Cassandra shakes her head in disgust. Varric. All these months, and she still never knows quite how to deal with him. "Your own personal definition, one assumes," she sneers at him. "At least the rest of what you say is true."

But they're not talking about the book now, and the mage is gone, and for that, she counts herself lucky. She relaxes minutely, letting herself fall into what has become a sort of reflexive, ongoing argument with Varric; something familiar, with no real heat behind it. "So does any well-trained child," she points out. "True respect demands more."