Denerim Confidential

Chapter 3

When he returned home after the shooting, Alistair spent nearly an hour sweeping his tiny apartment for assassins, bombs, and other threats. By the time he lay down in his bed, it was almost five in the morning. He still couldn't sleep.

Finally, he stood up, picked his jeans up from the chair where he'd tossed them, and pulled Naia Tabris's card out of the pocket.

Back in the bar, when the shock of the shooting had still been fresh, he'd assumed that someone had been after him because of Maric, and that was all the information he really needed. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized that knowing Maric was somehow involved was not going to keep him alive. He needed to find out why someone had tried to kill him tonight.

I was almost a Templar, he told himself. I would have had a sword and everything. I could investigate this myself.

But the truth was, he wasn't sure he could. Templars were trained for one purpose and one purpose alone: controlling mages. There hadn't been many training sessions on how to solve an attempted murder that probably had a decades-old political motivation. He genuinely had no clue where to start.

But how could he trust them with his secret? How could he trust anyone with that kind of secret?

His mind replayed what had happened in the bar that night—the pretty human stepping forward, drawing the robber's attention. The red-haired elf appearing from nowhere, her movements fast and precise and utterly fearless. Varric bloody Tethras and his shotgun completing the maneuver. They hadn't needed to do that. Up until that point he was the only person the thieves had threatened, and they'd put themselves in harm's way to help.

I'm going to have to trust someone with this, he thought, putting the card down on his nightstand. Might as well be someone who saved my life.

*

Alistair called Naia Tabris the next morning. The elf was calm and professional on the phone; she almost made it seem normal to be calling a private detective after someone shot a gun at your head.

"How about two o'clock? I'm in my office all afternoon, unless a crisis comes up," she assured him. "And if there is a crisis I'll leave a note."

"Two sounds fine," Alistair said. Then he paused. "Um. I should ask about your rates."

The initial consultation would be free, but Naia's hourly rate was ever so slightly above Alistair's hourly pay, and he didn't like the sound of "plus expenses."

"Ah. Very reasonable. No problem," he lied. "See you at two."

After hanging up the phone, Alistair stared at his wall for a moment, trying to think if there was another way to handle this. He looked around his studio apartment, the battered, shoebox-sized room that he could afford on what he was making, and remembered that his last bank balance had barely covered rent, food, and a too-large winter jacket from the thrift store.

With a resigned sigh, he picked up the phone again. "Yes, hi. Alistair Guerrin here. Yes, I'm related to the Councilman." Sort of. Legally. Haven't seen him in years, though. His wife hates me. Don't ask. "Does he have any appointments open today?

*

Forty-five minutes and two bus rides later, Alistair was standing in front of the City Council building in downtown Denerim, an impressively blocky stone structure that looked more like a military fortress than an office building. He'd been here a handful of times before Eamon—or, more accurately, Isolde—had shipped him off to that boarding school, and he had an odd sense of lost time as he stood on the steps. It was almost like being fifteen again. Hopefully without the cracking voice or the acne. Could do without those.