The light was thinning when Lucanis found Caterina in her study. When he arrived, she was already cloaking herself, gloved hands fastening the clasp at her throat with precision.
"Are you going somewhere?" He asked.
"Yes, and you are coming," she said simply.
Lucanis fell in beside her without question, accustomed by now to her quiet manner of unspooling information.
"I only came to see if anything had come back yet," he said.
"It has, and that is where we are going.
They wound through Treviso's narrower lanes, where the sun rarely touched the cobbles even at midday. The air smelled of hot stone and sweet almond pastries, somewhere baking late. She didn't speak until they passed through a small archway where the city fell away to quieter streets.
"One of my enquiries yielded fruit. Small, but something. She is Ferelden, as we suspected. She has been here for months, working as a performer in the Grande Market. Someone recognised her by description. No false names. No connections."
Lucanis didn't reply at first. He thought of the girl standing outside the gallery, cradling the wrapped painting like it was something fragile, like it might hurt her to let go. Of hearing her sing in the marketplace himself. "That tracks."
"You suspected she was possibly nobility," Caterina went on, her tone shifting - not excitement, but satisfaction, a puzzle piece slipping into place. "There is a tailor here who used to work for Ferelden nobility, the king himself. He's been in Treviso the last few years. He could know more. A king's castle is often a hub of gossip."
She led the rest of the way in silence. The tailor's shop was tucked in a quiet bend of the city, past a bakery that had long since shuttered for the day and a bookbinder's shop that always smelled of glue and dust.
Inside, the air was warm, scented with lavender sachets tucked into corners, bolts of silk and wool stacked neatly behind the cutting table. A man in his early fifties stood with a pincushion strapped to his wrist, spectacles perched on his nose. He looked up at the sound of the door chime.
Caterina offered him a faint nod. "It's been some time."
He raised one brow, then smiled, thin, but not unfriendly. "I assumed you'd found someone else."
"I've come for something else entirely," she said. "A conversation. About a girl. Ferelden."
His smile didn't falter, but his posture changed subtly. The quiet alertness of a man who knew when to tread carefully.
"Do you know the name," Caterina said, voice even, "Evangeline Mahariel?"
The effect was immediate. His face didn't change, not in any way that would be remarked upon by someone untrained. But there was a flicker in his eyes, the faint catch in his breath. Recognition. Lucanis saw it.
The tailor held her gaze for a long beat, then stepped aside without a word and pulled back the curtain that led into the rear room. He gestured for them to sit around a little table; he must have taken his breaks, a book and a long cold tea in the centre. Lucanis and Caterina sat, and Lucanis felt as if they were finally getting closer to something.
"I knew her," he breathed out, taking his own seat. "I met her a few times; she was just a little thing then."
"She is... nobility?" Lucanis asked, swallowing down the breath caught in his throat.
The tailor glanced back. "Depends on your definition."
Lucanis frowned. "Explain."
"She's the daughter of King Alistair Theirin. And Mareven Mahariel."
That name struck something deeper. A name from the old stories. Mareven - one of the heroes of the Blight, who'd helped slay the Archdemon. He'd heard it spoken like a myth. The kind of name that came with stained-glass windows and songs sung in reverent tones. He would never have thought the Mahariel on his wrist would be related to the Mareven Mahariel. They'd had a contract on her and Alistair Theirin before they had become heroes. Zevran Arainai was supposed to carry it out.
"She's their daughter?" Lucanis said slowly.
The tailor nodded. "Quite the legacy, isn't it?"
Caterina's gaze sharpened. "And she was raised where?"
"In the palace, same as the legitimate son. King Alistair," the man paused, then gave a soft, nostalgic smile. "He adored her. Anyone who saw them together knew it. He didn't try to hide her. Never pretended she was anything but his child. He carved a space for her in that court and made them see her. Even right under the Queen's nose."
Lucanis blinked. "The Queen allowed it?"
"She tolerated it. As far as anyone could tell, it wasn't love between her and the King. Politics, more like. But Evangeline, she adored her father. And he returned it tenfold." The tailor's voice turned wistful, like he could still see it. "She took an interest in music? He hired tutors from Orlais, Antiva, the Anderfels. Took a dusty old room in the palace and filled it with every kind of instrument you can imagine."
Lucanis's chest pulled a little tighter.
"She decided she liked art? He gave her a whole studio. Easels, brushes, inks, charcoals, paints from Tevinter and parchment from Rivain. She wanted for nothing."
"And yet," Caterina said quietly, "you don't speak of a happy child."
The tailor exhaled. "She was loved. Fiercely. But that palace was no place for a child like her. Especially not one born a bastard to a hero and a king. The court couldn't stand her. They saw her as a stain. Said she'd been born of scandal, raised on sentiment. That the King was soft, blinded."
"What of her mother?"
"Her mother would leave, disappear for years at a time. Warden business, I heard."
Lucanis frowned. "Did the court treat her cruelly?"
"They didn't dare in the open. Not with the King watching. But children have ears. She heard the whispers. I heard some myself during my time there. They had a name for her."
He hesitated, glanced away.
Lucanis leaned forward. "What name?"
The tailor's voice was thick with distaste. "They called her the Bedborn Blight."
Lucanis's hands curled slowly into fists. Bedborn Blight. Like something to be thrown out with the bloodied linens and the afterbirth. The insult didn't just twist at her parentage; it tethered her to the Blight, to a very dark chapter of her people's recent history. A cruel, deliberate stain.
"And she heard this?" He asked, smothering down the disgust.
"It would have been impossible not to. And I saw it in her eyes," the tailor said. "She didn't flinch. Not where people could see. But children know when they're not wanted. No matter how much gold you paint the walls with."
Lucanis was silent for a long beat. Caterina spoke next.
"You left Ferelden?"
"Years ago," the tailor said. "Just after the girl turned ten, I think. Work dried up for me there. Nobles stopped hiring me once they knew I'd tailored something for her. I suppose that makes me a sympathiser." He smiled without warmth. "Didn't care. She was polite. Curious. Kind. Held herself like someone trying to be perfect all the time. Like one misstep would prove everything they said about her."
Lucanis thought of the way Evie moved, graceful and sure-footed. Not just practised, but precise. As if she'd trained under scrutiny. As if every glance felt like judgement.
"You don't know what became of her?" Caterina asked.
"No. I assumed she was still in court." He gave a short breath. "If not... Maker guide her. That court would eat her alive if the King no longer stood between her and them."
"Did she have a soulmate?" Caterina asked. "Was it known?"
Lucanis didn't look at her. He was still watching the tailor. The question caught him by surprise, though not entirely.
The man frowned thoughtfully. "She had one, always kept hidden beneath a ribbon around her wrist, tied into a neat little bow, like a gift."
Lucanis's chest tightened, but he kept his expression unreadable.
The tailor looked up, eyes thoughtful. "I didn't think much of it then. Thought it was just something sweet, childish. But maybe she was hiding it."
"Why hide something like that?" Caterina asked, though her tone already hinted at the answer.
The tailor's mouth tightened. "The Queen didn't like it. There was this day... I was delivering a gown for some event, and Evangeline was trying it on. I'd brought the hem too long, and she was standing on a stool while I pinned it up. The Queen was there, crouched in front of her, a kind smile on her face and gently holding her hand. I still remember; it was awful. Left a foul taste in my mouth, the whole affair."
"What happened?"
"She was telling her that... that sometimes love means letting go. That we don't always get the lives we want. Told her that she and the Queen were born to duty. That sometimes the kindest thing they can do is spare someone from having to carry their burdens. Told her that soulmates were meant for joy, not court politics and complicated legacies. I couldn't imagine saying anything like that to a child; it was... manipulative."
Lucanis felt his jaw tighten again. Subtle. Cruel. Gently convincing a child to believe she was a burden and wrapping it in affection. He didn't realise he'd clenched his hands until his knuckles cracked.
"It was a little heartbreaking," the tailor murmured. "It wasn't outrage. There wasn't even surprise. Just this... weary resignation in her nod, like she'd heard it before. Like maybe she was already starting to believe it."
Caterina made a faint, sharp sound in her throat, something between disgust and sympathy. Lucanis said nothing for a long time.
It fit. Too well. She'd been told she was too much to ask for. That whoever was tied to her by fate would be better off if they never knew. Of course she ran from him. Of course she lied. It made his chest ache. Lucanis closed his eyes briefly. That was what had been carved into her, then. Not rejection. Not fire. But this slow, patient poisoning of worth.
"So the Queen hated her too?"
"I don't think so; it wasn't about hate. The Queen, she was arranging matches. Hoping to marry her off to someone who'd overlook the circumstances of her birth in exchange for favour."
Caterina leaned back against the wall, arms crossed. "So the court hated her. The Queen saw her as a problem. Nobles wouldn't speak her name without a sneer."
"But the others loved her," the tailor said quickly. "The guards, the servants. You'd hear it in the way they said 'the girl' - not with scorn, affection. She learned their names. Remembered their birthdays. She had her father's warmth; you could tell. She was never cruel."
Lucanis nodded slowly, absorbing every detail. The girl he knew - the one who lingered outside galleries with a painting clutched to her chest - made more and more sense with each word.
No wonder she'd been cautious. No wonder she'd looked at him like she was afraid of being too much, too complicated, too messy to be wanted. Even when the bond flared between them like a living thread. He wasn't just trying to convince Evie of the bond. He was trying to undo a lifetime of careful cruelty.
And the worst part was she might have believed it was kindness.
The tailor looked between them, uneasy. "She's not in trouble, is she?"
Lucanis shook his head. "No. Not from us."
The pair rose, thanking him for his time before they stepped back into the narrow Trevisan street. Caterina turned to him, expression unreadable.
"Well," she murmured, "that's a rather interesting little ghost we've stumbled across."
Lucanis didn't answer. He was still thinking of her. The girl who'd once had a room full of instruments and a studio of paint. The girl with a hero for a mother, a king for a father, and a court full of knives at her back. No wonder she learned to disappear.
Lucanis didn't speak for several blocks. He didn't trust what might come out if he did. Caterina kept pace beside him, the clicking of her cane on the cobbles the only sound between them. But the air felt... full. Heavy with the weight of what they'd learned.
The Queen's words still rang in his head, curling like smoke, that her soulmate would be much happier living free of it all.
No he fucking wouldn't.
Her words echoed in the space where Evie's voice sometimes lived when he couldn't find her. When he wondered why she kept flinching away from the bond that pulled at both of them like a pulse under the skin. She wasn't running because she didn't feel it. She was running because someone had convinced her it would hurt him.
It made his jaw ache with the effort not to grind his teeth. That quiet kind of cruelty, so wrapped in silk and sweetness it could be mistaken for love...
"She was a child," he said finally, voice low, almost hoarse.
Caterina looked over at him.
"So young, and already being told to step aside. To protect a soulmate she hadn't even met yet. As if she'd ruin him. Ruin me." Lucanis shook his head, throat tight. "The bond isn't something to be erased. It's sacred. Revered. And that woman…" He stopped walking, stared down a narrow alley like it might hold answers. "She poisoned it. Twisted it until Evie thought the right thing to do was to hide it. Tie a bow over it like it was something shameful."
He felt it now, the hollow ache in his chest, not anger exactly, not anymore. Not only. It was grief, sharp and sudden. A kind of grief for the child Evie had been, quietly nodding while the Queen tied her ribbon.
"A mother who was barely there," he said, more to himself than Caterina. "A court that despised her. A father she adored, so much that it must've gutted her to leave. Still, she ran."
Caterina was quiet beside him, eyes shadowed with thought. "Why do you think she ran?"
"I don't know." He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose.
Caterina looked away. "We don't know what happened after the tailor left Ferelden."
They stood in silence for a long while. Then, slowly, Caterina asked, "What became of the match the Queen was arranging, I wonder."
Lucanis shook his head. "He didn't mention a name. If it had gone through, surely he would have said."
"Unless it fell apart. Or the other party refused. Maybe the king stopped it."
"Maybe," Lucanis said. "Or maybe Evie did."
He didn't say the rest: that the girl the tailor described, the one who nodded and considered the Queen's words, might've swallowed her pride and tried to make the best of a loveless match. For her father. For the court. For the soul she hadn't met yet. And then something must've broken. Something must've finally snapped to make her leave it all behind.
She had told him once, voice low, eyes steady, that this was for the best. For both of them. That it would be better in the long run.
He hadn't understood. He'd stood there, stunned, as she'd made that promise like it was a kindness. As if letting him go would somehow hurt less than staying. As if denying the bond could possibly be a gift.
She'd sounded so sure.
But now, after everything the tailor had said, after hearing how a queen had slowly, patiently poisoned her into believing she was a burden - even to someone fated to love her - he was starting to understand. The conviction in Evie's voice hadn't come from strength. It had come from training. From years of being told, so gently it left no bruise, that she was someone others had to endure, not choose. And that the most loving thing she could do was quietly remove herself from the equation.
It didn't make her any less wrong, of course. The bond between them still pulsed in his chest like an unfinished sentence. But it softened something sharp in him. The ache hadn't lessened, but he could trace the shape of it now. She wasn't running from him. She was running from the life they told her she would ruin.
He didn't know how to undo over a decade of careful, manipulative erosion. He didn't know how to reach through all the old doubts stitched into her skin like thread. But he could be patient. He could be real. He could hold fast.
"How do I fix this?" Lucanis asked quietly, breaking the silence as they turned down a quieter street. The weight in his voice wasn't just frustration. It was helplessness, rare and raw in him.
Caterina didn't answer right away. She looked ahead, thoughtful, until they passed beneath the shadow of a crumbling archway.
"You don't fix it," she said. "Not like a broken blade or a bad lock. This isn't something you can force right, Lucanis. It's something you hold. Gently. Without asking her to be braver than she is in that moment."
Lucanis glanced sideways, brow furrowed.
"She's been taught her whole life that even a bond as sacred as this one is a burden to others. She's not going to trust the weight of it all at once. But you carry it anyway. You keep showing up, keep being steady - eventually, she might believe she doesn't have to run from it."
Lucanis exhaled, low and tired. Because the truth was simple, and it hurt. Evangeline had grown up believing that love meant letting go.
And Lucanis had to prove her wrong.