Archive of Our Own ^beta

Good morning. I hope this email finds you well. I find myself in dire need of a companion to an annual fundraising gala. This would be a one-time ‘date’ requiring only your presence at my side for an evening. If you are available at the attached date and time, would you be amenable to such a transaction?

Regards,
Gale

I’m available and more than willing. :] Am I playing the part of a long-term partner or a casual girlfriend?

-M

I suppose I hadn’t considered that. Is such a thing necessary, in your opinion?

Regards,
Gale

Sure, unless you want to broadcast to all of your work buddies that you hired an escort. Which some people do, so if that’s your thing, that’s fine with me.

Would it be too much trouble to fabricate a recent meeting?

Regards,
Gale

Babe, this is my bread and butter. I’ll draw up a contract, and we can meet up in a couple of days to discuss details. I’ll need half up front and the other half at the end of the event. Miscellaneous expenses are billed as they come up. Are you free Wednesday night? I can do 9pm at Rosie’s on 240 Zastrow.

Let’s do that. I will see you then.

Gale was not the type of man who paid for company. So it was, then, that when he embarked on this little venture, he’d simply not thought about how Zastrow Street had long been nicknamed ‘Slut Street’ by the locals (for rather obvious reasons, in hindsight); but as his cab slowed at the curb of a nondescript twenty-four hour diner, as he stepped out onto the sidewalk and the cab driver offered him a wink and a cheeky “have a nice time” before driving off, he began to wonder if this entire endeavor was a colossal mistake.

The establishment next door took up most of the block, a flashy four-story building sporting gaudy neon signs, including one massive blinking one that proclaimed The Purple Palace Pleasure Dome in bright pink and purple lettering. Rainbow graffiti decorated the walls of the diner with a stylized Welcome to Slut Street! scrawled across the weathered brick above a crude rendering in hot pink paint of a disembodied penis entering a gaping anus. A flickering neon sign, also pink, spelled out Rosie’s Diner, and beneath it was a piece of printer paper bearing the word Open in messy black marker.

Mystra's bosom, he was so far in over his head.

He was so focused on swallowing his anxiety and putting one foot in front of another he barely noticed the other person set to enter the place until they all but collided at the door. “Pardon me,” he said, cheeks heating up. “I wasn't looking where I was going, I'm afraid.”

“That's fine, love. You waiting for someone?”

He locked eyes with a tan woman in black sweatpants and nondescript grey hoodie sporting a patched charcoal backpack and a worn pair of Converse. Traces of faded eyeliner lingered beneath rich hazel eyes that framed a sharp nose absolutely covered in freckles. Her lips were tinted red, as though they'd been scrubbed of lipstick that had once been significantly more vibrant. Little silver rings and studs lined the shell of her right ear, and a single, dangling avian skull with a shimmering stone set into its beak hung from her left. On her neck and twisting gracefully into the collar of her hoodie was an intricate tattoo of a rose in blood-red ink that brought out the warmth of her tawny olive skin.

“Wait.” Her lips curved into a slight smile. “You wouldn't happen to be Gale, would you?”

Gale blinked. “I — yes, as a matter of fact.”

She stuck out a hand in greeting. “Miri. I'm your date.”

“So,” Gale said as he followed Miri to a table in the far corner of the diner. “I must ask. How did you know it was me?”

“Just a hunch.” She grinned. “It's okay. Everyone has to have a first time at some point.”

“Gods,” he groaned. “Am I that obvious?”

“Sweetheart, you were wandering down Slut Street in slacks and a button down looking so lost. You're lucky one of Masha’s girls didn't snap you up on the way.”

“I assure you, I have no intention of hiring a—”

“A whore?” Miri said with an amused expression. She gestured between them with a snort. “Because I have some incredibly unfortunate news for you on what the topic of tonight's dinner is going to be.”

Gale could feel his cheeks heating up in real time. “I — of course, I didn't mean to imply—”

Miri sighed and leaned back in her seat. “Listen. Gale. Can we get something straight before we get to the fun part?” She gave him a pointed look, but didn't bother waiting for an answer before continuing. “I really don't give a fuck whether the night ends with you inside me or not. Everyone who works on this strip is selling a service.” She pointed to the diner counter. “Rosie makes pancakes and eggs at three in the morning. Sometimes a client takes me on a nice dinner uptown and I make them feel wanted and interesting for a couple of hours. Sometimes someone hires me just to get railed in their basement, and we both walk away having had a great time.”

Her eyes felt almost as though they were piercing through him, all trace of humor gone from her face. “And sometimes, I get people who think they deserve a gold star just for keeping it in their pants, but that shit makes you no better or worse than anyone else on my schedule. Company, sex, conversation, it's all part of the package. And I don't sign people who think leaving sex off of the table puts them above anyone else.”

Gale swallowed thickly. He was definitely in over his head. “Understood,” he said, biting back the nervous giggle that was threatening to spill from his lips. “I … apologize. For presuming.”

And just like that, a switch flipped. The easy smile was back on her face, the coy grin as she rummaged through her backpack for an unmarked manila folder, the flirtatious way she leaned on the table with her elbows as she passed it across the table. “Well, I guess that’s settled. Let’s review the paperwork, shall we?”

“Paperwork,” he repeated.

“Yes, Gale. Paperwork.” She opened the folder and tapped on the first page. “This is what I typically offer for a night out. Flat fee for a four hour block, and then my rate for every hour past that. I go to an event with you, keep you company, pretend to be your girlfriend if you want, and leave with you at the end of the night. Second page is a liability waiver. Third page is the list of things I don’t do, and those are non-negotiable. Attempting anything on page three is considered an instant breach of contract; the engagement ends immediately, the card on file will still be charged the full amount, and you will be blacklisted by pretty much every reputable escort service in the city.”

Gale skimmed the packet as she spoke. The third page was organized by category. A good deal of it contained some rather extreme sex acts — some of which he'd never even heard of before — but there were also meticulously worded clauses regarding intoxication, disease testing, and explicit examples of breach of consent.

“So.” Miri clapped her hands together with a delighted grin. “Thoughts? Questions? Concerns?”

“This is all … a bit overwhelming, to be honest,” he said slowly as he flipped through the rest of the packet. A form for releasing STI testing results, a list of locations that did them discreetly and free of charge. A charted list of kinks with check boxes to indicate interest, desire, and level of experience. “And much more, er, in-depth than I expected.”

She eyed him with a carefully neutral face. “That a deal breaker for you?”

“No, of course not, I … simply mean that I require a moment to, er, absorb it all, so to speak.” The longer he spent in her presence, the more unbalanced he felt. There was something in her gaze that made him feel rather like a pinned insect beneath a microscope.

“You don't have to fill it all out today, of course.” Miri shuffled through the pages and withdrew three of them she spread across the table. “The only ones I need from you in order to put you on my schedule are the contract and liability papers. And this one here—” she tapped at the test result release form “—just needs to be completed and submitted forty-eight hours before the event begins.”

“I assure you, I meant it when I said I have no intentions of engaging in—”

“I require one on file and up to date for all of my clients,” Miri interrupted. “If that's a problem, I'm happy to direct you to someone else with lower standards.”

“Right, of course.” Gods, his palms were beginning to sweat. “No, I assure you, it won't be a problem. I, er, would still like to proceed, if that's alright with you.”

She rummaged in her bag again and produced a pen, a phone, and a detachable card reader with a brilliant smile that lit up her entire face. “I am so glad to hear you say that.”

Gale had been ready to leave when their transaction was finalized, but when he began to gather his things, Miri practically pouted at him to stay. “We've just started to get to know one another!” she protested. “How am I supposed to be your girlfriend in two weeks if I don't know anything about you? Stay. Let's actually have dinner. Call it a … trial run.”

He couldn't exactly say no to that. And so he found himself suddenly sharing a massive fry-up with a disorientingly pretty stranger who seemed to possess an uncanny talent for making him remember what the entire spectrum of human emotion felt like all in the span of a single night. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but the longer he spent with her, the less he found himself wanting to leave her side.

“So.” Miri drained her soda in seconds and inhaled through the straw until the bubbles rattled obnoxiously against the ice. “What do you do for a living, Mr. Dekarios?”

Gale laughed nervously. “It's, er, it's Doctor, actually. Not the medical kind, though, I'm afraid I'm rather useless in an emergency. The sight of blood makes my head spin.”

“Aren't you fascinating.” She speared a piece of sausage from his plate with her fork and grinned. “What flavor of doctor are you, then?” she asked before popping it unceremoniously into her mouth. “Does this gala you want me for happen to involve the cosmic horrors of securing elusive academic funding, by any chance?”

He couldn't help but laugh at that. “Alas, would that you were wrong. I'm a tenured professor of astronomy at the University of Waterdeep and a board member of the Ramazith Astronomical Society; which, in this case, means when the board votes to approve a new research venture that requires more money than what is currently available in the budget, I am one of the people they parade about the nobility of this city to convince them to empty their pockets for the greater good.”

A flicker of sympathy crossed Miri’s face. “And you aren't much of an appearances man, are you.” It was more statement than question, and he found himself nodding in agreement.

“Until rather recently, I would have had a partner to bring to the Watchful Order Summer Gala. Unfortunately, she and I … found ourselves on opposite sides of a particularly explosive argument recently. I regret to say we are not what we once were to one another. And likely won't ever be again.”

To his surprise, Miri offered a sympathetic grimace. “I'm sorry,” she said. “That's a shit hand for anyone.”

Gale shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. He couldn't shake how unbalanced he still felt in her presence, even if he couldn't quite put a finger on why. “What's done is done, unfortunately,” he said. “But enough about me, what about you?”

“Hmm. Well.” She leaned on the table with her elbows and flashed him a cheeky smile. “I’m an escort, for one.”

Gale snorted. “You don't say.”

“I'm five-foot-seven, my favorite flowers are roses, and I have a naughty tattoo on my right tit.” She poked at her ice with a straw. “I like spicy food and good liquor, and I used to smoke like a chimney until I quit a couple of years ago, and now I just puff convincingly at my cigarettes when clients want to smoke with me.”

“Well, now you've ruined the mystique,” Gale teased. “I was so looking forward to sharing a cigarette with you at the end of the night.”

“We could share other things instead.” She waggled her eyebrows at him with a salacious grin that sent heat flooding straight to both his face and his treacherous cock.

“I — well — let's not get ahead of ourselves,” he spluttered.

Miri nudged his foot cheekily under the table. “What, you don't like settling in with a bowl of ice cream and shitty reality TV at the end of a long day? And here I was waiting to binge Real Housewives of Baldur's Gate with you until the sun came up. I'd have even given you a discount.”

Gale burst into uncontained laughter. He couldn't help it. Her mirth was magnetic, and the teasing smile she wore reached beyond even her eyes and gave her a radiant glow that made him want to stay in her presence forever. It was almost enough to make him lose sight of why he’d embarked on this endeavor to begin with.

It was a curious circumstance he’d landed himself in. Part of him hadn’t expected a reply to the email at all; while typing it, he’d found himself wondering if this was even the correct way to go about hiring someone like this. Still, he’d found her name on a recommendation list (after a series of very discreet searches, of course). Charming and trustworthy, they’d called her. Absolutely worth the prices she charged for the variety of services she offered — and gods, she certainly did not come cheap — but even in this brief, preliminary meeting he was slowly beginning to understand the appeal. Loathe as he was to even consider the thought.

The idea itself had been born of an odd combination of desperation and spite, and perhaps even some tiny desire to simply understand. Infidelity had left a mark on his heart he so bitterly wanted to erase, but there was a part of him that needed to know why. Or how. Affairs, at least, loathsome as they were, made sense to him. They were torrid things one simply fell into through circumstance and poor choices, and beneath all of the ugliness, there was usually a catalyst or spark that was within comprehension.

But infidelity with paid company? That had been beyond even his ability to parse.

Somehow, it was nearly midnight when they finally left the diner. He’d hardly felt the time pass. They’d spent some time working out a cover story: her name was Mireya Hastings, and she was an artist visiting from Neverwinter. They’d met at the Sword Coast Museum of Natural History during a lecture on minerals native to the Anauroch Desert and bonded over a shared interest in Netherese history. He’d made an offhand comment about how surprisingly well-educated she was, and she’d knocked him down a few shameful pegs with an affronted, “What, so only stupid people can be whores in your world?”

Even in that — in the way she repeatedly scolded him for his ignorance, and then in the very same breath made his heart race with a well-placed quip — she was captivating. Something about her felt like breathing for the first time after a lifetime spent underwater. As she bid him goodnight and farewell with a chaste kiss, as the raspberry and rosewater scent of her perfume lingered on his collar while he watched her walk down the block and disappear around the corner; Gale Dekarios felt his perspective began to tilt.

It was a dangerous thing he was embarking upon. He’d suspected it from the moment he saw her, but the moment her lips brushed his cheek, he knew without a doubt what a risky game he was playing. Because no matter how much praise and attention Miri lavished on him, one critical fact remained:

At the end of the day, he was still paying her to do it.

It hadn’t been Miriam’s intention to get caught elbow-deep in Astarion’s closet, but she’d been so absorbed in looking for one particular style of dress that she didn’t hear the front door to their shared flat open until he was standing in the doorway to his bedroom looking incredibly perplexed as he cleared his throat conspicuously.

“Darling, what are you doing?”

Miriam poked her head out from under a rack full of silky shirts and sheer dresses with a sheepish grin. “Shopping?”

Astarion scowled. “Don’t you make enough money with that regular of yours to afford your own wardrobe?”

“Mm, yeah, about that.” Miriam straightened out and dusted her hands on her trousers as she stepped out of his closet, which was little more than a nook in the wall with a rigged up shower curtain rod. “Midnight fired me. Didn’t I tell you?”

He let out a scandalized gasp. “What on earth did you do?”

“I did nothing. I think her partner or something found out she was cheating, and she had a crisis of conscience over it.”

“Oh.” He huffed. “Well, that’s boring.”

“She did give me a severance bonus, which was nice.”

“Right.” Astarion stepped around her and dropped his backpack on the bed. “And you spent that severance bonus on…?”

Miriam flashed him a lazy grin. “Cocaine and hookers.”

“You think you're so funny.” He gripped her shoulders and shooed her away from his closet. “Anyway, what about this mysterious Doctor Professor? Isn't he paying all of your expenses for your big day?”

“He is, but I have a one-off client tonight, and I can’t find anything appropriate before I meet him in exactly two hours. Please? I just need a clean black dress. I haven’t had time to do laundry.”

“Just ask Tathla! She has a whole wardrobe for rent back at the Palace!”

Miriam swatted his hands away. “I'm on Tathla’s shit list, remember?” She craned her neck and studied the items she could still see through the makeshift closet door until she spotted an outline that looked promising.

“Still? For fuck’s sake, it’s been over a year since you renegotiated your contract with her. But I did warn you about that, didn’t I?”

She shrugged. “What was I supposed to do? Midnight was offering me a lot of money. She’s the reason I was able to go solo in the first place.” She ducked around him, made a beeline for his closet, and plucked the dress in question from its hanger as Astarion made a pitiful noise of protest. “Anyway, it’s not like I plan on crawling back to the Palace just yet. Things will be tight with that gap in my schedule, but honestly, you should have seen this man yesterday.” She grinned. “If I play my cards right and convince him to keep me around, he might just solve my problems all by himself.”

“Miri, I don’t think they’re ever going to invent a man capable enough to solve all of your problems.”

She pouted at Astarion as she walked backwards out of his room, the dress slung carelessly over her shoulder. “That is not a nice thing to say to your best friend.”

“Friends don’t steal from one another, you shameless harlot.”

Miriam cackled. “I saw no fewer than three pairs of my shoes in there. I’d say turnabout is fair play.”

“That piece is dry clean only!” he yelled after her as she strode across the hallway. “And hand stitched!”

“Great,” she called back as she set it down on her mattress and pawed through her makeup bag. “I’ll make sure he rips it off of me gently!”

The little house on Buckle Street was a charming wood and brick structure with a rustic front porch draped in fairy lights. Miriam shoved a wad of cash at the driver and stepped out onto the driveway, purse slung over her shoulder. The man she’d spoken to on the phone had hired her for a scene as a birthday present to his boyfriend, and while he’d expressed little to no interest in her attentions himself, they’d both filled out her interests and dislikes form to a level of detail that she only ever saw from the sorts of people who had standing memberships to kink clubs. It was a very promising start.

As she approached the steps, there was movement from behind the curtains, and standing by the steps smoking a cigarette was a man with a long, disheveled brown ponytail who looked like he wanted to be literally anywhere else. Miriam frowned. Had they gotten in a fight? The deposit was nonrefundable, but she needed the full cost today.

“Cal Helani?” she said hesitantly.

“Nope,” the man said flatly. “That would be my brother.”

Oh. Miriam blinked. “Your … brother.”

The man eyed her up and down with an appraising glance. “Ah. You must be her. Don’t worry; I’m not here to encroach upon anyone’s fun. Merely dropping the idiot off, having a cigarette, then going about my merry way.”

“Is he inside?” she ventured cautiously.

“Do you see him out here?” he said impatiently. He flicked ash over the railing. “Go on, don’t keep the lovebirds waiting.”

“You’re kind of a dick, you know that?” Miriam said dryly.

“So I’ve been told.” His jaw tightened, then he sighed. “Rolan,” he said, extending a hand. “My name. I’ve been told it’s polite to introduce myself.”

Miriam raised an eyebrow as she returned the handshake. “Miri,” she said with an amused smile.

“Well.” Rolan inhaled the last of his cigarette, then plopped its remains into green glass ashtray shaped like a maple leaf. “Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, I suppose I must return my sister’s vehicle and find something better to do. Pleasant evening.” He strode by her without another word, car keys in hand.

The front door opened as Rolan hopped into a Jeep Explorer parked on the street that had seen better days and drove away. “Oh, gods, you must be Miri.” The man standing in the doorway was taller and broader than Rolan, but there was a definite resemblance in the face and eyes. “I am so sorry about my brother, I thought the arsehole had left already.”

“And you must be Cal,” Miriam guessed.

“Yes! Come in!” He ushered her inside with a welcoming smile. “Dammon’s not home yet, but please, make yourself comfortable. Do you want anything to drink? Water? Tea?”

“Water would be great.” She looked around curiously. None of the furniture matched, and all of it looked worn and well-loved. The couch, in particular, was a green paisley monstrosity with sagging cushions and several throw blankets strewn haphazardly about. Behind the couch was an elegant wooden display case containing a vast array of intricate glass sculptures.

“Nice, right?” Cal came up behind her with a glass of water. “Dammon has a glassworking studio out back. Not really feasible for making a living on his own, but we’re thinking, maybe in five years or so, I might make enough that he can do it full time.”

Miriam studied the contents of the case with a pang in her chest. She thought briefly about the jewelry studio she’d left behind in Baldur’s Gate before shoving the thought back down. “They're gorgeous. I can't wait to meet him.”

Cal gestured awkwardly to the couch. “Do you want to sit down?”

She followed him to the couch and pulled up his documents on her phone. “Be honest with me, love. Have you done this before?”

“Not at home,” he admitted nervously. “We go to bondage nights at Blush House, but we’ve never hired anyone for it before. That’s … where we got your number, actually. You come highly recommended, you know.”

“Aw.” Miriam grinned. It wasn’t the first time Blush House had passed on her information before. She made a mental note to send Aletha and Jhoysil Samprava a nice card and flower bouquet the next time she had money to spare. “Thanks.” She leaned back against the cushions and found them surprisingly comfortable as she skimmed his likes and dislikes. “Okay, so you mentioned your primary interest is in men, and that you'd prefer watching him engage with me. Do you feel similarly about you and I engaging with him together?”

“I've done it sometimes like that,” he admitted. “With women. But I think I'd prefer watching tonight, if that's alright? Shit, I don't know why I'm so nervous—”

“It's perfectly normal,” she reassured him. “This isn't exactly an everyday occurrence for most people. If it's any consolation, the two of you are way more prepared than a lot of clients I meet.”

“That's … reassuring. Thank you.” He offered her a shy smile. “And, uh, sorry again, about my brother. He barks more than he bites.”

Miriam snorted. “We got acquainted. He even told me his name.”

Cal raised an eyebrow. “Rolan spoke to you in whole sentences?”

“Multiple, in fact.”

He laughed, visibly relaxing as the tension melted out of his shoulders. “That,” he said with a grin, “is a very good omen.”

Dammon was, in a word, gorgeous. He had short, sandy blonde hair that she just knew would look utterly stunning when tousled with sweat and exertion. His eyes were the loveliest shade of baby blue. It was almost a shame, she thought as she secured a silk blindfold on his face, to hide them away at all.

She shared one soft, slow kiss with him before having him kneel on a soft pillow in front of the bed. “What's your safe word?” she prompted one last time, drinking in the pleased shudder as she gently ran her nails across his scalp.

“Eggshell,” he murmured obediently.

“Good boy,” she whispered against his earlobe.

Cal settled into an armchair by the fireplace, breath hitching at the sight of his lover exposed in the soft lamplight. “Gods, you're gorgeous,” he croaked.

Miriam grinned. “Isn't he?” She brushed her spool of silk cord teasingly against his bare skin. His skin was already flushing with the softest blush as he relaxed beneath her praise.

She measured out a generous length of rope and draped it over his neck and shoulders before circling him appraisingly. She trailed her fingers down the sharp cut of his jaw, brushed her nails across his pulse point until his breath caught. “So pretty,” she cooed. “So perfect.” She extended her foot and brushed her sole against his cock, flushed and weeping. “I can't wait to unmake you.”

Dammon swallowed thickly. “Please,” he groaned.

“Please what?” she prompted. “Use your words, sweet thing.”

“Please bind me,” he whispered, head bowing.

“Who do you belong to tonight?”

“You, mistress.”

“Good boy,” she breathed. She knelt and began to wind the rope around his torso, taking the time to smooth her palms against the hard planes of his muscular chest. He whimpered when she tugged the rope between his legs, trapping his cock against his stomach, constricting the base of it with just enough pressure to control his release when he approached it.

She finished the harness and stepped back to admire her handiwork. “On your feet, pretty thing.” She hooked her fingers into one of the rope and tugged him upward, leading him towards the bed with her palm pressed between his shoulder blades. “Bend over the mattress, love. There you go.”

He obeyed, and she palmed his rear appreciatively. “He's like a sculpture, isn't he?” she said to Cal. “Look at him. Tell him how pretty he is.”

“Gods, Dammon, she’s right,” Cal said dreamily. “I could look at you forever.”

“If only you could see the way he watches you, sweet thing.” Miriam smoothed her hand down Dammon’s back and leveraged her weight against him to grind his cock against the mattress. She slowly unbuttoned Astarion's dress, pulling it over her head and setting it aside gently in favor of the sheer lingerie set she'd chosen beneath it. “He’s got the prettiest flush on his cheeks,” she murmured against his ear. “Gods, and he’s so hard. We haven’t even started yet and he wants to touch himself so bad.”

“Fuck,” Dammon groaned.

Miriam folded herself over him and ghosted her fingers across his throat as she mentally went over his preferences. Likes the idea of choking, doesn’t actually want to obstruct the airway. She teased the curve of her thumb across his Adam’s apple and nipped playfully at his ear. “Tell him, baby,” she said. “Tell him you want him to touch himself for you.”

It was a gratifying thing, watching someone fall apart beneath her hands, knowing she played a part in it every step of the way. Hearing Dammon’s breathless pleas as she wrung pleasure from his body over and over again, watching his arse turn the loveliest shade of red with every well-placed smack. Letting him taste her as she rode his talented tongue to an orgasm of her own that left her gasping and reeling. Loosening the ties around his cock as she finally sucked him to completion.

She watched Cal fall into his embrace with a giddy enthusiasm when she finally slipped him free from his restraints. “Nine hells, you're brilliant,” Cal whispered. He lavished praise and attention on his lover like an endless fountain of joy. “And you.” He looked up at Miriam we a broad smile and gestured for her to join them on the bed. “You deserve a cuddle for this.” He paused. “That’s … that’s not weird, right? Can I ask for that?”

Miriam laughed as she tugged her underwear back up and adjusted her bra back into place as she climbed back onto the mattress and planted a sweet kiss on Dammon’s forehead. “Sweetheart, I have been asked to do so much weirder. This is a fucking delight.”

“Are you sure you don’t want a ride home?” Dammon asked. He gestured at Miriam's empty wine glass on the porch patio table with the bottle in his hand, as she politely declined. “It's the least I can do.”

“You're sweet,” she said, “so don't take this the wrong way, but I don't typically give clients my home address.”

“Fair,” he conceded with a grin. “Point taken.”

“Happy birthday, by the way,” she said as she returned his smile. “Out of character this time.”

Dammon chuckled. “Yes, I suppose I should be thankful my job requires me to work on my feet so much. Can't imagine suffering through a day at an office with the kinds of bruises you've left on my backside.”

“You're a welder, right?”

He nodded. “Trade school is actually where Cal and I met three years ago. It’s a good living.” He ran his thumb along the lip of his wine glass thoughtfully. “How did you get into this line of work anyway? Not to pry. Mostly just curious.”

“Yeah, they don’t exactly advertise enrollment to whore school on daytime television, huh?” Miriam said with a laugh. “Right place at the right time, mostly, depending on who you ask. Not a bad gig, though. Pays the bills. Beats the hell out of accounting.”

Dammon snorted and raised his glass and clinked it against her empty one as her cab finally pulled into the driveway. “I’ll drink to that.”

“I guess that’s my cue to leave.” Miriam gathered her bag and smoothed down the front of her dress. “Tell Cal I said goodbye when he gets out of the shower, okay?”

“Of course. It’s been a delight.”

“Likewise.” She grinned over her shoulder as she walked down the front steps. “Feel free to book me again any time.”

Miriam was so busy riding the high of a job gone well as she set her bag on the seat and climbed in behind it, she briefly forgot for a moment the way reality so often had a funny way of dragging her back down at every opportunity. She had barely given the cab driver her address and closed the door when her phone rang, and she briefly considered the merits of flinging her phone from the window as she answered. “Yeah?”

“Good evening, little mouse.”

She bit back the panic that gripped the back of her throat at the sound of Raphael’s voice. “Can you relax? I just got paid.”

“I recall offering you some leeway last month as well.”

“For which I am very grateful—” Miriam began.

“I rather like you, Miriam,” he interrupted, “but I confess, my patience with you is wearing thin as of late.”

“I lost a big client, Raphael. There’s a huge gap in my schedule now, and relationships like that take time to build.”

“Yes, I am so very aware,” he said. “I recall, however, that part of our little agreement to release your contract to Tathla all those years ago involved you making your monthly payments to me on time. Honestly, I have no idea why you insist on making things so difficult for yourself. This wouldn’t have even been a conversation worth having if you’d have just stayed with the House of Hope as we’d all originally intended. I would have taken such good care of you.”

“Oh, of that I have no doubt,” Miriam muttered.

“Cheeky brat. And after everything I’ve done for you.”

She fumbled in her purse for her headphones and jammed them into her ears, waiting for them to connect before pulling her phone away from her face and tapping away at her screen, wincing as everything she’d just had deposited into her account vanished into yet another wire transfer to House of Hope Enterprises. “Check your account. It’s all there.”

A beat of silence, an ominous rustle. “So it is, little mouse. Was that so hard? I knew you had it in you.”

“Sure. Can you fuck off and let me have my evening back now?”

He tutted disapprovingly. “Such a mouth on you. It’s a wonder you retain anyone out there on your own.”

“Maybe I cater to all the clients that don’t fall for your saccharine, new age bullshit.”

Raphael let out a dark chuckle. “You walk a fine line, my dear, and I admit, sometimes you even walk it well. But when the end of the line nears — and believe me, the way you’re headed, it draws ever closer by the day — rest assured, I will be there to catch you in your inevitable fall from grace. That is a promise.”

The line went dead before Miriam could muster a pithy response. She sank back against the seat, closed her eyes, and bit back an urge to scream. What was the point? No one ever really heard her anyway.

Gale paced his living room with sweating palms as the antique clock on his mantlepiece counted down the minutes to four in the afternoon. The event itself wasn’t until seven, but Miri had decided it was probably a good idea for them to spend some time together prior to being seen in public so she could coach him on his body language. Which, given the circumstance, was absolutely fair. He flipped through his emails and read through Miri’s contract again, then reviewed her page of off-limits activity for what had to have been the third time in as many hours.

Some of them were oddly specific. (Permanent body modification? What on earth did that mean?) Some almost seemed to go without saying. (Unsanctioned use of mind-altering substances, unnegotiated mobility restriction, refusal to adhere to safe-word protocol.) He wondered with an uneasy feeling in his stomach how many of these had made it on the list due to firsthand experience.

He shook the thought from his head and tried to focus on the details of her cover story. Mireya Hastings. Neverwinter. He thought about the lively debate they’d had over chips and soda on the role of the Phaerimm in the myth of the Folly of Karsus and wondered how on earth she knew so much about something so obscure. He’d worried when embarking upon this road how he’d explain his sudden and new acquaintance to his colleagues, but Miri made all of it sound so easy. So unquestioningly natural.

He’d even searched ‘Mireya Hastings, Neverwinter’ online the moment he got home that night out of sheer curiosity; all the search had turned up was a grade-school teacher in her late sixties, an owner of a real estate business of a similar age, and teenage influencer who seemed to have far more social media presence than sense. It was abundantly clear none of them were Miri.

And the name on the contract read Mirielle Ancúnin, but searching that name turned up exactly one hit: a short, willowy woman with platinum hair and pale eyes who apparently danced for a ballet troupe based in Cormyr. Also not the Miri he’d met in that diner.

And he supposed that made sense. Of course she wouldn't use her real name in this line of work. Of course the woman he was attending this gala with was a ghost who didn’t exist outside of this meticulously crafted fantasy they’d constructed.

It was, after all, exactly the service he was paying for.

There was a knock on his door at exactly four, and he almost tripped over his own feet in his haste to answer it. And when he opened it, there she stood, just as he remembered. Tousled black hair, piercing hazel eyes, a sea of freckles he could count constellations in. Gods, she was a sight, and he was so preoccupied in taking her in he didn't even notice at first that she was in a tank top and joggers and a hideous pair of lavender and neon orange crocs.

“Oh, yeah, don't mind the looks,” she said with a grin as she shouldered the massive duffel bag and garment case slung over her shoulder. “Figured if I'm your girlfriend, you should get used to seeing me in every state of the getting ready process.”

“You're … quite thorough,” he said. “Is every outing with you so immersive?”

She flashed him a brilliant smile as she set the bag on the floor. “Depends on the outing. But you, my love, paid for the full package.”

And then she was stepping in front of him, so close the scent of her perfume set his head spinning. “What are you doing?” he croaked.

“Getting acquainted with the lovely gentleman I met at the Museum of Natural History, obviously,” she said, eyes twinkling. “I'm sure he took me home that night and mapped out every inch of my body.” She punctuated her words with slow taps of her fingertips against his jaw. “Surely he wouldn't begrudge me a kiss, after everything.”

It was a pretty trap she'd laid, and he fell into it all too willingly as her lips brushed his. The kiss started soft — the barest ghosting of breath that practically stole his away — but it rapidly gained intensity as she threaded her fingers through his hair, licking into his mouth like she owned every part of him, and gods above, he was powerless to pull away. When was the last time he'd been kissed like this? Touched like this, even? Every place where their skin met set his nerves on fire. He wanted to consume her, and to be consumed in turn.

No. No, he couldn’t, not like this. Mustering the last of his faltering willpower, he pulled away at last. “I … apologize,” he said weakly. He offered her a sheepish, apologetic grin and tried very hard not to fixate on the way her cheeks were flushed, breath heaving, eyes dark with want. “Where are my manners? Can I get you a drink?”

“Educated and a gentleman,” she teased. “You're quite the catch.”

“And you are quite the vision yourself. Please.” He gestured at his dining table as he put forth a valiant effort towards making himself busy in the kitchen. “Do make yourself at home. Coffee?”

“Coffee sounds nice.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Only nice?” he said. “Well, then I shall endeavor to defy your expectations in every way.”

She laughed. “Do you say that to all of your suitors, or do you reserve it for the pretty ones?”

“Tonight, I reserve it for you alone.” It was madness, the way she made him feel so bold in the face of his own uncertainty. “Intoxicating vixen that you are.”

The look she gave him held a split second of something deep and searching before her smile broadened and lit up her face again. “Show me what you've got then, love.”

He hated the way his chest fluttered at the endearment. Hated the way it made him feel like such a a fool. Hated how he couldn't seem to turn away from it anyway.

Miriam let the water from Gale’s fancy rainfall showerhead cascade over her head and shoulders as she closed her eyes and tried to enjoy the warmth. The job was already off to a promising start, judging from the number of times she'd made him blush and caught him staring at her with rapt attention when he thought she wasn't looking. All she needed, she mused, was to make herself seem indispensable. Endear herself to both him and his community, make herself seem like just enough of a fixture that he'd be tempted to bite and keep her around.

It was a few ticks more manipulative than she usually operated, but Raphael's last phone call still rang in her head five days later. She was treading a fine line these days when it came to his exorbitant monthly payment plan, but each month since Midnight’s sudden departure from her clientele had tightened the noose around her neck just a little more.

She supposed she could understand the sting of discovering a cheating partner. The situation was sad, yes, but it was also none of her business beyond the even sadder fact that her monthly income had been effectively slashed by more than half in its wake. She didn't exactly have room in her spirit left for judgment or sympathies.

She sighed as she turned her conditioner bottle over in her hands. No point in dwelling on the things she couldn't change. She eyed Gale's collection of toiletries curiously. With as lovely as his hair was, she wasn't exactly surprised to find he favored quality hair products. Was he the type of man who would notice if she left the bathroom smelling faintly of him?

She tossed her own conditioner back into her bag and decided to find out.

Gale was sitting in an armchair by the bed reading when she came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. He looked up, mouth falling open as she made a show of bending over to dig through her bag for her underwear. “Please,” he stammered. “You don't have to—”

“You can look if you want, love. I don't mind.” She flashed him a smile. “I actually rather like it, if I'm being honest.”

He swallowed thickly and made a valiant attempt to return to his book. She debated the merits of pushing him further. He hadn't shut her down yet. She'd seen how much her kiss affected him earlier; and if she were being honest she hadn't walked away from that one unscathed either. For someone who'd been so damn awkward about her so much as brushing his arm, he kissed like he meant it, with the skills to back it up. Like he wanted her to drown in him and then take him with her.

She was determined to get him to kiss her again before the evening ended. She laid out her underwear — lacy black and cut to frame every curve of her arse — on the bed next to the dress she'd bought with his money. It was a deep burgundy ensemble with far too many straps for practicality, but the cut of it highlighted her modest bosom, and the slit in the side of the skirt was just high enough to hint at more to come without looking entirely classless.

Maybe the kiss made her reckless. There was hunger in his eyes, far more of it than any real desire for propriety. Whatever this man's damage, he clearly had layers, and part of her wanted desperately to know just what it would take to make that shy professor demeanor slip. So she made her second executive decision of the night and hummed thoughtfully as she picked through her skincare bag and let the towel fall carelessly to the floor.

She didn't even need to see him from the corner of her eye to know she'd had an effect; the sound of the book snapping shut said enough all on its own. She continued in silence, stretching her legs against the bed one at a time as she pulled on her underwear.

She froze when Gale made a noise that could only be described as a hysterical cackle. “Apologies,” he said sheepishly. “It’s just that — well — when you mentioned you had a naughty tattoo—”

Miriam couldn’t hold back her laughter at the look on his face. She preened and adjusted her angle to afford him a better view of the Iokharic script tattooed across her right breast that simply spelled out, in Old Netherese, the word for ‘breast.’ “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you can read it after our little talk the other day,” she mused. “Odd topic of interest for an astrophysicist.”

“And an odder topic of interest for…”

He paused, and she eyed him with an amused smirk. She knew exactly what he'd almost said, and it delighted her to no end that he'd taken her previous scolding about her choice of profession into consideration.

“…well, anyone really, outside of the realm of humanities academia,” he finished instead. “Unless you perhaps do have several degrees stashed away in that lovely head of yours.”

She pursed her lips in surprise. “You're getting bold, Dr. Dekarios,” she murmured. “What if I do? What if I myself had been subjected to the rigors of academia once, only to find it lacking in fulfillment? Would that offend you?”

Another pretty lie like the rest of them. He didn't need to know that hiding in the library on her days off reading everything she could get her hands on was the only thing that kept her sane while working at the House of Hope. That myths and legends and the singular thought of ensuring her family's continued safety were all that had kept her from throwing herself off of the uppermost balcony to end her misery. That, after Tathla Nightstar had negotiated her transfer to the Palace instead, the tattoo had been her first rebellious act of freedom since taking Raphael's deal in the first place.

“It would fascinate me,” he breathed as she rounded the bed in only her underwear and approached him slowly. “You … fascinate me.”

Miriam stepped closer, only a hair’s breadth away from actually straddling him. Her lips nearly brushed his when she spoke again. “Of course I do,” she murmured. “Isn't that why you took me home?”

He kissed her first, a careless nip of teeth against her lips that left her exhaling in surprise. “Minx,” he groaned, and then he tugged her forward onto his lap with a firm grip on her hips and deepened the kiss until she was gasping against his mouth. “What's your angle, hm?” he said softly. There was want in those eyes — beautiful, warm brown eyes currently dark with the sort of craving she knew was reflected in her own. “You get your money tonight regardless. You said it yourself: it doesn't matter whether I sleep with you or not. So why the seduction? Why put in the extra effort?”

They were so close she could practically feel his heartbeat against her bare chest. “Is it so absurd to consider,” she whispered, “that maybe men who look like you are why I love my job?”

“Do you say that to all of your clients? Or just the pretty ones?” He threw her words back at her with the cheekiest twist of his lips.

“Tonight,” she murmured, “it's reserved just for you.”

He kissed her again, and she had the oddest sensation of her own world shifting, of her control of the situation slipping from her fingers like so many grains of sand. It had been a long time since she'd been this reckless with a client, but she closed her eyes and wondered anyway what the harm could be, just this once. Because gods, she couldn't remember the last time she'd wanted someone this badly, and all he'd have to do for proof was reach down and feel the slick pooling rapidly between her legs.

And then touch her he did. The scruff of his beard scratched her skin as he planted soft, needy kisses into the crook of her neck. “Gods, you’re telling the truth, aren’t you,” he said when he pressed his palm against her underwear. “Almost makes me wonder who’s seducing whom tonight.”

The rumble of that voice against her pulse point had her breath hitching, and she involuntarily thrust against his hand with a whimper that slipped free from her throat before she could bite it back. He pressed a finger experimentally beneath the fabric and groaned when it slipped between her folds with no resistance. “Exquisite,” he murmured, dragging his teeth gently across her skin. He circled a fingertip against her clit with just enough pressure to tease. “Oh, would that I could mark you up now. Show everyone just how privileged I am to have such a lovely creature in my arms for the evening.”

Miriam wondered if perhaps she’d miscalculated just how much she’d had this situation in hand from the start. Had she misread him so thoroughly? Had his shyness been an act just as much as her enthusiastic interest had been at first? But then he had two fingers inside her as his thumb applied steady friction to her clit, as his lips found one of her nipples and sucked just hard enough to draw a pinprick of pain. Her heart pounded in her ears as she clung desperately to his shoulders and fucked herself on his hand.

This wasn’t how she’d planned this to go. He wasn’t supposed to have the upper hand this fast. She never meant to—

Whatever thought had been cresting in her mind, it vanished into a haze of pleasure as Gale shoved a third finger in her and crooked them roughly against her walls. She wasn’t entirely aware what sound came out of her mouth; it may have been his name, or just an incoherent moan as white-hot sparks of sensation shot down her spine and pooled like molten heat in her belly. The scratch of his beard against her tits, the scrape of his teeth against her nipples. The bruising way one hand kept an iron grip on her hip as the other fucked into her with a reckless abandon she would not have imagined he’d even remotely possessed twenty minutes ago.

Did she do this to him? Or had she simply fallen into a game she hadn’t prepared for?

Her thrusts grew erratic as she approached her climax. It had been ages since she’d cum as hard as her body seemed to want her to now.

And then all at once, Gale withdrew his hand. “Hmm. I suppose it's about time we both got ready, don't you think?”

Miriam stared at him incredulously, head spinning. “What?” she managed through a mouth that was suddenly incredibly dry.

He nudged her to her feet with a cheeky grin, followed suit, and planted a kiss onto her forehead. “I was thinking, perhaps we grab a bite to eat before we are forced into an entire evening with nothing but unsatisfying canapes, don't you agree?”

“Yeah,” she said faintly, ears ringing as she fought desperately to regain her composure. “Yeah, I can work with that.”

There was a deep satisfaction Gale felt at the realization that he'd caught Miri off guard. Truthfully, he'd surprised himself almost as much with the way he'd so easily slipped into his own depravity. Like many things, Miri had made it so damn easy, had tugged his fantasies to the surface until he couldn't do anything else but grasp them and hold on.

There was a thread of guilt tucked in there, too. Hadn't he sworn this was only for appearances? That he wasn't planning on using her body, only her presence at his side? What did it say about him, that he'd been so easily convinced otherwise? He thought about the awful things he'd said to Ariel over the subject during their final argument. The accusations he'd levied in a fit of heartbreak before swearing she was the biggest mistake he could ever make. And yet he'd succumbed himself to Miri’s charms within minutes without a care in his head otherwise.

He truly was such a fucking hypocrite.

But Miri was a goddess made flesh in that burgundy dress, adorned with elegant gold jewelry, and red and gold stiletto heels to match. She'd donned an auburn wig, braided and coiled into an elegant bun at the nape of her neck, and she'd put in contact lenses that turned her eyes a hypnotizing liquid brown. Her lips were stained a deep wine red, and she'd applied a layer of smoky, shimmering eyeshadow that only brought out the depth of her falsified eye color and heightened the illusion all the more.

He felt strangely proud and privileged that he had the pleasure of knowing what lay beneath that disguise. That he knew the true lilt of her voice behind the expertly affected Neverwinter accent, had seen and admired the rich hazel of her eyes, the riot of freckles and the rose tattoo on her neck currently all concealed behind layers of expensive full-coverage foundation. No disguise could compare to the captivating beauty beneath it all.

The Wands family was hosting the annual Watchful Order Summer Gala this year at their picturesque North Ward estate. He’d taken her to a little bistro a few blocks from there, where she'd proceeded to steal chips from his plate whenever he wasn't looking and relentlessly poke fun at his aversion to leafy greens. She fell into her role as his girlfriend so thoroughly it was actively difficult remembering none of it was real, and something about that should have made him uneasy; but the uncomfortable truth was that he found himself lighter, freer, happier with her than he'd been with anyone in years.

She'd cuddled next to him in the back of the cab, planting giggly, unreserved kisses on his jaw when he said something she found particularly charming. When he opened her door and helped her out of the cab, she smiled at him so brilliantly it was a wonder he didn't go blind on the spot. He held out his arm to escort her inside, and she took it and planted a soft kiss on the back of his hand before linking their elbows together. Like this was nothing new to her. Like she did this sort of thing with him all the time, like this wasn't only his second time ever spending time with her at all.

Tearing himself away from her in order to truly start their afternoon had been a near impossible effort. He’d taken a shower on the coldest water setting he’d had available after nudging her off of his lap, and he was thankful for both tight underwear and loose trousers with the way every brush of her hands against his skin threatened to arouse him to madness all over again. And perhaps it was an absurd desire of his at this point considering he’d already fucked her on his lap with his fingers in nothing but a pair of lacy black lingerie bottoms, but a (perhaps delusional) part of him wanted to do it right if he were to truly lay with her. To take his time with her, to break her down piece by piece, to devour her until his was the only name on her tongue.

If someone as exquisite as her had to suffer his company for a night, it was the least he could do. Even if he were paying her.

“Gale!” exclaimed a familiar voice as they crossed the threshold into the foyer of the Wands estate. Tennora rounded on him with a giddy smile, garbed in a floor-length dress of rose gold satin and tulle that swished on the floor with every step. She beamed as she kissed both of his cheeks in greeting. “Gods, but it’s good to see you out and about, you ridiculous workaholic. How have you been?”

“Keeping busy,” he said, suddenly panicking as he realized he would be expected to actually introduce Miri to people.

Sure enough, Tennora turned to Miri with a delighted gasp. “And who is this beauty you’ve graced us with?”

Miri rescued him by stepping forward with a similar kiss in greeting. “Mireya Hastings. Visiting from Neverwinter for a few months for an art installation.”

“Tennora Hedare. Gale and I suffered as adjunct faculty together at Balduran College almost fifteen years ago.”

“She followed me here when I got tenure,” he said with a grin.

“Of course I did, darling. The position opened up and I knew there was one arsehole on faculty who would at least pretend to have my back in these dreadful committee meetings.” Tennora snatched two flutes of champagne from a nearby serving tray and proffered them with a flourish. “So! Tell me everything! I can't wait to hear about the lovely lady who's managed to put a smile back on this dreadfully morose face. It's been far too long.”

Gale grimaced. He'd had precious little to smile about lately. He glanced at the candlelit photo of Tara framed in flowers near the entryway and looked away immediately.

Dearest colleague, dearer friend.

The Cloud of Aghairon project had been her labor of love for years. That she couldn't be here to see the start of its culmination was the cruelest joke the universe had ever played.

“Gale?” Miri’s voice cut through his thoughts like a bell. “You alright?”

“Yes, apologies, simply … lost in thought,” he said hastily. He forced a smile back onto his face.

Miri didn't look convinced. She tapped at the side of her face in a sudden panic. “Sweetheart, I think I dropped an earring on the sidewalk outside, would you mind helping me look for it? I'm so sorry, Tennora, it's lovely meeting you. Can we get reacquainted inside in about twenty minutes or so? It's, just, it was my grandmother's—”

“Oh goodness, of course! Don't fret, my dear. Would you like some help?”

Miri shook her head demurely. “It's alright, I'm sure it's just out on the steps. I'll find you later.”

Gale followed her outside, a thousand questions on his lips as Miri gripped his elbow and tugged him behind a hedge. “I don't understand, what—”

She unfolded her earring from her hand and calmly fixed it back onto her ear. “Oh, yeah, I made that whole story up, this is from the clearance aisle at Ross. You just really looked like you needed a second.”

He gaped at her. “I'm sorry?”

Miri raised an eyebrow. “Was I wrong? Do you just normally freeze up and forget how to speak when old friends ask you regular conversation questions?”

“No, I—” He trailed off, mouth agape. “How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That I … was perhaps a bit overwhelmed.” It hurt admitting it out loud. Acknowledging it where it could be heard by someone other than his own racing thoughts. It was easier when he could pretend he had moved on with the rest of the world instead of having one foot still trapped over a year ago at a wet Cormyrian graveside in the freezing rain.

Soft hands cupped his cheeks. “Hey. Look at me. Breathe. Do you need an out? Say the word. I’ll fake an emergency that’ll have everyone in this building feeling very sorry for you in thirty seconds or less.”

Gale stared at her incredulously. “Forgive me for saying this, but this is — going so incredibly differently than I imagined, I — that is to say—” He forced air into his lungs as she gestured at him impatiently. “Thank you,” he managed finally. “I will be alright.”

She offered him a sideways smile and pulled a tiny flask out of her purse, popping the cap as she handed it over. “I feel like you’re going to need something stronger than champagne if you’re going to go back in there. Just, uh. Go easy on the stuff. It’s spicy.”

He sniffed at the drink curiously. It had a sweet, slightly fruity pine scent to it, and would probably have been pleasant had the fumes not been strong enough to practically singe his nose hairs. He braced himself and took a sip, coughing in alarm as the contents of her flask burned the entire way down his esophagus. “What,” he sputtered, “in the hells is that?”

“Brass City Firepit,” she said, like that provided any sort of answer at all. She grinned and rubbed his back sympathetically. “Feel better?”

The back of his throat burned, and he was fairly certain whatever was in the stuff was going to give him acid reflux for a week, but he had to give credit where credit was due; he already felt marginally less heavy in the head. “Thank you,” he said again. Self consciousness overtook him as he handed her the flask back. “I suppose you must think me quite the wilting daisy after all of this.”

“Nah.” Her palm continued rubbing soothing circles between his shoulders, and he found himself arching into her touch. “Everyone needs a breather sometimes.” She tucked the flask back into her purse. “Want to talk about it?”

Something twisted painfully in his chest. Her flirting he could handle. This strange vulnerability she was tugging out of him suddenly was something else entirely. “We should get back,” he said mechanically.

The searching look she gave him, thankfully, held no pity. It soon settled back into that collected persona she'd cobbled together, and she took his hand in hers with an adoring expression on his face that almost made him believe it was genuine. “After you then, my love.”

The grand hall of the Wands estate was the definition of an old money ballroom, replete with massive candlelit chandeliers, numerous marble statues, and portraits on the walls that clearly spanned generations. It wasn’t the first time Miriam had been surrounded on all sides by an obscene amount of money, but navigating it at Gale’s side was sending her off-balance in ways she hadn’t experienced in years. He was clearly uncomfortable, though whether it was circumstantial or due to simply being out of his element remained yet to be seen. She was beginning to suspect it was a mixture of both, based on the way he winced any time someone mentioned the name ‘Tara Everett.’

At any rate, she certainly wasn’t about to ask him about it.

She introduced herself to colleagues and donors alike as she watched him warily from the corner of her eye, doing her best to steer conversations in different directions whenever she saw him noticeably tense. Yes, she had an art studio in Neverwinter; yes, of course she knew of whatever sculptor this person mentioned, but wouldn’t they be a dear and tell her all about their body of work?

Academics, it seemed, were all the same.

It made her miss her siblings with a fierce ache in the pit of her chest. Cassian with his telescope and near encyclopedic knowledge of the constellations overhead. Eleanor and her massive, meticulously maintained mushroom colony she kept in the basement. She wondered if anyone in her family suspected she was living a lie. That the lucrative marketing internship-turned-career she'd landed with Sword Coast Broadcasting was a complete fabrication, that the loan she'd gotten to cover Cassian's experimental spinal surgery was through a reputable company and not the abysmal clusterfuck of indentured servitude she’d willingly tangled herself into seven years ago for the sake of keeping her family out of bankruptcy.

Of course she was too busy to visit on holidays; that was when her work load effectively doubled. Of course she couldn’t host them for visits in Waterdeep, not when she so often spent long days and the occasional night at her office. “My deepest regrets,” she’d offered with a sigh during a phone call that had left her feeling sick for days. “I hope Eleanor’s upcoming 21st birthday is everything she’d ever dreamed it would be,” she’d said with her trademark plastic smile flavoring every word. “It’s just killing me to miss it.”

She’d always been the odd one out. The disappointment who’d barely scraped her way into university, who’d burned through her parents’ money on tuition because no one offered scholarships to someone who couldn’t pay attention in class. Her parents had been so proud of her when she’d told them about the internship, when she’d presented her meticulously crafted cover story for why she was suddenly moving to Waterdeep with two years left in her degree. Finally, finally she was making something of herself.

And she was, in a way. She’d traded her life so Cassian could have a chance at keeping his, and she’d rather watch him live from a distance than waste her own life away less than a mile from his grave. That hers wasn’t a life worth seeing the light of day was nothing new, after all. Disappointment tucked neatly into a slightly different skin, one that was — at least — marginally more useful.

So she did what she knew best. She flirted and lied and made people believe in illusions that masked the pieces of her that were tattered and ugly. And part of that meant keeping an eye on Gale and the way he'd suddenly turned into a ticking time bomb in the middle of an event that clearly contained more layers than she'd anticipated. And maybe her touch lingered on him longer than it would have otherwise. Maybe she picked up on the way he visibly relaxed with her hand in his and found little excuses to touch him innocently in as many ways as she could fabricate. Maybe she indulged the tiny surge of possessive, protective anger that swelled in her belly whenever someone else commanded his attention, because that was her job. Her role. That was all it was.

“Have I said yet how utterly stunning you look tonight?” Gale murmured into her ear as he gathered her into his arms for a dance. “It's as though the heavens themselves sent you to my door.”

“Flatterer,” she teased.

He offered up a cheeky grin. “I prefer purveyor of truth, if it's all the same to you.”

Miriam had just opened her mouth for a snappy retort when she spotted a familiar blue-eyed gaze watching her from across the room, brows scrunched in scrutiny. She tugged at Gale's arm and gestured stealthily. “Who is that?” she whispered.

Gale's face grew stormy. “Remember the, er, former partner I'd mentioned? With whom I had a rather explosive falling out?”

Her stomach dropped. “Sure,” she said faintly.

“Well. That would be her. Ariel Manx. My, ah, ex fiancee.”

Miriam tried in vain to fix her eyes elsewhere, but that gaze held her in place like a bug under a microscope. Midnight's apologies played on repeat in her head.

I never meant to place you in the middle of something so crass.

You will always be more than an indiscretion to me.

I'm sorry.

She swayed on her feet as several conclusions collided in her head all at once. First and foremost, that Gale had circumstantially made the worst choice of escort in the whole of Waterdeep. And then: that he was technically the reason she was in her current predicament to begin with.

And, perhaps most ludicrously, that he'd had the nerve to go about hiring her at all after the sorts of things he'd apparently said during the argument that had sent her only source of stability into shambles.

“Is she going to be a problem tonight?” Miriam asked instead. Calm. Rational. Practical, without breaking character, even as the world crumbled beneath her feet, just the way Tathla had taught her to be.

Gale's grip tightened protectively around her waist. “Not if I have anything to say about it,” he murmured. He leaned in and kissed her softly, tenderly, with a magnitude of affection that made her teeth ache. “She's a thing of the past. I swear.”

Miriam turned to look at Midnight again, but she was nowhere to be found. Desperation gripped at her insides. She needed this night to go well, needed the money from this gig and several more besides before Raphael came knocking at her door in two more weeks.

“Miri?” Gale was looking at her now, an expression of concern inked across his face. “Is everything alright?”

She dragged a smile out of herself and leaned her head against his shoulder, outwardly content despite how she was quietly panicking inside. “With you by my side?” she murmured, placing a soft kiss at the base of his jaw. “I rather think so.”

Miriam leaned on the counter of the powder room as she adjusted her wig in the mirror. She studied her neck where her tattoo sat concealed beneath several layers of makeup, paranoid, as though somehow Midnight’s scrutiny alone had brought her secrets to light. She wondered if there was anyone else in this place who would recognize her stripped bare. It wasn't like she could remember every client she'd ever taken to bed over the last seven years, but she'd definitely had her share of faceless patrons among the Waterdhavian upper class. She didn't recognize any of the other university faculty Gale had introduced her to, though Tennora had gotten increasingly flirty and flustered with every drink to the point where Gale's grip on her arm would tighten ever so slightly every time Tennora approached.

And gods, the way something in her clenched every time he grabbed her arm, every time he looped his arm around her waist and squeezed her to his side a little harder than perhaps necessary. It wasn't the first time a client had gotten oddly possessive over her, but what was new was the way it made her heart race when he was the one doing it. She had an absurd desire for him to pull her into a sloppy kiss in the middle of the ballroom in front of all of his colleagues and donors. To claim her, mark her, maybe even drag her into a closet somewhere to finish what he'd started with his fingers earlier that day and fuck her properly.

She mulled it over as she hopped on the counter and refreshed her lipstick. By now it was patently obvious the man had enough control issues to fill a fifty gallon drum. But would it lock him in or chase him away if she prodded him into letting some of that self mastery slip? It was obvious how he itched for it, for some semblance of proof he steered something in his life at this event where so many things seemed to be veering so far out of his grasp. Did she nudge him there gently? Or did she just push his buttons until he propelled them both there himself?

The powder room door banged open, and Miriam froze as she found herself face to face with the last person she wanted to speak with tonight. Or ever again.

“What are you doing here?” Midnight asked. Her voice was soft, but the sort of soft that carried layers of fury quaking at its core.

“Working,” Miriam said tersely.

“Yes, I can certainly see that.” Midnight locked the door behind them with a decisive click. “What are you doing here with him?”

“Will it piss you off if my answer doesn't change?”

“Mystra's mantle, you infuriating little—” Midnight forced a slow breath in through her nose. “Does he know? Did you know?”

Miriam very pointedly did not look at her as she lifted a tissue from the dispenser and blotted her lips. “I think it's a safe bet he has no idea who I was to you. And if it's all the same to you, I'd really prefer that he didn't find out.”

“Are you serious?” Midnight scoffed. “You expect me to believe he showed up at your door coincidentally?”

“Is it really a coincidence if I come highly recommended by several regulars that aren't you? I hear Blush House is handing out my card like promo flyers these days.”

“Does Gale even remotely strike you as the type of man to frequent an establishment like Blush House?”

“I wouldn't know,” Miriam said smoothly. “I hardly know the man. I certainly didn't know he knew you.”

Midnight pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation. “You expect me to believe that?”

“No.” Miriam hopped off of the counter and tucked her lipstick back into a tiny pocket sewn into the lining of her dress. “But I do expect you to remember what it is I do for a living. I didn't stop being a whore just because I was yours exclusively for a year, and some of us still have bills to pay.”

“He holds onto you like he owns you,” Midnight said incredulously. “How long has this been going on?”

“It's the first date, honey. Not that it's any of your business.”

Midnight looked as though Miriam had slapped her. “Unbelievable,” she muttered.

“Don’t take it personally. It doesn't mean anything anyway. Not with him.”

Not the way it had started to with you.

If Midnight caught the unspoken bitterness that hung suspended in the air, she was wise enough not to comment on it. “Thank Mystra for small mercies,” she said instead, jaw tensing. She turned to leave, then paused. “Be careful, Miri. He'll burn you if you get too close. Suffocate you. He’s never learned what to do with his heart without someone else there to carry it for him.”

Miriam found her irritation building. “As long as I'm getting paid,” she muttered, painstakingly inspecting her nails. She didn't look back up until long after the door closed following Midnight's departure.

She took one last look in the mirror and sighed. Why did things have to get so damn complicated? She thought wistfully about the flask of Firepit in her purse in the coat check room.

Wine would, unfortunately, have to do for now.

Gale was putting forth a monumental effort not to get antsy at how long Miri had been gone. She'd only popped out to reapply her lipstick — or so she'd said — but the longer the minutes ticked down without her at his side, the more his paranoia ran rampant. She charmed everyone who spoke to her. More than one person had asked him where she'd run off to in her absence, and he wasn't ignorant of the way people looked at her. And it wasn't even that he claimed any sort of ownership over her. With the reputation she seemed to have, the level of professionalism he'd heard about her, she hardly seemed the type to breach her own contracts.

But hadn't she already proven a tendency for unconventional methods? He wondered how far her abilities to twist justifications went. How well did he know her, really? If he were being truly honest, not at all; and yet, he wanted to. Gods, how he wanted to. Every second without her presence made him crave her like a drug. Her smile, her laugh, her intoxicating touches. The way she made him feel like the only other person in the room, like — despite the attention she commanded — she only had eyes for him and him alone.

This, he concluded, had been a terrible idea. He wasn't cut out for this, for such a level of transactionalism in something supposed to hold so much intimacy. After this crushingly awful night was over, he was absolutely going to cut ties with Miri and delete her contact information. He had to, for the sake of his own sanity.

But then she reappeared at his elbow, glowing like the sun, and all he could imagine was how much he craved her. He'd tasted her kisses enough to know they made him weak in the knees, made him want with an unmatched intensity that made him feel utterly mad. “Miss me?” she said with a grin.

He breathed a sigh of pure relief. “Gods, you have no idea.” He cradled her cheek in the palm of his hand, gently ran his thumb over her skin. She was so beautiful. And perhaps it was the wine talking, but even if it were just for the night, for now, she was his.

That thought, perhaps, made it sting all the more when he caught her gaze lingering on Tennora for a hair longer than he'd expected. When she seemed to have had just enough champagne to loosen her inhibitions. When she laughed a little too enthusiastically at everyone else's jokes, made thinly veiled promises to catch up later. He was supposed to be securing funding for an observatory upgrade, but all he could focus his attention on was the paralyzing fear that even someone he'd paid to remain at his side was slowly slipping through his fingers.

“Miri,” he said casually, with a calm he absolutely did not feel. “Would you mind stepping into the gardens with me? I think I might need some air.”

There it was, the plastic smile that still made him want her so badly he could taste desperation in the back of his throat. She linked her arm in his and let him lead her outside. What a perfect, pretty pair they made.

He didn't mean to grip her arm as hard as he did the moment they were alone, but the second they were tucked behind a little tool shed free of prying eyes, the torrent of emotion he'd been holding back all evening tumbled free like an avalanche as he yanked her to his side. “What in the hells are you up to?” he hissed.

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Ow! Gale, what the fuck!”

“Don't think I didn’t notice the way you’ve been lavishing your affections on everyone around us. I understand I hold no claim over you, but considering the purpose of why you’re here, I’d appreciate it if you wait a few more hours before you attempt to make a complete fool out of me.”

Her expression shifted. She relaxed in his grip, a sly smile slipping onto her face. “Yeah?” she breathed. “Or what?”

“What game are you playing at?” He took a step forward, backing her against the wall of the shed. Her back hit the sheet metal exterior, and she let him press her into it with a sharp hitch of breath.

“That depends,” she said, “on what you're willing to give me.” Her eyes sparkled with challenge.

The things he wanted to do to her. The anger and indignation twisting in his gut to something he barely recognized within himself. He spun her around and pressed her into the shed. “Tell me to stop,” he whispered raggedly. He was lightheaded, his cock already hard to aching at the way Miri’s back arched at his manhandling.

She eyed him over her shoulder, breathing heavily even as he pressed her cruelly against the metal. “Now why,” she said, “would I do a ridiculous thing like that?”

He slipped a shaking hand beneath her dress and gripped the soft skin of her thigh. “You can’t actually want this.”

Miri smirked and pressed her arse against the now visible outline of his cock in his trousers. “It’s really sweet that you care.”

He hitched his grasp higher, groaning when he realized she’d foregone her underwear entirely. “You naughty thing,” he murmured against her ear. “Have you been bare beneath this dress this entire time?”

“Sure. You ruined my good pair back in your flat, remember? That's hardly my fault.”

“What am I to do with you?” He rutted, almost involuntarily, against her backside as he gripped the firm globe of her arse, as he slid his touch around the side of her thigh and dipped his fingers into the cleft of her dripping cunt. His heartbeat roared in his ears with the intensity of his desires, so all-consuming he wondered if this was what it was to go mad.

“How about,” she suggested, “you finish what you started instead of fucking around like a coward—” She trailed off with a gasp when he breached her with his fingers. The warmth of her cunt pulsing around him nearly made his ears ring. Gods above, she would feel so good clenched around his cock. He could have her, if he would only reach out and take.

He slipped his fingers out of her, and she whined at the sudden absence as he shoved them into her mouth without preamble. “It's absurd how wet you are right now,” he whispered. “You love this, don't you? Being used.”

She couldn't respond with the way he was practically gagging her with his fingers. She nodded instead, eyes watering the prettiest tears as he nipped at her earlobe. He hiked her dress up higher until she was exposed to him fully. He pulled his fingers free from her mouth, slicked up his cock with her fluids, and pressed into her heat with a strangled groan. It was as though he were a man possessed, the way a frenzied lust gripped him in a chokehold as he fucked her relentlessly against the shed, hand clapped tightly over her mouth to muffle the sounds she made with every thrust. Some distant part of him was aware of the way her makeup was smearing hopelessly against the palm of his hand. Her meticulously styled wig was sure to be ruined.

None of it mattered, not when she was fluttering and clenching around him, writhing in his grasp like she was put on this world specifically to ruin him.

“Gods, you gorgeous creature,” he murmured. Reverent and debased, a debauched altar of worship all on its own. “Won’t you behave and cum around my cock like a good girl?”

He barely recognized the voice that spilled filth from his mouth amidst the lewd slap of flesh that filled his ears. He let his other hand slip beneath Miri’s dress as he found her clit and teased at it relentlessly in time with his thrusts. Every whimper against his palm sent him spiraling closer to the edge as she panted and whined desperately in his arms. He wanted so badly to feel her fall apart around him. Wanted to know he was the one who made it happen, to make her feel heights of pleasure enough to forget about everyone else but him.

Her breathing quickened. She ground against him, desperate, head tipping back against his shoulder as he fucked into her relentlessly. She stiffened with a muffled cry, desperately grasping for purchase against the wall as she trembled with delirious bliss in his arms. His release came then too, a burst of mind-numbing pleasure cresting to a fever pitch as his world narrowed to this single moment between the two of them alone.

And then, stinging, ice cold clarity as he softened in her, as he withdrew and took stock of what had just transpired. His spend leaked down her legs in a messy trail. Bruises were forming on her arm where he'd grabbed her. Her carefully applied makeup was a disaster, and strands of unruly black hair peeked out from beneath the wig that had somehow, miraculously, stayed intact. Her dress hung lopsided on her frame, and there was a smear of dirt on her temple where he’d pressed her face into the sheet metal.

Oh. Oh gods. What had he done?

Miri recovered before he did. She unfolded herself from the shed and smirked at him as she adjusted his clothing and deftly tucked him back into his trousers. “I knew you had it in you, love,” she said with a fond pat on his cheek, looking entirely too pleased with herself. “Would you, uh, mind going to coat check and getting my purse though?” She swiped two fingers down the side of her neck and studied the amount of makeup that came up on her fingertips with a grimace. “I am in desperate need of several touch-ups before I show my face again anywhere. Here.” She fiddled with a tiny pocket sewn into her dress and handed him a ticket.

Gale stared at her blankly for a few moments until she shook the ticket at him impatiently. “Unless you want everyone at this event to know your date is a whore.”

He winced. “I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—”

“Gale.” Miri closed her eyes in irritation. “My bag. Please.”

“Yes, of course, apologies, I'll—” He snatched the ticket from her fingers with a trembling hand and took a deep breath. “Right. I'll. Just be a moment.”

His ears rang as he made his way to the coat room in a daze. He ducked into an open restroom on the way and pulled the door closed behind him, locking it before staring at his hands in despair. Lipstick streaked across his palm in conspicuous swatches. He tucked the ticket into his breast pocket and scrubbed his fingers under the hot faucet until the soapy water finally stopped running pink and beige with Miri's makeup, until his hands felt scalded and scoured raw.

He studied his reflection in the mirror and wondered what was worse: the fact that he didn't want to recognize the man staring back at him, or the fact that he still did.

Miriam watched Gale scurry back towards the house as exhaustion began to take its toll on her. She sank to a seat on an overturned five gallon bucket and tried not to think about the sticky feeling of cum slow drying against the inside of her thighs. Or the way he'd clearly looked so panicked after everything ended.

Had she made the right choice? She thoughtfully traced the bruises beginning to decorate her arm and frowned. Gods, if what she'd done closed this door for good, she was going to kick herself into the hells for her reckless stupidity.

No matter. First things first. She ran her fingers across her hairline, feeling for the lace of her wig as she tried to tuck her stray hairs back beneath it. Eventually she gave up and ripped the thing off, discovering in annoyance that the wig cap beneath it had bunched up and hopelessly tangled itself into the clips in the back of the the lace. There was a prickling irritability gaining momentum beneath her skin. She needed a mirror. No, she needed a bath. Fuck, she needed to get out of this place.

Footsteps crunched on the leaves. She froze in alarm. Gale couldn't have come back that quickly.

The person who wandered behind the shed carried the tell-tale scent of cigarette smoke and woodsy cologne. Miriam yanked the wig back onto her head in alarm and prayed it would be too dark to see if traces of her tattoo were now visible beneath her ruined makeup.

“Hells,” they cursed in alarm when they saw her.

Wait. She knew that voice. Fuck. Fuck.

Rolan approached her before she could channel her panic into something useful, a curious expression on his face as he took in her rumpled appearance. He frowned. “Are you alright?” he asked finally.

“What, you’ve never seen someone sneak off and get railed at a party before?”

He blinked. “Wait. I know you.” Realization dawned on his face. “Miri, right?” And then, mouth dropping open: “Dekarios hired his date?”

Miriam huffed. “That’s a bold assumption. You know call girls have lives outside of work, right?”

Rolan arched an eyebrow. “You’re covering your freckles and tattoos with enough foundation to smother a small child, you’re wearing what looks to be a rather expensive wig, and am I mistaken or have you altered your eye color? A lot of work for someone simply attending a party with her boyfriend.”

“You must be really annoying in escape rooms, aren’t you.”

His face scrunched in exasperated irritation even as he studied her with an unsettling shrewdness in his gaze. “Is he hurting you?” he asked finally.

Miriam smirked. “No more than I asked him to.”

“Eugh. Forget I asked.”

She huffed. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

He waved his cigarette aimlessly. “Having a smoke break. Getting away from drunk nobility with more verbosity than sense. Gods, I don’t know how Dr. Safahr can stand it. Needs must, I suppose, but still.”

“No, what are you doing here, at the Watchful Order gala?”

Rolan took a long drag from his cigarette. “Made the abysmal mistake of applying for a PhD program. In a woefully small world, apparently.”

Miriam didn’t really know what to say to that. “You should get out of here,” she said instead. “Before Gale comes back.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I thought you said he isn’t hurting you.”

“It’s not about me, arsehole. He’s my client, I’m working, and he’s probably going to have a panic attack and then a stroke if he finds out someone at this stupid party recognized me. I need his money. Don’t fuck this up for me.”

“Hmph. It sounds like you should have thought about that before letting yourself get disheveled enough to be recognized.”

“Gods,” she grumbled. “Your brother was right, you really are a prick.”

“At your service.” He offered a mocking bow before straightening up and rolling his shoulders back with a sigh. “I suppose I shall leave you to your occupation, then. Considering we are all here for the money in the end.”

Miriam snorted. “You can say that again.”

“Well then. Until next time.”

Now it was her turn to raise an eyebrow. “Awfully presumptuous of you.”

To her surprise, he just grinned. “So I've been told.”

And then as quickly as he’d appeared, he was gone, leaving Miriam alone in a sea of rustling bushes and whispering crickets and the chaos of her own thoughts.

Gale came back to the faint smell of cigarette smoke and a sinking feeling that something else had just gone terribly wrong. Miri was right where he'd left her, perched on a bucket, absentmindedly tracing abstract shapes into a patch of dirt with a twig. The moon was high in the sky now, illuminating the freckles peeking through her makeup, highlighting the curve of her nose and the shadows of her jawline. Guilt tore through him like a wildfire. Someone like her deserved to be worshipped. Admired. Not ravaged in the dark by a boor of a man half-crazed with lust. The weight of her purse dangled in his hand like a weight tied to his ankle dragging him to the bottom of the sea.

“Hey.” Her features smoothed into a smile, but it was softer than before, almost touching her eyes this time as she held her hand out for her bag. “Feeling better?”

“I wanted to apologize for my behavior—” he began, but Miri held up a hand and shushed him.

“Was it good?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Miri heaved a long suffering sigh. “Did you enjoy fucking me? Be honest.”

Shame burned his cheeks as she bluntly yanked the truth from him like a stuck spool of wire. “Yes,” he whispered.

“Then stop fucking apologizing. It was hot. It felt nice for me too. I literally invited you into it, so stop scourging yourself like a really sad Ilmateri cleric and help me put myself back together, will you? I get the feeling you’re about as ready to leave as I am.”

Relief flooded him at her words, alongside a curious warmth, a flavor of affection he didn’t know if he had a name for. “Gladly,” he murmured. He dropped to his knees as she pawed through her purse. “What can I do?”

“Hold this up, angle it in the moonlight.” She handed him a compact mirror, pulled out a small pack of wipes, and proceeded to carefully and meticulously clean her face. He watched in fascination as she opened a palette of tinted creams and began applying various shades across her cheeks, as her freckles slowly disappeared and the lines of her cheekbones shifted into the carefully crafted version of her he’d walked through the door with. Her eyes were next, with dark, pencil-thin brushes of black liquid and a pack of shimmering eyeshadow powders. A mascara wand that had seen better days that she somehow still wielded expertly to plump out her lashes. She lined and tinted her lips, applied layers of concealer and powder over her tattoo and the bruises on her arm, and spritzed a sweet smelling setting spray on the entire ensemble, and the entire process from start to finish had taken her a matter of minutes. He wondered how often she did this, putting herself back together during stolen moments in the dark. He hated how a treacherous part of his mind could only imagine ruining it all again.

It wasn’t until she’d secured everything back into her purse that he broke the silence with the question that had been burning a hole in his mind since he arrived. “Has someone else been back here?”

“Hmm? No. Why do you ask?”

He frowned. “I swear I smell cigarette smoke, but I thought you said you didn’t partake.”

She gave him a wry smile. “Gale. The only way to get back here is through the back patio. Where people are smoking. It’s probably just our clothes, and we were both too horny to notice earlier.”

“Right.”

“Babe, look at me.” She cradled his face in her hands. “The flirting earlier, the teasing? None of it was real.”

He wasn’t sure that made him feel any better. “Technically none of this is real, either,” he said darkly, gesturing between them.

“I was just pushing your buttons to drag you out of your shell a little,” she said softly. “And you liked it, and it’s okay to admit that. But I came here with you. Not anyone else. And I’m leaving here with you. I swear.”

Something uncomfortable curled messily in his belly. He had liked it, hadn’t he? The roughness, the anger, the feral way she’d let him claim her like she belonged to him and him alone. No one had ever coaxed out that side of him before, and he didn’t exactly like what it looked like staring him back in the face, but he couldn’t deny that she was right. That seeing her marked up at his mercy had stirred something profoundly overwhelming inside of him. That part of him would do almost anything to see it again.

“Gale.” She stroked her thumb across his cheek, and the way she looked at him then made warmth bloom in his chest in spite of everything else that had just happened. “Come on. You’ve done what you needed here. Take me home.”

Home. Wasn’t that a pretty fantasy? The thought of it made his heart ache. “Name your price,” he blurted out impulsively before he could lose his nerve.

She eyed him curiously. “For?”

“To stay.” He gathered her hands in his, shame and desperation making a nest in the hole carved in his chest by too much loneliness. “Tonight. I — I know it wasn’t what was agreed upon, and if your schedule doesn’t allow it, we don’t…”

Miri shushed him and offered his hands a comforting squeeze. “That can be arranged, love,” she murmured. “I think you’ll find my overnight rates quite reasonable.”

He didn’t want to examine the magnitude of relief that washed over him at her reassurance, just like how he didn’t want to dwell on how often she had to have done this before with just how easy she was making it all. But if she judged him for his neediness, she did a fine job burying it under layers of soothing smiles and comforting touches, and that — at least — made the shame just a bit easier to bear.

She laced her fingers through his as she stood up and tugged him to his feet. “Let’s go, darling. Our bed awaits, don’t you agree?”

A smile crept unbidden to his face as he fell into step beside her. “As the lady wishes,” he said.

Miriam couldn't sleep. A gentle breeze blew in from the sea through the open balcony door as she stared at the ceiling and tried in vain to sift through her tangled thoughts. Gale mumbled something unintelligible in his sleep beside her, and she instinctively ran her fingers through his hair as something twisted inside her, especially when he relaxed into her touch with a tiny smile.

She needed him to want her. To need her, to crave her enough to hire her again and again so she could finally have some semblance of the stability she'd lost alongside Midnight's company. She’d known exactly what the terms of that arrangement were. She still had them listed out neatly in a folder stuffed in the back of her file cabinet. It wasn’t as though she’d ever harbored any misconception that Midnight saw her as anything more than a distraction from the shitstorm that was life outside of their clearly defined and purely transactional relationship.

She’d known close to nothing about Midnight’s personal life, and according to the terms of their contract, she’d simply never asked. All she’d been able to glean were bits and pieces that had slipped out after a little too much wine now and then. There had been a husband; and then he’d died. There was another man she’d loved once, a man she wanted to love still but couldn’t, for reasons beyond even her own comprehension. Independently wealthy with a career in academia, constant travels out of the country for presentations and conferences, and when her partner couldn’t accompany her, she’d quietly have Miriam meet her there instead.

Miriam knew her name of course, had seen it scrawled across their contract, used it to check into numerous hotels across the continent, but had only called her by it once. Saw the way she’d winced and immediately switched to teasing nicknames and endearments until one stuck.

Does it bother you, that I only ever call you at midnight? she’d asked once, early in their dalliance.

And Miriam had simply kissed her, told her that everything is better at midnight anyway, and maybe it was a lie (or maybe it wasn’t), but it had been unmistakable the way the tension had bled out of her in that moment.

Everything is better at midnight. And everything is better with you.

Miriam could admit she missed the way Midnight kissed her like she was the only person in the world who mattered. It was flattering, the knowledge that someone was willing to risk everything for one more night with her; and convenient besides, with the way her monthly payments to Raphael had never been less stressful.

What she didn’t want to admit was how much she missed the illusion that maybe there was love threaded in there too somewhere. That maybe for once she was more to someone than a luxury placeholder or a temporary solution.

She grimaced and shoved those thoughts down as she pulled the covers aside and made to slip out of bed. But Gale stirred at her movement, caught her gently by the wrist as he opened his eyes.

“Where’re you going?” he mumbled sleepily.

“Only for a glass of water, love. I’m coming right back.” She planted a soft kiss on his forehead, but he tugged her down and kissed her, lips full of too much tenderness to bear.

She kissed him back anyway. Warmth surged through her as she clambered on top of him, tangling her fingers into his sleep-mussed hair, swallowing the groan that bubbled out of his throat when she straddled his pelvis and ground her cunt against his rapidly hardening dick. This, at least, was a familiar dance. She felt him harden beneath her. His breath caught as she reached between them to spread herself and coat his dick with the wetness already gathering there. Did he know? Was he aware of just how much of an effect he had on her?

Perhaps that was the true tragedy. She sank onto his cock with a breathless groan, eyes fluttering closed at the way he filled her. It should be a good thing, how good this felt. How desperately her body seemed to want him, how fucking him didn’t feel even remotely like a performance, how she hadn't once had to lie to him about how good it felt. His lips traced reverent paths down her jaw, whispered praises against her neck that were punctuated with the softest scrapes of teeth that set her blood on fire.

She coaxed his orgasm from him and fully expected him to go back to sleep; what she didn’t expect was the way he nudged her off of him and eagerly took his place between her legs. She couldn’t hold back the cry that tore from her mouth when he pressed the flat of his tongue against her aching clit. He lapped up the spend that dripped from her hole, and she was seized with an overwhelming urge to taste it mingling with her slick on his tongue.

“Gale,” she gasped. Her fingers twisted into his hair as he worked her into a delirious frenzy. “Fuck, please, just like that—”

He lifted his head to look at her, eyes dark with lust. “Say my name again,” he whispered hoarsely.

“Gale,” she repeated, trailing off into a whimper when he returned his attentions to her pleasure. She tipped her head back against the pillows with a gasp when he breached her with his fingers, when he sealed his lips around her and sucked with just enough pressure to make her see stars. ”Oh, fuck, Gale, please—”

She came with a breathless stream of curses, and she only felt a little bad about the way her thighs clamped desperately around his head as she trembled under his careful attention. He brought her down from the high with soft, lingering laps of his tongue and the gentlest of pressure from his lips; and then, after he untangled her legs from around his neck and planted a series of reverent kisses down the insides of her thighs, he sat up with a pleased grin. “Apologies,” he said smugly. “You said you were getting a glass of water before I so rudely interrupted you.”

“That’s — yeah,” Miriam said in a daze. She had said that, hadn’t she? “It’s fine, I don’t need—”

“Shh. Allow me.”

And just like that, he threw on a robe and disappeared down the stairs, his soft footfalls fading into the sound of cabinets opening, ice clinking, a faucet running. Miriam stared at the ceiling again in despair, her mind more turbulent than ever.

One day at a time, she decided firmly. She was going to bring up scheduling a second appointment before she left in the morning, because as good as he felt, his money in her bank account would feel even better. And if he were amenable to it — which she was going to do her damnedest to ensure — she would get his deposit, put him on her calendar, and then promptly put him out of her mind until she saw him again.

That was the way it worked, after all. That was familiar. Routine. Safe. She’d done this a hundred times at least.

What was one more?

Gale thought, not for the first time, that he really needed to buy a new clock for his office. The place had come with a shabby analog that — while reliable and certainly got the job done — made the most conspicuous ticking noise. It hadn't always been so bad, but as the years passed, something in the mechanism seemed to warp and magnify the sound just a little more, and now every second that passed bored through his skull like a hammered ice pick.

It would be so easy to simply stand up and remove the battery, at the very least. Order a new clock online, a silent digital model that could be shipped straight to the mail room. He could probably even ask one of his graduate students to retrieve it for him as a favor if he felt so inclined.

But every time he reached for the damn thing, every time he pulled up his web browser to find a new one, all he could hear in his mind was the faint imperious echo of Tara's voice.

Did you know Dr. Dhanszcul disposed of that desk clock of his today?

Tara, you hate that clock. You complain about it every time you meet with him.

Well, yes, but even that hideous thing was preferable to the ridiculous contraption he's replaced it with. It doesn't even have hands.

It had always seemed an odd quirk, the way someone who spent her days teaching statistics and writing machine learning algorithms was so averse to a digitized timepiece. But Tara had always been full of contradictions.

A knock on his door jostled him out of his thoughts. “Come in,” he called out without bothering to look up.

“Hey there.” Vajra offered him a cheery grin as she strolled through his door with the telltale clunk of her thick-soled boots. She was looking particularly floral today, having foregone her usual wardrobe of flat colors for khaki pants and a short sleeved denim button down embroidered with a shock of yellow sunflowers. Her tightly coiled brown hair spilled loosely from a colorful pink and gold scarf wrapped neatly around her head.

He suddenly understood why her usual attire was so plain; between her stature and her youthful appearance, he'd have easily mistaken her for a student had they not worked together for the better part of six years. “You look unusually festive today,” he observed. “What's the occasion?”

Vajra frowned. “Samark’s retirement party? Didn't you get my email?”

“When did you send it?”

She crossed her arms in disapproval. “You've been ignoring your emails again, haven't you. I suddenly feel marginally less spurned by the fact that you never responded to my texts about the gala, either.”

It wasn't that Gale was avoiding interacting with his colleagues until the last possible moment. He just didn't know if he could take yet another hit in the barrage of emails he'd been getting all summer about Ariel's promotion to Dean of the Aumar College of Physics and Astronomy in the wake of Samark Dhanszcul’s retirement. The part of him that still loved her was treacherously happy for her. He knew she'd had her eye on that position for years.

It was just that since their explosive breakup in the spring, it had been relatively easy to avoid her; now, as his boss, there would be no way he'd be able to put her from his mind.

“What did you say about the gala?” he said wearily. “I apologize, I have been preoccupied as of late.”

“Bit of a moot point now, but I’d asked if you were alright coming, since, well. With the way they were planning on honoring Dr. Everett’s contributions to the project. I know it's been difficult.”

“Yes,” he said tersely. His desire to be in anyone’s presence was rapidly dwindling along with his patience. “It has.”

Vajra offered an apologetic smile. “Are you coming tonight?” she asked. “Maybe you can bring your date from the gala. I didn't get to speak to her much, but I haven't seen you smile like that in months. I'd love to meet her in a less tense environment than the bloody shark tank that was the House Wands ballroom.”

Gale froze. He hadn't considered the repercussions of hiring Miri for the gala; namely, the fact that his colleagues would expect to hear more about her made-up role in his life. “She, er, might be busy with such short notice. I can certainly ask.”

“At least bring yourself, then. Tennora’s bringing that sour cherry mead she made last fall.”

The last thing Gale wanted to do was be around the very group of people he was trying to avoid, but it seemed Vajra was determined to get an answer out of him one way or another. “I can try,” he said finally.

That answer, at least, seemed to satisfy Vajra. “Good. I hope I’ll see you tonight.”

He made a face. “Why does that sound suspiciously like a threat?”

Vajra grinned. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Miriam, darling.” Astarion’s shoes clacked on the hardwood floor as the front door creaked closed. “Care to explain why your entire wardrobe is strewn about the living room?”

Miriam didn’t look up from her appraisal of the collection of outfits spread across their shabby couch. “Spring cleaning.”

“It’s Eleasis.”

She crossed her arms and gave him a look. “If you must know, I’m clearing out my closet a bit. Selling some of these dresses I haven’t worn in months.”

Astarion raised an eyebrow. “Making room for gifts from your new benefactor, are we?”

“Yeah, let’s go with that.”

“And it has nothing, I presume, to do with the rather ominous collections letter I found in our mailbox this morning.”

“Seriously?” Miriam groaned. “I'm not even late yet! Fucker knows I have two more days to the end of the month.”

Astarion frowned. “I thought that dreadful business with Raphael was concluded years ago. Is that where your income has been going this entire time?”

Well, there went that secret. Miriam found herself too frazzled to even worry about the ramifications of it coming out. “What can I say? I'm a private kind of girl.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You're an idiot, more like. You really mean to tell me you've had the most notorious loan shark on the Sword Coast after you the last four years, and you've been living under my roof this entire time inviting the proverbial devil to my door? Without even the courtesy of a warning?”

“Ever heard of a thing called plausible deniability?” Miriam drawled.

Astarion's hysterical giggle practically echoed through the rafters. “Plausible deniability? Do you really think that matters to someone like Raphael Rosier? Darling, I assure you, he will have zero qualms about stringing us both up by the ankles at the flimsiest provocation if the whim strikes. Gods. Four years!” He made a face. “I suppose ignorance really is bliss.”

“Kick me out, then,” she said stubbornly. “I can be out of your hair by the end of the day.”

He gave an imperious huff. “Now you're really being an idiot. How much do you have left to collect before he comes knocking?”

“About six hundred,” she mumbled. Saying it aloud made her stomach twist. “I have dinner with that senator from the Gate tonight that should cover five hundred of it, and if I play my cards right I can probably squeeze a tip out of her that covers the rest, but…”

“You cannot be serious.”

“I've turned our living room into a knockoff Craigslist fashion fair. It's looking pretty fucking bleak.”

Astarion paced across the threadbare rug and dragged his fingers through his hair in frustration. “And you never once thought to ask for help. In all this time.”

“Tathla helped enough negotiating me out of that contract. I wasn't about to drag anyone else into it.”

“That's what I don't understand,” Astarion pressed. “I thought Tathla got you out for good. Why do you still owe him money?”

Miriam sighed. “Because she negotiated me out, Astarion. I owed him seven more years on his contract, and it was pretty fucking ironclad. Tathla's argument was that I had no idea what I was doing, and that I'd make him a lot more money under her instruction than I ever would strung out on benzos on my back for clients I had no control over. The total amount I owed him basically doubled as per the terms.”

“And if you can't pay?”

She shrugged. “He puts a hit out on my siblings unless I come crawling back. For life this time.”

He gaped at her. “You cannot be serious.”

“Devil's in the details, as they say.” She let out a mirthless laugh. “I'd say that life at that point wouldn't be very long, but I get the feeling if I killed myself he'd off my whole family out of spite.”

“I don't understand, you seemed to do just fine before the whole debacle with your old patroness.”

Miriam grimaced. “I was late on two payments since then. You can imagine what that did to my interest rate.”

“Fucking hells. And you've just … been quietly existing under his thumb this whole time.”

She sighed. “Don't judge me, Astarion. I did what I had to.”

“Like hell you did. How old were you when you got involved with Raphael? Twenty? Younger?”

“Can you drop it?” Miriam said sharply. “Don’t patronize me, either. Nothing that happened at the House of Hope was a surprise. Nothing. I knew exactly what I was getting myself into. And I would do it all over again if I had to. I’d just … be smart enough not to fuck myself over quite so hard this time. That’s no one’s fault but mine.”

Astarion opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Well,” he said finally. “Far be it from me to question your justifications. Whatever helps you sleep at night and all that.”

“Oh, fuck off, will you?”

“Not before I’ve helped you sort through this dreadful mess. Gods. It’s almost like watching him work all over again.”

Miriam didn’t have to ask to know Astarion was talking about his former employer. Their situations weren’t all that dissimilar, save for the fact that Cazador Szarr had ultimately been murdered by one of his own, his estate burnt to the ground in the aftermath. The perpetrator had never been caught, allegedly. The fact that Astarion had disappeared from Baldur's Gate that very same night was, as far as anyone else was concerned, a convenient coincidence.

“Just help me price these then, will you?” Miriam muttered. Her phone vibrated, and she fished for it in annoyance.

The notification preview made her heart sink.

From: Abelea Caldwell ([email protected])
Subject: Reschedule
Mirielle, I regret to do this on such short notice, but my…

Miriam opened the email with a growing sense of dread.

From: Abelea Caldwell ([email protected])
Subject: Reschedule

Mirielle,

I regret to do this on such short notice, but my husband has turned up rather abruptly at my door this morning, and I am afraid I cannot move forward with our engagement until he’s been taken care of. Would you be available three days from now? That should be enough time to indulge him in the delights of this lovely city and send him back home.

Affectionately yours,
Abelea

“Oh, fuck me,” she groaned.

Astarion plucked the phone from her fingers, frown deepening. “Well. That’s inconvenient.”

“I’m screwed,” Miriam muttered into her hands. “Even with the nonrefundable deposit, I’m still short—”

“Mm,” Astarion interrupted. “I’d give it a few more minutes before you give into despair, darling.” The phone chimed again, and he scrolled through her emails with growing interest as he cleared his throat. “’Dearest Miri,’” he read aloud.

“Astarion!” she hissed. “Those are confidential!” She tried to snatch her phone back, but he only leapt back nimbly and kept reading.

“’I know we are not due for another meeting for another two days,’” he continued, a grin spreading onto his face. “’However, I find myself once again in need of company tonight at a casual social gathering. If your schedule happens to accommodate, I would very much like to have you at my side. Warmest wishes, Gale.’ How thrilling.”

“Give it back.”

“Now, now.” He tapped out a quick response before she could protest further, then handed the phone back to her smugly. “Go find something to wear tonight. Milk that man for everything he's worth. You're welcome.”

Miriam wasn't going to cry. That would be stupid. “Thank you,” she mumbled instead as she stuffed her phone into the pocket of her sweatpants. “Sorry I’m the reason Raphael Rosier knows your address.”

“Yes, well,” he sniffed. “You’re lucky you’re pretty.”

Gale didn’t expect a response from Miri at all, much less a fast one, but at some point during the short walk from his office to the faculty parking garage, an email from her appeared in his inbox.

I can be at your place in twenty minutes if you'd like. :]

His heart raced. His fingers shook as he tapped out his response.

Most excellent. I shall endeavor not to be late.

Miriam had just stepped off of the bus at the stop near Gale’s Sea Ward high-rise when she spotted him lingering by the main door, a small canvas grocery bag in hand. It was truly unfair how good he managed to look in a sweater vest, elegant brown cashmere layered over a rich purple long-sleeved button down that looked positively exquisite next to the chestnut shades of his wavy hair. The half-bun he’d tied it back into was loose from a day of relative neglect, and flyaway strands of greying brown hair curled messily around his ears looking wonderfully disheveled. She jogged to catch up with him and called out his name. “Hey, you,” she said with a grin.

He met her eyes with a surprised but delighted smile. “Hello, yourself,” he said softly. He reached for her, fingers twitching with brief hesitation, and she closed the gap between them and wrapped her arms around his waist as she pressed a soft, chaste kiss to his lips. His embrace relaxed around her shoulders.

“There we go,” she murmured teasingly. “Now you're getting the hang of it.”

“Mock me if you must. This is all rather new territory for me, you know.”

“Mm, could have fooled me the other night.” She leaned in and nipped playfully at his ear, noting the way his breath caught at her reminder. She pulled away and stared at him expectantly, hand outstretched. “Well? Lead the way, my darling.”

There was a faint tinge of pink dusting his cheeks when he finally took her hand in his and led her into the lobby of his building. They walked by a couple of contractors on ladders repairing links in the massive modern style LED chandelier hanging in the center of the lobby, and Gale looped an arm around her waist to keep her from accidentally stepping on the construction plastic laid out on the floor. “Careful,” he whispered. It didn’t evade her notice that his fingers trembled against her waist.

She waited until they were securely in the elevator before she made her move, but the second the doors closed she looped both arms around his neck and drew him in for a kiss. “Are you still nervous?” she whispered against his lips.

“A bit out of my depth still,” he admitted with a wry smile she felt more than saw. “But I’ve been told I’m a fast learner.” He punctuated her words with a cautious nip to her lower lip. The grocery bag fell to the floor with a soft whump as he settled his hands at the dip of her waist and pulled her flush against him. “I have missed you. Am I allowed to say that?”

She chased his words with another heated kiss before answering. “You can say whatever you want for me, darling,” she breathed. The heat of his breath ghosted across her lips. A thousand moments suspended between them like a tightrope.

The elevator dinged, and the door opened to a disgruntled older man with a cane in one hand and a trash bag in the other. “D’you mind?” he grunted as he pressed the button for a single floor up. “Bloody trash chute door is stuck.”

“Could always join us if you'd like,” Miriam said smoothly. Gale elbowed her in the side and she dissolved into giggles as the stranger rolled his eyes.

“Fuckin’ newlyweds,” he grumbled as the door opened on the next floor and he hobbled out with a scowl. “Exhausting.”

The door closed with another bell and they were alone again. Gale pushed her against the wall as he kissed her again, deeper this time, licking into her mouth with a desperate groan. “You incorrigible flirt,” he growled.

“That's it,” she breathed with a grin. “Tell me what you want, love.”

He reached behind him and yanked the emergency stop lever, and a tiny smile lingered at the corners of his mouth as he pressed her back against the elevator wall. “You.”

His lips found her neck, and he lingered there, inhaling her scent as she tipped her head back against the wall to allow him better access. “You have me,” she said breathlessly.

He tugged her tank top down until her breasts were exposed, and he captured a nipple between his teeth with a sharp, rough pinch before laving his tongue over it. “I've scarcely thought of anything, anyone but you since we last parted,” he murmured. Wandering hands slipped beneath her shirt to smooth against bare skin, the pads of his fingers soft against her back, fingernails biting into her flesh as he dragged them down her spine.

“Sounds — terribly distracting—” She trailed off into a gasp as he pinched her other nipple between his fingers and rolled it just tightly enough to send a jolt of pain through her nerves.

“You have no idea.” He lifted the front of her shirt and trailed sloppy, open-mouthed kisses down her stomach. His fingertips hooked into her shorts and dragged them down her hips with her underwear, baring her before him as he sank to his knees and nudged her legs apart. “To have the pleasure of tasting you again,” he murmured. “I am a privileged man indeed.”

He planted reverent kisses inside of her thighs, starting beside her knees, slowly working his way up as her heart pounded in anticipation. She gripped the safety railing behind her, gasping at the soft rasp of his beard against her skin.

And then he bit her, just hard enough to send a jolt of pain through her body. She yelped in surprise, but he didn't relent, sucking a kiss over the ache that was altogether searing and soothing. He did it again on her other thigh, and even though she was ready for it this time, it didn't stop her eyes from watering at the intensity. Arousal followed too, stoked by the deliberate way he sucked marks into her body, alternating sweetness with devouring intensity as his hands anchored behind her legs and held her fast.

He bit her a third time, and her vision swam. She was dripping, aching for him, for the way he lost his composure and allowed himself to be swept up in the delights of her body. He was a different man when he let himself unravel, and Miriam could feel the way the tension melted from him as he buried his face into her cunt. The way he drank from her, drowned in her, tongue swiping through her folds with eager precision.

“Fuck,” she moaned, eyes fluttering closed as he deepened his laps. As he fucked her with his tongue, as his fingers found the bruises he'd sucked into her thighs and pressed until the ache spun into a pleasure all on its own. “Gale, please—”

He was relentless. Miriam was drifting in an endless sea of sensation, nerves on fire as he stoked her to the very precipice. He slipped two fingers inside her then, right as she tumbled over the edge, crooking them into the brunt of her orgasm, tugging the pleasure out of her insides into a torrential stream of bliss.

Gale kissed his way back up her legs, taking his time languidly trailing his lips up the curve of her stomach, lavishing his attention at the swell of her breasts. He brushed his lips across her clavicle, kissed her throat, her chin, her jaw, her cheeks, until finally, his lips found hers with a heady fervor that threatened to shake the very heart from her bones. She could taste herself on his tongue, and the salty musk of it sent a fresh wave of arousal coursing through her belly.

“Now, then,” he murmured finally. “Shall we take this to someplace more permanently private?”

“Gladly,” she whispered hoarsely.

He helped her pull her clothing back up, then flipped the emergency stop lever free. The elevator resumed its journey upward with a lurch, and Miriam wondered when she'd wandered into this very strange dream.

And when the other shoe would drop.

There was a significant part of Gale that wanted desperately to cancel on Vajra and spend the entire evening in bed with Miri instead. The bruises he'd left on her thighs filled him with a possessive hunger whenever he looked at them, brilliant purpling reminders that for this brief and ephemeral moment, she was his. Gods, what an addictive feeling that was, to drown himself in the dangerous fantasy that he was everything to her. But the way she looked at him, her gaze bright and intense; it was enough to bring any man to his knees.

He settled for tugging her into the shower with him. He could kiss her forever, he thought dimly, could coax out those sounds she made for an eternity and more.

And then she was on her knees, looking up at him, teasing at his cock with her tongue as the water plastered her hair to her face, and he forgot how to think entirely. “What do you want?” she asked him again. There was an edge to her voice, a challenge, and he couldn't help but feel poised at a precipice he'd never anticipated.

He wanted to worship her.

He also wanted to ruin her.

He tangled his fingers into her hair slowly, hesitantly, but she set her hand on top of his and forced his grip tighter as she sank her mouth halfway onto his cock.

Gale chose ruin.

She gagged when he shoved her fully onto him. He didn't want to acknowledge or admit the way the sound sent a raw heat surging through him, the way her throat flexing around him made his desire crest to a fever pitch; but stoke him it did, and he released her with a shaky exhale. Just long enough to let her have a single, gasping breath before he thrust himself back into her mouth.

Her hands gripped weakly at his legs as he fucked her mouth, and as much gratification as he found in coaxing someone else's pleasure from them, there was an perverse sort of thrill in selfishly chasing his own release. So he chased it, lost himself in using the warm, wet heat of her lips and tongue for his own end; and as he approached his climax he impulsively pulled her off of his cock, held her up by the hair, and finished himself on her face.

There was a ringing silence that settled around them for a few beats. She sat back on the floor of the shower, chest heaving as she caught her breath. Her eyes were watery, tears mingling with cum on her cheeks, and for a moment he felt a spike of panic as he wondered frantically if he'd overstepped.

And then she held out a hand with a sly grin. “Very good,” she said, her voice raspy as he helped her to her feet.

“Liked that, did you?” he murmured, drawing her back to him for a lazy kiss. Gods, he could luxuriate in the feeling of her skin against his forever.

“You,” she said, her breath ghosting across his lips, “are a delight.”

He swiped the last remainder of cum from her face with his thumb and pressed it playfully against her lips. She licked at his hand with a teasing grin before pulling him gently into another kiss, long, lingering, and sweet.

“We should probably hurry up,” she whispered, her own fingers tangling loosely into his hair. “Wouldn’t want to keep your colleagues waiting.”

“No,” he agreed reluctantly. “I suppose we shouldn’t.”

It was a feat of pure willpower that kept his hands from straying across her body as they finished showering, though he couldn't help but admire the slight curves of her body, the lithe tug of her musculature as she lifted her arms into the air one at a time to drag a soapy washcloth over her skin.

“You're doing this on purpose, aren't you,” he said finally.

Miri laughed as she rinsed herself and switched off the water. “Don't tell me you aren't enjoying the show.”

“Oh, I'd be a liar of the highest order if I denied that.” He followed her out onto the bath mat and held out a towel, wrapping it snugly around her shoulders as she leaned into his touch like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Do you know, one of my colleagues asked after you today.”

“Did they, now.”

He hummed in acknowledgement as he helped her dry off. “I don't believe you've met Vajra, but you probably saw her at the gala. Short, glasses, braids woven with gold thread? She said she wanted me to introduce the two of you.”

Miri smirked. “Aren't you worried she's going to flirt with me, too?”

He felt his cheeks flush. “That is patently unfair,” he protested sheepishly.

She tousled his hair playfully with the dry end of her towel. “I'm sure we could make time for another sneaky rendezvous if you need to blow off some steam.”

“Stop that.” He swatted at her with a chuckle. “You're incredibly distracting, you know.”

She just wiggled her butt at him in response and tossed him the towel. “Sounds like you just need to learn to focus better, Professor.” And then she slipped out of the bathroom, her laughter echoing softly in the loft beyond.

Gods above and below. She was going to be the death of him.

Miriam had to admit, Tennora Hedare made one hell of a sour cherry mead.

Samark and Vajra’s home was a cozy little cliffside cottage on the North Ward outskirts overlooking a sprawling valley of lush farmland to the east of the city. Clear fairy lights adorned the front porch and back patio, and a lively fire pit in the center of the back yard crackled a merry bonfire. At the far edge of the yard by the fenced-off drop into the valley below was a massive adjustable telescope mounted at the center of a lovingly tended gazebo draped in vines and pots of hanging flowering plants.

Vajra had greeted them excitedly at the front door. “Gale! You came! Oh, and you brought the infamous Mireya! Come in!” She’d kissed Miriam on the cheek and shoved a glass of Tennora's mead into her hand before leading them to the back patio, which sported several pieces of comfortable hardwood furniture with colorful embroidered cushions.

Miriam recognized some faces from the gala. There was Tennora, who was quick to pull her and Gale both into a suffocating hug. Thesp Eltorchul, who she vaguely recalled had given a speech on the importance of continued progress in the realm of space exploration, currently flipping chunks of meat and skewers of vegetables on a well-loved propane grill. Open Lord Silverhand herself, who was apparently a long-time friend of Samark's, engaged in lively conversation with a white-bearded man she recognized as a mentor of Gale's whose name she could not remember for the life of her despite his apparent notoriety in the scientific community.

Samark himself was a tall and imposing man in his seventies with thinning dark silvery hair he kept tied back in a low ponytail and a peculiar set of vertical scars across the right side of his face. “Delighted to have you here, Miri,” he said warmly when Vajra introduced them. He grasped Miriam's hand in a warm handshake before offering Gale a similar greeting. “Good to see you, Gale. I'm glad you decided to come after all.”

“Couldn't miss it, Dr. Dhanszcul,” Gale said brightly. He tensed though, and squeezed Miriam's hand as he spoke, and she offered a squeeze back with a reassuring stroke of her thumb across the back of his hand.

Samark offered a wry smile. “Ah, come now, surely you can drop the formalities given the nature of this particular gathering.”

“Nonsense,” Gale said firmly. “You've been Dr. Dhanszcul to me since I was a boy, I hardly think I could change those habits now.”

The murmur of conversation in the background faded into static when Miriam spotted Midnight across the yard, perched at the steps of the gazebo next to Vajra, doting on a fat orange cat with a small smile on her face. Miriam suddenly felt uncomfortably out of place, a thousand anxieties crawling down her spine. Certainly, Midnight wouldn't spill her secret, would she? Not here, among friends and colleagues, when admitting such a thing would damn herself just as much. And yet seeing her smile sent a flicker of warmth through Miriam's chest anyway.

It had been such a rare thing at first, that smile. Reserved for wine-tinged nights and affectionate mornings before the pressures of the day ahead came crashing down on them both. Miriam had made it a personal mission of hers to coax it out more, to tug the tiniest scraps of joy from her until she forgot for a moment all of the things that drew frown lines on her face. That was her job, after all. Wasn't it? To give people what they needed, whether they were aware of it or not? She watched Gale, lost in conversation with Samark, and thought about the gala. About the way he'd slowly begun to fray at the seams before the event had even started.

“Cheese?” Tennora appeared at her side with a plate that was basically a charcuterie board on flimsy compostable cardboard. “The way Thesp is babying that grill, it'll be at least another hour before anyone gets to have anything substantial.”

Miriam plucked a square of something white that looked to be laced with bits of dried fruit and stared at it for a moment. “Can I ask you a question?” she said suddenly.

“Sure.” Tennora perched on the arm of a sturdy patio couch and patted the cushions beside her as she nodded at Gale and Samark, who were now gesturing animatedly at one another. “May as well strap in. Those two will be at it for hours if no one interrupts.”

Miriam couldn't help but smile at that. Gale’s face was so expressive, right down to the curve of his smile and the way his eyes crinkled in excitement as he talked. He'd seemed an easy enough mark to read at their first meeting, but the longer they were acquainted the more she wanted to unwrap his mind, to pick it apart like a puzzle waiting to be solved.

“Can you tell me about Dr. Everett?”

Tennora's expression sobered. “Oh, dear. I don't know if that's my story to tell, to be quite honest.”

Miriam put on her best expression of sympathy. “I wouldn’t ask except, well. There's just so much he doesn't tell me. And ordinarily I would be content minding my business, but…” She set the wineglass and cheese down and made a show of wringing her hands. “It's a bit of a mine field, you know?” she whispered. “I only want enough information to avoid accidentally bringing up something that would hurt him. It's already happened once, and … gods, it just kills me to see him so sad.”

Tennora sighed. “I can't exactly argue with that. He's certainly one for hoarding his own suffering, our Gale. Honestly, would it kill him to believe that other people care about him for once?” She slid off of the armrest and settled back into the cushions, a pensive expression on her face. “You didn't hear any of this from me, by the way,” she prefaced.

“You have my promise on that,” Miriam said solemnly.

Tennora pressed her lips together into a tight frown. “Dr. Tara Everett was a member of our faculty for years. Absolutely brilliant woman. One of the brightest I've ever known, and the kindest. Rude as a harpy, mind you — the woman had a biting wit that would cut just about anyone who got on her bad side — but gods, did she have a heart the size of the entire Sword Coast. And Gale, well. As you know, we adjuncted together some years back, and back then, the man had an ego about that big, too. Insufferable, really. Heavens, the arguments he would get into.” She chuckled. “To my understanding, when he got the position here, the first time he tried to throw his weight around, Tara put him in his place in front of practically the entire faculty. I wasn't here yet, but from what I was told, he was knocked down several pegs. Probably the most mortifying ordeal of his entire life, really.

“So, of course, he was never one to be deterred easily. He proceeded to invite her out for coffee to have a friendly debate on the topic, and that turned into multiple coffees, then the occasional lunch, and before anyone could blink an eye, they were the best of friends. Utterly inseparable. She had a good twenty years on him, and the entire college thought they were together for a while, but Tara disabused everyone of that notion immediately. ‘Is it so out of the realm of possibility that an old woman would lack for friends in this dreadful day and age?’ she'd always say, and well, anyone who'd been here more than a week knew you never argued with Dr. Everett unless you had a spine of steel and several hours of your life to throw away.”

“What happened to her?” Miriam prodded softly.

“Well.” Tennora pursed her lips. “The short version is, she died. But I’m assuming you gathered that much from the gala, didn’t you.” She didn’t wait for Miriam to answer before continuing. “It was a car accident. No one really knows all of the details except for Gale, and he won’t tell a soul. It wasn’t this past Hammer but the last, shortly past the new year, and he was picking Tara up from the airport. There was a construction closure, so they took a roundabout route down the coastal highway, but the roads were iced over. According to the news reports, there was a collision with a tractor trailer coming the opposite direction. His car was completely destroyed. Vajra had to retrieve his surviving things from the impound lot a few days later, and the pictures she showed me were a bloody nightmare. He’s lucky to be alive himself. Not that he felt that way at the time.” Tennora’s expression was grim. “It hit all of us hard, but he … just wasn’t the same after that. There was a fire in him that went out that night.”

Miriam did the math silently. Her first email from Midnight had shown up in her inbox scarcely two months later.

Interesting.

“How did … well.” She lowered her voice and leaned in closer. “He was still with Ariel then, wasn't he?” She backtracked and waved her hands in front of her at the suspicious look Tennora gave her. “No, I don't mean it like that! I just meant — that had to be hard on them, wasn't it? Since she knew Tara, too.”

Tennora's gaze softened. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “It was the beginning of the end for them after that, I think.” She cast a faraway glance across the yard to where Ariel and Vajra were leaning on the cliffside railing, deep in conversation. “Don’t be too harsh on her, whatever he’s told you. Tragedy makes a mockery of all of us, in the end.”

Miriam exhaled softly. She knew that for a fact entirely too well herself. “On that,” she said, “we are in solid agreement.”

As the night wore on, Gale was increasingly more impressed by the way Miri navigated her expertly woven web of lies. He was all too content to let her do the talking — believable enough behavior for him after his months-long descent into depression induced introversion — as Miri made up story after story about her fictional up life in Neverwinter. Her cat, her jewelry studio, her closest friend who owned a tailor shop and did custom work for a small community theatre program. No, she didn't keep an online portfolio, but she did have pictures on her phone. Regrettably, the program didn't have a website; it was a small neighborhood project led by several parents who didn't like that the arts funding had recently been cut from the local elementary school.

“I actually don't have social media at all,” she said with a smile when asked if she maintained an Instagram page. “Maybe it's just me, but it feels so impersonal. There's just something about local artisan fairs, you know? The energy is addictive. And you meet so many fascinating people!”

Gale let his arm drape around her shoulder as he tugged her closer to his spot on the patio couch. She snuggled into his embrace with a giggly smile, met his gaze with an adoring look. He didn't know how she did it. How she maintained the illusion for so long, with such fluidity and grace. His fingers itched to card through her hair — her actual hair, not the wig she’d styled this time into two pigtail braids that reached her shoulders and were secured by little red ribbons. He wondered how much of her stories were threaded with some grain of truth. If she really had been an artist in another life, or had a friendship like the one she described. He didn’t know if he would be happy for her or jealous that someone else had true, unfettered access to who she really was.

He barely bit back his grimace at that thought. Pathetic, to be so envious of a man who likely didn’t even exist.

“Gale.” Ariel’s voice cut through his thoughts. “I’m going to the kitchen to retrieve the cake. Would you mind helping me for a moment?”

He froze. An uneasy silence settled across the patio. He didn’t miss the way Tennora and Vajra exchanged a frown, or the way a flicker of panic flashed across Miri’s face. Still, there was something odd in Ariel’s expression that stoked his anxiety and worry all at once. He tightened his arm around Miri’s shoulders with a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll be right back, love,” he murmured with a soft kiss on the top of her head. “I promise.”

But Miri had already regained her composure. “Go ahead, my darling,” she said. She leaned in and planted a chaste kiss on his cheek. “Don’t let me keep you glued to my side all night.”

Some of the tension bled out of the air at her words, and he followed Ariel inside with a sense of curious dread. Vajra and Dr. Dhanszcul’s house always smelled faintly of vanilla and fresh-cut wood, but the scent was far from soothing now as Ariel led him into the kitchen with curt steps and turned to face him with a frown.

“Be careful with her,” she said finally.

Gale felt his mouth drop open. “Is that what this is about?” he said incredulously.

“I mean it, Gale. Believe what you want about me, but I don’t want you to get hurt.”

He scoffed. “That’s rich, coming from you. I think it’s about three months too late for that particular sentiment, don’t you think?”

Ariel didn’t even flinch. Her gaze was intense as she studied his face. “I know you,” she said finally. And then it was his turn to flinch as her hand brushed his shoulder, her touch stiff and hesitant but painfully familiar all the same. “Make no mistake; I don’t begrudge you your happiness.”

“Really? I rather think you should have thought about that before finding solace in someone else’s company.”

“This has nothing to do with me,” she snapped. “But I saw the way you look at her. I know that look. How well do you know her? And for how long? How quickly did you give your heart away?”

Anger, resentment, and panic all scrabbled for space in the back of Gale’s throat. “You don’t get to ask me those questions anymore,” he hissed. “Not after what you’ve done.”

The Ariel he once knew would have bristled at his tone, but all he could see on her face was sorrow as she looked away. “I know,” she said quietly. “I hurt you, and no amount of wishing will ever take that back. I would hate to see it happen to you again.”

Gale stared at her, stunned. It was the closest thing to an apology he’d ever heard on her lips. “We should get back,” he said finally. His mouth was painfully dry.

Ariel took a deep breath. “Yes,” she agreed. She squared her shoulders, her expression neutral as she turned and lifted the cake tray from the counter. Congratulations, it read, shimmering silver on a backdrop of deep midnight blue. University colors. Stars in a clear night sky. There was a gripping, gnawing emptiness taking up residence in his chest. He gathered a stack of plates, a small pile of forks, a knife, and a thick ream of napkins and followed her back to the patio in silence.

Aside from the one unsettling conversation with Ariel, Gale was surprised how smoothly the rest of the evening went. They said their goodbyes, and Miri spent the cab ride back to his apartment with her shoes in her purse, her bare feet propped up carelessly on his lap while he rubbed idly at her arches. It was horribly domestic and absolutely everything he shouldn't want.

But who would stop him? Not Miri, certainly, with the way she twisted in her seat and leaned against the cab door, watching him with that smirk that filled him with so much irrational longing. She had him in the palm of her hand, and she knew it. It should bother him, the way she seemed to have him strung up by marionette strings sometimes. The way she would have him considering things he'd never have given a second glance in the past, with no more than a knowing look and a few well chosen words.

There was something about the way he became someone else around her. The way she coaxed out a part of him he didn’t recognize in the mirror, the way it felt so fucking good when she looped that rope around his neck and pulled until something in him unraveled like a torn sweater caught on a stray, rusted nail.

“Will you stay again?” he asked between breathless kisses in the elevator back up to his floor.

“We can make that happen,” she murmured.

They barely made it into his apartment before he was stripping her out of her clothes. She tugged the wig from her head and tossed it on his counter. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled deeply, raspberries and roses and freshly turned earth during a summer rain. Soft and thick, darker than obsidian glass against his hand.

He twisted the strands between his fingers with an experimental tug and was rewarded with a full-body shudder as the most lovely whimper fell from her lips. “Take your lenses out,” he whispered.

“The — case, it's in the bathroom,” she gasped as he pulled at her hair again.

“I will buy you more myself. Take them out now.”

Miri exhaled shakily and — to his surprise and utter thrill — obeyed. He held out his other hand as she plucked the lenses from her eyes and dropped them into his palm. This close, he could see the flecks of gold and brown in the hypnotic hazel-green of her irises. “Beautiful,” he murmured. He shoved them into his trouser pocket and stroked his thumb down the slope of her cheek. “You are divinity incarnate, do you know that?”

A lazy grin spread across her face. “Did you read that line in a book somewhere?” she teased.

Gale just tightened his grip in her hair and yanked her head back roughly. “Cheeky,” he said when she cried out in surprise. He traced the column of her throat with his fingers and imagined how it would feel to close his hand around her neck. His cock twitched at the thought.

He bit at her neck instead, breathed her in, sucked a sharp bruise into her throat. There it was again, that burning, aching desire for her to be his, only his. To show the world she belonged to him and no one else. “On your knees,” he growled.

Her breath caught in her throat. “Or what?”

He wrapped his fingers around her neck and applied just enough pressure to make her flinch. “Or I will put you there myself.”

He half expected her to balk, but he felt her swallow shakily beneath his palm as she did what she was told, and nine hells, what an intoxicating rush it was to be obeyed. He shoved his fingers in her mouth, and he couldn't suppress his groan when she closed her lips around them and sucked, eyes fluttering closed. His cock ached, the pressure mounting in his groin with every salacious swipe of her tongue. He shoved his fingers deeper until she gagged, until saliva dripped from the corners of her lips, and only then did he pull away.

“Crawl,” he commanded. He grabbed her hair again and tugged her towards the couch. She resisted briefly, that infuriating smirk flickering across her face, and on impulse he yanked her roughly by the hair. She lurched forward and caught herself on her hands, scrambling for balance as he all but dragged her where he wanted her. “I warned you, didn't I?” he murmured. He gripped her jaw and made her look at him. “Open your mouth,” he said, squeezing until she complied. He reached beneath her skirt with his free hand and palmed roughly at her rear before yanking her underwear down. The flimsy lace ripped beneath his touch, and it only took a couple of rough tugs before it came away in his hand. Before she could protest, he wadded up the fabric and stuffed it into her mouth.

She made a noise that was all but swallowed by her makeshift gag, but when he gestured for her to get on the couch, she complied without resistance. He tugged the skirt down until it pooled at her knees and left her bare, nipping at her arse, biting sharp red marks into soft, supple flesh.

And then he struck her. Another impulse, another craving that rattled his insides like a thunderstorm as his palm connected with her arse with a crack, and the muffled yelp that spilled from her mouth made his head swim. “Gods, but you're perfect,” he breathed. A warm red mark was spreading across her skin, and he struck her again, harder this time, before allowing his fingers to trail between her legs. He spread her lips and found her slick with want, glistening for him — gods, for him.

She arched her back with a moan when he slid his fingers through her folds. When he pulled away and she tried to chase his touch, he smacked her again, two, three, four times in quick succession as he drank in her yelps and whimpers. “You love this,” he whispered.

She had the audacity to shake her head. He ran his fingertips through her slick again, twisted two inside her easily, biting back another groan as she twitched and flexed around him. “Don't lie, my love, it's most unbecoming. Doesn't this feel good?” He fucked her slowly on his fingers, twisting and scissoring them inside of her until she was panting and bucking against his hand. So he pulled them out and struck her again, rained blow after blow until her legs shook and she collapsed forward on her elbows and pushed back against him with a needy whine.

It occurred to him somewhere in the back of his mind that perhaps they’d dived into this a bit hastily. That perhaps she had a safe word or hand signal he had yet to learn, that this was decidedly — uncharacteristically — risky behavior.

Then Miri reached down and ground herself on her hand, arching her back with a low moan, and all of his resolve melted away in a flash of heat as he closed his fingers around her wrist and yanked her hand away. “I don’t recall giving you permission to do that,” he said sharply. He twisted her arm behind her back and pushed her chest into the cushions, and after a brief struggle she relaxed into his grip, a breathless whine slipping out through the cloth in her mouth.

The fact that she was fully capable of spitting it out and hadn’t was only stoking him further.

He teased his fingers along her slit, circled his thumb around her clit with slow, deliberate motions that soon had her thrashing in his grip. A sound bubbled out of her throat that sounded like a muffled please, and when she twisted her head around to meet his gaze with wide-eyed desperation, face flushed, her pupils dark with desire, he had to shove a hand in his trousers and squeeze the base of his cock to keep from spilling himself like an untested boy. “Gods,” he croaked. “If you could see yourself now.”

He tightened his hold on her back and closed his eyes, forced several slow, deep breaths into his lungs as he struggled to regain his composure. When was the last time he’d been this aroused? Had he ever been? He certainly couldn’t remember. He opened his eyes and resumed his caresses. “I’m going to let go of your arm now,” he warned. “Behave.” He punctuated his words with a sharp pinch to her backside that tugged another yelp from her mouth.

He didn’t wait to see if she obeyed or not. He couldn’t. He was desperate to feel her around him, but he didn’t trust himself to last long enough to see her come apart just yet. He tore his gaze from her arse, from the bruises and marks he’d left — that she’d allowed him to leave — and parted her folds with his thumbs as he swiped his tongue across her clit. She jerked against his face, but miraculously, didn’t fight him; she only spread her knees wider to allow him better access and drowned what little of the desperate, needy moans that escaped her gag into the couch cushions.

Would he ever tire of the way she tasted? The scent of her alone drove him to madness, heady musk and soft earth on his lips as he lost himself in her. Drowned in her. He brought her just close enough to the brink with his tongue and fingers that he half feared she’d kick him when he pulled away, but he swiftly undid his trousers with a single, shaking hand and finally, finally sank into her.

He didn’t recognize the sound that tore from his mouth when she twitched and flexed around him. He let himself lean over her, caging her body between his arms as he fucked her relentlessly into the couch. It was ecstasy. It was madness. “Touch yourself,” he whispered hoarsely. She whimpered and thrust a hand beneath herself, her legs shaking, her breath coming in ragged gasps. He was so close he could feel tears in his eyes, and he wanted so badly to feel her cum on his cock, but he was rapidly approaching his limit—

Miri went rigid, trembling beneath him, body jerking as he fucked her through her orgasm. She was perfection embodied, he thought dimly, and that was the last thing to cross his mind as he felt himself come undone. He collapsed onto her, clinging to her sweat-damp body, hips jerking of their own accord as for a brief moment his entire world went white.

He opened his eyes, ears ringing. Miri spat her underwear weakly on the floor and shifted beneath him with a hoarse laugh. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused as she nudged him off of her and curled into his chest, breath heaving. She was unsettlingly quiet and limp.

A spike of fear pierced him as he hesitantly draped an arm around her and tugged her closer. “Are … you alright?” he ventured finally.

“Mmhm,” she mumbled against his chest. He struggled upright, alarm bells ringing in his head.

“Miri, look at me. Did I hurt you?”

“What?” She squinted at him slowly, amusement curling onto her lips. “Oh, honey.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and sank back down onto the couch, tugging him gently back on top of her. “More than fine, I promise,” she said softly. “Just … stay here for a minute.”

“Alright,” he breathed.

“I’m giving you homework tonight,” she added. He felt her lips curve into a smile against his shoulder.

“That’s fine by me,” he whispered. He rolled onto his side and pulled her close, held her so tightly he could count the way their hearts beat in separate rhythms as she relaxed into his arms. He didn’t know how to name the odd feeling taking root in his chest. Only that he didn’t ever want to let it go.

Miriam knew she’d flirted with danger tonight. It had been years since she’d let someone do those sorts of things to her without lengthy discussions beforehand over what was and wasn’t acceptable. Even more years of hard-won lessons before that, of carelessly handing over her trust for a paycheck, because what did it matter what happened to her when she could compartmentalize it all out later anyway? For a time, she thought she could endure anything that way.

Guilt tugged at her insides at the way Gale hovered by her side for the rest of the night. She didn’t necessarily hate it; it was nice, being doted on. She wasn’t too proud to admit that. He drew her a lovely lavender scented bath, she tugged him into it with her, and they spent a lazy hour in his comfortable bathtub where she dozed on and off against his chest as he traced abstract patterns against her soap-slick skin, an album of Chopin nocturnes playing softly on his phone perched on the sink.

She knew all of the ways the evening could have taken a much darker turn, knew them by experience, name by name in a folder of blacklisted clients she kept readily accessible in her files. She hardly knew this man. Her judgment was pretty well honed by now, but it wasn’t perfect. It had failed her before, and it would again; that was just the way of the world. It made her skin prickle to think about, to close her eyes and relive that spike of panic that had almost derailed her entirely when Gale grabbed her arm and held her down. Part of her wondered if she should have stopped him then, had a real conversation with him about what he was doing.

And they would, later. Because despite the fear, despite the trepidation and the momentary lapse where time had screeched to a halt in the face of a situation she wasn’t entirely sure she had under control anymore, he was good at this. Woefully inexperienced, yes, but for someone who had been so shy when they first met, he took to his role so naturally it was effortless to forget he’d never done this sort of thing with anyone before. There was a feral sort of precision to the way he took her apart that had felt so thoroughly, undeniably right she was half convinced he’d ruined her for any client she ever took again.

It was just … unsettling, she supposed, the way she’d slipped back into old habits so damn quickly.

The familiar notes of the Nocturne in B-minor floated across the bathroom, and Miriam closed her eyes at a memory. “I know this one,” she said softly.

“Oh?”

“It’s my brother’s favorite,” she said, the words slipping out before she could hold them back. She remembered the way she’d listen to Cassian practice, doodling in the margins of her homework as she watched him from the living room couch and pretended to pay attention to a page of math equations she had less than zero interest in. A fierce ache gripped her chest at the realization she hadn’t seen him in seven years, hadn’t spoken to him much but for the occasional phone call to let her family know she was still alive.

It hurt too much to keep in touch more regularly than that. Familiarity made the lies harder to maintain, and it also made her heart too soft to bear the weight of them. She thought about the original contract she’d had with Raphael, the one that would have been ending in three more years. She didn’t know when she would be free of him now, not with the magnitude of her debt looming over her head. Not when she was barely making her payments on time, facing a probable future in which one more mistake sent her back into his snare for good. She’d held onto hope for the longest time, the tiniest glimmer far in the distance, that one day she could be rid of Raphael if she just endured, but realistically, what would she do then? This was the only life she’d known for so long, she didn’t know how to do anything else, how to be anyone else. She could hardly come clean to her family about that.

The longer it all stretched on, the more she had started to face the idea that she may very well never see them again.

“Miri?” Gale murmured. He swiped a thumb across her cheek, and only then did she realize she was crying.

“Fuck,” she sniffed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean — it’s—”

“I can change the music if you’d like.”

Miriam shook her head with a watery laugh and squashed the annoyance welling up in her chest at how easily she’d showed her hand. “No, it’s fine. I’m … shit. I think I’m still wound up and emotional from earlier.” Damage control. She needed to contain this. “Which was incredible, by the way,” she added, chuckling when he scoffed. “No, really, you have no idea how much money you could make at the Palace with talent like that.” She tipped her head back and poked his cheek. “You’re positively wasted on academia, you know.”

He burst into laughter. “That is possibly the strangest compliment I think I’ve ever received. But thank you. I think.”

She turned over and propped herself up against his chest with a grin. “I’ll have you know I’m something of an expert on that subject.” She smoothed her hands across his skin and let herself trace the vivid circular tattoo on his chest. “This is really pretty,” she said softly. “What is it?”

Gale offered a wry smile. “Petty vanity, a close friend once said. You’ve heard of the Karsus Nebula, yes?”

“Ooh, you know, I think I see the petty vanity now,” she teased. “The professor who would become a god, is that it?”

“Well,” he mused slowly, “considering I found and named the damn thing, I think I’ve earned a little vanity, don’t you?”

Miriam looked up in surprise. “Are you serious?”

He had the audacity to smirk. “I’ve been told I’m an atrocious liar, and I certainly wouldn’t jest about something like that.”

“That’s quite the achievement,” she said. “How did that end up happening?”

“Are you sure you want to know? You may find it rather boring.”

“Go ahead.” Miriam grinned as she leaned in and peppered his jaw with kisses. “I can tell you’re already dying to talk about it.”

She studied the way his smile softened, the way his eyes lit up as he talked, as he rambled about pattern recognition, refraction, celestial motion, and the importance of keeping an open mind. A lot of the details were beyond her, but seeing him so impassioned about something was undeniably attractive.

And — most importantly — he seemed to have forgotten about her tears entirely.

Gale did not want to be out and about today. The start of classes, the amount of work he’d put off over an entire summer of wallowing in his own misery, and the fact that he’d desperately needed to do laundry for going on two weeks now all weighed on him like a stack of concrete. Still, what Elminster wanted, Elminster got; it had been true decades ago under his mentorship, and it was still true now.

And so Gale found himself dragging on his last clean pair of trousers, pawing through his laundry for the least offensive shirt within, and fishing in his car with a quiet prayer that he still had a spare sweater in the back seat. He then sat on his couch in a state of anxiety paralysis for fear that Elminster would ask him to drive, coupled with impotent frustration at himself for not being able to simply request otherwise.

It had been over a year, after all. People in this bloody city got behind the wheel every hour of every day. He was a grown man with three academic degrees, and a year and a half after one accident he still quaked in his boots at the thought of having someone else in the car with him in the driver's seat.

Pathetic.

When Elminster called simply to say he was on the way, Gale breathed an audible sigh of relief and slumped against the couch cushions with a groan. They still smelled faintly of Miri, and he momentarily gave in to the urge to curl into them and inhale her scent. That felt distinctly pathetic too, the way two nights with her had burned the shape of her so clearly into his memory. Her brilliant smile, her biting wit, the way every angle and curve of her body fit so perfectly against his own.

It was, on a logical level, a ridiculous sentiment. But no matter how much he reminded himself that charming him was literally her job, that every piece of herself she presented to him was likely carefully crafted to play on his sympathies and desires, there was one thing he couldn't banish from his thoughts:

She had a brother. Somehow, that didn't feel like a lie.

He could still feel the heat of her tears against his fingers. It wasn't lost on him, the way she'd pivoted the conversation immediately before he could press her for details. The way she'd swallowed whatever it was that had made it out and painted her mask right back on like none of it mattered, and gods, that made his chest hurt to think about.

It wasn't his business. It wasn't his place to press her for answers. She owed him nothing but the time he paid her for.

It didn't stop him from ruminating on their next meeting, scheduled for three days from today. An evening set aside purely for the two of them, without any external pretense. True to her word, Miri had in fact assigned him some light reading after she left. He'd woken up that morning to a slew of emails in his inbox containing two resource websites for newcomers to kink in general, a pdf about the psychology of sexual sadism, a pamphlet on proper aftercare, and a handful of scholarly articles about the neurochemistry of kink and paraphilia.

And she was so dry and matter of fact about it all. It was a jarring contrast to the way she'd writhed under him on this very couch only two days earlier, and hells, the very thought of that was beginning to arouse him again.

No. This was absurd. He was better than this.

He adjusted himself in his trousers and made his way to the kitchen sink with brisk, decisive strides. The water was crisp and cold against his face, and after a few moments he emerged from the kitchen slightly more disheveled, but with a clearer head than he'd had all day.

A text from Elminster signaled that he was downstairs waiting at the curb. Gale sighed, grabbed his keys, and finally opened his front door.

Miriam knew all of the ways people responded to the concept of infidelity. She'd decried it herself a number of times; after all, it was usually in her best interest to make people feel validated in their opinions.

The truth of the matter was, Miriam had a minimal amount of fucks to give on the subject. Like many things, it was the way of the world. She wasn't about to turn down the boost her own business got, even if it was at the expense of someone else's peace of mind.

But here, in the back seat of Abelea Caldwell’s rented Range Rover as she lapped and fingerfucked the woman into her third orgasm of the evening — after being promptly told that Abelea, at the age of fifty-seven, had never known how an orgasm felt before tonight — Miriam couldn't help but think idly that maybe some people deserved to be cheated on.

She told Abelea as much while she leaned back and pulled Abelea — a significantly shorter woman than her — into her lap.

Abelea leaned her head against Miriam's chest with a sigh. “Don't I know it,” she muttered. “You know, I didn't even know the bastard’s name when my mother sat me down and told me I was engaged? Gods, it was a different time back then.”

“Wyllyck, right?”

Abelea chuckled. “What a stupid name. Suppose I'd feel differently if I actually liked the arsehole.” She sighed. “Ah, well. I did my duty, I have two lovely children who turned out halfway decently despite it all. I only mildly resent what I do for a living. Feels a bit gauche to be unhappy in the face of all of that.”

Miriam ran her fingers idly through Abelea’s hair, thick greying brown curls taken down from their usual pinned up bun. “Thirty-eight years of marriage and he's never made you cum before? I'm honestly surprised you don't have a whole string of affairs behind you already.”

Abelea snorted. “Suppose when you put it like that.” She twisted around in Miriam's lap and eyed her with a wry smile. “Here I am tangled up with a lovely young woman in the City of Splendors itself, having the time of my life, and the evening has hardly begun. If everyone could be so lucky.”

Abelea was wonderfully soft, her well-rounded bosom plush against Miriam's lycra-bound chest. Abelea hadn't necessarily specified exactly how boyish she'd wanted Miriam to look, but based on the look on her face when Miriam had turned up at her door, hair slicked back neatly, flat-chested in a three-piece grey suit with a black and red paisley tie, Miriam guessed she'd nailed the look entirely. Miriam ran her fingers through Abelea’s hair and tugged her head back slightly before capturing her mouth in a soft kiss.

Abelea deepened it hungrily, a soft whimper in the back of her throat as her grip tightened on Miriam's shoulders. Her hand wandered down Miriam's chest, lingering nervously on her belt buckle. “I … could I?” she whispered. “Try?”

“I would be so honored,” Miriam said with a broad grin. She helped Abelea with the buckle, stroking Abelea’s hair affectionately as she hooked shaking fingers into Miriam's trousers. “There we go,” she murmured encouragingly. “That's lovely.” She laid a hand over Abelea's and guided it between her legs.

“Oh,” Abelea said softly. She traced her fingers through Miriam's folds with curious hesitation before experimentally inserting a single finger.

“That's it, darling,” Miriam said. She brushed a handful of curls out of Abelea's face, drinking in the adoring expression there. “Curve it forward, like — oh, yes, just like that. That's a good girl. Such a quick study.”

Abelea basked in the praise and slipped another finger inside. Miriam's breath quickened when Abelea's thumb brushed her clit. “Right there,” she breathed. “Light pressure, just like that with your thumb.”

“You're marvelous,” Abelea whispered. “Is it alright if — can I—” She trailed off with a blush.

“Do you want a taste?” Miriam murmured. She swiped her own fingers through her folds and held them up to Abelea's lips.

Abelea closed her lips around Miriam's fingers with a soft gasp. Her eyes fluttered closed as she sucked, her tongue swirling across Miriam's knuckles with the most delightfully sensual pressure. Miriam withdrew her fingers and tangled them gently in Abelea's hair as Abelea's scooted back and nudged Miriam's legs apart, tugging her trousers down until she was fully exposed. “Tell me what to do,” she said hoarsely.

Miriam reached down and parted her lips. “Hold it open, with your thumbs might be the easiest. There — like that. Now use your tongue, if you'd like.”

Abelea cautiously swiped the flat of her tongue across Miriam’s folds, followed it up with slow, tentative laps. “Gods above,” Abelea groaned. “How have I missed out on this my entire life?”

Miriam laughed breathlessly as Abelea tongued her again, more decisively this time, enthusiasm picking up with every lap. “Never too late to try new things,” Miriam said. She tightened her grip in Abelea's hair and gently guided her motions, rocking her hips forward in a matching rhythm. What Abelea lacked in experience, she made up for in sheer determination. “You can use your fingers if you want,” she breathed.

Abelea adjusted her angle and slipped a finger back inside, and Miriam didn't hold back the moan that welled up in her throat. “Fuck,” she groaned, head tipping back against the window. “Add another one.”

A second finger joined the first, crooking forward against Miriam's inner walls, just like how she'd explained. “That's it,” Miriam breathed. She held Abelea's hair out of her face and took in the lovely, debauched sight in front of her, of the delightful flush of Abelea's round cheeks, the way her breath caught when Miriam made a pleasured sound. “Gods, you look so fucking good, sweetheart. So beautiful like this.”

Abelea's rhythm though, while enthusiastic, lacked the consistency for Miriam to truly get anywhere. She considered slowly faking her way to an orgasm to avoid discouraging the dear woman, but as she let her eyes flutter closed, she suddenly pictured Gale.

That's it, my love, let me hear you.

“Oh, fuck, Miriam whimpered. A fresh wave of arousal washed over her at the fantasy. She basked in the memory of his kisses, of drowning in the crisp lavender and cedarwood scent of his cologne, of being held down on his bed as he forced her legs apart with his knee.

Yes, she decided. She could definitely use this to her advantage.

“Yes, ‘Lea, just like that, gods,” she breathed. “Harder with your fingers, that's a good girl—”

She pictured Gale again, remembered the way his fingers had felt yanking her hair, the way the jolt had brought tears to her eyes and a heady flush of arousal to her cheeks. The way he'd all but dragged her across his living room, how fucking good it felt to have his hands all over her. Abelea was fucking her in earnest now, and between the steady pressure of Abelea's tongue and the muddy fantasy of Gale in her mind, Miriam felt her orgasm beginning to approach and unfurl deep in her core. “Yes,” she panted. “Yes, yesyesyes—”

She crumbled beneath Abelea's touch, back arching against the leather seat with a harsh cry. Abelea leaned back with a breathless sigh and promptly wiped her hands on the back of the driver’s seat. “Is it strange that I want to thank you?” she said finally.

Miriam grinned. “Not at all. Come here.” She patted her lap as she tugged her underwear and trousers back up, and when Abelea acquiesced she pulled her up for a tender kiss. “You magnificent woman,” she murmured against Abelea’s lips.

“We should probably make ourselves presentable,” Abelea whispered with a giggle. “If we don’t want to miss our reservation.”

“Probably smart,” Miriam agreed.

And if images of Gale still lingered in her mind, well, that was nobody’s business but her own.

Gale couldn’t remember the last time he’d had this much trouble focusing. The interior of Gounar’s Bistro was lavishly adorned with cleverly cut mirrors and glittering light fixtures, and this particular time of day saw it packed with customers with a line wrapped around the block full of people who didn’t have reservations. Of course, Elminster had simply strolled in, unfazed and asking for his usual table, and it really didn’t come as a surprise when the host acquiesced and brought the two of them back straightaway.

But even in this back corner, the lights were too bright, the noise was too overwhelming, and the cloying scent of cranberries and oranges drifting down from little potpourri satchels strung up on the ceiling was doing a fair job of making his stomach roil. And it wasn’t just the restaurant, either; the ride over had him wincing at every bump in the road, squinting painfully against the way the setting sun reflected off of city glass. Had the world always been so bloody loud? He could have sworn he remembered a time when he thrived in all of the noise, and yet these days the slightest provocation had him jumping at shadows.

If Elminster noticed how twitchy he’d gotten over the course of his self-imposed isolation, he didn’t mention it. He ordered a specialty wine and cheese platter and launched into his usual rambling pleasantries while Gale swept his gaze warily across the room and tried very hard to ignore the steadily building impulse to get up, run four blocks to the beach and straight into the water, and let the sea take him hostage. If he were lucky, there’d be a rip tide to speed the whole process along.

“What do you think, my boy?” Elminster prompted.

Gale blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“Arabella Manning’s proposal. Regarding the Cairos Planar Bridge as observed from the northernmost point of the Anauroch desert. It seemed quite up your alley, but then, it also seemed she was hesitant to approach you about her revisions. I can’t imagine why that would be.”

Irritation surged in the back of his throat. “Speak plainly, Elminster. Out with it.”

Elminster’s gaze softened. “It has not escaped my notice that you’ve been rather withdrawn as of late, Gale. Have you given any thought to your possible sabbatical?”

“My what?” Gale bristled. This had to be her doing. “What on earth has Ariel told you? Is she really gossiping about me behind my back now?”

“Of course not. She approached me in confidence and mentioned she would bring it up to you this past weekend. I see now that she has not, in fact, done so.”

Gale poked at a brie wedge with a rye cracker and scowled. “She most certainly has not. And I would expect this sort of scheming from her, but from you? Surely, you don’t agree?”

Elminster frowned. “I suppose it isn’t truly my place to say one way or another, but between the two of us? I think some time away from Waterdeep to clear your head would do you a world of good. I was speaking with Azeriah Riddle at the Hlaungadath Institute just the other day, you know, and I think perhaps a few months at their observatory would be nothing but a boon to your own mentorship program. It would be no hardship, and I am positive their program would pay handsomely to host your expertise for a semester.”

“You cannot be serious.” Gale scoffed. “Is that Ariel’s plan, then? To — to send me off into the middle of the desert for a few months to get me out of her hair, so I can ‘clear my head’?”

“Would that truly be so bad?” Elminster chided. “It’s been a difficult year for you, my friend. Tara’s passing was … perhaps one of the greatest tragedies this faculty has ever seen. There is no shame in needing time.”

There was an insatiable itch in the back of his head, a silent scream that left the space behind his eyes vacant and hollow as he fought to keep his breathing under control. Every inch of his skin felt charged with the potential for bad decisions. He needed quiet. He needed a place to set his heart down before it detonated in his hands. “Do not,” he said shakily, “presume to speak to me about Tara’s passing.”

A tense silence settled over the table as Elminster watched him warily. Gale wondered idly if this was the view a rabid animal saw minutes before it was mercifully put down. “In any case,” Elminster said finally, “regardless of your feelings on the matter, it may be worth reaching out to young Miss Manning to let her know you are, in fact — contrary to popular belief — still checking your emails.”

“Noted,” Gale said bitterly. He drained the last of his wine and pushed himself to his feet. “If you’ll excuse me, I believe I need something a mite stronger if we are to continue conversing about … anything at all, really.” He didn’t wait for an answer before making a beeline for the bar.

The bar patio was, much like the rest of the establishment, packed to the brim. Gale could practically taste the way his heartbeat fluttered erratically in the back of his throat as he wedged his way against the bar and waved down a bartender. “Whiskey, please,” he said automatically, then stopped himself. “Unless you have Brass City Firepit?”

The bartender, a mousy-haired young man with a blue salamander tattoo peeking out from his collar, raised his eyebrows curiously. “You know, you’re the second person to order that today?”

“Is that a problem?” Gale asked.

“No, just funny, is all, getting two orders in one day. Half the people who work here have barely heard of the stuff. Anyway, neat or on the rocks?”

“Neat,” he said. Did it really matter? He certainly wasn’t after the stuff for the taste.

“Sure thing, boss. Starting a tab?”

“Sure, why not,” Gale muttered as he handed over his card. He scanned the crowd again even as he pressed himself against the bar to avoid being jostled. Why had he agreed to this again? He was half convinced he’d never leave his apartment again save for work at this rate. His card and his drink both appeared in front of him, the bartender already on the other side of the room, and Gale shoveled down a sinking feeling of despair as he stuffed his card into his pocket and took a cautious sip.

It burned the entire way down, the fire lingering in his belly for a moment longer than was perhaps comfortable. Still, it was familiar, bracing. Grounding. He took another deep breath, another thoughtful sip. Perhaps he could still salvage the night. And then he would go home, and he would do his laundry and begin sifting through the shattered pieces of his life for anything that he could use to find his footing again, and—

His half-formed thoughts dissipated completely when he spotted her across the room. Miri looked nothing like she had on her date with him. He’d have mistaken her for a man tonight if he hadn’t recognized her face immediately; but despite the three piece suit and tie, despite the slicked back hair and the leather wing tips, her eyes briefly met his with a flicker of surprise before she immediately looked away. And oh, he would know those eyes everywhere with the way they haunted his every thought and dream, and sure enough, when she turned and gestured to someone he couldn’t see, there was the rose on her neck.

Her date was an older woman with long, greying brown curls, draped in an elegant black dress and brimming with the exuberant energy of someone half her age. He watched, fascinated, as Miri leaned in and planted a soft kiss on the back of the woman’s hand. As the woman returned the gesture with a dazzling smile, as Miri pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of the two of them holding hands across the table.

This must be another client of hers, he thought distantly. Something ugly reared its head in the pit of his stomach then.

Because oh, he had no right to her tonight, no claim over her outside of their contractual obligations, but that didn’t stop the burning lash of envy that wrapped itself around his throat at the sight of Miri lavishing her attentions on someone else. Did she think about him the way she consumed his thoughts daily? Surely not. Surely men like him were a crown a dozen to someone like her. He noticed his glass trembling in his hand, noticed the way he had it in a white-knuckled grip, and grimaced.

He was better than this. Gods, he was better than this, and it was with that thought that he knocked the rest of the Firepit back in a single gulp. He regretted it immediately, of course, but what else was new today? His regrets, it seemed, were a crown a dozen too.

“Are you quite alright?” Elminster asked when he finally made his way back to his table.

“Quite,” he said curtly. He could feel the warmth in his cheeks as he balled his hands into fists and resisted the urge to look for Miri again. He bit back a wave of nausea. “Actually I … apologize, Elminster, but I fear I may be coming down with something. I believe I am feeling quite unwell. Would you be put out if I took a cab home?”

Something unreadable flickered across Elminster’s face, but eventually he nodded with a sad smile. “Of course not, my boy. It’s always a pleasure to see you, regardless of the circumstance. I hope we are able to do this again soon when you are feeling more like yourself.”

More like himself. What a joke that was indeed.

Miriam made her way down the concrete and steel stairs into the sprawling basement entrance of Blush House with a forced spring in her step. She'd shed entirely too many tears today, and no amount of makeup would get rid of the chronic tightness behind her eyeballs after the fact. Her triple shot iced coffee had left her feeling more jittery than actually awake.

She caught herself thanking the gods she'd agreed on a passive role tonight. The thought of handling complex rope work with clumsy, exhausted fingers made her wrists ache already.

Don't you look darling!” Aletha cooed as Miriam approached the bar. Her silvery blonde hair was piled up on her head in an elaborate crown, accented by bright silver colored contacts that narrowed her pupils to cat-eye slits. Intricate henna tattoos covered her forehead and temples, winding down her cheeks and dipping back into her hairline.

“I could say the same for you,” Miriam said with a grin. She gestured at Aletha’s face. “Jhoysil’s handiwork, I assume? It looks better every time she does it.”

Aletha beamed. “I'll be sure to tell her you said that. She's been branching out a bit these days. You know, she got asked to do a big traditional Tethyrian wedding?”

“You're kidding.”

“No! That's where she is tonight, actually! Living it up in a rented villa in the North Ward while the rest of us slum it in heels, right? Lucky bitch.” She gestured at Miriam with one hand. “Okay, where on earth did you find that fishnet body suit? That tit embroidery is gorgeous.”

Miriam glanced down at the bed of dark red roses sewn in at the bust that just barely covered her nipples and nothing else. “Astarion made it for me a couple of years ago for one of Tathla's burlesque nights.”

“Of course he did. Don't even know why I asked. What's he been up to lately? Feels like I haven't seen him in ages since we split off to open this place.”

“How do you think he's doing?” Miriam laughed. “He gets to hide in the dark and make weird outfits all night without having to say a word to anyone outside of someone coming in with a wardrobe malfunction. Man's been having the time of his life ever since he quit working the floor.”

Aletha chuckled. “That's really how it be for some people. I never minded it much, but Jhoy’s a lot happier now that those days are behind her than she wants to admit, I think. Did she tell you she's starting an actual tattoo apprenticeship in Uktar?”

Miriam tossed her bag behind the bar and listened as Aletha rambled about her sister's recent successes. The Samprava twins had always been kind to her, but Jhoysil was the one she'd met first, a dark haired stranger in a sterile hospital room four years ago with a kind smile and a dangerous message.

I know a better way out, the note slipped into the sleeve of her hospital gown had read, above a single, neatly printed phone number.

She'd ignored it at the time, of course. The overdose was accidental. She was only lying in the bed she'd made herself. Wasn't looking for a way out, only a way to make things a little more bearable after three years of accumulating mistakes born of nothing more than her own naivete.

Still, when Tathla had finally approached her with an alternative, it had been impossible not to listen. To give it a try.

Miriam’s own tattoos were all Jhoysil’s handiwork, too: elaborate stick-and-pokes done in a cramped basement dorm room smelling of cigarette smoke, incense, and neroli oil. The throw pillows covering the floor were gaudy, mismatched thrift store finds. There was no window, so Jhoy had simply painted a mural on the wall and hung curtains and fairy lights around it. It wasn't much, but for a time, it was home.

Aletha pushed a drink into Miriam's hands as she spoke. “Made tonight's special just for you. Gin, Chambord, and a spritz of rosewater. I call it the Blush Kiss.”

“Really upselling my role here for the night, are we?” Miriam teased. She sipped at the drink with a pleased hum as the sharp flavor of raspberry liqueur exploded on her tongue.

“Oh, trust me, Miri, you're doing us the favor by signing on tonight. The crowd’s gonna eat you right up.”

The prospect of being on display and used had by and large lost its novelty a couple of years into this career, but something about doing this here, for someone she trusted as much as Aletha, sent a shiver of anticipation down Miriam's spine. “Who do you have doing the ropes tonight?” she asked.

“Me, actually!” Aletha said brightly. “What, you didn't think I'd throw you to the wolves so last minute, did you? If you decide you want to do it again next week, you can vet an applicant list.” She leaned across the bar and tapped her cheek expectantly. “You’re welcome.”

Miriam couldn’t help but laugh as she planted the requested kiss on Aletha’s cheek and left a dark red lipstick mark behind. “You’re a treasure and a delight.”

Aletha beamed. “I do my best,” she said brightly. “Go to the bathroom, check your notifications, whatever else you need first, and we can get started whenever you're ready.”

Miriam nodded and downed the last of her drink. “Great. Let's fucking do this.”

A comfortable haze began to settle through Miriam's limbs as she stood on a raised platform in the middle of the club floor and let Aletha drape her body in rope. She was so damn sleepy, and the soft brush of Aletha's callouses on her skin was a pleasurable whisper against the fishnet texture of the clothes Aletha was peeling her out of with slow, deliberate showmanship. The eyes of an audience would have left her feeling stripped even more bare than ever once, but tonight she found herself lost in her own thoughts and entirely oblivious to the spectators watching her with hungry faces.

She wondered idly what Gale was up to tonight. Imagined him sitting in that gaudy velvet recliner of his with a glass of wine and a book on something obscure and ridiculous. She'd noticed he had a tendency to chew on his bottom lip when he was concentrating on something, scrunching the center of his brow into that adorable wrinkle. Did he look like that now?

“You okay?” Aletha asked softly as she nudged Miriam towards the floor and onto her back.

“Hmm? Yeah.” Miriam managed an awkward thumbs up despite the way her hands were secured behind her back. The ropes around her hips and chest pulled taut.

“Ready to fly?” Aletha asked.

Miriam grinned. “Always.”

There was something about the moment she went airborne that she always found particularly thrilling. The sudden weightlessness as the ropes bit into her skin and pulled her upward as Aletha secured her to their in-house pully system. “That's a good girl,” Aletha cooed as Miriam relaxed into her bonds. She planted a soft kiss in Miriam's hair. “Let's give these motherfuckers a show, yeah?”

And then Aletha's hands were on her, smoothing across her skin, plucking at her nipples, trailing soft touches down her back before grabbing her arse with a firm squeeze. Aletha was saying something to the crowd, but Miriam's thoughts were a wash of static. Footsteps clunked on the platform beside her. Someone was trailing their fingers through her folds, someone else was complimenting her body. And there was something freeing about that, just being a body. She didn’t have to be anybody for once, didn’t have to pretend or hide or cover up any part of herself to fulfill a role, because these people didn’t care.

Her thoughts wandered to Gale again. She imagined him in this crowd, watching her, touching her — and gods, did she want him touching her again, those strong, dexterous fingers grabbing her like she was the most coveted thing in this world. Wasn’t that odd, she wondered. She played that role to people every day, being the most coveted thing in this world. Why was it different with him? After only two sessions? Why did she crave it with him?

Two fingers brushed her lips and she opened her mouth to let them in, sucked on them dutifully, swallowed a gasp when someone else thrust a finger inside of her cunt. She let her eyes flutter closed as she drank in the sensations, concentrated on how good it felt when something warm rubbed against her clit. She didn’t want to know who these people were. Didn’t want to put faces to the feelings, didn’t want to acknowledge a single godsdamned one of them, because today, in this moment, she needed so badly for it simply not to matter.

“Sweetheart?” Aletha murmured. Her voice sounded so far away. “This lovely gentleman would like to fuck your cunt. Would you like that?”

A firm swipe of pressure to her clit punctuated Aletha’s words as the fingers in Miriam’s mouth withdrew and stroked softly against her chin. “Yes,” she groaned. She was just a hole tonight, she thought distantly. Warmth flooded her body at the thought of being filled, of being used. And then someone was pushing inside her, hands gripping her hips. “Fuck,” she groaned. Whoever it was, was pleasantly large, but he was gentle about the way he penetrated her, taking his time, alternating each small thrust with a soft stroke of her skin.

“I would like very much to kiss you now,” Aletha whispered. Miriam was surrounded by the jasmine and honey of Aletha’s perfume, grounded by the way Aletha cradled her face, and she’d barely nodded in assent before Aletha pressed their lips together.

Aletha tasted like spearmint and cherry lip balm beneath the earthy flavor of her organically sourced lipstick. She tangled her fingers in Miriam's hair and deepened the kiss, all tongue and teeth and desire that was languid and frenetic all at once. Miriam was half aware of the way whoever was fucking her stuttered in his rhythm as he came. He pulled out, and someone else took his place. Lubricated fingers prodded at her arsehole, and she groaned into Aletha’s mouth as she was penetrated there too.

The fingers stretched her arse open as someone shoved a dildo into her cunt. Were there two fingers or three plunging into her hole now? Miriam found she neither knew nor cared. Someone pulled the dildo out and replaced it with their cock, and the rhythm of their thrusts bounced her head softly against Aletha's stomach as Aletha stood up and supported her head and shoulders. There was the tell-tale buzz of a vibrator turning on, and she cried out in surprise as it was pressed against her clit. “Fuck,” she whimpered. She squirmed in her harness, but the bindings and the constant pull of gravity held her arms firmly behind her back.

Aletha stroked her face softly before pressing a thumb into her mouth. “This charming sweetheart would like you to suck her off,” Aletha said.

Miriam was beyond forming words, and she just nodded weakly in assent as the thrusts into her cunt grew harder and more insistent. A different pair of hands cradled her jaw, soft palms, long nails, and lilac perfume, and then she had a cock in her mouth too. There was a brief exchange of words between Aletha and this newcomer, and then the woman was gently thrusting against her tongue with a satisfied gasp.

Miriam automatically hollowed out her cheeks and sucked. This was familiar and easy and she relaxed into the rhythm of being mindlessly spitroasted between two strangers whose identities she would likely never know.

“Look at you, honey,” the woman cooed. “You're doing so good. We have the cutest plug for your arsehole if you want. Do you want that?”

Did she? Miriam thought dimly that she was too far gone to really care one way or another, but she nodded clumsily around the woman's cock anyway. May as well give the people what they wanted.

Something cold and slick pressed against her arse. Whoever was between her legs had slowed their thrusts, removed the vibrator, and was lazily stroking her clit as the plug was pushed in. It was a pleasant but comfortable size, just large enough to make her feel delightfully full without causing discomfort or pain. Aletha must have had a hand in selecting the props, she thought idly. She wondered how Jhoy was faring tonight. If she was satisfied with her evening. If she was happy.

And then the vibrator turned back on, the thrusts resumed on both sides, and Miriam promptly stopped thinking about anything at all. The plug jostled against the cock in her cunt. The cock in her mouth was leaking precum as the woman it was attached to stroked her hair adoringly and whispered praises punctuated by pleasured groans. Miriam swirled her tongue around it harder, her rhythm stuttered by the pleasure building between her legs. She flexed her fingers helplessly behind her back. The ropes bit into her flesh with a pleasant burn. Everything was heat and pressure and delicious, agonizing friction.

The woman pulled out of her mouth suddenly and came on her tits and stomach with a shaky groan. “Gods, you're such a lovely thing,” she crooned, breathless as she swiped her fingers through the cum on Miriam's chest and let Miriam suck it mindlessly from her fingertips.

“Please,” Miriam whimpered as the person between her legs increased their pace. Gale flickered unbidden through her thoughts again. She imagined it was him between her legs, fucking her towards her climax. The illusion was somewhat marred by the fact that she couldn't hear him whispering his delicious filth in her ear as he did it, but her imagination supplied the rest as she thrashed in her bonds in frenzied desperation. “Fuck, please—”

“Shh, that's it my darling. Cum for us, that's a good girl.” Aletha was back, soothing touches on her face, whispered praises and steadying hands, and when she came with a violent shudder she could hear her voice echo off of the ceiling amid a handful of claps and cheers and one particularly enthusiastic wolf whistle. The person between her legs pulled out and came on her stomach, splashing warm against her sweaty skin, and then they gently worked the plug out of her arse as Aletha announced the evening's prize to the person who'd made her cum.

“Gods,” she groaned weakly when Aletha concluded her speech. She finally opened her eyes. The lights overhead were blinding, but Aletha's smile outshone them all.

“You were marvelous,” she said with a satisfied clap. “Do you need anything before I pull you down?”

“Water,” Miriam croaked. She managed a cheeky grin when Aletha returned with a cup and a bendy straw in one hand and a silk bathrobe in the other. “That's it? Just the one orgasm?”

Aletha flicked her ear. “Didn't you read the bloody contract before you signed it?”

“Mm, was too tired to read anything today. Figured I'd let you surprise me.”

“Miri,” Aletha said sternly, a disapproving frown on her face. “Do better. You know what happens when surprises go poorly!”

“Well, this one apparently promised me twenty minutes in the sling, one orgasm, and all the applause a girl could ever want. I think the dice I rolled were very kind to me today.”

Aletha heaved a long suffering sigh as she put the water cup down and slowly lowered Miriam to the floor. “If you want to do this again, I'm making you come in and go over the damn thing with me in my office in person next time.”

“Aletha!” Miriam pouted.

“Don't ‘Aletha’ me. I don't know what it is you're self-destructing over today, but I won't have it interfering with your workplace safety.” Aletha pulled out a pocket knife and slowly unraveled one set of knots at a time until her elaborate rope work began to fall away piece by piece.

Miriam shivered as blood rushed back into her extremities. “Alright, Mum,” she teased.

Aletha swatted her with one of the bathrobe sleeves with a snort. “Get yourself together, Miri,” she said. “I mean it! No more free drinks for you if you don’t.”

“I take it back,” Miriam snickered. “You’d make a terrible mother.”

Aletha rolled her eyes, helped Miriam to her feet, and steadied her as she draped the bathrobe around her shoulders. “Go shower, you little brat.”

Miriam was back in her fishnets and matching black skirt. An orgasm, a hot shower, and a second drink had worked wonders in yanking the tension from her body, and she lounged at the bar watching the various public rope scenes taking place. She was still tired — and fully intended to crash face-first into her bed the second she got home — but Astarion wouldn’t be home until the next morning, and she wasn’t quite ready to be alone yet.

“Well.” A familiar voice tugged her out of her thoughts. “Fascinating running into you here.”

Miriam squinted at the man approaching the bar, at his messy ponytail, ruddy skin, amber-brown eyes with scowl lines and permanent dark circles, lips upturned in a curious smirk. “Rolan?” she ventured.

He raised an eyebrow. “You remembered my name.”

“Kind of my job to be a people person,” Miriam pointed out. “What are you doing here? I didn’t think this was your scene, no offense.”

“None taken. Is this seat empty?” He gestured at the stool next to her but sat in it before she could answer. “Whatever’s cheapest on tap,” he said as he passed a card over to the bartender, one of Aletha’s new hires who’d just clocked in. Iris, maybe? Miriam couldn’t quite make out her name tag through vision blurring with exhaustion. “Anyway. What am I doing here? My brother’s needling, mostly. Kept going on about how I needed to ‘unwind’ and ‘oh, look, here’s a promo card on us, just check it out, you can leave whenever you want.’ To which I replied he needed to work on his sales pitches.”

Miriam snorted. “To be fair, it did work, seeing as how you’re here.”

“Yes, well, I admit I was a bit curious what all the fuss was about. Imagine my surprise seeing you getting fucked onstage six ways to Sunday when I walked in, though.”

Miriam took a long sip of her third drink. “You do remember what I do for a living, don’t you?” She eyed him curiously. “Did you like what you saw?”

Rolan shrugged. “About as titillating as I’d have expected.”

“Well, that’s high praise,” Miriam said dryly.

“What?” Rolan protested. “Did you want a formal review? Seems a bit gauche considering I barely know you.”

She laughed. “You know that was kind of the point, right? I take it that means you weren’t one of the guys who stuck it in me.”

“I most certainly was not. Not that I’m judging, mind you, but I’m fairly confident the thought of that many eyes on my arse would make my cock wilt like old celery.”

“That’s fair.” She watched him sip at his beer with a thoughtful grimace.

“Ah,” he said. “That is … something.”

Miriam waved Iris down. “What do you normally drink?” she asked.

“These days? Bargain bin wine, mostly. Joys of a graduate student salary.”

“Okay, what do you like to drink?” Miriam pressed. “Sweet drinks? Sour? Fruity? Floral?”

Rolan wrinkled his nose. “Is this a sex club bar or a perfume shop?”

Miriam ignored him. “Iris,” she called out. “Can I get another Blush Kiss for my friend?”

“It’s Ivy,” the bartender said irritably. “Got a tab?”

Miriam slid her business card across the bar. “Sweetheart, the entertainment drinks for free.”

“We’re friends now?” Rolan asked, bemused.

“Sure. I know where you go to school, you’ve seen my tits, and now we’re drinking together. I think we’ve crossed off enough familiarity requirements at this point. Anyway, you approached me, remember?”

“I suppose I did. In my defense, you’re the only familiar face here. I wasn’t exactly about to show up with my brother in tow.”

She grabbed his drink as Ivy set it on the bar, and she slid it to him with a decisive swoosh. “Bet he’d love this. ‘Aw, little Rolan is making friends.‘ Did I get it right?”

Rolan scowled. “I dread asking what on earth he told you about me.”

“Oh, mostly that you’re a prickly arsehole who bites people. But I’m into that, so.”

He rolled his eyes as he picked up his cup. “Does that line actually work on people?”

Miriam shrugged. “When I want it to. Why? Do you want me to try and seduce you?”

He made a face. “Please don’t. I’d rather spare us both the embarrassment, if you don’t mind.”

“Just as well,” Miriam chuckled. “I’m off the clock, anyway.”

Rolan ran his fingers through the condensation on his cup. “What’s that like?” he asked suddenly. “Sex for work. If … you don’t mind me asking.”

Miriam paused. She had been asked that question a thousand times already, usually by well-meaning clients whose words dripped concern, or worse, pity. Ordinarily she would shut those questions down, gently and firmly changing the subject. But Rolan asked with an almost clinical curiosity that left her feeling unusually forthcoming, so she carefully crafted an answer that avoided the more complicated parts of her history instead. “It’s a job like anything else,” she said finally. “There’s good days and shit days. But it’s fun. Plus, sucking dick pays more than bartending, and you meet a lot of interesting people.”

“Huh.” He sipped at his drink thoughtfully. “How’d you get started?”

“You’re asking a lot of questions for someone who isn’t interested in seduction,” Miriam teased.

Rolan snorted. “I thought that was how friendship worked. Aren’t we in the ‘establishing an appropriate level of personal rapport’ stage?” He punctuated his words with exaggerated air quotes that looked so ridiculous Miriam couldn’t hold in her laughter.

“Tell you what,” she said finally. Maybe she was tipsy, maybe she was just really fucking lonely. Maybe it was nice, talking to someone who didn’t seem to have some sort of agenda. “Come home with me. No, not like that,” she added at the face he made. “Trust me, the only other thing going inside me tonight is a pint of chocolate cherry ice cream. But! In the interest of establishing an appropriate level of personal rapport, I am inviting you — as a friend — to sit on my couch and watch a really stupid documentary with me.”

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “…what documentary?”

Miriam grinned. “Volothamp Geddarn’s Curse of the Vampyr.” She waved her hands emphatically. “No, no, hear me out. There’s a whole section where he collects ‘proof’ about different notable public figures, and if you do a little digging, they’re all people who refused to endorse his monster hunting manual as a part of standard educational literature. Open Lord Silverhand is in it, and so is that lady who got really famous for using sussur bark extract as a superconductor in the Ramazith project.”

“Dr. de Hurst is in a vampire documentary?” Rolan asked incredulously.

“Well, sort of. Volo couldn’t get her to actually answer his calls, so he has an ‘interview’ with a lookalike wearing a really bad wig. It’s a cinematic masterpiece. My roommate refuses to watch it with me because one of the other ‘vampires’ Volo interviews looks just like him.”

It was beyond gratifying when Rolan laughed. Actually laughed, an ungraceful, wheezing cackle of a sound that was probably the least flattering noise she’d ever heard come out of anyone’s mouth. “Very well,” he said, finishing his drink and tossing a handful of cash into the tip jar. “You drive a terribly hard bargain.”

Friday couldn't come fast enough, and when it did, the hours seemed to crawl by at a snail's pace. Gale spent his morning with a twitchy energy beneath his skin, his ability to concentrate utterly shot by the anticipation of what was to come.

Miri’s assigned reading had opened his imagination to a wealth of possibilities. He'd had a cursory, somewhat academic understanding of the basics of kink before meeting her, but being faced with the prospect of actually experiencing it was a different beast entirely. He thought about the embossed leather collar he'd purchased on a whim and wondered if Miri would like it, really like it, instead of simply pretending for his sake. He wondered if it was a futile effort, the way he wanted so desperately to please her. If he would ever really know whether or not he was succeeding.

He'd never intended for his dalliance with her to be more than a one-time thing. Had never even intended to sleep with her at all, much less become so enamored with every curve and freckle of her captivating body. But gods above, he wanted to map it with his mouth over and over again, to worship at the altar of her cunt and make her scream his name until she was hoarse with the echoes of it on her tongue. Maybe it was just sex, maybe he was paying for it; but gods dammit all, hadn't he earned a bit of a reprieve these days? Hadn't this sort of thing ruined his life enough for him not to want to take some of that power back?

He was so engrossed in his thoughts he didn't even notice Vajra appearing at his elbow until she swatted the side of his head with the folder in her hand. “Are you alright?” She peered at him through her new glasses, with thick lenses that made her dark brown eyes look comically enormous. “You're positively twitching today.”

“May have imbibed a bit too much coffee this morning,” he lied. He'd always been a terrible liar, but maybe if he avoided looking at her and pretended to be engrossed in his email app, she wouldn't notice. “Late night last night.”

Vajra snorted. “That's what you get for being MIA all summer. Are you almost caught up yet?”

Not even remotely with how distracted he'd been with thoughts of Miri lately, but he wasn't about to admit that. “I think so,” he said instead. “Or, well. I certainly hope so. Who knows what avalanche will arrive around the corner?”

“Hopefully you'll be squared away before phase three of the Aghairon project starts for real. Unless…” She frowned. “I keep hearing rumors you withdrew from the team, but since you hadn't said anything, I'd assumed…”

The audacity of people. Gale scowled. “Of course I haven't withdrawn,” he said irritably. “Rumour and speculation indeed. What a crass disrespect that would be to Tara's legacy. Who told you that?”

“Briar Fontaine over in the maths department mentioned it offhand over lunch the other day. I told them they were full of shite, but you know how people can be.”

“With all due respect, Dr. Fontaine can lick my arsehole,” Gale grumbled.

Vajra let out a surprised cackle. “Now who's being crass?”

“Can you blame me? I've never experienced quite the breadth of trite sentiment until this last year, but gods, it's bloody exhausting, isn't it?”

“I can imagine. Makes sense you'd want to be reclusive after everything.” Vajra paused. “Have you spoken with Ariel lately?”

Gale scoffed. “I'm assuming you mean outside of work? Or is this because she's also on the Aghairon project? Because I assure you I am capable of remaining professional. Whether or not she chooses to be is her business.”

“That's fair.” Vajra fiddled with her sleeves awkwardly. “It's just … she's been off lately, since the gala. Doesn't seem to want to talk about it, but. I was just wondering if something else had happened, is all.”

“If it has, it's certainly not my concern,” Gale said firmly. “At any rate, the only conversations we've had in the last three months have involved scheduling and graduate assistantship allocation. Preferably it remains that way.”

“You're right, I'm sorry. It was pretty insensitive of me to ask, in retrospect.”

“At least you know,” he muttered. Maybe it was unfair, the way his chest ached with bitterness at Vajra’s impartiality. She'd been friends with Ariel almost as long as Gale's relationship with her had lasted, and the entire situation had likely taken its toll on her too, being stuck in the middle the way she was. Still, sometimes Gale couldn't help but wonder how much of the fallout Ariel had actually disclosed. If she'd kept her end of their agreement to keep the details private. What had she said to Vajra about him? About before everything had begun, about the way his behavior had apparently driven her to seek solace in someone else's arms?

Those sordid details were just as equally not his business, but the questions nagged at him regardless. At any rate, he'd spent enough time mulling over the long term consequences of his own reticence and neglect; he certainly had no desire to rehash it with anyone else.

His email notification chimed as they approached his office door. He gestured awkwardly at it with his phone. “This is my stop,” he announced. “I’ll see you at Tennora’s seminar later?”

Vajra snapped her fingers in recognition. “That’s right! Arabella is giving her presentation this week, isn’t she? Can’t wait to see it. Brilliant girl.”

Gale couldn’t help but crack a smile of pride at that. “That she is. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve emails to check, and woefully neglected students to respond to.”

He slipped into his office and closed the door behind him before Vajra could say anything else. Perhaps it was rude, his abrupt departure; but the longer the conversation stretched on, the more it made his brain itch with a prominent desire to flee the building. It wasn’t until he was seated comfortably in his chair that he pulled up his email account on his phone and discovered a message from Miri to his personal inbox.

Excited about tonight? the subject line read.

His heart pounded as he opened it, but he was not remotely prepared for the contents. He was distantly aware this was not something he should be opening on campus Wi-Fi, and at least had the presence of mind to switch to mobile data before continuing.

Thought you might like a preview, the text body said. There were pictures attached, loading painfully slowly on his mobile connection, and he watched them appear on his screen with rapt, hungry attention.

The first one was relatively tame. She was dressed in ripped jeans and a dark grey crop top, hair messy in her bed as she posed with her thumb hooked in the waistband of her trousers.

The second one had her slowly tugging her shirt up, the swell of her bare breasts barely visible and tantalizing beneath the bottom of the fabric.

The third one captured her shirtless on her stomach, the curve of her still clothed arse on prominent display in the camera angle. His mouth went dry with the renewed realization he would have her all to himself tonight.

The fourth picture sent his blood racing downwards fast enough to leave him lightheaded. She'd removed her trousers, posed bare-chested on her back with one hand slipped down the front of her lacy black underwear. Thinking of you 😘, the caption read.

The next one featured a similar stage of undress, but her hand had very clearly been busy beneath the flimsy fabric of her lingerie, and her head was tipped back with an expression of bliss. His vision swam at the sight, his trousers painfully tight around his achingly hard cock.

He needed to put this down. There were too many things on his schedule to be distracted like this — at work no less — even as his fingers itched to take himself in hand.

The final photo broke his resolve. It was a close-up shot of her face, her fingers in her mouth, traces of her slick still visible where her knuckles touched cherry red lips. He palmed at his cock with a hitch of breath as he remembered the way she'd tasted on his tongue, bitter salt and earthy musk. Just a scant few hours and she would be in his arms, his hands on her skin, her lips against his. It made him lightheaded again, and he slowly caved and unzipped his trousers beneath his desk. He could be quick. Surely he'd remembered to lock the door.

He closed his fingers around his cock with a hiss, hard to aching already, moisture beading shamefully at the tip. He imagined it was her hand, swirled his thumb around the head and pictured her kneeling between his legs. Gods, to have her tucked beneath his desk during a meeting, he fantasized with a thrill down his spine. Her mouth warming his cock, her slender fingers curled around the base of it. He spat in his hand and gripped his cock again, pumped slowly as he lost himself in the fantasy. Of the pretty little whimpers she would make with his hand in her hair. The way she would open her throat as he forced her down.

Was it simply that her presence was a balm to his own loneliness? Or was it the control he craved? Oh, but that thought sent a fresh wave of longing through his limbs. He thought about the way she fought back just enough to let him feel like he'd gotten the upper hand. The way she played his wants and needs like a violin until he was a helpless passenger in his own body, and even still, the rush of power that came with wrenching her to her knees. He increased the speed of his hand and fought to keep his breathing under control. Liquid pleasure pooled out from his core, heat and friction and raw, unfiltered want, so thick he could practically taste it in the back of his throat.

“Shit, Miri,” he whispered against the sound of his labored breathing and the wet slap of flesh where his fist met his groin. She was a siren in disguise, pure desire made flesh.

She was everything.

He came suddenly and without warning as a flash of dizzying pleasure heralded messy spurts of cum across the bottom of his shirt, the front of his trousers, and all over his hand. He slumped in his seat, suddenly hit with the searing realization of what he'd just done, only for a brisk knock on his door to startle him back to his senses.

And then, to his sudden horror, the door opened.

Gale discreetly wiped his hands on his trousers and focused all of his willpower on simply not panicking. “Rolan!” he said brightly. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

Rolan frowned. “I, uh, was supposed to meet with you about switching lab sections so I could fit that work-study program into my schedule this semester?”

Right. It was Friday. He had meetings scheduled today. Fucking hells. “Er, yes,” he said awkwardly. “Forgive me, the time must have gotten away from me. I'm, erm, afraid I'm not feeling myself today.”

“Right,” Rolan said slowly. He withdrew a folder from his bag and pulled a form out of it to hand over. “As far as I'm aware, according to the online listings, both of your sections have an odd number right now, so if nothing else has changed this should even out the teams anyway…”

Gale gingerly took the form from Rolan and prayed desperately that he'd adequately cleaned his hand. His head was spinning, the overwhelming panic in his throat threatening to unseat his sanity entirely. He pretended to scan the paper, though he could hardly focus on the minutiae of schedule changes with so many thoughts and feelings blaring through his mind at once. “Yes, this should be fine,” he said as he scribbled his signature at the bottom without actually reading it. “You can submit this to the registrar. Or I can, if you'd like.”

Rolan was watching him with an odd, searching expression that made his heart hammer violently in his chest. Did Rolan know, somehow? Or suspect something, at the very least? He’d been at the gala, seen Miri on Gale’s arm, and honestly, who in their right mind would actually want to go out with him of all people? Had this entire endeavor been a colossal mistake from the start?

A rustle of paper interrupted his spiraling as Rolan took the form back and shook his head politely. “I'm headed past that way on my way to the library anyway,” he said hastily. “Is that all I need?”

“I believe so,” Gale said faintly.

“Erm, alright then.” Rolan tucked the form back into the folder and put it away. “Suppose I’ll see you Monday, Dr. Dekarios.”

“Likewise,” Gale said.

And then Rolan was gone, and all that Gale had left around him was stifling silence and burning shame.

He took a deep, steadying breath, waited a few more beats, listening intently for footsteps down the hall before leaping to his feet and locking the door. He was gripped with a sudden urge to cackle hysterically as he made his way back to his desk, staring at his ruined clothing in despair. Oh, gods, what had he done?

He did his best with a bottle of water and a damp handkerchief, furtively keeping an eye on the time with his calendar app open on his laptop. Finally, in a fit of frustration, he picked up his half-empty cup of lukewarm coffee and promptly dumped it into his lap. He cursed as it soaked into the carpet beneath his chair, as he realized just how much he didn’t think this course of action through. His office was bound to smell like stale coffee for days now.

Still, the coffee stain seemed to have done what he wanted and disguised the suspiciously shaped damp patches across his clothing, and after he unloaded an entire box of tissues onto the puddle on his carpet, he steeled himself for a humiliating walk to the faculty restroom. For pitying looks, concerned faces. He knew what people said about him these days, after all.

Poor Dr. Dekarios, he just hasn’t been the same since Dr. Everett died.

I heard he didn’t leave his apartment for almost two months this summer.

The new dean probably didn’t even expect him to come back in the fall after he left her.

He hated the way people treated him like he was made of brittle glass now. Like he had a bomb nestled in his chest and one wrong word or glance would set him off for good. The worst part was, maybe they were right. Maybe he was losing his mind. Sometimes he wondered if the best parts of himself had snapped off when Tara died, if they’d followed her into the grave and left the rest of him behind to languish in the dirt until his own pitiful time came to an end.

After all, he'd just doused himself in coffee on purpose to hide the evidence of his own blatant indiscretions.

It scared him to examine too closely sometimes, the depths of his own depravity when it came to Miri. She stoked a fire in him he didn't always recognize, and maybe that should have given him pause when dealing with her, but there was something magnetic about her that made him crave her like a drug in her absence. Made him forget the flow of rational thought, made him believe for a few fleeting moments at a time that perhaps anything was possible. In this bleak reality he woke up to every morning, she was the first thing in months that truly left him feeling alive.

And really, was that such a terrible thing in the end?

Gale didn’t meet her downstairs this time. They’d spent most of the afternoon exchanging flirtatious emails, but his responses had stopped roughly an hour ago, and Miriam began wondering, perhaps a bit irrationally, if something had gone wrong.

Her heart pounded as she paced the elevator, as she stepped off on his floor, made her way to his door with the clunk of her heeled boots echoing in the hallway. This was their night tonight, just the two of them. It surely wasn’t new territory to her — after seven years of being willing to do just about anything under the sun for the right amount of money, very little actually was — but she found herself nervous all the same as she stood in front of his door with a strange sense of trepidation she couldn’t quite find the words to name out loud.

She didn’t have to wait long. She knocked three times, and the door was already opening by the time her knuckles hit the wood on the final tap. The tantalizing smell of bread, meat, and spices hit her in the face as Gale greeted her with a brilliant smile on his face. “You’re here!” he said enthusiastically. “Come in!”

Something about his demeanor caught her completely off guard. She’d expected him to be different, knowing the two of them would be alone. To be the way he was in the elevator the last time she’d come up here with him, after his colleague’s retirement party. But instead of his usual sharp attire, he was in sweatpants, a faded t-shirt, and a dark blue apron with the Ramazith Space Telescope logo on the front, a wooden spoon balanced precariously in one hand.

“You’re … cooking,” she said.

“Of course. It won’t do to engage in any vigorous activity on an empty stomach. Besides, I haven’t had an excuse to exercise my culinary prowess in quite some time. Indulge me, if you please.”

“Oh, I’ll indulge you in whatever you like,” she murmured automatically as she leaned in to meet his lips for a kiss. He looped his free hand around her waist and tugged her to his chest, planting a soft kiss on the top of her head instead.

“I do enjoy the sound of that,” he said, lips brushing sensually against her scalp in a way that made her heart flutter in her ribcage. “I feel as though I must apologize, however,” he added as he led her to the dining table and pulled out a chair for her. “I should have asked if you had any dietary restrictions or preferences. I admit, I am … out of practice, with the art of having people over.”

Miriam tugged him towards her for another kiss. “I think,” she murmured against his lips with a smile, “that in this case you're excused from knowing the rules

He lingered there, breathing her in, cedar and lavender and longing. “That,” he whispered, “is most gratifying to hear.” He paused as the oven timer beeped. “Ah. Excuse me a moment.”

Miriam sat in her seat and watched as he bustled over to the kitchen and pulled a tray of rolls from the oven with a pleased hum. “Excellent. Glazed to perfection.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing all afternoon?” she asked.

He smiled as he set the rolls on the counter. “The anticipation of seeing you has made the rest of my day all the more bearable. Perhaps I simply wish to show you the sort of appreciation you deserve.”

“Careful,” she teased. “A girl could get addicted to this kind of treatment.”

An odd expression flickered across his features. “Would that truly be so bad?” he said softly. And then, before she could respond: “I should have asked sooner, but have you ever had lemon and rosewater tea? It’s quite popular further south. I wanted to avoid the wine this evening so we can approach our, er, after-dinner activities with clear heads. And it pairs remarkably well with the braised lamb, only I didn't think to check beforehand, so it will only be a trifle to whip up something else if it's not to your liking—” He trailed off at her silence. “Are you alright?”

Miriam blinked and realized she'd been staring at the pitcher in his hand, lost in thought. In memories of her grandmother’s favorite cold tea, of Baldurian springtime and summers in Yeshpek and all the colors of home she'd turned her back on. “Yeah, I'm…” She swallowed thickly, forced air past the lump in her throat. “That sounds lovely.”

“Are you sure? You seem—”

“Gale,” Miriam interrupted. She got up and crossed the room in brisk strides, took the pitcher from his hands and set it back down on the counter with a decisive clunk. It was suddenly very important that he stop talking. “Stop worrying, shut the fuck up, and kiss me,” she murmured. “Please.”

She grabbed the front of his shirt with both hands as he met her lips for a kiss, as his arms wrapped around her waist and drew her in, enveloped her in his warmth. The world narrowed to a pinprick, to the points of warmth between their lips and where his hands rested on her hips. And it was good: good because the way he kissed her made her head spin; because she didn't have space for loneliness when he crawled into her chest and took its place.

It was good because it was him, and that was something she was determined not to examine too closely.

So she kissed him harder. Moaned into his mouth, wedged her thigh between his legs until his breath caught at the way she brushed against his cock with gentle, insistent pressure. The last thing she wanted room for was to think.

He was just a client. He was just a client and she was just a whore, and no matter how either of them dressed it up, that was just the reality of things. The chips had fallen where they'd landed. She'd made her choices, she had to live with them, and gods damn it all, she had to fucking pull herself together.

When Gale finally pulled away to catch his breath, a brilliantly pleased smile still lingered on his lips. He touched two fingers to them gently, his eyes never leaving hers. “I take it patience isn't a particularly strong virtue of yours,” he teased.

She kissed the fingers on his lips with a cheeky grin. “Mouth like yours, I don’t think it would remain a particularly strong virtue on anyone.”

And then he pouted at her — gods spare her, a grown man in his forties and he pouted at her and somehow made it look ridiculously attractive — and tapped insistently on the counter. “Dinner first. I insist.”

Miriam opened her mouth for a snappy retort, but an audible growl from her stomach interrupted her. She pressed her lips together sheepishly. “Anything for you,” she said playfully. “Sir.”

His eyes widened briefly before he managed to compose himself, though his cheeks remained pink long after he’d schooled his features into something neutral. He cleared his throat. “To the table, then, cheeky woman. I’m right behind you.”

It was becoming increasingly clear as dinner progressed that Gale was very nervous about something. Miriam would have chalked it up to nerves in general about the fact that he'd hired her all for himself this time, but by and large his affections were freely given, without a trace of hesitation left in his touch.

The way he held her hand across the table. The way his foot brushed against hers beneath it, the way he'd let her slide her bare feet up his legs to tease his thighs apart, only to stop her just short of his cock with a firm grip to her ankle and a wicked grin that made all of her wayward thoughts momentarily screech to a halt. By the time he cleared the table, all she could think about was how his hands would feel on her. Touching her, holding her down, making her scream for him.

She didn't expect him to come back to the table with a box in his hands. It was a thing of polished wood, tied with red velvet ribbon, held together with a tiny silver latch. His hands shook slightly as he presented it to her.

“I, erm. Bought you something,” he said shakily as she lifted it from his hands. “It doesn't — you don't have to use it if you wish not to, I had only hoped — well.” He cleared his throat sheepishly. “Perhaps I shall wait until you open it to continue my hapless babbling.”

Miriam tugged the ribbon free curiously, unlatching the box with an odd feeling in her chest. She didn't know the source of her unease, only that it prickled down the base of her spine and made a rattling home in her bones as she finally opened the box.

In it, resting on a plush bed of crisp velvet, was a collar. It was a lovely thing of black leather, embossed in crimson trim with elegantly detailed red flowers around the entirety of it all connected by similarly colored vines and stems. At the center of it was a thick, sturdy looking gold ring. Miriam ran a finger across the leather with a shiver.

He'd gotten this for her.

“I see you've done your homework,” she said shakily. Her heart fluttered in her chest, arousal pooling deep in her gut at the thought of him clasping it around her neck.

“Is it … to your liking then?” he murmured.

Miriam could only nod. He stood behind her chair, reaching around her for the collar, his fingertips smoothing her hair before he brought it to her neck. His fingers trembled as he closed it around her, pulling the loop just tight enough that it felt comfortably secure. He tested the slack by slipping two fingers beneath the band, and Miriam couldn't help the shaky breath that escaped her lips as the collar briefly pulled taut against her throat.

“Lovely,” Gale murmured. “Gods, you're beautiful. Especially like this.” He cupped her cheek with his palm, his thumb caressing softly against her jaw. “Does this please you?” he said softly. “Being at my mercy?”

There was still the slightest tremor in his voice that betrayed his own nervousness, but Miriam barely noticed it over the roar of her own heartbeat. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Yes what?”

Miriam swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

He ran affectionate fingers through her hair. “Good girl,” he said. “Safe word?”

Miriam slogged through the haze coating her thoughts. He really had done his homework. “Hope,” she said thickly.

But he just gathered a handful of her hair and tugged gently, just enough to make her breath catch. “Again,” he directed. “Louder.”

“Hope,” she repeated. Her eyes fluttered closed as his fingertips dug softly into her scalp. Her skin felt electrified at his touch.

“So obedient tonight,” he murmured. “Pretty thing. Was that all it took to tame you? Collaring you like a pet?”

“Why?” she managed with a grin. “Am I making it too easy?”

The truth was, he was making it too easy. Every caress overwhelmed her senses like a live wire. She wanted him, craved him, and in this moment she needed his touch like she needed air to breathe. She pushed against his hands to stand and was rewarded with a rough yank to the front of her collar as Gale threaded his fingers through the metal hoop. “So that's how you want it,” he said softly, his tone oddly close to reverent. He pulled on her collar again and dragged her out of her seat and onto the floor.

She fell to her knees with a surprised yelp. He hovered for a moment, expression torn between helping her up and letting her flounder. Then he grabbed her by the hair and pressed her face against his thighs. She responded with a groan as she mouthed at his cock through his sweatpants, already stiff with desire against her cheeks. “Good girl,” he breathed. He slipped the waist of his sweatpants down and freed his cock from its confines. “Open your mouth.”

Miriam only responded with a cheeky smile. “Make me,” she whispered.

He was crouched in front of her in a flash, hand around her throat, a dark glint in his eyes as he squeezed with the barest amount of pressure. “I said open your mouth.”

When she shook her head stubbornly, he pinched her nose closed with his other hand as he rose to his feet again, and the moment she opened her mouth to gasp for breath he shoved himself roughly between her lips. “There,” he groaned. “Isn't that better?”

Miriam heaved in a desperate breath when he pulled out, a string of saliva stretching messily from the tip of his cock to her lower lip. There was an uncomfortable itch in her mind, a note of warning born from the lingering hurts of bitterer days, but she tamped it down as quickly as it arose and let him thrust back into her mouth without complaint. On the third thrust she tightened her lips and swiped her tongue across the underside of his shaft, and on the fourth she gagged as he held her by the hair and pushed her nose against the curls at the base of his cock. Her throat fought her attempts to relax this time, so caught up in the electric jolt of arousal and fear that she couldn't seem to will her body into doing what she wanted it to.

He pulled out and held her upright as she coughed and gasped for air. “Shame,” he tutted. “Surely you aren't losing your touch already.”

Something bristled inside her, something jagged for which she had no name. “Fuck you,” she spat.

She was rewarded with a tentative slap to her cheek. “Try again,” Gale said.

There was that flicker in his eyes, that brief unspoken question from earlier as he waited, either for her to goad him further, or for her to back out. She jutted her chin out smugly in challenge. “Put some backbone into that swing next time—”

She'd barely gotten the words out when he slapped her again, harder this time, a stinging blow to her face that made her ears ring and cast her unruly thoughts asunder entirely as she dropped to her hands in surprise.

He kicked off a slipper and nudged her chin upward with his bare foot. “Try. Again.”

Her head was spinning. Her dripping cunt ached. She closed her eyes and chased his foot with her cheek, noting his hitch of breath somewhere in the back of her mind as she pressed her lips to his ankle. She trailed worshipful kisses down the top of his foot, only vaguely aware of the way his tendons moved beneath his skin as her lips mapped every exposed inch. “I'm sorry,” she mumbled automatically.

He nudged her with his toes again. “You're sorry…?”

“I'm sorry, sir,” Miriam mouthed mechanically against his ankle. It was a heady rush, the way all she wanted was to please him, to make him cum and then spend the night at his feet in a pleasant haze. She didn't have to think, didn't have to do anything but feel, and the only thing she truly craved was the feeling of his hands on her skin, the feeling of his cock inside her.

“Sit back on your heels. Hands at your side.” He gave her an appraising look as she followed his instructions. Inspecting her, like a prized toy for sale. It was as horribly degrading as it was arousing, and for a single shivering moment she wondered if she'd bitten off more than she could handle. If this night would touch too many old wounds, if she would drown in resentment and regret the way she used to. Her safe word dangled in the back of her throat.

No. Miriam swallowed her hesitation in a moment of bitter clarity. She thought about desperation and the way it made a mockery of choice. She'd gotten this far; she certainly wasn't about to scare him off ten minutes in. So she took a steadying breath and did as she was told. Steadfastly ignored the way her skin crawled under his gaze, the way anger rose up beneath it, because it was so fucking stupid the way nothing in her life had truly been hers for so very long.

She was going to make this hers.

Gale leaned his weight on the table with affected disinterest as he trailed a foot up her thigh. “Knees apart.”

Miriam obeyed that command too, even as she resisted the urge to clench her fists against the anxiety fighting for real estate somewhere in her chest. It wasn’t until he dipped his toes between her legs, until she heard his hum of approval upon discovering just how wet she was, that she finally managed to think about something other than her discomfort. He pressed experimentally against her clit, and she did clench her fists this time with the spike of hot arousal that flooded her at his touch.

“Interesting,” he mused. Casual, calm, as though he were discussing a particularly fascinating museum exhibit. “You were born for this, weren’t you? To be put on display. To be admired.”

Her cheeks burned as she squeezed her eyes shut and nodded. The more he touched her, the less her past seemed to matter, the easier it was to lose herself in the cadence of his voice despite the way his words dug beneath her skin like barbs.

“Admit it,” he said. His foot dug into her disdainfully as he spoke, and when she opened her mouth to respond, her breath caught in her throat.

“Yes,” she supplied softly.

“Be specific.”

“I was born to be put on display,” she repeated. There was something about saying it out loud that sent a shiver down her spine, that blurred the lines between fear and arousal into something she could finally appreciate. Whatever it was, she was grateful for it.

He withdrew his foot and rested it on her knee. “Clean your mess,” he said.

She didn’t hesitate this time, taking his ankle between her hands and lifting his toes delicately into her mouth. She tasted herself on him, and beneath her own musk, the faintest hint of soap. She took a moment to admire how well-manicured his feet were, how soft, how immaculately clean. How thoroughly had he planned this?

Too soon, he withdrew his foot and stepped back into his slipper with a pleased hum. He squatted down to her level and hooked his fingers into the ring of her collar. “Who do you belong to,” he whispered, “when you wear this?”

His face was close, so painfully close she could hardly breathe, but she didn’t dare claim his lips for a kiss. Not yet. “You,” she croaked.

He smiled softly, the disdain slipping from his features for a brief, suspended moment as his eyes crinkled at the corners. “Good girl,” he breathed.

And then he kissed her, rough and needy, one hand cradling the back of her head and tangled in her hair, the other yanking her against him by the collar. Miriam lost herself in it all. She thought then, dimly through the haze of lust clouding her wits to static and silence, that perhaps — just this once — she didn’t have to be afraid.

Gale wondered if he would ever have the vocabulary at his disposal to describe the way it felt to have Miri in his arms. The bathroom was coated in a haze of fragrant steam scented with jasmine oil this time. The water was pleasantly warm.

“Would you let me wash your hair?” he blurted out.

Miri snorted. “Why? Did you get cum in it?”

He frowned, suddenly paranoid. “Gods, I certainly hope not. I don't think — that is, I didn't see…”

She twisted around with a cheeky smile. “Relax, I'm joking. I have a gel cleanser for that in my bag anyway.”

“I—” Gale paused. “Of course you do.”

“What!” she protested. “It's a bitch to get out, especially if there's a lot of it—”

He gently clapped a hand over her mouth. “Shh,” he teased. “Don't you know it's rude to talk about other people's emissions when you're entangled with someone in a rather intimate position such as this?”

Miriam burst into laughter and shrugged out of his grasp. Her eyes glimmered with mischief. “Emissions? What is this, the seventeenth century?”

How did she manage to make him feel so off kilter when only a half-hour earlier he was dictating her every move with razor sharp specificity? The duality of it made his head spin. “An odd take from someone with an equally diverse vocabulary,” he said, smiling in spite of himself.

“Diverse, huh?”

“You have a wonderful way with words.”

She tipped her head back against his chest and sank deeper into the bath until the only thing above water was her head, eyes closed, a pleased expression on her face. “Coming from you that's extra complimentary,” she said.

“Why do I get the feeling you just insulted me somehow?”

“The answer is yes, by the way,” she said sleepily. She opened one eye and squinted at him with a grin. “You can wash my hair if you want. Whatever gets you off and all that.”

Gale felt his cheeks heat up again. “Must it all be for the sake of sexual gratification?”

“Mm. It can be whatever you want, really.” Miriam ran her palm down his thigh with a surprisingly reassuring squeeze. “Will it please you?”

She had an interesting habit of throwing his own words back at him at unexpected moments that constantly caught him off guard. “I … yes, I believe it will,” he said, rather stupidly.

“Okay.” She shrugged. “Get to it, then.”

The frankness of that statement was adorable, and he gave a surprised laugh. “That’s all it took?”

She opened her eyes and made a face. “Do you second-guess everything in your life this much, or is it just me? I’m beginning to wonder how you ever made it through grad school.”

Her barbs would have made him bristle coming from anyone else, but her words lacked any real bite, instead coated in a lighthearted fondness that made his heart stir in his chest. He ran his hands across her shoulders, fingertips delicate across soap-slick skin. He wondered for an absurd moment if she were even real, or if this entire evening had simply been a mad hallucination on the tail-end of a week that had somehow, finally, broken him beyond repair.

Oblivious to his crisis, Miriam plugged her ears with her fingers and dunked her head under the water to wet her hair. When she resurfaced, he lathered his shampoo against her scalp and let his mind wander. When was the last time he’d shared a moment like this with anyone? Years ago with Ariel, maybe. Before Kell’s death both made her a widow and injected a shred of plausibility to their relationship going public a respectful amount of months later. Before the very thing that made their engagement possible also set them on a path from which neither of them would return.

He hadn’t understood, then. He began to think that, after Tara, perhaps he understood Ariel a little more; but he’d gone and cocked that up himself with his own helpless wallowing, hadn’t he? All she’d wanted from him in the end was his trust, his confidence. His presence. And he’d shut down so thoroughly he couldn’t even bring himself to remain in the same room with her for long, much less say Tara’s name aloud. It was a particularly hard pill to swallow, the knowledge that — in the end — the only one responsible for for his ultimate fate was him.

“Mmm,” Miriam groaned as he gently rubbed little circles into her scalp. “Gods, that feels good. You’ve got magic in your fingers.”

“It doesn't hurt that you're a delight to touch,” he said quietly. The words came out more maudlin-sounding than he'd intended.

“Gale?” Miriam sat up and faced him. Her expression was more open than he'd ever seen it before; he was certain of it. She reached out and cradled his cheek in her hand. “Hey. Are you okay?”

“I am,” he said softly. “Better, now that you're here.”

The admission made him feel uncomfortably small. But the look she gave him was one of genuine concern as she straddled his lap and gathered him to her chest for a warm embrace. She kissed him before he could collect his wits fully, before he could thoroughly process the consequences of revealing to her just how much power she had over him.

It couldn't be healthy, he thought dimly as her kiss deepened, as she rolled her hips in a sensuous rocking motion that had his cock stirring beneath her again. She held onto him like she needed him, like he meant something to her, and he knew that couldn't be true. No matter how badly he wanted it.

He dragged his palms down her back, traced the ridges of her spine, the dip and curve of her arse as he cupped her cheeks and spread them roughly with a groan. “Temptress,” he murmured against her lips with a smile. “Haven't you been ravaged enough tonight?”

“I don't see you telling me to stop,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper.

The soft gasp that slipped from her mouth when he took one of her nipples in his mouth was all the encouragement he needed to gently thrust his cock between her thighs. He closed his eyes and lost himself in the fantasy that this was more than what it could ever be, and when she sank onto his cock with a low groan, he tightened his fingers on her arse with a possessive grip.

“Fuck,” she whispered as she wrapped her arms around his neck. She was so warm, so pliable, so perfect in his grasp. The water cradled them both as she took him to the root, her every motion deliberate and agonizingly slow. He watched the rhythm of her breath as she rocked gently against him. He mapped with his lips the bruises and bites he’d left scattered across her freckled chest. On a wild impulse, he scraped his teeth against one of them, and the sound she made against his ear nearly undid him on its own.

“Did you like that?” he whispered.

Miriam nodded as she planted feverish kisses on his neck. “Again,” she groaned.

He obliged, lingering longer with his teeth this time, and was rewarded with an unrestrained moan. Was she still acting? The way she seemed to take her pleasure in his lap certainly seemed real enough. There was a delightful flush across her face, and when she leaned against him again he pressed his face to her chest where he could hear the rapid-fire fluttering of her heart.

He slipped a hand between them to circle her clit with his thumb. The angle was awkward, and he was sure to end up with a hand cramp if he kept this up for long, but when her breath caught in her throat, he thought it may very well be worth the risk.

“Gale,” she groaned into the crook of his neck, forehead slick with the remnants of shampoo lather dripping from her hair. Her movements grew more insistent. “Oh, fuck, Gale, please—”

“That’s it, my love,” he murmured deliriously. “What do you need?”

“You. Gods, just you.”

Did she know what she did to him? The effect her words had on him? Gods, just you. Three words and something in him flared to life with all the intensity of a roaring inferno. It was as though he'd been floundering in a fog his entire life, and now, suddenly, the sky was clear for the first time.

It wasn't anything. It couldn't be anything.

How well do you know her? Ariel had said in Vajra and Samark’s kitchen. How quickly did you give your heart away?

He didn't want to think about that question. He held her tightly by the hips, his fingers digging insistently into her skin as she rode him, breathless, water splashing carelessly over the side of the bathtub. He couldn't bring himself to care. He pressed his cheek to her chest, breathed her in, lost himself in the sound of her heartbeat and the tantalizing heat of her skin. “Miri,” he murmured. Her name tasted like ambrosia on his lips. “Will you touch yourself for me, love?”

“Fuck, yes,” Miri gasped. She wasted no time slipping two fingers between her folds, stroking herself in time to each thrust. Her breathing grew labored, her movements erratic. His floor was sure to be a massive puddle by the time everything was said and done, but none of it mattered. Nothing mattered but Miri and the utter madness she drew out of his chest. “Gale,” Miri whimpered. Her free hand, the one she wasn't using to rub at herself in a stuttered and needy rhythm, was latched onto his shoulder in a grip that bordered on painful. She clung to him with a raving sort of desperation as she rode him, as she panted and chased her orgasm, and good gods but she was a welcome sight. Face flushed, chest heaving, head tipped back with eyes squeezed close in rapture.

He didn't think he'd ever seen anything more beautiful.

“Dammit,” she said suddenly. She laughed, ungraceful and genuine.

“What?”

Miri wiped helplessly at her face. “I got shampoo in my fucking eye.”

It was almost two in the morning by the time they finished mopping the bathroom floor, distracted as they'd gotten halfway through when Miri had leaned against the sink, her tantalizing arse an inviting display. Gale had taken his pleasure from her there, fucking her from behind, one hand braced against the sink beside her, the other closed gently around her throat, braced against the bottom of her jaw. And Miri seemed to welcome it all, to his amazement and delight. It made his head spin, the way she responded to his roughness. The way he responded to indulging in it.

He spent inside of her, lapped it out of her with barely restrained eagerness, and kissed it into her mouth, and she never once flinched away. If anything, the taste of him on her tongue only spurred her on further as she swallowed his cum with a wanton moan. He brought her to the brink with his fingers over and over again until she was a writhing, helpless mess gloriously trapped between his body and the bathroom counter.

“Beg,” he growled into her ear, thumb poised against her clit with just enough pressure to make her whine in desperation.

“Please,” she whispered hoarsely. She wasn’t even in the collar anymore and she was still at his mercy, he thought with a wild thrill. Still obedient. Still his.

“Convince me.” He crooked his fingers forward with just enough pressure to make her thrash, as much as she could with the way his weight had her pinned in place.

“Please,” she repeated desperately. “Please don’t leave me like this, please, I’ll do anything—”

Wasn’t that a lovely thought? Anything. He’d never wanted anything so badly in his life. There was a feral neediness in her eyes when she met his gaze, lust-dark and full of gathering tears. He brushed his lips against her cheeks in turn, felt her breath catch at the tenderness. When she came this time, he swallowed her cries with his mouth, slow and sweet, luxuriating in the way she relaxed in his arms and still kept kissing him.

Kissing him like he meant something beyond what he could give her.

It wasn’t until they were curled up together in his bed, finally spent and exhausted and languishing at the very brink of sleep, that he finally gave voice to the question that had been burning a hole in his throat all evening.

“Miri?” he murmured.

“Hmm?” She was tucked into his arms, her back against his chest, their legs tangled together in an affectionate embrace.

“Would you be averse to making this a regular arrangement?”

She laughed, but there was no malice or ridicule in it. It was a soft, breathy sound of delight as she turned awkwardly within their current position to face him. The moonlight through the balcony window illuminated the greens and golds of her irises as she kissed him, yet another out of so many she’d given tonight, somehow still so full of promise. “Of course, love,” she said softly. “Gladly. We can work out the details in the morning, if you’d like.”

He held her closer. Breathed her in, cradled her to his chest as though she would vanish if he even dared to look away. “I would,” he whispered. “I would like that very much.”

The autumn wind blowing in off of the sea was crisp and bracing. Miriam leaned on the balcony and watched the sunset glow cast its spread of color across the water. Marponeth had well and truly arrived, and with it, the heralding chill of winter to come.

Waterdhavians, she'd long learned, did not give a fuck about the cold. The locals were people who cheerfully buried one another in the snow on Midwinter's Eve and were thus wholly undeterred by a bit of wind and icy water. The beaches were less crowded than they were in the summer when the city was packed with tourists, but there were enough people down there to make for a lovely scene when idly people watching from the eighteenth floor.

It was a lovely Friday afternoon with a brilliantly clear sky. She had a key to Gale’s apartment now. If his day had gone according to schedule, he would be home soon.

They'd settled into a rhythm of weekly meetings. She’d shown up early last week, and he’d been so delighted at the prospect of coming home to find her waiting for him that he’d given her a key the next day and requested that she do so every week from then on. And she certainly didn’t mind that at all, with his fancy bathtub and plush bed and the most gorgeous ocean view she’d ever laid eyes on.

She ran a finger across the collar around her neck and shivered. It was an oddly comforting weight for the implications of the thing. Between Gale's regular patronage, her Thursdays at Blush House, and a handful of pickup jobs she'd gotten through Aletha after her weekly bondage nights rapidly became a success, she’d even paid her Marpenoth bill to Raphael ahead of schedule. She knew better than to count any situation as a sure thing by now, but there was something stabilizing about wearing Gale's collar every week that quieted her mind in a way very few things ever had.

It was nothing like the last time she'd worn a collar designated for her and her alone.

Tell me about Enver Gortash, Jhoysil had prompted gently once. And with great reluctance, Miriam had opened those floodgates and learned some skeletons couldn’t be reburied.

He liked mind games. Made you feel like you were on top of the world before he ripped out the rug. He got off on breaking people.

What made him choose you?

Miriam could still taste the bitterness of her laughter. Honey, I picked him.

“Gale? Let's speak a moment.”

Gale had half a mind to keep walking when he heard Ariel's voice call out through the open door of her office. She'd been trying to corner him into a conversation all day, but he'd always conveniently had somewhere to be. Until now. He closed his eyes and briefly imagined a world in which the only way out of this wing of the building didn't require him to walk by her office. He was beginning to regret the way he'd adhered so religiously to his online calendar lately.

He wouldn't have put it past her to have checked it, set her schedule accordingly, and left her door open on purpose.

“Can we make it quick?” he said irritably as he stepped into Ariel's office. He could have walked away, of course, but he'd never been very good at letting things be. “I have someplace to be.”

“Do you, now.” Ariel eyed him with an uncomfortably knowing look. “I will attempt to be brief. Sit.”

“No, thank you,” Gale said.

Ariel shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She frowned. “It's come to my attention you still plan to accompany Tennora to the observatory in Suzail in two weeks for the next phase of the Aghairon project.”

“You say this like you haven't had the proposal timeline in your hands for months now,” he said. “I fail to see how your negligence is my problem.”

She narrowed her eyes at the jab but didn't comment on it. “Do you plan on making a drive to the cemetery in Eveningstar while you're there?”

Gale stiffened. “What business is it of yours?”

“I am merely inquiring about your well being. Nothing more.”

He bristled. “Bit late for that, isn't it?”

Ariel only pursed her lips thoughtfully. Infuriatingly unflappable as always. “Are you still seeing that woman from Neverwinter?” she asked after a moment of silence. “Mireya, was it?”

“Surely you didn't call me in here to talk about my personal life,” Gale said sharply.

“No,” Ariel agreed. “I called you here to talk about your trip to Suzail. And to remind you the committee will understand if you send someone else in your stead.”

Gale gritted his teeth. “I assure you, the sentiment is appreciated but not necessary. I am perfectly capable of fulfilling my professional obligations without being coddled like a child.”

“There is no shame in needing more time to grieve.”

The silence that followed her statement was downright oppressive. Gale didn’t know what to say to that, didn’t particularly want to even think on it long enough to try. There was an uncomfortable tightness taking root in his chest that he refused to acknowledge.

“If that is all, I think we’re done here,” he said finally. He would have missed the way Ariel flinched at his tone if he hadn’t had years of practice spotting her tells.

“Very well,” she said. “Have a good weekend, Dr. Dekarios.”

Gale left without responding. He couldn't help but wonder as he strode into the blinding afternoon sunlight if he hadn't just proven her point.

Ariel lingered in his thoughts the entire drive home. It was infuriating, the way she still took up space in his heart after everything. He still caught himself watching her sometimes, was still captivated by the deliberate way she navigated the world with careful intent in every motion. She kept her hands pristinely manicured at all times: dexterous, silk-soft fingers and shimmering acrylic nails. He could still feel those hands tangled in the front of his shirt sometimes. Could recall he way her collected demeanor fell apart when they were alone, the way she'd smiled at him once upon a time. The way she'd have bent heaven and hell once to find her way back into his arms.

Loathe as he was to admit it to himself, he'd be a liar if he said he didn't miss what they'd had.

Tara hadn't exactly been fan of their relationship, but she'd been friendly enough with Ariel on her own terms. Arguably had come to care for Ariel after Kell’s death, in her own endearingly abrasive way. He couldn't help but wonder what she would say if she could see the way things had played out.

He then shuddered to think of what Tara would have to say to him if she saw him in his current state.

He was well and truly frazzled by the time he reached his door, and he'd all but forgotten what day it was until he opened it and found Miri waiting for him on the couch.

The sight of her took his breath away, the weight of his own world falling askew in the face of her presence. She was draped in his robe, the one made of purple silk and silver embroidery. It was far too big for her and sat askew on her freckled shoulders, leaving one completely bare and just barely covering her chest. “Hey,” she said with a grin. “Miss me?”

“Always,” he said.

The collar dangled lazily from her fingers as she unfolded herself from the cushions and strode across the living room to greet him. He set his bag down as she planted soft kisses on his lips, his cheeks, and his jaw before stepping back with a satisfied smile. “Here.” She held the collar out. “Thought you might want to do the honors again.”

“Getting started right away today, are we?” he breathed as she tilted her head up to give him space to buckle the collar beneath her chin.

“What can I say?” she murmured. “Maybe I’m getting something nice out of this too.”

The strap slid into place. Gale hooked his thumb into the neckline of his robe and tugged it gently from her shoulders where it fell into a silky pool at her feet and revealed absolutely nothing underneath. “You minx,” he said softly. “How long have you been lounging in my clothes without your underthings?”

Miri flicked her eyes to the clock on his mantle with the hint of a crooked grin peeking out onto her lips. “About thirty-six minutes now,” she said. She grabbed his wrist and slowly brought his hand between her legs. “You’re late today, you know,” she whispered. “I’ve been thinking about you. The things you do to me.”

Gale exhaled shakily as he dipped his fingers into her slit and found her wet and wanting already. “Naughty girl,” he murmured. “Have you been touching yourself without my permission?”

“That depends.” Her eyes didn’t leave his as she pressed his fingers against her slick flesh and ground wantonly into his touch.

“On?”

“On what the consequences are.” Those last words were uttered so quietly he’d have hardly caught them if his eyes weren’t glued to her face, his gaze drifting down to those pretty, perfect lips. He yanked his hand out of her grip and pressed his fingers into her mouth. It was familiar now, the feeling of her tongue against his fingers, licking and swirling and sucking with eager, reckless abandon, and yet each time they met he felt birthed anew by the fire of her touch.

“You want consequences, do you?” Gods, what had he done to deserve finding this woman? She filled him with a want so dizzying it bordered on obscene. She made him forget about everything else. Everyone else. The world narrowed to a pinprick with her at its center. “As you wish.” He twisted a handful of her hair in his hand and nudged her downward. “Kneel.”

“And what, exactly, am I paying for?” she murmured. And there it was again that spark of challenge in her eyes that ignited molten heat between his legs.

“Do you think me blind?” He shoved her to the floor, hand still gripped tightly at her scalp. “Greeting me wearing hardly anything at all, positively dripping from your cunt like a whore in heat.”

The words felt harsh and foreign in his mouth as they slipped out on impulse, and he felt himself recoil the moment he said them, but Miri only exhaled shakily, breathing uneven. Her face was flushed when she looked up at him in wide-eyed surprise. Gods, what a pretty picture she made at his feet.

He nudged at her backside with his boot, perhaps a little more roughly than necessary. “Upstairs. Now.” And then, when she made to stand: “No. Hands and knees only, until you learn the meaning of the word restraint.”

And when she did, oh, the way it made his head spin and his throat go dry. This beautiful force of a woman, obeying his commands. He wondered idly as he followed her up to the loft if there were anything else in the world quite like it.

Miriam hadn't, in fact, laid a hand on herself save for a small application of lubricant to prepare, but she needn't have bothered. If she weren't already wet from the start, she certainly would have been after Gale's stern lecture on restraint. His cock was already visibly bulging in his trousers when he sent her to her knees; by the time she settled on the floor at the foot of his bed she didn't even need to see him to know he was gloriously hard to aching.

It was madness, the way she hardly even had to try with him. She certainly wasn't going to pick apart her reasons for wearing the damn collar all morning by herself, only to take it off before he got home and have him put it back on. Fucking this man had quickly become the highlight of her week, after all. What was the harm in a little bit of fun?

And he clearly put thought into his activities; every time she came, he seemed to have added a new toy to his collection. Today's prop was a delicious leather flogger, the tails of which were currently kissing the dip of her shoulders. She shivered in anticipation as she kept her eyes trained on the floor in front of her, as she watched him circle her appraisingly in her peripheral vision.

“Shall we begin with ten lashes?” he suggested casually, as composed as though he were discussing the weather. “I think we will. Let's see if you can weather it without a sound.”

Excitement churned in her belly. She nodded.

“Thank me.”

“Thank you, sir,” she murmured. Her skin was on fire with the need to be touched.

“On the bed then, hands and knees.”

She did as he asked, bracing her weight on her wrists. How hard could he really hit anyway?

The first strike was firm, with a pleasant sting. So was the second and third, and she'd just relaxed into her position when the flogger whipped through the air and struck her skin with enough force to jolt her forward. She barely bit back her gasp of surprise as sharp, stinging pain bloomed across her arse.

He chuckled and smoothed his palm against the pain. “Oh, we're just getting started, pet.”

Pet. She bit her lip and breathed through the fresh wave of arousal that swept across her at his words. His tone. His demeanor.

Five, six, seven, eight in rapid succession. She'd weathered worse, even if her eyes were beginning to water, her breathing quickening with every blow.

The ninth whipped across the back of her thighs, and she collapsed onto her elbows with a surprised yelp.

“Oh, you were so close,” he crooned. “You poor thing.” He punctuated his words with a rough pinch to the back of her leg, and she barely stifled a whimper into her fist. “I think we'll add ten more for that.”

The next ten were relentless, alternating sides across her arse and thighs without a single break in between. By the time the onslaught ended, she was gritting her teeth to hold back her cries, fingers white knuckled against the sheets. It wasn't until he smoothed his hands against the ache with a pleased hum that the dam broke and a moan slipped out against her forearm.

Gale chuckled and swiped his fingers across her folds, pulling away with a tut when she involuntary chased his touch. “Look at you. So disgustingly wet. So desperate for the kiss of the lash.” He plunged two fingers inside of her without warning, spreading them, mercilessly stretching her hole. Miriam couldn't hold back her cry then as those long fingers penetrated her, rough and deep. Her head was spinning. She wanted more. Needed more.

“I think you can handle a little more pain,” Gale said. “Can't you, pet?”

She squeezed her eyes shut and nodded. The urge to rub her thighs together in utter desperation was overwhelming.

“Good. Because I bought you another gift, you know,” Gale said softly. “A surprise. You do so love those, don't you?”

Miriam’s chest seized up for a moment at the uncomfortably familiar cadence, at the way it dredged up a slew of unwanted memories. Her heart pounded in sudden panic.

I’ve got a surprise for you, little mouse. Raphael does so love to call you that, doesn't he? Do you know what I love so much about his little toys?

There was a scrape of leather across her skin, smaller, sharper than the flogger as it dragged across her thigh. A crop, if she had to guess. That was fine, she told herself sternly. That wasn't too bad. She knew what to expect with a crop. Liked it, even. This was doable—

She couldn't hold back her shout when it bit into the back of her leg.

It was too fast, and she was in too deep to parse out the difference between inexperience and cruelty with the way he was ramping up so quickly, not giving her nearly enough time to acclimate to the severity of each blow. Her eyes watered. She'd given up on keeping silent. If he was saying anything, it was drowned out by the ringing in her ears.

You’re all so. Very. Durable.

She was floating. She was plummeting. The duality was tearing her in two.

Gale’s hands were on her shoulders for some reason, pulling her upright. Everything was static and silence. Her body didn’t know whether to chase his touch or flinch away, and so she did neither and simply didn’t move a muscle as he eased her down onto the bed. He smoothed the hair from her face and murmured something soft in her ear.

“—that’s it,” he was saying. There was something akin to pride lighting up his face. “You did so well, my love. Oh, you took it all so beautifully.”

Miriam shivered at his sudden change in tone, at the jolting burn of arousal suddenly cutting a swath through the fog. She needed to be touched, now. “Gale,” she gasped as she clutched at his hand, dragging it between her legs again and pressing herself against his fingers. “Fucking hells, Gale, please—”

She needed to feel something. Anything.

Gale wasted no time thrusting two fingers into her cunt. “Is this what you wanted?” he murmured.

“Yes,” Miriam groaned. She pushed herself against his knuckles, and he only twisted his fingers around with a pleased hum as he slipped a third finger in and stretched her even further.

“Like this?” Gale pressed.

“Ah, fuck, Gale—” It was easier to forget the lapses when her nerves were overloaded with sensation, after all. She was weightless, a glowing beacon of endless, molten pleasure wrapped around the pleasant burn of his fingers spreading her open.

When he added the fourth, she wondered if this was what it felt like to be consumed whole. His other hand, the one not fucked nearly all the way into her cunt, was braced roughly against her hip. He was sure to leave bruises.

Gods, she hoped he left bruises.

“Can you take all of me, I wonder?” Gale breathed. All trace of his previous demeanor had disappeared beneath the aura of quiet reverence he watched her with as his hand messily and mercilessly fucked her hole.

She was so full. The ache was overpowering, and still she wanted more. “Yes,” she moaned. “Yes, I can, Gale, please—”

She felt a brief, aching swell of pressure; and then his knuckles breached her as his entire hand slipped inside. She didn’t recognize the sound that slipped out of her mouth. “Gods, look at you,” Gale whispered. “That's it, love, fuck yourself on my fist. You were made for this.”

A special sort of madness had well and truly taken hold of her. She pushed back against his every thrust, and every ragged cry from her lips ripped itself straight out of the center of her throat. Her flesh was overstimulated and bruised and sore, but the pressing ache lingered, a tightly winding need in the very center of her, and she wondered if it would hurt less to destroy herself at his altar than it would to let him destroy her first.

“Touch yourself. Finish on my hand.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Her arms ached from holding herself up, but her cunt throbbed with a raw, hot need that demanded satisfaction, and so she braced herself up on one shaking forearm and rubbed furiously at her clit with her aching wrist; and when she finally came it was with a hoarse shout and a jolt across her senses that left her ears ringing and the tips of her limbs slightly numb. She was only partly aware of the wet sensation of him pulling out and jerking off, finishing messily across her back with a groan as she collapsed, dazed, against the sheets.

“Miri—”

“It’s alright,” she rasped immediately. Her breath hitched, and she realized with a start that she was crying. But those tears belonged to someone else, to a body that wasn’t hers to command.

Deep breaths, Jhoysil’s voice said in the back of her mind. She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly. In. Out. You don’t have to take the world on all at once.

“It’s alright,” she repeated as she opened her eyes again. Bit by bit, the shape of the world righted itself. There was a hollow sort of heaviness in the pit of her chest that she didn’t want to look in the eyes. “Gale.” She forced a smile onto her face through the tears as he fumbled with a washcloth and a bottle of water. She grabbed him by the wrist and yanked his hand to her lips for a soft kiss across his knuckles. “You did marvelously, love.”

The relief on his face was palpable even as he gathered his own composure and began to gently wipe her clean. “Oh, thank the gods,” he breathed. “I was terrified I’d really hurt you for a moment.” He brushed tears from her face with his thumbs. “Heavens, but you’re still crying,” he said softly with a frown. “Miri…”

“It happens sometimes, you know,” Miriam said softly. “Big release and everything. I’m fine. Besides.” She cradled his cheek with a grin that came far too easily to her tear-streaked face. “I would’ve told you if I weren't.”

“That is … a great relief.” He slumped against the mattress with a nervous giggle as he threaded his fingers through hers and squeezed her hand, though she couldn't tell if it was for his reassurance or hers. “Though I am presented with a different problem now, which is that I am torn between cleanup duty and simply basking in your presence.”

“Eh.” Miriam waved a careless hand. “Fuck the cleanup.” With great effort, she scooted over stiffly on the mattress and patted the space next to her in invitation. “We can do the laundry and wash the sheets tomorrow, right?”

Tomorrow. Because of course she was staying. That's what he was paying her to do. Never mind whether she wanted to or not, though it was just as well that the choice was made for her anyhow. She didn't know if she would rather hide and lick her self-inflicted wounds in peace or curl into his chest and sob out a poison she was never going to purge.

Why couldn’t she just get it the fuck together all of a sudden, she wondered desperately. Why now?

When he finally undressed fully, turned off the lights, and climbed into bed beside her, she just tugged him towards her and kissed him softly. Kissed him the way he probably deserved to be kissed outside of this strange space they shared, this soft hearted man with the surprisingly firm touch who hadn’t the faintest idea how far she was slipping. He opened to her eagerly, and she gently drew his lower lip between her teeth. He tasted like the sweetest things she could have had in another life.

“How the tables have turned,” he murmured when he finally drew back for air.

“Cryptic of you.” Miriam brushed her nose against his with a teasing smile. “What’s on your mind?”

Gale studied her with a pensive expression. He propped himself up on one elbow and brushed the hair from her eyes with the side of his hand before deftly unbuckling her collar with one hand and setting it gently on the nightstand. “Only my utmost admiration,” he said finally. He slung an arm around her waist and kissed her again without elaborating.

She deepened the kiss, pulled him on top of her, wrapped her legs around his waist and urged him further when she felt the weight of his cock hardening against her stomach. Everything hurt, inside and out, soreness and heartache and a thousand questions that would never see the light of day, but still she coaxed him forward, slipped a hand between them and guided him into her with a satisfied sigh.

He fucked her differently in the dark. She could admit that, at least. There was something oddly compelling about the picture it all made.

Gale's anxieties fell away when Miri greeted him at his front door. “I hope you didn't mind me showing up early,” she said as he wrapped his arms around her in relief. “I know things are a little different this weekend, but…”

He ran his fingers curiously through her damp hair, currently dyed the same color as the wig she normally wore out with him. “When did this happen?”

“About two hours ago. Figured it would be easier than juggling a wig all weekend.” She frowned. “Shit. You hate it.”

“No!” he exclaimed. “No, of course not.” He brushed a stray lock behind her ear. “You're beautiful. I don't think there's a thing you could do to diminish that.”

“Careful,” Miri murmured. She wrapped her arms around his waist and affectionately stuffed her hands into his back pockets. “Keep saying shit like that, people might think you like me.”

“Mmm, would that be so bad?” He ran his thumb along her lower lip, currently stained a dusky pink. He found himself missing her freckles already. “I hear actually enjoying the company of one's lady friend is all the rage these days.”

“Isn't that scandalous?” Miri grinned and squeezed his arse with both hands. “Gods, if we didn't have a cab waiting downstairs,” she whispered. “The things I want you to do to me.”

Gale planted a soft kiss to the top of her head with a smile he couldn't seem to smother. “Believe me, my love, the feeling is quite mutual. Alas, we are indeed on a timetable—”

“If you packed everything last night, I think I grabbed it for you, by the way,” she interrupted. She gestured to the tiny flock of luggage at her feet. “Just these two bags, right?”

Something warm and domestic lurched in his chest at the sight. “You'd be correct. But you didn't have to — that is, I don't expect you to—”

“Don't overthink it, love.” She patted him on the chest with a cheeky smile. “Unless you want us to be late.”

“Perish the thought, my dear.” The endearment fell out of his mouth before he could clamp it down, but Miri hardly reacted save for another brilliant smile and a soft kiss to the corner of his lips. His heart skipped at her touch, and he wondered just how long he would be able to share her company before the slightest brush of her fingers began to feel routine.

He stole another kiss on the elevator ride down. Her lips were soft and welcoming and entirely too familiar against his mouth. Something sharp tugged at his chest when she clung to him and kissed him back. When her hand found his cheek, when her other arm looped possessively around his waist and he wondered if it were possible for happiness to trigger a bloody coronary.

There was something beating hope-feathered wings against the inside of his ribs, and it cut into his lungs with every breath.

Still, he prayed it never stopped.

It was good to get out of Waterdeep. Miriam hadn’t considered how smothered she’d felt by her surroundings lately given the size of the place until their plane to Suzail Royal International lifted into the air and she watched the city fade into a maze of roads and buildings and then into a smudge on the horizon. And then, when there was nothing left to watch but clouds, she pointedly lifted her arm rest and snuggled into Gale’s side with a pleased hum.

He smiled at her and draped his arm around her shoulders, squeezing once before returning to his reading one-handed. It was quiet, cozy, comfortable. She curled into him and focused on the rhythm of his heartbeat, the evenness of his breathing. A glance at his tablet yielded nothing but incomprehensible data tables, so she closed her eyes and relaxed into his touch. She couldn’t help but think she could be content with just this for an evening.

Her mind wandered. She inhaled his scent — familiar and warm now, lavender and cedar and an odd sense of safety she didn’t want to examine too closely — and thought about the last time she’d left the Sword Coast. It was a short enough drive to Settlestone with Midnight where she’d gone to give a lecture at Hengorot Technical College, but they’d taken an extra day to take the winding back roads and spent a night in a mountainside motel lodge across the street from a sprawling vista of trees.

There had been a diner attached to the lodge, she recalled fondly. There was a hearth, crackling with warmth, adorned from above with a massive taxidermy bear head. They’d shared a plate of yam fritters and a pitcher of locally brewed craft beer made by the owner’s daughter a scant two miles away, and there, Midnight had confessed about her partner. How she’d been caught in a lie, how she needed to make things right.

And Miriam’s world had crumbled into a wash of panic she’d spent the rest of the trip fending off with fierce desperation, because no amount of affection could wash away the taste of crippling dread that came with such a revelation.

It’s alright, honey, she’d said though with perfectly practiced charm. It wasn’t, but that was beside the point, and above all else she was a professional. I’m sorry it came to this. What else was there to say? Let’s make the most of things, then. And they had, and then she’d gone home, and her life had simply upended because she’d lacked the foresight to prepare an exit strategy.

Because she’d gotten careless, and the fallout had nearly ruined her. Could still ruin her, if she played her cards poorly. Because that’s what happened when she let herself forget who she really was, even to the people who showed her so much care and affection she could spend days slipping into a fantasy of living a normal life. Her chest clenched.

She couldn’t afford to forget again.

It was a nonstop flight of nearly six hours, and her late night and early morning were beginning to catch up with her. She yawned and forced herself to think of other things. Less terrifying things. Things like Rosie’s pancake special drenched in syrup and Rolan’s ridiculous laugh. She could figure out the rest later.

The House of Hope ballroom was as opulent as they came. Raphael spared no expense for his sprawling North Ward estate, adorned with rich tapestries and elaborately commissioned artwork and meticulously gilded paneling. Every step on the polished hardwood floor seemed to get swallowed up by the flowing fabric billowing from open windows, velvet and silk, hand-stitched fairy tales and embroidered legends stretched across every conceivable surface.

Raphael did so love his stories.

Miriam was alone, for the most part. Faceless guests milled about in every direction, but she only had eyes for one person, lingering just out of sight near the west foyer. He was hard to lose sight of though, with his elaborate and bespoke ensemble of black and gold, his meticulously manicured fingers glittering with jewels. As always, his unruly black hair was struggling to break free from the gel he’d layered into it, and a glass of champagne practically danced in his hand as he chatted animatedly with a woman Miriam didn’t recognize.

Which was odd, actually. She looked around with a frown. She didn’t recognize any of these people.

“Ah,” he said with a broad smile. “My favorite course has arrived.”

“Enver, you flirt,” Miriam teased. “I thought I was your only course.”

“As much as I would love to steal you away from Raphael’s clutches, something tells me there are some consequences that would give pause even to me.” He pushed a glass into her hand. “Drink up, pet. Your doting patron seems to have broken out the good stuff today.”

Miriam blinked. They were dancing now. His hand on her lower back ignited her blood with equal parts thrill and revulsion. She was enveloped in a cloud of Armani cologne, of brandy and expensive cigars and blood. …blood?

“I’m going to get you out of here, little bird.” Brown eyes turned to silvery blue. Rugan brushed hair from her eyes with a sad smile.

“You can’t help me,” Miriam said. Dread clawed at her insides. “You can’t be here.”

“Do you remember?” Rugan said, as though he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. “When you told me about the injured dove?”

The ancient grandfather clock in the corridor ticked down ominous seconds that rang out across the ballroom and echoed across the room. “That was just a story I made up,” Miriam said faintly. Where had the tapestries gone? The guests vanished. The clock struck an hour she couldn’t count. “It didn’t mean anything.”

“I’m so sorry,” Rugan said. His blood was hot and slick against her fingers. “There were so many sunsets I wanted to show you.” He clutched at her shirt, his grip weak, his pulse barely the faintest flutter.

“I told you to go,” Miriam whispered brokenly. “Why didn’t you listen?”

“You were the last beautiful thing I ever saw.” The blood on her hands turned to ash and tar. I’m not sorry it was you.

Miriam jolted awake with a gasp. A flight attendant was reading off landing instructions. Through the window she could see the twinkling lights of the city of Suzail sprawled out beneath a clear, cloudless sky. Gale was absorbed in a different book, a physical copy this time, of what appeared to be a heavily dog-eared and annotated collection of old Netherese legends. The formatting was oddly familiar.

“Is that Erasdine’s Karsite Discourses?” she blurted out.

Gale looked at her in surprise. “You know of it?”

“Yeah!” She plucked the book from his hands and flipped through it eagerly. “I ead this one a lot back when I—” She trailed off with a grimace.

Remember who you are.

“Back at my old job,” she finished awkwardly.

If Gale noticed her lapse, he either ignored it or was too consumed by delight to care. “Truly? This is incredible!” he said. “Which edition have you read, if you don't mind me asking?”

“I don't really know actually—” Miriam began.

“Because the edition translated by Bren Taerys has the most delightful commentary on the tale of Jethere and Lhaoda,” he continued excitedly. “Unfortunately this one lacks his colorful additions, but I've had this particular copy since I was a boy and it has quite a bit of sentimental value—” Gale trailed off and cleared his throat. “Pardon my verbosity, I simply have yet to meet someone outside of academia who appreciates this sort of literature.”

“You know people outside of academia?” Miriam teased. She elbowed him affectionately as he scoffed in indignation. And then she peered at the book curiously. The entire volume was well loved, a lifetime of notes scribbled in the margins, but there was one chapter that was cracked into the very spine itself from re-reads.

“Ah,” Gale said softly. “The legend of Karsus' Folly. One of the most well known tales of Old Netheril.”

“Your favorite, I take it?” she mused, tracing her finger across the variety of notes.

“Perhaps. Certainly the first one that ever caught my eye.” He laughed softly. “Foolish of me, I'm sure, but that story fueled much of my drive in my younger days. To strive for such heights, even at the risk of everything. There was something compelling about the way one can face insurmountable odds without flinching, even if the final outcome is less than desirable.”

“Some people call that incalculable hubris,” Miriam pointed out.

Gale gave her a strange look. “Many, arguably. But, I suspect, not you. Or have I missed the mark?”

Something about the expression on his face left her feeling oddly stripped bare. “No,” she said softly. “I think if Karsus had lived to write his own story, we would have an entirely different version. I think it's only hubris if you fuck it up. That's the risk you take, right? You jump without a parachute, and most of the time you hit the pavement and that's the end of it, but every once in a while someone sticks the landing. It takes guts to believe that someone could be you. That … doesn't have to be a bad thing.”

She fiddled with the plastic seat tray and tried not to think about how she wasn't really talking about Karsus anymore. ‘Miriam’s Folly’ didn't really have the same ring to it, after all.

“A refreshing take, if I'm being honest,” Gale said. He squeezed her hand with a tiny smile. “So few seem to understand the bigger picture.”

Miriam stretched lazily and let the very tips of her fingers ‘accidentally’ brush against his groin. “Hard to miss such a big picture when it's right before your eyes.”

Gale made a muffled choking sound, his cheeks turning an adorable shade of pink. “Incorrigible,” he muttered.

Miriam flashed him a cheeky grin and leaned over to plant a chaste kiss against his jaw. “Irresistable, you mean,” she purred.

His thumb traced idle circles against the back of her hand as he smiled at her again. She buried the last remaining vestiges of her dream, stuffed her skeletons back into her closet and closed them in with a decisive bang of the door.

There was too much at stake these days for pointless what-ifs. This, at least, was as real as it could get. Maybe one day, if she tried very hard, it might even feel like enough.

Gale frowned and propped another pillow behind his back on the uncomfortably soft hotel mattress. “What?”

“You’re ordering a plain cheese pizza.”

“Yes, and?”

Miri brandished the phone at him. “You. Mr. Gourmand, puts fifteen experimental ingredients into every dish, can distinguish olive oil brands by smell, and according to your order history, you only ever order cheese on your pizzas.”

“Is that really so absurd?” He paused. “Are you snooping through my phone?”

She scrambled backwards away from him and held the phone out of his reach when he reached for it. “You gave it to me to put in my food order,” she pointed out. “I’m just scrolling through the app you opened. That’s perfectly within the unspoken rules for acceptable borrowed phone usage.”

He snorted. “Is that so? I don’t recall ever being given a guidebook.”

“Well, yeah, because it’s unspoken. Obviously.” She flicked his nose playfully and handed the phone back. “I thought astrophysicists were supposed to be smart.”

“They may as well strip me of all of my titles next to your cutting wit,” he muttered.

“Not if I strip you first.” She climbed into his lap and straddled him with a grin. “Hurry up and place the order.”

“Someone is bossy today,” he teased. He reviewed his cart with a growing sense of indignation. “Oh, so I’m getting scolded for my choices by someone who is ordering plain boneless chicken wings? Is that right?”

“They’re reliable!” she said defensively. “There’s only so many variations of breaded chicken breast. Sometimes you just want something predictable.”

“Have you considered you aren’t the only one with those sorts of expectations on occasion?”

Miri stared at him for a moment before bursting into unrestrained cackles. She was ethereal in the dim hotel lighting, still the picture of beauty even in nothing but an oversized and stained Luskan Raiders t-shirt and practical cotton underwear. Did she know what it did to him, the knowledge that she was comfortable enough around him to dress so casually? That she didn’t feel the need to put herself on display every minute of their time together, that she was able to simply exist. He couldn’t help but wonder if this was how her other arrangements went. Did everyone fall under her spell so readily? There was a lightness in his chest, full to bursting, and all he could think to do with it was kiss her.

She relaxed into his touch with a soft sigh that ignited something feral and needy beneath his skin. He ran his hands beneath her shirt, mapped the curve of her spine with his fingertips, tightened his grasp on her when she licked into his mouth with an eagerness that threatened to undo him entirely.

Gods, he wanted her, desperately. Wanted to keep her with him forever, wanted so badly for her to stay. To be his.

“Miri,” he groaned when she nipped at his bottom lip.

“Shh,” she murmured. “I've got you.” She rolled her hips against his rapidly stirring cock. He dragged his fingernails down her back and was rewarded with a throaty moan, and when she tipped her head back with a gasp, he chased the column of her throat with his lips, dragging his teeth down delicately inked skin, mapping every inch of her tattoo with eager desperation. “Fuck,” she gasped when he sucked a sharp bruise into her clavicle. She ripped her shirt off over her head, threw it to the floor, and fumbled with the ties to his sweatpants, released his cock from its confines, pumping him slowly with soft strokes that made his head spin.

He pushed her gently onto her back and took a nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue, biting with just enough pressure to make her squirm desperately beneath him. Her hands grasped at his shoulders, his neck, the back of his head, tangling into his hair as he made his way down her body. The salt of her skin was a heady flavor against his tongue, and as he delved lower it mingled deliciously with the musky scent of her arousal. He was delirious with want, with his need to make her want.

There was no need for his usual verbosity, not now, not when the only thing taking up space in his mind was an overwhelming clamor of desire. He nipped at the inside of her thighs, sucking sharp bruises that blossomed darkly along tender flesh. Miri's hands were tangled in his hair, urging him towards her arousal as she writhed under his touch.

He tugged her underwear off of her hips and took his time, licking a slow, deliberate stripe along her slit that drew a soft gasp from her mouth. “Gods, you're such a a fucking tease—” she whined.

Gale stilled, fingers pressed just enough into her to make her push against him for more. He pinned her hips to the bed with his forearm and flashed her a teasing grin. “Shh, what have I said about the language?”

“Gale!” she groaned.

He dipped one finger into her cunt and held it there. “Try again,” he suggested. “With manners.”

Her cheeks were flushed, her gaze dark, breath quickening at his touch, but she remained stubbornly silent as she bucked against his hand. Gale just leaned more of his weight onto her, burying his lips in the softness of her stomach, worshipping every freckle the way she deserved even as she protested feebly beneath him.

He pulled his finger out and trailed it teasingly through her slick. “All you have to do is ask politely,” he prompted. His thumb brushed the side of her clit and lingered there in maddening proximity. He loved watching Miri unravel like this, watching sweat bead on her brow, eyes dark with need. To stoke her gently until she either obeyed or snapped entirely and began begging instead. He loved that he could rarely predict which way she would lean, and how either outcome still left him aching with the desire to claim her body for his own.

“Gale,” she repeated. Her hands tangled back into his hair. “Please.”

He ghosted his breath over her cunt in response, swirling his tongue around everything but her clit as he took his time tasting her. He paused when she tugged at his hair again. “Can you be patient, my love?” he murmured.

She only made a muffled groan in response. He slipped one finger inside of her again and stroked her slowly, matching his languid pace on the outside with his tongue. He rewarded her silence with a second finger and a little more pressure on her clit. Her breath caught again, and he responded by closing his lips around her clit, sucking noisily at her, luxuriating in the taste of her on his tongue. She swore again, under her breath this time, buried in the palm of her hand, and Gale found for once he didn't have the patience to draw things out.

He pressed his face against her, inhaled deeply, thanked whatever gods were listening for this absolute vision that had landed in his bed. He catalogued every whine and whimper, coaxed her pleasure from her bit by bit until her thighs were quivering against his head.

She came with a gentle waterfall against his mouth, and he drank from her until her cries softened to tiny whimpers, until her pull on his hair loosened and her breathing slowed. And then she was tugging him upwards, planting featherlight kisses on his crown, his temples, his forehead, his nose. Anywhere she could reach, she smothered with her lips, until finally she was kissing him on the mouth with a fire that made him dizzy with want. Her hand closed around his cock and stroked him softly. She clumsily kicked her underwear off completely and rolled on top of him, straddling him as she dragged his sweatpants down and softly fondled his balls.

If he still had his wits about him, he would have laughed at how quickly she managed to take the lead compared to their usual games. But Miri didn't seem inclined to cede control as she sank down onto his cock in two swift strokes, her palms flat against his chest.

She felt like divinity itself. Her walls fluttered around his cock, soft and tight, so wet and impossibly warm. She folded over him as she smoothed her hands over his skin, as she scraped her nails through his chest hair and planted messy kisses against his tattoo. He gripped her hips with a groan she smothered with her tongue.

Miri kissed with a reckless abandon that never failed to make him feel wanted. Claimed, even. She spilled want from her lips, drenched him in declarations of lust that filled him with a powerful sense of belonging. It was dangerous, the way she kissed. He couldn’t tell if every encounter with her felt more real or if he were simply falling further and further under her spell, but it didn’t matter right now not when she was riding him like that, hips rolling, breathless moans on ever exhale.

He dug his fingers into her flesh. Part of him feared if he didn’t she would simply evaporate into smoke and leave him buried in his own loneliness.

He didn’t want to think about that right now.

“Gods, you always feel so fucking good,” she whispered. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, breath warm against his shoulder as he rutted back into her from below. Sweat beaded from his chest, skin sticky and slick against her magnificent tits pressed plush against his sternum.

He moved to touch her clit, but she grabbed his arm and kept it held against her waist with a quick shake of her head. “No,” she murmured. “Leave them here. I want to — to feel you when I cum — shit, Gale—”

His mind conjured several responses to her words, and all of them fell away as her breathing became intentional and measured. “I don’t think I’ll last much longer—” Gale gasped.

Miri grinned at him, wild thrill written across her flushed cheeks. “If you do, I’m not doing it right,” she murmured. Her fingers brushed hair out of his eyes, and he fought desperately not to close them in rapture lest he miss even a moment of the perfect picture she made. She flexed around his cock, and he couldn’t bite back a whimper of his own. “Come on, love.” Her voice shook with effort. “Let go for me.”

It was a hypnotic trance she held him in, as his breathing went ragged and everything became a wash of heat and pressure and heady need, and then his thrusts stuttered as he spilled inside of her with a groan. She flexed around him again and cried out, fingers balling the sheets up against his shoulders as she tensed and trembled. He kissed her again, desperate and needy. He was floating, and her touch was the only thing keeping him anchored to the ground.

They lay in silence for a moment as she relaxed into his grasp. She rolled off of him slowly and curled into the crook of his arm, burrowing her face into his chest with a soft laugh. “I could watch you cum for hours,” she said softly. “I don’t think it will ever get old.”

“I bet you say that to everyone,” Gale snorted.

“No!” She chuckled as she traced absentminded lines across his chest. “I don’t like giving fake compliments. Not to clients I like, anyway. You spend enough time around someone, they start to catch on if you do nothing but outright lie.”

He ran his fingers through her hair thoughtfully. “It’s a remarkable skill, you know,” he said. “The ability to draw attention to the good in people.”

Miri snorted. “You make me sound like some kind of saint.”

“Of a sort, perhaps.” He grinned back. “I’d say your particular skillset does a fine job bringing the heavens to this plane.”

She smacked his chest with a raucous cackle. “You are such a cheeseball!”

“We can’t all be perfect.”

“Gale Dekarios!” she gasped dramatically. “Is that humility I detect?”

“Perish the thought, my lady. I do have a reputation to maintain.”

They both jumped when a firm knock sounded on the hotel room door. “Delivery for Dekarios?” someone called out from the hall.

Miri rolled away from him and touched her finger to her nose. “Not it.”

“Who says?” he protested.

“The one who has the least amount of clothes on.”

He couldn't help but laugh again as he acquiesced and dragged his sweatpants back up. She made it so easy with the way she seemed to chase away all of his insecurities simply by existing beside him. He didn’t bother finding a shirt when he answered the door, and for once he didn’t even feel the weight of someone else’s eyes on his bare skin as he took their order, thanked the delivery person, and made his way back to the bed.

Miri was watching him as he climbed back into bed. She'd already pulled her clothes back on, practically swimming in the fabric of her shirt. It was clearly old and well-loved. He found himself wanting to know where she'd got it. If she actually liked sports, if she'd only bought it for the texture. If it had belonged to someone else before her. “You are a treasure,” she announced, and the sound of her voice snapped him out of his reverie.

He handed the boxes over and fished around for the TV remote. “Do you have a preference for background noise?”

Miri hummed thoughtfully. “Honestly, anything is fine with me.”

“That isn't what I asked,” he pressed. She made a face, and he brandished the remote at her in response. “Is it so absurd I simply wish to get to know you better?”

An odd look flickered across her face. He wondered briefly if he'd overstepped, but Miri only settled back on the bed next to him as she fumbled with a cup of sauce. “Period dramas,” she said finally. She’d suddenly become enthralled by the condition of her fingernails. “I like those. And, uh, dumb mockumentaries.”

He hesitantly settled an arm around her waist, half expecting her to pull away, but she relaxed into his touch as he began flipping through the channels until he found one of Tara's old favorites playing: a Cormyrian classic, a series about a royal uprising in the 18th century called Down Came the Claw. “Have you seen this one?” he asked.

“Started it once. Never finished it. My Kettle+ subscription lapsed and I didn't feel like paying to get it reinstated. I might have seen this episode, but it was years ago — what?” She poked his cheek with a wry smile. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Tara would have liked you, he wanted to say, but he at least had enough wisdom to know that bringing up a deceased friend unprompted had a way of bringing down the mood. “I am so very glad you agreed to accompany me,” he said instead.

“Yeah?” she said softly. The smile on her face was almost shy. “Me too.”

When Gale stumbled into the lobby of the Royal Observatory at six in the morning, Tennora immediately pressed a steaming cup of coffee into his hand. “It’s too early to be functional, I agree,” she said as she offered him a supportive pat on the back. He was too tired to shrug away, and if he were being completely honest, he was starting to think casual touch might not be the uncomfortable ordeal he’d chalked it up to be.

“Bloody time zones,” he mumbled as he inhaled the steam rising from his cup.

“Just think,” Tennora said brightly. “It’s four in the morning back home. Might as well have stayed up all night at this point.”

Gale took a sip of his coffee and squinted at Tennora. “You look different,” he said finally.

“I’d hope so, considering my hair is pink.”

Well, now he felt rather foolish. “I … see that now,” he said sheepishly. “Dare I ask how long it’s been that way?”

She laughed. “It was pink yesterday morning, but the one time we crossed paths, your mind was clearly elsewhere. What happened, anyway? You looked ready to murder someone when you walked out the elevator after your morning lab. I said good morning, but you definitely didn’t hear me.”

“Oh, I…” Gale trailed off with a grimace. He recalled Rolan’s tardiness, his disheveled appearance. Miri’s perfume on his clothing. Except it could be anything, could have been anyone, and besides, what did it bloody matter anyhow? He could hardly begrudge her for doing her job. “A trivial matter,” he said finally. “You know how these things compound when one doesn’t sleep enough.”

She frowned sympathetically as they made their way to the elevators. The wheels of her equipment cart were in terrible need of a greasing. “Still having trouble sleeping?”

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “It’s greatly improved these days, though.”

A lie, of course, but she didn’t need to know that. Didn’t need to know how he only slept without tossing and turning when Miri was in his bed, especially when he was working so very hard to ignore that particular fact himself.

“That’s good to hear. You do seem happier these days.”

He laughed nervously. “Yes, well. There does come a point when one must move on from their sorrows, does there not? I daresay I’ve wasted quite enough time wallowing.”

“How’s the lady friend? Mireya, right? She seems good for you.”

His chest clenched. Trust Tennora to sniff out the one thing he absolutely did not want to unpack. “She is … doing well.”

Tennora hooted with laughter as the elevator doors closed behind them and they began their ascent. “Oh, Gale. I knew you had it bad the way you looked at her at Samark’s party, but you should see your face right now.”

He scowled. “And what, pray tell, does my face look like?”

“Well, your cheeks are the same color as my hair, for one.”

“I don’t believe you,” he said stubbornly.

Tennora only laughed in delight. “I mean it, Gale. You’re a lot less tense to be around lately. Did she come with you?”

“She—” Gale paused with a frown. They’d anticipated Miri being around his colleagues at some point; after all, she’d dyed her hair for a reason. Still, he couldn’t help the ridiculous impulse that bubbled up, the one telling him to keep her hidden all to himself.

Madness. He had to snap out of it.

“Yes,” he relented finally. “She … wanted to visit the modern art museum downtown today.” A white lie, but one that came easily enough for once he was beginning to wonder who he was becoming.

“Aw.” Tennora looked positively giddy. “Have you met with Cat yet? They’re taking over the coding for this portion of the project and they’re thrilled to finally work with you in person after all these years.”

Gale wracked his brain to figure out why that name sounded so familiar. Shameful, the way his mind could hardly focus on details these days. “Catrion Ordulin?” he ventured finally. “Tara’s old friend? From Immersea?”

“Well, they’re Catrion Wyvernspur now. Giogi finally proposed last year.”

“Huh. Good for them.” Gale steadfastly ignored the gnawing starting up in the pit of his chest. He hadn’t seen Cat since Tara’s funeral, and for the first time since his little spat with Ariel over his participation in this mapping project, he began to wonder if he’d made a mistake coming here.

“They want to get dinner later before we come back to the observatory tonight. You should bring Mireya!”

Absolutely not, he wanted to choke out. He had no logical reason for it, but something about those spheres of his life overlapping made him dizzyingly nauseous. “That sounds lovely,” he forced out instead, because gods damn everything, he was fine and it was high time he started acting like a normal person again. “Did you have someplace in mind already?”

“I'll ask Cat,” Tennora said. The elevator door opened, and she strode into the upper foyer happily. “I'm sure they know this place much better than we do. Ugh, gods, this really just puts me in the best mood.”

Her rambling faded to dull background noise as she disappeared into the observatory proper, the cart squeaking and groaning loudly behind her. Gale leaned on the wall, tipped his head back against it, closed his eyes to combat the way his vision spun miserably. He needed to breathe. If Catrion was here, he especially needed to hold himself together.

Besides, he told himself sternly. Perhaps having another close friend of Tara's around would make his visit to her graveside tomorrow a tad more bearable. He didn't dislike Cat; he just hardly knew them beyond the single person they had in common, and he wasn't sure he even wanted to know them more. Not when hearing their name felt like Tara's ghost standing at his doorstep.

“Hey!” Tennora’s voice echoed across the lab. “You lost? Let's get going so we can get out of here and take a nap!”

Gale downed the last of his coffee with a grimace. He was going to pull it together. He had to.

The Uktar cold in Suzail was an entirely different cold from Waterdeep. Waterdeep was reasonably cold, with light snow that rarely blanketed the ground was only a problem maybe three or four times a year in the absolute dead of winter. Here, there was apparently a wicked band of northeasterly wind that blew from Rashemen across the entire Sea of Fallen Stars and frequently deposited catastrophic levels of snow across anyone on the western shores.

“Sembia and the eastern Dales gets the worst of it,” the cook behind the diner bar was saying with a dismissive wave of her hand at the TV in the corner set to the weather channel. “But us and Marsember get the leftovers, mark my words, you'll wake up to about a meter or more of the stuff on every sidewalk come tomorrow.”

“I see,” Miriam said, poking at her coffee.

“City's pretty good about plowing it nowadays, of course. Thirty, forty years ago though, now that was a bloody mess of things. ‘Course that was when King Irvel was in charge and we all got dragged into Sembia’s pissfight with the Dales for a little while.”

Miriam nodded attentively. As much as she had nothing to add, the chatter was still preferable to silence.

“Nowadays though,” the cook continued over her shoulder, waving her spatula emphatically before flipping Miriam’s omelette with razor precision, “the Queen’s got a much better relationship with the Sembian Merchant’s Council than her late father. Burned some of his bridges to get there, mind, but I’d bet my left tit the people up in Featherdale don’t care so much who’s pulling the strings so long as no one’s getting caught in the crossfire over it. Anywho.” She plated the omelette and sprinkled a dried herb mix over the top, plopping a handful of cherry tomatoes alongside it with a sprig of basil before sliding the plate across the bar. “There you go, love. Where’d you say you were from again?”

A spike of longing shot through her gut at that question. Baldur’s Gate, she wanted to say. Wanted to talk about how she’d grown up on Amnian coffee and Calishite tea and coastal southern summers where the damp of the air draped over the body like a warm blanket long after the sun went down. She wondered if she’d ever see it again, if someone would ever have an excuse to visit far enough south to take her home.

Not to the Gate, of course, never back to the Gate, not when there were still so many questions she couldn’t answer. But as much as she didn’t like thinking about it, sometimes the thoughts lingered anyway. Fantasies of a night on the Cloakwood peninsula maybe. A proper Athkatlan sunset.

“Waterdeep,” she said instead. She tore her mind away from all of the thoughts she couldn’t afford to entertain, and remembered a split second too late that she was supposed to be from Neverwinter. She amended her story hastily, with a quick-spun anecdote about meeting the love of her life and how she was considering staying with him in the city, and the cook nodded sympathetically like she’d understood every word Miriam couldn’t bring herself to say out loud.

“Lovely place,” the cook said. “Lonely, though, if you’re not careful.”

“I think he’s going to ask me to marry him,” Miriam lied. “I think I’m going to be just fine.”

“Good for you, honey,” the cook said. “I really hope it works out.”

Cat had changed.

Well, Gale supposed, all of them had, really. A year and a half to process a tragedy did that to someone. Their formerly shoulder-length copper ponytail was now short and shaved neatly on the sides. They’d been a fan of ostentatious waistcoats and colorful bow ties once; now, their wardrobe seemed to feature practical button-up shirts, reasonably cut trousers, and plain black shoes. Their wedding ring glimmered on their hand, a plain gold band that — if Tara’s words were to be believed — would have been ‘a dull travesty they would never have agreed to’ as close as two years past.

“Gale, you lovely bastard!” they’d said excitedly when strolling into the observatory lab earlier. “It’s been too long.”

Gale had bitten back the uncharitable urge to say it hadn’t been long enough.

Miri had been uncharacteristically quiet getting ready for dinner, but when they walked into Braundlae’s, she lit up into an effervescent fountain of charm. “Tennora!” she exclaimed in delight. She greeted Tennora with an excited hug and a kiss to each cheek. “So good to see you again. Your hair looks amazing! How's Nestrix?”

“Oh, you cheeky girl, you have a terrifyingly good memory. I mentioned her once! The first night we met!”

Miri laughed. “Your whole face lit up when you said her name. Hard not to forget something like that.”

Tennora nudged Gale with her elbow. “You hold onto this one, Dekarios. I'd wager she never forgets a birthday. Has she met your mother yet?”

Gale pinched the bridge of his nose. “I didn't come here to talk about my mother.”

Miri turned to him and planted a reassuring kiss on his cheek. “I'm sure she'll adore me when you're ready,” she murmured. “I'm great with parents.”

Of course she was. The lines were blurring again between the woman he'd gotten to know and the woman she pretended to be, and it was all leaving him with that familiar sense of whiplash that made his skin crawl. “Where's Cat?” he asked instead. He resisted the urge to grab Miri and walk right back outside.

“At the table. I told them I'd come out to meet you since it’s so crowded here.”

“As if we could miss spotting a face like yours,” Miri teased.

Tennora blushed, and Gale clenched and unclenched his jaw.

He felt Miri slip her hand into his as they followed Tennora through the restaurant. “You okay?” she murmured with a soft squeeze. “We don't have to stay.”

Something in him deflated at the concern in her eyes. “I'm fine,” he said stubbornly. He offered her a smile that felt pinched at the corners.

“Well!” Cat said with a warm smile as they approached the table. “This must be the infamous Mireya!”

“You people are in terrible need of a more interesting topic of conversation,” Miri said with a grin. “I suppose I don't have to give you my name, then. What has Tennora been telling you?”

Cat reached out with an enthusiastic handshake. “Only that you've managed to melt over an infamously frozen heart with your charms.”

Miri squeezed his hand again. “You make it sound like such a chore,” she protested. “He doesn't make it very hard to love him, you know.” She flashed them a broad grin. “Honestly, I think I'm the one getting the better end of this deal here.”

It was a lie. It was. It was a story to sell. And yet Gale couldn't stop the way his heart skipped a beat when she said it. “Don't sell yourself short, my love,” he blurted out before he could stop himself. “Your radiance puts the sunrise itself to shame.”

Tennora and Cat exchanged sly glances. Miri slipped her foot free of her boot and ran it along the inside of his calf beneath the table. Gale braced himself for a long night.

Miriam was on edge, and biting it all back beneath a veneer of extraversion was beginning to give her heartburn. She picked at her food and played it off as being too engaged in conversation. Cat was charming enough in their own way, but it didn't take a detective to notice the way Gale tensed in their presence. She couldn't help but wonder what had happened there.

And Gale's tension radiated from him in waves. She could see it in the way he gripped his utensils a little too tightly, at the rigid clench of his jaw when he wasn't speaking. At the way his sweaty palm clenched her hand beneath the table like a lifeline.

She hooked her foot around his leg again. He flinched at the touch, but relaxed into it quickly enough and didn't pull away. She listened as Cat rambled about their children, how Olivia was a carbon copy of themself at that age while little Cory took more after his soft-spoken father by the day. They showed off photos of their family, and Tennora cooed in delight, and at some point it occurred to Miriam that this was a mask just as much as the one she herself wore.

She wondered for yet another time what it was Cat was working so hard to keep buried.

The answer to that revealed itself in time. They'd all had a drink or two by the time dessert came around: a honey soaked walnut cake served with a flight of coffee-based cocktails.

“It's an honor, you know,” Cat said. “I confess, I almost turned the offer down when the planning committee contacted me about the Aghairon project.”

Gale stiffened. Tennora shot Cat a warning look.

“It's just, gods, they're such huge boots to fill,” they continued, oblivious. “I mean, this whole endeavor was Tara's idea, and she's poured her heart and soul into it for so long.”

“Cat,” Tennora said gently. “Maybe this isn't the time.”

“Isn't it?” Cat's voice became strained. “When will it be, then? She was the face of this endeavor, and nobody can say her name? We should be celebrating it, not sweeping it beneath the rug because nobody seems to want to talk about the fact that she's gone.”

“Alright,” Gale said, “but nobody is doing that.”

“Rich, coming from you,” Cat said, and it would maybe have been easier to hear if they'd said it with any sort of malice, but there was a heaviness to it that made Miriam want to crumble into pieces in the face of it. “Do you know, when Ariel and I gave that talk at Hengorot, she clammed up tighter than a freshwater oyster whenever Tara's name came up? She gets to bring along a hot younger woman to drown her sorrows in but none of us can outright celebrate the person who got us all here? How is that right?”

“Cat,” Tennora repeated firmly. She set a hand on their shoulder. “I think we've all had a wee bit much to drink. Let's get some air, shall we?”

Cat grimaced. “Yes, perhaps you're right. Apologies, Gale.”

Gale's jaw tightened. He nodded in acknowledgement but didn't say anything as Cat and Tennora got up and escaped to the patio.

Miriam waited until they were fully out of earshot. “That … went well,” she said finally.

Gale let out a near hysterical little giggle. “I am so sorry,” he managed. “I didn't think — that is I didn't intend for you to see—”

“Gale,” Miriam said firmly. She cupped his face between her hands. “Look at me. Breathe.”

“Gods, what a mess,” he mumbled. He took several slow, shuddering breaths, then knocked the rest of his apertif back for good measure. “Ariel was right, I shouldn't have — this was a mistake. Coming here.”

Miriam frowned. “Here as in to dinner?”

“Here as in to Cormyr,” Gale said helplessly. “She warned me, you know. Told me I didn't have to go, that an exception could be made, but I didn't think…” He trailed off and stared forlornly at the tablecloth. “I thought I could separate it all from my work enough to make do.”

“Everyone grieves on their own timeline, love,” Miriam said softly. She thought about Rugan, about the absolute mess she'd made of being young. About old wounds held together by duct tape and string and prayers to all of the wrong gods. “Sometimes people's demons don't play well together. That's not your fault. Or theirs.”

He sighed. “I didn't mean for you to see me like this. You shouldn't — that isn't what you signed on for.”

Miriam shushed him with a soft kiss. “I know what I signed on for,” she said. “You don't stop living your life when you sign a contract for something. You … live around it. It's a part of you. Embody it, or don't, but it's there with you all the same. Comes with the territory, really.”

“I don't know what I expected, you know. Hiring you.” He stared at his hands, at the way hers clasped them, at the way their fingers twined together. “I suppose part of me hoped to understand what it is Ariel was looking for. What she was willing to throw everything away over.”

Miriam swallowed thickly. She thought, not for the first time lately, how destroyed he would be if he found out about her involvement with Ariel. It was never supposed to go this far. “Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked tentatively.

Gale stroked his thumb across the back of her hand. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I am sorry, Miri. I’m afraid I won’t be pleasant company tonight after all this.”

“I don’t care about that. Do you want company anyway?”

He frowned thoughtfully. “It will be late by the time we’re done taking measurements. Three, four in the morning, perhaps.”

“Then I’ll set an alarm. Or you can wake me up.” She laced her fingers into his. “Tell me what you need, and you’ll have it.”

“I don’t deserve you,” he said morosely. He closed his eyes and sighed. “Heavens, what a mess I’ve made.”

“It isn’t your fault, you know.”

Gale exhaled softly. “That remains to be seen, I’m afraid.”

“Gale.”

“And you.” He met her eyes with an impossibly tired gaze. “You deserve the world and then some,” he murmured. “Yet here you are. With me.” He cradled the side of her face with his hand and ran his thumb down the curve of her jaw. “I … sometimes find myself wishing we’d met under different circumstances.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” she whispered. There was an ache in the marrow of her ribs that threatened to rot her from the inside.

He responded with a soft and lingering kiss to her forehead before he pulled away and schooled his features. “Forgive me,” he said finally. It was like watching someone pull shutters over their windows. “And thank you.”

Miriam leaned into his touch anyway and forced a smile back onto her face. “For?”

He kissed her again. “Everything.”

Miriam woke up to the sheets rustling as Gale tried to slip quietly into bed beside her. She squinted blearily at the clock.

“You're early,” she mumbled. “Should have called.”

“Nonsense,” Gale whispered. “I've been selfish enough today.”

Miriam rolled over and tugged him into her arms. There was something about the haze of the quiet hours that stifled the running commentary in her head for once. “You could probably stand to be a little more selfish, actually,” she said sleepily. “Come here.”

It took him three tries to properly find her lips with his in the dark, but he kissed her finally with a soft, breathy laugh against her mouth. “Don't tell me that,” he murmured. “Don't give me permission to be worse than I already am.”

“I think you should be more selfish,” Miriam repeated. She kissed him again, felt a heady need flare up inside of her when he made a soft noise in the back of his throat as their tongues brushed. Her hands roved over him in the dark. A ribbed undershirt and a loose pair of boxers. “How did stargazing go?” she asked breathlessly as she toyed with the hem of his underwear.

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes!” she said, the word trailing off into a gasp when his own wandering hands slipped beneath her sleep shirt and plucked teasingly at her nipples. “I want to know what sort of secrets of the universe brought us to this freezing wasteland.”

“Miri,” he groaned when her fingertips brushed his cock, “as much as I would love nothing more than to bore you with every unabridged detail, are you sure this is the time?”

She slipped her hand into his boxers and traced her fingers down the length of his shaft. Her lips widened into a grin against his. “Yes,” she repeated. She pumped his rapidly hardening cock once for emphasis. “Tell me everything.”

Gale's breath hitched. “You have a curious definition of foreplay.”

“Do you want your dick sucked or not?”

“Well.” Gale kissed her again. His beard was delightfully scratchy against her face. “When you put it like that, how could anyone refuse?”

Miriam understood a pitiful fraction of what Gale was talking about. Something about a cloud of particles in space that moved around, seemingly at random, and some sort of AI assisted algorithm that finally seemed to be able to track it with a fraction more accuracy than anything previously developed.

Apparently it was a big deal.

She couldn't see Gale's face in the dark, but she could feel the heat of his smile as he rambled about the project with an excitement that bordered on sheer glee. She even gave up on teasing his cock in favor of closing her eyes and listening to his voice wash over her.

After everything he'd been through, it was nice to experience his joy. His warmth, his passion.

“That's really cool,” she said when his explanation lulled to a stop. “You are the pinnacle of cool.”

“You are an infuriating tease,” he said.

“No, I mean it!” Miriam insisted. “You're so … shit, Gale, you're so fucking smart. You're funny, you're kind, and stuff you do for a living is going to stick around for a long time and that's amazing to me.”

He adjusted his arm positioning to pull her snug against his chest. “Not that I don't appreciate the flattery, but where is this coming from?” he asked quietly.

Miriam felt her face flush. “Just … felt like it needed to be said, is all,” she mumbled into his chest. And then: “I'm glad you found me.”

The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could bite them back. His arms around her tightened as he buried his lips in her hair and peppered her scalp with soft kisses, and she wondered with a sick feeling why she’d said anything at all.

Gale was dreading seeing Cat again, but the first thing they did upon seeing him the next morning at the observatory lab was offer a cup of coffee and a profuse apology. “I fucked up yesterday,” they admitted as they lingered around the side of the building fiddling with a cigarette they were only half-smoking. “I said some really thoughtless things, and I'm sorry for that. I mean it.”

“Apology accepted,” Gale said. And he found after he said the words out loud that he did mean it.

Cat was only a handful of years younger than him, but they looked impossibly small now as they took a long drag of their cigarette and scuffed a shoe in the freshly piled snow. Their eyes were lined with dark shadows, and unlike their clean shaven appearance yesterday they were sporting a patchy and unkempt five-o’clock shadow scattered haphazardly across their jaw. “I don't wear bow ties anymore,” they admitted quietly. “She gave me my first one, when I was first considering transitioning back in the day. Feels wrong to keep putting them on now. Isn't that stupid?”

“Not at all.” Gale realized he was at a loss for what to do with his hands, so he jammed them into his coat pocket and offered an admission of his own. “I have a hideous analog clock in my office back in Waterdeep. It looks ridiculous, it doesn't match anything, and the sound is just. Awful. The most grating irritation. It's on its last legs now, and I still can't bring myself to replace it. When it finally stops working for good, I sometimes fear it may very well hang there inert forever.”

Cat burst into surprised laughter. “You know, you're different than I imagined you'd be,” they said. “I know we crossed paths at — at the funeral…” They swallowed thickly. “I guess my impression of you was skewed by a lot of things those days. Been wanting to work with you for a while on a professional level, you know, but I never expected you'd be so … agreeable?”

“Hah!” Gale barked out a laugh of his own. “I'll have you know, Tara found me to be quite the contrarian.”

“I can believe that,” Cat said with a grin. They finished their cigarette with a long drag and stubbed it into the snow before wrapping the butt in a tiny roll of paper and stuffing the entire package into their pocket. “Idunno, mate. You're a lot nicer than I thought you'd be. That helps, I think.”

“I'm going to, er, to visit her later,” Gale said suddenly. He had to get the words out before he lost his nerve. “If you would like to accompany me.”

Cat watched the morning sun shimmer on the snow for a few beats. “Yeah,” they said finally. “I think I'd like that.”

Gale hadn't exactly considered how he was getting to Eveningstar when he’d impulsively asked Cat to come with him, but he needn’t have worried. It was a little past ten thirty in the morning when they finished up in the lab, and Cat promptly led him to a tan Subaru Outback in the parking lot that was at least a decade old. “She's not much, but she'll get us there,” they declared with a proud rap of their knuckles on the door.

Gale got in the passenger seat and looked around curiously as he buckled his seatbelt. The interior smelled like pine-scented air freshener. There were piles of outdated tech manuals on the floor. In the back seat there was a partially disassembled rack server scattered across the lid of a large plastic storage bin, held in place by an open canvas toolbox and an overturned child's car seat.

“Liv and Cory outgrew that one, don't worry,” Cat said hastily when they noticed Gale’s scrutiny. “Their dad has seats that fit them in his car. Just, never got around to ditching the spare, is all.” They backed out of the parking space carefully as they cranked up the heat. “Hells, the road to Eveningstar is going to be a pain in the arse in this weather, I bet. Hope the plows have gotten around to scraping the Woodsroad or it'll take us twice as long to get there.”

Gale didn't have anything to say to that, but Cat didn't seem to expect a response to their rambling, and so Gale passed the time watching the bustling cityscape of Suzail melt into frozen suburbs and snow-covered countryside. There was a jazz station playing on the radio, and the heater was keeping the car comfortably warm. He checked his phone in case he'd gotten any texts from Miri, but his notifications remained empty.

Cat glanced over. “Cell service is going to be shit, by the way. Ice storm knocked out the King’s Forest tower last week, and when the repair crews went to fix it, they discovered a ton of structural problems, so the damn thing is still down. Once we get off the main road, you probably won't have any bars at all until we get to Eveningstar.”

“Ah,” Gale said. He put his phone away, went back to staring through the window, and tried valiantly not to question every decision he’d made that brought him here.

The cook at the diner across the street from the hotel waved in greeting when Miriam walked through the door this time. “Hey, Waterdeep!” she called out. “You’re back!”

“Couldn't keep me away from your pretty face,” Miriam teased as she slid into the same seat she'd occupied yesterday.

“Flatterer,” the cook said with a grin. The corners of her eyes and mouth wrinkled when she smiled, and grey-lined brown hair spilled unruly from her hat. Today she was also wearing a bent and scratched name tag that read ‘Mags.’ “Where’s your man? That’s twice now you’ve come in here without him, I’m starting to think you made him up.”

Miriam pretended to look over the menu as Mags handed her a fresh cup of coffee. “He’s working,” she said. “He’s here for a project at the observatory. I’m just along for the ride.”

“Shit, he’s one of them academic types then?”

“You could say that, yeah.” Miriam thought about the way Gale had lit up last night talking about his work and couldn’t bite back her smile. “He teaches at UW back on the coast.”

“You in the mood to try something new today?” Mags asked suddenly. “I got a batch of plum butter made fresh this morning that pairs real well with apple pancakes and beef blood sausage. Little taste of Cormyr since you mentioned you’d never been out here before. It’s boring as shit here on weekdays.”

“Sure,” Miriam said. “Why not?”

“I'll grab that menu, then.” Mags leaned in and added in a low whisper, “I don’t want to alarm you, by the way, but there’s someone on the patio watching you. She was here yesterday too, she’s working real hard to hide it, but I’ve seen that kind of shit before, so if you don’t know her … watch yourself.”

Miriam frowned, a slowly sinking feeling in her stomach. “Short, curvy, curly black hair?” she hazarded with dread. “Probably wearing something hideous and maroon?”

“You do know her, then?” Mags asked.

“Hells.” Miriam dragged a hand through her hair with a groan. “Unfortunately,” she muttered. “Ugh. Ugh. One second.” She hopped off of the barstool and made her way outside before Mags could say anything else. And before she could change her mind.

“Oh, dear,” Korrilla said smoothly. She peeked over her newspaper and then set it down on the table. “Have I interrupted something?”

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“And here I was hoping we could have a civilized conversation for once.”

“Bullshit,” Miriam snapped. “What does Raphael want that couldn’t wait until I got back into town? He still have you keeping tabs on me?”

“For once, I’m not here on behalf of Raphael,” Korrilla said, hands raised in surrender.

“Forgive me if I find that a little hard to believe.”

“Please.” Korrilla gestured to the other empty seat. “Do sit down and chat for a moment.”

Miriam glanced at Mags through the glass diner door. “Can we do it inside? It’s freezing out here, and I don’t like you enough to deal with this much snow.”

Korrilla raised her eyebrows, looked inside, and offered Mags a friendly wave. “But it’s such a lovely morning,” she said pointedly.

“Honestly, I’d rather kill myself,” Miriam added with a flat stare.

“Colorful as always. Very well.” Korrilla stood up and dusted her coat with both hands. “You might be interested in what I have to say.”

The bells of Magpie Cafe jingled as Korrilla strode inside with all the confidence of someone who spent her life stepping on other people’s dreams. “I somehow doubt that very much,” Miriam muttered as she followed close behind.

Gale took one step out of Cat's SUV and immediately questioned why he'd done this. The wind was biting against his face, and he dragged his knit hat further down over his ears and tried not to think about the last time he'd been here.

“Regret coming yet?” Cat asked dryly.

Gale grimaced. “I haven't quite made up my mind about that, actually.”

The cemetery was a small one in a rural village a mile out from Eveningstar, charmingly titled King's Court, and it was maintained about as thoroughly as one would expect for a one-room church with a friendly elderly groundskeeper in possession of a bad back and even worse knees. The snow was ankle deep and sank miserably into Gale's socks, but he hardly felt the cold as dread blanketed over him like his own funeral shroud.

Tara's grave, at least, was lovingly kept up with. He'd met her family a few times — an equally audacious sister named Therese with four children and a fiercely devoted husband — and it was clear they took their duties seriously. There were tracks leading through the snow all the way to the plot itself, which had been freshly swept clean and adorned with a bouquet of flowers that had already begun gathering ice crystals on their cold-wilted leaves.

Something about the scene was, oddly, as soothing as it was painful.

“I thought Giogi was going to leave me,” Cat said quietly. Their breath puffed out in front of their face in soft clouds. “I neglected everything for months. The kids. My job. I had to take a semester-long leave of absence from Greenwell University back in Immersea.”

Gale was quiet for a moment. The silence here was such that he could hear the blood rushing in his head. “Ariel was seeing someone else,” he said. “I withdrew and neglected everything — including her — and so she sought company elsewhere. She was doing so for about a year before I found out and — and left her over it.” It was oddly liberating to say the words out loud, and he realized then just how little he'd actually talked about the situation to anyone but the walls of his apartment. Gods, was Miri the only person he'd really told?

Cat gave him a curious look. “The presentation at Hengorot I mentioned last night—”

“Was a mere two days after I found out. She left a day early after that fight. Shouldn't have come as a surprise she would have brought…” He trailed off. “I didn't know it was a woman,” he said finally. “Until you said. I didn't ask. Didn't want to know.”

“Shit.” Cat scuffed the snow with their boot. “I didn't know. Now I really feel like a dick about the whole thing.”

“It's alright,” Gale said. He wasn't sure if it actually was, but as far as blame fell, he could admit very little of it fell on Cat's shoulders. “I think the situation shined a light on several other breaking points I had been too buried in my own arse to notice. Perhaps it was for the best.”

Cat huffed out a laugh. “You know what they say about hindsight and all that. Or, well. What Tara said about hindsight, I'm sure.”

It was Gale's turn to chuckle. “That the view of things on their way out of any hind is always less than flattering?”

“Precisely.” They grinned at him. The sun reflected off of their ginger hair almost as much as it shown on the snow itself. “You know,” they said thoughtfully. “It's kind of uncanny, to be honest.”

“What is?”

“You and Ariel have the same taste in women.”

Gale froze. “I'm sorry?”

“Yeah. Leggy Southern brunettes with short hair. Mireya could have been that girl's sister.”

“I would prefer we didn't continue this line of conversation,” Gale said abruptly. The roar of his heartbeat almost eclipsed the sound of his own voice.

“Right. Right, sorry.” Cat wrung their hands with a nervous laugh. “Tara used to tell me if I put my foot in my mouth any more than I already did I would have to start walking on my arse cheeks. She's right again. As always.”

Gale thought about the way Tara had stood by him during his years with Ariel. That woman isn't good for you, Dr. Dekarios, nor you for her, she'd said once with that disapproving scowl she wore so well. You'll get nowhere on your own hanging onto her coattails.

Gods, what would she say if she could see him now? Would she be happy for him, finally striking out on his own after all these years? Or would she peer at him over those ridiculous tortoiseshell glasses she loved so much and lecture him about how he'd stumbled arse first into another situation he had no business being a part of?

“She was right about a lot of things,” Gale agreed softly. He trained his eyes on the tombstone, a solid and practical thing of etched granite.

Dr. Tara Everett, it read. Beloved sister, dearly missed. Below the words, dates, nestled neatly above a stylized cat as was the custom in central and northern Cormyr. It was almost infuriatingly simplistic, but what tombstone had the space to list everything Tara was?

There was an uncomfortable buzzing in the back of his head and a sick, twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach as the two of them stood for a little while longer in a respectful silence. He didn't want to think about Miri, not right now; and as he finally trudged back to Cat's vehicle with frozen toes and an ache in his chest, he checked his phone helplessly anyway for some inkling she was thinking about him the way he thought about her.

There were no new notifications, and he wondered briefly why he'd even tried.

“You look well,” Korrilla said.

Miriam held back her scowl and affected an expression of bored disinterest instead. “I was having the time of my life until you came along, actually.” She took a slow sip of her coffee and watched Korrilla stir sugar and cream into her own cup. “In fact, I wish you looked worse.”

Korrilla snorted. “You know, sometimes I do miss that mouth of yours. No one keeps it quite as lively as you did back in the day.”

“I'm sure they don't,” Miriam muttered. “Are you going to tell me what the fuck you want now?”

“My dear, you and I both know it is never about what either of us want.” Korrilla sat back and folded her hands together. “But, since you are being such a good girl with your admirable self restraint — oh, don't look at me like that, I can see the strangulation fantasies playing out on your face like an outdoor cinema.” She paused. “I'm sure you remember your former employer and our … mutual acquaintance.”

Miriam snorted. “Are you and Helsik back to sucking each other's clits again, or are we still in lesbian blood feud territory? I really can't ever keep up with you two.”

“Always with the crassness,” Korrilla tsked. “But as I was saying, Raphael is graciously offering to relocate you back home. You will resume your employment at the Devil’s Fee nightclub in a managerial capacity alongside Helsik. He will provide you with a paid-off townhome in the Upper City within walking distance of your family. In return, you will resume taking clients at his discretion, professionally and without complaint. There is one in particular who is particularly eager to … invest, shall we say, in your future success.”

“Fuck no,” Miriam said immediately. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Think about it Miri,” Korrilla urged. “What you're doing on your own is admirable but unsustainable. I promise you, this is the best deal you're ever going to get out of Raphael.”

“I said no, Korrilla.”

“I've seen your records,” Korrilla said. “At the rate you're going, assuming your life stays stable enough to maintain it, you have at least a decade left on that debt. You're not a fresh-faced little ingenue anymore, darling. Word has it you're having enough trouble keeping up an adequate income as it is.”

“Word is, you can choke on my dick,” Miriam spat.

Korrilla pursed her lips. “Consider this. Humor me for a moment. What is Tathla Nightstar’s golden rule for all of her employees? And don't tell me you aren't hers anymore either; that's irrelevant to what I am about to say.”

“You tell me,” Miriam said stubbornly. “Since you seem to be in the business of asking questions you already know the answers to.”

“Don't,” Korrilla said slowly, tapping her fingers on the table, “fall for your clients.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“No? I seem to recall quite a bit about you, actually. Shall I remind you, since you seem so determined to bury your head in the sand?” Korrilla’s gaze was piercing and sharp, and Miriam wondered if this was what a mouse felt like watching a hawk swoop down from the clouds. “What was that charming Zhentarim boy’s name again?”

“Stop it,” Miriam whispered. And it was so absurd, wasn’t it, the way she could just as easily end this conversation instead of entertaining shattered old memories. All she had to do was stand up and walk away.

“It’s on the tip of my tongue. Remind me, won’t you?”

Miriam clenched her fists until her nails bit into her palms. “Keep Rugan’s name out of your mouth.”

“Arguably if you’d kept him out of your mouth after hours—”

“I said don’t.”

“Is this painful to hear?” Korrilla asked. “Good. It should be. I’d hate for history to repeat itself.”

“Is that a threat?” Miriam said. “Because in case you noticed, I don’t work for Raphael anymore, my clients are not his clients, and I am not his fucking property.”

Korrilla raised her hands in placation. “Shh, dear, there’s no need to raise our voices. I’m not here to needlessly twist the knife; I’m here because I’m trying to steer you away from further ruin.”

“You need,” Miriam said slowly, “to fuck off back to whatever hell you crawled out of and leave me alone before I file for a godsdamned restraining order.”

Korrilla tsked again. “That would be incredibly unwise of you, Miri. I’m sure you don’t need me to spell out why.”

Miriam shoved her hands into her pockets to hide how badly they were shaking. “If you don’t get to the point in the next ten seconds, I’m walking out of here. I think I’m being incredibly generous about that.”

“Your sweet little professor may have deep pockets, but they won’t sustain you forever. The last one’s certainly didn’t. And with your current predicament, even Tathla’s payroll isn’t going to bankroll you sufficiently if something else happens.” Korrilla tapped the table in front of them emphatically. “Believe what you want, but I like you, Miri. I want the best outcome of this situation for you. You think I want to spend the rest of my life under Raphael Rosier’s thumb? I made my decisions, I’m living with my own consequences, and I am telling you, if you play your cards right, your life doesn’t have to be an unbearable hell of your own making. But right now? You’re tossing your entire deck into the fire, and that isn’t going to end well for you.”

“Who’s sponsoring this move?” Miriam asked quietly. “We both know Raphael isn’t doing this out of the goodness of his heart. I’m good at my job, but I’m not that good, and you said it yourself, practically speaking, at some point I’m going to age out of the business anyway. So who's really pulling the strings here?”

“I think you already know who,” Korrilla said. “He was so very fond of you back in the day.”

Miriam’s blood chilled. “I thought Enver went bankrupt.”

Korrilla snorted. “Made some poor choices, yes. As it turns out, he’s got connections higher up the chain of command when it comes to the Rosier family now. He currently has a few very generous investors with money to burn, and he’s willing to burn some of it on you in turn. He’s a powerful friend to have, Miri. He could feasibly get you away from Raphael for good, if you play your cards right. He might very well be the only one who can.” She stood up from the table and tossed a twenty onto the table. “Think on it. You know where to find me when you make up your mind.”

Miriam watched Korrilla leave. She felt frozen in place, trapped in time as the world around her slowly left her behind. She forced her feet to move anyway as the world narrowed to a narrow, ear-ringing point directly in front of her. Mags might have been saying something to her, but she didn’t notice, didn’t care, needed to get out.

She was three blocks down the sidewalk when she finally stopped and sank down onto a bus stop bench. Her hands shook as she pulled her phone from her pocket and fumbled with the screen.

Hello! You’ve reached Dr. Gale Dekarios with the University of Waterdeep physics and astronomy department. I am unable to take calls at present; please provide adequate contact information, such as your name and phone number, and I shall endeavor to reach out to you as soon as I am able. Until then!

His voicemail beeped, and she hung up in a panic.

Gods. Korrilla was right. Korrilla was fucking right; why else had reaching out to Gale for comfort been her first impulse when she was so rattled she could barely remember her own address? Shit. Shit. She stood up and paced the sidewalk in front of the bus stop, her limbs full of so much jittery energy it was almost physically painful to stay seated.

Finally, she tried someone else.

Rolan answered on the first ring. “This had better be important,” he drawled. “I am in the middle of a rather pressing assignment.”

“Right,” Miriam croaked. “Yeah. Sorry. I, um. Never mind, I can call another time.”

“Miri?” Rolan’s tone completely changed. “Hells. Are you alright? Has something happened?”

“I don’t know how to talk about it,” she blurted out. Her eyes stung with tears. “I don’t know if I can, if I’m — even allowed to—”

“Is it Dekarios? Did he hurt you?”

“Gods, Rolan, no,” Miriam said. “No, he’s — he’s been nothing but sweet. Fuck, he’s so fucking kind, I can’t — I don’t think I can keep doing this.”

“I see.” Rolan paused awkwardly. “Erm, setting aside the fact that ‘sweet’ and ‘kind’ are the last words in the dictionary I would ever use to describe Dekarios based on my interactions with him … dare I ask why this seems to be such a problem?”

“He’s my client. In case you’ve forgotten what that means, he is currently paying my bills in exchange for fucking me.”

“Augh, ew,” Rolan groaned. “Sorry,” he appended. “That was probably inappropriate.” He cleared his throat. “I suppose transitioning your relationship to something with more substance is off the table for a variety of reasons?”

“Yeah,” Miriam replied miserably. If only he knew the extent of the shit she'd stepped in. If only she could convey the magnitude of just how much her world was crumbling before her eyes. She could talk to Astarion about it, of course, but all she would get for her trouble would be a frown and an ‘I told you so.’ Aletha and Jhoysil couldn't be trusted not to react drastically in ways that would absolutely escalate everything. Not to mention how much they would hover, and she didn't know if she could handle that, either.

Gods, she'd never felt more alone.

“I suppose there's absolutely fuck-all I can do about it, then?” Rolan said flatly.

“Unless you sprout some truly fantastical magic powers overnight, no, probably not.”

He chuckled. “Who knows? With my prodigious talent, anything is possible.”

“If I were standing next to you, I would be smacking your shoulder right now,” Miriam informed him.

“Lucky for me I'm quite out of range, then,” Rolan said dryly. “I suppose you'll have your chance Friday. That is … if you're still coming?”

“Coming to what?” Miriam paused. “Oh, shit. That thing you invited me to, it's Friday?”

“Friday afternoon and evening, yes.”

“I can't make it, I'm sorry,” she said apologetically. “Fridays are my appointments with Gale — shit, I wasn't supposed to tell you that.” She groaned in despair. “Fuck me, I'm a mess.”

“Yes, it certainly seems that way,” Rolan said. He sighed. “Gods, I'm going to regret asking you this, but … Dekarios has a standing appointment with you?” he asked incredulously.

“What, now you decide you want details?”

“Disgusting, absolutely not,” Rolan said firmly. “I just … wow. You know, I did not think he would be the type.”

“Says the man who hangs out with me and watches me get fucked in public at a sex club every Thursday,” Miriam said dryly.

“Can you blame me? You have an aesthetic appeal that would fascinate anyone with a keen eye for anatomy.”

“Rolan, I think you're adorably charming, but if you want anyone to fuck you, ever, maybe stay away from words like ‘aesthetic appeal’ and fascinating.’”

He cackled. “You think Dekarios is ‘sweet’ so forgive me if my assessment of your taste is steeped in a heavy dose of skepticism.”

“Dick,” Miriam snorted.

“Yes, so I've been told.” He was silent for a moment. “You're coming back tomorrow, yes?”

“Yeah. Should be pulling into the airport around four in the afternoon.”

“Come over,” Rolan said. “If you aren't otherwise occupied.”

“I'm sorry, what?” Miriam teased. “Inviting me over twice in one day? I must have won the Rolan lottery.”

“I mean it.” Rolan's voice was devoid of its usual disinterested dryness, and the sincerity left behind was almost jarring. “You called me crying, you dolt. I hardly think you should be alone under those circumstances.”

“Rolan, I'm fine,” Miriam began.

“Be that as it may,” he interrupted, “I may have unearthed a treasure you will certainly appreciate.”

“You better not be flirting with me, you slut.”

“Perish the thought,” Rolan muttered.

“Are you going to tell me what this treasure is? Wait — do I finally get to see your dick?”

Rolan huffed. “No. But it is an educational film by that ridiculous director you seem to love so much. It seems he's convinced himself there is occult activity occurring in Elturgard. My sister found it at a secondhand store for half a crown in the clearance bin.”

Miriam blinked for a moment, then burst into uncontrollable cackles. “You got me Volo's Cult of the Absolute?”

“Is that funny somehow?”

She wiped tears from her face and shook her head, then promptly remembered Rolan couldn't see her. “No,” she wheezed. “Not like that, it's just…” She sniffled again. “You're a good friend, that's all. I'm glad you — thank you.”

Rolan cleared his throat awkwardly. “Well. I have been known to excel at everything I set my mind to,” he sniffed.

“Yeah,” Miriam whispered. The dread wasn't gone, but she no longer felt like she was suffocating at least, and maybe for now that had to be enough.

By the time Cat dropped Gale off in front of his hotel, his anxiety had reached a fever pitch. Dread curled tightly in the pit of his stomach as he made his way to the elevators, as he padded down the hallways in frigid, sopping wet shoes and fumbled with his keycard with frozen fingers.

The hotel room was dark. “Miri?” he called out hesitantly.

Silence greeted him.

A heart-stopping irrational fear swept through him. He strode through the hotel room and flicked on every light, only breathing a sigh of relief when he spotted her bag still messy and unpacked in the corner of the room. Her clothes strewn across her side of the bed. He sat down on the mattress and pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so thoroughly, bone-achingly weary.

He looked at his phone again, helpless and sick to his stomach. He called her, and it went straight to voicemail.

Mireya could have been that girl’s sister.

For the first time in weeks, the true precariousness of his relationship with Miri dangled itself in front of his face. Sure, he had money. His grandmother’s death and subsequent inheritance he’d invested guaranteed that well enough, and if he felt so inclined, he could spend that income on Miri for the rest of their lives and still live comfortably. But what sort of life would that be? Regular weekly sessions, the occasional date, a trip out of town every now and then? He really didn’t want to dwell on how it felt to wake up next to her two days in a row — how much it made him wish he could spend the first few minutes of every morning beside her, listening to her breathe, just basking in her presence.

I’m glad you found me.

It was the ever-present question that always lingered beneath the surface of every interaction he had with her. Was it real? Was any of it?

For the first time since their working relationship began — and gods above, how he hated thinking of it that way — he considered if he would simply be better off without her at all. But that thought turned his stomach the most. He ran his fingers across the fabric of the shirt she wore to bed, and then he picked it up and buried his face in it. Breathed her in with his eyes closed, let the raspberry-rosewater tinged musk of her body wash over him like a flimsy balm in his despair. How the fuck had he let this happen?

He didn't realize he'd fallen asleep tangled in her shirt until the sound of the hotel room door closing jolted him awake. He flung the shirt on the floor in a panic and sat up to see Miri standing in the center of the room.

“Hey,” she said faintly. He took in her disheveled appearance as she stripped out of her coat and hat. Her nose and cheeks were pink from the cold, her fingers stiff as she fumbled with her phone charger. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “It died, I didn't notice.”

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. “Miri,” he said. “Did something happen?”

“What?” The look she gave him was akin to a spooked animal in the headlights of oncoming traffic. The thin smile she gave him happened a few seconds too late to be genuine. “No, it's fine—”

Gale reached for her hand and tugged her to where he was sitting. She stood between his legs in exhausted silence, and this close it looked like her eyes were rimmed red from crying. “You don't have to say anything,” he said finally. Somehow, his own concerns suddenly seemed so small. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against his chest. “Just. Stay a moment.”

Miri took a long, slow breath. “How was work?” she said finally.

“Illuminating. Is this alright?”

She nodded. He tightened his hold on her, and slowly, bit by bit, she slumped into his arms. “I’m fine, I promise,” she said softly. “I just got a bit of bad news from back home, that’s all. Nothing you have to worry about.”

“Be that as it may.” He scooted back onto the mattress and motioned for her to join him. He half expected her to pull away, to take a moment to school her features, to do any number of things other than what she actually did, which was tumble immediately into his arms and lay her head in the crook of his shoulder with a shaky exhale.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again. Her shoulders shook, and he could feel a damp patch forming on his sleeve where her face pressed into it.

Gale frowned uneasily. “Whatever for?”

Miri sniffled and shook her head. “That life can be so fucking unfair,” she said quietly.

He didn't know what to say to that, not now, not when Cat's words had dangled a damning secret between them like a lit fuse. He kissed the top of her head, buried his lips in her messy hair, and imagined a world in which doing so didn't have to hurt quite so much to navigate.

They spent a quiet night watching television in bed. Miriam felt a lingering sense of unease coiling in her gut, and not just from her own skeletons digging themselves back up to haunt her every step. There was a distance to Gale tonight, a distance that was wholly different from his usual brand of tired brooding. Even as they lay snuggled into one another, it felt as though a gap between them widened by the hour, and Miriam couldn't help but wonder what, exactly, she'd done to cause such an abrupt change in demeanor.

Oh, he tried valiantly to hide it, but it was patently obvious in the way he seemed to have to force himself into her proximity. To consciously and repeatedly turn himself towards her, to push through the reflex to flinch away. She knew those behaviors like the back of her hand; whatever he was trying to hide, it was far more transparent than he realized simply because she'd been doing it herself for much, much longer.

Still, she tried to push it to the back of her mind, tried not to push him, and hoped to whatever god was listening that it wouldn’t be too much.

He fell asleep on her shoulder this time during the flight back home. She hated how she’d started thinking of Waterdeep as home. Hated the way her heart skipped a beat when he made a noise in his sleep or buried his face deeper into her shoulder. Her heart clenched in her chest as she breathed him in and wondered how in the hells this had gone so thoroughly tits up.

They arrived in Waterdeep and retrieved their luggage from the carousel, then took a cab back to his apartment in exhausted silence. He put his arm around her shoulder in the elevator, and she tried not to read too much into the way he hesitated ever so slightly before committing to the motion.

“I had a wonderful time,” she said quietly when his apartment door closed behind them. His living room felt distant and empty in the aftermath of Korrilla’s words.

“Good,” he said with a weak smile. “I'm glad.”

Oh, it hurt, this distance that had somehow sprung up between them. Miriam knew needed to leave before she made things worse somehow.

So of course she kissed him instead. That was what she did best, wasn’t it? Muddy the waters, make everything more complicated, all because she didn’t have the self control to step away when it was best for her and everyone else around her.

He stiffened when her lips brushed his, but for all the hurt she felt when he hesitated, he still kissed her back, still tugged her roughly against the front of his body as he stumbled backwards into his living room. He fell back on the couch and pulled her on top of him, and she straddled him eagerly, ravenously, moaning into his touch as she rolled her hips against his cock. It was, in some ways, a reunion. A closing of the inexplicable gap that had sprung between them since yesterday, a patchwork mending of two broken people drowning in the sea and clinging to first piece of driftwood they could find.

His hands shook when he fumbled with his zipper. He pushed his trousers just far enough down his hips to free his cock from his underwear, and Miriam clambered off of him just long enough to kick her own jeans and undergarments to the floor before straddling him again. She let out a pleased groan at the feeling of his cock brushing her folds, already hard to aching. She closed her eyes for a moment, drowned in the contact, in the delirious pleasure of whatever intimacy was still available to her.

His breath hitched as she rubbed her slick against his cock, as she rutted into him with breathless, reckless abandon. “Miri, you insufferable tease,” he groaned. “I need—”

“Tell me,” she whispered. She rolled her hips against him again and relished the way he shuddered against her. “What do you need?”

“To be inside you,” he gasped. “To fuck you, to—” Whatever else he was going to say trailed off into a groan as she finally took him inside of her. He lifted the front of her shirt, feverishly freed her breasts from her bra, and laved his tongue around a nipple until it stiffened into a sensitive peak he promptly sucked just enough to draw a gasp from her mouth.

Did he know? The way she drowned in his body, the way she never tired of how he touched her, how he felt inside her? Did he know what he meant to her, what he really meant outside of simply a means to her own survival? “Gale,” she moaned. Her face dropped to the crook of his neck as he gripped her hips and fucked back into her. “Oh, fuck, please.”

Please, what? some part of her wondered idly. He filled her so well. They fit together like they were made for one another, which was a terribly romantic thought that had no place in the life of someone like her. Don’t ever stop, she wanted to say. Stay with me, her body begged. I love you. I love you, I love you.

“Miri, I’m going to — please, I won’t last much longer—” he groaned.

“That’s okay,” she coaxed him gently. “Let go. Don’t worry about me right now.”

His breath caught in his throat as he panted through every thrust. Miriam cupped his face with one hand, pressed her forehead against his, watched the way his eyes squeezed shut in rapture. He came with a strangled moan. She felt his cock pulse, felt him fill her with cum, felt the warmth of him inside of her as he clung to her with sweaty, trembling fingers. “Miri—” he said again.

Miriam shushed him with another kiss and tried not to think about how every one felt like it could be their last. How every touch crumbled another piece of her heart away.

I love you, she wanted to say. It lingered behind her lips, a forbidden truth that could never, ever be allowed to see the light of day.

“I have to go soon,” she said instead. “I wish I could stay.”

“All good things must come to an end eventually, I suppose,” he conceded softly almost more to himself than to her. “How quickly things slip away from us.”

She climbed off of his lap and fumbled with her clothes before his cum could drip out from her cunt. Selfishly, irrationally, she wanted to keep as much of him inside of her as she could for as long as possible; and yet as she pulled her clothes back on, all she felt was the steady, ever-encroaching dread of a future that was already beginning to unravel.

He tucked himself back into his trousers with an air of uncertainty as he rose to his feet and trailed after her. “Friday as usual?” he called out after her.

“Yeah,” Miriam said with a smile. “Wouldn’t miss it.” She threaded her fingers through his hair gently for one last kiss, soft and honey-sweet, the sort of kiss that made a person reluctant to pull away. But pull away they did, and when she finally left his apartment, her bags in hand, she felt more hollow than ever.

Rolan picked up on the second ring as Miriam paced the curb by the corner store down the block from Gale's apartment. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah, I uh.” Miriam grimaced. “You said call you if I needed a ride.”

“You weren't supposed to take me up on it,” Rolan said dryly. “But very well, I shall be over shortly—”

“I'm not at home,” Miriam said abruptly. “I'm in the Sea Ward.”

“Miri, are you insane? And what do you think Dekarios is going to think if he sees me picking you up? Answer me honestly. Do you see him being even remotely well adjusted about it?”

Miriam rolled her eyes. “He lives in a fucking high rise, Rolan. And anyway, I'm not even at his place anymore, I'm at the Quik Trip a block over. Does he even know what you drive?”

“No,” Rolan said. She could hear the frown in his voice.

“Look, even if he happens to look down from his eighteenth floor window and recognize that it's me getting into a car a block over, I may as well be getting into a Lyft. Be my Lyft driver. Please? My phone's about to die and I don't have the energy to fend off people on the metro right now.”

“Ugh,” Rolan groaned. “Ugh! Fine. You owe me.”

“Whatever you want, babydoll,” she chirped into her phone.

He ignored her. “Which Quik Trip?”

“Corner of Grimmald and Whisper Street. It's attached to a posh cocktail lounge called the Silken Sylph.”

“Very well, I—”

Her phone died. She stared at the blank screen with a heavy sigh and shoved it into her purse. She pulled out a compact mirror and checked her appearance. A little disheveled, but her makeup was intact, and a hat neatly covered any flyaway hair. The air was crisp and cold and smelled of the sea and none of it felt real.

She paced the sidewalk until she wondered if she’d thoroughly gone mad. Her backpack straps weighed heavy on her shoulders, and the wheels of her luggage squeaked against the pavement. Her world crumbled into a compact existential crisis the size of three square meters of city sidewalk.

Someone honked from the curb. Miri looked up to see the passenger window roll down on a familiar black Jeep Explorer. “Do you plan on standing there sulking all night, or will you get in before the blasted heat leaks out?” Rolan called out from behind the wheel.

The feeling of relief that bled through Miriam's limbs was a heady sort of pleasure all on its own. She stuffed her bags into the back seat and climbed into the front, choking as the heat from the vents blasted her in the face. “Hells,” she coughed. “You really weren't kidding about hating the cold.”

“It's vile,” he said stubbornly. “My sister adores it, but I'd sooner fling myself into the sea than feel my fingers turn into icicles because the weather decided to be uncooperative.”

“You would have hated Cormyr,” Miriam said with a laugh. “I think I saw a snowbank that came up to my neck.”

Rolan shuddered as he pulled away from the curb and back onto the street. “No thank you,” he muttered. “But. Speaking of Cormyr.” He glanced at her with an unusually concerned expression. “Now that we're in a relatively contained space … what in the hells happened to you over there?”

Miriam sighed. “Can I get a few drinks in me first before I decide if I feel like trauma dumping to someone tonight? It's been a really long day.”

Rolan pursed his lips. “Fair. That's … fair. And far be it from me to pressure you about your demons. Just…” His face looked pained as he spoke. “Know that I am willing to listen. I hear that is what is expected of friends.”

“Careful,” Miriam teased. Her heart felt lighter already. “I'm going to have to tell Cal you're actually becoming nice.”

He looked utterly affronted. “You wouldn't dare.”

After a quick stop to her own place to drop off her luggage and take a shower, Miriam found herself back in Rolan’s car. The heater was less stifling when she wasn’t layered in a heavy winter coat with all of the accessories that accompanied it, and this time the ride was actually somewhat pleasant.

The house Rolan shared with his sister in the northernmost block of the Dock Ward was a cozy two-bedroom duplex with a screened in front porch draped in fairy lights and empty hanging planters. There were mismatched plastic bowls in a variety of colors placed near the patio door, all overflowing with some sort of kibble.

“Lia insists on feeding the neighborhood clowder,” Rolan said. “I swear that woman spends more money feeding stray cats than she ever did on veterinary school.”

Miriam snickered. “I'm sorry, did you just say clowder?”

Rolan scowled as he fumbled with his keys and unlocked the front door. “It is the correct term for a group of many cats. It's hardly my fault the rest of you refuse to rely on your educations in everyday life.”

“Lia makes fun of you for it too, doesn't she.”

His expression darkened to a comical degree. “No comment.”

She followed him inside. Their house was cozily decorated, with similarly mismatched furniture as Dammon and Cal’s. The kitchen table bore a vintage style red checkered tablecloth with an assortment of salt and spices on a spinnable tray in the center. Hanging above the kitchen sink was a wooden cuckoo clock with a pendulum carved in the shape of a cat curled around a ball. Various photographs littered the walls of people she didn’t know, but Rolan featured in a few of them, usually lingering in the background with a sour expression on his face. Her breath fogged in front of her face at the temperature, and she pulled her hoodie tighter around her body.

“Damn it all,” Rolan groaned. “This is what I get for coming straight from campus. Lia must have forgotten to raise the heat before she left.” He fumbled with the thermostat on the wall with muttered curses on his tongue. “She'll be out until about six in the morning since she's working nights at the emergency clinic this week, so I'm afraid I'm the only company you get this evening.”

“Gods forbid I get to hang out with my friend uninterrupted,” Miriam said dryly. The central heat kicked on with a creaky shudder. “I'd suggest we cuddle for warmth if you weren't such a prickly bastard.”

“It's a badge I wear with pride, it's true,” Rolan said solemnly. He disappeared into the kitchen as Miriam flopped onto his couch and familiarized herself with his TV remote, and then he reappeared holding two bottles of wine. “They're bottom shelf screw-cap bottles,” he said with a rare note of apology. “I'm sure it's far inferior to what you're used to your clients indulging you with, but—”

“Oh, shut up,” Miriam laughed as she plucked one of the bottles from his hands. “Wine is wine. I'm really not picky. I'm…” She trailed off with a grimace. “Just glad I'm not home by myself on my night off.” She exhaled softly and took a long pull from the bottle. The wine was sweet and tart on her tongue. “There, how's that for uncharacteristic honesty?”

Rolan chuckled as he fiddled with the DVD player and sat next to her. “Careful. I might start thinking you have a bleeding heart under all of that charm.”

“Please,” Miriam said with a dismissive wave of her hand. She leaned back against the arm rest and flopped her sock-covered feet into his lap. “A little blood never hurt anyone.”

“Volo's little vampire victims would beg to differ.”

She cackled as she shoved lightly at his chest with her foot. “Careful,” she parroted with a grin. “I might start thinking you're developing a sense of humor.”

“Oh, well, we certainly can't have that,” Rolan agreed sagely.

Gale paced his kitchen as restlessness gnawed relentlessly at his bones. He'd already unpacked and put away his things. His clothing was currently running through the two-in-one machines in the third floor laundry facility. He'd swept and mopped the kitchen — even deep cleaned the baseboards, much to the chagrin of his aching back and knees — and according to the timer on his residency app, his laundry still had another hour to go in total.

He just wanted to go to sleep.

He also knew if he tried, he simply wouldn't be able to keep his eyes closed. Not when old conflicts were beginning to dredge themselves back up in his memory.

He thought about how Ariel had talked of putting Kell's house on the market after settling his estate. How he'd looked at houses with her in the North Ward, how the two of them had planned to find one together after the engagement was announced. How his heart had plummeted when he’d accidentally discovered she had a second cell phone. How he’d picked it up right as she’d received a text from someone only saved with a single rose emoji as their contact name. He thought about his first conversation with Miri with a sick feeling in his chest.

Her favorite flowers were roses.

He dragged a hand through his hair, helpless and frustrated. Despairing. He flipped through his phone and, against his better judgment, pulled up Miri’s contact information; and then, he stared at her name for a full two minutes before setting the phone back down on his counter with a muted clatter.

This was bloody ridiculous.

He picked his phone back up and impulsively dialed Ariel’s number. It made him nauseous, the way his fingers still knew it by memory. The phone rang four times before she finally answered.

“Good evening, Dr. Dekarios,” she said smoothly. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure? I trust your return from Cormyr was uneventful?”

“It was,” he said. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Was this question really worth asking? Did he really want to know?

“Is this about the Ahghairon project?” she pressed at his silence. “Or is there something else of yours that requires my attention?”

Gale wanted to scream in frustration. She was always like this. So polished, like a shining marble statue unblemished by the things that made the rest of the world human. So bloody unaffected. Bitterness and anger and despair all welled up in the back of his throat all at once, and he suddenly found himself scrambling for an answer he could live with.

“Can we talk?” he asked finally.

There was a moment of eye-twitching silence. “Of course,” Ariel said. “We’re talking now.”

“You know what I mean,” Gale muttered. “About personal matters, not business.”

“Speak plainly, Gale. Has something happened? Because this dancing about the point you’re doing at present isn’t like you at all.”

“Oh, because you know me so well these days, do you?” he snapped.

“Don’t bite at me because you can’t seem to string a sentence together coherently enough to make your desires known,” she said. Was that a shred of bitterness he heard in her voice? Anger welled up in his chest. What right did she have to bitterness?

If he were a better man, a braver man, he would have come out and asked the actual question currently strangling him like a noose. But Gale considered that perhaps he was — and always had been — a pathetic coward at heart. So instead, he asked, “Would I ever have been enough?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“If things had gone differently, if circumstances hadn’t been — if it weren’t for that bloody accident — would I have been enough for you? Or would you still have chosen someone else?”

Ariel heaved a heavy sigh. “As I understand it, we’ve all made our choices and long since buried them accordingly. Why do you insist on exhuming the past?”

“Answer the question, please.” The words came out barely over a whisper.

“Need I remind you what really happened?” Ariel said. Her voice had taken on a particularly sharp edge. “Despite all of my various indiscretions, you were the one who walked away in the end. Say what you want about the way I handled certain situations, but the choice to leave for good was yours alone.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “Now, unless you have something of actual substance to bring up, I must insist you let me go about the rest of my evening in peace. Is that all?”

Gale didn’t know if he wanted to scream, hang up, or throw his phone across the room. There was an absurd impulse to apologize rattling around somewhere in his mouth too. The suffocating ache in his chest was back, and with it, a crippling flood of self doubt that had him biting the inside of his lip hard enough to draw blood. “Will you answer my question, or not?” he persisted anyway.

“I believe you said it best the night you kicked me out of your apartment,” she said icily. “Nothing and no one would ever have been enough for someone like me. Isn’t that right? Along with something about me sullying the very air I breathe and how ‘taking things lying down’ is more my style? You were so determined to make a villain out of me, Gale; I suggest you grow a spine and commit to it.”

The call disconnected with a patronizing beep. He set the phone down, took a deep breath, and promptly hurled a cup at the nearest wall where it exploded on impact in a deafening shower of shattered glass. And then he stared helplessly at his contacts list, a crumbling, paralyzing fear holding him in place.

It was going to be a long night.

Miriam couldn't help but notice her bottle was empty. She squinted at the bottom of it in bleary disappointment. “Isn't there supposed to be something at the bottom of a bottle of wine?” she said with a frown. “Like they say in the songs.”

“I'm afraid I have no idea what you mean,” Rolan said.

“Come on!” She shook the bottle at his face. “You’ve never heard a single trashy song about finding love at the bottom of a bottle?”

She managed to hold a straight face until Rolan's flat, disapproving stare broke through her resolve. “Really?” he said dryly as she dissolved into laughter.

“I’m a poet,” she protested between tipsy giggles. “I speak in metaphors.”

“You speak in absurdities,” Rolan said with a snort.

She set the bottle down and flopped into his lap while studiously ignoring his affronted grunt. “Admit it,” she slurred. “You love my absurdities.”

“I find them mildly entertaining at best,” he corrected. He still ran fond fingers through her hair as he pressed play on the next episode. “Perhaps I simply endure them in exchange for how you tolerate my company.”

Miriam cackled. “Rolan, we have got to work on your compliments. Repeat after me: ‘Miriam Taveric, I find you incredibly charming, and your wit is a brilliant beacon that lights up my life with laughter.’ Now you try it.”

He rolled his eyes. “Miriam Taveric, you are the most ridiculous person I’ve ever met, and I find myself having grown unconscionably fond of you. There. That’s the best you’re going to get.”

Miriam reached up and patted his cheek fondly. “It’s okay, you’re a work in progress.” She struggled upright and squinted at the screen. “What the fuck is even happening on this screen right now? Did he rig up a godsdamned tentacle monster?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” he said. “I didn’t even know this DVD had multiple parts.”

“Oh, Rolan,” Miriam cackled. “All of Volo’s documentaries have multiple parts.” The room was pleasantly warm. She leaned on him with a pleased hum, and he rolled his eyes and draped an arm around her shoulders.

“Nine hells, woman, will you cease your wriggling?” he grumbled as she readjusted for the third time.

“I’m trying to get comfortable, it’s not my fault you’re so bony—” Miriam trailed off as she felt his cock — currently conspicuously hard beneath his trousers — press against her rear. “Rolan!” she teased, her tone scandalized. “I didn’t know you were into me like that!”

Rolan let out a long-suffering groan. “As I am sure you are aware, certain areas of anatomy respond in a very specific way to various forms of stimulation. It certainly doesn’t mean what you think it does.”

Miriam stared at him in the dim lamp light. “It can if you want it to,” she said quietly.

“I assure you, it’s completely innocuous,” he protested. “I am not the sort of man to take advantage of a friend in such a state.”

“Oh, come on,” Miriam pouted. “It’s hardly taking advantage when I’m the one suggesting it, right? Are you telling me I’m not allowed to have fun?”

“Don’t you dare put words in my mouth,” Rolan said.

“If you wanted, I could put something else in your—”

To Miriam’s eternal surprise, Rolan leaned in and kissed her. Caught off guard, she kissed back on sheer instinct. He tasted like curiosity and the remnants of sweet wine on his tongue. She tumbled back into the couch cushions and pulled him on top of her as she deepened the kiss and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Thought that would shut you up,” he whispered.

“Uncharacteristically bold of you,” she groaned against his mouth. She let her hands wander beneath his sweatshirt, fingertips trailing up his spine.

“What can I say?” he murmured. “I think you've been a rather terrible influence on me these days, don't you think?”

Miriam wiggled out of her jeans and kicked them to the floor. “I make zero apologies,” she said between feverish kisses.

He smoothed a hand down her stomach tentatively and slipped his fingers into her underwear. “You'll have to forgive me,” he whispered. “I'm woefully out of practice.”

Miriam gasped playfully and swatted at his chest. “Is that humility I'm hearing?”

Rolan snorted. “Simply honesty. The last time I was intimate with anyone of your particular persuasion, I was still an undergrad.”

“It's really not all that different,” she said breathlessly as she bucked her hips into his hand. “You just rub the button until something happens.”

“Is that your infallible strategy born from years of professional experience?” he said with a grin. He found her clit with the pad of his thumb and circled it slowly, exhaling when he found her wet and wanting already.

“More or less.” Her fingers dug into his back. She hooked her foot around his ankle with a breathy whine as he teased at her clit. “Seems to work for me, at any rate. Besides.” She tipped her head back as Rolan's lips found her neck. “I'm fucking you because I want to, not because you're paying me, so you're already ahead of the curve.”

“I can never tell if you're complimenting me or insulting me.” He thrust a finger into her and ground the heel of his palm against her clit. “But I will be gracious enough to accept direction just this once.”

“How magnanimous of you — fuck, yes, right there—” Miriam tipped her head back against the arm rest and whimpered as Rolan's fingers plucked her insides like a harp string. He made up for his inexperience with a combination of enthusiasm and a keen sense of observation, although Miriam wasn't entirely sure if he was that quick a study or if she was just too drunk to be discerning.

Rolan paused suddenly. “I'm afraid I don't have protection, I confess I wasn't exactly expecting—”

“Luckily for you,” Miriam interrupted with a laugh as she blindly groped about by the couch for her purse, “whores always come prepared.”

“You did not just make the worst pun I've ever heard while I've got my fingers inside you.”

She burst into laughter as she fumbled with a pack of condoms and finally pulled one out. “I've made much worse jokes with much more interesting things inside me,” she said as she ripped the package open with her teeth and handed it over. “Having second thoughts?”

“With someone as appealing as you?” Rolan scoffed. “Heavens forbid. I still have eyes.”

“Now who's making up insulting sounding compliments?”

He rolled the condom onto his cock and lined himself up with a cheeky grin. “What can I say? I've learned from the best.”

“Oh, shit,” she groaned when he began slowly thrusting into her.

“Too much?” There was an uncharacteristic touch of uncertainty in Rolan's voice that was unbearably sweet. Miriam shook her head and wrapped her legs around his waist. “Fuck no, keep going,” she whispered. And he did, with a sort of carnal enthusiasm she'd never suspected he possessed, let alone would exhibit in front of another person. It was, by all accounts, an incredible discovery on her part, she thought through the mounting haze of pleasure clouding her senses. Perhaps tonight was a night for all sorts of firsts.

A part of her wondered if they'd regret this in the morning, but Rolan’s cock was proving to be a wonderful distraction from her current predicament. And, best of all, she finally wasn't thinking about Gale anymore, either.

Gale went home early on Wednesday. Technically he was legitimately ill, if based on the fact that he’d lost a valiant battle with his lunch that made a wartime casualty of his poor trash bin. He'd foisted his weekly fourth-year undergraduate seminar onto Arabella Manning with a sincere plea and a small bribe in the form of a twenty-crown gift card to Sword Street Coffee and taken a half sick day.

The reality of it was that he was obsessing. Spiraling, even. The worst of it was that he'd somehow managed to grow just self aware enough to know just how badly he was sabotaging his own mind but was still powerless to do anything but watch. And through it all, the only thing he really wanted was Miri's company, but…

He found himself unable to continue any train of thought involving Miri lately. Not since Cat's damning commentary that had upended his entire world, and really, whose fault was that anyway? He was the one who'd invited them to that damn graveside. He was the one who'd sent Miri that first email in the first place. He could map like a constellation the entire sequence of events that had led him to this bloody precipice, and the only thing that he could blame on anyone else was the fact that the love of his life had been unfaithful. That he'd proceeded to scorch the earth around him afterward was no one's fault but his own.

He got home, had a twenty-minute lie-down, then promptly started cleaning again. This time, he was tackling his living room, because he couldn't recall ever having cleaned behind his couch in all the years he'd lived here, and if he didn't occupy himself with something physical he was sure to go mad.

Have you considered getting a cat? Tara had once said to him. His answer, of course, was that he'd always wanted one but Ariel was terribly allergic. Which Tara had always sniffed at dismissively. If you can't get a cat with her, then what good is she, Dr. Dekarios? Think on that, please.

He rolled the thought around in his head as he gripped his couch by the arm rest and dragged it away from the wall with a grunt. Even with all of his weight dug into his heels, the thing barely moved. He hadn't given the idea of getting a cat much thought at all since Tara's sister had taken custody of all four of hers. The notion had hurt too much even to entertain, but now he was beginning to wonder if having something to care for that wouldn't turn it's back on him would do anything to drag him out of his self-imposed misery.

It was another three rounds of straining before he'd budged the couch far enough forward to reach behind it with his vacuum cleaner. Perhaps he'd invest in an automatic litter box, he thought idly as he began vacuuming countless years of crumbs, pen caps, cuff links, loose change, and gods only knew what else had fallen behind the thing.

He had to drag a trash bin over for all of the pieces of miscellaneous debris that was too big to fit through the vacuum tube. At some point he'd stopped inspecting his catches all that thoroughly, which was why he didn't see the Polaroid at first. All he knew was he'd reached over to drop an old sock into the bin and caught a glimpse of a faded photograph, and maybe he had a prickling instinct to leave it be, but he'd never been particularly good at following his own advice.

The first thing that caught his eye was the fact that Ariel was smiling in the photo — really smiling, cheeks rosy with laughter, the corners of her eyes crinkling with unbridled joy.

The second thing that caught his eye was the other person in the photograph. A woman, presumably, based on the visible upper half of her body even as she faced away from the camera, face buried in Ariel's shoulder as she held a manicured middle finger up to the lens. Shaggy black hair, deep olive skin, freckled shoulders visible in a black sleeveless crop top.

He was going to be sick. He studied the photograph, praying for even the tiniest speck of proof that it wasn't her. With the angle, he couldn’t even see the side of the woman’s neck where Miri’s tattoo would have been. He stared at the photo with a leaden ache in his belly.

Perhaps worst of all was the way he didn’t even know what to do with this potential discovery. So what if it was Miri? What if it was! What did that change? Gods, he was such a fool.

But he needed to know. Damn it, he needed to know. He pulled his phone out and clicked on Miri’s contact photo, and his heart dropped further with every ring.

“Hello?” she answered blearily. “Sorry, you caught me in a nap, I—” She yawned, and it killed him the way he could picture it perfectly, right down to the way her nose scrunched up and how the left side of her jaw sometimes popped if she opened her mouth too wide.

Laugh it up, really funny how the woman who gives blowjobs for a living is developing TMJ probably, she’d drawled at him, and then he’d been horribly embarrassed, but she’d only laughed and kissed him and told him to relax, and—

“Gale?” she asked. “Is something the matter? Is this about our appointment on Friday?”

Appointment. The word alone filled him with despair. Because that was it. He was an entry in her calendar, and no matter how much she made him feel, no matter how much he ached for her smile and her silly laugh and her biting wit and absurd sense of humor, at the end of the day, he was no different than anyone else on her schedule.

“I apologize,” he said hastily. “I didn’t mean to wake you, I dialed you on accident.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” she said. He hated how he could hear the smile in her words. “It’s okay, though. I don’t mind waking up to your voice.”

Gods, it hurt, it hurt how real it felt.

“Did you have a good day at work?” she asked.

He shook his head, then remembered he was on the phone. “No, I, ah, took a sick day,” he mumbled.

“Shit. Are you okay?”

What on earth was he even doing? “A bit of fatigue is the most likely culprit, I’d wager,” he heard himself say. Like he were participating in a completely normal conversation, like he wasn't currently falling to pieces inside. “Nothing more serious than that.”

“That’s good,” Miri said. “You know, maybe it isn't my place to say this, but I really wish you would take better care of yourself. In fact, when was the last time you ate something? Be honest.”

Her question caught him off guard. “Er, I had lunch.”

“Lunch? Gale, its almost six PM.”

“And?” He couldn't resist baiting her, even now. He was both having this conversation and also watching it play out as someone else piloted his body and puppeted his mouth.

“You know, I can hear your stomach growling from all the way over here.”

“Is that so?” he said softly.

“Yeah, it's growling so much it's making yappy dog noises. Order delivery or something, please.”

“Why does this matter so much to you?” he asked. He felt like he was walking through a very strange lucid dream.

“What do you mean, why? Because I care, idiot.” Her charming bluntness was going to be his ruin. It was so messily human of her. So real.

But it wasn't. It couldn't be.

“I will be sure to take your advice under consideration,” he said, and inside, he could feel himself breaking in two.

“Good,” she said. There was an uneasy silence on the line. “Gale?” she said finally.

“Yes?” He didn't mean for it to come out as brusque as it sounded.

“…I hope your day improves. I mean it.”

“Thank you,” he croaked. “Good night, Miri.”

“Goodnight, Gale.”

She hung up, and Gale was no closer to an answer.

Leaving his apartment had been a terrible idea. And Gale knew, deep down in the very center of what was left of his heart, that he was probably making a huge mistake. The six missed calls on Ariel's phone were damning enough. The fact that he was currently taking the Trade Ward freeway exit to her neighborhood with the incriminating photo clutched tightly in one hand, well. Part of him knew he was behaving in a way he was sure to regret later; that part of him, unfortunately, was trapped in the back seat of the rest of him that had thrown reason entirely out of the window.

He pounded on her door like a man possessed. There was a voice in his head begging him to stop, to turn around, to go home and put this whole mess behind him. He ignored it.

“Ariel!” he yelled. “Open the godsdamned door!”

She tugged the front door open with a frown. He took her in, the hair pulled into a messy bun, the glasses no one knew she wore but him. The navy blue nightdress she loved so much — silk, because she adored the way it felt on her skin. Worn grey house slippers, the same ones she'd been wearing for over a decade, the Midwinter gift from Kell that she couldn't bear to throw out despite the fact that there were visible holes.

He'd found it all so endearingly human once.

Now, the entire ensemble was a stark contrast to the cold look on her face. “What in the hells are you doing here?” she hissed.

He pushed past her into her house and closed the door before brandishing the photo at her. “You tell me,” he snapped.

Ariel took the photo, her frown deepening as she studied it. Her face paled. “Where did you find this?” she asked quietly.

“Behind the bloody couch!” Gods, he felt so helpless in the face of the rage building in his chest. It was going to consume him. “You took this picture! You kept it! You brought it into my fucking house!”

For once, Ariel was speechless. It should have been satisfying, seeing her have nothing clever to say, but her lack of immediate response only made him angrier.

“For gods' sake say something!” he snapped.

“What is it you want me to say?” she asked quietly. She'd asked him the same thing a year ago, but this time there was no anger in her face, only a weary exhaustion that aged her a decade in an instant. “Nothing I tell you now is going to fix what happened. There is nothing I can do to make this better for you.”

“Who is the other woman in this photograph, Ariel?” he asked.

Ariel tensed. “It doesn't matter.”

“Oh, I think it does. I think it matters very, very much.”

“This is not a road you want to go down,” she whispered.

“Bit late for that, don't you think?” he said bitterly. “Since you seem incapable of reading between the lines, let me spell it out for you in words you may better understand.” He jabbed at the photograph with a trembling finger. “Is the woman in this photograph Mirielle Ancúnin? If that's even her real name to begin with.”

Ariel inhaled sharply. “Whatever your business with Miri, you should take it up with her.”

“Oh, is she Miri to you now?” he raged. “Are you still fucking her? Were you not content enough with ruining my life the first time, that you must sully this too? Gods, what is wrong with you?”

“Are you quite finished?” Ariel said quietly. She tossed the photo onto her coffee table and crossed her arms tightly across her chest.

“Just tell me why,” he said miserably.

“You know what she does for a living, I assume, given that you know she goes by a name you didn't introduce her with the two times I saw her with you.” It was a statement, not a question, and one that felt like getting punched in the stomach. “I haven't been with her since the day I ended things with her last year. Believe whatever else you want, but that is the truth, and I swear by it.”

“You recognized her,” he said. “And you didn't say anything.”

“I was not about to jeopardize her livelihood, Gale, and I certainly wasn't going to twist the knife if she was with you for personal reasons. It was, by and large none of my business. Although I did try to warn you as best I could under the circumstances, did I not? Or do you simply pick and choose what you remember of the things I say these days?”

He shook his head incredulously. “Unbelievable,” he said. “Just bloody unbelievable.”

“Do you even hear yourself?” Ariel scoffed. “The nerve of you, to walk into my home and pick a fight with me about this after the things you said to me about paying for the pleasure of someone's company. I always knew you were a bit of a hypocrite but this is a new low, even for you.”

Ariel’s words stung, not only because it always bit into his skin when she scolded him with that tone, but because she had a point. And that didn’t change simply because he didn’t want to hear it. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re right,” he whispered raggedly. “I’m sorry.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose and pointedly opened the front door. “I think you should go,” she said.

And he did. He went, numbly, back to his car, back to his apartment, back to his life where every step he took seemed to be wrong, wrong, wrong.

His phone was ringing. He looked over, saw Miri's name on the screen, and promptly turned the whole thing off.

For once, Miriam was cleaning. Or, well, she was certainly making her best effort at finally unpacking her shit neatly, but her personal brand of clutter was once again doing her no favors at all. She dug through her belongings with a groan. “Astarion!” she yelled. “Have you seen my makeup bag?”

“Of course not darling,” he drawled from his room across the hall. “I wouldn't be caught dead near that drug store slop you call foundation.”

She grabbed her luggage and overturned it all on her bed in despair. She'd just made a resolution not to talk with Gale outside of their scheduled time, and she'd already failed that resolution once today. Gods, still, she needed that bag for her exhibition tomorrow.

“Just borrow Aletha’s,” Astarion suggested at her pained noise of despair. “There's no need for all the hysterics.”

“She's three shades darker than me, arsehole,” Miriam grumbled. “Anyway, if you don't want to hear me having a breakdown, buy a godsdamned pair of headphones.”

“Have you considered going completely bare? The rest of you already is, might as well have your face match. Someone's got to be into it.”

Miriam grabbed a shoe and hurled it across the hall in irritation. “Can’t you put the attitude away and be supportive for five seconds?”

He responded by counting to five slowly and loudly. “There. Request fulfilled.”

“You're such a dick,” Miriam muttered.

Astarion sighed loudly. “Just call Professor Paramour. Didn’t you share a hotel room for three days? It probably got tossed in with his briefs or something. Honestly, darling, this is such a non-issue to be disturbing the peace over on a weeknight.”

“Honestly, darling, this is such a non-issue,” she mimicked mockingly under her breath. “Ugh! Fine. Fine!”

“Excellent talk, glad to help,” Astarion said blandly. He unfolded himself from his bed with a catlike stretch. “I'll be closing this door now.”

Miriam pinched the bridge of her nose and called Gale as Astarion’s door slammed shut with a decisive thunk. It wasn't obscenely late yet. He'd just called her anyway, and the steadily growing feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach was certainly only there because of the seed Korrilla had planted.

Except his phone rang once and went to voicemail, and the dread only grew.

She frowned, and then tried again. This time, it went straight to voicemail without ringing at all. Something cold settled into her bones as her past came back to haunt her again and all she could think about was another phone call in another chapter of her life. The way it had gone straight to voicemail three times, and then the person who'd picked up in the end hadn’t been Rugan at all.

Good evening, little mouse. I'm afraid Mr. Callahan can't come to the phone right now. He's actually busy preparing a delightful surprise for you.

Miriam closed her eyes and took a deep breath, reminded herself she didn't work for Raphael anymore. And besides, Gale certainly had a lot more people in his life who would come looking for him if he disappeared. Raphael was smarter than that.

It didn't stop her from calling Gale again with trembling hands, and it didn't stop the way her heart dropped when his phone went straight to voicemail again. And again. And again.

Besides, would it kill anyone if she went to check on him? Certainly not. What was one visit off book? She had an excuse anyway.

Armed with her phone, her keys, a wad of cash, and her handful of desperate justifications, Miriam strode out of the apartment and flagged down a cab. “Seawatch and Grimwald, please,” she said.

The driver gave her a curious look. “Don't I know you from somewhere?”

Miriam pinched the bridge of her nose. “Do you want my fucking money or not?”

He shrugged and pulled away from the curb. “Alright, lady, it was just a question. No need to bite my head off.”

She ignored him and elected to chew on her nails instead of staring blankly at her phone for the whole trip. It was nothing, she told herself for the umpteenth time. He probably had some sort of late work thing. Maybe his phone died and he just hadn’t noticed; that was a thing that happened sometimes, surely. It could be anything, and this was just another case of Korrilla getting under her skin. It had to be.

She composed an incoherent, rambling text to Tathla, then promptly deleted the whole thing and stuffed the phone into her pocket.

She was just jumpy. That was it. She was just jumpy, and she was going to go in and retrieve her makeup bag and go home and maybe drink an entire bottle of wine and go to bed.

“Oi, lady, are you gonna just sit here and run up my meter or what?”

Miriam looked up to Gale’s apartment building looming in front of her alongside an increasingly irritated driver. “Yeah, sorry,” she muttered. She promptly shoved the whole wad of cash into his hand without counting it and left the taxi without another word.

“It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine,” she said to herself as she sprinted into the elevator and mashed the button for the eighteenth floor. There was a buzzing under her skin she desperately wanted to ignore but couldn’t.

She got to his door and pounded on it. “Gale? Are you in there?”

There was no response, so she knocked harder. She could practically taste her heartbeat. The distant possibility that something terrible had happened only loomed closer with every beat of silence that followed.

Finally, she fumbled with her keys and just let herself in. He could be angry with her later as long as he was alright, she decided. If he was even home.

She stumbled into his living room and spotted him sitting quietly at his kitchen bar looking relatively unharmed. Her makeup bag was perched at the edge of the counter. There was a bottle of whisky and a nearly empty glass in front of him, and he didn’t even acknowledge her when she walked in.

“Gale?” she said quietly. Her panic dissipated in an instant and gave way to a different sort of gut-churning worry. “What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

He barked out a bitter laugh. “Oh, if only you knew the utter irony of that question.”

Miriam moved closer with careful steps. Broken glass littered the floor near where he was sitting, feet bare and swinging from the barstool. One of them bore a tiny cut that still leaked crimson against his skin. “Shit, you’re bleeding, hold on—” She carefully stepped over the glass and wet a paper towel in the sink. “Fucking hells, Gale, what is going on?”

He flinched when she touched him. “Were you ever going to say anything?” It would have been accusatory if he didn't sound so damn tired and sad.

Miriam frowned as she dabbed blood off of his foot. “About what?”

He finally turned to face her, his eyes puffy and whisky-dull. “About Ariel.”

Her heart plummeted for a second time that night. “Oh,” she whispered.

“Oh, indeed.” He started pouring another glass, then gave up and swigged straight from the bottle. “It isn't your fault, I suppose. You've no obligation to share your life with me, I understand that, perhaps now more than ever.” He waved the bottle at her bag with a bitter laugh. “I assume you've come for your things.”

Miriam wanted to hold him. She wanted to go to him, was seized by the most absurd impulse to take him into her arms, to swear she would never leave him, to swear nothing and no one else ever mattered as much as him. To wipe the frown from his face and make everything hurt just a little less.

He swiveled around on the bench and stood unsteadily to face her. “Tell me this, Mirielle,” he said quietly, and Miriam had never wanted to correct someone more. Miriam, she wanted to say. My name is Miriam.

“Gale, I—”

“Has it all been a lie?”

How did she answer that question? Her feet were rooted to the floor, a thousand words fighting for space behind her teeth.

“Please,” he said. He gripped her shoulder, so tightly it hurt, and Miriam welcomed his touch anyway because some part of her wondered if she deserved it. “Tell me. How much of what we shared was genuine?”

“I don't know how to answer that,” she whispered. Sometimes, the truth was a damning thing.

“Don’t you?” he said, simmering fury slowly flickering to life behind his eyes. “I rather think you do. The fact that you won't, well. I suppose that actually gives me exactly what I asked for, doesn't it?”

“What do you want me to say, Gale?” Miriam said helplessly. The lump in her throat threatened to choke her.

“The bloody truth!” he roared suddenly. She jumped as he let go of her and slammed his hand on the counter. Her heart pounded, blood rushing in her ears with a deafening level of static. “I am not asking for a commitment or a declaration of love, Miri! I just need to know if even a piece of what we shared was true! To know just how mad I was for even thinking it!”

What was that charming Zhentarim boy's name again?

So much of what she’d shared with Gale was true; as much as she'd attempted to bury it, she knew that now more than ever, and nothing had ever hurt more than the realization her past would inevitably be his ruin. Korrilla’s voice echoed in the back of her mind like a curse she would never shake off.

I'd hate for history to repeat itself.

“No,” she said finally. Shakily. “It wasn’t.” Another part of her crumbled to dust. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“You can't mean that.”

“Oh, but I do,” she said firmly, her voice gaining volume and momentum as she promptly sealed the doomed fate of anything they could have ever had.

And that was such a silly thought too. Her past had accomplished that more succinctly than she herself ever could on her own. No, a clean break was the best she could ever offer him now. She steeled herself for the worst lie she'd ever told as the words tumbled from her mouth. “You want the truth? Here's the truth: it is literally my job to make people like me. That’s it.”

Gale frowned as he visibly struggled to wrap his thoughts around her answer. “Surely there's more to it than that,” he said softly.

The laugh that fell from Miriam's lips sounded downright hysterical. “You think you're the first one to ask me this question? You're not, and you damn well won't be the last.” She flashed him a porcelain smile that was all teeth. “And here I thought you were at least smart enough to know how this worked.”

Gods, but it hurt, the way she could see every feeling laid bare across his face. He was all drunken honesty and sharp vulnerability and oh, she wanted, wanted him so badly her fingers twitched at the thought of simply holding his hand again, except every time she blinked it was Rugan’s lifeless eyes watching her from the floor of Raphael's study, the room flooded with the scent of gunpowder and rust and death as a crimson puddle pooled tacky and wet beneath his head.

There, now. No use crying over spilt blood, as they say. Raphael's hand on her shoulder, weighty and warm and nauseating as the mess splattered across her face and clothing. Oh, and … your favorite client is expecting you in half an hour, so be a good girl and clean yourself up, won't you?

Gale took a step towards her, and she reflexively shoved him back, because the alternative was throwing her arms around his neck and admitting everything she absolutely could not afford to voice aloud. “Miri, wait—”

She jerked away from his touch. “I'm a whore, Gale!” she spat. Every word pounded another nail into her own coffin, and all she could think of was how it was still better her in it than him. “You pay me to smile, I smile. You pay me to suck your dick, I say ‘how do you want it, sir?’ I have had so much practice turning that face on I can do it in my sleep.” Bitterness, anger, regret, all sloshing around with the self-hatred that was currently eating her alive and pouring from her mouth like bile. “Do you want to try it out? Go ahead. Oh, honey, you're so big, I can't wait to get my mouth on your—”

She didn't register that he'd slapped her at first. Only that she nearly lost her balance, and there was a curious ringing in her ear, followed by a blinding pain that made her left eye water uncontrollably. The rest of her mind caught up slowly as she processed what had just happened. The clock on his mantle ticked the seconds in what felt like a deafening clamor in the face of utterly sickening silence. “Yeah,” she spat finally as she rubbed at her face with a wince. “If you want, I can take that with a smile too.”

She turned to leave, and he grabbed her arm. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. She'd never seen him look so broken. Someone else piloted her body. The plastic smile painted on her lips belonged to someone else, someone with less blood on her hands, someone who didn't intimately understand the cost of falling in love when someone like Raphael Rosier was holding her leash.

She wrenched out of his grasp with a careless shrug. “Cost of doing business, honey,” she heard herself say. Glass crunched beneath her shoes as she numbly rummaged in his cabinets for a plastic cup. As she ran the tap until it was full, as she reached for the aspirin bottle he kept in his junk drawer and shook two tablets out onto the counter in front of him.

Please take care of yourself, she wanted to say. You're better than this. You're worth more than this. I love you. I'm sorry.

She grabbed her makeup bag instead. Forced her feet to carry her through his front door, forced her hands to grip the doorknob and close it decisively behind her. She made it down the elevator, across the lobby, through the main doors. It wasn't until she ducked into a nearby alley that the full weight of what she'd done came crashing over her head. Still, there was a fucked up sort of comfort in the vague inevitability of it all, somehow, and she clung to that like a lifeline as she finally let the tears fall.

And fall they did, great shuddering sobs she muffled into her sleeves as she sank to the ground and drew her knees to her chest and let the biting, bitter cold of a Waterdeep winter night swallow her sorrows whole.

When Gale stumbled downstairs at six in the morning nursing the worst headache he'd had in months, the last person he'd ever expected to see in his apartment again was perched on his couch.

Ariel looked up as he descended, an impassive expression on her face as she unfolded her legs from beneath her and closed what looked upon closer inspection like one of her sketchbooks. Sure enough, beside her was a little leather zip pouch of slender charcoals, and she put the piece in her hand away and closed the bag before wiping grey smudged fingers unceremoniously on her trousers. She adjusted her glasses with a sigh. “How are you feeling?” she asked finally. There was a rare note of uncertainty in her voice.

“How am I…” Gale trailed off in disbelief and rubbed his eyes. The headache was steadily growing worse. “What in the hells are you doing here?”

“Well.” She rose to her feet and made her way to the kitchen sink. Gale couldn't help but notice with a pang of shame that the floor was spotless, not a single shard of glass to be seen. He took in the rumpled throw blanket, the couch pillows scattered askew. “At first I was here to ensure you didn't drink your way into a case of alcohol poisoning, or do anything else equally foolish.” She stretched her arms behind her back and winced as one of her shoulders made an audible popping sound. “By the time you were finally settled, the thought of driving back home was thoroughly unappealing, so I simply slept on your couch.”

Gale blinked. He couldn't shake the feeling he'd fallen into a surreal dream. “Yes, I see that. Why are you here? How did you—”

“Does it matter?” she said. The sliver of warmth in her voice had already evaporated. “At any rate, you can go back to bed. I've already taken the liberty of granting you a sick day.”

“I—” He gaped at her. “Why?” he repeated.

“Have you seen yourself? You look more fit for embalming than doing anything that involves remaining upright.” When he continued staring at her in confused silence, she sighed. Up close he could see the tired bags under her eyes, the deepened frown lines. Her glasses slipped and perched unevenly on her nose, and she didn't bother adjusting them. “How many times do I have to tell you I'm not the villain in your story, Gale?” she said softly. “I have suffered enough loss. I don't intend simply to watch as you push yourself into an early grave too.” She nudged a glass of water into his hands. “Go back to bed. Sleep this off. We can speak more when you wake up.” She paused. “Or not. I suppose that is entirely up to you.”

Gale didn't know how to process that. He still hadn't fully unpacked what little he could remember from last night, but the longer he was awake, the more the scattered pieces made themselves known. The argument. His idiotic behavior. The way Miri's horrible words had cut through him like a jagged blade.

Oh. Gods. He’d hit her.

He buried his face in his hands with a pained groan. “Nine hells, what have I done?” he mumbled helplessly. He set the cup down and swayed dizzily on his feet. “I've made such a mess of things.”

Ariel watched him silently. “I suppose that makes two of us, then,” she said. A cool hand closed around his elbow as she tugged him away from the kitchen. “If you won’t go to bed, then sit down, at the very least. It’s unnerving me, watching you wobble around like that.”

Gale opened his mouth to say something, but she was already tugging him towards the couch with a firm grip on his arm, and by the time he regained his wits enough to speak, she’d all but pushed him down onto the cushions. “Don't you have to go to work?” he managed finally.

“Is that all you have to say?” Ariel took a deep breath and waved a hand emphatically at his scowl. “Don't look at me like that. What I mean to say is … would you like me to stay?”

“I don't need your pity,” Gale said sharply, then immediately regretted it when he saw her flinch.

“Yes, you clearly have plenty enough of that on your own,” she muttered as she straightened out with a grimace. “As you wish. I'll only be a moment gathering my things.”

Gale didn't know what possessed him to grab her wrist before she slipped from his fingers. “Wait,” he blurted out. “That was … untoward of me,” he said softly. “I apologize.”

Her expression softened, and for a moment she was there again, the woman he'd have walked through fire for once, looking at him like he meant something to her. “Just say the word,” she said, “and I'll go.”

“No,” he whispered. “Please.” The loneliness had been eating him alive long before Miri came into his life, but in the wake of her sudden absence, it clawed at him harder than ever, sharp enough to cut through his shame, tearing at his insides like barbed wire until the thought of enduring the silence of his apartment alone became wholly unbearable.

To be nothing. With no one. He wasn't sure he could survive it again.

Another unreadable expression flickered across Ariel's face. “I suppose I should make some phone calls, then,” she said finally. “If you would be so kind as to grant me the use of your balcony.”

Distance. Always the distance. As though she hadn't once kissed him breathless there in the fading sunlight. “Of course,” he said hoarsely. “Anything you need.”

He watched her ascend his loft stairs with an odd and surreal feeling in his chest, like something unshapely had lodged itself tightly in the middle of his esophagus. He looked at his phone again. At the numerous missed calls the night before, at the incriminating way Miri's name taunted him from his screen.

She was gone. Perhaps it truly was for the best.

Gale didn't know exactly when he'd fallen asleep on the couch, only that when he woke up again, it was to peaceful quiet and the steady scratching of pencil on paper. Through the window was an overcast city vista of gentle snowfall.

“What time is it?” he mumbled as he dragged himself upright. At least the headache and nausea had lessened enough that he could finally hear himself think.

“Almost two in the afternoon.” She passed him his glasses without looking up.

Gale rubbed his eyes. “Please tell me I didn't snore.”

“Then I shan't.” The dry chuckle that accompanied that statement shouldn't have warmed his insides the way it did. There was a comfortable familiarity about it that left him conflicted, that had him wondering how in the hells he'd gotten here.

He peeked over at her sketchbook instead and tried not to remember the countless nights he'd fallen asleep to that sound. She set it down with a quiet laugh. “Old habits, I suppose,” she said softly as he studied the portrait she'd drawn of him, the way she'd done so often in the past.

She'd always had trouble sleeping, and he could count on one hand the number of times she'd fallen asleep before him over the years. There was something comfortingly permanent, she'd always said, about committing someone's face to paper. He'd asked her once why she'd never gone to art school, and she’d answered by asking him in turn what could have pulled him away from studying the secrets of the universe. He hadn't really had an answer to that.

Gods, how had they landed here? He picked up the sketchbook and flipped through it out of habit, and it wasn’t until he was three pages in that he realized she’d still let him without a word of protest. The pages still smelled of the fixative spray she used over her charcoals, and sure enough, he could see the edge of the can peeking out from her purse. He paused at a drawing of Kell and studied the linework with an odd feeling in his chest. “Did you do this from memory?” he asked.

“Yes.” She stared at the picture with a pensive expression on her face. “I woke up one day, shortly after things ended between you and I, and realized the shape of his nose was beginning to fade from my mind. Those details … they can be so very fickle.” Her lips pinched together. “I’ve made it a point to draw him every day since.”

“I’m sorry,” Gale said. He didn’t know how she could be so distantly matter-of-fact about it. He thought about the day he’d discovered she was married. And then the day he’d discovered her husband had known about him the entire time. Tara had been so disdainful about the man, and then he’d met Kell in a shameful moment of petty jealousy and discovered someone with a startling amount of compassion buried beneath his taciturn exterior. It was an odd arrangement, one he would never have chosen for himself on his own, and yet…

Yet he’d stayed, hadn’t he? Stayed through Kell’s illness, stayed during the leave of absence she’d taken to care for him, and then one day Kell hadn’t woken up, and life had simply … moved on. It was an odd thing now, to look back upon it from the other side of the curtain. Because now Tara was gone too, and the two of them were trapped wandering the land of the living together with pieces missing forever, and even after everything, Ariel still made it so easy to forget she was just as fragile as the rest of them.

It was how she’d always been. He’d watched her don that armor in the morning more times than he could count. Watched the mask settle over her face, watched her become something invincible. The morning after Kell’s funeral she’d gotten dressed and gone to work as though she hadn’t just taken the man she’d been married to for three decades and put him into the ground. And no one had asked after her, because no one else had known she’d done anything more than taken a personal day.

But he’d known. He’d known, and he’d watched her, and he’d wondered how she did it. How she kept the cracks from showing. How the secrets didn’t bury alive her with the weight of them.

He wondered that now more than ever.

“So,” she said finally as he handed the sketchbook back. “Tell me about what happened last night.”

Gale flopped back on the couch with a groan. “I fear this tale doesn't paint me in the greatest light.”

Ariel shrugged. “I don't think either of us have a history of making wise decisions when Miri is involved.”

He huffed a surprised laugh. “Point taken.” He stretched out his legs out of habit, then froze as his brain caught up to him and made him realize he'd all but kicked his feet into her knee.

“Oh, don't be such a baby,” she said with an exasperated sigh. She rolled her eyes and dragged his legs onto her lap. “This is hardly the strangest thing to occur today.”

“Old habits,” he said sheepishly.

“Yes, we all seem to be falling into those lately.”

Gale tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. Tried not to dwell on the surreal way the boundaries of his world were beginning to come apart at the seams.

And then he told her. He told her everything. Nothing could have prepared him for her response.

“And you believed her?” Ariel said.

“I beg your pardon?” Gale blinked and sat up in indignation. “I rather think believing her a bit too much was what landed me in this mess to begin with, don’t you?” He dragged a hand down his face in frustration. “Gods, but what would you know? Guarded as you are, you probably managed to walk away from her entirely unscathed.”

“What would I know?” Ariel repeated incredulously. Her eyes flashed with a surge of anger. “I know her favorite color is burgundy and she has a fondness for a brand of tamarind candy that’s only made at a small, family-owned shop in Athkatla’s port district. She prefers to sleep on her side, she loves cats, she has a brother she is estranged from and misses dearly, and I also know it is not in her nature to be so cruel on a whim.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him with a look of challenge he didn’t dare look away from. “Do not presume to understand what I do and do not know when you were spending those days avoiding so much as a glance in my direction.”

Gale stared at her in wide-eyed surprise. “I see,” he whispered. Suddenly a great many things were falling into place, and whatever fleeting flash of anger he’d nursed to life crumbled away and left an aching emptiness in its absence. “I'm sorry,” he said miserably. “For, well, everything.” He wrung his hands with a frown. “I don't know how to fix what I’ve done.”

“Not everything is fixable,” Ariel said quietly. “I've had to come to terms with that.”

As damning as her words felt, her thumb rubbed idle circles on his ankle anyway. He didn't want it to be as comforting as it was, but even that simple touch felt like a lifeline all on its own. And then something clicked in the back of his mind. He looked up at her curiously. “I … never said last night had anything to do with Miri. Did I?”

“No,” Ariel sighed. “But I suppose there’s no point in lying about it now. Who do you think was the one who asked me to come?”

There it was again, that whiplash that left him reeling without a handhold in sight, and Gale realized he had no idea how to feel about any of it. About the odd turn his life seemed to have taken, about how these two corners of his life he’d thought were so far from one another had been hopelessly entangled in front of his very eyes this entire time. He closed his eyes and let a myriad of feelings wash over him. Regret. Sorrow. And there in the midst of all of the despair, a treacherous flicker of hope flickering to life behind his ribcage.

“I am sorry, too,” Ariel said. She offered his hand a reassuring squeeze when he opened his eyes. “Gods, what a mess of life we’ve made.”

He couldn’t exactly argue with that. She tugged him gently against her without another word, and he fell into her arms just like old times, and even if he had no idea what it all meant, there was something oddly comforting about the picture it painted.

Miriam dragged herself out of bed with a groan. She didn't want to talk to Rolan. She didn't want to talk to anyone. After the most fitful night's sleep of her life, she'd woken up at the crack of dawn with a blinding throbbing in her head and a fierce ache in her chest. She studied her reflection in her phone camera with a wince. The awkward angle at which Gale's hand caught her face had left behind a nasty bruise on her cheekbone that extended beneath her eye, and she'd already spent all morning evading Astarion so he wouldn't ask her questions she couldn't (and didn't want to) answer.

She shuffled to her front door and cracked it just enough for her voice to be audible. “I told you I'm sick. I'm not letting you inside.”

“That is quite alright, I have no intention of catching whatever bug you've brought back from Cormyr. I do, however, have a giant tub of Lia’s spaghetti, and she insisted I at least ask how you are doing in person.”

“Fine,” Miriam said automatically. “Just under the weather. It's probably not that bad.”

“Well, I have it on good authority the food is, in fact, edible. I assume you're still planning on seeing Dekarios tomorrow?”

Miriam didn't mean to let a hysterical giggle bubble out of her throat, and she barely disguised it with a cough. “Actually, there's been a cancellation this week.” And probably all of the weeks after that. Gods, did that thought send a stab of regret through her gut. She was going to pretend her voice didn't tremble when she said it, too.

“Well,” Rolan said slowly, cautiously, choosing his words with painstaking care, “assuming you aren't carrying the plague of the century, you're still welcome at the house tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” Miriam croaked.

“I will be taking my leave now. Do retrieve your food before the snow freezes it.”

“Okay.” She paused, listening for receding footsteps that didn't sound.

“Are you sure you're alright?” Rolan asked finally.

“Yeah,” Miriam repeated. “Everything's fine.” If she said it enough it would eventually be true. Right?

“Very well.” He didn't sound convinced. “Do call me if you need anything. As Lia periodically reminds me, you are my only friend. I doubt I have it in me to make another one.”

Miriam burst into raucous laughter that made her ribs ache. “Never change,” she wheezed.

He chuckled dryly. “Take care, Miriam.”

Something squeezed in her chest. “You remembered my name,” she said softly.

“Of course I did, you silly tart.”

“Oh, fuck off,” she snorted.

“Out of this abysmal cold? Gladly.”

She actually did hear him leave this time, but she waited a full minute afterwards just in case before cracking the door open just enough to retrieve the plastic container he'd set on the doormat.

And then she turned and ran straight into Astarion. “Shit,” she said when he frowned, his gaze immediately settling on her face. “I can explain.”

“Who?” he asked.

“It doesn't matter,” Miriam said hastily.

Astarion traced the bruise with his finger. “You've blacklisted them, I assume?”

Miriam didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so she did neither and shrugged away from his touch with a bland smile. “It’s complicated.”

“Of course it is.” He scowled as he took her chin between his fingers and inspected the rest of her face. “It was him, wasn't it? The professor.”

Somehow, she still had the energy to feel indignant. “It's not what you think,” she said.

Astarion cocked an eyebrow. “Is it? I know you get up to some fascinating ventures in the bedroom, darling, but you're being awfully cagey for this to have been a planned venture.”

“Things got heated. I said some truly reprehensible shit. It's fine.”

“I hardly think petty insults warrant this level of violence. Which, yes, alright. Pot, kettle, what have you, but next you'll be telling me you walked into a door.”

“Astarion, can you please just drop it?” Miriam said. “I don't need lecturing, I need a long bubble bath and a very overdue bottle of wine.”

He stared at her. “How much is he paying you, really? I mean, what's next? Going back to Raphael and Enver bloody Gortash?”

Miriam flinched.

He trailed off and stared at her. “You cannot be serious.”

“Korrilla made an offer—”

“No. Gods’ sake, Miri, tell me you said no.”

“I didn't sign anything yet,” Miriam said firmly.

“Yet,” Astarion repeated. “What do you mean, yet?”

“He's offering to sponsor a move back home,” Miriam blurted out. “To the Gate. I'll have a cover job managing a nightclub. I can go home. See my family again.”

“Oh,” Astarion said. “So you've apparently had the wits knocked out of you, too, I see. Did you miss the part where you'd be consigning yourself to Raphael Rosier’s whims alongside a sadistic new money arsehole with more cash than conscience? I presume this isn't exactly a short-term rental situation!”

“I haven't signed anything!” Miriam snapped. “I told her no.”

“Then why on earth are we even putting it on the table?”

“Because I'm at the end of my fucking rope!” Miriam didn't mean to yell. Gods, she was so tired of yelling. Tired of fighting to be heard. Her throat burned with all of the tears she hadn't quite figured out how to shed. “Raphael's got the upper hand now, Astarion. You want the simple explanation? That's it. I fucked up. I'm paying the price. If I keep doing what I'm doing right now, someone else I care about is going to get hurt, and I can't — I can't have any more godsdamned blood on my hands. I can't. Especially not when…” She swallowed thickly and tried to banish the images of Rugan still burned into her memory, along with gory imaginings of Gale suffering the same fate. “It might be better this way, is all,” she finished with a whisper. She squeezed her eyes shut and realized those tears might have found their way out after all.

“Ugh. You are such a stubborn little prat.” Astarion pulled her into a hug. “Korrilla threatened someone close to you, didn't she. Is it your brother? Have you talked to Tathla? If the answer to that is anything but yes, by the way, I may very well march you straight to the Palace myself.”

The barrage of questions only made her want to wilt into the floor. “Tathla can't fix this.”

“I’ll have you know I am very much resisting the urge to shake you to death right now.”

“It's not too late,” she mumbled into his shoulder.

“Stop that.”

“I can't put off the inevitable forever.”

He gripped her shoulders tightly and gave her a stern look. “Then promise me you'll exhaust every other option first.”

Miriam swallowed thickly and forced a light expression back onto her face. “Fine, yes, okay. Can I have my wine-soaked bath now?”

Astarion heaved a tired sigh. “Yes, I suppose. You have two hours. I have a date tonight, so do try not to eat up all of the hot water.”

“An actual date, or another grift for top shelf martinis?”

He tweaked her nose with his finger. “That, my dear, remains to be seen.”

Another night passed, and Miriam rolled out of bed on Friday morning determined to shake off the untethered feeling making her head spin. She took another long bath, deep conditioned her hair, put on a sheet mask as she meticulously shaved her legs while singing along to sad pop ballads. Sure, her face looked markedly worse today, but it wasn't anything a coat of makeup wouldn't hide.

She spent an hour lounging on the couch with her laptop, fiddling with her website and idly wondered how much extra money she could bring in if she started a blog of some sort. She paced the kitchen and stood over the sink for a while eating raspberry chocolate chip ice cream straight from the tub with a plastic spoon. At some point, she flipped idly through the TV channels and watched the last twenty minutes of Love, Actually, and at some point in all of that it occurred to her this was probably how normal people handled regular breakups. It was oddly comforting, in a surreal sort of way.

Three PM rolled around. She found a pair of beige leggings and an olive-green sweater dress and carefully applied layer after layer of makeup until the only thing that remained of her sins to anyone not peering at her through a magnifying glass was a dull ache in her cheek when she smiled too wide.

Somehow she didn't think that was going to be much of a problem.

It was a twenty-five minute walk to Rolan’s house. The weather was overcast with a bitterly cold wind blowing in off of the sea, and the bracing temperature was a brisk reminder of just how stupid a decision it had been not to take the bus.

When she finally arrived at Rolan and Lia’s, the first thing she noticed was just how many people were lingering outside despite the temperature. There was a slim red-haired woman leaning against the porch railing smoking something that was definitely not a cigarette, and next to her was a woman in a colorful dress with purple and blue hair warming her hands by a patio heater that had been propped up on cinder blocks.

“Oh my gods, you must be Miri!” someone exclaimed. A lanky woman bounded down the porch steps and pulled her into a hug. “When Rolan told me he'd made a friend back in Eleint I almost didn't believe him, but here you are.”

“Hells, Lia, you sound like a parent talking about their socially stunted child,” Rolan grumbled as he followed her out.

“I mean, if the shoe fits,” Cal snickered. He materialized from behind a truck parked on the curb with a broad smile and his arms full of grocery bags. “Good to see you again, Miri. Grill is just getting fired up, but there's a bunch of mini sandwiches inside.”

He shifted the bags to his other arm and revealed a thick apron with a stylized design of two men kissing with the caption ‘The Cook Is Busy!’ embroidered beneath in bright red. “You know,” Miriam said thoughtfully, “I didn't expect this to be an outdoor thing.”

“Why, because it's cold?”

“I asked them the same question,” Rolan said dryly. “You’re free to roam wherever you wish, of course, but I, for one, am going back indoors.”

Miriam laughed and followed him onto the porch and into the house where he immediately ladled a mug of hot cocoa and thrust it into her hands. “Lunatics, the lot of them,” he muttered. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Miriam said automatically. “Over whatever I had,” she added. “It didn’t last long.”

He gave her a skeptical look. “Alright. I won’t pry.”

“I swear, I’m fine—” she repeated, but someone accosted Rolan with a drink before she could say anything else.

“Rolan!” The girl from outside with the purple hair pushed a mug of something hot and spiced into his hand before dragging him into a smothering. “Lakrissa said you probably wouldn’t even show, and I told her that was ridiculous because you live here?”

“Hello, Alfira.” Rolan extracted himself, sniffed at the mug, and made a face. “How much of this mulled wine have you had already?”

“Enough,” Alfira giggled. She whirled around and pulled Miriam into a hug too. “And you brought a girl!”

“I certainly did,” he said blandly.

“Gods, you're beautiful,” Alfira gushed. Miriam barely suppressed a hiss of pain when Alfira patted her face with a dreamy expression. “How long have you two been together?”

Rolan winced. “We're just friends.”

“Oh.” Alfira’s cheeks turned pink as she stepped back in alarm. “Oh, gods, I am so sorry—”

He sighed the tired sigh of someone who'd had this exact interaction far too many times in his life. “This is Miri. Miri, this is Alfira, she's an old friend of Lia’s. They met when they did their undergrads at Balduran College.”

“Nice to meet you,” Miriam said politely. The tension radiated off of Rolan in waves, and she grabbed his elbow before Alfira could say anything else. “Hey, can you show me where the bathroom is?”

“Yes, of course,” Rolan said. “Excuse us, will you?” He didn't wait for Alfira to respond before tugging Miriam behind him and escaping down the hall. He didn't speak again until he'd closed his bedroom door behind them. “Ugh,” he groaned. “I'm so sorry. I swear I didn't bring you just to pretend I had a girlfriend, I was hoping no one would—”

“Rolan?” Miriam interrupted. “It's fine. I mean it.” She set an encouraging hand on his shoulder. “For what it's worth,” she added with a chuckle, “I'd do that for you for free anyway.”

Her words didn't have the calming effect she'd intended. Rolan dragged a hand through his hair in agitation. “That's just it, though,” he said finally as he paced his bedroom floor. “I need you to understand this, Miri. It's very important to me.”

Miriam frowned. “Understand what?”

“You matter to me,” Rolan said. “Our friendship matters to me.”

She laughed uneasily. “You matter to me too, Rolan, but I don't understand what that has to do with why you got so wound up all of a sudden. What's going on? You're starting to scare me a little.”

“I understand the circumstances of our relationship are a bit … less than traditional,” Rolan said. “And — and that is not a problem in the least; however, I don't want you to feel I am using you. You are important, and spending time with you makes me happy, and I don't want you to think for a single second that I take your presence for granted.”

Miriam sat on the bed and tugged him down beside her. “Okay,” she said slowly. “This is all very sweet, but where the fuck is this coming from?”

Rolan sighed. “I wanted you to come because I enjoy your company. I never feel as though I must pretend to be someone I'm not around you, or live up to some impossible expectation that means nothing to me but everything to everyone else.”

“Is this because Alfira thought I was your girlfriend?”

Rolan was quiet for a moment. “Forgive me if this is a bit gauche, but … sometimes I envy you a bit.” He twisted his hands together in an uncharacteristic display of anxiety. “The role sex plays in your life, the way it is — or seems, at least — divorced from the expectation of romance.” He stared at the floor as he spoke. “I've never been much one for the latter. It has … caused friction. In the past. Easier not to bother, or to couple with strangers. No one seems to understand the desire to simply share these things with friends.” He finally looked up at her, his expression painfully vulnerable. “Have I misread your intentions?”

“Wait a minute.” Miriam blinked at him. “Is this the opposite of a love confession?” she asked finally.

Rolan heaved a long suffering sigh. “Yes, I suppose it is,” he said. “In any case, I've stated my feelings on the matter, and I dearly hope it changes nothing. I simply suspected—”

She laughed. She couldn't help it. There was a lightness in her chest as she threw her arms around him and dragged him in for a hug laden with uncomplicated affection. “I'm glad we're friends too,” she said.

He squirmed in her grasp. “Unhand me, woman,” he protested, without much of a fight at all.

Miriam was about to retort with something clever when Rolan froze inches from her face. He cupped her cheek with one hand and swiped a thumb over the makeup concealing her bruised cheekbone. “Damnation,” he said softly. “What in the bloody hells happened?”

She chuckled nervously. “You should see the other guy.”

He didn't laugh. “Who did this?”

“It doesn't matter,” she whispered.

“Like hells it doesn't matter.” His expression darkened. “Does this happen often?”

“No. It was just … a bad night,” she stammered. She was wholly unprepared for having this conversation a second time in as many days with someone else who’d come to be able to read her face like a newspaper, and the entire situation left her reeling off balance.

“Was it Dekarios?” There was a dangerous edge to the quiet of his voice.

“It's not what you think.”

“What do you mean, ‘it’s not what you think’? I'm hard pressed to think of any reason why someone would hit you at all, much less hard enough for something like this. Gods, and it looks so much worse under all of that makeup, doesn't it.” He shook his head in disbelief. “You told me he was kind.”

“He is.” Miriam knew it made no sense, the way she was jumping vehemently to Gale's defense when Rolan didn't have the whole story. But she couldn't tell the whole story, not without giving him information that would put him at risk too. Fuck, if she wasn't already putting him in danger just by being here in the first place. She couldn’t shake the creeping sensation of a noose slowly tightening around her neck with every word that came out of her mouth. “Please, Rolan, I am begging you, just drop it. And for fuck’s sake don't — don't do anything.”

“If he puts his hands on you again, I am calling the police.”

“He won't,” she said firmly. “It's over. He—” Her traitorous phone rang then, and she stared at the number in disbelief as her CashApp chimed with Gale’s weekly payment.

“Is it over?” Rolan said sharply.

“I don't … just, hold on, okay?” Her insides twisted as she answered. “Gale?”

“You're late,” he said softly.

Miriam frowned. “I thought — that is, I assumed we weren't—”

“I see.” He coughed. “I suppose I was mistaken. We never officially — but of course you wouldn't — I apologize.”

She needed to let him go. To let this phone call remain a misunderstanding, to let it be the clean break it was supposed to be. She needed to step away.

“Wait,” she said instead. Her voice shook. “I can, uh, I can be there in twenty minutes.”

“Miri,” Rolan protested sharply.

Miriam elbowed him. “Gale?”

“If you're sure,” Gale said. The amount hope in his voice just then threatened to shock the air from her lungs.

“What do you think you're doing?” Rolan hissed.

Miriam mashed her thumb on the mute button. “My job,” she said.

“If he hurts you again—”

“He won't,” she said firmly. “Rolan, please. If you've ever trusted me before, trust me now. Please. He isn't the one you should be upset with.”

Fuck, why had she said that? It was apparent from the look on Rolan's face that she'd only raised more questions.

“Let me drive you,” he said finally, instead of asking a single one of them.

Miriam blinked. “What?”

“I clearly can’t dissuade you from putting yourself at risk, so at the very least allow me to linger in the area for a bit in case something else happens. That is my counter offer. Allow me this and I will let the matter rest.”

“Miri?” Gale said. “Is everything alright?”

She unmuted the phone and nodded at Rolan. ‘Fine,’ she mouthed. “Of course, love,” she said into the phone then, with a smile she didn't even remotely feel. “I'll be there soon.”

“I…” Gale trailed off, voice strained. “Thank you,” he said. “I swear, I — thank you.”

Rolan nudged her shoulder with his. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said softly. “Because I meant it, you know. All of that saccharine drivel about friendship and happiness. Don’t make me regret enabling you.”

Miriam wondered faintly how long it would take any of the gods to listen if she started praying now. Wondered how long it would take circumstance to make a liar out of her yet again. If it were possible to run fast enough to outrun even a piece of the mess it would create.

She squeezed his hand with a shaky smile. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t.”

“I am so sorry.”

It was the first thing Gale said when he opened his door. He'd washed his hair and trimmed his beard. He was wearing neatly tailored charcoal grey slacks and a midnight blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the top button undone. He would have been the picture of polished eloquence were it not for the shadows under his eyes that made him look like he hadn’t slept at all since their last meeting. He stilled, frozen with indecision even as his arms moved to hug her, and Miriam couldn’t help but close the gap between them to throw her arms around his neck. “Me too,” she whispered helplessly.

His arms folded around her as he tugged her into his chest and buried his lips in her hair with a ragged sigh. It was a terrible thing, the way his embrace felt so right it shredded her chest to pieces even as she breathed him in and lost herself in the comforting feeling of his shoulder against her cheek. “I've been such a boorish fool,” he murmured. “I know I do not deserve your forgiveness—”

“You have it anyway,” Miriam mumbled. The lump in her throat was going to suffocate her, so she did what she did best and ignored the way he knocked the thoughts straight from her head and kissed him.

The soft whimper that spilled from his throat when their lips touched was almost her undoing all on its own. It was the cruelest form of madness, the way he felt so damn much like home. The way he breathed life into what remained of her spirit, even now after everything. He tasted like coffee and spearmint and the warmest of reunions, and the way his touch jolted her blood awake was nothing short of a cleansing fire.

He took a step back and tugged her across the threshold. She pushed the door closed with her foot and followed as he led her into his living room. His hands hesitated, so she bridged the gap and let hers wander, plucked at the buttons buttons of his shirt until she could slide her palms beneath the fabric and feel the warmth of his skin.

“Are you certain—” he began, but Miriam shushed him with another kiss.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Fucking hells, please, yes.”

He caved, and then he was finally touching her, and it had hardly been a week since she’d felt his hands on her bare skin but the time between had stretched on so long she was practically starved for it already. He pulled her dress up, and she yanked it over her head and threw it to the floor as he planted needy kisses against her chest. He urged her down on the couch and knelt between her legs, his expression both reverent and starving as he tugged her leggings off and kissed his way up her thighs.

Miriam tugged him up beside her impatiently and fumbled with his belt as she stole another heated kiss, unbuttoning his trousers with one hand as he pulled her legs open. He practically dragged her onto his lap as his fingers found her cunt, and he circled her clit with his thumb as he kissed her ravenously. She bucked into his touch with a strangled whine.

He didn't stop kissing her as he slowly pushed a finger inside of her. It was soft, gentle, a sweet counterpoint to the way his lips devoured her like a man starved. And she was starved too, she realized with a sinking feeling in her chest. Starved of whatever this was that had sprung up between them and carved out a void in her chest only he could fill. She didn't want to need him. Couldn't need him, couldn't afford to for too many reasons to name.

It didn't change the way the color seeped back into the world with every stroke of his fingers. The way an unbridled sort of joy kindled to life somewhere deep inside her chest with every breath they shared, every clumsy clack of teeth and messy tangling of tongues, every whimper and sigh.

“Gale,” she gasped as he strung her along the precipice, as his fingers plucked at her cunt and wrung out her pleasure with meticulous precision.

“That's it, my love,” he groaned against her lips. “Unravel for me, won't you?”

Her hips moved of their own accord as she lost herself in the pleasures of his touch. His lips found her neck, his teeth against her pulse point, and when she tumbled over the edge of her climax she barely bit back the words that would damn them both.

I love you, she wanted to say. She wanted to chant it like a prayer against the sweat of his brow — I love you — wanted to map it across every inch of her skin in every language the world had to offer.

Gods above and below, how had this happened? There was a sob buried in the very center of her chest, trapped tightly behind wall after wall of her own terrible mistakes. She fell back on the cushions and pulled him on top of her, because this was familiar territory she knew how to navigate. She dug her nails into his back, wrapped her legs around his waist, and urged him onward as he teased his cock against her entrance with rapidly slipping restraint.

“Gods, just fuck me already,” she whined, and damn him, he laughed, a surprised giggle slipping from his lips as his eyes crinkled in delight, lit up the way they'd always been meant to. She could lose herself in those eyes, she thought as she brushed a stray lock of hair out of his face. The warmest brown, rich like cocoa, soft like freshly turned earth.

“As the lady wishes,” he murmured, and Miriam couldn't hold back a gasp when he finally pushed into her.

“Oh,” she breathed. Her eyes fluttered closed, head tipped back in rapture at the overwhelming rightness of it all. He captured her lips in another needy kiss, and as he fucked her she wondered if it would be possible to give over enough of herself to etch her name into his ribs and make a home there once and for all.

If only such a thing could be possible.

He came with a glorious shudder she wanted to file into her memory forever. I love you, she thought again as she breathed in the scent of his messy hair and basked in the heat of his presence. It would kill me to be the thing that ruins you.

“I'm sorry,” he said again as he traced the curve of her cheek with his fingertips. She was sitting on the edge of his bathtub as he dabbed at her face with a makeup wipe, and he flinched at the marks he'd left but he did not look away.

“I know,” she said. She let him fuss over her, let herself bask in the gentle sweep of his fingers against her skin. He’d wanted to see, so she’d let him see, and every truth he tugged out of her felt like another stone tied to her ankles.

“I know I have no right to ask this of you—” he began.

“I lied,” Miriam blurted out.

Gale stared at her. “About…?”

“Us.” Her heart pounded a war drum in the back of her throat as the truth spilled from her lips. “The things I said to you, about how none of it meant anything. It was a lie. All of it.”

He shook his head. “I don't understand, why—”

“Because I can't, Gale,” she said desperately. “I don't expect you to understand, but I’m—”

Falling in love with you, she thought desperately, the words clawing at her tongue to be set free.

“I wanted — fuck, it wasn’t supposed to be this easy, you know?” she stammered instead. “Any of it. All of it. But it was, and it is, and damn it, our appointments have become the highlight of my week. If I didn't need the money, I would still talk to you and kiss you and fuck you, and that's the real bitch of it all.” The more words she strung together, the more they slipped out of their own accord until she found she was laying herself bare and breathless.

“Miri,” Gale said softly.

She shook her head, cradled his face in her hands, and felt nothing but despair. “But I can’t,” she said. “Not anymore. Because if I keep letting myself enjoy your company, if I keep getting tangled up in just how much I want to be around you, you're going to get hurt. And that would — gods, Gale, that would kill me. Okay?” She took a deep breath through the trembling in her chest.

He tugged her against him in a close embrace, and gods, she wasn’t going to cry, but the tightness in her chest was strangling her until she was dizzy from the pain of it. “I thought if I was cruel … I thought maybe if I made you hate me, you wouldn’t miss me when I was gone,” she whispered. She closed her eyes as they finally blurred with tears. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t understand,” Gale said finally. “What are you saying, exactly?”

Miriam took a deep breath. “I can't work for you anymore,” she said finally. The silence that followed left her feeling numb and hollow. “Not — not because of anything you've done, gods, you've been so — so lovely, even with everything…” She looked up at him, clung to his arms, forced herself to look him in the eyes and see the unbearable ache reflected there.

And then, clarity. Bone-chilling and raw, but crystalline all the same, regarding the choice she had to make.

“I'm going back to the Gate soon,” she heard herself say. “Got a job offer there I'd be stupid to pass up.” He took her hand in his and she squeezed it on reflex. “The time I've spent with you has been…” She swallowed thickly. “I won't ever forget it,” she whispered.

It was madness, and some part of her knew that. That this was what forced her hand, this perfect, beautiful stranger-turned-lover who'd kissed her so tenderly that she still marveled at every brilliant memory. That she'd somehow come to care so deeply about this man who'd hired her for a farce, who’d turned out to be handsome and funny and brilliant and kind. Who could love her. Who, maybe in another life, she could have loved in return. It was almost poetic, really, the way this chapter was coming to an end.

But the alternative. It would be every nightmare she'd ever had of Rugan's body on Raphael's floor come to life, except with Gale lying there instead, and that was far more than she could ever bear. She'd really walked right into Raphael's arms, letting herself fall for Gale like this. How long had Korrilla been watching her? How closely?

She supposed after tonight it really wouldn't matter anymore.

“I suppose there are reasons we couldn't stay in touch over that distance, aren't there,” Gale said softly. It wasn't a question.

Miriam closed her eyes and nodded. “I'm sorry. I wish … fuck, I wish things could be different. So much.”

It was a painful thing, finally admitting it aloud. It wasn't the full truth — I love you, she wanted to say; I want to see the sunlight in your hair every morning and make you breakfast and argue with you about whose turn it is to do the dishes — but it was all she could offer, and it would have to be enough.

Gale pulled her into another hug, standing this time as he helped her to her feet. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “For telling me the truth. If we are to part ways … it does me no small kindness to know you will think of me fondly.”

Miriam inhaled deeply and let the scent of him surround her one last time. “Talk to Ariel,” she said finally. “I know it's not my business but … you should consider making things right with her. Neither of you deserves to spend your days alone.”

“I don't think—” Gale began before he trailed off into pensive silence. His thumb stroked idle circles on the back of her shoulder. “I will take it under consideration,” he said softly. “However … can you stay? Tonight?”

“Gale, I—”

He interrupted her with a soft kiss. “If this is to be our last night together,” he murmured, “let it be one to remember.”

Miriam despised the way his words made her heart skip. She ignored the pit in her stomach anyway and tightened her arms around him, basked in the warmth of his body against hers, and lost herself in the security of his embrace.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Yeah. I can do that.”

Gale took his time undressing Miriam. He drew a floral scented bath as he dabbed at the rest of her face with the last of the makeup wipes from under his sink that Ariel had left behind, then he stepped into the bath and beckoned for her to follow. When she sank into the water with him, her back pressed against his chest, he immediately began peppering her shoulders with kisses.

“You are,” he whispered against her neck, “the most radiant creature.” Another kiss, and this time his tongue caught a bead of water rolling down the column of her neck. “There has never been another quite like you.”

“Gale…” she whispered.

He let his hands wander, let his fingers pluck gently at her nipples as her breath hitched at his touch. “Do you understand what you've done for me?” he said softly. Another kiss, just behind her earlobe. Another one at the base of her neck. “Before I found you, I was drowning, Miri. In my own sorrows, my careless mistakes. My loneliness. Gods, the loneliness.” He smoothed his palms across the soft curves of her stomach, and the way she sighed and arched into his touch sent liquid heat pooling in his belly. “You reminded me what living feels like.”

Her head tipped back against his shoulder as his fingers trailed along the insides of her thighs, slowly tracing gentle circles towards the folds of her cunt. Her legs fell open, and she gasped when he dragged his fingertips through her folds to circle her clit softly. “Fuck,” she whimpered.

“I've hurt you,” he whispered. “No apology could ever be good enough for your forgiveness.”

“I already told you,” she said, her words punctuated by the sweetest whimpers as she angled her hips into his touch. “I forgive you anyway. I was — ah, shit — I was a dick too. You — hnng — deserve better than my lies—”

She trailed off with a moan when he slipped a finger inside of her. “That's it,” he murmured into her ear as he scraped his teeth across her earlobe. “That's a good girl.” He added a second finger and held her firmly against him as she squirmed in his arms. “We both know the truth of things.” He crooked his fingers forward and earned a whimpered cry. “But just for tonight, to be wholly mine. Would you like that, my love?”

He circled her clit with his thumb and sucked a mark into her shoulder as she arched against him with a shudder. “Yes,” she gasped. “Please, yes—”

He could hear her climax a thousand times and never tire of it. Her breathing quickened as she ground into his hand, and she clenched around him with a shuddering cry. He whispered praises into her ear as he wrung pleasure from her with an ache in his chest.

It should have been easier, knowing she genuinely cared for him, but in practice it was simply a different kind of hurt. A bittersweet sort of throbbing in the center of his ribcage, radiating outward into his limbs with a leaden heaviness that made him want to sink to the ground and never get up again.

He washed her hair in a silence that was somehow both comfortable and stifling. He tugged her into his arms, and she straddled him and kissed him deeply, and he imagined another life, one where every touch didn’t have to carry so much agony.

They got out of the bathtub. He wrapped a towel around her, then pulled her in for another tight embrace and pretended it wasn’t a whole new kind of grief that was tearing his heart in two.

It was a testament to Gale’s skill, Miriam thought dizzily, just how thoroughly he made her forget about her problems. She'd always been so used to servicing that the way Gale seemed to take just as much pleasure out of giving never failed to catch her off guard. And give he did, bringing her to the brink over and over with his fingers and tongue until she thought she would go mad from it.

“Gale, please,” she gasped when he staved off her orgasm yet another time. Her cunt throbbed with need, and she bucked wildly against the way he held her firmly against the mattress.

“Not yet, my love,” he murmured. His voice was husky with desire as he reached up and brushed a tear from her cheek. “You're being such a good girl for me. You can hold out just a little longer, can't you?”

Miriam choked back a frustrated whimper as another wave of arousal coursed through her. She wanted to taste him, wanted his cock in her mouth, in her cunt, in her arse. Anywhere, she thought wildly, would give at least a little reprieve from the burning need consuming her whole.

“That's it, my love,” he praised when she forced a deep breath into her lungs. He caressed her cheek gently before stuffing two fingers into her mouth.

She licked and sucked greedily, the taste of her on his skin the sweetest sort of ambrosia as he slowly circled her clit with his other hand. He whispered praises as he stroked her with an excruciating rhythm. It was agony. It was too fucking slow, and another tortured sob fell from her lips while he shushed her and planted soft kisses everywhere he could reach. He took a nipple into his mouth and swirled gently with his tongue, taking it between his teeth just hard enough to pinch and spike her pleasure even more.

“Please,” she gasped when he withdrew his fingers from her mouth. “Please, Gale, I need you, I'll do anything—”

“What do you need, my love?” he coaxed her. “Ask it of me, won't you?”

“I need — inside me—” The words fell incoherently from her mouth as she squirmed beneath his touch.

“Like this?” he asked innocently as he slowly, methodically worked two fingers inside of her cunt.

“More,” Miriam groaned. She tipped her head back into his pillows and chased his touch with her hips. “More, please, pleasepleaseplease—” Her words trailed off into a sob when he worked another finger into her, and then a fourth, stretching her open.

And then, he withdrew again. She swore violently, her voice ragged, until he circled her arsehole with something cold and slick on his fingers. “Oh, fuck,” she whispered, and then his finger was inside her there, and her cunt was so empty, but his touch was so good, so unbelievably good she almost didn't care.

He worked her open with an unbearable amount of care, taking his time even as she begged and pleaded and swore. A second finger, and then a third, without even so much of a pinch of discomfort. She whined in protest when he withdrew, but he quickly slicked up his cock and thrust into her — slowly, so painfully slowly she thought she might combust on the spot.

And still, her cunt remained empty and aching. Gale leaned over her and kissed her sweetly, peppering her cheeks, her nose, her eyelids, anywhere his lips could reach.

And then, he reached over and produced a thick glass cock he'd had stashed on the bed. “So lovely,” he whispered between kisses. “So beautiful. So gorgeous. So very good.”

Miriam melted under the praise, and when he pressed the dildo into her cunt and moved it in time with his thrusts into her arse, she nearly saw stars. Her eyes fluttered closed as she let herself drown in a wash of incoherent sensation.

He tapped her cheek gently. “Look at me,” he whispered. “I want to see you when I make you cum.” He punctuated his words with firm circular strokes around her clit as he held the dildo in place with his palm. She was so full, pent up and overstimulated all at once. There was a live wire sparking beneath her skin with every thrust.

Miriam came with a ragged sob, clenching erratically around the overwhelming feeling of fullness as Gale swallowed her every sound with a deep, passionate kiss. She clung to him as the sensations washed over her in waves, legs quivering around his waist as he finally took his own pleasure and spent inside her with his face buried in the crook of her neck.

I love you. It was on the tip of her tongue, trapped behind a brick wall of doubts and paralyzing fears. She breathed him in instead, memorized the lavender-cedar of his cologne and the comforting musk of his body and focused as hard as she could on simply not crying.

She didn’t succeed. “I’m sorry,” she sniffled. “I’ve made such a mess of things.”

He lay on his side and tugged her into his arms as he awkwardly pulled the glass cock free and tossed it haphazardly into a pile of dirty laundry. “Do you regret this?” he asked softly. “You and I?”

Miriam shook her head. “Never,” she mumbled. “I could never regret you.”

Gale kissed her forehead, pressed his lips to her skin with all the reverence of a man in worship. It was excruciating, the thought of letting go of something so divinely beautiful.

She thought then — not for the first time — that perhaps it was good that she was so intimately acquainted with pain. That she knew what it was to endure, that she understood how often the only way out was through.

I love you. She drifted to sleep with the words perched on her lips. Words she couldn't bear to say, words that clawed their way out of her heart anyway, no matter how valiantly she tried to bury them.

Maybe he already knew. Maybe it didn't matter anyway.

Miriam stared at the bottle of vodka perched on the table in front of her. The silence of her apartment made her ears ring. Made Korrilla's parting words all the more prominent in her racing thoughts.

Smart girl. I'm glad you've come to your senses.

Dread prickled down her spine as she traced the wood grain of her dining table with unsteady fingers.

I'll be there at 8am sharp tomorrow. Mr. Gortash will want to meet you for breakfast to catch up.

Disgust had rolled through her stomach then. Of course Enver would be the first to snatch her back up. She wondered just how much he would be forking over to Raphael for the privilege. The vodka burned as she took another long pull from a bottle rapidly going dry.

“So that's it then?” Astarion's voice made her jump in alarm, the way it rang sharply from the hallway. She didn't even have to look at him to picture the way his lip curled in a sneer.

Miriam didn't bother looking up. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough.” The scrape of a dining chair across scuffed linoleum, harsh and discordant against her ears. “You're a fucking imbecile, Miriam.”

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose to stave off the inevitable headache. “Do you have anything useful to say, or are you just going to sit here and rub my nose in it for the hell of it?”

“I simply want to know why.”

Miriam let the silence ring for a moment. “He won,” she said finally. Simply. Plain and matter-of-fact, like pulling all of the emotion out of it would make it easier to accept.

Astarion scoffed. “The hells do you mean, he won?”

There was an emptiness inside her, gnawing her apart from the inside out. “He owns me, Astarion,” she said quietly. “Even if he doesn't on paper, he's had his hands on my soul the entire time I've been out. And every new person I come to care for just gives him more power over me. I was a fool to think it could have ever been anything but what it is.”

“But Tathla—”

“Tathla can protect you. And Aletha and Jhoy and anyone else under her employ, because the Red Sashes have always had the resources to care for their own.” Bitterness seeped out of her voice like bile. “Rolan doesn't have that luxury. Neither does his family. Gale doesn't either. That's where I fucked up. Thinking I could be with people like a normal person when that was never meant to be within my reach.”

“Gale?” Astarion repeated sourly. “The dickhead client who gave you a black eye, that Gale? Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

“Astarion.” Miriam finally looked up. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been so bone-shatteringly weary. “Stop. Please.”

“Why should I?” he snapped. She winced when he stood abruptly enough to send his chair clattering to the floor. “Your sense of self preservation clearly ran out weeks ago, else we wouldn't even be having this conversation.” His voice rose in volume with every word. “Gods, for all your talk of the Sashes, did you ever stop and think for a second that perhaps that protection extended to you too? Or do you consider yourself too good for this fucked up little family that plucked you from rock bottom and gave you a future? One I'm starting to suspect you never deserved in the first place. Honestly, what is wrong with you?”

“I never asked for anyone's help!” Miriam snapped. “You want to know what I really think, Astarion? Well, here it is. Tathla had no business wasting her time on me. Do you know why?” She pounded her hand on the table in emphasis as she stood up too, adrenaline surging in her veins as anger and self hatred lit up white-hot inside of her. “The Sashes exist to help victims of human trafficking. Do you have any idea how many people out there are in similar situations to mine, who got there under false pretenses? Who didn't know what they were signing up for, who were too young to consent to whatever the fuck they got snatched up for? Do you know why I don't count in that category? Because I chose this! Are you listening?”

She didn't give him a chance to answer. “I chose this,” she repeated. “Nothing was unclear in the contract I signed. Nobody snatched me off of the street. Nobody took advantage of me, or got me hooked on drugs and strung me along for my next fix. Do you want the dirty truth? Here it is! I walked into Raphael Rosier's office in Baldur's Gate knowing exactly what he was and what he offered. And I wish I could say I did it because I had no other choice, that I only did it because my brother was going to die without the money, because that at least leaves me looking like a martyr, but the truth is, I did it because I wanted to be important. I wanted to matter. And I read the fine print that day and I thought to myself, you know what, maybe if I do this, maybe I can make up for all of the times I pissed my life away on stupid shit, and you know what? It worked. The money came through. My brother is alive. My parents are proud of me, even if it's all a lie, who cares! But I did it for me. For me. Because I couldn't handle things.”

Angry tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she advanced on him. “I'm not a victim of anything but my own self importance. Don't you get that? I did this to myself and living the consequences is my responsibility—”

“Oh, will you shut up?” Astarion said irritably. He snatched the bottle out of her hand — when the fuck had she even picked it back up? — and tossed it carelessly into the trash. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself and listen for once in your miserable life, because I have had it with your bloody martyr complex. I am calling Tathla right now, and you will see her before that wretched little lackey of Raphael's comes tomorrow to take you away. This is not a negotiation.”

“Astarion—”

“Don't ‘Astarion’ me. You lost that right the moment you decided you were walking out of everyone's lives without so much as a respectable goodbye.”

Astarion had a mean streak the length of the entire Sword Coast, but nothing else he'd ever said to her had cut quite so viciously as that. Miriam tightened her jaw and stepped back with a shaky breath. “Fine,” she said quietly. “I guess I owe you that much.”

He rolled his eyes with a huff. “Finally, the first sensible thing you've said all evening.”

“You look nice.”

It was the first thing Korrilla said when Miriam met her downstairs with a backpack and a single suitcase. She'd left her laptop and phone behind — it was naive to think those wouldn't be tracked to the hells and back once she re-entered Raphael's employ for good. Better to keep the contact information she'd collected over the last few years out of searching hands and prying eyes, after all; and so she'd handed it all over to Tathla last night for safekeeping.

“Go to hell,” Miriam said as she slid into the back seat of Korrilla's black Escalade.

Korrilla shrugged. “Suit yourself. Might want to adjust that attitude before you meet with Enver Gortash though if you know what's good for you.”

“I’ll take your advice under consideration when you start paying Raphael to let you fuck me.”

Korrilla pursed her lips as she gave Miriam a pointed look through the rearview mirror. “How many times do I have to tell you I am not your enemy, Miri? You've no one to blame but yourself for this mess; don't blow up at me for trying to help you. Everything I do is for your own good, whether you believe me or not.”

A torrent of memories washed over her. A bubbly social worker, a late night conversation about family amid the beeping of hospital equipment. A confession, an unneeded apology. “Is that what you told your sister?” Miriam said flatly.

Korrilla stiffened. “You’re mistaken,” she said. “I don't have a sister.”

“Interesting, considering who the organization you work for is named after.”

The Escalade swerved into a nearby parking lot and screeched to a halt. “Let me tell you something, Miriam Taveric,” Korrilla said sharply as she twisted around to face the back seat. She spat the surname like bitter poison. “I don't have to be nice to you. I didn't even have to offer you Raphael's deal. Do you know how easy it would have been to simply not cross paths with you in Cormyr, to lie to Raphael about whether or not I talked to you? I could have sat back and watched tragic accidents befall you and your entire family without blinking an eye so you would never have to be my problem again.”

“Why didn't you, then?” Miriam said. “You, what, grew a conscience suddenly?”

Korrilla pinched the bridge of her nose. “Let’s see. Your mother is a lawyer. Your father runs a very successful engineering firm. You grew up in a cushy Upper City suburb with a family who loved you. Never had to go to school with unwashed clothes and dirty hair, never had to sneak sandwiches and dinner rolls into your pockets at lunch so your little sister could have something to eat that weekend while the person meant to look after you spent every cent on booze and meth and cigarettes. Never had the Ministry of Child Development come knocking only to look the other way because someone tipped off your Pa and he dragged his ass into gear long enough to make the place look like a flimsy facade of an acceptable home.” She jabbed a finger at Miriam angrily. “You will never understand what that sort of desperation does to a person. So don't you dare lecture me about my conscience. Take my advice, or don't. In the end we're all alone with our choices.”

A ringing, bitter silence settled over them both. Korrilla put the car in gear and got back on the road, and Miriam spent the rest of the ride lost in the turbulence of her own thoughts.

She hadn't thought about Hope in years. To be honest, she'd put forth a great amount of effort not to think about that phase of her life, and the days she'd spent after her hospitalization in a medication-induced haze didn't exactly lend themselves to the clearest of memories in the first place.

Did you mean to take this much clonazepam?

Probably not. Why, will you lock me up if I say yes?

Nobody’s locking anyone up, love, but I am going to ask you some questions now that might be difficult to answer.

It was almost funny, Miriam mused, just how many people she was letting down all at once. Probably some sort of record being set right that very second.

The laugh bubbled up ugly and raw in the back of her throat before promptly dying on her tongue. Pitiful, she thought, the way she didn't even have room left for spite.

“You are one of the most ridiculous, stubborn, irresponsible girls I have ever taken in.”

Tathla looked incredibly out of place in Miriam's living room, especially in only her grey tracksuit, glasses, and black silk bonnet, without a single trace of makeup on her face. She was somehow no less imposing as she stood there, arms crossed in a disapproval that made Miriam, for all of her defiance, want to wilt into the floor. “You have a community, girl. One that looked out for you and got you sober and propped your ass up when that motherfucker Gortash nearly put you in the ground. And now you're going back. By choice.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Rate you're going, I'll give you two years tops before he goes too far for even the best doctors in Faerûn to put you back together. Assuming you don’t kill yourself first.”

“Glad you have so much faith in me,” Miriam said dryly.

Tathla scowled. “This is not the time for your sass, Miriam. Hells, I know I taught you better.”

“Is that all you came here to do?” Miriam asked. “Scold me over the inevitable?”

“You’re a big girl. If you’re so determined to throw yourself to the wolves, I’m not going to stop you. But.” Tathla paced across the floor as she spoke, not unlike a shark circling a body of water. “I have a proposal for you, if you’re willing to listen.”

“I’m listening,” Miriam said warily.

“I’ve got people up and down the coast who have been working to bust Rosier for years. He keeps his shit airtight and his people locked down even tighter, and that’s been the biggest roadblock to anyone making any meaningful progress.” Tathla pointed at Miriam. “Until you. If you’re interested.”

Miriam shook her head. “No,” she said immediately. “No, whatever you’re planning, it puts everyone I care about in danger. I can’t be a part of it.”

Tathla held up her hands in placation. “Hold on. If you agree to this, I can have your family put in protective custody, have people keep an eye on whoever else Rosier is holding over your head.”

“Why only tell me about this now?”

“Because I don't make a habit of throwing my girls back into the fire I plucked them out of. But you, babygirl, you went off and fucked the reaper all by yourself. I'm just offering you one last chance. A way out that doesn't involve drugs or a bullet. You understand that much don't you?”

“I can't be the reason anyone else gets killed,” Miriam whispered.

“Then end it,” Tathla said firmly. “Or it will keep happening whether you’re involved or not.”

“Look after Gale,” Miriam said finally. Desperation tinged her tone as she worried at her fingernails. “My family gets protective custody? So does he. Swear it to me.”

Tathla's expression softened. “I can't guarantee anything, love. But I can try.”

“Please.” Miriam could practically taste her heartbeat in the back of her throat. “Don't make me beg.”

Tathla squeezed her shoulder. “I'm not making a promise I can't keep. You know that. But I can try. That's the best I can offer.”

“Okay,” Miriam said. She squeezed her eyes closed and prayed she was doing the right thing. “Okay. Tell me what you need me to do.”

Their first stop was the back terrace of Gounar’s, roped off neatly from the usual Saturday brunch crowd with elegant red drapery. Miriam opened the door of Korrilla's Escalade and found herself staring at another familiar face. “Oh,” she said with a scowl. “It's you.”

‘You’ was one Captain Yurgir Yurgachev, Raphael's burly ex-special-forces bodyguard from Rashemen who stood nearly seven feet tall at a slouch and had biceps thicker than Miriam's neck. He grunted in assent and held out a hand to help her down from the vehicle, which she summarily ignored. “Good to see you again too, little rabbit,” he said in a tone that was almost fond.

“Piss off,” said Miriam.

“Heh. Starting off the day spicy. I knew I missed you.”

Miriam ignored that too as she squared her shoulders and forced a smile on her face. The chilly winter air was bordering on painful with the plunging neckline of the dress she’d chosen, a mid-calf ensemble of deep burgundy trimmed with silvery gunmetal lace. (He’d always loved it when she wore red, red like poppies and expensive wine and freshly spilled blood.)

Gortash greeted her in a flashy three-piece suit with bronze and gold trim, fingers neatly manicured and laden with rings, just the way she remembered. (Her body remembered too, the sharp points of his nails against her skin, the rasp of them bloodying her from the inside.)

“Look at you, my beautiful southern jewel,” he crowed. It was a triumphed sort of delight that dripped from his smarmy tongue as he spread his arms in a grandiose gesture and motioned for her to come to him.

And Miriam obeyed. Miriam obeyed because this, this farce of a farce, had to be maintained. She recited in her head the phone number Tathla had made her memorize as Gortash closed a hand around her arm and tugged her in for a lingering kiss on her cheek. The cloud of Armani cologne was cloying, the way it stuck to the inside of her nose like a poison she couldn't shake. (Hot iron, sharp metal, the acrid stench of burning, always lingering just below the surface of her memories in a way distance could never truly erase.)

She forced a coy smile onto her face. “You cut a striking figure as always.”

“Hah. Don't I just?” He let his fingers linger around her bicep, his grip just tight enough to maintain a whisper of a warning. “And you look every bit as radiant as the day we last parted.” He waved his other hand dismissively at Korrilla and Yurgir with a scowl. “Feel free to take your leave any time. I don't fancy having an audience I didn't ask for.”

Korrilla's lips tightened into a thin smile. “Afraid I can't do that, Mr. Gortash. Mr. Rosier's orders were to keep her under strict supervision until she's settled back in.”

“What in the hells am I paying him a premium for, then?”

Yurgir stepped forward with a menacing hand lingering over the pistol on his belt. “She said no exceptions.”

Miriam froze as the tension in the air thickened. Gortash’s fingers tightened painfully around her arm, and she forced her body to remain relaxed even as every instinct screamed at her to run. (She'd asked for this, of course, all but nailed herself to the wall with the piercing edges of her own pride.)

“A shame,” he said finally. “And we have so much catching up to do.”

She leaned into his touch instead of jerking away. Pretended he was someone else to override the ringing in her ears. Fuck, she needed to get a grip. “Have some patience, darling,” she said with a coy smile. “We'll have all the time in the world later.” She walked her fingers up the bristles of his chin, cradled his cheek, and planted a slow, lingering kiss on his lips. “Believe it or not,” she murmured, “I did miss you.”

She thought about the last time she'd set foot in Gounar's. Of Abelea Caldwell and her soft hands, of meeting Gale's stricken eyes across the room, and gods, the way her problems then had seemed so looming. The way they were downright miniscule now in comparison.

Perspective and hindsight were luxuries in her line of work.

Gortash chuckled. “I find that hard to believe, but I’ll be happy to let you prove it to me later.”

Miriam disguised her shudder as a shiver of delight with a feigned giggle and a playful nip at his ear. “Good,” she whispered. “We have so much time to make up for.”

And as Gortash yanked her flush against his body for a claiming and possessive kiss, maybe she imagined Gale in his place. Maybe for the brief moment she let her eyes fluttered closed, she was somewhere else, with someone who was capable of loving her for real.

Someone she could love in return. What a pretty picture it made.

Miriam clutched at her tea as Tathla briefed her at the kitchen table. Everything became more surreal by the minute.

Tathla tapped elaborately manicured nails against the table as she spoke. “It is my understanding that Enver Gortash has debts to settle before he can take you back to the Gate. You're likely going to stay at Raphael's estate until that happens.”

“What exactly am I looking for?” Miriam asked.

“Bills of sale, financial records, confiscated passports. He'll likely have you taking other clients there until whatever contract of exclusivity Gortash has planned is finalized. See if you can get any of them to talk before you go back to the Gate.”

“Before I go,” Miriam repeated. “You're still expecting the contract to go through.”

“Yes, unless you have an ace up your sleeve you never told us about,” Tathla said sharply. “You think getting ahold of this sort of information goes quick? Gortash and Raphael are close, and make no mistake: even if you’re expected to be Gortash’s pet, Raphael is always going to be the one holding the leash. I’m trusting you to figure out how to use that to your advantage. Expect someone to come find you in a few days, they will likely be posing as a client until the two of you are alone. I won't know who it'll be, so I can't tell you who to look out for, but the pass phrase is going to be ‘bitter water.’ And I'm sure I don't have to stress to you what deep shit you've placed yourself in. Or the consequences of blowing that cover will be, for either of you.”

Astarion set his mug down on the table with a loud clunk. “So that's it?” he scoffed. “You're sacrificing her, then. You never had any intention of helping her out of this, did you?”

“Sit down, young man,” Tathla snapped. “You of all people should understand the value of making the best of a bad circumstance. And make no mistake: this is the motherfucking crown jewel of bad circumstances, and one of you should have come to me before this ridiculous ball got to rolling. But shoulds don't raise the dead or put money on the table, now, do they?”

Miriam sighed. “Astarion, I know you’re trying to help, but—”

“But?” he prompted when she trailed off. “Don’t tell me you’ve run out of words now. You had so many of them earlier.”

Miriam opened her mouth, then closed it again. The weariness was crashing down around her like a heavy, suffocating blanket, and she found herself at a genuine loss for words. “Do you have anything else to tell me?” she said to Tathla softly. There was a sinking, leaden emptiness in the pit of her belly where her insides should be.

Tathla stood up and pulled her into an uncharacteristically tight hug. “You stupid, stupid girl,” she whispered as she pressed her lips into Miriam's hair. “What am I gonna do with you, huh? Too stubborn for your own good, always wearing your heart on your fuckin’ sleeve.” She pulled away and cradled Miriam's face between her hands. “Don't get caught. Gods willing and a whole lot of luck, we might all get out of this in one piece. Might be it's time for you to find someone to pray to before the sun comes up.”

Raphael was waiting in the foyer of his manor when Yurgir opened the door, and when Miriam crossed the threshold, he took two decisive steps forward and immediately closed a hand around her throat.

“I knew you would come crawling back,” he murmured. He gripped her chin and jerked her head to one side, then the other as he inspected her like an animal gone to market. He paused, pursed his lips, and promptly pressed his thumb against the spot where her bruise sat beneath several layers of makeup. She clenched her teeth and barely held back a hiss of pain, though her eyes watered and betrayed her reaction anyway. “You missed a spot,” he said finally. “You see? Life on your own is so much harder than it needs to be. You need me.” He released his grip on her then and cupped her face in a farce of loving touch. “I take very good care of my assets, after all,” he said.

Miriam bit back the acerbic response that leapt to the front of her tongue. She mentally recited the phone number again to distract herself from the way her skin crawled wherever he touched her as he trailed his hand across her shoulder, letting his fingers linger around her arm before smoothing soft circles on her ribcage with his thumb. Idle enough motions to anyone watching, but she knew Raphael well enough to know the things he did were anything but idle.

“Hm,” he said finally at her silence. “I never thought I’d see the day anyone curbed your wild tongue. It seems there’s a first time for everything. Mr. Yurgachev will bring you to your room, though I assume you still remember where it is. You always were so very clever.”

“I do like to keep my skills sharp,” she said smoothly. “But by all means.” She gestured grandly to Yurgir with a bitter bow. “Lead the way.”

Yurgir grunted. “The fancy grandstanding doesn't suit you,” he said as he led her up a fancy bronze and oak staircase with luscious burgundy tread. “Think I might actually prefer you hotheaded and mean.”

Miriam snorted. “You know what they say. For the right price I can be anything you want me to be.”

“Eh.” He shrugged as he gestured to a door before opening it, ducking slightly as he stepped through. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d pay a lot of people a lot of money to have someone like you in my bed, it's true. Not Raphael, though. Not enough lawyers in the world to skim through his brand of bullshit fine print. No offense.”

“Wow. That's almost sweet.” Miriam followed him warily into the room. “Does Raphael know you're talking shit?”

“Probably. He’s got eyes and ears everywhere in this place. But so long as I don't run my mouth in front of the wrong people, I imagine he’s got more important things to deal with.”

“Aw,” she said dryly. “Am I the right people? I'm touched.”

“Don’t get cocky,” Yurgir humphed. He set her luggage down next to the massive four-poster bed before lounging lazily on a nearby futon.

Miriam frowned. “Okay, you brought me here,” she said. She gestured to the door. “You can go now.”

“Mm, actually I can’t,” he said. “Raphael’s orders not to let you out of my sight. In any circumstance.”

Miriam blinked in disbelief. “Come again?”

Yurgir shrugged. “You heard me. He doesn’t trust you not to do something crazy since you got yourself knocked up right into that black market abortion fuckup. Overdosing was almost tame after all of that.”

She froze, eyes wide. “I’m sorry?”

Yurgir looked up casually. “Oh, did you think it was some big secret? Ballsy, by the way, fucking that Zhent for free behind Raphael's back. Mad respect for that, had the whole staff talking for weeks after you left. Shame it all turned out the way it did, you know, he seemed like a decent guy.”

“Get out.”

He raised an eyebrow and leaned back against the cushions. “Did you miss the part where I said I'm supposed to be up your ass for the foreseeable future? Trust me, I'm just as put out as you are. You think I wanted to give up my days off so I can watch you shit and fuck and sleep and be bored out of my godsdamn mind?”

“I don't care,” Miriam hissed. “Get the fuck out of this room.”

“Or what?” He eyed her coolly, eyes glinting in the lamplight. “You're gonna make me? All scrawny five and a half feet of you?”

Miriam’s feet carried her forward before the rational part of her could stop herself, and she felt her knuckles pop as her fist collided with Yurgir's nose. He cursed as he sprang to his feet and pinned her against the wall, and she yelped in pain as the speed of his reaction violently yanked her shoulder out of place with a sickening pop.

“Like I said,” Yurgir said as she sagged against the wall panting. “You're ballsy. It's why I like you a lot more than the other assholes he brings around. But don't—” he leaned just enough weight on her wrenched arm to jerk a sob from her throat “—get between me and the job, because the job’s always gonna come first.”

“Fuck you,” Miriam spat.

“Fair,” he said, “but I'm not on the menu. Now behave and let me reset that arm before Rosier lines us both up against the wall out back.”

“I hope you fucking die.”

Yurgir released her with a tired sigh and gestured for her to step closer. And she did, because the rage was beginning to cool into something cold and sticky and simmering in the pit of her stomach until she desperately wanted to retch the taste of it from her mouth. She gritted her teeth as he unceremoniously popped her arm back into place, as tears of anger and pain leaked from the corners of her eyes no matter how hard she fought to keep it all buried.

“You done fighting back tonight?”

Miriam didn't dignify that with a response. Bile rose in the back of her throat as she climbed on the bed, laid back, and stared blankly at the ceiling. She didn't know how much time passed; only that someone came to the door, and after hushed murmurs, a bag of ice landed on the mattress beside her.

She ignored it. Some part of her knew things would be better if she just kept her head down and cooperated, but the ache in her shoulder was a sharp focus against the static forming in the back of her head.

Might be it's time for you to find someone to pray to before the sun comes up.

She let her thoughts wander to Gale again, to the eight-pointed star he sometimes wore around his neck. To Midnight and the shrine she kept in the corner of her bedroom, to the way it became possible after a while to pinpoint how dark her mood was by the number of candles she'd left burning in the bowl of sand. She wondered if Mystra had ever actually listened. If there was something about her worth turning to, that she commanded the attention of so many people who thrived otherwise on logic and reason.

What, after all, was one more silent prayer in her name?

She probably wouldn’t fucking answer anyway.

Gale went about his day on Monday lost in the empty space his own thoughts had become. Students and colleagues alike welcomed him back, asked after his health, expressed concern over his sudden absences, and he met all of it with polite gratitude and a a graceful exit to whatever task he was engrossing himself in next.

It was an odd space he occupied: somewhere between the weighty suffocation of a grief he couldn't quite name and the curious sense that he'd perhaps woken up in a different body than the one he'd taken to bed.

“How are you feeling?” Ariel’s voice floated across his office, an odd mix of genuine warmth and the stiff distance she maintained in public.

“Gods, not you too,” Gale groaned. He dragged a hand down his face. “How do you think? Utterly wretched.”

She crossed the length of his office in four brisk strides with a stack of folders in her arms. “The first round of applications are beginning to trickle in, but the database is down. We have IT looking into it, but I know you prefer to get a head start on them, so I took the liberty of printing them for you.”

Gale raised an eyebrow and eyeballed the stack curiously. “You had time in your day to print off fifteen applications and deliver them to me by hand?”

Ariel rolled her eyes. “Fine. Azuth printed and organized them, if you wish to split hairs. I had to give the old man something to do before he paced a hole in my carpet.”

“What’s got him in a tizzy today?”

“His granddaughter is having her baby, apparently. You’d think after living through two whole generations of people in his family popping out squalling newborns he’d have an idea of how the whole process goes, and yet.”

Gale chuckled at the expression of abject disdain on her face. “Gods forbid someone brings another child into the world.”

“As long as it isn’t me,” she said sourly. “At any rate. Do you want these applications or not?”

He grinned. “Well, now that I know you’ve put so much work into compiling them for me—”

Ariel swatted the side of his head with one of the folders before dropping the stack unceremoniously onto his desk. “Mystra help me, Gale, don’t tell me now is the time you’re finally getting your sense of humor back.”

“Ah, but you do think I’m funny.”

She scowled. “Clean vomit off of a man once and he starts getting so bloody comfortable,” she muttered.

Gale caught her wrist as she went to turn away. “Thank you,” he said softly. “I mean it. You didn’t have to come back for me.”

“I could hardly sit idly by while you ran yourself into the ground. The task of replacing you is not one I would relish.”

“Regardless of your reasoning,” he said. “Thank you. Having you over was … surprisingly nice.”

This time it was her turn to laugh, a surprised bark of a sound that was practically rusted at the edges from underuse. “Your idea of what passes for flattery desperately needs work.”

“But it is working,” he pressed with another smile. He didn’t know what possessed him to behave this way; only that seeing the hesitant smile on her face made something warm flip in the pit of his stomach. It sent him back years somehow: before Miri, before his car accident and Kell’s illness, before he'd ever even known she was already married to a man she loved in such a complicated way. For a moment, the sunlight hit his desk through the window at a lovely angle that made the room glow, and he was back in the observatory so many years ago sharing a moment with a woman he practically worshipped, a woman who'd looked at him then like he was the only thing on this earth that ever mattered.

“What are we doing?” Ariel whispered.

“I … don’t know,” he admitted. He ran the pad of his thumb across the inside of her wrist, and she didn’t pull away. Her hand was cold, her shimmering blue nails brilliant against a backdrop of pale fingers that bore more lines of age by the day. “Do you … want to keep doing it?” he ventured softly.

A pained expression flickered across her face. “I’ll not be your replacement for someone you wish I could be,” she said.

Gale chewed on the inside of his lip and let her words sink in, let them settle into his bones no matter how much they hurt to hear. The longer he sat with them, the more it felt like a cleansing sort of hurt than a viciously reopened wound. And still, she didn’t pull away, even as she tensed in his grasp awaiting his answer.

“I miss you, Ariel,” he admitted finally. “I’ve missed having you around. And … perhaps I understand a little more now, the sorts of things loneliness unchecked can drive one towards.” His heart was an odd flavor of heavy. He missed Miri too, and the thought of returning to his empty apartment knowing she would never again cross that threshold, well that hurt too. But there was a clarity in hindsight, and despite every reckless word from Miri’s lips, he couldn’t stop thinking of one thing she’d said to him that night.

Neither of you deserve to spend your days alone.

He took a deep breath. “If you truly believe this, whatever we’ve shared together, if you believe it has truly shattered beyond repair, I will respect that, but…”

“Choose your next words very carefully,” Ariel said softly. But it wasn’t a warning, not really. He could see all of their old hurts mapped across the lines of her frown.

“Have dinner with me this weekend,” he said finally. “That is all I ask.”

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Just dinner?”

“Did you wish for a more thorough engagement?”

A rare smile played at the corners of her lips. “Impress me with dinner, and we shall see.”

Impulsively, Gale tugged her hand to his lips and placed an open mouthed kiss on her palm. “Consider it done.”

Neither of them mentioned the way Miri’s memory hung between them both like a shroud. The way whatever this was peeked through the horizon with the faintest whisper of light. Ariel withdrew her hand and cleared her throat lightly. “If that is all, Doctor Dekarios, I will take my leave now. I have a meeting I need to prepare for.”

“Of course,” Gale said, though he couldn't hide the sliver of a smile on his face at the way Ariel stiffly smoothed herself over and walked out of his office.

It fixed nothing, not really. But maybe it could be a start.

As Miriam descended the stairs into Raphael's grand sitting room, she couldn't help but marvel at how little things had changed. Here she was, her short and unruly hair cleverly pinned into an elegant updo, her body draped in a scandalously cut red silk dress that accented her curves and also managed to hide the hideous bruising on her shoulder. That it was Yurgir's hands that had also arranged the folds of fabric and held locks of her hair in place as she fumbled with the pins was perhaps the most surreal part of it all.

He was surprisingly dexterous for a man with hands that size, even if he had to duck awkwardly to avoid the light fixture hanging at the entrance to her en-suite bathroom. “Spend a decade building and dismantling bombs for a living, you'd have quick fingers too,” he'd said simply. She wondered why she'd never bothered asking him about his past before. He'd been easy to write off before: quiet, stoic, hardly more than a lethal fixture in the room in case things ever got out of hand. And they rarely did in Raphael's house, with the way he ran his estate like a meticulously oiled machine.

Meals were taken as a household at six am, noon, and seven pm on the dot. There were four regular inhabitants at the table: herself, Yurgir, n live-in accountant and secretary by the name of Archer Newell who insisted upon an overly formal demeanor under all circumstances, and a flamboyant young male escort who exclusively went by Ruby Vanity. (”His real name’s Haarlep,” Yurgir had explained with a chuckle in private after their first meeting. “You can imagine the stupid jokes.”)

She was given a block of free time during the day, with the expectation she would maintain herself to a rigorous list of physical standards. Afternoons were reserved for meetings with regular clients, and evenings were to be spent in lavish repose with Raphael's guests of honor.

Yesterday’s had been a middle-aged businesswoman with a cruel sense of humor and a taste for petty displays of power. Miriam's legs still ached from spending the entire evening on her knees in various humiliating positions, but the overall experience hadn't been entirely unbearable.

And Yurgir's constant presence at her side turned out to be less intrusive than she'd expected. True to his word, he seemed about as put-out by the assignment as she was, and despite following his orders to the letter about always occupying the same room, he was surprisingly conscious of allowing her moments to herself simply by engrossing himself in TV shows on his phone. She had no doubt if she'd attempted anything truly egregious he'd have sprung to action in an instant, but as far as irritating shadows went, he was far from the worst she'd ever had. She didn't trust him, of course — it was abundantly clear at the end of the day where his loyalties lay — but she found him and his dry sense of humor surprisingly easy to tolerate nonetheless.

And so she took her careful steps down into the sitting room — ankles wrapped in strappy leather heels, bespoke red silk draped across her limbs — with an odd sense of resignation. She wondered idly what Gale was up to, comforted herself with the knowledge that he was finally free of her particular brand of misfortune. Wondered if he'd taken her advice, if Ariel had been receptive to it in the first place.

“My favorite date,” she cooed as she practically floated towards where Gortash lounged on the divan. She didn’t bother giving Raphael even a sidelong glance at his place in his favorite armchair. “I have been looking forward to seeing you all weekend.”

Gortash looked up at her with a smirk and beckoned her forward, hooking a finger into the folds of her dress and tugging her just hard enough for her to tumble unceremoniously in his lap. “You are a vision tonight,” he murmured with a soft nip to her ear. His hand wandered up her leg and roughly squeezed her inner thigh.

She’d been captivated by this man once. Terrified, yes, but in an exhilarating way that made her blood rush in excitement. There had been a magnetic pull towards his specific brand of sadism then, a liberating lack of inhibition to indulge in her more extreme desires. She reached into her memories and desperately tried to pull back that feeling, that naive desire for more she’d once possessed, before she’d ever known just how far his proclivities went.

Sure enough, by the time his searching hand teased between her folds, she’d mustered together a believable amount of desire to leave him humming in approval. “Marvelous, really, how good you can be sometimes,” he said. “You know, Raphael, when you told me this one was coming back, I really did think you were just trying to tease me into signing that merger deal.”

Raphael chuckled and lazily swirled the wine in his glass. “I always keep my promises, Enver. Surely you know this by now.”

Gortash hummed thoughtfully as he probed his fingers into her with lazy, idle motions. “You can't blame a man in my position for being wary, you know. Surrounded by lying sharks day in and day out. It is so … refreshing, to have an honest dialogue for once.” He punctuated his barbed words with a sharp twist to Miriam's clit that made her yelp in surprise. Her head fell back against his shoulder with a gasp as he shoved three fingers into her at once.

Miriam closed her eyes and let herself drift, let herself detach from the source and revel in the sensations on their own merit. It was a relatively rusty skill, she realized with a pang of sadness, but as Gortash twisted his fingers roughly into her she let the sighs and moans fall from her mouth with abandon. May as well enjoy it, she mused distantly. Her hips twitched with need when his thumb pressed against her clit and pinched again, as pain lanced through her nerves alongside the exquisite sensation setting her on fire.

“Doesn't take much to pleasure a whore,” Gortash commented with amusement in his voice. “You're such a a lovely sight, princess. Body like yours deserve to be worshipped properly, doesn't it?”

Miriam nodded mutely, her breath catching when he slid a hand up her chest and plucked roughly at her nipples.

“Don't you want to be alone with me?” he murmured.

Play along. That was the goal, right? She nodded again, squirming in his lap as his hands seemed to be everywhere, leaving no part of her untouched.

“I want to hear you say it,” he instructed. There were razors buried in the patience dripping from his voice as he traced her slick down her chin in a mockery of tenderness. “Why don’t you ask your master nicely like a good pup, hm?” He tilted her chin between his fingers until she faced Raphael. “Tell him,” Gortash whispered against her jaw, “how much you deserve to be laid out on my altar.”

Raphael scoffed. “This posturing is beneath you, Enver. Surely you don’t still bear a grudge over the other morning’s misunderstanding? Tonight, you are in my house, as my guest. Do with her what you wish. Unless…” He paused with a sly look at Miriam. “The lady has objections?”

“No,” Miriam whispered. “I don’t.”

Choice was an illusion. It had always been this way. Gortash kissed her and she let him, and she hated the way some part of her liked it all the same.

She'd done this song and dance a thousand times. Every step, carved into her body until there came a point when she couldn't forget his touch if she tried. How quickly it all came rushing back.

His fingers tangled into her hair and yanked her head back hard enough to draw pinprick tears to her eyes. “You said you missed me, didn't you.” Every word sounded more like an accusation. Her legs buckled underneath her as he jammed his foot behind her knees, and he held her up by the hair as she slammed unceremoniously into the floor. The sting of the carpet rasped against her knees, already bloodied even though they'd hardly begun. “Prove it.”

Miriam caught her breath with a shaky inhale as she steadied her hands on his belt buckle and teased his trousers open. Some part of her wondered if it would be easier to hate him if he was repulsive, but he was as well groomed as she remembered, with his pelt of dark hair trimmed neatly around the base of a thick cock that still managed to be one of the more aesthetically pleasing ones she'd ever laid eyes on. He smelled of earthy bodywash and heady musk, and the groan of satisfaction he made when she took him into her mouth still sent a wave of heat between her legs.

“That's right, pet. You were born to be on your knees, weren't you? Haven't had a mouth like yours since you left.”

She let his words lull her into a trance as she relaxed her throat and let him fuck her face. She cupped his balls with one hand and dragged her nails lightly across his taint with the other, the way she remembered he liked it before. The burn in her knees and the sharp pull at her scalp faded into the background as she let her mind drift.

She managed to get one half-breath in before he shoved her to the root and held her there until tears sprang to her eyes. It was neither new nor a surprise, but she was woefully out of practice keeping her mind focused through the burning in her lungs and the rising sense of panic lurking in the back of her mind as she struggled to stay put.

“Disappointing,” he said as he dragged her gasping and choking off of his cock. “Don't tell me you've spent our time apart letting your dazzling array of skills go to waste.”

Miriam dragged an arm across her mouth, chest heaving as she caught her breath. “Sure,” she said. “Thought I'd try my hand at doing people's taxes for a while,” she added as she looked up and painted a cheeky grin on her face.

“Cocky as ever, I see. And yet you still crawled back with your tail between your legs.”

“Oh, there’s been far worse between my legs.”

An unruly laugh spilled from his lips as he extended a hand and helped her to her feet in an uncharacteristic display of, well, not kindness but something that resembled a sliver of humanity. It was his way, Miriam knew, and she’d learned it a thousand times over at this point. It was how he got people to drop their guard before he drove the knife. He relished in the betrayal. It had always been his favorite game. “Have a drink with me, princess,” he said as he reached for a bottle of wine sitting on a nearby table and poured two glasses. “Unwind a little. Unless you’ve grown unforgivably boring in that particular area of indulgence as well?”

He was up to something. She knew it in the core of her marrow, in the way he telegraphed it in the sharp edges of his smile. She took the glass anyway with a smirk and clinked it against his. “Even if I had, with your taste in wine? I’d break every rule in the book.”

“You always did love breaking rules,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s what I like about you, you know. You just have such an … indomitable spirit.”

The way he said it only contributed to her unease. She sipped at the wine cautiously. There was a bitter, medicinal taste that burned the inside of her mouth as she swallowed. It didn’t escape her notice the way he studied her carefully as she drank, and she didn’t break her defiant eye contact as she tipped her head back and drained the rest of the glass in a single swallow.

“Clever,” he murmured. “And bold. You always were. I’ve never seen a woman walk to her own hanging with a head held so high.”

“So which is this, then?” she asked. “A celebration or a hanging?”

“Oh, why not both? There’s no one stopping us.”

“No,” she agreed as she took a step forward towards him. “There certainly isn’t.”

Distraction was something Ariel had honed out of her daily life years ago. Perhaps it was, ironically, a need for distraction that had contributed to that reflex in her — difficult to fret over an empty stomach, an uncertain future, or a broken marriage, after all, when there was something in front of her to focus her mind upon — but it was a skill nonetheless, one she had employed near daily for decades until it was practically second nature.

I understand a little more now, the sorts of things loneliness unchecked can drive one towards.

And somehow, Gale’s words had wedged themselves unwittingly into the folds of her brain like a sidewalk dandelion. It was the same sort of tickle she felt in the back of her mind before she connected the final pieces of a puzzle, the niggling sense that she was on the verge of some new understanding lingering only inches out of her reach.

She sipped at her tea and stared at the glow of her laptop screen in the comforting darkness of her kitchen after sunset. The revisions to her portion of the presentation she was set to give with Tennora next week were nearly complete.

She couldn't stop thinking about Gale.

It was a funny thing, admitting her own guilt aloud. No matter how many times she did it, it never seemed to get easier. The pages of her sketchbooks were littered with the scattered pieces of her thoughts that always seemed to fray at the edges whenever Gale was involved. His absence was — and had always been — just as loud as his presence itself. She sat with that thought for a moment as she teased apart the tangles of her own mind.

You don't have to run anymore, Kell had said to her once. She'd been little more than a child when she'd married him, a girl of sixteen with forged documents claiming her adulthood that she'd clung to as her ticket out of the horrors of her own childhood. Never mind that she'd inadvertently trapped herself in a different sort of purgatory.

He'd never laid a hand on her, even (and especially) when the truth of her was finally laid bare in front of him. His position in the Jergal priesthood forbade divorce, and an annulment would have put a spotlight on her and sent her straight back to the place she'd worked so hard to escape, and so he'd sacrificed a life he could have had with a woman he could love on equal terms in order to take her in. He'd given her the freedom to find love elsewhere, on her own terms, and somehow she'd found a way to spit that in his face, too.

Her entire adult life, built on a crumbling foundation of lies propped up by a good man who did right by her and gave her far more than she'd ever deserved.

She knew better than anyone how cruel and unkind she could be. She wore her disdain like a second skin to hide the rot inside of her that threatened to shatter her to dust the moment it saw the light. She used practicality to absolve herself of the part she played in the destruction that followed in her wake. Made it everyone else's problem, understood deep down just how much responsibility she unloaded beneath the guise of someone who just couldn't be bothered.

And still there was Gale. Gale, who had walked away from her once in a justified display of anger she'd refused to acknowledge for months. Gale, who had somehow fallen for the same woman who'd become her own obsession once, the same woman that she'd fractured their relationship over. The woman who'd made her feel cared for when everything and everyone else seemed to be slipping woefully through her fingers.

The fact that her time with Miri was transactional had been, in many ways, a relief. Their value to one another was pre-measured, decided before they'd ever physically laid eyes on one another. It was a simplicity she was rarely afforded, one that quieted the churning anxiety in the back of a mind that could never quite grasp the emotional value others placed on intangible concepts she’d never learned how to measure.

Maybe something had broken inside her, all those years ago. Left her unable to understand what the people around her seemed to grasp with hardly any effort at all.

How liberating, then, to hear Gale understood something of her she'd never been able to describe on her own. And how guilt-inducing.

She sipped at her tea again and grimaced at the way it had gone cold. She ran her thumb over her phone thoughtfully. There was an emptiness in the center of her chest she couldn't quite find the words to name.

It rang three times before Gale picked up. “Ariel?” he said blearily. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I am well, I simply…” How did she admit she just wanted to talk? How after all this time, she might still want to hear his voice in the late lonely hours? “How are you?” she asked awkwardly.

Gale's sleepy chuckle was more reassuring than anything he could have actually said. “Could be worse,” he said. “The central heat is doing its job admirably. I indulged in a lovely cup of chamomile and lavender tea before bed. My sheets are freshly laundered.” He paused. “You haven't called to say you've changed your mind about this weekend, have you?”

It was her turn for a soft laugh. “No, no, of course not.” The house felt, as it always did these days, unbearably large and far too empty. She remembered a time when conversation between them had come so easily and realized that, of all of the things she'd mourned, this simple fact had fallen quietly by the wayside. She wondered if that was what she felt now, this ache in the hollows of her insides that kept her awake far into the night.

“Do … you want company?” Gale asked. It was the cautious and wary tone of someone who fully expected to be rejected but was asking anyway.

“I…” She trailed off with a frown. “Would you think so terribly of me if I said yes?”

“Only if you think terribly of my asking in the first place.”

The breathy laugh that escaped her lips felt like it belonged to a stranger. “No,” she said. “I suppose I don't.”

She didn't feel a thing when the call disconnected, nor when the knock sounded on her door twenty minutes later. It wasn't until Gale stepped into her kitchen and hesitantly offered his arms, until she met him at the threshold and returned his embrace with a stiffness and unfamiliarity born of months apart, that something flickered to life in that hole in her chest, the one that suddenly felt far too cavernous for words to convey.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Of course,” he whispered back. And somehow, that was enough.

Miriam didn't know what Gortash had dosed her with; only that the longer it took effect the harder it was becoming to keep her thoughts in line. A panicked part of her wondered if he suspected what she was really here to do. If he knew about her involvement with the Sashes and everything that came with it.

She shoved the thought from her mind and straddled him on the mattress with a breathless giggle. “What is this shit?” she slurred. “I feel so fucking good.”

“You like it?” he tucked her hair behind her ear as she bent over his chest to nip playfully at his chin. “It's all the rage back in the Gate right now. A little euphoria, a little hallucinogen, a little…” He pushed his knee between her legs and sent a jolt of arousal through her. “…stimulation,” he finished with a sly grin.

“Mm, you shouldn't have,” Miriam cooed as she captured his lips in a long, lazy kiss.

“You know, when I heard you were back, all I've thought about since is fucking every thought out of that pretty little head. But then I thought, what if my little bird had forgotten all about me?” He had an odd gleam in his eye. “Now, surely, you wouldn't have done a silly thing like that?”

“You're pretty impossible to forget,” she murmured. The lights in the room were beginning to feel impossibly bright. “There's never been anyone like you.”

He rolled on top of her. “Is that so?” he whispered into her mouth. When had she raised her arms? Her sense of linear time was beginning to flag.

Without warning he yanked the top of her dress down her chest and tsked in disapproval. “I see someone's been a bad girl,” he said as he leaned his palm against her bruised shoulder and pressed his weight down.

Miriam grit her teeth and tightened her jaw. She wasn't going to break this fucking early, not after everything.

And then he froze. He traced his fingers down the side of her chest, eyebrows furrowed into a frown. “Now isn't that interesting,” he murmured. And as his fingers grazed her tattoo, Miriam felt a sudden, ice cold realization send her stomach plummeting into her feet.

Jhoysil’s touch, the first truly soft one she'd felt since Rugan all those months ago. “I can fix this, you know,” she'd said as she ran her fingers down the last blemish Miriam had left from her time with Gortash. The one scar he hadn't paid to have erased by doctors bribed not to ask questions. His initials, seared onto her skin as a permanent reminder. “Make it into something that belongs to you.”

How had she forgotten about the cover-up? How had she neglected to brace herself for the inevitable fallout of this discovery? Her head spun. At some point he'd bound her arms tightly above her head and secured her to the bedposts, and she reflexively yanked on her bonds.

He cradled her face and shook his head in disappointment. “Weren't you just spouting off about how much you missed me? You're such an admirable liar, darling, but not to me. Never to me. Nod if you agree.”

Her thoughts felt like sand at high tide. She needed to keep his trust. Bile gathered in the back of her throat as she nodded and fought the urge to recoil at his touch.

“Mark me again,” she blurted out. Her tongue was sluggish lead in her mouth as she struggled to form the words. “It was a — a lapse in judgement. Give me another one, I'll be good, I swear—”

He smoothed sweat-plastered hair across her forehead. “And why should I? I couldn’t bear you making a habit of squandering my gifts.” He traced his touch down the front of her body, and despite all of her misgivings she arched into his fingers when he ran them between her legs. He tsked in disapproval again at the way she whined in desperation when he pulled away. She felt feverish and flushed with an infuriating sort of need.

“Please,” she croaked. What was she begging for again? She dug through her sluggish thoughts for some semblance of coherency.

Another teasing touch against her clit drew out an involuntary moan. “Fuck, please,” she repeated.

“That's a good girl,” Gortash murmured. “Beg to be mine. I know you want it.”

“Yes,” she gasped. “Please, fuck, yes—”

He slipped his fingers inside of her and pumped them lazily in and out. “Who do you belong to?”

“You,” Miriam said as she began fucking herself on his fingers in wanton desperation. The world narrowed to a pinprick in front of her. “You, only you, please—”

Two sensations struck her at once. Her climax overtook her, blinding pleasure tingling her nerves into overdrive, and then: searing pain on the inside of her thigh, sudden and agonizing as it wrenched a sobbing cry from her throat. Blinding agony, the acrid smell of burning flesh as she thrashed against his weight on her legs and the ropes holding her arms in place. She was dimly aware of words forming in her mouth, curses and pleas for help, all falling on deaf ears as Gortash simply chuckled.

She fought to keep her breathing steady as her ears rang. She was distantly aware of her body trembling, but her consciousness felt eerily detached, her vision swimming as she once again felt a warm hand dab sweat from her forehead.

“Well done, princess,” Gortash murmured. “Welcome home.”

“Fuck, that hurts,” Miriam muttered. Morning had come far too quickly, and with it, the pounding headache of sobriety as she perched on the bathroom counter with Yurgir crouched awkwardly between her legs. She kicked her feet idly against his back as he peeled a square of gauze free and pressed it against the ointment covered burn currently blistering on the inside of her left thigh.

“Quit moving and it'll hurt less,” he grunted.

“It'll also hurt less if you give me head, probably,” she pointed out blandly.

“Not in the job description, princess.”

She shuddered. “Don't fucking call me that.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself. It'll be easier if you get used to hearing it sober.”

“What would you know about that?” she snapped in a sudden surge of irritation.

He ignored her and nudged her legs back apart. “Quit moving,” he repeated.

“Fuck off,” she grumbled, but she leaned back on her hands and begrudgingly did as she was told. “Why are you helping me anyway?”

“Because Rosier complains less if his merchandise is in one piece. He's gonna be pissed enough about this already, if that burn gets infected I can kiss my next vacation goodbye.”

She closed her eyes and tipped her head back against the mirror. “That's fair,” she muttered.

“Trust me on that. I've dealt with his bellyaching about Gortash for the last four goddamn years. It's almost as annoying as dealing with the fucker himself.”

“Oh, yeah, sounds like the worst.”

“Sarcasm ain't a good look on you when you're covered in this many bruises.”

“Shit, I wonder where those came from?” she shot back venomously.

“Maybe think twice before you start throwing punches next time.”

“Have you considered you have a very punchable face?”

“Heh.” He huffed an unsettling giggle. “Been told that a time or two in my life for sure.”

“You don't have to sound so fucking proud about it,” she grumbled.

He didn't answer, choosing instead to gather the trash on the floor into a neat pile before dumping it unceremoniously into a bin.

“How’s the nose?” she ventured cautiously, if only because the prolonged silence made her want to scream.

“Pity’s not a good look on you, either,” he said.

“You're a certified dickhead,” Miriam said.

Yurgir chuckled as he helped her hop unsteadily off of the counter. “Yeah, I know that already too.”

Gale heard the angry footsteps clunk against the linoleum lecture hall floors long before someone called his name.

“Dr. Dekarios.”

He frowned and turned around as he slung his bag over his shoulder. “Can I help you with something, Mr. Helani?”

“What the hell did you do to Miri?”

Gale blinked as he slowly processed the words. “I beg your pardon?”

Rolan’s face twisted in anger, his hands trembling with barely concealed rage. “I know you were paying her to fuck you. And she hasn't picked up her phone since Friday when she went to see you.”

A surge of defensive anger welled up in Gale's throat, enough even to override the panic also building in his gut. “If you have something relevant to the program to speak with me about, visit me during office hours,” he said curtly. “What goes on in my private life outside of this campus is, quite frankly, none of your business. I suggest you take this highly inappropriate conduct elsewhere—”

“I know you hit her,” Rolan interrupted.

Gale's blood ran cold. “What?” he whispered.

“You aren't even denying it. Gods, I pegged you for a pompous arse, but you really didn't give a single damn about her outside of getting your bloody cock wet, didn't you?”

Gale slammed his bag down on the nearest desk as the emotions he'd been burying the past few days finally reached their breaking point. “You don't know anything about what went on between Miri and me,” he snarled. “You think you can stand there and judge me based on crass assumptions? Bit hypocritical from someone who also partook in the hypothetical devil's sacrament, don't you think?”

“She's my friend, you miserable arsehole!” Rolan was practically shouting as he took another firm step forward. “I wasn’t paying her, I wasn't sleeping with her, but I care about her, and it's clearly obvious you don't judging from how you don't even look the least bit bothered by the thought that she could have come to harm—”

Something snapped in him, some wall he'd been desperately keeping in place for the past few days crumbling into dust. “I loved her!” Gale shouted angrily. “I loved her and I hurt her and I couldn't be what she needed and now she's gone back to Baldur's Gate with someone who can give her whatever she really needs. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Gone?” Rolan repeated. “What — what do you mean, gone?”

“Oh, did she not tell you?” Gale said bitterly. “Isn’t that interesting?” He grabbed his bag and slung it roughly across his shoulder. “I'll see you in class tomorrow.”

Rolan grabbed him roughly by the sleeve. “Dr. Dekarios. What do you mean, she's gone?”

Gale reflexively yanked his arm away. “Touch me again and I will contact campus security,” he said. “This conversation is over.”

He didn't look to see if Rolan followed him when he let the door slam behind him, but he sagged against the wall when he rounded the corner and took a shaky breath. Closed his eyes, rubbed at the headache brewing in his temples.

Ariel's voice jolted him back to his senses, harsh on his ears, without a trace of the warmth she’d shown him that morning before they'd taken deliberately separate routes to work. “Dr. Dekarios, see me in my office please.”

He followed the ominous click-clack of her heels to the front of the building and into the administrative office with a numbness in his chest. “What have I done this time?” he said tiredly.

When he finally looked up, she'd locked the door behind her and pointed beyond it. “That cannot happen again.”

The whiplash was dizzying. “What?”

“Blowing up on a student?” she hissed.

“Now, wait just a moment,” he protested. “I don't know how much of that exchange you heard—”

“It doesn't matter, and I do not care,” she said abruptly. “I don't care what he said to you, about you, or if he insulted Mystra herself in front of you. You are a distinguished member of this faculty, and you will behave yourself in a manner appropriate of your station.”

He shook his head and let a hysterical chuckle fall from his mouth. “I don't know what I thought would have changed,” he said finally. “I suppose that's on me, expecting you to have grown too much of a heart. Can't tarnish that reputation of yours, can we?”

“That isn't fair,” she whispered. Her expression softened, and she took his hands in hers with a sad frown. “I heard exactly what he said to you,” she said quietly. “And you are hurting and it was neither right nor fair. But you cannot let that sphere of your life follow you here.”

“What was I supposed to say to him?” Gale scoffed. “’I'm sorry you feel that way, take it up with the administrative board?’”

“Yes!” Ariel pressed her lips together in a thin line. “I know you miss her, Gale. Believe me, I … know that better than you think. I know you have suffered loss after loss, I know you likely think your life is once again grinding to a standstill you don't know if you're going to recover from.” She squeezed his hands tightly. “Life doesn't stop. Life never stops. You have a good thing here. Don't rip holes in the only tapestry you have just to watch your fingers bleed.”

His neck still ached from the way the two of them had fallen asleep on the couch last night, slumped against one another with the steady rhythm of a Mulhorandi nature documentary playing on the TV. He could still catch whiffs of her perfume on his shirt. A thousand old wounds were stitched across them both, but she was right. Life didn't stop.

“Gale?”

“That's twice you called me that now.”

“It's your name, isn't it?”

She still hadn't let go of his hands. He didn't know what that meant anymore. There had been a moment last night when she'd been so close, impossibly close, close enough that all he'd have had to do was tip his head forward to meet her lips, just like old times. He hadn't, of course, coward that he was.

He did this time. Ariel didn't move a muscle at first when he pressed his lips to hers, still as a statue and twice as cold. There was a time when he would have pulled away and apologized, let the moment end, and moved on.

He didn't know how long he really stood there, only that after what felt like an eternity of uncomfortable silence he felt her arms wrap tentatively around his waist. There were no words, no fireworks, no passionate sighs or declarations of anything resembling romance.

There was only the fact that she tightened her grasp and didn't pull away. Somehow, that meant more to him than anything else.

It was well past midday when Yurgir poked his head into the bathroom with a brisk knock. “Change of plans, princess.”

“I told you not to call me that,” Miriam said, surly as she sank deeper into the water. The Tegaderm on her thigh itched terribly.

“You'll forgive me when you hear the news, I'm sure.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Miriam muttered.

“Gortash had fires to put out back home apparently. Your appointment tonight is cancelled. Meeting with some woman, never heard of her. Friend of Rosier's.”

Miriam sighed as she closed her eyes and tipped her head back against the lip of the tub. “That supposed to be reassuring or something? At least Gortash is the devil I know.”

“Sometimes those freaks are the ones you need a break from the most,” he pointed out. “Anyway she's downstairs, wants to meet you before she comes back tonight.”

“Isn't that nice of her,” Miriam muttered. She rubbed at the headache forming behind the bridge of her nose. “Tell her to wait until I finish rubbing one out. Unless you want to watch.”

Yurgir snorted. “You're a shit liar, princess.”

Miriam made a show of draping one leg over the edge of the bathtub as she dipped a hand between her legs with an exaggerated moan. “Real enough for you?” she said.

Yurgir closed the door behind him. “You got five minutes.”

She hauled herself upright and pulled the plug with a disgruntled groan. “Fucker,” she grumbled.

She arrived downstairs exactly six minutes later out of spite. The woman waiting for her in the sitting room was a willowy blonde in a dress of skintight red with long silky hair and the palest grey eyes she'd ever seen. “Aren't you a darling,” the woman cooed. “Miriam, I presume?”

“It seems you have me at a disadvantage, sweetheart,” Miriam said as she let the woman pick up her hand and plant a soft kiss on her knuckles.

The woman offered a brilliant smile and tugged Miriam down into the seat next to her. “Geri with a G. Cute, right?”

Miriam brushed Geri’s hair out of her eyes and draped her legs across the couch. “I don't think cute is the word I'd use,” she murmured. “But judging by the way you carry yourself, I think you already know how fucking gorgeous you are.”

“Well, sure.” Geri tugged Miriam in for a soft kiss. “Been told that my whole life. I'm sure you have too. Sometimes, though—” She punctuated her words with a soft kiss. “A girl wants a little bit of authenticity. A deeper connection.”

“Hmm.” Miriam nipped at her lip playfully. Her perfume smelled of lilies and something metallic she couldn't recognize. “You want authenticity and you come to a whore. That's a strange choice.”

“Sometimes the clearest truth comes from beneath the thickest masks,” Geri murmured. “Dig in the dirt for fun, clawing, scratching, fingers turning damp earth. Some people call it gardening. What if nothing grows?”

“Beautiful and a philosopher,” Miriam murmured with a smile. “Aren't you an interesting one?”

“I find it makes life more fun to be interesting when you're pretty,” Geri said. Her lips curled into a grin. “You never answered my question.”

Miriam hummed thoughtfully. “Do you always need a reason to play in the dirt? Maybe you’re burying something that's already dead, maybe you just like the way it feels between your fingers. Does it matter in the end?”

Geri laughed, soft and melodic as she ran her fingers down Miriam’s cheek. “Is that what you would rather? A life without any meaning at all?” She leaned in again, another kiss, another shared breath. “Awfully bitter water in that well, don't you think?”

Miriam’s heart stilled as she fought to keep her expression neutral. As hope bloomed treacherous in her chest alongside the sinking feeling that she was running dangerously out of time. She looped a lock of Geri’s hair around her fingers. “I think there’s a difference between finding meaning in meaningful things and digging too hard for things that aren’t there.”

“Clever,” Geri mused with a quirky smile. “I’m sure you are just marvelous at finding things. Whether they’re there for the finding or not.” She untangled herself from Miriam’s arms and stood up. “I'll be back at seven, sweet thing. We are going to have so much fun together.”

Miriam offered as dazzling of a smile as she could muster over the deafening pounding of her heart. “Can't wait,” she agreed.

Gale was in the process of removing his coat when he heard Ariel's voice from across her kitchen. “Are you actually wearing that?”

“Hmm?”

She appeared at his elbow with a mug of tea already in her hand. “To the Watchful Order board meeting tonight.”

“A meeting? Tonight?” He furrowed his brow and self consciously and smoothed down the wrinkles in his shirt. “Since when?”

“Since this morning. Don’t you ever check your emails?”

Gale groaned, pulled out his phone, and flipped through his inbox. Sure enough, there among his unopened messages, was the email in question.

Dinner With Prospective Fellowship Donor

Gale rubbed at his temples as he looked at her with a sheepish expression. “I suppose that's on me, isn't it.” He opened the email and skimmed its contents. “So who is this person, anyway? Anyone we know?”

“Old money family with roots up and down the entire Sword Coast.” Ariel sipped at her tea with a pinched expression on her face. “It's a suspicious amount of money they're offering. It could potentially fund the entirety of the Ahghairon project with enough money to allocate back to our department of the university for general use.”

“And this is a bad thing?” Gale ventured slowly.

“I suppose we shall find out in…” Ariel checked her watch with a grimace. “About three hours. Hopefully my paranoia is unfounded.” She turned to put her tea down at the same time Gale made to get a glass of water, and they collided softly at the kitchen threshold.

“Apologies,” Gale began.

“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Ariel muttered. Before he could ask what she meant, she clunked her tea on the counter and dragged him in for a kiss. A real one this time, one that knocked the air from his lungs and had him sagging against the counter. It was nothing like the hesitant whisper of intimacy in her office. She tasted like Earl Grey and lavender, the same tea she'd been drinking for decades. The smell of it hit him with an aching wave of nostalgia as her fingers plucked at the buttons of his shirt.

“Are you certain this is wise?” he gasped between kisses.

“Stop talking,” she whispered.

He was more than happy to comply as she tugged his trousers open and traced her nails gently along his thighs. Her fingertips ghosted across his erection through the fabric of his underwear, and he couldn't hold back a groan when she palmed at his cock with the flat of her hand. Anything else he could have said died on his tongue when she kissed him again and wrapped her hand around his cock.

It shouldn't have been so easy to fall back into her arms like this, not after everything. After the coldness, the distance, the lies. But perhaps that wasn't as simple as the way she fit in his arms like one would don a comfortable sweater, or the way she hadn't switched shampoo brands in over a decade and the scent of her hair toppled his memories over like a cascade of crumbling bricks.

He fumbled trembling fingers on the buttons of her blouse. The candle perched on her counter wafted cardamom and nutmeg into the air. She sagged into his touch with a contented sigh when he finally dragged the front of her shirt open and smoothed his hands across her skin.

Her phone rang.

“Ugh,” Ariel groaned as she nudged him away and fumbled with her pocket. She grimaced at the caller ID before picking up. “Tennora Hedare, the observatory had better be crumbling beneath your feet.”

Tennora’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Why, am I interrupting your daily ritual of staring morosely at your kitchen counter until the sun goes down?” She chuckled at her own joke. “I uploaded my half of the presentation to the drive, but you never responded to my text. Aren't we giving the abridged version tonight at dinner?”

Ariel closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose in irritation. “I suppose we are, yes,” she muttered. “I will look over it now.”

“Do you know if Gale is bringing that girl?” Tennora asked. “I'd been meaning to get her opinion on something—”

“Nora,” Ariel interrupted tersely. She offered Gale a sympathetic grimace. “I would strongly advise against bringing her up tonight. Or ever again.”

An awkward silence settled over the call. “Oh,” Tennora said finally. “That's … disappointing. She seemed good for him.”

“And it is none of your business,” Ariel said. “Stay out of it.”

“Is that personal investment in the matter I hear?”

“That is also none of your business.”

Tennora had the unfortunate tendency to latch onto gossip like a dog with a bone. “I did notice the two of you haven't been at one another's throats in a while. Did something happen there?”

Ariel heaved an exasperated sigh. “I will see you tonight,” she snapped. “Do not be late.”

Gale cleared his throat softly as Ariel ended the call without waiting for an answer. “I should, erm, go get ready.”

She stared at him for a moment with something he couldn't even begin to guess poised on the tip of her tongue. He found himself wondering once again what lay behind the endless depths of the sea she carried in those eyes that had always been so, so skilled at seeing through to his core.

“Yes, I suppose you should,” Ariel agreed softly. She buttoned her blouse with deliberate haste and looked away. The mask was settling back over her face, closing her off like a storm shutter, and Gale wondered how many more times he could bear watching that door close on him again.

“Well.” The chuckle that fell from his mouth as he grabbed his coat felt rehearsed and plastic. “Until tonight, then.”

When Miriam went back downstairs for her dinner date, Ruby was lounging lazily on the divan with a glass of something expensive dangling from his fingers. “Cat's away,” he drawled as he gestured to the bottle of ‘47 Reserve on the table. “Might as well have a glass. Little mouse.”

Miriam rolled her eyes. “Somehow that lacks the same bite coming from you. Anyway, pass. You might be off when Rosier's out but I still have a client tonight.”

“Oh, right. The leggy blonde with the crazy eyes.” He swirled the whiskey in his glass and took a long, slow sip and looked her over with an appraising glance. “Guess you'd know all about sticking it in crazy though, with your track record.”

“Do you have a point you're trying to make, or are you just trying to bait me into a fight?”

Ruby ignored her question and indulged in a decadent stretch. “Do you know why everyone calls Archer the Archivist?”

“Because he’s got the thousand yard old lady librarian stare perfected when things even start smelling rowdy, probably. Is this the part where you ignore when I say I don't care and tell me anyway?”

“He keeps records of everything.” Ruby drained the last of his glass and immediately refilled it to the top. “Everything.”

Miriam gestured impatiently for him to continue. “He’s a CPA. Isn't that sort of his job?”

“Please. I know you spent a few years out there freelancing with other wealthy assholes before you came crawling back. How many of them have live-in accountants? Bank accounts don't exactly need an au pair.”

She shrugged. “Honestly I just figured he and Raphael had a toxic gay thing going on that Daddy Rosier didn't approve of. Seriously, is this going anywhere?”

“Archer Newell has, in addition to absolutely anal financial records, what amounts to a dossier file on everyone that anyone in this house has so much as breathed at in the last decade. Don't you think it's interesting that Geraldine Whitechapel has supposedly been a friend of the Rosier family for decades, but there's not a single damn record of her on his computer? At all?”

“You broke into Archer’s office?” Miriam hissed. “Are you stupid or suicidal?”

Ruby shrugged. “Spend enough time working for Raphael Rosier, you start getting a little of both. I hardly think you'd be the one to judge, given what's in your file. Which I did read, by the way. Juicy little thing it was.”

Miriam could feel a massive headache building behind her eyeballs. Perhaps it was telling, in a way, how the mention of her sordid history here already no longer sent her heart racing the way it had even a few a days ago. She wondered if it was the brand between her legs responsible for that numbness, or if she was simply preoccupied with the increasingly likely possibility she may not make it out of this ordeal alive. The thought should have been sobering, but it, like everything else today, only left her feeling blank and empty.

“I doubt you'd have left the luxury of your balcony hot tub just to tell me you know about my vet clinic abortion,” she said finally. “That's low hanging fruit, even for you.”

“You really should have finished college,” Ruby said through his porcelain smile. “Your powers of observation are wasted on this place. Anyway, I cracked his password, and I'll give it to you if you let me fuck you.”

Miriam let out a startled laugh. “I'm sorry?”

“Please, don't act so surprised. You're the most interesting thing that's happened around here since the time I walked in on Yurgir beating his meat to a video of some guy fucking a panther. Yeah, that's the face I made, too, but hey, makes sense to hire a dude with no interest in the actual merchandise. Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked.” Ruby caught her wrist and tugged her closer with a grin. “I'm bored. I would literally kill a man for a bit of real fun.”

“Raphael's cock not doing it for you?”

Ruby outright cackled. “Sweetheart, if Raphael's cock did it for anyone, I'd be out of a very steady job.”

Miriam glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner. It was a tempting offer. She had maybe five more minutes before Yurgir reappeared from what he insisted was a ‘union mandated bathroom break.’ Knowing Raphael, there was also just as good a chance this was a trap. She fought the urge to wipe her sweating palms on her skirt and pretended to rake an appraising look over Ruby’s body. A well-sculpted chest peeked out from the front of his low cut scarlet robe, hiked high enough to hint at long, toned legs. The fabric was thin enough in the front to leave absolutely nothing to the imagination, and even flaccid he sported a sizeable bulge.

“Sweetheart, I'd fuck you even without the trade,” she said finally with a grin. “But since you're offering…”

Yurgir cleared his throat audibly from the entrance to the hallway as the bathroom door closed loudly behind him. “Let's get going, princess,” he barked. “Car’s waiting.”

“I'll be in touch,” Miriam mouthed. If anything, she could buy herself time. She blew a kiss for good measure and then followed Yurgir through the front door.

The board meeting turned out to be a fully catered event at a waterfront tapas bar in the arts district of the Sea Ward, a last minute consideration courtesy of the prospective donor himself. Ariel had somehow beat him there despite his living a scant six blocks away, and she and Tennora were arguing over which outlet was the most out of the way by the time Gale made his way to the back section, partitioned off from the rest of the restaurant by frosted glass and a sliding door of hand-carved acacia.

“Gale!” Tennora said brightly. She tossed the extension cord aside, ran to greet him, and promptly pulled him into a bone crushing hug. “Gods, you look — well—” She straightened his tie and cleared her throat with an amiable pat to his chest. “Better than this morning.”

He chuckled as he disentangled himself from her. “Yes, I've heard a shower and a beard trim can do that to a man.”

“Right, yes, of course, it's just that—”

“You don't have to dance around it, Tennora,” he said wearily. “Relationships end. I won't dissolve into dust over it.”

She cleared her throat and glanced at Ariel. “Right. Yes. Well. It's still nice to see you out and about. Come on, then, I have someone for you to meet before the festivities begin.”

He raised an eyebrow curiously. “Festivities?”

“Sure. Our generous benefactor paid for all of this. Seems like a party to me. He also asked about you specifically.”

Gale frowned. “Me? Why?”

Tennora grabbed his wrist and tugged him towards the bar set up at the far side of the room. “He's a fan of your methodology regarding the Karsus Nebula, apparently.”

“Bit of a niche interest.”

She snorted. “And you aren't frothing at the mouth to talk about someone else who shares it? Come on. Unless you're closer to dissolving into dust than you made me believe.”

Tennora's grin was infectious. She was infuriating that way. Cheerful, irritatingly so, but in a way that made him wonder if he'd have always been so annoyed by it. He caught Ariel's exasperated glance from across the room, watched Vajra’s reflection in the window as she all but skidded into the room with breathless apologies about being late to an event she was actually thirteen minutes early to. Watched others file in, people he barely knew despite serving on a board with them for almost three years now. He felt curiously detached from all of it.

“Gale?” Tennora tapped him insistently on the arm and gestured to a smartly dressed man standing at the bar. He was in a bespoke black pinstripe suit, short brown hair neatly coiffed back with enough gel he could practically see the tips of it crisped together in the candlelight. He was leaning casually on the bar with a glass of amber liquor perched between his fingers.

“Dr. Dekarios, I presume,” he said smoothly. He gestured to the bartender, who promptly poured a second glass and passed it across the bar. “You seem like a whiskey man.”

“An apt assessment,” Gale agreed. “Though I don't believe I've yet had the pleasure in return.”

The man smiled and nudged the glass towards him with a nod. “Big fan of your work. You've accomplished things I would never have believed possible had I not seen them with my own two eyes.”

Gale chuckled awkwardly. “Well, I don't know if I would go that far, although if you'd like to discuss specifics, I would be absolutely thrilled to—”

“Raphael Rosier,” the man said with a warm smile as he extended a hand. “I am so very glad to finally make your acquaintance at last.”

The grandfather clock in the hall downstairs chimed two in the morning. Miriam crept down the carpeted second floor landing, barefoot in tights and a skintight tank, every breath as quiet as possible as she made her way to Archer Newell’s office.

We need something, Geri had said in hushed tones over virgin cocktails at a rooftop poolside bar as the sound system pumped out electronic dance music a scant three tables away. Anything. Tick tock goes the clock. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that.

One more day, Miriam had said firmly. Give me one more day. Come back tomorrow. I’m close.

A soft kiss to the back of her hand, a lipstick print warm and red against her skin. Let’s hope nothing happens in the meantime.

Miriam couldn’t shake the feeling it had sounded more like a threat than an entreaty. Still, the evening had ended amicably enough, though Geri had declined to stay the night. Early morning ahead, I’m afraid. Think of me until next time, won’t you? A kiss, long and sweet, cherry liqueur and warm vanilla on her lips.

There was a pleasant ache between her legs from the hour she’d spent lounging in Ruby’s bed letting him do all the work. At the end of the day, he hadn’t even wanted anything particularly obscene of her. But then, that was how it tended to go when whores fucked whores. Sometimes it was enough to pretend for a time with someone else who understood what the mask felt like. There was a unique sort of honesty in it beneath the flirtatious banter and veiled euphemisms, and sometimes, that honesty was a single drink of water in a dry and barren desert.

He’d whispered the password in her ear as he softened inside of her, and she’d offered him a saccharine kiss for the trouble.

Archer’s office door was locked, but it wasn’t anything a couple of hairpins and a paperclip couldn’t break through. The risk was monumental, but Geri was right: the clock was ticking. She certainly couldn’t afford to remain idle. The computer screen blinked at her, and she set gloved, shaking hands on the keyboard.

>> MyHeart’sDesire

It was such a ridiculous phrase. She half-expected the password not to work, or for Archer himself to burst out of the walls to catch her in the act, but the desktop screen winked on at her like she’d belonged there all along.

It wasn’t right. It was too easy. Her stomach dropped as she heard footsteps echo in the hall, and she quickly logged out and dove beneath the desk. She closed her eyes and struggled to keep her breath even as her heartbeat practically deafened her.

It was a trap. It was a trap, and she was dead now, and so was everyone she’d ever cared about. She was lightheaded from it, sinking and sickening in the pit of her belly as the footsteps drew closer and closer—

And passed by the door, continued down the hall, and faded away. She exhaled slowly, a shuddering sound that left her dizzy and nauseous as she leaned her head back against the inner side of the desk. Gods, what was she doing? She’d spent excruciating months in Raphael’s employ, but she’d never felt so utterly out of her depth before as she did now, on the verge of tears beneath Archer Newell’s desk as her breath repeatedly caught in the back of her throat.

She was almost certainly going to die here.

And with that thought, she pried her fingers into the paneling to drag herself out from her pathetic hiding place.

Something clicked beneath the desk.

“No fucking way,” she whispered as she peeked back under the desk. Tucked into the now open paneling was a thick yellow envelope stuffed with cash and a collection of what appeared to be bank statements and transaction records. She wiggled out from beneath the desk and studied the papers in the dim light of the monitor screen.

It couldn't be this easy.

She studied the recipient names. Our Lady of the Moon Research Hospital. The Hope Foundation. The Sword Coast Cancer Society. Orphic Wellness International.

All legitimate donations, so why were they hidden away?

The year on the first page caught her eye, and she exhaled softly as she examined the contents line by line. This was a copy of the funding record for Cassian’s surgery, she realized with a cold feeling in her chest. The price she’d accepted on her life. And a hard copied representation of what was at stake if she failed.

She committed the other three recipients to memory and carefully replaced the folder into its hiding place. She couldn't risk taking anything with her, but she had names now, at least. Clues, little threads for Tathla to tease free and unravel somewhere far away from here.

Somewhere in the distance, the clock struck three. Miriam extracted herself from beneath the desk for a second time and winced as her knees gave an audible pop when she climbed shakily to her feet. It was hard to focus on the task at hand through the sound of her own blood roaring in her ears.

Somehow she made it into the hall and quietly locked the door behind her. Made it step after silent step back to her room, managed to slip in amid the obnoxious rattle of Yurgir's snoring on the couch. She closed the bathroom door behind her and waited until the shower was running hot before she finally let herself relax against the sink.

“Fuck,” she whispered with a ragged breath.

“Astrid’s.” Gale dropped a paper takeout bag on Ariel's office desk.

Ariel looked up from her laptop with a frown as a familiar headache began brewing behind her eyes. “Well, first of all, this is a Panini Barn bag.”

He grinned at her. “No, I mean for dinner tonight.”

“Why is there a Panini Barn bag on my desk? And who let you in here?”

“I thought I'd bring you breakfast since this is the third day in a row you've come in early to work on what is now a bit of a redundant grant application, yes?”

Ariel scowled and pushed the bag away. “We don't bring in our own revenue, ergo, the need for funding never really goes away.”

“True,” Gale agreed. He peered at the packet of paperwork scattered across her desk. “It says the deadline for that one is three weeks from now. You can take a day off from it.”

“I know Azuth didn't simply let you in here without complaint.”

“Sure, but even a guard dog that stalwart has basic evolutionary needs. He had to visit the facilities at some point.”

Ariel rolled the heel of her palm against her aching eye. “And you either knew exactly when he would go, or you stood there and waited. Neither scenario entails you actually doing the job you are paid to do here.”

“He's really quite regular, you know.” Gale flashed her a cheeky grin and pushed the bag back towards her. “Oh, don't look at me like. I've been coming in early, too. It gives me something to do. I just caught him at the right time.”

Agitation was bubbling beneath her skin from a source she couldn't readily identify. The lights were too bright, and the incessant tap-tap-tap of the loose shutter outside flapping against the window in the wind was slowly driving her mad. “What time?” she asked finally. “At Astrid's?”

It was the downtown diner where they'd had their first real date, the sentimental fool. She'd be lying if she said it didn't make her feel something, but currently that something was more akin to a burning desire to crawl out of her own skin and find somewhere less visible to be.

“Let’s do seven. Eat your bagel.”

She squinted at him suspiciously. “Are you high?”

Gale cackled a surprised laugh. “I beg your pardon?”

“It's just as likely an explanation for why you're so annoyingly cheerful at this hour as anything else I could come up with.”

“You seemed fairly enamored with me yesterday when you kissed me.”

“If I'd have known it would lead to forced small talk at seven in the morning, I may have reconsidered.”

“And yet I don't see you kicking me out.”

Oh, he was so irritatingly smug. It was a charming look on him too, despite the way he was currently needling at her frayed nerves. She pushed a folder at him and smacked a pen on top of it as she nodded at the bag. “If you insist on continuing this inane interruption, make yourself useful and start sorting through the observatory maintenance projections for this upcoming quarter.”

Utterly undeterred, he picked up the folder and frowned. “Why isn't someone in accounting handling this?”

“They don't think it's necessary now that the Rosier family has attached their name to our department.”

“And you disagree?”

She pursed her lips and briefly debated how much of her misgivings to share. “I think someone like Mr. Rosier would ordinarily have shown interest in us much sooner. He is well connected here, has an estate of his own in the North Ward, and yet he's never attended a single fundraising event. Why now? No one wakes up one day and decides to drop that much money on an organization on a whim.”

Gale tapped the pen thoughtfully against the desk. “And you suspect he may withdraw his contribution?”

She sighed. “I don't know what I suspect. I simply think it wise to have a backup plan in place before placing the fate of this project in the hands of a single eccentric billionaire we know close to nothing about.”

“What's really bothering you?”

How was he doing this? How was he slotting himself into old patterns so easily, as comfortably as though he'd never left in the first place? It filled her with an ache she couldn't even begin to will away. She scowled and looked away from him. “I told you already, I'll not be your replacement for someone you wish I could be.”

“I am trying to move on,” he said softly. “From her. From Tara. From all of the mistakes I've made in the meantime.”

“Because you're ready, or because you promised her you would?”

It was clear from the way he flinched that her words hit a nerve, but he didn't back down. “Can it not be both?” he said softly.

“I am not your crutch, Gale. I'll not be your stepping stone to greener pastures, either.”

“Do you trust me?” he whispered.

“I don't know,” she admitted. “Can I?”

The silence stretched on between them for entirely too many seconds. His smile contained a sliver of pain as he passed the folder back, as the back of his hand brushed against hers in the process. “Start with tonight?”

There was such unfiltered hope in his eyes. She both loved and hated that about him, the way every emotion and thought draped itself so plainly and shamelessly across his face. Hadn't he learned by now, just how quickly an exposed heart could bleed?

She could only nod as he stood up and took his leave. She could hear Azuth grumbling at him through the open door, and then it closed behind him and she was alone with the silence and her bagel and the steady tap tap tap of the building storm outside.

“So.” Ruby's breath smelled like an unpleasant mix of maple syrup and whiskey as he leaned in over Miriam's shoulder and plucked the cigarette from her hand. “Did you have fun last night?”

“Give that back.”

“Been here almost a week now and I've never once seen you smoke.”

Miriam snatched the cigarette back. “Cute. I didn't take you for the obsessive type. I'd have left you some of my hair to sniff last night if I'd known.”

Ruby grabbed the lighter from the balcony table and dangled it playfully out of her reach as he hopped up and perched on the railing. “I think,” he murmured, “that someone's already been going places she shouldn't.”

“Careful, Ruby,” she said. “Wouldn't want anyone to get any strange ideas about the hours you really keep.”

He ignored her and lit the cigarette himself. “So,” he said after a long draw. “Learn anything interesting last night?”

“Oh, tons,” Miriam said emphatically. “I'd never have guessed you had a weirdly huge mole right at the base of your dick. D’you know, I think it's actually kind of an asset in some ways if the person you're fucking has the right equipment. Personally I thought it made for a really nice ride. Placement left a little to be desired, though. But I guess that can't really be helped, can it?”

Ruby laughed, a chuckling rumble in the center of his chest as he held out the cigarette to her. “Anyone ever tell you that bravado of yours is going to be the death of you one day?”

She closed her lips around the cigarette and didn't break eye contact as she inhaled slowly. “All the time,” she said finally after an equally slow exhale. “So far, they've all been wrong.”

Ruby glanced inside where Yurgir watched them warily from his perch on a velvet ottoman he'd pulled far enough to watch them from inside. “He can't protect you, you know.”

It was Miriam’s turn to laugh outright at that. “If you think Yurgachev is here for my protection, you're even dumber than I gave you credit for.”

For a moment, Ruby almost looked sad. “Not talking about him,” he said. He hopped down, took one last drag from the cigarette, and stubbed it out onto the railing. “Free advice,” he said abruptly. “You can't protect him, either. Best for everyone if you stopped trying.”

After days of overcast weather, dreary flurries, and biting wind that cut through every layer of fabric no matter how thick, the night was shaping up to be startlingly beautiful. The sky was as clear as a city sky could be, which admittedly wasn't entirely all that much. The moon, though, was a brilliant beam of pale white across a dimly visible sea of stars.

Gale stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket and watched the sky as he waited for his cab. He almost wished he could take credit for planning this dinner on a cloudless night — perhaps even throw in a midnight stroll under the light of a gloriously waxing moon — but Ariel would see through him in an instant.

Or, he reflected quietly, she would have, once. He had no idea how well she could read him now.

There was an aching emptiness in the center of his chest, a void in the shape of light brown skin and hazel eyes and a sea of freckles as endless as the stars overhead, and Ariel had already made it plain just how aware she was of that.

She'd agreed to meet him anyway. She'd looked at his loneliness and his denial and still seen something worth one more chance. The ghosts of her kisses still hovered warm across his lips.

The cab pulled up to the curb. When he opened the door, there was already a passenger in the back seat: a willowy blonde in a flowing red dress offering an apologetic smile.

“There is room enough for two, I hope,” she said.

Gale frowned and glanced at the driver as she pulled a shock of curly black hair into a messy ponytail with a scowl. “May I ask why?”

“Driver shortage,” she said. She jerked her head towards the road with an expression of irritation on her face. “They tightened regulations yesterday, and half the company got fired or suspended. You two split fare, or you wait two hours for the next one to free up.”

Gale shook his head as he slid into the back seat. “No, that is completely unnecessary,” he said. “It’s no trouble at all, really.”

The cab smelled like roses and something else faintly metallic he couldn't quite identify. The driver was a taciturn woman with a permanent scowl on her face, but his seatmate filled the silence with cheerful chatter, and by the time they reached the Castle Ward exit, he'd learned she was a social worker, she was on her way to meet a woman she met online for a first date, and she was set to begin med school in the spring.

“That's excellent news!” he said, and he found he even meant it too.

The twinkling lights of the city evened into an even fluorescent glow as they entered the tunnel that led to downtown Castle Ward. “Have you been in Waterdeep long?” he began to ask, when she suddenly jabbed a syringe through his trousers straight into his thigh.

“Shh,” she whispered, a strangely serene expression on her face as he slapped it out of her hands in alarm. “There, now. This will be so much more fun if you let it happen. Don't you deserve a little fun, professor?”

He swatted her away from him, but she was stronger than she looked. The driver just watched impassively through the rearview without lifting a finger. “Who are you?”

The woman was practically in his lap now. He fumbled for the door handle, but his fingers refused to obey him, and even when he managed to grab it, the door didn't budge.

“They told me you would be stubborn,” she cooed. She straddled him and ran her fingers down his cheek in a mockery of affection. “But I'm stubborn, too.” She slipped a razor from her pocket and ran it down her palm with a manic giggle before cupping his cheek, warm and tacky against his skin. “Look at it trembling in its clothes. Cold, scared, and alone.”

“Get off of me,” he slurred. His vision was beginning to blur. Sweat beaded on his temple and rolled down his face in cold droplets. He fumbled for his phone, wondered briefly why she didn’t stop him, and then realized there was zero service in the tunnel. It didn’t matter anyway, because the driver hit a small pothole in the road, and the phone promptly flew out of his increasingly clumsy fingers and clattered somewhere on the floor of the car.

“The poor, poor professor." She lifted her hand and brushed hair from his face with slick fingers. “They said he was trusting, they said he was soft, so bright and brilliant and blissfully ignorant. Everybody lies, pet. Didn’t your little whore teach you anything?”

“What are you talking about?” he whispered.

“Do you even know her name? The one at the bottom of the box, the one she was given before she took the rest for herself.”

“Don’t — don’t you dare touch her.” Fear coiled tight like a spring in his drug-addled mind as he remembered Miri’s words.

You’re going to get hurt.

I wish things could be different.

She was in danger anyway. Dread sank like ice into his marrow. “Where is she? What have you done with her?”

His assailant laughed. “So selfless. Even now he worries about her instead. What makes her so special, professor? Was it her thick, plump lips? Her thighs with the miles and miles of beautiful, perfect skin? She’s going to make the loveliest sounds when my tongue is in her pretty little cunt.”

Gale thrashed in her grip as panic gripped his lungs in a vice. “What have you done?” he choked out.

“Stop playing with your food,” the driver snapped. “Boss needs him in one piece, remember?”

“Oh, don’t mind Korrilla,” the woman said in a playful sing-song. “Everyone is afraid of something. She’s afraid of being replaced. But what are you afraid of? Aren't you just so, so thrilled to find out?”

“What,” he repeated desperately as the world around him began to darken, “have you done with Miri?”

“Her real name is Miriam,” the woman corrected softly with a smile that didn’t come anywhere near her eyes. “But I’m sure you knew that, right?”

It wasn't like Gale to be late.

It was ten minutes past seven, and Ariel poked at her water with a prickling sense of unease. It could have been a cab delay, she tried to rationalize. It hadn't escaped her notice the lengths Gale often went to avoid any conceivable situation where he could be expected to drive someone else anywhere. Not since the night Tara died. It didn't take a genius to put the pieces together.

The server came back around. Ariel ordered a liquorice and ginger soda and went back to counting the cracks in the booth table beneath the layers and layers of reparative lacquer. He wouldn't have simply changed his mind, either, she mused. Would he?

Ten more minutes passed, and she dialed his number.

Hello! You've reached Dr. Gale Dekarios with the Aumar College of Physics and Astronomy. I am regrettably away from my phone at present; feel free to leave your name, a callback number, and a brief message at the tone—

Ariel hung up.

Half past seven came and went. She called Gale again, and then a third time.

It was ridiculous to think he'd stand her up. She knew it, had known it all week. Doubt wrapped spindly fingers around her spine anyway, old voices that always took root like noxious weeds whenever uncertainty crept in. That perhaps the rot and insecurity she'd spent a lifetime stamping out always lingered just enough to make someone like Gale change his mind. That maybe her sins numbered one too many and he'd simply come to his senses at last.

Gods, she barely recognized herself right now.

She waited until seven forty-five before calling him again. This time, the call went straight to voicemail, and she stuffed her phone into her purse with a sigh of resignation as she fished out her keys and a stack of bills to leave on the table.

“Sorry, hon,” her waitress said to her with a sympathetic glance on her way out.

“It happens,” Ariel muttered as she picked her way across the icy parking lot. The fluorescent light at the corner of the lot emitted a buzzing sound that made her teeth ache. A part of her — the part that had been obliging Tennora and putting forth a token amount of effort towards cultivating positivity in her life lately — tried to acknowledge the way the light hit the deep night sky blue of her BMW and made it shimmer. To acknowledge that it contained a sliver of beauty.

Somehow it wasn't making her mood better in the slightest.

She pulled out her keys and paused. Gale's apartment key — the one Miri had given her last week — still dangled from the ring. An absurd notion took root in her mind as she started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. She watched the upcoming highway sign thoughtfully as she approached the next exit.

East - Trade Ward | West - Sea Ward

She sighed and turned the steering wheel.

It was nearly nine in the evening when a knock sounded on Miriam's door. She glanced at Yurgir curiously and only received a noncommittal shrug in response as she hopped out of bed with a frown.

She opened the door and blinked in surprise. “Geri? I wasn't expecting you tonight.”

“Truthfully, I didn't entirely expect to be here,” she said with a crooked grin as she slipped past Miriam and took a graceful seat on the mattress. “I'm not imposing, am I?”

Miriam closed the door behind her with a sly smile. “I am ever at your service,” she said with a jaunty bow. Ever the pomp and circumstance, ever the costume and pretense.

“Service me in the shower then, if you don't mind,” Geri said with a bat of her eyelashes. “It's been a long day, and I am positivity filthy.”

Yurgir made a face when Miriam shot him a questioning look. “You're gonna make me get up now?” he grumbled.

“We can crack the door and call it a compromise,” Miriam said pointedly.

Yurgir heaved a tired sigh and flipped back to whatever he was watching on his phone. “You're lucky I like you,” he said without taking his eyes off of the screen.

Geri didn't waste a moment capturing Miriam's lips in a heated kiss as she stumbled them both towards the bathroom door. She maintained the guise of insatiable lust just long enough for Miriam to fling her hand into the shower and turn on the water, and then her movements immediately turned utilitarian as she stripped out of her clothes, tossed them into a messy pile on the floor, and beckoned Miriam to follow her beneath the showerhead.

“Shit,” Miriam breathed. There was a jagged, barely scabbed cut bisecting Geri’s palm. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“Never mind me, doll,” Geri murmured as she pressed Miriam against the shower wall. “Any news?”

“Nothing major,” Miriam whispered. “But tell Tathla to look into some charity donations over the last decade.” She spelled out what she'd memorized from Archer's office. “Apparently Raphael’s CPA keeps dossiers on anyone even adjacently involved with his personnel. If you can get me something to slip into his nightly whiskey maybe, I could buy myself enough time and space to get you something more substantial—”

“Very good,” Geri purred. She slid a hand down Miriam's stomach and teased at the hair between her legs. “Someone's been a very good girl.”

Miriam’s breath hitched as Geri's fingers gently circled her clit beneath the spray of water overhead. “You don't — you don't have to—” she gasped. “Your hand, you really should get it looked at—”

“You have the most lovely shade of skin,” Geri interrupted. “Gorgeous freckles. Makes a woman want to peel you apart and take a look inside.”

Miriam laughed nervously. “Is that what you want from me then? A night of rooting around in my kidneys? I guess I've had weirder foreplay.”

Geri gave a pleased hum and nipped at Miriam’s neck. “There's a strange beauty in the obscene. A little bird told me that's a notion you appreciate.” Her hand drifted lower, and she dragged her nails roughly up Miriam’s inner thigh.

Miriam yelped at the sudden burst of pain, shivering at the rush of arousal that followed. “And what — what's your definition of obscene?”

Geri's fingers made their way back between Miriam's legs and pinched roughly at her clit. “Have you never wondered,” she cooed, “what it's like to feast at the sacrificial altar?” Another pinch that sent Miriam on her toes with a muffled cry. “To see what a person looks like from the inside?” She kissed Miriam with a ferocity that stole the air from her lungs. “To lay them bare before you, no secret unspilled, no plot of their garden unturned? Have you never craved that kind of intimacy?”

Miriam didn't know what to make of that. Unease threaded through the haze of arousal clouding her thoughts, and she pushed through with determination as she forced her mouth to obey. “I think,” she said thickly, “I may have come close once.”

“That's a shame,” Geri murmured sweetly. “Almost is such a tragic word.” She kissed Miriam again and slipped two fingers inside of her in a steady rhythm. “My darling girl,” she whispered. “I cannot wait to devour you.”

Morning came entirely too quickly. Ariel stirred to a piercingly bright glare through Gale's living room window and peeled herself up from the couch with a groan. She didn't even remember falling asleep, and Gale's laptop was still open on the coffee table, her email and calendar open on two separate browser windows.

She'd fallen asleep cross referencing her schedules to figure out where Gale was supposed to be in the next few days. It was shameful, pitiful, ridiculous behavior wholly unworthy of any sane and well adjusted person, but from the moment she'd set foot in his apartment last night and spotted the half finished mug of tea on his counter, she hadn't been able to shake an increasingly gnawing sensation something was very, very wrong.

“Gale?” she called out. Her back popped as she rose to her feet. “Are you here?”

Silence met her. The tea remained on the counter, oversteeped and untouched. She closed his laptop and made her way upstairs to find an untouched, unmade bed. Two pairs of trousers, a shirt, and a sweater vest laid discarded on the floor.

He clearly hadn't come home. She checked her phone for missed calls and found none at all. She tried to call him again and only reached his voicemail. In a stretch of desperation, she tried Miri's number instead.

We're sorry. The number you are trying to dial is not in service.

Ariel dragged a hand through the tangles in her hair as she sat on his bed and mentally ran through various scenarios. If Miri had left town for another exclusive arrangement like Gale had said, it would make logical sense for her to have deactivated her work line. She wracked her brain for other possibilities. Had Gale gone to his mother's for some reason?

She picked up her phone and — perhaps against her better judgment — dialed that number next.

Morena Dekarios answered the phone with a harsh scoff. “This had better not be who I think this is.”

“Mrs. Dekarios, if you'd just give me a moment of your time—”

“You miserable harpy. You have some nerve calling this number after what you did last spring. Have you truly no shame?”

Ariel bit back the acidic response that welled up in the back of her throat. “I simply wish to know if you've heard from him lately.”

“Why? Are you stalking him now? I'd wager you lost any right to that information the second you stripped yourself bare for someone else while engaged to my son.”

She gritted her teeth in frustration. A familiar headache was once again beginning to rattle her skull. “I have reason to think he's missing,” she said abruptly. “Is he with you or not?”

“Have you considered he finally packed his bags and left to get away from you?”

“Mrs. Dekarios, please. My next step is reporting him missing to the police. If you have any information, or if you even know if he is at least alright…”

There was a stretch of silence on the line. “The police,” Morena repeated finally. “You think it's that serious?”

“He isn't with you?”

Morena sighed. “As much as I wish he were, I haven't seen hide nor hair of my son in months. No thanks to your wretched behavior, I imagine.”

Ariel pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut. It did nothing for the throbbing in her skull. “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate your candor.”

“I'm sure you do,” Morena muttered, and then the line went dead.

Elminster was next, and then Tennora, with no further luck. In desperation, she tried Vajra.

“Missing?” Vajra asked. “How do you figure?”

“I spent the night in his apartment. He never came home.”

“Wait.” She could practically hear Vajra's eyebrows furrowing. “What in the hells were you doing at his apartment?”

“He stood me up for dinner last night, he wouldn't answer his phone, I still had his key from—” She trailed off and sighed. “It is a long and complicated story, actually. Suffice it to say I came to check on him and found him absent.”

“So you just … stayed at his place? Without him in it?”

Ariel let out a frustrated sigh. “Why is that what you insist on lending your focus towards? You don't find any of this odd or uncharacteristic of him? For better or worse, the man is courteous to a fault. Surely if he'd changed his mind last minute he would have said something to someone.”

“Perhaps you're correct,” Vajra conceded. “Let's pretend for a moment that you are. What exactly do you plan on doing?”

“Exactly what I told his mother I would do. I'm going to the police.”

“You called his mum?” Vajra said incredulously.

“What else was I supposed to do?” Ariel snapped. “He has been missing for over twelve hours now, and you all are acting as though I am being unreasonable for worrying! Do you even hear yourself?”

“Do you?” Vajra asked gently. “So Gale stood you up and never came home. His girlfriend just left him. You know how poorly he handles loss. Are you really surprised he cut and run?”

“Considering after his last two major losses he locked himself in this very apartment for weeks, yes, I would consider this to be fairly abnormal behavior.”

“You're either sitting on his couch or his bed right now, aren't you.” When Ariel didn't respond right away, Vajra gave a sympathetic hum. “He probably knew you still had a spare key, figured he couldn't escape from you there, and needed space to clear his head. Give him a day or two. He'll turn up.”

Ariel closed her eyes in frustration. The headache was spreading into a piercing ache in her jaw. “Please, Vajra,” she snapped. “I've been fucking the man longer than you've had entries on your CV; I hardly think you know him well enough to make that call.”

Oh. She touched her jaw when she realized she'd been grinding her teeth. That explained a lot.

Vajra sighed. “Rejection hurts, love. He'll come to his senses soon, realize he can't live alone in a hotel forever when he has a perfectly serviceable flat waiting for him, and then you two can have a real conversation. Be patient, give him space. Just like how I am going to give you space now until you remember how to say words without being a real arsehole. You should try it sometime.”

With that, the line went dead. Ariel stared at her phone in a moment of silent thought. She caught herself habitually wondering what Kell would have done in this situation and promptly hated herself for it. Because who was she, anyway, without the ghosts of everyone she’d left behind hanging onto her every move? She was beginning to wonder if she’d simply become too old and too set in her ways now to ever find that out for herself.

And then she snapped herself out of what was arguably the worst possibility moment for a bout of self pity. She stood up, made her way downstairs, and dialed the nearest police line.

“Good morning,” she said briskly. Her voice didn’t feel like her own. “I’d like to report a missing person.”

The main police precinct of Waterdeep was a bustling ward of activity when Ariel stepped through the front door. Quick footsteps and the clamor of voices at all volume levels filled the air with a cacophony that only made her headache worse. She fished through her purse in irritation until she found her ibuprofen bottle and cursed under her breath when she discovered there was only one left.

She flipped the cap off of the bottle, swallowed it dry, and tossed the container into the nearest trash can. Then, she scanned the room for the office door that belonged to the detective she'd been referred to.

Detective Ciel Valeria

She pounded on the door hard enough to make her knuckles ache. A mousy young man sprinted up from a nearby desk and wrung his hands uncomfortably.

“I am so sorry, ma'am, Detective Valeria is currently meeting with someone,” he said. “They're running a bit late, but they'll be out soon—”

“It's been days!” an oddly familiar voice shouted. There was a thud that followed that sounded suspiciously like a fist or a boot smacking into a desk. “I've waited long enough; all I am asking is confirmation someone has taken the bloody case! Why is that so difficult to answer?”

“Mr. Helani, I understand your frustration. There just simply is not enough evidence that your friend is actually missing—”

“No one has heard from her since last Friday! Her phone's been disconnected, she hasn't been home, and the last person to see her aside from myself was her arsehole of a boyfriend who gave her a black eye half the size of her face. What else do you need, a fucking billboard?”

“Well.” A long sigh followed. “According to our records, no one by any of the names you provided has ever filed so much as a phone call, much less a full police report. I am afraid there is simply nothing we can do at this time. Now, I am sorely late for my next meeting. Please leave.”

“Like hells I'm leaving, not until I get a shred of reassurance that someone is going to be looking for her.”

“Mr. Helani, I must insist. Before I have my men escort you out of here by force.”

“I'll be back tomorrow, you cretin. You'd better have something by then.”

Ariel watched as Rolan’s familiar scowl emerged from Valeria’s office as he let the door slam loudly behind him. He paused when he spotted her, spent about ten seconds taking her in with an expression of surprise, then advanced on her angrily.

“What did Dekarios do to her?” he snarled.

“I beg your pardon?”

“His girlfriend, Dr. Manx! Or haven't you heard how your prized pet physicist picked up a violent streak somewhere?” He threw his hands into the air in disgust. “Hells, I don't even know why I'm protecting his secrets when she isn't even his girlfriend, just a woman who had the misfortune of having someone like him as a paying customer because your university sanctioned poster boy decided to hire someone to keep his cock wet—”

A cold thread of anger curled in the back of her throat. “Don't presume to speak on things you don't understand,” she interrupted icily.

“I understand plenty,” he hissed. “Miri is my friend. Possibly my only real friend in this wretched pustule of a city. I understand a member of your faculty engaged in a transactional relationship with her, and that she got injured as a direct result of his reprehensible actions. And I understand that now she is missing. I am beyond pretending my ignorance.” He paused and stared at her incredulously. “Wait. You aren't the least bit surprised.” He scoffed. “You knew. You knew and you chose to stand by and do nothing.”

Ariel gritted her teeth and mourned the loss of her ibuprofen. “Did Miri actually tell you what happened that night?” she asked finally.

Several emotions flickered across Rolan’s face. “She refused to provide details,” he said finally.

“So you made your assumptions and confronted Dr. Dekarios without having all of the facts in your possession,” Ariel said flatly. “Not exactly your best work in this program, Mr. Helani.” She paused. Her lungs felt like stone in her chest around the ache in her heart. “At any rate, Gale is missing as well, so do take that under consideration before you engage in anything rash.”

“I guess it's true what they say about you,” Rolan said darkly. “Gods, look at you, it's like you're not even human.”

Ariel pushed past him irritably. “If being human means spouting panicked nonsense riddled with factual inconsistencies whenever a crisis presents itself, I consider myself blessed to have been exempt. Do try not to trip over your own shoelaces on the way out.”

She ignored his sputtered protest and didn't bother looking back as she let Valeria's office door close behind her.

Detective Valeria was portly, balding, and in possession of one of the most sour expressions she'd ever seen on a person. “Make it quick, won't you?” they said abruptly. “You'll be cutting into my lunch hour soon.”

“I am here about the missing persons report I filed by phone this morning,” Ariel said. “I suppose the speed of this meeting depends entirely on you.”

“Oh, gods, another one?” Valeria squared their shoulders and adjusted their glasses as they snatched up a pad of legal paper and a heavily chewed ballpoint pen. “Alright, then,” they said while waiving the pen impatiently. “Go ahead.”

Ariel sighed deeply and began with Gale's disappearance at dinner and how he'd never come home as Valeria peered at her over the rims of their glasses. “What exactly is your relationship to this man?” they prodded. “Spouse? Family? Roommate?”

She shook her head and rubbed at her temples. “No, we are simply colleagues. Friends.”

“Colleagues,” Valeria repeated. “And yet you specifically went to his home and waited for him overnight.” They studied her shrewdly. “Far be it from me to doubt the veracity of your claims, but you do realize that according to your own admission it hasn't even been twenty-four hours yet?”

“He wouldn't just disappear like this.”

“Hmm.” Valeria swept a skeptical gaze over her. “Fidgety. No wedding ring, but a distinct tan line where one used to be. I'd bet you're either his ex or you're pursuing him fresh out of another relationship.”

Ariel scowled. “I really don't see how any of that matters.”

“Well, good news.” Valeria scanned their pad with an impassive expression. “I think I'm seeing the full picture now.”

“Speak plainly,” Ariel snapped. “What do you intend to do about it?”

“Absolutely nothing.” Valeria shrugged at her affronted reaction. “The gentleman here before you accused your missing person of running off with his friend. And you were invested enough in his presence to come sprinting here the moment you couldn't track his whereabouts. I believe I've put the pieces together well enough.”

Ariel's headache was bordering on becoming a medical emergency. “Is that so?”

“Sure. We see it here all the time. Obviously they ran off together and didn't want to deal with the questions. Not that I blame them in the slightest.”

“Detective, this is your job,” she snapped.

“My job,” Valeria replied coolly, “is to solve crimes. Bit useless to call me in when there's no real proof of a crime having been committed, so unless you have anything concrete that indicates there could have been foul play involved and not simply a lonely academic in his forties running off with a hot young call girl half his age —as older gentlemen men of his economic status tend to do — there is nothing more I can do for you.”

“So that's it? You would really sit on your arse and let innocent people come to harm because you've managed to craft this ridiculous narrative based entirely on speculation?”

“It’s a matter of perspective, really,” Valeria said. “According to the my last meeting, your ‘friend’ doesn't exactly seem to fit in the innocence category much himself. Now, is there anything else you can bring me, or shall I finally take my long overdue lunch?”

“You cannot be serious,” Ariel said incredulously.

“I am, Ms. Manx.”

“It's Doctor,” she hissed as she stood up. Her purse sent Valeria's stack of outgoing mail flying to the floor, and she took entirely too much satisfaction at the indignant pain in their face as she spun around and stormed out.

Rolan still lingered by the waiting benches when she walked past. “Valeria’s an arsehole, right?” he drawled.

“I thought you were too cross with me for civility,” Ariel said testily.

“Perhaps I wanted to see you knocked down a peg after that self righteous little speech you gave me.” Hs expression turned serious. “How do you know Miri, exactly?”

“I hardly think that's any of your business.”

“Maybe not.” Rolan jerked his head towards the door, and against all of her better judgment, she followed him outside and watched him immediately light up a cigarette as soon as they cleared the threshold. “It's was familiar, though. The way you said her name.” He took a slow, thoughtful drag of his cigarette. “You've hired her too, haven't you.”

“I don't intend to discuss this with you,” she said stubbornly.

“And yet you haven't walked away. Why?”

Why, indeed? He had her there. Logic dictated she simply return home and regroup. Perhaps spend the afternoon tracking down a private investigator to hire instead. She could do any number of things, and all of them would be more productive than wasting her time disabusing Rolan of his stubborn misconceptions.

Still, a part of her was beginning to wonder. There had been a stripped-down sense of honesty with Miri towards the end of things. Not love, certainly, but their relationship hadn't been entirely devoid of connection; yet she was beginning to wonder now, just how much of that had still been a smokescreen.

Rolan held out his cigarette box. “Smoke? You look like you're fantasizing about leveling this place.”

“I don't—” Ariel paused and lingered for a moment in the agitation sending her pulse flying through her veins. “Sure. Why not.”

Rolan gave a noncommittal hum as he held a lighter out for her to use. The smoke was acrid and bitter in her mouth, and the taste reminded her of days that had long since passed her by, before the decades had sanded her edges into sharp, bitter things.

“I know you haven't been on good terms with Dr. Dekarios lately,” Rolan said finally. “But you were defending him pretty firmly back there. Do you … really think something's happened to him?”

“I think it's foolish to assume otherwise given how uncharacteristic this disappearing act of his was.”

Rolan didn't look entirely convinced, but his posture relaxed slightly against the wall. “Do you think there's even a chance they left together?”

She let out a soft and bitter laugh. “Gale has about as much brutality in him as a Cormyrian creme puff. If he's taken Miri anywhere, I assure you he most certainly did not do so by force.”

Rolan frowned. “He … when we argued, he said she's moving south to the Gate. For a new employer. But she never said anything about it to me. I don't understand why she wouldn't—”

Ariel eyed him curiously. “You really weren't involved with her?”

Rolan snorted. “Now who's prying?” He took another long, thoughtful draw from his cigarette. “We slept together once. For free, mind you. Just … harmless fun between friends. Though I'm beginning to doubt anything of the sort can truly be harmless if current circumstances are to be trusted.”

Ariel snorted in spite of herself. “I believe correlation and causation are particularly unlikely to be related in this case.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Rolan agreed with a faint smile. He sighed, tossed the cigarette onto the sidewalk, and ground it out with his heel. “You must think I'm crazy, caring about her like this after such a short time. Not — not that you would give a shit, of course—”

“Miri has that effect on people,” Ariel interrupted. The words tumbled from her lips before she could bite them back. “Believe it or not, I … do understand.”

Rolan stared at her in surprise. “I see.”

Ariel coughed awkwardly. She turned towards the parking garage and fiddled with the car keys in her coat pocket. “Well,” she said finally. “I shall see you on Monday.”

“Of course,” Rolan said.

Tiny flurries of snow were beginning to fall from a depressingly dreary sky. The grating sounds of a city that never slept were beginning to fade into a dull clamor beneath the chaotic rush of her own thoughts. She pulled her coat tighter around her body and strode off towards the parking garage without another word.

Gale watched the flickering fluorescent lights of his stone prison with a numb sense of resignation. Even if someone were to go looking for him — which was doubtful already given his habits of spending entire weekends alone in his apartment with nothing but his books for company — he couldn't help but wonder what it would even matter in the end.

Optimism, he periodically rediscovered, was a trait that seemed to have died in his car alongside Tara as its witness.

You cannot keep pushing yourself like this. Her voice, their final conversation like a low undercurrent in the back of his mind, always resurfacing when the rest of his thoughts grew too quiet or listless to drown her out. And so here, in the quiet solitude among the faint buzzing of harsh fluorescent lights as rough concrete scratched at his limbs, she lingered still.

Gale closed his eyes and forced his thoughts back to a calmer time, to the time before, when blissful ignorance of the depth of profound loss ruled his days. My brilliant friend, Tara whispered into his ear. I have no doubt that mind of yours will find the answer.

“I very much doubt the veracity of that statement in this instance,” he muttered. Still, he tugged at his chains, inspected the locks anew. At the very least, it would pass the time.

The muted quiet of Gortash's new penthouse sent prickles down Miriam’s spine. Each muffled footstep past expensive paintings and sculptures and meticulously managed houseplants felt more and more like she was entering her own tomb. He'd toned down on the garish modern art of his last place, at least, though his choice of impressionist style nudes and war scenes bathed in red wasn't any less unnerving in their composition.

She followed his butler in silence past an open sitting room attached to a corner balcony overlooking the ocean and the entire northern sprawl of the Dock Ward. The sun was just beginning to dip, and the city was a riotous blend of sunset colors and twinkling billboards. Miriam thought of a time when she'd appreciated that view. Admired it, even. Aspired to it with all the wayward ambition of untouched youth, sought after it in the arms of someone who had come to take such unmitigated joy in her suffering.

There was something sickening about the anticipation this time among all of the uncomfortable familiarity. History, repeating itself to someone who had seen the breadth of it and found it wanting.

A door opened in well-oiled silence, and Gortash himself swept into the hallway, dressed as ostentatiously as ever in a crimson house coat trimmed with finely embroidered black and gold thread. His voice finally broke the silence, and a different kind of weight settled across the room.

The butler was nowhere to be found.

“My gorgeous little jewel,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. He'd kissed her like he meant it once upon a time, just the way she'd kissed him back, two liars in perfect sync right until they'd both let their masks slip. His wild desert rose, he'd called her. His glittering ruby, as exquisite as the jewel that dangled between her breasts. His plaything, his canvas, his own blood and bone. The brand on her thigh was a persistent, aching reminder of how she'd never truly escaped. She was beginning to think she never would again.

“Enver, you flirt,” she teased anyway. She slipped into her role, into this routine song and dance that almost always led to her ruin, and focused her mind only on the present. On the hand slipping into hers, on the brush of stubble against her face as he kissed her deeply and tenderly with his mockery of genuine affection. On the warmth of his broad chest pressing her against the wall, on the way his fingers curled through hers as he held her hands above her head, on the rasp of his breath catching in her ear.

“I thought your master was never going to let you come back to me,” he murmured. “He was my master too once, you know. We have such a … nuanced relationship, Mr. Rosier and I. I would have hated tearing that down, but I would have in a heartbeat. For you.”

Gortash's possessiveness sent a treacherous spike of arousal through her body. It was, perhaps, the thing Miriam had always hated the most about him, and to some extent, herself. He was a carnivorous plant, all vivid colors and sweet honey, and she always became the insect too blissed out in his trap to care about the way he was devouring her limb by limb.

What did it say about her, that she went back so willingly in the end? The way some part of her liked the way he tore her apart and put her back together?

She focused on that feeling as he wrapped something sharp around her wrists. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend the last seven years hadn’t happened, and if she let herself float away she could also pretend that didn’t mean anything.

“I’ve taken up fishing as a hobby these days,” Gortash said conversationally, as though his bulk wasn’t holding her against his wall, as though he hadn’t shoved her legs apart with his knee and begun binding her with something that pinched viciously at her skin. “Did you know, some types of braided line have a tensile strength of over sixty pounds?” He pulled the wire taut with a smile like a knife. “You’d cut yourself bloody trying to break it with your bare hands. This roll came with a safety pamphlet the length of your entire body in fifteen different languages. It’s so nice, how careful people can be, don’t you think?” He stepped back and hooked a gloved finger into the loops of wire around her wrists, tugging her forward and sharply off balance.

“Paragon of caution, you are,” she said dryly. “Weren’t you just on the cover of Forbes for your high risk investment strategies that have your fellow sharks shitting themselves every quarter?”

“Saw that, did you?” He grinned and paused just long enough for her to regain her footing before leading her down the hall. “And here I thought you’d been avoiding anything to do with me these last few years.”

“Don’t they say absence makes the heart grow fonder?”

“My dear girl, when have I ever given a whit about what they say?” He backed his bedroom door open as he pulled her forward into the room. “I daresay I care far more about what you have to say.” He brushed hair from her eyes and gave her a look that was almost sweet. “Has your heart grown fonder? That’s the only thing that really matters, you know.”

The only thing Gortash had always detested more than being lied to was being lied to badly. Miriam hooked her foot around his ankle and tugged him back towards her a step with a coy smile. There was a floor-to-ceiling mirror mounted across the far wall opposite his massive bedroom window, and she very pointedly did not look at her reflection. “The time we spent apart has given me a certain clarity, yes,” she murmured. She lifted her arms and looped them over his head. The bite of the fishing line into her skin was a bracing, grounding sort of sharpness. “The thought of you finally getting me out of Raphael’s stuffy estate has been the only thing I’ve been looking forward to all week.”

“Is that so?” he murmured against her lips. He bit her roughly when he kissed her this time, and she barely choked back a yelp of pain as she tasted the blood dripping back onto her teeth. “I do so enjoy being the thing you look forward to.” He cradled her cheek fondly when he pulled away. “What, would you say, did you miss the most? Be honest, now.”

He knew something. Unease prickled in her belly as she bought herself a few precious seconds with a soft giggle and coy nibbles at his lower lip. She breathed him in and thought of Gale instead. “The way you touch me,” she murmured finally. She took an assertive step forward and pressed herself against his chest as she tugged her bound wrists against the back of his neck. “The way you hurt me,” she whispered.

“Is that so?” he breathed skeptically. “I was hurt too, when you ran, you know.”

“Are we really rehashing this?” Miriam said with a frown. “I was getting away from Raphael, not you. I told you that already. It’s hardly my fault you didn’t come looking for me.”

“Tell me his name,” Tathla demands. There is a gun in her hand, fire and ice in equal measure. “He will never touch you again.”

“Touché,” Gortash said darkly. Miriam suppressed a shudder. It was not the admittance of a man prone to failure.

He will never touch you again.

Miriam pulled at the fishing line again, felt it bite sharply into her skin to match the regret eating away at the inside of her ribcage. I’m sorry, Tathla. She exhaled another giggle and kissed Gortash on the chin, inhaled their shared breath, let her heart whisper another apology to everyone else she’d ever let down. I’m going to fix it this time. For good.

And then she let her mind drift. He backed her into his bedroom until the backs of her legs hit his mattress, and then he shoved her onto it with all of the cool distance and disinterest of a collector examining some useless curio. It turned her on, of course — the way it always did — and even as she felt her body light up and her cunt tingle, the rest of her was floating elsewhere. Watching herself from somewhere beyond.

You want this, some traitorous voice whispered in her ear. You love this.

She couldn’t exactly dispute it, not with the way she audibly moaned as Gortash shoved his fat cock into her with a single rough thrust that would have hurt if she weren’t so damn wet already. He sank his teeth into her shoulder, into an old bruise he’d already left behind, and she knew from the way that he chuckled just how much he savored the way her concealer tasted on his teeth. “You bad girl,” he murmured. “Hiding yourself away from the world. Don’t you want people to know what kind of trophies I give you to wear around your pretty neck?”

She didn’t have an answer for him, not when he moved to the side and bit her again, licking and sucking and pressing his signature onto her collarbone as she writhed and whined beneath him. The pain exploded red hot and shining beneath her eyelids with every grunt and thrust. “I would see you dripping with rubies,” he whispered roughly. There was a sadistic gleam in his eyes when he pulled away. “Just the way we used to play.”

He turned her head to the side and pushed her down roughly as he nibbled and bit at her earlobe. She watched the way a pale imitation of flames danced in a designer electric fireplace. The way he’d stationed a basket of tools beside it anyway, a farce of the days when extravagance and luxury required visible labor. She couldn’t help but wonder if he fantasized about those days. About a manor home with actual paid staff. If he seethed after Raphael’s inherited riches and longed for a household of his own.

A rough grip on her jaw drew her back into the moment. “Am I boring you, princess?” There was a dangerous glint in his eyes. Brown, she thought distantly. Brown like topaz and chestnut and freshly turned earth. They’d been beautiful to her once. Soulful and deep, hypnotizing in their warmth. Brown, she thought again. Brown like quagmire and rot.

“Never,” she breathed. She chased his thrusts with her hips as her breath stuttered. “Oh, fuck, please—”

His grip tightened. “Please what?”

She let out what she hoped and prayed was a dreamy sigh. “Give me rubies, my love.”

“Darling,” he rumbled with a smile that never once reached his eyes, “I thought you’d never ask.”

“He fixed me,” she says blankly. Her skin is flawless. Her cheeks are pretty and pink with the endless glow of a youth that doesn’t ever seem to match the eyes that look back at her in the mirror anymore. The harsh fluorescent lights reflect cheap wax and residue off of the ancient and stained linoleum tiles. “With his doctors and his machines.”

Gortash reached — reached gracefully, never rummaged — into a trunk carefully placed at the foot of the bed and produced a small knife. It could have passed for a costume dagger in a period piece, a ritual knife in a Renaissance costume, burnished metal with glimmering mother-of-pearl inlay that shimmered under the designer lighting. Something cold rippled down her spine at the sight.

“Oh, sweet girl,” sighs the woman with the amber eyes and the fiery curls barely tamed into a single braid down her back. Clipped onto her scrubs is a badge that reads ‘H. Hearthflame, PNP, LCSW’. Miriam wants to trust her, but despite her compassion and kindness there’s something about the cut of her face and the way she holds herself that sets Miriam’s teeth on edge. “Some wounds are beyond sutures and experimental laser resurfacing. There’s no shame in bearing the ones no one else can see.”

There was something uncannily pleasurable about the first cut, despite everything. The way fresh blood welled across her exposed belly, the way she could feel it drip slowly across her skin as the cold apartment air stung every centimeter the knife had just kissed. He leaned in with a grin and laved his tongue across the cut, and she shivered at the way he ever so slightly forced her skin apart. “Oh, fuck, fuck—” she groaned as her head tipped back across the mattress.

She imagined a world where things stayed in this place. Where no one ever took things too far. Where she got to have the final say.

But she’d had that, hadn’t she. She’d had it, and she’d given it up of her own volition.

Fool that she was.

Maybe this was where she belonged.

Maybe she deserved this after all.

The second draw of the blade down her stomach pressed just a hair deeper. Not deep enough yet to truly injure, and from the extra sharp sting and the smell of antiseptic in the air, she could surmise he hadn’t yet given up the illusion of caring about her well being. It was part of the game, she’d learned. She still wondered which time he would finally tire of her and just let her die one day. Another well of blood trickled down her stomach and pooled in her bellybutton. She resisted the urge to swipe her fingers through it, to hold them up to the light in a manic sort of fascination.

Rubies. Rubies, glinting in the firelight. Something beautiful in all of this fucked up madness. Maybe if she tugged at her wrist bonds hard enough she would draw some blood of her own.

See? the voice whispered again. The traitor. The savior. Close your eyes. This is for the best.

Wasn’t it? An entire week with nothing to show for it. She had no way of knowing if her meager offering of information had even made it to the right person. If Tathla was even able to come for her in the first place. She may as well have signed her own death warrant. She’d known that possibility walking into this, and she’d done it willingly, all so the people she cared about would be watched over and left alone.

I’m sorry Rolan. Astarion. Gale.

The names rolled through her head like droplets of water trickling down a parched tongue. Each one a sweet tasting reminder of someone who’d…

Who’d what? the voice taunted her. Shown you a better way? How trite. How pathetic. How incredibly gauche. One of them constantly belittled you in your own home, one punched you in the face for daring to speak the truth, and one only kept you around so you would pity fuck him. Do you think he’ll still be there for you now?

A third cut, slow and steady down to her navel that drew a low groan from her lips. She welcomed it even as she writhed in the wash of agony, because her head grew blissfully silent in its wake. “Yes,” she gasped.

Gortash dipped his thumb into her stomach and traced copper across her lips. “Red has always been my favorite color on you,” he whispered. There was a manic look in his eyes when he pushed his thumb into her mouth that only intensified when she dutifully sucked on it. “I’ve always loved you, you know,” he said softly. “More than anyone else I’ve ever been with. You’ve always been special to me. Do you know why?”

Miriam forced out a chuckle through the haze. She reached up with her bound hands and clumsily stroked his cheek with a fond caress. “It’s because we’re the same on the inside, you and I,” she murmured hoarsely. Familiar words from older days she’d thought she’d thrown away forever. “They tell us we’re broken little things. But we’re better than the places they build for us.”

“Pretty, clever little thing,” he murmured. His kiss was almost tender. Almost soft. “Such truths you tell.”

It almost made her wish he were capable of such a thing as love.

She should have expected it, then, when he gripped the knife tightly and slashed it down the outside of her thigh. Should have expected, and yet somehow didn’t, which made it sting all the more. It cut through the fabric of her dress and left it in tatters as pieces of it absorbed her blood and stuck fast to her skin. Gortash took visible delight in peeling those pieces off and tossing them wetly to the floor. “Pretty, soft thing,” he said. He crawled over her, his eyes wild. “The only truth you’ve told me tonight is that we are the same. That is the real tragedy, isn’t it? The way we are so very alike.” He gripped her by the hair and yanked her up to meet his gaze. His smile was almost sad. “I would cut out your lying tongue and feed it to you if you weren’t so good at applying it to other things.”

Miriam scoffed. “Paranoia isn’t a good look on you, darling. We’ve been over this before, you know. Just because people out there think you don’t belong—”

She heard the slap before she felt it sting her face and ring in her ears. “Don’t you dare try to gaslight me, you conniving bitch! You think I don’t know about your other suitors? The rich widow with the modest lifestyle and expensive tastes in travel? Your pathetic excuse of an obsessive, drunk professor who doesn’t know how to take no for an answer?”

Fear shot through her spine even as she fought to keep her composure. “A girl’s got to make a living, doll. You had my number. I didn’t exactly make myself hard to find.”

Another lie, buried in numerous security apps and spoofed phone numbers and false identities. But what was another lie at this point? He was absolutely going to kill her now. Maybe she should lay it all bare.

Gortash brandished the knife at her. “I loved you,” he repeated. “I loved you.”

Maybe he did, something inside her whispered. Maybe he still could. And you just burned it all down.

No, something else prodded. Get up. Maybe it was the remnants of her own fraying willpower. Maybe it was the projected shadow of hospital antiseptic and cheap linoleum, of incense and hand-drawn tattoos and late night conversations, of every held hand and tender touch and gentle smile. Somewhere buried in the swirling chaos of self loathing, an inkling of a spark. Of something that, if she squinted hard enough, looked a little bit like hope.

Get out.

Miriam shoved herself forward on instinct and dragged the knife across the string binding her wrists. She felt the tension in them snap, felt each wire whip sharply against her skin one by one, felt them sign her own death warrant letter by letter in her own blood.

She only heard the low rumble of Gortash’s laugh from the way she was pressed against his chest, only a split second of warning before he shoved her backwards and drove the dagger through the palm of her hand, pinning her mercilessly to the headboard. It was a blinding, sharp, nauseating pain, searing through every knuckle and tendon and joint, radiating down through her forearm straight into the rest of her nervous system. She barely recognized the cry he wrenched from her throat.

“You asked for rubies,” he murmured as he kissed her again. “I’ll give you all the rubies you could ever want.”

Miriam curled her body beneath him and drove her heels into his stomach. She barely threw him off of her by a handful of centimeters, but it was enough for her to reach across herself and wrench the knife out of her hand with a pained grunt. The blood spilled from her palm, sticky and red, and she grabbed a fistful of bedding and tried not to vomit. “Fuck you,” she spat.

“After everything I’ve given you?” Gortash tsked. He grabbed her wrist and snatched the knife back from her hand. “Perhaps Raphael was right. You really are the most ungrateful whore on the Coast, aren’t you?”

“And you?” Miriam scoffed. “What do you see when you look in the mirror? Do you fancy yourself an oligarch? An emperor? When you pomade your hair in the morning, do you imagine a crown? You have a digital fireplace with a can of useless props to help you live out a fantasy that you live in a different era where you could have mattered or meant something significant. But you don’t, do you?”

The room was silent save for their mingled breaths heaving in the space between them. “The masks always fall eventually, don’t they,” he murmured. “How … refreshing.”

“You’re a sham, Enver,” she said. “You’re numbers in a database that could crash tomorrow and leave you with nothing, and no one in this world will bother to catch you when it happens. And more than anything, that makes me really, really sad for you.”

The silence intensified as he took her words in, a dangerous stillness like the calm before a storm meant to destroy everything in its path. Miriam took the opportunity to wrench herself free from his grasp and kick the knife out of his hand, sending it clattering uselessly across the room and under a massive wooden armoire beside the gaudy mirror. She lunged after it. He recovered as she launched herself off of the mattress and caught her by the back of what remained of her dress, but their combined momentum sent them both reeling to the floor.

Gortash recovered first. “You fancy yourself an expert on reflections, princess?” He hauled her up by the shoulders and unceremoniously threw her into the mirror behind her. “Analyze that, won't you?”

Her ears rang with the force of the blow. Her scalp prickled as shards of glass showered her in a hailstorm of silver. A glittering maelstrom of diamonds fit for an empress of nothing. Why had she come here at all?

He picked her up beneath her armpits and forced her around, made her face the jagged, distorted reflection of them both on what mess remained on the wall. “Let me tell you a story, my sweet desert rose.” He articulated each word with brutal, piercing clarity. “There was a boy, a long time ago, who used to be sung to sleep with silly little rhymes. One of them went like this.” His long fingers closed around her neck. The metal of his rings was cold against her skin, pinching mercilessly as his grip tightened with each syllable.

“The mouse smiled brightly; it outfoxed the cat,” he whispered into her ear with a mocking smile. She clawed helplessly at the hands holding her hostage as her vision began to blur. She reached below her for anything, anything at all she could grasp. “Then down came the claw,” he murmured. His whiskers tickled her ear. Her lungs burned. “And that, love … was that—”

Her fingers closed around a stray shard of glass. With one final heave of effort, she twisted around in his grip and drove the edge of it into the side of his neck.

His hold on her went slack. She scrambled away from him, heaving air into her lungs with desperate, labored wheezes. Blood rained from his neck, a rich red tapestry. Red like rubies. Red like wine. Like an omened early ocean sunrise.

He staggered to his feet, one hand desperately staunching the flow, the other hand steadying himself on the bedframe, eyes blazing madly in a cacophonous medley of emotions she couldn’t begin to name. I loved you, once. I loved you then. I love you as you are I hate you now I love you—

Blood dripped from her hands too, from the gaping hole in her palm that throbbed and spilled tacky and slick on the floor, from the fresh lacerations of glass, of the double edged lifesaving blade, of diamond and ruby and silk and red, red, red, red, red.

He lunged at her again.

Miriam stepped back. Her foot caught on the corner of the fireplace, and she crashed to the floor alongside the basket of tools in a shower of ringing, clattering iron. The smell filled her nose, blood and rust and the cloying scent of fresh cleaning chemicals as she closed her aching hands around the nearest thing she could get her hands on.

Time slowed to a near halt. There was an aching burning along her back and thighs. Gripping the poker hurt, made her hands shake like withdrawal all over again, placed her straight back into the days of sweating, clammy nights, thrashing fever dreams, and vomit stained sheets. There was a dizzying array of possibilities skewed out in front of her — death; freedom; deliverance; absolution — and when Gortash stumbled into her, she gripped the poker with every ounce of strength she still possessed.

Perhaps time stopped. Perhaps she did. Perhaps the sound that escaped his throat was one she imagined, or perhaps it really did ring out across the otherwise barren emptiness of his stark, nouveau riche bedroom interior. “Miri,” he croaked. Blood soaked hands gripped the poker — hers and his on either end, and then he was crashing to the floor too with a groan no man should ever make.

She should walk away. He deserved to lie there in his own blood and piss and filth and choke on it all.

Somehow she found herself at his side anyway, his head cradled in her lap, her hands brushing away his sweaty mop of hair out of his eyes even as her own blood trickled down his cheeks. The words slipped out of her mouth before she could hold them back. “I’m sorry,” she croaked. “I’m sorry it had to be this way.”

“You’re a liar,” he mouthed. She reached for a corner of his sheets, the ones with the absurd thread count that cost more than an entire month of her rent, and wiped the corner of his mouth as a sense of numb dread draped itself over her like a thick, woolen cloak.

“No, Enver,” she whispered. “Not this time.”

“You’re such a lying bitch,” he choked out. “All this time. All those moments—”

“And you liked that about me,” she said softly. Fingers carding through his hair, far more gentle than he ever deserved. “We were—”

“The same?” he finished softly. He shook his head and coughed again, spilled another tiny gush of blood into her lap as his eyes fluttered weakly. As the fountain of rubies at his throat slowed to a trickle. “No we weren’t,” he whispered, barely audible. “You, princess — you were never like me.”

The unearthly pallor of his face drew bile into the back of her throat. Memories flashed unbidden through her mind, of another time, another place, another moment with a body on the floor and a well-placed bullet and blood, blood, so much blood. Somehow, it was worse this way.

Enver Gortash had been such a tyrant in life. A sadistic bastard of a man who loved nothing more than bending others under his thumb. He’d never looked so small as he did now in her arms, and wasn’t that something, the way nothing he’d ever done to her seemed to matter now that his heart stood still beneath her bleeding fingers? Her own heart wanted to cry, but her eyes couldn’t muster up the tears. The duality was ripping her throat in two. She traced her thumb down his cheek in numb silence as the scruff of his unshaven whiskers rasped against the pads of her fingers.

There was a part of her, some logical part of her that knew she needed to get the fuck out before she got in even deeper shit. That she needed to find a phone. Call Tathla. Get help before Raphael or anyone else got his hands on her. She couldn’t move despite it all. Her limbs were heavy, frozen in place by some unseen force locking her in stasis with the consequences of her sins.

Footsteps from the hall knocked her out of her stupor. “Shit,” she whispered frantically as she carefully let Gortash’s head to the floor with trembling limbs and hauled herself to her feet. She stumbled to the door and fumbled the lock closed, wincing as the adrenaline began to fade and leave only pounding, nauseating agony behind. There was a phone tucked behind a partition near the bathroom door, and she barely managed to keep hold of it as she frantically dialed out, only halfway through the number before she realized there was no dial tone. “Fuck,” she spat.

She staggered into the bathroom instead. Her bare feet left garish red tracks on the polished white marble as she crudely wrapped the rest of the toilet tissue roll around her hand and searched every cabinet for a first aid kit. There was a piercing, pounding ache behind her eyes. A nauseating dizziness threatening to swallow her whole. “Come on, come on,” she groaned.

She made it as far as the third cabinet before her legs gave out and sent her crashing into the corner of a plush black ottoman. Her vision swam as she turned and retched bile onto the ruined floor.

“Oh, dear,” someone tsked. Bespoke heels clicked into the room as the world began to go dark. “Oh, Mistress Miriam. This simply will not do. Not in the slightest.”

Miriam jolted awake to the sharp burn of ammonia spiking sirens in her brain. Everything hurt. Breathing sent a pronounced ache through her chest that made her head spin madly as she blinked and tried to make sense of her surroundings.

Blinding fluorescent lights winked on above her. She recoiled with a wince as the throbbing in her head reached an unbearable crescendo. There was a tinny ringing noise that made her teeth ache.

She was on a floor. The room was empty, painted sterile-white, and around the size of a small walk-in closet. The wall behind her was a cold metal bulwark against her back, half bare in her still-shredded dress. Someone had bandaged up the worst of her injuries, but a bright array of smaller cuts from the deluge of broken mirror glass still decorated her arms. There was a faint hissing noise from a series of vents near the ceiling, and the sharp chemical smell quickly dissipated into a blissful nothing.

“I must say, little mouse.” Raphael’s voice boomed through a shrill loudspeaker on the ceiling. “For better or worse, you continue to exceed all expectations.”

“Where the fuck am I?” she tried to demand, except her words came out as a pitifully hoarse croak. Her throat was dry enough to send her into a fit of coughing bad enough to rattle her ribs.

“Let's call it … a prison of your own making, shall we?” Raphael said smoothly. “I must say, my dear. You've disappointed me immeasurably in the last twenty-four hours. I can't say I'm particularly sad to have a thorn in my side like Enver Gortash removed from the board, of course, but you realize this is quite the mess you've left for me to clean up. Incredibly unbecoming for someone of your status.”

“And what is my status, exactly?” she said with a wince as she struggled to pull herself to her feet. “You've never been one to make that clear.”

“Haven't I?” The amusement in his voice made her ill as she felt around the sterile white walls for some kind of door. “You belong to me.” His tone turned cold, steely like the trap he'd closed around her neck, freed now of all pretense. “Miriam Adelaida Taveric. The spitfire with the bleeding heart, who loved her brother so much she signed a generous and legally binding contract. Did I not fulfill my end of the bargain? Hundreds of thousands in experimental treatments, and Cassian is alive and well, is he not? A near full recovery, I recall, from something that may very well have left him a drooling shell of a man, if not dead outright. And you, the hero of the family. The incompetent mess who turned her life around for her brother's sake. Shame, of course, how your sister doesn't seem to understand what that means, but your parents’ pride, Miriam. Is that not what you've spent your entire childhood chasing in utter futility? I gave you those things.

“All I asked in return was for your loyalty. I even gave you an occupation. A roof over your head. Food on your table. You spent so many years running from your responsibilities. Crying about how unfair my treatment of you was, but do you know what I find the most entitled of your behaviors?”

“Entitled?” Miriam scoffed. “You didn't give me a job, Raphael; you made me property! I was a pretty little doll for rent. A ‘durable toy,’ Enver loved calling me. How often did you advertise me that way outright?”

“So self righteous, even now.” Raphael tsked. “You loved him once. Said it out loud with your pretty little lips, with so much innocent sincerity it melted my heart right to the floor when I heard it.”

And then her own voice flooded the room, sleep-soft and dreamy. “I like this,” it murmured over the loudspeaker. “What we have.”

“Do you, princess?” Gortash said softly. The affection in his voice made her nauseous.

“Mm. Almost feels like love, if you squint.”

The worst part was how his soft, breathy laugh sounded just as genuine now as it had then. “Are you squinting now?”

“What do you think?” the digital facsimile of her teased over the loudspeaker.

“I think,” Gortash whispered, “I can barely see those lovely eyes of yours right now.”

“There's your answer, then,” she'd said dreamily.

The recording cut off there. Miriam felt the air leave her lungs.

“Don't you see?” Raphael said. “The things you threw away in your fits of pique? In your greed? Your ambition? Your ever-growing desire for more? Do you truly expect to be happy where you are when you are fundamentally incapable of satisfaction?”

“That isn't how any of this works,” Miriam whispered.

“Tell yourself that all you like,” Raphael said simply. She could practically hear the shrug in his tone. “But hear this, Miriam. I know you better than you know yourself. I think if you take a long look inward, you would see that truth yourself, whether you accept it or not.”

“Fuck you.” Miriam balled her hands into fists until her nails bit painfully into her ragged palms.

Raphael tsked again. “We really must work on those manners of yours. But! I am occasionally known to be generous, and believe it or not, little mouse, I do have a soft spot for you. So let me offer you one final deal.”

A panel in the wall slid open with a susurrant whisper. Raphael himself strode into the room and extended a hand with that crooked smile of his, the one that made her feel like an insect pinned helplessly to a wall display.

“Fine,” she found herself saying anyway, resigned and resolute as she reached out and took his hand. “What are the terms?”

Ariel had eschewed the habit of biting her nails exactly twenty six years, eight months, two weeks, and four days ago. Absurd, perhaps, the way she recalled this information, but numbers had always made a specific sort of sense to her. She'd spent sleepless nights in her adolescence soothing her anxiety counting the days, tallying the weeks, reducing the relentless passage of time to algorithms and data points. Taking the things that stretched on into endless, aching drudgery and shaping them into something she could count.

Six years, three months, two weeks, and four days until she turned eighteen and could get the hells out of this place that was supposed to be home.

She thought about the way she'd bailed two years early anyway. Falsified documents, trapped Kell in their marriage when she was little more than a child still. She could count the years, months, weeks, and days since that day, too. And then, the day he found out. The day he decided, instead of turning her over to Child and Family Services, to stay with her anyway.

In seconds, she could count back to those days as easily as she could read the time on her watch. She supposed — less now than back then but occasionally all the same — she should feel guilty about the things she'd done. A younger, more naive version of her had been, once; and then she'd learned to stand up straighter. To put her nervous habits in the bin where they belonged and stop apologizing for her own survival.

It was remarkable, how quickly the desire for old habits returned in the face of such unprecedented uncertainty.

“Ms. Manx, are you with us or not?”

Captain Laoise Aylin was an imposing woman with piercing silver eyes and a booming voice that seemed to carry through the entirety of a room no matter what volume she used. She towered over Ariel by a full head and a half as she shouldered a rifle easily the length of Ariel’s entire leg. She was also staring at Ariel expectantly with an unnervingly unblinking gaze.

“Apologies,” Ariel said. They'd regrouped in a nondescript apartment on the outskirts of the North Ward, its interior entirely bare save for a scattered assortment of boxes and a wall lined with blinking surveillance equipment. “I must admit, this is all a bit out of my purview.”

Tathla swept over, a bulwark of poise in her shimmering burgundy dress looking thoroughly out of place among the sharply armored team lingering quietly in the shadows. Beside her was a short, willowy woman with a cherubic face, pale eyes, and silvery platinum hair dressed in a grey suit. “Ariel,” Tathla said abruptly, “I'd like to introduce you to the woman in charge of this operation.”

“Mirielle Ancúnin,” the woman said, holding out a hand. “I manage the Keepers of the Moon. Sort of a … militant branch of the Harpers that Jaheira calls in when things get messy. And I suspect this … may very well get messy before it ends.”

Ariel blinked. “You're Mirielle Ancúnin?” she said.

Mirielle blinked, and a bemused smile crossed her lips. “You've heard of me, I presume.”

“Of a sort,” Ariel said faintly as she clung to her composure. “It's complicated.”

Mirielle withdrew her hand with a wet smile. “These things so often are.” She turned around with a frown. “Aylin, what's the status of the team at the manor? We should have heard from them by now.”

“We are monitoring their channels,” Aylin said firmly. “If there is even a hint—”

“Wait.” Tathla fumbled with her earpiece and smacked it in frustration. “You’re sure?” She paused, and her face fell in dismay.

Ariel was unaccustomed to this level of helplessness. To the way it twisted itself through her spine and found little footholds in all of the hidden cracks in her bones. She didn’t even know why she was here, save for the pittance of financial records she’d handed to Tathla on a flash drive involving the Rosier family’s involvement in the Ahgheiron Project. There was a Harper in a tracksuit poring over them currently while a live feed of market news flashed by in a second screen. She twisted her fingers harder into her pockets and watched Tathla pace with a steadily rising sense of dread.

“Withdraw,” Tathla said abruptly. “Get out of there.”

“Withdraw?” Ariel repeated.

“Estate was a decoy,” Tathla said. “Did a full sweep of the grounds. Wasn’t anyone there. Didn’t even leave the gates or the doors locked. Fucker knew we were coming.”

Ariel blinked. “And now what?”

Aylin grinned. Tall, with strong features, she could have been a runway model in another life. Right now, she looked somewhat more like a tiger approaching a fresh kill. “Your girl may have left us a trail to follow. We will know more when Jaheira’s Harpers return.”

“A trail?”

Tathla nodded. “A folder, stuck to the underside of a bed with a strip of HVAC tape. Could be her. Could be another plant. Right now, it’s all we got.”

“That’s — that’s it?” Ariel shook her head incredulously. “You got her into this mess, and you're staking her life on maybes and guesswork?”

“Miri got herself into this mess,” Tathla said sharply. Her voice cut like steel. “She made the choice to go back. Using that choice to try and make a difference, that was her decision. But don't you think for one second that I treat my girls like they're expendable. I get that this shit is new for you, professor, but may I suggest you stay in your lane before you wreck your pretty little minivan?”

Ariel was also unaccustomed to being at a loss of words. She hadn't been for a very, very long time. The twisting, sickening feeling in her bones tightened and tugged and made her feel three sizes too small for the room. She wasn't entirely sure she remembered how to breathe.

“Of — of course,” she said faintly. What else was there to say?

Gale wondered if he was dreaming. He'd lost track of how long he'd been trapped down here. At some point, someone had unshackled him from the wall, but the hunger gnawing at his insides had made bolting for the stairs a near impossibility. The one time he'd tried, he'd nearly worn his nails down to the quick trying to pry the door open in bloody, feral desperation.

It hadn't made any difference, either way. When the door finally opened, it had opened with enough force to fling him down the entirety of the metal staircase. He'd landed wrong on his left wrist, and despite the makeshift brace and sling he'd fashioned out of what remained of his scarf and tie, pain still lanced down his arm if he moved it too quickly.

His throat ached. His head pounded, eyes blurry with thirst and exhaustion. Some part of him wondered if he was going to die here, and the rest of him had begun to wonder if that would truly be so bad.

And then, he sat up with a start. He had to be dreaming. Descending the stairs, shrouded in red silk, haloed in the bright light from whatever lay beyond that thrice-damned door: her.

“Miri?” he croaked.

“Fuck,” she whispered. She took the last of the stairs two at a time and scrambled across the room, on her knees at his side in what felt like a single heartbeat. Her hands were streaked in copper where they weren't bandaged, and her fingers smelled faintly of metal and perfume as she cradled his face. “No, no, what did he do to you?”

Gale squinted at her, bleary eyed as he reached out with his good hand and grasped curiously at her shoulder. She flinched at his sudden touch, but she didn't pull away. Solid beneath his fingers, skin clammy and trembling and cold but real. Gods.

“You're here,” he croaked. “How?”

“I'm going to fucking kill him,” Miriam muttered. Her fingers skimmed his face, the pads of her fingertips rough against his unkempt beard. The layer of sick-sweat and grime coating his skin felt entirely, wholly unworthy of her touch, but she brushed hair gently from his face anyway as she inspected his cheeks. Anger radiated from her in waves when she got to his sling. “Fuck, Gale, I'm. I'm so sorry.” Her whisper broke, eyes brimming with barely held back tears. “I didn't mean it. Everything I said, the things I did; all of it was to keep something like this from happening.” She buried her lips in the crown of his head with a slow, shuddering breath. “I'm going to get us out of here. Just. Wait. That bastard is going to fucking pay.”

Gale closed his eyes and breathed her in. Her perfume, her sweat, lingering like a beacon beneath the shroud of blood and misery that hung over her like a curtain. “What happened to you?”

“I'll—” Miriam pulled away and planted another kiss on his forehead. “When we get out of here, I'll tell you everything, I swear. I just need to—” She stood abruptly and swayed slightly on her feet as she surveyed her surroundings. “There's got to be something in this fuckhole to cut you loose—”

The door creaked open again. The stairs rattled with slow, deliberate footsteps. Miriam froze, and Gale watched as the panic on her face slowly morphed into undiluted hatred for the man slowly descending the steps.

“Full of hubris as always, little mouse,” said Raphael Rosier with a slow, mocking clap. “I always did love that about you, you know. It made our games so very lively.”

“I'm going to fucking kill you,” Miriam whispered. “I swear on every god in Toril, I'll rip out your fucking throat—”

Raphael tsked and wagged his finger as he gestured behind him at the massive Rashemi man who had descended the stairs after him quieter than a shadow and readied an automatic rifle the length of his entire leg. “Now, now. There's no need for all of this violence, is there Yurgir?”

It was a marvel, Gale thought dimly, how quickly a whole world could change. Miriam — his Miri, his captivating goddess who had turned his life into something worth living, and oh, he had no right to call her his, but he wanted, wanted so badly it burned him from the inside out — stood there now, baring her teeth like a cornered animal. Standing between him and a gun without backing down, like his pitiful life was worth even a fraction of what she had to offer the entirety of existence.

“Kill me if you want,” Miriam said quietly. Her whole body trembled with rage, but her voice cut steady like steel. “But let him go. He doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

Raphael chuckled, low and deep in his chest. “Ah, but see, that is where you are so very wrong.” He reached into his jacket and produced an ornate pistol, decorated with fine carvings and gold trim. “Let us play one, final game, shall we? Humor me. For old times sake.”

“I’m not going to humor shit,” Miriam spat.

“You may, once you’ve heard my terms.” Raphael extended the pistol with a crooked smile on his face. “This lovely piece is a family heirloom. My father gave it to me when I came of age, as his father did for him. I am lending it to you briefly for a singular task.” His smile broadens when Miriam shrinks back slightly. “It contains a single bullet. Kill the professor, and you walk free. Zero strings. Your debt is wiped clean, you can go back to your simple life, you can even go home to your family if you like. I will never trouble you again.”

Miriam’s breath hitched. “Fuck you,” she whispered. Her voice picked up the tiniest tremor.

“Ah, but there is another choice,” Raphael offered grandly. “The professor can walk free instead, if you contract yourself to me for good. Permanently.” He paused and let the silence sink in, heavy and wretched and harrowing. “You will belong to my company until you die. In the event of my death, your contract will transfer to whomever inherits it on my behalf. Any further attempts to break said contract will result in tragic accidents befalling, hmm, who was it on my list…” He unfurled his fingers beneath the pistol in his palm and ticked them off slowly. “Your parents. Cassian. Eleanor. Rolan. Astarion. Gale. Shall I continue?”

The only sound in the room for a solid thirty seconds had to be the sound of Miriam’s breathing as she took in Raphael’s words. Gale watched the scene unfold with a sense of detachment from himself, as though he were reading it in a book or watching it on a screen. This didn’t happen to people in real life, he thought blandly. No, this was something that happened on television serials, in thriller novels and nightmares. Not — not to him. Not to Miri.

“Now,” Raphael continued, as though he hadn’t just ripped the floor out from under Miriam’s feet. “I know you, little mouse. Your willful spirit. You refuse to break, and that is part of what I value so dearly about you. However—” He let his gaze drift to Gale, and then back to her, that self-satisfied grin never once leaving his face. “Should you try anything foolish in here like killing me, or gods forbid the shame, killing yourself … know that Yurgir will gun the both of you down before your finger can so much as twitch on that trigger.” He shoved the pistol into her trembling hands and curled her fingers around it before giving her head an affectionate pat. “You have one hour.”

He turned to leave. Bespoke leather boots echoed faintly as the metal stairs rattled beneath them. The door slammed behind him and plunged the room once again into leaden, suffocating silence.

Nothing had ever felt so heavy in Miriam's hands as the pistol that sagged in her grip as Raphael left the room. She stared at it for far too long, even as the seconds ticked by in her head with an urgency that made her teeth hurt. “Come on, Yurgachev,” she croaked finally. For all the good that entreaty would do.

“Sorry, princess.” Yurgir didn't budge. “Man’s gotta pay rent.“ He adjusted the rifle in his arms and shrugged. “For what it's worth, it's really gonna ruin my day if I have to take you out.”

“Thanks,” she muttered sourly. She inspected the gun with shaking hands as the lingering pain from her previous ordeal began to reawaken in her limbs. It was an old-school revolver, and sure enough, there was only a single round in the chamber. She closed it with a scowl.

The energy was draining out of her by the second. Maybe that was by design, too. Maybe all of this was part of Raphael’s ridiculously convoluted plan, and all she'd done was walk right into his arms every step of the way.

“Miri,” Gale murmured.

The tears were gathering behind her eyes before she could even blink as she sank down to a seat beside him. “I'm sorry,” she whispered. She set the gun down, and when he somewhat awkwardly tugged her into his arms despite the sling and the chains keeping him in place, she fell into chest with a broken whimper. “I'm so sorry,” she repeated.

“What's done is done, my love.” Gods, and there he went, with his soft words and his easy forgiveness and all of the things she never deserved in the first place. Didn't it matter, that she was going to get him killed? “More’s the fool am I, perhaps, but in spite of everything I only find myself … relieved. That it was all a lie.”

“Idiot,” Miriam sniffles into the crook of his neck. “Fuck.”

His lips touch her temple, dry and brittle in their reassurance. “What a pair we make.”

She didn't know how long she spent there, basking in a comfort she had no right to while the ticking time bomb to her fate sat inert and unfired on the floor next to her. She dragged herself upright, on her knees between Gale's legs, sitting back on her ankles even as the position split the gash in her thigh back open. What did it matter? They would fix her in the end anyway. They always did. That was part of the fun, wasn't it? Part of the sick little game she was about to agree to play for the rest of her life for the sake of a man who'd given her a taste of paradise.

She cradled his face between his hands and kissed him. Kissed him for real this time, all pretense stripped away, every honest feeling she'd ever had for him laid bare between them both. If this was to be the last time — the real last time, not like the petty smokescreens she'd thrown in the past — she needed him to know, even if the words themselves refused to make it past her lips.

“Five minutes, princess,” Yurgir said. “Best make them count.”

“I need you to know,” Miriam whispered tearfully. “I — you're the best thing that ever happened to me, Gale.”

“Oh, my love—”

“No.” She shook her head and kissed him into silence. “It's fine. You're brilliant and beautiful and kind and I’m—” She laughed bitterly as the tears felll harder. “I'm just a whore who threw her life away. My days were numbered months ago. You … just made them mean something for a little while. And I'll never, ever forget that.” She pressed her forehead to his with a raw, shuddering sob. “I love you,” she choked out finally. “I always did. And I'll never stop.”

She didn't register the faint clank of the chains moving at first, or the way his arms shifted beneath her. She only felt his hand on her face, his thumb tracing away tears as a faint smile crinkled the corners of those bottomless brown eyes. “Miriam,” he said softly. “I know.”

It all happened at once. The kiss he pressed to her lips, the way he shoved her backwards with a grunt, the deafening blast of the gun. The way it clattered out of his hand in slow motion as a scream ripped itself out of her throat.

Her ears were ringing. Someone else was yelling something incoherent with her voice while she watched, helpless, from somewhere outside of her body. Fuck, there was so much blood, the way it poured out of his chest in a rapidly spreading crimson stain as he slumped limply to the floor. There was always so much fucking blood. On the floor, on the bodies, on her hands for the rest of her life. She lunged forward to be with him, but impossibly strong arms held her back.

“Fuck off, Yurgir!” she snarled. “Let me go! Do something!”

Yurgir muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

The door opened again, and down descended Raphael's bespoke shoes. Never had any sight filled Miriam with so much rage.

Especially when he eyed her with his trademark grin and clapped his hands together in delight.

“Bravo,” he declared. “Now this is a tragic twist I didn't see coming. I always knew you were full of surprises, but so is, apparently, the company you keep. And look at that: he even sussed out your real name, in the end. Oh, I do envy true love.”

Miriam twisted violently in Yurgir’s grasp. “I'm going to kill you,” she snarled. She kicked at Yurgir's shins and stomped on his feet, but the man may as well have been carved from stone. “I'm going to kill you and make you suffer.”

“Now, now.” Raphael tsked and held up a finger. “Let's not get ahead of ourselves. This outcome, as fascinating as it was to witness, wasn't part of any deal.”

“He took the fucking bullet, didn’t he? Isn't that what you wanted? Let me go!”

Raphael's grin widened. “Ah, but you didn't kill him, which renders our little agreement void, I'm afraid.” He sighed. “Yurgir? Kill her. And clean this up when you're done.”

Yurgir sighed and let go. Miriam scrambled away from him on instinct, searched the room for cover, for anything, when another gunshot pierced the room.

Except she was still standing.

And Yurgir didn't miss.

She whirled around, eyes wide, just in time to see Raphael’s body drop to the floor with a coin-sized hole in his skull leaking a growing puddle of blood beneath him.

“Yeah, I definitely don't get paid enough for any this bullshit,” Yurgir muttered as his heavy tread ascended the stairs. He paused. “Not that you ever took my advice before, but you should probably fuck off too before someone else comes sniffing around.”

“Yeah,” Miriam said numbly. She didn't budge. Time ground to a halt around her. One step turned into two turned into three, and she barely heard the door close behind Yurgir too before she dropped to her knees next to Gale and pressed a hand against the spread of red splashed across his tattered shirt. She held two fingers to his neck and felt a tiny, thready pulse, and that almost made her despair even more. Where even were they? She fumbled through his pockets, but of course they wouldn't have let him keep his phone.

“Self sacrificing idiot,” she sniffled as she brushed hair away from his face, wincing as she just smeared more blood on his face. “Gods, you just had to outdo me. I'm never going to forgive you for this.” His hands were so cold. The pallor of his face looked like wax. “Gale, please. Tell me this is some fucked up nightmare and I'm just going to wake up next to you in the morning and everything is going to be just fine.”

He didn't answer. Of course he didn't. The knowledge that he wouldn't didn't make the silence any more bearable, and she curled in on herself in despair. “Please don't leave me here,” she whispered. She buried her face in his chest and wept shuddering sobs, the kind that threatened to cave her lungs in, until time ceased to exist.

When the door opened again, she didn't even flinch. Whoever it was, they were probably going to kill her, and at this point that was just fine with her. She closed her eyes and clung tighter and let herself drift to images of a happier past. Of what they maybe could have had in another life.

Boots on the stairs. There were always boots on the stairs.

Miriam wondered in the back of her mind if any of it would ever matter again.

There were sirens the night Ariel’s mother died. She was six years old and remembered with crystalline clarity the stink of sour vomit and the way her mother's head lolled listlessly to the side as EMTs tried fruitlessly to revive her. Police too, so many police, searching the house, practically ransacking the place without finding whatever they were looking for. Something bad her father had done, she'd been told, though not a soul had spoken of it again after that night. They'd just put the furniture back in place in uneasy silence and quietly moved on. He'd only stood there and watched as she and her siblings scrubbed the last traces of their mother from the floor.

Somehow, it was still years later when she’d realized with sobering clarity that the ‘Find the Needle’ game their father played with them before they had anyone over at the house had nothing to do with sewing supplies.

The scene outside the unmarked industrial warehouse Tathla’s information had led them to reminded her a bit of that night in a haunting sort of way. The reds and blues of emergency beacons lighting up the night sky. The incessant radio chatter all blending together, the shouted commands of law enforcement, the barked orders of EMTs. Those garish yellow plastic stretchers. She wondered idly if those were an internationally enforced standard as Gale’s eerily still body was rolled out of the warehouse and loaded onto the back of an ambulance with factory precision.

She’d never once cried over her dead mother.

Was it that same missing piece of humanity in her, she wondered, that she watched all of this, too, with the sort of distance that one would witness someone else’s story?

“Get the fuck off of me — where is he? Where did you take him? For fuck’s sake, where is Gale?”

“Miss, you are a witness in an active investigation—”

“Fuck your investigation!”

Tathla’s voice cut through the commotion at the warehouse doors. “Miriam,” she barked. “He’s being taken to the nearest site with enough clearance for a Med-Evac to airlift him to South Ward General. There wasn’t a second to spare. That cut on your leg needs stitches, your hand needs tending to, and if you bite one of Jaheira’s officers, that’s gonna make my next Solstice party with her real fucking awkward, so I’d thank you to cease your hysterics and refrain from doing that. Entillis—”

“That’s Detective Fulsom, Ms…?”

“Tathla Nightstar, Entillis Fulsom, and if you ever manhandle one of my girls again, I don't care who you report to, you will find yourself answering to me, are we so very clear?”

Ariel watched the scene unfold frozen on the sidelines. That creeping sense of helplessness was beginning to take root again somewhere in the pit of her stomach as Tathla helped Miri stumble to the second EMT van. She hadn't exactly expected things to be good, but Miri looked like she'd been through every level of the nine hells twice and back. Bruises and cuts littered every inch of exposed skin, of which her tattered red dress covered very little at this point. A massive gash running down the outside of one thigh was still bleeding profusely, severe enough to have made most people faint a long time ago.

Adrenaline and rage were a hell of a combination. Ariel knew that herself entirely too well.

The worst of it, though, wasn’t the cuts or the bruises. It was the hollowed out look in Miri's eyes as the fuel for her rage slowly burned itself out in the aftermath. Someone draped her in a nondescript wool blanket as someone else attended to her leg. Her arms became listless the longer the EMTs scurried around her with the impossible task of piecing back together a woman who didn't want any of those pieces to hold. It was almost like placing a lid on a candle and watching the flame slowly smother into nothing.

“What do you make of all of this, then?”

Mirielle’s Evereskan lilt tugged Ariel from her morose ruminating. Ariel didn't know how long she'd been standing there with that headset on holding that infernal little tablet, but the way the moonlight and flashing vehicle lights hit her pale skin and silvery platinum hair lent her a fae-like quality that made everything else about this entire situation feel that much stranger.

She barely stopped herself from visibly bristling. “You ask me that like I've simply come here to gawk at some public spectacle.”

“Hm. I wouldn't say that, exactly.” Mirielle hugged the tablet to her chest as a brisk gust of wind tore through the docks. “You had some stake in it, after all. I just wonder where it all leaves you now.”

Two of the EMTs hovering over Miri had gotten into a heated argument while Miri sat beneath them staring blankly at ghosts. Ariel frowned. “I suggest you speak plainly or not at all.”

Infuriatingly, Mirielle didn't react. “I know of you, Dr. Manx, if only through dossiers and briefings. Consequently, I know only the facts of your involvement here.”

“Yes, and they don't paint a very flattering picture, I presume,” Ariel muttered sourly.

“I don't draw those sorts of conclusions, Dr. Manx. That isn't my job. I'm just curious what you plan to do with what you've seen here tonight.”

Ariel barked out a bitter laugh. “Why? So you can enter my answers into your database and presume to use that information when you build your heuristic models of human behavior? You can dig somewhere else. I promise you, you'll find no use out of what I have to offer.”

Mirielle hummed thoughtfully. “Do you know what I found the most fascinating about your profile in regards to this particular case, Dr. Manx?”

Ariel's mood was darkening by the second. “Go on, I can tell you're positively dying to say it,” she snapped.

“After leaving the House of Hope the first time, you were the first client with whom Miri cultivated an emotional bond of any sort. It was an investment she herself admitted she didn't know she was capable of making again.”

The air seemed to drop several degrees in temperature. Ariel took the time to let Mirielle's words truly sink beneath her skin before responding. “Why are you telling me this?” she asked finally through the headache that was beginning to pound behind both of her eyes.

Mirielle turned to face Ariel. “The Red Sashes are a community-based network for survivors of trafficking and exploitation. All of Tathla’s folks are the ones who decided to stay once she got them out of the pipeline. Miri's case was … particularly complicated. Taking on any part of the Rosier family was, for years, a fantasy at best. For better or worse, Miri gave us quite a big win today. Who are you here for, Dr. Manx? And why? All I ask is that you take a moment to examine these answers before making any decisions. For the good of everyone here, and perhaps yourself as well.” She offered a smile and a slight nod as her headset lit up. “Ah. It seems I am being summoned. Be well.”

And then, as quietly as she'd appeared, Mirielle was gone, vanished among the chaos of personnel swarming the warehouse district.

Ariel rubbed at the bridge of her nose and leaned against a nearby shipping container. There was a weariness settling into her bones, the sort she hadn't felt since Kell, since Tara, since—

Gods. The years were stretching her thin with the cumulative weight of her own decisions.

“Hey.” Tathla strode up. “Just got word from South Ward General. He made it there alive, and they got him into surgery in time. Thought you ought to know.”

“Thank you,” Ariel said mechanically.

“The finance document you brought cracked open a whole can of worms, by the way. Rosier got careless towards the end. The files you gave us are going to enable the Ministry of Finance open a massive investigation against his family's enterprises.”

“And what of Raphael?” Ariel asked abruptly.

“Dead,” Tathla said. “Thought you'd heard. Shot through the front of the head with a 7.62x54 round at a range close enough to spread mononucleosis. From what they tell me, the force of impact practically liquefied the contents of his skull. No rifle on scene; they think one of his men turned and then took off shortly before we arrived.”

It wasn't exactly relief Ariel felt, nor satisfaction, not really … but it was something. “Good,” she said. “And Miri—”

“Will live,” Tathla said softly. “That girl’s got more steel in her than skyscraper scaffolding. And she's free now. For good.”

“For good,” Ariel repeated. There was a strange, choking feeling in the back of her throat she didn't want to identify. “That's good to hear. Thank you for the updates, Madam Nightstar.” Breathing was suddenly ten times harder than it should be. The pounding in her head was swelling to an unbearable degree. “I trust you will take excellent care of her,” she said abruptly.

Tathla gave her an odd look she couldn't read. “You have my word.”

“Good,” Ariel said. She nodded. “Good,” she said again.

“If you're looking for a ride back to your car at the club, Jaheira’s sending a squad of Harpers back in a few, can catch a ride with them. I'll let her know to expect you.”

“That's…” Ariel swallowed through that feeling again. “That's very kind of you. Please give Miri my regards.”

“Will do.” To her surprise, Tathla grasped her hand tightly in farewell. “You're not what I expected, Dr. Manx,” she said as she pulled away. “Be seeing you.”

If there was an upper limit on how many times one could reorganize their kitchen cabinets in one night, Ariel had yet to discover it. It was nearing three in the morning, but the nervous energy of the night's events had left the very thought of closing her eyes nigh unfathomable.

At least her headache had finally subsided, much to the chagrin of her liver what with the sheer quantity of over the counter painkillers she'd consumed over the course of the night. She'd also drank her body weight in herbal tea and then some. Her mug collection had found no fewer than four separate homes.

Around two thirty in the morning she'd opened her laptop and sent the following email after eleven revisions:

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: An update.

 

Dr. Dekarios has been found.

 

A.M.

 

Dr. Ariel Manx

Dean of the College

Elgorn Shadowdale Distinguished Professor of Astrophysics

Blackstaff College of Physics and Astronomy

University of Waterdeep

And then, at three-seventeen, her phone rang.

She snatched it off of her counter the moment she spotted the caller ID. “Miri, is that you?”

“Mids.” The familiar nickname slurred through the other end of the line sent a twisting pang through Ariel’s chest. “You sound surprised.”

“I…” Honesty hurt. It was a lesson Ariel was learning all over again. “I was afraid, somewhat, that it would not be you when I picked up the phone.”

“Right. Yeah. Makes sense with all the — the stuff.” There was a cough, then a sigh. “They told me. That you were there. At the — the fucking — that place. Where they found us.”

“With Tathla,” Ariel said softly. The distinction seemed important to make.

“You never said.” A brief pause, and then, “You didn't — you just left, you know? Didn't — come around or anything — I mean I guess it would have been a — a weird fucking time to say hi after all this time, yeah? But still. You — you just. You left. You were there. And then you … weren't.”

Miri's words began sharp and accusatory, but by the time she trailed off she was practically whispering.

“I…” Ariel found herself, once again, at a loss for words. “I didn't know if it was an appropriate time or place, Miri. I wanted to know if you were alright. Or — alive, at least. Beyond that…”

“Awww.” There was a bitter note in the drawn out, teasing lilt. “You were worried about me.”

“Of course I was,” Ariel whispered. “Of course I was.”

“I'm really fucking drunk, Midnight,” Miri mumbled. “And don't — don't lecture me about it, okay? Gods, you know how many times tonight I thought about fucking — just walking to the top of the 1-112 overpass and — and just not stopping? He tried to kill himself to save me, Mids, and I let it — let it happen—” There was a shuffle, followed by a loud clunk. “If he dies? I don't — how the fuck do I—”

Then: a clatter, some distant, muted cursing. “Sorry,” Miri said after a few more seconds of fumbling noises. “Dropped the phone. Almost in — into the fucking toilet. Hah. Sorry. I don't know why I called you. I just.” A quiet sniffle, a hitch of breath. “No one else knows both of us,” she whispered. “Me and him. No one else gave a fuck about — about both of us at the same time at the same, like, level. If he dies a part of me goes forever, Mids, and I don't — I don't know what to do with that.”

Ariel held the phone for what felt like the longest most painful silence of her life. What even was the proper thing to say here? What words could come close to sufficing for a situation like this?

But Miri came to her rescue.

“Can you come get me, Mids?” she mumbled, so softly Ariel almost didn't hear her.

“Come get you?” Ariel repeated.

“Yeah, like. Fuck, sorry, this is probably. You know. Boundaries and stuff. I just miss you. I'm plastered and alone and Astarion is literally — he's sleeping on the other side of this couch and this place is — it's so fucking lonely right now. I need — I don't know what I need. I want—”

Ariel's keys were already in her hand, her coat halfway donned. “Text me your address,” she said. This, at least, she could do.

“Stay on — on the phone with me?” Miri pleaded. “I can't deal with the silence right now.”

“Anything you need.” She threw on a scarf and — as a last minute consideration — grabbed an extra coat for Miriam just in case.

“Heh. Weird, right? Meeting again like — like this.”

Ariel thought about that for a moment. “I suppose there are always stranger circumstances,” she said finally. “Though I do find myself at a loss for examples at present.”

Miri hiccuped out a clumsy laugh. “Crazy how the two of you even talk the same sometimes. Is that a — a professor thing or like — just the two of you like that?”

Tennora Hedare came to mind as Ariel finally started her car. “Bearing in mind my lack of sample size, no, I somewhat doubt it is, as you say, ‘a professor thing,’” she said. A faint smile tugged at her tired lips.

Conversation flowed surprisingly easily after that. The route to Miri’s Dock Ward apartment was relatively simple, especially with the empty early morning roads, though some of the more poorly maintained ones had her thankful she'd bought fresh snow tires this year. The neighborhood itself was not a particularly memorable one, with its drab brownstone buildings aligned like matchsticks, each of them in a comparable state of relative disrepair. Trash cans overflowed on the streets next to broken furniture and dirty mattresses, all dusted with a fresh layer of snow in a surreal tableau. Broken liquor bottles and cigarette butts littered the unevenly salted road in a grotesque grey slush.

All parts of Miri's life she'd been blissfully exempt from in their past entanglement.

Sure enough, when she approached Miri's building, there the ridiculous girl sat, smoking a cigarette on her front steps through visibly bandaged fingers in grey sweatpants, cat slippers with no socks, and a stained pink tank top with the letters ‘JUICY’ emblazoned on the front in glittery red letters. Ariel nearly forgot to put the car in park on the curb in her haste to grab the spare coat as she leapt from the driver's seat and practically ran to the apartment.

“Mystra's mantle, girl, put this on,” she snapped as she thrust the coat into Miri's lap.

Miri took a final, lazy drag of her cigarette and put it out on the stoop before pocketing her phone. “Yes ma'am,” she drawled with a grin.

Oh, the way those words sent a slew of unwanted, possessive feelings directly into Ariel's belly, as did the way her coat — too long for Miri by several sizes — swallowed Miri's arms and hung down nearly past her knees.

Miri took two steps forward and stumbled. Her cackle echoed into the night as Ariel caught her by the arm with a grunt. “Gods,” she slurred. “I never in my wildest dreams thought you'd ever see me like this. In a place like this.” She flapped her free arm around her for emphasis. “Ruins the mys-tique, you know?” She popped her consonants with a mocking lilt. “Clients don't — don't really like that sort of thing. S’frowned on.” She swayed again until Ariel steadied her with an arm looped around her waist. “Unless!” she interjected suddenly, “Unless it's for a — like a quick bend-over in an alley. We could — you know — I know some spots—”

Ariel clenched her teeth through the wave of unease that swept through her chest at the way Miri was looking at her. “I assure you that will not be necessary,” she said stiffly. “Let's get you into the car before you freeze to death in those ridiculous shoes.”

Miri blinked at her in a bleary haze. “Yeah,” she stammered. “Yeah that's f—” Whatever she was about to say was promptly interrupted as she doubled over and projectile vomited into the snow.

Somehow, this was still less excruciating than the prospect of sorting through her kitchenware a fifth time. Ariel rummaged through her coat pockets and found a pack of tissues she immediately ripped open. “Here.” She shoved one into Miri’s hands. “Don’t move.”

She’d barely taken two steps toward the car in search of a water bottle when there was a yelp and a muffled thud from behind her as Miri toppled over onto the pavement. “I knew you’d leave again,” she slurred. “Everyone does. It’s fine, though, it’s — just part of the job—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Ariel hissed. She crossed the distance between them in a single stride, grabbed Miri beneath the armpits, and unceremoniously dragged her to the car despite the sudden yelp of protest. “Grow up. Human beings cannot yet exist in two places at once, and you are making an absolute mess of yourself.” She yanked the door open and nudged Miri in, made sure all limbs were safely tucked inside, then closed the door before Miri could say another word.

By the time she made it into the driver’s seat, Miri had curled into the coat, her head nearly fully buried between the fabric and the leather of the seat. Gods, how had she somehow become so small? Barely visible to anyone who wasn’t really looking, her shoulders shook with the tiny sobs of someone well practiced at muffling their grief at the breaking point. Ariel grimaced. Her hand hovered awkwardly over Miri’s shoulder.

How did she dare touch something she was so easily liable to break?

She settled for a gentle stroke through Miri’s hair. “I … apologize,” she said carefully. “I mean it. I did not come here to scold you.”

Miri sniffled. “Why did you really come?” she whispered hoarsely. “There’s — there’s no way you still care.”

“You called,” Ariel said simply.

“Like that would have ever worked before.”

“Circumstances change. Perhaps so do we.” Ariel chanced another gentle caress through Miri's hair, and — surprisingly — Miri arched into her touch like a cat. “Can we please depart now? As I understand it, these bars close in roughly twelve minutes, and I don't relish the thought of navigating both the slush and the various miscreants behind their wheels.”

“So judgmental,” Miriam drawled, but that teasing lilt was back. “In another life you could have been one of those miscreants.”

Ariel smiled sadly. “Believe it or not, in another life, I have been. Put your seatbelt on. And drink this.” She grabbed the water bottle from her purse and passed it across the center console as she put the car in gear. “Slowly,” she warned. “I’d rather not a repeat of what happened on the sidewalk, if you don't mind.”

“Gods forbid I sully your fancy leather.”

“Oh, I won't be bothered. I think I would enjoy watching you clean it off.” The words slipped out of her mouth before she could stop them. Heat flushed Ariel's cheeks as she cleared her throat. “I … apologize. I didn't mean—”

Miri snickered and unfolded herself in her seat. “I don't think I've ever seen you flustered before. It's cute.” She took a slow sip of water, and Ariel winced as Miri stretched her bare feet out on the dashboard. “It’s okay if — you know — you want — I'm not made of fucking glass or anything, it's not like I'll—” She trailed off and stared out of the window as she sank further into the seat. “Old habits, you know? Can be like — nice. Sometimes. If you want.”

Ariel took a deep breath. “I think perhaps this is a conversation we can revisit if you like after you've had some sleep and some time to sober up,” she said shakily. “As of now, I suggest a shower, a change of clothes, and something solid in your stomach.”

Miri made a face. “What's wrong with my clothes?”

“You reek like a back alley college bar,” Ariel said sourly. “When we get home, your entire ensemble is going straight into the laundry.”

Midnight — no, Ariel's house was not at all what Miriam expected. Her head had cleared somewhat by the time Ariel pulled into her garage. Despite the luxury apartment and extravagant vacations from their past entanglement, the house itself was a surprisingly modest single story brick building in a squarely middle class Trade Ward neighborhood. The garage had a motion-activated light system, and across from the house’s entrance was what appeared to be some sort of workshop. A handful of fishing poles were propped in the corner covered in cobwebs.

“My late husband’s,” Ariel said when she caught Miriam looking. Miriam chose not to ask further.

The interior was elegantly decorated but definitely lived-in. An accumulated stack of unopened mail lived in a messy pile on the dining room table. Five abandoned mugs of tea littered the kitchen island. A cushioned wicker chair by a massive bay window bore a rich blue woven throw blanket crumpled from recent use, and on the side table by it was a copy of Twelve Erudite Initialisms by Rashemi philosopher Edward Stanislov.

Miriam exhaled softly. “’A beginning is only as profound as the rest of the story allows; such is the profundity that gives way to heights of both genius and madness,” she quoted. “Weird guy. Spoiler, maybe, he contradicts himself a lot once you hit chapter ten. I think he did a lot of mushrooms though, I remember reading somewhere that ritualistic fly agaric was common in Rasheman around then. His brain might have melted a little by the time he was done writing that one.”

Ariel looked back at her in surprise. “You've read Stanislov?”

“What, whores can't be educated?” Miriam scoffed in mock offense with a snort. She huffed out a tired laugh when Ariel made a face. “Raphael had a big library. I read a lot. Being well read makes it easier to steer rich people into conversations where you can make them feel like their legacy university educations actually meant something.”

Ariel only laughed as she gathered up the mugs and set them in the sink with a series of clunks. “Is that how you saw me, then?”

Somehow, answering that question felt oddly revealing. “I didn't take you for someone who cared what whores thought,” Miriam deflected. Why did it matter, suddenly, that her infatuation had been genuine? That this stripped-bare sort of conversation they were having was making her cloudy mind squirm in place, that she suddenly didn't know where to look or what to do with her sweating hands?

“Here, let me—” Ariel strode over and helped her shrug out of the oversized coat that was making her feel entirely too warm. “The bathroom is this way; you can leave your clothes in the hallway and I will run them through a cycle of laundry. I can find you some things that will fit in the meantime and leave them on the counter for you.”

Something felt off. Miriam reached up and touched Ariel's shoulder. “Why won't you look at me?” she whispered.

Ariel's jaw clenched slightly. Her grip tightened slightly on the coat. “We will discuss it in the morning.”

“Bullshit, Mids. It is morning.”

“Don't be pedantic. You know what I meant.” Ariel turned towards the hallway and motioned for Miriam to follow.

“It's weird, you know, seeing you care about my modesty,” Miriam called out after her. “Seeing as you’ve been wrist-deep in my cunt before without issue.”

“You are an irritatingly chatty drunk.”

Miriam huffed out a laugh. “I've had practice. And most of my vodka is now on the sidewalk in front of my apartment.”

Ariel pinched the bridge of her nose. “Gods alive, have you always been this much of a pain in the arse?”

“Probably not when you were paying me.” Something barbed and acidic and thoroughly inexplicable took root in her chest all of a sudden. “Is this the part where you realize how many lies a whore can tell in one night without lifting a finger?” she tacked on viciously. “Is honesty a good look on either of us? What do you think?”

She didn't think she'd ever seen Ariel flinch before, and it was far less satisfying than she thought it would be. It was more unnerving than anything. Like watching hairline fractures form on a dam in real time. “I'm — Mids, I'm sorry, I didn't—”

But the stony mask had already settled across her face. “Shower. Now. Hand attachment only, don't think I didn't overhear that you got stitches today. Avoid getting the bandaged hand wet. I will have clothes ready for you in a moment. The guest room is across the hall.”

“Midnight, wait—” Miriam stammered, but Ariel had already disappeared down the corridor. “Fuck,” Miriam muttered.

She'd felt nothing stripping off the rags that remained of Enver Gortash’s little red cocktail dress. Nothing but a numb emptiness that spread across her entire body until she could barely feel her fingers and toes until she stood naked in front of her mirror and stared at a hollow-eyed reflection she barely recognized.

She should have been frantic about Gale, but that, too, had been shuffled off to some deep and distant part of her brain until all she felt of that was a twinge of fear that maybe, maybe if he died she would feel more guilty about it than she already did. Absurd, the way she actually felt versus how she was supposed to be feeling.

Something about peeling herself out of her own clothing, though, in Midnight's actual house, with all pretense between the two of them shattered and stripped bare and replaced by this strange new distance — this felt more like picking at a barely clotted wound that had already begun to bleed. Her tank top went, and then her sweatpants, and her skin prickled so thickly she briefly wondered if the emergency room visit she'd so stubbornly refused in favor of being treated on-scene would have been a more prudent choice.

When she stepped out of her underwear, a raggedy pair of boxer shorts she'd stolen from Astarion weeks ago that was now covered in wine and nail polish stains, suddenly the feeling of air on her bare skin felt like too much. She wanted desperately to claw it off, to peel herself out of it and crawl away unrecognizable as something other than herself. She promptly ignored all of Ariel's instructions, turned the shower as hot as the water would go and just stood beneath the scalding spray for a few shivering moments—

—and then the tears finally came, in bone deep, shuddering sobs that rattled her ribcage and made her sternum ache and her heart squeeze in her chest in a vise of its own making.

That's how Ariel found her: whimpering, incoherent, head buried in her knees on the floor of the bathtub.

The water ceased. A soft touch pried her arms free from the vise grip around her knees. “Come on now,” Ariel murmured. “Did I not say hand nozzle only? Up we go.”

Miriam let Ariel unfold her gently. Gods, everything ached. Her hand throbbed.

Right. Fuck. The bandage.

Tathla's medics had been well stocked. It was likely the only reason she'd been able to get away with avoiding a hospital trip at all. After being assessed by the EMTs, she'd been rescued from her inevitable ambulance prison and brought back to a black van lit with blinding fluorescent lights. A masked stranger in body armor had silently given her a series of shots, stitched up her leg, and — after cleaning and inspecting her hand — pronounced the stab wound beyond his expertise. She'd gotten enough treatment to stop the bleeding, a thick bandage, and stern instructions to see an orthopedic specialist as soon as humanly possible if she wanted to retain any reasonable amount of mobility in her fingers.

It was soaking wet now, and a red patch was beginning to bloom across her palm again.

Ariel sat her gently on the edge of the tub and knelt down beside her. “Give me your hand,” she said.

Miriam did as she was told and watched as Ariel unwrapped the bandage with a frown. “I cannot believe they let you leave the scene like this,” she muttered.

“I don’t like getting worked on at hospitals,” Miriam said faintly. “I refused to go.” The prodding at her hand only made her nausea worse. She braced herself for the usual rebuttals, but Ariel only accepted her explanation with a nod. “I am going to dry this, wrap it again, and then we are going to wash your hair and the worst of the grime left on your skin. Is this acceptable to you?”

Great. There was a new wellspring of tears opening up now, and Miriam’s vision blurred as she sniffed and nodded. She wasn't sure if she was too sober for this or not sober enough. If she regretted calling Ariel when she did.

Something had definitely shifted between them tonight, and she didn't know how she would bear it if she looked up and saw pity.

“Alright, tilt your head back.”

Miriam followed the motions mechanically. If she closed her eyes, maybe when she opened them again this could all be over too. She heard the water start again, heard the faint susurrus of the switch to the hand attachment. There was warm water on her scalp again, this time accompanied by a surprisingly gentle touch loosening the knots in her hair. Floral shampoo in the steam — orchid, maybe. The slick glide of conditioner across her skin, another soft rush of warm water.

“Why are you doing this?” she croaked.

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Ariel said.

Miriam was too tired to parse out what that meant. She kept her eyes closed and floated with the feeling of gentle hands in her hair, the sensation of a soft washcloth against her skin moving in efficient, utilitarian patterns. It felt good, as much as she didn't want to admit it. As much as she'd loathed the thought of hands on her body, she found she didn't really mind it like this, not when she let herself drift in the presence of someone she somehow still trusted after all of this time.

Gods, and wasn't that the bitch of it all?

She breathed deeply through aching ribs and another shuddering sob. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyelids as the water shut off again, as Ariel wrapped her hair in a dry towel and helped her stand. Patted her down with another towel, taking extra care with the fresh stitches on her leg. Wrapped her leg in soft gauze. Tapped away at the tears on her face in an oddly businesslike manner, maneuvered her arms into a soft shirt, motioned for her to step into a fresh pair of underwear, a clean pair of sleep pants. The silken fabric brushed luxuriously against her skin. Ariel never once said a word about the garish, scarred-over brand on her inner thigh.

“Are you attached to your slippers?” she asked instead.

Miriam let out a surprised laugh. “Fuck no, I think I fished them out of the lost and found.”

“I am throwing them away. You can use a pair of my shoes tomorrow.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Miriam flapped a noncommittal hand. Her ability to care was deflating rapidly along with what remained of her energy as Ariel led her across the hall and handed her a glass of water and some pills.

“Ibuprofen. I suspect you will be feeling your injuries now that you're sobering up. There is a chocolate nutrition bar on the nightstand that should settle your stomach. I have asked Tathla to let me know as soon as there is an update on Gale's condition. I will wake you the moment I hear anything.”

Miriam's head was spinning. She climbed into the bed with a surreal sense of deja vu as she looked up and saw Ariel standing there in her blue silk robe and glasses. Like all of the months between them had been some strange dream. “Don't—” she choked out when Ariel turned to leave. The word tripped and fell out of her mouth like a clumsy, broken, desperate thing.

“Miri,” Ariel said. The hesitation hurt.

“It doesn't have to be like — like before,” Miriam whispered. “It’s just…”

How did she describe the way the quiet darkness pressed in on her in the absence of anything else, oppressive and smothering as it dredged up every awful memory in perfect clarity?

“The silence is the worst,” Ariel said softly. “Isn't it?”

Miriam blinked in surprise and nodded. “I see him when I close my eyes,” she croaked. “Just … lying there.”

Ariel motioned for her to scoot over and climbed beneath the covers next to her. “He does like to steal the spotlight, our Gale, doesn't he?” she said softly.

“Yeah,” Miriam sniffed. “Fucking bastard.” Gods, she was so tired. Everything hurt. The distantly familiar scent of Ariel’s perfume was like a dream from a bygone era. Like all she had to do was close her eyes again, and when the sun came up everything between today and the last time they were together would have just been a really strange dream.

She was only half cognizant of the softest touches in her hair. Maybe those were a dream, too.

Something was ringing. Miriam kept her eyes closed at first as a hushed voice carried on a one-sided conversation. The bed stirred beside her, and then, without warning the covers were yanked off of her shoulders as someone shook her awake.

“Miri.” Ariel threw a folded set of clothes in her lap as she struggled to a seated position. “Get dressed. We have to go.”

Miriam blinked at Ariel's disheveled state. Well, disheveled for her. She was already dressed in dark blue slacks and a tan sweater that bunched stylishly at her slender hips. If it weren't for the chipped nail polish and the flyaway hair tied into the most haphazard bun she'd ever seen Ariel wear, she'd almost look as put together as usual. “Go where?” Miriam groaned as she tugged her own clothes back on piece by piece, and then added the socks, the Waterdeep U sweatshirt, and the soft knit scarf and hat Ariel had added to the mix. Her hand throbbed worse than ever. Her mouth tasted like sour sandpaper, and every joint in her body protested the very idea of voluntary motion as she forced her limbs to obey.

“South Ward General.” Ariel fumbled with a navy blue felted cloche hat as she swept the last of her loose hair beneath the rim and made a quick gesture for Miriam to follow her. Miriam suspected that if she did not, she might very well be left behind. “Tathla called.”

The clock on the wall said it was just past six in the morning. Each tick seemed to go slower and slower as Miriam tugged on the pair of slightly-too-big winter boots Ariel tossed at her from inside of a darkly stained wooden wardrobe in the corner. A thousand questions raced to the front of her mouth, but the one that made it out was quite possibly the worst one of all. “Is he … alive?”

“Yes,” Ariel said, with the clenched jaw of someone who absolutely had a ‘but’ to that statement stashed away somewhere. She closed the door behind them a little too hard, and the resulting slam rattled the kitchen windows as she unlocked her BMW with a decisive click of her keys.

“Mids?” Miriam frowned as she climbed into the passenger seat and buckled her seatbelt. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Ariel just handed over the phone and started the engine. “You should call Tathla back,” she said instead. “She’s been trying to get in touch with you.”