The door slammed against the wall as Cassandra Pentaghast stormed into the outbuilding. Solas was seated at his rough-hewn desk, a luxury presented to him when he had announced some knowledge of the fade and rifts between the real and surreal. He did not bother looking up from his reading as he placed a hand on a stack of parchment that fluttered from the sudden breeze. He had become accustomed to her frequent intrusions when she felt he had answers worth loudly demanding from him.

"We have found a survivor from the Conclave disaster." She paused then, and Solas wondered if she had been told to pause for reaction after making this proclamation. The Seeker was not known for her tact, tending to charge right over you with questions, accusations, before the focus of her attention could take a breath, let alone react properly. She had rehearsed this moment. Solas suspected Josephine had prepped her for the interaction. This had all the earmarks of the Lady Ambassador's touch.

"Yes?" he responded carefully, his mind wheeling through the reasons why he was being given this information. Was it one from the Circle who had survived? Or perhaps an elf? Some connection to him they had conspired at their great war table.

"It is a woman. When the breach opened, this woman fell out of it. She is… she is marked somehow. We think she perhaps might have been the cause of the explosion. Adan is with her now." Cassandra vacillated between angrily pacing and affecting her trademark insecure pose. It was an embarrassing tell the elf had considered pointing out to her: toes pointed inward, hands worrying one another at her waist, unsure shifting of weight from one foot to the other.

"The Alchemist?" Solas had met the man once or twice in passing. "Do they think this mark is a result of some alchemical reaction? Is it a burn of some kind? That explosion was not like any alchemy I have witnessed before."

Cassandra's lips parted slightly for a beat before she spoke, "We have no healer or surgeon in our ranks at present."

"So this woman is injured?"

"She is unconscious."

"And why am I being told?"

"Adan believes the mark is somehow connected… to the Breach."

A slight lift of the eyebrows as the realization dawned, "You want my help."

"Will you?"

He followed Cassandra up the steps and into the Chantry hall, ignoring the suspicious looks cast in his direction from the Nightingale's camp. The spymaster happened upon him in his wooded camp six weeks prior, interrupting both his dinner and his quiet reverie with her small band of scouts. They were on a standard security sweep before the first pilgrims would make their journey to Haven, to the temple. Their expressions betrayed they were every bit as surprised to find him as he was to be found. He followed willingly, not wanting to cast any additional suspicion on himself. Being an apostate elf, alone in the woods outside what appeared to be a gathering of the influential was hardly an ideal situation, after all.

The Lady Seeker opened the door to the underbelly of the chapel and indicated for him to go in first. "Is she is a patient or a prisoner?" he asked, brows furrowing.

"Until we know how she survived, what she has learned, we thought it safer…"

"For whom? If she is truly unconscious, what are you so afraid of?"

Adan slinked toward the door as they entered, looking every bit a man glad to have his reprieve. The prisoner-patient lay on her side on a small cot, her arms and ankles shackled together. She wore a gilded crest on her dirty over-shirt, and the quality of her boots showed that she had was not without rank, nor influence. With her thick dark hair spilled over her face, she gave every appearance of a corpse save the ragged breaths he could hear from several feet away. "Who is she?" he asked Cassandra.

"Best we can tell, she is a relation of Bann Trevelyan, out of Ostwick. She attended the conclave. Beyond that, we know very little. We have not wished to alert the Trevelyans that she survived, for fear they might attempt to claim her."

"And likely further fear that they would learn how you are treating one of their daughters," Solas responded softly, kneeling beside the suspected Trevelyan. Her hands hung limply from their wooden braces. As he reached to turn over her hands the left twitched, clenched, vibrated as if in pain, emitting a brilliant green glow. Solas felt his heart flutter in his chest in time with the mark's pulse.

"I think," he fought to keep his voice even, his face impassive, "it would be best if I stayed here and observed. This is unlike any magic I have encountered in my travels." Not a lie, just a careful avoidance of the most damaging facts. Cassandra said nothing in response, her expression unreadable in the flickering half-light.

The first time she stirred was in the dead of night. With a candle guttering beside him, Solas had allowed his notes to rest on his chest as he drifted slightly, head lolling against the wall as he hovered on the edge of sleep. Her first movement, the small scratch of fabric against rough sheets as her leg curled up into her body, roused him back to full consciousness immediately. He sat still in the dark, listening intently to see if she made another movement, head finally turning to focus on her. The girl known only as Possibly Trevelyan rolled then in one solid motion onto her back, her hair falling slowly away from her face to hang off the edge of the cot.

Adan's administrations had clearly not been hygiene-focused. The patient-prisoner's features were streaked with ash and a bit of blood. If there were some undiscovered injury, infection was likely to set in. Sending an alchemist to act as healer was a disgrace, the man was clearly more familiar with lobbed bottles than applied poultices. He would have to ask for proper cloth, sterile water.

She stirred again, and Solas stood. Her eyes didn't open, there was no indication of waking. However, any movement was good. Perhaps whatever had put her in this state would prove less than permanent. Jingling in the room beyond the cell. A guard peered in. "I thought I heard something."

"Just me," Solas said quickly. "I need some materials if you would be so kind to send for them. A basin with water that has previously come to a boil. Some cloth, cotton or linen, clean. Three of the bottles from my hut, blue in color, on the shelf above the door. And a loaf of bread." The guard's brow wrinkled in a query before Solas sighed and continued. "I am hungry."

With her face cleaned and the hair mostly arranged out of the way, she started to look more like the noble girl she was and less like the corpse he had worried she'd become. Possibly Trevelyan, face lightly windburned and bruised from her ordeal, was more than slightly lovely. One might even say beautiful, were one inclined to think such things. From her fingers, he had gathered that she was more skilled with a blade than much else. That ruled out magic as a natural inclination and therefore made how she had come out of a giant crack in the sky with powerful rift magic intact an even greater mystery.

Perhaps some day she would wake and tell him the tale.

Less than a day with his charge and he was already daydreaming about that possibility. Twice now he had slept beside her, hoping to find her spirit wandering in the fade, hoping to coax her back to reality. Possibly Trevelyan had stayed stubbornly locked away inside her own head, not wishing to join him even in dreams. Solas sank to his knees beside the cot again and took her left in between his own hands, slowly turning the palm upright so he could peer into the green glow.

"Who are you?" he whispered. "Who are you that you could possess such a gift and survive? To walk out of the breach relatively unscathed, and with this stowaway. What makes you so very special?"

She stirred again, tension in her arm pulling her hand slightly away from his. "Too many eyes," she breathed in her sleep. Solas felt an electric chill run down his spine. He reached across, took her chin in his hand, and turned her face back toward him. With disappointment, he saw her eyes remained firmly closed.

"What had too many eyes?" he murmured. "What do you see?"

When morning came, Adan made his way back into the small basement that served as Haven's prison. The prisoner still slept on her cot, considerably cleaner than yesterday, and now with a thin blanket covering her. The alchemist chuckled. It seems the elf had tucked her in. The elf in question was also asleep, back turned to him, on his small bedroll. The small round table held the remnants of a candle and some hand-drawn diagrams: several views of the hand, the crack sketched neatly down the middle; one light charcoal of her face, lips slightly parted.

The fit came on as dusk first settled, Possibly Trevelyan convulsing so violently on her bed that Adan called for a guard to help restrain her. As the night wore on the attacks came more frequently, straining both the cot and civility between the elf and the alchemist charged with her care.

"We need to administer a sleeping draught. She'll kick herself to the floor at this rate."

"We still have no idea why she is unconscious! A sleeping draught could kill her!"

"You do realize she's dead no matter what we do? Maybe her not waking up is a blessing. Have you seen the people outside?"

Solas stared at him evenly in response.

"You haven't? Sweet Andraste have you not left this room? Do you know something we don't?"

Adan looked past him, at the stacks of paper, books with notes stuffed out the sides. "You haven't found anything, have you?" the question took on an edge of suspicion. Solas knew he would have to deal with the implications of that accusation later.

It was another two hours before the attack. Loud shouts and the familiar scream of wood bludgeoned by metal. They were in the Chantry's open hall, attempting to claw their way into the dungeons below. Solas checked the cell door, feeling the relief flood when he found it securely locked. Adan's suspicions might be their saving grace tonight if it prevented the horde from breaking in to tear the survivor to shreds. He had no doubts as to how they would deal with him: the suspicious apostate elf who had spent all this time and effort only to fail to provide an answer. The door above opened, the protests of the guard giving way to a startled cry of pain. Good to see they had posted such an unseasoned soldier on their overnight watch. Perhaps this had been the Lady Seeker's plan all along, to dispose of both apostate and prisoner at the hands of an angry mob. Much cleaner that way. Less documentation and official seals. Just a hasty report about security measures, round up the suspects, clean up the mess left behind and move on with their lives. From outside the iron bars, he saw the first faces appear. Angry, rough, searching in the torchlight for the source of their frustrations.

"Give us the Divine's murderer, elf, and we'll give you no trouble."

"I am afraid this patient is not mine to surrender," he made a gesture of supplication with his hands. "Perhaps you ought to take it up with Seeker Pentaghast."

"Seeker ain't here. Far as we can tell, no one gives two shits what happens to the bitch."

With a fluid motion, Solas brought his hands together in front of his chest, right above the left, fingers just touching the heel of the opposite hand. A ball of white-blue energy crackled in the space between. "It would seem your assessment of the situation is incorrect." He released the energy, feeling it fly from his fingers on a swift path to the braggart's chest. The force burst found its target, with enough velocity to knock the man clear off his feet. The others pushed backward in an arc. "Leave," Solas commanded. "My next will be much more fatal."

The last of the mob's scurrying retreat still echoed on the stair when the aforementioned Seeker learned of these events. Solas found himself in the unfortunate position of being backed into a wall by the formidable Pentaghast, her shining steel-clad fingers poking into his sternum. "You said you could unravel the meaning. You said you would have answers. Instead, I find out you attacked one of the people living in this village?"

"Allowing the local rabble to assault Lady," he applied extra emphasis on the word, "Trevelyan would serve no purpose. You would be no closer to the answers you so desperately seek, and you would have a substantial Free Marcher family to answer to, as well. Do you really think that would be the wisest course of action?"

"Adan," she continued vehemently as if he hadn't spoken, "tells me you sit beside her night and day. That you never leave her side. That you gaze at her as if… as if…."

"As if she is an object of fascination?" he shook his head in disbelief. "She is. She physically walked through the fade and survived. A mortal woman. The fact that she still breathes is fascinating to me. And her mark… I've never seen its kind before. This is ancient magic. Fade magic. I believe she's tied to the rifts, and if I can just devil out the how and why of what has caused her-"

The prisoner began to thrash once again then, incoherent shouts of surprise and dismay escaping her lips. Cassandra stood aside ineffectually as Solas deftly caught Possibly Trevelyan's flailing wrists.

"Does she… how long has she been doing that?"

"Most of the night. And I would prefer she not further injure herself if you would not mind securing her feet."

Cassandra did as she asked, staring wide-eyed until the prisoner was still once again. Solas slumped into the chair beside the bed with a sigh.

"Did she say something about eyes?"

Solas nodded. "That phrase is the most frequent, yes. Mostly likely something she saw in the fade. Guardian spirits, perhaps. She is fortunate to have made it out alive."

"Adan thinks she will wake soon. He said she has been responding to his care."

Solas frowned, "Yes, she does grimace when he pokes at her. If that is what he chooses to interpret as promising, then I suppose I will defer to his expertise."

"I want to question her the moment she's awake."

"I do not believe anyone would try to stop you, Seeker."

Cassandra turned to leave and he called after her. "Seeker?" she turned slightly. "I understand what it is that you were accusing me of, but I assure you: I do not know this woman. I do not know how she has sustained this particular injury. And," he sighed, rubbing at the skin between his eyebrows with his fingertips, "and my interest in her is purely academic."

Cassandra paused, hesitated a moment before clenching her jaw. "Trust that it stays that way."