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She’d been knocking about between jobs when one of her neighborhood pals told her about the inventor. 

“He’s looking for guards, and he’s paying better than the bloody Flaming Fist! You’re a tough-looking kid, Karlach. Why not give it a shot?” 

“I’m more than tough-looking ,” she’d smirked, cracking her knuckles for emphasis. “But he wouldn’t go for me, I bet. Patriars want their guards all stiff and proper and such.” 

“That’s just it.” Her friend had raised an eyebrow. “He’s not a Lord.” 

And Pluck Cliffgate was in dire need of new pots and pans, ones without the bottoms rusted out. That’s how it started. 

(They could have gotten by. Even without the money, even without the pots and pans, they could have gotten by just fine.)

—

The first time that Karlach met Enver Gortash was in the sweeping reception room of his private residence. It was not her first time through the walls of Baldur’s Gate proper, but certainly the first time she’d ever been in a house as nice as this. While the place was no grand upper city manor, no Ducal palace, the floors were marble and the chairs were upholstered with damasked silk. 

Karlach perched on the edge of her seat, hoping that her dusty trousers would not stain the fabric. Someone had placed a little porcelain plate piled with iced pastries next to her and she wanted to try one so badly, but she also wasn’t sure if this was some sort of trap. One of her knees bounced involuntarily, making the chair beneath her squeak. 

“So,” the inventor, whose name was apparently Enver Gortash, said, “They tell me that you flipped Gregor flat on his back.” 

“I, err, yes,” Karlach nodded. Her knee was bouncing again. She focused on stopping it. “Sorry. I hope he’s not hurt too bad.” 

Enver Gortash, who sat across from her in his own magnificent chair with ease, smiled. He was a man approaching forty, she judged, with jet black hair and distinctively bright eyes. His features were all strong, from a prominent chin to a heavy brow, and his outer coat looked thick, well-tailored, and laden with metal buttons and filigree embellishments. 

Still, there was something difficult to put into words about him that set him apart from the prosperous merchants or young lordlings Karlach had occasionally bumped shoulders with when they came to the Outer City for a bit of tawdriness or adventure. Despite the spit and polish, he didn’t quite fit the mold. 

“There’s no need for modesty,” Enver Gortash chuckled, a look of amusement playing across his mouth. “Gregor is my best fighter. You ought not to apologize for your strength when it may have just earned you a job offer.” 

Karlach felt her eyes widen.

“Oh,” she gasped. “Fuck yes—I mean—err, great news! Sorry… ‘may have?’” 

Enver Gortash narrowed his eyes slightly. He rested a finger to his temple and Karlach saw that his hand was covered in a strange sort of lattice of metal, a little too particular to just be fancy jewelry. Karlach felt a curl of unease in her stomach. 

“‘May have,’ provided that you can answer a few simple questions honestly,” he affirmed. “I prefer to know something about the people who work for me. So we can trust each other.” 

(Had he been reading her thoughts? Or had she just been nervous? If she had eaten the pastries, would she have felt compelled to tell the truth?)

“Well, I’m from the outer city. I work hard. I come in on time. I’ve held a sword before, although I can’t do any of those flourish-y flippy things—” 

“And why did you come here today?” Enver Gortash interrupted. “Why seek work here, when you might just as easily take up with a company of mercenaries or even the Guild for that matter?” 

“Because you pay well,” Karlach blurted out. “And… and… I don’t want to work for the Guild. I might be damned good, sorry, very good at smashing kneecaps, but I’d rather not just because some poor chump is late with his debts. I figure an inventor, well…” 

She trailed off, searching his face for any sign of if what she was saying was working. His smile remained—unmoving, unintelligible. 

She decided to go with her gut. If she lost out on a payday for her honesty, Karlach decided, then good riddance. She wanted the coin, but she wanted her mum and dad to be proud of her at the end of the day even more. 

“An inventor is someone who actually does something, you know? If I’m protecting someone with my life, I’d rather it be someone who’s clever, not just lucky.” 

Silence followed. Karlach’s restless foot squeaked against the polished floor. Enver Gortash sat completely still. 

Then, finally, he nodded. 

“Very well then,” he addressed her. “You’ll start tomorrow.”

Karlach beamed, already on her feet to shake his hand or maybe bow or something. She wasn’t sure what the procedure was here. 

Yet, something stopped her. She paused for a second. Trust went both ways, after all. 

“And, uh, what about you, sir?” she asked hesitantly. “Why pick me, when you coulda picked any of those chaps who showed up today?” 

Gortash raised an eyebrow. 

“I think you will find that we have something in common,” he said with a hint of amusement. “We both value talent. Now, let’s have a change of scenery. It seems you need a chance to stretch your legs and I would be happy to supply you with some reassurance that I do, indeed, aspire to be a man who… does something.” 

And just as quickly as Karlach had first stumbled into the fine house, she stumbled back out. 

Enver Gortash led her down to the Grey Harbor docks, to the forges where the air was hot and stank of smoke and she had to shout to be heard over the ringing of hammers. In the heat, he took off his heavy coat and Karlach saw that his forearms were covered in little nicks and old burn scars and there were worn calluses on his palms. He wasn’t afraid to get grime under his nails and he never flinched when the sparks flew up high. 

And he told her what every device did and explained every technical detail and patiently answered every question she asked. 

And so she thought, he must be honest. He knows so much, he has an answer for everything, so he must be honest. 

(Who cares about the particular alloy needed to channel a spell into a blade? Who cares what the difference is between foundry coke fuel and regular old wood? Where was that iron coming from, you idiot? Why did it need to burn so hot before it would melt?) 

—

Working for Gortash wasn’t easy money. Karlach was up every morning at dawn and wouldn’t be home until after sunset. She was on her feet all day and she was marching across the city when she wasn’t standing by a door. 

Still, she had no cause to complain. Enver Gortash kept the same hours, the same schedule, the same relentless pace. He wasn’t asking her to do anything he wasn’t willing to do himself. And while Karlach had worried she might be restless, loitering by a fence all day looking scary, Gortash ensured that his guards had plenty of time for training. 

It was a little embarrassing, at first, to realize how clumsy and clueless she had been before. But she took to the new techniques quickly and, before she knew it, she was winning more sparring rounds than she lost. She could leave this job, she realized after a few months, a hundred times better than she started. 

She did not want to leave the job. 

Oddly enough, too, there were more people trying for a toss-up with Enver Gortash than she had expected. Her first was a white-haired gnomish chap who picked the lock on the back gate and then tried to throw a smokepowder bomb through a window before Karlach tackled him off of his feet. 

“He’s an Ironhand,” Reva explained. She and Karlach were often posted together during the day and she had been working for Gortash already for two years. “It’s some gnomish clan feud thing. The Ironhands hate the Gondians and since Gortash gets parts from the Gondians…” 

“Boom?” Karlach filled in. 

“Yep,” Reva nodded. “Boom. You’ll get used to it. Anyone successful in this town without a big impressive name behind them gets a target on their back.” 

Karlach stood watch at the gates, at the doors, and walked behind Gortash when he was out in the city. She tossed prowlers out, turned away a few sketchy couriers, and even had to send a pair of loony Tarazul-sniffers sprawling when they came rushing down an alley. 

“Black hands,” one of the poor jittery bastards kept stammering as Karlach held him down. “Look at his hands, they’re black. Filthy, dirty, black hands!” 

“It’s called soot,” Karlach grunted back, trying to get the man to stop squirming. “And I wouldn’t be so fussed about cleanliness if I smelled as bad as you, pal.” 

Right before the end of their shift that evening, she finally asked Reva about it. 

“Why are there so many people coming for Gortash?” she asked. “I mean, I expected a few pickpockets and break-ins, but why do so many people seem to want an inventor dead?” 

“Oh Karlach,” Reva had sighed and punched her shoulder fondly. “You’re such an innocent, aren’t you? It’s because of the stuff he’s building.” 

“What? Fancy crossbows that shoot fire and such?” 

“Sure,” Reva nodded. “He makes those. But then he doesn’t just sell them to the Council of Four. He puts them out there at a price so that anyone can get one, protect themselves, protect the parts of the city that the Fist won’t even dare poke their noses in. The Guild, the Rivington Rats, the Zhentarim, all the criminal types used to getting their way, well, suddenly they aren’t finding it so easy to boss folk around anymore.” 

“Really?” Karlach had said in astonishment. “They’d kill a man for that?” 

“They’d kill a man who shakes things up,” Reva told her seriously. “Even though, in my humble opinion, things in this city could use some serious shaking up. It might not be pretty, but it lets those of us who’ve been sitting on the bottom finally have our chance to rise.” 

The next day, Karlach watched Enver Gortash demonstrate a mechanical brace for an adventurer’s injured knee. It went on under her clothes, he adjusted a few clasps, and then the woman walked around the room without even the hint of a limp. 

“It’s like it knows just when I’m going to take a step,” the adventurer remarked, impressed. 

“It does,” Karlach overheard Gortash reply. “That is what makes it so simple to use. You control it with a mere thought.” 

Just a thought, Karlach thought with a secret smile. So anyone can use it. Anyone can fix themselves, get stronger, get better. 

She thought for the first time that she would fight for this man even if he wasn’t paying her so damn well. 

(Controlling a limb, controlling a body, controlling an army with only a thought. His hands were worse than sooty black; they were already holding the strings.) 

—

She got her first promotion the week that Lord Eomane visited, which meant that she was posted in the room when he arrived. It was her first time seeing a real member of the Parliament of Peers up close and she concentrated hard on standing still and staying watchful without staring. 

Lord Eomane was a small, neat man with impeccable white hair and a meticulously trimmed beard. Although Gortash stood far taller than him, Karlach felt a strange sense that Lord Eomane took up more room when he entered. The patriar listened patiently to Gortash’s explanation of his latest device, a tiny elegant mechanism small enough to fit into the palm of a hand. 

“What I offer is security,” Gortash told him. “Any motion within the vicinity of the sensor will trigger a silent countdown. This is no simple pressure plate or wire to step over. If you secure this to your door, you can rest easily, my lord.” 

He offered the delicate little device to Lord Eomane, who merely glanced down at it and then placed his hands behind his back. 

“I assure you, my lord, it is harmless until you arm it—” 

“I am not concerned, Gortash,” Lord Eomane interrupted lightly. “I am simply uninterested. If you will pardon my abruptness, I believe this demonstration is unlikely to be of use to either of us. I am entirely satisfied with my current security partnerships” 

“My lord, if I might, I could offer you a rate substantially lower than your current—” 

“No, Gortash. I think not. I have seen what I came here to see, thank you.” 

Karlach resisted the urge to step closer, to strain her head to see Enver Gortash’s expression as he went quiet. The tension in the room rose, until it was nearly palpable in the air. 

“And was anything that you have seen to your liking, my lord?” Gortash finally asked, his voice suddenly very even. 

Lord Eomane glanced around, pale grey eyes roaming over the furnishings, the inlaid marble floors, the art on the walls, the man standing in front of him. A slight smile finally twitched the sharp points of his mustache. 

“Your boots, Gortash. Very fine work. You must tell me where you had them made.” 

With a squeal of metal, Karlach saw the delicate device still held in Gortash’s hand bend and then break, sending a shower of tiny springs onto the floor. Lord Eomane’s smile widened as he turned away, sweeping out into the hall with his valet close behind and leaving Gortash standing alone with Karlach in the reception hall. 

As soon as the door closed behind him, Karlach stepped forward. Gortash remained frozen, staring as though his gaze could burn a hole in the door and straight through Lord Eomane’s skull. 

She recognized the look smoldering in his eyes. He was furious. Even when other deals hadn't gone his way, she had never seen him look so furious. 

Slowly, Karlach knelt down and started picking up the tiny screws and bolts that had scattered across the floor. 

“Leave them,” Gortash said after a moment. “The damned thing is ruined anyways. I’ll have it swept out with the trash.” 

“Right,” Karlach agreed, standing back up. “Sorry, sir.” 

Enver Gortash closed his eyes and sighed long through his nose. 

“No need to apologize, Karlach,” he said. “It was my miscalculation.” 

“They are, uh, nice, sir,” Karlach tried to offer, unsure if she should but wishing that she could say something to cheer him up. “The boots. I don’t think he was just being snide.” 

His expression flickered at that. He did not snap, but Karlach had the sense that she had said something very wrong. 

“You must not think that I am ashamed to be the son of a cobbler,” he finally replied. “I had simply hoped to find the city patriars more… receptive to my other talents.” 

Heat suddenly flooded Karlach’s cheeks. Trust her and her bloody big mouth to rub the slight in even worse. At the same time though, she felt a rush of indignation on his behalf. 

“Their loss, sir,” she said. “Their loss.” 

She and Reva and a few of the other lads grabbed an ale together at the Elfsong Tavern before they headed home that night and Karlach asked about the boots after they'd downed the first pint. 

“He’s not shy about it, not at all,” Reva assured her proudly. “Never tries to hide the fact that his parents still own a shop in the Lower City. But I think… well, probably shouldn’t speculate too much.” 

“Speculate just a bit then,” Karlach urged her playfully. 

“I think it’s more… he doesn’t exactly have them over for tea, does he? I’ve heard they sent him off for his apprenticeship young, really young. Doubt they even had time to teach him how to make sandals or sole boots.” 

“That arrogant bastard,” Karlach shook her head, thinking of Lord Eomane’s smug little comment. “I hope Gortash invents a pair of shoes with springs in the heel and rockets in the toes and then refuses to sell him a single pair.” 

They all laughed and ordered another round and felt safe knowing that they were the ones who would come out on top eventually, no matter where they came from, no matter who turned up their nose. 

(When she finally met them, smiling with dead eyes, speaking with a worm for a tongue, she wanted to hate him even more. Sally Flymm sang his praises with her voice and silently thought that he was born wicked, rotten from the cradle, and she found that she did not know what to believe anymore).

—

She worked nights a few times, usually only when one of her friends was sick. Nights were rough. Boring, but at the same time, tense. 

Her second time overnight, she was entertaining herself trying to flip a copper coin into a cup across the room when she heard the distant creak of hinges. She grabbed her blade in seconds, but she hadn’t started running. She followed the sound as quiet as she could, hoping to nab the intruder rather than spooking them. 

A sliver of buttery yellow light spilled out into the hall from beneath the door of Gortash’s private workshop. How the thief had managed to slip into there was beyond her, given that Gortash kept it fortified like a bank vault, but she was really hoping that the pommel of a sword to the face would still solve the problem as it normally did. 

Karlach had crept up quiet, then heaved up the iron lever to open the door, shouldering it in with all of her might. She heard a click, the creak of a bowstring, and then—

“Karlach!” 

Karlach stood in the doorway, sword raised, facing down the crossbow of Enver Gortash and growing uncomfortably aware that something on the back of the door behind her had started ticking. 

“Sir,” she answered breathlessly. “I thought you were an intruder. Would not love to blow up, though, if that’s possible.” 

Gortash set the crossbow down on the workbench in front of him and stood up. With a wave of his gauntleted hand, the ticking sound stopped. Karlach let out a long breath. 

Enver Gortash, she realized uncomfortably, was clearly not expecting company. He wore his undershirt with the sleeves rolled up and the bench in front of him was covered in tiny, intricate little parts and schematics. He was making something that looked like a necklace, or maybe a headband, with tiny purple crystals embedded into the metal. 

Karlach had never actually been inside of the workshop, she realized, and a quick scan of the room revealed that it was covered in partially completed projects, sketches, books, and a slightly alarming number of untriggered traps. 

“I appreciate your vigilance, Karlach,” Gortash said after a moment, his tone easy and giving no sign of irritation. “Someone ought to have warned you of my tendency to roam by night.” 

“Wondered how you got so much done in a day, sir,” Karlach joked, trying her best to keep still for fear of setting anything else off. 

“I’ve never been a sound sleeper,” Gortash confided, turning back to his work. He picked up a pair of forceps in one hand and then leaned down over a crystal lens like a jeweler might have for particularly delicate work. “Since I was very small, I have found myself unable to rest longer than a few hours at a time. All of my best ideas seem to come the moment that the sun sets and then I cannot shut my eyes for fear of losing them to the dawn.”

“Guessing you can’t just a write a note to yourself?”

“I have,” Gortash nodded, although his gaze was still fixed on the crystal lens. “But the vexation of untried ideas persists. The only way is to either work the problem out as quickly as I can or to stupify myself with an elixir that will leave my mind a fog. I prefer the former.” 

“My mum says I was the same way as a kid,” Karlach shared hesitantly. “Too much energy to fall asleep. She’d send me out to run laps around the neighborhood to tire me out.” 

“I confess, I never tried that particular tactic,” Gortash replied dryly. “Perhaps I ought to. Since you’re here, sit with me for a moment.” 

He gestured to the bench beside him. Karlach’s eyes flicked to the ground. There was nothing obviously in her way that she might set off or stomp on or trip over. 

“Perhaps this is a stroke of luck. I need a second pair of hands for this,” he said as she sat down carefully, hoping not to jostle his arm. “If you can hold it steady for just a moment.” 

He laid the forceps down and reached overhead to one of the shelves, grabbing a larger, sharply faceted purple crystal with holes already drilled into the sides. Obediently, Karlach held it upright. It was oddly warm to the touch. 

“Excellent,” Gortash told her. “You have a strong grip.” 

Karlach couldn’t help but grin at the compliment. 

Gortash retrieved one of the tiny little components he had been assembling and slowly screwed it into the hole on one facet of the crystal. As he did, the surface seemed to grow even warmer. Karlach bit the side of her cheek as the sensation in her fingertips crossed the line into discomfort. 

Still, she didn’t want to ask him to stop. There was something about this that felt special, like he was sharing a secret, like he was confiding in her. She had worked with him for over half a year at that point, but this was the first time it felt like she was seeing the real man. A genius, yeah, who paid more than fair and made things that could really help people. But this was the first time that she was glimpsing the tough part—the exhaustion, the risk, the weight of it all. 

“There was a period of time when I was an apprentice,” Gortash continued, his eyes fixed on his device as he spoke, “that I don’t believe I slept more than two or three hours a day. And I never did shake the habits I picked up during that time.” 

“Was it that busy?” Karlach asked, eager for any distraction from the burning in her fingers. 

“It was a competitive environment,” Gortash said, and Karlach detected a hidden wellspring of meaning behind those words. “I hope you can excuse the… unwelcoming atmosphere of my workshop. It is not meant as a slight to your abilities.” 

Karlach gritted her teeth as the crystal burned in her hands like an open flame. 

(Testing her pain tolerance? Her heat tolerance? Or did he just enjoy watching her squirm, knowing she wouldn’t say anything?) 

“Security has long been at the root of my ambition. The Parliament of Peers talks so endlessly about freedom, freedom from taxation, freedom from regulation, that I often feel as though we are looking at two different cities. In the Baldur’s Gate I know, most only have the freedom to starve. If we focused half as much on ensuring that the people were well-protected, that they felt safe, secure, strong—” 

“Ah!” Karlach gritted out then finally gave in. “I’m about to drop this thing, sir. It’s too hot.” 

Gortash immediately set down his tools and, before she could warn him otherwise, took the crystal himself. 

“My sincerest apologies, Karlach,” he said. “You must never trust an engineer's hands. We are burned so often, it hardly registers. There’s a pair of gloves on the shelf.” 

He’s a tough one, Karlach thought as she hurried to fetch the gloves. Not just his hands, either, she realized. The workshop full of traps, the head full of late-night thoughts, the drive to find vulnerabilities and patch them up… he was not the sort to complain, obviously, but she could read the signs clearly enough. 

Enver Gortash was trying to change a world that did not want to be changed, and he knew that he was only one mortal man with eyelids that sagged shut and hands that scarred and a hundred different ways to fail. 

It took a few more minutes before the last components were screwed into the crystal and Karlach felt through the gloves that it immediately went cool. Gortash ran a hand through his dark hair, and his expression finally seemed weary once the work was done. 

“Sir, I think it might be time to head back to your bed,” she told him gently. “But don’t worry. I’ll be keeping watch right outside. You’ll be safe.” 

Gortash relented. Before he left the workshop, she watched him pass his hand over the door again and, throughout the room, dozens of tiny metal devices clicked back into place, like a forest full of insects on a hot summer night. 

(How much more evidence did she need? A trap is a trap is a trap). 

—

She saved his life once. 

It was a day near midwinter and they were coming back from Lady Jannath’s estate on the edge of the lower city. Karlach’s breath fogged in the air and snow swirled around their feet on the cobbles. 

Gortash seemed in a good mood. Karlach didn’t understand the particulars, but she got the sense that it was a positive sign if at least one patriar with a good name and plenty of coin in her coffers was willing to meet them openly, regularly. 

Karlach had tilted her head back and looked up at the flurries of snow. She had opened her mouth, caught a few flakes on her tongue, and somebody had said “keep up, Karlach.” 

And then she’d caught the faint gleam of something shiny up on the rooftop. She had heard a whistle in the air. Before she had time to think or to plan, her body was already reacting. She dove forward, hit Gortash on his left side, and the both of them went down onto the slushy stone of the street. 

As they fell, Karlach felt something on the back of her shoulder blade, a sensation like a wasp sting. 

Then suddenly she was on the ground, her palms scraped and her clothes soaked in dirty brown ice. Gortash twisted away from her, evading her grip like a snake. His dark eyes met hers for a split second and she watched as his hands started to move, his meticulously precise fingers shaping into the position for a spell. Instinctively, Karlach flinched and squeezed her eyes shut. 

Light flashed. Even through her eyelids, it was so bright that Karlach turned her head away. She heard Gregor and Reva calling out, but when she tried to push herself back upright, her left arm wasn’t working quite right. She opened her eyes and blinked away the spots of color still bursting in her vision. 

“Two of you, search the rooftops,” Gortash’s voice was saying somewhere nearby. “They won’t get far blind. The rest of you, with me. We’re getting somewhere secure and bringing Karlach to a healer immediately.” 

“I’m alright,” Karlach said shakily, swaying as she managed to get back to her feet. “Really. Arm’s a bit funny, but—” 

“You have an arrow in your back,” Gortash cut her off sharply. “If you move too much, you’ll puncture a lung.” 

Karlach reassessed the weird bee sting sensation in her back. There was something wet soaking into her shirt that she was realizing might be blood. 

“You really have the most extraordinary endurance,” Gortash had muttered to himself. 

(Did he use those same words with Zariel’s envoy? Was that the pitch he made when he sold her, haggling up the price?) 

Karlach had been bruised up before. She’d busted a lip, broken a bone, even sliced open her hand bad enough once that her parents had to pay a surgeon to sew her up. She had never been shot, though. Somehow, she’d imagined it would be worse. 

Extracting the arrow hurt more than getting the wound, although the cleric Gortash had paid to close it up told her that injuries taken in the thick of battle didn’t register as much as the pain felt by a patient on the operating table. Karlach was inclined to believe that. Her body had taken care of her, she thought, and made sure that she would be able to fight for her life if she needed to. 

After her shoulder was patched up, mostly to help it stay clean since the healer had already stopped it bleeding, Karlach was bundled up in Gortash’s nicest guest bed and told to rest. She did not feel very restful though. The wound was basically already cured, because her boss had decided to hire a real caster to fix her up instead of sending her home without pay for two weeks. 

She wanted to be up, out on the streets, chasing down whoever that had been on the rooftop, and making them pay for trying to put a hole through the only decent man to work for in this whole ugly city. 

After what felt like hours, Karlach finally heaved herself upright with her good arm and levered her legs out of the bed. She pulled on her trousers awkwardly and draped her shirt on over the bandages before padding out barefoot into the hall. The house felt strangely empty. The marble floors were freezing cold beneath her feet. 

She heard a few muffled voices down in the front hall and she shuffled towards them. Lingering on the stairs for a moment, she caught a few words between Gortash and Daine, one of the newest hires. 

“—no evidence, naturally, but this has Stelmane’s prints on it, I’m certain.” 

“We aren’t ready to move against her openly, sir.” 

“Of course not. But there is someone who might…” 

Karlach made it to the bottom of the stairs and Gortash’s voice trailed off as he noticed her. 

“Karlach,” he said, brow furrowing in displeasure. “You are meant to be resting.” 

“I know, sir, but I actually feel fine,” she protested. “I’d like to make some use of myself.” 

Gortash exchanged a quick look with Daine and then stepped forward to take her by her good arm, guiding her back up the stairs. 

“You may make yourself useful by setting my mind at ease and recovering,” he said firmly.

“Sir, I really would rather—” 

Gortash shook his head before she could finish. 

“I’ll hear no more of this,” he said. “Not until you are back in that bed, lying down.” 

Karlach relented reluctantly, feeling sullen as a child being sent away for an early bedtime. She allowed Gortash to shepherd her back to the guest room and he even lingered in the door to affirm that she was indeed going to lie down again. 

“You’re scowling, Karlach,” Gortash pointed out mildly as she punched a pillow into better shape with her good hand. “Have I offended you?” 

“Not you, sir,” Karlach sighed. “I’m just… I’m so fucking angry. Sorry. But the person who tried to do that to you… I’d really like to show them exactly how dangerous I can be when someone comes for my people.” 

Gortash considered her for a moment, his face very still, as though she was the schematic for some complicated thing he was building in his brain. 

“You were injured,” he finally said, voice quieter and less severe. “On my behalf. And you feel no resentment?” 

“Not your fault, sir,” Karlach said incredulously. “I’m not just in it for the gold, you know. None of us are. There’s a reason I’ve always looked up to the heroes of the Gate, you know. People like Jaheira, Minsc—they stumbled onto an idea worth believing, a person worth following, and then they never worried about whether that would pay the bills.” 

“I suppose you are right,” Gortash nodded, his expression still pensive. “But tell me this, Karlach. You may have a fondness for old tales, but I believe you are a realist deep in your bones. Out on the streets of the Outer City, would you have survived if you gave away your faith so easily?” 

Karlach shrugged and then winced, regretful at having moved her arm. 

“I trust my gut, sir,” she admitted. “It’s kept me alive so far.”

“Then I shall consult your gut,” Gortash continued. “If you were in my place, Karlach, would I be a fool to bind another to share my fate? Would it not be more prudent to rely only on myself to achieve my ambitions?” 

Karlach frowned. Was he feeling guilty, she wondered, asking himself such bitter things all because she had taken an inch of iron into the back of her ribs? 

(Was that how it started? Somewhere beneath the city, a bloody claw was already twitching towards a blade. Had she encouraged him to reach out to it?)

“I think,” she answered after a moment, “that two dangerous motherfuckers are even scarier than one. If you don’t agree, sir, that’s fine. But I don’t think it’s foolish to look at the world and see that no one gets very far on their own. Trust isn’t stupid, I think. It’s too necessary to be stupid.” 

Enver Gortash seemed to consider her words for a moment. The light from the hall was behind him and so she could only really see the gleam on his eyes, the shine of the metal gauntlet he wore on his hand. She could not fathom what thoughts were spinning up in the complex workings of his mind. From the outside, everything was dark. 

“Thank you, Karlach,” he said eventually. “You have given me much to consider. Now, rest. I should hate to lose such great potential.” 

She laid her head down on the pillow. She had closed her eyes. For some odd reason, her heart was beating very fast.

(How many left? How many beats before it was gone for good? She signed her own death sentence. She went to sleep with the killer still in the room.) 

—

Suddenly, it is over. 

She brings the axe down and Enver Gortash’s head opens up and that clever, terrible brain becomes nothing more than a spill of grey paste across the ground. 

She looks down at him, at the man who killed her, and she feels an ache in her chest. She is still dying. 

She pulls the blade free with a wet, sucking sound. Enver Gortash has nothing more to say for himself. 

—

Tav talks her down. Everyone else gives her space that night. Wyll comes up and folds her into a hug, firm and grounding and so very needed. Gale wordlessly cooks up her favorite and Shadowheart hands her a bottle of something strong. Lae’zel offers only a nod and a sign with her hand that Karlach is pretty sure might be a Githyanki salute, which doesn’t really help, but she knows it probably means a whole world coming from Lae’zel. 

She has good friends. She has so many people who remind her that they love her, that they would do anything if it meant that she could stay a little longer. 

And it doesn’t fucking help. 

The next morning, she’s getting dressed when one of the straps on her armor snaps. She’d gotten herself patched up after the fight, but even then, something just had to break. For a few seconds, she just holds the broken strap in her hands, feeling too sorry for herself to even think of fixing it. 

“Here,” a cool voice offers from over her shoulder. “That’s an easy one.” 

Astarion is waiting a few paces away, hand outstretched, ready to mend the tear. He does this often, she knows. He’s pretty good at it. Still, she feels uncertain as she tosses the broken scraps over to him. 

“Want to say your piece, then?” she asks, folding her arms over her chest as he sits down and gets to work. 

“Alright,” Astarion agrees gamely. “I admit, I have been thinking that you ought to try something in emerald, possibly indigo. The black is fetching, but it's getting predictable.” 

Despite herself, Karlach snorts out a laugh. 

“Kinda thought you’d be the one not to pull the punches today,” she admits as he lowers his head back to his stitching. “Honestly, I was hoping you’d just say it—I walked right into this. I fell for it. I got duped. I bought the lie. Good deeds weren’t their own reward and the world isn’t fair, and I shouldn’t have expected it to be.” 

Astarion looks up slowly and meets her gaze with his dark red eyes. There is something a little uncanny about it. He’s too still. 

“Yes,” he finally replies. “That does about sum it up.” 

Karlach huffs out a very bitter laugh. 

“Clearly there’s no justice to be had in this world,” Astarion continues, his tone casual. “I’ll consider this a vindication, I suppose. Because if anything was fair, then there would be no person I can imagine more deserving of a long and happy life.” 

Karlach feels a sudden pricking behind her eyes and she wrinkles her nose to stop the tears from forming. 

“Gods, fangs, I thought I could count on you to be the nasty cynical one,” she sighs, bouncing on the balls of her feet to distract herself from the howl of sadness building up inside her chest. “No more pity, c’mon, just a well-deserved ‘shame on you, Karlach, for being such an idiot. How did you ever put your trust in a villain like that? With a head that thick, you won’t even need a helmet anymore.’” 

Karlach does her worst impression of his voice, but Astarion doesn’t laugh or scowl or roll his eyes. He just pushes the thick needle through the leather, the force of the motion strangely brutal. 

“If that’s what you want, then fine,” he replies haughtily. “I’d say you shouldn’t have trusted Enver Gortash as far as you could throw him... but given what I’ve seen you throw before—” 

“So you get it, then,” Karlach nods, her breathing getting shaky as she swallows down the lump in her throat. “I can’t go back to Avernus, not with my piss-poor record of judgment.”

“You’re nowhere close to Avernus and you managed to fall in with a warlock, a Sharran, a gith, a vampire, and an honest-to-gods mindflayer,” Astarion points out coldly. “And one of those people managed to lift three-hundred gold from your pack last week and you never even noticed. How could the hells possibly get worse than us?” 

Karlach shakes her head in frustration. “It will. You have no idea. I’ll get myself into trouble. I’ll fall for a trick. I’ll lose something worse than just my heart. Or I’ll become the thing that’s worse. Look at what happened to Gortash. If I stay there long enough, get desperate enough for a cure, maybe I’ll be the one trading kids just like me to the devil.” 

Astarion hands stop moving abruptly. 

“I asked him to save me, you know,” he says quietly. “I begged him, told him I’d do anything if he could save my life. And then he did.”

It takes her a moment to realize what he is talking about. 

“It can happen to anyone,” he tells her. “Anyone. Was I such an idiot for just wanting to live?” 

She cannot respond for a moment. He plunges the needle back into the leather. 

Karlach thinks back to Cazador Szarr dead on the ground, leaking crimson the way that Gortash’s head had when it burst. She resists an urge to shiver, despite the burning heat in her blood.  

Astarion silently cuts the thread, testing the strap a few times before he hands it back. 

“There,” he says shortly, his voice oddly brittle. “As I told you, an easy fix.” 

"Guess it doesn’t have to hold for long,” Karlach replies with a wry smile. 

“It will,” Astarion promises and then has to clear his throat several times for some reason. 

Karlach cannot help but soften a little bit. Her soft bits are the parts that make her vulnerable, she knows. Then again, they aren’t what’s actually killing her. It’s the red-hot ball of iron in her chest that’s burning through her life, not the silly, tender urge to squish this vampire into a hug he will definitely refuse. 

She trusted Gortash. Even now, a part of her understands why. He wasn’t evil incarnate, after all. He was a person who hurt her, who’s better off gone, but who started out as a kid making shoes. And she’d been a girl who wanted a lot of things. Right now, she’ll settle for just wanting to live, with all of the risks that entails. 

“I am grateful, you know,” she admits as she fastens on the repaired pauldron. “Even if I am getting the short end of the stick with the engine thing, I know that… in other ways… I still feel really lucky.” 

Astarion finally has the decency to look beleaguered and he flashes her a truly nasty smile. 

“Ugh, enough of that, darling, you’ll make my teeth ache. Hurry up now; I don’t want to be late for the big lobotomy and miss all of the fun.” 

(He’s a liar too. He always reminds you that he’s an objectively stupid person to trust.)

(Shame on me, then. Shame on me.)