Alistair swallows hard. Everything's quite blurry all of a sudden; his eyes burn, sudden and fierce.

(He's known the dead can visit the tavern ever since his first visit. He thought about it, sometimes, but he never -- )

He's never been good with things like decorum, or reservation, or anything like that. Half a heartbeat later, Alistair surges to his feet and wraps his arms around Duncan, clinging as desperately as if his mentor just awakened him from a nightmare.