her, “You’re safe with us, da’len.”

Bel had started using that word, which she told Neve meant little one, as an affectionate nickname and that always seemed to please the child. Enora, indeed, calmed down enough to lay next to Bel and she hugged her tight.

In a few minutes, she was sleeping as Bel held her close.

Neve turned off the magic light and whispered, “I wish I knew who her former owner is so I could make them pay for all the harm they caused Enora.”

“Me too,” Bel agreed, her tone much harsher than her usual kindness. “Me too, Neve.”

***

Bel didn’t stop working for the Veil Jumpers, despite staying in Minrathous. She now had enough episodes of all her fours serials for the next few weeks, so all energy was focused on drawing schemes and diagrams of devices. Enora always came next to her to look at what she was doing, interested in every single line Bel traced, and asked a lot of questions that her friend always looked happy to answer.

Sometimes, the Veil Jumpers sent her some small devices that Bel assured her weren’t dangerous (“I mean, if they explode they will only incinerate your table, not the whole apartment”) and she dismantled them and rebuilt them from scratch. Enora, whom Bel always kept at a safe distance, looked at her mesmerized to the point she didn’t have words.

Looking at them, Neve always smiled. There was something in looking the two elves interacting that always made her feel at peace.

Together with her diagrams, Bellara also sent the Veil Jumpers long notes to explain what each line meant, and she sent back the fixed devices with intricate instruction on how she’d fixed them, but Neve knew it wasn’t the same as explaining it in person.

Neve wasn’t surprised when one day, two months after Enora had come to live in her apartment, Bel told her, “The Veil Jumpers need me. There is some abnormal activity in the ruins of Arlathan City and I can’t solve it from here. I have to go there and check it by myself.”

“I understand,” Neve said. “When are you leaving?”

Bel’s apologetic expression gave away the answer even before she spoke. “Tomorrow. I don’t know how long I will stay yet, but it’s going to be at least a few days.”

“Bel, don’t worry, you’ve been staying here for two months,” Neve reassured her. “I won’t expect you to give up the Veil Jumpers.”

Her friend looked relieved. “Good. Are you sure you can handle Enora alone?”

Neve understood where Bellara was coming from: the child wasn’t as terrified of her as she was on their first meeting, and they’d done some work, but their relationship wasn’t vaguely comparable to the relationship Enora had with Bel.

“She can speak the common tongue very decently now, and she trusts me, kind of,” Neve said. “I think I can manage her for a few days.”

Bel smiled in the way that seemed to brighten the whole room.

“Great! I’ll tell her too. I think Enora will like to spend a few days with you.”

Neve highly doubted that. The child loved Bel too much to take lightly the separation from her.

Against her expectations, though, Enora took the news quite well, which, to be honest, was a relief.

Even though they made a lot of progress together, Enora was still a bit weary of Neve. Sometimes, Bel fell asleep on the kitchen table while writing or drawing her complex diagrams, and when she got up with her neck and shoulder stiff she asked Neve to use some healing magic on her. She could feel Enora’s anxious gaze until she finally dispelled the enchantment.

Being able to communicate with the child had erased most of her fears, but Neve wondered if Enora would be able to trust her fully someday.

***

The day after, Bel left so early that Neve found the bed empty when she woke up. She’d left her a note where she wished her and Enora an amazing day and declared she would miss them, and Neve found herself smiling at that.

Neve decided to wait until Enora woke up to get her some tea and she spent the whole morning in her home office, adding to the board a section with a map of Dock Town where she’d crossed with red ink all the places she and Rana had scoured looking for traces of Blood Magic.

She was well aware that the Blood Rites could have happened in the richest part of Minrathous, far away from where the poor, immigrated people lived and in the safety of a rich mage’s mansion, but her gut told her there was something she was missing in Dock Town.

Neve studied both the map and the victims’ information, trying to look for once again another connection that wasn’t their social or immigration status.

Thankfully, in two months there had been no murders, but Neve didn’t want to count on it. After all, between the victim she and Rana found and the one killed before him, there had been a four-month gap.

She was so absorbed by her study that it was almost lunchtime when Neve noticed something odd. Enora sometimes asked her what she was doing, but she was silent most of the time—yet this was different.

The child hadn’t stepped next to her to see the new additions to the board, but she stayed in her armchair looking at Neve from the distance with an expression she’d never seen on her.

She was sad, Neve realized.

It wasn’t too difficult to guess why, and Neve felt a weird sensation in her chest. She wanted to hug the little child and hold her close, but she did nothing of that.

She sat in her chair, close enough to the child’s but not to the point she invaded Enora’s personal space. “Do you miss Bel?”

Enora nodded. 

It was something she could relate to: when Bellara was away, Neve always missed her. It was like her heart was ripped apart and she could feel every single minute pass every time Bel was in Arlathan.

“Me too,” she said. “I miss Bel.”

The child seemed sympathetic, but that didn’t better her mood. Neve was too tired to keep thinking about her case, so she told Enora, “Come with me. Let’s go get some fried fish.”

That seemed to cheer her up immediately. Neve smiled instinctively: it was always good to see that Enora loved her favourite food as much as she did.

“Yes! Fried fish!”

Neve took her to Hal’s stand, where she said hi and thanked him for the fish. Neve had to basically force the man to accept her money, and she walked down the harbor with the child.

Enora looked around, always curious, but she noticed the child observed the cats walking around the harbor.

Neve thought about the last two months. She’d seen Enora stare at cats several times, starting with the first night in her apartment, when the child had looked at the cat walking on her windowsill.

She had her confirmation when, after they finished eating, Enora stopped to look at a cat who jumped on a wooden box in front of them. The child took a hesitant step towards it, but she stopped as if she was unsure what to do.

“You like cats,” Neve said. 

It wasn’t a question, but Enora nodded. 

That made her smile.

Neve walked towards the cat and bent to pet it on his head. The cat seemed to like it and meowed in approval. She turned to Enora, who was looking at her like she’d done some miracle.

She was unprepared to the deep pride Neve felt for herself being looked like that. Nevertheless, she pushed it aside and told Enora, “Come here.”

The child approached her hesitantly.

“Now pet it,” Neve said, showing her hand that caressed the cat from the head to his tail.

Enora reached out with her little hand and, after an encouraging nod, she passed it on the cat’s head. The cat bent his head to meet the child’s hand and purred.

Enora giggled and looked at Neve. “Does he like it?”

Neve smiled. She couldn’t help it every time she saw Enora so happy.

“Yes, he likes it.”

They stayed some time more petting the cat, until he got tired of them and left. Enora seemed sad to see him leave, and Neve said, “Don’t worry, cats want people’s attention all the time. We’ll meet another cat soon.”

Enora’s gaze was cleared of any negative emotion instantly. “Really?”

“Really,” Neve confirmed.

They turned in a road close to where Neve lived, but the idea of going back to her home office was suffocating.

She needed to clear her mind and that gave her an idea. She told Enora, “Come with me, I’ll teach you something.”

The child followed her on the beach and Neve showed her the stones to pick up. Enora enthusiastically ran up and down the beach to take as many of them as possible, and then diligently followed Neve back to the harbor. They walked on the pier where Neve showed the child how to throw the stone and she made hers skip four times.

“Now you do it,” she said.

Enora concentrated, as if she was remembering Neve’s words and her movements, and threw the stone… that just sank into the sea. She made a face so disappointed that Neve couldn’t resist the urge of hugging her.

“Don’t worry, next time it will be better.”

Neve realized it was the first time Enora allowed her to hug her, and it felt good. She let go of the child only when she feared it may be too much for her.

They skipped stones for a little while more. Enora tried to emulate Neve’s movements at her best and at some point she could make her stone skip once.

“Did you see it, Neve?”

The child’s excitement made her feel better, a bit more lighthearted despite the case.

“I saw,” she confirmed. “You’re improving so much.”

Enora was so pleased with herself that Neve almost felt guilty when she told her they had to go back home. The child, though a bit bummed, followed her home.

Coming back to the apartment took much more time because Neve and Enora stopped to pet all the cats they met. Once home, Neve came back to her notes, and when she got tired she prepared some dinner. The child looked at the plate of vegetables like it offended her personally.

The first few days, Neve suspected Enora was distrustful of her food because she scared she’d poison her. Then, she probably understood that Bel was the better cook.

“Bel wants us to eat more vegetables,” Neve said, both because she knew it would make Enora eat her meal, and because it was the truth.

Bel had remarked, while reading the pile of letters about how to take care of children, that Enora should eat healthier food. After all, they didn’t know how the slave owners had fed her.

“You should eat healthier food too,” Bel had said. “You know, vegetables aren’t good just for children, but also for adults nearing forty.”

So, Neve tried to cook more vegetables for Enora and herself, because everything that Bel said mattered to her.

Mentioning Bel had been the good thing to do, because Enora finished the vegetables, and after dinner Neve noticed that the child was tired and yawning.

She took her to the guest bedroom, where she fell asleep immediately. Neve came back to her office and read the Shadow Dragons’ reports until she struggled to keep her eyes open and decided to go to sleep.

At some point, she was woken up by Enora, who knocked on the door and climbed on the bed.

Still half-asleep, Neve turned to look at her, and, in the dim light, she noticed that the child was disappointed. Of course. She was looking for Bel, and instead her side of the bed was empty.

“Enora?”

The child turned to her, as if not realizing she was awake. Neve put a hand on her little back and traced soothing circles between her shoulders like she’d seen Bel do many times.

“Do you want me to hold you?”

Enora didn’t say anything for a long moment, then said, “Yes.”

She lay next to her and Neve hugged her close to herself.

“What was your nightmare about?” she asked the child. “Spiders?”

Enora shifted in her arms.

“No. Humans.”

Bel’s comfort in this case would have been much better, but she wasn’t there. Neve held Enora even closer.

“I will protect you from everything that scares you, humans or spiders.”

Enora didn’t say anything for a long time, but she moved slightly closer to Neve. She needed to listen to the child’s soft breaths for a long time before realizing she’d fallen asleep.

Neve would made sure of her promise, was her last thought before she drifted off.

She would protect Enora from everything and everyone.

***

The day after, Neve realized she needed to consult with Rana and take back the reports in the agency, but she couldn’t leave Enora alone.

“Do you want to come with me?” she asked. “I can show you where I work.”

Neve knew this would pick on Enora’s curiosity. She’d explained in child friendly terms what a detective did, and Enora had seemed even more interested in the murder board and in general in Neve’s work.

“Yes,” she just said.

When she arrived to the detective agency, Rana wasn’t there yet. Enora seemed immediately attracted by the board, much bigger and more organized than the one she had home.

Despite not being able to read, Neve was ready to bet that even Enora could recognize the difference between her messy handwriting and Rana’s ordered penmanship. Neve added a note—written in the most readable way she could—about the neighborhood they’d last scoured and attached it to the board.

Neve took one step back to admire it and the connections of names, places and scrapes of personal information. It was easier to see how much work they’d done already, but still there was something missing—

“Neve, you’re here already. I wanted to tell you—oh Maker.”

Neve turned around to meet Rana, but the other woman wasn’t looking at her. She was staring at Enora and said, “Is she her? Little Gallus?”

Neve rolled her eyes at the nickname Rana had given Enora, but she tried not to be too annoyed or harsh. After all, it was the first time her friend met the child.

“Yes, she is. Why are you looking at me like that?”

Rana had turned her gaze to her with an amused grin. When she met her eyes, Rana bit her lip in the way Neve knew she did when she was holding back laughter.

“Come on, you know.”

Neve stared at her. “I know what?”

“Wait, you’re not messing with me,” Rana said. Somehow, that seemed to make the situation even funnier to her. “You don’t see it.”

Neve was starting to get frustrated. “What don’t I see?”

Rana grabbed Neve’s arm and told her, “Take three steps back and look at Enora. Who does she remind you of?”

Neve did what she was told, ready to give Rana a sarcastic reply. However, her words died in her mouth because she finally understood what the former templar meant.

Enora was looking at the murder board and carried her back straight, one hand under her elbow and the other under her chin, staring at it with a thoughtful expression…

“I wish I had a mirror to show you the ridiculous smile you have right now,” Rana said. 

“She reminds me of Bel,” Neve replied, just to annoy her. “You know, the pointy ears.”

Rana rolled her eyes, and only then Enora turned her attention on her. She was immediately suspicious and shot a concerned look to Neve.

Despite the situation, she felt good that the child turned to her for help.

“She’s a friend,” Neve said immediately. “Her name is Rana, she is a detective like me.”

That eased the child’s suspicions, but she didn’t dare getting close to Rana.

Neve understood what else Enora needed to know to start trusting her friend.

“Rana is not a mage.”

Only then Enora politely said hi. Neve turned to her friend, ready to apologize, but Rana raised a hand to stop her.

The former templar knew about Enora being a freed slave and she was understanding of her distrust of human mages. Rana walked to the child and asked, “Did Neve tell you what we do?”

“You hunt bad people,” Enora said.

Rana looked at Neve with a weird smile.

“Yes, that’s right,” Rana confirmed, then she added, placing her hand on the empty space where there should be the sketch with the murderer’s symbol, “Do you like this board?”

“Yes! Neve has one at home, but this one is better.”

Rana’s large grin made Neve regret ever taking the child to the agency.

“That’s because I put it in order,” Rana explained. Then, she gestured to her own desk. “That’s how I manage things.”

Enora looked at it, surprised to see such an organized desk after months spent in Neve’s home office. She had to find all the perfectly ordered notebooks weird, the empty wooden surface with nothing but one or two papers Rana was working on, and a stack of newspapers neatly folded on the other side of the desk.

“Neve keeps her desk in total chaos, doesn’t she?”

“We are supposed to work,” Neve cut in the conversation. “Enora, come here, on this chair, I will sit on the desk today.”

Rana got close to her and whispered, “You shouldn’t have taken little Gallus here if you didn’t want me to tease you.”

Neve scoffed, but she focused her attention on the child. She helped her getting on the chair and Enora and—

“Give her my pen and this paper,” Rana said.

Neve raised her eyebrows, and the former templar asked, “Didn’t you ever let her draw?”

Neve felt extremely stupid. She’d never thought about it, even though she was pretty sure some of the letters from the Veil Jumpers mentioned that kids needed a creative outlet.

A creeping anxiety rose in the back of her mind. Even Rana, who’d met the child a few minutes ago, was much better than her with Enora.

“Do I make lines on the paper?” Enora asked. Neve looked at her, who was staring at the white paper a bit confused about what to do. “Like Bel?”

“Like Bel,” Neve confirmed.

Enora was still doubtful. “What do I draw?”

“Whatever you want. Things you see, cats—”

“Cats!” the child yelled and started drawing a rough circle and two triangles.

Neve felt a weird feeling in her gut, like watching Enora trying to draw cats would always calm down her anxiety and concerns.

“Aren’t you supposed to work?” Rana asked.

She looked like she hadn’t had this much fun in years. Neve ignored her look and started reading another of Tarquin’s reports, looking for mentions of Blood Magic.

They were so absorbed in they work that they didn’t realize it was already lunchtime until Enora asked, “Do we go to Hal’s?”

Neve and Bel had decided already that they wouldn’t let Enora have friend fish for two days in a row. She loved the food, but they both agreed it wasn’t great for a child to have too much of it (Neve tried not to think about Bel’s laugh when she said it wasn’t good for her to eat too much fried fish either, and the fond way she looked at her afterwards).

“No, little one,” she told Enora. “We’re going to the Cobbled Swan for lunch.”

Enora seemed a little sad at the answer. Neve hated seeing her like that, so she added, “We’re going to see the cats afterwards.”

Enora’s eyes shone with happiness. “Will we see yesterday’s cat?”

Neve smiled. “Maybe. I guess we’ll find out.”

She could feel Rana’s amusement behind her.

“Enora likes cats and you obviously started her addiction to Hal’s fried fish,” Rana whispered so that only Neve could hear her. “She really is a Gallus.”

“Stop it,” Neve said.

Maybe her tone came out a bit sharper than she’d intended it, but even her patience had a limit.

To her credit, Rana didn’t make other comments.

“Do you mind if I come along?”

“Only if you stop being annoying,” Neve said.

Rana followed them and, to be true, Neve felt a bit more confident. She knew she could keep Enora safe without anyone else, but she always preferred to have Bel with her when she walked around the city with Enora. The former templar’s presence would be enough this time.

They had a nice lunch together and, before they left, she asked the patrons of the Cobbled Swan if they had some leftovers. Then, as promised, Neve took Enora to see the cats, and she watched as the child fed the felines and caress them.

Her mind brought back memories of when she was the child feeding cats in the neighborhood, but for the first time those reminiscences of her past didn’t cut her stomach like a blade.

No, for the first time, watching Enora who reminded her so much of herself, Neve smiled.

She looked at the child as she had fun being surrounded by so many cats who wanted her attention—and her food—from a close distance, and she knelt next to her to pet the cats too.

Enora had never been in constant contact with cats, Neve realized too late. She had no idea some of them got tired of getting caressed and that they didn’t want to be touched when they started hissing.

Neve tried to stop Enora too late: the cat scratched her arm, and the child yelled. That scream scared the other cats, who left them alone.

“Let me see your arm,” she said, her heart still beating fast from the fright.

Enora made a weird face and hid the arm behind her back. “No pain.”

Neve looked at her in the eye. She wanted the child to be sure she would always be safe with her.

“Enora, no lies,” she said, trying to use her most reassuring tone. “You don’t need to lie to me. I can help if you are in pain.”

The child sheepishly extended her arm and Neve examined it. The scratches were long but superficial and she could heal those in a few moments.

“I am going to use some healing magic,” she said.

Enora’s eyes immediately reflected her panic. “Humans hurt elves with magic.”

It was always a stab in the heart to be reminded what the child had suffered with her former owner.

Have they hurt you with magic? she wanted to ask, but she didn’t. The scars on her back and arms were a sufficient proof.

“You saw me use it on Bel,” she said instead. “Did Bel look like she was in pain?”

Enora thought about it, then she slowly shook her head.

“I won’t hurt you, either,” Neve went on. “You’re safe with me, da’len.”

She wasn’t sure if it was her tone or the fact that she’d used Bel’s same nickname for her, but Enora slowly nodded. Neve was as quick as her magic allowed her: she summoned it from the Fade and placed her hand over the bleeding scratches.

In a moment, there was only unscathed skin.

Enora looked at her like she couldn’t process what she’d just witnessed. Neve could see from her face the pain had disappeared and she was touching her arm as if she couldn’t believe there were no more scratches.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

Enora nodded, but there was something different in her now.

Neve would need hours to realize that Enora now trusted her in full, and that felt like a victory comparable to solving the case.

***

The morning of the fourth day, a Shadow Dragon (one of Bel’s fans) brought Neve a letter. It was a missive from Bellara, who announced her that she’d finally solved all the anomalies of Arlathan ruins and she would be back that same afternoon, unless emergencies happened—which, by the way, was very unlikely.

The news made her happy and Neve told herself she felt that way because Enora clearly missed Bellara and also because many things happened in just a few days and she needed to tell Bel. She ignored the fact that her own heart seemed lighter at the idea of seeing her best friend.

She walked into the office, where Enora was drawing on a coffee table she’d bought specifically for her. The child had taken drawing as a hobby and Neve loved seeing her all focused on the drawing she was making.

“Bel is coming back home in a few hours,” she announced.

She saw the child’s face beaming. “Yes! I want to see Bel!”

Her enthusiasm was contagious. Neve walked towards her and put a hand on her little head.

“Me too, da’len.”

Enora seemed pleased by that contact, but she wanted to come back to her drawing and Neve let her go with a small chuckle. She walked back on her desk, where she had left a note from Rana: there some suspect activity not too far from the Garden and the Veil felt thinner close to the restaurant, according to the mages who had dined there. It could be unrelated to their case, but it was still worth to check it out.

“Will you put up my drawings too?”

Neve turned to Enora and tried to assume the sweetest expression she could. “No, da’len, this board is only for work,” before the child could be disappointed by her answer, she quickly added, “but we can hang your drawings somewhere else.”

Enora nodded and came back to her drawing. Neve took a look at the stack of paper next to Enora. She put all her finished drawings in a disordered pile and Neve could perfectly imagine Rana saying that the disorganization confirmed the child to be a Gallus beyond any reasonable doubt.

Maybe she could find somewhere to hang the drawings before Bel arrived, she thought. Bellara would be beyond happy to see Enora’s creations.

Neve took the drawing on the top of the pile to take a look. At first, she thought Enora had drawn a cat, but on a closer look—

Neve almost dropped the paper. She started ruffling through the stack of drawings and she realized some were cats, others instead were drawings of two figures, one tall and the other short, both with pointy ears. Neve would have loved to let herself go to the tender feeling in her chest, but now it was overshadowed by anxiety.

She found other drawings like the one she’d picked out and put them on her desk with her heart pounding hard in her ears.

No, it wasn’t possible.

Neve didn’t want to think about the implications. She wasn’t ready for that.

She probably would never be.

For how much she wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening with Bel, telling her about how she’d found out Enora liked cats and their adventures with the strays close to the detective agency, and that Enora had picked up drawing, she needed to talk with Rana.

Enora, thankfully, hadn’t noticed that she’d taken some of the drawings out of the pile, too focused on her current one. With a looming sense of dread, Neve took a peek over the child’s shoulders. This time, she was drawing cats, what looked like a long runway and two people, one taller and one shorter. The smaller figure had pointy ears, while the taller person had a curved right leg—

For one moment, Neve was so overwhelmed by a warm emotion that almost erased her anxiety.

“Is that us?” she asked.

Enora startled and turned the paper. “Don’t look! It’s not finished!”

Neve chuckled.

“Okay, I will only look when it’s finished.”

She came back to her desk. She tried to look at the drawings she’d taken out of the pile from different perspectives, turning them in different ways but nothing changed.

She was sure of what she saw.

When Bel finally deactivated the wards around her apartment, Neve was ready to welcome her back home.

She hugged her the moment her friend stepped into her house. She took a good scent of her friend, who smelled like grass and magic, and leaned her chin on Bel’s shoulders.

She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed doing so.

“I guess this means you missed me, right?” Bel said with a small chuckle, but she passed her arms around Neve’s waist.

She felt like a missing piece had came back where she needed it.

“I missed you,” Neve confirmed. “And Enora did, too.”

Somehow the mention of the child made her stiff. Neve’s blood froze.

“Did something happen? Did Strife find her family or someone who wants to adopt her?”

“No, no,” Bel said. Neve felt a selfish relief at that simple denial. “But… do you remember when we decided to always talk before doing something with her to be sure of being on the same page?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well…” Bel looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t respect it. Let me explain,” she took off the backpack and started looking for something. “Before coming back here I stopped by Amylia’s shop and I saw this, I remembered I had one too when I was a child and I thought maybe Enora would like it…”

She took a stuffed halla out of the backpack and addressed Neve an apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry, I should have asked you and instead I’ve ignored our agreement.”

Neve smiled and put a hand on her arm.

“Bel, buying a gift for Enora doesn’t count as doing something behind the other’s back.”

She couldn’t resist reaching out and kissing Bel on the cheek. Her friend’s skin was hot under her lips, and Neve forced herself not to think that Bel’s lips were just one inch away.

“I think Enora will love it,” Neve said when she backed.

Bellara nodded, too fast even for her standards, and walked into her office. The child basically jumped in joy seeing her and ran to hug her. Bel let her go much sooner than she would have in any other circumstance, knelt and said something in elven.

When she gave her the stuffed halla, Enora screamed in surprise and happiness, and threw her arms around Bellara’s neck.

Neve felt her heart melting at the scene. It was the first time in her life Enora had ever received a gift, she realized, and the thought saddened her. 

But seeing how happy she was now that Bel had given her one…

The beautiful scene in front of her didn’t make her forget her purpose. When Enora let Bel go, holding the stuffed halla like it was a Fade crystal, Neve put a hand on Bel’s shoulders to attract her attention.

“I need to meet Rana,” Neve said. “We may have a lead on the case, finally. Don’t wait for me for dinner.”

Bel nodded and put her own hand over Neve’s.

“Go catch the bastard, then.”

Neve didn’t linger on how Bel’s touch felt warm on her skin. It was because she hadn’t seen her for a few days, Neve told herself.

Bel had the power of making her feel like she could catch the murderer.

“We’ll try,” she promised. “I want to see them in jail as soon as possible.”

Neve grabbed Enora’s drawings, said goodbye to Bel and the child and left the apartment. She ran to the agency so fast that she was sure she would fall badly and break her neck, and when she finally got there, Neve slammed the door open. Rana, who was sitting at her desk, studying the reports, shot her a questioning look.

“I have something,” she said, catching her breath. Her lungs were still burning from the run.

Only then Rana seemed to noticed the papers Neve was holding.

“What are those?”

Neve, her heartbeat fast both for running and for the anxiety she’d kept at bay for the last hour, walked towards her desk saying, “These are Enora’s drawings.”

Rana smirked and said, “Are you already in the proud Mom stage where you show everyone your child’s drawings?”

“Just take a look, please,” Neve replied placing the drawings on her friend’s desk. “Do you see it too?”

Humor disappeared from Rana’s face the moment she looked at the paper. Her face drained color, and Neve took it as the confirmation she wasn’t the only one seeing it.

Enora had drawn a rough circle, two long lines crossing at the centre of it. The lines got a bit thinner towards one end, forming a rough point, and they crossed on the other end with a shorter like in a roughly perpendicular way.

That same pattern was drawn on four other paper sheets.

Neve glanced at the murder board, where at the centre the sketch with the symbol traced by their murderer was still in Tarquin’s hands, and then again at Rana’s horrified expression.

Her friend was speechless, so Neve asked what had been on her mind since she’d seen those drawings.

“Do you agree that this is how a child would draw two swords crossing a shield, right?”

Chapter Text

The rain covered the sounds of their steps as Neve led Rana to the warehouse she’d raided months ago.

They were ready to any possible outcome. Rana had already drawn her sword and she also had her bow and quiver tied to her back, despite the rain drastically reducing the visibility.

Neve was so nervous she barely felt the cold drops make their way between her hair and on every part of her body that wasn’t covered by her light armor. Her frantic mind was running through the implications of her discovery, of what it meant for Enora who was only four—

No time for that, she told herself. She needed to verify her theory first.

She checked the wards around the warehouse and was surprised to see them up again, but she deactivated them easily. Neve walked in, her staff high, followed a step behind by Rana. No Venatori came to meet them and Neve noticed the bodies of the ones she’d killed had been taken away.

Better. Their job would be easier if they weren’t distracted by the scent of death and rotting corpses.

Then, she noticed that the place was neatly kept: there was no trace of dust, every sign of the fight had been cleaned and erased. On the table where she’d found the notebooks with transactions, only two empty wine glasses were left.

Neve found the hatch that had led her to Enora, months ago, but she hesitated in front of the open trapdoor.

“Do you want me to go first?” Rana asked.

Neve just nodded.

The former templar climbed down the ladder and she followed her. The basement had been completely cleared out: not only there weren’t corpses anymore, but also the cage and the other table had been disposed of.

Neve and Rana stood on an empty room.

“Guard the ladder,” Neve said.

Rana did what she was told as Neve focused on the Fade, expanding her magic to check in all direction in search of weird traces. The Veil felt thinner, but it didn’t mean necessarily—

A familiar sensation of wrongness interrupted her thoughts.

Neve’s heart accelerated.

It was faint, but Neve felt it.

Blood Magic.

In the place where Enora had been held prisoner.

Her mind uncovered a plethora of horrific possibilities. The child was in a cage when she’d found her and several Venatori were guarding it.

If Neve hadn’t saved her, would her owner have used her blood to perform dark spells? Would Enora have been sacrificed for Blood Rituals?

Those ideas made her so sick that Neve fought the urge of retching.

“I guess you found Blood Magic traces,” Rana said.

Neve didn’t trust her voice. She just nodded.

Her friend walked to her and put a hand on her arm. “Neve, I need you to focus. I understand it’s unsettling for you to think about what Enora went through here, but now she is safe with Bellara. We need to find who is behind all this.”

She was right. Neve took a few deep breaths and said, “Let’s scour this place.”

“You go upstairs,” Rana said.

Neve thanked her friend and did what she was told. She approached the table with the two wine glasses. She already knew what it would smell like, but Neve took one of the glasses under her nose.

Silent Plains Piquette.

The smell was stronger than she expected. Someone had drank from there not more than a few hours ago.

She checked for remnants of magic and was almost startled. In the last two months she’d been so used to the frustrating appearance of the swords and shield symbol that she was shocked when she saw a figure of a man with long hair and a long beard wearing a Venatori armor.

She saw him hand a glass of wine—probably the other one on the table—to someone who wasn’t shown by her magic. The man grinned to his interlocutor and said, “It’s not like you’re in any rush.” Then, he stayed silent as if he was listening to another person. He shook his head. “The Magisterium will never back you up as long as Pavus is the Archon.”

The memory ended there.

Neve replayed the scene over and over, looking for more details. At some point also Rana arrived and she watched the memory play out once before scouting the room.

The man in the memory was rich. He talked to the other person like they’d known each other for many years.

Neve grabbed the other glass and examined the remnants of magic, but this time the usual symbol showed up. She put it back where she found it, being careful to leave it in the same position as before, and turned to Rana.

“Found anything?”

Rana pointed at the floor, where there was a partial footprint left on what looked like spilled wine. “I think our suspect is going to find out he isn’t as subtle as he believes.”

They came back outside to the rain. The bad weather made it more difficult to follow tracks, but Neve was an expert. She checked for footprints that could belong to a man of the size she’d seen in the memory, or faint tracks of magic. They asked to the beggars if they saw a man corresponding to the description in exchange of some silver pieces, and eventually she and Rana arrived in front of the Blooming Orchid, the most expensive brothel in Dock Town.

Neve examined the tracks close to the front door.

“I don’t think the man left this place yet,” she said.

She and Rana hid and waited for the man to come out.

Now that they’d stopped and took a break, Neve couldn’t shake from her mind that she’d saved Enora from a fate worse than slavery, and even though the child was safe at home with Bel, she was still unsettled.

“We need a plan,” Rana said.

Focusing on creating a strategy was a pleasant distraction from her own dark thoughts. When Neve finished talking, Rana looked at her with concern.

“It’s risky,” she commented.

“If it works, we can arrest him and interrogate him,” Neve replied. “We can finally put an end to this story.”

Rana still didn’t look completely convinced, but she nodded.

“Don’t die,” she said and left.

Neve watched her friend turn a corner and waited under the rain. She closed her eyes and started focusing on her mana and keeping her connection with the Fade until she heard the front door of the brothel being opened.

The man she saw in the memory was leaving. She gave him some advantage and followed him, making sure to make her metal leg cling on the cobbles every other step.

He kept walking along the street, then turned right and left again. Neve didn’t lose him out of sight even for a moment.

At some point he stopped in a dark alley and put a hand on the wall, which slid on the side.

A secret entrance.

Neve waited for it to be closed and looked up. The heavy rain reduced her vision, but she was pretty sure she saw a shadow move on the roof.

She really hoped she hadn’t imagined it.

Neve took a deep breath and went to open the secret door the same way she saw the man do and—

It was another warehouse, but unlike the other one that had been cleared of everything, this one was full of wooden boxes.

“Neve Gallus, I admit I didn’t expect you to follow me.”

She pretended to be surprised. “When did you realize I was following you?”

He made a smug smile. Venatori’s ego was only comparable to their lust for power, after all.

It was what Neve had bet on for the plan to work.

“You’re not really silent,” he said, nodding to her metal leg.

Neve pretended to be hurt by the comment and concerned by his sharp senses.

“Oh, I should have thought about it, but I need to ask you a few questions,” she said. “We can do it the easy way.”

The man took a knife, cut his own palm and pronounced ancient Tevene words. Neve felt the usual unpleasant sensation of Blood Magic wrongness, and five demons emerged from the floor.

“Or not,” she commented.

Neve drew her staff and shot ice spikes to kill them all instantly, but the Blood Mage had already summoned other four demons, which Neve disposed of again easily.

Other five were already sprinting towards her, the Blood Mage hiding behind them and chanting in Ancient Tevene.

The demons hadn’t been hard to kill, Neve realized. They weren’t meant to kill her.

The Blood Mage wanted to wear her down.

Neve wouldn’t let him. She summoned a blizzard that enfolded all the demons and the Blood Mage. She saw the terror in his eyes as the cold whirlwind killed his demons and started hurting him, too.

Neve was extremely careful with her power. She needed to capture the man, not to kill him.

He used Blood Magic to shoot blood projectiles in her direction, and Neve had to let go of her spell to avoid them and duck behind one of the wooden boxes.

She’d used one third of her mana already and Rana was nowhere in sight.

Hurry up, Neve silently begged her friend.

Screeching and hissing told her the Blood Mage had already summoned other demons. Neve could only hope Rana arrived before she ran out of mana.

She left her hiding spot, ready to shoot her ice bolts to the demons, but—

A fire bolt shot to her and Neve summoned a barrier just in time. She kept it high to defend herself from the other demons coming to attack her.

Neve focused her magic on her left hand, while still holding the barrier with her staff, and hit the floor. From her hand, tendrils of ice extended through the whole room, freezing demons and moving like snakes to reach the Blood Mage too.

He was faster than Neve expected him and he avoided her ice tendrils by summoning a barrier of his own.

“Venhedis,” Neve cursed.

She started feeling strained. Casting while holding up a barrier consumed more mana and Neve couldn’t afford to waste any.

She cut off her barrier and tried to freeze the man—a demon was already there, taking the blow for him.

Other five demons arrived to her and Neve shot her ice spikes to kill them all, but the moment they dissolved back into the Fade she saw a fire bolt. It wasn’t directed at her, but at one of the boxes—

Neve raised her barrier one second too late. The explosion didn’t kill her, but it knocked her off her feet and sent her flying against the wall. She hit her back hard and the pain was so intense that for a moment she lost her connection with the Fade.

She struggled to breathe for a few moments, and when her breath came back regular, Neve saw that the Blood Mage was towering over her.

Once again, Venatori’s ego saved her.

The Blood Mage looked at her with a smug grin.

“Neve Gallus, you’re supposed to be the best detective of Minrathous. I hadn’t imagined I would kill you so easily.”

The moment he stopped speaking, an arrow hit him on the thigh and Neve took advantage of the Blood Mage’s distraction to focus the last bits of mana she had left. She froze his legs and arms at the same moment when Rana came into the secret entrance of the warehouse. Behind her, Rodric and another young woman came in pointing their swords at the Blood Mage.

“You’re under arrest,” Rana said.

Neve smirked despite the pain in her back.

“About time.”

“I needed time to get reinforcements,” Rana replied.

She offered her hand and Neve took it. The strain of getting up shot a flaring pain through her back.

Neve groaned. “None of you happens to have some healing potions? I’m out of mana and can’t heal myself.”

The two young templars shook their heads, and Rana said, “I’m sorry, I forgot to bring them.”

Neve ground her teeth, trying to ignore the pain.

“Can you walk?” Rana asked her.

Neve tried to take a step and immediately pain flared up again.

“Kind of. I can walk with you to the barracks—”

“You’ve done more than enough,” Rana interrupted her. “Go home. I will interrogate him as soon as they fill out the bureaucratic forms.”

Neve wanted to protest, but she didn’t have the strength. For once, she just thanked Rana and went back home.

***

Neve walked into her house as silently as she could, and, despite the burning pain in her back every time she took a step, she didn’t go straight to her room.

She walked to Enora’s room first and she felt a great relief seeing that the child was safe and sound. Neve noticed that Enora was sleeping hugging tight the stuffed halla Bel had gifted her just a few hours ago and couldn’t help bust smile.

She walked away as silently as she could and went to her room. She heard a noise of someone stirring, and then Bellara’s voice, still sleepy, asked, “Neve? Are you back?”

A pang of guilt hit her. She was the one always telling Bel to sleep more and, for once she was doing it, she regretted waking her up.

“I’m sorry, Bel. I didn’t want to wake you up.”

Usually she never accidentally woke her up, but the injury—

Venhedis, every single step was a shot of pain up her back. Neve winced as she stepped close to her bed.

“Are you hurt?” Bellara asked, alarmed.

In the dim light of the graying sky—too late for the bright moonlight, too early for sunrise—Neve couldn’t see her expression in full, but Bel was now standing next to her bed, ready to reach her.

“I had to fight a Venatori,” Neve replied, knowing this wouldn’t calm Bel down.

Her friend made her sit on the bed—another lance of pain—and Bel told her, “Take off your shirt.”

For a crazy moment, Neve was pleasantly surprised and aroused by the request, and already imagined Bel’s lips closed around her nipples—an image that made her feel warmth in her lower belly—but she realized what Bel actually wanted to do.

Her friend had understood she didn’t have enough mana to heal her back and was already taking place behind her.

Neve took off her shirt and, from Bel’s sharp inhale, she understood her back must have looked much worse than she thought.

Her mind didn’t have time to dwell on it, though: she felt the warmth of Bel’s healing magic on her skin first and then in her muscles. There was something good in being taken care of like that, and Neve let her do so as her pain was slowly erased.

She felt Bel’s fingers on her bare back, and even though she knew it was just to check on her injury with magic, the contact made Neve feel that warmth between her legs again.

To distract herself from her body’s reaction, she asked, “How was your evening? Did Enora tell you about our adventures with cats?”

Behind her, Bel chuckled. “I’ve heard everything about how amazing you are with cats. Enora is really impressed by how much you get along with them, she didn’t speak about anything else for the whole evening.”

That made Neve smile.

“I’m happy we’re getting closer.”

Bel moved her hands lower, healing her from more pain in the lumbar zone of her back. “You were right. About the stuffed halla, I mean. Enora really likes it”

The tender feeling in her chest she always felt while thinking about Enora was overshadowed by something else. Not just the idea that something worse than slavery may have happened to her, but also another thing that had been on her mind since the moment she glanced the drawings.

She took a deep breath, unsure of how to break the news to Bel.

“I think…” she hesitated as Bel’s hands moved to the last painful spot on her back. “I will need to question Enora. I think her former owner or one of their associates is the person I’m looking for.”

Bel didn’t need to speak. Neve could feel all her disapproval from behind her.

“Neve, she is four.”

That was what made her hesitate. Enora was so little and still recovering from a traumatizing situation.

The idea of asking her question about her former owner almost made her sick, but…

“I know, but it could be our best chance to find and stop the murderer.”

Bellara had finished healing her. Neve took off her metal leg and changed into her night clothes. When she lay next to her, she saw that Bel was giving her back.

She needed a few moments to understand that Bellara wasn’t just giving her privacy to change.

She was upset.

“Neve, I don’t like the idea of you interrogating her. I mean, I can understand it’s necessary for you and Rana, but Enora has gone through so much already and I don’t want to add to her trauma.”

To be honest, Neve didn’t like the idea either: she’d seen firsthand how Enora had been scared of her magic, and now they’d just bonded and Neve didn’t want to throw it away.

She did something she’d never done before, in the two months she and Bel had shared her bed. She hugged Bellara, her chest against her back.

She felt her friend stiffen in her arms.

“Bel, I know. Trust me, if there was another way I would. I don’t want Enora to relive all the trauma she went through.”

Bellara was silent for a few minutes. As silence stretched, Neve felt weird and awkward holding her friend like that, and she peeled herself off her.

The other woman turned to look at her in the eye.

“I will only let you do it if you have no other choice,” Bel said in the end. “But please, try to find another way. I know you can solve this case without interrogating Enora.”

The absolute trust Bel had in her capacity always made her feel better.

Yes, she would find another solution. Neve wouldn’t force a child to answer uncomfortable questions about slavery, Blood Magic and murders.

“I will,” she promised.

Bel seemed to lose the tension in her body.

“Well, I think I’ll go to work on a new diagram since I’m awake already. Sleep well, Neve.”

Now that she was back home, the thoughts she’d had since the warehouse came to Neve. What if her former owner wanted to sacrifice Enora in a Blood Rite? What if he wanted her blood to fuel his spells?

The thought that the child was sleeping in the other room wasn’t enough to calm her down. Neve took Bellara’s hand and held it tight.

“Bel, can you please stay until I fall asleep?”

For a moment, she thought her friend would say no. Instead, Bel smiled and said, “Yes, of course. I’ll stay as long as you want me to.”

“Thank you.”

Neve felt a bit better. With Bel next to her, she could keep her darker thoughts at bay and, at some point, she finally fell asleep.

***

When Neve woke up, maybe a couple of hours later, she heard Bel’s voice talking with someone she didn’t expect.

Rana.

Confused about why they were both in her house talking like two old friends, Neve made herself presentable, put on her metal leg and walked into the kitchen to meet them.

Bel and Rana were talking over two mugs, coffee for Rana and tea for Bel; next to her there was Enora, who was busy drawing.

They all told her good morning, to which Neve replied with a nod.

“There’s still coffee in the kettle,” Bel told her.

Neve thanked her, filled a mug with the remaining coffee and approached Enora. Concerned, she took a look at the paper, but the child was drawing cats.

The relief she felt was stronger than she’d ever imagined.

She put her hand on the child’s shoulder, and Enora turned to her, a bit annoyed. “Neve! Don’t look at my drawings when they’re not finished!”

Neve chuckled. “Sorry, da’len.”

She stepped away and asked Rana, “What are you doing here?”

Rana got up immediately. “I was enjoying Bellara and little Gallus’s company, but now that you are awake I need to tell you something.”

Neve noticed that Bel had no reaction to Rana’s nickname for Enora, while the child was too busy drawing to pay attention to the former templar’s words.

“You can come here any time,” Bel told Rana.

Neve put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. She would have found it annoying if anyone else invited other people in her apartment, but when Bel did it it wasn’t as bothersome.

“Let’s go in my office,” she told Rana.

Neve led her in the other room, sipping some of the coffee that was much better than what she prepared for herself. Immediately feeling more awake, she made a note to thank Bel better later.

Rana took in her office with a judgmental stare, her eyes darting from the chaotic murder board to the coffee table where Enora left her drawings in a disorganized stack and her desk where notes and papers were scattered around.

Her friend, though, didn’t comment on it.

“I wanted you to know from me before you read it on the newspapers.”

Neve’s heart sank.

“What is it?”

“The Blood Mage we arrested yesterday is dead.”

Neve needed a few seconds to process her words. “What?!”

“I’ve left him in the templar’s custody for less than forty minutes,” Rana said. “When they filled out all the bureaucratic forms, I went in his cell to interrogate him but he’d killed himself already.”

Venhedis.

They’d lost the only lead they had.

Neve wanted to scream. It wasn’t possible.

“Kaffas,” she muttered, taking another sip of coffee.

She wished it could drown her her frustration as easily as it erased her tiredness.

“We also have another problem,” Rana added.

“What, now?”

Her tone was sharp, and in any other occasion, Neve would have regretted talking like that to her friend and coworker.

But seeing all their hard work to find one single lead go waste was beyond frustrating.

“Rodric won’t be able to help us anytime soon,” Rana explained, ignoring her rude tone. “Took the fall for the Blood Mage’s suicide, on paper the prisoner was under his responsibility. Now he is under investigation and I told him to keep a low profile for a few weeks.”

It was bad news, but not totally unexpected: Neve should have known that the young templar couldn’t keep helping them without consequences for much longer.

Rodric had already done so much for them just out of sheer respect for his old mentor, after all.

“We can manage,” she said, but Neve wasn’t still sure how. Only thinking about that gave her a headache. “What do we do now?”

“Now we rest,“ Rana said. “We heal. In a few days we go back to the agency and we start looking for the murderer again.”

For how much she hated this plan, Neve had to admit her friend was right. She was too tired to be useful, only thinking gave her a headache and for sure she wasn’t in the condition to fight if they met another enemy.

Neve begrudgingly accepted the plan.

Rana said goodbye and left her office, but Neve heard her talk with Bel on her way out.

Neve closed her eyes for a moment, her mind spinning around and her headache getting stronger. They’d just lost their only lead, they had to start again from scratch, the fight and the injury she went through had been pointless…

“Neve?”

Bel’s voice took her back to reality. She opened her eyes and saw that her friend had reached her in the office, together with Enora.

“Are you alright? Rana seemed concerned for you when she left.”

Neve sighed. Of course she was, and Bel seemed even more worried than the templar had been.

“We lost the only lead we had,” she said, not feeling comfortable talking about suicides in front of Enora. “It’s like last night we did nothi—”

A noise interrupted her.

Neve turned around so fast that she almost snapped her neck. Enora had made her notebooks fall on the floor, now open to random pages, together with several papers and pens.

Neve couldn’t stop herself from snapping.

“Enora! Don’t touch my stuff!”

The child flinched. Bellara immediately stepped in front of her saying, “Neve! She’s a child, don’t yell at her.”

Neve already regretted her outburst, even if Bel hadn’t called her out. She wanted to reach out to Enora and apologize profusely, but the child was gone already.

She came back a few moments later, holding Neve’s staff. Enora gave it to her and took a few steps back.

“Uhm… thanks?” 

Neve shot a look at Bel, who seemed as confused as she was.

“What’s going on, Enora?” Bellara asked, but the child didn’t reply.

She was staring at Neve.

Bel repeated the same question in elven, not getting an answer from the child even this time.

Enora kept her gaze fixed on Neve, and she noticed it was specifically set on her staff. Neve moved it and she saw the child stiffen and hold her breath.

Humans hurt elves with magic.

That snapped all the tiredness out of her body. Of course, Enora was scared of Neve’s temper.

She expected the human mage to punish her with magic.

Neve dropped her staff on her desk as if it burned. Bel looked at her, the staff and Enora and she had to piece together what was going on, because her mouth opened in horror.

“Enora,” she said, before kneeling and speaking in elven.

Whatever she was saying, it wasn’t enough for the child to get reassurance. Her wide eyes were still full of terror and that hurt Neve deeply.

She didn’t want Enora to be scared of her the same way Neve had been scared of her own father. She remembered too well her childhood spent walking on eggshells around Ser Gallus, because he could snap at her and find the perfect excuse to unleash his rage on Neve.

She would never let Enora feel like that.

“Enora, come with me,” she said slowly, keeping her tone even so not to scare the child even more. “Let’s go see the cats.”

The child looked at her with pure fear, which made Neve bitter: she needed two months to build Enora’s trust in her, and just a few moments to shatter it. But the mention of the cats seemed to attract the child’s attention.

“Neve, are you sure it’s a good idea to have Enora come with you?” Bel asked.

She understood where her concerns were coming from and Neve felt that weird tightening sensation on her chest she always felt with Bel, but that was always stronger when Bel was protective of Enora.

“I need her to understand I’m not going to hurt her even when you’re not around,” she explained. “I want her to trust me again.”

Bel nodded and said something in elven to the child. Enora replied in a voice so low Neve struggled to even hear her.

“She will come, as long as I meet you in one hour,” Bel said.

Good. Neve could talk Enora down from her terror.

“I will see you in front of Hal’s booth,” Neve said.

Enora looked at her at the mention of the fried fish’s booth, and Neve made her sign to leave. She left her staff home to avoid scaring Enora more and kept herself a few steps back from the child.

Stray cats walked on the streets and Enora immediately ran to them. Enora started playing with them, running around chasing them and petting them when they stopped to let her do it.

Neve noticed that the child was less and less tense, until her negative feelings were replaced with joy and fun. It made her feel much better.

As she watched Enora running around and playing with the cats, Neve couldn’t help herself but think about her own childhood. No adult ever supervised her or the other children as they played on the streets and, now that she was an adult herself, she wondered how they all survived past the age of ten.

Enora climbed on a scaffold to chase a cat and Neve immediately prepared herself to cast a blizzard spell to slow down her fall if she slipped. Enora, though, came back down without many problems and started playing with other cats on the street level.

The idea that she could fall if she was alone…

Neve wondered again how her parents felt safe sending her to play with her neighbours, since she used to climb over dangerous places too when she was a child. And falling and injuring herself was the least it could have happened, Neve could have been kidnapped or killed as far as her parents knew.

She wasn’t like them, Bel told her, and for the first time Neve understood what her friend had meant with that.

She would never let Enora wander on the streets of Dock Town alone. She wouldn’t let Enora fear her.

Neve, who’d kept herself a few steps behind her all the time, caught up with Enora when she was too tired to keep running after cats.

She seemed much more at ease now and Neve took the chance to sit next to her. She saw Enora flinch, but the child didn’t leave.

“Enora, I’ll never use magic to punish you,” she said. “I will never hurt you in any way, no matter how frustrated or angry I am.”

The child looked at her as if she wanted to believe her. Neve realized that she wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to lose the bond they’d built so far.

“I took you here because I want you to feel safe,” Neve went on. “I am sorry for snapping earlier, but I will never, ever harm you.”

She wasn’t sure she was doing this alright. Her parents never apologized to Neve for anything they’d put her through all her childhood.

Enora nodded, her whole body less tense than before. Neve hesitantly put a hand on the child’s shoulder.

She didn’t reject the contact. 

Neve made some soothing circles on Enora’s back and repeated, “I’m never going to hurt you.”

Enora looked at her with her eyes full of concern. “And Bel?”

“She’d never think—”

Neve interrupted herself, realizing she misunderstood the question. Bel had stepped in when she snapped at Enora, and she wasn’t asking if Bellara would harm her. 

“Please, don’t hurt Bel,” Enora went on. “She is kind.”

What broke Neve’s heart was that she hadn’t begged for herself. Back in her office, for how much Enora had been terrified of her, she’d just been waiting to be punished with magic. Now, instead, she was pleading with her to spare Bellara, who would be perfectly able to defend herself.

It was both painful and sweet to see how much the child loved Bellara.

“Bel is the most important person to me,” Neve said, carefully choosing her words. “I’ll never hurt her, especially when she defends you.”

Enora had to see the honesty in her words, because she seemed to believe her.  

“Can I hug you?” Neve asked, but the child was faster. 

Enora wrapped her little arms around her neck, and Neve held her close to herself. 

She did it. She restored Enora’s trust in her.

Neve hadn’t felt so proud of an accomplishment in years.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, da’len,” she whispered in the child’s ear. “I don’t want you to fear me. I told you already you’re safe with me, and that’s the truth.”

Enora clutched to her even tighter.

“Bel says you are good,” she whispered. “You don’t hurt elves.”

“I don’t,” Neve confirmed. “I will protect you, no matter what.”

Enora hid her face on Neve’s shoulders, and, unlike what she would have expected, the tissue of her clothes stayed dry. She thought about when they were home and the child was waiting for her punishment, and Enora hadn’t cried even then.

She’d never cried in the two months she’d known her, Neve realized.

“You can cry, if you want to,” she told her. “You are free to express your feelings.”

Enora nodded, but she didn’t cry.

They stayed in silence for a few moments, just hugging each other. Neve felt a weird sensation in the pit of her stomach at the idea that Bel, her Bel, was talking good about her to Enora.

She was the reason why the child had accepted to go out with her, and probably one of the main reasons why she accepted her apology.

Bellara was an amazing person and friend.

“Do you want to go eat some fried fish with Bel?” Neve asked.

She knew both things would make Enora happy. Indeed, the child almost screamed in her ear, “Yes!”

Neve walked with her through a few streets, knowing the fastest way to reach Hal’s booth, but at some point Enora suddenly turned her head into another direction.

Elves had exceptional hearing, after all. That was valid for children, too.

“What’s happening?” she asked, already reaching to the Fade and ready to cast a barrier around the child. “What did you hear?”

Enora listened for a few moments more, then took her hand.

“Neve, come,” she just said.

Neve let the child guide her through another street, her protective spell ready—

When they turned into a deserted alley, Neve heard it, too: an acute cry of a kitten, but it felt damped. Neve let go of the connection with the Fade as Enora guided her to the source of the noise, and she removed a piece of cloth where the muffled sound was coming from.

The kitten was so little it could fit in her palm, and there was no trace of other cats around.

“Help it, please,” Enora said. 

Neve couldn’t say no to that pleading gaze. Enora, for how little she was, understood that the kitten wouldn’t survive if was left alone. 

She thought fast.

One of the cats who wandered around the Lamplighter had looked pregnant a few weeks ago, Neve remembered. 

“We’re helping it,” she promised the child. 

Neve took her scarf off and wrapped the little kitten in it to keep it warm, and slowly picked it up under Enora’s anxious gaze.

“I’m not dropping it,” she reassured the child.

Enora nodded, slightly less concerned. “Where do we go?”

“Follow me,” she said, and walked to the inn with the child next to her. It wasn’t hard finding the cat with her litter of kittens, and Neve told Enora, “Don’t get close, we don’t want to have scare the cats.”

The little girl nodded. 

Neve knelt and whistled to attract the cat’s attention. She raised her head and had to recognize her, because she left the kittens and walked towards her. 

Before the cat approached her, Neve put the kitten, still wrapped in her scarf, on the ground and took one step back to give her space. The cat was a bit suspicious, but she heard the kitten’s cry and and started sniffing it.

For a terrible moment, Neve thought that the cat wouldn’t accept the kitten. She didn’t want Enora to see that, and have her heart broken—

Her fears didn’t come true. The cat took the kitten’s nape in her mouth and brought it among her own. 

Neve felt Enora’s little hands on her arm as they looked at the cat mom taking care of the kitten they’d just brought her.

“Ma serannas,” Enora murmured. 

Neve looked at the child, who stared at the cat family with a thoughtful expression.

With a gut wrench, she realized what was going on.

Enora saw herself in the kitten. She was a little orphan who wanted to be part of a family, and Neve swore to herself to find the most loving parents for her.

She put a hand on Enora’s shoulders, attracting her attention.

“Let’s go, Bel is waiting for us to eat fried fish.”

Enora cheered up almost immediately. Neve retrieved her scarf, took the child’s hand and guided her to Hal’s booth.

Bellara was waiting for them already, and seemed relieved to see Enora much happier than when she left. The child ran to her, and started talking in elven too fast for Neve to understand. Her friend shot her a glance, then said something to Enora and hugged her. 

Neve couldn’t help but smile looking at them. After a while, Enora let her go and Bel approached her.

“She says you helped a kitten,” Bellara said.

Neve grinned. “When I have time after helping people…”

Bellara looked at her with that gaze that always made her feel like her heart was going to explode. She hugged Neve, and said, “Thank you for being so good with Enora.”

You’re the good one, Neve wanted to reply. Enora loves you so much, she was more scared at the idea I’d hurt you rather than her. She wouldn’t trust me now if it wasn’t for you.

But Enora called them both, and Neve was hungry, too. 

They ordered three sticks of fried fish, Bel insisted to pay (“The publisher and I are sure the issue of the masquerade ball of A Trevisan Matter will sell enough to pay for fried fish for the rest of the month,” had been her argument and, well, there was nothing Neve could say to counter it) and all the three of them ate their sticks as they walked along the harbor.

Enora told Bel about cats and pointed the ones she’d met already in the days when Bel was in Arlathan, and when she finally finished eating, she asked, “Can I go to play with the cats, please?”

“Yes, of course you can,” Bel said.

“Stay where we can see you,” Neve added.

Enora assured them she would and ran to play with the cats. Neve stood next to her friend and was so focused on the child that she startled at Bel’s touch.

“What is happening to you? I mean, in general. It’s not like you to snap like that, especially with children.”

Neve sighed.

“What did I tell you about my case?”

Bel seemed to think about it. “Not much, if not that it’s not going well, the person you’re looking for is probably Enora’s former owner and you’ve lost your lead.”

She took a deep breath. “Well, it’s going to be a long story then.”

Neve told her everything.

She started from the first victim she and Rana had found, the discovery that it wasn’t the first person killed by that murderer, how all their attempts of trying to find the culprit ended with nothing if not a symbol of two swords crossing on a shield, of the conditions of the victim’s apartments, and Rana’s theory that Blood Mages were involved. Neve told her about Enora’s drawings, of the traces of Blood Magic she’d found in the warehouse where she saved her and of fight with the Blood Mage who committed suicide before she and Rana could interrogate him.

Bel listened to it all, sometimes in silence, other times asking questions to which Neve answered with honesty. In the end, she said, “Wow, it’s no surprise you’re so tense.”

“It’s not just that,” Neve said. “It’s…”

It was something she hadn’t been able to voice last night, when she’d held Bel’s hand as she fell asleep. She looked at Enora, who was playing with the cats and looked happy.

“I was in that warehouse because I was doing a job for the Shadow Dragons. It was by pure coincidence that I found Enora, and if I hadn’t saved her, who knows what her former owner would have done—was she supposed to be a sacrifice? Did they want to use her blood?”

Neve realized that her voice was shaking when she finished speaking. Bel looked at her with a sympathetic expression and an arm around her waist.

Neve tried not to think about how the contact made her feel a bit better.

“Does it matter? Why you were there, I mean. You saved Enora, that’s what matters.”

“How can you say that?“ Neve asked. “Aren’t you horrified by the possibility—”

“I am,” Bel interrupted her. “The idea that Enora could have been sacrificed in a Blood Ritual makes my skin crawl. But look at her.”

Neve did what she was told and saw Enora petting on the head a cat who wanted her attention. She couldn’t help but smile.

“She is a happy child, and that wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for you. You gave Enora a chance she probably wouldn’t have been able to even dream of.”

Bel was right, she realized.

Of course she was.

She hugged her, too. Her heart fluttered against her ribs.

“Rana told me to make sure you rest for a few days, and I agree with her,” Bel said.

Indignation rose in Neve’s chest. “What? I need to—”

“I know you want to find the murderer and stop the killings,” her friend gently interrupted her. “But you won’t be of any help if you are too tired and stressed to work properly. Take a few days off to rest your brain, then you’ll work with a clearer mind.”

Despite her protests, Bel was right.

“I will try,” she said.

Bel kissed her on her cheek, and that made her heart flutter.

“Let’s go home,” Bel said. “You definitely need to sleep.”

Neve was too busy telling her she didn’t need to sleep, despite the tiredness in her bones, that she realized Bel had called her apartment home only when she was finally laying on her bed.

It didn’t bother her as much as she thought, she realized before falling asleep.

***

Neve did what both Bel and Rana told her and, for once in her life, she relaxed for a few days.

She’d spent her days off petting cats with Enora, rereading Bel’s serials because Bel had asked her to catch hints for the next plot twist of The Hardest Choice, and going out with them for meals at the Cobbled Swan. She also went to sleep much earlier than usual, tired both from stress and the lack of sleep from the previous night.

Neve realized that both her friends were right: after a few days, she was rested and her mind had started working properly again. She was focused on something that had escaped her after the fight, and she went to the Shadow Dragon’s hideout to talk with Ashur and Tarquin, who gave her the information she needed.

She was ready to meet Rana and tell her about her new lead, and she would do it in the morning.

“Do you want to come with me?” Bel asked her the moment she came back home to leave her new papers. “If you’re not busy, I mean.”

“Where do you want to go?” Neve asked.

“To the Andraste Temple—it’s for a scene in A Trevisan Matter,” Bel added in answer to Neve’s raised eyebrows.

“Will the characters attend a rite?”

“Oh, no, no, but there will be a duel and Leocanto goes to the Chantry first to pray Andraste to give him the strength to win it.”

Neve was even more curious. “You didn’t tell me there would be a duel in the next few issues.”

“It’s a last-minute addition,” Bel explained. “The publisher made me notice it’s been a long time since a character died or Leocanto risked his life, and since we’re wrapping this season we need—oh, sorry, I will let you read the whole thing as soon as I write it down. Anyway, I need to see a Chantry to know how to describe the setting and I thought the Temple of Andraste would be alright.”

Neve smiled. Bel cared about all the details of her stories and probably that was why her serials were selling so much.

“I’ll come with you,” she said. “I can watch Enora as you see the temple.”

“Thank you!”

Neve tried to ignore the warmth in her chest as she, Bel and Enora got ready to leave.

In the square before the temple, there were people walking and talking to each other, while some children played around the fountain.

Neve and Enora took Bel to the entrance of the temple, and while she disappeared inside with a notebook and a pen in hand, they stayed outside.

Neve took the child closer to the fountain, and from there she could see a woman at the Wall of Light talking with a man who carried a staff. She was too far to hear what they were saying, but the man shook his head and left.

Enora grabbed her hand as the man passed close to them to get into the Temple.

“Don’t worry, no mage will hurt you when you’re with me,” she reassured the child.

Neve took a look at the other woman, who was now kneeling and talking with a girl who looked about Enora’s age, and she made her choice.

“Come with me,” she told Enora.

They walked to meet the other woman and the child who was clearly her daughter.

“Do you need to light a lantern for your husband?” Neve asked the woman.

She startled. “Oh, no, my husband is alright, Andraste be thanked. It’s for a woman I met every Sunday in the temple, she died months ago but she has no one else left and I can’t pay a mage to light her lantern.”

It was one of the things Neve hated more about Minrathous: even in front of grief people were not equal.

“I’ll light it for free,” she said.

“Oh, really? Thank you!”

As Neve took the lantern in her hands, the woman’s daughter had noticed Enora and asked her, “Do you want to go play in the square?”

Enora looked at her to ask for permission, and Neve said, “Go, have fun.”

“Thanks Neve!” the child almost yelled, and Neve saw her run with the other child in the square in front of her.

“Wait, you’re Neve Gallus!” the woman exclaimed, a mix of awe and admiration in her voice. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

Not wanting to describe the whole situation with Enora to a stranger, she just said, “It’s complicated.”

The woman didn’t pry more. On the opposite, now that the pleasantries were out of the way, she asked something else.

“Are you looking for Alida Nevrus’s murderer?”

With her heartbeat accelerating, Neve nodded. “Yes, my coworker and I are looking for the person who killed her.”

“The lantern is for her,” the woman explained. “I’ve been looking for a mage who doesn’t light them for an expensive price, but…”

Mages in Minrathous always asked for an exorbitant price for the littlest service. The woman didn’t need to say it out loud.

Neve whispered the dead woman’s name as she lit her lantern, which then reached a proper height halfway on the wall.

“I don’t know how to thank you!” the other woman said.

Neve addressed her with a bitter smile. “No one should have their lantern die out because they can’t afford to pay.”

They walked in the direction where the children were playing, and Neve was about to ask the other woman if she knew anything that could help her, but she was faster.

“I know you probably can’t tell details about the investigation, but I need to ask you: what happened to Altan now that Alida is dead? Is someone taking care of him?”

Neve stared at her, confused. A terrible sensation was taking place in the pit of her stomach.

“I’m sorry, who is Altan?”

The other woman blinked a couple of times, as if she wasn’t sure of what she’d just heard. “Alida’s son.”

Neve stopped dead in her tracks.

Their latest victim had a son.

Rana had only found the body of the woman. Same for all the other victims.

Her heart beat hard and fast as Neve’s mind put pieces together.

The crumpled clothes in the closet. Probably the child had tried to hide there.

All the victims had in common that they were poor and not from Tevinter. Apparently, they all were parents, too.

Enora’s owner. They hadn’t had problem enslaving children before, after all.

The people the murderer targeted didn’t know their neighbours, and therefore, they wouldn’t notice missing children.

The more pieces fit into the mosaic, the less Neve liked the image it showed.

The whole case had just been flipped upside down: she and Rana weren’t investigating just murders, they needed to find at least five missing children.

“Are you alright?” the woman asked her.

Neve snapped herself out of her shocked state.

“Can you describe me this Altan?”

“My nephew is very good at making charcoal portraits, I can ask him to make a draw of Altan,” the other woman replied.

Even better.

“Yes, it would greatly help,” Neve said, her mind still racing. “Once the portrait is done, take it to the pawn shop. Say it’s a urgent message for Neve Gallus, it will find its way to me.”

“Of course,” the other woman agreed.

“Your help is crucial,” Neve told her. “We’ll send her murderer to jail.”

And, for the first time since she started investigating, Neve actually believed it.

***

A few hours later, Neve came into the agency carrying several papers. She had wanted to do it the next day, but after discovering about the missing children, Neve hadn’t wanted to waste any more time than necessary.

She’d told Bel, who’d been as horrified as she’d been at the new twist of events, and they’d decided to add more wards to Neve’s apartment.

Rana looked at her and said, noticing her expression, “Have you found something?”

“Yes, and you won’t like it,” Neve said, and told her about the conversation with the woman at the Wall of Light.

Rana’s face showed the same horror she’d felt hours ago, and when Neve finished talking, she just said, “Oh, Maker. We have to find the bastard as soon as possible.”

“And we will,” Neve promised. She put her papers on the desk and added, “I thought about what the Blood Mage said in the memory I watched.”

Rana was listening carefully.

“The Magisterium will never back you up as long as Pavus is the Archon,” Neve repeated. “I’ve thought about this sentence the last few days and I’ve reached the only sensible conclusion.”

“The other person is a Magister,” Rana said.

She felt validated to hear her friend reach her same conclusion.

“I’ve met the Shadow Dragons to ask which families were most pissed off with Dorian when he passed the law that gave him the power to free slaves from every owner, and who are their representatives in the Magisterium. They gave me three names.”

Rana leaned forward.

“Who are they?”

Neve added a note with a name to the murder board. “Do you remember him?”

The former templar scoffed.

“Who doesn’t remember Trajanus Porenni and his scene in Dumat Plaza?”

Scene was probably the understatement of the year.

The same day Dorian Pavus had passed the law, Magister Porenni had blocked Dumat Plaza with all the sentinels working for him in protest. He’d claimed some slaves had been in his family’s possession since his grandfather’s time and he wasn’t going to give any of them up.

Only the intervention of Maevaris Tilani, just restored in her full position as Magister, had avoided an escalation of the conflict. Magister Porenni had then freed his slaves, but not before asking for huge compensation for the loss, which Dorian had ignored.

Rumors among the Shadow Dragon said that Dorian Pavus had threatened the young Magister he’d throw him in a cell in the lowest dungeon of Minrathous if he didn’t free all his slaves immediately, or the Archon himself would do it, and he would still end up in prison.

“Our second suspect is Varus Erimond,” Neve said, adding his name on the murder board. “Family Erimond is probably the most conservative between the three. He is an old man who won’t stop talking about how Old Tevinter was glorious and all the Venatori beliefs, with whom he sided until Dorian became Archon. He escaped justice because he claimed Lusacan was controlling him through the Blight.”

Rana gave her a skeptical look. “There is no way anyone actually believes that, right?”

“His power and wealth make him incredibly believable in the eyes of justice executives,” Neve replied. “When Dorian ordered a requisition of all his properties, he—or, most likely, his servants—had destroyed all the evidence of his ties with Venatori already.”

Neve hang the note with the third name on the board. Rana stared at it like she would stare at a rage demon ready to slaughter her family.

“I guess you know her already,” Neve said.

Rana nodded.

“I met her fifteen or sixteen years ago, Drusilla Nihalis wasn’t Magister yet. I’d just finished the templar training and it was one of the first requisition I’ve done. She was suspected of smuggling red lyrium and using her slaves to do so and someone reported her to the templars. When I and the others were searching her manor, Magister Nihalis threatened us to have her guards gut us all and to use our blood for spells if we ever got close to her house again.”

Neve stared at her, shocked. Rana had never told her that story.

The Magister was even crazier than Neve thought.

“So, who do you think may be our suspect?”

The former templar looked at those three names. “Honestly? All of them.”

Neve shared her opinion. But now that they had three people, their task would be easier.

Her determination was like a fire in her chest now that she was potentially close to solving the case. But, to be honest, it wasn’t only the fact of putting a murderer in jail, who also kidnapped children, to make her feel like that.

Magister Porenni, Magister Erimond, Magister Nihalis.

One of them was Enora’s former owner.

She would figure out which, because, besides their crimes, Neve also wanted them to pay for all the pain they caused Enora.

Chapter Text

Dorian had made himself an enemy of some fringes of the Magisterium long before passing the law that allowed him to free slaves.

Firstly, his first official act as Archon had been to restore Maevaris Tilani’s title as Magister, causing the rage of the Magisters that had revoked it more than one year ago.

Secondly, the newly restored Magister had become his closest collaborator, and they’d started writing together laws that allowed Soporati and Liberati to have more power, and were working actively towards the goal of making slavery illegal in all of Tevinter.

Thirdly, Dorian Pavus only allowed Magisters up in the Archon Palace when the Magisterium was in session, while Shadow Dragons could access whenever they wanted to.

Neve looked out of the window to see the whole city of Minrathous stretch several hundred feet below her. Back when she was in the Lighthouse, she’d always been aware of the fact that only a misstep was between her and a fall in the eternal void; somehow, seeing Minrathous from this perspective was even more disturbing than the awareness that she would be lost forever in the Fade if she fell.

She took her attention back to the desk. Dorian had granted her the permission of visiting the former workplace of the three Magisters she and Rana were investigating, but there was nothing except for furniture.

Of course, Neve and Rana had discussed the possibility that the three Magisters may have emptied their offices and hadn’t left anything compromising in the place where the new Archon was actively trying to dismantle everything they believed in.

Neve sighed and went back into the Archon’s rooms. On her way, she met several elves wearing the Shadow Dragon’s robes: Liberati who were working closely with the new Archon and Magister Tilani to build a better life for those who escaped slavery.

Most of them said a courteous good afternoon, no one really stopped to talk. After all, they were all eager to make Tevinter a better place. They had no time for pleasantries.

Dorian was waiting for her in his own office, where he welcomed her with a smile.

“Neve! Here are my personal records about Magisters Erimond, Nihalis and Porenni. There are lists of all their properties and all the slaves I’ve personally freed from those three households,” he said, handing her the notebooks. “Please, bring them back to me after you’ve solved the case.”

That was much more than Neve expected.

“Thank you, Dorian,” she said, genuinely grateful. “Your help means a lot.”

He made a dismissive gesture. “Anyone who owns slaves deserves to be in jail, especially if those slaves are children. Find them, and Ashur will back you up with as many Shadow Dragons as you need to free the children and take the Magister in front of justice. Oh, by the way, next time you meet him, give him this letter, please.”

“I’m going to the pawn shop right now,” she said, taking the letter the Archon was handing her. “If there is anything else you need from the Shadow Dragons, tell me.”

“Yes, actually, there is something,” Dorian said. “If you see Quintus please send him here. He hasn’t reported on his last mission’s outcome yet.”

“I will,” Neve promised, and left the Archon’s palace.

Coming back to ground level again was a relief, and Neve went to the pawn shop to meet Ashur. She gave him the records about the slaves Dorian freed from the three Magisters.

“Can you please track any of them down?” Neve asked. “I think their former owners are involved in a case. Dorian told me I can ask you for how many Shadow Dragons I need.”

“Of course,” Ashur said, reading already the first names of the former slaves. “We’ll start working as soon as possible.”

Neve thanked him and left the pawn shop, the notebooks about the properties of the three Magisters tucked under her arm. She went back home, where she needed more time than usual to deactivate the wards around her apartment due to the new spells she and Bel had added, and came in only to reactivate all the spells again.

It was tedious, but she would do it to protect Enora.

She found Bel and the child sitting at the kitchen table, her friend was writing and Enora, instead, was busy drawing.

Neve couldn’t resist her curiosity and peeked over Bel’s shoulders. 

Leocanto looks at the assassin in front of him. He is disarmed, but he will fight until his final breath.

Suddenly, a shadow appears. There is a flash of steel and blood.

The assassin is dead and Leocanto looks at his savior, a man wearing a mask.

“Who are you?” Leocanto asks.

“It’s been a long time, but I thought you would recognize me, cousin.”

The man takes his mask off, and… it’s Ivano!

“Wait, Ivano is Leocanto’s evil cousin,” Neve commented. “Why is he saving him?”

Bel turned to look at her.

“He was evil, but he was also one of the most loved characters of A Trevisan Matter,” she explained. “The publisher suggested he should come back as part of the main cast and, if this issue sells well, I will write a spinoff about Ivano’s redemption journey.” 

Neve nodded and turned to look at Enora’s drawings, but Bel just whispered, “It’s cats.”

Since Neve told her about Enora drawing the two swords crossing on a shield, Bel also checked on her drawings.

Thankfully, in the last week, she’d never drawn the symbol again.

Enora turned to Bel, offended, and told her something in elven. Bellara chuckled and replied with something that made Enora make a pouty face and go back drawing.

“She doesn’t like when I see what she is drawing before she finishes them,” Bel explained to her.

Neve chuckled and put a hand on the child’s shoulder. Enora quickly turned the paper on the other side.

“Good thing I don’t check your drawings,” she teased the child.

“It’s not true, Neve,” she complained. “You look at them when they’re not finished, too.”

Bel passed her arm around the child’s waist. “It’s because we are really curious about your creativity. We can’t wait until you finish.”

It was a half-truth they’d settled on days ago. Neve and Bel had discussed for a long time if telling Enora about the fact that she drew the symbol of Neve’s suspect at least four times, and they decided to leave the child in the darkness, at least for the time being.

Enora beamed at Bel’s words and turned her paper sheet to go back drawing.

“I think I’ll go sorting these records out in my office,” Neve said.

She felt the strong urge to lean forward and kiss Bel on the cheek, but she resisted it.

“I want to make some khachapuri for dinner,” her friend told her. “Do you want to help me prepare it?”

Khachapuri was probably Neve’s favourite dish right after Hal’s fried fish. Bel didn’t even need to ask.

“Of course. Call me when you need my help.”

Neve spent the time studying Magister Erimond’s report, comparing it with the notes she’d taken the last few days, and she noted down a few interesting things. When Bel came to knock at her office’s door, Neve had already something to discuss with Rana in the morning.

As they prepared khachapuri, while Enora gave them some curious looks form where she was playing with her stuffed halla, Bel breached the topic.

“I was thinking about the other day, when Enora was playing with the other child in front of the Temple of Andraste. She was having as much fun as I’ve seen her, and I thought—I think it would be good for her to socialize with other kids her age.”

“I agree,” Neve said, curious of where this was going.

Bel took a deep breath. “I’ve written letters to the other Veil Jumpers, the ones who have children, I mean. They’re going to have a trip in the forest, and I was thinking of joining them with Enora, if you agree, of course.”

The idea of being separated from Bel and the child for some time was painful already. Neve, though, knew it would be a good chance for Enora to finally make friends of her own age.

After all, she’d only met her and Bel’s friends, and they were all adults.

There was something else that stopped Neve from accepting right away. She’d been in Arlathan and knew well the place could be unsafe if one didn’t know their way around.

“Is it going to be dangerous?”

“Oh, no, no,” Bel assured her. “We adults are going to check the ruins, but two or three of us in turn will stay behind to check on the children. When we camp at night, we’ll cast wards to keep animals away—and whatever creatures may wander in Arlathan at night. Worst case scenario, I have my gauntlet with me.”

Neve nodded. She knew Bel would protect Enora from any possible danger and the child was more than safe with her.

“You two should go, then,” she said. “How long are you staying?”

“One week. Or maybe a little more. I don’t know how long it will take to make all the round checks.”

Neve nodded, but the idea of being separated by Bel and Enora for so long—

It would only be good for the child, Neve told herself. Not only she would make new friends, but also Neve found comforting the idea that she would be away from Minrathous as she and Rana looked for her owner.

The further Enora was from the investigation, the better.

Neve, though, wanted to reach out, hold Bel and never let her go.

She didn’t.

“I will miss you two,” she said instead in a joking manner.

Bel seemed to take her words more seriously than she expected. She hugged Neve, making her feel a weird sensation in the pit of her stomach—

“We won’t be away for long,” she said. “Also, you can send us letters. I mean, Amylia will receive them and we’ll probably see them when we would be back anyway, but it’s of some consolation, isn’t it?”

Neve smiled, part of her negative feelings canceled by Bel’s words.

“You’re right,” she just said.

Bel let go of her, and Neve went back cutting cheese.

When they finally sat at the table for dinner, Enora was looking curiously at the khachapuri. “What is it?”

“It’s a Tevene dish,” Neve explained. “I really like it, and Bel is a very good cook.”

It smelled amazing, and Neve was only proud when Enora tried a piece and—

“It’s very good!”

The child finished her portion even faster than Neve and Bel did. It was nothing short of amusing.

There was something that made her proud in knowing the child loved a food from her country. Neve couldn’t explain what exactly, though.

***

Neve helped Bel and Enora pack for their trip in Arlathan. Enora was excited to spend one week with Bel and other elves, and couldn’t stop herself from coming to them and asking them questions about the trip and how packing was going.

“Did you remember my halla?” Enora asked.

Neve passed a hand through her hair. “Of course, da’len. We wouldn’t forget it.”

The child looked reassured, and started asking more questions to Bel about camping. At some point she switched to elven, and Neve wondered if Enora even realized it or if she willingly changed the language to formulate her questions in the words more familiar to her.

She was so cute it made Neve smile.

Neve went with them to the pawn shop, where they would take the Eluvian to Arlathan. Neve said goodbye and looked at them disappear into the mirror with a heartache she’d never felt before.

That was ridiculous. She knew that Bel and Enora would be back in seven days.

There was no reason to feel like that.

Neve took a deep breath and left the pawn shop. Rana welcomed her in the detective agency with a question.

“Has the Archon given you something we can use?”

That redirected Neve’s thoughts away from her sorrows. Her mind went immediately into working mode.

“Yes, and I have news about Magister Erimond.”

Rana looked at her with an interested expression. “What crime is he committing specifically?”

“Family Erimond made its fortune at the end of the Steel Age by selling slaves. In these last few centuries the descendants of family Erimond bought several manors and houses here in Minrathous and through all of Tevinter.”

“Typical of rich mage’s families,” Rana commented.

“All of these houses were registered to Varus Erimond. Do you know how big is his family?”

The former templar blinked. “Am I supposed to?”

“Magister Erimond has three sons and two daughters, and a total of sixteen grandchildren.”

“I guess the fight for inheritance will be a nightmare,” Rana commented.

Neve chuckled. “You said it, not me.” She approached the board where she’d hang the name Varus Erimond. “Last year his eldest granddaughter turned twenty, guess what was grandpa’s gift?”

“Neve, you can’t ask me these questions before I get to drink my coffee.”

“He gave her a manor in hightown,” Neve said.

Rana raised her eyebrows. “A quite generous gift.”

“Indeed. From there, I went backwards and I found out Magister Erimond had given his properties to his sons and daughters, and last Pluitanis also his other grandson received a house in Nessum as a gift.” She looked at Rana in the eyes. “Try to guess when this sudden generosity started.”

The former templar thought about it, and Neve saw the moment it hit her.

“Right after Dorian Pavus ordered a requisition of all his properties.”

“Indeed,” Neve said. “I think Magister Erimond is trying to get rid of the requisited properties by having his family members be the new owners.”

Rana looked at her, getting where Neve wanted to arrive.

“If Magister Erimond suddenly found himself so generous, probably he is hiding something in the houses he gifted to his sons, daughter and grandkids,” the former templar said.

Neve nodded. “That’s exactly what I think, too.”

She walked to Rana and gave her a paper she’d folded earlier that morning. She’d copied several addresses in the most readable handwriting she managed.

“I think we should pay a visit in the houses listed here. The rest of Magister Erimond’s properties are out of Minrathous.”

Rana nodded, but didn’t look too convinced.

“How can we tell, if he is the murderer, that he is holding the children hostage here in Minrathous and not in one of the other properties in the rest of Tevinter?”

“Enora was kept here,” Neve replied. “Whoever was her owner, they must have a reason to keep the children in Minrathous.”

Rana didn’t seem completely convinced by that explanation, but she didn’t argue with it. Instead, she said, “Have you tried asking her the name of her former owner?”

“I doubt she would know,” Neve tried to cut the conversation short. “The first couple of weeks, Enora refused to call me by name because she believed it was disrespectful. I don’t think she’d ever addressed her former owner by anything but master or however those bastards want their slaves to call them.”

The former templar kept her expression even.

“You’re assuming all these things, but you haven’t asked her.”

“Let’s go,” Neve just said. “We have many properties to check.”

Rana dropped the subject, but Neve knew she wouldn’t let it go.

She loved her friend, but Rana couldn’t understand her position. Neve didn’t want to hurt Enora by making her talk about her life as a slave, not now that she’d conquered her trust after almost losing it for good.

Her friend had never seen how Enora still cowered from human mages and only Neve and Bel’s protection could make her feel better. Rana couldn’t understand how deeply the child had been hurt, since Enora had never curled next to her at night, after a nightmare about humans.

No, she wouldn’t let Enora go through all the pain she lived before she freed her.

Neve pushed aside her concerns and focused on the task. She and Rana walked to the addresses written down on Neve’s piece of paper, finding out where the houses were located but keeping themselves far enough to not look suspicious around them.

They found benches to sit on or gardens to rest in and pretended to talk about trivial things, but actually Neve sent her magic in the direction of the houses to look for traces of Blood Magic as Rana kept an eye on the lookout to be sure no one noticed them.

In all the houses, Neve always found the resistance she knew belonged to a magical ward, but she didn’t try to pry behind it.

She didn’t want to be discovered, and definitely not in such a stupid way.

The task occupied the whole day, and Neve realized that she and Rana skipped lunch only when she found herself starving well past the sun had set.

“Cobbled Swan?” Rana asked, clearly as hungry as her.

Neve accepted.

As they had dinner, finally stuffing their stomachs with squid skewers, bread and grilled vegetables, Neve couldn’t help but think about the idea of coming back to an empty home after they finished.

There wouldn’t be Bel working on her stories or fixing an ancient elven device. There wouldn’t be Enora sleeping peacefully in her bedroom as she hugged her stuffed halla.

“Are you alright?” Rana asked.

Neve looked at her eye and saw her friend she was genuinely concerned for her.

“Yes, don’t worry,” she replied. “I was just thinking about Bel and Enora, they’re going to be in Arlathan for a week. I miss them, that’s all.”

Rana grinned. “I guess Bellara, that saint woman, needed a break from you.”

That made Neve chuckle. “I think you’re right. It’s the first time since I’ve taken her in my home that I’m far away from Enora, I didn’t think I would miss her so much.”

“She is your child, of course you miss her,” Rana replied. “I like little Gallus. She is cute, even though she resembles you too much.”

Neve rolled her eyes.

“Don’t call her like that, you know she is staying with me only until—”

“Just stop being so dramatic,” Rana interrupted her. “You’re going to see your daughter again in a few days.”

Neve sighed.

“Rana, I told you already Enora isn’t my daughter.”

This time, it was Rana’s turn to roll her eyes and scoff. “For the love of Andraste, Neve, please stop. You know the Archon personally, if you actually wanted to find another family for Enora, you would have asked him not to give her your last name.”

Neve was about to take the glass of water to her lips, but she froze midair for a moment and slowly took it back down on the table.

“I would have asked what to Dorian?”

Rana stared at her like she’d hit her head. “The child, Neve. You could have asked Dorian Pavus not to give the last name Gallus to Enora, if you didn’t want to keep her.”

Neve’s mind needed an embarrassingly long moment to process what Rana was telling her.

“Enora’s last name is Gallus?!”

The former templar gave her a look she couldn’t understand. “If this is a prank, it’s not funny. You gave me the copy of the liberation document, how is this news to you?”

Neve had no idea, and—

She remembered the night when she read those documents. She’d been tired, and hadn’t slept much that period. She vaguely remembered reading her last name somewhere, but she’d assumed it was on the part of the person requiring the slave’s freedom.

“Oh, Maker, you read it when you were too tired to understand what you were reading, didn’t you?”

As usual, Rana guessed it right. Neve didn’t reply, but the former templar had to take it as a confirmation because she sighed.

“Neve, the law says that if a slave has no family name, they are given the one of the person vouching for their freedom. Since Enora had no last name, and you sent the request to free her, she was given the surname Gallus.”

Neve wasn’t even surprised Rana knew it. She probably spent her free time learning all the laws and rules existing in Minrathous.

“It’s—I didn’t know.”

Rana grinned.

“Do you really think I call her little Gallus just to tease you?”

Another thing came to Neve’s mind. Bellara hadn’t reacted when she’d heard the nickname Rana had given Enora.

Of course, she’d given her the copy of Enora’s liberation documents too.

“Does Bel know, too?”

“I guess she does if, unlike you, she has read the document when she wasn’t too tired to discern words,” Rana replied.

It made sense, but Neve now would have to wait one week to ask her.

Enora had her last name. It was a weird thought.

Neve hadn’t thought for a moment in her life to give her last name to a child, but she was glad it was Enora sharing the name Gallus with her.

“If you’re so bothered, you can ask Dorian Pavus to change Enora’s last name,” Rana said.

“No,” Neve replied almost immediately. “I… I think I like that she has my last name.”

Rana smirked. “Maybe you should add Bellara’s last name, too, since she is your partner and you’re raising Enora together.”

Neve stared at her. This time, she was sure Rana couldn’t have taken that information from anywhere.

A wrong information, no less.

“Bel isn’t my partner.”

Rana chuckled, then she realized Neve’s expression hadn’t changed.

“Are you serious?”

Something in her expression had to give away that she was totally serious. Rana pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation.

“Are you telling me that these last two years every time Bellara visited Minrathous she slept in the guest bedroom?”

Neve didn’t answer, and Rana added, “Maker’s breath, Neve, why do you think I suggested you to buy a double bed now that you have a decent apartment?”

“My sex life is none of your concern,” Neve cut her off. “Let’s focus on the real problems.”

“Yes, of course, but I want you to realize that what you two have isn’t just a friendship,” Rana replied. “You don’t take care of a child with your best friend.”

Neve’s heart reacted weirdly to that, but she kept her mind steady and focused.

“How can you tell that?”

“Well, first I have eyes, but…” Rana sighed. “Neve, I’ve been to your house. I’ve seen you two together. She invited me to your apartment. I saw how you both take care of Enora. I assumed you were together, and you have been for at least one year or two.”

Neve was hit by that. She was always better when she was with Bel, and of course she wasn’t ashamed of sharing the bed with her, Bel was her closest friend—

But there was that weird feeling when she thought about her. The heat in her lower belly when her friend slept next to her. She imagined Bel sucking her nipples not too long ago, and Neve was pretty sure platonic friends didn’t do that.

“We are not together,” she just said. “And I think we should find a way to deactivate Magister Erimond’s wards without revealing our presence.”

This time Rana let her change the topic.

They discussed the case until they were too tired to have decent ideas, and Neve came back home.

It was strange having the apartment empty, after having Bel and Enora around for over two months. She walked into her bedroom, knowing that the bed would feel too big for just herself, but on the upside…

A fire was lit in her abdomen, and Neve needed to put it out soon.

She walked towards her personal drawer that had been closed for over two months. She deactivated the rune sealing it and finally opened it.

She took one of the thicker dildos, now in the lost in the need to be satisfied as soon as possible.

Neve grabbed also the lubricant and threw both objects on the bed. She removed her metal leg and took off her clothes as fast as she could. She hastily coated the dildo with the lubricant, but she was so impatient some of it spilled on her blankets.

She positioned herself on Bel’s side of the bed, her knees well apart as she imagined Bel under her, and slowly slid her sex toy inside.

Neve moaned: she hadn’t done this in a long time and the dildo was thick enough to make her feel full immediately. She slowly pushed it as deep as she could, enjoying the stretch.

“Yes,” she moaned.

She started moving it in and out slowly, and her mind could only focus on Bellara. Her hands on hers, how it felt hugging her, how her scent turned her on and it was still lingering on this side of the bed…

“Bel,” she groaned.

Neve hadn’t realized she’d increased the rhythm of her masturbation, and she wasn’t disturbed by the fact it was Bel’s thought to arouse her.

No, her brain started making up images that never happened: Bel’s naked body, Bel touching herself in front of her, Bel sucking her nipples that one night after healing her, Bel’s head between her thighs, Bel naked who begged her to be fucked with her strap—

Neve was much closer now. She hadn’t realized how much sexual tension she’d accumulated since Bellara had come to live with her, and shared her bed with nothing more than a hug happening.

She grabbed the headboard with one hand as the other thrust the sex toy inside herself harder and faster.

Thinking about her best friend was just—

She’d never thought about anyone when she masturbated before. The physical simulation of her toys had always been enough for Neve.

But now she could only think about Bel, how much Neve wanted her to be the one using the dildo on her.

“Bel,” she moaned again.

She kept spilling Bellara’s name from her lips because she couldn’t stop. Every time Neve thrust the toy deep inside herself, she couldn’t help but feel closer, which made her think of Bel, which made her masturbate harder.

It was a beautiful cycle she didn’t want to interrupt, but Neve, after months of not touching herself with the object of her desire in her same bed, was close already.

Neve imagined how it would feel to have Bel wear her enchanted strap, and ride it until Bel finally filled her up, how Bel’s expression would be when she came—

“Venhedis,” she moaned as she shuddered.

Neve felt herself clenching around the dildo. She enjoyed the feeling of her climax until she come down of it with her legs shaking. She realized her other hand, the one on the headboard, had sunk her nails so deep in the wood to leave signs.

She hadn’t come this hard in a long time, if ever. And, worse of all, it had been Bellara’s thoughts that had caused that effect on her.

Neve slowly took the dildo out, groaning at the unpleasant feeling of being empty again.

Kaffas, Rana was right.

She didn’t want Bel just as a close friend. She wanted to kiss her, have sex with Bel, but also… also share their domestic life as they were doing already, but without the pretense that their relationship was just platonic.

Neve had needed over two months to admit it to herself. She wasn’t sure how or when she would be able to admit it to Bel.

***

The next day, Neve walked into her home office right after drinking her coffee. In that chaos, she only knew the exact location of Enora’s liberation documents, since she’d put it on a shelf where she or Bel could find it easily.

Neve grabbed it to confirm if Rana was pranking her or not, and there it was: on the first page, in the section of the Liberatus’s name, it was printed Enora Gallus.

Neve felt a warm, happy sensation she had experienced very few times in her life.

She wasn’t just proud that the child had her own last name. Enora was nameless when Neve had found her, but now she had a first name meaningful to Bel and her surname.

It was the proof that two women cared about her.

Neve wanted to hug Enora and hold her close, but she would be away for a few days more and Neve had many other things to do.

She and Rana spent other three days trying to crack the wards of Magister Erimond’s properties that he’d passed to his children and grandchildren, but Neve found it impossible without flagging their presence.

“The Archon promised all the help you need from the Shadow Dragons,” Rana said. “I think we should ask their help.”

Neve nodded. “If this last try doesn’t work, I’ll go to Ashur.”

It didn’t work. Neve’s magic tried to infiltrate into the ward’s enchantment, but she only found deep layers of enchantments. Dismantling it would be a long and risky job.

Neve would need some backup.

She let go of the connection with the Fade.

“Let’s go to the pawn shop,” Neve told Rana.

On their way back to Dock Town, they crossed Dumat Plaza and they saw a young woman talking with an old man who was wearing a Magister’s attire.

Neve stopped dead in her tracks. He was Magister Erimond, the young woman probably his granddaughter. She saw some vague resemblance between the two, and they looked like they were discussing. At some point, the woman left and, by her stiff pace and her expression, she looked furious with the Magister.

“That’s him,” she told Rana, nodding towards the old man’s direction. “Magister Erimond.”

Rana followed her gaze, and saw the old man, now alone, taking a seat on a bench.

“I hope you’re not thinking what I fear—”

“I’ll go talk to him,” Neve interrupted her.

The former templar sighed.

“Do you realize that, even if he is not our suspect, he is still a well-versed Blood Mage with ties with Venatori, right?”

“I know, but this is a good shot,” Neve replied. “That man has lived in wealth all his life, he probably can’t even point Dock Town on a map of Minrathous. He won’t know who I am.”

Rana sighed.

“And what do I do?” she asked.

Neve smirked. “You’ve never lost your templar vibes, even if you left the order long ago. Just pretend you’re a plainclothes templar and no one will question you when you’ll come to take me away for disturbing a Magister.”

Rana reluctantly nodded.

They agreed on a signal and Neve walked to the bench were Magister Erimond was sitting, taking place on the other edge.

She immediately felt the wrongness typical of Blood Magic coming from the old man. Neve reached to the Fade by instinct, but he just looked at her in disbelief.

Of course, he was a Magister and she was a commoner—even if he believed her someone from hightown.

Observing the interactions with his (assumed) granddaughter earlier gave her the opening she needed.

“I’m sorry, I don’t want to disturb you, Magister, but I’ve seen you and your granddaughter and I wanted to tell you I would have never talked to my elders in that way.”

She’d hit the mark with the same precision of Bel’s Fade bolts.

Magister Erimond’s eyes widened in gratification. “Ah, I can tell your parents raised you well. Back in my time, we respected our grandparents, but today’s youth had fallen behind.”

Her parents had only taught Neve that she would never want to be like them with Enora, but it was a story she’d only told once to Bel and another time—with less details—to Rana. Certainly not something she would share with a Blood Mage Magister.

Nevertheless, she nodded in agreement and used this turn of the conversation for another strike to gain his trust.

“Do you know when this started, if I may?”

Magister Erimond nodded, curious to hear her opinion.

“When Pavus became Archon, his city management has ruined Minrathous—and will ruin the rest of Tevinter, too.”

“I’ve been saying this for the last two years! Before he became Archon, no one would have ever allowed papers to publish garbage like love stories with qunari, for starters.”

Magister Erimond clearly was always ready to insult Dorian. Neve ignored the slander to Bel’s serial and said, trying to emulate the old man’s indignation, “I don’t understand why anyone would want to publish such rubbish.”

“It’s because Pavus’s amatus is a qunari, a mercenary he met in the South,” Magister Erimond replied, as if revealing a great secret, “and he wants us to normalize relationships with them.”

It wasn’t the first time Neve heard that rumor, but she’d never bothered to verify it. Dorian Pavus’s private life had always been the last of her concerns.

“That’s right,” she said instead.

The old man looked at her with pride, and Neve’s skin crawled at being looked at like that by a man who still had traces of Blood Magic on himself.

“You speak like a real Tevene woman, I wish my granddaughter was more like you. Instead, the Archon had put ideas in her mind about elves being equal to humans and that slavery is repulsive, and that Pavus did a good thing when he freed all our slaves.”

Neve tried her best to look disgusted at those words. If someone from a Venatori Magister family could be brought to the right path by Dorian’s words and beliefs, there was hope for all of Tevinter.

“It’s a shame the Archon poisons younger generations with these crazy ideas,” she said.

The man looked at her. “Do you have children?”

Neve had one split second to decide.

“Yes, only one. A girl.”

It was the correct choice. Magister Erimond seemed even more interested.

“How old is she?”

“Four.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” he said with a laugh.

The comment left Neve stunned.

“What do you mean?”

“Your daughter is so young she still sees you as an infallible hero,” he explained. “When she’ll grow older she’ll see you as a person and she’ll see all your flaws. One day she admires you, the next she is manipulated by the ideas of an Archon who wants to reject the glory of Old Tevinter.”

Those words got under Neve’s skin.

She still sees you as an infallible hero.

Her mind went immediately to Enora, when they saved the kitten by taking him to another cat who could take care of it, to the trust the child had that Neve could somehow save it.

Venhedis. She shouldn’t let a Blood Mage get into her head to that point.

She quickly looked for Rana, who was waiting between two stands of overpriced jewelry as if checking the square. She gave a slight nod to signal everything had went well—

“I have to go. It was a pleasure talking to you, Magister.”

“Pleasure is mine,” he replied. “Seeing that there are still true Tevene people gives me hope.”

Neve ignored the disgust those words caused her, and just gave him a polite nod before leaving. She reached Rana and they both walked in silence until they arrived to Dock Town.

“Did you find out something useful?” Rana asked.

The man’s words were stuck in her mind and, with them, a sensation that became more and more intense at every step.

“I could still feel Blood Magic on him,” she said. “I think he is a horrible person and he is probably using his houses for something illegal and he should be in jail, but I doubt he is the one we’re looking for.”

Rana looked at her with her eyebrows raised.

“Why do you say that?”

“His granddaughter—the one we saw him have a fight with—is a supporter of Dorian’s ideals and that’s why they were fighting,” she explained. “I think she would report him if he enslaved children, but just to be sure I want to ask her a few questions about her grandfather.”

Rana accepted her explanation. They walked together to the agency to write down their conclusions and decide how long to wait before interrogating Magister Erimond’s granddaughter—they didn’t want to make the old man suspicious by asking questions to the young woman a few hours after meeting him—when someone knocked at the door.

It was a young Shadow Dragon who was holding a piece of paper.

“Neve Gallus, a urgent message for you,” she said, handing her the paper.

Realizing what she was holding, Neve’s heart skipped a beat.

“Thank you,” she said, taking the paper. “Can you please wait a minute? I have a urgent message for the Viper, too.”

She scrabbled a note about Magister Erimond and his suspicious passage of property and to be ready with the best mages he could spare to crack the wards of the Magister’s houses and manors, because even if he wasn’t the person she and Rana were looking for, he was surely doing something involving Blood Magic.

Neve double checked the note for Ashur and gave it to the young Shadow Dragon, who ran back to the pawn shop.

She finally looked at the paper the woman had just given her and held her breath. It was an incredibly precise charcoal portrait of a child who could be six or seven-year-old, the details so accurate she would recognize the child at first glance.

“What is it?” Rana asked.

She showed her and together they hang it on the murder board. Neve looked at it and felt a kind of pain in her chest. His mother had been dead for over two months—almost three—and he’d been most likely enslaved by her murderer.

She remembered the conditions in which she found Enora and the idea that another child was suffering like her made her furious.

“We should go to investigate the other two Magisters,” she said.

Rana looked at her in a weird way. “Do you know what could make us spare time and resources?”

“What?”

“I don’t like it, I think it will be horrible,” Rana said. “But our best chance to close this story once for all is interrogating little Gallus.”

“Absolutely no.”

“Neve, please, I know it’s something horrible to make a child talk about her trauma, but she could help us save other children.”

“I told you no already,” Neve replied, harsher than she’d ever spoken to Rana in all the years they’d known each other. “Bel doesn’t want—”

“Are you serious? Are you really blaming Bellara?” Rana interrupted her with a disdaining laugh. “You can lie to me, but don’t lie to yourself: you’re not questioning Enora because you don’t want to.”

Neve had nothing to reply. Rana was right.

The former templar stepped closer to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “I understand you don’t want to interrogate your child. If it makes you feel better, I can do it for you.”

It would be so easy to give Rana the burden of being the one asking hard questions to Enora. Neve could just stay on the sideline as her friend took all the responsibility for the child’s pain.

She’d fought so hard to make sure Enora trusted her and knew she wasn’t like her former owner… and that was why she would be the one to do the questioning.

“I will do it, if we have no other choice,” Neve said slowly, avoiding her friend’s gaze. “But until then, Enora stays out of the case.”

Rana didn’t say anything, but her disapproval was clear.

She focused on the task at hand, pushing away her concerns for the future. If she would end up interrogating Enora, she would worry about it later.

Now, she would give her best to solve her case without involving the child.

“I think we should investigate Magisters Nihalis and Porenni separately.”

“I’ll go after Porenni,” Rana immediately said.

Neve wouldn’t have expected her to go after the one who threatened to kill her in a gruesome way and use her blood for dark spells.

And so they separated their ways.

Neve investigated more on Magister Nihalis, finding out things Rana couldn’t know from their meeting of so many years ago. Unlike Magister Erimond, Drusilla Nihalis didn’t have husband or children.

It stuck odd to Neve: she wasn’t one to believe that people needed to be married and procreate to be happy, but Magisters were obsessed with bloodlines and breeding the most powerful mages.

Magister Nihalis being childless at the age of forty-five was opposite to what conservative Tevene families believed and acted.

She decided to investigate more on this part of her life, but first, there was something else that Neve remembered from Rana’s tale.

The day after, she told Rana about her idea. Her friend only pursed her lips, but didn’t object to it.

“We can’t count on Rodric’s help for the time being,” Neve explained. “And, even if he wasn’t under investigation, he probably wouldn’t be able to help us with this.”

The former templar sighed.

“I’m not a fan of this idea, but you’re right. They’re the only ones who can help us.”

Neve went to the paper sellers, in the place where she knew she would find the man she was looking for.

“You’re still alive, then!” Elek shouted. He was leaning on a wall, but detached from it as he saw her coming. “I haven’t seen you in months.”

Neve smiled at him. “Sorry, I’ve been busy with Rana.”

It was only a half-truth. While her cases did keep her busy, in the last few years Neve had realized the Threads methods didn’t align with her anymore, so she’d reduced the collaboration with them unless it was strictly necessary.

“I’ve heard of your agency,” Elek said. “I know you’re investigating on a murder case.”

Neve nodded. No surprise someone from the Threads had traced rumors about her investigation.

“Threads always has good sources. I need your help to solve it.”

Elek smirked. “We’re friends—I think—but we don’t do favours for free.”

“You’ll be compensated,” Neve promised. “Do you know who Magister Drusilla Nihalis is?”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Yes, I know. Why?”

“I need you to find out if she is smuggling red lyrium, and if she is using slaves to do so. If our hypothesis is correct, Rana and I will arrest her and the Threads can keep whatever you can ransack from her mansion before the templars come to seize it.”

Elek seemed suddenly interested in the job.

“How is this related to your investigation?”

Neve hated having to say it out loud, for how she was disturbed by it. She briefly explained about the victims having children and them probably being kidnapped and enslaved by the person who murdered their parents.

“I am not leaving any lead unchecked, one of our theories is that she may be using those children to smuggle lyrium since she was already accused of something similar in the past.”

Elek’s expression changed into horror and disgust. He was a criminal, but Elek abhorred slavery as much as she did, especially if the slaves involved were children.

“We will work for you,” Elek said. “If she isn’t smuggling lyrium, how are you paying us?”

“Two hundred gold coins and you can keep every information you gather,” Neve promised.

How she would get that sum, would be something she would think about later.

Elek accepted the deal and left.

She hadn’t missed dealing with the Threads, but Elek could help her save children. And, for that Neve was ready to accept anyone’s aid.

***

Neve found herself more excited than she thought for the day when Bel and Enora came back home. She’d changed the bedsheets—she’d used her sex toys more than she’d done the rest of the year, thinking about Bel during each session, and she felt uncomfortable at the idea of Bellara sleeping in those bedsheets—and sealed again her private drawer.

She also prepared Enora’s bedroom, and left in her office more paper sheet she could draw on the next day.

Neve then tried to focus on her work and read the notes Rana had sent her, but she couldn’t think about anything that wasn’t Bel, how it would feel having her in her arms, in her bed…

No, she had to calm herself down. Just because she wanted Bel, it didn’t mean her friend felt the same.

When Neve got tired of pretending to work, she went to the pawn shop. When she arrived in the Eluvian room, she saw that Quintus was talking with other Shadow Dragons.

She touched his shoulder to attract his attention. “Dorian said you should check with him for your last mission.”

He blinked, then he addressed her with a smile.

“Oh! You’re right, thanks Neve.”

She wanted to ask him some more details, and when he was free for the beer he’d long since promised her, but Bellara and Enora walked out of the Eluvian in that moment and for Neve nothing else mattered. The child ran to her and Neve smiled as she knelt and let Enora pass her little arms around her neck.

“Neve! I missed you!”

There was something she couldn’t explain in being held by Enora like that.

“I missed you, too, da’len.”

Enora seemed happy about her answer, and held her closer. Neve glanced at Bel, who had now stepped closer and stared at them with a smile that sent Neve’s heart on a rampage, and to Quintus, who was looking at them in a weird way.

Neve realized what was happening.

It had to be painful for him to see her with Enora when he lost his son.

When Enora let her go, Neve was ready to say something to Quintus, but he’d already left. Neve didn’t have time to get upset about it, though: Bel hugged her, and that washed all the negative feelings from her.

She was sure Bel could feel her heartbeat against her own chest, and having her arms around made her feel as good as she’d never been.

How had she not realized her own feelings sooner?

“I’ve missed you,” Bel told her in her ear.

Neve felt warm chills go down her body, and just replied, “Me too.”

Reluctantly, she let Bel go. She was afraid she wouldn’t resist the temptation of kissing Bel if she was this close to her for a few moments more.

“Let’s go get fried fish?” Neve asked.

Enora almost bolted out the pawn shop, Neve laughed while she followed her. Bel walked next to her and she took Neve’s hand.

That simple, natural gesture made Neve’s heart go wild and she felt that usual weird sensation in her stomach, the one she’d always known it wasn’t desire but something different.

Now Neve knew what it was, but she didn’t have the courage to call it by its name.

“How has this week been?” Bel asked. “Enora and I had fun, you should have seen how happy she was! She played with other children, and she looked like she was having so much fun—oh, sorry, I’ve asked you a question and hadn’t let you answer it.”

Neve wanted to reach out, kiss her and tell her she’d listen to everything Bel would tell her. She needed all her self-control to not do it.

“Not bad, Rana and I made some progress on the investigation,” she just said. She didn’t want to talk about it in a public place and her friend seemed to understand it.

They got their fried fish and ate it as they came back home. Neve deactivated her wards, noticing that Enora was next to her. She wasn’t hiding or cowering.

The idea that she felt safe even when Neve used her magic caused her a happiness she wasn’t able to explain.

Neve and Bellara didn’t even need to talk about what to do; they understood each other with a little more than a gaze.

Bel started unpacking their backpacks, and Neve took Enora to bed.

Months ago, she wasn’t sure what to do. Her parents had never cared enough for her to tuck her in bed, and therefore she didn’t have any direct experience; but Neve had seen Bel do it many times, and she learned that it didn’t matter if it wasn’t perfect, it mattered that Enora knew she was taken care of.

The child was holding her stuffed halla and she looked at her with wide, curious eyes. “Will you tell me about your work?”

Neve ruffled her hair. “Not today, da’len.”

Enora looked a bit disappointed, but it didn’t last long: she turned on her side and fell asleep. Neve looked at her for a few moments, then she came back into her bedroom.

Bel had almost finished unpacking and Neve couldn’t help but asking, “Did you know that Enora’s last name is Gallus?”

“Yes, didn’t you know? I assumed you did it on purpose. I mean, you are an inspiration for Dock Town, if people know Enora is associated to you she would be safer.”

Neve smiled and sat on her bed to remove her metal leg and, like usual, Bel turned around to give her some privacy. She felt immediately better now that her stump wasn’t trapped into the prosthetic anymore, and she grabbed an elfroot cream to ease the soreness. As she put it on, Bel said, “Enora asked me something weird. When she met the other kids, I mean.”

That got Neve’s immediate attention.

“What did she ask?”

“She asked me if the other children were her comrades.”

Neve turned to her and raised her brows. “Comrades? As in, brothers in arms?”

Bel nodded.

“I know, right? She is too little to know that word, don’t you think?”

Neve thought about it as she put her protective sleeve on and changed into her night clothes. It was weird for a child to know that word, but also, as she and Bel were well aware, Enora hadn’t lived a normal childhood. 

She could have heard the word from the Venatori guarding her. Neve noted herself to tell Rana the day after.

She sat with her back against the headboard of the bed, noticing that Bel was wearing her night clothes too, and she’d untied her hair.

A part of Neve was sorry to have missed Bel change—

She chased away that thought.

“Probably she heard it when she was in her former owner’s house,” she said.

Bellara nodded, but didn’t lose her frown.

“Maybe you’re right.”

She hated seeing Bel with that expression, so she changed topic.

“How was the rest of your trip?”

Her friend beamed.

“Oh, it was amazing! Enora had a lot of fun and she made a lot of new friends, I wish you saw her.”

Neve instinctively smiled just imagining it.

“I wish it too. I’ve missed her.”

“She’s missed you, too,” Bel said.

That touched Neve more than she expected it to. She leaned forward.

“Really?”

Bellara smiled as she put some of her clothes in Neve’s drawers. “Of course! Enora talked about you all the time to the other children, she thinks you’re the coolest person alive.”

That warmed Neve’s heart. “What did she say?”

“She says you’re amazing because you hunt down bad people, you buy fried fish for her whenever she wants it, and you know all the cats in Dock Town.”

Neve chuckled and said, “I don’t know all the cats in Dock Town.“

Bel laughed, too, but then Neve remembered something Magister Erimond told her—and she was annoyed about how the man’s words cut this deep into her.

“She sees me as an infallible hero just because she is so young,” she said, unable to leave a bitter edge out of her tone.

“I don’t think so,” Bellara countered, taking place next to her. “I mean, you’re kind, you take care of people who can’t do it themselves and you give hope to the people of Dock Town. This is the real you, regardless of the age of who looks at you.”

The way she said it, like she was just explaining the mechanism of one of the ancient elven devices, made Neve’s heart flutter.

Bel was close to her. Just a few inches and she could kiss her.

Neve couldn’t resist.

She reached out and kissed Bel.

Her friend’s lips were as soft and warm, and Neve knew she would never be able to live without them on her own.

Her heart was going to explode in her chest, the feeling in her stomach stronger than ever, and her desire—

Bel’s eyes widened, and Neve took it as the signal that she didn’t want it. Venhedis, she should have thought about this chance.

Blushing in shame, Neve separated from her saying, “Sorry, Bel, I should have—”

Bellara interrupted her crushing their lips together. 

Neve’s heartbeat was out of control as Bellara sat on her lap, her thighs pressing at her sides, her tongue slipping in Neve’s mouth.

Pleasantly surprised, Neve let her lead as she let her hands wander on Bel’s hips. She finally touched her friend’s waist on top of her clothes, and she wanted to slip her hands under them.

Bel broke the kiss, and her pupils widened by desire worsened Neve’s warmth between her legs.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for years,” Bel panted in her ear. “But I didn’t dare in case you didn’t feel the same. If I knew you wanted it, too, I would have done it much sooner.”

Neve kissed her again and said, “I think I’ve been wanting to do it for a long time, too, but I’ve only recently realized it.”

Bel didn’t want to talk, though, and, to be honest, neither did Neve. She let Bellara kiss her again, and her hands slipped under Neve’s shirt.

She thought she would lose it as she felt Bel finally touch her breasts, her fingers circling her nipples.

Neve didn’t wait, either. She let her hands slip down Bel’s body and grabbed her ass firmly. Bel moaned in her mouth, and that sound aroused her even more.

“Touch me,” Neve moaned.

Bel squeezed her breasts, pressing her palms on her nipples. She let out another pleased sound, out of her throat.

“Neve—This is better than everything I’d ever imagined—”

Neve kissed her neck, and Bel ground her hips against her. It was amusing to see how much Bel was aroused for her, but also gratifying.

“What did you imagine?“

“To touch your breasts,” Bel moaned in her ear. “To suck your nipples. To eat you out until you come hard.”

The fire in Neve’s belly was unstoppable.

“Do it,” she breathed out. “Please, just do it.”

Bel took off her shirt and finally, finally she started sucking her nipple. Neve moaned and tightened her hold on Bellara’s firm ass.

Bel’s tongue flicked on her nipple, another jolt of pleasure shot down her belly.

“It’s so good,” she panted. “You’re so good.”

Neve realized that clothes were too much. Bel was too dressed.

She needed to be naked and she wanted to see the other woman bare, too. She wanted Bel to move lower and do the exact things she was doing to her nipple on her clit—

Bel suddenly froze and climbed down of her muttering, “Mythal’enaste! Neve, put your shirt back on, fast!”

Neve got a hint of why and wore her shirt just in time: she heard a knock on the door.

That alone killed Neve’s arousal.

“Come in, da’len,” Bel said, after making sure they were both decent.

Enora walked in holding the stuffed halla and said something in elven, to which Bellara replied in the same language. Then, Bellara addressed Neve with an apologetic expression.

“Sorry, I should have considered this possibility.”

Neve couldn’t resist, she kissed her. It was a chaste kiss, just a brief peck on the lips, but Neve realized what she’d done in front of the child.

Enora, though, didn’t seem impressed by that. Neve wondered if they should explain how their relationship changed to the child, but maybe there was no need for it.

After all, Rana told her that what she and Bel had wasn’t just friendship. Maybe, that simple truth had been obvious to Enora, too.

The only thing that would actually change for Enora, would be that she and Bel would now hold more in front of her and give each other occasional kisses.

“Don’t apologize,” Neve said, “I’ve missed having Enora here.”

She didn’t say they had all the time in the world to do other things, and they would find the right chance to do it, but Bel seemed to understand it regardless and whispered a thanks.

“Neve? Will you hold me?” Enora asked.

She couldn’t stop the rush of tenderness and happiness.

“Of course,” Neve said.

As the child took place next to her, Neve asked her, “Who did you miss more: me or the cats?”

Enora was thoughtful for a few moments and Neve said, playfully, “Do you have to think about it?”

Enora giggled, which made Bel laugh.

Neve had been forced to admit Rana was right about her feelings for Bel, but she realized her friend was also right about Enora. Damn her, she wasn’t ready to give Enora up. She wanted to keep her, protect her, and raise her with Bel.

“I missed you more,” Enora said.

Neve lay on her side and passed an arm around the child. “Do you want to see the cats tomorrow?”

“Yes!”

Neve looked at Bel. Her friend—no, her amata—smiled.

She was as happy as she hadn’t been in years.

Chapter Text

Octavia Erimond, unlike her grandfather, recognized Neve the moment she opened the front door and saw her.

“You’re Neve Gallus! I’ve read so much about you, I’ve never thought I’d meet you in person someday.”

Her words weren’t filled with hatred, but rather with an admiration that took Neve by surprise. She would have never imagined that kind of welcome from a member of a Venatori Magister’s family.

It made her a bit awkward, but also hopeful.

“Yes, that’s me,” she confirmed, then gestured towards Rana. “She’s Rana Savas, my coworker.”

The younger woman politely introduced herself, and let them come into her house.

At the age of twenty-one, Neve could only afford a small and cramped room in a moldy basement; Octavia Erimond, instead, lived in a big estate gifted by her rich grandfather and lived off generational wealth.

The house looked like what a young woman with loads of money would have, with expensive paintings and decorations on the walls and furniture that probably cost as much as Neve’s current apartment, and nothing out of the ordinary. But Neve had learned long ago that appearances could be deceiving, so as Rana explained the reason of their visit, Neve took the chance to use her magic to scan the place looking for Blood Magic traces.

She found none, thankfully.

The young woman guided them towards a living room where an elf—a paid servant, not a slave Neve noticed with satisfaction—took them freshly made coffee. As she sat down on the table, Neve saw a newspaper opened on the page of the latest issue of The Hardest Choice.

She repressed her chuckles imagining how Magister Erimond would react if he knew his granddaughter was a fan of a serial about love between a qunari and a Fereldian written by an elf.

Neve grabbed the mug the servant was offering her, but didn’t take it to her lips. The young woman looked nice, but she wouldn’t run the risk of being poisoned.

“We’d like to ask you more questions about your grandfather’s activities,” Rana said. “It may be important for a case we’re working on.”

Neve carefully observed the young woman’s reaction to that. She stiffened slightly and didn’t meet Rana’s eyes.

She knew something.

“Grandfather doesn’t inform me on his business,” Octavia said. “I’m sorry, it’s great meeting Neve Gallus in person, but I can’t help you.”

Neve leaned forward. “I saw you argue with Magister Erimond the other day. We know you aren’t in good terms.”

Her words had a visible effect on the younger woman. She immediately looked at her nails like they were the most interesting thing in the room.

“Grandfather and I don’t see eye to eye lately,” she admitted. “But he is my family. I won’t betray him.”

Neve gave Rana a look and a slight nod. Her friend took the chance to talk.

“It’s clear how much you disagree with him. You have servants here, not slaves. Am I right?”

“It’s…” Octavia Erimond blushed like she was about to confess something mortifying. “I agree with Archon Pavus, slavery is abhorrent. I’m uncomfortable at the idea of owning another person.”

Neve wondered how fucked up family Erimond had to be for the young woman in front of her to feel ashamed for rejecting slave ownership.

“You’re alright,” she reassured her. “This should be the main line of thought here in Minrathous. Everyone in Tevinter should be free.”

That seemed to put the young Erimond at ease.

“My family only talks about the glory of old Tevinter, they would disown me for even thinking slavery is wrong.”

“No one supports you, then?” Rana asked.

Octavia shook her head. “My cousin thinks like me, but he is younger than me and he is far away now. He can’t be of much help.”

Rana attracted Neve’s attention by tapping her notebook with a pen. Her friend had only written a word there and underlined it twice.

Nessum.

Neve nodded. Octavia was talking about the only other grandchild of Magister Erimond old enough to inherit a house.

“So you’re isolated,” she said. “It’s easy for your family to pressure you into not reporting them, but if you help us, you’ll save many lives.”

The flash of worry in the young woman’s eyes was the signal that Neve hit the mark.

“If they find out I talked with you, I’m scared disowning will be the least of my worries.”

“No one will ever know the information came from you,” Rana reassured her. “Neve and I won’t ever mention your name.”

“We know already your grandfather is using Blood Magic,” Neve added. “We just need to find the proof he is doing something illegal.”

Octavia hesitated again, then she sighed and asked, “Will you assure me no one will know where this information is coming from? Even if you arrest Grandfather, my parents, aunts and uncles will be furious.”

Neve’s heart went heavy.

“We know people who can protect you,” she said. “No one will know you’re our source.”

Octavia Erimond sighed.

“Grandfather never accepted that Archon Pavus forced him to give up his slaves. I think he somehow got new slaves and is now trying to use Blood Magic to regain control on the ones he lost.”

Neve’s heart stopped.

“Can you tell us anything else?” Rana asked. “Every little detail can help us.”

Neve was glad her friend had spoken for her, because she was unable to get words out of her throat.

“I think he is using Blood Magic crystals for some kind of ritual,” Octavia said. “I found some when I inherited this house and I’ve destroyed them.”

Neve forced herself to speak her mind. “You did the right thing. Thank you for your collaboration.”

Rana got up, followed by her.

“I love Grandfather,” Octavia said, as she stood up too. “I just—I can’t approve his ideals or his actions.”

Neve couldn’t help but feel some deep compassion for the younger woman. After all, she hadn’t chosen to be born in a Venatori family.

“Families are complex,” she said. “You’re doing the right thing, even though they may never forgive you.”

The elven servant escorted them outside.

She and Rana had known each other for so long they didn’t need to speak. They would talk about Octavia Erimond’s declarations in the agency or in the Shadow Dragons’ hideout, in a safe place where no one else could overhear them.

“Shit, the Magisterium is in session today,” Rana said.

Neve glanced at the square where she saw several people wearing Magister’s clothes walking towards the elevators of the Archon’s Palace. She recognized Magister Erimond, of course, but she hadn’t seen the other two—they’ve only been two names on several papers, until now.

Magister Nihalis didn’t look her age; she walked with the confidence of a woman who’d lived past forty, but one would have never guessed her real age. Neve wondered if she used Blood Magic to keep herself younger.

Magister Porenni, instead, was younger than she expected him. She knew he’d become Magister at twenty-one, after his father suddenly died, and she remembered people talking about the young Magister who blocked one of the main squares in Minrathous when he’d been asked to free his slaves, but Neve was still surprised to see a man in his late twenties.

He was smiling and talking with Magister Nihalis, who had her arm wrapped around his.

“Do you think they’re fucking?” Rana asked.

She was looking at the other woman with a terror Neve had never seen on her face. After all, there weren’t many people who threatened the former templar to cut her open and use her blood for Blood Magic who were also able to get away with any legal consequences if they did.

“Could be,” Neve said, and kept observing them.

Magister Erimond joined them, and the three of them talked to each other as they walked to the elevators.

If Neve believed in a Maker, she would have prayed Him to strike all the three assholes down.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Rana followed her to Dock Town, and only when they were back in their agency Neve said, “Well, we now know if those three bastards aren’t friends, at least they talk to each other.”

“And if one finds out we’re investigating on them, they’ll tell the others.”

Neve felt her whole body stop functioning. She realized how stupid she’d been to talk to Magister Erimond personally, because if he hadn’t recognized her maybe his two associates would, and what if she put some children at risk—

“Neve, are you alright?”

“No,” she just said. “What if my meeting with Erimond last week has consequences?”

“We just have to find out quick which of them is our suspect,” Rana said. “Maybe you could just ask Enora if she remembers if her owner was a man or a woman—”

“We’re not dragging her into the case yet,” Neve interrupted her.

Rana said nothing, but she couldn’t make her thoughts clearer.

Deep inside, Neve knew she was right. She should question Enora, and take the burden of asking who was her former owner and all the pieces of information that would help them solve her case, but the idea of the pain she would cause her…

No. She could solve this without interrogating Enora.

“What did you discover about Magister Porenni?” she asked to change the topic.

“Not much,” Rana replied. “He is obsessed with the glory of Tevinter reborn—but all the Venatori are. I think he corrupted some templars for something, but I couldn’t find out what for exactly and now Rodric can’t help me from the inside.”

Neve nodded. She wrote all the new information on several notes and hang them all on the board.

She shot a look at Rana, who had just finished writing down Octavia Erimond’s confession. Two years ago, Tarquin had asked them to always let Rana write the reports longer than a few names or places.

“Her handwriting is so much better to read,” he’d told Neve. She was sure it had been one of the first moments where they both understood they’d be great friends.

As the former templar finished writing, Neve retrieved the Shadow Dragons reports she’d borrowed a few weeks ago. They left the agency together to the direction of the pawn shop.

They reached Tarquin first, who was with other younger Shadow Dragons, but as soon as he saw them he took his leave.

“Here are the reports I’ve borrowed,” Neve said. “Thank you.”

The man took them and said, “I haven’t found any organization with your symbol, but I want to keep it for some more time, if you both don’t mind.”

“Not a problem at all,” Rana said.

Tarquin then looked at Neve with a grin. “We haven’t had the chance to catch up yet, you have to tell me about little Gallus.”

“Unlike Neve, she is a joy to be around,” Rana said.

“So nothing like her mother?”

“I haven’t said that because I don’t want to accidentally offend Bellara.”

“I need better friends,” Neve cut them both off.

The former templars both chuckled, but Rana was the first to go back serious. “We have to tell you and the Viper the new development of our case, as soon as he’s available.”

“I think he is almost done with a meeting, wait a minute.”

Tarquin quickly came back to them with Ashur, and Neve and Rana told them both about what they discovered from Octavia Erimond. The Viper took the papers Rana handed him saying, “I will talk to Dorian and Maevaris to decide the best plan to move forward.”

“Did you find any of the slaves from the records? Maybe they know something we don’t.”

Ashur shook his head.

“Most of them left Minrathous the moment they got their freedom. We can’t find the ones who stayed.”

Neve ignored the cold sensation that overcame her. Maybe they didn’t want to be found and talk about the fucked up things their former masters used to do.

But what Octavia Erimond said about her grandfather trying to get back in control of the slaves…

“Thank you,” she said. “Please, let me know if you find any of them.”

“Of course.”

Neve and Rana took their leave, and as they walked to the agency the former templar asked, “Did you finally fuck with Bellara?”

Neve was so surprised by the question she almost tripped.

“What?!”

Rana grinned even more. “That smile you have since this morning. It would almost be annoying, if it didn’t prove I was right all the time.”

Neve’s mind went to the hot make out last night, but she forced herself to focus on the street she was walking on. She didn’t want to think about it with Rana next to her, but she couldn’t miss the chance of annoying the former templar.

“Well, we didn’t go all the way through—”

“For the love of Andraste, Neve, that wasn’t an invitation to share the details of your sex life,” Rana interrupted her.

Neve chuckled, but soon came back serious. She and Bel had discussed it earlier that morning, but now she found out she wasn’t sure how to ask for it.

“I need a favour.”

Rana raised her eyebrows. “What do you need?”

Neve took a deep breath.

“I need you to keep Enora for the night.”

The former templar stopped dead in her tracks.

“Neve, for the love of our Lady Andraste, have you hit your head?”

Neve knew how she would sound. “Please, Rana, it’s just for tonight. Enora is a very quiet kid.”

Rana sighed. 

“You had years to have sex with Bellara, and yet, you chose to do it only after you had a child.”

She didn’t want to beg Rana, but the idea of finally having Bel naked under her, her mouth on her clit, her fingers inside... “I will do anything you ask me.”

Rana looked like she was weighting the proposal.

“I can think about a couple of favours,” she said eventually. “I will keep your child tonight.”

Neve couldn’t stop the excitement. She could make Bel be as loud as she wanted because no one else would hear her, but there was another thing she needed to tell Rana.

“There’s also another thing.”

Rana scoffed. “Are you seriously asking me something more than keeping your kid overnight?”

“You need to check your apartment for spiders, and in case there are, you have to clear them out.”

The former templar waited for something, but then she said, “Wait, are you serious?”

“Yes. Enora has trauma related to spiders.”

Neve was sure her friend would do it now that she knew the reason of that odd request. Rana was one of the best people she knew, after all.

“Alright, I’ll do it. But you owe me a huge favour.”

Neve hugged her. Rana went rigid: it was something she usually didn’t do.

“Thank you, Rana,” Neve said. 

The former templar hesitantly held her back.

“I’m doing this only because little Gallus is cute, not for you.”

“Nevertheless, I’m still grateful,” Neve said as she let the other woman go. “I’m going to the Swan for lunch, do you want to come?”

“No, thank you. One of us must work while you have lunch with your lover and your child.”

Neve thanked her again and left.

Bel was waiting for her at their usual table in the Cobbled Swan, with Enora sitting next to her, and Neve kissed her on the lips to say hello.

“You’re kissing all the time now,” Enora said.

Neve ruffled her hair as she sat next to the child. “This is what adults do.”

Enora scoffed. “You didn’t do it before.”

Neve shot a questioning look to Bel, surprised by that reaction. Her amata seemed as surprised as she was, and asked the child something in elven.

Enora kept her gaze on the table as she said something in the same language. When she finished speaking, Bel held her close and whispered something in elven.

“What’s going on?” Neve asked.

Enora let Bel go, but her amata still kept tracing soothing circles on the child’s back.

“She was worried that we would stop caring about her if we are too busy being affectionate with each other. I mean, she said it in simpler words, but that’s what she meant.”

The need to protect Enora was stronger than ever.

Neve took off her hat and put it on Enora’s head. The child looked at her, surprised, and she said, “Only people I really care about can wear it. Don’t let anyone else touch it.”

“Not even Bel?” the child asked.

“No, Bel can’t touch it. Only you, da'len.”

Enora looked excited to have something to share only with her, and Neve winked at her amata. Bel mouthed, You’re amazing, but she said something else out loud.

“You look like a little Gallus, Enora.”

Oh, Maker.

“Please, I have to put up with Rana all day,” Neve complained. “Don’t start talking like her.”

Enora looked at them both, confused. “A little Gallus?”

Sometimes, Neve forgot that Enora didn’t know things she and Bel took for granted. Her amata started speaking elven—they’d decided long ago that, when they needed to explain a new concept, Bel would be the one doing so in elven for simplicity.

As the waitress took them their usual order, Bel finished speaking. Enora turned to her and said, “I have your last name.”

“Yes, da’len,” Neve said. “Do you like it?”

Enora nodded. “Yes.”

Bellara put her hand on the child’s shoulder. “You know now that we will always protect you, da’len. If we’re more—uh—romantic with each other, it doesn’t mean we love you any less.”

That finally seemed to put Enora at ease. When they finished their lunch, as promised, Neve took Enora to see the cats, and the child soon started playing with them.

It was so cute to see the child run back and forth with her hat. Neve smiled like an idiot, and, if that wasn’t enough, Bel pulled her towards herself and kissed her.

She felt almost drunk on her happiness, something she’d never experienced before.

“I’ve missed you all morning,” Bel murmured on her lips.

The tone she said it in made Neve feel wet between her legs.

Neve kissed Bel again and said, “Rana accepted. She is watching Enora tonight.”

She saw her amata’s cheek go red.

The awareness that Bellara wanted her just as much as Neve did was enough to send her crazy. How was she supposed to wait until tonight?

“Let’s go tell her,” Bel said.

Neve took her hand and followed Enora, who had barely noticed them and was having fun with cats after one week away from them.

She could have never imagined something so perfect.

***

Even though she’d been with Rana only once, Enora was fine with spending the night at her place.

“Rana is nice, she will treat you well,” Bel told the child. “And we’ll pick you up tomorrow after breakfast.”

“She is also a fighter, she can protect you too,” Neve added.

The child seemed fine with it, as long as they packed her stuffed halla. They both took her to the apartment not far away from the barracks—choice that hadn’t surprised Neve at all.

Bel had a meeting with her publisher, so Neve walked Enora to Rana’s place alone. The former templar welcomed her with a courteous hello, but she smiled to Enora.

“Are you happy to be here tonight?”

“Yes!”

“Behave with Auntie Rana,” Neve told her.

Enora came in and Rana looked at Neve with her eyebrows raised. “Auntie Rana?”

“Don’t you like the nickname?” she grinned.

The former templar sighed. “There aren’t spiders inside, by the way. Your child is safe.”

Neve felt a gratitude she never had for anyone in her life. Of course, she was sure Rana would do it, but seeing how much her friend cared about Enora was amazing.

“Thank you.”

“Wait before thanking me,” Rana replied with a grin. “Do you remember the favour you owe me?”

Neve had a bad feeling about it. “Yes, why?”

“A man working for Magister Porenni is going to meet someone in the Garden tonight, I think it’s for some illicit business. I would follow him myself, but a friend asked me to keep her kid tonight…”

Neve rolled her eyes. “Alright, I’ll do it.”

“The waitress told me where they would be sitting, I’ve booked a table for Gallus,” Rana said.

Neve said goodbye and left, directed to the newspaper’s location. She met Bel halfway and kissed her deeply.

Now that the child wasn’t around, she felt more comfortable with these displays of love. No matter that they were in the middle of a street, she let her tongue slide into Bel’s mouth.

She’d waited too much for that. The kiss, finally having Bel in her arms… it all awoke Neve’s desire.

To her surprise, it was Bel who broke the kiss.

“I’m sorry, Neve, if you keep going like this I will want to do things that aren’t appropriate in public. Sorry, was that too blunt?”

Neve chuckled on her lips. “No, Bel. I feel the same.”

Her amata couldn’t resist kissing her on the lips.

“Do you want to go home?”

Neve wanted nothing more than that and finally have sex with Bel, but she had to do something else first.

“Do you want to have dinner at the Garden instead?”

Her amata accepted immediately.

The restaurant was busy, but as soon as Neve said her last name, the waitress took them to a table. Neve had to admit Rana chose it well: it was right behind the one where two men were talking to each other.

Neve sat from where she could look at the other table, and took a look at the menu. It was a fancier place than the Cobbled Swan and Neve was glad that she’d taken Bel there for their first official date—even if it was for a tail.

They ordered their dishes and, as soon as the waitress left, Bel started talking. Neve was always interested in what she had to say, especially when it was about her serials and the shenanigans with her publishers, but she only vaguely registered that the last few issues of A Trevisan Matter had sold much more than their predictions and next fall she could start publishing the spin-off about Ivano’s redemption journey.

She was too busy keeping an eye on the men behind her amata, trying to figure out what was going on. One looked calm, confident—like he had the upper hand in whatever was going on. The other one looked at ease, so there was no threat going on.

“What do you think?”

Neve blinked and looked at Bel. She hadn’t been following anything of what she’d said, she realized with guilt.

“Sorry, Bel, what did you say?”

Her amata frowned. “Neve, what are you—”

She followed Neve’s gaze and was about to turn around, but Neve reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Don’t, please. The man behind you works for one of the Magisters we’re investigating.”

Bellara’s expression turned to pure excitement. “Are we working on your case?” she whispered. “Do you need me to do anything? No, wait—let’s act natural. Let’s just talk about something two normal people would—oh gods, that’s suspicious, isn’t it?”

Neve smiled.

“If you can move your chair two inches to your left, it would really help me. I’m trying to figure out what is going on.”

“Oh, they’re discussing about a price,” Bel said, as she did what Neve asked her.

That attracted her attention. Of course, her amata was an elf and she was able to hear what the men on the other table were saying.

“Are you sure?” she whispered.

“Yes, one of them wants to lower the price to two-hundred gold pieces, and—Mythal’enaste, do you think they’re discussing the price of a slave?”

Bel had lowered her voice as she reached Neve’s same horrible conclusion.

“Knowing who one of them is working for, I wouldn’t be surprised,“ Neve replied. “Can you please listen to what they’re saying? It could help us.”

Bel nodded, and stayed silent while she listened to the other table’s conversation. The two men got up, shook their hands and left.

“They agreed on one-hundred and fifty gold pieces,” Bel said. “But they never mentioned what for—I fear they were talking about slaves, indeed.”

Neve noted to herself to tell Rana the day after, but the waitress arrived with their order. She didn’t want to spoil the mood with Bel, though.

“Let’s talk about something else,” she said. “I don’t want to ruin our first date.”

Bel’s whole face glowed up. “Of course! Did you know I’ve heard from Taash? I haven’t told them about Enora, of course, but it was so nice to hear from them—”

They spent the rest of the dinner talking about their friends, and Bel gave her another rundown of the shenanigans with the publisher and her serials that Neve hadn’t been listening to earlier.

When they were done, they paid—leaving a generous tip for the waitress—and they left the place. They made it one street over until Neve couldn’t resist kissing her amata.

They walked back home, but every few steps Neve couldn’t stop herself from kissing Bel, holding her, touching her. Her amata pulled her into passionate kisses too, with her hands touching Neve from above her clothes.

It was too much, the heat was pooling in her lower belly and it was too strong—

She couldn’t wait until she went back to her apartment.

She wanted Bellara now.

Neve turned into a dark alley, her hand in her amata’s, and pushed Bel against the wall. She pressed herself against the other woman’s body and murmured in her ear, “Bel, I need to fuck you right now.”

Her amata’s golden-brown eyes shone with her same desire. “Me too. I want to do it—”

Neve interrupted her with a kiss. She couldn’t help herself: she knew that Bel wanted it, too, but hearing her spell it out loud was too much for her.

She grabbed her amata’s waist and explored her hips. She let her hands go up and touched her breasts.

Bel held her breath and Neve wanted her even more.

“Wait, there’s something I have to tell you.”

Neve looked at her with curiosity. What could Bel possibly want to tell her right now?

“What is it, Bel?”

“I lied,” Bellara said. “I mean—when you asked me why I never wrote a serial about you. I didn’t because I thought you would figure out how I really felt—how I really feel—about you.”

Neve kissed her again. Bel had this way of making her discover she was wrong every time she thought she couldn’t want her more than she already did.

Touching Bel from above her clothes wasn’t enough anymore. All she needed was a nod from Bel and a whisper that said, “Yes, Neve, do it.”

Neve didn’t waste time in slipping her hand inside Bel’s pants and past her underclothes. Finding Bellara so wet was a pleasant surprise that made her moan. 

Her amata did the same, and Neve, after spreading her legs some more to give her space, felt her fingers explore her wet folds.

Did Bel realize the effect she had on her? Did she know she would always find her so wet for her?

For a moment, the other woman looked at her, concerned.

“Aren’t we going to be in trouble? I mean, having sex here—”

Neve didn’t let her finish her sentence: she slid two fingers inside Bellara, and her amata let out a long moan. 

She wanted—no, needed—to hear that sound again. 

“Trust me, Bel, Minrathous has bigger problems than two people fucking in an alley,” she groaned in her ear. 

Bellara was so warm and tight, but she was mostly wet. Neve could slide in and out easily, feeling her fingers clenched by her amata’s wet entrance.

Bel didn’t make her wait: she pushed two fingers inside, a very welcome intrusion. Neve let out a high sound.

Having Bellara finally inside was amazing.

Neve didn’t waste time with teasing: she needed an orgasm now. Her fingers thrust fast and hard, and Bel moaned, which made her thrust harder into Neve.

They were moving in perfect sync, her fingers pushing deep inside Bel every time she felt the other woman’s fingers do the same. She didn’t care that people may hear her, she let her pleasure be vocal and loud.

She pressed herself on Bel even more, her pleasure driving her crazy.

She wanted—

She moaned as she felt a third finger slip inside, enjoying the burn of the stretch, but that sound made Bel stop.

“I’m so sorry, are you alright? Do you want me to pull it out?”

“No, I want you to stretch me out,” Neve groaned in her ear. She used her magic to lower to create ice on her fingers, and Bel inhaled sharply. “Do you like it?”

“Yes,” Bel panted. “Yes, Neve, I love it.”

She didn’t need to hear more. She thrust hard and fast inside her amata, and she felt Bel do the same, her pleasure increasing as she saw her amata moan and squirm from too much pleasure.

Neve felt her climax approaching more and more, and Bel was the one making her feel like that, and stretching her out with three fingers, and taking her icy fingers—

She let out a high-pitched cry when she came. For a moment, she stopped moving her fingers; the only thing Neve could do was move her hips to meet more of Bel’s fingers.

Her amata was close too, she realized, and Neve kept using her fingers to fuck her until she felt Bel arch her back and let out a high-pitched sound.

They needed a few moments to take deep breaths. Neve rested her forehead against Bel’s, looking at her in the eyes.

“I’m sorry, Bel,” she said eventually.

“For what? You have nothing to apologize, vhe—Neve.”

Neve’s heart almost exploded at the hinted syllabe. Davrin had taught her that word years ago, back when she thought she would never hear it referred to herself, and the idea that Bel would call her that—

She had to answer her question first.

“This is our first night without Enora and I should have done something more romantic than dragging you into my case and having sex in a back alley. I should have taken you in an expensive place in Hightown, and had our bed ready with rose petals and candles—” 

Bellara used her free hand to pull her in for a kiss. Neve didn’t mind being interrupted like that.

“Don’t worry, the case was exciting,” she said. “And as for sex…”

She smirked. Neve was sure she’d just clenched again around Bel’s fingers still buried inside her.

“We have the rest of the night for ourselves. We can do many other things, and I want to see you naked—if you want it, too, I mean.”

“I want to,” Neve said, maybe a bit too hastily. “Let’s go home. I want to fuck you until we’re too tired to go on.”

Bel brushed her clit and she moaned.

“I want that, too. And I want to hear more of this sound.”

Oh, it was going to be an amazing night.

***

Waking up naked next to Bel—also bare—was even better than Neve had imagined.

Not only she’d had plenty of time to admire Bel’s body last night, she also made sure to keep her promise. They’d had sex until they were too exhausted to do anything but fall asleep.

It had been one of the best nights in Neve’s life.

Now, having Bel asleep next to her, was just beautiful. Her amata, whose thoughts were fast and raced in her mind, was peaceful and calm, a way Neve rarely saw her.

She wondered if Bellara felt the same when she slept after weeks of working on her cases.

Neve had no time to ponder that question herself: Bel stirred and woke up, fixing her gaze on her with a smile.

“Good morning,” her amata said, still half-asleep.

“It is a great morning with you naked next to me,” Neve replied, kissing her on the lips.

Bel giggled and kissed her again.

“We should probably leave this bed.”

But how could she with Bel naked in her bed, kissing her, and touching her? Her desire was raising in her belly, and the last thing she wanted to do was leave Bel’s embrace.

Neve took a look at the clock to check the time. “We still have a couple of hours before getting Enora back, and…” she kissed Bel’s neck, making her moan, as her hands went down touching her waist and thighs. “How am I supposed to go on with my day now that I know how amazing you are with your tongue?”

Bel’s eyes shone with desire. “Sit on my face.”

Neve didn’t need to be told twice. She wanted to feel Bel’s expert tongue inside her again.

As she passed one of her thighs around her amata’s head, she asked, “Have you ever imagined this?“

“Many more times than I can count,” she replied. “It was one of my favourite fantasies when I touched myself—”

Neve didn’t let her finish her sentence. She shut her up sitting on her face, aligning her entrance with Bel’s mouth.

She needed to be satisfied after the confession.

Bel didn’t mind at all being interrupted like that: she started licking her the moment Neve pressed herself against her.

Neve held her breath. Her amata was amazing.

Bel’s tongue explored her, licking her wet folds and pushing inside. It was so good—

Neve moaned and ground herself more on Bel’s face. Her amata grabbed her thighs firmly and let her tongue wander around Neve’s labia.

Neve needed a few more moments to understand she was avoiding her clitoris on purpose.

“Bel, please, lick my clit,” she panted, grounding herself on Bellara’s face.

Her amata finally started giving her attention to her clitoris, licking and finally sucking. Neve wondered if she should feel ashamed for how close she was already, but how could she be when Bel was so amazing?

She was so lost in pleasure she realized Bel had take off her hand from her thigh when Neve felt two of her amata’s fingers slid inside her.

Neve came arching her back when her amata curled her fingers to touch her in the perfect spot while still sucking her clit—

“Yes,” she moaned, trying to ground herself more on Bel. When she came down from her orgasm, with her shaking legs she climbed off Bel, and she saw that the other woman was licking her orgasm away from her lips.

Even though she’d just came, the sight lit again the desire in her belly. But first, she wanted Bel to have an amazing orgasm, too.

“Spread your legs wide.”

Her amata obeyed and Neve admired the sight. To have Bel so ready to give herself to her, her fold so wet—

Neve had never seen sex as nothing more than something to calm down a physical need, nothing she’d given much thought to.

But that was before she understood how much being desired by another person affected her. Having Bellara so wet and ready for her was more arousing than Neve would have ever imagined.

She gave her amata a long lick—a sharp inhale followed it, making her desire Bel even more—but, for how intoxicating her amata’s taste was, she thrust three fingers inside.

Bel let out a high-pitched moan, but Neve gave her some time to get used to the stretch. Only when she saw Bel’s body relaxing she started thrusting inside her.

She was too aroused to go slow; she thrusted in fast and hard, and Bel only encouraged to do so. Her moans were higher, her breath ragged, her “Yes,” and “Harder,” the sweetest music to Neve’s ears.

She saw Bel arch her back as she came, feeling her tighten against her fingers.

When her amata finally relaxed, Neve took her fingers out of her, and kissed Bel deeply.

She would never leave the bed.

But they had to: they finally got up, washed themselves and, when they were both presentable, Neve started making coffee for herself and tea for her amata.

Bel came behind her and hugged her, pressing a kiss on her shoulder.

“Thanks for making breakfast.”

“After all the amazing sex, I should make you a whole meal,” Neve replied. 

The other woman left another kiss on her skin, this time closer to her neck.

“There’s no need for that, vhenan,” Bel said, but then she had to realize what she’d just said. “Oh, I’m sorry, maybe it’s too early to say it, but that word has always been on my mind about you and—Mythal’enaste, I’m making this even more awkward—”

“Bel, it’s not awkward,” she interrupted her. “It’s alright, amata.”

She turned so that Bellara could finally kiss her properly. Neve knew she could never give this up now; Bel’s lips would always be a drug for her.

She forced herself to separate from her, and Neve poured their drinks in two mugs. As soon as she sat on the table, her amata said, “I want to talk. Don’t worry, it’s not a bad thing—I think.”

Neve smiled. “Is it about us being officially a couple? Because I’ve taken that for granted the first night we almost had sex.”

“No, it’s not that—I mean, I took that for granted too, so it would have been awkward if you didn’t feel the same.” Bel took a deep breath. “I want to talk about Enora.”

That took all Neve’s attention.

“Did something happen?”

“No, nothing happened. It’s… I don’t want to look for a family for her,” Bel said, taking Neve’s hand. “I want to take care of Enora and raise her with you—if you agree, of course.”

Neve couldn’t help but kiss her.

“I think we made that decision when we gave her your grandmother’s name,” Neve said. “We both have a strong bond with her now, and I don’t want to be separated from her for good.”

Bellara smiled against her lips.

“There’s something I haven’t told you about the camping.”

That arose Neve’s curiosity. “What happened?”

“The other Veil Jumpers talked about Enora as Bellara’s daughter, and I liked it. I think that’s when I realized I wanted to raise her. But I was also worried because I didn’t want you to feel pressured to keep Enora.”

Neve kissed her again, then looked at her in the eye to show Bel all her honesty. “I want her. When I found out she’d had my last name all along it was one of the best moments in the last few years.”

Bel smiled and when they separated, she asked, “Shall we go? Rana and Enora are waiting for us.”

“Yes, let me write down what we discovered last night first.”

Bel followed her in the office, where she took a look to the board. “Why is it weird that Drusilla Nihalis doesn’t have children?”

“Well, families like hers are obsessed with the idea of breeding the most powerful mages,“ Neve explained. “I don’t think she has any motherly instinct, but she would want to have a powerful mage in her family.”

Bel was looking at the board, thoughtful. Neve knew her friend was connecting some dots, so she waited for her to elaborate.

“I think I have an idea, but it may be something stupid.”

“Tell me anyway,” Neve said. “You may give me a different perspective, even if it’s not the correct guess.”

“You said she doesn’t have children, and mind that this comes form me reading a lot of serials and writing them, but…” Bel gestured at the records open on Neve’s desk. “These only prove that she doesn’t have legitimate children.”

Venhedis.

It was something far-fetched, but also—

Magister Nihalis was cruel enough to have children only to use them as slaves. Neve wouldn’t put it behind her.

She had been accused of smuggling lyrium before, and Neve knew for a fact she used to own slaves.

Which more loyal slaves could she have than her own children, then?

It was such a sick idea that Neve felt her coffee turn into her stomach, but it fit Magister Nihalis perfectly.

“Shit,” she said, grabbing a paper sheet and writing frantically on it. “You gave me a very good lead, Bel.”

Her amata smiled, but for how much Neve wanted to admire her beautiful expression, she needed to write.

“Do you think you’re close to arrest them? The murderer, I mean.”

“I hope so,“ Neve replied. “I just want to see Enora’s former owner in jail.”

“You will find them and kick their ass,” Bel said.

Neve chuckled as she checked what she’d written on the paper, and then asked Bel, “Shall we go?”

On the walk to Rana’s apartment, they stopped by the Central Market and checked the various booths hand in hand. Neve saw a necklace with a cat pendant and she bought it immediately. She talked to Bel about what she wanted to do and her amata approved it.

Validated by her lover, Neve found an isolated bench where she murmured some enchantments, with Bel commenting on her choices or giving better alternatives.

Finally, they arrived to Rana’s apartment just in time. Enora ran to Bel and hugged her, as Neve said, “Thank you, Rana.”

The former templar addressed her with a smile that promised bad things for the proper time. “You were right, Neve. She is a good kid to look after.”

“I told you so.”

Rana didn’t even roll her eyes, she ignored her and said goodbye to Enora.

Bel thanked the former templar profusely for the favour, and hugged her before leaving. Neve, instead, stayed a few more minutes to inform Rana of what they’d discovered about Magister Porenni and the new theory Bel had about Magister Nihalis.

“I can see her doing it,” Rana said. “Magister Nihalis is unhinged.”

Neve gave her the paper sheet and reached Bel and Enora outside.

When they came back into their apartment, she called the child. Enora came to her, and Neve gave Bel a look.

He amata nodded her approval, so Neve took out the necklace with the cat pendant and showed it to her. Enora looked at it, her eyes full of wonder.

“It’s a gift from me,” Neve said. “I’ve enchanted it personally. As long as you wear it, I will always find you.” 

“Ma serrannas, Neve,” said Enora, hugging her. 

She held her close. Only when the child let her go, Neve put the necklace around her neck.

Enora immediately run to Bel to ask how it looked, and Neve couldn’t help but smile. Later, she would send Strife a letter telling him there was no need to find a family for Enora.

She had one already.

***

Neve found out that one could have sex even with a child at home. She and Bel waited until Enora fell asleep to do it, and they would try to be as silent as possible to not wake her up.

Or they did it very early in the morning, when the sun had just risen and Enora was still fast asleep in her bedroom.

One of those mornings, with the rays of the raising sun casting a warm light into her room, Neve showed Bel private drawer. Bellara’s eyes widened at the sight of all her sex toys, which made Neve chuckle.

“We can try all the ones you want,” she said, hugging Bel from behind.

To her pleasant surprise, her amata took her strap. She went up and down with her hands on the fake cock, and imagining her do this when Neve was wearing it and could feel it—

“It’s long,” Bel commented. “And thick.”

Neve kissed her neck, ignoring the desire that had just sparked between her legs.

“We don’t have to start with this,” Neve assured her. “But it’s by far my favourite. It’s enchanted to make me feel everything and to simulate a real cock.”

Her amata shivered with desire, which only worsened the wetness pooling between Neve’s legs. “If it works like a real cock, does it mean you’ll also come inside me?”

Neve bit her neck, gaining a low moan from her amata.

“Only if you want me to.”

Neve let her hand slip under Bel’s nightclothes and undergarments, between her legs. Neve’s fingers met her usual wetness, which only got Neve even more aroused.

“It looks like you want to try one right now,” she murmured in Bel’s ears.

Her amata moved her hips lightly, just enough to try meet her fingers for relief.

“Yes—but please, show me the rune to close it.”

Neve complied, and let Bel activate and deactivate it.

“Now you know what to do if you want to use them by yourself,” she moaned in Bel’s ear. “But do you want to try one right now?”

“It’s just—in Arlathan we don’t have these. It would be my first one.”

Neve nibbled her ear, making her moan. Elves’ ears were sensitive not just for hearing, apparently.

“Maybe we should try this,” Neve said, taking one of the average-sized dildoes.

“Yes, please.”

She led her amata on the bed. Neve walked towards as she coated the toy with lubricant, as Bel quickly undressed herself and spread her legs.

Her wet folds were a view she would never get tired of. Neve slowly pushed the toy inside Bel, and her amata had shut her mouth with her hand to avoid making noises.

Oh, they would have so much fun.

***

That day, Neve found in the agency a note from Ashur, who summoned both her and Rana as soon as possible. Ashur’s handwriting usually was almost as neat as Rana’s, but that note was clearly scribbled in a haste.

That only worried Neve more.

She showed the note to Rana, and they both walked towards the pawn shop. Not wanting to dwell on the negative feelings raised from the urgency in Ashur’s note, Neve said, “Bel and I decided to keep Enora.”

Her friend smiled. “I think it’s a good choice. You two are a good match for the child.”

“Do you think so?”

“You know, I like teasing you, but you’re a good mother,” Rana said.

Neve gave her a half-smile.

“Bel is the good one. I feel like I mostly make mistakes with Enora and try to fix them.”

“You wouldn’t doubt her love if you heard how Enora talks about you,” Rana replied. “And if you weren’t a good mother, you wouldn’t fix your mistakes.”

Neve sighed.

Her mind flew to her parents. They’d never wanted to acknowledge their mistakes, let alone fix them.

Rationally, Neve knew she was already one step above them, because she tried to do her best with Enora despite her traumas with human mages. But sometimes, she couldn’t stop herself from wondering if she would become like them, if Enora gave her enough time to make more mistakes.

“It’s just…” She let her words falter, but Rana was still staring at her and waiting for her to elaborate. “You know my family, they haven’t been a great example, to say the least.”

Her friend was silent for a few moments as they passed in front of a beggar—to whom they both gave some silver pieces.

“You can see it like this: they taught you what not to do with Enora.” Rana stopped to look at her in the eye. “You would never become like your father, and even if you did, Bellara wouldn’t let it like your mother used to. You aren’t repeating the same dyinamic you grew up with.”

Neve felt better, like the other woman had taken a burden off her.

“Yeah. You’re right.”

Rana put a hand on her shoulder.

“I know I’m right. Your mother would have never asked her friend to check the whole apartment looking for spiders, if you were scared of them.”

Neve smiled.

“I will never thank you enough.”

“No need for that,” Rana replied, as they reprised their walk towards the pawn shop. “Enora and I had an interesting talk.”

“What about?”

“I can’t tell you,” Rana replied. “I promised Enora that the talk would stay between the two of us.”

Neve stared at her. “Rana, she is four. Which secrets can she possibly have?”

Her friend grinned.

“Well, it was your idea to introduce me as Auntie Rana the other day. I’m not betraying my niece’s trust.”

“You’ve never referred to Enora as your niece before this exact moment.”

Her irritation seemed to amuse Rana even more.

“Haven’t I? Or did you just not pay attention?”

Neve was about to tell her to fuck off, but Rana put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, she will talk to you and Bellara when she is ready. It’s nothing bad,” she added, noticing Neve’s concerns.

“I think…” It was a weird feeling to put into words, but Neve tried nevertheless. “I’m happy she trusts another adult besides me and Bel.”

“That’s great,” Rana agreed. “But can you please tell me a few days before if you want to leave Enora overnight next time?”

“I’m sorry,” Neve said. “I thought that since she is a nice kid, you could take care of her with little preparation.”

“It’s not that,” Rana countered. “I have a few weapons on display in my apartment. Enora asked me about those, very specific questions I might add.”

Neve stopped dead in her tracks. “You what?!”

“It’s my apartment,” Rana defended herself. “And I don’t always have children around. I didn’t have time to hide all my blades.”

Neve had to concede that her friend was right. She wondered…

What kind of question could Enora have asked?

The child had always seemed unfazed by death, and had no problem in understanding it. No, she asked if Neve was ready to kill for her…

She’d wanted to distract herself from the concerns caused by The Viper, but now she was feeling even worse than when they’d left the agency.

This wouldn’t end until she solved the case, sent Enora’s former owner in jail and could finally move on from this story.

Neve followed Rana into the pawn shop in a much grimer mood than usual, and seeing Ashur only worsened it. She could always tell when the man was either distressed or horrified, and right now he was both.

Neve walked towards him and asked, “Is it that bad?”

Ashur nodded.

“We discovered why we couldn’t find the slaves who handn’t fled Minrathous. They’re all dead.”

Neve’s stomach froze.

“All of them?”

“Yes,” Ashur confirmed. “We found the bodies—they’d been dead for a long time if they were already at that stage of decomposition.”

Venhedis.

She needed to find out more. She needed—

“I’m sorry,” she said, and left the pawn shop.

Neve could finally breathe once outside, and she sat on one of the benches of the Central Market, trying to calm her racing heart.

All the Magisters had killed their former slaves. Why? Were they maybe unwilling witnesses of the fucked up shit they saw their masters do, before they were freed?

This only brought forward other implications.

What if she and Rana didn’t choose the right Magister to arrest—Erimond, Nihalis and Porenni had all perfectly good reasons to be sent to jail and never walk free again—and the one who’d kidnapped children would kill them all to get rid of the evidence of their crimes?

That was a risk Neve couldn’t allow herself to take. She would never forgive herself if children died as a consequence of her rushed actions.

Neve tried not to give in to her desperation, but what the fuck was she supposed to do—

“I assume you got to my same conclusion, that we can’t make mistakes on which Magister we arrest,” Rana’s voice said.

Neve raised her gaze and looked at her friend, who sat next to her.

“Neve, I know it’s not a good thing, but I think we should interrogate your child.”

“Not yet,” Neve replied. “We can still—”

“What? Wait around until the one we’re chasing after kills the children because they realize we’re on their trail? Everything we discovered only gave us more questions, not answers.”

Neve sighed. She knew Rana was right, but…

She wasn’t ready yet to interrogate Enora.

“Give me three days,” she said. She looked at Rana in the eyes and added, “I promise you that, if in three days I have no lead that will take us to our Magister, I will interrogate Enora.”

***

Neve did all what was in her power to avoid interrogating Enora. She came back home and spent all afternoon studying her notes from the very beginning, as if she was starting the investigation anew.

She only stopped when she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore, and she was too tired to even touch Bel.

The next morning, she woke up so early that both Bel and Enora were still sleeping, and she prepared coffee for herself and immediately holed up in her office to go over and over her notes in hope to find a new lead that she’d missed before.

A soft knock on the door distracted her.

“Neve? Can I come in?”

“Of course,” she said.

Bel walked into her office, and she was only mildly surprised by the disorganization. After all, her office wasn’t too different from usual, with some random papers scattered around as she tried to look for answers for her cases.

Bellara bent down to grab a paper that had fallen on the floor and asked, “Is this letter from Rook?”

Kaffas.

Her mind vaguely recalled a letter from her friend, and that she’d put it aside twice promising to herself to reply as soon as she could—which she never did.

“Yes, I’m a terrible friend,” Neve said. “She sent it three months ago, but between the case and hosting Enora I’ve completely forgotten about it.”

“Don’t worry, knowing Rook she probably forgot about it, too—if it was nothing urgent, I mean.”

Neve knew that her amata was right. “No, it’s nothing extremely important. The last time I visited Treviso, Rook told me about an Antivan legend she’d found in one of Villa Dellamorte’s books and wanted to know—wait, Bel, are you alright?”

Her amata would have gotten excited at the idea of knowing more about ancient legends, but she’d just nodded.

“Yes—kind of. It’s just…”

Bel let her words falter, and Neve immediately came to her side to hug her.

“Bel, you can tell me anything.”

Her amata took a deep breath.

“I need to go to Lavendel.”

Oh. 

Neve knew it wasn’t Bel’s favourite conversation topic, but two years ago she’d been kidnapped and Blighted by Elgar’nan. Even though they were all fairly certain that the Blight had died with the god, every three or four months Bellara went to Lavendel to meet Flynn and get checked to be sure the Blight wasn’t coming back.

“Of course,” she said, kissing her amata on the lips. “Don’t worry, amata. Everything will be alright.” 

Bellara hugged her, now seemingly reassured.

“I will be away just a few hours. I’ll be back for dinner.”

Neve kissed her.

“What will we tell Enora? I don’t want her to be worried.”

“Let me talk to her,” Bel said. “I will tell her I have to see a friend—which isn’t totally a lie.”

Neve kissed her again, and together they went to see Enora. Bel talked in elven with the child, who nodded in understandment. They all went to the pawn shop together and said goodbye to Bel as she crossed the Eluvian to go to the Wetlands.

Neve then took Enora to the agency, where she smiled as soon as she saw Rana. Enora ran to her and hugged her.

Neve raised her eyebrows.

“My favourite Gallus,” Rana said, holding Enora.

Neve rolled her eyes and approached the murder board. Rana had put a detailed note about Magister Porenni’s meetings with buyers; even though she’d made it clear she believed interrogating Enora would be more effective and less time-consuming, of course Rana was too good to not help.

Neve unpinned it and brought it to her desk, as she listened to Enora telling Rana about cats. In a moment, though, the child was next to her and Neve gave her enough space to start drawing.

She started studying her notes as she glanced Enora’s paper to be sure she wasn’t drawing anything concerning, and she was back again trying to find another lead she may have missed.

“Well, Gallus, can you please—” Rana interrupted herself with a chuckle.

Neve needed a few moments to understand why. Both she and Enora, hearing their last name, had turned around.

“I mean old Gallus,” Rana specified with a grin.

Neve glared at the former templar.

“We’re the same age, Rana. You shouldn’t call me old.”

Rana raised her hands. “Well, you’re not wrong. Anyway, can you please give me the note about Octavia Erimond’s confession?”

Neve complied, unpinning it from the board and giving it to Rana. In those few moments, Enora had walked to the murder board, attracted by it like usual.

The former templar didn’t lose her chance to smile at the child. “We have a little detective today with us today.”

Neve had to admit she was great with Enora: the child was immediately happy for that comment.

“Yes! I’m a detective too!”

Neve looked at Enora with a mix of pride and happiness.

“You know, little Gallus, you speak the common tongue very well now,” Rana told Enora. “Is Neve’s elven any good?”

“No! It’s terrible!”

Rana chuckled and looked at Neve. “Have I ever told you how much I like her?”

Neve ignored her comment and ruffled Enora’s hair, making her protest in elven as she tried to grab her hand.

“You shouldn’t answer Rana’s questions honestly, da’len,” she said, but she was smiling. “And Bel says I don’t pronounce elven words that bad,” she added towards Rana.

“Of course she does,” the former templar countered. “She’s your amata, she can’t be honest about how terrible you are.”

Enora looked confused. “Amata?”

Neve’s answer was automatic. A word that Bel panted in her ear when they had sex, or murmured when she was half-asleep in the morning, or dropped it naturally in random moments of the day—because even those were special with her.

“Vhenan.”

Enora giggled. “Is Bel your vhenan?”

Neve smiled.

“Yes, she is. Bel is my vhenan.”

The child smiled and hugged her. Neve held her as close as she could.

“I have to work, da’len,” she told Enora, who let her go.

They both walked towards the murder board, and she saw that Enora was stretching her little arms towards the higher part of the board.

“I want to see!”

Neve ignored Rana’s amused look and picked Enora up. The child adjusted against her hip and looked at whatever attracted her attention. 

It was Altan’s drawing.

Neve saw Enora’s expression change into recognition. For a moment, she forgot how to breathe.

The child braced on her shoulder with one hand, and reached out to the drawing with the other.

“Altan?”

No.

She wasn’t ready for that.

Now she had no other choice. 

Neve couldn’t delay Enora’s interrogation anymore.

Chapter Text

Neve kept Bellara’s thighs firmly apart as she flicked her tongue on her swollen clit.

“Yes,” her amata moaned, trying to keep her voice down.

Neve chuckled. The last thing she wanted was waking Enora up, but it was always amazing to see the effect that her ministrations had on her amata—and it shot a flare of heat between her legs.

With her magic, she reached the toy buried deep inside Bel, and sent irregular vibrations through it.

Neve heard the other woman’s ragged breaths, the way she reached her head with her hand and tangled her fingers between her hair, and the way Bellara’s legs were shaking—

It was too arousing and Neve wanted nothing more than slip a hand between her thighs and give herself some relief, but she didn’t.

Tonight was her amata’s night.

She focused on keeping Bel’s thighs spread apart as she finally closed her lips around her lover’s clit and started sucking it. Bel muffled her obscenely hot sounds as Neve also increased the frequency of the toy’s vibrations.

Bellara came moaning her name. She arched her back and pulled Neve towards herself, and she chuckled against her clitoris.

She knew Bel would love the feeling.

Neve slowly decreased the vibration of the toy until it stopped, and, when her amata loosened the grip on her hair, she slowly removed the toy. She made a show of sucking it all clean from Bel’s orgasm, and in the dim light she saw her amata’s eyes shine with desire.

She resisted the urge to take her hand between her legs and Neve sunk her head between Bel’s legs again, and started licking the other woman’s orgasm from the her wet folds.

Her idea was just to clean away all her amata’s orgasm, but Bel’s taste was intoxicating. Neve started eating her out, licking her labia, pushing her tongue inside her and going back to pay attention to Bel’s clit.

She was sure Bel could deal with another orgasm.

The way her thighs clamped around her head was the signal Neve was right, and she sucked harder, working her way through her amata’s pleasure as Bellara muffled her moans with her hand.

Neve slipped her fingers inside the other woman, moving them at a slow and patient rhytm that only drove Bel crazier. She moved her hips to meet her thrusts or her tongue, that teased her overstimulated clit, chasing another orgasm.

She had to keep her desire under control, despite the uncontrollable heat in her lower belly, Neve moaned against her lover’s labia.

It had all to be a good combo, because Bellara finally came again, her whole body snapping, her nails scratching Neve’s scalp.

It was perfect.

She helped Bel come down this second orgasm, and when she raised her gaze towards her, she realized how good and relaxed her amata was.

She wondered if she needed to ask Bel to grab her strap and wear it, and Neve would lube it nicely and ride it and get some relief, too, until she felt her amata come inside—

No. Bel had never worn an enchanted strap and the first time, the sensation could be too overwhelming. There was the risk that Bel would fall asleep after such an intense orgasm, and Neve needed her relaxed, but also awake and aware.

“Come here, vhenan,” Bellara said, distracting her from her thoughts. “Your turn now.”

For how much Neve would have loved to get Bel’s attention on her clit or deep inside, she shook her head and said, “No, amata. Tonight is just for you.”

That worried Bel immediately, who sat up against the headboard. “Are you sure? Is everything alright?”

Of course, she should have expected that reaction from Bel. She’d never refused her expert ministrations.

“Consider this my apology,” Neve murmured, taking place next to her.

“Apology for what? Did you do something that bad?”

Neve sighed.

“It’s not for what I’ve done, it’s for something I will do.”

Bellara looked at her with a questioning look and Neve told her about what had happened in the agency just a few hours ago. She saw Bel’s expression change as she reached her same conclusion.

“You want to question Enora.”

“I don’t like it, but I have no other choice,” Neve said, taking her amata’s hand. “Bel, I swear I’ve tried in any possible way to keep her out of the investigation. You don’t know how many fights I’ve had with Rana over this.”

She reached out and kissed Bellara’s cheek.

“But all our paths only led us to more questions than answers. Enora is the only one who can help us solve the case.”

Bel stayed in silence so long Neve thought she was upset with her, and Neve hugged her.

“Amata, I swear I would never want to do it, but other children’s lives are at stake. This is the only way to save them.”

Bellara sighed.

“I don’t like this, but I understand it’s your only choice. I don’t want other children to suffer at the hands of slave owners, even less to have their lives threatened.”

Neve kissed her. It was soft, sweet, a kiss to reassure Bel instead of igniting her passion.

And also, even if she didn’t want to admit it, to have her amata reassure her she was doing the only possible right thing.

“I need your help,” she said, when she separated by the other woman’s lips. “I was thinking about interrogating Enora in elven, since it will be easier for her to answer.”

Bellara said nothing for a few moments, thinking about her proposal. 

“I will help you, vhenan,” she eventually said. “But if I think you’re pushing it too far, I’ll stop you.”

Neve kissed her again.

“Thank you, amata. I promise I will do my best tomorrow.”

***

Interrogating a child was vastly different from doing the same with an adult—and much more delicate.

Neve paced in her office, where she had Enora sit behind her desk. She had removed all the papers and notebooks form there, and the desk was oddly empty.

It had been necessary: the child didn’t need any distraction.

Next to Enora, Bel was explaining in elven what was going to happen, and Neve took the time to calm herself down and remind herself she had to be distanced and neutral when asking questions. She had to tell herself she couldn’t call Enora da’len until the end of the questioning.

“Tell her she can say I don’t know or I don’t remember,” Neve said, and Bellara translated.

Enora nodded.

Neve took another deep breath, not ready for what she was going to do. She’d already explained to Bel that, for how much she would want to hug Enora at some point during the interrogation, she couldn’t—the physical touch could become another distraction for the child.

“If Enora is ready, we can start.”

Bellara asked it in elven to Enora, and the child replied.

“Yes, she is.” Her amata then raised a concerned look to Neve and asked, “Are you ready?”

No. I don’t think I’ll ever be.

“I have to,” Neve just said.

Bel nodded.

She knew that of she didn’t start immediately, she would find an excuse to delay it indefinitely. So, Neve took a deep breath and started with the first question.

“Varus Erimond. Drusilla Nihalis. Trajanus Porenni. Do you you know any of these names?”

Neve didn’t need Bel’s translation to understand Enora: the child shook her head before speaking in elven.

“No, she’s never heard any of those names,” Bel said.

As she’d suspected.

Now the painful questions began.

“Before I freed you, when you were still a slave, have you ever met your master?”

The question visibly upset Enora, but Neve couldn’t call off the questioning now that they’d just started. The child looked at Bel and said something fast in elven, as if she wanted to get rid of the words to throw away the memory they brought.

“Yes, she did, but they wore the Venatori outfit—you know, the hood that covers their faces entirely.”

Neve nodded and asked, “Do you remember if their voice was a man’s or a woman’s?”

The child’s reply felt surer to Neve’s ears.

“It was a man’s voice. She is sure of it,” Bel translated.

Not Magister Nihalis, then.

It was pointless insisting on that if Enora had never seen the face of her former owner, so Neve changed her angle. She took one of Enora’s drawings she’d put aside, the one with the symbol of the murderer she’d been looking for so long, and asked, “What is this symbol?”

Unlike before, Enora didn’t look upset. She just gave a confident answer.

“She says—” Bel blinked. “I think she picked the wrong word, because what she said doesn’t make any sense.”

“Tell me anyway,” Neve replied.

“It’s the symbol of her batallion.”

The answer startled Neve. “Batallion?”

It didn’t make any sense, but—

Suddenly, many other things connected, things that Neve had never given too much weight singularly, but that now put together they had a totally different meaning.

“Enora asked me something weird. When she met the other kids, I mean. She asked me if the other children were her comrades.”

Neve couldn’t say for certain, but most likely the other children her former owner had enslaved were about her same age. Children chosen because no one would look for them, if they disappeared.

She never heard Enora when she walked around. And that one time, when she’d scared the child by snapping at her, Neve had taken her to play with the cats, and Enora had had no problem in climbing on a scaffold and coming back down without falling or hurting herself.

“Isn’t she too little to understand the concept of death so well?”

Enora had never been bothered by death, not even the first time she’d met her. She had seen dead Venatori without as much as a flinch, and she’d understood immediately what Cyrian’s death meant for Bellara—the finality of it, and that Bel would never see her brother again.

“I have a few weapons on display in my apartment. Enora asked me about those, very specific questions I might add.”

The picture she put together was sickening, but—

Neve was sure Enora hadn’t picked the wrong word. She knew military jargon, as she’d proved already, and there could only be a reason for it.

“Were you trained?” Neve asked. “Your former master taught you how to fight, didn’t he?”

Enora nodded. She heard Bel hold her breath, her face reflecting the pure horror she felt.

“Don’t comment,” Neve told her. “Just translate.”

Her amata shot her a questioning look, and Neve knew she wanted to ask her how could she not be horrified by that confession.

She was. Neve was just better than Bel at hiding it.

The child said something in elven, and Bellara blinked a couple of times before translating.

“Her former owner had started training her a few months ago. She was supposed to be ready for when she turns fourteen, because he would have sent her to kill his enemies.”

Neve had supposed the children were being gathered to perform a ritual. This, knowing that they were being trained to be a Magister’s personal soldiers in the next decade, was almost worse than her first hypothesis.

A sudden memory came over her. A remnant of magic she’d examined long enough to learn every singe word.

“It’s not like you’re in any rush.”

She’d always focused on the second part of the memory of the Blood Mage who killed himself before she and Rana had the chance to question him, the one that had led her eventually to find out her suspect was a Magister. She hadn’t given too much weight to this simple sentence, which alone wasn’t of any significance, but—

Enora had given her the confirmation of whom she should arrest.

But she couldn’t dwell on how sickening the Magister’s plan for Enora was. Now that she knew who he was, she had to stay focused on her interrogation if she wanted to save the other children and bring him in front of justice.

“Why were you in that warehouse when I found you? It’s not a good place for training.”

Enora shivered and Neve felt guilty. For how necessary it was, she hated hurting and distressing her own child so much.

She spoke fast, looking at the desk instead of at Neve.

“Punishment. Her owner was angry because she—” Bel furrowed her eyebrows. “I think she means she destroyed a blood vial, and her master was furious. He had taken her in that warehouse to be punished, but you arrived first.”

Neve clenched her jaw. She remembered the terror of Enora the first time she met her, how she screamed a sentence in elven and tried to escape her.

Had she thought she was there to punish her on her master’s behalf, before Enora saw her kill Venatori?

She couldn’t dwell on those thoughts.

Neve had to close the interrogation soon, because Enora clearly wouldn’t be able to go on for long, and she needed to find the location where the other children were kept.

“You didn’t usually live in that warehouse,” she said. “Where did your owner keep you?”

Enora just touched the her own drawing.

“Where is it?”

The child said something, and Bel was quick in translating. “She doesn’t know.”

Neve had to repress a surge of frustration.

“Enora, think about the details. How was the place where you used to live?”

The child looked clearly distressed, and Bel shot a warning look as she said, “Downstairs. Cold. Dark. There were spiders—”

“Focus more,” she almost ordered. “Did you hear something from there?”

Enora was starting to breathe hard, like air refused to stay in her lungs more than a few seconds.

The sight was like opening a wound through her chest, but Neve needed her answers.

The answer was slurred. “She heard seagulls.”

Which meant most of Dock Town.

“I need more. Think about it, you must remember something else important.”

Enora was clearly uncomfortable and looked at Bel with pleading eyes as she said something in elven. “She doesn’t want to remember it. She says—”

“I know it was bad,” Neve interrupted her. “But other children are suffering just like she did. Enora, I need your help to save them.”

The child was now trembling. The memories Neve was forcing her to live again were pushing all their weight down on her, and Neve felt like the worst person in the world.

Bellara looked like she was going to say something, but Enora said something very low in elven.

“She says—she heard a metal sound, like when you walk on stone but more acute. She also heard several people speaking the human language, but one voice was always the same.”

This could help her more.

But—

Neve had a thought.

“Were there guards? Did your master send people to keep you in check—”

“Stop!” Bel shouted. “Don’t you see how much she’s suffering?!”

Enora took that as an opening to run from Neve’s office. Bellara stared at her with a fury she’d rarely seen on her.

Neve deserved every single ounce of that rage. If she looked into a mirror, probably the gaze she’d reserve for herself wouldn’t be too different from her amata’s.

“I—”

Neve couldn’t even form a sentence.

This was why she’d wanted to avoid interrogating Enora, because she knew she would hurt her.

She just didn’t know how deep.

Neve had sacrificed her child’s well-being to have more information to solve the case, but could she justify what she’d done?

Bel had told her she wasn’t like her parents, but Neve had just proven her wrong. She was more than able to hurt Enora, and regardless of the reethoric, she still forced her child to go through her trauma.

She’d brushed off her clear discomfort when she mentioned spiders.

How could she consider herself even a half-decent parent?

“I fucked up so badly,” she finally said.

“You did,” Bel confirmed in a cold tone she’d never heard. It hurt being on the reveiving end of it. “I need to see how Enora is doing, if you excuse me—”

“No, I will,” Neve interrupted her.

Her amata glared at her, and she quickly added, “I need to fix this, Bel. I have to do it without your help, or I’m afraid my relationship with Enora will never recover.”

Bel looked her in the eye with a piercing gaze, but she eventually nodded.

“I trust you,” she said, eventually.

“Please, Bel, while I talk to Enora, can you go tell Rana I know who is the Magister we’re looking for?”

Her amata gave her a cold look, but she nodded eventually.

She was still upset with her because she didn’t kiss her before leaving. Neve suspected she’d accepted to take her message to Rana because she couldn’t stand staying in the same room, and that made her feel even worse.

Enora.

Now she had her child to think about.

Enora wasn’t in the living room, and Neve didn’t find her in her bedroom, either. She went in her and Bel’s bedroom at last—and there she was. Enora was sitting on their bed, her back against the headboard and her knees agains her chest. She was holding her stuffed halla and was shaking.

Of course. That was where the child always went when she was seeking comfort after a nightmare.

And what was reliving her painful memories, if not a daytime nightmare?

Neve felt some hope raise in her chest. If Enora was in her and Bel’s room, maybe she hadn’t screwed up completely.

“Enora?” she called, but the child didn’t give her any sign to have heard her.

She was staring at the mattress and Neve realized this was the closest she’d ever seen Enora to cry, and it was completely her fault.

That made her feel even worse.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

The child nodded, still refusing to look at her. Neve stepped in her bedroom and she carefully sat on the other end of the bed. She didn’t dare getting too close in order not to scare her now that she was so upset.

“Are you angry?” Enora murmured.

Neve was surprised by the question.

“No, I’m not angry, da’len. I’m proud of you. You have been so brave.” 

Enora nodded, but didn’t give any other sign of having listened to her.

“I’m sorry, da’len,” Neve went on. “It was cruel to ask you those questions. I need to save the other children from your former owner, but I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Enora finally looked at her.

Her eyes showed a familiar pain. She had been greatly hurt by her parent, like Neve had from her own when she was a child.

Neve had sworn to herself that, if someday she had children, she would never make them feel like that.

Now, instead, her child was in so much pain because of her interrogation. Neve had never thought she would ever feel so guilty.

She was supposed to protect her little one, not to cause her pain.

“I’m a bad fighter,” Enora whispered so low that Neve barely heard her.

She wanted nothing but to reach out and hold the child, but she didn’t. She had no idea how Enora would react to her touch right now.

“Why, da’len?”

Enora hugged her stuffed halla tighter.

“Good fighters don’t run,” she murmured. “Master said it. He was angry when I ran.”

And, like that, Neve understood that her hypothesis was only partially right. Enora’s former owner had attempted to train her, just instilling in her some rough basics.

Of course, a four-year-old child could only learn so much. And then, Neve had freed Enora before her training could go on.

“You’re a child, not a fighter,” Neve countered. “You don’t need to fight because Bel and I will always protect you from anything.”

She sat closer to the child, and Enora didn’t move away. She took it as a good sign.

“You should forget about what your former owner said, da’len. You are a free child now, and you should only listen to me and Bel because we’re the ones taking care of you.”

Enora nodded. Her gaze softened, but she didn’t get close to Neve.

“Is Bel angry?” Enora asked, looking at her with concern.

Neve sat a few inches closer. “She is, but with me. Never with you, da’len.” She tentatively put a hand on the child’s shoulders, but she winced and Neve removed it immediately. The heartbreak didn’t stop her from adding, “Bel loves you. We love you.”

Enora nodded.

“Where is she?”

“Bel is with Auntie Rana, but she will be back soon.”

The child was breathing heavy, her whole body still shaking, her little arms wrapped around the toy that had been Bel’s gift—the first gift Enora had ever received.

It was heartbreaking to see her like that, and the new information the child had given her only made it even worse.

“You were trained not to cry, right?“ Neve asked, and her child nodded. “Forget what that horrible man taught you, da’len. You can cry if you want to.”

Enora nodded, but she shed no tear.

Neve wasn’t sure how long she stayed with the child, but when Bel opened the front door, Enora let go of her stuffed halla and ran to meet her. Neve followed her to see that Enora was putting her little arms around her neck saying, “Hold me, Mamae.”

Neve saw the emotion on her amata’s face: the surprise and the happiness that being called that by the child they’d been raising for the last few months.

“Of course, da’len,” she said, hugging Enora tight. She murmured some other words in elven, and the child clung on her even more.

Neve found them so beautiful—her amata and their child, together in a hug. She didn’t know she could love anyone as much.

But it was a bittersweet view, because she wanted to be a part of that happiness, too. Instead, she was the reason why Enora needed Bel’s comfort so desperately.

“Bel, I need to leave,” she said, snapping herself out of her immobility.

She had interrogated Enora for a reason, and now she had to act on the new information. She had to free children and send a Magister to jail now.

Her amata looked at her for the first time since she’d come back home. She looked much calmer then when she left, and Neve was pretty sure she would have to thank Rana for that, but she hadn’t forgiven her yet.

“Rana is waiting for you. She is ready to arrest the Magister already.”

Neve nodded. Of course, Rana was almost as eager as she was to send the bastard to jail—and save the children he’d enslaved.

“Thank you, Bel.”

Neve left, closing the door on her amata holding Enora and whispering in elven, but her guilt followed her.

***

Neve was rushing to the agency and almost jumped when a voice said, “Hello, Neve—Woah, there are more civilized ways to tell me you don’t want to work with me anymore.”

She lowered her staff from Elek’s scared face, her heart pounding in her ears. The stress of the interrogation and Enora’s new information had put her more on edge than she’d realized.

“I’m sorry, Elek. It’s been a bad day.”

He found his humor quickly for someone who had a mage staff pointed at his face just a few moments ago. “I’d say that’s an understatement, don’t you think?”

In any other circumstances, Neve would have chuckled. But now, after seeing how much she'd hurt Enora, she found herself unable to do it.

“What do you want to tell me?”

He looked surprised by her grim tone, but didn’t inquire. Instead, he said, “You were right. Magister Nihalis is smuggling lyrium and she is using slaves to do so.”

Neve took a deep breath. Drusilla Nihalis would go to jail, too, but her first priority was Enora’s former owner.

“Rana and I will arrest her tomorrow. Feel free to steal all the valuables you want from her before the templars seize her house to confiscate lyrium and other dark artifacts.”

He grinned.

“You can count on it. The Threads are always your friends, Neve.”

She didn’t say that she hadn’t missed them that much in the last two years, and that she was content with her detective agency with Rana.

She nodded and said, “Likewise.”

Elek left, and Neve finally reached the agency.

Rana was waiting for her, and, as soon as Neve walked in, she asked, “Who is the Magister we’ve been looking for all these months?”

“Porenni,” Neve answered.

She sat on her desk, her legs not able to hold her weight. She hadn’t realized the mental toll the interrogation had taken on her.

“Bellara told me about Enora’s interrogation, she was pretty upset.”

Neve thanked her amata for sparing her the task of repeating everything in details. She jumped on the conclusions she drew from Enora’s information.

“Magister Porenni’s plan is gathering children and training them to have his personal army of slaves. He handpicked poor, foreigner and possibly single parents so that no one would notice the children’s disappearance.”

Rana grimaced. She found the idea horrible, too. “How does this point to Magister Porenni, specifically?”

“His is a long-term plan, like ten or fifteen years from now. He had a plan for when Enora will be fourteen—she is four now. By then, he will have a trained, brainwashed and loyal army to do whatever he wants to. Anyone who puts this much time and effort into a plan, would probably want to enjoy the results for a long time afterwards. Magister Erimond is well over seventy already, he doesn’t have that many years to live.”

Neve thought about Magister Porenni, when she saw him a few days ago. She’d been surprised of how young he was, maybe ten or twelve years younger than she was, and she could only feel her rage rise and take over her body.

She’d seen him smile, while in secret he killed parents and kidnapped their children to enslave them. He was Enora’s owner, the one who traumatized her so much that Enora was terrified of her the first weeks she spent in Neve’s home.

“Makes sense,” Rana said, taking her back to reality. “Do you know where the bastard is keeping the children?”

Neve attempted to make a half-smile. She didn’t know if she succeded.

“I hurt my child deeply with my questioning, I needed to make sure it was worth it, at least.”

Rana stepped closer, sat next to her and passed her arm around Neve’s waist.

“I can’t even imagine how hard it was for you, but you can start making up for it by freeing the other children and taking Magister Porenni in front of justice.”

Neve took a deep breath.

“You’re right. We need the Shadow Dragons.”

Rana nodded. “Where is he hiding those children?”

“Enora said she heard seagulls and a sound sharper than my prosthetic leg clinging on stones, so I guess she means metal hitting on other metal. There were also many voices talking the common tongue, but one was always the same.” She raised her gaze to meet Rana’s green-hazelnut eyes. “There is only one armory close enough to the docks.”

The former templar bit her lip.

“We’re lucky your child is an elf and she could hear all of this.”

Neve nodded. She was well too aware.

“Let’s go to the Shadow Dragons,” she said in an attempt to motivate herself. “The sooner we close this case, the better.”

They both went to the pawn shop, where they walked to Ashur and explained him the latest information they gathered. His eyes got sharper, like a hawk ready to catch its prey.

Even after Dorian had become Archon, it hadn’t been that common to arrest corrupt Magisters who had sympathies for Venatori.

“How many Shadow Dragons do you need?” he asked.

“Everyone who isn’t needed in urgent missions.”

Until three years ago, she worked alone. But during the year she’d spent with the Veilguard, she’d learned from Rook a few things about leadership.

Ashur and Tarquin had gathered all the available Shadow Dragons, while others who were getting ready to go on their missions were observing them.

“We’ll split in two teams,” Neve explained. “One will go with the Viper and Tarquin, you’ll go to Magister Porenni’s home and arrest him. All the best mages will go with this team, because the house is most likely full of Blood Magic traps. The other team will come with me and Rana.” Tarquin showed a map of Dock Town where she pointed to the armory. “The bastard is enslaving children and holding them in the basement here, we’re going to rescue and free them. I will need the best healers, but those children have probably been hurt with magic, so I don’t want to overwhelm them.”

The Shadow Dragon split themselves in teams, and Neve saw that Bel was coming with Enora while talking to Lorelai. She excused herself and reached her amata.

Enora saw her, but she rushed towards Rana, calling her, “Auntie Rana!”

The former templar knelt to pick her up saying, “Here is my favourite Gallus. Come, I want to introduce you to a friend.”

Neve thought about Rana’s proposal a few weeks ago, when she told her she could interrogate Enora in her place. As she saw the child cling on the former templar as Rana introduced her to Tarquin, she felt a pang of jealousy.

Why hadn’t she accepted? Now she could be the one enjoying time with Enora while she would be weary of Rana.

Neve forced herself to take her attention away from them, and returned it to Bel. She noticed only then that her amata had a backpack on her shoulders, and it stung a little bit why she and Enora were here.

“Are you leaving?”

Bel nodded. “Yes, I thought that Enora would be better far away from Minrathous for a few days. We’re going to Arlathan.”

It made sense, but she didn’t want to be separated by her amata and their child.

She looked at Enora, in Rana’s arms, who was talking with her and Tarquin. The other former templar smiled—Neve could swear she’d barely ever seen him twitch the corner of his mouth.

A knife between her ribs would have hurt less.

“She hasn’t stopped loving you,” Bel said, noticing the direction of her gaze. “She’s just hurt. Give her time, when we’re back she will forgive you.”

Neve sighed. “I hope you’re right.”

She took a step forward to hold and kiss her amata, but Bel recoiled from her touch.

She may have as well slapped her.

“I’m sorry, Neve. I think… I think I need some time to forgive you, too.”

“Of course,” she said, against the knot in her throat.

She took another look at Rana and Enora. The child was telling her something, Rana looked at Bel and nodded, and told her something else.

Neve wished she was close enough to hear what they were saying.

But she had no time to be hurt: the Shadow Dragons had divided themselves in two teams, and Ashur was already talking with the first one—most likely, suggesting them how to deal with wards made with Blood Magic and dark magic traps.

“I have to go,” she said. “When you and Enora are back, I’ll make you both forgive me.”

Bel smiled, and that made her heart flutter. How had she lived without her amata addressing her that smile?

“We will,” Bel promised. “Just—don’t put yourself in danger. I want to find you alive when we’re back.”

“I will be pretty much alive, amata. My first step to have you forgive me will be to give you fried fish.”

Bel laughed, but she gestured to Rana, who put Enora down. The child rushed to Bel, and looked at Neve with a hurt gaze that almost broke her.

But that didn’t destroy her this time.

She was going to make Enora forgive her, and arresting her former owner and freeing the other children would be the first step.

Enora would be back to a Minrathous without her former owner, and then Neve would have all the time to make amends.

***

The armory looked like a legit business from the outside. Clients came and left, carrying pieces of armor to fix or buying new ones.

Rana had disposed the Shadow Dragons in smaller teams on the streets next to the armory, in case Venatori were around to protect the Magister’s place. As Neve walked towards the front door, she heard the noise of fighting.

She had to confide that the Shadow Dragons would survive by themselves, and she drew her staff to check for magical defenses.

An arrow shot by Rana flew over her head and Neve saw it sink in the neck of a Venatori who’d tried to attack her as she deactivated the wards around the armory.

She didn’t need too much time to finally walk inside.

Other Venatori, who were hiding behind the mannequins with fitting armors, attacked her, but each one of them got hit by a bolt of ice. They all died on the spot, their chest—and heart—frozen.

Neve double checked she’d killed all Magister Porenni’s workers, then started scanning the place with magic, finding other wards going through the floor—to prevent anyone from going in the hidden basement, Neve guessed.

The other Shadow Dragons arrived, too, and Neve noticed, pleased, that no one seemed badly hurt.

“If you’re a mage, please, help me dismantle the wards throughout the floor. The rest, please, look for a hidden hatchet,” she said.

With other mages, disabling the wards was even easier. By the time they finished, Rana and the others who couldn’t use magic had already found the trapdoor concealed under a piece of furniture.

Neve was the first one go down, followed by Rana. The basement had wooden walls, but this room was small. On the door on the opposite side, there was a glowing red rune.

She dismantled this one, too and walked in the other room—

She almost tripped. She raised her staff, but she found the face of a scared child.

Neve recognized him immeditately from the charcoal portrait in her agency.

“You’re Altan, right?” she said.

The boy didn’t answer, and Neve looked around. She saw that, on all the walls, there were banners with the symbol she and Rana had kept seeing of a shield and two swords crossing on it.

Neve remembered, just a couple of hours ago, when Enora had touched her drawing when she asked her where she lived.

Of course, for her child it was the best indication she could give her. It was what she saw all around.

“My friends and I are here to free you and take you to a safe place,” Neve went on.

Rana was walking along the wall, where there were several other closed doors. Other Shadow Dragons climbed down the ladder and only then Altan seemed to believe him.

“The others are in the other rooms,” Altan said. “But there is also an elf. She speaks a weird tongue, but I don’t know where she is.”

Neve smiled at Altan.

“Don’t worry, she is safe already. We’ll take you all away, too.”

Rana came back with other Shadow Dragons. There were other children with them, five in total—boys and girls—and she realized her hypothesis they would be more or less Enora’s age was correct, because they all looked between five and seven-year-old.

Neve also noticed they weren’t as mistreated as she feared. Of course, one of the girls had a bruise on her arm and one of the boys limped and winced every time he put his left foot on the ground, but nothing the healers couldn’t fix in a few moments.

Neve left the children in the care of the healers, and went to examine the rooms. She saw that one had a broken lock and assumed it was Altan’s because it would explain why he was outside.

All the rooms were small and there was no bed or even some covers to protect the children from the cold, and she clenched her fists to the point Neve felt her fingers sting her palms.

She stopped when she saw one of the rooms. Unlike the others, dust was settled in the sufucatingly small place, and spiderwebs were in all the corners. It looked like it had been unused for a long time.

It was, Neve realized. She realized she had to be looking at Enora’s room.

She remembered the first night in her place, when Enora had asked Bel if she would be okay with her sleeping on a bed, and later when she hesitated to climb on her and Bel’s bed to sleep.

Neve hated Magister Porenni even more, but she moved on through another wooden door, far away from the small rooms where the children used to sleep.

This one looked like a training ground, which disturbed Neve. She saw mannequins with small knives sunk into them, or wooden scaffolds that Neve supposed were to teach the children how to climb.

Neve felt sick and didn’t want to investigate further. She came back to the other Shadow Dragons, but—

She was sure she hadn’t imagined it. She’d seen a dark red glimmer of a Blood Magic ward.

Neve walked towards one of the banners with the battalion’s symbol, and Neve tore it down. Behind it, there were swirling Blood runes that traced another ward.

Neve turned to the other Shadow Dragons and asked, “Who of you is a mage?”

Out of the fifteen people there, five raised their hands.

“The two more expert in healing go back with the others and the children in the hideout. The other three, come with me and Rana.”

Neve saw as they left, being careful to help the children to go back upstairs. Out of the three mages, Neve recognized one of Bel’s fans who tried to get some spoilers a few weeks ago.

“Come here,” she said, and pointed at the wall with the dark magic wards.

As a team effort, it was embarrassingly easy. Once the wards were gone, Neve and Rana examined the wall until—

There.

A hidden door.

They opened it, opening the way to a dark tunnel.

“Where do you think this is going?” Rana asked.

Neve could see in her eyes that the former templar had made her same guess and was looking for validation.

After all, Magister Porenni needed a way to see his slaves without the people of Minrathous noticing anything wrong.

“I think we’ll find out,” she replied.

Neve was the first one to step inside, followed by Rana. The other Shadow Dragons disposed themselves behind them.

They walked in silence, one of the other mages summoning some small fire spheres to light the tunnel. It was large enough for two adults to walk side by side, and it was taller than them—the fire mage could cast light without burning everything by accident.

Neve had no idea of how much time she’d spent, she was only aware of putting step after step, her real foot, prosthetic, real…

Her mind wandered. What would they find once they arrived at the end? Magister Porenni was dangerous and they couldn’t take any chance.

Probably Ashur, Tarquin and their team were raiding his estate already, because Neve had given the order to send a message to go after the Magister only after the children were safe in the hideout.

Maybe they wouldn’t find anything. Or maybe they would find something worse than the imprisoned children…

Neve felt it even before she saw it, and from the surprised horror gasps behind her she understood the other mages had felt it too. A sickening feeling she was too familiar with.

Blood Magic.

It was all around them, but Neve felt it come with more intensity from above their heads. She understood immediately what it meant.

“I think we’re under Magister Porenni’s estate,” she said.

They all scanned the place with magic, finding other dark magic wards.

Neve was confident she would have deactivated it alone, but doing so with three other mages was much less time consuming. Rana was already looking for a hidden door as they worked with their magic, and pointed it out to Neve.

She nodded.

They worked together for so long, even before opening their investigation agency together, that Neve knew she wanted them both to be silent. She made a hushing gesture to the other Shadow Dragons and opened the door.

It was a smaller room, similar to the one where she arrived when she climbed down the armory, and she found a ladder here, too.

Neve was the first to climb it and she emerged in what looked like a laboratory. There with notes hung all around the place on boards, maps, names and targets. Tables were full of notebooks and artifacts.

The whole place reeked of Blood Magic, and Neve could see several red crystals and traces of blood from old rituals.

On the other side of the room, a flight of stairs took them to a door, probably to the rest of the estate.

But what attracted her attention was something on one of the tables.

“What the—” Rana said when she emerged from the ladder, too, but she saw what attracted Neve’s attention and reached her.

It was a set of blood vials neatly placed, all with labels. The names of half of them had the names of the victims that Neve and Rana had been learning and reading for months, the other half had the names of the children. There was an empty spot that had just a note saying Slave, but nothing was there.

“You were right,” Neve said. “Magister Porenni stole blood from the parents.”

She read through some notes and books, and felt sick. It was an insurance: in case the children escaped, Magister Porenni could track them down using either their blood or their parent’s—the latter was more liable and imprecise, but it was still better than letting them escape.

I think she means she destroyed a blood vial and her master was furious.

Only then Neve realized how lucky Enora had been. She’d destroyed her own blood vial, most likely by accident, and Magister Porenni couldn’t track her down.

“Let’s destroy them,” she said.

Neither Rana nor the other Shadow Dragons questioned it. They knew well what a Blood Mage could do.

As they smashed the vials, Neve heard some noises from upstairs. She raised her staff by instinct, but the person slaming the door open was Ashur.

“Did you arrest Porenni already?” she asked.

“He is nowhere to be found,” he replied.

Neve felt cold in her stomach. She thought again about the conversation she had with Magister Erimond, what if the old man had alerted Porenni? Had her bold move been the doom for the whole operation?

No, she told herself. Now the children Porenni had kidnapped and enslaved were free and safe. It hadn’t been a total failure.

“We’ll track him down,” she promised him.

The Viper climbed down, looking around to see the place, notes, maps.

“Let’s take everything that could be useful,” Ashur said.

Neve left the other Shadow Dragons as they took all the records, notebooks and papers. Rana walked right behind her as they came back to Dock Town from the surface.

The cold air and drizzle did good to make Neve feel better immediately. After everything she’d seen, she needed a moment to process it all.

“When Ashur comes back with all the documents, we’ll track the bastard down,“ Rana said.

She knew her friend wanted to make her feel better, and to convince herself they’d close this story soon, but Neve didn’t have the strenght to agree with her.

She was still bothered by what she’d seen. Of course, she knew Enora was a slave and she’d told her and Bel some of the things she lived, but seeing the conditions in which she’d been forced to live…

“Neve Gallus, thank the Maker!”

She took her attention to the Shadow Dragon in front of her. He was one of those who hadn’t joined either her team or Ashur’s because he was scheduled already to go into another mission.

“What’s going on?”

“I need a mage urgently, Ashur’s team isn’t back yet and the mages in the hideout are busy healing the injuried.”

“I’ll stop by the agency first. Maybe I can find something that will help us find where Porenni is hiding,” Rana said.

Neve nodded. “I’ll see you in the hideout.”

As her friend left, she addressed the young Shadow Dragon.

“Show me the way.”

As the young man guided her towards an entrance in the swers, he explained, “I need to tear down a magic barrier, we think Venatori left a dangerous device.”

Neve followed him in the sewers, in the putrid mud, and he led her to a red barrier. She was quick in deactivating it and shemmediately she gagged: the stench of a rotting corpse attacked her throat.

“What—”

She walked in with the other Shadow Dragon, her staff high, and she saw him.

At first, her mind didn’t process the impossible image she was seeing. The body had to have been rotting for weeks, if not months.

It couldn’t be Quintus, with whom she’d talked not too long ago. She was sure he was in the pawn shop just a couple of hours ago.

“If you see Quintus please send him here. He hasn’t reported on his last mission’s outcome yet.”

The temperature went down.

“No. Impossible,” she whispered.

Neve raised her collar to try cover her nose and she knelt next to the body. She carefully removed his left glove: after his son’s death, Quintus had tattoed the letter D for Domitius on his dominant hand.

She felt her blood pressure drop when she saw the black D still tattoed on his decaying skin.

In that moment, Neve remembered something Caterina Dellamorte told her and Rook, about three years ago. That someone had used Blood Magic on a corpse to make it look like Lucanis.

Was it possible to use Blood Magic to change the appearance of a living person, too?

Neve felt sick, and not just from the putrefaction stench.

A spy had infiltrated into the Shadow Dragons for who knows how long. That was why Magister Porenni knew they were going to raid his house, not because Varus Erimond had figured out who Neve was and alerted him.

“I have to go,” she said, and ran up to the pawn shop.

Ashur was probably back now, and she needed to inform him about the man who pretended to be Quintus for who knows how long—

She froze as soon as she stepped in. Some people were gathered around a person lying on one of the cots, and recognized the greenish light of healing magic.

A sense of dread overcame Neve. When the young Shadow Dragon had told her about the mages in the hideout being busy with the injuried, she’d assumed they were talking about one of the children.

The person lying over the cot, instead, was pretty much an adult, and Neve almost ran to see them—

Bel.

The mage who was healing her was closing a wound on her head, and Neve noticed her amata was just regaining consciousness.

“Bel! What happened?”

Bel’s eyes focused on her and said, “You all left, we were alone with Quintus—I heard him cast a spell, I didn’t expect it and I raised a barrier too late—”

Neve tried to contain her panic as she heard confused murmurs around her.

“Quintus isn’t a mage,” was whispered by a few people.

Bel grabbed her arm. “Where is Enora?”

No, that couldn’t be.

She failed her promise to protect the child. 

She failed as a parent. 

“That isn’t Quintus,” Neve said, her voice shaking. “Someone killed Quintus and pretended to be him this whole time.”

She had never even thought about checking him out for Blood Magic, because the real Quintus wasn’t a mage. She’d felt safe among the Shadow Dragons, and had never taken in account the possibility they may have a spy among them.

And now the bastard had almost killed Bel and taken Enora.

“I’m going to track this imposter down,” she said.

“Wait, I’ll come with you,” Bel said. 

Despite the contrary advice of the healers, her amata got up and went grab her gauntlet. Neve quickly filled her in on the latest developments of the case, who was the Magister, that they’d saved the children, but Magister Porenni was nowhere to be seen.

“Probably the man who pretended to be Quintus alerted him and took Enora to wherever the bastard is hiding,” Neve said.

“Let’s go save her, then.”

Before marching outside, Neve took a look at the kitchen, where a group of Shadow Dragon was feeding the children, and felt slightly better. At least, they were safe now.

Neve walked outside and stopped to talk with Lorelei.

“Have you seen where Quintus went?”

The merchant shook her head. “No, he didn’t even say goodbye, which isn’t like him. He looked like he was in a rush.”

Neve stared at the merchant. “Didn’t you stop him when you saw him take away a child?”

Lorelei glared at her. “What the—He had a weird statchel, but how was I supposed to know he was hiding a child in it?”

Fair point. The real Quintus would have never kidnapped a child, and Lorelei had no way to know she had an imposter in front of her.

Neve quickly the merchant in and she saw her assume a horrified expression. Hers probably wasn’t too different.

“I hope you find him as soon as possible.”

“Me too,” Neve said. “If you see Rana, can you please inform her?”

The merchant agreed and she and Bel left. Her amata, who had been uncharacteristically silent, spoke only when they were out of the pawn shop.

“Neve—”

Her amata let her words fall. Neve reached out to take her hands.

“Tell me, Bel.”

“I was thinking…” she took a deep breath. “Do you think Magister Porenni is Enora’s birth father?”

It was a question Neve had kept away from her mind, because that would implicate Enora’s birth mother was his slave, too, which would mean she was probably the consequence of—

“Let’s hope he is not,” she said, cutting off her own thoughts. “Now let’s save her.”

Neve took her staff and murmured a spell.

She’d enchanted Enora’s necklace so that she could always find it, and Neve tracked it down. She walked through the streets of Dock Town, following the directions of her incantation.

Neve’s enchantment took them in front of a merchant who welcomed her with a smile.

“Neve Gallus! What can I do for you?”

She looked at the necklaces she was showing. She found the necklace with the cat pendant almost immediately.

Neve grabbed it and showed it to the merchant saying, “Who sold you this?”

The woman looked confused.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was yours. You can have it back, no charge.”

Neve was only partially relieved.

“Can you please tell me where the man who sold it went?”

The merchant pointed to a direction, and Neve tracked him down like a hound. She followed the traces he left of footprints, asked other people who may have seen him and followed that faint trace of Blood Magic she couldn’t ignore now.

She arrived to a house in Hightown.

“Wait for me,” she told Bel.

Her amata was going to protest, but Neve told her, “You risked your life not even a couple of hours ago. I’ll be done in a few minutes.”

“Okay, but if you’re not out in five minutes I will come in, too.”

Neve accepted the offer. She checked for magical protection—and found none.

This would be the last mistake of that man.

She marched into the house. Neve was so furious that every time her foot—either the real or the prosthetic one—touched the floor, ice spread outwardly leaving behind several crown-like shapes. She didn’t even think about using her magic, but tendrils of ice followed her emotions and wrapped around the man’s legs.

Neve’s fury wasn’t in heated outbursts; it was more subtle and lethal, like the snow falling in the mountains.

His legs were frozen immediately, and he didn’t have the time to raise his hands which Neve had frozen together in a thick block of ice that prevented him from getting free—or cast spells.

The bastard who still had the semblance of Quintus had the decency to look scared.

If killing Quintus and impersonating him for months hadn’t been enough, she wanted him to suffer for kidnapping Enora.

“Tell me where the fuck you took my daughter,” she ordered with all her rage. 

He tried to smirk. “My Magister had been looking for his stolen goods for months. The little slave is back in his hands now.”

Neve lowered the temperature of the ice. He let out a pained sound.

“Enora isn’t a property, she is a person!” she took a step closer to the man. “And I have no time for these games, tell me where she is! Now!”

He looked at her with eyes full of hate.

“I won’t spea—”

There was a flash at the corner of her vision, and then the man screamed in pain with a sizzling arrow stuck in his left arm. 

Neve turned around to see Bellara like she’d never seen her. She was the embodiment of fury, and she looked at the man with contempt. Her bow was pointed on him.

For the first time, the man who impersonated Quintus looked terrified.

“You—You should be dead!”

Bel didn’t lose her furious gaze. She just fixed her aim on the man and nocked another fade bolt.

“Tell us immediately where you’ve taken the child or the next one ends in your heart.”

Bellara hadn’t shouted or anything. She’d talked in the same way she did when she explained what an elven artifact was made for, and somehow that made her even more threatening.

“In the catacombs! You’ll find Porenni and the slave in the catacombs!”

The place where she’d met Aelia for the first time and stopped her. The place that only harbored bad memories.

Neve needed to breath and process the information.

She bolted out even before realizing it, Bellara at her heels. Outside, she didn’t even have time to make a step because they met Rana. She was was there with Rodric and other two templars, and asked her, “Is Magister Porenni inside?”

“No, there is only his accomplice,” Neve replied. “But he told us where to find the bastard. We can finally end this story once and for all.”

Rana followed the other templars inside to arrest the man, and Neve enjoyed the drizzle of Minrathous.

The man had claimed Porenni had been looking for Enora, which meant that the first time she took her to the hideout, she’d met the real Quintus—which was a relief. Now that she knew how long he’d stayed there, Ashur and the other Shadow Dragons could start keeping track of which information had been passed to the imposter.

But there was another piece of information he’d accidentally given them, and that was something of personal importance for Neve.

She put a hand on Bel’s arm, and said, “Magister Porenni isn’t Enora’s birth father.”

That got Bellara’s full attention. Her gauntlet had come back normal, but she hadn’t lost her edge—something that made Neve want her even more.

It was just amazing to see what Bel was ready to do for Enora.

“Really? How can you say so?”

“He said that Porenni had been looking for her for a long time. He knows some spells that can use a parent’s blood to track down the children, if he was Enora’s father he could have used his own blood to look for where she was.”

Her amata nodded. “It’s sick, but… it makes sense. I’m glad he isn’t her father.”

Neve shared her feeling. Of course, they would have loved Enora regardless, but knowing she had no ties with the man who enslaved her was a relief.

She hugged Bellara. “As soon as Rana comes out of the house, we’ll go to the catacombs.”

“I want to come with you,” Bellara said, as determined as she’d never seen her. “I can help you.”

Neve gave her a quick kiss and, for the first time since the interrogation, Bel let her. She felt a resolve she’d never had in her whole life, and she saw her amata’s eyes mirroring it.

She knew that there was nothing she wouldn’t do to save their child.

“Of course you’re coming, too,” she said. “Let’s go get our daughter back.”

Chapter Text

Catacombs always brought bad memories, starting from Aelia’s case. If Neve could, she always avoided them and, if one of her cases pointed in the direction of the catacombs, she tried to send either Rana or someone from the Shadow Dragons to investigate.

But for her daughter, she was ready to confront all the images that those tunnels brought back to her mind. Neve was able to keep her breath under control and to calm down the cold chills the place caused her, for Enora.

This time, also, she wasn’t alone. She, Rana and Bellara walked among the abandoned ancient caves, weapons high, ready to face a powerful Magister. Neve followed the source of Blood Magic she had discovered the moment she’d scanned the place, and with every step they took downwards, the feeling of that dark magic became stronger and more uncomfortable.

She needed a glance to Bel to understand that her amata could feel it, too. Neve clenched her teeth. The idea that her child was in the hands of a Magister who used Blood Magic so much she could feel it even when she was so distant was disturbing.

She walked even faster, not caring if the cling of her prosthetic leg on the stone would give away her presence.

If Porenni knew she was coming, even better. She would unleash all her fury on him, and she had Bel and Rana at her side.

They were so deep into the catacomb that she could barely see now, but she had all her senses on alert.

Bellara grabbed her arm, and said, “Stop. Something is coming.”

Neve waited, and she could see Rana’s silhouette had stopped, too. Her friend had drawn her sword, and Bel had turned her gauntlet into her bow. Neve drew her staff and reached the Fade, too, waiting—

She heard a weird noise. It was a clacking sound and she finally saw what it was when Bel shot her first Fade bolt and the spell produced enough light to make her see the creatures in front of her.

Spiders.

Not just normal spiders, but the huge, dangerous—and, most likely, poisonous—creatures Harding described in her adventures with the Inquisition.

She shot ice bolts, and her and Bel’s spells cast some light in the dark tunnel for them to see the spiders. Rana killed with her swords the ones that got too close to them all.

Together, they didn’t need much time to kill all the spiders. When they were done, Neve discovered she could feel a deeper hate she already had reserved for the man they were chasing after. Magister Porenni had taken Enora in a place full of spiders, and she remembered perfectly how much the child had freaked out when she saw a little spider on the windowsill of her home office.

Did the bastard know it? Neve thought it was likely, because she remembered spiderwebs in the basement where he kept children—it was impossible he’d never seen Enora terrified from spiders at least once.

Which meant he purposefully took her daughter to a cave where she would be beyond terrified.

His punishment for Enora wasn’t with magic, but it was mental torture with giant spiders.

Neve wouldn’t let him get away with it.

“Let’s go,” Bel said, taking her away from her dark thoughts. “Enora needs us now.”

All of them kept going downwards, and they found lanterns hang on the walls. The feeling of Blood Magic was strongest than ever.

They were close to the bastard now, and, of course, something blocked their way. A red barrier blocked the way for the next tunnel, and around it there were strange signs. On a closer look, Neve remembered she saw similar signs in Arlathan Forest two years ago, when they freed people from a Dalish clan captured by Venatori.

Elven runes.

“Let me do this,” Bel said.

Neve observed the barrier and the runes craved in the wall as she heard her amata murmur elven words. The translucent red wall shimmered and disappeared.

There was a clicking noise somewhere, but Neve had no time to process it because she felt someone shove her through the doorway.

She stumbled and almost fell to the floor, and she turned to ask what the hell was going on, but she didn’t need to: the red barrier was back on, and on the other side, where Bel and Rana were now locked away from her, several demons appeared and were now attacking the other two women.

A trap.

Neve had been too headset on saving her child that she hadn’t even entertained the possibility Porenni may have prepared some trick in case someone followed him.

Bel had probably heard it first and she’d pushed her through the doorway because she was the closest.

Her amata entrusted her with their daughter’s life.

She walked closer to the barrier, and called, “Bel!”

“Don’t worry about us!” Bellara shouted. “We can deal with them!”

That made her heart go wild. She saw arrows and Fade bolts kill demons, and she knew her amata was right, but…

Everything that had happened in the last few hours made her aware she may not have another chance, and that she didn’t want to have regrets.

“Bel, I love you.”

Her amata made a back flip to avoid the claws of a demon as she shot a Fade arrow and hit another.

“I know! Now go and save our daughter!”

Neve turned around, trusting that Bel and Rana would be able to survive, and walked down to the end of the tunnel.

She heard a man’s voice shouting in elven, and when Neve stepped into the bigger cave, she felt her blood boil. Enora was shackled with a blood chain, another was wrapped around her neck, and Magister Porenni was screaming at her in elven.

He raised his hand, but Neve was faster. She summoned a wall of ice between him and Enora and shouted, “Stay the fuck away from my daughter!”

Her daughter turned towards her and she moved her mouth but no sound came out of it.

A silencing spell, Neve understood as her rage burned brighter.

Porenni turned around to stare at her with hatred.

“Neve Gallus!” he said, looking her in the eye. “Not only you stole my slave, you ruined her, too! She doesn’t answer to my command anymore.”

“She is not a slave,” she said, her voice as cold as her magic.

Neve had noticed the verb he’d used. Stole.

Magister Porenni only saw Enora as an object of his property, not as a person.

She restrained herself from attacking him on the spot. He was too close to her daughter now, and the last thing Neve wanted was hurt her by accident.

She needed Porenni to step away from her before she unleashed her rage on him.

“And you couldn’t make me pay for taking her away even if I was disarmed and blindfolded,” she said, stepping on her left.

Aiming at Venatori’s ego was always the right choice, and Magister Porenni was living proof of that.

He followed her, his pride hurt. He was holding his own staff, and Neve saw that, for a moment, his eyes darted back to Enora.

Magister Porenni had to decide that he preferred fighting her than taunting her daughter, and he addressed his full attention to her. “I know women your age all want children at some point, but if you wanted a slave to play family with, we could have agreed on a price.”

He didn’t say it with a mocking tone, or to provoke a reaction out of her. He was totally serious.

This only made her even more furious.

“Don’t you dare!” Neve shouted. “Enora isn’t my slave!”

He laughed as if he’d heard the funniest joke of his life. “You gave the slave a name?”

Only the fact that he was still too close to Enora prevented Neve from unleashing all her ice magic against him. She forced herself to take other steps on her left, and he followed her.

“She isn’t a slave anymore,” she said, keeping her voice even, in spite of the fury that was making her hands shake. “Archon Pavus freed her, she is a Tevinter citizen now.”

He winced at the mention of Dorian, but he quickly turned it into a grin. “Do you think Archon Pavus’s stupid law can stop me? I’ve spent too much time on my plan to give up my slaves because an asshole said so.”

In another circumstance, she would have laughed at the idea of Magister Porenni calling someone else an asshole.

Not when her daughter was in danger.

Neve needed the bastard to walk a few more steps until she could hit him without involving Enora in the fight.

“It’s a shame it didn’t work, all the other children are free now.”

Magister Porenni followed her like a shadow. “My spy told me about your plan, and he gave me back my most precious experiment—I can still correct her, despite the damage you made.”

Neve thought she couldn’t get even more furious. She discovered she was wrong.

“Experiment?” Neve repeated with all her rage.

The man assumed a dreamy expression, his gaze lost in a vision only he could see. “Imagine an elf with no name, no knowledge of the common tongue, only responding to my command. She would have been the perfect assassination tool.”

“She’s not a tool!” Neve shouted.

The young man didn’t seem to have heard her. He was now looking at her like a lunatic, too lost in his own delirium.

“You undid years of work! She now knows the common tongue, and she can tell people about me—that’s what the slave did, didn’t she? But don’t worry, I will punish her so hard she won’t forget that I’m her master, not you! I will use Blood Magic to bend you to my will, and I’ll make you use your magic to cause the slave enough pain for a lifetime. She will understand she should have never switched her loyalty to a new owner…”

Neve had stopped listening the Magister’s rambling. She was deep in concentration, gathering all her mana.

Last year, when she visited Rook in Treviso, the other woman had told her about a legend she’d read in one of the books of the library in Villa Dellamorte.

“Basically this Crow mage used a powerful ice spell. He created a blade with an edge so thin it could cut through everything, even magical barriers,” Rook had told her. “Do you think it’s possible to do something like that, or is it just a story?”

Neve had chuckled. “Why are you asking me?”

Rook had shuddered. “You’re the most powerful ice mage I know. I thought if someone knows the answer, it may be you.”

Neve had been flattered by her friend, but she had no such answer.

But…

Rook had planted the seed of curiosity in her mind, and when she came back to Minrathous, Neve had started thinking about it more and more. The idea of recreating such a spell was challenging, and she hadn’t found herself so deeply interested in a topic since the time she studied at the Circle.

She’d dusted off some old tomes about magic theory she hadn’t opened in almost twenty years, and she’d practiced for months every time she had some free time from her cases or from helping people in Minrathous.

It had been a little more than a theory dissertation, a demonstration to prove Rook it was something technically possible.

Neve had never thought about using that spell on a person.

Until she’d seen the giant spiders.

She used her staff to channel her mana: it was an incredibly complex spell that required precision and power. Neve had to keep the sharp edge of the spell and charge it with all her energy to make it lethal and, as the legend said, able to cut through everything.

When she practiced, always on isolated beaches where she could only hit sea rocks, Neve always consumed all her mana, but now she made sure to save some. She would need it to heal Enora afterwards.

She looked at Magister Porenni, who was still going on with his monologue.

“Oh, it will be so fun to see my slave suffer—”

He didn’t finish the sentence.

Neve cast her spell and it all happened in a moment. Magister Porenni was still rambling when the ice blade had sliced through his waist and the rock wall behind, splattering his blood in the direction of the spell.

The upper half of his body fell, his hateful grin forever plastered on his face.

Neve fell on her knees, exhausted now that she’d consumed too much mana too fast. She took a deep breath, her whole body shaking, but she heard some steps.

Of course, with the caster dead, the Blood Magic holding Enora prisoner had vanished. Neve used some of the little mana she had left to cast a wall of ice so her child wouldn’t see Magister Porenni’s corpse.

Even though the child had been trained to normalize death, Neve thought it was too gruesome for Enora to see her former master’s body split in half.

Her daughter was running towards her. Enora passed her little arms around her neck and shouted, “Mom! You saved me!”

And, for the first time since she welcomed Enora in her home, the child started crying on her shoulder.

Neve held close as she murmured, “You’re safe now, da’len.”

Enora sobbed and cried like she was finally letting out all the negative feelings she’d repressed for months. Neve did her best to console her, whispering that now she had nothing to fear from her former owner, petting gently her hair and telling her she’d been so brave to resist him.

Now that the adrenaline was gone, Neve felt herself shed a few tears, too.

There was something comforting in her child finally crying for the first time. She had finally overcome the last standing teaching of Magister Porenni about never shedding tears, and now Enora felt free to show her emotions.

She didn’t know how long they stayed like that, holding each other. Neve traced soothing circles on her daughter’s back, murmuring how much she loved her and calling her da’len, as Enora slowly calmed down.

“Can I use my healing magic on you, da’len?”

Her daughter let her go and nodded. She took a good look at her, now that she was free, and Neve saw bruises on her arms and shoulders, from which she healed her. She also took a handkerchief and cleaned Enora’s wrists and neck from the blood that Porenni’s spells had left on her, and with her relief she found out there was only unscathed skin.

When her child was ready and healed, Neve said, “Let’s go, da’len. Bel is waiting for us.”

Enora sniffed and looked at her with hope. “Is Mamae not dead?”

It hit Neve how much worse the last few hours had been for Enora. Not only she’d seen the imposter shoot a spell to kill Bel, she’d been kidnapped and taken back to her former owner who taunted her with giant spiders and Blood Magic, and she’d believed Bel was dead the whole time.

Neve hugged her daughter, kissing her head.

“Your Mamae is a strong woman,” she whispered. “She isn’t killed that easily.”

Enora held her closer.

Neve separated from her just the time to adjust because her knees were starting to hurt, and she was feeling some of her energy back. She picked Enora up saying, “Let’s go meet her.”

Her daughter held her close, and Neve walked back into the tunnel that had led her there. At some point, Enora fidgeted in her arms so much that Neve had to put her back on the floor.

Enora dashed and Neve followed her. She understood her daughter had heard Bellara’s voice when she heard it, too, and she saw that Enora yell, “Mamae!”

Bellara came to her and picked Enora up, calling her da’len and murmuring something in elven. Their daughter clung on her, holding her tight and shed a few more tears, and Bel made some soothing circles on her back, like Neve had done.

Neve looked at them with a smile and a pleasant feeling in her chest. She would never take for granted having both her amata and their child together, safe and sound.

As she’d predicted, both her amata and her friend had been able to kill all the demons with nothing more than a few scratches each.

Rana walked towards her. “Is Magister Porenni down there?”

Neve took a deep breath. She didn’t look at her friend in the eye.

“I killed him. I’m sorry, Rana, I know I should have arrested him, but he was too dangerous to be free. He would have probably escaped justice and started gathering children for his personal army again, but this time he would have been more careful since he was already arrested once.”

Rana said nothing, her lips pursed together in disapproval.

She was right, but the former templar wanted to follow the law to the letter—which Neve would have done in any other case.

But not with Magister Porenni. Not with the man who killed poor, foreign people to kidnap and enslave their children.

Not with her daughter’s former owner.

Rana shifted her gaze from her to Enora, who was shaking in Bellara’s arms. The other woman was doing her best to calm down their child, and Neve wanted nothing more than join them and hug them both.

“I understand that your child was in danger and you killed Porenni for this.” She put a hand on Neve’s shoulders. “But, please, remember we’re not murderers.”

Neve nodded, thankful for her friend’s understanding. 

“It will never happen again,” she promised. 

She looked at Bellara, who nodded at her.

“Let’s leave this place,” Neve said.

Bellara walked next to her, holding and carrying Enora. She told the child something in elven in her ear, and Enora hid her face in the crook of Bel’s neck as they passed next to the corpses of the giant spiders.

Bel only put down Enora when they left the catacombs, and Neve felt like she could breathe again under the cold drizzle of Dock Town.

She told Enora, “Go to Hal’s booth with Auntie Rana, Bel and I will arrive soon.”

Rana nodded took their child’s hand and they walked towards the fried fish booth.

Neve turned to Bel. There was something she had to discuss with her now that they were safe.

She looked her amata in the eye and said, “You know, when someone tells you I love you, you’re not supposed to say that you know.”

Bel’s eyes widened and she started talking like she did when she was in panic.

“I am so sorry, it’s just—I was worried for Enora and you show me already how much you love me—I know, it looks like I don’t love you, but I do—love you, I mean—and—”

“Bel.”

Neve gently interrupted her with a kiss. When they separated, she saw all the love and affection in her amata’s eyes, the woman who had been in love with her for years and, even though she hadn’t said those three words, had showed her all her love with her actions and little gestures.

There was only one thing Neve could say.

“I know.”

***

Bellara persuaded her that going to Arlathan with Enora would be a good idea. After Rana agreed with the plan, reassuring her that now that Magister Porenni was dead she could handle the aftermath, Neve quickly packed her stuff and walked with them through the Eluvian.

Her amata had framed it as leaving Minrathous would be beneficial to Enora, but Neve understood that she was doing it for for her, too.

She didn’t realize it immediately, though.

Neve felt a little anxious if she lost sight of her amata. Every time she heard a noise, she immediately reached the Fade, only to discover later it was due to a halla or another animal. She could only fall asleep holding Enora close.

She had given the necklace with the cat pendant back to her daughter, and every time Enora was out of her field of vision, Neve immediately reached it with her magic only to find the child looking at some animal or playing with her stuffed halla in their tent.

Bellara helped her through it all, holding her and reassuring her they were alright, and Enora was safe.

On the first night, Enora fell asleep immediately, too tired from the distress of the day, when Bel was still finishing the protective elven wards to keep forest creatures away. They all lay on the bedrolls, Neve’s arm around their sleeping child, and she told her amata everything that had happened since the moment they got separated in the catacombs to when she came back with Enora.

Bellara listened to her carefully, then reached out to kiss her on the lips when Neve ended her tale.

“I’m glad you killed him,” she said. “I mean—I know I shouldn’t be, but not only was he a danger to the whole city with his army project, he also hurt Enora. He was her master, Neve. The idea that he is dead now makes me feel safer.”

“The only regret I have is that my spell killed him too quickly,” Neve confessed. “I wish the bastard suffered more. Am I a monster for this?”

Bel held her hand, the one that wasn’t wrapped around Enora.

“No, don’t even think about it, vhenan,” she replied. “I wish he suffered more, too.”

Bel reached out to kiss her again, and fell asleep holding Neve and their child.

One of the surprises of that trip was that Neve got used quickly to be called Mom by Enora. Maybe, she’d been considering the child as her daughter for so long it felt now natural to be called like that.

It was as natural as Bellara calling her vhenan.

Neve was unprepared, instead, to Enora calling them both. When the child yelled, “Mamae! Mom! Come see the halla!” she felt a rush of happiness that she didn’t know it existed before.

She kissed her amata and always followed their child.

In the week they spent together, just the three of them, Neve and Bel learned to get used to the fact that now Enora cried. Sometimes the child wanted Bellara’s comfort, and she murmured things in elven to make her feel better. Other times, instead, she wanted Neve to hold her and comfort her.

They were glad their child didn’t feel obliged to hide her emotions anymore, and they made everything possible to make her feel safe.

After the week passed, Bel proposed to go to the Veil Jumpers camp for a few more days, and Neve accepted. The idea of going back to Minrathous made her heartbeat faster with anxiety and turned her sweat cold.

Bellara hugged her and kissed her on the lips.

“We can stay here as long as you need to,” she promised.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I love you.”

Saying those three words had become as natural as breathing when they were addressed to Bel. Her amata always smiled and told her, “I love you, too.“

When they arrived at the Veil Jumpers camp, Neve found out that Strife and Irelin had gone to check some anomalies near the ruins of Arlathan City and they would be away for a few more days, maybe a week—which made her feel sorry, because she wanted to say hi and talk to them about Enora and how the situation had resolved.

Next time, she told herself. Now that she and Bel were together, she would try to come to Arlathan more often.

For the first time, Neve saw Enora meet the friends she’d made a few weeks ago. It was so good to see her child happy, playing with other children with no care in the world. She smiled instinctively watching her daughter having so much fun, and she only stopped when Bel put a hand on her arm and introduced her to the other parents.

To her shame, Neve’s first instinct was reaching for the Fade and check the other adults for traces of Blood Magic. She felt guilty when she found none, because Bel had known them for a good part of her life; but, after all, she’d known Quintus too, and that had been used by Magister Porenni’s man against the Shadow Dragons and her specifically.

But, once she snapped out of her feelings, Neve found out that the other parents were nice people. Neve and Bel tried to speak more with the parents of the children whom Enora played more and seemed to get more along.

They spent another week like this, and one morning, when Neve was still laying on the bedroll, so soon she hadn’t put her prosthetic leg on yet, she whispered to Bel that she was ready to go back to Minrathous.

Enora seemed happy to go back to her apartment, and started asking her already if they could go see the cats and play with them. Neve smiled and promised they would, but she had a few things to do before that.

The first place where Neve went was the Wall of Light. The Shadow Dragons told her they had cremated Quintus’s body and one of their mages had lit his lantern, and Neve saw it hanging close to Domitius’s.

She’d never believed in anything after death, but for the first time in her life Neve hoped she was wrong and that father and son could now meet again in the afterlife.

Then, she invited Rana for dinner and helped Bel cook for their guest. Rana spent a very nice evening with them and played with Enora, too.

When the child went to sleep, the former templar informed them about everything that had happened in Minrathous during their absence.

Firstly, she reassured them both that the Shadow Dragons were working to take the children back to their remaining relatives. Rana had given them all the information she and Neve gathered, and Ashur had contacted the Crows and the Lords of Fortune—since the children came mostly from Antiva and Rivain—and they were looking for people who were ready to take care of the children.

Magister Drusilla Nihalis had been arrested the day after all the mess with Magister Porenni on the accusation of smuggling red lyrium and using slaves to perpetrate her crimes. They found out Bel’s guess had been partially right: Magister Nihalis had illegitimate children, but they weren’t her slaves, they were her young accomplices who distributed and resold red lyrium.

Needless to say, the four young men and women, whose ages ranged from eighteen to twenty-five, had been arrested along their mother, but they’d been charged with lesser jail time. All of Magister Nihalis’s slaves had been freed immediately.

After the arrests, Rana had led the templars to seize the Magister’s house and confiscate red lyrium and other dark artifacts, but allegedly when they arrived, many pieces of jewelry, golden statues, chests full of money and expensive paintings were missing from Nihalis’s house.

Neve pretended to be surprised, but Rana looked at her in a weird way. Of course, she had to suspect she knew exactly where those objects had ended up, but Neve didn’t want to tell her about the agreement she had with Elek—and the Threads by extension.

She went on saying that Archon Pavus had ordered an immediate requisition of all of Magister Erimond’s house, they found out his granddaughter was right: the old man had been performing Blood rituals and had new slaves. He had been stripped of his power and privileges and sent to jail, in a cell as far away from Nihalis as possible.

Apparently, the Shadow Dragons were using the confiscated houses as a safe place for liberated slaves—including Magister Erimond’s newly freed ones—or to host the homeless, which was pissing off the rest of the Erimond family.

Dorian and Maevaris were now busy with trying to give the now vacant seat in the Magisterium to Octavia Erimond, completely skipping her parents, aunts and uncles. How they were doing it, Neve didn’t know and, in all honesty, she didn’t want to be involved.

She was a detective, not a politician.

As far as Magister Porenni was concerned, the Shadow Dragons had already taken all his documents and destroyed his laboratory that same day Neve had led the operations to free the children.

In those two weeks, Dorian had also freed Porenni’s adult slaves, and they were now been taken care of in one of Erimond’s former properties. Most of them were Dalish elves who had been under Blood Magic control for years, and they were now adjusting to their new Liberati status while catching up with everything that had happened in Northen Thedas while they were under the Magister’s spell.

The Shadow Dragons were also tracking down the trafficker which Magister Porenni used to buy slaves from, and Neve wanted to help them, but—

She was tired. Not physically, but the emotional toll of going after Porenni had drained her.

Now that her daughter was safe and the man was dead, Neve could leave the other Shadow Dragons the task to chase Magister Porenni’s accomplices.

The most important lesson Neve had learned in the last few years was that she didn’t have to fight her battles alone, and she was confident that Ashur, Tarquin and the others were able to find and arrest the slave traders mentioned in Porenni’s documents.

“I think that’s everything you’ve missed,“ Rana said. “I’m glad that you and little Gallus are back. I’ve missed you all.”

“We missed you, too,” Bellara said. “You know, you’re welcome here whenever you want to.”

The former templar was about to get up to leave, but she stopped as if she’d just remembered something.

“Little Gallus told me I can tell you what we talked about the first time she stayed overnight at my place.”

Neve felt her own curiosity coming back as powerful as ever. “What was it?”

Rana grinned. “She asked me what a Mom is. I think she realized you two fit the description I gave her.”

Neve held Bel’s hand.

They had never thought about explaining it to Enora, but she didn’t know things that were obvious to them. Another reason to hate Magister Porenni with a passion.

“What did you tell her?” Bel asked. “When you described what a Mom is, I mean.”

Rana addressed them both with a sincere smile.

“I told her a Mom is a woman who loves her child, takes care of them and does everything to protect them. Sounds familiar?”

Neve held Bel’s hand even tighter, sure that she was feeling the same sense of pride and happiness.

“Thanks for telling us, Rana,” Neve said.

They said their goodbyes and Rana eventually left.

That night, Neve and Bel had sex for the first time in over two weeks. It was soft and sweet, and they both panted, “I love you,“ more times than they could count. After the orgasm, which hit them both almost at the same time, they held each other until they fell asleep.

The day after, Neve studied some of Magister Porenni’s records that Rana had given her with the recommendation she would read them as soon as possible, since she was supposed to give them back to Tarquin.

The young Magister kept several journals about the children he’d kidnapped, and Rana had given her those about Enora.

The first one started before he met her birth parents, and was about Magister Porenni forcing elven Dalish slaves to teach him their language using Blood Magic. He was barely an adult, but he was already planning on forging a slave assassin who only spoke elven—so said slave couldn’t communicate with other people to ask for help, or testify.

His thoughts were so sick, even at such a young age, that Neve almost wished he was alive only to kill him again.

She read the next journal, that was about how he had paid a few mercenary platoons to invade a Dalish village on the fringe of Arlathan Forest, and described with morbid details the brutal killing of elves and how they set on fire the whole village.

Magister Porenni at some point wrote about an elf who defended a heavily pregnant woman—most likely his wife. He’d ordered the mercenaries kill the man in an extremely cruel way whose description took almost two pages, and decided to capture the pregnant woman who was still crying the death of her husband and the rest of her village.

Neve ground her teeth as the Magister referred to the woman as his new slave, and felt her hatred spike up when he described how she went to labor and gave birth to a girl, only for him to take away the baby and kill the poor woman.

Neve felt a deep sadness for Enora’s birth mother. She’d always thought she was most likely dead, but she had no idea it had happened in such grim circumstances.

The last thing she’d seen was Magister Porenni, the bastard who’d slaughtered her people, included her husband, take away the child she’d just given birth to. Neve wished she could let her know that now her baby was free from that bastard and had a loving family who was taking care of her.

As soon as she finished reading the journal, Neve went to hug Enora, who was confused and asked her, “Mom? Are you okay?”

“Yes, da’len,” she said. “I just want you to know how much I love you.”

The child held her, too.

“Do you want to see the cats?” Neve asked.

“Yes!” Enora exclaimed. “Mamae! Can we go see the cats?”

Bel, who was working on an elven artifact, raised her gaze and smiled at them.

“Of course you can, da’len.”

Enora hugged her and together she and Neve walked outside. They had fun petting cats together, and Neve looked at her daughter play with the cats.

Seeing her so happy was soothing, and Neve decided she would keep reading the journals tomorrow. She didn’t want to spoil her own mood reading more sick thoughts of Enora’s former owner.

But Neve had also found out something positive.

“Enora was born on the twenty-third day of Matrinalis,” Neve said at the dinner table, sitting next to her child.

Bellara had been dealing with publishers from Minrathous for so long she was now used to have her deadlines with the Tevinter names of the months and she knew which one Matrinalis was.

“Oh!” Bellara exclaimed, looking at Enora. “You’ll turn five in three months, da’len! We’ll celebrate your birthday with all your friends!”

Their child looked confused. “Celebrate my birthday?”

Of course, Magister Porenni probably just informed her of when her age changed and nothing more. But that would never happen anymore.

No, now Enora would celebrate all her birthdays properly, she and Bel would make sure of it.

Neve smiled at her daughter. “Yes, da’len. Your birthdays are special to us and we’ll celebrate them.”

That seemed to make Enora happy.

The day after, Neve took courage to go on reading the rest of Porenni’s journals. He taught Enora how to speak elven personally, and he forbid the rest of his staff and other slaves to talk to her daughter in the common tongue. He also used the same Dalish elves he’d forced to teach him with the use of Blood Magic.

Neve read of how Magister Porenni decided to forge Enora into a weapon, starting to train her a few months ago to turn her into a killer by the time she was fourteen. She read more of his training, of his punishments with magic, and of how he tried to make Enora more familiar with the concepts of killing and death.

But he failed.

Enora was still a child capable of wonder, she enjoyed playing with cats and got emotional if she or Bel gave her gifts. She hadn’t lost her innocence.

Magister Porenni hadn’t broken Enora, and that was the most important victory Neve could ever claim.

She referred everything she’d read to Bel, who hugged her and held her close.

“We could have read it together,” her amata said. “You didn’t need to take this burden alone, vhenan.”

But Neve felt like she should have. She still felt guilty for the interrogation, and reading through Magister Porenni’s journals had felt like some kind of atonement.

Another thing she and Bel sorted as soon as possible was their family status. They made Enora’s adoption official, which was a smooth process since the child had been living with them for almost four months now and she already had Neve’s last name.

They added Bel’s surname, too, and their child’s official name became Enora Gallus-Lutare.

“It was about time you did it,” Rana told her one day as they had lunch in the Cobbled Swan. “But I want you to know I’ll still call her little Gallus.”

Neve chuckled.

“Do it, my daughter won’t be offended.”

It didn’t even feel weird calling Enora her daughter out loud. She was hers, her child, since the moment she chose to not leave her side.

Neve almost laughed.

She had never really thought about having children, but Enora had just happened to be in her life and she’d won over Neve’s heart.

It was the most unexpected thing that had happened to her, and Neve couldn’t be happier.

***

Almost three years ago, Treviso had been Blighted when the dragon had attacked the city. Since then, the Crows of Antiva had worked hard to restore the city to how it was before the Blight, and in Neve’s opinion they had done an excellent job.

If one didn’t know it already, they would have never imagined the hardships Treviso had gone through.

Neve and Bellara showed Enora the city, with the promise they would take her to the grand market the day after. They then walked to Villa Dellamorte, where they had to meet their friends.

Ever since they defeated the gods together, the whole Veilguard had decided they would all meet at least twice per year, despite their busy lives. Rook’s invitation with a date and Villa Dllamorte as the place for the meeting had arrived last week, and Neve and Bel had prepared themselves how to announce to their friends the news of their lives, and how to introduce Enora to them. They’d eventually decided they would tell them in person about their relationship and their daughter.

Rook, who had settled in Villa Dellamorte immediately after the gods had been defeated, welcomed them and said hello to Enora, who looked at Neve for help. She was still distrustful of human mages, and she took her daughter’s hand.

“Rook is a friend,” Bel was already reassuring her, out of their host’s earshot. “You are safe here.”

Enora nodded and they all walked into the foyer and followed Rook to the living room where Lucanis and Davrin, her partners, were talking with Taash, Lace, Emmrich and Strife.

They all turned towards them, and with good reason to.

“We have something to announce,” Neve said. She took Bel’s hand, who addressed her with a radiant smile, and added, “We’re together, and we adopted a child.”

Bellara put a hand on their child’s shoulder. “She is Enora Gallus-Lutare, our daughter.”

There was silence for a few moments, but Taash was the one breaking it.

“Wait, did you adopt another?”

“I think she is the same one of four months ago,” Davrin replied.

For a moment, she was too stunned to understand what was happening. But Rook hadn’t been surprised to see Enora just a few minutes ago, and their friends were much less surprised than she’d expected them to be.

There was only one possible explanation for that reaction. Neve turned to Strife, but Bel was faster.

“Did you tell them? We asked you to keep it quiet.”

“Well, I’ve only told Emmrich,” Strife defended himself.

“And I’ve only told Lucanis.”

“I’ve only told Davrin.”

“I’ve only told Rook.”

“I’ve only told Taash.”

“And I’ve only told Lace.”

Neve sighed. Of course, she should have expected that their friends would gossip about her and Bel taking care of a child together. It was like dealing Rana and Tarquin, but ten times worse.

“Why am I even surprised?” she murmured.

Their friends were getting closer to tell them congratulations and to talk to Enora, but the child had noticed that Davrin was an elf, too, and she’d started talking to him in elven. The Grey Warden was pleasantly surprised, and replied to her in the same language.

Some servant took wine, both red and white bottles, and they all accepted a glass. Neve noticed that Rook refused a glass of red, and she went to talk to Taash and Lace.

Neve took the chance to walk to Strife and Emmrich, to whom she apologized in advance for Enora’s lack of trust since he was a human mage, too.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Emmrich reassured her. “Strife told me everything about the child the first day you took her to the Veil Jumpers camp.”

Neve only then realized she should have expected the older elf wouldn’t keep a secret from his husband. But only then she noticed another thing.

“Where is Fred? Did you leave him in the Necropolis?”

“Oh, no, he is playing with Assan outside,” Strife explained.

Neve nodded. She would introduce them to Enora, too, once she got used to the rest of the Veilguard.

“How are you adjusting to your life as a parent?” Emmrich asked.

“Better than I expected,” Neve admitted. “I thought Enora would stay with me and Bel for just a few weeks, instead we decided to keep her for good. I was ready to bet that Strife would find a family willing to adopt her, instead I’m glad no one stepped up.”

Strife chuckled. “Don’t you find it weird that in three months I hadn’t found anyone willing to adopt Enora?”

Neve stared at the elf.

“You hadn’t looked for anyone else?”

Strife shook his head. “We didn’t find anyone from Enora’s birth family who was still alive, but I saw how you two took care of her. I guessed you would want to adopt her, sooner or later.”

And he’d been right.

Neve was about to reply, but someone put a hand on her arm.

Rook.

“Can I steal you for a moment?”

Neve followed her friend outside, on a balustrade that had a wonderful view on the garden.

“Did you find out if it is possible to cast the spell from the legend?” Rook asked her.

She was almost as excited as Enora when she saw cats, and Neve smiled. “Yes, I’m sorry I’ve never replied to your letter. It’s possible.”

She told Rook about her case and Magister Porenni, and how she’d used that spell to kill him. Rook looked at her with eyes full of awe.

“Wow,” she said. “I think you did the right thing killing the bastard, by the way. Venatori don’t deserve to live, especially slave owners as sick as Porenni.”

It felt validating to have another person telling her she’d done the right thing.

“You understand also that I needed to protect my daughter, right?“ Neve asked. “When are you supposed to give birth?”

Rook startled and looked at her in pure shock.

“How did you understand it? Only Lucanis and Davrin know it for now.”

Neve smirked. “Rook, when did you ever decline a glass of red Antivan wine?”

Rook laughed. “You’re right. I’m due in six months. I’m fighting already with Davrin and Lucanis for the names, can you believe they vetoed Fenris if it’s a boy?”

Neve could. Rook’s obsession with the Campion of Kirkwall and her adventures had to be studied.

“I’m sure you will find names you three can agree on,” she just said.

“You’re right. Shall we join the others?”

Neve came back to the table, but when she arrived she saw Lucanis passing some gold pieces in Taash’s hands, while Lace shook her head in disapproval.

She arrived next to them as silently as she could, just in time to hear Harding say, “You two shouldn’t bet on our friend’s love life—”

“Did you really bet on me and Bel?”

The three of them startled.

“Well…” Lucanis started, a hand scratching his neck in clear discomfort.

“Yes, and I won,” Taash interrupted him. “I’ve always thought you two were a little bit too close to be just friends, even when we lived in the Lighthouse. After that, you bought an apartment with a double bed for you two, so it was pretty obvious.”

“I didn’t buy a double bed because I was with Bel,” Neve replied.

“Why then?” Lace asked. “Everyone assumed you were together.”

“We were just waiting for you to confirm it,” Lucanis added.

Rook called them all to the dining room and Neve took the excuse to avoid the conversation with her friends. As they all sat, Bel announced, “I have another exciting news! I’ve pitched a new serial to the publisher and they accepted it.”

“What is it about?” Emmrich asked.

Bel smiled in a way that made Neve want to reach out and kiss her.

“It’s about a detective who solves cases involving nobles and politicians,” she said, smiling at Neve. “The first episode comes out next winter.”

Everyone complimented her and Lucanis, Lace and Emmrich made her promise to send them the first chapter in advance.

They all had a nice dinner together, with amazing food and even better company. Her friends had fun asking questions to Enora and the child looked more and more confident and at ease. At some point, the child was sleepy and Rook proposed her to take her in one of the guest bedrooms.

Anxiety spiked immediately under Neve’s skin, but Bel took her hand.

She had to take a deep breath. Villa Dellamorte was the safest place in Treviso—if not all of Antiva.

Enora was in no danger here.

Neve let one of the waitstaff take Enora upstairs, but just in case she checked the location of her daughter with the enchanted necklace.

Unfortunately, she was sure she wouldn’t lose the habit anytime soon.

Once it was only the adults at the table, the empty dishes were taken away and more wine was poured. Neve and Bellara told the whole story of Enora to the others, starting from the moment Neve had accepted a job from the Shadow Dragons that had led her to find Enora, to the investigation on her murder case, to the discovery Enora was somehow involved with the case, to the three Magisters and in the end to the kidnapping by Magister Porenni and the fight that had ensued—Bel had to tell this part because Neve’s throat was suddenly too tight when she tried to talk about it—and eventually to the official adoption.

“Wow,” Davrin commented. “I had no idea you went through all this pain lately.”

“You have a child now, so at least something good had come out of it,” Lucanis said.

“You are two good mothers,” Emmrich commented. 

“Agree,” Harding added.

Neve found her hand closed in Bellara’s. She smiled at her friends, and thanked them. 

If there was something the last few months had taught Neve, was that life was unpredictable, but that one could get good things out of it.

Enora had been the best thing she’d gotten in years, together with Bel’s unconditional love. Neve looked at her amata, and she knew Bel was feeling the same as her.

Whatever the future may hold for them, good or bad, they would face it together.

Chapter Text

Neve’s favourite moment to have sex was early morning, just after the sun had risen and she could admire her beautiful amata’s body in the first light of the day.

Neve adjusted her grip on Bellara’s hips and thrust the enchanted strap harder into her, to which she panted, “Yes, please, venhan, fuck me like this.”

Neve complied, because she couldn’t resist anything her amata asked for.

After two and a half years together, the last of which married, Neve knew what her wife loved most in bed; being fucked like that, with a pillow under her belly to keep her hips high and Neve using her enchanted strap to fuck her from behind, was Bel’s favourite position because she claimed she could feel the strap deeper.

It was Neve’s favourite, too: having her amata completely submitted to her, with a view of her wonderful ass and her loose hair falling on her back as she felt her clenching the strap, was just amazing.

Bellara was so wet she slid in and out easily—it was one of the reasons why she loved using it, because her enchanted strap allowed her to feel how aroused her amata was for her. She often joked about not even needing to use lubricant to fuck her with the fake cock, but she never did it. Firstly, Neve didn’t want to hurt accidentally her wife with an unlubricated strap, and secondly, she loved reducing her amata to a dripping mess, and lubricant was a great help for that, too.

Neve kept fucking her wife as hard as the other woman wanted to, her rough trusts expressing Neve’s impatient and animalistic desire. She sunk one of her hands in Bel’s hair, not slowing down her rhythm, and she was rewarded by her wife’s moan.

“I’m close, vhenan,” Bel panted.

Neve was close, too. She thrust harder into the other woman, folded over her and murmured in her ear, “Come for me, amata.”

She brought a hand between her wife’s legs and started circling her clitoris until she reached her climax and shuddered under her.

Bel always felt tight around the strap, but when she came she clenched it even tighter. That was too much for Neve: she thrust it deeper, and finished inside her wife.

She knew that Bel, right after an orgasm, was overly sensitive and would feel Neve filling her up. Indeed, she let out an approving groan, saying, “I love when you do that, vhenan.”

Neve kissed her on the shoulder, then let her lips go up her neck, but that wasn’t enough. She slowly pulled out from Bellara, helped her turn around and kissed her deeply.

She’d missed her amata, and Bel clearly missed her just as much. Her wife’s hands dragged her closer, and one sunk into her hair.

Bellara bit her lower lip, which made her moan. Then she moved down her neck, and sunk her teeth near her collarbone as she started sucking.

They agreed to leave hickeys on each other only where they could be covered with clothes to avoid embarrassing questions from Enora, and as a result Neve’s chest was full of red marks.

Neve moaned as her amata left another hickey on her, and when she was done, Bel’s mouth moved lower, on her breast, where she took her nipple in her mouth and started sucking.

Neve started panting, her pleasure building again. Bellara let her breast go with a grin that only worsened her desire.

Neve didn’t consider herself eager, but Bel had been in Arlathan for six weeks, and the enchanted strap rubbing on her amata’s abdomen as they kissed and used their teeth on each other was rekindling her desire. 

“Bel, do you want—”

She didn’t need to finish her sentence: Bellara had already spread her legs and was angling the strap towards her entrance. 

Neve used her magic to make the strap cold, shivering at the sensation, and thrust it inside her wife. Bel yelped, promptly shut by Neve’s hand, but she was so drenched with both their orgasms that Neve could fit it all inside in one, fluid motion.

She had to bite her lips to not moan, too: Bel was so nicely warm, and the contrast with the cold strap was wonderful. Under her, her wife squirmed in pleasure from the icy strap and that snapped the last thread of Neve’s self-control.

She started thrusting into her amata at a hard, fast rhythm, and felt her pleasure increasing again. Neve wasn’t sure Bel wouldn’t be loud, but she cautiously removed her hand from her wife’s mouth.

Big mistake. Her wife didn’t scream or moan too loudly, but she panted, “Fuck me harder, vhenan.”

“Are you sure?” Neve asked. “I don’t want you to be too sore later.”

Her wife smirked, and that made her gain a deep thrust. “I haven’t had you inside me for too long, we need to make up for that.”

Neve complied to her wish: she slammed the strap inside her wife with rough and powerful thrusts, knowing full well the other woman would be sore in a few hours—if she wasn’t already.

But Bel—

She just took her so well. She was so tight and wet for her, and she could feel her strap squeezed by her wife.

They were both so worked up from the previous orgasms that they didn’t last long: Bellara came undone after a particularly deep thrust, moaning her name and clenching the strap again.

Neve kissed her, and was now close, too. 

She gave a few more thrusts and, right before coming, she groaned in Bel’s ear, “Feel how much I’ve missed you, amata.”

She thrust the strap as deep as she could and finally came, too. From Bel’s pleased expression, she knew her wife was feeling it all, and moaned at the sensation of being filled again.

Neve couldn’t resist: with the strap still deep inside her, she kissed Bellara. It was a desperate kiss, as if it was the last day she would spend with the other woman all her life, and only separated from her when she needed to breathe.

“I love you,” she whispered on Bel’s lips. “I love you, Bel, I will never get tired of telling you.”

Her amata left a peck on her lips and said, “I love you too.”

Neve slowly pulled out of her wife, task made it easier by the wetness on her strap, and, now that Bellara was empty, she enjoyed the sight of the come leaking out of her—she couldn’t tell if it was her own, Bel’s, or both mixed.

She just knew she would never get tired of that hot sight.

She took off the harness, and as soon as she placed the drenched strap away, Bel grabbed her arm and pulled her in another deep kiss.

“I’m so happy you’re back in Minrathous today,” Neve murmured.

“I would have never skipped your fortieth,” Bellara replied, then kissed her again. “Happy birthday, vhenan.”

***

Neve didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep, but she woke up to a kiss on her cheek. She slowly opened her eyes to meet her wife’s smile.

“How long have I slept?”

“An hour, maybe a bit less,” Bel replied.

Only then Neve noticed she must have bathed herself—she smelled of her soap, a scent she hadn’t felt on the other woman for far too long—and she’d changed her clothes.

“If you want to get ready, I’ll prepare breakfast,” her wife added, and Neve nodded.

When the other woman left the room, she put on her metal leg, grabbed her clothes and went to the bathroom. She had a nice bath and got ready for the day, leaving only when she was satisfied with her make-up.

She went to the kitchen and kissed Bel’s cheek, who was frying some vegetables on the stove.

“I’ve just made coffee, it’s in the kettle,” her amata said.

Neve thanked her and poured herself a mug. She could tell from the smell alone that it was much better than what she prepared for herself, and the fact that Bel didn’t even drink coffee but had learned to make it for her was heartwarming.

“Oh, tonight we’re going to Treviso, Rook insisted in organizing the party for you,” Bel said.

Neve pursed her lips.

“Will Taash be there, too?”

“Come on, they don’t curse that much around Enora,” Bel immediately jumped to their friend’s defense.

Neve loved her friend, of course, but last time they met the Veilguard, Enora had come to her and Bel asking what fuck meant. Neve had glared at Taash, and they at least had the decency to look embarrassed.

“Do I have to remind you what happened the last time we met them?”

“Well, to be fair you accidentally taught curse words to Manfred when we lived at the Lighthouse, so it’s not like you can reprimand Taash,” Bel replied.

Well, her wife had a point.

“Alright, but I’ll spend the night next to Taash to be sure they won’t say fuck or shit around our daughter.”

“Or you could just enjoy the party,” Bel countered, reaching out to kiss her. “It’s your birthday, vhenan, don’t stress yourself too much.”

Neve reluctantly agreed and sat at the table sipping at her coffee. It was as delicious as it smelled.

The moment she put her mug down, Neve found herself in a tight hug.

“Happy birthday, Mom!”

Neve turned to kiss her daughter on her forehead. She had grown much taller than when Neve and Bel adopted her, and when she was sitting she didn’t have to bend to kiss her child anymore.

“Thank you, da’len,” she said.

It was the first time she’d met her daughter in six weeks, and Neve turned around to hold Enora in her arms.

“I made something for you,” her daughter said, and ran back to her bedroom only to be back in a few moments holding a paper sheet.

She put her drawing on the table and Neve smiled while looking at it. Her child had only kept her passion for drawing and she saw a noticeable improvement from when she’d started, and she wondered if someday Enora would become an artist.

The drawing showed three figures, one short and with pointed ears, the other two tall and with long hair, one of which had pointy ears too, and the other had a prosthetic leg. All around the three figures, there were cats.

“It’s the three of us,” Enora explained, then she pointed to one cat. “This is Philip, and this is Jane, and this is…”

Neve and her daughter had taken the habit to give names to the stray cats they met more often, and it was so cute to see them portrayed in her drawings.

“It’s beautiful, da’len,” she said.

Enora made a pouty face.

“Mom, I’m not little anymore. You don’t have to call me da’len.”

Bel, from the stove, said something in elven that annoyed Enora.

“You’ll be our da’len even when you are forty,” Neve replied to their child.

Enora huffed and sat next to her, and Neve ruffled her hair.

“It means we love you,” she told Enora.

She was now seven years old, and she was smart and curious. She and Bel had started teaching her to read children’s books, and sometimes Enora tried to read Neve or Bel’s letters, but she complained she couldn’t understand their handwriting.

Bellara took four plates on the table, and Neve was about to ask about it but Enora was faster. “Mamae, is someone coming?”

“Yes, I invited Rana for breakfast,” she said.

Someone knocked on the door, and Enora was immediately excited. She ran to the door and almost yelled, “Auntie Rana!”

“Little Gallus, I’ve missed you,” she replied.

Rana walked in holding a newspaper under her arm, and she put a hand on Neve’s shoulders.

“How is life at forty?”

“Pretty much the same as thirty-nine,” Neve replied.

Rana smirked and put the newspaper on the table. It was open on the latest issue of Mysteries in Lowtown, Bel’s newest serial about a detective solving cases that no one else wanted to pick.

Even though Neve had read it already because she was her wife’s first proofreader, she enjoyed rereading the printed version. She loved reading how Bellara described the character based on her, and she understood why her wife had never written a serial about her until they’d gotten together.

Bel described the main character as a beautiful woman who could always find a way to solve her cases, and the hopeful tone of the episodes always made Neve smile.

Rana walked to Bellara and asked, “How was your time in Arlathan?”

“It was good,” Bel replied. “We stayed with the Veil Jumpers, and we fixed several anomalies while the children had some time together. Enora had a lot of fun with the other children and learned more about our traditions.”

It was a deal that worked for them. Neve didn’t expect her wife to give up on the Veil Jumpers, and they’d also agreed they wanted Enora to be close to the Dalish culture—and, of course, to keep the friendship with the other children.

They’d even gotten married one year ago with a Dalish rite: Neve had never been the religious kind, but Bel cared about the traditions of her people and she would do everything to make her amata happy.

“Mom, I became better at skipping stones,” Enora told her, attracting Neve’s full attention.

“Is that so?” she asked with a smile. “We’ll see later.”

“I made skip my stone four times!” Enora announced, and they talked more about the best way to throw stones and Neve couldn’t be prouder of her child.

They only stopped when Rana and Bellara reached them at the table, with hot food and hotter coffee—or tea for Bel and Enora.

“How were these few weeks for you?” Bel asked.

Rana shrugged.

“Here everything was alright. Neve and I solved a few theft cases.”

“I want to know more,” Enora said.

“No,” both Neve and Bel said at the same time.

She looked a bit offended, but Bel caressed her and the child immediately felt better.

Sometimes, Neve wondered if she was dreaming, because all this love and happiness didn’t feel real.

She thought about how accepting a job for the Shadow Dragons had led her to meet her daughter, and how a temporary solution had become her permanent home.

About how her child had made her realize her feelings for Bel, and how raising her had proven to Neve that she wasn’t like her parents.

She had gained a kind of love she’d only read about in books, but had never known it was possible—both the romantic love she felt for Bel and the maternal instinct she felt for Enora.

Her life had changed drastically in the last few years, for good or bad.

But, even if Neve could, she wouldn’t change a single thing.