Archive of Our Own

“So the thing about this brothel,” Tav says hurriedly before they step inside, “is that they know me here. But it’s not what you think.”

Astarion raises an eyebrow, but Tav doesn’t wait for his reply. He slinks through the front entrance of Sharess’s Caress and scans the dimly lit interior, looking for his friends.

He doesn’t see them. Instead, memory punches him in the gut. Twenty years and the place still smells the same. Frankincense and cinnamon, like a slow fire in his lungs. Harp music drifts from the curtains leading to the lounge. A haze of fragrant smoke hangs in the air, just thick enough to soften the edges of things: figures, faces, smiles.

He doesn’t recognize the blonde hostess who nods at him in greeting. Tav relaxes, just a little. Maybe this won’t be so bad.

“I’m looking for some friends of mine. Have you seen a githyanki around?”

“Oh, yes.” Jewels glisten in the hostess’s hair as she looks him up and down, one eyebrow arched; then her gaze flickers past him, to Astarion. “A tall man in armor and a pale elf. I’ve been asked to let you know that your friends are in the lounge.”

“Thanks.”

So far, so good. Tav’s regretting his hasty aside to Astarion. Twenty years is a long time for anyone to work in a brothel. If he’s lucky, he won’t find any familiar faces here except his friends. 

His newfound confidence lasts about three steps into the lounge. Then a slim, dusky-skinned figure looms out of the haze and takes him by the arm, crooning, “Oh, you’re beautiful. Won’t you come and have a drink with me and my—”

She blinks at him, her lips falling open.

“Tav?”

“It can’t be,” says a different, lower voice. Another drow appears at Tav’s other side. “Little Tav? Penna’s boy?”

Tav cringes. Well. So much for being lucky.

“Nym,” he says. “Sorn. It’s been a while.”

“By the Maiden.” Nym touches her fingers to her mouth. Her eyes rove over Tav’s body, taking him in. “Look at you. All grown up and so…”

“Ravishing,” purrs Sorn. He lays a brazen hand on Tav’s upper arm, cupping the bulge of muscle through Tav’s mail, and lets out an appreciative whistle. “These aren’t just for show, are they? He looks like he could bend me in half. Ah, I do so love a man in armor.”

“Am I interrupting?”

There’s an edge to Astarion’s voice that belies his cool smile; Sorn steps hastily away, his hand slipping from Tav’s arm. Nym tilts her head in curiosity.

“Oh? Could you be…” Her eyes widen. “All grown up indeed. Sorn, have you ever seen a more gorgeous couple?”

Tav takes a breath, his first since Sorn touched him. His head is spinning. Gods, this couldn’t be more bizarre.

His memories of Nym and Sorn are of playing knights and dragons in slow midmorning hours at the Caress. Making himself scarce at the first sign of customers. Hiding under a table at Nym’s feet, sometimes, listening to her croon sweet words he didn’t entirely understand but filed away to ask about later. Listening, wide-eyed, to Sorn’s lurid tales of the Underdark.

None of those memories play nicely with the way the twins are looking at him right now. Looking up at him. He’s taller than both of them now, even Sorn.

“This is Astarion.” Tav flounders for words, momentarily tongue-tied; then he does the only thing he can think to do, and reaches out to draw Astarion flush to his side. “He’s, ah…”

Mine. The word rises in his throat with sudden, strangling fervor. Where did that come from? Astarion doesn’t belong to anyone, least of all him.

He’s still desperately searching for a different word when Astarion’s arm tightens around his waist and he says, “I had no idea you were brought up in a brothel, darling. This explains so much. And raises even more questions.”

“I wasn’t brought up here,” Tav says, even though—fuck, he was, wasn’t he? He’s never thought of it like that before. But until Miri was born, until they moved into that little house in Rivington, he spent more time at the Caress than anywhere else.

“Twenty years without so much as a single visit,” Sorn says. “But gods below, was it worth the wait. Tav, sweetling, you must join us for a drink. We have so much to catch up on.”

“And he doesn’t mean just physically.” Nym laughs, and for a moment she isn’t playing the seductress anymore; the sound is genuine, unpolished. “We have stories to tell, and from the looks of it, so do you.”

“Maybe later.” Tav’s still squirming in his boots, but at least no one’s trying to touch him anymore. No one except Astarion, who’s got a thumb hooked under his belt. That alone would be enough to make Tav flush if he weren’t already burning to cinders. “I’m meeting some friends of mine. They’re right over there.”

On the other side of the lounge, he sees Karlach’s fiery mane and single horn sticking up from the back of a couch; it looks like she’s got someone on her lap, although Tav can’t tell who. Lae’zel’s sitting cross-legged on a floor cushion, apparently deep in meditation. And Shadowheart’s staring straight at Tav, a brow quirked. Perfect.

Nym pouts. “Well, do come back. I can’t promise we’ll be free all evening.”

“I desperately hope not,” Sorn says.

Tav lets go of Astarion, but Astarion’s hand lingers on the small of his back as they make their way across the lounge.

“Speaking of people in the vicinity who want to bed you…”

“Gods, no.” Tav looks at him in horror. “What, that? That was all talk.”

Astarion curls his lip, but he doesn’t get a chance to reply.

“Fangs! Tav!” Karlach raises a tankard, giggling; the red-haired half-elf in her lap looks vaguely familiar to Tav, but he chooses to ignore that. “This place is fantastic. What took you so long? The boys got bored and went shopping.”

“What about Jaheira?” Tav asks.

“She had a meeting with some Harpers. Halsin went with her.” Shadowheart gives Tav a piercing look. “Making plans for the evening, Tav?”

“No, I—”

Lae’zel opens her eyes. “Enough dawdling. The devil is here, but he refuses to make a deal with Voss. He claims to have the means to free the Prince of the Comet. We must bargain with him.” She stares at Tav, her voice steely. “You must bargain with him. He will speak with you alone, and no other.”

“Wait,” Tav says. “What devil?”

Tav pauses with his hand on the gilded doorknob. He senses Raphael’s presence already: scorching heat from the other side of the door, the stench of brimstone in the air.

Gods, he isn’t ready for this. Until now, he’d nursed a faint, foolish hope that the next time he laid eyes on Raphael, he’d be in the process of killing him.

He pushes open the door. Inside, the bedchamber looks ordinary enough by the Caress’s standards: elegant furnishings, an oversized bed with crimson sheets, velvet drapes over the frosted windows. Flowerpots dripping with white blooms flank the door, but Tav can only smell one thing, and it isn’t sweet or fragrant.

Raphael stands at the foot of the four-poster bed, framed by sunlight.

“There he is.” Raphael presses a delicate white flower to his smiling lips. “Long time no see, my dashing knight.”

Tav crosses his arms. “Not long enough, if you ask me.”

“Careful, or I may begin to think you don’t enjoy our little chats.”

Raphael drops the flower on the bedsheets and paces across the room, every step measured, the thick fabric of his tailored outfit swishing gently as he walks. 

Definitely a performance fit for a brothel, Tav thinks sourly. He isn’t even touching the Blood, but he can feel its searing thirst for Raphael’s flesh, Raphael’s death. Finally, something he and Lathander can agree on.

“I hear you have something Lae’zel wants. But you wouldn’t deal with her. Just with me. Why is that?”

“Call it a professional courtesy,” Raphael says. “My business is negotiation; yours is martyrdom. I suspected you wouldn’t allow the githyanki to sign an infernal contract if there was even a chance that you could sign yourself away in her stead. Am I wrong?”

Gods. Tav fucking hates the way Raphael talks. He’s sick of tyrants, sick of scheming fiends, sick of evil masterminds. How does he keep ending up here?

“I don’t even know if what you’ve got is worth my time, much less anything else.”

Raphael sighs. “If you were anyone else, I would ask how one can put a price on freedom. But you rather enjoy a leash, don’t you? Regardless of who might be holding the other end—a god, a mindflayer, a certain vampire spawn, a child of the Dead Three…”

Tav’s blood runs cold. Now he recalls his last two encounters with Raphael: how lost and foolish he must have sounded, robbed of his memories and trying desperately to fit the pieces together.

Raphael’s always been several steps ahead of him. This is the closest they’ve ever been to equal footing, and still Tav’s already falling behind.

“How long have you known about Icarius?”

“Since the beginning, my dear man. Why do you think I took such an interest in you from the start? It certainly wasn’t for your rapier wit.” Raphael’s eyes glitter. “That dearly departed lover of yours got his hands on something that should have been mine. The Crown of Karsus. And soon you will be in a position to return it to me.”

“What in the hells are you talking about?”

“Oh? The new archduke didn’t tell you?” Raphael’s predatory smirk widens. “He and Icarius were bedfellows in more ways than one. It was the two of them who stole the Crown from Mephistopheles and schemed with Myrkul’s Chosen to facilitate the rise of the Dead Three. Are you following me so far? Tell me if I’m moving too quickly for you.”

The room shrinks, pressing in on Tav from all sides. He clenches his fists. Tries to remember how to breathe. Gods, he wishes he weren’t alone. But it had to be him. No one else. Just like always.

Raphael’s voice lowers to an intimate whisper.

“In other words, everything the near future holds, barring intervention—the subjugation of the Sword Coast, the deaths of thousands of innocents, the entirety of the Grand Design—will only come to pass because a pretty redheaded Bhaalspawn grew tired of sticking knives in his pet and decided to take over the world instead.”

Raphael assumes an expression of mock despair. It might as well be a grin.

“Alas. If only you had been a tad more interesting. But then we wouldn’t be standing here now, would we? At least you still have the chance to put it all to rights.”

Every word is a strand of spiderweb, and Tav’s the fly. Stuck fast. Trapped.

But still, he struggles—even though he knows it’s futile.

“Whatever you’re offering, it can’t possibly make anything right.”

“The words of a man with a limited imagination.” Raphael rubs his hands together. “My dear, troubled do-gooder, the possibilities are endless. I can free the githyanki prince, yes, of course—and all I ask in exchange for that little favor is something that was rightfully mine in the first place. But we can go further. So much further.”

Tav bites his lip. “I don’t want anything from you.”

Feeble. Pathetic. Gods, he’s a terrible liar.

“Come now,” Raphael says, “there’s no end to what you want.”

He snaps his fingers.

The brothel room dissolves and in the next instant, the dripping, bruise-colored walls of the oubliette under Moonrise stretch around him. The air thickens with the stench of gore. Tav’s surrounded by pods, shattered and empty—all except one.

Raphael stands beside the single intact pod, smiling, his finger crooked.

“Have a look.”

Hatred climbs Tav’s throat. He wants to refuse. Demand to be sent back. He’s not Raphael’s creature to be yanked around at his whim.

But he's drawn toward the pod by a familiar compulsion: the call of the moon to the tides. Silver to black. Steel to blood.

Through the pod’s translucent membrane, he sees a human face. Soft, full lips. High cheekbones and a smooth, pale brow. The spill of deep wine-red hair over narrow shoulders.

A name tears itself from Tav’s lips. “Icarius.”

He presses a hand to the membrane. This isn’t real. It’s a trick, but—but Icarius is there, inches away, his eyes closed and his skin flecked with blood. Just like that day twelve years ago when they carried him out of the house. And then—

Icarius’s lashes flutter. He opens his eyes. Blinks and focuses on Tav.

Tav’s hand curls into a fist. “Icarius…”

There’s a low whoosh of air and a gurgle. The membrane begins to cloud over. Tav’s stomach twists; he remembers that sound.

“No. No, no, no—”

He forgets everything. Raphael. Sharess’s Caress. Everything but the pod and Icarius and the membrane that refuses to break even while he beats his fists bloody and screams himself hoarse. Inside, the liquid sounds of melting flesh and bone. Ceremorphosis. And when the fog clears—

Tav can’t look. He jerks away, gasping, and Raphael is there.

“Poor, poor Icarius,” Raphael says.

Tav can’t find his wrath. He’s shattered, in pieces on the floor.

“Did that happen? Did he—did he really…”

Raphael waves a hand. “That’s the past. Not set in stone, far from it, but the future is ever so much more malleable.”

Another heartbeat, and Tav’s standing in a dusty attic filled with tall shapes shrouded in white cloth. Raphael yanks down one of the shrouds with a flourish to reveal a full-length, silver-framed mirror.

For a moment, Tav sees his reflection. Wild-eyed, shoulders heaving. Then the glass blurs and a different face takes the place of his. Astarion.

Tav doesn’t understand at first. Astarion’s backdrop isn’t the same attic Tav’s standing in; it’s a dark field somewhere, tall grass rippling in the wind. Tav touches the glass, and Astarion’s hand rises to meet his.

“This didn’t happen.” Tav’s eyes are fixed on that tiny crease of confusion in Astarion’s brow. “Why are you showing me—”

“Consider it artistic license,” Raphael says. “A vision of the future.”

Behind Astarion, a thin horizontal line of gold appears. It grows brighter until Tav realizes what it is: a sunrise.

Tav flattens his palm against the mirror. He knows now what’s about to happen, and even though this is just infernal trickery, no more real than any of his nightmares, he still chokes on a sickening wave of panic.

“Stop this,” he snarls. “Stop. I don’t have to watch this.”

He turns away, and in a gust of invisible wind, every white cloth in the room flutters to the floor. He’s surrounded by naked mirrors. In all of them, Astarion burns alive at the first touch of dawn. The sun chars his skin to grey ash and wreathes him in devouring flame. All in complete silence.

Tav shuts his eyes. And then he hears Astarion screaming.

Now, now his wrath comes to him.

“Raphael.”

The room in the Caress rushes back and he pins Raphael to the wall by his throat. It’s too easy. It shouldn’t be this easy—a part of Tav knows, deep down, that he isn’t really strong enough to kill Raphael on his own. No matter how much he wants to.

And Raphael doesn’t choke, doesn’t gasp for air. He just smiles as if Tav's fingers aren't clenched around his windpipe and says, “Now that the preliminaries are out of the way, we can get to business.”

Pain sears through Tav’s palm. Raphael’s skin might appear human, but that’s just an illusion. It’s hotter than the Hells. He feels his flesh blistering.

It’s good. Not as good as crushing Raphael’s throat would feel, but it’s something.

“You don’t know the future,” Tav says. “You can’t know.”

“Who needs the power of prophecy when you can simply create the future you desire? Reality is what you make of it. This life you think is yours is the result of a thousand tiny choices made along the way, and with the right tools at your disposal, any one of those choices can be undone.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I want the Crown,” Raphael says, “for starters. In exchange, I’ll give you a weapon that can break Prince Orpheus free and save your githyanki friend from the death that awaits her the moment Vlaakith’s assassins strike true. After that? Well. As I said, the possibilities are endless. But one deal should be enough to whet your appetite for now, while you ruminate on all I’ve shown you.”

Tav can smell something besides brimstone now. Burning meat.

“I don’t need your help. I’ll kill Cazador on my own. I’ll save Astarion.”

“Perhaps. You do have a god on your side there. But afterwards?” Raphael’s eyes gleam with the faint light of hellfire. “A hound can only serve one master. You’ll have to choose which collar to wear for the rest of your days, however many remain. Make the smart choice, and it could be very many indeed. Choose poorly, and that spawn you adore so dearly will be cast from the light right alongside you.”

Tav sucks air between his teeth. “What about Icarius? Is he really dead?”

“As a doornail, I’m afraid. But we can discuss that too.” Raphael pats his arm. “In good time.”

It takes considerable effort to relax his grip and let Raphael go. The rage still pumping through him dulls the pain; Tav looks at his red, blistered hand as if it doesn’t belong to him.

He could heal himself. Pour Lathander’s light into the wound and repair the damage. But maybe… maybe he should remember this pain for a little while.

It’s nothing compared to ceremorphosis or burning alive under the sun. The price of his mistakes, past and future. What right does he have to forget that?

If Icarius began the Grand Design, Tav’s the one who’ll end it. Whatever it costs. He won’t lose anyone else along the way—or after.

He pictures himself again: a fly caught in the glistening strands of Raphael’s web. No, not a fly. A moth who should have burnt to ash long ago.

He can’t be damned twice.

“Tell me about this weapon,” he says.

Tav stalks into the taproom and Lae’zel leaps from her chair to meet him. “Well?” Her eyes flick to the cloth-wrapped, oblong shape in his arms. “Did the devil speak true? Did he give you a way to free my people?”

There’s a faint ringing in Tav’s ears as he hands over the Orphic Hammer. He watches Lae’zel impatiently shed the cloth to reveal the weapon: flame-hued crystal and gleaming infernal iron. She gives it an experimental swing, much to the alarm of the nearby taproom patrons, and hisses in approval.

The Emperor’s anger simmers in the back of Tav’s head, but it says nothing more than the blistering tirade it delivered once they left Raphael’s chamber. Tav’s glad for that, at least.

“I don’t know when we’ll get the chance to use it,” Tav says.

“The moment will come. And when it does, we will seize it.” Lae’zel grips the hammer in both hands and jerks her chin upward. “What did it cost?”

“Yes, darling,” a voice says softly from behind Tav. “What did it cost?”

Tav turns to face Astarion. His chest catches at the sight of him: whole, unburnt, his pale skin flawless in the soft pink-hued lighting of the Caress. Before Tav can stop himself, he’s reaching out to touch him—just a faint graze of his fingertips over Astarion’s armored shoulder.

He’s real. The knot in Tav’s chest loosens, ever so slightly.

Astarion’s brow quirks. “Hello to you, too. But that isn’t an answer to my question. What did you sign over to the devil?”

“Nothing we’ll miss,” Tav says. “Well. Except Gale. He isn’t going to be pleased with me. But honestly, all that talk about what he plans to do with the Crown had me worried. Maybe it’s better this way.”

Astarion’s cold hand closes around his wrist, and too late, Tav realizes he should have reached out with his other hand.

“Let me guess.” Astarion presses a nail into the mass of blisters on Tav’s palm; Tav bites his tongue at the answering stab of pain. “Raphael said you needed skin in the game, and you took that literally.”

“I lost my temper,” Tav says through gritted teeth. “It’s fine. I signed the contract. Got the Hammer. No harm done.”

“And all it cost was an artefact we don’t even have in our possession yet?” Astarion’s lip curls. “It’s rather unlike a devil to pay in advance. What else did he want?”

Tav hesitates. He can still feel the weight of the quill in his hand, hear the snap of the contract furling shut.

A deal’s a deal. But don’t get too comfortable—we still have business, you and I. I’ll come to you when the time is right. In the meantime, do look after Astarion, won’t you? We wouldn’t want him to get a sunburn.

He could have refused everything. Given up the Orphic Hammer and Lae’zel’s one chance at freeing her people. Washed his hands clean of Raphael and walked away. Instead he fell helplessly into every one of Raphael’s traps and left the door wide open.

No. He can’t afford to second-guess himself now. It’s done.

“Nothing yet,” Tav says. “Just the usual riddles.”

Astarion scrutinizes him. “Well, so long as you haven’t signed away your soul or anything in the way of vague future favors. I dearly hope you weren’t foolish enough for that.”

Tav cracks a faint smile. “Not quite.”

“It would have been fun to see Gale get his hands on a legendary artefact of incredible arcane power. We could have taken bets on how long he would have lasted before contracting another magical curse or blowing up half the Sword Coast. But alas, we’ll simply have to entertain ourselves by other methods.”

There’s a strained quality to Astarion’s voice. He still hasn’t let go of Tav’s wrist. Now it’s Tav’s turn to raise his eyebrows and look closer.

“Is something—”

He’s interrupted by the clamor of footsteps behind him. Jaheira and Halsin sweep into the taproom, and the first thing Tav notices is a thick streak of blood across Jaheira’s mouth. He reaches for his mace and shield.

“What happened?”

“The meeting was an ambush,” Jaheira says. “The Harpers have been replaced. Doppelgangers. Cronies of Bhaal’s Chosen, I expect. Well-equipped with blades, not so much with sense, else they would not have attempted to trap a pair of druids in a room with windows.”

Halsin’s shoulders heave. “We came straight here for reinforcements.”

“You found them.” Tav’s rarely been so eager to spill blood in his life. “Let’s go.”

Today, when he loses himself in the sweat of battle, he thinks: Is this what it was like for you?

He remembers trembling under the knife, utterly lost to sensation, and Icarius’s perfect control. The way he was always there. Sharp-eyed, focused. Never slipping under, not even for a moment. The practiced hand on Tav’s throat, the touch he never had to fear.

When he was with Icarius, he was safe. He thought he was.

How many people died because you didn’t kill me?

He smashes his mace through a doppelganger’s skull and feels the light of Lathander pour through him. (Lathander? Astarion? He doesn’t know.) Searing white radiance, a glowing tide that reduces the false-faced Harper to a charred corpse twitching on the floor.

In his memory, he sees Astarion burning in a dozen mirrors at once.

Will I destroy you, too?

Or are you destroying yourself through me?

Dusk comes. Tav makes a game effort to find somewhere with enough rooms for them all, but he’s forced to settle for a single bunkroom on the top floor of a rundown flophouse. No privacy; in all honesty, he’d prefer the hayloft. But he’s not sure he’ll sleep tonight, anyway.

Word’s traveled. While he and Halsin, Jaheira, and Astarion were cleaning out the false Harper base, Lae’zel must have told everyone else about the deal for the Hammer. Gale’s anger is sharp but restrained, delivered in a scant handful of withering words before he retreats into the shelter of a book.

The less Gale talks, Tav’s realized by now, the worse he feels.

And then there’s Karlach. Tav’s hardly slid the coin for the bunkroom across the flophouse counter before Karlach’s hand is on his shoulder and she’s hauling him bodily into a dingy alcove that smells like pipeweed.

“What’s this I hear about a godsdamned devil contract?”

Tav braces himself. “Karlach, I—”

“Fucking hells.” Karlach drags a palm down her face. “I have one tankard too many and the next thing I know, Lae’zel’s coming down the stairs telling me you’ve signed yourself away to Raphael. Raphael!”

“I haven’t signed myself away. Just the Crown.”

“Tav.” Karlach sucks in a breath, and Tav feels the flare of her freshly stoked heat, like an oven opened inches from his face. “Tav, there’s no way this ends at the Crown. Giving Raphael dominion over the Hells is bad enough, not that I care a whit about the place—it can hardly get worse. But he got his hooks in you. He got you to sign. Now he knows he can do it again.”

Karlach’s voice is quivering. Tav pushes down the familiar guilt that surges up in response—his need to pacify, to appease. That’s not who Karlach needs right now. That’s not who any of his friends need.

They need the Tav who stood above the gate to the Emerald Grove and pretended not to know the meaning of fear. He’ll pay his debts in his own blood and no one else’s. There’s a cold comfort, after all, in the knowledge that the only name at the bottom of Raphael’s contract is his own.

“What’s worse?” Tav asks. “Mindflayers or devils? Because the only way we’re getting to the end of this is by climbing into bed with one or the other. And I don’t know about you, but the tentacles don’t really do it for me.”

Karlach snorts, the sound somewhere between amusement and anger.

“Trust me, soldier, the horns and scales lose their charm after awhile, too. The forked tongues, though…” She scowls. “Hey. Stop kidding around, I’m fucking pissed at you. And still a tad sloshed. How could you do it, Tav? I swore I’d never go back to the Hells, and now we’re going to have to climb down there to find that contract and tear it to bitty pieces.”

Tav gives her arm a squeeze. “We’re not doing that. Don’t worry.”

“Of course we are,” Karlach says. “And we’re doing it soon. I have to know you’re going to be okay. Sitting on a park bench somewhere getting old next to Fangs, not hanging from a meat hook in one of Raphael’s horrible hell dungeons.”

It takes Tav longer than he’d like to admit to parse the important information out of that statement. “You’re not going to die, Karlach.”

For a moment, neither of them speak. Then, over the low background hum of conversation in the lounge and creaking floorboards overhead, Karlach says, “Not before I settle a few outstanding debts. Gortash. Now you.”

There’s a hard, brittle veneer to her voice that Tav thinks will crack if he pushes. And he knows, gods, he knows what it’s like to be on the other side of that facade, trying desperately to stitch up all the gaps he can find before the reaper whisks him away.

You’ll be the one getting old, he wants to tell her. You’ll live.

But he still doesn’t know how he’s going to do it. There’s an arrow aimed for Karlach’s heart—the place it used to be, anyway—and Tav can’t put himself in its path.

“We’re saving the world and you if it’s the last thing I do,” he says. “Got it?”

Karlach punches him in the shoulder hard enough to make him wheeze.

“Leave some heroics for the rest of us, dickhead.”

He thinks she might be blushing. It’s hard to tell.

He’s about to turn away when something else occurs to him. Hesitation nearly stills his tongue—but it’s gnawing at him now, irrepressible and impossible to ignore.

“When you were Gortash’s bodyguard… there was someone he had dealings with.” Tav swallows. “An assassin. His name was Icarius. Red hair, pale skin. Did you ever meet anyone like that?”

Karlach chews her lip. “I’m not sure. That fucker didn’t exactly introduce me to his friends, you know. My job was to stand outside the building and look big and scary. I was good at it, too.”

“That’s okay.” Tav’s heart is beating fast. He doesn’t know what he wanted to hear. Maybe it’s better that Karlach has no idea who he’s talking about. “It was a long time ago.”

He’s two steps away when Karlach says, “Wait. Sicarius?”

Tav’s blood chills in his veins.

“Maybe. What did he…”

“Yeah,” Karlach says. “Matches that description. I only met him face-to-face once, but gods, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. He was an assassin? That explains a lot.”

So it’s true. It’s all true.

Tav didn’t realize until this moment that in a secret place deep inside himself, he’d held fast to the flickering hope that Gortash and Raphael were both lying.

His vision blurs; he can taste ash on his tongue. He’s standing in front of the pod again, watching gore fleck the clouded membrane. Listening to Icarius dissolve.

He doesn’t recognize his own voice when it chokes out his next question.

“Did he seem—happy?”

“Happy?” Karlach squints at him like she’s never seen him before. “Tav, I’ve stared a lot of killers in the eyes. Now I do it every day. But back then… I can’t explain it properly. It was like I was a cute little bunny seeing a wolf for the first time. That man didn’t look at me like I was Gortash’s muscle. He looked at me like I was a snack—and he wasn’t hungry, but he was thinking about it.”

Like I said, a different Icarius. Not my Icarius.

“Did you know him? Tav?” Karlach sounds confused. “Doesn’t seem like someone you’d have been friendly with.”

“No,” Tav says. “Not really.”

He digs his fingernails into his palm. The burns are healed; he couldn’t have swung a mace in the false Harpers’ den with a useless hand. But he remembers how it felt. That hot, stinging pain.

He isn’t supposed to do this anymore. Find relief in pain. And for a week, a single glorious week, he didn’t need to. He had it too good; he got complacent. But the leaks in the boat are still there, all of them, and now the storm’s here.

Die or change.

Maybe there’s another way forward. Something he can’t see yet, like Karlach’s miracle cure. An arrangement.

There’s no end to what you want.

Tav pauses with his hand on the gilded doorknob to Raphael’s room.

Turn around, says a voice in his head. Go back to Astarion.

And he thinks of the night he walked into the shadow curse. The way the darkness called to him like a living thing, tugging at the marrow of his bones. An invitation he couldn’t refuse.

Except he could. He just chose not to.

Tav turns away, a curse on his lips, and nearly collides with Nym.

“Oh!” Her dusky cheeks are flushed violet; she’s wearing a sheer robe and carrying a silver flagon. Tav can smell the bouquet of the wine inside. “Tav, my doll. I didn’t know you were coming back so soon.”

“I was just leaving.”

“But your timing is perfect.” Nym hooks a finger under his chest plate and gives it a tug. “One of our regulars just left and Sorn and I were about to call it an evening. Come and share a drink with us. Is that beautiful lover of yours still here somewhere?”

“No, he’s…”

Back at the flophouse, where Tav left him. I’m going for a walk.

Alone? With a murderous cult of shapechangers on the loose?

I’m not as easy to kill as I used to be.

Nym cocks her head. “Oh, Tav. I’ve been doing this for a long time, you know. You’re all grown up, but that look on your face… it hasn’t changed a bit. You need someone to talk to. Am I wrong?”

Tav wavers. His senses are singing to him, warning him of danger. He can’t trust anyone. Can’t risk telling a friendly face any more secrets.

He grips the handle of the Blood and asks, “What was my mother’s name?”

Nym blinks. “Penna, of course. Unless she was working—then she was Seraphina. Everyone’s favorite angel.” A smirk stretches her glossy lips. “Did I pass?”

Tav lets go of his weapon.

“Maybe just one drink.”

The only light sources in the twins’ room are a single candelabra flickering by the bed and the glowing mushrooms sprouting along the walls, a kaleidoscope of blue and violet and orange. For a moment Tav’s back there—in the Underdark, learning to lose himself in the kill. In blood, sweat, breath.

Until Astarion came to him, and Tav found a different drug. One he’s still not sure he can do without.

“I’ve brought wine,” Nym calls into the gloom in a lilting voice. “And company.”

There’s a faint groan from the bed. Sorn rises from a heap of muddled sheets; Tav turns his head when he realizes Sorn isn’t wearing a stitch of clothing.

“After that performance? Sister, do you think I’m some kind of… Oh!” Tav hears a light thump as Sorn’s feet hit the carpet. “Well. I can certainly make an exception for you, sweetling. What a delightful night this is shaping up to become.”

Gods, this is strange, and yet Tav feels a smile tugging at his lips. There aren’t any temptations for him here, and despite the show the twins are putting on, he doesn’t think any of it is sincere. Just a game they enjoy playing, and now he’s old enough to play along.

“I’m here for a drink. Nothing else.”

He still isn’t sure why he accepted Nym’s invitation. But now that he’s here, it feels oddly natural to let Nym guide him into a padded chair and fill his goblet with wine. Sorn reappears in his periphery, wearing a sheer robe identical to Nym’s; it hardly conceals a thing, but it’s enough of a concession to modesty that Tav doesn’t feel the need to avert his eyes anymore.

“I’ve been there, you know.” Tav gestures at a nearby cluster of pulsing blue-capped mushrooms. “The Underdark.”

Nym settles onto the rug at his feet, crossing one bare leg over the other and shaking out her white-gold hair until it fans over her shoulders like silk.

“Have you now? Did you like it?”

Tav tastes the wine. It’s no different from any other, as far as he can tell. A faint surge of nausea wells up in his throat at the first sip. But he swallows it down, and on the next mouthful it’s gone.

“It was beautiful,” Tav says. “But I… I couldn’t stay for long.”

Nym and Sorn exchange glances.

“Gods, I know just what you mean.” Sorn tilts his own cup in a gentle circle. “The surface has its charms. The sunlight. The culture. Everyone has a story, and up here they aren’t all the same dreadful tale of misery and bondage.”

Nym’s eyes glitter in the dim light. “I still remember the day we arrived in the Gate. It was so overwhelming.”

“Until we found this place. And Penna.” Sorn sighs, and finally he sounds like the Sorn from the dusty vaults of Tav’s childhood memories: still wry and silken, but with that dry candor Tav always found inexplicably comforting, a counterweight to Nym’s sweetness. “What a beauty that woman was. Inside and out.”

“She deserved better,” Nym says softly, with a glance at Tav.

Tav takes another draught of wine. And it comes to him now, the reason he accepted Nym’s invitation, even though he didn’t understand it at the time.

This. This is the closest thing to home that he can still return to, the only place he remembers with no ghosts to haunt it. No one died here; he’s the one who left.

This place was made for coming and going, not staying. He’s here tonight, and then he’ll leave again. Nothing he says in this room will matter.

“But enough about us,” Sorn says. “Tav, sweetling. Tell us what happened to you. There must be a story behind that fetching scar on your face.”

Tav touches his temple, trying to remember when… Oh. It comes back to him in a hot flash: charging down the path to the boats under Moonrise with blood streaming into his eyes and Astarion limping at his side. Those black-fletched arrows.

He grips the memory tightly, holding it close. He doesn’t want to lose it again.

“That’s nothing.” Now he does smile, albeit hesitantly. “You should see the rest.”

After the first flagon runs dry, Nym brings up another. And another.

Tav talks. More than he can remember talking in… well, ever. The cups blur together and so do the stories. He tells them in reverse: Astarion, letters over his heart, a trail of blood leading back to the nautiloid, and then a skimming pass over all the featureless years until—Icarius.

Then he stumbles. Somehow that’s a wound more raw than any other, even though for the past twelve years it’s been nothing more than a scar. He buries himself in a fresh cup of wine, tongue-tied, and Sorn fills the silence with an effortlessly filthy anecdote until he and Nym and Tav are all laughing again.

It’s magic. It has to be. Tav knows it won’t last.

But for a precious few hours, he can pretend that no one needs him. Certainly Nym and Sorn don’t. He’s no hero or failure in this room, he’s just… here.

“Tav?”

A hand touches his shoulder, and Tav stirs, disoriented.

Nym leans over him, her hair falling in a pale curtain around her cheeks. The room isn’t so dim anymore; faint gray light creeps through the frosted windows. Tav can see Sorn asleep in bed behind Nym, an empty goblet dangling precariously from his outstretched hand.

“Fuck.” Tav bolts to his feet. Dizziness strikes him in a sickening jab, taking him by surprise. “Did I fall asleep?”

Stupid question. Obviously he did. It’s nearly dawn; he can feel it.

What is he wearing? He smooths his hand down over the unfamiliar outfit. Loose black silk, almost as sheer as the robes Nym and Sorn were wearing last night, with a plunging neckline low enough to expose the scars on his chest. Trousers to match. 

Now he remembers Nym’s musical laughter as Sorn tossed outfit after outfit out of his wardrobe in a fit of feigned pique.

This game was so much easier when you still fit into Nym’s clothes.

Oh, Sorn, he was so pretty back then. Our precious little doll.

He’s even prettier now. No wonder Astarion wrote his name on him. Good taste, that one.

“I would have woken you sooner,” Nym says, “but you looked like you needed the rest. Here.”

She passes him a bulging rucksack; Tav can tell by the heft that his armor’s inside, along with his weapon and shield.

He plucks at the collar of the silk tunic. “Won’t Sorn want this back?”

“He wouldn’t dare.” Nym eyes him with a look of hunger that Tav isn’t entirely sure is feigned. “Consider it a gift for a night we won’t soon forget. And Tav?”

Tav adjusts the rucksack’s strap on his shoulder. “Hm?”

Nym fits a soft hand to his cheek. “Penna only wanted the best for you. There was so much pain in her heart—and in yours. I can feel it. But there was light, too. Love. The kind that lives forever.”

Tav’s silent. He can feel the spell fading with the approach of dawn, the last echoes of the night slipping away. Weight returning to his shoulders. The creeping, crushing knowledge of everything waiting for him outside this room.

Killing. Pain. The Absolute.

And Astarion. The weight lifts, just a little.

Nym’s hand slips from his face.

“Go on and save the world,” she says. “You know where we’ll be.”

The wine hasn’t entirely cleared his system. Tav still feels off-balance, dizzy, as he stumbles his way out of the brothel. The shadows between buildings are thick and dark; dawn hasn’t touched the cobblestones yet. He’ll make it back to the flophouse before the sun rises, but only just.

Astarion’s not going to be pleased that he stayed out all night. Gods, it was only supposed to be a single drink. How did he let it get so out of control?

There’s the flophouse. Tav pushes his way inside; the ground floor is dead silent and empty, a wasteland of tables and chairs. He makes straight for the staircase.

Then he senses it: a dark, pulsing presence behind him. Someone followed him from the brothel.

“Astar—”

The name dies on his lips as he turns.

The man leaning against the back of a chair isn’t Astarion, though he’s slim and pale enough that he could pass for him if Tav were drunk and half-blind. Blonde hair falls in waves around his ears. Rounded, human ears.

He smiles, his head ducked and lips curled in a way that strikes Tav as familiar. Not because Tav recognizes him—he’s never seen him before in his life—but because Astarion used to smile just the same way, when they first met. Before Tav saw his fangs.

“Forgive me, but I saw you in the street and I couldn’t simply keep walking. I had given up on finding anyone in this part of town worth a second glance, and here you are. Like a sign. I’m Petras. What’s your name?”

They’ll be in the flophouses and brothels of this town, Astarion’s voice says in Tav’s memory. Looking for easy marks. The way I used to.

Tav’s pulse quickens—and he catches the way Petras stiffens ever so slightly in response. He sees hunger etched in the lines of Petras’s face, all the signs Tav’s learned to recognize: the bruise-like hollows under his dark red eyes, the prominent veins.

Pity swells in Tav’s chest. Foolish, irrepressible pity.

“I’m Tav.”

“Just Tav? How charming.”

Petras takes a step closer, and the back of Tav’s neck prickles. Even unarmed, he doesn’t think he’s in danger. His enemies these days are a breed apart from a single half-starved vampire spawn. But still, his instincts respond to the predatory grace in Petras’s movements and the glint in his eye.

Fuck, what’s his move? He can’t kill one of Astarion’s siblings. Not here, not now. But Tav can’t tip him off that Astarion’s back in the Gate, either. He’ll take the news straight back to his master and—

“Oh.” Petras pauses a single stride away, his eyes fixed on Tav’s throat. His brow furrows in confusion. “Where did you get those?”

Tav opens his mouth, even though he doesn’t have an answer.

“Those are mine,” says a cold voice from the top of the stairs.

In a blur of black, Astarion’s at Tav’s side. Shocked recognition blooms on Petras’s face; he steps backward.

“Astarion.” His smile returns, mocking now. “But of course. It’s just as the master said. You couldn’t stay away, could you? You were always going to come slinking back.”

“Hunting alone, Petras?” There’s a note to Astarion’s voice that Tav’s never heard before: a weary sort of disdain. “So close to daylight, too. You always were desperate to please, but this is a new low.”

“He isn’t alone.”

The hair rises on Tav’s arms at the sound of a new voice. An elven woman steps through the doorway of the flophouse; behind her, Tav sees the street outside growing lighter with the touch of dawn. It’s coming through the windows now, in shafts of pale light that the woman avoids with the ease of long practice.

“Dalyria,” Astarion says. “Still trying to keep this lout out of trouble, I see. A losing game.”

Tav slowly slides his rucksack off his shoulder. He’s starting to regret not wearing his armor for the walk back to the flophouse. At the very least, he wants the Blood in his hand before this situation devolves any further.

“Astarion,” he says quietly, “if we let them go, they’ll tell Cazador you’re here.”

“Let them.” Astarion doesn’t look in his direction. His stare is fixed on Petras, who glares back with hateful eyes. “I don’t have any reason to fear him. He should fear me.”

Tav bites his tongue. If it’s as obvious to Petras and Dalyria as it is to him that Astarion’s lying…

Petras laughs. “Brave words, brother, for someone who’s come crawling home with a pretty bribe to beg the master’s forgiveness. Perhaps it will even work, if he doesn’t notice you’ve been sampling the goods. How does freedom taste? Better than rats?” His gaze slides back to Tav. “I can’t wait to find out for myself. Once the Mass is finished, I hope you won’t mind sharing.”

With an animal snarl, Astarion lunges. Chairs clatter to the floor as Astarion’s hand closes around Petras’s throat and he drives him back, into the pool of sunlight beneath the nearest window.

“Astarion,” Dalyria cries, and something in Tav shudders at the genuine distress in her voice. He didn’t expect that.

The light of dawn touches Petras’s face and his skin curls like paper held against a flame, charring grey. Tav’s nostrils fill with the stench of burning flesh. Petras whimpers, boots scraping against the floor.

Astarion’s voice, molten with fury.

“A century I’ve tolerated your bootlicking. No more. Go back to Cazador. Tell him I’m coming to tear down his palace and repay every ounce of misery he ever showed me. He is never going to take anything from me again—and neither will you.”

Petras howls, a sound of agony that turns Tav’s stomach and yanks him straight back into the room of mirrors. He’s there, listening to Astarion burn.

“That’s enough.” He’s surprised to hear his own voice. “Astarion, that’s enough.”

He’s even more surprised when Astarion listens.

“Go,” Astarion spits, and he shoves Petras out of the light.

Petras hits the floor, his face more char than flesh. “Bastard,” he slurs. “You’re all talk. Same as you always were.”

Dalyria falls to her knees beside him. “Brother,” she says, pained. Tav doesn’t know who she’s talking to. Then she raises her face toward Astarion. “You shouldn’t have come back.”

“I said go,” Astarion says.

In a burst of bloodred smoke, both of them vanish.

Tav’s mace is finally in his hand. He stands there, heart hammering in his chest. All he can see of Astarion is his back and the rigid line of his shoulders, framed in the sunlight. Astarion doesn’t move or turn.

“Well,” he says. “Now you’ve met the family.”

Tav doesn’t have a quip ready. His ears are still ringing with the sound of Petras’s screams.

Brother. Surely no one twisted their tongues into the shape of that word. Was Astarion lying when he said they never cared for each other? Did he know he was lying?

“I didn’t want to hurt him,” Tav says. “Petras.”

Now Astarion turns. There’s a cold, frightening light in his eyes.

“Oh, but that is exactly what he meant to do to you. Don’t you understand? That wretch would have thought nothing of ending your life if it earned him the slightest scrap of Cazador’s attention. Every litter of pups has a cur that whimpers for the boot as well as the loving hand. That’s Petras. He would crawl straight into a stoked oven if it meant he didn’t have to sleep cold and alone.”

Tav swallows past a lump in his throat. “Then I suppose I do understand.”

“He never did know how to choose victims properly. Always angling for the biggest, prettiest fish, no matter how low the chances of reeling it in.” Astarion’s nostrils flare. “You should have hurt him. Perhaps it would have taught him a lesson.”

“Seems like you took care of that.”

Tav’s trying to hold back. But it creeps into his voice all the same: the judgment he has no right to feel. Anger. Horror at the realization of a truth he’s just beginning to grasp.

From the fresh fury on Astarion’s face, he hears it.

“And where have you been? What kind of walk takes all night and leaves you stinking of a brothel? Whose sheets have you been rolling in?”

Guilt pierces Tav’s chest. “No one’s,” he snaps. “Do you think I’d do that?”

“You’re welcome to bed whoever you please,” Astarion says. “I was merely under the impression that you might give me some warning first. A courtesy notice. But perhaps it didn’t cross your mind to think of me.”

Tav sucks in a breath. Bad idea. It’s like throwing fuel on the fire.

“I didn’t fucking bed anyone. I had a couple of drinks at the Caress with Nym and Sorn and fell asleep. Sorry to worry you.”

Astarion scoffs, his gaze roving over Tav’s neckline. “A couple of drinks, and you just happened to ruin your clothes?”

“I’m not lying to you. You can’t honestly believe—”

The words die in his throat; Astarion’s suddenly right there, inches away. He tilts back his head to stare into Tav’s face and says, “I don’t care. Truly, I don’t. A whore here, a whore there—if anything, it’s a comfort to know your tastes haven’t changed.”

“This is ridiculous.” Tav’s body floods with heat. “Now who’s lying?”

Astarion sweeps past him and up the stairs. Tav shoulders his rucksack and follows, the steps creaking under his weight.

“Astarion. Astarion.”

He has to whisper once they reach the next landing; the second floor is dark and filled with slow breathing and snores. Astarion doesn’t wait for him. Tav grips the banister, fighting his lingering dizziness, and trails him up to the third floor.

“Astarion. Slow down.”

Tav catches him by the arm, only to pull back at his hiss of protest.

“Don’t touch me. I’m in no mood.”

“Fine.” Tav drops his rucksack on the floor and crosses his arms. At least Astarion’s stopped retreating, now that he’s run out of levels to climb. “I’ve known Nym and Sorn since I could barely walk. It would be like bedding a sibling.”

He realizes the irony a moment too late, when Astarion chokes out a humorless laugh. “Oh? Is that a step too depraved even for you, my love?”

“You know I didn’t.” There’s no way Astarion could be that wilfully dense. “You just don’t want to talk about your siblings.”

“There is nothing to talk about,” Astarion says. “They know I’m here. I know they’re doomed. Everything else is meaningless complication. I haven’t the slightest interest in discussing the topic.”

“Godsdammit, Astarion. We have to. If there’s any way to do the ritual without sacrificing them—”

“What part of it isn’t your decision to make is difficult for you to grasp?”

Astarion’s chest rises and falls. His eyes are faintly aglow in the dim, his lips parted to bare his fangs. Tav sees fear in his expression—and something else. His gaze keeps flicking down from Tav’s face, to his throat and the exposed skin beneath.

“Let me help you,” Tav whispers hoarsely. “Don’t do this alone.”

Astarion flattens himself against the wall, next to the door leading into the room where Tav knows their friends must still be asleep. At least, he hopes they’re still asleep.

“So eager to destroy yourself for me. Will you never learn?”

“Never,” Tav says. “If that’s what it takes to save you.”

“You’ll burn. Just like Petras.”

“Better me than you.”

Eyes blazing, Astarion clenches a hand in the front of his shirt. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Don’t you dare make another promise.”

Tav’s breathing quickens. He doesn’t know what’s happening now—at least, he isn’t sure. He knows what his body wants and what that fire in Astarion’s eyes means. He’s been in Astarion’s head now; he’s seen past the smoke and mirrors, straight to the core of him. To what he wants.

But surely it isn’t the time or place. Surely.

“You have me,” Tav says. “For better or worse. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? For me to keep coming back? This is me. This is what you get.”

“I don’t want to hear another word from you.”

Don’t touch me, he said. But his hands are both on Tav’s chest now, one tangled in the silk of his new shirt and the other flat over his heart.

“I’m not going to just—”

“Not another word.”

Tav clenches his jaw and stares down at Astarion’s face in the gloom. It’s an order, and Tav’s instincts scream at him to obey. To submit.

“I love you.”

Astarion flinches, his body stiffening. Then he exhales and asks in a tone of heated mockery, “Aren’t you forgetting something? An apology?”

Gods, says a fevered voice in the back of Tav’s head, you’re beautiful.

“I don’t think so.”

“After the night you put me through, you selfish beast? I’m owed.”

“Fine,” Tav says.

He kisses him. And he knows at once that he guessed right, that Astarion was speaking with his body and Tav finally, finally understood what he was trying to say. Astarion pulls him closer with desperate hands, panting against his mouth like he wants to steal the air from Tav’s lungs. Even though he doesn’t need it.

Tav breaks away. “Not here.”

“You started it,” Astarion says. But he grips Tav by the wrist and pulls him down the short hallway and through a door into what must be a linen closet—it’s dark and Tav can barely see a thing, but he smells musty cloth and soap. Then Astarion’s dragging him down into another kiss.

Tav’s head is spinning. It isn’t just the wine anymore, but it isn’t not the wine.

“Astarion,” he groans as a cold hand slips under the hem of his shirt, roving over the scarred, muscled flesh of his torso. “Don’t tear this one. I like it.”

“Silk,” Astarion whispers breathlessly. “Good choice. You can keep it.”

Tav’s hands find Astarion’s hips—and then, in a dizzying blur, Astarion’s legs are locked around his waist and Tav has him pressed against the closet door. Gods, fuck, this is new. Tav doesn’t have to bend over to kiss him anymore—he’s craning his neck up instead, straining to reach Astarion’s mouth.

Astarion clutches at his hair, the back of his neck, the muscles of his shoulders. His tongue searches Tav’s mouth. He’s making sounds: low, aching gasps of need.

And Tav knows what he needs. He shifts to support Astarion’s weight in one hand alone and moves the other to Astarion’s face so he can kiss him deeper, harder.

Nothing matters. Nothing but this. Tav’s drowning in him, swallowing every beautiful gasp like ambrosia. It’s been less than a day since he kissed Astarion but he’s desperate. Dying of thirst.

Mine, snarls that voice again, a part of himself he hardly recognizes. Mine. Mine.

Astarion's body flexes in Tav’s grip as he pushes forward, grinding himself against Tav’s chest. Sorn’s shirt is so sheer it might as well be mist. Tav feels the hard length of Astarion’s erection pressed against him through his trousers, and his brain flares with the memory of what it felt like to be Astarion. The agony of desire. Fear and want tangled in a slippery, pulsing web.

Tav breaks away, his thumb on Astarion’s cheek to hold him still.

“What do you need? What can I do?”

Astarion’s breath is hot against his lips. “I… Gods, I don’t know.”

“Yesterday seemed—It seemed like a lot for you.”

“It was.” Astarion’s fingers wind through his hair. “I’ve hardly stopped thinking about it since. You’re…” He turns his face into Tav’s grip, licks restlessly at his thumb. “You’re incredible. Beautiful. You haven’t the faintest concept how much I…”

He goes silent. His nostrils flare and his ears twitch, once. Abruptly his expression changes—from heavy-lidded hunger to sharp, wary focus.

“What is it?” Tav asks.

“Blood,” Astarion says. “Not fresh. Old. Somewhere nearby.”

Tav strokes his face, still breathing hard. “Maybe someone bled on some sheets.”

“No.” Astarion makes a sound of pure frustration. “Death. It smells like death. I thought I caught a whiff of something earlier, but… well, love, you had me thoroughly distracted. I hate to ask you this, but…”

Tav doesn’t need to be asked. Reluctantly, he lowers Astarion to the ground and lets him go. His heart’s still pounding, flooding desire through his veins, and Sorn’s godsdamned silk trousers are practically designed to put his arousal on display; Astarion’s eyes dart downward in a single quick glance.

“Of all the times…” Astarion makes a muffled noise, like a cat taunted by a bird. “Gods. I think it’s coming from here.”

He moves to a cupboard against the far wall and opens it. Tav can’t see what’s inside, but he hears Astarion tapping his way along the wood interior until his breath catches.

“Ah. Someone in this flophouse has a secret to keep.”

Tav adjusts himself, cursing inwardly, and follows Astarion to the cupboard. He still can’t smell anything. “What’d you find?”

“Give me a moment, darling.”

Silver glints in the dim as Astarion produces a set of lockpicks—where does he keep those? Tav’s never sure—and fiddles with something inside the cupboard for a long stretch of seconds.

Tav shifts in place. “Should I go and get…”

“There,” Astarion says in a tone of breathy satisfaction. He stows the lockpicks with a flourish and gives the side of the cupboard a push.

It revolves in place with a quiet grinding noise, revealing a dark gap in the wall, and Tav chokes. Now he can smell it: the stench of decay, like an open grave. He hasn’t had a whiff of that scent since they left the shadow-cursed lands.

“There’s a body in there,” he says.

“Unfortunately,” Astarion says. “Whoever it is, I’d rather like to kill them again for spoiling the mood, but alas. We can’t always have what we want.”

Astarion ducks through the gap and Tav has no choice but to follow, even though he’d rather retreat to the hallway to fetch his armor and weapon. He feels naked. Actually, in Sorn’s clothes, he feels worse than naked.

“I can’t see a thing. Astarion?”

“Here.”

A light flares in the dark. Tav glimpses Astarion’s hand cupped around a candle, and then he has to blink furiously for his eyes to adjust.

The room is small, only slightly larger than the closet they came from. It’s a mess: a bed with rumpled sheets jammed against the wall and a desk covered in loose parchment and spilled wax. The floor beneath Tav’s boots is sticky. And there’s no mistaking the smell.

Tav’s stomach lurches. It’s hardly his first time stumbling over a scene of violence—but lately, he’s usually been involved in the making of it. This feels different.

“Under there.” Astarion gestures under the bed.

“Be my guest,” Tav says.

Astarion bends at the waist in a sardonic little bow. “I wouldn’t dream of it, darling. Death is your fascination, not mine. Go on. Satisfy my curiosity, won’t you?”

Tav crouches with a groan and reaches under the bed. His searching fingers find something: a leg, maybe, or an arm. Stiff with dried blood. He holds his breath and pulls, hoping the body won’t come apart in his grasp. It doesn’t.

“Gods.” Air leaves him in a horrified rush. “I know her. Ffion. She worked at the Caress. Sorn said she’d gone missing, but I didn’t expect…”

He stares down at Ffion’s half-decayed face and fights to keep the door shut. He doesn’t want to remember Ffion’s laugh or the sweets she used to leave behind the bar after a shift. Her warm hands folding down his collar.

But of course she’s here; of course she’s dead. Death follows him everywhere. His past is nothing more than a parade of faces waiting to fade into the dark. Hells—Nym and Sorn. Are they going to die too, just for the crime of giving him one pleasant evening?

Astarion’s voice pierces the silence. “It looks like she’s been dead for days. Since before we arrived in the Gate.”

Tav can’t breathe. Fury strangles him.

“Orin. It must be. She knew—somehow she knew about the Caress, that I used to—”

“Don’t leap to conclusions, my dear. I don’t believe this has anything to do with you.”

“How could it not?” Tav can’t tear his eyes from Ffion’s face. “Gortash did his research. He knew who I was. I haven’t seen Miri and Beth for fifteen years and he led me straight to Lady Oberon at the coronation. Fuck.” His mind is racing now as he puts the pieces together. “No, he didn’t need to do his research. He must have learned it all from Icarius. And Orin knew Icarius, too—what if he told her everything?”

“Why go to such lengths just to torment you?” Astarion sniffs. “Never mind. I suppose we are dealing with a shapechanger who specializes in mind games. Still, this feels too sloppy to be the work of Bhaal’s Chosen.” Tav hears him rifling through the parchment on the desk. “If she wanted you to find this corpse, surely she would have left some… Ah.”

“What is it?” Tav rises. “What did you find?”

“A list of names. Past and future victims, it looks like. And I was correct. This isn’t Orin’s work. An assassin hopeful, by the looks of it, acting on orders from Bhaal’s Temple. Oh.” Astarion’s voice shifts abruptly, like he’s been punched in the stomach. “Shit.”

Tav can’t. Whatever this is, he can’t handle it. Not with Ffion’s body on the floor and Icarius’s corpse fresh in his mind. He’s barely holding together—a single blow, and he’ll fall to the floor in pieces.

“Astarion? What is it?”

Astarion turns to him, and in the flickering glow of the candlelight Tav sees his own doom spelled out in Astarion’s wide eyes.

“Mirielle Oberon is on this list.”