Eliana enters and shuts the door, keeping carefully to the left half of the foyer.

"How far along have you gotten?"

"Far enough."

"I sense a certain degree of hostility. Would you prefer I left?"

"It was not," she says deliberately, "my idea to invite you. But now that you are here, you may as well stay."

"I... see. This tension will not serve us well if it comes to a fight."

"That sounds like your problem. I won't be the one dying."

"Mm." She regards the other for a moment. "You know, you remind me of a younger version of myself, somewhat. Might I offer some words drawn from that perspective?"

"Why not."

"You have, or wish to have, a relationship with Hisame." She pauses, gauging the Keres' reaction, then continues. "I am no thief. I have no wish to step between the two of you. However, your relationship will not exist in a vacuum. There will always be other people. She has needs that cannot be met by you alone, for some of them are mutually contradictory. This is not any special knowledge of her, rather it is a general principle of the way people work. You may wish to discuss with her your needs, or otherwise address the topic."

"Is that all?"

"That is all."

She's quiet for a long time.

"How does one disable a mage without being a templar? I have solutions to incapacitate an ordinary person, but I am unclear on the exact mechanics of spellcasting."

"It depends on the level of skill of the mage in question. Spells are cast through an expression of will, aided by words and gestures. For most, words are not necessary, but almost all mages lean on some sort of movement as an aid to concentration. What sorts of things do you already have in place?"

They can spend a productive while refining the killing field.

Hisame, meanwhile, is getting up to a delightful amount of not-very-subtle chaos!

Her clone summons a few snakes to help in the tracking - and in the laying of a trail, somewhat.

Here mage, here assassin, a ninja wants to play with you...

It seems to be working. They're getting close to finding the house, accompanied by a dark woman with a blue bandana over her hair, pearl earrings, and tall leather boots.

Oh good, one toy for each of them! And Hisame quite likes the woman's style. 

Speaking of, this seems like an appropriate time for a blood splatter trail. She has a paralytic snake stun some low-life who won't be missed, and starts artfully arranging the resulting blood. (She suspects Eliana won't mind disposing of this one, either.)

Zevran is the first to spot the blood. Hawke picks up the pace.

Blood splatter grows increasingly but non-fatally concerning! Here's some evidence of a person being dragged, then the dots lightening but still continuing...

Towards a single house, with bloody fingerprints on the knob.

(Hisame takes her bait to perch on the roof, and stops the bleeding.)

Hawke and the woman hang back while Zevran scouts around the house. He doesn't find anything else suspicious about the outside, tries the back door and finds it locked and blocked from within. Nothing is visible through the windows. He goes back to report this to the others.

"Straight through the front then," says Hawke.

"That's what I like about him," the woman says to Zevran. "He's so refreshingly direct." Zevran laughs.

She's ridiculously eager to see what her friends have made for them. Practically vibrating with it, in fact.

She likes this woman, too, she thinks, and it seems to have been a good decision, choosing Hawke to spare.

They go up to the front door and Hawke kicks it open. They enter.

"If you stay up here, you won't be able to see anything," the Keres' voice says from just behind Hisame's shoulder. "I didn't want the entire neighborhood to join us. The back door will work for you."

"Thank you, darling."

She body-flickers down, props her present for Eliana up against a fence, camouflages him and sets a snake to watch him, and strolls in. (This takes her maybe a second.)

Once inside, she can hear the hiss and crackle of flame from the front entrance.

And the Keres is there to meet her. "A flame trap by the entrance, to get them warmed up," she says. "And-" there's a crack, and the noise of fire dies away. "-boost their confidence. To draw them further in after dealing with the initial threat relatively easily."

"Clever. Is there an ideal place for me to watch from? Or places. I can afford to create a few clones for this, I think."