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Summary
In a 1920s Faerûn traveling freakshow, Astarion—Gentleman Geek and reluctant performer-whisperer—is tasked with fixing the newest attraction: a melancholic merman. But the creature in the tank isn't a gaff. He's Gale, tricked and cursed by a hag to live in a freshwater tank and perform for gawking crowds.
When Astarion secretly brings him pilfered salt, something deeper than duty begins to bloom between the bloodsucker and the storm-eyed merman.
For one bright instant the car lit like a stage. The merman whipped around, eyes catching the storm—hazel, wild, electric—and fixed Astarion with a glare so sharp it could have drawn blood. Sun-browned shoulders. A tail the color of bruised twilight. Gills tattered along neck and ribs. The purple scar sprawling from chest to cheek.
Names are easy things to give when the other mouth cannot argue back, but this time the Gentleman Geek felt something different stir. The merman did not like being called Murray.
“Gale,” he murmured, tasting the word like brine.