"The Circle is fairly predictable," Enaara Amell explained. "The training, the ceremonies, rituals, visitations—all standard and calendared. There are only three types of new faces, and none of them en masse. The first is new templars who've recently completed their training and come to the Circle. It's a steady thing; training to be a templar isn't far-off from mage training in that it takes years of learning and discipline and mastery.

"Then there's the Three C's: the Chantry, Circle, and Common visitors. The first two are self-explanatory, really: templars and mages from other cities passing through. The Commons are visits from family and friends—but those are rarer. The Circle prefers no one interfere in the apprentices' studies for fear they'll lose focus.

"Lastly, there's new mages. Sometimes apostates are brought in but mostly its young ones with recently discovered talent come to train—like you."

The young boy raised his brows, attempting to absorb the information spewed at him. He looked down at his hands in his lap and blinked. The apprentice touched the top of his head.

"Don't worry, Devlin," she said. "It won't be so scary soon enough. I know you miss your mum and dad now, and that this seems like the worst thing to have happened to you, but I think you'll soon find training here so interesting and exciting that you will quickly forget all about being homesick. And, if you ever do get scared or homesick, come and talk to me, all right? I'll help you."

"How?" he asked, his small voice ripe with fear.

"I'll lend you my strength," she answered with a smile. "And I'll tell you such horrible jokes that you won't be able to stop yourself from laughing. Now, get some sleep. You've a big day tomorrow." She tucked him in, blew out the candle at his bedside, and gently shut the door behind her as she crept out of the dorm.

Enaara's amber eyes flicked down the hall. It was late—way past curfew—and Enaara wasn't one for breaking the rules but her concern for the young mageling had driven her out of bed. Her bare feet padded quietly down the green carpet in the hallway while she silently prayed she wouldn't meet any templars on her trek back to her room. As unlikely as a punishment harsher than a scolding would be, she had no desire to cross paths with one of the more iron-fisted templars and get stuck with extra duties for a week.

She crept up the stairs to the second apprentice hall where the older students slept and slinked around the curving corridor toward her dormitory. Just before she reached her door, she heard the crashing sound of bulky armor patrolling around the corner.

"Damn," she hissed and swept across the hall, ducking through a door to the centrum where a staircase led to the lower levels and other doors opened up to storerooms and utility closets. She backed into the shadows of one of the ornate barricades and watched as Ser Malray crossed in front of the door then continued his round. She sighed, counted to ten, and slipped back into the hallway.

She immediately smacked into something cold and hard with a resounding clap. Hands closed around her arms to steady her and the realization that she'd been caught set her heart to thumping.

"I'm sorry—" the templar and mage said in unison.

Enaara looked up into her captor's face and instantly went rigid in recognition. Ser Cullen Rutherford stared down at her in wide-eyed surprise, his handsome face twisted with concern, and she felt heat creeping into her cheeks. He towered over her, and his shoulders and chest seemed so large in that armor that she felt utterly small next to him.

"A-are you all right?" Ser Cullen asked. Enaara nodded quickly, afraid her heart might beat right out of her chest with him holding her like that.

"I'm fine," she replied. "I wasn't looking where I was going. I was…in a hurry."

"Yes, I can see that." He cleared his throat and there was awkward silence for an endless few seconds. He released his hold on her. "It's…past curfew."

"Yes," she quickly agreed, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she tiptoed around him, "so I should get to bed."

"Enaara," he called, stopping her in her tracks. She glanced back. "I have to ask why. You know that."

Enaara tipped her chin up and filled herself with faith; he had asked why, not just slapped her with punishment. Cullen was different than most of the templars. He wasn't the only kind templar, but he was one of the few who was more considerate of the mages than he was of the rules. She wondered if he was this considerate only for her…

As a young girl, she had been absorbed in her studies and the fancies of children. The templars were, at worst, malicious jailors and, at best, stern guards—and old men, all of them, even the younger ones. Romantic feelings were strictly reserved for fellow mages. But when she began to grow into a young woman, she discovered some of the templars weren't old men at all, that some of them were quite handsome. Still, the chasm that divided the mages and templars was too wide to ever consider crossing, so a pretty face was nothing more and the heart would only thump for another mage.

And then one day she looked up and found him staring at her. It wasn't unusual for the templars to watch the mages but, the moment their eyes met, he quickly averted his gaze. There hadn't been an ounce of malice or disgust in his expression. Instead, she had seen something gentle in his face, something shy and embarrassed. Her stomach had immediately begun fluttering anxiously. That was the moment that she looked at him—really looked at him. She saw him, for the first time, as more than just a handsome templar. He was a man. He was a very gorgeous man. And he was looking at her.

And in that moment, she became inescapably aware that she was a woman. She wondered if he, too, saw her as more than a mage. She wondered if he averted his eyes whenever they met hers because he saw her as a woman, and if seeing her as such reminded him that he was more than just a templar, but that he was also very much a man.

And was he as acutely aware of that fact now as she was? Or was she imagining everything?

"Devlin," Enaara explained, "is our youngest mageling—not even seven years old—and he's frightened. I just wanted to give him some comfort. I remember my first week at the Tower, how the other children told me frightening stories every night. I barely slept," she confessed, a little embarrassed. "I just thought I might try to ease his mind a little after the others had gone to bed." She hesitated a moment then added, "It isn't easy for us to be uprooted from our families and homes, to be carted off to a strange and restricted place all for a power we don't even know we have, much less understand."

Cullen didn't give away much with his expression as he listened to her. He just watched her, the hint of a frown in his brow and an ounce of unease in his eyes, as her heartbeat thundered in her ears.

"I'm glad you're looking out for him," he finally said. "Although you really shouldn't be out past curfew, you have a fair reason. Be more careful next time." He turned ninety degrees as he prepared to leave. "And if Devlin has any nightmares, I'll know who to blame."

His understanding was moderately expected but his playfulness was almost shocking. A sudden fire in her chest warmed her from head to toe as she stood staring, temporarily stunned. Met with silence, Cullen nodded and moved to finish his patrol.

"If you're so concerned," Enaara blurted before she had a chance to think about what she was saying, "you could always be my unofficial escort."

Cullen glanced back and she saw his nervousness in the way his eyes shifted and the skin around them tightened as he narrowed his gaze. It made her unexpectedly happy and she couldn't help but smile. She wasn't making that up, was she? The clank-clank of patrolling armor shattered the moment and Cullen's unsure expression vanished, replaced by a blank sense of duty, and he motioned her away.

"You should get to bed," he said, "before someone else catches you in the halls."

She quickly crossed to the door but hesitated before opening it. She looked back at him from over her shoulder. "Goodnight, Ser Cullen," she said, "and thank you."

He just nodded once and she ducked inside her room. The dormitory was completely dark. She pressed herself against the door and strained to hear, waiting for the templars to pass. When the hallway was quiet, she peeked out, confirmed the coast was clear, and darted across the hall. The boys' dormitory was just as dark as the girls' save for a candle burning at the far end of the room. She tiptoed over to find her best friend reading on the floor by his bed and flopped onto the bottom bunk, startling him so severely that he tossed the book up into the air and banged his head against the sideboard.

"Burning the midnight oil?" she whispered, unable to keep the laughter out of her voice.

"Enaara!" Jowan hissed, groping the back of his head in pain. "You demon-possessed witch! Abomination!" he cursed as he rubbed his head and felt around for his lost book. "Daughter of darkspawn!"

"I get the picture, Jowan," she said. "Generally evil in its rawest and purest form. What are you reading this late, anyway?"

"Nothing really," he admitted, "just a record of the Storm Age."

"That's unusually boring of you."

"Granted," he agreed, "but Enchanter Tierra is convinced there's something important for me to learn here. Where have you been, anyway?"

"Putting Devlin to bed," she replied.

"And how is he?"

"Frightened but…not as much as he might have been."

"It's a kind thing you're doing," Jowan said, then scowled, "and a miracle you didn't get caught."

Enaara bit her lip as her heart fluttered at the fresh memory of Cullen holding her. She decided not to tell Jowan. She wasn't sure if he would approve or not but, ultimately, it didn't matter. There was nothing to tell except that she was attracted to a templar and there was a small chance he was attracted to her, as well. But where would that ever lead? Nowhere, of course, but it was a thrilling indulgent nonetheless. In the Circle, that was all they had: bits of excitement in whatever taboo they could conceal. Their…whatever it was…it would be their secret.

She shrugged and hopped off his bed. "Rally the Andrastians," she joked. "There's been a miracle at a Circle."

Someone hissed for them to shut up and go to sleep. They shared a grin and waved to one another, and then Enaara went back to her own dormitory.