With a pen and dash of sadism.

You let your fingers trail along your dog's memorial photo, wreathed in black as tradition and perched in front of the window like a sign at a zoo, telling the viewer what animal is on display... and then move on.

After your dog is your parents, two photo with blurry faces standing in front of the crash, frozen in time. The glass protects you, and you walk away, brushing yen bills off your shoulder. You know the order of events by now. Your kidnapping, a paper ticket in your hand you let flutter to the ground. Death, piles of bodies behind glass, a parade of friends and acquaintances still and motionless, the opposite wall covered in rows and rows of photos.

You can recall every name, even if the rest is a blur. But it's safe behind glass. It doesn't hurt.

You walk through a half-lit examination room, spotlights on you and the doctor who told you that you had a year or less left to live. His voice is the drone of a cheap air conditioner, and you walk out of the room.

Paper is in your hand and you only spare it a glance now -- you don't drop it, letting the acceptance letter remain in your grasp as you approach Hope's Peak. Even knowing this part of the dream, it still makes something stir in your chest. You don't belong here, not among them. You're a lump of coal among stars, and just the chance to bathe in their light, their hope, was beyond fathoming. Beyond any arrogant dreams. You're...so very lucky.

You keep walking forward, expecting the dream to end with a tug at your ankle -- that’s how it’s ended for a while now -- but it...doesn’t. You walk towards the gate, somewhat puzzled, and this time you enter the campus before you. But-- as soon as you do, everything vanishes. It all vanishes, plunging you into pitch black darkness. You can’t even see the hand you lift to your face, and...and it almost feels like you’re without a body, just existing in this black expanse. Only your fingers on your cheek tell you otherwise.

You’re not afraid of the dark. You keep walking.

You walk, and continue to do so, until you hear a splash. You blink, confused, and step forward. Splash again. Are you standing in water? You look down and see blackness, and frown, and keep moving. If you can’t see it...there’s no point in trying to investigate further.

Slowly, light begins to bleed in around you, sick and red, and you’re on a road that’s all broken pavement, and you smell smoke and blood thick enough to make you cough. You stop to catch your breath, bending slightly, and you see what you’ve been walking in.

It’s blood. Your shoes and the bottom of your pants are soaked in it, thick and red and fresh, and a gasp escapes you. It’s puddled beneath your feet, inches of it, a sea of it, and you spin around to see it stretches behind you, sticky footprints in a sea of crimson. You look around you, trying to find the source, confused and feeling your heart start to beat faster.

Bodies. More of them, more than your old dead friends, hundreds and hundreds of bodies, piled on either side of you. The blood pours from them, collecting where you stand, and you hear screams now, too -- see people, blank and faceless, nameless and anonymous, running, screaming, torn apart by familiar black-and-white bears with their half-grinning faces and their sharp claws.

...Towa City, you realize. It’s Towa. Your heart picks up the pace, beating loud in your chest like a gong being struck, fast like a drumbeat in one of Ibuki’s songs. Your breath is audible, too, you realize. No, it-- there’s no glass. There’s no wall, no careful partition between you and your memories, keeping them from hurting, from overwhelming. You’re in this and you’re part of this, and then you look at your hands, they’re red and sticky too, dripping gore.

As much as you hate it, hate them, hate everything about it...you know you were part of this. You did this. You were a member of Ultimate Despair. The thought, the words, they strike you in the gut and you double over, frantically wiping bloody hands on your jacket, your shirt, hardly registering the clothes you’re in until the collar around your throat bites into your skin. It’s that that sets you off, then, and you break into a run. You hate running, it leaves you out of breath and dizzy and feeling like you’re about to faint, but you run. The sound of blood splattering under your feet echoes in the air like gunshots, and the memories chase you like wolves at your heels.

The despair you caused, the sins you committed, the people you hurt. You believed in your cause, that you were causing despair for the hope that would follow, but to cause so much suffering-- is that right, to cause it? You aren’t sure, you don’t think so. There is enough pain in the world for hope to flourish without people to force despair down humanity’s throats.

You don’t know. You never know for sure. You do what you think, you do what you believe, and you never know for sure if it’s right. You know you hurt people, but you don’t know why. You don’t know why it hurts them. You know what it is that hurt and you try not to repeat it but you don’t know why.

But-- but this you, the you that caused all this, didn’t even care to stop. You had your goal and your beliefs and your shining ideal and you helped drench this city in blood for it, and you didn’t care. You couldn’t and didn’t want to even try. You thought it was wonderful, glorious, a game-- a game--

The ghost of a girl you once knew whispers past in your memories -- I love games, she said. Killing is wrong, no matter what, she said. -- and something in your chest feels like a burst balloon.

You stop running, legs wobbling and breath wheezing, and it’s only when you see the edges of wheels in front of you that you look up.

The children-- you remember them. They lie there, the five of them, dead. Blood stains their clothing, eyes stare out at nothing-- at you, accusingly-- lined up all in a row. The hero, his red hair matted with blood and the fighter, her skirt torn and headband broken, sit to the left. To the right, the priest, mask gone and face battered and the sage, tears staining his cheeks. And in the middle, her. She’s slumped in her wheelchair, eyes closed, drooping to the side.

You stumble forward, reaching out to straighten her without knowing why--

Her eyes snap open and they’re Junko Enoshima’s, swirling black abysses of despair, and she laughs that horrible echoing giggle, and she grabs the chain of your collar in both hand and pulls, pulls with strength she shouldn’t have, and you gasp and choke and fall forward into blackness again.

You pull yourself to your feet, not recognizing where you are at first. Your hands and body are clean, and you wear your familiar green jacket, and you walk forward in the dim light until you hear another splash and your toe hits something soft and large. You freeze this time, and slowly look down.

The Impostor’s eyes stare up at you from behind unneeded glasses, lying on his back with the skewer sticking out of his chest like he himself was a piece of meat. Blood stains his white suit, and the ground beneath him, and you choke out a noise and stagger backwards. As you do you see next to him a smaller corpse, burnt as to be unrecognizable, but the red scarf in tatters at its neck tells you it’s Teruteru.

You want to cry out, but your voice won’t work in the dream. You know you did this. You know you didn’t regret. You know why you did it-- your goals, your ideals, for the sake of hope. Everything you do is for the sake of hope. Everything you’ve ever done. For hope. You do what you do and no one ever tells you it’s wrong until after you do it, because you cannot tell. You have never been able to tell.

You have never told anyone -- you told one person, but you told him it was a lie, you told him too late -- about your rotting brain. You have never told anyone that you cannot understand wrong or right, cannot understand why not to do what you want to do, cannot understand when people are being insincere, cannot understand when you say something strange, cannot cannot cannot. You know these things, but you cannot change them. You have always been this way, as long as you can recall clearly. You are worthless, you are trash, you know this too. You hurt people and you don’t understand anything, even when all you want to do is help. You just want to help, to encourage, to be useful somehow.

But you know you can’t even do that properly, and the bodies before you are proof.

You wobble, reaching out towards the corpses you made, but something catches your eye in the distance and you move forward.

It’s Mahiru, you realize, blood dripping from her hair and her head. Peko leans against her, bleeding from too many wounds, glasses shattered on her face and tears on her cheeks. Your breath catches and you walk faster.

Ibuki is there, rope burns on her neck. Hiyoko lays beside her, kimono in shambles and blood dripping from her throat. Mikan lays nearby, skirt hiked up and legs spread perversely, eyes wide and dark with despair and smile nearly splitting her face in two. You avert your eyes and you walk faster.

Nekomaru is there then, robotic body smashed and stained with oil, and Gundam lies beside him, bruised and broken.

You let out some sort of noise, words still stuck, and then you look ahead of you-- you see five shadows, familiar in outline, and you break into a run.

Your breath comes in short gasps as you do -- it seems like you’re running forever -- but your voice returns and you cannot recognize the emotion in it. “Hajime!” You cry out. “Fuyuhiko! Kazuichi! Sonia, Akane!” You break off to gasp. “Hajime!”

They do not answer, and there is a sharp pain in your legs that makes you gasp and stagger, looking down to see blood blooming on your thighs, a dozen cuts tearing up your jeans. You look down to see your hand bleeding, your arm bleeding, your white shirt stained with blood. You let out a shuddering breath and try to run further, but you trip and you fall.

You trip and you fall and you feel wetness on your cheek where it hits the ground, the smell of blood enough to make you gag.

You struggle to sit up and Chiaki’s bloody body stares at you from inches away, her face turned towards you as if trying to tell you something.

You scream. You didn’t know you could make that sound. She doesn’t vanish.

You reach for her, apologies dying on lips that don’t deserve to speak them. It wasn’t the real Chiaki you got killed, but you still killed her-- you killed the real one, too. A secret you have never spoken aloud: you think that it was your luck that put her in Junko’s sights. Because she was kind to you, because she was the only one that treated you like part of the class. Because she made you happy, your luck murdered her.

It’s an arrogant, selfish thought to think -- it was because she was the glue, because the whole class loved her, that she was killed. She was their heart and their hope. It’s the height of hubris to think a worthless person like you was a cause. But you cannot stop that thought.

You still cradle her in your arms a moment, this girl the world did not deserve, this shining star whose death had destroyed the rest of you. You close her eyes with a hand that shakes, unable to articulate why it’s doing that, and you think to yourself that it might be a good thing you aren’t sure how to cry anymore.

You ran out of tears a long time ago, you think. If you still knew how to cry, there wouldn’t be anything left.

You lay her down, gently, and step over her, continuing towards the five that wait in the distance.

You get closer, and closer, and then another scream rips out of you as you see them clearly at last -- they too are bloody, pale with death, clothing torn and faces dripping crimson. Their eyes are open, and they stare at you accusingly.

“No,” you manage. You don’t know why you say it. Isn’t this what you had wanted, once? You had wanted to kill them all. They had caused so much despair. You had too. Of course you wanted them all to die, yourself included. Despair couldn’t be suffered to live. “No,” you repeat. Were they still despair, though? You know-- you know they’re trying to change. You know Hajime’s eyes here are wrong. They’re the wrong color, both pale green. You know this is the past, not the future, and that they aren’t despair or hope anymore. You don’t know what any of you are anymore, but you think that’s the point.

You don’t know if you can change. You don’t think so. But they are, the stars you adore so much, that had been stained black. They aren’t white or black anymore, they’re grey, and you aren’t sure you can understand greyness-- but for hope, you know you’ve tried.

You reach for them, and then Hajime moves.

His hands lift, and-- and he grabs you by the throat, fingers squeezing hard until you choke and gasp and claw helplessly at his arms. But his grip is iron, and you can barely wheeze out his name.

“You did this,” he says, voice cold and hard with hate. “You caused this. All this death is your fault. You started the game-- you’re the one to blame for everything.”

You can’t defend yourself, your voice stolen with your breath, but even if it wasn’t, he’s right. Your legs give and you fall to the floor and he follows, knee on your chest as he keeps pressing fingers into your throat.

“You’re sick,” Hajime accuses viciously. “You’re twisted. What kind of hope do you want? What kind of hope causes this much bloodshed? That isn’t hope. Nothing but despair came from any of this. We never found hope. We found strength in each other, but we never found hope. You’re blind to the damage you cause, you’re blind to how insane you are-- how could we ever accept you? We should have let you starve.”

Oh, you think. You still have tears after all.

You try to speak, wheezing helplessly, and Hajime eases his grip enough that you can gasp desperately. Your voice breaks, but you keep trying. “I just--” You try. “I wanted to help,” you insist weakly. “I just wanted to be useful to you all.”

“Well, you weren’t,” he snarls. “You’re right, Nagito, you’re worthless. You’re fucked up, you’re dangerous, and you shouldn’t be here. You should have died first, to your own trick.”

“I know that!” You shout, and you even startle yourself. “I know. I wanted to.” Your voice shakes. “That was the plan. I was hoping--” you were hoping Teruteru would kill you, but the Impostor, he-- “I can’t,” you say, admitting another secret aloud. “I know I can’t. Nothing ever kills me. Every close call, every disaster that happens around me, nothing ever kills me. Not even when it should.” You could show him the scars on your body -- not a ridiculous amount, but proof aside that nothing can end it, no matter how viciously fate tries -- but your hands shake too much to even lift your shirt. “It’s always everyone around me, and never me. Why do you think I haven’t tried to do it myself? Because it wouldn’t work!”

You’re not stupid enough to attempt suicide -- if every single disaster leaves you untouched, if you’ve lived years longer than you were supposed to with two fatal diseases, you would never be able to end it yourself-- even the time you succeeded, the one time you tried, it had been assisted...and then not even real. But that doesn’t mean you don’t want it to stop.

“You know,” Hajime says. “For someone who’s so obsessed with hope, you don’t seem to have any. How hypocritical.”

You laugh, and you smile up at him, hollow and empty. “I know,” you say again, because you do, and the final secret leaves your lips. “I know I am. I’ve been in despair far longer than I’ve even known the word. That’s why I cling to hope. That’s why I fight for it, why I believe in it so much. I have to.” Your voice shakes. “I have to.”

That is what you’re built on. That is what you’ve built yourself on, from the ground up. The knowledge that you -- worthless, rotting, empty you, with your luck that tears everything you have apart only to give you happiness, fleeting like cherry blossoms and worthless in its transience, gone with the next disaster -- are standing above a pit of blackest, deepest despair, standing on the thinnest branch, and all you have to keep yourself from falling is a rope called hope. A rope called hope that you cling to with all your might, believe in with everything your fractured mind can muster. You have to. If you doubt, if you falter, you will fall.

You live like this -- you live, afraid and alone and hopeful despite your awareness that you are worthless trash that can’t do anything, can’t shine like the hopeful lights you adore, you live with a too-sharp awareness of everything that can go wrong in any situation you’re in, with a heart always close to panic and a head that’s rotting from the inside out and stealing your rationality, your coherency, your ability to understand humanity -- and you hope with all your might that you can be useful to those you love. Just once, just one thing. You are going to die one day, one day soon, and all you want, all you have ever wanted, is for it to be given meaning. To bring hope with your last breath.

(All you want, all you have ever wanted, is to not be alone in the end. To be loved when you take your last breath.)

“Hajime,” you manage, still smiling, and you lift bloody hands to his cheeks. “If it makes you feel better, do it. Please. If my death can make you happy, I-- that’s all I want.” He stares at you with green eyes that don’t look right. “I just wanted to help,” you say again. “To help you all, the only way someone like me could. I know it was wrong. I don’t know why, but I know it hurt you. And I’m sorry. If my death can make it better…please. Do it. If I can make you happy, then I’ll be happy too.” Your voice cracks, and you don’t understand why. “I just want you to be happy. I love you all so much...”

His hands tighten. “Shut up,” he says, and you comply. Your hands are still on his cheeks, and they leave red streaks as your vision greys and your arms lose strength, fingertips sliding down his face.

You wake up with a choked gasp, a hand going to your throat.

You’re fine, you realize. You’re lying in bed in your cottage, tangled in the sheets, the night sky peeking in through the blinds you haven’t gotten around to replacing with curtains. It really was just a dream.

You know that, you think, but in the end you’d forgotten. But…you still feel shaken all the same. Those cold eyes and that hateful tone...you shudder reflexively and untangle yourself, sliding shoes on to pad quietly out into the night.

Everyone else is asleep still, on this real Jabberwock Island. Ryota is using the cabin that had belonged to Chiaki in the Program. You’re all alive. You’re all trying to move forward. Well...everyone else is. You still don’t know if you’re capable of it. You aren’t angry at the others anymore, at least. You don’t want to kill them. You think that’s a good thing.

Your artificial arm whirrs a little as you enter the hotel -- it doesn’t like the sea breeze much, you’ve found -- and you stop at the game consoles in the lobby. You stare down at them a moment, uncertain, before heading up the stairs towards the restaurant. You can’t sleep, and you don’t like taking walks at night (too dangerous) but a simple cup of tea might at least help.

You don’t expect anyone else to be awake -- hoping not; you’ve been avoiding everyone almost constantly since you all returned here and now is not a good time to change that -- and you stop with a little exhale of surprise when you see Hajime at one of the tables, staring out the window.

He jumps and turns to you, and one of his eyes is red. Green and red-- that’s it. That’s why the dream had looked wrong. You relax slightly, but can’t keep eye contact, still remembering how cold his eyes had been. You just lift a hand and wave, briefly, moving to the counter to find things to make tea.

You hope he leaves you be. You think he will. You don’t know, though. You don’t know him anymore, not like you thought you did. But he doesn’t know you, either.

You don’t quite realize what you’re doing until you hear footsteps behind you, and Hajime’s hands come around to stop yours. “That’s not a mug, Nagito,” he says, and you can’t name the emotion in his voice. “Are you still asleep?”

“Oh,” you say, finally registering that you were about to pour water onto your empty hand instead of into a cup. You laugh, but it sounds fake even to your ears, and you usually have a hard time picking up on that. “I suppose so. Haha, that would have hurt...”

There’s silence, and Hajime nudges you aside, grabbing a cup and fixing your tea for you. “Bad dream?” He asks, looking at you askance. The side you’re on, you can only see his green eye, and your voice catches.

“N-No,” you say. “It’s nothing.”

He doesn’t believe you and you can see it. He puts the mug down and turns to face you fully. “It isn’t,” he says. “You can talk to me, Nagito. If something’s bothering you, tell me.”

You stare at him, and you remember his hands at your throat, and the hate in his eyes-- but his hands are at his sides, now, and his eyes are soft with concern (concern you hardly deserve), and you look away.

“I’m sorry,” you say finally, and you can’t see his face but you hear an inhale. “Someone like me shouldn’t...burden you with things like this. It’s selfish.”

“It isn’t,” he says. “It’s what friends do.”

“Are we friends?” You ask. “I thought you all...” They all dislike you. Think you weird, off-putting, strange -- even on your good days, before it went wrong, when you knew the things you couldn’t understand and tried to work around it, when you knew that causing despair wasn’t necessary to spread hope and would never dream of doing it -- and even now you feel apart, unwelcome, not even truly a classmate to the others, let alone a friend.

You love them all deeply, more than anything else in the world, but you know they do not feel the same. Especially not after what you’ve done. You did worse than them and you know it-- worse because you did it without your memories of the darkest days.

“You...you are to me,” Hajime admits slowly, sounding uncertain at first before becoming more firm. “Even...on your worst days, in the Program, I-- I wanted to understand you. I still want that. I don’t know about the others, but I...I know you were just doing what you thought was right. It was wrong, what you did, and I don’t know if I can forgive you for it, but you were...genuine, at least, in wanting to help.” He laughs awkwardly. “I guess that means I am starting to understand you.”

You have no words to that for a moment. “...but won’t that make me predictable?” You ask, the smallest of smiles on your face, wondering if you can push back, wondering if he’ll take the bait like he always used to, back off and give up like all the times before this. “I thought you didn’t like that, Izuru.”

He blinks, startled-- eyes grow colder by a few degrees, a moment, and you stiffen, but then...to your surprise, they warm again. “I don’t think you’ll ever be predictable, no matter how much I understand you,” he says finally, smiling. “That’s why I like you.”

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” you say, feeling something strangely warm bloom in your chest even if you can’t stop the sharp stab of panic from crossing your face and bleeding into your voice. “It’s dangerous. My luck...has a way of turning on people who say those things.”

His smile doesn’t falter. “You’re not the only one with Ultimate Luck,” he says. “Don’t forget. And mine is stronger. I’m not afraid of being your friend.” He reaches out to take your hand in his, your real one. “You...shouldn’t be afraid of that, either. Alright?”

The warmth in your chest burns. “...It’s shameful of me to be afraid after you say something like that,” you tell him. “To doubt an Ultimate…that’s low of me.”

“I wasn’t always an Ultimate,” he says. “And it’s fine to be afraid. Just because you shouldn’t be doesn’t mean it’s wrong if you are. Don’t worry, Nagito. We’ll face the future together. I promised the others that, too, and...I can promise you I’ll make sure you don’t have any more reasons to be afraid. Okay?”

You’re quiet for a moment. “...I love-- I love all of you,” you say, faltering at the last minute, coward as you are. “I just...don’t want my luck to cause you any more trouble. I’ve done enough.”

“It won’t,” Hajime says confidently. “We can handle it. And you have us to make sure you won’t do anything that awful or stupid again, you know? Talk to us when you think of doing something, and we can tell you if it’ll hurt anyone. If you can’t rely on yourself to judge your own actions, rely on us.”

You remember then that you did tell him, and he can probably tell you lied when you said you’d been joking. He probably looked it up. “...I’ll do that,” you say. You think you can trust them. They have no reason to lie about things like that. “Thank you, Hajime.”

He grins at you, squeezing your hand before letting go -- and the coldness of its absence is saddening somehow -- and hands over your mug. You sip at it quietly a moment, savoring the warmth (and wishing he was still holding your hand).

He’s leaning on the counter, watching you, and you’re not sure what gives you the courage to speak again -- mismatched eyes on you, perhaps, the lingering warmth of his hand, or your current hyperawareness of the anxiety and self-loathing that forever sits sharp and cold in your veins -- but it happens.

“...do you think,” you say quietly, “that someone like me deserves to believe in hope as much as I do? Or is it...presumptuous, after everything I’ve done? It’s foolish to think about things like that, I know, but…”

“...It’s not about deserving to,” Hajime says after a moment. “But I think if anyone deserves to believe in hope, it’s you. You’re...a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for, Nagito. You only told me a fraction of what your life’s been like, and...you deserve to believe in hope, after all the despair you’ve been through even before you came to Hope’s Peak or met Junko. That you’re still here...you definitely set an example for the rest of us on believing.”

You stare at him a moment, and then laugh. “I’m not strong at all,” you say. “I’m weak, the weakest person here. Even if I believe in hope, it’s...hollow compared to yours. It’s not true hope, it’s…” You go quiet. “It’s the shallow, fragile, insincere hope of someone who’s lying to themselves that they aren’t already in despair.”

“I think that means it’s strong,” Hajime says, looking strangely amused. “You aren’t hearing yourself, are you? Your standards are way too high. The fact that you’ve suffered so much, but you still get up in the morning to face every day, even knowing that disaster could strike at any time-- that’s the strongest kind of hope, far as I’m concerned. Hope isn’t about an absence of despair, Nagito. That’s...what I’ve learned. It’s not about destroying despair, either. It’s...feeling despair and striding forward anyway. You can’t just kill despair, burn it to the roots and salt the earth. It doesn’t go away. We’re proof of that, after all.” He shakes his head, his smile fading, but looks back at you again. “You accept it’s there and move forward despite it. That’s what got us out of the Program safely. It’s what the world has to do, to heal. You’re not weak for hurting, you’re strong for being here regardless.”

You blink. You’re...oddly blank. You don’t know how to react to any of what Hajime’s said, how to react to what he means. Your hope is...strong? That fraying little rope that keeps you from falling into the abyss? You can’t understand it, any of it. Hope was...not an absence of despair, not its opposite, but...just accepting the pain and living anyway? You can’t…you think in black and white, you know that. Hope and despair, absolute good and evil. To imagine that it’s not so simple is...

Hajime frowns and winces, laughing sheepishly. “That’s...alright, so that’s a lot to dump on you,” he admits. “Especially you. Just promise me you’ll think about what I said, Nagito? Even if it seems hard to understand.”

“...I’ll try,” you say after a long silence. “Even if someone like me can’t…I’ll try, I suppose. Because you asked.”

Hajime grins. “That’s what hope’s all about. Trying anyway,” he says, and then takes your shoulder in a hand. “Now, uh...you should probably sit down. You don’t have to tell me what your bad dream was about, but...we can talk until we’re both up for sleeping.”

It’s only then you think to wonder why he’s up, and you feel a little less alone when you realize the answer. Everyone has bad nights, it seems.

You let him steer you to the table by the window, and you both talk for a while. The moon is high above the distant beach, and...it feels like the first little while in the Program, when you were just two worried teenagers, before...well. It’s nice, you think, and you’re pretty sure you can trust your judgement on that.

You’re...you think you’re happy, you realize. To have a friend like Hajime -- that he wants to be your friend despite what you’ve done to him -- to be alive and living with the person you...all the people you love… Even with everything that’s happened, you’re happy right now.

You wonder...if this is what he meant. If this is the hope you’ve been searching for, the hope you believe in so deeply and so fiercely.

You’re confused how you got there, weirded out, but that’s fine! This could be interesting, right? An escape game, and the robot mecha in the hall make it way more fun. That you’re not alone is even better, and there’s a robot! A real robot! With AI and everything! You chase him around a bit asking questions, but you’re interrupted by some other kids you bother, and end up in the gym.

The stuffed bears are unexpected, and the game they present is even worse. A game where you have to kill people? That’s bad enough, but that they don’t have a choice makes it the worst thing you’ve ever heard of. Of course, you can’t say that, so you don’t. You lie! You’re really good at lying.

Lying hard enough can make lies the truth, after all, and if you lie enough you can even convince yourself this is okay.

It’s really not, but the girl from earlier gets you all together, and you think she’s a very good heroine. Like a superhero, all inspiring and bright. You get mad at her when she gets a little too bossy, a little too determined, but she caves quick enough. And besides, it was fun the first couple times, that crazy escape route! It just got boring when you figured out you weren’t gonna beat it.

Not yet, anyway. You just don’t have the right items. And you’re the Ultimate Supreme Leader, after all -- you’ll come up with some that might work.

In any case, miss heroine has an effect, and none of you kill each other. You’re so very good at not killing each other, you think, that it pisses the game master off. And that, you realize at that moment, is how you win. It’s one of those games where you win by not playing at all, and knowing that is the best tool you have.

Well, then the bear gives you all a two day deadline to start killing, or you all die.

You lie, lie, lie, and lie some more, and smiling is really easy -- it is, you figured that out a long time ago, it’s just moving muscles in your face, it has nothing to do with your real feelings -- but you can’t trick yourself all the way, and cry yourself to sleep the first night. But after that you think about it, and you’re okay with it. You like to win. It’s not a very fun game, no, but you won’t give that bear the satisfaction of beating you. None of you are going to let him win this game, this battle of attrition. No one will kill anyone, you’ll all die, and it’s the best middle finger you sixteen can give. You think it’s funny, once you finally manage to believe your own lie.

Then the body discovery announcement plays, and you think -- damn it, this is why you don’t trust people.

You figure out what happened within minutes, though, and it’s hilarious in the worst sort of way. The heroine tried to be the heroine, and ended up being a murderer. You have to admit, if it had worked, it was brilliant, and it still was! Really clever, with the books and all. But it didn’t, and-- she doesn’t take the out. You...can’t believe it. She doesn’t take the out. She stays quiet and forces it to go to trial, and…

That means she doesn’t leave alone, and that means she’ll die. Either she dies or everyone else does, and you know she’s not going to let the latter happen. She’s a heroine, after all.

The trial should be fun, honestly. A super fun fake trial, for a fake murder. Crimes! Culprits! Drama! Intrigue! Lies! It’s a great idea and great fun, but...you still can’t get the image of the mystery boy out of your head, crumpled on the floor in a red pool of blood, still and unmoving. He’s dead. Someone’s dead. You saw a dead body, and now you have to convict a murderer and watch them die too.

It’s about halfway through the trial when you figure out someone has to be watching this, somewhere -- someone the mastermind’s performing for -- and that gets you through the rest of it, the sheer blinding anger that someone thinks it’s fun to watch murders. Anger is easier to lie through, though, because you can focus that venom into other lies and nasty smiles, and you know by the end of this they’ll all hate you, but that’s not anything new. Someone has to be the hate sink, after all! It gives them one person to unite in not trusting, and if you’re all going to win, you have to be united.

Miss heroine passes the torch to the shy detective, and you’re not sure if he can hack it, honestly -- he cries the whole time, and can’t even speak through half of it -- so you decide to help. She had your goal, after all, to win this stupid game, even if she was sickeningly trusting about it, so you’re just going to keep doing that.

And besides, she wasn’t boring. She was a great heroine, and you’ll miss her.

You don’t expect the execution, though. You pictured the podium opening under her, sucking her in and making her vanish, or something pulling her into a dark hallway, just...making her vanish. Or if she had to die in front of you, you thought it would be something quick.

You don’t expect that.

You lie and lie and lie again, even if you can’t hide your tears at first -- you play it off, though, because lying is so easy and you refuse to let anyone see the real you -- but when you get back to your room you throw up in the toilet and doze off crying on the bathroom floor. You should have figured it out, you think. You’re a criminal mastermind. You’re a supervillain. You should have guessed the mastermind before anyone else had to die. But you didn’t, and now the image of the heroine’s limp body dangling in the air, eyes wide, the image of the closed piano, blood pouring out from under the lid...you’ll never forget it. Never. And maybe the detective blames himself for it, and that’s fine, but you do too.

So you vow then and there that you’re going to win this game and show this stupid mastermind that you don’t stick a supervillain in a killing game and expect to come out on top.

You find it easier to lie to everyone now that they’ve decided they don’t like you. They won’t believe anything you say, now, and that’s great, because you can tell them your truths and they’ll doubt it. And if you want to tell them truths they need to know, you’ll just play off the detective and let him do it. He’s smart, even if he’s a bit of a wimp. It’s a game, you tell yourself, and you’re going to win. You don’t care what you have to do to do it.

You sneak out and find a message on a stone in the courtyard, then, and you figure, hey. You can use that, that and the other one. They have to be important, but...you can use it for something else, too.

But that’s not so important at the moment, because you remember some more -- a hunt? You wish you knew more than that -- and you get a video. You get yours, as a matter of fact, and you remember the others. You panic for a moment -- are they okay? Oh, no, did something happen, you have to help -- but then you lie again and make yourself be okay. It’s fine. You’ll win. They’ll be okay.

But the videos are dangerous, you think. Especially when you catch on that not everyone got their own. You think, and you think, and you decide to make everyone watch everyone’s. It’ll even the playing field, and no one will have secrets. And you can judge who to watch out for, too; whose motive is important enough to make them kill for it?

You tell a truth, then, aiming for the heart of it -- cooperating is dumb. The more everyone is all happy hand-holding friendly, the more likely it is the mastermind will figure out some other awful way to cut it short, like the time limit. No one believes you, no one listens, and you get yelled at -- but that’s fine. It’s in the air now, and they’ll think about it. It’s fine. You’ll win anyway, even if these idiots keep being stupid. Then they’ll see.

You decide to use bug boy, who’s big and nice and trusting -- even if you absolutely loathe bugs -- to help you, and you don’t feel bad about it at all! That’s not even a lie, because this’ll help, and it’s funny to see everyone’s faces when they realize they’re in insect hell. You bail to go collect the videos, and you come back -- way later than you wanted because apparently maid mom took you seriously and tried to actually mom you, something you hated but also kind of liked -- but the dumb stupid robot has a tape recorder, and you get stuck in there with the bugs instead. You can’t remember the rest of that afternoon, and it’s embarrassing, but at last you got to see all the motives.

Finding out that scary girl is an assassin just motivates you more. You don’t care how nice she might be or how useful, she’s a killer and you’ll suspect her no matter what, now. She kills people. No one who kills people can be a good person. That’s her lie.

Anyway, you decide not to go to the magic show the next day. Not because you don’t like magic shows -- you love them! -- but because the religious nut is weird and stupid and you don’t want to encourage her. Just stay happy here together? Not a chance. That’s not even not playing, that’s just giving up. You wouldn’t mind no more murders, sure, but...to just not even try to win? Not even try to get out? Stupid.

But then someone dies, and you’re nearly sick on the floor when you get there and see bones and bloody water, and you can’t-- no way. You’re investigating elsewhere, because there’s no way you can stomach that. You get mad and let truth slip, and cry, because after the first murder you thought no one else would be that stupid, and this is why you’d wanted to watch the motive videos, but people are stupid and untrustworthy and you hate them all. No one believes you mean it, though, and that’s fine. You can play it off and go hide in the bathroom to throw up before heading to investigate the magic trick. You like magic tricks, you know a bunch of card tricks and sleight of hand stuff for fun, and this is awesome. You can figure out a damn water escape trick.

Well, you know the baby witch didn’t do it, but the trick is still important. Even supervillains know to check every angle.

(Okay, you decide after you’re calm -- you’re fine, you’re fine, that’s a lie but you’ll believe it -- you don’t hate them. They’re all stupid, though.)

You bring tennis man’s video to the trial. It’s going to be useful, because you’re almost completely sure scary lady did it. Maybe it’s bias, but she’s an assassin, she’s automatically ten times more likely.

Well, okay, so it’s either scary lady or space moron, and you think it’ll be great to hear them duke it out, front row seats to a one-on-one argument. But the detective butts in, and then the stupid space moron proves himself the stupidest person here -- how can he just believe in people without proof or anything!? It’s awful and you hate it. He’s going to die and he’s going to take everyone with him because he refuses to look at the truth, he refuses to think logically. How can he be so trusting?

And you hate it more because he’s right, she’s right, and the detective is right. Believing in people worked, and you’re mad because the detective lied, but at the same time a little bit proud because it got you all on the right track again. He’s learning, even if he won’t admit it.

Then the culprit is exposed, and it’s maid mom, and you successfully manage to hide how hurt you are at that, because what the hell, she was so nice. She was nice to all of you, and you never had a mom, so it was nice, but she ended up being awful. Sure, maybe she thinks people outside are more important, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t, and it’s gross that she thinks she can just make people die for her sake and that she’s more important, gross that she tries to make someone die for her.

You still feel sick watching her die, though. It’s not about being awful or not, no one deserves to die, not ever. And these executions aren’t...they’re wrong. They’re sick and over the top and you’re more sure than ever this is a show someone is putting on, because if it wasn’t it wouldn’t matter and you could just execute them normally. But this is staged, so obviously staged, and your resolve to ruin everything and win is...strengthened.

You’re fine. You’re not scared or angry or upset or whatever. You’re fine.

You get sick of scary girl’s lies, when you leave, and call her out, and you’re scared for a few seconds when she grabs you -- but no one lets her hurt you. You know it’s more because no one wants a murder than it is that they care about you, but it’s a nice lie.

You show them her lab the next day, and space moron takes responsibility, and you think that maybe he can at least babysit her.

The fourth floor is awesome, you think. It’s like a horror movie or a haunted house, and creepy mask boy’s lab is the neatest thing, even if he won’t let you touch stuff (and the stupid sword means your hands are sticky gold for an hour). Religious nut girl’s lab is weirder -- not for what it is, but because of the locking thing and because they all seem to be exactly what their owners want, with exactly what they like. It’s suspicious, and you hope detective boy picked up on it.

You remember your funeral, then, and it’s a bit upsetting, but you don’t feel dead and you’re no zombie or vampire, so you brush it off.

The next morning is just weirder. Bringing someone back? Impossible. The stupidest motive ever. But apparently not so stupid, because religious nut girl believes it, and so do her new crazy brainwashed disciples. Morons, all of them, especially because she got them to give up too, and like hell are you going to stop fighting. You’re going to win.

Nothing happens for two days, and you’re glad -- even if the new stupid council is giving you a hard time -- and you get to work on your plans. No one misses a whiteboard since no one’s using the classrooms, and the warehouse is awesome. You have tons of stuff in your room, and it’ll do for your supervillain plotting lair until your lab opens. Maybe you could be doing other things, sure, but...no one wants to hang out with you anyway. It’s fine.

You’re antsy and bored, though, and end up wandering up to the fourth floor in the hopes creepy mask boy is gone and you can poke around his lab, but then no one can get into the art lab and priestess nutcase isn’t answering, so you open the door for them even with sick fear in your gut that’s proven right when she’s dead on the floor.

Creepy mask boy suggests a seance, and you think it’s dumb, but also the idea of it working is enough for you to decide to help out. You help bring stuff to the room chosen, and coerce detective boy into participating when he sticks his nose in. Baby witch and the man hater are there too, and so’s robot boy but you kick him out, and that’s fine, you know sci-fi and fantasy don’t mix well.

The whole thing is dramatic and fun, and the song is spooky, and you feel like you’re in a horror movie or a horror game and you love every second. You almost want ghosts to appear and scare you -- hell, creepy mask boy can be one of those kinds of ghosts if he wanted to. Spooky!

But then there’s no ghost, not even a working seance, and you’re confused and hurriedly help to undo everything, and then...there’s another body. Man hater is dead. You’re not too sorry about her specifically, but it’s horrifying to you that she was literally killed in the same room you were in, like five feet away. You think you know who did it, though, because there’s really only one option. You have a theory, you think, watching everyone nose around the room and noticing a loose floorboard. You know it wasn’t baby witch, so that means…

You decide to check the other rooms, and while the first one goes okay, you miss the second loose board with your eyes and-- you think you’re unconscious for a while, and your hand comes back from your forehead sticky and red, and your head hurts and you’re dizzy and can’t see straight and you feel kind of sick, now, but you’re right. You were right and you know who did it.

You can’t just tell them like a normal person, though, so you sit on the floor for a moment, and then lie down, and even if it was mean the look on detective boy’s face when you sit up was funny enough to be worth it. You tell them what you learned, and wait, and...they’re just mad. You tell them you actually hit your head, and they’re still just mad, and impatient.

You figure that’s what you get, but it stings anyway.

You wobble off, then, and you just barely get to the nearest bathroom when the trial summons plays, and you...really just have time to splash water on your face and slap some gauze and tape over the gash before wobbling away to the trial grounds. No one asks if you’re okay then, either -- all they worry about is space moron, but you look at him and he’s way too pale and sweaty for it to be just a phobia of ghosts, so you let it go. You’re fine, after all!

Even if you kind of doze off a few points during the trial. It’s really hard to stay awake, and you have a massive headache, but baby witch is being infuriating so you have to make her stop. You push and you push and you push -- because no one else is going to -- and it works, at least a little, and you can stop hounding her as the culprit and move on to the real one. You were right, but oh boy were you not expecting that occult nonsense and the-- the depravity.

This is one execution, you think, where you’re not sad at all. He’d killed so many people, that it wasn’t possible to feel bad for him.

Baby witch is still being dumb, so you do the job no one else will and push some more and then she cries and cries and cries, and it’s-- hard not to cry, too, and maybe no one will believe yours were real, but no one is paying attention to you anyway, and it’s too hard to hold them back when you’re so dizzy and wobbly anyway.

You sleep like a rock that night, and you’re feeling better the next morning. That’s good, because the stupid bear presents a card key, and if no one wants it you’ll take it. If it’s the next motive, then you’ll take the burden of it -- you don’t intend to kill anyone at all, anyway, so who better to look first. And it’s easy to avoid space moron, because he’s sick and you’re fast.

You find the door, and you look through it, and you immediately wish you hadn’t.

Everyone is gone. Everyone is dead. The people in here, the nine of you, that’s the only people left on earth. And the world isn’t even habitable, there’s no life, no oxygen, nothing. There’s nothing. Nothing at all.

You sit and cry for a while, but then you get up and you’re fine. You’re fine. You’re fine you’re fine you’re fine you’re fine you’re fine you’re fine you’re fine you’re fine you’re fine you’re fine you’refineyou’refineyou’refineyou’refineyou’refineyou’re fine-----

You’re fine.

And you have a plan. And now you have no choice but to win. You’ll end this game, and no one will die, or...or everyone will. You think, maybe, that if everyone dies maybe that’s better. Even if you stop the game with no more deaths, the world is still destroyed. There’s nothing left for anyone. Why bother?

You…you have two plans, now. Or maybe just one split in two, depending on how the first part goes.

You go to nympho chick with some plans, hand them over and get her to make them -- and she admits how scared she is -- they all remember now, too, at least part of the truth -- and you’re fine, you are, but...you feel sorry for her. You’re used to not trusting anyone, but she’s not, and it’s hard for her. Well...you feel sorry for her until you figure out she’s going to try to kill you. You feel a little less bad then.

But...your plan isn’t affected. You feel bad, but bug boy is perfect. You know nympho chick is going to get everyone into her VR game and kill you there, and make sure you can’t fight back or something -- it’s her game after all -- so...you need help. And he’s so trusting, and so big, and is the only person who won’t immediately write you off. It’s fine. You got this.

You hate the bear, but you get him to put a memory of the outside world into the VR game so you can show bug boy -- you can’t just tell him, he needs to know -- and you’re ready.

You get them to hate you more, you lie, you say it’s fun, and even if your face hurts from where space moron punches you, that’s okay, you’re fine. It’s part of the plan. Even if saying this awful hellhole is fun makes you sick. You can have fun in this place, or you’ve tried to, but this place isn’t fun, and it will never be fun. Not as long as people kill each other.

All part of the plan, though. You’re ready. You get everyone to go into the VR world, and like you hoped, bug boy decides to watch you. That’s fine, because you show him the light, and he agrees to help. You’re not lying right now, and it feels weird and scary and wrong, but you don’t need to. He knows what you know, and you’re on the same page: the only way to save them all might just be to kill them. And if that fails...well, you have your other plan. You’re not sure which you hope works.

Nympho chick does try to kill you, you do get her killed -- and the only reason you don’t feel sick is because you’re all dumb chibi avatars and it’s not gross -- and then you all log out. You do feel sick, then, because she looks so scared in real life, and you caused this. You’re a killer now. Even if you didn’t do the deed, you did it anyway. You’re a killer now, not a supervillain, and you have to go all the way.

Bug boy is acting weird, but you don’t catch on anything’s wrong, going along and blaming space moron -- you’ll succeed, you know you will, you have to -- and then the trial starts, and everything goes wrong.

How were you supposed to know he plugged the cords in wrong? How were you supposed to know he didn’t remember? You knew the detective was smart, but-- no, no, it all went so wrong. You get so mad at them all, mad at bug boy for not playing along until you realize he really doesn’t know, mad at detective boy -- no, Shuichi, he earned a name -- for lying so stupidly, mad at space moron for being so stupid and trusting even when there’s literally no more excuse to be, even when everyone else is telling him to quit it, mad at yourself for this because if you could have done it yourself, you would have, but you couldn’t and now the only person who was ever nice to you is going to die.

The stupid bear even makes a computer bug b-- Gonta. His name is Gonta and he earned his name because you’re stupid and awful and you’ll remember him for however long you have left to live because you killed him, too-- and the stupid jerk insists he wasn’t tricked, and then-- and then forgives you. He forgives you and apologizes to everyone, and asks them to forgive you too, and you can’t take it anymore. You can’t.

You’re not fine.

You’re not fine and you can’t stop crying, and you wish you could have done it yourself, because you’re the bad guy and you’re the villain here and you should have, because no one would be sad if you die but everyone loves Gonta, but you couldn’t, and this is your fault, and you beg to be punished too, but you aren’t, and you have to watch the only person who ever tried to like you die.

You’re not fine and you barely manage to pull yourself together, and then people are hounding you and you’re not fine, and you’re a murderer, your entire gang your entire life your guiding moral code is to never kill anyone and now you have two people’s blood on your hands, and everyone hates you and you made them hate you on purpose, didn’t you, you think. No one likes you, no one trusts you, and no one believes you, and you caused it. You can’t stop lying and you can’t trust anyone and you can’t stop messing around even when you’re trying to help and now this is…

You’re not fine, but that’s fine, because you take a breath and grab your role with both hands and every cruel word you say is awful and every lie you tell is awful, and the way they all stare at you in disgust and horror as you gloat about how evil you are is awful, and you don’t get punched but Shuichi says you’ll be alone forever and you know he’s right, but you brought it upon yourself anyway.

You decide when you leave that it’s time to end it, end it forever, end it for good, and if you can’t make them all die, you’ll just have to make them despair. Then you’ll find the mastermind and beat him.

But there’s one more plan you have, and you know somehow it’ll end that way, but that’s fine.

You’re not fine, but you don’t care.

You get the things nym-- Miu made you, and you give some of them to the others, and you wait. They find the truth, and you spring your plan. You’re the mastermind, you say, you did this, it’s all your fault. There’s nothing else out there and you caused the killing game. It’s all a lie, of course, but you hope you made the real one mad. Or at least, you hope you made sure no one had the will to keep going with this stupid game.

You’re a little sorry that you banged space moron around a bit, but he seems okay (besides his terminal illness) and you stick him in the hangar bathroom, and decide that’s the end of it for now.

You’re wrong.

Space moron produces a crossbow from nowhere, and your arm is bleeding and half-useless, and you’re terrified but you fight back because you don’t want to die and you don’t want this moron to kill you (even if he’s shouting that he just wants to you to stop), and that’s bad enough. But then stupid murder girl comes in with a mecha and shoots you in the back, and you’re in agony and terrified and she’s demanding answers you don’t actually have -- what the hell is she talking about, Remnant of Despair -- and you demand, angry and frightened, why she’s starting the killing game again.

She tries to kill you and space moron saves you, and you think he’s stupid and you know he just did it so she wouldn’t kill anyone -- he hates you -- but she runs away yelling about an antidote and you realize she poisoned the bolts. The one in his arm...and the one in your back. That means you’re dying, you realize, and you decide then and there it’s time for Plan C.

You slam the hangar shut and grab the antidote from murder girl when she tries to get it to her boyfriend, pretend to drink it and watch her run off, and then you hand it over to space moron. You feel dizzy and light-headed and you can’t actually keep track of how many of him there are, and your everything hurts, and you’re absolutely terrified, but you’re fine now. You’re going to win. You’ll win, this will work, you’ll win.

You disable the cameras -- you have hours before the stupid mastermind will see this building again -- and tell space moron your plan, and he’s horrified. You give him credit for not immediately agreeing to kill you, though, but then he does agree, and even before you use his girlfriend’s status as culprit against him.

You explain everything, and you give him the details, make sure he has the script, and...and then you make sure the press is ready, and he lets you film most of it, and you can’t even stand anymore, you’re draped on the railing above the press with the camera and space moron has to  come get you to help you downstairs, and his voice is very far away and you’re going to die.

It really just now sinks in to you that you’re going to die. No matter what happens here, you’ll die. So…so you have to make it count. He asks you why you’re doing this, then, and you’re in too much pain to lie.

You’re not fine, and you cry, and you tell him the truth for the first time, that you hate this, you can’t stand it, that it’s not fun at all and it never has been. You tell him that you can’t stand it, that you just pretended and lied to yourself so that you could get through it all. You tell him you want to win this game, you want to ruin it, you want to make everyone who put you all through this suffer like you have by denying them their game. And this is going to do it, and you...you’re terrified, you think, as you pull your shirt off and slide into the press. You’re so scared and you’re so sick and you can’t stop crying.

You’re glad the camera can’t see your face anymore, because you can’t stop crying. You’re not a supervillain, you think. You’re just a stupid and paranoid little liar who got in over his head, and everyone hates you, but you don’t care because they were the closest thing you had here to friends, and even if they hated you, you weren’t alone...at least not physically.

You’re not fine, and you’re going to die alone, you think, and you can’t stop crying as the groan of the press deafens you. You see...you see Kaito watching from the balcony, briefly, and you lie to yourself one last time and pretend he looks sad for you (because obviously he wouldn’t be, right?), and then....

And then you die, all alone, poisoned and crushed to a bloody pulp, pleading to gods you really don’t believe in that your plan works and your death is worth it, that you win.

                                                 - LOG OUT -

You wake up gasping for breath, falling to the floor in a boneless heap as your pod opens, and you can hear people running for you, but you curl up as tight as you can and wail because your mind is stuck on your last few moments, being crushed to death, and it hurts so very much.

You distantly register someone picking you up, but you can’t even think until you’re put down and a gentle and unfamiliar voice is asking you to let her examine you and there’s a prick in your arm. You feel fuzzy after a few seconds, and you relax, and you blink in hazy confusion at the nurse in front of you and the examination room around you…

And you remember for real.

You remember you’re an orphan, you remember your institution -- your brothers and sisters and Mom, because it’s small and there’s only Mom and a couple Aunties as the staff, you remember your scholarship to high school because of how smart you are (you’re too young normally for high school but you got in anyway). You remember your comics, your video games, your anime, how much you love the idea of supervillains with crazy powers and big lairs in caves and a huge posse of minions and cool gadgets and stuff, because heroes are boring and villains obviously have way more fun. You remember the game show, the VR game where you get to be a weirdo super special school kid and play a killing game, and you remember how controversial it is but it’s still pretty popular since it’s all VR, and if you win there’s a lot of prize money.

You remember signing up and begging to be a really cool supervillain character, you remember thinking you’ll win the money for the other kids, because you want them to be comfortable now and not have to wait for when you’re working. You remember thinking it’ll be fun.

You think now that you were really stupid. Why didn’t you sign up for any other stupid crazy game show? No, you had to pick the VR murder show. And now you’re shaking and crying and sick. Well, you think distantly, at least you’re not gonna turn around and be manga Kaiba after his experience of death or whatever. No giant death theme parks for you, even if it would be kinda fun.

You think your voice is kind of broken when your laugh comes out sounding like a squeaky toy, but then you get told you’re perfectly healthy, no ill effects from the VR -- you think that’s stupid, because you definitely have some ill effects, lady -- and you’re literally lifted into the air in a hug.

You realize after a second that Gonta is hugging you, and then you burst into tears again, clinging to him like a koala and wailing into his shoulder. You think you might have apologized a few dozen times, but you’re not even sure you actually made words. Your voice is definitely broken, you decide.

Gonta carries you out of the medical rooms, and you realize you’re in the Team DR studio, still, and you wiggle around to see he’s heading toward a room marked Participant Waiting Room. You blanch, then, and wiggle free. You can’t go in there, everyone hates you. You tell him as much, you tell him you should just go home. Even if it was just a game, everyone hated you and they won’t want you around.

Gonta -- and it’s weird hearing him talk like a normal person -- tells you to stop being silly, and picks you up again to carry you in, putting you on a chair and telling everyone you were the victim.

You have a few seconds to register the shouts of surprise and realize they must be watching the game in here before someone tackles you, and Miu is crying into your shoulder and apologizing for trying to kill you.

You flail, and push her off, and demand to know why she’s apologizing when you were the one to get her killed, and she tells you to stop being dumb. Everyone here isn’t who they were in the game, and if she wants to apologize for being a crazy nympho who nearly tried to bash your head in, then she will.

Kaede is the next to speak up, and she agrees. You all aren’t who you were in the game, and you weren’t who you were before it, either. She hadn’t had much faith in anyone before the game, had really only signed up because it seemed pretty hardcore for a game show, and she hadn’t been the type to have any trust or belief in anyone at all. All she’d asked was to be different from her normal self, and then she became a heroine. And now, she’s not the heroine, but she’s not the person who had no faith in anyone, either. So there’s no reason for anyone to think you’re quite so awful as you were in the game.

You’re quiet, and then you think you startle everyone by bursting into tears, real ones.

You’re not fine, and you don’t think you’ve been fine most of the entire game, because you had thought it was going to be fun, but killing people is never fun, and you were so scared and then you became really evil -- you may like supervillains, but you hate evil villains -- and now everyone is actually being nice to you?

Rantaro tells you that you’re one of the most popular characters this season, laughing, and Kirumi adds that she’s really enjoyed watching you, too. Angie adds that she was pretty awful in her own way, and Kiyo says -- looking really embarrassed, poor guy, his real life big sister is probably going to kill him -- he was worse.

Ryoma says that the trial’s just starting, but he thinks if it wasn’t for Shuichi being smart, your plan might have had a chance and won the whole game and broken it, too. You laugh, but you’re still crying, and Gonta hugs you again.

Tenko says that your death was super awful, and you were really brave to do it willingly, and Kaede finally stops beating around the bush and tells you you’re their friend. Maybe you weren’t in the game, but now you’re all out of it, and all upset and traumatized -- because wow, she didn’t expect it to be quite so awful -- so you all have to stick together. You’re bound together by a really over-dramatic and probably not entirely safe tv show, and you’re all stuck with each other as friends for real now.

You joke that she sounds like her character, and she laughs and agrees. But that’s fine, it means she learned something. But she’s just stating facts, they’re all friends now. You too.

Angie teasingly asks if you learned anything, and you’re quiet for a long time.

Yeah, you say finally. You think you did.

You’re not going to be alone anymore. And...maybe, just maybe, you think you can trust them. You can at least try.

Your name is Kokichi Ouma, and you’re not the Ultimate anything, you’re just a too-smart high school kid in the system, obsessed with fiction and lies and with a truck full of trust issues. But thanks to your crazy and ill-advised decision to play in a VR killing game show, you have fifteen new friends, and you think...maybe you have people you don’t have to lie to.

Well...mostly. Telling the truth all the time is boring.

Half the class was furious that they’d been out of the loop -- and couldn’t help -- and the other half was frantic with worry, having been told both about Eri and about the bullets that had nearly taken Mirio’s quirk, and would have if it weren’t for the little girl they’d rescued. Iida and Yaoyorozu in particular were going on and on about what could have happened, especially to Kirishima, who was the worst injured of the four of them.

In the middle of all the yelling and clamor, Izuku couldn’t help but notice the distinct lack of one of the loudest of them all -- Bakugo. It was immediately noticeable, honestly; he’d have thought Kacchan would be the angriest due to the fact that his house arrest and the license remedial studies had prevented him from even knowing about the internships in time, let alone helping. In fact, Izuku had been prepared to get assaulted by the blond as soon as Aizawa-sensei had vanished upstairs. But...nothing. Not a single screamed “Deku!” or a swear. It was creepy.

Weird how you get so used to something that you shouldn’t necessarily be used to, so instead of being relieved when it doesn’t happen, you’re worried, Izuku thought.

Regardless, he took advantage of this momentary lack of anything shouty or enraged to flee upstairs to his room before attention could finally turn from Kirishima to him. He really didn’t want to talk or think about it much, now. He wanted to rest -- tomorrow he’d go to the infirmary and visit Mirio and Eri, tomorrow he’d think about it, tomorrow he’d talk to All Might and tomorrow he was sure Detective Tsukauchi would want to ask him about the two from the League of Villains that were there. That was all tomorrow, though. Right now he wanted to follow Aizawa-sensei’s example and sleep.

He was so tired he almost walked into Mineta’s room instead of his, realizing his mistake at the last second and nearly tripping over himself in his haste to not. He really, really didn’t want to know what Mineta’s room looked like. Especially not when he’d just gone through some scary shit already. Chisaki and his men were enough for one day, thanks.

Shaking his head a little, he pushed his door open and entered, only for that fleeting sense of relief to pop like a bubble as his heart dropped into his feet next to his stomach. Bakugo was in his room, arms crossed, staring at him with enough barely-restrained anger to set something on fire.

What was that about missing something when it doesn’t happen? Izuki thought briefly, fighting back a nervous giggle. “K-Kacchan!” He managed, voice a few octaves higher than it really should be. “Wha-wha-what are you doing in my room?”

Bakugo didn’t answer for a moment, hands shoved in his pockets, and Izuku realized there was something else in his face besides anger; he almost looked...upset. Not just angry-upset, but something more complicated, and Izuku honestly had no idea why. “Kacchan...?” He asked. “What’s wrong?”

“...the bullets would take away someone’s Quirk, possibly permanently. In fact, it’s likely that Togata would have lost his Quirk forever if it weren’t for Eri.”

Whatever had been said before that -- mostly bullshit about some Yakuza guy they were investigating and some little girl he had, the one that Deku and them got to go off and rescue while he was stuck here in the fucking dark -- and whatever after -- probably more about the girl and the Yakuza and how they were all so fucking heroic and shit -- went in one of Bakugo’s ears and out the other.

Lost a Quirk forever? Like All For One’s--? No, worse. All For One took it, yeah, but he could give it back if you punched his fucking old fart ass hard enough or if he wanted to. Those bullets, they could’ve just...erased it. Forever. No getting it back, no nothing. Togata, that-- that guy. The one he hadn’t met, the one with the stupid face. One of the big three, he could’ve lost it forever.

Deku could’ve, if they’d shot him.

That’s what’s getting him, that’s why he disappears up the stairs before Aizawa’s even finished. Not that Deku could’ve lost One For All. But that he’s so fucking pissed about the idea in the first place.

It’s stupid. It’s fucking stupid. Deku hadn’t had a Quirk at all ‘til recently. He hasn’t had that shit for a whole school year, even. For all their lives, Deku’d been Quirkless. He’d just be the same old Deku if he’d lost what All Might gave him. Right?

Every time he tries to think about it like that, like it’s no big deal, he can’t help but remember all their fights. Deku fighting Todoroki hard enough to nearly kill his fucking stupid-ass self. Deku and him fighting All Might in the exam. Deku trying to save him from the League. Stupid fucking Deku and his stupid fucking smiling face, wanting to be a hero bad enough that he’d break his own body into a thousand pieces for it. Stupid fucking Deku and the scars all over his arms, the proof of how willing he was to hurt for it. The guy All Might himself sacrificed his power to.

He can't help but think of Deku’s face if he lost his Quirk. He wouldn't be fucking smiling then, would he? He was sure the guy would break for real, not just his arms. He'd just shatter like a pane of glass, and Deku would never smile again.

The fact that that bothers him is mind-boggling.

He hates Deku's fucking smile. He hates his attitude and his determination and his stupid compassion for literally everyone, ever, regardless of whether or not they want it. He hates literally everything about Deku, and especially the fact that they had been friends once. He doesn't know why he hates it so much; he just...does.

But -- and this hits him with more force than any of All Might's punches could dream of -- he doesn't want Deku to lose One For All. He'd fucking hate it more than anything if after all this, now that Deku can actually pose a real challenge, a real threat...if he lost that. The Deku of today wasn't the same person from last year, the same person from all the years before that; he was “I can do it” Deku, not “pathetic” Deku.

And fuck. Fuck, he kind of liked “I can do it” Deku.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He stops halfway up the stairs to the fourth floor and goes back down, shoving Deku's door open. The idiot’s not there, though, so he waits. Deku's room is covered in All Might shit, predictably, and it kind of makes him glad he'd bailed on the stupid room contest -- his own room was almost as bad. He's actually a little jealous, and absolutely doesn't pocket one of the action figures on Deku's shelf -- he won't miss one, and this was a limited edition Bakugo hadn't managed to get in time. Besides, Deku had two of them.

The room makes him angrier the longer he waits in it; it's a testament to how much Deku looks up to All Might, and it reminds him he's the same. That's a frustrating thought. He hates comparing himself to Deku, but sometimes it's impossible not to.

The rest of his thoughts are interrupted when Deku finally shows up, and when he -- of fucking course -- asks what's wrong, it's a surprisingly long moment before he can get words out.

Izuku waits a weirdly long time for Bakugo to say anything; that in and of itself is unusual, because Bakugo is almost never quiet. But finally he does speak, stepping forward to grab Izuku by the collar and shoving him up against the wall in an act that’s almost comforting in how normal it is even though it’s so violent.

“Don’t you ever,” Bakugo snarls, “ever, ever fucking do something that goddamn reckless again, Deku. If you lose your fucking Quirk after all this bullshit, I’ll fucking kill you. You hear me?”

….and that is not at all what Izuku was expecting. He stammers for a moment, absolutely gobsmacked, before nodding wordlessly. “Y-Yeah,” he manages. “I hear you, Kacchan.”

Bakugo lets go of him after that and steps away, staring at the wall like he wants to kill the plaster and concrete instead. “Don’t fucking waste what you got from All Might,” he mutters. “You owe it to him.”

The ‘and me’ is unspoken, but Izuku hears it anyway. He just smiles at that, straightening the collar of his shirt, and nods. “I won’t, Kacchan,” he promises. “Thanks for worrying.” He regrets that part immediately when Bakugo’s eyes shift back to him, and he swallows. “A-And next time, I’ll make sure you get to come with us. A-After all, you’ll probably have your license by then, r-right?”

Oh my god, can I stop talking now, he thinks desperately when Bakugo growls, but the blond’s tenseness fades after a moment.

“Yeah,” he says, shouldering Izuku aside as he exits the room. “I’ll be there next time.”

Izuku has to smile again at that, watching Bakugo storm down the hall. He was still the same old Kacchan, really. Arrogant and loud and constantly furious with the world for existing, but he cared. Even if he didn’t seem to know how to go about caring like a normal person without shouting or swearing, he cared. People didn’t really understand why Izuku put up with him after all the other boy had done over the years, but...that was okay. Izuku knew why -- he knew Bakugo better than anyone else. He understood him. He could put up with it all because he knew they were still friends, even if Bakugo had forgotten how to be friends with him.

Sooner or later, though, it would work back out. Just like everything else tended to; with a little effort and a little hope, it would work out.

Yes, Dunwall; he doesn’t have to look at her face to know she knows why -- they’re in Dunwall, after all. The two people who -- against all odds -- he’s grown attached to. The two people they both knew that proved that people could find it in them to choose well.

“Not surprising,” she says, looking almost amused. “Any idea how you plan to get there? Or have you thought about that?”

He blinks. “...oh,” he says after a moment, hands fluttering absently to pick at his sleeves as he thinks; even now he can’t quite stop them from moving. He always needs to be in motion, can’t stay still. And he has even more reason to, now, doesn’t he? This is all rather overwhelming -- the woman beside him did the impossible, and now he’s here. Standing on solid ground, standing in the sun, for the first time in four thousand years. He had never thought it would happen, or that it ever could. But he’s part of the world again -- he can live again.

It makes him feel very small, he has to admit. Only hours ago, he had been a god. He had seen it all, seen everything -- every choice, every turn of events, every possibility -- and now he was mortal. Now all he saw was what was in front of him, all he knew was the privacy of his own thoughts. It was at once a weight off his shoulders and...disorienting.

Not to mention how...vibrant everything was in reality. In the Void, it was all dulled; colors, sound, light, scent and touch -- muffled and deadened in his state of eternal dreaming. Out here, it was so much more alive, which was...it was hard to process it all. It was welcome, of course, after so long in silence and darkness, but the brightness stung his eyes and the noise, even up here just above the city itself, felt fit to deafen him. He could only imagine what the city itself would be like: the chaos of civilization was something he knew well, had seen so much of, but until now he’d never been part of it.

“Thought so,” Billie says, amused. “You’ve got no idea how to go about human business, do you?” The question was obviously rhetorical, and he couldn’t help the pout.

“Well, I know what I’d have to do in theory,” he mutters, irritated. Get passage on a ship and travel there the long way -- he isn’t naive or ignorant; just because he’s no longer a god doesn’t mean he doesn’t remember the knowledge he’d gained over his tenure. It was just...a lot to do.

“In theory,” she repeats, still genuinely amused, and he’s all at once insulted and somewhat pleased. She isn’t afraid of him -- that’s rare. And he feels as if...no one will be afraid, anymore. No one will know who he is, who he was. He’s just a boy again, a face in a crowd. Unremarkable. The thought feels...wonderful.

“I suppose I’ll have to get you started,” Billie says, startling him. “Can’t leave you stranded after all this.” She turns and offers him her good hand. “I doubt you want to stay here much longer anyway.”

He turns back to look at the mountains -- at the catacombs of cultists (who have lost their god; he wonders what they’ll do now, though he doesn’t care at all) and the eldritch fragments of those who had sacrificed him (who have lost their god, too, the one they made, and he cares about that even less), his prison for thousands of years -- and smiles thinly. “No,” he says. “I don’t.”

He turns back and takes her hand, warm under the smooth leather of her glove, and they head back down the peaks of Shindaerey, the woman who had once been Maegan Foster, and the boy who had once been a god.

He’d been right -- once they arrived in Karnaca, everything had hit him at once, hard enough that he’d nearly fallen to his knees, and Billie pulled him into an abandoned apartment building to help him sit down. He didn’t quite register her watching him, too busy folded in on himself with hands like nervous hummingbirds, unsure whether to cover his ears, his eyes, or whatever else.

“What’s--” She began, but stopped and softened her voice once she finally noticed him flinch at the noise. “Too much?” She asked instead.

He nodded helplessly, both overwhelmed and overwhelmed by the fact that he was. Everything was so much compared to the unchanging expanse of the Void -- all the light, the cacophony of sounds (even the quiet sound of footsteps seemed to echo like explosions), the smells of dirt and blood and spices and who even knew what else lay in the city’s gutters...and it only made him more aware of everything else, even the small things; the beat of his own heart, the scratch of his clothing on his skin, the lingering taste of copper in his mouth and the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

That this was normal for most people...he couldn’t imagine. A drawback to having been so distant, was it…? He didn’t quite notice Billie had sat next to him until a warm hand was on his shoulder. “If it gets to you this much, this might take a while,” she noted, keeping her voice blessedly low. “Not to say don’t take your time, though.”

Another nod from him, and there was silence after that. Well, relatively -- the chaos of the outside bled through the walls and even that was enough to drive him mad, he thought; how would he cope with living like this, if simply walking down a street sent him fleeing to somewhere to escape it all? He would have to get used to it, he knew that, especially if he expected to go to the even more crowded and chaotic Dunwall, but -- that seemed miles away right now, and in and of itself that was a frightening concept. To have to take the time to grow used to things, to learn things...time had never been an issue before, four thousand years bleeding into each other until he simply knew how long it had been from the dates on calendars as he watched time pass. Now he was part of the passage of time like everyone else, and he had only his small, mortal window into the world to process it.

He felt very, very small again, a pebble amid a quarry or a lone fish in the vast ocean. When was the last time he had felt like this, so...helpless? Not since before the knife had touched his throat, and he only remembered those times in fragments. But he hated that feeling -- he always had. To feel small and helpless...that was why he had given his mark, so that the people who received it didn’t have to be that way, because he remembered what it was like. And now here it is again...it was funny, perhaps, in a bitter sort of way.

Though the weight of a hand on his shoulder registered again, and he looked up at Billie -- who offered him a crooked smile -- and he...relaxed a fraction. Well, there was one thing different this time, perhaps: he wasn’t alone.

A week later, a freighter bound for Gristol had one more passenger aboard it -- a scrawny young man with wide grey eyes the color of the ocean during a storm. He was insatiably curious, the captain had to admit, hovering around the crewmen and asking questions about anything. Well, when he wasn’t deeply seasick; an affliction that sent him to cling to the railing, ghost-pale and wobbly, but still stubborn enough to stay on the deck to watch the sea.

For his part, the seasickness was unexpected, but unsurprising -- he actually found it funny when he was feeling better. For all that he had been associated with the ocean, he had never sailed before, even as a human. There was a touch of irony in the fact that his first time aboard a ship, he was laid low by motion sickness.

Though at least the sounds of the ship in motion and the chaos of the sailors was tolerable now. It had taken him a week to be able to grow used to the constant noise of humanity, but now it was almost a comfort. The constant noise meant that it was never silent -- and silence had been one of the most terrible things about the Void. Naught but eerie silence and the soft song of whales, in that vast and empty place. Among humans, he was never overcome by that same lack of noise: humans hated silence, he’d found, and until now he’d never experienced the result of that. Now that he had, though, he understood it completely.

Not to mention Billie wasn’t with him anymore -- she’d declined to go near Dunwall (not that he blamed her, with all that the place held for her) and instead had boarded a ship to Tyvia, to seek out Sokolov’s company now that she too had closure. He understood that.

He didn’t doubt he’d be forever grateful to her -- for doing the impossible, for forgiving him and freeing him, and for actually lingering to help him when she really hadn’t needed to. It was strangely reassuring, as it always was, to know that there were still some people who could change, who could choose the path of less violence. Someone like him, this time, who had never had a choice as a child -- though unlike him, she’d grown older, stained her hands -- and yet in the end chose forgiveness over death.

Humanity was certainly odd, wasn’t it?

The crew of the ship he was on, The Dancing Gull, had been kind to him too -- Billie had given him coin for passage, and they didn’t seem to mind when he was well enough to ask questions. He knew how running a ship worked, of course; he knew a lot of things from his years watching the world, but to watch and to experience are very different. He couldn’t help but be curious, to really know some of the things he’d only seen before. The men were glad to oblige, mostly, one even showing him a few sailor’s knots. It was more than a little strange to be among people who accepted his presence and spoke to him as an equal -- but he enjoyed it. He’d always been a little fond of sailors, as they were a superstitious lot, but not the sort of believers that had always left a bad taste in his mouth. They were far more casual about it, treating bonecharms and a little magic as part of the job and part of life on the ocean, not some sort of grand religion.

They didn’t question his strangeness, or the whalebone pendant he wore around his neck -- though part of that was that he kept it well-hidden most of the time anyway. It was one last gift from Billie, his mark carved into a fragment of bone; his name, to wear always, the thing that had been taken from him there around his neck so he would never lose it again. It had been a surprise when she handed it to him as they parted, a sort of gesture that wasn’t openly sentimental, but meant something all the same. It was appreciated.

It would take a week or so to get to Dunwall, the captain had said, perhaps more if the weather’s unfriendly -- but soon enough the skyline appeared in the distance, and he could see Dunwall Tower’s silhouette. Seeing it was...something eased in his chest, some odd bit of anxiety he hadn’t realized was there, and it was strange. But at the same time...maybe it made sense? Seeing the tower meant that he was that much closer to Corvo, to Emily -- to people he knew, and who knew him. Who seemed to actually like him, even when he was a god.

He was almost there, he thought. He still wasn’t sure what he would do when he arrived, but -- he would do something. It shouldn’t be hard, even with his newfound humanity...right?

Corvo was at the desk in his room that night, reading some reports Jameson and some of his contacts in Karnaca had sent over. Some of them were quite interesting, in a worrying sort of manner: this Eyeless cult, mainly. In a manner of months since Emily had burned through Delilah’s conspiracy, this cult of fanatic Void-worshippers had slithered into place -- even in official positions and popular members of high society -- and were startlingly influential. His contacts hadn’t found names, but had found quite a bit of worrying information. But two weeks ago, it had all disappeared. The highest members exposed, an entire fighting ring torn down, and the remainder of the cult in fragments. All his contacts could get out of any of them was nonsense, and an inexplicable mass suicide had quickly followed. And the culprit? No one knew anything about them, either.

(He knew enough to guess, though, but he didn’t have all the pieces.)

The more worrying thing was that his mark and Emily’s both had...not faded, really; it was still there and their magic still worked, but there was something more tenuous about their connection to the void. Something more...fragile? More wild. It was hard to put his finger on just what was different, but he was certain something was.

Lots of questions and no answers, he mused. And so little time to find them, given the city was still being rebuilt from what Delilah and her coven had done to it, and both Empress and Lord Protector (and Royal Spymaster) had their hands full.

A faint skittering noise distracted him and he looked down at a pull on his pants, picking the small, skinny albino rat up from where it had been trying to climb him. “You’re not one of mine,” he noted, amused -- his own little collection of the rodents (of which he had at least a dozen; he seemed to attract them thanks to his abilities and he’d ended up giving in and keeping a few as ‘pets’) all had a bit of black string around their necks so he could tell them apart. This one didn’t, but it was holding a scrap of rolled paper in its mouth, which it deposited into his hand.

Bird-friend, it said, in that broken little way all rats seemed to speak. Have gift for bird-friend, message from another friend. Says important.

“Important, is it?” He asked, setting the little creature on his desk, where it promptly made itself comfortable in his empty coffee mug. “And from a friend…?” Who could that be? He knew he was unique in his ability to speak to the rats -- Emily couldn’t, and the only other person he thought could had been old Granny Rags, and she was long dead. But someone else apparently could, and could send a rat to him with a message.

He unrolled the paper, smoothing it out and taking note of both the fact that it seemed to be ripped from the bottom of a bit of newspaper, and that the handwriting was...bad. Legible, but still a childish scrawl. Nonetheless, the mark drawn on the note -- the Mark -- told him enough, and the rest of the message sent some sort of chill down his spine.

My dear Corvo and Emily. Much has happened very quickly, and there is a lot to tell you. I can no longer speak to you the usual way, so this must do. Meet me where it began, and where Emily met her ghost. As soon as you can, preferably.

It seemed to be signed with the Mark and only the Mark, but the words of the note...the implications were all there, and without another word he stood and made his way to Emily’s quarters. If the sender of this note was who he thought, then...there really was a great deal to talk about, not least of which how in all the Void it was possible.

Where it began...the bit about Emily’s ghost made only some sense to him, but the rest of it -- he knew where it began, if it was who he thought, and it was only appropriate, he thought. One of the few places in the city the three of them would all be familiar with.

It was only a few hours later when Emily and Corvo reached The Hound’s Pit, though Emily had wanted to move faster. She probably could have, too, if it weren’t for their powers acting strange of late -- and if this was who they both thought then that was easily explained.

How it had happened she didn’t know -- and hoped he’d tell her -- but she knew it was him. Her ghost...only two people in the world knew what that meant, and one of them until recently had been a god. Until recently...why else would he have needed to send a message the hard way instead of speaking to them through dreams? It was hard to believe, but that was the only answer. How, though, she wondered. How?

She was the first one into her old tower room, Corvo several steps behind her and most likely amused at her rush. “Outsider?” She asked as soon as she pushed through the door. “Is it you?”

“You came quickly.” She stopped when she heard the voice, startled -- he sounded so much quieter, so much younger, it was strange to hear -- and then he stepped into the moonlight pouring through the window and she gasped, both in surprise and the realization that she’d been right. “I’m grateful -- it’s cold out here.”

It was her ghost -- the Outsider. And he was unquestionably human, his eyes no longer endless pits of ink and shadow but...normal, a very pale gray ringed with the shadows of tiredness. He looked more human, too, oddly -- his skin wasn’t that of a drowned man’s, blue-white of death, and he seemed smaller, somehow. Less comfortable in his own skin, less confident. Small and mortal, no longer a god.

She was across the room in moments, tangling him up in a hug and almost awed to feel the beat of a heart against her chest. “It is you!” She said, amazed. “How is this-- you’re human! How did this happen?”

She paused, then, stepping back and letting him right himself, the former god looking more than a little startled, his hair a bit mussed and expression bewildered. “Sorry,” she said, laughing and sheepish. “I didn’t mean to startle you. That was...I came on a little strong, didn’t I?”

“It’s fine,” he reassured her, an awkward, uncertain smile settling onto his face. “I...should have expected your enthusiasm.” He fidgeted slightly, his usual habit of remaining in motion seeming more nervous than unconscious now. “It’s good to see you, Emily.”

“You too,” she said. “I’ve been worried the past few weeks, especially since our marks have been acting strangely. And now you’re human? What happened?”

“A great deal,” he admitted, moving to perch on one of the old chairs that still sat in the tower’s room; it was funny to see him walk there instead of simply transverse, she had to admit. Still studying him in the light as he gathered his thoughts, there were more and more little things she noticed that she’d never noticed before -- maybe because they hadn’t even been there before now. The calluses on his hands, nails bitten to the quick; his nose was crooked, she noted, and there was a pale scar across his neck that had certainly not been there the last time she’d seen him. It was like the Void had erased every physical quirk or flaw and now that he was mortal they’d all returned. “But the short, simple version? An old friend of yours was asked to kill me, but she decided not to, and this is the result of that.”

Emily blinked. “An old friend….Mae-- Billie?” She asked, correcting herself. That was the only person she could possibly imagine getting involved in something like that. “Who in the Void would ask her to kill you?”

“Daud,” Corvo said from right behind her, and Emily nearly jumped in surprise. She elbowed him gently for that and he swatted her arm, but continued. “It was Daud, wasn’t it.”

He just nodded. “Yes,” he replied. “Old and dying, I suppose he was searching for absolution in his last days, and thought that killing me would soothe his guilt.” Emily wasn’t sure what would, personally, but she certainly doubted killing the Outsider was it. “I can’t blame him. But either way, Billie Lurk felt differently, and in the end...here I am.”

“Here you are,” Corvo said fondly, stepping around Emily to stand beside the Outsider. “How did she do it?”

There was silence for a moment. “...my name,” he said finally. “She found my name and returned it to me.” His expression turned wry. “It turns out it was very close to me the whole time, the name that was stolen so long ago.” He reached out to Corvo’s covered hand, putting his hand on top of it. “My mark.”

“The mark is...your name?” Emily asked, and was met with a nod. “Then...I’m glad to have it,” she said with a smile. “That way it won’t disappear again, right?”

A moment of startled silence, and then he nodded. “I suppose so,” he replied. “I certainly don’t intend to lose it again.”

Corvo put his other hand on top of the Outsider’s, somewhat surprised at how small it was like this, how warm. “We’ll make sure that won’t happen,” he added, and after a moment bent to pull the Outsider into a hug of his own. Again, the Outsider seemed genuinely surprised at the contact, frozen and wide-eyed, but relaxed into it after a moment. Emily didn’t blame him -- Corvo gave the best hugs.

“Now, the three of us should be getting back to the tower,” Corvo said after a moment. “It’s late.”

Emily almost laughed at the Outsider’s expression. “...what?” He asked.

“The three of us,” she repeated. “We aren’t leaving you here. Did you really think--” His face answered that. “We would never! You’re...sort of family, really. And we owe you, you know that. Of course we’re taking you back home.”

“Oh,” the Outsider said quietly, and then he smiled, still uncertain and awkward, but it was the most human expression she’d ever seen on him. “Thank you.”

Emily beamed at him, putting an arm around his shoulders as he stood. “We’ll have to go the longer way, unless you don’t mind going with Corvo -- he can carry someone while he transverses. I can, too, but what with how I do it…” Both she and the Outsider laughed.

There was a pause as the three of them headed outside, Emily having dropped her arm to take his hand, and Corvo turned to him. “What is your name?” He asked. “If you’d like to tell us.”

The Outsider looked shocked, as if he hadn’t thought about telling anyone until that moment. “I--” He began, shaking his head. “Of course.” They couldn’t just keep calling him the Outsider, and since he had a name now...the more people who knew it, the harder it would be to lose again.

“My name is...my name is Emrys,” he said after a moment, saying it almost hesitantly. “Emrys.”

“Emrys,” Emily repeated. “Well...alright, then, Emrys,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze.

She couldn’t see Corvo at all, even when she screamed for him, and then-- and then they’d dragged Miss Lydia and Mister Wallace out of the bar and shot them. She’d heard the bangs, and Callista screamed and pulled her away from the window even as Emily watched them drag the bodies away.

But even then, they still didn’t know what was going on, not until later. The Admiral came and said that Corvo was dead, and she was going to be Empress but she’d do and say whatever the Admiral and them wanted her to. They’d leave tomorrow like they’d planned, and Emily had to be a good girl and be quiet.

Emily didn’t cry. She refused to -- Corvo wasn’t dead; there was no way. She wouldn’t believe it. He was Corvo. He was-- her was her best friend, her protector. He was the only person left she could trust, and twice over because the Loyalists had betrayed her too. Without him, she was alone, and-- and-- he wasn’t dead. She kept telling Callista that, over and over, even as Callista cried. He’d come for them, he’d come back.

Mr. Martin came to bring them some dinner, probably because they’d killed Miss Lydia and Mr. Wallace. Callista didn’t want to eat, but Emily talked her into it -- it was only leftover stew from lunch and some bread, but it was still food. (In return, Callista talked her out of throwing their chamber pot onto Mr. Martin’s head as he walked under the tower’s window on his way back to the pub.)

Callista fell asleep eventually -- and Emily pretended she didn’t hear her crying -- but sleep didn’t come at all to the princess. She wrapped herself in her blanket and sat against the wall on her bed, hugging her pillow. It was a funny feeling; she could feel the tears in the back of her eyes, the sick feeling in her stomach that she knew meant she kind of wanted to throw up, and it was hard to breathe normally without feeling like she’d start crying. But...she didn’t? And she wasn’t? It all felt distant, like it belonged to someone else.

She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her face into her pillow, and stayed that way until she felt a pair of cold hands tugging her into their lap. She immediately let go of her pillow and spun around, wrapping her arms around her ghost and looking up at him as she clung. He looked almost troubled, somehow, but he smiled at her faintly and ran a hand through her hair.

“Is Corvo dead?” Emily demanded. “Is-- tell me he’s not dead! He can’t be, he’s not allowed to be!” Her voice cracked and rose. “I’m the Empress, and he’s got to know he’s not allowed to be dead, ever! He has to come back and stay with me, a-and that’s an order!” She bit her lip, shaking her head furiously. “I need him! He’s-- he’s the only person I trust, and he protects me, and what’s going to happen if he’s gone? He’s not allowed to be gone, not when I can’t-- I can’t do anything!”

“Shh,” her ghost said, reassuringly, even as she buried her face in his chest, shoulders shaking despite there being no tears. “He’s alive. I promise you that, Emily. Corvo is alive. And you can be certain that nothing is going to stop him from coming back to you.”

Emily nodded wordlessly, curling closer into her ghost’s lap. “They killed them,” she said mournfully. “Mister Wallace was kind of rude, but he was nice to me, a-and a good cook. And Miss Lydia was...she was nice, too. She told good stories.” She sniffled. “And-- and the Admiral shot them. I heard it. After everything they did to help me and C-Corvo and everyone, he just...”

“Humans are cruel,” her ghost said, and he sounded odd. “Cruel and selfish. They don’t care who they step on while they reach for more power, and when they have it, they forget where they came from. The powerless turn into the very people who hurt them. It’s always the same.”

“I’m not cruel,” Emily protested weakly, her voice muffled. “And I won’t do that, not ever.”

There was silence for a moment. “I know,” her ghost said finally. “You and Corvo are...special. He hasn’t...he hasn’t done a single thing I expected him to, this entire time. Anyone else in his situation would...I expected a trail of blood in his wake. But he didn’t.”

“I know,” Emily said in turn, with a little smile. “Corvo’s good. He wouldn’t...he wouldn’t do that. I trust him. He’s a good person, no matter what happens to him. He’s quiet and grumpy sometimes, but he’s good.” She held her head up high. “And if it were me, I wouldn’t, either. Killing everybody might feel nice, but it’s not fair. If they’re dead, they can’t think about what they did wrong and feel bad about it. Mother always said that if you did something wrong, you had to be punished properly, so you would learn what you did was wrong. So everyone who killed Mother and hurt Corvo, they should be punished. Not killed. And Corvo knows that too.” She made a face. “Sometimes I wish they were dead, the people who hurt them, but-- but it would only feel nice for a little while, and then it would feel bad. Because you killed someone, a-and even if they were bad, they don’t deserve to be dead.”

Her ghost chuckled softly. “And that’s why you’re special,” he said quietly.

There was silence for a time, Emily resting her head on her ghost’s chest. Knowing for certain that Corvo would come back to her...that had helped ease her worries, ease the horrible sick feeling in her gut. She trusted her ghost to know these things -- he was a ghost, right? So he’d be able to know if other people were dead.

“Let me tell you a story,” her ghost said finally, breaking the silence. His voice still sounded funny, she noticed. Distant, like he was somewhere far away. “It’s not one about King Artorius. It’s...it’s something else.”

Emily blinked at him for a moment and nodded, afraid to speak in case it would make him change his mind about the story. She wondered what he was going to tell her -- what it was that made him so distant and quiet. She wondered if it had anything to do with why he thought people were so bad.

“Once upon a time, a very, very long time ago,” he began slowly, and she could see a furrow in his brow as if it was something he had a hard time remembering. “There was a...a boy. He didn’t know his father, and his mother was--” He broke off, looking away with some puzzlement in his black eyes. “I think she died. I can’t...I can’t remember.” He fell silent and Emily blinked, awed. Was he telling her about...oh. She reached out and gave his hand a squeeze, and that seemed to remind him to continue.

“He was poor,” her ghost continues. “And he was...he was different. And alone. I remember that he would...he would walk down the beach and pick up seashells, and catch fish to sell...he’d always find enough, no matter the season. I-I think...I don’t know.” He trails off again and shakes his head. “But the people where he lived, they...didn’t like him. Thought he was the bad sort of different, I suppose. Spit on him and kicked him around, refused to sell him food...he was-- it wasn’t a good life.”

Emily hugged him at that, frowning. That made it made sense, that he thought all people were bad. She supposed if he’d only ever had people be mean to him, of course he would. No wonder having a friend was so strange! She resolved to be even more of a friend to him, whatever that meant. But she wanted to make up for everyone else who had treated him badly.

He seemed startled at her hug, and managed a faint smile. “The boy, he...one day, strange people came to the place where he lived,” he said quietly. “They were-- they were frightening. They were looking for something, something they wanted very badly, and...and they decided they found it in the boy.”

“Ghost…?” Emily asked, her voice small as she remembered, suddenly, that she was talking to a ghost and not a living boy. “Does this story have a happy ending?”

Her ghost smiled again, but it was endlessly sad, and older than it had any right to be on a face that young. “No,” he said. “It doesn’t. But you’ll be the first living person to hear it, I think.”

“Ohhhh,” Emily said, eyes wide. She hadn’t realized it was that special a story. “I’ll try to remember it forever for you,” she promised.

Her ghost chuckled. “It’s alright if you don’t,” he tells her, amused. “The point isn’t...really for you to remember. It’s just...just that I wanted to tell it. Needed to, perhaps. It’s been left unsaid for far too long, and you...”

“Still…!” Emily insisted. “Even if I forget, you’ll still be my friend. And if I forget your story, I’ll still remember you.”

Her ghost blinked, and then sighed, letting his head drop to rest on hers. “Thank you, Emily,” he said. “It means a great deal to me, even if I...find it hard to express that.”

“Of course,” she said. “You’re very welcome.” She hugged him again and he returned the gesture, albeit awkwardly, and then slipped out from under her to get her tucked in.

“You’ll have a long day tomorrow,” he said softly. “You should sleep. And don’t be afraid. Corvo is coming.”

Emily smiled, surprised at how sleepy she was all of a sudden. “M’not afraid,” she murmured. “Not when I know Corvo’s coming. ‘N not when you’re here.” She rolled over to look up at her ghost, already unable to keep her eyes open. “Will I see you again once we leave th’ tower…?” She asked.

“...Of course,” her ghost said quietly, and Emily was too tired to see him look away when he said it. “Now go to sleep, Emily. Everything will be alright.”

And it was. Even if it took several days...it was alright. Corvo did come for her as promised, and they watched the sun rise over the Kingsparrow lighthouse together, hand in hand. They returned to Dunwall Tower, and the very first thing Emily did was to pardon Corvo -- he was innocent, and had always been, of course. He was her protector, and her Protector, and he always would be.

Her ghost, she discovered...had lied to her. She didn’t see him again after that last night, and though she was sad, her lessons and duties distracted her, and after a time, the memories faded. All she retained were the stories of knights, the names of constellations, and talk about sea creatures. Stories and facts and a folded up picture of a whale that was tucked in her desk.

Some of the memories she attributed to Callista or Samuel, but others she couldn’t really place where she knew them from. But that was alright; whoever it was, they were her friend. She knew that much.

It would be fifteen long years before she saw her ghost again, but that time she’d know him by a different name. His true name -- the Outsider. He gave her another gift, a mark in black upon her hand, and gave her the way to save her throne and her father. Gave her something truly special -- the ability to fight for herself, to take back what was hers with her own hands.

It wasn’t until she was safe, until it was all over, that she remembered her ghost and realized what it all had meant. And she was grateful; even if it had taken a long time, he’d still been there. And this time she’d remember him for sure.

The tableware was the easiest part -- sneaking three mismatched cups and plates from the pub proper wasn’t that hard, given everyone was distracted planning Corvo’s trip to the Tower and given that the pub didn’t host nearly as many people as they could anymore. So she borrowed them sneakily, hiding them in one of her drawers in her tower.

The food itself? That was harder. Tea would get cold and cakes would go bad, so she had to wait for that. But patience -- and learning to be very, very quiet -- paid off eventually, so a cracked teapot and a battered tin of tea leaves joined her spoils.

She had a distinct feeling her ghost was watching, because it just so happened that the night Miss Lydia made a whole batch of Poolwick tarts -- the good kind, with sweet custard and blackberry jam, even if she couldn’t find any cherries -- was the night he decided to visit. She was glad for that, because she’d snuck half a dozen tarts back to the tower anyway for later, so she didn’t have to worry.

“Hi, mister ghost!” She said with a grin when she felt someone poke the back of her head, and she turned around where she was dangling off the bed reading another one of Miss Cecelia’s penny novels, this one about a philosopher who had adventures in ancient ruins, stealing artifacts back from an evil cult. “I missed you.”

He looked a little startled, blinking in surprise. “Oh,” he said, bewildered. “You did?” She grinned up at him, carefully folding the edge of the page she was on and putting it under her pillow.

“I did!” She said, scrambling off the bed and holding out her hand. “I was planning something special for when you visited again, so I’m really glad you came!”

Her ghost blinked, shifting to stand from his spot perched on the end of her bed and letting her take his cold hand. “Did you really?” He asked, sounding a bit flattered. “What is it?”

Emily grinned, pulling him over to sit on the floor, turning to run about the room and fetch all her hidden items. She dragged a stool into the middle of the room, and then went and got the plates, cups, and teapot, grabbing a pitcher of water that stood on one of the tables to fill the pot and add tea leaves to it. Digging around, she found the portable oil heater Callista had brought to the tower just in case it got cold and put the teapot on it, humming tunelessly to herself, before she went and got the final two things -- the tarts she’d taken, wrapped in a bit of cloth, and her doll.

She put Mrs. Pilsen down next to her ghost, and sat down cross-legged. “It’s a tea party,” she explained to the bewildered ghost. “You have tea and cakes and talk about things. Corvo and Mother used to have them with me all the time.”

“Ah,” he said, and then chuckled. “Emily, you do realize I’m...a ghost, yes?” He asked her, with the same hesitation he always had on the word ghost. “I can’t eat.”

“That’s okay,” Emily said dismissively, waving a hand as she poked the teapot. “Mrs. Pilsen can’t, either. She’s a doll. But you can enjoy the smell of tea, right? I’ll have the tarts and you can hold your teacup. It’s okay. The important thing is the talking part.”

Her ghost snorted. “That’s pragmatic of you,” he said. “But...yes, I can smell the tea just fine. It’s...a bit dulled, I suppose, like everything else, but I can still smell it.”

“Dulled?” Emily asked curiously, deciding the tea was just warm enough and turning the heater off, pouring herself and her ghost cups. She put the teapot back onto the floor and unwrapped the tarts, biting into one as she watched her ghost pick his cup up, turning it in his hands almost curiously.

“Mm,” he said absently. “Dulled. Sight, sound, scent, touch -- I doubt any of it is the same as the way you experience it. It’s a fair bit more complicated than that, really, but for the moment, just leave it at ‘dulled’.”

Emily frowned, licking the crumbs off her fingers and taking a sip of her warm tea. “That doesn’t sound very nice,” she says. “Can you, like...see color at all? And is my voice all muffled? That must be really weird.”

“I can see color, yes,” her ghost answered, with the slightly hesitant air of someone who’d never been asked that before. “But it’s...washed out, I suppose is the best way to describe it. Like a very old painting whose oils have faded.” He turned the cup again. “And no, your voice isn’t muffled. Just...quiet. As if you were speaking from far away.” she opened her mouth again to ask something else, but he held up a hand. “Before you ask,” he said. “I really don’t...feel things. Just their weight and a little of their temperature. And I can’t recall what having a cold is like, but that’s the best way to describe how things smell.”

Emily nodded sagely, taking a bite out of her third tart. “Oh,” she said sympathetically. “I can’t imagine. That must not be very fun at all.” She shifted over to pat his hand. “Don’t worry, though, it’s okay. At least you can, um-- sense stuff at all, right?”

“Right,” her ghost agreed with a short chuckle, setting his cup down. “It could always be worse, I suppose. You certainly have a talent for putting things in perspective, don’t you?”

Emily laughed. “I guess so,” she said. “Mother always used to say I’m very clever for my age.” She paused and looked away, staring at the door that led to the bridge between the tower and Corvo’s room. “Corvo used to say I was too clever by half,” she added absently. “He’d smile when he said it, and ruffle my hair. He hasn’t done that at all since he came and got me. He hugs me, sometimes, but it’s distracted.” She sighed. “I’m just glad it will be over soon. Corvo will make Burrows go away, and then we can go home.”

She paused and blinked, going a little red. “A-And, um-- I’ll try to take you with me somehow,” she promised. “Maybe take a brick or something. So you can come to the Tower, too. I can show you all the best hiding spots, and we can play tricks on the servants once they all come back, and you can help me sneak tarts from the kitchen, and we can have adventures when I’m not having my lessons or doing important Empress things. Maybe you can even meet Corvo! I bet he would like you.”

She wasn’t sure why her ghost laughed at that, and smiled to himself, but he put his teacup down and slid it over to Emily, who took it instead of refilling her own empty one. “Perhaps,” he said vaguely, shifting to lean his elbows on his knees and rest his chin in his hands. “Corvo seems not to like very many people besides you, really, from what I’ve seen. And aside from that, I’m generally not very well-liked, normally.”

“What?” Emily said, forgetting her teacup and the last tart and leaning forward. “Why not?! You’re likable. I like you. You know all kinds of cool things, about animals and stars, and- and you know good stories, and you’re funny. So anyone who doesn’t like you is dumb.” She crossed her arms with a huff. “And I say so as princess.”

Her ghost laughed, reaching out to ruffle her hair, an almost sad smile on his face. “That’s nice of you,” he said. “But don’t be so quick to say that without all the facts.”

“What facts?” Emily said, puzzled and a little exasperated. “You’re funny, and nice, and know lots of things, and keep me company when I’m sad and lonely. That’s all I need to know.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, dear Emily,” her ghost said softly. “But I suppose that it doesn’t matter.” He stood, picking her up. She squeaked in surprise, but wrapped her legs around his waist and put her chin on his shoulder. “As long as you like me, I don’t think I entirely mind that.”

“Mind what?” Emily asked with a stifled yawn, the tea having made her sleepy -- and it almost felt like her ghost was rocking her like she was on a boat, humming that sad whalesong again. “Are you trying to make me fall asleep?”

“Yes,” her ghost said matter-of-factly. “I am. And it doesn’t matter. You just...content yourself with the fact that you liking me means a great deal. Alright?”

Emily sighed. “Just clean up after us, ‘kay?” She mumbled. “Callista will be mad if she catches me with the tea stuff…”

“Don’t worry,” her ghost said, walking her to the bed. “It won’t be seen. Now sleep, Emily. And--” He broke off, almost uncertain. “Even if you don’t see me, I’m watching over you.”

Emily smiled sleepily. “You ‘n Corvo both, then,” she murmured around a yawn. “I have two people watchin’ over me...I like that.” She went limp, then, and felt herself being haphazardly tucked into bed. She still heard the humming, gently, and felt a cold hand on her hair until she drifted off.

The next morning, as promised, the cups and teapot were put away back in the drawer, with no evidence that she’d ever had a tea party at all. Which was good, because thanks to that, Miss Lydia blamed the missing tarts on Mr. Wallace -- and he was kind of rude, so Emily didn’t mind that so much.

Part of her wanted to ask Mr. Samuel or Miss Lydia -- or Miss Cecelia, even -- about anyone who died in the pub or the tower, or even in the area. Teenage boys with black hair. She wanted to know what he meant by no one liking him, by ‘all the facts’. But she was almost afraid he’d be mad if she did, or that it would hurt his feelings. And he was one of her best friends! She didn’t want him to be mad at her.

So she didn’t ask, and didn’t mention him -- well, except to Corvo the next night, when the lack of his presence and the storm outside made her nervous enough to scurry to his room. Her ghost, with the black eyes...and she swore Corvo looked a bit surprised. Though she’s not sure why.

She wasn't even allowed to go down to the dog fighting cage to talk to Mr. Sokolov! She had sneaked down once to say hello anyways, and he had been happy to see she was alright, but the grumpy Admiral had caught her and carried her back to her room before he could tell her any of his exciting stories about the Academy or Pandyssia.

Corvo did try to visit when he could, which was nice -- her favorite part of the day, really -- but she could easily tell something was wrong. He looked pale and tired all the time, like he wasn't sleeping, and his hair was all long and messy; she knew he always used to keep it neat and short and out of his face, so that worried her. He didn't even really respond when she had told him she liked it and tried to comb it with her fingers. He hadn't shaved yet, either, and he winced sometimes when he stood or sat or she hugged him too hard. Not only that, but he wasn't eating. Okay, so she’d seen him have an apple or a bit of dark bread, but that was all -- Miss Lydia had made hotpot one night, really good hotpot with blood ox, and she’d even managed to get hold of some Serkonan garlic -- and Corvo hadn't even touched his bowl.

So as happy as she was that her beloved Protector was safe and here with her, she worried. She’d read about people wasting away to nothing out of sadness or missing someone, and she prayed it didn't happen to Corvo. Worse than if someone killed him would be if he did it to himself.

She was awake, watching Callista sleep on the bed beside hers, and contemplating crossing the bridge to Corvo’s makeshift room. She wondered if he was asleep. Probably not, she decided, and she was a little unwilling to barge in while he was thinking whatever thoughts. So she was sitting cross-legged on her bed, squinting in the dim light from the window as she tried to read a copy of a penny dreadful she’d ‘borrowed’ from Miss Cecelia. It was interesting, with a ghost ship and pirates and a dashing hero sallying forth to rescue his lady love.

She barely even noticed -- with good reason, for he didn’t make a single sound -- when someone perched themselves on the bed behind her until a pale finger tapped the pages. “Cursed ancient gold?” A voice asked. “Really?”

She squeaked loudly, nearly whipping around to smack her ghost in the face with the book. He ducked, chuckling, and shook his head at her. “Then again, it doesn’t look like high literature, so…”

“Shush,” she told him with a huff. “It’s good. See, he doesn’t know it yet, but the hero’s father was a pirate with the crew that got turned into ghosts, but he ran away before it happened and gave his son the last of the cursed coins they needed to break the curse, so that way they’d be cursed forever. And the pirate helping him knows, but he won’t tell.” She laughed. “The pirate is funny.”

Her ghost smiled. “It sounds interesting,” he said, and Emily could tell he meant it. He shifted in his position to sit cross-legged and pull Emily into his lap, leaning his chin on the top of her head. He was skinny, she noted, and very cold, but not in an uncomfortable way. “But I have a feeling it’s not part of your schoolwork, is it, Emily?”

Emily turned pink. “N-No,” she admitted. “I borrowed it from Miss Cecelia. She has lots that she keeps under the bar for when there aren’t customers. I’m going to put it back when I’m done, that’s what I did with the one about the philosopher who built a machine to go underground and saw a whole different world with different animals, and the one that was supposed to be scary about philosophers and an Overseer going into the Outer Sphere.”

“Supposed to be?” Her ghost asked, raising an eyebrow.

Emily shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad,” she said. “Not after I’ve seen real life scary things. It was good, though.” She paused, and then went a little red, squirming around in her spot to try to see Callista’s bed.

“Don’t worry,” her ghost reassured her, noticing her alarm. “Callista won’t hear us. She’ll sleep soundly until morning. Promise.”

Emily grinned wide. “Well, okay!” She said brightly. “Thank you, mister ghost.”

She leaned back to stare up at his thin, young face. This was the third time he’d visited her, total -- there was that first time, a few days after she’d gotten to the Tower, the night Corvo had gone to get Sokolov. Then a second time two nights later, where they’d talked a little about Sokolov and the Academy, and he’d told her more of his story about King Artorius, the one who’d pulled the sword from the stone. She liked him, the strange ghost that lived in the tower. She wondered, sometimes, how he chose the nights he’d come visit -- was there anything special, or were they just the nights he was loneliest? Either way, it kind of comforted her a little. Her ghost, her friend.

“Are you going to tell me more of the story?” She asked. “You were at the part where, um…” She screwed her face up in thought. “You told me how King Artorius and Myrddin went and got his magic sword from the water lady, and the legend of Myrddin and King Vortigern and the dragons, and King Artorius marrying Queen Gwenhyfar…”

Her ghost laughed. “You have a good memory,” he noted. “Now, I could tell you about the Knights of Kamelot and their adventures. There’s a great many of them, and I have a feeling you’d like the one about Sir Gauvain and the Rag Woman.” He smiled faintly at Emily’s excited expression. “But I want you to tell me a story tonight.”

Emily blinked. “Me tell you a story?” She asked, bewildered. “But I don’t know any. I-I mean, besides the ones I read in books, but I bet you know those already.”

“Emily, I’m a...ghost,” her ghost pointed out, faltering a moment on the word ‘ghost’ as if he meant something different. “Do you think I have access to books? But that’s irrelevant, really. Make something up. Tell me about Corvo.”

Emily perked up. “Oh!” She said excitedly. “He’s going to a party.” Off her ghost’s bemused expression, she explained. “Mr. Sokolov said that the person who’s giving mean old Burrows money is one of the Ladies Boyle. And it’s just about time for their annual masquerade, so no one will notice Corvo if he walks in to make her go away. So he gets to go to the party. It’s in two days, so everyone’s getting ready.”

“The annual masquerade?” Her ghost asked with a grin. “It sounds like it’s quite the party.”

Emily nodded emphatically. “Everyone goes. Well, except Mother -- she wasn’t supposed to because of tradition or something. She gets sent an invitation, but she has to say no. When I was old enough I would have gone, though.” She shrugged. “But it’s still really amazing. There’s preparations for weeks. The great hall in the Tower is filled with people from Drapers’ Ward, and the other Isles -- tailors and mask makers and all sort of people, setting out cloth and designs and masks for people to pick out. And the masks!” She beams. “They’re amazing.”

She spread her arms wide. “They’re all animals, of all different kinds. I’ve seen birds, and lions, and bears, and bugs like butterflies and moths, and even fish! And the costumes, too, they all match. This one lady, one year, dressed up as a mermaid like in stories, and her clothes were layers and layers of Serkonan silk with shiny pearls and actual fish scales sewn into it, and sequins that made it glitter all blue and green.” She kicked her legs thoughtfully. “And another time, I saw a costume someone was wearing that was an owl, with white Tyvian velvet and a huge copper beak on their mask.”

“Well,” her ghost said. “Impressive. I wouldn’t think the Overseers would let them have a party like that.”

Emily giggled. “Well, it’s kind of a way to get around it, a party before Fugue Feast later in the year,” she explained. “But you hear lots of rumors about it. I heard some of the servants in the tower gossiping that they do like...spooky magic rituals in the basement of the party.” She laughed again. “With whalebones and stuff, black magic like the Overseers ban.”

She wasn’t sure why her ghost looked genuinely amused at that, or why he laughed so loudly, but he ruffled her hair. “Outsider worship?” He asked, his voice mild.

“I guess,” she said with a shrug. “That’s what that stuff is, isn’t it?” She leaned back against her ghost’s chest. “It’s what the Strictures say, but the Strictures say everything bad is the Outsider’s doing, so I don’t know.” She paused. “I just kind of think it’s funny that they say if I lie about if I read my assignment, or if I want something pretty I see in a store window, or if I want to go exploring places instead of doing my job, it’s all the Outsider’s fault. I mean, it’s me who wants to do that stuff, so...”

Her ghost laughed again. “Children are always wiser than adults when it comes to that sort of thing,” he said quietly. “Try to keep that wisdom when you grow up, Emily, all right?”

“Okay,” Emily said solemnly, because it felt like something she should be solemn about. “I’ll do my best.”

The two of them fell silent for a moment, before Emily perked up again, a thought occurring to her. “Do you know how to dance, mister ghost?”

Her ghost blinked, startled, and then shook his head. “I’ve watched people dance for a very long time, all kinds different dances,” he said. “Many no one remembers. But I can’t recall if I ever danced, myself.”

Emily lit up, sliding off her ghost’s lap to the floor and turning around. “Then I’ll show you!” She said proudly. “Mother and I learned some Gristolian dances, and Corvo taught me a Serkonan one once. He said that you don’t really need steps to dance, just a rhythm to dance to.”

Her ghost stood slowly, looking amused and a little bewildered again, that same look he seemed to give her a lot; the one that seemed to say he didn’t know what to do with her. “Alright,” he agreed. “Do you have music?”

“I do!” She said happily, and scurried off to one of the tables in the tower. She didn’t seem to notice the odd chill in the air, or that the room smelled again like ocean air, or the way the walls seemed to be just a little off in their angles -- she was excited to teach someone something, instead of being taught. “Callista has a lot of music. She likes it. Let me find something nice...”

She flipped through the audiograph cards stacked neatly in a pile on the table, frowning at the songs they contained, before she found what she was looking for. “Here we go,” she said brightly, moving over to the audiograph machine and putting it in. “I like this one. It’s a traditional Morleyan song, I think.”

She clicked the button, and a song started filtering out of the machine -- it wasn’t a sad song, but it wasn’t a fast jig, either, slow and gentle with a woman singing. She turned and walked back to her ghost, who stood there awkwardly, and curtseyed politely. “The man is supposed to ask the lady to dance, mister ghost,” she said teasingly, and he laughed, bowing and holding out his hand.

“May I have this dance, Lady Emily?” He asked, and she laughed and took his hand. She reached for his other one, putting it on her shoulder, and she reached up -- not that far, thankfully, because he wasn’t that much taller than her -- to put her hand on his waist. She knew it was probably supposed to be the other way around, but she felt like it would be weird. Their other hands stayed where they were, and she hummed along with the song as she led him around the room, trying not to step on his feet.

She could tell he seemed a bit embarrassed and confused about this, and was trying not to step on her bare feet with his boots, but after a little bit, both of them relaxed. The next song Emily put on was a jig, though, and though her ghost was taken aback, the two of them got into it, bouncing around the room -- and when the song ran out, the two tumbled sideways onto her bed, laughing.

“Well,” her ghost said breathlessly after a moment. “That was an experience.”

Emily laughed happily. “It was!” She said, grinning and crawling on top of her ghost to rest her chin on his chest. “I’m glad you had fun, mister ghost. Everyone should get to have fun once in a while.” Especially if they were lonely ghosts, she thought to herself. Those needed to have fun a lot more than most. Lonely ghosts and lonely princesses.

She yawned loudly, shamelessly using her friend as a pillow. “Next time y’gotta tell me the story you mentioned,” she mumbled to him. “Th’ one ab’t the Rag Lady.”

“I will,” her ghost reassured her. “Now go to sleep. I’m sure you’ll be very busy tomorrow.”

Emily huffed sleepily, but obliged, closing her eyes and drifting off. As she did so, she swore she heard someone humming -- not the songs she’d played earlier, but something that sounded...old. Very old, and sad. Like the audiograph of whales singing she’d heard once.

But sleep took her, and she didn’t have time to think much about it.

The next morning, as always, her ghost was gone, and Callista didn’t even seem to have noticed anything during the night. Not only that, Emily realized, all Callista’s music was where it should be, like she’d never even touched it. That, and the penny dreadful she’d been reading was tucked under her pillow. She silently thanked her ghost, grinning, and got dressed, following the other woman down to the bar for breakfast and to start her lessons.

Make it right...it was still difficult to think about everything that had happened. It hurt. She hugged herself tight, trying her best not to sniffle. She missed her mother so much it hurt, like an empty stomach only it was her heart instead. She’d never seen so much blood anywhere, but then it was all over, and it was Mommy’s, and someone was holding onto her tightly -- and she was being carried away, but she saw someone punch Corvo, brave Corvo, and he fell to the ground. She didn’t know why they’d done that at the time. Corvo had tried to protect her mother like he always did.

But then she’d been taken away to the Pendleton twins -- mother had never liked them, and she’d told them so, and one of them had slapped her -- and told by mean old Burrows that her Corvo, favorite person besides her mother, had been arrested for her mother’s murder. That was when she cried the first time. It hadn’t been fair or right at all! These terrible people had taken her mother away, and blamed the last person in the world that would ever hurt her for it. She knew Corvo would die before he’d hurt her mother. The thought of him sitting in scary old Coldridge made her so sad, especially because she knew -- even though she knew her mother didn’t want her to know -- that they hurt the prisoners a lot sometimes.

She’d sat in that back room at the Golden Cat for a long time, lonely and scared and angry wondering what was going to happen to her, what was going to happen to Corvo. And then she’d heard on the loudspeakers about a Masked Felon, and that the Empress’s murderer escaped, and that creepy Campbell was a heretic now...and she was happy. She felt bad about being happy, but that meant Corvo was free, right? And one of the people who hurt her mother was gone.

She didn’t make the connection, though, until the door to her prison creaked open and a man in a mask stood there. She’d been scared a moment at his scary steel skull, at the dirty and torn blue coat, at the knife in his hand, but then he’d taken the mask off and it was Corvo. She almost cried again when she saw his face. He was pale, and his face was dirty, and he needed a shave, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in day, and he needed a haircut really bad, but it was Corvo.

He’d taken her home, and then she’d heard the Pendletons were gone and she’d been happy. That same sort of sad-scared-happy, though, like she wasn’t sure she should be. But she liked it here at the pub. Callista was nice and was teaching her things, and the old boatman was sweet, telling her stories. She liked the funny philosopher in glasses, too, when he spoke to her. The Admiral was a little scary, him and the Overseer and the younger Pendleton, but they were all helping Corvo, so they couldn’t be too bad.

But...she couldn’t sleep, still. Corvo had gone out again. She knew it because she’d seen the boatman take him away through the window hours ago at dusk. He’d gone out and put his mask on, and she was feeling that sad-scared-happy feeling again -- who was he going to make go away now? She knew he wasn’t killing them, because Corvo didn’t kill anyone, but he was making them go away. Punishing them for hurting her mother like when she’d get grounded for breaking things in Dunwall Tower or doing things without permission, only worse.

But she was also scared because...what if Corvo didn’t come back? She’d only have herself, then. Callista and the boatman and Mr. Joplin were nice, but she didn’t really trust the others. And the nice ones couldn’t protect her from scary men with swords. She didn’t want to be alone.

She couldn’t catch the sniffle she made this time where she stood at the window, watching the empty dock for the boatman’s skiff, and she nearly screamed when she heard someone call her name.

She spun in her bare feet on the tower floor and stared with wide eyes at the room -- it was a little colder, somehow, and it smelled like when the wind blew in from ocean or the harbor. And there was someone sitting on her bed, someone she didn’t know.

He was young, maybe a little older than her, and he had short dark hair and really pale skin. He was dressed kind of like a sailor, in blue canvas pants and a brown leather jacket, with shiny sailor boots, and he didn’t make any dent in the lumpy mattress where he sat. And his eyes...they were black. Shiny and dark, like drops of ink, or when she made angry black scribbles on her drawings. Not like normal eyes, but from end to end, like there was no other color in the world.

“Hello, Emily,” he said, and smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile, but it wasn’t a mean one either, she decided. It was a smile like someone who didn’t know how, but kind of assumed that it was What You Did when saying hello, even if he didn’t know how to do it right.

“Hi,” she said, knowing Callista was asleep in the pub tonight and that she could talk as loud as she liked. “Are you a ghost? Lydia said this tower was haunted.”

The black-eyed ghost on her bed blinked, and then laughed. “You could say that,” he agreed. “I am a ghost, in a way. But I’m more than that. You can just think of me as a ghost, though, if you’d like. It makes things easier.”

“Okay,” Emily said with a shrug, wiping her watery eyes and going back to her bed to sit down next to the ghost. “So how come you came to say hello, mister ghost? I thought ghosts stayed invisible and rattled doors and cabinets and threw bottles and wrote scary things on walls. That’s what they do in books.”

The ghost laughed again, looking amused, but in an odd sort of way, like he hadn’t expected it. “You’re far braver than I expected, then, if that’s what you think ghosts do,” he said. “As for me, I think you’re very interesting, Emily, so I wanted to meet you.”

“Well, there’s not much that scares me anymore,” Emily admitted. “A lot of bad things happened, and I don’t know if I can be scared of stuff like the plague or ghosts. There’s worse things.” She kicked her legs absently. “Like losing Corvo.”

The ghost smiled. “Corvo will be alright, I think,” he said gently. “He’s interesting, too. I don’t think he’ll let the Void take him from you just yet.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Emily said with a smile back. “He’s special to me. I’ve known him for forever, did you know? As long as I can remember. He was my mother’s protector, but he protects me, too. He would play with me, and take me fishing, and show me all sorts of cool things he knew. He let me ride on his shoulders...he’s so tall! I thought I could see all of Dunwall from up there. If I was scared, he’d come to my room and sing to me when mother was busy.” Her voice broke, and she hunched over, pulling her legs to her chest. “He likes strong coffee, and spicy food I can’t eat because it burns my mouth, and he knows how to dance really well and doesn’t complain when I step on his feet, and he’s not afraid of rats or big bugs, and I heard once he smashed one of the Pendleton’s faces into their potatoes because he said something rude to my mother, a-and…” She felt tears on her face, warm and salty, and she buried her face in her knees. “I’m so scared,” she told the ghost. “Because if he goes away, then I’m all alone. And I can’t trust anyone anymore, because the people who killed Mother were people she trusted, a-and if Corvo goes away-- b-but I’m mad, too, because I can’t do anything to help him, and it was my mother!”

She couldn’t believe she was saying all this to a ghost, but it was somehow...nice, to get it all in the air, let it go from where it had sat pressing against her ribs for days. “It was my mother, and I’m stuck up in this tower waiting for Corvo to come back and hoping he’ll be okay and-- and waiting to hear if that stupid jerk who killed Mother gets punished and we can go home, and I want to do something, but I can’t--”

She felt a cold hand on her back, not rubbing gentle circles like Corvo or her mother would, but just there -- she’s surprised she can feel the ghost, but that’s a fleeting thought before she turned to fling herself into his arms, crying into his cold, ghostly shoulder. He didn’t move -- he stiffened, actually, and she felt a little bad for surprising him when she’d finished crying and sat back, seeing the discomfort on his face.

“S-Sorry,” she apologized. “But I feel a little better now.”

The ghost lifted a shoulder. “I should have expected it,” he said carelessly, waving a hand. “Don’t apologize.” He paused, glancing around the empty room, and then back at her. “Would you...like me to stay until morning?” He offered hesitantly. “If you can’t sleep, I can keep you company. If you don’t mind talking to a ghost, that is.”

Emily just beamed at him. “I’d love that,” she said sincerely, standing to give him the best curtsey she could in her too-big shirt. “Thank you very much, mister ghost.”

“You’re very welcome, Princess Emily,” the ghost responded, standing to bow a little dramatically and making her laugh.

The first thing Emily decided to do with her new friend was what she always liked to do -- draw. She was glad that Callista had found things to give her, so she grabs a few pieces of rough paper and her colored pencils, sitting on the floor and offering the ghost one of the sheets. “If you can touch stuff, come draw with me,” she said earnestly.

The ghost blinked at her, kneeling down to shift cross-legged on the floor as Emily sprawls on her stomach, grabbing blue and brown pencils. “I...well, alright,” he said easily after a moment. “What should I draw?”

“Whatever you want!” Emily said cheerily, glancing up at the ghost. “Something you like, someone you know...a place you’ve seen that you like...if you can remember what something looks like, you can draw it.”

The ghost smiled. “I see,” he said, and then shifted to lie on his own stomach -- something that struck Emily as somehow strange, and special, like she was the only one who’d ever get to see this -- and pick up the gray pencil.

The two worked in silence for a while, Emily glancing up every so often, before she stopped and put the black pencil down. “I finished, look,” she said, and the ghost glanced up, blinking in surprise when she showed him her drawing. It was him -- the ghost, as accurate as she could, complete with black scribbles for his eyes. He blinked and smiled, carefully taking it from her as she offered and folding it, slipping it into his jacket.

“Thank you,” he said, with the awkward hesitance of someone unused to the words. “It’s...nice.”

Emily beamed at him again. “You must be lonely,” she noted. “All by yourself up in this tower. I’m kind of glad I’m here, then, so you have someone to talk to for a little while.”

“It...it is lonely,” he admitted. “There’s usually no one but me, and even the people I speak to...only show up once in a while.” He glanced down at the paper he was drawing aimlessly on. “So yes, I suppose...it’s good that you’re here to talk to.”

Emily scooted up to her hands and knees and looked over, smiling in surprise when she got a look at what the ghost was drawing. “A whale!” She said. “You’re drawing a whale. Have you ever seen a live one before? I’ve only seen them in pictures or their bones, but Corvo said once that he saw them a lot in the harbor in Serkonos, and the sailors see them all the time out on the Ocean.”

“I’ve seen lots of whales,” the ghost said. “Baby whales, like you, and adult whales, like the ones people hunt for oil. And even the great leviathans, the ones that are bigger than any other whale, that live deep, deep down in the ocean.”

“Wow,” Emily said, eyes wide. “Tell me about them! Do you like whales? I think they’re pretty. I heard an audiograph of their voices once, that a sailor recorded for the Academy, and it was really sad. I thought they must be singing for the ones that got killed to make oil and food, like when the Abbey chimes bells for funerals.”

The ghost chuckled. “They do,” he said. “They sing to communicate with other. All sorts of things, not just sorrow. They sing when they’re happy, and angry, and just to talk like we are right now. It always sounds sad, though, I think. Whales are sad creatures.”

“Oooh…” Emily fell silent for a moment. “What about other things that live in the ocean. I only ever see them in books or on dinner tables, but I bet they’re even cooler in the water. Like redsharks and hagfish, and jellies and squids and octopuses and the deep watchers people make statues of, and the star-shaped ones, and the wiggly little, um--” She screwed her face up. “The ones on the rocks, that people saw when they went down in bathyspheres. Anemanemanies?”

The ghost let out a startled laugh. “Anemones,” he corrected. “Did you know there’s a certain type of fish that lives in the deep parts of the ocean that has a light on its head?” He told her. “It uses the light like a fisherman’s lure, waving it around so little fish swim close to it, and…” He grinned, clapping his hands together suddenly and making her jump. “Then it has its dinner.”

Emily giggled. “That’s amazing,” she said. “There are lots of strange things in the Ocean, aren’t there? And I heard there’s even stranger on Pandyssia. Mr. Sokolov went there a long time ago and wrote a book, and I read part of it once.” She looked out at the sky. “I kinda got the feeling that everything on Pandyssia can kill you just by looking at you funny, and I think that’s scary, but also really cool. If I couldn’t be an Empress anymore, I think I’d want to go explore Pandyssia.” She paused, and leaned over to the ghost conspiratorially. “Or a pirate.”

“A pirate?” The ghost asked, smiling crookedly. “Well, that’s a career change. Why a pirate?”

Emily grinned. “You get to do whatever you want, whenever you want to do it,” she explained. “And in the books, pirates get to run around having daring adventures, epic sword fights, and they find tons of sparkly treasure!” She grinned wider. “I would take Corvo and just...go. I’d be the captain and he’d be my first mate, and we’d go exploring all over the Ocean, past the edges of the map. We’d find animals and places no one’s ever seen, maybe see the edge of the world! And it would be fun.” She looked thoughtful. “Do you think if I took a piece of the tower with me, you could come too? You could tell us all about the sea animals.”

She looked up to see him staring oddly at her again, that same look like he wasn’t sure what to do with her, and she grinned. “And you wouldn’t be lonely,” she added.

“I…” He trailed off. “That might be nice,” he said finally, quietly, like he was admitting it to himself, too. “But how about we wait and see what tomorrow holds before we go rushing off to the great unknown, princess?”

Emily pouted. “Fine,” she muttered, though she was still smiling. She carefully collected all of the spare paper and pencils and returned them to her desk, turning to see the ghost offering her his drawing of the whale. “You gave me yours,” he said with a shrug.

“Thank you!” Emily said happily, reaching up to pin it next to her drawings of her mother and Corvo. “I like it a lot.”

She returned to her bed, where the ghost had sat back down, and climbed up next to him. She looked out the window at the stars, pointing. “I know there’s a constellation up there called the Tusked Leviathan, I think, and there’s one called Captain at the Helm. I saw them in a book. I don’t remember the other names, though, do you?”

The ghost joined her in looking out the window, a faintly amused smile on his face. “You see a great many things in books,” he said. “I wonder, will you ever get to see any of it in person? I know you’d like that.” He trailed off, though, returning his blank black eyes upward. “I know them by different names,” he said at last. “That one is the Chained Lady,” he says softly. “There’s the Hunting Dogs, and beside them is The Twins.” His finger traced to the right. “Over there is the Hunter, and the Scales, Octant, and and Lyre are a little more to the north.”

“Wow,” Emily said, following his finger reverently. “You know a lot. Tell me some more, mister ghost?”

The ghost blinked, smiling faintly and turning back to the window. His expression was hard to read, given his inky black eyes, but Emily thought he seemed...sad. Sad in the way that she saw some people who talked about their native isle, or old people who talked about when they were young. Nostalgia, that was the word.

“Well…” He started, reaching to take Emily’s hand in his cold and marble-smooth one, getting her to point at a particular star. “That star, there. The bright one. You see it? It’s the northern tip of the Compass, and it’s always at the northern end of the horizon. If you ever get lost, look for the compass, and it will point you north no matter where you are.”

Emily stared at him in wide-eyed wonder. “That’s so cool,” she said softly. “I’ll remember that.” She leaned out the window for a moment, short hair blowing in the evening breeze as she stared up at the stars. To think they used to have completely different names for things...and the ghost knew them. Her ghost, she decided. He was officially her ghost. She said so as future Empress.

She returned from the window, crawling into her ghost’s lap. He made a startled noise, but let her do so, awkwardly patting her hair. “What do you want now?” He asked, chuckling.

“Dunno,” she said at first, leaning against his chest and looking up at his pale face, letting her legs kick aimlessly against his. “Tell me a story.”

He snorted almost automatically, but then realized with a start she was serious. “Wait,” he managed. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Emily insisted. “I bet you know tons that other people don’t.”

Her ghost sighed. “You’re really pushing your luck, princess,” he said dryly, but picked her up with a startled huff of hair at how heavy she was, shifting onto the bed properly and leaning against the pillows. Emily shifted, getting comfortable and leaning her head on his chest.

“Well, let’s see…” He murmured. “I can’t really recall, Emily. Do you still have the tale of the Sword in the Stone?”

Emily blinked. “No,” she said interestedly. “I haven’t heard of that one. Tell it to me!” Maybe she can write it down! That would be amazing.

Her ghost sighed, and settled in a little better. “Fine, fine,” he said. “Let me just remember how it goes.” He took a breath and stared up at the ceiling, and though she couldn’t tell, she thought his eyes went distant again, nostalgic.

“A long time ago, in a kingdom called Cymru, there lived a king named Uther,” her ghost began slowly, his voice a little distant. “King Uther was at constant war with a kingdom called Trevena, whose king was named Gorlais. However one day, the two kings decided to make a truce. Unfortunately, when the rulers of Trevena arrived at King Uther’s castle, Uther saw the queen of Trevena, Ygrayne, and fell madly in love. When he tried to act on this, though, the king and queen fled back to their kingdom, abandoning the treaty.”

Emily frowned. “That was rude of Uther,” she said, and her ghost laughed.

“It was,” he said. “And he isn’t finished yet. Angry at being rejected, King Uther waited until the king and queen were at separate castles, and summoned his court magician, Myrddin. ‘Myrddin,’ he said. ‘I want you to transform me into King Gorlois, so I can go to Lady Ygrayne’s side and bed her as if she were my wife.’” He paused to laugh again as Emily made a disgusted face, and continued. “Myrddin agreed, because he could see the future, and he knew that this was supposed to happen -- he turned King Uther into the other king, and himself into a servant, and they rode to the castle the lady was staying at. King Gorlois heard about this, though, and rode out to stop them...but King Uther struck him down.”

“Rude!” Emily interjected. Her ghost laughed, flicking her in the forehead.

“So is interrupting,” he pointed out, and she quieted down. “In any case, the disguised Uther and Myrddin arrived at the castle, and Uther’s crafty plan succeeded. Shortly after this, Uther revealed himself and married Ygrayne. Yes, I know, but the story isn’t about Uther. He dies.” Emily grins, and her ghost grins back. “You see, Ygrayne eventually gives birth to Uther’s son -- and because Mryddin helped Uther wed Ygrayne, Myrddin took the son away, giving him to a knight named Antor who lived far out in the country to raise as his own.” Her ghost shifted, leaning in. “And here’s where the story actually begins. Soon after Myrddin did that, Uther was killed in battle, and of course the kingdom fell into chaos. However, one day, Myrddin called all the lords and ladies into the capital, and to the city’s square. They spoke among themselves, wondering what was going on, when Myrddin appeared. With a wave of his hand, a huge stone appeared right in the center of the square -- with a shining sword stuck right in its center. The stone had words carved on it, too: ‘Whoever pulls the sword from the stone shall be the rightful king.’”

“Oh!” Emily said excitedly. “Is Uther’s son going to pull the sword out? I bet he is.”

Her ghost pouted. “Well, obviously,” he told her. “But you’re ruining the fun of it. Don’t you know how to listen to a story?”

“Sorry,” Emily said, then stifled a yawn, snuggling up to her ghost. “M’gonna close my eyes for a bit, ‘kay?” She murmured. “Then you can tell me about the rightful king...”

Her eyes flickered shut and her hand curled into her ghost’s leather jacket, and she was soon fast asleep.

She woke the next morning to Callista bringing her breakfast, and telling her over their sausage and potatoes that Corvo was back, and had brought with him Anton Sokolov. In the excitement of the day’s events, Emily forgot all about her ghostly friend.

Though despite that, the childishly drawn sketch of a whale still remained pinned to her wall, and the next night, she found herself looking for the compass in the stars, smiling to herself.

She was glad she’d found a friend, at least for a little while. Something to take her mind off things. She hoped she’d made him less lonely, too, the ghost with black eyes.

Some were dead, being cut off from Delilah’s power a shock too much for their addicted bodies to bear. Others were unconscious, but still others were awake and dazed, confused and scared. Witches no longer, but frightened women. Once they realized the Lord Protector wasn’t going to kill them, they haltingly explained why they’d joined Delilah when asked. The stories were similar to Ashworth’s, he realized -- women fleeing from unwanted marriages, assaults by husbands or other men, abuse by family or spouses...women that wanted freedom and safety. Delilah had opened her arms to them, and they had followed her anywhere.

Corvo let the ones who wanted no more part of it go, telling them to get as far from Dunwall as possible and not to return -- take their unconscious sisters with them. They obliged happily, many of them having never wanted to go back to Dunwall anyway. Others still allowed themselves to be taken into custody, though Corvo knew it would be some time before they were dealt with -- with Khulan dead, it would be months before a new High Overseer was chosen. A few even offered to help Corvo himself, or accepted his offer; he’d find a place for them in his spy network somewhere, he thought. Nobles and the like were always looking for maids, and a good few bars needed waitstaff -- though he’d be careful never to place them in any sort of situation like they had fled from.

Some fought, and those their calmer sisters dealt with -- or he did, knocking them out and letting the others carry them off. Many had already fled, and it wasn’t long before the Tower was empty of the women once more.

That done, he returned to Emily’s side, pulling Jameson aside to speak to him about beginning to repair the damages done. They needed to know the extent of the damage, where all the gangs were and their numbers after all this, if Slackjaw -- pardon, Azariah -- was alright. There was a lot of work to do, but they had rebuilt Dunwall after the plague. They could do it now.

That done, he asked Jameson to head to the docks, find the ship called the Dreadful Wale and tell them it was safe. They had a guest to bring to the Tower, after all, even if her captain and passenger didn’t want to return.

Kirin Jindosh’s arrival sparked no small amount of talk among the scattered nobles still huddled together in the throne room, but Emily greeted him warmly. The Wale’s other crew, Jameson reported, had sent their well-wishes and regards, that they were glad it had gone well, but they didn’t plan to stay. Their passenger was headed to Tyvia for some quiet, and the captain? Well, she had someone to find.

----------------------

The next few days were a whirlwind of activity; people peering out of their homes, dozens of loudspeaker announcements, rounding up all the remaining Guardsmen and Overseers -- of which there were a sorry amount of -- and getting workers to come in and clean up the Tower and the city streets. The dead guards, Overseers, and servants were cut down and collected, and Emily and the remaining Overseers held a service for them in Holger Square; she collected all their names, painstakingly so, and had a memorial erected in the Tower gardens, thanking them for their service and their courage in defending their home -- she called it the Khulan Memorial, in honor of her late friend.

Jindosh had made himself at home invading Dr. Toksvig’s quarters until something more suitable had been found -- after all, he’d been banned from the Academy (something he was strangely proud of, if bitter) and couldn’t work there -- and spent his time cheerfully driving both the Physician and the aging Piero Joplin quite mad. Though, Corvo and Emily both suspected the philosopher was happy to have someone to debate with again, now that Sokolov was doubly retired.

Slackjaw was, thankfully, alive -- his experience with Granny Rags all those years ago had sent him running towards high ground as soon as Delilah had shown herself, and he crept back once it was settled to help Corvo. Between him, Jameson, the ex-Whaler Rinaldo and the men he led, and the rest of his spy network both old and new, everything looked to be slowly and steadily returning to normal.

As for Serkonos and Karnaca...it seemed as if Duke Luca Abele -- or the man the Isles thought was the Duke -- had found himself a quite stunning change of heart. Between him, Dr. Hypatia, and Aramis Stilton, Karnaca was cleaning itself up as well, the bloodflies dissipating and life and prosperity returning. Vice Overseer Byrne and Paolo of the Howlers were able to put aside their differences to work to restore the city, and with Emily’s alliance with the Duke strengthened, things seemed well on that front.

Wyman returned from Morley overjoyed and relieved to see their lover safe, and Corvo was happy to let them be alone for a while. The two of them needed it. Emily especially, as he knew that even though she’d remained strong throughout the whole ordeal, it had taken a toll.

Few words needed to be exchanged between father and daughter -- he’d been there the entire time, seen what she’d seen, been by her side even if he couldn’t speak. He knew her struggles, and she knew he knew. All that was needed was each other’s presence, the reassurance that they were there and safe. That they were home.

That’s not to say that they didn’t speak of the time in Karnaca at all -- Emily gifted Corvo with the trophy and journal she’d taken from his ruined old home as she’d intended, and together they’d spent a long night sharing stories of Corvo’s youth and laughing. It was nice, Emily thought, to be able to share that part of her father. To share this part of her life, too, knowing she could make an offhand comment about the clockwork mansion or the Conservatory and know Corvo would understand.

But there was one last thing to do, one last person to check on.

She didn’t know how to contact him, or if he’d even answer, but after sporadic trips out through the city, Emily felt confident with her makeshift shrine tucked in the safe room. She didn’t want it to be ostentatious, so it wasn’t. Just some candles and pretty cloth, her sparrow mask from years past next to it, along with some flowers, pretty crystals, and the carved boat Samuel had given her. She put other souvenirs there, too -- the syringe that had held Hypatia’s counterserum, a clockwork soldier’s head, a calendar sheet from 1849....mementos of her adventures, surrounding the bone charms she’d kept.

That night, she crept down to her safe room once everyone was asleep, and sat down in front of the shrine. “I want to talk to you,” she said to the air. “So...can we talk?” She’d feel very silly if this didn’t work.

She almost thought it didn’t, when there was no answer, and eventually she dozed off. Once she did, though...her eyes fluttered open to the safe room again, but with the smell of seawater and the hum of whales, the angles all oddly askew. The Outsider sat perched on one of the benches in the copy of the safe room, looking boh strangely out of place and at home.

“You and Corvo both,” he said, bemused. “Making your tiny little shrines for me. Very bold of you, hiding them in Dunwall Tower itself.”

Emily smiled at him. “Well, it’s not like anyone can get in here but me,” she pointed out pertly. “And besides, I wanted to make one of my own for you. As thanks.”

That made the being falter, blinking his all-black eyes in confusion. “Thanks?” He repeated. “Whatever for?”

“For giving me the Mark,” Emily explained. “I don’t know if I would have been able to stop Delilah without it. You helped me, and I wanted to thank you. That’s why Corvo made his, too, did you know? He told me about when you marked him, all those years ago. He said that it helped him save me, and he owes you for that. Even if you didn’t mark us for altruistic reasons, it still means a lot to us.”

Even if it meant being a heretic, that mark had given them abilities that made them able to protect the person they’d do anything for, the only family they had left. And Emily, for one, wasn’t sure she’d be able to thank the Outsider enough for that.

“You…” The Outsider began. “You’re both strange. The strangest people I’ve ever marked. Thanking me, really…” He transversed to the side, sitting cross-legged next to Emily, watching her. “Every time I think I begin to see how you or your dear father work, you surprise me.” He chuckled. “I suppose that’s why I haven’t grown bored of you yet.”

Emily laughed. “I’m glad we’re so interesting,” she said teasingly. “I know you’ve been watching me for a long time, though. It took me a while to remember, because I was so young and everything was so chaotic back then, but I remember my tower ghost.”

The Outsider froze. “You...remember that?” He asked, startled. “My goodness, Emily, that’s...quite the memory you have.” Emily could tell she’d caught him genuinely off-guard at that. Perhaps he hadn’t expected her to remember, but she did. When her father was away and Callista was asleep, she’d been alone with her thoughts and her fears and her doubts, the anger and sadness she was trying to ignore until it was all over. But there was the ghost, too. Young and pale, with black eyes -- he’d scared her a little at first, but he’d been nice. Sat with her and told her stories to distract her, of sea monsters and far off lands, times long ago. Tales from ages past that she didn’t know, some she found later in books and others she didn’t. She’d tried to have a tea party with him once, him and Mrs. Pilsen, but he’d laughed and told her he couldn’t eat or drink anything. She’d told him matter-of-factly that neither could Mrs. Pilsen -- she was a doll -- so he could join them if he wanted. It had been nice, and she’d missed him after she left the Hounds Pit, but it had slipped out of her memories. Until now, of course.

“I didn’t, not at first,” she admitted. “But I was thinking about it, and I remembered only a few days ago.” She smiled. “I’m glad I did, though. You were...comforting, when I was scared and worried about Corvo. And now I know you were watching him, too, and that makes me feel better.”

The Outsider still seemed struck speechless, so she pressed on with what else she wanted to say. “And-- I wanted to ask. It was you who sent Daud after Delilah all those years ago, wasn’t it? I know he dealt with her, I heard an audiograph, but I could never figure out how he’d known about her plot against me. It didn’t make any sense. But he was marked, right? He was marked, so you spoke to him. And-- and you told him about Delilah.”

“I did,” the Outsider managed after a moment, regaining his composure. “He was starting to be boring, all that melancholy on top of all the death. So I decided to send him on one last job. Gave him Delilah’s name, sat back, and watched. He did a good job of it, too. Not that I expected him to survive much longer afterwards, but...” He smiled thinly. “Your father surprised me yet again.”

Emily was glad Corvo had told her that already, or else she’d have been more angry than she was. She was annoyed, she’d grant him, but she was strangely glad, too. He’d saved her, after all. Banishment was a good punishment. “So you saved me,” she said. “You and Daud.”

“I--” The Outsider tried. “I suppose, if you want to see it that way.”

“I do,” Emily said, and got to her knees to lean over and hug the Outsider. He stiffened, shocked, but allowed it, though he didn’t return the gesture -- though she hadn’t expected him to. He was thin beneath her arms, she realized; she could feel the knobs of his spine under her arms. He was cold, too, eerily so, and smaller than she’d thought. If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend she was hugging the skinny human boy he’d once been, four thousand years ago.

Part of her wanted to ask if he’d been watching her and her father those years ago, when the incident with Zhukov occurred. And if he hadn’t...tell him about it. About the mirror, about the knife. But she held her tongue -- she suspected it might not be wise, or pleasant, to tell him someone had been wielding the knife used to murder him.

She sat back eventually, staring fearlessly into the pitch-dark eyes of the Outsider, and smiled. He smiled back, showing strangely sharp teeth. “You are fascinating, Emily Kaldwin,” he said, straightening his rumpled jacket. “I hope you continue to be so. It would be a shame if you started to be boring.”

“I’ll promise to keep entertaining you if you promise to visit more often,” she said, not missing a beat. “Corvo said he hasn’t seen you in fifteen years. That’s very rude of you, you know. You need to come say hi more often. Even if it’s just a hello.”

Once again, the Outsider fell silent, startled, and then laughed. “Very well, Your Majesty,” he said. “I believe I can do that. But next time, try not to fall asleep somewhere so uncomfortable? I can visit just as easily while you’re snug in your bedchamber. And you won’t wake up with aching joints”

“Yes, sir, I’ll do that, sir,” she teased, and reaches out with her marked hand to place it on his cold, smooth one. “Good night, Outsider. I’ll see you again soon?”

She can see smoke in the streets from the dock they’ve pulled into, the same one they’d left from weeks ago. The whole place smells of fire and blood and rotting leaves, and it sickens her. She’s spent so much time fixing what the rat plague had done, and now this? Now this.

But she’ll fix it -- she’ll end this. Delilah hadn’t thought much of her, she’s sure. All they’d been to her was a sheltered, spoiled princess and the Royal Protector, a tired old man. But she’d proved herself, she’d fought back -- they’d fought back. And now they were here. Delilah hadn’t known them...but she would. She would.

They wake from a fitful few hours’ rest, finally, and head out to the main room. Sokolov and Jindosh are there, the Serkonan inventor looking a little seasick and nursing a bottle of pear soda (allegedly good for settling the stomach). She smiles faintly at the sight -- Kirin had ended up being...abrasive and arrogant, of course, but so was Sokolov, in a way. The other genius had grown on her, really, and her half-hearted offer back at the mansion was now more than likely genuine.

“Are you two ready?” She asks, and Sokolov smiles at her fondly.

“Yes, but Meagan wanted to speak to you in private first,” he says. “She’s up on the deck.” Emily blinks, a bit surprised, but nods and heads up there. She’s not sure what Meagan wants to talk to her about, but in private...she’s a bit concerned. Had something gone wrong?

Meagan is standing at the railing, staring out the Dunwall skyline. She can’t see the woman’s face, but her shoulders are slumped and she seems tired. “You know,” she begins, clearly having heard Emily arrive on deck. “I made a vow never to come back here. And now it’s twice I’ve broken it for you.”

“Meagan,” Emily murmurs, coming to join her at the railing. The older woman doesn’t look up at her, not even when Corvo hops from Emily’s shoulder to the rail and nudges her hand. That, honestly, concerned him more. If she’s too preoccupied for even the kind of animal comfort most people will always accept…

“People have called me that for a long time,” Meagan says finally. “But it’s a lie. My name is Billie Lurk.”

Corvo thinks that name might be familiar, something overheard or seen written a long time ago, but Emily shakes her head with a faint, slightly worried smile. “Everyone has secrets Me-- Billie,” she says, but then hesitates, something in her gut twisting. “But I...I have a feeling you have more to say.”

“Yeah,” Billie says with a weak smile, finally turning to look at her. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but-- but you deserve to know the truth.” She takes a deep breath, looking away at the Ocean again before looking back. “I’ll just...say it. Fifteen years ago, I ran with a mercenary gang. We got paid to kill people. Some of them deserved it, some didn’t. The boss...he pulled me up from the slums when I had nothing and I’d run out of rope. I--” She breaks off to shake her head. “This is hard to admit.”

Emily has a feeling she knows what’s about to be said, and Corvo is certain of it. Her words, the boss...he knows exactly what she means to say, and he wants to be angry, wants to lash out but...he’s more concerned about how Emily will take it right now. He can worry about his own feelings later.

“Whatever it is, just--” Emily says, her voice faltering. “Just say it.”

Billie nods, turning away again to stare at the skyline, and Corvo wonders if she’s searching for the Flooded District, flooded no more. “Our leader was-- the assassin, Daud. I was part of the crew -- his second, for a time. Our last big job together, we...we were paid to…” She trails off, but Emily doesn’t need her to finish, hands gripping the railing until her knuckles go white.

“You helped Daud kill my mother,” she says, her voice tight if only to keep it from breaking.

“Yes,” Billie says quietly. “I don’t know what else to say. I’ve lived a very long time wishing I could take it back, but I-- I know I can’t.”

Emily is silent for a long moment, staring at her hands. Corvo has time to think, in the space between words. Can he forgive her? No, he doesn’t think he can. He hasn’t forgiven Daud and never will. But fifteen years is a long time to think, to wonder. He’d let Daud live back then, if only because he was desperately fighting to cling to the last shreds of his sanity, terrified that one man’s death at his hands would break the floodgates and send him spiraling into a bloody, vengeful beast. But upon thought...Daud had not wanted her dead -- he’d been paid, and he’d done it, that had been it. He was a tool, nothing more. If someone had given him money, he’d just as easily have killed Burrows, Campbell, even Corvo himself. He was the weapon Burrows had used, and it had broken him as much as it had nearly destroyed Corvo. So no, he thinks. He can’t forgive them, but he can understand. He only hopes Emily can, too.

“I--” Emily’s voice does crack. “I can’t forgive you for what you did,” she says slowly. “But-- But suffering, it...it changes people. You’re not the same person you were then.”

Billie manages a tiny smile, only now reaching out to stroke Corvo’s feathers. “Yeah,” she says quietly. “We’ve all been hurt. Not all of us did what I did, or became what Delilah became. I know you’ll never get over what happened, but-- neither will I.”

“I know,” Emily says softly. “Thank you for everything, Billie. I’ll take the skiff alone from here, so…” She trails off. “I’ll signal when it’s done, so you know it’s safe.” She hesitates, and puts a hand very briefly on Billie’s. “Goodbye.”

Billie just nods, that tiny, sad smile still on her face. “Good luck,” she returns.

Emily turns to head back to the main room to speak to Sokolov again, but before she does, Billie calls her back. “Emily,” she says, and when they turn -- Corvo back on her shoulder -- the woman is offering her a key. “There’s an audiograph in my room,” she says. “I don’t know if-- I don’t know what you’ll think, but you should listen to it, at least.”

“I...okay,” Emily says. “I’ll listen.” She has a feeling she knows what it is -- or at least, who recorded it -- and Corvo again is more certain, so he bobs a nod at her once she’s back in the stairwell, and Emily sighs. “Did I…?” She begins, and he just nods again. “I just...she’s helped me. She’s a friend. I can’t forget that, either. But I…”

I know, Emily, Corvo thinks. You made the right choice, I think. It’s a hard one, trust me...I know that better than I think I can ever tell you. But it’s...it’s the right one.

Emily sighs and shakes her head. “I wish I could understand you,” she murmurs sadly, but she slips through the door into the main room and unlocks Billie’s room, stepping inside and shutting the door. It’s mainly occupied by a desk, an audiograph player sitting on it. Emily manages a quiet snort when she notes the wanted posters tacked to the wall -- one for Daud, and one for Billie, by order of the Lord Regent. Getting rid of all the loose ends, most like. A familiar old mask sits beside the desk and Corvo hops onto it, pecking aimlessly at it as if doing so will shake something loose. What, he doesn’t know. It’s painful to look at it, but not the pain of a fresh wound -- it’s the dull throb of an old scar or a bad knee when the storms roll in.

Emily sighs and sits on the desk’s chair, staring at the audiograph for a long moment. For a while, she chooses to fiddle with the bonecharms sitting on the desk instead -- she’s seen them before, of course, knows what they are, but now that they’re right here...she can feel their hum, hear a faint whisper of whalesong. They’re a bit warm to the touch, and before she really processes it, she slips the handful -- only one or two, she thinks -- into her pocket. Good luck charms, are they? They might help.

Finally, though, she presses play, and she and Corvo watch as the audiograph begins to whirr.

“No one will ever know exactly what it took to save Emily Kaldwin from a living death as Delilah’s puppet,” begins a man’s voice, tired and cigarette-rough, the edge of a faint Serkonan accent to it. Corvo knows it, recognizes it -- and Emily seems to realize who she’s listening to with a soft noise. It’s not at all what she expected her mother’s killer to sound like. She expected...someone like the Duke, maybe. Like one of the Pendletons. Cruel, cold, arrogant. But Daud...he sounds-- he sounds like her father. And what he’s saying...she leans in to listen.

“No one except the Outsider,” he continues. “Who watches everything and thinks his own dark thoughts, there in the endless Void, speaking to only a few in every generation.” He sighs heavily, and she can hear him shift in his chair. “I’ve learned, recently, that our choices always matter to someone, somewhere. And sooner or later, in ways we can’t always fathom...the consequences will always come back to us. I came from Serkonos to Dunwall as a boy -- made my living as a killer, one of the few who’ve heard the Outsider’s voice. I murdered an Empress, but saved her daughter, who will one day rule the Empire.” There’s silence for a long time, the sound of a cigarette being put out. “Those were my choices,” Daud says tiredly, but with an air of quiet, almost peaceful acceptance. “I’m ready for what comes.”

The audiograph clicks its end, and Emily stares at it for a long while. “He saved my life,” she says softly. “He killed my mother, and saved me from Delilah. He…” She’s not sure what to think, and Corvo understands. He feels the same. He and Daud...they were both poor boys from Serkonos, good with a sword. Came to Dunwall to start a new chapter in their lives -- one as a killer, the other a protector. Both marked by the Outsider, old before their time. Void, how funny the Outsider must have found it, their confrontation. Like a distorted mirror.

He will never forgive Daud for Jessamine, for being the blade that was the catalyst for the worst months of his life. But he had saved Emily from a witch, from something worse than death. Consider your life my debt repaid, Corvo thinks to himself. You saved Emily, my daughter, and so the life I let you keep is my payment for that, though at the time I didn’t know it. We’re even, Daud.

Emily takes a long breath and stands, leaving Meagan’s room -- and leaving the key on the desk -- and approaching Jindosh and Sokolov. Jindosh lets out a little moan from his spot with his head on the table, but lifts a hand in an attempt at a greeting. Sokolov turns to smile at Emily a little sadly, from where he stands finishing a painting of her -- crow on her shoulder and all -- reaching out to put his hand on her shoulder.

“You know where to go to find Delilah,” he says. “But how will you handle her? I hope you have some kind of a plan.”

Emily manages a faint smile in return. “I hope I do, too,” she admits. “She might not give me any choice but to fight. But whatever happens, she deserves what she gets.”

Sokolov chuckles. “At my age, you come to distrust words like ‘deserve’,” he tells her. “As I’ve said, I knew her long ago. Badly wounded, deep at her center, but cunning. Always looking for a way to pull herself up. More than anything, though, she had a talent for imagining the world as a better place. If only that could have been channeled to something less twisted…”

“It’s probably too late to dwell on regrets,” Emily says softly, thinking of the tired killer in the audiograph. Sokolov sighs, nodding.

“Yes, you’re right,” he agrees. “In any case...please watch yourself.” His other hand comes to Emily’s other shoulder, and he tugs her into a gentle hug. “I’ve come to care a great deal about you, Emily.”

“You, too,” Emily says, returning the gesture. “Goodbye, Anton. I’ll see you when this is over.”

She steps away, and starts to head back up to the skiff, when Jindosh finally lifts his head. His face is still a little green, but he looks better now that they’re docked. “Do come back alive, won’t you, Empress?” He asks with a wry smile. “I’d hate to lose my chance at a royal sponsorship.”

“Don’t worry, I will,” she says with a laugh. “I’ll see you later, too, Jindosh.”

Goodbyes exchanged, she and Corvo finally head up to the dock and board the skiff, letting it drop into the water as they head back home.

----------------------

The docks are a ghost town. Some of the ships are sunk in the harbor, and a fog is low over the district. The smell of seawater and rotting leaves is stronger once she lands, the perfume of the witches almost choking. The storm Corvo felt in his bones is close now, the grey stormclouds rumbling above them with the promise of rain at any moment. The city seems cursed, like this, and Emily suspects it’s a mark of Delilah’s presence.

She scrambles up the cliffside to the docks proper, and the streets are empty. Not a guard in sight, not a civilian...the streets are broken, fires burning in barrels and on street corners, rubble strewn everywhere like an overturned trashbin. The carriage rails are silent, and she can hear the whining and sniffing of the magicked gravehounds as they walk the streets.

Emily swallows at the sight, blinking up to the carriage tracks to walk them towards the gate to the Tower. As she walks, she can see a stopped carriage halfway down a hill, the rail broken and twisted between her and it. She hisses, blinking onto the carriage’s roof and clambering to get hold, and then starts as the loudspeakers crackle to life.

There is no ‘attention Dunwall citizens’ this time, no familiar broadcast. Just a woman, a witch, singing a children’s rhyme -- Corvo recognizes it as an old Serkonan lullaby -- into the microphone, her youthful voice eerie with no music to back it. Emily shivers faintly, but climbs the carriage and over the tunnel, walking along the rest of the cars and glancing around. Still no people, just fog and rubble and the smell of rotting plants.

Emily frowns softly, crouching and reluctantly summoning the corrupted Heart. She doesn’t know if it will do what it’s meant to now that Delilah resides in it, but she hopes it will respond. The black-tainted heart pulses as usual, though, and directs her to the balcony of a building on the right. She dismisses it as soon as she can, though -- she doesn’t want to hear if it speaks -- and blinks up to the balcony. She edges to the open doors and pauses as she hears voices, and glances around the doorframe to see a pair of Hatters rifling through the empty apartment.

She smiles faintly, lifting a hand to point at one, tracing the gold link-light from him to the other. That done, she rummages in her belt pouch, producing a single sleep dart and loading it into her crossbow. The gang member doesn’t even see her, his back turned, so the dart strikes him square in the neck. He makes a confused noise, reaching for the spot, and then drops -- his partner following almost immediately.

“I love that magic,” Emily says to herself, heading into the apartment and stepping over the unconscious Hatters. It’s abandoned, broken glass and shattered knickknacks scattered across the floor along with papers, books, and ashtrays. Shelves are broken and cabinets are opened, and one of the paintings has fallen from the wall. It’s a mess. There’s no shrine immediately visible at first, but Emily knows how Dunwall nobles think -- poking along a noticeably blank wall finds a small barometer, loosely set into the woodwork and able to be turned. She does so, and the wall slides back and open. Just like she’d thought. Nobles loved their secret doors.

She steps into the hidden room and gasps, eyes widening. Corvo smiles inwardly at the sight -- That’s much more like it, he thinks. This is the sort of shrine I’m used to. I almost missed them. A far cry from the simplicity of those in Karnaca, this is the type of shrine Corvo remembers. Lit by purple lamps in a dark room and surrounded by candles and draped blue cloth, it’s otherworldly on its own, and makes him feel that much more at home. “Wow,” Emily says. “This is what Dunwall nobles get up to in back rooms? I wonder how the Outsider feels about all this.”

I don’t think he likes it very much, from what I know, Corvo muses. He’s not really much for overzealous devotees. Emily can’t hear that, though, so she just places her hands on the runes and smiles as the Void surrounds them. It’s a worried smile, though -- she remembers how off he had been weeks earlier in Ravina.

“Welcome home, Your Majesty,” the Outsider says, swirling into being perched on the rocks in front of her. “Delilah’s waiting for you.” He smiles thinly, humorlessly, his hands restless in his lap and legs unable to keep entirely still, as if he’s full of energy he can’t be rid of. “She’s been sleeping badly these past few weeks. That piece of her you’re carrying around has been calling out, begging her to take it back.” If he could sleep, Emily thinks, he’d be sleeping badly, too. He looks drawn and tired, pale, as if Delilah’s been drawing more power from the part of him she’s wormed her way into. “She feels the same craving, but she’ll fight to the death to stop you from putting her spirit back where it belongs.”

He transverses to Emily’s right, starting to pace. “You were careful in Karnaca,” he says. “Let’s see how that serves you in the tower where you were born.” He stops, turning to face her, and his expression is more unreadable than it has ever been. “Delilah’s got your throne, your father -- well, his body, at the least -- and she’s got a secret,” he says, and it’s then they can hear the slight strain in his voice, smell the underlying scent of flowers beneath the seawater. There are gnarled roots snaking along the black stone they stand on -- she’s getting stronger.

“Outsider...” Emily says, worried. “What kind of secret?”

He opens his mouth as if to speak again, but nothing comes out -- he falters, then, and his legs seem to give out. Emily darts forward, catching him before he hits the ground, and he grimaces as she helps him stand again, cold and pale hands gripping tight the cloth on her shoulders. He doesn’t weigh near as much as she thought he would, and this close she can see how young he appears. Younger than her, even. It’s strangely sad, to think that a child had been made into this.

“Are you alright?” She asks him, and he snorts, but doesn’t let go.

“Fine,” he says sarcastically. “Just fine. Nothing’s wrong. Just an arrogant madwoman siphoning off my powers and corrupting my Void, that’s all. Nothing to concern yourself with. Just go get Corvo’s body and your throne back.”

Corvo snorts. You really think we’ll believe that? He asks. This is hurting you. We could see that much the last time we spoke, even when we spoke after Aramis’s manor. Don’t worry, he tells the Void spirit. We’re doing this for you, too. You gave me the power to save my daughter, even if it wasn’t for altruistic reasons. You gave Emily the power to save her throne and to save me. This is our thank you -- helping you.

Emily, despite being unable to hear her father, says about the same. “I will, of course, but I’m helping you, too,” she says. “You’re in pain, I can tell. I don’t want you to...she’s hurting you, too. You gave me the power to save Father and get back my throne, and I owe you for that, Outsider. So I’ll-- I’ll help you, too.”

The Outsider steps back from them both, seemingly speechless. “You…” He begins. “The two of you are the strangest people I have ever marked. I have watched you both for years, and I still don’t…” He shakes his head. “Go, then,” he says with a very faint, surprisingly human smile. “Stop her.”

He bows to them as the Void fades into the real world, and Emily glances at Corvo. “Well,” she says. “I get the feeling we said about the same thing to him, didn’t we?” Corvo nods, cawing in amusement, and she smiles. “I’m glad we agree. I...we’ll have a lot to discuss when this is over, I think. Soon, Father. Soon.”

She leaves the apartment -- carefully closing the hidden door again -- and perches on the balcony, blinking back over to the carriage rails. She follows them all the way to the closed Tower entrance and drops down to the service door. She glances behind her, just to check, and winces at the dead bodies strewn across the street, both guards and civilians. So many dead...she’ll have to honor them properly once this was over.

She enters the checkpoint cautiously, closing the door behind her and turning -- and freezing, hands flying to her mouth. “Oh, Void,” she says softly, horrified. There are more dead bodies on the ground here, of course, more guards, but the worst of it is a pair of them dangling from thick nooses on a makeshift scaffold. “Why would--” Her voice cracks as she continues, the sick realization hitting her that most of these men aren’t guards -- they’re Overseers. They’re everywhere, lifeless on the ground, and she thinks they must have...they couldn’t have stood for this. The Empress, a witch? They’d never let that happen. They must have come to stop her and--

“No, no…” She manages. “Oh, Khulan, please be alright…” The High Overseer, the big, kind man who had replaced Campbell...Yul Khulan was a good man. Void help her, if he were dead...dead because of Delilah…if any of her friends, her people, were dead like Alexi...she prays not.

She reaches the other side of the checkpoint and tests the gate, only to find it locked. With a sigh, she blinks up to a lamp post, then to the top of the gate to look around. Seeing nothing, she slips across the steel roof to the other end, freezing as she drops down to the other gateway -- there are witches on the balconies around her, and she bites her lip as she creeps to the left side of the gate, climbing onto the small ledge encircling it and slipping around, carefully creeping along the wall. She blinks across the path to one of the garden’s buildings and is halfway through the window when she hears four or five witches chanting...something. Some kind of spell? She doesn’t stop to listen, sliding back out onto the pipe below the window and blinking to the roof. She could use her link-light and knock them out, but there’s no reason for her to do that. She doesn’t need to -- she’s just here for Delilah.

She crosses the building’s roof and perches on it, watching the area. It’s a mess, dead trees and bodies everywhere, a bonfire in front of the main entrance with a few witches sitting scattered about it. She can see the lock from here, and near it the gazebo -- her heart twists to see it, the pain fresh, and Corvo has to look away from it. Losing her again…it hurt almost as much, if not more.

Looking around, she spies a tree near the Tower’s entrance gate and blinks into it, wincing as some of the branches slap against her skin. From there she blinks over to a ledge on the tower wall, and then down to the front doors. She hears the sound of a witch behind her, she thinks, but pushes her way in and shuts the door behind her before the woman sees her.

And here we are, she thinks. Home at last.

------------------------

The room she enters is cluttered and filled with furniture, propped messily up against windows and doors like barricades. Through one of the broken windows she can see more Overseers dangling from nooses, and she tastes bile. How cruel, not just to kill them but to display them like-- like trophies. Warnings. But for who? Who would dare enter the Tower while Delilah sat on the throne?

Besides her, that is. She can hear witches talking as she creeps to the right toward the elevator, and frowns to herself. The chapel? What was Delilah doing in the chapel? It would probably be a good idea to investigate that. But either way, she needs to get to the elevator first. There’s a note tacked to the frame, though, and Emily swears under her breath when she reads it -- for more than one reason. The power’s shut off, which is bad enough, but...the Abbey’s assault? Then the Overseers really had attacked. And...oh, Void, she hopes Khulan is alright.

But now she has to restore the elevator’s power. Damn it. At least she knows where she needs to go -- the Security Room is where the whale oil tanks are, and it should be… “Ugh,” she hisses, checking the door to the left of the elevator -- a straight path to her destination -- and finding it blocked. She’ll have to go the long way. As if everything wasn’t hard enough as it is.

She returns to the front hall and climbs the shelves to the broken window into the entry hall, perching on them and looking in as she tries to see where the witches are. Her heart leaps into her throat, though -- all she sees is the trio of Overseers dangling from the chandelier, more broken furniture and dead bodies….and the macabre altar at the top of the foyer’s stairs, candles surrounding the broken body of Yul Khulan, dangling by an arm from pieces of wood cobbled into a broken X shape.

“No,” she whispers. “Oh, no no. No. Khulan, no.” Corvo, too, is horrified, swallowing thickly -- the High Overseer was a good man, a kind man, sincere and devoted, and this was...wrong. So wrong. He’d been a friend to him and Emily, and now he was dead, desecrated even. His heart sinks, and he tastes bitter worry in his throat. If Khulan was dead...what of his spies? Had they had sense enough to flee, to lay low? Jameson, Slackjaw, Rinaldo, the rest of the Bottle Street boys and others that had signed on as part of his network...he prays they’re safe.

Still feeling sick, Emily blinks to a higher shelf and then to an empty chandelier, and then, after a moment’s contemplation, to the black, closed-in balcony overlooking the foyer. Her father’s rooms.

They’re empty of witches, empty of anything, but it’s still hard to look at for both of them. Corvo’s chambers, trashed and disheveled. Papers and broken glass everywhere, the cabinets shattered… “I’ll help you clean it up,” Emily promises, and Corvo manages a sad smile. At least fifteen years ago they’d just locked his rooms and left them be. Now...now this almost felt violating. An invasion. He can’t imagine how Emily must feel, knowing Delilah sleeps in her rooms.

He lifts off of her shoulder and lands gingerly on the broken door of one of his cabinets, cawing to Emily to get her to come over. “What is it?” She asks. “What’s…” He bobs his head down at the locked cabinet beneath the glass doors, and she raises her eyebrows at him, but picks the lock and opens it. She lets out a tiny, almost laughing gasp at what’s within, and looks back up at him. “Oh, you heretic,” she says teasingly. “No wonder you keep it locked. The maids would faint.”

The cabinet is split in two, and half contains an open box, the hum of a good two dozen or so bone charms echoing from within it. Emily reaches out to select three or four more to add to the few she’d borrowed from Billie, tucking them into her coat. The other half is...a shrine, she realizes. Small and plain, just a candle and a scrap of cloth alongside fragments of whalebone, an umberwood figurine of a whale, and several handfuls of the sort of thing she knows her father collects -- feathers, seashells, shiny stones, fish scales, dried flowers...bits and pieces of things that were thought junk by most, but her father seemed to think worth keeping. The shrine is nowhere near as big or as fancy as the ones she’s seen, but it seems...more real, somehow.

Emily hesitates, before reaching into her coat and rummaging around to find something of her own -- a chunk of blood amber and some shiny bits of broken colored glass -- to leave at her father’s shrine. “We’ll stop her, Outsider,” she whispers. “Don’t worry.” She doesn’t think he’d want to be prayed to, so she leaves it at that, standing and closing the cabinet, locking it again and letting Corvo hop onto her shoulder.

Crossing the room, she peers through the keyhole of the other door -- there’s a witch there, pacing aimlessly, and she’s able to easily knock her out and prop her up against the wall. The corridor beyond is in the same sad shape, more dead Overseers hanging from a makeshift scaffold over the stairwell. She can hear the faint growl of the gravehounds and a distant murmur of a clockwork soldier and she sighs, creeping forward slowly. The empty shelves are full of used candles now, suitcases and other junk strewn about like the witches are just young noblewomen having a slumber party. It irritates Emily more than she can say.

She heads down the stairs slowly, cringing at the hanging servants lower down -- not just Overseers, displayed in this macabre way, then -- and creeping down to the second floor again. There are more hanging servants on the second floor landing, dangling limply over more ripped and scattered books and papers. To the left, she knows, is the chapel, and to the right is the stairs down to the security room. First things first, she decides -- get the elevator up and running. She slips into the righthand corridor, creeping nervously past a clockwork soldier and down into the basement.

Candelabras and naked candles light the stairwell, and she nearly trips over a mattress on her way into the security room. There are two witches there, talking nonsense about some strange charm or spell, what plants to use. Emily crouches around the corner, watching thoughtfully. “Let’s do something different,” she murmurs, and lifts a hand. A white smoke appears beside her, and Corvo’s eyes widen as Emily summons...another Emily. The doppelganger’s eyes are blank, but other than that the two are identical. “Whoah,” Emily whispers, impressed, and then digs in her coat to put a stun mine on her doppelganger’s back. “Sorry,” she murmurs and then nudges it out into the security room.

Corvo watches with no small amount of amusement even as Emily ducks behind the corner again -- some confused noises, static, and screams later, the stun mine’s gone off and the witches are out cold. Emily stands and enters the security room with a grin, then, flashing Corvo a smile. “Can you do that?” She asks, and Corvo squawks irritably. “That’s probably a no,” she says, heading over to the whale oil dispenser. “You’ll have to tell me what you can do that I can’t and vice versa, sometime. We can test out what’s better. You might even have some good ideas for me.”

And you might have some ideas for me, Corvo thinks, amused. I’d like that. No more secrets about my mark. We can...share that, too. Soon, Emily.

With practiced ease, Emily hits the tank dispenser, catching an empty tank and plugging it into the fueling station. The tank fills with pale blue oil, smelling of fish and salt, and she hefts it over to the empty socket. The elevator blares its activation warning and she grins to herself -- right, that’s done. Now time to go check that chapel.

She climbs back out of the basement and slips across the way into the chapel, only for footsteps to stutter to a halt as she enters. “What the--” She manages, and Corvo squawks his agreement. “Why is there a tree--” The whole place has been desecrated in the worst way, really, turned into Delilah’s workshop. The tree is just part of it -- there’s bags of pigment and dye, sigils painted upon the walls and drawn on chalkboards...the whole place is a witch’s room, and that she put it in the chapel is more than likely on purpose.

Sighing, Emily tries to rummage through every piece of paper and journal she finds, looking for...for what, she doesn’t know, but for something. Corvo is the one who, again, finds the audiograph, and taps the play button with urgency. Emily jumps when she hears Delilah’s voice, but turns to listen once she realizes the source.

“It works!” Delilah’s voice says triumphantly. “I painted the Chapel, but added a tree to the painting. After arranging the runes around the chair, both pure and corrupted, I was able to transpose the chapel made of paint with the one made of stone.” There’s a pause, and her voice softens with rapt desire. “With more runes, I should be able to do the same to all the empire.” Emily chokes out a gasp. “This will be my greatest undertaking, transposing my painting - The World As It Should Be - with this wretched dung heap we're all born into. At last, all will be made proper and good.”

“We have to stop her,” Emily manages. “This is worse than just-- this is more than my throne. This is the world. She’s…” Shaking her head, her gaze falls on a scrap of paper next to the audiograph, and she leans to look. The words on it are simple, but Emily feels her stomach drop with anticipation. “Corvo,” she whispers. “Look. She says the runs need to be balanced. If they aren’t, she could be…” She looks up and around the workshop. “I have a way to beat her.”

Part of her wants to kill Delilah, so badly she can taste it. But she’d be afraid that wouldn’t work. She’d be afraid to...kill her aunt, in a way. Terrible as she is. She doesn’t want to kill anyone. And this...this would be poetic justice. She walks over to the workbench, grabbing some handfuls of the dried algae on a bench and -- delicately -- a human skull she finds sitting on another table. All the instruments of Delilah’s destruction...right here in her own workshop. How ironic.

Gingerly, Emily sets the skull down on the workbench next to the algae, and bends to her left to grab a handful of blue pigment powder, dumping that on the other side of the skull. She stares at it a moment, looking at it, the glowing sigils behind it, and then at Corvo. “Now what?” She mutters. But her question is answered -- the altar glows bright, the skull seeming to absorb the other two ingredients as a sigl flashes underneath it. The glow fades and the skull is blackened, eerily so. “Well,” Emily mutters. “That’s what.”

She grabs the skull carefully, attaching it to her belt, and starts to head out of the chapel the way she came -- she stops, though, seeing a pair of gravehounds pacing the hall right outside the door. She swears quietly and steps back, glancing around and blinking up to the chandelier and then the third floor balcony, slipping out into the hall. She plans to head back to Corvo’s room and blink down from there to get to the elevator, but as she approaches the door, she hears voices -- a few witches are standing in his room, talking...including the one she’d knocked out earlier. Emily swears again internally, trying to quickly think of an alternate route. This wasn’t good, she’d been so careful, she was so close...she isn’t sure if she can knock all of them out via the Void hypnosis or her link-light, and even then, one of them is facing the doorway. If she gets an inch closer….

Corvo, looking around, solves her problem for her. Down at the other end of the hall, past a patch of overgrown grasses and weeds, is a fireplace. One he knows well -- how many times had he slipped through it in the middle of the night, to and from his room in various stages of dress? The thought amuses him sadly, and he lifts off Emily’s shoulder, flying up to the chandelier before crossing the hall to land on the fireplace.

Emily follows him with her eyes and then brightens, recognizing the passage for her own reasons. She blinks up to the chandelier to follow his path unseen, and then over to the fireplace. There’s a witch a few feet away, but she tugs the lever and slips through the passage with ease, standing with a sense of sorrow and gratitude in her mother’s old secret room. She turns to close the passage and then takes a long breath, standing there for one last fleeting, quiet moment. But she’ll have time for this later, she decides, and moves over to the other door, unlocking it with her ring and stepping through. She climbs the few steps and opens the second door into her safe room, and then stops, jaw dropping.

“Ramsey?” She manages, staring at the statue in the safe room’s gold storage area. It’s him alright, frozen in a posture seemingly in the middle of trying to snatch an ingot out of one of the safes. She almost laughs, but doesn’t, just shaking her head. “Serves you right,” she mutters, picking her way around it and around the tree roots that have broken the exit door, heading back up to the stairs leading to her chamber...and then to the throne room.

The place is a hideous mess, she realizes in horror. It’s practically a forest, thick roots everywhere and leaves coating the ground where grass and shrubs aren’t already somehow growing, shattered glass and dead bodies everywhere. Along the wall is a huge painting, framed with more roots and vines -- she can’t see it clearly, but she sees Delilah standing at it, murmuring to herself as she paints finishing touches on its surface.

Emily takes a slow breath and inches forward to her throne, seeing the branches wrapped around it and the runes slotted neatly into them -- two familiar whalebone runes on one side and two carved, corrupted skulls on the other. She suppresses a chill that runs down her spine, swallowing as she takes the skull from her belt to put it into place. She...remembers, all of a sudden. Vague memories of years ago, when she was young, the man from Tyvia with his black coat and red goggles. Skulls and bones, faintly smoking. A leviathan’s jaw, a black mirror showing dark, terrible things. A bronze, dual-bladed knife (that’s familiar, she realizes with a sick jolt, that she thinks she’s seen again in the Void, pointed down at the neck of the being who was once a boy.)

She wonders why she thinks of this only now, glancing at the skull in her hands and shivering again, shoving it into place beneath the other two, watching as the roots blacken and stain the edges of the throne. Had she only known then what she knew now...what would have changed, if anything?

Maybe, maybe not. But that was years ago, and this is now. She turns again to face Delilah, flinching as she sees the statues scattered around the room. Her father is who draws her eyes first, arm still outstretched as he reaches for something no longer there -- Corvo swallows, crow’s eyes flickering over the body still out of his reach, trapped in stone while his spirit is trapped here in feathers. There are others, guards and other men, and she thanks the Void that Wyman is in Morley. It makes her sick to think her lover might have been frozen like this. It’s bad enough that one of the other statues is Jameson, an arm flung over his face as he looks like he’s falling backwards, trying to back away.

Jamie...oh, Jamie, Emily thinks, resting a hand on the stone prison her friend is trapped in. I’m sorry. We’ll fix this.

She takes a breath, stepping past the statues with Corvo resolute on her shoulder, and summons the heart, pointing it decisively at Delilah’s back. It glows brightly as its contents escape, Delilah’s spirit returning to her in a rush of light and shadow, and then near explodes in brightness, sending Emily and Corvo sprawling backwards, stunned.

“What is this?!” Delilah snarls as Emily pulls herself to her feet. “My spirit returns-- you!” She turns for a moment as Emily tries to steady her wobbling legs with her frozen father’s arm. “Enter my canvas, dear niece,” she says, spreading her arms wide as the floor lights up beneath her, sigils glowing as the painting seems to shatter into a white vortex. “I will show you my vision.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m right behind you,” Emily manages, shaking the last of the spots from her eyes. “Corvo, come o-- Corvo?” Her voice softens, turning small when she realizes her father’s feathery body hasn’t moved. “Corvo?” She repeats, kneeling. “Oh, no. Please, no. Not now. Not when I’m so close.” she reaches out to put a finger on his chest, only mildly reassured that the avian form her father’s spirit is in still breathes. The breaths are shallow, labored, and he still doesn’t move, sprawled upon the dirty carpet like roadkill.

“Oh, Corvo,” she whispers. “Rest, Father. We’re almost at the end.” Sending a desperate, final prayer to the Outsider -- protect him, please don’t let him die -- she stands again, checking her crossbow and blade, takes a breath, and then steps into the canvas’s vortex.

Emily blinks the light out of her eyes and looks around at the Voidscape she stands in. “So this is her world as it should be,” she murmurs. “A landscape shattered and broken, an empire on its knees worshiping her as a goddess.” Another jolting flashback, this time to the vision she’d seen in Zhukov’s dark mirror. A cruel, chaotic version of herself, laughing as her father murdered for her entertainment...that’s what Delilah wanted, wasn’t it? Absolute power and control, the world adoring and terrified of their ruler.

She takes a breath and walks forward, through the sea of statues in various positions of servitude and obeisance. She can hear Delilah humming, perched upon her throne -- but is it Delilah? It’s a statue, she realizes, just like the one she’d seen in Ashworth’s office. She stops on the ledge she stands on, toes of her boots off the edge, and looks around. A pause, and she slips her spyglass from her coat, looking around to examine the faces of every single statue.

“One, two, three, four...five,” she whispers. Five statues of Delilah, five...doppelgangers. Ones like the one she’d summoned. She isn’t sure, but she thinks...she thinks, perhaps, that if she leaves them be, it would be a bad idea. She doesn’t know if any of them are even real. So...well, then. It’s time to test the theory.

She teleports to the balcony on the right, drawing her blade and dropping to a crouch. Just like Father taught me, she thinks, and slips right up to the first statue. An arm around the throat, and the blade slides through soft stone like a stick of warm butter. She retracts it, the statue going eerily limp, and turns, throwing the statue over the edge with a cold expression. These things weren’t human, weren’t Delilah -- not really. Echoes of her, like her own magicked double. They could be killed. She had to remember that, though...that she could do this because they weren’t really human. The real Delilah...she had to stay her blade.

She blinks back across the way to the left-hand balcony, finding the double stationed there and doing the same -- arm around the throat, blade to the back, and off the side into the endless Void below. It frightened her, how easily she could do it. Not real, not real, she told herself. Not real.

One is on the black stone shelf to the right next to the throne -- that’s her next one. The fourth is on the left beside the throne, and it’s rhythmic, almost. Grab, stab, throw. All to the tune of Delilah’s loud humming in her ears. Emily thinks she might be driven mad by it if it keeps up. It’s eerie and terrible, and it makes her feel sick, her head filled with cotton. This is the Void, but it isn’t. The same dulled sensations, the same endless expanse stretching away at all angles, but...it’s not her Void, the Outsider’s Void. This is rotting flowers and incessant humming, this is pale light instead of comforting shadow. There are no whales here, she thinks. Just one woman’s dream of sitting on a throne above a world licking her boots.

The fifth one below the third, beneath she shadow of the black stone, and then there is only one left. The one on the throne. She creeps up from the right, crouched upon the vines and roots that surround it -- her throne, she thinks. It’s her throne, not Delilah’s. One she’ll earn, not one her aunt stole. She swallows thickly, drawing her blade...her father’s blade...one more time.

She jumps down to the throne, slamming the blade through the back of the statue’s neck, burying it to the hilt. She rips it out quickly, grabbing the body and blinking to the very edge of the platform and dropping it down, blinking back to the throne to wait for the real thing.

She doesn’t have long to wait, in the deafening, terrible silence that settles after the humming stops. Before her, in the center of the false throne room, a column of gold-orange light shines brightly -- and with a flash of black stone and pale light, Delilah appears within it. Dust -- like Batista, only worse -- fills her vision and she can barely see, but she blinks forward, throwing herself towards Delilah with her magic, arms outstretched and a snarl on her lips.

The two women collide, and Emily hears Delilah’s scream of rage as she claws at her, gloved fingers tearing at her hair and face and arms. But Emily refuses to budge, wrapping her hands around the witch’s throat and squeezing even as she screams back. She doesn’t know what she’s saying, can’t even keep track of the language she’s speaking in -- but she catches herself when Delilah goes limp, staggering backwards and staring at the woman’s prone form.

She aches, and her head throbs, and her heart is hammering like a dozen salt mines -- Void, oh Void, she’s filled with electric adrenaline and sick terror at the same time. Delilah is down, she’s almost won, and-- but her hands are shaking, the hands that had near strangled the witch, and suddenly she’s ten years old again, a sad and angry little girl who half-wanted to kill the people who killed her mother herself. She wants-- she wants to scream and rage and spit because this woman nearly took everything-- but she wants to cry, too, sob until she can’t breathe, because she’d nearly lost everything. She wants her father.

Dazedly, she staggers to her feet, grabbing Delilah’s prone form and stumbling back out of the painting. She takes deep, gasping lungfuls of clean, real air once they’re out of the Void. the entire room seems to be glowing bright blue now, with the sigils drawn upon the floor, but Emily can’t see them. All she sees his her desecrated throne before her, skulls on one side and runes on the other -- imperfect, imbalanced. Ready to trap Delilah in her dream world forever.

“Now to see how well your magic works, Delilah,” she rasps, her voice harsh and strained. “I hope you enjoy your world.” With that, she drops the woman on the corrupted throne and steps back, hugging herself to keep from shaking.

Delilah wakes up slowly, blinking, looking around as she slowly realizes where she is. And then she laughs. “You have no idea what you’ve done,” she says, smiling wide. “This is everything I wanted!” she seems to glow, first white and then red, and she floats -- Emily gasps as Delilah throws her backwards, sending her hitting the ground hard past the painting, hovering above her with malicious glee. “I see it all! I’ve won!” She laughs again. “Now what’s always been marred and distorted will be perfect!”

She turns to face her painting, the vortex glowing, and she stretches her arms wide as if to embrace it. The vortex pulls her in, then, and the painting closes behind her. Emily staggers to her feet and stars at the canvas -- an empty throne room, filled with subservient worshipers, vines trailing across all the surfaces, a statue of Delilah tall in the background...and before her eyes, the empty throne is filled in, the image of Delilah herself appearing on the throne, as if she’d been painted in there to start with.

Emily laughs, her voice breaking. “There,” she says. “That’s-- people who want to change the world, change the past so badly they see nothing else. Whether it’s a-a mirror or a painting, you get what you want. You get what you want.”

She drops to her knees, trembling, trying not to be sick. She’d been fine all the way here, she thinks faintly. All the way up to this. Maybe it was catching up to her, all the stress of the past month or two. She just wants her father. She wants this to end.

She staggers to her feet one final time, stumbling back across the throne room. “Corvo?” She calls hesitantly. “Corvo?”

The crow is nowhere to be found. “Oh, no,” she whispers, nearly falling onto her father’s still, stone form. “No. Oh, no. Not after all this. I can’t. Oh, father, please. Don’t leave me, too. Not after everything.” He’d fought to stay with her, even while his body was imprisoned -- he’d been by her side, his spirit cloaked in feathers, throughout her time in Karnaca. Protecting her, watching her, as much as he could. Always. That’s how she knew Corvo best. The man who would do anything for her, the man who would cross the Void itself, brave any danger, just to stay by his daughter’s side. He’d been with her for as long as she remembered, done everything for her...even when he couldn’t, he was there in spirit, there as that greying old crow perched beside her on the Wale.

She can’t lose him. Not after they’d come this far. She can’t be alone.

She buries her face in the statue’s shoulder, one hand clutching his outstretched arm and the other on his bicep. “Please,” she whispers. “Come home, father.”

Nothing happens for long enough that she feels sick, like she wants to cry, but then. But then cold stone softens and turns to warm cloth, warm flesh, and she smells the spice and gunpowder and steel of her father’s presence, hears him groan as his legs give out. She grabs him tightly, follows him to the ground, and he returns the gesture.

They sit there together, clinging tightly to one another, before they pull apart. “It’s over?” Corvo asks, his voice hoarse. “You did it?”

Emily stirs, finally, and stretches, yawning. “G’morning, Corvo,” she murmurs, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. She starts to get up but stops, as if hearing something. She holds up her hand and the Heart appears in it, and Corvo’s eyes widen. He moves to Emily’s shoulder as the transparent spirit of Jessamine shimmers into the air, smiling sadly at them.

“Can you feel it?” She asks, a gentle, comforting sorrow in her voice. “This is my last night. Soon, I’ll...dissolve, into the great nothing.”

Emily swallows thickly. “You-- you should be at peace,” she says softly. She wants her mother to rest, but at the same time...to lose her again...it would -- it will -- hurt. Corvo feels the same, perhaps more than Emily. She’s right, my love, he murmurs. You deserve to rest after all this.

“I’ve stayed too long,” Jessamine’s spirit says softly. “Find Delilah’s spirit, trap her with this cage of dead flesh….set me free.”

Emily frowns, confused, even as Corvo begins to realize what must be done. “I...don’t understand,” she says slowly.

“You will, very soon,” Jessamine whispers, and flickers away. Emily stares at where she was for a long moment, putting the Heart away and staring at her hands.

“Mother,” she murmurs sadly, and Corvo leans his head against her cheek in comfort. If he’s right, then...he understands the Outsider’s words, now. This will be hard...hard for both of them. Harder for Emily, maybe, but...Void, how will they do this? It has to be done, but...oh, Jessamine.

Once Emily has shaken herself off, she stands, leaving her room and heading towards the main room of the ship. She finds it empty, and she blinks in surprise -- but the ceiling’s been rolled back, and they can hear voices filtering down from on the deck. She glances back at the door she came in on and then shrugs, smiling slightly as she clambers up the crates and out onto the deck from the room.

There’s a wooden table on the deck, and Sokolov and Jindosh are sitting at it, with Meagan pacing beside it -- and to Corvo’s pleasant surprise, Aramis is there, too, standing against the siding with his arms crossed as he speaks to Meagan.

Corvo flies over immediately, leaving Emily’s shoulder to settle on the rail next to Stilton, cawing and nudging his hand. Stilton glances down, a bit surprised, and raises an eyebrow, but he pets Corvo’s head.

“Hello, Emily,” Meagan says with a faint smile, turning and looking over as she approaches. “Your companion seems to like Aramis.”

Emily chuckles. “He does,” she says. “I don’t know if I should be jealous or not.” The group laughs and Corvo returns to Emily’s shoulder as she sits, turning towards Jindosh. She’s not sure whether or not she should mention anything that happened in...well, before she’d changed the past, because it might not have happened anymore. But she gives him a smile in thanks for the passcode, and he looks startled for a moment, but she turns away to watch Meagan.

The woman leans on the railing next to Stilton with a sigh, staring out at the Duke’s palace with the stormclouds brewing behind it. “Are you ready for this?” She asks them.

Emily snorts. “I’ve been inside a dozen castles and a hundred mansions,” she says, crossing her arms. “They’re all the same. The Duke’s palace can’t be any worse than Lady Brisby’s social afternoons.” Corvo caws in amusement -- he knows Lady Brisby, and she had to be one of the most obnoxious nobles in Dunwall by far.

Meagan chuckles briefly at that, but it’s Stilton who responds. “Getting inside might not be the hard part,” he says, an edge of bitterness in his amusement. “The Duke doesn’t exactly run a tight ship.”

“Taking down the Duke’s only part of the puzzle,” Meagan reminds them, shifting to lean her back against the rail. She looks almost angry, Emily notices, some old bitterness and sorrow in her face. “We also have to find whatever it is he’s keeping for Delilah.”

Sokolov looks amused. “You never did tell us what you gleaned from visiting the Dust District, which is fine, if you ask me,” he says. “The world is better with a hint of mystery. But once you’re inside the Grand Palace, whatever you do could affect things in Karnaca for years to come. Remember that, Emily.”

“I will,” Emily promises solemnly -- she’s learned a lot in the last weeks, Corvo thinks. In a way, this has been good for her. How strange to think that, but...she’s growing up. He’s glad for that, at least.

Stilton steps forward, pulling a folded piece of paper from his suit jacket and spreading it over the table. “I’ve got a map of the Grand Palace for you, here,” he says. “And I have some information that might be useful. There’s a hidden lever in the pantry that opens up the Duke’s vault. If he’s keeping something for Delilah, that’s where it most likely will be. Beyond that…good hunting.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Emily says with a faint smile. “Thank you, Mr. Stilton. I know things in Karnaca are fragile, and I’ve...I have a lot to think about after all this is over.”

Stilton smiles back, and then sighs, leaning on the railing. “It’s not widely known, but the Duke has a body double,” he tells her. “He’s the spitting image of Luca, and quite likeable. You may be able to speak with him.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Emily replies, standing to follow Meagan to the skiff. Corvo sighs, adjusting his feathers as he watches the gathering storm in the distance. Perhaps it’s this form, but he can feel the storm in the air much clearer than he would have otherwise. It’s an eerie feeling. He’s not sure when the storm will hit, though, but...it’s a fitting metaphor, perhaps.

Emily’s right -- they do both have a lot to think about when this is over; he just hopes they can end it soon, and hope that there is something left to make better in the ashes of Delilah’s coup. He worries about Dunwall. They’re barely finished cleaning up from the plague, and now this.

Emily and Meagan are quiet as they board the skiff and set off, and it’s a few moments before she speaks. “Like Stilton said, the Duke has a look-alike body double at the palace, meant to confuse would-be assassins,” she says. “I have a friend who washes linens in the palace, said the double’s a smoker, if that helps. He’s supposedly a good man, like Stilton said, so…”

“He’s a good bet if I want to handle this bloodlessly,” Emily says. “Thank you, Meagan.”

She smiles humorlessly in return. “Must be a shitty job, pretending to be a tyrant like Duke Luca Abele.”

“It’s remarkable that people still tolerate him,” Emily notes, and Meagan snorts.

“Well, he has an army, control of the mines, and your support from the capital,” she says, and Emily and Corvo wince. “At the Duke’s parties, people carve up the country while eating boiled crab.”

Emily sighs, staring down at her hands. “There were parties like that in Dunwall,” she says absently. “Full of toadies sucking up to me, stabbing each other in the back just to get close, win my favor. Back then, I just wanted to get away from it all, let it be someone else’s problem…”

“Poor Empress,” Meagan says sarcastically, but there’s a hint of a genuine smile in her eyes. “I could see those party lights from where I slept, the roof of an abandoned butcher shop in the Flooded District.”

“I’m sorry, Meagan,” Emily says softly. “I used to escape, wander Dunwall with my face hidden...but when I got tired of it, I could always just return to the Tower. This has...this has given me perspective. And I promise you, when I get back...things will be different.”

Meagan smiles faintly. “Good,” she says as they pull up to the docking point, reaching out to pat Emily’s arm as she stands. “Remember, after you’ve taken care of the Duke, find what he’s holding for Delilah and take it. I’ll pick you up when you’re finished.”

“Alright,” Emily says. “Take care.” As she moves away, Meagan hesitates a moment, and then turns.

“Emily,” she says, and then pauses. “I…” She shakes her head. “Nevermind. Just get going.”

Emily nods and Corvo caws an assent, and the two slip into the shadows, heading towards the grand structure of the palace dominating the grey, dusky horizon ahead.

The Ravina Boulevard docks are quiet in the twilight and the oncoming storm, and Emily walks through it with a light step. Corvo is quiet, distracted -- he remembers the party he had here, the celebration after he’d won the Blade Verbena. He’d invited everyone from Batista, all his friends. Aramis, too. Looking back, maybe that was when he’d met Theodanis. It had lasted well into the night and the next morning, the drinking and revelry. Corvo can’t remember how many bottles of Orbon rum and Morley apple liqueur he’d downed that night, or the names of women he’d kissed in back alleys, a bottle in one hand and a cigar in the other, laughter on his lips.

It’s a good memory, made faint with age and time, and it’s still a little hard to reconcile it with the empty streets he sees now. But then, hasn’t that been his experience in Karnaca these past days in general? The memories of his youth falling short in the face of the city of today.

Emily takes a breath and summons the Heart into her hand, running her fingers across the glass embedded into it. “One more time, Mother,” she says quietly, and holds it up. She knows this might be the last time she holds this, the last time she hears her -- and she’s afraid of that, even if she’ll say otherwise. But that just means she needs to appreciate these last moments.

The Heart lights up, pulsing faintly, and she crosses the street, blinking up to rooftops and following the pulse of the heart in her hand. The trail leads up to the Winslow Safe Company building, and she looks amused a moment before blinking onto its roof and down the other side. She drops onto a ledge and edges along it, climbing onto a patch of grass along a cliffside and following it around to a boarded up entrance to...something, she’s not sure. In any case, the Heart’s pulsing is fast and insistent when she directs it towards the entrance, so she breaks down the wooden boards with her shoulder, heading down stairs to see a brick and cement bunker with a shrine against the back wall.

“Here you are,” she says, almost fondly, and dismisses the Heart, stepping to the shrine and placing her hands on the runes on its surface.

The Void ripples in around them, and the Outsider smiles faintly at them from his perch, a knee drawn up to his chest and the other leg dangling loosely, an arm draped across the raised leg. “And here you are,” he says with an almost bitter chuckle. “Back among your own people, the palace-born and those who curry their favor. Are you feeling more comfortable, majesty?”

“Not really,” she admits, but he cuts her off before she can say more.

“Are these the people you want running a quarter of your kingdom?” He asks, and Emily and Corvo both are startled at the edge in his tone. “No?”

He vanishes, reappearing to the right of them, standing with hands in front of him, absently scratching a palm. “It never seemed to bother you before. Perhaps it looks different up close. Maybe it’s harder it’s harder to ignore the way the people outside the palace get through the day.”

Outsider? Corvo asks, bewildered and concerned. What’s wrong? Did something change?

The Outsider twitches slightly, squeezing one hand in the other, and then shakes his head. “My apologies, Emily,” he mutters. “I think Delilah’s presence is...beginning to affect me more than I expected. This is…” He transverses again, to the left. “In any case, I know what you’re after,” he continues, still a bit off -- they don’t blame him. His erratic behavior...it’s understandable. There’s a witch parasitizing his power, a foreign being invading his Void; there’s reason for him to be acting oddly.

The Outsider sighs. “The Heart you carry can only hold one spirit at a time,” he says, beginning to pace, black-ink eyes looking elsewhere. “So if you want to walk out of the palace with Delilah’s spirit, you should be ready to leave something behind.”

“Oh,” Emily whispers. “I thought so.” She swallows and looks down, and Corvo lets out a soft breath. He’d been right, then. To end Delilah...they’d have to let go of Jessamine.

The Outsider hesitates where he is, before reaching out and letting cold fingers rest awkwardly on Emily’s wrist. “I warned you,” he says. “This will be the hardest thing you have to do.” He pauses as if meaning to say something else, but then shakes his head instead, stepping back quickly as the real world folds back in around them and leaving Corvo and Emily quiet and surprised.

“Huh,” she says softly. “Was that...did he try to…?” It was odd to think of the Outsider being comforting, but it was apparent that, in a way, that’s what he’d tried to do. Delilah’s spirit, her humanity, bleeding into the Void...it might have affected him in ways not all negative. That was an interesting thought. Corvo, for one, has to wonder if it will remain so once they end Delilah.

Emily exits the bunker and creeps back up the grassy knoll, blinking up onto the first rooftop she sees to survey the area. Not too far away she sees the carriage tracks, and she traces their path with a finger. “Okay, this shouldn’t be too hard,” she murmurs. “And at least the Duke’s mansion isn’t mechanized.”

Corvo has a feeling she’s going to hold a grudge against Jindosh for that for a long time -- not that he blames her.

When she lands on a rooftop overlooking the tracks, though, there’s a rather immediate problem. The way is blocked by a huge wall, complete with several Walls of Light built into it -- four, one right on top of the other, right over the entrance. Emily mutters a Serkonan curse (making Corvo a little proud, strangely enough) and blinks across the street to an apartment balcony, trying to figure out a way across.

She blinks as close as she can, perched precariously on a streetlamp, and scans the area. Corvo, for his part, sees an open apartment doorway at street level, the building right up against the wall, and caws to get Emily’s attention. She glances at him and then follows his gaze to the door and smiles. “Good job,” she says quietly, dropping silently to the ground and slipping inside.

Three flights of stairs up, she runs right into a locked steel door, a note pinned to it. She doesn’t need to skim the note to guess what’s behind it, and kneels down and pulls out Corvo’s lockpicks, fiddling with the door until she hears a click. Grinning, she puts the picks back in her coat and enters the apartment, heading directly through the door on the other side.

A blink down from the other doorway to the ground and another blink up the steps, and she’s in the carriage before any of the light patrol sees her, heading to the distant palace on the islet in front of them.

“Well,” Emily says with a sigh. “Let’s hope we can find the double and get this done fast. I…I just want to get this over with.” Corvo understands that. I know, Emily, he thinks. This is not going to be easy, for either of us. But it-- it will be over soon.

Emily sighs again and shifts, glancing over to the crow on her shoulder. “Corvo,” she begins slowly, hesitantly, and he stiffens slightly, tilting his head towards her. “I...this is a strange question, but-- when we were at Stilton’s manor, before we saved him, he said something...and-- and Mother, too. They said…” She hesitates. “I can’t...I don’t know how it’s possible, but...are you--”

Her question is interrupted by the carriage coming to a halt, and Corvo -- slightly unnerved and a bit anxious to get away from the rest of the question he doesn’t know how to answer -- lifts off to fly ahead, making Emily swear under her breath and shake her head. “Well, that’s not telling at all,” she mutters in a stage whisper at him as she follows. “You’re very good at avoiding uncomfortable topics, aren’t you?”

Yes, Corvo agrees readily. Yes, I am. I’d say we’ll talk about this later, but...I suppose the soonest we can talk about it at all is after we deal with Delilah. So, unfortunately, you’ll have to wait. But I promise when this is over, I’ll admit to everything.

He hops back to her shoulder once she arrives where he is, and she blinks up to the carriage station’s canopy, edging along it with her head lowered to listen in on the gossiping servants and guards. She needed to find a way, any other way, to tell the Duke and his double part. No smoker could have a cigarillo in their mouth all the time, and if he didn’t,then...she’d need another way to guess.

“--do you know which one is the Duke?” A guard asks a maid below her, and she freezes to listen in. “I dunno where they got the guy with the decoy job, but he looks and acts just like the Duke. I can’t tell them apart!”

The maid shrugs. “There are subtle differences,” she says.

“Right, right,” the guard grumbles. “So assuming you can tell which one’s the Duke, how’re you going to get his key?”

Emily snorts to herself, but nods silently. Eavesdropping on would-be thieves aside, that tells her something-- that the Duke will be carrying the vault key, but the double won’t. If she can check his belt, that will be a deciding factor, too.

She blinks from the canopy to the lamps to the roof, creeping up the slope and in through an open skylight. “If we run into some guards,” she whispers to Corvo. “I have a new trick that might slow them down. But I think it will only work on the ones I catch, not on any who show up after. So we’ll have to be careful.”

That said, she creeps through the door on the balcony she’d dropped onto, and finds herself -- blessedly, she realizes -- in the Duke’s chambers. She can tell mostly because of the gaudy decorations and the huge, overstuffed bed. She can hear someone humming to themselves from the second floor of the duke’s room, footsteps pacing above her, and she follows the sound, creeping silently up the steps as she listens.

As many are wont to do when they’re alone -- and like she’d hoped -- the man starts grumbling to himself. “Pretending to sign papers every day...at least I read them, though. More than he can say.” She hears the flick-click of a lighter, then, and she grins. Yep, this is the double. Corvo flies ahead, perching on the balcony railing behind a potted plant to watch as Emily snatches the single guard posted at the top of the stairs and drags him down halfway with her shadow form, knocking him out silently. She takes a breath and dusts herself off, creeping up the stairs and standing in she shadow of a pillar to watch the double.

He leans against the desk to smoke his cigarillo, and both Emily and Corvo have to admit, he’s a dead ringer. The two men could be twins. It’s a bit off-putting, Emily has to admit, but she takes a breath and steps out of the shadows.

The double makes a startled noise, stubbing the cigarillo out in an ashtray and straightening, watching Emily approach. His eyebrows go up. “No offer to bow or kiss my hand?” He asks, but Emily can hear the friendly amusement in it -- something the real duke had in short supply.

“I could say the same,” Emily replies with the same tone, and the double has to chuckle.

“Mm, a mystery,” he says. “Let’s hear it then, young lady. Who are you and what do you want?”

The moment of truth, Corvo thinks, and Emily seems to know that as well. “Listen,” she says, the amusement being replaced by earnest sincerity. “I think you’re the Duke’s body double. You can’t exactly have any love for him, am I right? I’m here to end his rule, and--” She breaks off here, and takes a breath. “I have an idea I think you might want to hear.”

This is news to Corvo, and he edges closer to listen to what Emily has in mind.

“All right, you’ve figured it out,” the double says with a chuckle. “But if you’re not here to assassinate him, then what do you want, exactly?”

Emily smiles faintly. “I’ve heard from several people that you, unlike the real Duke Luca, are a decent, kind man,” she says. “So it occurs to me that you might make a better duke than him. If I wanted to take care of him without killing him, do you think you could convince people that you’re the real thing?”

“That’s a bold move,” the double says, scratching his chin with a faint smile. “And I would be lying if I said it hasn’t crossed my mind.” He turns to pace the floor, thinking aloud. “If people believed that I was the duke, and he was the political decoy, I could have him committed for lunacy. We could convince everyone that the double’s finally lost his mind and believes he’s really the Duke.” He and Emily share a grin. “I’ve spent years perfecting my performance,” he says. “But there’s one catch. He has a medallion I need -- even if I sound convincing, which should be the easy part, his Grand Guard will ask to see it as proof. Luca never puts it aside.”

Emily looks thoughtful, and then nods with a shrug. “All right,” she says. “It shouldn’t take me very long to take care of that. Once I’m done here, I’ll be leaving Karnaca. Soon after -- if all goes well -- you’ll most likely receive information and other business from Dunwall. I hope I can expect cooperation on your part? There’s still time to pull Serkonos back from the brink; we can undo the damage Duke Abele has caused.”

“I’d like that,” the double says with a genuine smile, but then he grows serious. “But I’ll guide Serkonos in the way I see fit, for the sake of her people -- I won’t be a puppet for the Empress, my lady.” The way he says the title makes it clear he knows exactly who she is, and Emily smiles beneath her scarf..

“That’s fine with me,” she says. “As long as we’re both working for the sake of the people, then we can work as a team, not as puppet and master. I want that, too -- I want things to get better, and you know Serkonos better than I do. I’ll be glad to leave it to your judgment.”

The double smiles again, and the two shake hands. “I’m glad we’re in agreement, Lady Emily,” he says almost fondly. “This might just work after all. All you need to do from here out is knock the good duke out, and bring him here to his chambers. I’ll take it from there.”

“Got it,” Emily says, and slips back down the stairs. Corvo joins her one she’s at the bottom, and though he can’t say anything aloud, he’s radiating approval. She’s grown quite a bit the past weeks, he thinks. I’m proud of her. This is a grand idea, and I’m certainly glad it will work. This will make the political state of the Isles that much more peaceful.

She slips out of the Duke’s chambers, making note of where it is as she heads stealthily down a hallway. Down the stairs, and into another area -- she takes down a guard lounging beside this floor’s balcony and hides him behind another plant, going through the room and peeking through the keyholes of every door.

On her second door, she gets lucky. The room behind it is big, almost an office of some kind, and as she watches, she sees the Duke -- the real Duke -- pass by her field of vision, pacing and grumbling to himself. “Jackpot,” she whispers, and eases the door open, closing it silently behind her.

She immediately blinks up to the ledge above the door to survey the room, and she counts two guards and a clockwork soldier beside the duke. She takes a long breath, lifting her hand. “Okay,” she whispers to Corvo. “I don’t think this will affect you, so keep an eye on the doors and caw if anyone seems to be coming in.”

Corvo nods silently, and flies to the chandelier, perching on it to watch what Emily does next. She holds out a hand and flexes her fingers, and a shimmering...object, dark and glimmering and obviously of the Void, materializes in the center of the room. Corvo can feel a tug at his mind, trying to draw his attention, capture his gaze and not let go, but he can easily brush it off. The guards and the Duke, however, aren’t so lucky. The people in the room freeze in their steps, turning towards the object as if mesmerized by it, murmuring to themselves and looking dazed.

Impressive, Corvo thinks as Emily leaps from her perch in a hurry and grabs the Duke, choking him out and easing him onto her shoulder with a wince. “Come on,” she calls. “It’ll only last a few more moments, but they won’t realize anything happened if we’re not here.”

Corvo flies out of the room behind her, and lands on her shoulder as she closes the door with a foot. She grunts, adjusting the heavyset duke on her shoulder, and heads back up the stairs. She pauses before the chambers and checks Luca’s belt, snagging the vault key off of it and slipping into her coat before she enters the room. She dumps Luca’s unconscious body onto the bed and looks around. The double leans over the balcony when he hears the thump, and grins to himself, hurrying down the stairs. “Excellent,” he says, bending over to take something from the duke’s coat. “Now it’s up to me. I’ll take the medallion and call the guards.”

“Break a leg,” Emily says with a smile, and the double chuckles.

“Don’t worry,” he reassures her. “I’ve spent years mimicking this asshole.” He holds up a hand and approaches the intercom perched on a table nearby, leaning over and pressing the call button. “Captain Almeida,” he says, the picture of urgency. “Come at once to my chambers! There’s a problem.” He turns back to Emily. “Hide up there,” he says with a gesture, indicating an alcove on the second floor area. Emily scurries up there, glancing over her shoulder to check and see that he’s not watching before she blinks up into the hiding spot, scooting back as far as she can go while still being able to see the room.

The guards hurry in a few moments later, and the double shifts into full gear -- if she didn’t know better, Emily thinks, she’d believe his act in a heartbeat.

“Your Eminence?!” One of the guards gasped out, pausing for breath. “A-Are you alright?”

The double manages to look perfectly rumpled and anxious, but calm -- to anyone else, he’d look like a man who’d just had a scare, but was handling himself well over it. “Yes, yes, Captain,” he reassures her, hand fluttering. “Please arrest this-- this clown. Seems like he took his role a little too seriously.”

The captain and her man grab Luca, hauling him to his feet. As they do, he wakes, and he struggles futilely in their grip. “Unhand me!” He snaps, confused and angry.

“Poor man,” the double says mournfully. “He served me well for years. We’ll never find anyone else who so bears my resemblance. Take him away, Captain, but be gentle.”

The Captain snorts. “I think I understand, Your Eminence,” she says with a nod, tugging on Luca roughly. “We’ll handle it.”

The two guards take him, and Emily stifles a vindictive snort as they drag the duke away, Luca shouting vicious threats and insults in vulgar Serkonan. “What a shame,” the double says to the captain in an aside. “If only there was something we could do for him. Ah, well...I suppose all those years pretending he was me eventually took its toll.”

“Dr. Hypatia at Addermire will know what to do with him,” the captain reassures him, and Emily makes a note to write Hypatia and let her know the situation.

The guard leaves, and Emily waits until the double -- the Duke, now -- goes back up to the second floor of his chambers before leaping down and slipping out of the room, heading to find where the vault entrance is.

She finds it eventually near the gardens, wired to a nearby arc pylon. Carefully she sneaks around it, pulling the whale oil canister out and unlocking the huge doors to slip inside. She pulls the door closed behind her and looks around -- she stands on a wood balcony in a circular room, the railing overlooking a lower story. A chandelier lights whatever’s below, and she creeps slowly to the railing -- she hears the familiar thrum and monotone recording of a clockwork soldier, and she wants to be careful.

Emily peers over the railing. There’s a tree below her, bare branches wrapped around the statue. It glows faintly, and she swallows. “I...” She whispers. “Okay. We have to do this.” another breath, and she leaps down.

As she approaches, as she stops in front of it, her mother’s spirit flickers into being before her, smiling sadly. “This is it,” she says softly. “You must release me from this dead vessel. Only then will you be able to trap Delilah’s spirit.”

“Mother, I--” Emily’s voice cracks. “I don’t know how I can do this. You were...you were all I ever wanted…” Corvo, too, is...now that the time is upon them, the silent resolve he’d tried to build up crumbles. Oh, Jessamine...Jess, how can I let you go? He asks softly, his voice shaking. After all these years, I still-- I still miss you. I still…

“Oh, dear ones…” Jess whispers. “I’ve stayed as long as I can, given you all I could. Both of you I’ve guided. The world is better for your influence, dear Emily. And my love...oh, my love. She needs you.”

Emily turns to look at Corvo on her shoulder, managing a watery smile before she holds out her hand. “Be at peace, mother,” she whispers brokenly. “I will honor you always.”

My love, my dear empress… Corvo murmurs, internal voice shaking with unshed tears. Jessamine, star of my sky, I will always remember you. Fino a quando ci incontriamo di nuovo.

“Oh, Emily…dear, sweet Corvo...” Jessamine says softly, fondly, taking Emily’s hand and putting her other on Corvo’s head. “I love you. I love you both, my darlings, more than I can say. And that...that is the thought I carry with me into nothingness…” Even as she speaks, the stuff that makes up her body, her being, flicker into a thousand points of light and fade away, drifting off like comets in the night sky. Emily lets her empty hand fall as she drops to her knees, tears streaking her face.

“It’s done,” she manages. “Let’s-- it’s time to take Delilah’s soul back to Dunwall. Back home…” The Heart, cold and lifeless, appears in her hand, and she holds it up to the statue. With a grating noise like static, it draws the statue’s light into itself, the Heart warping and darkening like it was being dipped in ink.

“What’s this?” Delilah’s voice rasps out of it, and Emily’s teary eyes narrow. “The heart of my half-sister? Only her flesh remains…”

“Shut up,” Emily hisses at it, and dismisses it with a rough gesture, standing and wiping her eyes. She yelps and ducks when the clockworks around her explode one after the other along with the statue, and after she’s certain it’s safe, she creeps back out the way she came, blinking back up to the second floor balcony and slipping out of that door.

She hesitates on the threshold, and then leaves the area, following the nearby stairwell down to the Duke’s private dock. She turns the light on the dock on, tilting it slightly and flashing a signal, before sitting down to wait for Meagan.

“So,” she murmurs after a moment. “It’s really you. This whole time...you’ve been with me.” She manages a tiny smile. “At this point I won’t ask how, because I doubt I’ll understand even after meeting the Outsider, but...I’m glad. I’m-- I’m really glad.” Her voice cracks. “I love you, Father,” she manages. “I love you. I’ll fix this, and get you back properly. You’ll see.”

I know you will, my dear Emily, Corvo thinks. I know you will.

Meagan pulls the boat up to the docks with a wry smile, lifting a hand in greeting. “So, is that it?” She asks, when Emily boards and sinks onto the seat. “The fall of Karnaca?”

“From now on, the Duke will be guided by better stars,” Emily says with a faint smile.

Meagan raises an eyebrow, but says nothing further. “Back to the Dreadful Wale, then,” she says instead. “And on to Dunwall.”

“Yes,” Emily murmurs. “Finally. It’s time to take back the throne, and find a way to save my father…” She trails off, stroking Corvo’s feathers. It’s a weight off his shoulders, knowing she knows, and he’s sure she feels the same.

The third day, Emily and Corvo enter the main room to see a surprising lack of Meagan -- Sokolov and Jindosh were the only two there, bickering (in a way that sounded remarkably similar to Anton and Piero, Corvo thought) over something minor. It makes her smile a little, and she crosses the room to sit down by where Sokolov is working on his paintings. The one of Delilah he’s been finishing is near complete, and she sees a new one, still at the sketch -- one of her.

She smiles a bit wider before clearing her throat. “I take it it’s time for our next move?” She asks pointedly, and the two men subside. Sokolov looks amused and Jindosh looks sheepish and a bit flustered, but he retreats to sit on another chair with a huff.

Sokolov puts his paintbrush and palette down, turning and crossing his arms, and both men watch Emily -- with Meagan not here, she supposes, it’s up to her. “So,” she begins. “Everything I’ve learned from Ashworth points to something that happened three years ago at Aramis Stilton’s home. That may be the key to discovering why Delilah can’t be killed, so that’s where we go next.”

She turns to Jindosh, who looks suddenly uncomfortable. “Were you there?” She asks. “What happened?”

“I…” He clears his throat. “To this day, I still have quite a few guesses as to what occurred that night, but guesses aren’t enough to form sound theories. What we did...it still defies understanding, I believe. However, I can tell you that Stilton...did not come out of it unscathed. Whatever you might find in his house now, I hope it leads you to more answers than I have.” He pauses. “And I certainly hope you share them with us! It would be wonderful to truly understand what Ashworth and Delilah accomplished that night.”

Emily sighs. “I hope it does, too,” she agrees. “Is there anything else I should know?”

“The house is locked by one of Jindosh’s contraptions,” Sokolov notes, looking over at the younger philosopher. “If you want to unlock it, you’ll have to ask him.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Jindosh protests, but subsides when Emily turns to glare at him. “Fine, fine,” he mutters. “Just brute force your way through my ingenious riddle, don’t even care how much work was put into it…” He turns and takes a scrap of paper and a pen, scribbling some words on it and sliding it over. “The solution, if you want to be so simplistic about it.”

“Thank you,” Emily says politely, folding the paper and tucking it into her coat, before turning towards Sokolov. “This might save me a lot of trouble, but even so, there’s still the problem of getting through the district itself…”

Sokolov nods. “As for that, Meagan had a very intriguing idea,” he says, moving to pick up two sketches to place on the board they’d been using to trace their progress. “Paolo is leader of the Howlers. He wants Vice Overseer Byrne out of the picture, and the Overseer, of course, wants the same for Paolo. Both groups will attack you on sight, but if you walk in and deliver them their chief enemy, well. They’re like to treat you like family. Might save you a lot of trouble.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Emily agrees. If she can get past them without alerting any of them, then that might be the easiest option. But if that fails, then...there’s always that option.

She sighs, standing. “In that case, let’s get moving,” she says, and heads up to the skiff to wait for Sokolov, who she assumes will be taking her, as Meagan isn’t here.

Corvo has been listening so far, but only partially. He’s distracted, really, mind lost in the past. The Dust District, Stilton...he was going home. To the place he’d been born, to the part of the city he’d spent his childhood. He almost can’t bring himself to wonder how things have changed since then, under the rule of Luca Abele, or even in the years after he left while Theodanis was still alive. The sights, the smells of cooking food coming out of windows and the constant, occasional sneezing when silver dust got in your mouth or nose, the sounds of the mines and the whistle of the winds rushing down from Shindaerey, the chatter of miners’ wives and merchants and the laughter of children like him tearing through the streets, throwing overripe fruit at guards and rocks at bloodfly nests...even years later, several decades...the memories are still clear.

And Aramis...what happened to him? He and Corvo were friends, once -- still, he hopes. The older boy had been a stranger from Morley when he’d arrived, but Corvo and his little pack of friends (Lucia, Aldo, Rubine, Giada, Mauro, Benicio...he wonders where they are now) had taken him in, and he’d been a part of their group from then on. He likes Aramis. He’s a good man, kind, and he hadn’t been able to think of anyone more deserving to be in charge of the Batista mines. To think something happened to him, something like this...and while he and Emily had been so complacent in their tower. Damn it.

He still only half pays attention to Sokolov and Emily’s conversation, watching the shoreline coming into view. He knows half those houses, he knows the mountains piercing the skyline. He wishes he were here in reality, here as himself, not trapped in this feathered shell. He wants to walk these streets again, see if the people he knew are still here, see what’s changed...it hurts, strangely. He hadn’t thought it would. But it’s just another brick on the pile of them that already sit upon his shoulders.

He vaguely registers that Sokolov is telling Emily about Stilton -- it’s nothing he doesn’t know already. Loyal to Theodanis, smart, kind...he helped build the mines, working his way up from the mines to head the operations. Luca changed all that; there were dust storms when he was young, but the way Sokolov speaks...he cringes. In ruins...his home. It’s hard to hear.

“I suppose the Duke doesn’t care what happens to Karnaca as long as he gets to drink from his silver cups,” Emily mutters.

Sokolov chuckles wryly. “And what are the cups at Dunwall Tower made of, Empress?” He says it pointedly, making her wince. He pats her knee with a nod, though, and pulls the skiff up to the edge of the docking area. “Meagan’s waiting for you in a building close by,” he says. “Go find her, and she’ll give you some more information.” He shoos her with a hand. “Go on, now. Go make sure the baron’s not dead and rotting.”

Emily rolls her eyes and smiles, disembarking the skiff and heading out of the sewer canal, passing a sign that says ‘Batista District’ -- or it did, until someone painted over it with bright orange paint, the sign now reading ‘DUST DISTRICT’. She hesitates at the exit to the canal, swallowing and scuffing her boots in the deep piles of silver dust on the ground, before taking a breath and stepping out into the sun and into the place where her father was born.

Corvo is quiet as Emily slowly climbs the wooden steps of the overlook, watching the morning sky and the familiar tubing of the wind corridors. This is home. His chest aches at the familiarity, even as things are different. Dilapidated, run-down, ruined, but still home. He can see his house from here, he thinks. His house is there, and there’s the old bar -- whatever it’s called now, it used to be the Silver Spigot. There’s the tattoo parlor next to it, where so many of his friends had been while drunk and brave, including him. That’s the old pawn shop; he wonders if it’s still open. He wonders who uses all these buildings now, which ones are empty. What families still remain.

Emily climbs the overlook and drops to a crouch, edging past some grumbling Grand Guards and into one of the buildings. Corvo sighs inwardly as Emily slips and slides over a coating of dust so thick they can’t see the floor, some piles almost a foot or two high. Windows are broken and items are scattered amid the silver dust, and it’s sad. Like ancient ruins, abandoned a long time ago, its people scattered. But Luca only took the throne five years ago...to come to this in such a short time…

Emily slips and slides over the sand even as she climbs floors, nearly tripping over a pile that almost fills a doorway. “There’s so much of it…” She murmurs.

Eventually she gets to Meagan on the third floor of the building, and the woman lifts her hand. “Hello, Emily,” she says, and Emily nods in return. She gestures out the window at a sealed gate a block or two away, dark and imposing. “Stilton’s mansion is just beyond here, but you’ll have to be careful.” She shakes her head. “I’ve been doing some reconnaissance, talking to the people I know here. Seems the Overseers and the Howlers have all but divided up the district. Just ahead is neutral territory, where no one will harass you -- but past that, both sides have boundaries set up, and beyond those, they’ll attack you on sight.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Emily says. “Jindosh gave me what he says is the passcode to the lock on the mansion’s gates, but if that doesn’t work I’ll have to take the more difficult route, deal with the two factions. With any luck I won’t have to, and I think I’d like to keep it that way for now -- Stilton is the most important thing at the moment.” She sighs. “I want to deal with their dispute, but there’s so much else going on...we’ll have to hope I can settle it definitively once we deal with Luca.” She knows she has to get in good with the Overseers in her position as Empress, and High Overseer Khulan is a good man, but...she’s not sure she wants to condemn Paolo and the Howlers without knowing for sure what the city thinks of them. “If it comes to dealing with Paolo and Byrne, though, Sokolov said you had a plan for that.”

Meagan nods. “Yes, I do,” she agrees. “I believe that if you take out Byrne or Paolo, the other one will grant you safe passage and help you get into Stilton’s home. Neutralize either one, and bring them to the other -- that should work.” She chuckles, shaking her head and smiling in bemusement. “That is, of course, if Jindosh’s information is faulty and you can’t get in by it. Though I’m inclined to believe he’s too damned proud to give you an incorrect combination.”

“Can’t say I disagree with that,” Emily says with a chuckle. “Anything else I need to know should I need to deal with Paolo or Byrne?”

“Byrne? Not really,” Meagan says. “But Paolo’s rumored to carry a black magic charm with him. The way I hear it, he’s got to die twice before the sun sets, or else it doesn’t stick. Be careful when dealing with him.”

Emily snorts. “A magic charm, huh?” She says. “Well, here’s hoping I don’t have to face that down.” She nods at Meagan again, and the two split up -- Meagan disappears, presumably back to the skiff, and Emily heads out the window, leaping down and crossing the plaza past the statue of the old Duke -- Corvo smiles sadly, and bows his head at Theodanis’s image in respect -- and into the entrance to the Stilton Manor. There’s a huge wooden fence surrounding it, keeping everyone out and even blocking the two side streets beside it, and past the entrance is another set of doors, a huge contraption set into them.

Emily stares at the doors a long moment, before sighing and stepping back. Corvo tilts his head, confused, and squawks at her softly in question. “Shh,” she tells him. “I...I need to take a detour. It won’t be long, don’t worry. I just...need to see something.”

She takes a breath and blinks up to a roof, running and blinking across them through the district, maneuvering past the huge poles that hold the corridors up. She takes the south path over roofs, avoiding the Howlers, and eventually finds herself on top of a building whose front swarms with Overseers. It’s the highest building there, and she kneels on the edge of the tapered point of the roof that looks out over the district, taking her spyglass out to scan the area carefully, inch by inch.

Corvo has no idea what she’s doing yet, so he waits, fluttering nervously. He can smell something sharp in the air, tickling his nose, and his feathers ruffle in the rising wind. He grew up here -- he knows when a dust storm is coming, can feel it in his bones, and he caws insistently. Emily, move, he thinks. Get inside. A dust storm’s coming, and you should get to cover before it hits.

Thankfully, she seems to spy what she’s looking for, blinking across the street towards the building to the north. She hesitates, and in that time the storm rolls in. Emily gasps and chokes even behind her scarf, throwing her hands up as thick grey dust rolls in, blinding her -- she can’t even see her hands in front of her face, and the dust in the storm scratches at her face and hands with the force of the wind. She drops to a knee, rolling off the building and onto an old metal radiator sticking out of the wall of the next building over, losing her balance and falling through the boarded up window into the apartment.

Corvo falls with her, the wind so harsh he can’t spread his wings, and the pair of them lie stunned on the floor for a moment, gasping for clear breaths and coughing. Emily is the first one up, pushing up onto her hands and knees to look around the abandoned apartment. The dust is thick, the furniture covered and the floor broken with weeds pushing up from beneath it, the copper pipes exposed.

She climbs to her feet and slowly walks through the house, Corvo recovering to fly to her shoulder. He notices how carefully she moves and wonders -- is this…? He looks around with new eyes, trying to spot anything in this ruined shell that will tell him what he wants to know.

Emily finds herself in a dark room, and Corvo’s heart skips a beat. There’s a battered sewing machine on a table, and he recognizes it. He remembers buying it when he was fourteen, having scraped money together for months to give it to his mother for her birthday. Emily creeps along, looking at tables and the mattress in the room, hand reaching down to find an old, leather-bound journal.

She opens it, and Corvo has to hop off Emily’s shoulder to land on the window frame. He can’t look at that -- he knows what it is, knows the handwriting. It’s his mother’s journal. This is his house. The house he hasn’t been inside since he was sixteen years old. Abandoned, broken, ruined. Filled with nothing but dust and broken things. This is where he was born, where he grew up, where his mother wasted away and where he and his sister abandoned. If birds could cry, he knows that’s what he’d be doing now -- Emily had sought this place out. She had come to look for his house, her father’s place of birth. She had-- Void.

He hears Emily stand, and he looks over to see her slip the book into her coat -- she plans to give it to him, he knows, and his heart aches at it. His Emily...he’d left his mother all those years ago, lost his father before that. And Emily had lost her mother...but he’d be damned if he’d let her lose him, too. He wouldn’t let her lose him, and he wouldn’t lose her.

Emily sniffles, wiping her face with a hand, and leaves his mother’s room, continuing to move almost reverently through the house. He knows the room she finds next and despite the ache in his chest, he smiles. His daughter, standing in his childhood room. Any parent would feel some sort of bittersweet pride at that. She pushes through the thick growths of weeds, sitting on the edge of the creaky bed and mattress, staring around at the room with a sad smile of her own that says she knows whose room this was.

She pauses after a moment, blinking and holding a hand up -- the draft, he thinks, she’s noticed the draft -- and then standing, moving over towards the wall across from her, the paint scraped away from a large patch of brickwork. She smiles slightly and tugs the loose bricks free, smile widening as a rusted trophy cup is revealed tucked behind the wall, and she takes it out. “Father’s trophy for winning the Blade Verbena,” she says softly. “It’s still here…”

She turns it in her hands a moment, before slipping it into her belt, securing it neatly. Corvo chuckles to himself, touched and amused even if he is a little saddened. She’s not the Empress right now, is she? She’s a daughter looking for traces of her lost father, not even aware he’s by her side.

She sits back down on the mattress, sighing to herself and tugging her scarf down around her neck. “Corvo,” she says. “I told you I named you after my father, right?” He nods, glad once again he can’t cry. “He’s...Delilah took him from me. Trapped him in a statue. I miss him, Corvo,” she says suddenly. “I miss him so much. Fifteen years ago, I was-- I was afraid, but...I knew he was alright. Once I knew he was alive, I wasn’t...I knew he’d come for me. No matter what happened, I trusted him. If he were there, I was safe. I loved him so much, then, even if-- even if I didn’t know he was my father then. I wished he was, I wished it so badly it hurt, but I never said anything out loud. I was afraid if I did, he might not be, so I didn’t want to jinx it.” She sniffles again.

“But after it was all over, he told me he was, and I cried. I was so happy that I wasn’t alone, that Corvo really was my father. He cried too, did you know?” She smiles weakly, and Corvo smiles too, heart hurting. He remembers that day, too. The first time he’d really felt happy since Jessamine’s death. “He cried, because he was so happy I was alright and it was over...it hurt him so much, what happened. And it still does, and I-- I hate seeing him like that.”

She crosses her legs beneath her, staring up at the ceiling. “He always acted like my father even before I knew, though,” she says. “He’d teach me to fight with sticks, play hide and seek whenever I asked, drew with me and sat with me and Mrs. Pilsen for tea parties…” She smiles. “He sang to me, too, sometimes. Especially after nightmares, especially after mother died. Serkonan folk songs. I love listening to them.”

She frowns, furrowing her brow in thought. “How did his favorite go…?” She murmurs to herself, singing under her breath. “Elmira, Elmira, please come home, Elmira...She left one day to work the clay, but never did come back this way. They say she found a silver vein, longer than the Empire's reign. Running deep the miner's way, looking for the light of day…”

She trails off, standing, and holds her arm out for Corvo, her other hand replacing the scarf over her face. “That’s enough of that for now,” she says. “Let’s go find Stilton, Corvo. And then we’ll take out the Duke, and then we’ll save my father.”

Corvo says nothing, edging along her shoulder to nuzzle against her cheek -- that’s the best he can do right now, but if he could...if he could, he’d hug her tight and not let go. He loves her so much...she’s all he has left, she’s been all he has left for fifteen years. Without her he doesn’t know what he’d do. He’s so proud of her, so glad how she’s turned out, and he’s grateful to the Outsider for letting him be with her now, even if it’s like this.

He’s almost ashamed that he’s listening to her talk about him, though -- it feels as if he shouldn’t know these things, that she’s saying things she didn’t want to tell him. But he can’t change that he’s heard them, so it’s not something he’ll dwell on.

The trip back to the Stilton manor is much faster, as she knows where it is, and she lands squarely in front of it, entering the area and approaching the lock. She squints at it in confusion a moment, puzzling over the lock -- it’s two rows of five moving plates, the first row with names on them, and the second with varying symbols. She blinks a moment, before moving to the side of the door to read the plaque bearing the title The Jindosh Riddle.

She stares at it a moment, groaning loudly. “Logic puzzle,” she complains. “I don’t have the patience for this, Jindosh, who would? Sitting here trying to figure out which noble sat where and owned what and-- ugh. No wonder it’s so effective.”

She pulls the solution out of her coat and unfolds it, reading it out loud as she spins the plates to match. “Winslow, diamond. Finch, snuff tin. Marcolla, war medal. Contee, ring. Natsiou, bird pendant,” she lists off, and as the last one clicks into place, the door whirs and gears grind, and slowly creaks open.

With a deep breath, Emily returns the combination to her pocket, and steps into the manor.

The two of them can feel almost immediately that something seems...wrong about the manor. It’s old and abandoned, weeds in the courtyard growing long and unruly, rubble strewn everywhere. Corvo wonders what it looked like in its prime, what sort of place Aramis would live in, but that’s still a secondary thought to the strangeness around them. The air feels heavy, weighed down, and it’s a little hard to breathe -- it feels as if they’re being watched, that sort of prickle on the back of their necks, and Corvo can swear he smells seawater under the thick scent of the district, something unusual for Batista.

Emily lifts a hand slightly, intending to blink across to the front doors, and then stops. “I can’t-- it’s not working,” she says, confused and worried, and tries to activate her enhanced vision. “I can’t use any of the magic here.”

That really is more than a little concerning, Corvo thinks, but nudges her in reassurance anyway. Emily smiles faintly and picks her way across the courtyard. The manor ahead is grand, with the dust-stained walls once painted blue and green, and Emily pushes the wooden double doors open slowly. The inside is just as ruined, the chandelier lying broken on the floor with weeds springing up around it, and rats skitters further inside as Emily’s footsteps spook them. The manor is overgrown, ivy and trees patchworking the dull, dust-covered foyer, and abandoned furniture and other objects lie scattered on the floor.

Emily continues forward, freezing when she hears someone shout from another room. But whoever it is doesn’t say anything further, and she presses on. “Was that Stilton?” She murmurs to herself, and Corvo...well, he hopes not. But he’s afraid that he’ll be wrong there.

Emily follows the voice down a hall to the right, passing more broken furniture and rats. Occasionally the man will speak, mumbling to himself, and that’s enough to show her the way. The hall ends with two stacked bedframes blocking her way into a large room like makeshift prison bars, a few old plates of food scattered around it -- it’s good to know whatever state he’s in someone cares for him, but this is still… Emily rattles the frames a little, but they don’t budge, two more with mattresses on top of them. She sighs and retreats, slowly making her way through the dilapidated manor to find another way into the room.

Once she climbs the stairs -- and finds a massive nest of bloodflies behind a fenced off area of the second floor, much to Corvo’s dismay -- she heads to the right to see that the floor of the room above where the man is has been smashed in, and she can see through to the room below. As she approaches the hole, the man below speaks again, more clearly this time now that she’s right above him. “When did I get so old?” He says mournfully to himself. “Where are the men of my younger days?”

Aging alongside you, Corvo thinks sadly. We’re all old now, my friend. But we’re still here.

Emily slips through the hole and drops onto the floor below her, taking in the large, disused room she’s in. It’s nearly empty aside from the furniture shoved into the corners and edges, and a large, dusty grand piano sits in the center, a single flickering spotlight illuminating both it and the man sitting at the bench.

“Theo?” The man calls plaintively. “Where are you, my friend? I must speak with you…”

Emily’s face falls slightly, hesitantly approaching the bench and piano. “Aramis Stilton…?” She ventures cautiously. Corvo flutters from her shoulder to the piano, watching the man sadly.

He turns, blinking at them owlishly, his suit dirty and rumpled and a beard growing unevenly. He frowns, sliding almost nervously away across the bench from her. “You sing, like the whales,” he tells her, eyes never quite focusing on her face. “The black-eyed one, he touched you, you’re-- you’re not-- a bird,” he says suddenly. “A little bird, black feathers. I know you, do I? A little crown for a little bird, but where’s the clever crow behind you?”

Corvo hops forward, not sure what Aramis will see, and caws softly. Aramis, he says. If you can see...or even if you can’t, I’m here.

Aramis swings his heavy head to look at the bird, reaching out towards the air where Corvo’s shoulder would be if he were himself. “My old friend,” he says, sounding surprised amid his insanity. “You’re wearing such a cunning disguise, but I see you. Though...you’re not here. No, you’re here and not, a body of stone and a spirit dressed in feathers. But I see you. When did we get so old? Where do the years go, spilling out of the hourglass like so much silver dust…”

Corvo hops onto Aramis’s outstretched hand, leaning down to rub his head against the rough and callused flesh. The time goes where it always does, Corvo says sadly, into the hands of the younger generation. We grow old and watch them grow up. Oh, Aramis, my friend, what did you do to yourself? What happened here?

Aramis chuckles softly, smile vacant. “I see, I saw, beyond the walls, beyond the beyond, and she stepped from it like dripping ink,” he says, and then his eyes lose what little focus they have. “Did you come to invite me drinking, my friend? We'll go with the others to the Spigot. Invite Bea along, she should have some fun…”

He trails off, and his hand moves, only to pause mid-gesture, the color draining out of the world and time seeming to stop. Dust froze in midair, leaves paused in their skids across the ground, and Corvo and Emily looked around and then at each other in surprise. Emily has an odd look on her face, and she opens her mouth to speak, but stops at the whiff of seawater and the sudden chill in the air.

The two turn, and both pairs of eyes widen to see the Outsider, leaning against the piano with his arms crossed. It's a shock to see him outside the Void -- had be always been able to leave the Void, or did he have to dull and pause the world to do so? And now he's here, looking both at home and out of place in this hollowed out mansion overgrown by time.

The Outsider smiles faintly, putting his hands on the piano’s lid and pushing himself up to sit on it, legs dangling off the ground. “Three years ago, something inside your friend Aramis Stilton snapped like a cheap lock,” he says, likely knowing the words would sting and not really caring. “A part of him, and a part of this house, never left that evening.” He slides back off the piano’s lid, pacing around Emily. “The Duke’s inner circle are still gathered here, setting their grand plan into motion. Delilah’s plan. And a part of Aramis Stilton is always here, still breaking.”

“How?” Emily asks, gesturing around the room. “What happened here? What did this?”

That’s what I’d like to know, too, Corvo adds. It feels like the Void has...stained this place somehow. It’s so strange...what could have caused it? Delilah?

The Outsider sighs, shaking his head and crossing his arms again, leaning on the piano. “The Void is...not exactly a place,” he begins. “And it’s much older and stranger than you could ever really know. It watches you from within.” He gestures, pale hand indicating the bowels of the mansion. “And deep in the heart of this mansion, the Void is leaking through a pinprick left behind by Delilah’s little trick.” His lips thin for a moment before he continues. “Even magic is perverted here, and things don’t work as they should.”

Oh, lovely, Corvo thinks sourly. The Outsider chuckles at that, before straightening and holding out a hand. A strange device appears in it -- a cluster of gears and wires, sparking very faintly with magic. Three wing-like fragments of mirror glass fold around it, and when Emily takes it they click open, forming what looks like a window into someplace brighter, but still familiar.

“Take it,” the Outsider says with a wave of his now empty hand. “Think of it as a...timepiece, Emily. You’ll figure it out. Now go, and watch the Duke and Delilah. See for yourself what they did.” He sounds, irritable, somehow, if Corvo isn’t imagining it, and he wonders why. But the man disappears then and the world unfreezes, Stilton dropping his hand to rock slowly back and forth, arms wrapping around himself.

“Theo, warm the quilts, will you?” He says to himself unsteadily. “I fear it will be cold tonight…”

Aramis...I’ll find a way to fix this, Corvo promises. I won’t let you rot away here in your insanity. I’ll help you, my friend. I swear.

Emily flicks the timepiece open to peer through the window, turning in a circle slowly. “It’s showing me...the manor,” she realizes. “From the past. From three years ago. What if I…” She squeezes the timepiece, the contraption glowing slightly -- and then the whole world shifts under her feet and around her, color exploding around her as the present becomes the past and she finds herself in the restored music room.

“By the Void,” she gasps out, swearing under her breath. “We just traveled through time...how this that-- I can’t believe…this is incredible.” She smiles faintly, awed. Corvo is, too, he can’t lie. This is amazing. To step through time itself...it was easily tempting to use it for other purposes, but he knows it’s unlikely. This probably only works here, where the Void is leaking through thanks to whatever was done here. Yet...it’s still a tempting thought.

Emily heads to the door to the room, pausing when she hears voices and pressing her ear to the door instead of opening it to listen. On the other side, a guard is complaining to someone else, sounding irritated.

“--demanding refreshments, and I can’t get in without the combination,” she says, frustrated.

The man sighs. “There’s a note on the door, Captain Windlebonne.”

“What?” She says. “Oh. He’s out in the back garden. I need the code to the study.”

The man sighs again, clearly used to this sort of thing. “It’s in his notebook, ma’am,” he tells her. “But he keeps it on him.”

“Thank you, corporal,” the captain says, and she hears the sound of squeaking leather and footsteps walking away. Once they’re gone -- and Emily peers through the keyhole to make sure of it -- she opens the door, closing it softly behind her, and creeps down the hall.

She closes her eyes to try and blink, but -- still nothing. Her magic is still blocked. She nods to herself, though. She’s not averse to doing things the hard way. She’d always had to before this, after all.

Slowly she edges up the stairs and along the balcony, hiding under tables and in cabinets from the occasional guard, eventually getting to the wrought iron gate that stands between her and the back half of the house. She glances around for guards and maids, and tries the gate...only to find it locked. She groans under her breath and shakes her head. “Great,” she murmurs. “Now I have to find the key.” She pauses. “Or…” She trails off, pulling out the timepiece again and activating it, sending her back into the present. “I can do this.”

She grins to herself, standing, and pushes the gate open -- however, she gets halfway through before she hears the buzzing of bloodflies and yelps, jumping back and slamming the gate shut. “Shit!” The present day version of the room was the one filled with the nests, she’d forgotten! Damn it, now she did have to find the key.

She looks around again, frowning to herself and going over the rooms she’d been in. She’d searched the right half of the first two floors already, for the most part, so...this time she’d start with the left. Still in the present, she and Corvo head around the balcony to the left doorway, though it’s blocked by debris. Flipping the timepiece open and peering through the glass, she checks to make sure there are no guards and switches times again, creaking the now-pristine door open again and slipping through, shutting it behind her.

She creeps through the hall until she hits a balcony, peering over it to see the dining room beneath her. There are several guards sitting around, and she leans further over the edge, squinting to see if she can spy anything important on their belts or on their belongings before she searches elsewhere.

There, Corvo thinks, seeing it first -- his vision as a bird is apparently better. There’s a key on the low table in front of one of the guards, and next to a pouch and a bottle of rum lies a key. He nudges Emily, pointing his beak at the guard in question, and she smiles. “Thank you,” she whispers, and leaps onto the light closest to the balcony. She considers a moment, thinking of how to approach -- especially since there are so many guards in the room -- and then grins. Activating the timepiece, the dining room shifts to the present version. Thankfully, the light still hangs steady, so she leaps off it, skidding and rolling, and then shimmies underneath the long dining room table before returning to the past.

She wiggles a little closer, sticking a hand out from under the table to slip the key away, tucking it in her coat as she switches back to the present. She checks to make sure the key is still there -- and it is -- before wiggling out from under the table with a grin at Corvo. “I can’t believe that worked,” she says, awed. “This is amazing.”

It is, Corvo agrees as Emily hurries out of the room, switching time periods to dodge guards as she returns to the indoor gate. It’s incredible. I can slow and stop time, but only briefly, yet this device can throw someone into the past...I’d never have believed such a thing was possible until now, even with all I know of the Outsider. He sighs. And thinking of the Outsider...I’d never thought he’d be so helpful. It’s genuinely...I don’t know what to think. He claims to be impartial, to only watch, and yet giving us this timepiece, it’s the most overtly biased act he’s ever done for me or for Emily so far. What’s his stake in this, this time? Does he have one? I can’t believe he’s only doing this because he likes us. There has to be a reason. Perhaps when we speak to him next, I’ll ask. Though I doubt he’ll answer.

Emily creeps through the gate in the past, closing it behind her and slipping cautiously through the hall behind it, ducking under tables and behind potted plants as she creeps around the back section of the manor towards the door to the back gardens. There’s a single guard standing watch, but he’s right in front of the doors, so Emily digs a spare coin out of her pocket, tossing it to the other end of the hall. When the guard looks over at the sound, she slips behind him and knocks him out, lowering him to the floor next to the door and adjusting him to make it look like he’d simply sat down to take a nap.

That done, she slips through to the back gardens. There’s a low balcony facing the open gardens, and wooden scaffolds around it, so she climbs onto those and edges across the platforms, keeping an eye out for Stilton. At the other end of the scaffold, there’s a gazebo, and she looks down to see a familiar face -- Aramis Stilton, clean-shaven and his suit neat, still sane and whole.

Emily drops down to the edge of the gazebo, seeing a notebook sitting open on the table within, a pen tucked between the pages. Glancing up at Stilton, who was facing away, lost in his own thoughts, she carefully bends over the book to take note of the combination, ducking down once she’s done. “278,” she whispers to herself. “Got it.”

She pauses and turns again, swallowing, and watches Stilton pace and mutter to himself, worrying about the meeting that night. Corvo can see her trying to figure out a way to knock him out safely, and decides to help her out. He lifts off from her shoulder, landing on the gazebo rails and hopping over to where Stilton is, letting out a loud caw. As he’d hoped, Stilton looks over, startled, and smiles.

“Oh, hello there,” he says. “We don’t see many crows around this part of Karnaca. What brings you out here?” He chuckles to himself. “Well, you’re not going to answer. Maybe you’re just hungry. Here.” He reaches over to a plate on one of the end tables in the gazebo, breaking a piece of crust of the half loaf of bread on it and offering it to Corvo. “It’s not much, but it’ll do.”

Corvo pecks at the bread, mostly to keep Aramis distracted while Emily creeps up behind him. He’s twice as big as most of the guards, but she manages to get her arm around his neck and squeeze until he passes out. “Oof,” she mutters, easing him onto the couch and fluffing the pillow behind his head a little. “Get some rest now, Stilton,” she says gently. “You’ll be grateful for this, I promise.”

Corvo returns to her shoulder and she scampers back up the scaffold and onto the balcony, back into the house. “I can’t go back to the present just yet,” she murmurs to him. “Not until I see what happened. Because I changed something, and now…” And now she’s not sure what it’ll be like when she goes back to the present.

She headed further into the house, still trying to duck away from the guards and servants, finding a path up another floor and across that hallway to the study -- it wasn’t hard to figure out which way to go; the servants were all full of gossip about the guests tonight, and Emily was good at picking through gossip. Well, that and the two guards at the door and the passcode device beside it.

Wishing she had her linking ability, she snatches an empty whiskey glass off the table she’s hiding under and throws it across the balcony. It shatters at the opposite end of the hall, and she waits until all the guards hurry off to investigate before darting over and inputting the combination. 2-7-8, she enters, and the doors swing open. She ducks inside and closes the doors behind her, making sure she hears the click before sagging against them with a sigh.

“That was close,” she murmurs to Corvo, straightening. “Now to see what happened…” She turns to the hall, making to head down the hallways, and pauses. The two of them stare at the hall for a moment, startled and concerned. “Oh…” Emily murmurs. “It looks like this really is the focal point of whatever happened. Everything’s...overlapping.”

That was the best way to describe it -- overlapping. The hall looked as it should have in the past, but pieces of furniture, paintings, tables, books, fragments of the area were monochrome, flickering in and out like radio static. She thinks a moment, before walking down the hall without trying to be stealthy -- she has a feeling that whatever happens from here on...well, it’s not anything she can affect anymore.

She turns a corner, and there they are, the Duke and his cronies. They’re black-and-white silvergraph images flickering in a colored antechamber, talking in a circle. There’s an annoyed Luca Abele, Breanna Ashworth looking almost hungry, a bemused Jindosh, and what she thinks is Hypatia at first, but no -- the posture and wild hair says that this is the Crown Killer.

“It’s time to begin,” the image of the Duke says irritably. “Where’s Stilton? I should never have kept him on just because he and my father were--” He breaks off, making a face that’s full of badly hidden disgust, which makes Corvo and Emily both bristle at the implications. “Close,” he spits finally, and Emily hisses.

Ashworth sighs, crossing her arms. “What we’re about to attempt has never been done before,” she says grandly. “It’s beyond my understanding, and certainly beyond yours. If anyone still harbors any doubts, set them aside now.”

“This defies rational understanding,” Jindosh tells the group, grinning from ear to ear with the expression of a child waiting for a show to begin, hoping he’ll be able to guess the performer’s trickery. “It’s the frayed edge, where natural philosophy crosses over into-- into something else.”

The Killer grins ferally, an eerie expression on Hypatia’s face. “Yes,” she purrs. “I can feel it. We risk madness.”

The Duke clears his throat. “All of you,” he interrupts any further discussion. “Delilah is your rightful Empress. You owe her this.”

“Delilah’s stronger than before,” Ashworth says with a faint smile. “The Duke and I have heard her voice whispers to us. And now...now it’s time. We must take our positions.”

The images fade, and Emily follows the hallway further into a large room, a balcony overlooking where the group is holding the seance. Knowing they can’t see her, Emily leaps down into the room, moving to stand next to Jindosh. The four of them are standing in a circle upon glowing blue symbols that cover the whole floor, a fifth point occupied by a large, abstract statue of a winged woman. Dozens of candles surround them on the floor, and their arms are upraised as Ashworth speaks.

“Focus on the Void behind the world,” she intones. “You can feel her power, can’t you?” The room does seem to shimmer, and while the other three look varying levels of ecstatic and anticipating, Jindosh looks a bit wary.

“By the stars,” the Duke crows. “This is more exciting than any orgy I’ve ever attended!” Emily makes a face at that, and edges a bit further away from him. Corvo has to agree with her reaction. Void, what would Theodanis say to that?

In the middle of the room, a pool of bubbling black...slime seems to appear, spreading and steaming as the shimmer in the room increases. “Do it now!” The Duke yells, and the black substance explodes into the air like a geyser, forming into a black ink silhouette of Delilah, made of that substance, almost featureless.

“I am here,” she says slowly, her voice distorted and stilted. “Returned. From the cold. From forever.”

“She lives,” Ashworth breathes reverently, dropping to her knees before the Delilah-shaped mass of ink, still dripping. The Killer is grinning madly, and the Duke rushes to Delilah’s side, while Jindosh remains where he is, stunned and bemused.

“How curious,” he says. “It...seems to have worked.”

The Duke puts an arm around Delilah’s shuddering form, and the statue beside them seems to unfold itself as the witch throws her arms towards it, light seeming to emanate from her into the thing. The light fades and Delilah falls, looking human now, while the statue folds back up. The Duke catches her, and she gives him a tight-lipped smile. “My spirit is safe now,” she says. “Inside this thing.” The Duke helps her up, and she gestures sharply at the statue, and this time Emily and Corvo follow her gaze to look at it properly. “Luca, you must seal it away.”

“I thought we’d lost you,” Ashworth manages, taking Delilah’s hand. The woman doesn’t lose that thin-lipped smile, though you could almost swear her eyes soften.

“Luca, Breanna,” she says. “I will never abandon you.” She begins to say something else, but stops, whipping around to stare directly at Emily and Corvo. “Wait,” she says, and Emily freezes. “You are hidden, but I know you. I know who you are, and I know when you are.” She points directly at where Emily stands. “You’ve come to watch me return -- and someday, I’ll come for you.”

That warning issued, the images fade, and Emily and Corvo are alone. “Well,” she says slowly. “That was...that was strange.” She sighs and returns up the stairs and back through the anteroom towards the study doors. She takes a deep breath, pushes them open, and pulls out the timepiece one last time, letting it take her back to the present.

The manor is obviously different, and Emily takes a deep breath of cleaner air. The place is run down, dusty and grey, far more sparsely furnished, but it is no ruin. It is still a home. Emily can hear one or two people bustling around in the other areas, and she smiles. Corvo smiles, too. They’d done it. No matter how this ended, they’d changed something for the better. They’d saved Aramis Stilton.

She heads carefully through the back and then the front halves of the manor, relieved and saddened to see that though the place is well-kept, it’s very empty. Many of the servants must have left, and there’s not a single guard. Part of her wants to visit Stilton, but...no. She has what she came for. Maybe she’ll see him soon, nonetheless, but it might be awkward to -- as far as he would know -- barge in unannounced.

She gets to the foyer with not a soul in sight, smiling faintly at the wide open front doors and the pair of workers fixing the chandelier. She slips past them quietly, heading through the front courtyard towards the door back to the Dust District. She wonders what else has changed, besides how much brighter and cleaner everything looks. Nothing too much, she finds herself hoping. She doesn’t want to have to explain why she doesn’t know certain things.

She pushes the doors open, and then she freezes, startled. This doesn’t look at all like the entranceway she remembers from before. This was strange, but...she supposes the area with the lock had been aged with time and brave fools trying to get into the manor in the previous timeline. Now, no such thing happened,so…there’s a door. She shrugs to herself after a moment, crossing the room and reaching towards the knob to exit into the Dust District.

Just as she grasps the knob, she’s jerked backwards by an unseen force, hard enough to send her banging into the floor, dragging her across the tile. She screams, caught off guard, and Corvo lets out a frantic screech of his own. He flaps his wings desperately, but he’s been grabbed too, wings snapping shut and pressed close to his body. Emily claws desperately at the floor to slow herself, but it’s in vain -- they’re free-falling now, and Emily’s breath is dragged from her lungs, leaving only the sharp taste of seawater as the two of them plunge down, down into the endless expanse of the Void below them.

Then, just as suddenly, they stop. Someone's cold hands wrap itself around Emily's wrist and snatch Corvo out of the air, yanking them from over the abyss and dropping them unceremoniously on the black stone ground. Emily scrambles to her feet, scooping Corvo up into her arms while he recovers.

The Outsider stands above them, arms behind his back and face stone cold and unreadable. It chills Corvo somehow, the lack of expression -- it reminds him of when he’d first met the being, before the Outsider had softened towards him. It was eerie.

“Wh-- what was that?” Emily manages, shaking herself off and letting Corvo hop back onto her shoulder. The Outsider ignores them, turning away to face the depths of the island. The two of them follow his gaze to see what looks like a ceremony, robed figures made of stone lined up and surrounding an altar. Outsider? Corvo asks. What happened? What is this place?

The Outsider is silent for a long time, almost worryingly so, before he speaks. “Look around you,” he says, his voice distant and emotionless. “A crumbling island at the very edges of the Void. This one, though, is special.” His head turns briefly as if he's looking at them, but then he faces away again, staring at the statues and their frozen ritual. “This is where my throat was cut, four thousand years ago.”

Emily lets out a gasp, covering her mouth with a hand, and Corvo's eyes widen, but the Outsider ignores them. “This is where my life ended and began again...where they made me.”

His voice roughens, and they can see the hands that are tucked behind his back tighten into fists and loosen reflexively. Without saying another word, he vanishes, and Emily nearly trips in her hurry to climb the gentle slope of the island towards the altar. As she gets closer, they can see that the statues of the robed figures make two lines up to the altar, forming a path to the stone slab they're circling. A final figure stands at the head of the altar, arms upraised with a wicked dagger pointing its dual black blades at the empty slab as if readying to plunge it into whoever might be bound there.

As they approach the altar, the Outsider appears on it, lying on his back so that the blade points at his throat. His hands are by his head, wrists brushing the top corners as if he were tied down. “Right up to the end,” he says softly, black-ink eyes somehow unfocused, “I thought I'd find a way to escape.” He sits up to face Emily and Corvo, rubbing his wrists absently, eyes still looking beyond them. “I fought, but the ropes cut my skin, so I went limp. And then the knife touched my throat, and I knew I'd waited too long.”

Emily reaches for him cautiously, as if to comfort him, but he disappears again. She lets out a sigh and brushes past the statue holding the knife, heading further down the island. He's a bit further away, perched like a pale-faced owl in a dead tree. His eyes are still looking past them, but he seems to hear their approach. “The blood ran out,” he murmurs, “and I became a God.”

Silence reigns for a while, and then the Outsider slides off the tree branch, straightening his jacket and shaking his head. “Now you know Delilah’s secret,” he says, voice back to normal, even if his eyes still seem distant, as if he hadn't just revealed something so revelatory. “At the end of her life, she would have drifted, lost forever within the void -- should have been lost forever. But her will, her cunning...they’re second to none.” He vanishes one last time, reappearing a few feet away with his arms crossed. “She found this place, this island where I became what I am,” he says, and he can’t hide the bitterness in it, the distaste. “It changed her, and she found a way to draw from it, tapping into its power.”

His arms tighten, fingers tugging at his sleeves. “Delilah is...a part of me, now,” he admits, the sentence pulled from him reluctantly. “And I don’t like it.” He sounds genuinely upset, and it shows on his face for the briefest of moments, before he disappears completely, leaving the familiar swirl of white that leads out.

Emily stays where she is a moment, still with her arm stretched out towards where the Outsider had been standing. She slowly lowers her hand with a soft sigh, glancing at Corvo and then back at where he’d been. “He was human once,” she says quietly. “Human. Just like me, like Corvo, like Meagan and Wyman and Anton and everyone else. And they tied him down and cut his throat and made him-- made him this. The Outsider. Our bogeyman.” She shakes her head. “But he didn’t start out like that, he wasn’t born the Outsider. He was created. I wonder what the Abbey would think about that...”

I don’t know, Corvo thinks quietly, subdued and thoughtful. I don’t think they’d believe it. They’ve seen the Outsider as the source of all misfortune for too long, decades upon decades, and they won’t be able to change that so easily. No matter who says what. He sighs. Either way, it doesn’t make it any less the truth. He was just a boy, a victim of fate, powerless to stop what was done to him...but he’s not any longer, is he? He took what was done to him and made it his own, embraced his godhood, no matter what’s thought of him. Hm...I think he makes a little more sense, now.

As he thinks, Emily takes a deep breath, shaking her head again, and steps through the white portal. Past it is the seance room once more, fragmented at the edges and frozen in time like all the other tableaus that display themselves within the Void. The Outsider is there, standing next to Delilah’s still form and glaring at the side of her head. “You have to give her credit,” he comments, not sparing them a glance. “She tore out a piece of herself, hid it away in a statue made of bones. Made herself immortal.” He does turn to look at them now, taking a step or two closer, the anger and distaste in his face softening into something else. Pity, maybe? “If you want to kill her, you’ll have to find her spirit and give it back to her. Reaching it will be difficult, but...the hardest part will come after.” He gives Emily and Corvo a little, mysterious smile, still looking strangely pitying. “It might just be the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do.”

“What?” Emily asks, startled and wary. “What do you mean?”

The Outsider doesn’t respond, turning and disappearing into the ever-present shadows that hang on him like a shroud. One of the walls fall away to allow her through another pale portal.

She walks through that one, and she’s out of the Void, blinking in the dim lamplight of the front foyer of the mansion, the one she’d just been in. She sighs, shaking her head. “What was...strange. I never thought the world was this strange, but now…” A sigh again. “What did he mean, the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do?” She asks herself. “I don’t like that.”

I don’t like it, either, Corvo thinks. But whatever happens, I’ll be here. We’ll stop Delilah. He pauses, chuckling to himself almost sadly. Though now I know what stake the Outsider has in this, what’s making him so helpful this time. He can’t interfere directly, like he told me, but he wants Delilah gone as much as we do. This is all he can do, so he’s doing it, and trusting us. I hope we can help him, as we help ourselves. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have someone invading something such a-- a personal part of you. Your soul. I suppose even a god can...I suppose he still has some humanity left after all this time. And I’m glad he does; I don’t know if he’d have met us, have us his mark, if he didn’t.

Emily hesitates, unsure of what will happen, put opens the door into the street and steps out. She gasps, then, eyes wide. The whole district has changed, changed for the better. The buildings are intact, the streets are clean, the people on the street seem happy...a sign over one building as Emily walks by proclaims a previously abandoned building as the United Miners of Karnaca union office, and a few people are standing outside speaking about the mines. Miners and miners’ wives, healthy and well, if worn-down. Corvo recognizes a woman after a moment; she’s older by decades like he is, but he remembers the scrappy young woman named Lucia from Batista. He has to smile to himself at that, seeing her. Knowing they’d changed things here for the better, helped these people, helped his birthplace.

Emily is unmolested as she heads down the street back to the canal where Sokolov and Meagan are waiting, a few civilians giving her odd looks due to the scarf and the bird, but for the most part ignoring her. She heads down the metal steps, and both Meagan and Sokolov look up to greet them.

Thankfully, Emily manages to conceal her surprise -- Meagan is whole, now, with both arms and both eyes. She’s not sure how saving Stilton fixed that, but she’s certainly not going to complain. “You’re back,” Meagan says with a grin, lifting a hand. “That was quick.” She straightens, snuffing out her cigarillo. “Sorry I couldn’t take you to see Stilton myself,” she adds. “But I guess you found the place.”

“I did,” Emily agrees with a smile. So Meagan knew Stilton somehow. And the seance...his participation must have somehow meant Meagan got hurt. That’s really all she needs to know to go forward, she decides.

“Good,” Meagan says. “You know, years back, Stilton was always quiet about the Duke. I never figured out just why.”

I can guess, Corvo thinks, as the two women board the skiff. “You’re ready to leave, good,” Sokolov grumbles. “The dust is wreaking havoc on my throat.”

The women and Corco laugh, and Sokolov steers them out of the canal and back towards the Dreadful Wale. Emily yawns, head drooping -- even though it must only seem like a few hours to the other two, it had felt much longer to her. But now Stilton was safe, and now she knew the next thing she had to do.

Both Corvo and Emily awake in the Void -- this they know immediately, the chill in the air and the overpowering smell of seawater telling them this isn’t the Wale -- but something seems...off. Corvo notices more than Emily, having been here so many more times, but there’s not...something is different.

“Corvo,” Emily calls softly, standing, and he flutters over to her shoulder. She leaves the room and steps through the crooked hall into the endless expanse...and Corvo knows something is wrong, now, the roots and trees twisting over the black stone should not be there, and neither should the underlying, cloying scent of rotting flowers.

“Outsider?” Emily says cautiously, approaching the open doorframe before her. “Are you here?” If he isn’t, then...that’s even more concerning, they both think. If he’s not here...then where is he? Who brought them here?

A familiar noise echoes as they get to the vine-wrapped doorframe, but it’s not the Outsider who steps in front of them, arms crossed and smirking -- it’s Delilah. Emily’s hands tighten into fists, and Corvo lets out the closest approximation of a growl he can.

“Surprised I can pull you into this place?” The witch coos. “The Outsider marked me long ago.”

Emily snorts. “Biggest mistake he ever made,” she snarls. “Bet he’s regretting it now.”

Delilah remains unperturbed. “I made you flee your precious little tower, and turned your beloved father into cold stone,” she says mockingly. “How difficult it must be for you.” Her voice is bitter as she paces in front of them, eyes cold as ice. “When I was young, sweet Jessamine and I were close as sisters, sharing a secret-- the Emperor had another daughter, born in shame to a kitchen maid.”

She vanishes as the Outsider tends to do, and Emily hisses. “How is she doing this?” She asks herself, angry, as she hurries off after the other woman. Corvo wants to know that, too -- he can’t do this, and as far as he knows Daud couldn’t either. How in the world is Delilah doing this? It’s a step beyond anything any other marked person could do. Where is the Outsider?

The two of them follow the path, Emily dashing across the black stone rather than her usual cautious walk -- anger fuels her speed, as if she’s half convinced if she catches Delilah she can end it here and now.

She skids to a stop at a dead end, and before her is a doorway floating in the Void -- as if it senses her approach, the air within the doorframe stirs and swirls, painting a picture on thin air. A small girl in black, looking pleadingly up at a well-dressed blond man that Emily recognizes from pictures, and who Corvo knows well; the late Emperor Euhorn.

“But I want to go to court like Jessamine!” The girl begs, only for the Emperor to reassure her -- next year, I promise. Next year. The girl protest that he’d said that last year, begging, but is brushed off with comforting nonsense and promises.

Emily frowns deeply, shaking herself off as the Void rearranges itself to give her a path forward. She doesn’t have much farther to go before Delilah reappears, sitting upon the path before them and staring out at the endless expanse.

“Jessamine and I would play games in the Tower during the day,” she says, and Corvo can’t quite decide whether she sounds wistful or bitter. “But every night I’d return to the servants’ quarters, to cockroaches and gruel. Emperor Daddy would visit, tell me that if I was good, I’d get to come to court next year -- I’d get to be a princess.”

She unfolds herself, standing and stalking back and forth in front of Emily like a cat. “One day, pretty Jessamine broke something worth a fortune, and the Spymaster caught us,” she snarls out, bitterness overriding whatever nostalgia had been here. “She claimed I did it, and he took me out to the greenhouse and whipped me bloody. My mother was dismissed, and that very night we were out on the streets with nowhere to go.”

She disappears again, leaving another shimmering memory picture in her wake, two little girls and a shattered bauble, one of them scared and throwing the blame at her companion. Emily grimaces, frowning and swallowing thickly, but Corvo is quiet -- thinking, mostly. Emily shakes herself off after a moment, then, and keeps walking forward along the path the Void offers.

Of course Delilah appears again, arms crossed and back turned. “Mother and I saw the worst parts of Dunwall, of course, and we ended up in debtors’ prison. Jessamine died quick on an assassin’s blade, lucky her, but my mother lingered for weeks after a fat guard broke her jaw.” She turns to pin Emily with a hateful gaze. “They threw me out after that, and I looked up at Dunwall Tower and swore revenge.”

She narrows her eyes, and something in them makes Emily take a step back. “Washing sheets at a brothel, I painted on the side until Anton Sokolov took me on as a student.” She scoffs. “Well, that’s the polite word for it. Even before the Outsider marked me I was clever, and I survived the worst the world had to offer.”

She stops, leaning into Emily’s face with a vicious smile. “Now it’s your turn.”

She disappears and leaves Emily and Corvo to listen to a daughter’s pleas for her mother’s life, before the path readjusts and leads to the familiar white mist portal that leads them out. Emily shakes her head, glancing at Corvo before looking away. “I..whether or not she was telling the truth, I don’t-- I don’t know. But either way…”

I know, Corvo thinks. It’s hard to know, and even if some of it is true, who’s to say if it’s as she tells it or if she’s embellished it in her mind? It’s...neither of us can tell. But no matter what’s the case, it’s not...there’s no reason for this. Children blame others for their own mistakes all the time -- I would blame my older sister for losing things or breaking things, and the children in the group I played with tossed one another under the carriage constantly. It’s an accepted part of youth. What happened to Delilah was terrible, no doubt, but blaming Jess...it wasn’t her fault. There’s no reason to do this. Void, if only Jessamine were here, maybe this could all be resolved…

But he can’t say any of this to Emily, so the two leave the Void in silence. It was time to wake up.

Emily wakes up and shakes herself off, shuddering as she rubs her temples. Corvo squawks comfortingly, hopping over to land on her leg and nudge her, only to freeze when he hears a voice; Jessamine’s voice. He’s heard it before, from the Heart, but this seems clearer somehow. He looks up and follows Emily’s gaze and gasps softly, voice cracking. It is her. Not just the heart, but Jessamine herself, pale and transparent like a ghost from a penny thriller.

“I am with you, my loves, even in the Void,” she whispers gently. “Would that I could do more…”

Emily shakes her head. “Mother, no,” she says softly. “It’s-- it’s alright…” She swallows. “What Delilah said, was it…?”

“Am I to blame for Delilah’s bitterness…?” Jessamine’s spirit murmurs.

Of course not, Jess, Corvo says softly. This is all her. She’s driving this. You did nothing but make a child’s mistake. She’s the one who’s taken it too far.

Jessamine smiles sadly. “Our decisions have weight, my dear,” she says. “I feel my time drawing to an end. Soon…” She fades away quietly, and Emily wipes a hand across her face. Corvo wishes he could, too, and is almost grateful he can’t seem to cry in this form. Otherwise he would -- seeing her, hearing her again...it was more painful than he expected, but he should have known it would be. Void, he misses her so much, even now. And she sees him, despite this form...he almost doesn’t realize Emily is moving until she stands, and he quickly flutters to perch on her shoulder, distractedly.

They leave Emily’s room, heading first to Hypatia’s room to say good morning -- she greets them warmly, offering Corvo a bit of bread (which he takes gratefully), and lets them know Sokolov’s doing better today. That’s a relief to both of them, and Emily thanks her before stepping out of the room. A glance into the storage room reveals it empty, which means Jindosh is in the main room with Meagan and Sokolov...so that means it’s time to discuss their next move.

Emily strides into the room, smiling fondly at Sokolov still laying on the couch he hasn’t left in days, before glancing to an irritable-looking Jindosh, wrists bound and cuffed to a chair, and Meagan leaning on the table. Corvo flutters off Emily’s shoulder to land on Sokolov’s couch next to his head, rubbing his own head against the man reassuringly. It was hard to watch the old man like this, listless and in pain -- fifteen years ago, he’d thought Sokolov immortal. Now...now he knew different, and wished he didn’t.

Sokolov pets Corvo’s head fondly, chuckling, and they all turn to look at Emily as she perches on a chair of her own. “Anton,” she says with a sad smile, though her eyes say she’s already in business mode. “When we got you back here you could barely even speak. It’s been three days, though, and-- and we need to plan our next move.”

“They tortured him,” Meagan points out irritably, conveniently smacking Jindosh upside the head as she gestures with her stump. “He’s covered in bruises, Emily.”

“I know,” Emily says softly. “I know, Meagan. It’s just...Delilah still has the throne, and my father is-- he’s missing, and...and I need Anton’s help.”

Sokolov coughs. “I’m sorry, Emily,” he rasps, sitting up. “Meagan is right. I can make electricity move from one side of the room to the other, but Delilah...she’s beyond my understanding.”

“No, don’t be sorry,” Emily reassures him. “I’m just...as long as you’re alright. That’s enough.” She hesitates, and then turns to Jindosh, who stiffens, his bemused expression falling. “That means it’s up to you, then, Kirin,” she says, voice hardening. “You said something about Breanna Ashworth, didn’t you? Tell me more about her.”

He swallows. “As I said, she’s-- she’s the Curator of the Royal Conservatory,” he says slowly. “She’s...a witch, I suppose, like Delilah. She’s been working on some device she calls the Oraculum -- I’ve helped her with it, though I’m not entirely sure what exactly it’s supposed to do. Some sort of magical nonsense, I believe. I wasn’t provided with the details beyond what she wanted me to make for it.”

“Well, if she’s one of her lieutenants, I need to take care of her,” Emily says, standing. “Who knows what this Oraculum thing is capable of, or what she’s up to.”

Corvo croaks his assent. He doesn’t know much about witches beyond what he’s seen so far of Delilah and his own abilities, but whatever she plans to do can’t be good. He flutters over to Emily again and lands on her shoulder, and the two begin to follow Meagan to the skiff.

“W-Wait!” Jindosh calls, and Emily turns, surprised. “I-- I only tell you this because I’m almost certain you’ll blame me if I don’t, but there’s something that could be important. The device, the Oraculum, it needs a set of lenses to work properly. But the lenses I made for her caused her to throw a rather impolite tantrum, told me to make another pair. I can’t imagine why, but I don’t know. She’s certainly not getting them now.” He chuckles weakly. “Of course, I’ve no idea why she didn’t like them, but who knows? It could be important.”

Emily blinks. “Thank you,” she says after a moment. “You’re right, that could be useful. We’ll have to see.”

That said, and Jindosh properly caught off-guard, she departs.

Meagan leaves her in a sewer area, stairs leading up to the streets proper -- it’s the Cyria Garden district, Emily knows it at least by name. Corvo’s been here before, all those years ago when he was young, but he’s sure it’s likely to have changed since then. There’s really no reason to expect things to be the same anywhere.

Emily blinks up to the nearest rooftop, pulling her spyglass from her coat and looking around to get the lay of the land; the conservatory seems to be up on a hill, huge in the distance, and for some reason looking at it gives her a chill. She mentally maps out a route over the rooftops, smiling to herself -- all her nightly escapes from Dunwall Tower had been more difficult than this, really. Karnaca’s buildings were shorter, and the roofs were more likely to be level.

She slips the spyglass back into her coat and manifests the Heart. It pulses as she turns it to the right, and she follows the light into an apartment building via a window, climbing up through the smashed floor to the story above, where a shrine sits against the wall, surrounded by delicate blue flowers. Corvo has to admit he appreciates this -- it’s the prettiest shrine he’s seen here yet. It’s odd to be critiquing shrines, but he supposes he’s used to the more dramatic Dunwall ones. Then again, that begs the question of whose belief is more genuine -- the exaggerated flair of Dunwall’s, or the simplistic ones here in Karnaca.

Almost hesitantly, Emily puts her hands on the runes, and the Void ripples into being. The Outsider is there, of course, and Corvo and Emily both let out a soft sigh of relief at the sight of him. Emily had been afraid it would be Delilah, and Corvo had been concerned about the Outsider himself.

The Outsider’s ink-dark eyes shimmer almost in surprise at their smiles and relief, and then he shakes his head from where he sits perched on a rock in front of them. “Look at you,” he says, reaching out to run a pale finger along Corvo’s head. “Making your way across this shuddering city, step by single step.”

He smiles faintly, standing to walk around the pair of them. “Breanna Ashworth would have been miserable in high society, forced to wed some bloated banker. Her only escapes would have been getting drunk at formal parties and coupling with strangers in back rooms and closets. That sad story would have ended in an unhappy marriage and a late-night plunge off of Kaldwin Bridge, like so many others.” He shrugs absently. “But before her dear mother and father married her off, she met Delilah. It was all highways and graveyards after that, never looking back.”

He paces around them in the other direction. “Vice Overseer Byrne has his eyes on her,” he notes. “He’s an ambitious man, but he believes in the Abbey’s mission -- to protect the good people of the Empire from people like, well…” He smile, amused, and reaches out to tap a finger on Corvo’s head and then pats Emily’s cheek, the flesh of his hand smooth but cold. “People like us.”

“You know he’d be happier with Breanna Ashworth’s head on a spike,” he says with a faint chuckle, lowering his hand. “Perhaps yours as well, dear Emily.”

That said, he vanishes back where he came from and the world fades back in. “That’s comforting,” Emily says dryly, rubbing her neck. “I almost don’t blame my father for not telling me about him, really, considering...even if he’s not near as bad as the Overssers say he is, I don’t think they’d listen to that.”

Exactly, Corvo thinks. They’re so obsessed with blaming him for every ill this world experiences, they won’t hear that all he does is watch, and even then only those who interest him. Then again, he did mark Delilah and Daud, so...I don’t know how much he cares about how he affects the world, or if it’s even really unintentional. There are too many questions, and not enough answers. I doubt we’ll ever get them.

Emily skitters back down to the open window, perching on the balcony. “Well, I don’t think I need to visit Byrne,” she says to herself. “I remember seeing some papers in the outpost by the docks about something wrong with the Oracular Sisters -- and now that I think about it...Oracular Order, Oraculum…I bet they must have something to do with each other.”

She sighs and takes stock of the area, blinking across rooftops until she was directly across from the Conservatory’s entrance and the Wall of Light in front of it. She considers a moment, glancing from left to right at the two wings of the building, the walls and balconies on either side, and the rocky cliff face to the right, which led right up to the right-hand wing. “I could skip the front entirely,” she muses to herself. “Or I could go right over the wall...Corvo, could you go see what the guard presence is like in the front courtyard?”

Corvo is more than happy to do that for her, despite not being entirely sure how he’s going to communicate it to her -- tapping the railing a certain number of times, perhaps? Did he teach her the sailors’ signalling code? Well, he’ll figure it out.

He swoops down low over the courtyard, circling it slowly. The Conservatory...he’s never been, he thinks. It had been built right when he’d left for Dunwall. It was almost a shame that this would be his first visit. He circles lower, trying to figure out what in the world is going on down there -- those are women, he realizes. Not even in uniform, not very threatening, so what, then…? His question is answered abruptly when all eyes turn to him, and one shrieks a warning. “Sisters! Someone is spying!”

He croaks in surprise, banking sharply to avoid flying straight into a wall, only to nearly fly right into the jaws of a wolfhound. No, he thinks, screeching again and flying straight up to avoid it. That’s not a wolfhound, it’s...that’s a damned skull, and its body is exposed muscle and raw flesh. It’s some sort of bewitched corpse, he thinks in disgust, and when it tries to snap at him, he flies away again, returning to Emily almost frantically.

“Well--?” Emily begins, but he only shakes his head vehemently ‘no’, hopping to the right and nodding at the side pathway there. There’s no chance they won’t be spotted somehow if they try to go in the front, and going through the left seems to be a path that would take them over more guards and too big of a gap to blink over. Emily looks startled, but then smiles faintly beneath her scarf and nods. “Right,” she says. “Let’s get going. We should find the Oraculum first, try to see what exactly it does, and then find Jindosh’s lenses.”

A few blinks to the right, there was a balcony with its doors open -- she lands on that and takes a breath, climbing over the side and leaping down to the pipes leading towards the rocky pathway. Crossing it gingerly, she drops down to the window ledge and edges across it with practiced ease. This is the easy part, she thinks. She’s climbed across Dunwall rooftops countless times the past fifteen years; she knows how to do this part, and she could in her sleep. The hard part is going to be avoiding the witches, or whatever else there is in store for her.

Corvo wishes he could warn her about the bespelled hounds, but he can’t -- he has no voice to do so. But if he sees one, he can try to prevent her from walking right into its jaws.

Emily slips in through the first open window she comes across, landing in a crouch onto the floor of what looks like a kitchen. She hears voices from another room, two women talking, and slowly she edges along the floor, smelling in turns cooking meat and vegetables and dead, rotting flesh. She makes a face when she sees a dead man on a kitchen counter, knives buried in his torso. “Ew,” she mutters, and Corvo grimaces. Well, Delilah was certainly not teaching them anything good.

She creeps through halls and doorways, using her shadow walk to dart the through the last hallway into the balcony above the main exhibit hall -- she sees across from her a huge construct, the floor painted with glowing blue, and it’s obvious what it is. She hesitates in the doorway, though, seeing a good half-dozen women around the balcony, some sitting, some talking to each other, one smoking a cigarillo...Emily sighs, shifting to crawl under some display cases to get to the closest of the women. She lifts a hand, head tilting to the side as both she and Corvo see a yellow glow appear around the witch’s head. Corvo hops forward from his own perch on top of the case (where he’d flown to when Emily had shadow walked) to watch, freezing when he thinks he’s been seen and trying very hard to look taxidermied.

Emily sketches a path with a finger, pointing at each witch on the balcony in turn, and Corvo’s eyes widen slightly as he sees a thin line of light stretch across the room, connecting every single figure standing or sitting in a web of luminescent, pale yellow spots. “Okay,” she whispers. “Moment of truth.”

She slips out from under the display case and grabs the witch, wrapping an arm around her neck and squeezing until she goes limp -- and Corvo watches, awed, as every single woman in the room around them drops like falling dominoes, one after the other until the whole room is unconscious.

I stand corrected, he thinks. That is much more impressive than stopping time. That’s almost unfair, Emily. He’s certainly jealous now; the Outsider had better not have done that on purpose.

Emily grins widely. “I really need to thank him for all this,” she says to herself. “It would be so much harder without it.” She knows it would be easy to succumb to her anger, gut one witch to gut them all, and who knew what she could do with that shade she slips into when she shadow walks? But she won’t. If her father managed to stop Burrows with these powers and never once let himself give into his desire to murder those who had killed her mother...then she would do the same. She’d make him proud, even if she was still so angry. Then again...if it were easy to resist, it wouldn’t be very genuine of an emotion, would it?

She blinks across the huge, stuffed owls hanging from the ceiling, pausing on one just to lean down and stroke its feathers -- she’d always wanted to visit this place with Wyman, before, but now...well. After this, she’ll just have to make better memories here, won’t she?

She lands next to the huge device, examining it and turning to look at the three huge effigies the blue symbols connect to it. They’re dressed in the robes of the Oracular Order, and that answers her question, though it isn’t surprising. She turns back to the device itself, noting its lack of lenses where they should be, and finding a piece of paper tucked on the table beside it. Corvo, a few seconds behind her, lands on the device to read over her shoulder.

“So the lenses Jindosh made nearly cut off Ashworth’s connection to Delilah and took her powers,” Emily muses softly. “No wonder she threw a fit at him about them. Though it’s kind of pointless for her to yell at him, I mean...it’s not like he knows how magic works. He’s an engineer.”

Nonetheless, that only confirmed Jindosh’s suggestion, and now it was time to go find the lenses. They were in Ashworth’s workshop, the note said, so it was time to find that. A glance around the floor and up sends her blinking to the floor above the one she’s on -- she can see an office room to the right of her and she closes her eyes to activate her dark vision. One...no, two? Two figures are in the room, though one isn’t moving...no, there’s only one. Is that a statue? She decides not to investigate -- if she can do this without even alerting Ashworth to her presence, all the better, right? She won’t even know what happened.

Corvo circles higher above her, checking the windows and doorways to see if he can find anything that looks like a workshop. He doesn’t see anything, but on the story above them -- just windows overlooking the main hall -- one of the windows is open, so he lands on the thin iron ledge below it and caws once. Emily looks up and blinks to him, crawling into the window and crouching. It’s an empty little area, she notes, with a balcony to the right looking down over what seems to be, if her mental map is right, right above the office she’d seen on the floor below, the one with two people. Now that she’s closer, she can hear that they’re talking, and she’s right. It is Ashworth, and she’s talking to...Delilah? Emily tenses immediately, but remembers the woman is in Dunwall and relaxes fractionally. How is she…?

Corvo flutters to the balcony to investigate, the same question on his mind, and he only sees Ashworth at first, but then realizes she’s speaking to what looks like a statue. A statue...of Delilah. Is that how she’s...huh. Witchcraft, of course. He shouldn’t be surprised. Before they can look up he returns to her, landing on her shoulder, and she creeps along the area she’s in. One door leads to what looks like a greenhouse stuffed into a washroom, plants and flowers growing out of pots on every available surface, in the washtub, stacked on wooden shelves and crates and a worktable. Blue drawings mark the mirror, and give the room a gentle hum reminiscent of the Void.

At first she thinks it’s Ashworth’s workshop, but all there is is plants and notes on bonecharms, so she slips out of it and crosses the hall to the enclosed and windowed area across the way. It’s much larger, and the table in the center is littered with human skulls, a dead body affixed to a metal stand. A worktable with blueprints pinned above it stands along one wall, and that’s where Emily heads.

“Jackpot,” she says -- on the table, right there, sit three circular glass lenses, still completely intact. Emily scoops them up, careful not to break them, and creeps out of the room, slipping back out the window she came in through and blinking back two stories down to the Oraculum.

It’s...well, it’s not that simple a matter to fit the lenses into the device, considering she’s never seen it before, but eventually after a few moments she clicks the three lenses into place. Corvo, having already found and fluttered to the activation lever -- identical to the ones in Jindosh’s mansion -- caws quietly to alert her where it is. Emily smiles at him when she turns, patting him, and then pulls the switch.

The effect is instantaneous. The machine lights up, and so do the blue marks on the ground and the disturbing effigies -- made out of bone now that she can see them closer -- glowing brightly, and Ashworth blinks into the center of the area, eyes wide as she looks around her. “What’s happening?!” She demands, rushing forward to try to stop the device. “No! No, no, no!” She screams. “No!!”

The whole device pulses, making Emily and Corvo cringe back, and Ashworth drops to her knees in the visible shockwave that follows. “No,” she whimpers. “No...no, I’m ruined...what will I do now? Oh, Delilah…”

Emily bites back anything she might have said to her, turning and walking away instead and leaving the woman sobbing weakly on the floor. She blinks up a level and into Ashworth’s office, stopping at the doorway and leaning against it. “She should be grateful she’s not dead,” she murmurs to herself quietly, absently, shaking herself before moving to Ashworth’s desk.

Corvo thinks he understands why Emily’s a little shaken -- he’s the same, at the moment. Ashworth wasn’t marked, only borrowing Delilah’s power, and yet cutting her off from it sent her into withdrawal just as bad as I’ve seen on a back-alley addict. Is this...are these powers that addicting? It’s...I won’t lie and say it doesn’t still give me a rush to use them, and I know it’s the same for Emily, but is it worth it if one day we might fall prey to their allure and end up like Ashworth, like Delilah? Or is the very fact that we’re both worrying about this the reassurance that it won’t happen? Daud regretted what he’d done, when I let him live, so...but I don’t know. It’s another thing I doubt I’ll ever have the answers to...and the Outsider won’t give them to us. It’s something we’ll have to find out on our own, and I hope we won’t regret our answers, too.

“I have a key,” Emily murmurs to Corvo, breaking him out of his thoughts. “One of the witches put Ashworth’s audiographs in the basement. We might find some information there.”

Corvo nods once, and Emily slips the key into her coat, moving around the desk to leave the office. Before she does, she stops, her steps shifting to get a better look at the statue that sits in the middle of the room like the centerpiece of a shrine. It’s Delilah, obviously so, and Emily frowns at it, reaching out to touch it.

It moves, then, and Emily gasps, yanking her hand back. Corvo glares at her, but the statue doesn’t look at him -- only his daughter. “As if you could ever hide your face from me, dear Emily,” she says, her voice reverberating. “The little black sparrow, free at last from your cage.”

“I’m done here,” Emily says defiantly, teeth clenched and every word spit like it’s meant to hurt. “Breanna Ashworth’s cut off from you. She’s not a witch anymore.”

The statue hisses and snarls, gesturing angrily. “You villain. You’ve no idea what you’ve done,” she growls, the blank expression almost looking mournful. “A great bloom wilts and fades from the world…”

Emily remains unfazed, though, glaring at the witch behind the wood and stone statue. “I don’t care,” she says flatly. “I’ll go through your pawns and everything you’ve built and tear it down stone by stone until I get back what’s mine. My throne, my father...I’ll get it all back, and nothing’s going to stand in my way.”

Delilah scoffs, shaking her head. “Oh, dear Breanna...this will be the last time we speak. To see you reduced to this, such a sad, pale thing...I can’t bear it.” She falls silent and then jabs a finger at Emily. “I hate you for this, child, more than I did before.”

“Good for you,” Emily scoffs in return. “But don’t worry. When I take back what’s mine, I’m not just going to put it back as it was. I’ll make it better. Someone like you won’t happen again.”

The statue shifts and stills, and Emily kicks its base with a muttered curse, before turning sharply and stalking out of the room.

The trip to the basement takes almost no time at all -- Delilah had apparently been sharing her power to the witches through Breanna, and almost all of them are lying in crumpled heaps upon the floor or slumped against walls. There’s nothing to worry about except bloodflies, and at this point the one she can’t simply shadow walk past are easily dealt with using the incendiary bolts she’s been collecting.

The basement is filled with the nests, and she clears it out with the help of her last bolt and a few bottles of liquor she finds stored there, and after that she can simply walk to the gated archive area and unlock it. The audiograph sits there on the table, and she cycles through the pile of punched papers before she finds one that sounds promising and plays it, listening silently with Corvo on her shoulder.

“After the assassin Daud felled Delilah, her magic was lost and our coven scattered,” Ashworth was saying. “I began a new life in Karnaca, but then...then I heard her whisper to me from the Void. The whispers drew me to the Duke, who heard them as well. Together, we worked to bring Delilah back from that emptiness, changing the Empire from the home of that fool, Aramis Stilton. Three years ago...and slowly, all across the Isles, those who had been with us at Brigmore and before, we all felt the magic return. Then others joined; new faces, new blood. Now, Delilah is immortal, forever. She holds Dunwall, and we’ve turned to corrupting the Oracular Order. The Overseers take guidance from their prophetic sisters, and soon...soon we’ll influence their dreams and visions.”

The audiograph clicks its end, and Emily and Corvo both stare at it for a long moment. “Daud?” Emily says quietly. “That’s…” She trails off, and Corvo finishes her thought.

The man who killed Jessamine, he thinks. He was the one who...killed Delilah, the first time? But what does he have to do with her? They both are marked, but...why would he go after her? I don’t suppose we’ll ever get that answer.

Emily sighs quietly and returns up the stairs to the first floor and then second, leaving out a window and blinking onto a rooftop to begin her trek back to the skiff.

Meagan is waiting for them, leaning against a crate, and she smiles faintly when Emily arrives. Emily thinks she looks tired, perhaps worried, and it’s comforting. Even if she’d been annoyed before at the fact that the woman had known Ashworth and not said anything, she was grateful that knowledge had made her concerned.

“It’s done, then?” Meagan asks.

Emily nods, sinking onto the other seat of the skiff. “Yes,” she says. “Ashworth’s not a problem anymore.”

Meagan manages a faint smile. “Good,” she says, boarding the skiff as well, though she still looks serious. “But, Emily...there’s something else.” Corvo frowns, wary, but the woman continues. “When I lived in Dunwall, I did a lot of things I’m not proud of.”

“Isn’t that requirement for citizenship?” Emily asks with a tired smile, both trying to lighten the mood and perhaps a little bitter.

Meagan chuckles faintly, though she doesn’t look amused. “This isn’t a joke, this time. I knew Delilah and Ashworth. Bought into their bullshit, went down a bad road. To be honest, before all this I thought Delilah was dead.”

So did a lot of people, Corvo thinks.

“Just...I don’t want to get into it right now, but I thought you should know-- there are things I regret,” Meagan says.

Emily reaches out, puts a hand on Meagan’s knee. “It’s all right, Meagan,” she says. “Thank you for opening up, even if only a little.”

Emily wakes up late the next day, a few hours after Corvo. He’s already tried getting the door open, but much to his chagrin being a crow meant that was nigh impossible. So he’d returned to his perch on the chair and waited until Emily crawled out of bed, yawning. She pets him gently when she wakes, letting him hop onto his now-usual perch, and leaves her room. Almost immediately she notices Maegan in the hall, and the woman glances up at her with a nod.

“Hypatia arrived this morning,” she says. “She’s taken one of the spare rooms for a little while. You’ll probably want to go talk to her before we sit down to make our plans.”

Emily smiles. “I think I will,” she replies. “I’m glad she came.”

She stretches, heading down the hall and to the right; Hypatia’s right there, sitting on the bed with a few trunks of things half-unpacked. She’s still dishevelled, looking as if she’d left in a rush, and when Emily enters she looks up with an exhausted smile. “Oh, it’s you…” She says. “Stay a moment, if you would..?”

“Of course,” Emily says kindly, sitting down on the bed next to her. Corvo caws softly and hops from Emily’s shoulder to Hypatia’s knee, and the doctor looks startled, but then smiles and reaches out to stroke his feathers. “Doctor, you...would you happen to know anything that would help me find Anton Sokolov? He could be...he will be a big help to us in stopping the Duke.”

Hypatia rubs her temples with her free hand. “I...my memories are a bit disjointed,” she admits. “I know-- I know the Duke is close to Kirin Jindosh, his Grand Inventor...that man has the empathy of a mantis, though, he’s…” She shakes her head. “I know Jindosh both-- both admires and despises Sokolov.” She frowns faintly. “I remember we visited Aramis Stilton. I-- I liked him, but something bad happened. But-- that’s all, I’m sorry. Would that I could remember more...”

“No, that’s more than enough,” Emily says kindly. “Thank you, Doctor. You’ve been a great help. You should get some rest now, alright? It might help.”

Hypatia nods gratefully. “I will,” she says, letting Corvo return to Emily’s shoulder. “And...I should thank you, too, I think. Even if I don’t...really understand what you did for me at Addermire, I know you helped, and...thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Emily says, giving Hypatia’s hand a squeeze before standing and leaving the room. When she returns to where Maegan had been before, the other woman isn’t there -- after checking the main rooms, Emily heads up to the deck and the skiff, making sure all her gear is there. It was time to head to Jindosh’s mansion.

The Aventa District, Corvo notes as they approach a secluded spot beneath the lower part’s streets. It’s been a long time since I’ve walked these streets as part of the Guard. They must be swarming the place now, if Jindosh is so important. But if Emily managed Addermire, she’ll manage this. The carriage will most likely take her straight there, if she can get to it…

“Ever used a rewiring tool?” Maegan asks Emily. “You’ll be able to get one at the nearby black market shop. Most likely that’ll be what gets you through the wall of light in front of the station.”

Emily pauses. “My father taught me the theory,” she admits. “But it can’t be too hard -- and there will likely be another way in if I can’t.”

“Good enough for me,” Meagan says with a snort. “Once you get past that, the carriage goes right up to Jindosh’s mansion. But be careful, Emily-- there’s a reason people are scared of it.”

Emily smiles thinly. “I’ll get it done,” she says. As she stands to depart the skiff, Maegan grabs her arm.

“Emily-- take care of this and get Sokolov back, alright?” She asks, her voice subdued. “He...means a lot to me.”

Emily puts her hand over Maegan’s. “I know,” she says softly. “He means a lot to me, too. I’ll bring him back safe.”

She leaves the boat and stretches, glancing back one last time at the skiff before disappearing into the streets, Corvo on her shoulder. As she exits the sewer area, the two of them feel identical electric prickles on their necks. Exchanging a look, Emily materializes the Heart in her hand. Pointing it around her, an open window in an apartment a few simple blinks way causes the device to thump frantically, and Corvo takes wing, landing on the sill to wait for his daughter to join him moments later.

The shrine is obvious, sitting in the middle of the next room, a dead body beside it. It’s as plain as the rest in Karnaca, disappointing Corvo slightly (a very odd thing, he reflects, to be disappointed in the...normalcy of the Serkonan shrines compared to the ethereal look of the ones in Dunwall), but it’s otherwise identical, and Emily approaches, laying her hands upon the two runes that sat upon the purple cloth.

She’s clearly used to this by now, despite this only being the third time -- Corvo understands that; by the time he’d hit his third shrine, it hadn’t been a surprise. For a figure of such mystery and terror, the Outsider could be a little predictable, and once you got used to his tricks, it was old hat.

“Hello, Emily,” the Outsider say when the Void swirls around them. He’s perched on a black rock again, a foot propped on the edge and his arms loosely draped over his upraised knee. “Let me tell you a story about Kirin Jindosh, if you will -- a prodigy from Karnaca, self taught. He was hailed by the Academy of Natural Sciences as a genius, one who would one day surpass Sokolov himself and ring in a new age of enlightenment.”

He disappears, reappearing a few feet to the right. “But only two years later, he was banned from the Academy for life -- for reasons never made public, of course.” He starts walking, Emily and Corvo turning to follow his path. “When he was deported back to Serkonos, he left behind a machine that drank seawater and played music that brought listeners to tears. As scholars are wont to do, they took it apart...and it’s never worked since.”

The real world folds back in, and Emily blinks the evening light out of her eyes. “Is he ever straightforward?” She mutters to herself, and Corvo crows a laugh. Of course he isn’t, really -- that’s part of his job description, isn’t it?

She sighs and looks down at her hands and then back up. “This might useful, this trick,” she says to Corvo. “I wonder if my father could do it...”

Well, Corvo thinks. I won’t know until I see you use it. But so far, neither of your abilities are what I can do. Well, we can both-- what did he call it? Transverse? -- but they don’t look quite the same. I’m a little jealous, but… He pauses, bemused at his next thought. I don’t suppose I’ll really envy you until you can do something more clever than stopping time.

Emily takes a breath and leaves the apartment through the window again, perching on the balcony to scan the skyline for the carriage station. Biting her lip, she closes her eyes tight enough for Corvo to see a furrow in her brow, and when she opens them, there’s a slight familiar glaze to them -- his enhanced vision. Of course.

She blinks to another perch to get a better look, and then grins. “Hey, is that the station?” She asks, pointing to a huge building, a Wall of Light crackling out front of the entrance. There seemed to be skylights on the roof, so she shifts her shoulder to get Corvo’s attention. “Can you check and see if the skylights are open?” Corvo squawks assent and takes off, circling the building twice before returning and bobbing assent. One of the window panels was lifted, and better yet, it was the one right over the tracks.

Emily grins and blinks a few times until she hits the roof, crouching over the skylight to watch the guards inside. There was luckily a carriage already parked, so once the guards weren’t looking, she leaps down, landing neatly in the carriage and pulling the lever as she sat. She only laughs once she’s halfway up the track to the upper area of the district, grinning widely. “They didn’t even see me,” she says proudly. “And we’re halfway there.”

Corvo has to admit -- he is proud of her for that. Found another way around, didn’t even have to use a rewire tool. Resourceful and clever...he’d trained her well. Void, he loved his daughter.

The carriage pulls to a stop at the Upper Aventa station, and Emily bristles slightly at the closed gate blocking her path. A muttered curse and she gets out of the carriage, sighing heavily and immediately dropping into a crouch as she slips past some guardsmen into the nearest building. A half an hour of hunting later, the paper with the code was tucked into her belt thanks to a sleeping guardsman, and she was creeping back towards the carriage.

“Lucky for us guards are apparently just as lazy everywhere,” she murmurs to herself, straightening slightly to input the code. “567,” she says softly, clicking the wheels into place, and wincing when the gate creaks open with a squeal. A glance behind her tells her the guards didn’t notice, and she leaps in the carriage and sends it up to the mansion before any of them could.

Up close, the mansion is stately and beautiful, surprisingly so for the home of a mad inventor. Sokolov’s old apartment and Piero’s studio had never been this grand. “Come on,” she tells Corvo. “Let’s see if we can find an open window or something.”

Despite the pair of them branching out to comb across every inch of building accessible to fly or blink to, no windows were in reach or unlocked. Groaning, Emily blinks back down to the front door and rolls her eyes, reaching out to wiggle the doorknob. She gasps when it clicks open beneath her hand, and turns to raise her eyebrows at Corvo, who’s alighted on her shoulder. “He left it unlocked...he’s either stupid, or expecting us,” she mutters.

Or he doesn’t care, Corvo supplies silently. Which, honestly, is probably even more dangerous.

Grimacing to herself, Emily pushes open the door, and the pair of them enter Jindosh’s mansion.

The foyer seemed oddly small, with no branching doorways or paths aside from a pair of double doors at the end of the room. In the center of the room was a simple audiograph, with a plate of fruit next to it seemingly to welcome guests.

Emily approaches the table, Corvo hopping from her shoulder to pet a bit frustratedly at a fig, wishing he could eat it properly. She smiles at that for a moment before pressing the play button on the machine, and Jindosh’s voice fills the room.

“Welcome to my home, stranger,” the recording says grandly. “The door is always open to those who would brave the threshold. If you have an appointment, please, proceed and bide your time. If not -- I’d be remiss if I didn’t inform you of the defensive mechanisms employed here, which are...well, shall we say, quite formidable. Many before you have entered without permission, for as many reasons as there are fish in the Ocean. For those of you who would dare to explore further despite my warning, very few of have found their way back out.”

The recording clicks to an end, and Emily snorts. “Are all inventors born with a taste for the dramatic?” She asks no one in particular, though Corvo caws his agreement. “I mean, really.”

She sighs and moves around the table, Corvo rejoining her, and they pass through the double doors into another room. This one seems to be a dead end, though there are odd cables at the four corners and a strange lever sticking out of the floor beside the door. Emily frowns, circling the room twice and inspecting every inch, before returning to prod the lever cautiously. Nothing happens, so she takes a breath and pulls it properly.

Almost immediately, the room begins to shift, pulleys and gears grinding loudly as walls lower and raise, the entire thing reconfiguring itself into a different shape. Emily’s mouth drops open as she watches, stunned, and even Corvo is quietly awed. Incredible, he thinks. What sort of mind comes up with something like this, and what sort of mind is able to make it a reality?

The room finishes rebuilding itself, a pair of stairways appearing on either side of a door, leading up to what looks like a wall of windows. “Ah!” A voice crackles over an unseen intercom -- Jindosh. “I see someone’s activated one of my mechanisms. Welcome, welcome. My home is always open. It’s one of my...curiosities, I suppose you could say, seeing how the human mind reacts to the constantly shifting architecture, how they navigate the rooms of my mansion. I’m Kirin Jindosh, but you must know that. Now, my dear stranger, I invite you to meet me face to face. Just come up these stairs, now, will you?”

Emily frowns and sighs, climbing the stairs and entering the second floor -- she’d been right in that the far was was all windows, but there was a door set into the middle. She approaches it in time to see -- to her shock, a walkway unfolding from the wall beyond the door, allowing a figure on the other end of the hallway to approach. Jindosh.

He grins as he’s halfway across the corridor. “Ah,” he says. “Now that I see you, I know exactly who you are. You’re not a cutthroat, of course. Your clothes are too fine. An aristocratic thrill-seeker? Perhaps. You’ve trained with weapons formally, but there’s more back-alley in those movements than than salon fencing.” Emily stiffens, stunned quiet at his accuracy. He stops at the door, and she can see the thumb and index finger of his left hand are artificial, a white porcelain that also seems to double as a pipe, as he lifts his hand to his mouth and puffs out a cloud of smoke. “All that-- and you have your father’s eyes, you know.” He sketches a deep bow. “Welcome to my humble abode, Your Imperial Majesty.”

Emily bites her lip, but manages to regain her balance. “Very impressive, Jindosh,” she says stiffly, pushing as much of her regal mask into her stance and voice, resisting the urge to tug her concealing scarf up further over her nose and mouth. “Then you must also know why I’m here.”

“Oh, of course,” he says airily. “I’d assume my involvement with the Duke brought you to my door. Or,” he adds. “Maybe you’re here for poor, old, washed-up Anton Sokolov, comfortably residing in my Assessment Chamber at this very moment.” He smiles and gestures grandly. “Either way -- come find me, my dear, and take whatever it is you seek. You and your...feathered friend. Is that a pure-blooded Gristol raven? Or a Serkonan crow, crossbred from the ravens and native birds of prey? Fascinating.” He clucks. “Just do be warned -- should you fall, I’d be more than pleased to have your remains brought to my lab for study. Until either of those comes to pass, however, your secret is safe with me.”

He turns, pulling a lever next to him and sending the upper level reconfiguring, the floor dropping down into another room with a pair of silent clockwork soldiers standing along the walls. “Clockwork soldiers!” She can hear him call as he retreats back to his lab. “There is an interloper in my home. Deal with her, would you?”

Emily swears, a rather colorful Tyvian turn of phrase Corvo is almost positive Sokolov taught her -- much to his amusement and chagrin -- and bolts through a nearby doorway, tumbling through it and nearly rolling right into a wall. She hops to her feet, allowing Corvo to return to her shoulder from where he’d fluttered off to when she’d somersaulted, and slips through the hall to her left. She notices some guards patrolling and drops to a crouch, edging along it and flinging herself into the first low window she sees.

She blinks, startled, when she looks around -- this is no lavish mansion, not where she is now. It’s all cold concrete and steel, pipes and gears. “The space behind the walls,” she murmurs.

“Oh, I see you’ve found the maintenance areas,” the loudspeaker chirps, Jindosh sounding pleased. “Do be careful, Lady Emily -- people aren’t meant to be back there.”

Emily snorts. “Oh?” She says, not sure at all if he can hear her. “In that case, I think I’ll just go along and press every button and flip every switch I see. Wonder what that will do to your precious contraptions.”

They can hear him make a rather strangled noise, and Emily looks pleased. “I-- I would rather you not,” he manages. “Think of it as a labyrinth -- not something you can simply brute force your way through. A puzzle.”

“You can brute force your way through a labyrinth if you have enough stun mines and grenades,” Emily says cheerily, lying through her teeth about the gear she has with her but hoping he won’t call her bluff. “I wonder what these mines will do to the clockworks. They spark quite a lot.”

Another strangled noise, and Emily giggles, Corvo croaking his amusement. There’s some noticeable vindictiveness in Emily’s teasing of the inventor -- for Anton’s sake, most likely -- but at the same time, he has to admit it seems almost too easy to get under the man’s skin. It’s too tempting a piece of bait to pass up.

That said, Emily creeps through the interior of the mansion’s walls, pulling levers back and forth to see what they change and what paths they open up. One lever nearly sends her toppling down into the middle of two shifting floors and she blinks out of it, stumbling to safety, when she hears the loudspeaker again. “Breathtaking!” Jindosh says delightedly, sending a chill down her spine -- could he see her? “According to my acoustic sensors and the scales beneath the floors, you move quite quickly. I’m already enjoying this -- do make it interesting, dear Empress.”

Emily sticks her tongue out, relieved that he couldn’t watch her from wherever he was, and makes her way through the mansion until she finds an elevator. The floor list at the back mentions the Assessment Chamber on the basement level and she smiles, tapping the button in question and letting the elevator bring her downwards.

The gate slides open and she exits, heading down the hallway that leads to her right, pipes snaking along the drab concrete walls pluming smoke every so often. Another corner and she gasps, startled -- a wall of light; no, it looks like several stacked vertically atop one another. She frowns deeply, vaguely impressed (and reluctantly so), and glances around. Fortunately, the whale oil plug sits right across the hall from her and she edges over to it, quietly removing the tank and setting it carefully against the wall. A glance up, and her eyes glaze over with the Void’s newest gift -- she can see through the walls, watching ethereally orange shapes pass back and forth in front of her through transparent lavender walls, pulsing faintly in time with their footfalls and with a shimmer in front of them showing how far they could see. Smiling faintly, she creeps along as they walk, snatching the two patrolling guards up and knocking them out soundlessly, propping them up in a corner.

Eventually she has to blink her vision normal again, pressing a hand to her head and leaning against a wall. “Oh,” she mumbles, dizzy. Corvo knows what the problem is, of course -- he’s overused his own abilities on more than one occasion; though back then a dose of Piero’s elixir had eased the strain on his spirit and soothed the headaches that came with it, nowadays he’d heard the Addermire formula was the closest thing to the old remedy. He pecks Emily gently in the cheek to get her attention, fluttering to the unconscious guards and nudging through their things until he sees the blue vial, ripping the cloth pouch with his beak and letting the solution roll to the ground. He then nudges it towards her until she understands and picks it up, uncorking it and drinking it down in one swig. She makes a face, but shakes her head and straightens after a moment, surprised. “That...worked,” she says, sounding a bit bewildered. “I should keep that in mind…”

She smiles and strokes Corvo’s head when he returns to her shoulder, murmuring a thanks, before continuing down the hall. It opens up into a large room, made up mostly of a balcony on two walls, the other two empty -- the balcony looks down on what looks like a floor made of glass, and when she leans over to look she can see a clockwork soldier patrolling randomly set walls and corridors beneath the glass window.

“Ah, I see you’ve found the Assessment Chamber,” Jindosh says over the loudspeaker. “You should know that it is designed to test the faculties of my clockwork soldiers, and is thus rather...dangerous, you could say. If you’re looking for Sokolov, the old nag should be around there somewhere, I suppose.”

Emily makes a face and leaps over the railing on the balcony, footsteps echoing against the glass below her as she makes a circuit around it, panel by panel until she finds a small room, a sink and a bed within it and a bearded figure on the cot. She’s aware there’s probably a real entrance into what she now realizes is a glass box, though she still doesn’t quite get how it works -- but really, as she’d said to Jindosh earlier, why bother sitting through tedious puzzles when you can just...well.

She smiles and pulls out her secret weapon from her pouch and Corvo squawks -- not even he knew when she’d gotten a sticky grenade -- and raps on the glass with her free hand until she can see Sokolov stir. His eyes widen when he sees her above him and she smiles -- he returns the smile, and then sees what she’s holding and looks amused, pointing up weakly at a spot on the glass ceiling. Emily nods and attaches the grenade to where he’d indicated, running and leaping over the balcony as it goes off. She looks up when she can hear Jindosh protesting frantically over the loudspeaker, and she grins at the large hole in the Assessment Chamber. She returns from her cover to the ceiling and hops through the hole, rushing to Sokolov’s side and throwing her arms carefully around him in a hug.

Up close he looks terrible, greyed and battered, a dark bruise staining one side of his face. His suit is rumpled and dirty, and there’s visible exhaustion in his eyes. But he smiles nonetheless, and Emily fights not to cry. Even Corvo feels a little emotional -- it’s been a long time, and his friend looks terrible.

“Emily,” Sokolov croaks fondly. “It really is you, you reckless, clever girl…”

Emily sniffles, breaking the hug to take his hand in hers. “Anton...save your strength. I’m here to get you out of this place.”

“Listen,” he insists, reaching out to brush hair out of her face. “Jindosh plans to build an army of those clockwork soldiers. It would be...you mustn’t let him finish them, Emily.”

She puts her hand on his. “Don’t worry, Anton,” she promises. “I intend to make sure he doesn’t.”

He chuckles faintly, more of a cough than anything, and then winces visibly, grimacing and groaning before his eyes flutter closed and he slips into unconsciousness. Emily squeezes his hands, swallowing thickly and wiping her eyes, before she stands, easing Sokolov up from the cot and into her arms. He’s taller and wider by a small margin so she has to juggle him carefully -- more concerned with his condition than she was with any of the guards she’d carried around -- and when she’s certain she has him, she blinks back up onto the glass ceiling and then onto the balcony, returning to the elevator and letting it take her up to the floor with the main entrance.

“Leaving so soon?” Jindosh asks as she blinks down from the staircase to the lower level to avoid the clockworks. “What a shame, and here I thought we could meet in person, were you clever enough.”

Emily snorts. “Don’t worry, Jindosh,” she says, nudging the front door open with a shoulder. “I’ll be back for you in a moment.” And she is, one she has Sokolov tucked safely into the carriage. She wishes there were a blanket to put over him or something, anything to make him more comfortable, but...this is all she can do for now. With any luck he’ll be safe aboard the Wale soon enough.

It takes half the time it took the first trip through the mansion to navigate it now that she remembers what levers shift what parts of the place, and eventually she found her way to...a bathroom? She blinks. “What…?”

Probably found Jindosh’s room, Corvo thinks, bemused. But that’s good -- if he’s anything like Sokolov and Piero, there will be a direct route to his lab somewhere close by.

After poking around a bit, Emily turns to the pull switch beside the bathtub and yanks it, gasping as the center of the room rotates and spins to a small bedroom. A pause and she pulls it again, this time the center spinning to a workroom, silvergraph machines lining the table. This is where she sees a door exiting the area, and she makes note of it, but she turns back to the lever with a contemplative grin on her face that makes Corvo immediately concerned.

And he has the right to be -- she proceeds to pull the lever several more times in quick succession, laughing as the room spins madly. They can hear Jindosh demanding shrilly for her to stop that over the loudspeaker, but Emily just snorts and does it a few more times before stopping, giggling as she has to sit down for a moment until the dizziness subsides.

Void take me, she’s just like her mother sometimes, Corvo thinks exasperatedly, though with a sad, fond chuckle (once he’s not nauseous enough to do so). Just as impulsive… Jessamine had had a bad habit of occasionally letting her heart and sense of adventure overrule logic, especially when they’d both been younger. Clearly Emily had inherited that.

After a moment Emily stands again, pulling the lever one last time to get her to the door she needs, and heading down the hallway behind it. The room at the end was obviously the laboratory, a circular room with a balcony around the edges. Two other hallways led from it, one she could see another elevator through, and the other clearly the mechanized corridor she’d seen when she’d arrived. She could hear footsteps above her, telling her where Jindosh was, and she creeps into the room, inspecting the glass flooring in the center and the lever beside it.

As she enters, she gasps -- she hears the whirring of clockwork soldiers. The pair of them leap down from the balcony before she can back out of the room, birdlike heads swiveling to stare right at her. “Playback for detection registered,” they say, their voices automated recordings of Jindosh’s voice. Emily swallows.

“I have one stun mine,” she whispers to Corvo. “I found it rifling through some of the guards things. I think it’ll get them both, but I need them to be close together. Can you help?”

Corvo croaks his assent and takes wing, flying towards the approaching soldiers with a loud caw and swooping under their bladed arms. He circles them a few times to make sure he’s got their attention before he flies directly towards where Emily is -- she’s gone, but he sees a familiar spot of metal in the center of the hallway floor; she’s got the trap set, now all he has to do is spring it.

He flies directly into the hallway, circling the soldiers once more to keep them together, and then shoots forward. The stun mine goes off behind him, he can feel it singe his tail feathers, and he tumbles to the ground. Above his head he hears four pistol shots go off, and he grins to himself as Emily picks him up, turning to look. She’d hit them both right in her targets -- once in the head and once through the chest where their whale oil tanks were. Still twitching and sparking, they drop like rocks, and Emily grins triumphantly. “Not invincible after all,” she says to herself, and once Corvo recovers and returns to her shoulder, she enters the lab.

“Not bad, not bad,” Jindosh’s voice echoes, audible both over the loudspeaker and in the room itself. “Not many people can take down my soldiers so easily. I’m quite impressed, Lady Emily. The Royal Protector must have trained you well.”

“He did,” Emily says, dropping into a crouch and holding completely still. It’s several long moments before she moves again, blinking directly behind Jindosh as he makes another circuit around the balcony and steps into her line of sight. She wraps an arm around his neck and pulls it tight, the inventor squealing in surprise. “And I am his daughter, after all.”

Once he goes limp, she lets him crumple to the floor a heap of long, bony limbs. She throws him over her shoulder and blinks down to the lab proper again, letting him drop onto the ground as she circles the area, examining anything for an idea of what to do with the man now.

An audiograph sits next to an odd-looking chair and she frowns at it, a chill going down her spine for some reason. She bites her lip and walks over, hesitating before tapping the play button. It doesn’t take very long for her hands to curl into fists, her eyes narrowing -- and even Corvo hisses silently in surprised anger.

“Anton Sokolov, once the Royal Physician and Head of the Academy of Natural Philosophy,” Jindosh’s voice says. “In your prime, the most sought after painter in all the Empire. My hero, in my younger days, and now my puppet.”

Sokolov’s voice is next, sounding almost amused. “If you’re going to use this inelegant-looking device against me, get on with it, Jindosh. Though I’m not sure what exactly it’s supposed to accomplish. I have to admit to feeling a bit of...professional curiosity as to the function of this...thing.”

“Patience, my friend,” Jindosh scolds. “Patience. The sequence of events is important. You’ll come to understand my electroshock machine soon enough. But...the question is, before or after the light leaves your eyes? And...where will it go when it disappears? Who will tell me that?”

Sokolov snorts. “Has anyone ever loved the sound of their own voice more than you do, Kirin? Perhaps your device will tell us that,” he says sarcastically.

“No, sadly, it cannot,” Jindosh says, irritation in his voice. “But what it can do is take from you the very thing you love the most -- your precious intellect. If you won’t agree to collaborate on the next clockwork prototype, I’ll use this device on that brain of yours, Sokolov.”

“I refuse,” Sokolov growls. “If I’m to be a drooling idiot, then at least I won’t be bothered by any of your rambling theories!”

The audiograph ends and Emily hisses a breath through her teeth. “Electroshock,” she mutters, voice tight. Corvo has to agree with the sentiment -- Burrows had certainly not spared him that much his six months in prison all those years ago. He’s not fond of the idea, and the thought of the inventor using it on his friend to the point his faculties are removed? Unnecessary cruelty.

His eyes widen, though, when Emily returns to where she dropped Jindosh’s body and carries it to the electroshock device, dumping him in it and turning away to glance at the laboratory guide and adjust the levers until the machine lights up. She says not a word, and Corvo’s stomach drops. He has done some unpleasant things to people in lieu of putting a blade through their gut -- sent the Pendletons tongueless to the mines, given Lady Boyle to her unwanted paramour, the list goes on. He’s always told himself that at least they’re alive to serve out the punishment they deserve for their crimes, at least they’ll understand why they’re suffering now. But this-- what Emily means to do...to rob a man entirely of his wits, leave him nothing more than a damaged child unable to grasp even why...no matter who they are, Corvo isn’t sure that’s a fate deserved.

He wishes Emily could hear him urging her not to do it, to rethink -- there must be another way, something else. Please, Emily, don’t let his blood stain your hands. Even if you don’t kill him, if you do this...he’ll be as good as dead. I know you’re angry -- I am, too. But I was angry at Campbell, at Burrows, at Daud, and I found it in me somewhere to let them live. Emily, please. Don’t do this.

He isn’t sure what finally stays her hand, but she stops before it lands on the switch of the device. She lets out an exhale, looking around the lab again, hand trembling. Looking at the chalkboards, the blueprints, the mansion as a whole.

“Damn it,” she murmurs fiercely, stepping instead to where Jindosh is slumped and shaking him roughly into consciousness. He twitches when his eyes open, and then goes sickly pale when he realizes where he is.

“No,” he rasps weakly. “No, please don’t-- don’t do this, don’t-- you can’t, I beg you, you can’t--”

Emily lets out a hiss of air. “I’m considering it,” she says stiffly. “As Emily Kaldwin, a dear friend of Anton Sokolov’s, I’m sorely tempted to flip this switch right now. But as the Empress of the Isles, I know I shouldn’t. You’re too brilliant to let go to waste.” She stands up ramrod straight, imperial attitude in her posture and the tilt of her jaw. “So I have a proposition for you, Kirin Jindosh. Give me something useful, anything I can use to bring down Delilah and the Duke, and I let you live with your precious intellect intact. In fact, I might be able to find a place for you in my court once this is over, provided you behave yourself.”

Jindosh manages a shaky, hopeful smile, and Corvo relaxes. He knows she’s already made her choice, he sees it in her eyes. And he’s glad -- after all, hadn’t he done the same with Sokolov? A mad genius on your side was phenomenally easy to acquire. All they wanted was the resources to continue working. They tended not to care who provided them. And Jindosh was brilliant. He’d certainly be a valuable asset. With the threat of losing what he valued most over his head, he’d agree to anything. “I--”

“But,” Emily continues. “Fail to do that, and my hand will slip.” Corvo knows she’s made her decision, but he doesn’t fault the threat -- a little fear does wonders, he’s well aware of that. Emily drops her hand lightly onto the machine’s switch, and Jindosh lets out a shrill, strangled noise.

“Breanna Ashworth!” He wails. “The curator of the Conservatory! She’s some kind of-- of witch, she was the one that brought Delilah back-- the whole mess was her idea, hers and the Duke’s! You need to go to her, find out what she knows!” He flails his hands desperately. “I don’t care about the coup, I just want my damned soldiers finished!”

Emily smiles faintly. “Breanna Ashworth, at the Royal Conservatory,” she repeats. “Good enough for me. You get your reprieve, Jindosh. And maybe when this is over, we’ll see about getting you something to work on for me.”

“Th-thank you,” Jindosh manages weakly. Before he can get up, however, Emily’s fist flashes out and punches him square in the nose. He squeaks and slumps, unconscious, and Emily hauls him up and tosses him over her shoulder.

“Maegan isn’t going to be too happy about this,” she muses to herself. “But it’s much safer than just leaving him here. And besides, this is what my father did with Anton, after all.” And that had ended with the old man being a dear friend to them both. Lightning may well strike twice.

Corvo hops from Emily’s shoulder onto Jindosh’s unconscious body and pecks him in bemusement a few times before settling in. He was proud of her, he had to admit. He’d been afraid she’d give into her anger for a moment, but...she proved herself every inch the empress he knew she was. He only wishes he could tell her that. He will, he tells himself. He will as soon as this is over.

Emily had certainly been right -- when she’d arrived at the rendezvous spot an hour later juggling both Sokolov and Jindosh, Maegan had been very displeased. It had taken a few minutes to convince her that keeping him prisoner was a sound idea, but she eventually gave in. It helped, Emily imagined, that Sokolov was safe. It was a massive relief to both women -- and to Corvo, though they didn’t know he was there.

It also helped her case that Sokolov, once he’d woken, found the entire thing absolutely hilarious. He, too, had brought up Corvo’s kidnap of him from fifteen years earlier, and commended Emily on her decision -- even if most of that was due to her letting him hang onto Jindosh’s prosthetic hand-pipe ‘until he saw fit to return it’.

As for the inventor, Emily and Maegan rearranged the storage room to fit him and locked him inside it, not really caring for his comfort for the moment. Hypatia, still a guest, had been surprised and bemused, but offered to keep an eye on him for the rest of her stay, as they were acquainted.

Now, Emily thinks as she readies for bed that night. Her next stop, once they’d finished getting ready -- the Royal Conservatory, and Breanna Ashworth. It was time to see what she knew.

The woman with her looks as if she’s seen both better days and worse days, one of her arms gone from the elbow down and the stump secured with a leather harness, an eye sealed shut with a scar. Her skin is coffee-dark to match her hair, and her eyebrows rise when she sees him, Emily pausing behind her.

“What’s a crow doing this far out?” The woman -- Maegan, he remembers -- wonders aloud. “Didn’t think they liked the ocean.”

He croaks at them both -- the only sound he can make in lieu of a hello -- and flutters down from the winch to land on the deck, hopping towards Emily. She blinks, crouching, and he hops right up to her with another croak.

“Hello?” Emily says. “You’re...awfully friendly.” He bobs his head in a nod and she laughs in surprise, a bit of light sparking in her tired eyes. That would make him smile if he could, glad he’s still able to cheer her up. She reaches down to stroke his head with a finger and he lets her, and then she pauses, noticing the ribbon around his left leg.

“Is that…” She murmurs, reaching with her own left hand and touching it. He croaks, tapping the back of her hand -- the mark -- with his beak and looking up at her, and he can see something of realization in her eyes. “I see,” she says quietly, and offers him her arm as she stands. He hops onto it immediately, shifting up to her shoulder to perch properly.

Maegan raises an eyebrow again, tilting her head. “Bird’s special, then?” She asks, and Emily nods. “Not my business,” she decides. “So long as you think you can trust it, you can do whatever you like with it.”

“Trust it, huh?” Emily says. “Strange thing, to trust a bird, but...yeah. I think so.” Corvo chuckles inwardly. Don’t worry, Emily, he thinks. It’s strange to me too. But we’ll both get used to it soon enough, I imagine.

The two women board the skiff and Corvo squawks a little in displeasure when it drops with a jerk onto the water, making Emily smile before she tugs the scarf up to cover her face. As Maegan steers, he looks around the area, trying to recognize the area they’re in. It’s been a long time since he’s set foot in Karnaca, but the streets are some he’ll never forget. The docks come into view quickly, and he tilts his head, wondering where Emily plans to head from there.

“I’d take you to Addermire directly, but the security’s too tight. The Grand Guard have a watchtower there,” Maegan tells Emily, which answers Corvo’s question. Addermire, then. What’s the Institute have to do with the coup? When he lived in Serkonos, it had been a solarium...now, it’s something else, and he doesn’t know any of the people there, or the woman who runs it. “You’ll have to use the carriage station,” Maegan continues, indicating the electrified rails that run from the dock district to the island the institute sits on, and Emily marvels at it. There are carriages in Dunwall, of course, but not like Karnaca’s. Damn, it’s been years since he’s been here...if he ever returned, he’d have wanted it to be a happier occasion. Show Emily where he was born.

But no, this is how it is, unfortunately.

There’s silence for a little longer, and then Maegan starts talking again. “Before his death, the Duke of Serkonos spent most of his life building up Karnaca. But after his son took over, Luca Abele began draining money out of the city’s coffers twice as fast as his father had put it there. Orgies, week-long feasts…”

This is why he was never the duke to me, Corvo thinks bitterly. Irresponsible and arrogant -- Theodanis would be disappointed. He has to be stopped. Emily seems to agree, sighing and crossing her arms. “Having more fun than us in Dunwall, apparently,” she says sarcastically.

Maegan snorts -- and so does Corvo, really, even if it comes out as a caw. “Watch yourself on your way to the Institute,” she warns. “The duke’s given the Grand Guard free run of the whole city -- strangers tend to get attacked on sight.”

“I’ll keep my head down,” Emily promises, standing as the skiff putters to a stop at the docks.

Maegan chuckles humorlessly. “Remember -- reach Addermire and find the Crown Killer. See if you can find out where Sokolov was taken. And if she can help you, the Alchemist -- Hypatia -- will. Sokolov likes her.”

If Sokolov likes her, then she’ll likely be a character, Corvo muses. Or at the very least she’ll be trustworthy. He’s too paranoid for anything else sometimes.

Emily nods and disembarks, Corvo still perched on her shoulder. “Right,” she agrees. “Just be careful -- don’t approach until I take care of the watchtower.”

That said, Maegan retuns the nod and steers away, leaving them in Karnaca.

Ah, Karnaca. Corvo sighs internally as Emily disappears down a side street, him on her shoulder. The last time he’d been here…decades ago. He’d been eighteen, his last sight of the city disappearing behind him on a boat to Dunwall. He hadn’t thought too much about it back then, hungover and nursing a headache. He’d spent his last night here drunker than an old sailor, dancing the evening away -- and now he was home, and he can’t decide how he feels about it. How different would it be now?

Once they’re out of sight of the civilians and guards, Emily stops, holding out the arm Corvo’s perched on. He shifts obligingly down from her shoulder to her forearm, looking up at her. “What exactly are you?” She asks him, brow furrowed. “Did the-- the Outsider send you? Can I trust you? Can I--” She stops and laughs shortly. “You’re a bird, you can’t answer me. I just…” She sighs, tired and frustrated.

Corvo caws at her kindly, hopping back up to nudge her cheek. She blinks and laughs softly. “Can I trust you?” She asks again. “Are you here to help? That’s...that’s just a yes or no, right? You can just...nod, or something.” He does nod at that, nudging her cheek again, his only form of a comforting gesture. He wishes he could brush some hair out of her face, squeeze her shoulder, anything to let her know she’ll be alright, but...this is the best he can do.

It helps nonetheless and she relaxes, sighing again. “That’s good,” she says. “I wish...I wish my father was here. But I suppose you’ll do, bird. Thank you.” Corvo smiles at that -- I’m here, Emily. I’m here, and I’ll have your back. -- and returns to her shoulder, and Emily sets off through the back streets of the dockyard quarter.

She turns down another street about an hour later, and through a door with a barred window they hear someone calling out. “Hey, girl,” the scratchy voice says. “C’mere.”

Emily blinks, glancing at Corvo, and then approaches the door. It’s locked when she tries the handle, so she rolls her eyes and slips a lockpick set from her coat. Corvo recognizes it as his own, and can’t remember giving it to her -- which amuses him and fills him with pride. That’s his girl.

She picks the lock in moments and returns the picks to her coat, entering the room. Sprawled on a battered, striped couch is a woman, scraggly blond hair and her bare arms covered in tattoos. She grins at Emily, not even bothering to sit up.

“Name’s Mindy Blanchard,” she says without preamble. “And you, little girl, look like someone who gets into places where she doesn’t belong. You and your pigeon want to help me with something? You scratch my ass and I’ll scratch yours.”

Corvo caws, a little offended, but bobs his head in a slight nod -- he’s dealt with this sort of business before in Dunwall, and this favor-for-a-favor trade tends to come in handy. It might be dirty business, but it can help quite a lot down the line. Emily takes that as her cue and nods herself. “I need to get into Addermire Institute. Can you help with that?” she tells Mindy, who doesn’t miss a beat.

“Yeah, I can do that,” the woman says, lighting herself a cigarillo. “You just have to go fetch me a body, and I’ll solve your little problem -- and don’t get your panties in a knot, he’s already dead.”

Emily snorts, but crosses her arms. “A body,” she repeats. “That’s...odd. Where is it?”

“The Overseers have him at their outpost,” Mindy tells them. “They think he was some kind of witch. I want his body for...reasons of my own, let’s say. Get the body and meet me in the basement below the dentist’s office nearby.”

Emily falls silent for a moment, and then nods. “Right,” she says. “You’ll have your body.”

She leaves out the door and Corvo lifts off from her shoulder immediately. Emily gasps, and when he lands on a light hanging from a nearby roof he turns to look down at her in time to see her reach her left hand out as if grabbing the ledge beside him, and with a swirl of black fog, what looks like a child’s drawing of a hand in black ink pulls her up to him in the same manner as his blinking. She stumbles a bit, clearly unused to the sensation, and then crouches beside him.

“Well,” she says. “Let’s find that outpost.”

Corvo takes a moment to recover from his surprise -- he’d known the Outsider had given Emily the mark, but to see her use it was...something else entirely. It looked different from what he could do, but-- he’ll just have to get used to this, won’t he? He hops to the edge of his perch and takes wing, flying in slow circles through the area until he spies the familiar mask of the Overseers standing watch on the roof of a building a short ways away. He returns to Emily, who obligingly holds her arm out like a falconer for him, and caws once, lifting off again to land on the next roof over in the direction they need to go.

Emily blinks over to follow him, and together they make their way to the outpost, bypassing the crackling wall of light beneath them. She lands with a skidding stop on the roof opposite the apartment building the outpost is in, and grins at Corvo, who squawks back. With a running start, she blinks across the street and lands squarely on the balcony, winking back at the crow and disappearing through the open window.

It’s a tense half hour later before Emily reappears on the balcony with a body slung over her shoulder, blinking back to where Corvo waits. She drops the body on the roof and sits down with a grunt, laughing to herself.

Corvo hops over to the body, tilting his head to study it. Unremarkable, a shirt and vest, blood staining his collar and face -- an Overseer interrogation, of course. Unsurprising. He turns to look at Emily, who grins at him. “Bodies are heavier than I thought,” she says. “I’ve had to carry around half the outpost and stuff them into storage closets, not to mention this guy. Accused of being a witch...it's strange to think that I'm a witch too, as far as they'd say.” She leans on her knees. “Never thought I’d...” 

She sighs. “My father knew the Outsider,” she tells Corvo, and he feels guilty, a little. He should have told her, but...he had never been able to bring himself to. He knows the stigma as much as she does, as much as anyone in the Isles does. He didn’t want her to have to worry, to have to know and be an accomplice in the Abbey’s eyes. “He never told me, but...I don’t think I blame him. I wish I had known, but...would me knowing really have helped us when Delilah showed up? I want to think he didn’t hide it out of…” She stands, shaking her head. “I’m talking to a bird now,” she says with a bitter laugh. “Wyman would think that was hilarious. Come on now, little guy, let’s get this to Mindy.”

She picks the body up again and glances around, spotting the sign for the dentist’s and heading in that direction. Corvo remains behind a moment, lost in his thoughts, before following, fluttering up to land on the body as Emily moves. He wants to apologize to her -- explain why he kept it from her. Reassure her that no, he doesn’t think it would have changed anything. He just...he wishes she didn’t have to have this burden, too. Being the Empress was enough. But...now she has to carry this, too.

He wishes to hell he could put his blade through Delilah’s heart and make it stick this time.

Emily leaps down from the building and scuttles past some guards’ backs towards the steps to the basement -- the door’s open, and Mindy’s there leaning on a shovel. A grave’s been dug already, and she looks up and grins at them when they enter.

“Good, you got ‘im,” she says. “Put him down in the hole there.” Emily blinks, surprised, and so does Corvo -- she’s burying him, then. He must be part of her gang, whatever it is. The Howlers? Surprisingly noble. The body hits the damp mud with a thud and Emily wipes her hands on her coat, stepping back. Corvo lands on her shoulder again, and Mindy nods, straightening to pick the shovel up in a hand and starting to bury the body.

“Good work,” she says. “Take this--” She whistles sharply, and Corvo hears footsteps depart from around a corner. “Just sent one of my boys to turn the power to the carriage rails off. Should be able to walk right on them right to where you need to go. On the other side, there’s a station that’ll take you to Addermire.”

Emily manages a thin smile beneath the scarf. “Thanks,” she says. “I appreciate it.”

Mindy just snorts and waves a hand, and Emily slips back out of the basement. She lets out a breath and glances at the sky, darkening with rainclouds, before blinking up to a roof and holding her hand out. Corvo winces internally when a familiar object shimmers heavily into her hand -- the heart. Jessamine’s heart. Does she know, he wonders, that she holds all that remains of her mother in her hand?

Emily’s face tells him she does, lips thin and eyes shining. She doesn’t say anything, just holds it up slightly, and they both hear her voice whisper to them. ‘I know you. Cloaked in feathers, but I know who’s inside. He’ll protect you, my darling. Both of you, be well.’ All Corvo can do is caw, but he hopes she’ll understand him. I will, he promises. I’ll protect her. We’ll be alright, I swear. I won’t lose her, too.

Emily manages a smile. “We’ll be alright,” she says softly, and the Heart says no more, but glows faintly and pulses to indicate a rune nearby. She stands and tilts it like a compass, blinking to the next roof over when the light gets brighter. Corvo remains on her shoulder, but flies ahead once Emily finds an open window into the building, following the faint song he hears into a room and around to a repurposed bathroom, the familiar shrine built on top of the sink. A Sokolov painting of the Outsider -- surprisingly accurate -- leans against a wall, and writing in black in stains the other. It’s nothing new to Corvo, almost more sedate than most without the odd blue candles that lit some of the ones he’d seen.

He hears Emily approach behind him and perches on top of the painting, letting her enter. She puts her hands on her hips to look at the painting a moment, studying it with an odd smile, before turning to pick up the runes that sit on the wooden altar.

He knows what to expect, but Emily gasps when the world shakes and shatters around them, the icy chill of the Void replacing the cramped side room. Corvo hops to her shoulder and fixes the Outsider with a judging stare when he appears sitting on a black rock perch beside them. The man just smiles and looks to Emily.

“Karnaca was a beautiful city once, did you know that?” He asks, and Corvo has to admit he’s genuinely surprised to hear him sound almost...human when he talks to her. “But that’s before this Duke started choking the life out of it, of course. Before the Crown Killer started painting the walls red.” He teleports from his spot to in front of her, hands behind his back, and he smiles again. “And now you’re here, and I have to wonder -- will you pull it back from the edge, or give it that final nudge off?”

Emily frowns. “I…” She begins slowly, but the Outsider clicks his tongue, interrupting her.

“You and I, Emily, we’ve both seen cities go bad before,” he says. “Vermin, blood, betrayal...well, it’s happening again here. I hope you’re ready.”

He’s gone before she can answer, and she takes a step back when the real world fades back in. She shakes her head and looks over at the painting and then up at Corvo. “He’s...not anything like I thought from the stories,” she admits. “He’s not frightening at all, but then he is? It’s strange.” She laughs quietly. “This is all strange.”

I know, Corvo thinks. It takes getting used to, being a heretic. But he’s not so bad once you get used to him. And for some odd reason, he seems to like Emily, speaking to her almost kindly, even if he’s still as vague as always.

He flutters down to land on Emily’s shoulder and she slips from the room, leaping out a window and scurrying down the side streets again, ducking around a wall to hide from some guards and then slipping down into the rail tracks when she finds them. She cringes when her feet hit the metal, but Mindy had come through, apparently, and nothing happens. She swallows, relieved, and starts walking, edging along the tracks with her head bowed.until she reaches the Addermire station. Those rails buzz and crackle, and she climbs up from the tracks below to the station proper, freezing when she sees three guards by the main entrance.

She takes a breath, nudging Corvo off her shoulder, and closes her hands into fists, slipping from behind a stack of crates towards the guards. Corvo lands on the crates to watch, smiling proudly as she takes them out one by one, quick and silent, dragging their softly snoring bodies behind a low wall on the other side of the area. One final glance around to make sure that was all of them and she returns to her feathered companion, smiling faintly. “To the carriage then,” she says with a chuckle, and he hops onto her shoulder as she gets into the carriage, pausing a moment before tugging the lever in the center. The carriage buzzes to life and heads down the track, the institute on its solitary island coming ever closer.

The Addermire Institute, he muses to himself as they get closer. The Alchemist, Alexandria Hypatia...he’s heard the name before. She’d turned what was once a solarium for Karnaca’s elite into a center for medicinal research, studying infectious diseases. The woman was brilliant, he’d know that even if he didn’t know Sokolov was fond of her -- and more importantly, she was devoted to helping the miners and their families that lived in Karnaca. That was rare these days. He hopes he’ll help Emily -- she might be one of the few here that will.

Emiily disembarks the carriage when it comes to a stop, looking up at the place. It looks abandoned, Corvo thinks. What is happening here? Nothing good. Emily thinks the same, he can tell, and she shakes her head as she climbs the steps towards the entrance.

She ducks some guards out front by pulling herself up to an open window, perching on the glass and slipping down into the room. She hesitates when she sees a pair of men chatting below her, and leans down from her spot on a wooden overhang to listen in.

“This place gives me the creeps,” one of them says, shuddering. “There’s definitely something going on here. After last night, I’m damn sure of that.”

The other one shifts. “What happened?”

“I saw something,” the first one says. “And whatever it was, it didn’t move like a person.”

The other one doesn’t speak for a moment. “Before I got transferred to Addermire,” he began. “I saw one of the Crown Killer’s crime scenes. Whoever tore that old couple up...they enjoyed it.”

“So what do you think, then?” The first one asks, and the second shakes his head.

“I dunno,” he says. “Coming back here at dawn, seeing blood on the windows...a man doesn’t know what to think. Maye the duke found some kind of new creature from Pandyssia or something. Keeps you up at night, that.”

Corvo frowns. Was that the Crown Killer? Some kind of animal? No...it was too smart to be an animal. So...so what, then? What? What had Luca done?

Emily slips across the rafters into the building proper, dropping to the floor in the lobby and glancing around to find the map tacked to the wall. She steps towards it, tracing a path with her finger up to where it was labelled ‘Hypatia’s Office’ on the fourth floor. “There,” she murmurs, tapping it, and slipping into the stairway next to the map.

The stairway leads up floor by floor, Emily slipping through each one to search it, ducking past guards and occasionally finding a vial of elixir or Addermire solution to slip into her belt, coins to tuck into her pouch. She finds a bunch of grapes and an apple sitting on a plate on the second floor and pokes at it, making sure it’s fresh before she grabs both, biting into the apple while she holds the grapes up to Corvo, who nibbles on them gratefully. He can’t remember the last time he’s eaten, and though he’d kill for a warm bowl of Serkonos-spiced stew, the grapes are more than welcome.

They get to the fourth floor eventually, eavesdropping as they go -- the more they hear, the more Corvo is concerned. Staff dismissed, Hypatia locked within the Institute and only allowed out on Duke’s business, odd noises and sounds and bloodstains...he’s beginning to fear the worst, but -- how could that be? She’s...she doesn’t seem the type. All he’s heard about her is good.

There’s a single guard on the fourth floor and Emily chokes him out easily, dropping him behind a desk. Returning to the door there’s a note on it, and she reads it out aloud. “Hypatia’s in the Recuperation auditorium on the third floor today,” she says. “And the key’s in her office. They’ve also locked the janitor in Disease Treatment -- I think that’s on the second floor. They said he’s...well, it says no one’s to talk to him while the captain interrogates him, so he might know something. What do you think?” Corvo caws in agreement, and she chuckles. “So first we visit the janitor, right,” she says, and pushes the office door open.

He hops off Emily’s shoulder to perch on the desk while she rifles through Hypatia’s desk, slipping the key into her pocket. He glances around before noticing an audiograph next to him, a finished recording sticking out of it. He looks over at Emily and then at the machine, sighing to himself and hopping onto it, tapping the playback key with his beak.

“The blackouts are worse, and my dreams have taken a turn for the disturbing,” Hypatia’s tinny voice begins, making Emily jump. She looks up, smiling faintly when she sees Corvo on the audiograph, and pauses in her search to listen. “Even rest eludes me. Duke Abele seemed...overprotective at first, but increasingly I’ve become a prisoner in my own lab. The soldiers here leave me alone, but even then I feel like--” She breaks off anxiously. “I feel like I’m being watched.” She sighs. “What really saddens me, though, is the loss of my work. I’ve always thrived on being there to help people who need me most, the workers and their families...each time I hear there’s been some sort of breakout or infection among the miners it pains me that I can’t help them...” The recording ends, and Emily sighs.

“She seems like a good woman,” she says to herself. “I hope she’s alright.” Corvo doesn’t think she is, but he can’t express that -- instead, he flutters to the desk, silently worried. What’s been done to her, he wonders. Has Delilah poisoned her mind somehow?

Eventually, Emily finds a notebook, flipping through it and then pausing. “Here we go,” she says triumphantly. “She talks here about a few different people that she’s noticed acting strangely. The janitor’s one of them -- another reason to speak with him. The others are...some of the guards, though they’re probably not the Killer, and her assistant, Vasco.” She looks up. “We’ll ask Hamilton about Vasco, I suppose, and then see if we can find him before we speak to Hypatia. One thing at a time.”

Corvo nods -- she’s doing good on her own, he’s proud. That’s good. He hopes to her shoulder again and she leaves the room, pausing a moment as they both began to hear a faint song. A rune. Emily swallows, summons the Heart into her hand, and follows the glow into the private rooms of the fourth floor. Corvo doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to it, seeing that heart. He never did, either.

She shoulders a room open, goes through another door -- and there’s a shrine, still disappointingly dull and unlit, and two more runes sitting on top of the cloth covering the altar. Emily sighs and picks them up, this time expecting the shift and managing a quiet smile at the Outsider when he appears. He blinks and then laughs, leaning his arms on his knees where he sits in front of her.

“Hello, Emily,” he says with a smile. “You’re quite good at this, it seems. I imagine your father would be proud.”

“I hope so,” she replies with a sigh, and the Outsider glances, amused, at Corvo on her shoulder before continuing to speak.

“I so enjoy watching history warp as words pass from the lips of one to the ears of another, Emily,” he tells her. “Imperfectly formed, half understood, poorly remembered…” He shifts to her side and she follows his gaze curiously.

“In the years to come, how will the Crown Killer be remembered?” He asks. “The story will be twisted and warped, of course, but into what? A murderer that had to be put down...or a victim of treachery, preserved because you found another way?” He smiles, shifting again. “But no matter how history tells it, you’ll know the truth, won’t you? Your truth, at least.”

Once again he’s gone before she can respond, and she bites her lip, staring down at the shrine. “My truth,” she repeats. “But what truth will I create?”

Whatever it is, I know you’ll do the right thing, Corvo thinks. You’re no killer, and you never will be. And for that, I’m glad.

Emily sighs, leaving the room and slipping down the staircase towards the second floor and the Disease Treatment area to find the janitor. She stops once she opens the door, seeing a pair of guards talking, blinking on top of a bookshelf to listen in.

“...saw a monster one night,” the man was saying. “Said it wanted to scoop his brains out of his skull.”

The captain snorted. “Right,” she says. “Well...let’s see if I can make him see reason.” The guard remains where he is, and she enters the office where the janitor is being held. Emily blinks behind the man, knocking him out and easing him to the floor, and hurrying into the room after the guard captain -- just as the woman puts a bullet in his head.

Emily stifles a gasp and leaps forward, grabbing the woman and slamming her head into the table roughly, letting her slump to the floor. “No…” She murmurs, turning towards the dead man and kneeling in front of his chair, closing his eyes and bowing her head. Corvo hops from her shoulder to the table, cawing sadly as well. Poor man hadn’t deserved that...just what was going on here? He looks around, spying a key sitting in a tin with some other belongings and picks it up, fluttering back to Emily and nudging her affectionately, dropping the key in her hand when she looks up.

“The janitor’s room,” she murmurs, tucking the key away. “He might have something there. Thanks, crow.” She pauses as she stands, leaving the room and glancing around the area. “Is that…” She trails off. “Vasco’s office,” she says. “Well, that’s convenient.”

She heads to the room and opens the door, checking both exits -- the lab is locked, but the office area is open and so that’s where they go, heading straight to his notes and papers. Corvo hops off her shoulder again and pokes around one of the open drawers, internally making a face at the bloodflies pinned in a case on the wall. He’s always hated those things. He remembers as a child throwing rocks at their nests, laughing and running from the angry buzzing. But now it’s an epidemic here, and after the rat plague...he can’t really find any of that old nostalgia.

“By the Void,” Emily says from beside him, horrified, and he turns to look at her, tilting his head. She glances at him and back to the journal she holds, and shakes her head. “Hypatia and Vasco, they...created this serum -- it changed them somehow, changed Hypatia. Vasco says she called herself Grim Alex, like a whole different person, and...he says it seems as if she’s kept taking it, though she insisted she would never when he asked.” She frowns deeply. “Could she be the Crown Killer? Could she...not even know it?”

Corvo caws. That was...she doesn’t seem the type to willingly do such a thing, so perhaps she’s being drugged unwittingly, but on the other hand...he’s seen addiction before, and it can affect everyone. It’s concerning either way, and whatever the cause she has to be stopped. But...he hopes it’s not a willing change. He’d like to believe some people are good.

“We have to find Vasco,” Emily says. “If he knows what’s going on, then he might be in danger. But where would he be…?” She sighs. “Our only lead is the janitor’s room,” she mutters. “That and Hypatia herself, but I don’t want to go in there until I know for sure.”

She shakes her head and holds out her arm, and Corvo flutters onto it. The search for the janitor’s quarters doesn’t take long, and she slips into it, poking around until she finds his journal. A quick skim of the last pages later and she drops it with a groan, shaking her head. “Vasco’s been in the Recuperation Room,” she says wryly. “Same as Hypatia. I guess we’re going there either way.”

She runs a hand through her hair and leaves his room, slipping up the stairs and around the guards until she reaches the third floor. She looks around and finds a path, entering the side room only to freeze. Bloodflies, a lot of them, Corvo realizes in shock The hives are everywhere, on the walls and ceiling, the red nests glowing eerily as the rest of the room is coated with the residue, brown mud and whatever they use to make their homes.

Emily squeaks nervously, moving her hand back to take hold of a crossbow Corvo hadn’t seen before, fumbling around to find the pouch of incendiary bolts and loading one. “Fire,” she murmurs. “Corvo said fire.”

He had -- and anyone in Serkonos knows that’s how you kill a nest. Smoke them out or set them on fire. She takes aim at the one nearest the doorway and shoots, gasping as the whole nest sets ablaze, the bloodflies around it burning to a crisp in seconds. He has to admit it’s impressive -- he’d been awed the first time he saw one go up in flames, too.

She continues her trek, edging slowly around the room and shooting the nests with more bolts as she goes. It’s nerve-wracking for both of them, especially as they pass a dead man, his chest honeycombed with a hive. Emily shudders and Corvo shakes his head in disgust, dislodging all the memories from his youth of corpse hives and nest keepers. Not a pleasant image to entertain.

Emily steps around a corner -- and she doesn’t notice the nest on the ceiling until it’s too late, the bloodflies buzzing harshly and diving at her face. She shrieks and throws her hands up, swinging her knife at them to force them away. Corvo doesn’t think, lifting off her shoulder with a furious rasping scream of his own, diving into the swarm and using claws and beak to tear at the bugs’ wings. He sees a bottle on the floor, the label proclaiming it liqueur, and he dives towards it, grabbing it in his claws and cawing angrily as he fights through the swarm to drop it on the nest. The bottle breaks and the flames consume the nest, licking at Corvo’s feathers as it kills the bloodflies.

“Corvo!” Emily cries, diving forward to catch him as he falls from the air, disoriented. She kneels, cradling him in her arms, and looks down at him in concern. He caws at her, trying to reassure her -- he’s fine, really, just a little dizzy from the smoke; he’s more concerned about her -- and she smiles weakly. “Good, you’re alright. Don’t worry about me, I took an elixir...they’re a lot more effective than the ones Sokolov made on his own, you know.” She pauses then, as he flutters out of her arms to land on the ground, and claps a hand to her mouth.

“Oh-- oh hell,” she manages, laughing weakly. “I called you Corvo.” It’s only then he realizes that she had, and he’s torn between laughing and crying himself. It’s him, but she doesn’t know that. But there’s irony there too, and it’s almost darkly funny. “That...I forgot that was the Serkonan word for crow,” Emily murmurs with a weak laugh. “My corvo. You protected me just like he would,” she says. “My little Royal Protector while father’s...not here.”

He caws at her, trying to comfort her -- of course he’ll protect her, no matter what. I’m here, Emily. I’m here. I know you don’t know it’s me, but...I’m here.

Emily stands and holds her arm out, letting him hop back on it, and she strokes his head. “I’ll...is it okay if I call you Corvo?” She asks. “I know it’s...strange, me calling you father’s name, but...I think it does suit you.”

He nods to her, and she smiles again, more warmly. “Thank you, Corvo,” she says, and runs her hands down her face to regain her composure before slipping into the Recuperation Room. The balcony runs along the edges of the room and they can look down at the auditorium below. Hypatia is at a desk, dissecting...something...and Emily frowns slightly, going to the other end of the room before blinking down from the gallery to the floor below. Edging around the area, she freezes when she sees flies buzzing around a desk, a hunk of meat lying on it beside a severed head. She gags quietly and Corvo cringes, and then she moves further.

She enters a small room in the back and stops again, eyes widening when she sees a man lying on a cot -- he looks terrible, his face bandaged and his bare chest bloody, and Emily covers her mouth. She steps closer, crouching and putting a hand on his arm. “Are-- Are you alright?” She asks him softly, and he turns to face her, his eyes widening.

“Doctor Hypatia did this,” he gasps out, confirming Corvo’s fears. “She’s the Crown Killer, but she’s not-- she’s not herself...she’d developed a-a serum, trying to help the miners, but it-- the first version caused...horrible changes to her mind, and--” He coughs, his voice weak, and his whole body trembles. “It’s too late for me, but-- but you can still save her...she’s-- she’s a good person…”

Emily swallows. “How can I do that?” She asks him. “Tell me.”

“I-In my safe, in Disease Treatment...” he says weakly, confirming to them both that this is Vasco. “There’s-- you’ll figure out-- the counter-serum...you have to help her.” He reaches to put a hand on hers. “The-- the safe code is 563…” He falls silent, his hand going limp, and Emily stands, face solemn.

“I’ll save her,” she promises quietly. “Don’t’ worry.” A noise makes her pause, and she and Corvo barely have time to glance up before a cabinet crashes through the inner window of the room, throwing Emily backwards and sending Corvo cawing frantically towards the ceiling.

From where they are, they can see Hypatia climbing through the shattered window -- though it’s not Hypatia anymore. Her hair is wild, her skin greyish, her eyes almost luminescent like a cat’s in the dark. Her posture is animalistic, and she scents the air like a hunting hound as Vasco tries to escape through the window she’d come in through. The doctor -- no, the Crown Killer -- notices, letting out a cry and leaping through after him, her voice throaty when she calls for his flesh.

Emily waits until the noises grow fainter and slides out from under the cabinet, Corvo landing on her shoulder again. “That was…the serum?” She murmurs. “I suppose the murders make more sense now.” Animalistic, violent...just like this Grim Alex. “We have to get to Vasco’s lab.”

She creeps out of the back room and blinks up into the gallery, slipping out of the Recuperation Room and booking it towards the stairs down to Disease Treatment. Most of the guards were unconscious now, thanks to her previous trips, so it was a quick and quiet dash to Vasco’s office. Once there the safe was unlocked easily, and within was a key, another journal, and a syringe. Slipping the key into her pocket, Emily opens the journal to the marked page and glances through it, grimacing.

“Says he’s got most of the steps done to prepare the serum,” she says. “But the last few steps I’ll have to do myself. Shouldn’t be too hard...it just needs some blood from an infested corpse and some fussing in the lab.” She makes a face. “I don’t know whether or not to be grateful there’s bodies to spare around here.”

Corvo matches her grimace. That’s disgusting, he thinks. But no worse than Sokolov’s experiments for the plague cure, I suppose. We’ll just need a body.

Emily takes the syringe from the safe, handling it carefully and leaving the room. Glancing around, they hear buzzing from a closed side area marked ‘private’. Slowly, she opens the door to look inside -- there’s a body within, but lying rather unfortunately right next to a bloodfly hive. “Great,” Emily mutters, and then glances down at the mark. “Time to try something…”

She reaches out her hand as if blinking, but instead, the shadowy claw snatches the body by the arm, nearly throwing it right back at her feet. She grins and crouches, Corvo watching in bemusement. “I’m glad that worked,” she says, and takes the syringe, sticking it in the man’s arm and drawing half a syringe-full of blood. That done, she kicks the body back into the room and closes the door, heading back to the lab and unlocking the door, slipping in and heading to the area with the beakers.

Corvo hops off her shoulder as she passes another audiograph, tapping the playback with his beak -- might as well hear what Vasco had to say; he might provide more clues as to what was going on here, not that they needed any more.

Emily turns to listen as she empties the syringe into a flask and clicks on the burner underneath. “So she doesn’t know this is happening,” she muses. “And the Duke’s using her to undermine me, all without her knowledge. Sending the Killer out and keeping the doctor here, and she doesn’t even realize...that’s terrible.”

Corvo has to agree -- his already low opinion of the Duke sinks lower, and that’s saying something. Not only has he masterminded the killer’s acts and this coup, he’s used an innocent woman to do so without her knowledge. Let’s just hope this serum works.

Emily fills the syringe with the finished serum, slipping it in her coat. “It’s done, let’s go,” she says, holding out her arm for Corvo. The trip back up to Recuperation is just as quick, and thankfully this time through the front area nests are destroyed -- no need to worry about the bloodflies.

By the time they re-enter the gallery, the can see the Killer below, prowling like a cat on the hunt for a pair of clever birds. Emily climbs onto one of the crossbeams above the auditorium, edging along it as she keeps an eye on the Killer.

“I smell you, little sparrow,” the woman growls below and Emily freezes. “Come out, come out, wherever you are~ It won’t hurt a bit.”

Corvo frowns and takes wing -- it’ll be hard for Emily to administer the serum if the Killer knows she’s coming, so...he’ll have to give her a hand. Or a wing? Hm. He glances around as he circles once to find her and then divebombs her head, cawing furiously. The Killer shrieks, clawing at him, but he keeps her distracted, wings beating her face as he squawks at her. Come on, Emily, get it done.

“I’ll rip your head off and have your innards for lunch, you stupid bird!” The Killer yowls, trying to rip him away, but by that point Emily’s behind her, hooking an arm around her neck and slamming the syringe into her shoulder. She yowls again, staggering, and Corvo returns to Emily’s shoulder.

“No, no!” The Killer howls, collapsing on the tile floor and writhing. “Not back to sleep, no! I won’t go, I won’t give it back!” Emily grimaces, but holds where she is until it subsides, Hypatia lying unconscious on the ground.

As she kneels to help her up she wakes, moaning and clutching her head. “Doctor Hypatia?” Emily asks. “Are you alright?”

“Who…?” The woman murmurs. “I--I’m sorry...I think there’s something...something’s not right with me. Perhaps I’ve contracted something...working with my samples.”

Emily shakes her head. “No, you were...you were being poisoned,” she says -- the best she can come up with but accurate all the same. “But you should be alright now -- I found some notes and made a counter-serum.”

“Poisoning me…?” Hypatia asks, still sounding woozy.

“Don’t worry,” Emily reassures her, reaching out to steady her. “I’ll take care of it. If you need a place to stay for a little while, come find us. I’ll be on a boat at the docks called the Dreadful Wale.”

The doctor nods and Emily stands carefully, making sure she’s alright before slipping out of the room. Their work here’s done now, Corvo thinks -- now to take care of the watchtower. What guards remain will likely be on alert, having more than likely found one of their unconscious comrades by now, so this part will be tricky.

Emily heads down to the main lobby, cutting through one of the wings towards the tower; there are two guards here, though -- and through the window there are several more outside. She pauses and swallows, glancing again at her mark. Corvo knows the look on her face, he reflects. He would wear the same one when a new ability came to him, the first time he used it. It was always a few tense, nerve-wracking seconds until he was reassured he wasn’t dead or gone mad from whatever trick the Outsider’s power had given him this time. The worst of it was the possession, he thinks. Which is probably rather ironic, given my current situation.

Emily, meanwhile, has made her choice, noting an open window across the area. “Go ahead of me, Corvo,” she whispers. “I don’t know if this will affect you, too, and I don’t want to hurt you.”

Corvo croaks softly in assent and takes wing, flying to the ceiling before diving down to the window. A guard startles, but mutters about dumb animals before going back to his cigarillo. Corvo hops outside and flutters up to the watchtower, landing on the railing to wait for Emily.

He spots her after a moment, eyes widening -- she’s a blur of shadow close to the ground, those same child’s-drawing claws pulling her across the concrete at top speed. She’s too fast to see, and the shadow takes her right up to the watchtower before she pulls herself up from it, clambering up the ladder to where Corvo is perched waiting. She’s pale, but smiling, and she brushes some hair out of her face. “That worked,” she says, marvelling. “That was...incredible.”

Wasn’t it? Corvo thinks. I remember the first time I slowed time. Even with everything that was happening, it was still...incredible. That’s a good word for it.

Emily catches her breath and then opens the metal cover hiding the whale oil tank powering the light. With a slight grin she removes it, shifting to drop it straight down into the water beneath them. It disappears beneath the waves and Corvo caws approvingly. The two remain on the tower until they can see the dim light of Maegan’s skiff approaching the dock a few feet away and below, and Emily blinks down from her perch, clambering down the rocks beside the steps to the dock -- a more difficult way, but a bit less visible. She hops down to the dock and grins when Maegan pulls up, the woman grinning back.

“You ready to go, Emily?” She asks. “This place gives me the creeps.”

Emily manages a quiet chuckle. “Likewise,” she says, boarding the skiff. “Let’s get back to the Wale.”

There’s silence until they pull safely away from the Institute, then Maegan turns to look at her. “Did you find Sokolov?” She asks, and the disguised worry in her voice is still noticeable.

“No,” Emily says apologetically. “But...Hypatia was the Crown Killer.”

“What?” Maegan demands. “That’s impossible. I don’t believe you.”

Emily shakes her head. “No, it’s...the Duke got her to inject herself with a flawed version of her serum, and it...changed her. She didn’t know she was doing it. There was an antidote, though, so she’s alive and well. I told her to come to the ship if she needed to hide for a while.”

“Alright,” Maegan says, frowning slightly -- perhaps not too happy with the extra guest. “What about Sokolov? Anything?”

Emily pauses, trying to remember what she’d heard and seen. “In one of the papers I found, it’s mentioned they gave him to a man named Kirin Jindosh. Have you ever heard of him?”

Maegan makes a face. “Everyone does,” she says. “He’s the Grand Inventor of Serkonos.”

“Then he’s our next target,” Emily says. “Let’s just...let’s hope Anton’s alright.”

Maegan just nods, and Corvo sighs inwardly. Great, another genius, he thinks sardonically. That will be fun. But either way, they’ve got to rescue Sokolov. After all this time, the old man deserves that much. He’d been a good friend.