"I made you something."

Clarke is hovering at the top of the stairs, still, when she says this: a moment of trepidation before she presses forward as if not afraid, chin high, eyes only as shadowed as always. The something in her hands is a roll of paper that she uncurls on an empty corner of Leliana's work table for display. Before it was a gift, the vellum was a letter—inconsequential, a noble's concerns about linens and the weather—and the writing shows through the watercolored drawing laid over it.

It's a nug, of course, rendered with a naturalist's precision but an artist's eye for light, wearing an Orlesian mask and elaborate hat—not the kind of whimsy Clarke indulges in for her own sake, but it seems like something a woman who names a nug Schmooples might appreciate.

"Thank you," she says, because that's the point. Part of the point. It is also, perhaps, meant to butter the spymaster up some very small amount, if that's possible to do. Clarke doesn't know. And she manages not to look afraid in any way a layperson would notice, although there's no hiding it entirely. "I need to tell you—"

She stops. Hoping to be told it isn't necessary, maybe.