The Cumberland contact knows that all post from Gavario is to be checked, but her heavy purse has prevented that from happening for many years now. There's a note meant for her, bearing Gavario's seal - the real one, she's made sure - informing her that all new orders and payments for raw ore will be made to an address in the Free Marches. The same address on the letter that isn't meant for her. Curiosity gnaws at her, as it often does, but caution wins in the end. She's worried that it might not, one of these days.

The Inquisitor found it odd. He meant what he had said to Solas, that he would refrain from asking in order to respect his privacy. Having your fear mocked out in the open was a very uncomfortable experience for everyone involved. And yet, he had somehow expected Solas to tell him anyway, treat it as a lesson, a learning exercise. Maybe use it as an excuse to comment on how fear demons work - why it spoke Elvish to increase its emotional impact, how it may have latched onto a memory, how it can find fears you were not aware existed... Instead, Solas shut down the conversation with polite acceptance. What must have troubled him so?

Lady Marcelle, to her credit, tried to look lenient. "Of course, it's no matter." She pressed more into the dance, very subtly trying to guide Jonathan's steps, and when he complied and relaxed a bit, she gave a satisfied smile. After a few moments, when their dancing improved, Lady Ehlgar regarded him carefully. Jonathan thought maybe he had earned some sympathy.

Jonathan did not hear anything save for the sound of a desert at night – crickets and shifting sand. But they all remained quiet as Ser Magda let out a curious hum, slowly pulling apart the curtain at the back of the caravan. While the group waited with bated breath, the knight looked inside the carriage, then promptly shut it, taking a few quick steps back. "Get back, it's a trap,” she said evenly, “There's a chest in there left as bait." Jonathan frowned. How could she tell so quickly, and what if there was someone still around? "How do you know it’s bait?" Ser Magda sheathed her axe and got back on her horse, "It sings of lyrium, my lord. It's enchanted.” “Lyrium does not sing, Ser!”, Galbert intervened, but his tone made it more of a question than a statement, “But if you say it is a trap, I will trust your instincts.”

Shadows fall and hope has fled Steel your heart, the dawn will come... The Inquisitor stopped breathing for a moment, and his grip on Dorian's hand tightened. He felt the bitter cold of the Frostbacks creep down his spine again. Again, like that night, with frost on his brow as his heavy legs stumbled out of his sickbed and into the camp. Again, as he remembered the weight that lowered itself on his shoulders like a lead blanket, pressing down further with every kneeling pilgrim.

All was still for a moment while the claim rang in the air. Jonathan's thoughts came to a halt, only to make room for thunderous, desperate denial. In another world, he might have believed it. But not now, and not here. It wasn't true here.

"Jonathan," Nadia called out to him in concern, but he wasn't listening. He was busy staring down at his right hand where his palm was bandaged a second time from his journey to Nevarra. The same wound he got from clutching the blade of a dagger in a darkened street as he was returning from Samahl's home. The pain, the fear it had caused. Could he even be sure of that?

Nadia grasped his hands on the desk and his head jerked up to look at her. Jonathan had never seen anything like it coming from his older sister. The arrogance and poise usually falling around her like a satin shawl had evaporated, and the silvery shimmer in her eyes glinted with genuine regret, as if watching something about to break.

"I'm sorry he lied to you."