He took the ale when she offered and stared into the cup as he stood where he was. Cullen, Greagoir. Lana, Isabella. Ellion. He sipped at his cup and sat down as her words sunk in. "I can't begin to tell you what it's like to sit here, in doubt like I am. I want to believe you--my instinct is telling me to, that you are trustworthy, that what you're saying is correct and that I have been lied to. But my mind rebels against it. I've been told so many times by so many people what happened, what I did, what you did. I was told I had been bewitched, but when I look at you I feel what must be real things. Magic cannot implant what is not there, can it? Even a blood mage couldn't reach into my mind and force it to feel like I do when I catch your hair or remember your voice.<br/><br/>"But at the same time, I could see the logic in it. If you had somehow altered me, allowed a demon to enter me, some unknowable creature of the Fade that<i>could</i>twist my feelings and thoughts and emotions... then of course I would have been compromised." He flinched visibly as he used the word, remembering Greagoir's wrath in the wake of the event. The woman's body still lay bleeding on the floor next to the charred remains of the table and the phylactery, and the knight-commander's fury was palpable.<i>You have been COMPROMISED, ser!</i>"This entire time, ever since I heard your voice again, I've been at war in my own head."<br/><br/>He looked up at her, his eyes full of a pain he couldn't understand and was ill-equipped to handle. "I miss you, but at the same time I hate you, and I don't know which is right and which is wrong. You tell me one, but I've been told the other so many times and by so many people--I want to trust you, but they tell me I can't. I don't expect you to understand it, I really don't. This burden, what's been done to me--you couldn't have stopped it, Lana. Not if you'd come back, not if you'd stormed the Chantry they sent me to. All that would have happened then is they would have killed you and I would never have had cause to doubt."<br/><br/>He lifted the cup to his lips and drained it, then reached for the pitcher to pour out more. Part of him wanted to drain the entire thing by himself, to embrace the spirit of forgetfulness and indulge until he forgot what he didn't know and could revel in what was. Ell had the cup halfway to his lips before he stopped, looked down at the liquid, then set the whole thing aside to bury his head in his hands. "The worst part is that come morning... I don't know what I'll think. Whatever they did to me, part of it was done at night. I think they had monks whispering while I slept, reinforcing what they told me while I was awake. Nothing is certain, Lana. Not yet. It's a wonder I've not gone mad."