Gale lay on the floor of his study, hurting down to the marrow of his bones, waiting for Tara to come back with a magical item. He was just beginning to contemplate whether it was time to leave Waterdeep when several things happened very quickly.

Someone is on him so fast, a hand on his throat and another tearing his shirt, that he is sure he is being attacked. It's too hard to push them off in his current state, and he is about to attack with magic when the thing in his chest begins feeding. Usually it didn't do so outside of his control, but like a beast dying of thirst drinking from a dirty puddle, it has lost all sense -- or maybe he has lost all sense. For a moment when he looks up and sees Harley, he's certain that he has. She's been gone for over a month, and Gale has been telling Tara that whatever amusement the woman found in them had clearly passed and she had moved on, and that she should accept it.

But now she's here, hovering over him, the candlelight at her back making a halo of her frazzled blond hair while the glow from the mark on his chest lights her softly purple from beneath, turning her into a bruised angel. He has a hundred questions, and she has questions of her own, but all he manages is, "I'll replace your ring."