Knight-Commander Meredith, who has been growing more and more insane over the years, strong-arms Hawke into helping hunt down some runaway apostate mages. Hawke is grump, because she herself is a mage, but Meredith reminds her that whether or not Kirkwall’s Templars attempt to round Hawke into the Circle is up to Meredith’s discretion.
There’s an elf who’s run back to his wife in Lowtown; it seems Merrill knows something of it, which makes sense as the elves would have shared a neighborhood. When confronted, he stabs his wife and attacks the party with blood magic. Next is Evelina, who the party has to track down in Darktown and fight through a number of demons just to reach.
Finally, there is Emile de Launcet. Who is . . . a giant derp using money sent to him by his mother to get drunk in the Hanged Man. He complains about how he doesn’t really get to experience life in the Circle and he isn’t really a blood mage - he just wanted to get out and have a night of drunken debauchery, including hiring a prostitute. Generally speaking, everyone is exasperated (though Anders is way more serious, as he lectures Emile about how stupid he’s being. And, uh, notes that one had more freedom to ‘live’ back in the Fereldan Circle.).
Hawke wonders if Isabela would give Emile a hand with living a little and Isabela immediately shoots Emile down, saying he’s revolting and she’ll choose her own dalliances. So Hawke lets him go up to a room with the prostitute he’d hired, and takes him back to the Circle.
