Abdel's breath caught in his throat, and he forced a weary sigh.

"He didn't die in vain," Tethtoril offered.

Abdel looked up and was surprised that Tethtoril seemed to have moved farther away. The sky over the secretive bailey of Candlekeep roiled with green-gray clouds. Abdel could smell lightning but couldn't see it. He was delighted to be able to return to his home with his head held high, but there was a heaviness in the air and someone missing—no, more than someone—too many people. Where was Jaheira? She'd come with him from Baldur's Gate, surely, and there was Xan, but didn't he get lost somewhere along the road? Abdel remembered Xan arguing with the ghoul Korak, then something happened—

"Abdel," Imoen whispered, her breath cool against his bare chest. Abdel didn't remember taking off his shirt. Imoen shivered against him, and he looked down at her. He was easily a foot and a half taller than the girl. Imoen was beginning to fill out, her little girl's pronounced joints smoothing into her arms, her hips rounding, and her ribs fading into smooth, pale skin. Her hair was long, and it blew into Abdel's face, stinging his eyes. He breathed out a little laugh and made to gently pull her away, but she wouldn't let go.

Her small grip on his strong arms tightened and tightened some more when she whispered, "What's happening to me?"

He said her name again, then winced when one of her fingernails pierced his skin. Blood ran out of the wound, trailing down the top of her finger and past her wrist.

"Something's happening to me," she whispered, her voice deteriorating into a guttural, inhuman grunt. She actually snorted, spraying Abdel with freezing-cold spittle.

"Imoen," he said, and when she didn't respond, he pushed her away more forcefully. He might have been the only man on the Sword Coast able to push back against her suddenly superhuman strength, but he had no time to be pleased with his physical prowess. He hissed at the sight of this young girl's face. Her normally refined features were twisted and ugly, and her mouth was growing into a gaping, fang-lined abyss. A tongue, forked and long like a snake's, shot out and tasted Abdel's bare chest with a touch so chill it made the huge sellsword shudder.