Signy shook her head. "The caste I was born into? No, not at all, it's fine if you ask. I mean it's a matter of public record, more or less," or at least it had been until her exile, but that didn't bear dwelling on. She was still proud of where she had come from, even if where she had come from no longer acknowledged her existence. "There never really was a caste of mages—it would've required, what did you say, 'propagating sin' and proving that magic was a heritable trait," she managed, with a low, slightly unsure laugh. She hoped very much it'd been a joke. "And even if it was ever proven, the Assembly would have to vote it and the Shaperate approve it, probably. I was born a smith, and my parents were smiths. Dagna was a smith, too, before she left. It all got a bit complicated after she came back, though, and we were raised to the nobility as her House. But that's really neither here nor there, it wasn't like being a real noble, really—" Suddenly, a thought struck her.
She clapped her hands, sitting upright. "Dagna used to talk about, this book, about the lineages of people, humans and elves born with the capacity for magic, but I can't remember the name for the life of me. It was from Tevinter, though." It was strange that knowing where Beth's parents had come from cemented her more firmly in Signy's mind, but it did. She'd come from merchant stock, respectable, and Signy could not help but consider mages a respectable class as well, even if surfacers disagreed in the most part.
"So you're encouraged not to have children? That just seems backwards. I can't imagine a place where you wouldn't want every child you could possibly have." Wouldn't want and need every child; was the surface really that well off in comparison? "I mean, even magi, especially magi if are as dangerous as people keep telling me. We'd started trying to figure out if mages could be effective in combat, how they'd best be used in the Deep Roads. And even if it's not quite the same up here, you still need people, don't you?" They had Blights, didn't they, one fifteen years ago and another one now? Surely topsiders lost some people, surely they needed more. Signy still remained completely unaware that the Chantry didn't just encourage mages to stay childless but actually mandated celibacy from all of its clergy.
She sat back, slightly, thoughtful for a moment; "But what Ser Maddock did. Does that happen very often, I mean, to mages who aren't apostates, even?" Her curiosity had begun to give way to a selfishly personal concern for her own safety. Even though Beth had said that there were many good and kind Templars. Hopefully they were the major part of the group.