I can believe that. Magic isn't hidden where I'm from - Thedas - but it's... Let's be delicate and say controversial. It's a powerful force and controlling it can be more than the mage can bear. Different places deal with it in different ways - the best one is probably locking you up for life in a mage enclave.

So I meet a lot of apostates. Mages hiding what they are to stay safe. Often they're hiding in plain sight when they can. If anything, we've got the opposite problem to yours in Thedas. A drunk thinks he sees something one night, one shout to your friendly neighbourhood Templar and... Well, you can guess.

[Varric's mind doesn't so much have tangents, but it can barrel off on a story, be it fact or fiction, and this is factual, so it's bringing back some memories. Of things he's not sure he saw, and perhaps should have. Of friends within the Templars whose work he ignored while hiding his apostate friends from them.

Ah, shit.

His face has fallen some, but really, it could be for any reason at all.]

How do you protect them? [He manages a grin.] Tell me about your day job.