If he’d intended to lie he might have done it earlier in anticipation of this line of questioning. Within the premise of this having occurred before his arrival in Thedas, any number of terrible flying creatures or supernatural events might have interrupted him and a Mysterious Stranger.

“He distrusted me.”

The wide brim of Fitcher’s hat would be a convenient barrier to glancing her way again. Silas glances anyway, matter-of-fact in his self-censure. Vanadi was handsome.

“It was impulsive.”

One last dusting of leaf and he tests the pipe before offering it back to her, blunt nails and smudges of ink under dirt in the creases of his palm. He has a familiar scar straight up the back of his arm behind it that she’d helped to stitch some months (years?) back.

“Who was yours?”