The Queen's Champion

Chapter 11

“f*****g A, David.” Joan points towards the slaughterhouse. “Place is crawling with bastards.”

David squints, then turns to Joan with an eyebrow raised. “It’s barely evening. We knew there’d be people still at work.”

“Yeah, but there weren’t supposed to be so many. Look!”

“There’s like, two of them, Lizzy.”

“No there’s-aw, f**k it, you don’t have a spyglass. Literally no-scoping it.” She grumbles for a moment, then turns Melusine’s engine off. “There’s no way I’m getting her close enough to dock.”

“Let me guess,” David mocks in an overly-enthusiastic voice. “You need me to swim over there and take out the workers before you’ll dock the boat.”

“Either you or me, pal.” Joan smoothes her few wisps of brown hair over her head.

David groans and stands up. “When I die, you stay away from my funeral.”

The water tastes of fish and decaying plant matter, and a thin sheen of oil skims along the top. David takes care to keep his mouth closed.

As it turns out, his torture sessions actually ended up being useful for something. He’d had his head held underwater for so long and so many times that his breath capacity seems to have expanded. He only needs to surface for air once before he makes it to the docks. The cold bites through his gloves and burns his face, but David ignores it. It’s nothing, literally nothing compared to the sensations well up in the back of his memory, the ones he forces down and swims through.

The coastal shelf here is shallow, very shallow. David can’t touch the rocky bottom while keeping his head above water, though a marginally taller person probably could. Lizzy’s skiff would be able to navigate fine, but the larger riverboats made for hauling goods away from the slaughterhouse? How were those supposed to dock without scraping their hulls?

Whatever. It wasn’t like it was his problem to deal with. David pulls himself out of the water, glancing around to ensure the lower dock was really as empty as it looked, then turns his Gaze to the metal walkway above.

He doesn’t know what Joan is complaining about, because there are indeed only two guys here. Large, hulking guys that could probably snap someone in half, but just two of them.

They were wandering about and chatting, something about a game of Nancy they had played earlier that week. They wouldn’t be difficult to take out, except for the fact that they’re in each other’s line of sight. Attacking one would alert the other. And David is...going to try to avoid killing here. He doesn’t need to.

He crouches underneath the stairs, waiting to see if one might wander down and make his job easier. He catches a glimpse of one’s face as he wanders near the staircase, but then the man turns and doubles back.

‘Butchers. As dim as the hagfish that swim here.’ Sabrina breaks in all of a sudden. ‘I’d say simplicity sometimes fosters innocence, but it takes a special kind of person to butcher these creatures. A brand of unfeeling.’

So they were brutes. Even Sabrina says so.

David shifts forward, trying to catch the other butcher with the Talisman. Sabrina has better judgement than his own, and he trusts her to guide him.

‘He doesn’t go to the brothels. They don’t have what he wants. Girls. Young ones. Once they begin to bleed, they’re too old for him.’

David didn’t intend to turn this into a bloodbath. But the world would simply be a better place without some people.

He leans back and Blinks onto the walkway, a mere foot away from one of the butchers. David thrusts his sword into the man’s neck before he even has time to fully turn it.

Then David Blinks to a nearby pillar, perches there as the pedo-butcher rounds the corner. He sees his dead friend and immediately runs over, and that’s when David pounces.

He throws the bodies over the railing right as Joan brings Melusine over, docks her in the shadows. She waves, her mask already in place.

“Only two. I was right.” He fixes her with a stare as she jumps off the boat.

Joan shrugs. “There was a third. He walked away while you were imitating a whale.”

“Oh no, you couldn’t possibly have handled three men,” he deadpans. “Might aggravate your rib, Miss Catspaw.”

“You gotta speak through your nasal passages! That’s how you do an authentic Trimble impression.”

They’d have to cross the yard once to get to the streets, where their mole would be waiting to meet up. It was easy enough-plenty of machinery, open-air buildings that all provided good vantage points twenty feet above everyone’s head.

The streets would be more difficult. Walkways spanning the width of the street and of varying heights, taking away Joan and David’s advantage of high ground. They skulk along the rooftops, ducking whenever a head pivots their way.

The place is crawling with guards.

“f**k are these all here for?” Joan whispers. David just shrugs.

“Might be for the strike?”

“Why the f**k would the Watch care?”

As if answering her, a loudspeaker begins blaring.

“This is a reminder that collective bargaining in any industry deemed vital to the state is a considered an act of treason as per the Lady Regent’s decree.”

“Are you f*****g kidding me?” Joan hisses to the speaker. “Treason? For striking? How does that fly?”

“Dunwall is under martial law right now, Lizzy.”

“So?” She whips her head to him. “How does that justify s**t?”

David shrugs his shoulders. “I’m not justifying it. I’m just saying that legally, everyone’s subject to military law right now. It’s different from civil law. The Watch is allowed to-”

“I don’t need a lesson in lawyering, grandpa.”

“You’re the one who f*****g asked.” David grumbles and brushes her off. He understands her reasoning-it wasn’t right. Corporate interests should never be put before human rights. But the acquisition of whale oil was important. Maybe not ‘execute workers for complaining about pay’ important, but enough that he can see why the Watch was stepping in. A halt in production when most other slaughterhouses and refineries were shut down could be disastrous for the city as a whole. No increase in pay would help the workers if the entire economy collapsed.

Still. It shouldn’t have gotten to this point in the first place. Sabrina had wanted to avoid enacting martial law-she likely would have had to, had she lived. The quarantine would have forced her to. Sabrina had known that some bold measures would be needed to save Dunwall as a whole. She didn’t like it, but sometimes you had to cull a sick branch to save the whole tree. It was just the question of where to make the cut, what would balance functionality with her own morality. Who could she risk saving without causing more infection, more death? What actions to implement order would help stem the tide of sickness without her conscious keeping her up at night? How many truly had to die to save Dunwall?

Something like this, a worker’s rights issue regarding a privately owned slaughterhouse, it likely wouldn’t have gotten back to her. The Empress would have had her hands full trying to cull the plague. But if it did? Rothwild would have felt the full force of the Empress’s wrath.

Well. Now David will have to enact it for her.

“f**k, they got an arc pylon set up,” Joan says while David is busy watching one butcher argue with a worker.

“Okay?”

The butcher kicks the worker down, spits in his face and turns on his heel. David watches the pylon crackle as the butcher walks near.

It would be best for them to avoid the pylons, sure. It would knock them straight out, and unconscious in the middle of several patrolling guards is the last place either of them need to be right now. They’d probably kill Lizzy, and drag David back to Delilah. She’d know he was alive. And she would send him right back to Coldridge, torture Anthony ’s location out of him.

David is not going back to Coldridge. He’ll die first.

Joan jumps to her feet all of a sudden. “I got this!” she exclaims excitedly, then disappears in a flash.

David blinks, and whips his head around. He can’t see her. What the hell?

Then Joan appears on the ground, maybe five feet in front of the butcher. And then she just...stands there. Stands nonchalantly as the arc pylon starts to charge up, as the butcher sees her and raises his cleaver.

David has half a mind to slow time, but what would that accomplish? He can’t go down there too. Everyone would see him. Then the pylon would knock him out, and then they’d both be screwed.

Joan was going to get zapped. He leans forward, biting down the panic in his throat. What the f**k was he going to do? He couldn’t let the Watch descend on her. He’d have to go in there and rescue her. And he doesn’t know how he’ll do that without either getting captured himself or giving himself away to every guard and citizen on this block.

Fuck Joan for putting him in this position.

The pylon crackles, and at the last second, Joan moves so the butcher is between it and her. Electricity shoots out, hitting the butcher in the back.

Except he doesn’t fall unconscious. His body literally bursts at the seams and dissolves into ash. He’s gone.

It completely vaporizes him.

Lizzy’s still f*****g down there. David can practically see the arc hitting her, every molecule of her body being burnt away in a flash. Here one second, and gone the next.

The pylon discharges a second time, but Joan is gone before it hits her. David can only tell she Blinked because he’s slowed down time, watching through his extended fingertips.

“What the f**k?”

One of the guards wanders out onto a balcony. “Did that just go off?”

“Probably just rats.”

“Sounded... big to be a rat.”

“A swarm of rats? Maybe it was one of those useless workers. I don’t f*****g know.”

Joan appears next to him, taking her mask off to reveal her excited, sweaty face.

“Man, that was awesome!” She whisper-yells while pumping her fist. “The adrenaline! f**k!”

She seems to notice David’s less-than-enthusiastic face and straightens up, pressing her lips together in an effort to keep from smiling like an i***t.

David crosses the gap between them and slaps her smartly across the face.

“What the ever-loving f**k? ” he hisses. “You were a second away from being vaporized!”

“Yeah.” She finger-guns him with the one hand she isn’t using to rub her cheek. “But I wasn’t!”

“Lizzy, if you die in such a stupid and unnecessary way, I will personally carve the most insulting summary of your death into your tombstone.” David’s heart is still beating wildly, but he can’t take a breath to slow it down. “Don’t you ever do something so reckless again, do you hear me?”

Lizzy’s jaw is dropped in shock, but then a choking sound emits from her throat. And the corners of her mouth turn up. “Wait. David, were you... scared I’d be hurt?”

David presses his mouth into a grim line. Joan laughs and jumps into the air. “Holy f**k! I didn’t think you were scared of anything!”

“I’m not,” David says, even though he’s been honest with both Sabrina and Anthony  about his fears before. Stupid stuff, like his fear of electrical storms or bloodflies, so they didn’t feel ashamed of their own fears. He never told them that his greatest fear was something happening to them.

He wasn’t getting into it with Lizzy. Not right now. “I just don’t feel like doing your job too.”

“Liar!” Joan grins, playfully poking him in the side. “You were afraid! You care!”

She dances around, and David has to grab her and hold her still. “You shut your w***e mouth right now if you know what’s good for you, Elizabeth Catspaw.”

“Ooooh, we’re using full names now. Scary!” She waves her hands, then works on putting her mask back on. “I’d reciprocate, but I have no f*****g clue what your last name is.”

David smacks her shoulder and pushes her away.

“So what the f**k is up with those pylons?” he changes the subject, kneeling as he observes. “They shouldn’t...they’re not supposed to be able to do that.”

“Well.” Joan plops down next to him. “They f*****g can.”

David rolls his eyes. “I know they can. But there are laws that limit how much electricity they’re allowed to put out.”

Sabrina had signed a number of limits on Sokolov inventions into law. And she was diligent about enforcing them. People messing with the voltage inhibitors, purposely jacking it up to vaporize people without discretion? She would have come down on them with the fury of the ocean.

“You think these f***s give a s**t about the laws your girl made up?”

Right.

But Sabrina is dead. And Delilah’s proven she doesn’t care about ruling how Sabrina would have wanted, about preserving her legacy and her memory.

Delilah wasn’t skirting the line. Wasn’t even trying to find it. She was just taking an ax to the tree and taking out whatever looked ugly to her. All Billie’s careful planning gone down the river.

“It’s about sundown,” Joan says, scanning the horizon. True to her word, the sun is just beginning to touch the water, streaks of orange and yellow coloring the ocean. “Our mole should be ready for us.”

Their mole. Someone who had worked in Dunwall Tower, who had remained loyal to Sabrina through the end. Who was willing to risk torture and execution to defy her murderers, to bring her justice.

David pulls his handkerchief over his mouth and nose, just in case that loyalty didn’t extend to him. They might doubt he had it in him to kill Billie, but there was one hell of a bounty on David’s head right now. “Let’s go, then.”

They Blink up to the end of the street, past where the Watch feels comfortable wandering. A railcar still filled with coal sits dead on the streets. The rail hasn’t been running in months.

Up on a ledge, David can spot a figure with long brown hair and a blue shirt, looking over the empty square. David and Joan regard them carefully, until he turns his head ever so slightly and the recognition clicks in David’s head. And then he waves.

“Rinaldo!”

Rinaldo eyes them both suspiciously as David quickly scales the scaffolding, Joan meandering along a few feet in back of him. Then David pulls himself up to Rinaldo’s ledge, stands up straight and pulls down his handkerchief.

And Rinaldo breaks into a grin.

“David! Holy f**k!”

He steps forward to grab David’s hand and shakes it eagerly. “You’re the agent Galia was talking about?! I thought you died.”

“I’m a little harder to get rid of.”

“Well, Outsider’s balls, obviously.” Rinaldo laughs. “f**k, it’s great to see you.”

David claps Rinaldo on the shoulder. “Good to see you too, Rin.”

There were few people in Dunwall Tower that David even came close to trusting. The only people he ever truly trusted were Sabrina and Anthony , and he trusted no one but himself to keep those two safe. Everyone else could be bought off. Corrupted. Could be hiding their true colors in the interest of getting close enough to strike.

But with that in mind, Rinaldo was probably the one person he considered closest to trustworthy.

He’d been stationed in Dunwall Tower as a young recruit, fresh off the boat from Serkonos, back during the Emperor’s rule. He and Sabrina had become fast friends. There was a three-year age gap between them, but Sabrina was always mature for her age. She often chose Rinaldo to accompany her when David couldn’t, or on occasions where she needed more than one bodyguard. But behind closed doors, Rinaldo and the Empress were silly teenagers, gossiping in whispers and making fun of David behind his back.

David also held a great amount of respect and gratitude towards Rinaldo for saving Billie’s life when David couldn’t. It had been shortly after she was crowned Empress. Still fourteen, before she hit her growth spurt and gained some muscle. At some winter festival Sabrina had to make an appearance at. A group of radicals who opposed the ‘mudlark daughter of a street w***e’ sitting on the throne had diverted David’s attention to a decoy fight a few blocks away, and he had gone to help the Watch sort it out. Rinaldo and Sabrina had sat on a bench, chatting under the eye of a thinned Watch presence, when a second wave of rebels aimed their attack at them and threw a grenade that landed right at the Empress’s feet.

Rinaldo, in a show of extreme dedication and bravery, scooped up the live grenade and, without hesitation, threw it right back at the group.

David’s only complaint was the fact that the grenade didn’t kill any of the rebels. They had scattered, like the cowards they were, and the grenade had detonated harmlessly in the snow. Then they shifted their focus to moving Sabrina out of the area so they could kill her, but she and Rinaldo fought them back until David and more Watch officers could arrive on the scene. Sabrina herself beat one would-be assassin half to death with the handle she snapped off a snow shovel. David had been so proud of her.

After Rinaldo recovered from the wounds he sustained in the fight, Sabrina had promoted him and granted him a lifetime appointment to the Tower Guard. He was her go-to ‘date’ for events where it would be inappropriate for David to appear as such, and was probably the only one out of the Guard that David would have been even somewhat comfortable promoting as Billie’s Royal Protector, if something had happened to David. There were other guards who were better swordsman-but Rinaldo was spirited, loyal. He would have thrown himself on a live grenade to protect her. And David might have been able to trust him to do so. Sabrina definitely had.

Even now, Sabrina thrums in his hands, a warm pulse of excitement over seeing her friend. Her joy almost spreads to David’s heart.

David turns around to help Joan climb on top of the ledge, where she bats his hands away and mumbles something about there being an easier way up. David just rolls his eyes. They couldn’t Blink in front of their mole. They’d talked about that. Even if it’s Rinaldo, David thinks it would be prudent to keep their magic under wraps. “Lizzy, this is Rinaldo Escobar. He’s cool. Rinaldo, Joan Catspaw.”

“Hey, fuckface.” Joan raises her hand in greeting. Rinaldo just nods his head, completely unfazed.

“Nice to meet you.”

There’s a scuffle down on the ground, and they pause long enough to ensure it didn’t involve them. Then Joan folds her arms, turns back to Rinaldo.

“Alright, lay the deets on us.”

Rinaldo blinks. “The...what?”

“The details. You’re our insider, undercover boy. What’s going on with the plant and the strike?”

“You’re wearing a butcher’s uniform,” David says, motioning to Rinaldo’s blue shirt and metal chestplate. “No offense, but you don’t seem like the type.”

“Oh, I hate every second of it.” Rinaldo rolls his eyes. “It’s filthy and my coworkers are all stupider than rocks. But the butchers have special ‘privileges’. And nobody bothers to watch their mouths when we’re around.” He shrugs. “Think we’re all too dull to understand what’s going on. That one’s fair, though.”

David turns and motions behind him, to the slaughterhouse. “So what’s up? I heard something about whalebone being shipped to Dunwall Tower?”

Rinaldo nods fervently. “Did Fleet tell you? We’re starting to think Delilah is a-”

“A witch. Yeah.” David keeps his face painfully neutral. “We know.”

“Oh. Well…I guess you would know better than me.” Rinaldo looks to the ground, digs his toe into a metal slate.

Joan snaps her fingers. “Whalebone, Rin-boy. Is it going to Dunwall Tower or not?”

That makes Rinaldo snap back to attention. “Well, the records will say we’ve been dumping it. But really, Rothwild’s been making us load it onto carts, filling them up half-way.” He shakes his head, his nearly waist-length dreadlocks clicking together in their ponytail. “Dunno why. Seems like a waste of space to me. But the carts are always gone by the next morning.”

“Are you f***s shipping anything else to Dunwall Tower?” Joan cuts in. Rinaldo tentatively nods.

“Yeah, all our whale oil goes directly there for distribution. Deal Rothwild made with the Regent.”

“They’re filling them up halfway to put oil on top of it, genius.” Joan rolls her eyes. “Trying to keep what Kaldwin is really getting in the mail a secret.”

“Oh. That...that makes sense,” Rinaldo says, nodding along.

“Secret-keeping didn’t work too well,” David grumbles. “Galia knew all about it.”

“Galia has her fingers in everything around here. She knows, like, everyone.”

“So what’s up with the strike?” Joan motions behind them. “And why is the Watch here?”

Rinaldo walks to the edge of the scaffold and kneels down. “Typical bullshit. Rothwild pays his workers like ass and doesn’t give a s**t about safety. And he’s got the Regent backing him, so he thinks he can get away with it.”

“I mean,” Joan shrugs. “He can. He started throwing a tantrum about his workers walking off the job and she sent a fleet of men to coddle him.”

‘Strikebeaters. Imagine.’ Billie’s voice is somehow scandalized while also incredibly bored. ‘Imprisonment and torture, even execution. All for demanding what should rightfully be theirs.’ No. She’s tired. ‘It was never meant to be this way.’

“But he’s not going to get away with it.” David fixes them both with a stare. “ We’re not going to let him.”

“That’s good news if I ever heard it.” Rinaldo nods. “The union is being led by a woman named Abigail Ames. She’s a real smart cookie, and she actually cares about the workers. She’s one of the foremen here.”

“You got a woman as a foreman?” Joan asks, then shakes her head. “I’m not, like, surprised that she can do it. Hell, she probably does it better than the guys. Just thought that whaling was still pretty...you know.”

Rinaldo nods. “Oh, it is. It’s very sexist. There’s only one female butcher on the team, most of the ladies work in packing-but Ames has a way of commanding a crowd. Everyone was happy when she was promoted.”

“I take it the union didn’t go over to well.” David motions to the Watch officers.

“Nope. All the strikers and Ames herself were detained. Workers who weren’t on the premises when it started are being barred from entry.” Rinaldo motions to one sullen worker, leaning against the wall. “Taking their time cards and everything-you can’t get into the building without one. I got to keep mine, though. One of those perks I was talking about.”

There would be other ways in. There always was, for people like David and Lizzy.

“The Watch showed up around three this morning,” Rinaldo continues. “They and the butchers were given free reign to use force.” He turns back to David, his hands clenching into fists. “If you ever wanted to know why Rulf and I wanted out of Batista so bad, here’s your answer. Silver mines were no better than this. Worse, in some cases.”

“Where’s Rulfio now?” David asks. “He was stationed by the pavilion on…” he trails off.

“On that day.” Rinaldo finishes for him, his mouth set into a grim line. “Yeah, we figured it would only be a matter of time before he was arrested for some bullshit reason, keep him from poking holes in the official story.” He jerks his thumb. “We jumped ship pretty soon after Galia did. Could feel the storm brewing. Don’t worry about him, though. He’s been laying low, chilling with Fisher and Misha. I’m using a fake name here, so Kaldwin isn’t going to find either of us.”

“Good.” David nods. “Good.”  Rinaldo has basically raised Rulfio in addition to himself. Rinaldo’s twin was quieter, more thoughtful, and wasn’t as quick with a knife as his brother. But Rulfio made up for his lack of combat prowess with his perception. Anthony  got along better with Rulfio, and he knew he and Fisher were good friends. Made sense that they were in hiding together. David wasn’t as close with them, but he didn’t want to see them get hurt. They were just kids. Stupid f*****g kids.

Rinaldo turns to David with an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face. “I just want you to know, David, that none of us ever doubted you. We knew you didn’t have it in you to kill her.”

David doesn’t answer. Rinaldo clears his throat and continues on.

“We tried to tell people that Kaldwin was lying, but-”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” David cuts in. “Everyone already had their minds made up. Delilah wanted me to take the fall for it. Nothing you did could have changed that. You would have just been thrown down with me.”

Rinaldo shakes his head and mumbles. “Still. Wasn’t right, letting that happen to you.” He shrugs. “f**k, a couple of us talked about combing through the sewers, after s**t went down at Coldridge, see if we could find you. We knew we’d probably just find a corpse, but it...didn’t feel right. Leavin’ you to rot.”

“Wouldn’t of found s**t there,” Joan mumbles. “I picked him up like, an hour after he broke out. But yeah, he’d of been a bag of bones if we didn’t get to him then.” She whistles out of her teeth. “He was in rough shape.”

“Yeah, I’m surprised to see you out and about, then.” Rinaldo blinks. “Figured even if you did live, you’d be in bed. It’s only been three weeks.”

“Like I said, I’m hard to kill.”

“Clearly, because all my attempts have failed.” Joan stands up. “I’m gonna go do some scouting while you two do your catching up. I’ll be on the rooftops if you need me.”

Rinaldo eyes her curiously as she jumps down. David turns Rinaldo away so he doesn’t accidentally get a glimpse of her Blinking.

“So what, are you okay, David?” Rinaldo asks. “I know you like to act like you’re unstoppable, but, well, nobody is.”

“Whoever came up with that saying never met me.”

“I heard about what they did to you in Coldridge.” Rinaldo shakes his head. “Some of it, at least. Should you be doing this right now? That Joan girl, she seems pretty capable. Maybe you should be resting.”

“I’ve had enough sitting around and thinking about s**t to last a lifetime.” David turns away. “I spent six months with nothing to do but dwell on what happened, what’s going to happen. Now I’m doing something about it all.”

Rinaldo comes up beside him. “I know she wouldn’t want you to get hurt. But Sabrina was always a ‘seize life by the balls’ kind of woman. So I guess she’d want it this way.”

Then they’re silent for a brief moment, and she pulses in David’s hands.

‘He can be trusted today,’ Sabrina says. ‘But I can’t say for tomorrow. He tries to quell the rage that builds up when he thinks of her face, thinks of the injustice of it all. But the seeds of anger grow jadedness and hate. Only time will tell how it changes him.’

David swallows.

Rinaldo turns his head, looks David square in the eye. “I know I might not be allowed to know this, and that’s fine, but...do you have any word on Anthony ? Is he alright?”

David nods. “Yeah. He’s with us.”

All the tension instantly floods out of Rinaldo’s shoulders. “f**k, thank the Outsider.” He shrugs, looking sheepishly at the ground. “We were told to stop looking for him but, you know, that can be taken in two ways.”

“He’s okay. Shaken up a bit, but okay.” David could really go for a cigarette right now, but he knows Rinaldo’s quit and he’s not going to be that asshole. “Probably studying right now. Got his work cut out for him.”

“He’ll do good though.” Rinaldo nods. “He’ll do real good. Make her proud.”

Billie’s eyes are still set on him, but she no longer vibrates in happiness. Now her energy comes off the Talisman in waves, slow and thoughtful. Mournful.

‘His heart hurts. He swears to expunge his last breath to avenge his Empress. But when he’s alone and the rage cools, he weeps. He misses her fiercely. His...his best friend.’

Sabrina had touched so many lives. And Delilah had ruined them all.

David is going to make her hurt for it.

Thankfully, Rinaldo doesn’t question how exactly David and Joan are traversing the rooftops. David figures he’s probably heard about Billie’s adventures, running across rooftops late at night, getting her much-needed breath of freedom while David lurked behind her, watching. Though she didn’t know about that last part. Sabrina did s**t like this for fun, without the aid or security of magic. Rinaldo would assume that David could do it too. He’s the one who taught her how how to move like that, after all.

He finds Joan sitting on a rooftop with her mask off, glaring at the brick wall opposite the street. David Blinks beside her.

“Rinaldo will meet us at the control station, in front of the entrance. He can get in with his timecard, but we’ll need to find another way in,” David says, staring at her curiously. “What are you looking at?”

Joan shakes her head. “Nothing.” She gets to her feet, not looking at David. He turns his head and spies the graffiti, written once over like the one in the Distillery District, then crossed out with a different shade of white.

LONG LIVE THE EMPRESS!

And under it,

she was a wench!

“Idiots.” Joan makes a big show of rolling her eyes. “Couldn’t even come up with a good insult for her. Dunno about where they come from, but from here to Morley all it means is ‘girl’.”

David’s hands curl into fists without him consciously making the decision to. He didn’t f*****g care about the word used-if he thought about it, he might have come to the conclusion that they were making fun of her low-born birth mother, insinuating that she wasn’t truly nobility. But it didn’t matter. The specifics didn’t f*****g matter.

How dare they?

Sabrina had given them everything . Her childhood, her energy, every bit of her being poured into being the Empress she thought her people deserved. Gave her very life. She cared so deeply for the most downtrodden of her citizens. Literally cried for them at times, like when she first learned of the plague.

And this was how they repaid her? By defacing a memorial meant to honor her, by calling her names? The disrespect for their Empress...the lack of respect for her who deserved it most of all.

‘Hatred and anger, they are never satisfied. The corruption here beckons us. Will we give in?’

“I’ve been seeing s**t like this popping up a lot lately.” Lizzy’s voice snaps him out of his thoughts, as she points to the graffiti. “Not the...you know, ‘wench’ part. But the other bit.” She narrows her eyes. “All the same writing. It’s from a stencil. Seen her portrait on the walls too. Too widespread to be the same person doing it all, but I can’t figure out why they’re all using the same design.”

Someone is blanketing the city in Billie’s name. A year ago, the David he was then would have been grateful. Now it reeks of suspicion. And if David had to guess, he’d pin this on Delilah as well. Probably a smear campaign against him. Remind the people of their dead Empress to relight the rage towards the man that killed her. Once she had David’s head on a spike, then the graffiti would disappear, and Delilah would resume trying to take Billie’s place in history.

She would only get that chance if David let her.

“We need to move on,” David says, pointedly looking away. “Before Rothwild heads home for the day.”

They clear the rooftops, keeping an eye out for guards. When they near the slaughterhouse proper, David kneels down to survey the yard, trying to find Rinaldo’s meeting spot. Joan jerks her head to the side so suddenly it almost startles David.

“What?” He stands up. “Is there someone over there?”

Joan doesn’t turn back. “I...thought so?” She shakes her head. “I could have sworn I saw someone up on that roof.”

She points, and David presses his lips together.

“Guess it could of just been a bird,” Joan shrugs. “Don’t listen to me. I’m tired and I’m low on sugar.”

David stares at the empty spot, as if willing the phantom bird to make a reappearance. Sabrina breaks his train of thought. David thinks she’s giving insight on his current situation at first, but of course not. She never tells him what he wants to hear.

‘There’s a man out on the river, watching the place,’ She whispers in his ear. He can almost hear the laughter in her voice in her next sentence. ‘If I weren’t so young and pure of heart, I’d suggest he’s up to no good.’

Right. He always teased her about the throne making her go soft, more out of silliness than real criticism. Now she’s throwing it back in his face. Same old Billie. Always.

“I need to look into something out on the river,” David says, and he points to a building in the slaughterhouse yard. “Go meet up with Rinaldo and wait for me there.”

“What the f**k are we gonna do, twiddle our thumbs?”

“Talk about your mutual love for naked women, I don’t know. I’ll be along shortly.”

He Blinks away.

From the rooftop of a building in front of the wall of light, he sees the boat. David pulls up his handkerchief and Blinks out, misjudges the height and falls maybe ten feet onto the boat, landing on two feet and one hand. He pushes himself up angrily as the man in the boat startles back.

“Holy s**t!” he yells, neatly falling off his seat. “You’re...you’re, f**k, are you the Butcher?”

“Close.”

David squares his shoulders and looks him straight in the eye. The man slowly lowers his arm, shaking all the way.

David realizes that, while his hair is different and his eyes have never been noteworthy, his scar is recognizable across the Empire.

“Then you’re the other one.” The man’s voice trembles. “The Crown Killer.”

David stays silent. The man starts shaking his head.

“f**k, please, don’t kill me. I have nothing to do with the Empress and the Regent-that’s all above my head. I’m small-time.”

“I believe you,” David says, making his voice as rough and scratchy as possible. “I need information. Why are you out here?”

The man pushes himself up, grips one of the oars as if he could row away from David if needed. “I’m working for Jack Ramsey. Or...I was. Amelie Ramsey will be taking over now, I guess.”

“Get to the point.”

“Right. This strike? All our doing.” The man almost smiles, but then nervously looks away when his eyes get close to David’s face. “We have a mole on the inside. Been stirring up the workers for weeks now. Her name is Ab-”

“Ames,” David grunts.

“R-right,” he gulps. “She’s a firecracker, that one. Could lie to the High Overseer’s face and get away with it.” The slight smirk he has drops. “I was supposed to pick her up when this business was over, but I came to get her as soon as I heard Ramsey was dead. Only I haven’t seen her.”

“You wouldn't have. She’s been detained.”

The color drains out of the man’s face. “Fuck.”

David nods. “Yeah. s**t situation.”

The man shakes his head. “You have to get her out of there. I mean...if you find her.” He c***s his head. “You’re going to kill Rothwild, aren’t you? I don’t know why-not that he doesn’t deserve it, but he seems to be in good with the Regent.”

“That’s why I’m going after him.” David wants information more than he wants Rothwild’s blood. But if he’s an ally of Delilah’s, David has no problem killing him. Better to pluck the weeds now.

The man gapes, and David can see the points connecting in his big, dull eyes.

“Oh. You’re not working for her.”

David stares him down. “No.”

“You’re doing this for her.”

“The Crown Killer acts for the Crown.” David sheaths his sword, which seems to slightly alleviate the man’s anxiety. “I draw blood in the name of Empress Sabrina Stark, who’s no longer here to enact justice herself, and for the protection of your rightful Emperor.”

“Her brother? That kid’s alive? f**k, why are we dealing with this Regent then?” The man shakes his head. “He’s old enough to rule, isn’t he? I mean, even a kid on the throne would be better than Kaldwin.”

“It’s complicated.” David looks over the water, the whale oil lamps burning atop buoys and Dunwall Tower etched into the skyline. “But tell that to people when they ask questions about the Crown Killer. Have some patience. Things will improve.”

“Not everyone has the luxury of playing the waiting game. People are dying all over.” The man is looking down, but he looks up through the fringe of his hair to stare at David somewhat defiantly. “Sir.”

David knows that. And he’s doing his best to topple Delilah, put someone competent on the throne. Remove her draconian security measures. Focus on saving the city from the plague, and do it how Sabrina would have wanted.

“Do you and Abigail have somewhere to go, even if you find her?”

“Uh…” The man looks at his fingers, shakes his head. “Before we were going to lay low at Ramsey’s house. But I don’t think his wife knew anything about...you know, this s**t. So we’re kind of s**t out of luck.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Rinaldo probably knows someone, somewhere, that could hide them for a bit. He doesn’t know if Delilah will even care enough to pursue Ames, but in any case, he’d rather people have a safe place to wait out the Regency. “I’ll send Ames your way if I find her. Try to let you know if I don’t.”

“Th-thanks.” The man blinks.

He looks like he’s about to say something else, but David jumps off the boat without further ado. He dives deep, ensuring the worker can’t see him before he takes aim and Blinks to a nearby drainage pipe. Then he turns around and watches as the worker scans the water in confusion.

‘Yes. He knows who you are.’ Billie’s words make his heart stop. ‘But he will pretend he does not. His mother taught him to reward kindness.’

“No one would believe him anyway,” David grumbles. Sabrina hums in his hand, he imagines as if in agreement.

David aims his Blink up to the balcony above, grabbing onto the bars and pulling himself up.

The blue and magenta uniform coat comes into focus as he climbs, and the guard jumps backwards when David appears out of nowhere and hauls himself over the safety rail.

David quickly sweeps his arm into the guard’s stomach, putting one foot on the ground and tilting his torso down just so to flip the guard over his shoulder, over the railing.

There’s barely a scream as the guard falls, his body wetly smacking against the drainage pipe and sliding off to fall the last thirty feet, only for the waves to dash him across the rocks.

Blink, and it’s gone. The guard jumps back again, his mouth open and ready to scream.

David leaps off the railing. He hits the guard at such an angle to push him back, so David’s body weight sends him to the concrete floor of the guardhouse instead of the loud metal grate of the balcony. The guard hits the back of his head on the ground, and David grabs him by the temples and slams his head down once more to knock him out.

He puts the guard to sleep with his laudanum as he drags him into a corner, behind a desk where nobody will see any stray legs. Then David bars the door. The guard will be able to get out fine-when he wakes up. By which time Rothwild will have outlived his usefulness and David, Lizzy, and Rinaldo will all be gone. And David is still wearing his handkerchief. The guard didn’t see his face.

After looting the room for anything interesting or expensive looking, David retreats back out to the balcony and pulls himself onto the roof. He could theoretically Blink on top of the pipelines and head straight for the meeting spot, but he didn’t want to slip on whale oil or risk some rusted metal creaking. It would probably be easier to approach from outside the yard. There were a few guards wandering around. Best not to draw their attention at all, if he wanted to avoid killing them. David cuts through a window into an adjacent building, intending on coming out the other side of the wall of light. He nearly falls back through the window when a figure literally appears right f*****g next to him.

“s**t!” He grabs the side of the window, checking behind him to ensure that none of the guards had heard him scream like a little b***h. “Granny? What the f**k?”

Granny Rags stands by the stove, still wearing that hideous coat and a necklace of dazzlingly bright amethysts. She shakes her head at David, seemingly unfazed by his appearance.

“Why must you use such language, love?” She grabs a pot from the stove, moving it to a large stone plinth in the middle of the room. David can hear the liquid inside boiling, and Granny wears nothing but torn fishnet gloves over her hands. He doesn’t understand how she’s not burning herself. He also doesn’t understand how this slab of concrete got up here in the first place.

He’s still half out the window, gripping onto the frame to keep from falling out, his legs awkwardly splayed apart because he’s just too stunned to close them. Granny doesn’t pay him a lick of mind.

“I was just thinking of a fun activity I wanted us to do together,” Granny says, licking her lips. “Everyone else just wants to ignore poor Granny. And nobody appreciates my work at home but you. And the little flowers, but they’re just saplings now, need to sprout.” She turns to David, her blind eyes finding his face far too quickly for his liking. “You’ll entertain Granny, won’t you dear?”

David tries to swallow, bring some moisture back to his dry mouth. “Um.”

Granny shows off her perfectly straight, blackened teeth. “I have a birthday present for you when we’re done.”

“My birthday was in the Month of Rain.”

“And everyone missed it!” She sweeps away, fiddling with something on the counter.

They really didn’t. The guards made sure to let him know it was his birthday. They beat him extra hard that day.

“I have a little spell we’re going to try out,” Granny continues, coating her fingers in something red. “To start, I need you to get me a weeper.”

David locks his knees and places a hand on his blade, trying to give his appearance the confidence he didn’t feel. “Those are dangerous, Granny,” he warns.

Granny just waves her hand. “A dead one. Just a bag of bones, poor things. Weeper, weeper, weeps no more.”

“I have s**t to do.”

He’s startled when Granny brings her fist down on the plinth. “Weeper, weeper, weeps no more!”

David holds his hands up, looking behind him through the open-ass door to the balcony that looks over the street. “Alright, I’ll get you your weeper,” he whispers. “Just keep it down!”

Granny smiles hungrily. “That’s a good dear. Hurry back, now.”

Finding a weeper corpse is easy. There’s death all over this city, sinking into the soil and permeating the air. David heaves the far-too-light body over his shoulder and grimaces. He knows by now that he’s incredibly resistant to the plague, if not completely immune. He drinks enough elixir anyway that he’s protected from the disease the corpse is carrying. Still, he wonders what the f*****g point of doing this is.

On his way back he spies a small pile of fresh bodies, hidden from view behind a dumpster. A few guards, at least one butcher. David presses his lips together and vows to strangle Lizzy. The wall of light is off too. Somebody was going to investigate, sooner or later.

Granny just continues whatever bullshit she’s got going on the floor when David Blinks back in, so he has to stand there awkwardly with a dead man slung over his shoulder. “Um, I got you-”

“Shh!” She raises her red fingers to him without looking up from her work. “Just a moment, dearie. Just one last…”

She straightens up. “Done!” Granny gets to her feet, dusting off her imaginary skirt as she steps back. “Weeper, weeper, weeps no more! Laid to rest on blood-etched floor!”

David moves around the plinth to find that the floor was indeed etched in blood. He’s assuming it’s blood, at least. Strange letters and drawings, all arranged in a neat circle. David doesn’t know whose blood she used. He doesn’t want to ask.

He shoves the corpse down in the middle, glaring at it when it doesn’t do anything.

“Is that it?” he grunts. Granny Rags shakes her head.

“The port side eye of whale, newly dead. Plop it in the pot, grisly and red.”

“You want me to get you a whale’s eye?” David stares at her. “Is that what you’re asking?”

“Are you not venturing into the lair of the whale-slayers?”

Well that was one way to put it. “Are we done then?” David groans.

Granny nods. “Yes, and then the ritual will be complete.”

“Good. Go wait in Lizzy’s boat and we’ll give you a ride back home.”

Granny tries to grab at David’s coat as he walks away, and he raises his hands. “I’ll get the whale eye if I see it, alright? Just go. I’ll see you there.”

It looks for a moment like Granny Rags isn’t going to listen to him, but then she smiles.

“That’s all I ask, dear,” she coos.

And then she disappears.

Literally.

David blinks. Stares at the spot on the floor she used to occupy. Then he turns away and thinks it might be a mercy that he never watched his mother get old, see her grow into a hag. If she had turned out anything like Granny, he’s happier not knowing about it.

David creeps up on their pre-approved meeting spot, taking care to keep his steps light. The rooftops here are made of thin metal, and any sound they make echos something terrible. He’ll have to make sure Joan knows.

He’s still f*****g pissed at her.

They’re camped out in the control station, backs against some machinery as they watch out through the broken bars of the window, smoking. David tiptoes to the slate in the roof above them.

It smells like pine trees, and skunk. David wrinkles his nose.

“So can I ask you something on the level here, Rin?” Joan takes a long drag. “What was the deal with you and the Empress?”

What deal? What deal could they have possibly had?

“What? We were friends.”

“Just friends? You didn’t like her any more than that?”

David hunkers down and goes still, quiet as to eavesdrop more efficiently.

Rinaldo laughs, but it’s a muted thing. “Let’s just say I loved her, but I wasn’t in love with her. You know what I mean?”

Joan exhales a dragon’s breath of smoke. “So you wouldn’t f**k her if you had the chance?”

“No, I mean, if she had been down with it, I would have. But it would probably be weird. Unless the s*x was really good.”

Okay, this was amusing until they had to make it awkward.

“It was weird the first time I f****d my best friend too, but we got over it. Then I realized I was too gay for him.” Joan flicks some ash onto the ground. “The Empress was some hot s**t, though. I would have loved to bury my face in those knockers.”

“Hmm.” Even from David’s vantage point, he can see Rinaldo press his lips together in annoyance.

Lizzy, either not noticing or not caring about Rinaldo’s discomfort, torques her body to look at him full-on. “One more stupid question. David? Did he ever f**k her?”

David is tempted to jump down and sock her in the face as a response, but Rinaldo’s laughter cuts him off.

“f**k, David?” Rinaldo shakes his head, still smiling. “He was basically her dad, ‘specially after the old Emperor kicked it. I don’t think David thinks with his d**k at all, to be honest.”

“You sure he has one?”

“I’ve seen him without pants on, so yeah, I’m sure.” Rinaldo shakes his head. “I mean I’m pretty sure he’s still a virgin.”

Well, he got one wrong. But his other two answers were correct, so David can let it slide.

“Yeah, I figured it was something like that.” Joan slides her ass down even further. “I just-I heard s**t, you know? About David touching her when she was younger, visiting her at night and shit.”

“He kinda had to, you know, go in her room. I did too. It wasn’t like that at all.”

“I know that. And I know you can’t trust the rumor mill, but there’s always some truth to that shit.”

“He would be the last person to worry about there. If anyone tried to touch Sabrina or her brother, David would probably cut their hand off and feed it to them.”

Damn right. Rinaldo was so getting a pay raise when they get back.

Joan laughs. “Thought as much. Just...wanted to be sure, you know? Hard to get a good read on them. He never talks about her.”

He doesn’t? But once David thinks about it, Joan was probably right. It sounds odd to him because he thought about her constantly. She had been his entire life. Her and Anthony . He thought about them all the time while sailing around the Isles, trying to keep his spirits up. Taking care of and protecting Sabrina had been his purpose in life for so long. Now there’s a black hole where her presence had been, a hole David wonders will ever be patched.

Maybe that’s why it was hard to talk about her. Because that would be skirting the edge of that hole, risking falling in.

At least Anthony , rescuing him and protecting him, caring for him, that did something to occupy David’s hands and mind. A distraction. It was something. A something that would fill the rest of his days.

“I can see that.” Rinaldo takes a drag and makes a face. “David’s never been a big talker. And he’s still hurtin’.”

“He’s not doing good,” Joan remarks sullenly. “And I understand, you know, torture and all, but I don’t even think it’s about Coldridge. It’s about her. He’s not even starting to get over her.”

“Does anyone ever really ‘get over’ the death of an Empress?” Rinaldo blows out smoke, looking thoughtful and strangely philosophical. “f**k, I still hurt thinking about it. Most days I can’t believe she’s really gone. This is honestly the first time I’ve really talked about her since she…since she died.”

“Drugs are awesome, aren’t they?”

Rinaldo laughs, but his face turns somber again in a moment. “I keep wondering, you know, what if she hadn’t given me that day off? I basically stepped in for David while he was gone, but on the day he was due back, I went on a f*****g lunch date.”

David honestly hadn’t even noticed Rinaldo’s absence at the assassination until now. It was true that Rinaldo had taken over Royal Protector duties, but with all the excitement of seeing Sabrina again and then...everything that happened after that, the fact had completely slipped his mind.

“I wasn’t even there,” Rinaldo continues, gesturing with his hands while his smoke dances through the air. “My brother was stationed right by the patio where it happened and he was ordered to step away, but, like, Kaldwin couldn’t have given me orders. I could have stayed. I might have helped. She might not have died.”

“Or you could have died too.” Joan sighs out a cloud of garbage-smelling smoke. “Or you might of kicked a rat corpse over and slipped the assassin up before she made the killing blow. Who f*****g knows?”

“Outsider, maybe,” Rinaldo mumbles.

“Ain’t my point. You don’t f*****g know what would of happened because it’s not what happened.” She inhales deeply, waiting a full beat before blowing it out. “What happened is she died. End of story. Let the past lie and let homegirl have some rest.”

Rinaldo lets out a bitter half-laugh. “Dunno how she can, with s**t being what it is, but I like the idea. Sabrina being at peace. I just really hope she’s not seeing what Kaldwin’s done to her city.”

David feels the Talisman pulse in his hand, but he does not press back.

“Wish we could get some of that,” Rinaldo softly continues. “Some peace. Everyone’s so afraid now. Is...is it true about David? The Crown Killer thing?”

“Thought that was pretty much debunked.”

“It was. Because everyone thought he was dead.”

Joan shakes her head. “If I tell you it was a team effort, would that makes things worse or better?”

“f**k, Catspaw.” Rinaldo leans forward and rubs his temples, somehow managing not to set his hair on fire.

“If it helps, we only actually killed Timsh and Abele. I dunno where the rest of these murders are coming from.”

Rinaldo sighs. “I knew I didn’t like that look in David’s eye. He’s always been sort of impersonal, but he looked just...”

“Ruthless? Intimidating?” Joan tries. “Super badass?”

“Cold.”

They smoke in silence for a minute, before Joan snuffs hers out. “Kay, last question. Is Anthony  really his kid or not?”

“That, I do not know.” Rinaldo snubs out his own joint. “I know I said he’s probably a virgin, but that might be jumping the gun a bit. Anthony  is probably the result of the only lay David ever got.”

“He’s not.” David folds his arms, standing at the entrance to the control booth. “I’m not.”

Both Rinaldo and Joan jump. “f**k, David.” Joan hauls herself up faster, probably due to having less body weight to pull up. “How long were you listening?”

“Long enough.”

“Jackass.”

“Bitch.”

They glare at each other for a long moment, while Rinaldo half-crouches and stares between them oddly, as if afraid to fully stand and interrupt their line of sight to each other.

David finally breaks the stare. “Why the f**k are you doing drugs while we’re on a mission?”

“I never trust anyone until I get high with them.”

“You’ve never gotten high with me before.”

For a moment, Joan looks as if she’s unsure of her place in the universe. “Fuck.”

David rolls his eyes. The Bond would counteract some of the drug. Lizzy’s complained about needing more alcohol to get drunk before-she wasn’t too high to go on. He was more concerned about Rinaldo.

But it would have to do. Not like they could leave and try again later.

David c***s his head and regards Joan coldly. “So what’s up with the pile of corpses out there?”

Joan shrugs. “I got bored, so I started without you.”

“This isn’t funny, Catspaw.”

“It’s okay.” Rinaldo raises his hands. “There were a few workers locked up. They’d have been executed if we left them-we just cleared them a path, that’s all.”

“More people are dead now because of it.”

“Yeah, but they started it.” Joan puts her hands on her hips. “They goddamn chose to come here and be assholes. Those workers didn’t.”

David suppresses the urge to groan. She had a point-it would be very easy to see the killings as a positive thing. And it well might be. Those guards and butchers could have killed and ruined other lives before meeting their end somewhere else.

But that’s a dangerous way to think. David and Joan have already left quite a number of corpses in their wake. A lot of them probably deserved it. Some didn’t. He has a feeling that killing more of either will make telling the difference that much harder.

“You think you can meet us near Rothwild’s office?” he asks Rinaldo, who blinks a few times as if his eyesight was impeding his hearing ability, then nods.

“Yeah. Yeah, I can let you in. I know where he keeps his keys.”

“Good.” If he could just keep Rinaldo from having to fight, this would probably be fine. His coworkers wouldn’t care he was high. “Joan and I will meet you there as soon as we can.”

Rinaldo blinks at him a few times. “Have you figured out how you’re gonna get in? There’s people checking time cards at the door, you can’t-”

“We’ll find a way,” David assures him, then grabs Joan by the arm. “Come on. We have some infiltration to do.”

Joan doesn’t talk to him as they Blink over to the docks, where David swears he saw a loading dock earlier. It’s certainly there, he sees, high up in the air with no obvious way to get there from the ground. It’s for loading large cargo ships, with hulls so large the deck wouldn’t meet up with the dock. Again, David doesn’t see how they could steer into port, since the water level here was so low. This set-up would make sense if it had been built on the ocean side, to take advantage of the tides, but it was built on the river. And the river was swelling as of late. The water was normally shallower than this.

“I don’t get what you’re so worked up about,” Joan complains as David surveys the wall. “You kill tons of people.”

“Not right now, Lizzy,” he says through gritted teeth.

David could probably get up to the dock through some clever jumping and Blinking. But if he couldn’t clear it, the fall could very well hurt him. He doesn’t think he can Blink far enough into the water to clear the shelf, and the water wasn’t deep enough to keep him from breaking his legs. Joan almost certainly wouldn’t be able to swing it. She couldn’t jump nearly as high as him, even with the bonecharms he secretly sewed into her jacket lining.

There was a crane set up nearby. Powered down, but that could be fixed.

“We’re going to need some whale oil, Lizzy.”

Joan seems to perk up finally. “Lucky us; we’re right where they extract the s**t. And I saw where they keep the barrels.”

They Blink over the low buildings, keeping an look out below for curious eyes. All the roofs are slotted, which makes it easy to spy in, but also allows the occupants to look up and see them. Annoying design feature. It probably worked wonders for ventilation in the summer, but it must be miserable now.

David Pulls a blueprint lying on the breakroom table to him while two guards chat away in the corner, and Joan nods appreciatively. “Cool. When are you gonna teach me to do that?” she whispers.

“If you can’t figure it out on your own, I don’t think I can help you.”

“Prick.”

They Blink to the last building in the row, and duck down when they hear the telltale sound of an arc pylon charging.

“Whale oil should be right beneath us,” Joan frowns. “But we’re gonna have to disable that pylon.”

Stupid fuckers for putting a pylon here. Whale oil was extremely volatile. If a bit of it caught just a spark from the pylon, it would ignite. And the rest of the barrels would be caught in the explosion. This entire storehouse would be wiped from existence if David and Joan caused that thing to go off.

“Wait.” David grabs the hem of her jacket as she begins to move. “I need to talk to you for a second.”

“What?” She crosses her arms, glares at him with fire in her eyes. She reminds him so, so much of Billie.

Billie, who’s seeing everything they do.

“Can we try to keep the body count down here?” he says. “The rats don’t need more bodies to feed on.”

“I didn’t think you cared.”

“Well, I do.” He huffs and glances away. But then he inhales, holds his breath, and lets it all out. “Do you really want to be the boogeyman for all of Dunwall right now? Do you want to become another Butcher?”

“So what, you want me to ask them nicely to step aside and smile when they shoot at me?” She stares off into the ocean, her mouth set and angry, but David can tell his words bother her.

“I’m not saying we can’t fight back,” he reasons. “Just...try to find another way. Please?”

He can’t remember the last time he ever used that word, outside of just trying to be polite to the servants. And it must get through to her. Joan deflates, the tension flowing out of her shoulders as she sighs. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I can try.” She turns to him then, flashing a grin. “You gotta get your hands on another bottle of that knock-out s**t for me, though.”

“Deal. I’ll ask Jerome to make some for you.” He turns back. “Now put your mask back on, loser, someone’s going to see you.”

David surveys the area with Void Gaze as Joan pulls her hood and mask back on. There’s indeed barrels of whale oil stored right underneath them, in addition to a few butchers who wander around the area, talking about the strike. The power source for the arc pylon is, unfortunately, right in its warpath. David might be able to yank it before it fires with the aid of Bend Time, but he’d rather not risk it. If only he could completely stop time, like he saw the Rat King do in his dream.

The song of bones again reaches his ears, and David whips his head around until he spots it. David’s off like a shot.

He Blinks carefully to stay out of eyesight, and far away enough from the arc pylon for it to pick up his signature. He has to Blink into the water and swim to get to the mouth of the drain, careful not to bang his head on the mossy, rotting underside of the dock.

Joan swims up beside him and hauls herself out of the water with considerably more grace. “Alright, you need to quit doing that. I’m not gonna stand there like some mourning widow waiting for you to return from war or something.”

“Then don’t.” He can see the bonecharm now, past the mouth of the drain.

Problem is, it’s all swarming with rats.

David Pulls a hagfish out of the water and tosses it in. He waits for the rats to swarm around their new meal and start devouring the hagfish alive to Blink in, scoop up the charm, and Blink back out before they notice the larger prey.

Lizzy’s shaking her head when he returns. “You’re obsessed with those things.”

“We all have our vices.”

“Yeah, but yours is f*****g insane,” Joan points out. “Like, I’ll fully admit to being a drunk, but even I wouldn’t walk through a swarm of flesh-eating plague rats for a bottle.”

David rolls his eyes. “It’s not like booze is hard to come by.”

“Neither are bones. City’s full of them, now.”

Maybe someday David will sit Joan down and explain it to her. How the bones sing in his head. How he can hardly think when they’re near. How he needs to touch them, to know them, before they’ll be satisfied. But not today.

He scans the inside of the drain. “You know,” he says, pointing. “That tunnel right there, I’d bet a hundred coin that leads right into the killing floor.”

“f**k, are you saying what I think you’re saying? We have to go through the chum disposal?”

“You have a water-proof mask on, Miss Catspaw.”

Joan groans. “Alright, fine, but just because I hope you get a face-full of guts.” She pouts so intensively David can practically see it through her mask. “How the f**k are we going to get past those rats?”

David grabs her hand. “We Blink, and then run very fast.”

They hear the whale before they see it. Rivers of it, running down the pipe, red and flecked with chunks of blubber and meat. Their boots squish as they wade through ribbons of blood.

“I’m never going to let you forget that this was your idea,” Joan mutters.

She’s one to talk. She at least has a mask, air filters that’ll block out some of the smell. David pulls his handkerchief over his nose to help, but it doesn’t do much.

The smell is impossible to get around.

David’s glad he never worked in a slaughterhouse. Even if the pay was decent, there was no way the constant smell and coming home filthy could be worth it. But he’s never had to resort to this type of work. There was a time, in the period between taking in his streetrats and finding out Billie’s true origins, where he considered getting an actual real job instead of stealing. He had wanted a steady income so they could rent an apartment instead of squatting, send Anthony  to a real f*****g school. Let Sabrina work at a shop or something instead of pickpocketing so they could eat. David would have taken any job then to keep them from starving. But he never had to make that choice.

That was probably the case with nearly every worker here. Just people, willing to do anything to put food in their children’s mouths.

They duck low as they enter the killing floor proper, stepping swiftly to the side to avoid the waterfall of blood. Above them, a whale is hiked up on cables and chains, suspended mid-air as it bleeds its life out onto the floor.

It’s still alive.

Even through the separation of the Void, he can physically feel Sabrina shudder. ‘They don’t know what they are, do they? These creatures. I wonder, if they knew, would they feel guilt? Or only fear?’

He doesn’t know what the deal is with whales, doesn’t know a fraction of what Sabrina knows. And frankly, David doesn’t want to know.

But no creature should be subject to this.

“Fuck.” Joan peers up into the slit belly of the whale, past the layers of flesh and red viscera. They can see its goddamn organs, still writhing and alive. “I knew it wasn’t pretty, but this,” she whispers, shaking her head. “This is a whole new level.”

David presses his lips together in agreement. A pair of butchers round on a worker at the head of the floor, and David and Joan go still as they watch.

“You been in the chair already?” One hisses, brandishing what looks like an automatic saw. David’s seen the gardeners at Dunwall Tower use something similar to trim hedges. But he figures this one worked a little differently.

The worker raises his hands. “Yes, but I signed right away. Mr. Rothwild didn’t even have to turn it on.”

“I don’t believe you!” the butcher bellows.

“No, it’s true!”

The other butcher turns to his friend. “Is he calling you a liar?”

The butcher with the saw steps towards the worker. “That’s what it sounds like!” There’s a whir as the saw starts up. “I’m gonna teach you to respect me!”

David meets Lizzy’s eye through the yellow of her goggles, and they nod to each other. An understanding that flows deeper than words. David raises his Marked hand and pulls it down.

Time slows around them, the butcher moving towards the worker as if walking underwater. David reaches out and Pulls the saw from the butcher’s hands before it can make contact with the worker’s chest, letting it drop harmlessly into the pile of discarded whale flesh. His feet move quickly up the floor, Blinking to a nearby awning that looked over the killing floor and sending a bolt into the head of the other, unhelmeted butcher. The force sends his body into the scraps of guts and blood below.

Lizzy, who is able to take advantage of David’s Bend Time power, Blinks herself up to the ledge where the butcher is still startling back over his disappearing saw. She inserts her blade in between his helmet and chestplate, pushing him over the side with his friend before Blinking to David’s side.

When time resumes, they just watch the worker look around, frightened and confused. Joan would have only been a blur to his senses. Finally, he just turns and begins to walk away at a very, very fast pace.

Joan chuckles from behind her mask. “What happened to mercy, old man?”

“Not to people who won’t show it themselves.”

“I can f**k with that.”

The rest of the butchers in the area don’t even notice the absence of the two. Their bodies are quickly covered with blood, and soon there is no distinguishing them as human beings within this mess of gore.

‘Oh, darling, you are frightened!’ Sabrina speaks in his ear, but it’s a voice that has never been used for David. It’s melodic, kind, closer to the tone she reserved for Anthony  when he was very young, or the one she put on as Empress when dealing with petitioners. ‘I’m afraid there is no escape. I know that pains you so.’

The whale shudders out a noisy, grunting breath, a different sound than the pain-filled moans it’s been putting out since David entered. She flicks her eye, turning and settling on him. David stares, and wonders if the whale can really hear her.

‘I know. It hurts. Oh, my love, I’m so sorry .’

“That power system there-” Next to him, Joan points. “-looks like it’ll put that whale down in an instant.” They watch for a moment as the whale bellows, her breath blowing in their faces. “I almost think we should. I know they’re just beasts, but…” Joan gets to her feet, not looking him in the eye. “Still.”

‘They are so much more than beasts,’ Sabrina whispers in his ear.

David has to brush her off. “Maybe later. Don’t risk pissing off the butchers until we get what we came here for.”

Joan doesn’t look happy about it, but she Blinks away.

Sabrina continues to blabber on to the whale as David surveys the floor, making his way to the observation deck.

‘Yes, he will. I will tell the others, so they don’t worry.’

He wants to tell her to shut up. That he’s trying to concentrate, and he can’t think about the stupid whale right now. But she’s Billie. And David could never reject the gift of her voice.

‘Be strong. We will end your pain.’

So he listens. And he’s left privy to one side of a very strange conversation that he never wanted to hear.

'No, don’t say that now. I will earn your forgiveness.’

It’s odd. David’s almost grateful when he Blinks too far away from the whale for Sabrina to continue talking to her, but she just turns the onslaught to him.

‘This didn’t have to happen. There could have been another way. But now she is here, and there is no turning back from what we’ve done.’

What did she want, for them to ban whale oil? As much as David didn’t approve of all this, he knew you couldn’t do that. Even Delilah couldn’t do that. Angry mobs would literally tear Dunwall Tower apart, brick by brick, carry out whatever sovereign who had made that decision and set them on fire. Billie, of all f*****g people, should know that.

Rinaldo isn’t here. Joan is pawing around, looking for keys and valuables. An audiograph plays in the corner, Rothwild himself rambling on about the lullaby of the whale songs.

David’s sailed before. He knows the song of the whales, the rumbles that rise from the sea water and reach the ears of men above. He’s also heard them how they are in the Void, melodic and pure, reaching across the empty space. He knows how they’re meant to sound underwater, through Billie’s strange insight that sometimes gives him snippets of sound and feeling. He knows how the whalesongs are supposed to sound. And he knows that this whale is not singing.

She is screaming.

“Where’s Rinaldo?” David asks to Lizzy’s backside.

She shrugs, not even pausing in her search.

David huffs. “Have you seen him at all?”

“Nope. Place was empty when I got here.”

“I’m going to go look for him.”

“You do you.”

David rounds to Packing and Distribution, where he knows the entrance lies. Rinaldo is speaking with a few workers, ducked out of sight of the butcher stationed at the door, checking time cards.

The carts he mentioned are already set up, filled with all manner of bones. David Blinks down and sifts through them as he watches Rinaldo, waiting for him to finish. Most of the bones are too large for his purposes, but there are a number of smaller bones and bits that have chipped off the larger pieces that David is easily able to stuff in his coat. He’d have to come raid slaughterhouses more often. His supply of whalebone is skyrocketing, and it made hardly a dent in the pile.

He Blinks up to the rafters, keeping an eye on Rinaldo and his group while he surveys his surroundings. Empty cargo crates, oddly small for a slaughterhouse. Six feet long and rectangular, padded interior. Like a coffin.

David’s seen these before. Crates meant for human cargo. Gangsters liked to use them when they didn’t feel death was a suitable sentence for their marks, for whatever reason. Knocked them out and packed them up, then ship them off to somewhere far enough away there’d be no chance of them coming back. Tyvia was a popular destination. They were also used for gathering slave labor, usually in the mines.

A group had once kidnapped Sabrina and tried to seal her in one of these. David still doesn’t know why-the penalty for kidnapping a princess was the same as killing her. And David hadn’t been with her at the time, so they could have killed her very easily. But their decision gave David time to find her, and for the guard to arrest the conspirators. They had intended to send her to Pandyssia. Sabrina had been trapped for less than an hour, but she still had a paralyzing fear of tight spaces for literally years afterwards. The Emperor had everyone involved executed.

Rinaldo finishes with the workers, then he marches over to the butcher at the door with them trailing behind him like frightened ducklings. Exchanges a few words with the butcher, then they both step to the side. The workers each punch out and exit out the door.

Cute. David doesn’t have time for this, though. He returns to the observation station, careful to avoid the butchers wandering the hallways, to find Joan lazily reclined in a chair with her feet up on the desk, spinning a set of keys around on her finger.

“Didn’t even need Rin,” Joan exclaims proudly. “Fucker had his keys hanging on a nail on the underside of his desk. Rookie mistake.”

David just blinks, his sight flicking between Lizzy’s masked face and her feet. “Lizzy,” he says slowly. “Where are your shoes?”

It’s then that Rinaldo bursts in. “Sorry, sorry,” he pants, his cheeks tinged with red. “Some guys were stuck in the breakroom when the lockdown started. Too scared to sign the contract-had to sneak them out.”

“It’s fine.” David holds a hand up. “Joan got her hands on the key. You want to show up where Rothwild’s office is?”

“Sure, sure.” Rinaldo holds out his hand for the key, which Joan tosses at him unceremoniously. “We’ll have to sneak in there. Rothwild’s demanded not to be disturbed. The butchers’ll stop us.”

“Then let’s not get stopped.”

Two minutes later, Rinaldo is crouching and fiddling with the key, cursing under his breath, while David and Joan keep an eye on the lone butcher wandering the hallway below and hope he doesn’t turn his head.

‘Rothwild’s got a stubborn reputation,’ Sabrina echos in his head, as Rinaldo pops the door open. ‘I doubt asking nicely is going to work.’

Her voice drips with poison. There’s something dark in what she’s implying. David finds that he doesn’t like dwelling on it.

“I keep telling you! This is about fair pay and safe conditions!” A woman’s voice rings out as they creep into the office, hiding behind large filing shelves that split the room in half. They’ve found Ames, at least. “You’ve had two people die in just this last week!”

“Don’t bother with the theatrics.”

Rothwild’s voice is low and rolling, smooth like he’s swallowed an entire jar of honey. David pulls himself onto one of the shelves and peers over to the other side of the room. Rothwild, decked out in a fancy beige suit that would make David immediately loathe him if he didn’t already, stands in front of a chair, occupied by a woman with auburn hair and a blood-stained vest. Her eye has been blackened; her lip swollen and still bleeding.

“What happened, Abigail?” Rothwild says, puffing on a pipe. “I gave you everything. Extra elixir rations, bonuses-”

“Gave me everything but your ear,” Abigail bites back.

“Oh, don’t give me that bull.” Rothwild blows a cloud of smoke into Abigail’s face. “You were working with Ramsey from the start. All of it-motivating the workers, getting close to me, it was all for him.”

“Rothwild...Bundry…”

“Don’t call me that!” Rothwild explodes, slamming his pipe down on a nearby desk. “You’ve lost that privilege! I trusted you, Abigail, I loved you!”

Abigail crosses her arms and tilts her chin up, staring down her nose at Rothwild’s disheveled, angry form. “Bundry, you don’t love anything but your coin.”

Rothwild curses. And he flies forward. He smacks Abigail across the face then slides one knee over her lap, leaning in on it to keep her sitting. Abigail protests, and Rothwild grabs one of her wrists as she comes up to bat him in the face. His other hand comes to her jaw.

“Get away from her!”

Rinaldo has already jumped the railing, brandishing his butcher’s cleaver. David curses under his breath. He wasn’t about to let Rothwild assault Ames, but he had a more discreet way of stopping him in mind. They wouldn’t be able to take care of this quietly now.

Rothwild actually pulls back in surprise, and Abigail twists around in her seat. “Gale?”

Rinaldo stammers a bit at first, his face going red, but he gains more confidence as he goes on. “Leave Abigail alone. You will let her walk out of here unharmed, and you won’t bother her again.”

Rothwild laughs, dark and sadistic. “Really?” He pulls out his pistol, flipping the safety off as he aims it over Abigail’s shoulder, directly at Rinaldo’s chest. “And what’s stopping me from just killing you and doing what I want anyway?”

“Me.”

Abigail’s eyes find him before Rothwild even begins to turn his head, and the sound that she makes crosses somewhere between a shocked gasp and the scream of scraping metal. Rothwild whirls around, and he actually drops his gun in shock.

“David.”

Rothwild blinks. His hands still in position to fire his gun, but his gun is on the floor and he makes no move to pick it up.

Abigail hides her face in her hands. “What is he doing here? Was the Empress’s blood not enough for you?!”

“Calm down,” Rinaldo says to her, but his eyes never leave David’s. “David didn’t kill the Empress. He’ll help you out.”

“How in the world do you know that, son?” Rothwild grabs Abigail and pulls her out of the chair, scooping up his gun as he backs away. “He was found with her blood on his blade. He killed another bleeding-heart woman, just like you-” He gives a pointed look to Abigail. “-and he just might do it again!”

David stares him down coldly.

“Oh, Void, here we go…” Joan drawls, perched atop the shelves and swinging her leg.

“I didn’t kill the Empress.”

“First of all, my name is Rinaldo Escobar,” Rinaldo explains angrily. “I was a guard at Dunwall Tower for years. I worked for this guy. Second, I was one of the few people who was trusted with Empress Billie’s safety.” Rinaldo audibly cracks his neck, raising his cleaver threateningly. “In other words, you don’t want to f**k with me. Third, don’t f*****g call me son.”

“I’ll call you whatever I f*****g want!” Rothwild yells, waving his gun in the air. Abigail yanks her arm away and breaks free of his grasp.

“Kill him, David!” she begs, raising her hands to her chest. Rothwild moves to grab her back, but she swiftly steps out of his reach. “Whatever you want from him, I can give you.”

“I need information,” David says. “On a few matters, regarding ‘Bundry’s’ dealings with the Regent.”

Abigial nods excitedly. “I know about all that. I know all of Bundry’s secrets.” She turns back to him, her smile sickeningly sweet.

Rothwild’s upper lip curls and he snarls, flipping his gun around in his hand and raising it as if to hit Abigail with the butt. David brings his hand down and Slows Time, leisurely walking over and sucker-punching Rothwild in the temple. He drops his gun again, stumbling a bit in real time, and David wraps one arm around his neck and uses his other to press the bottle of laudanum to Rothwild’s nose. Then David drops him.

Time resumes. Rinaldo blinks, but that’s all the indication that he’s noticed something is off. David had taken care to move slowly. To Rinaldo and Abigail, his movements would have been fast, but not supernaturally fast.

Abigail calmly steps over the body, plopping herself back in her interrogation chair with utmost grace.

“Well?” She says, crossing her legs and placing her blood-splattered gloves daintily in her lap. “What do you want with me?”

“Well, for starters, a night out on the town.” Joan hops down from the shelf, landing like a cat. “I’m thinking dinner, maybe a nice dance in the moonli-”

Rinaldo rushes forward, kneeling by Abigail’s side and taking her hand. “Are you okay?”

Abigail preens and nods, and David internally rolls his eyes. Great. Rinaldo’s sweet on her. Well, he never was the brightest lantern on the path.

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Rin,” Joan says. “Your lovebird act is going to get old real fast.”

Rinaldo sweeps to his feet. “This isn’t an act!”

“Look, I know what I’d do for a great pair of knockers, but trust me, no girl’s worth embarrassing yourself. Even a pretty lady like this.”

Abigail curses under her breath, looking up to meet Lizzy’s eye with fire in her gaze. “Dyke,” she mutters.

Joan visibly bristles up, marching forward as if she was going to throw down with Ames right then and there. Rinaldo, however, stands between them and holds up his hands. “Ladies, ladies…”

“Call me that one more time and you’re gonna get shanked.”

“That’s enough!” David yells, and Rinaldo pulls back, looking somewhat embarrassed.

Joan huffs under her mask, and if David didn’t know her better, he’d say she was jealous.

“You said you had some information we needed,” David presses, bringing the fight to a definitive close. “I need to know about a witch going by the alias ‘Gardenia’.”

Abigail pulls her hand back from Rinaldo, her smile calm and collected. “Not so fast. I said I’d talk if you killed Rothwild. And Rothwild is very clearly still alive.”

“Rothwild is insurance, in case you turn out to be even more of a lying w***e than you’ve already proven to be.” Joan crosses her arms, fixing Rinaldo with what could only be a withering glare under that mask. Rinaldo just glares back, and Joan turns to David. “I spotted a makeshift interrogation room in the meat locker earlier. We could always just shove Rothwild in his special electric chair. Make him squeal like a pig.”

‘Amazing, what suffering people will endure in the name of an honest wage,’ Sabrina says evenly. ‘Desperation saturates this place and others like it.’

“Lizzy, go lock the door,” David motions, sending Joan away with a pout. “Rinaldo, tie up our friend Rothwild here. If our talk with Miss Ames here goes well, we can always throw him into the river.”

“I rather like the sound of that,” Abigail says, leaning back in her chair. “I know all about Gardenia, including their true identity. I can tell you everything you want.”

“Please do.”

“I told you, not so fast.” She smiles, showing off her teeth. “I need something from you in exchange. We’re both professionals, Mr. David. I think we understand each other.”

He’s always disliked people who called him that.

“I don’t think we’re on the same level as one another, Miss Ames.”

“I suppose not,” she shrugs. “I was hired to undermine Mr. Rothwild’s business. You were hired to kill an Empress. If anyone is able to take the high ground here, it would be me.”

David stares at her for a long moment, then darts out and wraps his hand around her throat. Abigail’s eyes bug out as he leans his face in, so close his breath ruffles her hair, squeezing just enough for her to feel it.

“I didn’t kill Billie.”

“David.” It’s Rinaldo behind him, his tone warning but in a sort of disbelief.

Joan has returned by now, pulling off her mask and hopping up onto a desk. “Yeah, yeah, we’ve been through this old man. Let her go so we can get this over with.”

David fixes Abigail with a glare as he steps back. “Never insinuate that I would hurt the Empress again. Delilah Kaldwin killed her. End of story.”

“I-I got it,” she says, her fingers dancing at her throat. But then she swallows, pasting on another smile and continuing on. “Like I said, I was hired to get Rothwild’s workers striking, which I did very nicely, and then to destroy the slaughterhouse itself. That’s where I got caught, and where I’ll need your help.”

She pulls out what looks like a large screw with two handles built into the side, grinning at him all the way. David stares at her without taking it.

“How?”

Her smile falters, but only slightly. “The whale oil in those tanks out there are enough to destroy this entire place. The important industrial bits, especially. Just open all the valves at once to let the oil start flowing. The pressure will go out of control, then.” She leans forward, a self-satisfied smirk on her face. “Boom.”

“What about the workers inside?” Rinaldo asks, still on the floor behind David.

“The butchers can die screaming for all I care.” She waves her hand.

“But there are workers still stuck in here. You can’t leave them to die.”

“You know,” Joan makes her way over, peering down at Abigail with her chin raised high. “Instead of doing your job for you, we could always just put you in Rothwild’s chair yourself.”

“You wouldn’t.” Abigail shakes her head.

Joan nods. “David and I, we may not have killed an Empress, but you still don’t want to f**k with us. Trust me.”

Abigail rises to her feet, swanning towards David with a smile on her face. “You don’t know Ramsey,” she breathes. “He’ll come for me. And when he does, he’ll kill you.” Her fingers wind David’s handkerchief, still tied around his neck. “He’ll gut you like the street filth you are.”

“Jack Ramsey is dead.”

The smile slides off of Abigail’s face. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not. The Butcher gutted him this morning.”

Abigail’s face goes absolutely white, and she sinks back into her seat. Puts her head in her hands.

“What am I going to do?” she moans. Off to the side, Joan shrugs.

“What we say?”

“I’m dead,” she mutters, shaking her head. “I’m so dead.”

“You would be if we hadn’t gotten here,” David grumbles.

Rinaldo leans into his peripheral vision for the express purpose of glaring at him.

David rolls his eyes. “A buddy of yours is parked out in a boat, on the seaside. Scrawny kid. Sort of blond. Needs to trim his ear hair.”

“Jonas?” she asks, raising her head. “Why? If Ramsey’s dead…”

“Yeah, yeah, then your big paycheck goes down the chum drain,” Joan says. “No reason you need to blow this place up now.”

Abigail shakes her head. “Oh, I’ll be paid either way. It’s all set up in Ramsey’s books-looks legitimate and everything.” She presses her lips together, he eyes far off and afraid. “But that won’t matter if I’m not alive to collect it. Lady Kaldwin will be furious when she finds out about this.”

‘She learned very young that the only person looking out for her interests was herself. She doesn’t feel guilt for the people she hurts. But she gets no enjoyment out of it either.’

“Where were you planning to go before?” Rinaldo stands off to the side, a good five feet away from Abigail, as every step closer to her brings a round of glares from both David and Lizzy.

Abigail thunks her head in her hands again. “Ramsey’s mansion! We would live there until he produced new identities for us. His wife wouldn’t know about it-and I doubt she’d believe us if we showed up on her doorstep.”

Rinaldo stares at them with big, pleading eyes. “We can’t abandon people out here, guys.”

David shrugs, crossing his arms.

“You two are part of some conspiracy, aren’t you?!” Abigail jolts up. “What are you supposed to be doing, bringing down the Regent? I can help with that! I have talents you can use, if you let me. All I require is a safe place to wait out the plague.” She brings her clasped hands to her face in a pleading gesture. “Please?”

Joan has shuffled to his side by now, crossing her own arms and mimicking David’s pose. They both draw themselves to their full heights, which isn’t really very high, but Abigail’s seated position allows them the illusion of towering over her. Joan flicks her eyes down to Abigail, watching her as if she were a piece of garbage that smelled particularly bad.

“I don’t know if she’d really fit in back at base, David,” Joan drolls. “We might be too gay for her. Pretty much every girl there is a lesbian.”

“Lots of lesbians,” David agrees.

Abigail’s eyes dart between the two worryingly.

Joan faux-sighs. “Besides, it’s a much rougher crowd that what Miss Ames is used to. I don’t know if she could keep up.” She shakes her head. “No, I just don’t think it’s in the cards. Sorry, Abigail.”

“Oh for the love of…” Rinaldo looks at them with disgust, then turns back to Abigail. “I’ll find you and Jonas a place to lie low for a while.”

“You will?” Abigail presses a hand to her heart. “Oh, thank you.”

Rinaldo grins like a stupid i***t. David reaches out and whacks him across the back of the head.

“Provided we all survive this, of course,” he says, then turns back to Abigail. “Now that we’ve got your housing situation all figured out, will you comply?”

“I still need the facility destroyed if I want to get paid.”

“Motherfucker!” Joan reaches out, her hands moving as if she’s about the strangle Abigail, though she remains rooted in place. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you b***h? Trying to count your chickens while you make scrambled eggs.”

“I’m a business woman.” Abigail raises her chin defiantly.

David sighs as he rummages through a nearby desk.

“So...what now?” Rinaldo asks. “Are we destroying the tanks, questioning Rothwild? ...David?”

“We’re taking our options as they present themselves,” David says. “And right now, since we have Rothwild tied up so nicely and he has that fancy interrogation chair all set up for us, we’re going to take advantage of that.”

“So you’re not going to help me.” Abigail huffs, crossing her arms. “I could have made it worth your while, but fine. Just let me out so I can do my damn job and get out of this hellhole.”

“Not so fast.” David holds up a hand, stepping towards her. “I’m going to need you to attend Rothwild’s interrogation with us.”

Abigail raises an eyebrow. “I’ll bite. Why?”

“In case he turns out to be useless. Then we’ll consider your option.”

That makes Abigail smile. “Well, I have wanted to see Bundry shackled up in his own chair for a while now.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.” David smiles, then holds up a pair of handcuffs. “Turn around.”

The smile drops off her face. “What?”

“David, is that really necessary?” Rinaldo steps in. David nods, grabbing Abigail by the wrist and wrenching her hands behind her back.

“She’s proven to be deceptive and evasive. I can’t let that stand.” Abigail groans as he snaps the cuffs around her wrists. “It’s just a safety measure. I’ll take them off once we’re done.”

Rinaldo presses his lips together, but he says nothing.

“I think silver bracelets look lovely on you,” Joan says in a sing-song manner. “Goes perfectly with your pasty complexion.”

Abigail opens her mouth to retort, but David slaps his hand over her mouth. “Knock it off, or I’m going to start knocking heads together.” He turns and pushes Abigail in Rinaldo’s direction. “You keep her under control. If I can’t trust you with that, I’ll have to give her to Lizzy.”

Joan grins and stretches out her fingers, waggling them obnoxiously. Rinaldo looks down at the ground. “I’ll keep her quiet.”

“Good.” David turns and thunks Joan on the head. “And you,” he hisses in a harsh whisper. “Behave yourself! You’re an adult woman, for Outsider’s sake, start acting like it!”

“I have never acted like an adult a day in my life,” Joan states factually, but she does put her mask on and starts standing like a normal f*****g person.

David steps away long enough to sling Rothwild over his shoulder. “Rinaldo, pretend like you’re taking Ames to be interrogated. Joan and I will follow from above.”

“The pipes again?” Rinaldo grimaces. “You see how much dirt was up there? That’s gross.”

Joan mutters something her breath. David just nods and adjusts Rothwild’s position. “Rin, lead the way.”

They watch Rinaldo talk to the butchers, one hand on Abigail’s handcuffs as she hangs her head and watches the floor. The butchers seem to be buying the act, at least. Not that it was ever going to be particularly hard to fool them.

Joan points to one of the butcher’s saws. “I want one of those.” David rolls his eyes.

They straighten when they see the butchers walk away, leaving the area unattended. Rinaldo unlocks the meat locker and pulls Abigail in. David and Joan Blink and slide in right behind them, before the door even has a chance to close.

Rinaldo lets go of Abigail and steps away. “Okay, we’ll have to let David in when he gets here, then he can unlock your cuffs.”

“Already here.”

They both jump. “What the f**k!” Rinaldo slaps a hand over his heart. “How’d you get over here so fast? Did the butchers see you?!”

“Calm down, Rin-boy.” Joan smacks his shoulder as she passes. “We’re just really good at what we do.”

“Lizzy’s right,” David says, then hands Rothwild over to Rinaldo.

Joan grabs Rinaldo’s key from his belt, the smirk on her face audible through her mask filter. “I’ll make sure we get to enjoy this.”

David presses his lips together.

He undoes Abigail’s handcuffs while Rinaldo gets Bundry Rothwild situated in the chair. David saw something similar at the Golden Cat-though he’d bet this one packs more voltage. Or maybe not. Maybe Rothwild was bringing masochists down to get their rocks off.

Doubtful, though.

They all stare at one another, once Rothwild is in the chair and everyone is in position. Joan at the electrical switch, Abigail sitting on a bench off to the side, Rinaldo above her still holding his cleaver in one hand. And David in front of the chair, in the role of interrogator.

Rothwild is still fast asleep.

“Any requests as to how we wake him up?” David asks the room. Lizzy’s hand twitches over the switch. “Lizzy, no. Save that.”

“I think I have an idea.” Abigail gets to her feet, flouncing over to the interrogation chair as if her feet were made of flower petals. The movement reminds him so much of Delilah, mocking him as he sat in the torturer’s chamber at Coldridge. David wills down the goosebumps that break out over his arms and pushes away the urge to crush her skull.

Abigail stares down at Rothwild for a long moment then, so fast David almost doesn’t see it coming, rounds back and punches Rothwild right in the groin.

Rothwild’s eyes shoot open. And he howls.

“He’s awake, alright,” Abigail says blandly, shaking out her hand as she returns to her seat. Rothwild looks around the room wildly.

“What the f**k?”

“Rise and shine, Bundry,” Abigail calls over her shoulder.

“What is the meaning of this?!” Rothwild tugs on the manacles connecting him to the chair.

David regards Rothwild coldly. “We need information.”

Rothwild seems to calm then, settling back in his chair as a neutral expression slides over his face. “What do you want to know that’s worth crossing a man like me?”

“You’re nothing special, asshole,” Joan says, examining the nails that are hidden under her glove. “You bleed red like every other fucker I’ve cut open.”

Rothwild spits at her. He’s not very well-practiced, though, so it lands on his coat sleeve and he stares at it in disdain.

David ignores the exchange. “I want to know about a ship. My Gardenia. What’s behind the name?”

“Go choke on your b***h’s c**k,” Rothwild spits, turning to glare at Joan in turn.

David nods to Lizzy. She pulls down the lever, and the seat and back of the chair glows blue.

Rothwild screams. Joan pushes the switch back into neutral.

“Who is Gardenia?” David continues on, as neutral as ever.

Rothwild is breathing hard, but he still makes the effort to laugh. “You think I’ll give up after the first tickle? That’s the kind of thing I pay your mother for, down at the Golden Cat!”

David bypasses Joan and pulls the lever down himself. More electricity, more screams. Across the room, Abigail’s hand comes over her mouth. Rinaldo just shakes his head.

“We’ll feed you through your own factory,” David says, never breaking eye contact. “See if we can get oil out of your blubber.”

“Ha.” Rothwild’s eyes take a moment to focus on David, foaming at his lip. “I can see how you butchered an Empress now. Cruel. You’re good at what you do. We can talk this out, David. Like businessmen.”

“Delilah killed Billie. Which you, a supposed ally of hers, should know.”

“I do know.” Rothwild glares at David through the sweaty strands of his bangs, breathing hard. “I know how you pursued her. How she only loved Lady Delilah, how you wouldn’t accept that. And I know how you tore her open and left us with this crazy witch in charge, and now she’s going to be the death of us all!”

Joan flips the switch as David motions her to. Rothwild screams yet again, his body convulsing. His eyes roll into the back of his head and his spittle flies from his mouth. David can see the perspiration, how his neck bulges with fat and how his shirt collar cuts into it, leaving behind an angry red imprint on the flesh. Pig. Filthy pig.

“You…” He trails off, staring dully into the corner before he can swallow and start again. “Your little wife here loves her work. I can tell.”

“Did you just call me his wife?” Joan takes her hand off the switch, moving it to her hip. “Because that’s f*****g hilarious.”

David doesn’t even look at her. “Gardenia.”

“Right. Right.” Rothwild nods. “Like I said. Kaldwin’s a witch. Gardenia is as well.”

“We knew that before we came here. What are they working on?”

“f**k if I know,” Rothwild spits. “They ask for whalebone, I give them whalebone. Kaldwin asks for blood to make paints? I give her the f*****g blood. You don’t deny the Lady Regent.”

“Really? Because that’s exactly what I did, and I turned out just fine,” Joan says.

David ignores her. “Where is the rest of their coven?”

“I don’t know that either!” Rothwild yells. “Half in Dunwall Tower-been completely overrun since the Empress died, flowers everywhere, a nightmare for a man with allergies. The others are at some hideout, with Gardenia. They only talk to Kaldwin and Luca, when he was alive, and the Chief Alchemist. I don’t know where the hideout is, only that it’s in Dunwall.”

“I could have told you that. Nobody can leave Dunwall.” David shifts on his feet. “You still haven’t told me Gardenia’s true identity.”

Rothwild laughs bitterly. “Even if I told you, the name would be useless to you.”

Lizzy’s hand hovers over the switch again, but David waves her off. “Stop. Let’s regroup,” he says, turning to Rinaldo. “Discuss our findings.”

They leave Abigail sulking in her seat, Rothwild still strapped to his chair. Joan locks the door behind them and they duck under some machinery, Rinaldo leaning back periodically to check for patrolling butchers.

“Why’d you stop me, old man?” Joan accuses. “I was having fun.”

David shakes his head. “This is going nowhere. Rothwild doesn’t know anything-he’s not part of the inner circle. He’s just a supplier she’s trying to keep happy.” He huffs. “This was a waste of time.”

“Not entirely,” Rinaldo says, smiling. “We can still get the name out of him. Might not be what we expected, but it’s something.”

“Yeah, David.” Joan stares at him through her mask. “Let me work my magic. Another shock or two and I’ll have him singing like a whale.”

“Uh, most of our workers have died after that many shocks, so…”

“Even better.”

David waves his hand to stop the argument. He can’t put it into words-why he doesn’t want to go down that route. How Lizzy’s frigid demeanor while she held down that switch bothered him. The way she watched Rothwild suffer without a hint of emotion in her voice. That with every mission they run, Joan got a little colder. A little more ruthless.

She likes wearing this mask.

“No,” he growls. “We’ll appease him somehow. Shouldn’t be too hard to get Rothwild to give up the name.”

It would be harder than expected. Because as they re-enter the meat locker, Joan loudly curses. David looks up to find blood splattered on the floor, Bundry Rothwild slumped over in his chair with an iron screwdriver sticking out of his neck. Dead.

Abigail Ames stands in front of him, and she folds her hands very nicely over her bloodied vest. “I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid that Mr. Rothwild is no longer with us.”

Joan curses yet again. Abigail starts rambling on about something, but Joan is on her in a second. She pushes Abigail to the floor and kicks her in the ribs, before turning and unlocking the cuffs keeping Rothwild’s corpse in place.

“What are you doing?!” Abigail cries as Joan grabs her by the collar, pulling her up and shoving her into the recently vacated seat. Rothwild’s body flops onto the ground, Lizzy’s heel digging into his hand as she pushes against Abigail and snaps the cuffs over her wrists.

David and Rinaldo are unable to do anything but stare.

“I’ve seen this work you know!” Abigail yells to her, as Joan turns back to the electrical switch. “I know how to resist it!”

“Good,” Joan snarls. “Then this should be fun.”

She pulls the lever. Abigail screams, and David is shaken out of his stupor.

He crosses the room in a fury as Joan pulls down the lever a second time. David grabs her by the midsection and pulls her back before she’s able to give Abigail a third shock. “No, no, f**k you David! She f****d with us! All to get us to do her dirty work for her!”

“Enough!” David roars.

Abigail’s head drifts around in a circle, as if she’s unbearably dizzy. “Oh, that...hurt more than I thought.”

Rinaldo is just now approaching, his eyes still wide. “Abigail? Why would you do that to us?”

“To you?” she says, but her eyes are still unfocused. “This was between me and Bundry.”

Joan makes as if to jump Abigail’s bones, but David pushes her back. “Stop. We can work this out.”

“How, by blowing up the damn factory for her?!” Joan yells.

Maybe. Maybe that would teach Joan some restraint. That they couldn’t just torture people into submission.

That’s what they were doing to Rothwild.

Rothwild was a sadistic pig of a man. What they did to him wasn’t torture; it was justice.

Abigail is a harpy. A chameleon of a woman, manipulating and self-serving. But she isn’t evil. She killed a man who had abused her. David would want Joan to do the same, if she was in her position.

The marks on his skin, the hot irons in Coldridge Prison. The near-drownings. The starvation, the beatings, the days and days where he wasn’t allowed to sleep…

No.

He’s not doing that to another human being. Not without cause. And he can’t find enough of it to justify doing this to Abigail.

David turns to her, purposely keeping his face as neutral as possible. “Tell me Gardenia’s true name.”

“If I tell you,” she says carefully. “You’ll just kill me.”

“You’re going to f*****g die either way,” Joan mutters, but David holds up a hand to stop her.

Rinaldo shakes his head. “If she dies, the secret dies with her. Catspaw, it’s not worth it.”

“Rin, calm your balls. There will be other bitches to sink them into!”

“We’ll do it.”

They both stop short, turning to stare at David, who stares Abigail down as he continues to speak.

“We’ll destroy the slaughterhouse,” he says. “And then you’ll give us the name. We’ll let you walk away from this. Does that sound fair?”

Abigail nods, almost dreamily. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s fair.”

“Fair?!” Joan shrieks. David just steps forward and lets Rinaldo deal with her. He’s not in the mood to control Lizzy.

“I’m going to leave you in this,” David says, tapping his finger on the chair. “Until you tell us that name, though. If you tell us now, I’ll let you go and do as you ask. I’m a man of my word.”

“I don’t trust you.” Abigail shakes her head. “I’ll wait. It should take about fifteen minutes for the pressure in the pipes to reach a critical point-and you won’t get that name until you let me go.”

“Deal.” David leans forward. “May I get the key from your pocket?”

In the background, Joan scoffs. Abigail just laughs. “A man asking me where he can put his hands-now I’ve seen everything.”

David instructs Joan and Rinaldo to clear the slaughterhouse. Hopefully everyone would leave when the alarms sounded, but he didn’t want anyone left behind, to die in the chaos. Not if they could help it.

He stresses that they are not to kill anyone unless their lives depended on it.

David watches the hallway from above, kneeling on the oil pipeline, hot enough he can feel it through his trousers. A few butchers still wander about, their saws drawn. Must be heavy as hell.

‘They’re armored in front,’ Sabrina tells him. ‘But not so tough in back.’

He can hear her smirk at the implication. It’s useful information-just not the kind he cares for Sabrina to concern herself with. As Empress, she wouldn’t have looked at her subject’s uniform and immediately searched it for weak points. (well, maybe she would have, but for defensive purposes) She would have noted how the steel aprons and helmets with the faceguards would protect the workers from bone shards and other hazards of their jobs, minimizing injury. She would have picked on the face that they wore no neck protection, that there apparently was no standard footwear and that some wore shoes more prone to slipping than what should be acceptable, than what was safe.

She’s looking at the world a different way. If it were someone else, David would consider that a good thing. But there was nothing wrong with how Sabrina saw things before. He loved the way she saw challenges as opportunities to test her skills, how she saw flaws as details to improve. He admired it.

Now, she thinks and sees just like him. And David never wanted that for her.

The butcher passes by his perch, and David turns to examine his back. The armor stops at the shoulders, but a large backpack covers much of the unprotected cloth and flesh. A backpack, David notes, holding tanks of whale oil. Another hazard that Sabrina would have found issue with. But for David, they’re large grenades on the backs of his enemies. They would get in the way of choking the men out, but could be detonated easily.

Hopefully something he wouldn’t need to exploit. But it was there, if he did.

He’d prefer to not be seen. David doesn’t want to tangle with the butchers at all-those saws were made to cut through meat and bone. His own armor was meant to absorb impact, not deflect it. It would be little protection against the whirling blades. Even a drop-attack on a butcher carrying a saw was too dangerous to attempt.

According to Abigail’s explanation, there were four valves he would need to open. Two in the hallways surrounding Rothwild’s office, one in the area where they kept the live whale, and one on the Butchering floor, where the whalemeat was shorn from its bones.

David Blinks around in the circle, planning out his route. He likes having definitive plans for things, especially if they’re time-sensitive. He could think on his feet, had to with a skillset like his, but he prefers knowing where things are. Makes things easier. More reliable. Once the valves were opened, he couldn’t afford to be slowed down. He couldn’t afford to f**k up. Just like he couldn’t screw up while protecting the Empress.

The whale is just as loud as always, back on the killing floor. David tries his best to ignore her as he watches the butchers, trying to memorize their patterns.

‘She mourns. She will never see her family again.’

The whale would die when the factory went up in flames. It would be a half-hour, at max, until her suffering was ended. Wasn’t that good enough?

No, and David knows it. The whale might be cooked alive by the flames, but her thick blubber would insulate her organs from the heat. Keep her alive, feeling herself bleed and burn. The factory collapsing might do her in, the fall from the ceiling and the tons of brick and concrete that would crush her. But a creature this size, it might not. She might be left in the rubble, suffering for hours.

If David had to choose, and Sabrina had to die, he would have wished for something faster. Something less painful. In her sleep, perhaps. Even a direct headshot or a knife to the throat, as messy and unfitting that would be, would at least have been fast enough that she wouldn’t have realized what was happening. Might not have had the time to feel pain. David doesn’t wish for poison, though. They’ve both been poisoned before, him several times, and though they were always treated in time, they weren’t experiences David would wish upon her. Upon anybody.

‘Why have they been made to suffer like this? Who deserves this unspeakable horror?’

No, David would put this whale down now. That was kind. That was right.

Checking as one butcher ascends the steps and leaves the power box unattended, David Blinks over. He’d need two barrels of whale oil to give this thing enough power to kill the whale in one blow. The first he Pulls towards him. The second proves trickier. There are several barrels on the other side of the floor, David can see, but they are too far away.

He Blinks to the other side, not even wasting the time to check the other butchers’ positions. He grabs the tank and throws it with all his might, Blinking again as it arcs through the air and catches it again. He shoves the second tank in and hears the system hum with power.

‘Just a little longer. It will be over soon, my dear.’

David checks once more to ensure the coast is clear. He Blinks to the controls, looking up into the whale’s eye one last time. She stares back, sorrowful and understanding. He mumbles “I’m sorry” under his breath and hopes she’s heard.

Then he pulls the lever.

The whale shrieks with pain, electricity sparkling at her eyeballs and her flippers flailing about. She gives one last heave, then her mouth flops open. And she hangs in the air.

‘Rest well, little one,’ Sabrina whispers.

David grimaces as the butchers rush over to examine the whale, prodding her blubber and bitching about how it wasn’t time for slaughter, they still have oil to extract and the carcass was going to stink up the whole place now. The meat would rot before they could harvest it.

But she was silent. David’s ears ring with the absence, the lack of moaning he’s been hearing since entering this Outsider-forsaken slaughterhouse. And David isn’t sure what to feel now.

The butchers are still clustered, and David takes the opportunity to Blink over to the oil valve and get it flowing. He takes one last look at the dead whale, remembering Granny’s task. So when the butchers wander over to the power system, trying to figure out how it fired, David Blinks atop the whale, readying his sword.

Portside eye. Right. David isn’t a f*****g sailor.

“Billie, which side is portside?” he whispers. She would know. She wanted to be a sailor.

‘Ships always pull into port with the dock at the left side,’ she says. He moves left, and her voice comes wafting back. ‘No, their left.’

“Be more specific then!” he hisses. He quickly jams his sword into the eye socket and works the eyeball loose. It pops as he pulls it out, shaking it free of discharge and shoving it into his pocket. It’s much smaller than he expected. Fits neatly into his palm.

From there, he makes his way to the Butchering floor. Less butchers wandering here, ironically, though that was probably due to there being no whale to butcher. David would guess that, in peak operation, there would be a whale in each of the stations. Up ahead, he can see where a partial whale skeleton sits for disassembly. Now only two out of the three stations are occupied, and there’s nothing but bloodstains here where a whale would sit.

It’s to David’s advantage. After he opens this valve, the alarm will go off. He’ll need to make a swift getaway.

He Blinks and slides down the stairs, huddling slightly so none of the butchers see his movement. This valve is under the whale dock, which makes him incredibly glad this station isn’t in use. He shoves the key into the valve and turns.

The alarms start blaring as soon as the valve is all the way open. David yanks the key free and shoves it back into his pocket, turning to leave.

“Hey, who the f**k are you?”

A butcher hops off the last step, his saw already spinning as he approaches. David waits. Watches as the butcher encroaches on him.

Then he Blinks. Puts one boot on the bottom step, torcs around and sends a bolt into the butcher’s oil pack with a snap of his wristbow. The canister of whale oil explodes, and the butcher falls face-down onto the bloody concrete. He doesn’t move. David turns and runs up the steps.

The factory is in pandemonium by now. Butchers running around, trying to figure out the source of the alarms. Whether because no one ever bothered to go over what the alarms meant with them or because the butchers are just that thick, David doesn’t know, but it’s no matter.

He Blinks to the back hallway and opens the last two valves in quick succession. Once the fourth is open, he starts his internal countdown. The slaughterhouse had emergency systems in place to handle an overflow-they will have kicked in by now, draining the excess oil away. Four open valves would be too much for them to handle, overload the safety protocol. Then the pressure would spiral out of control.

And David needs to be far, far away from here when that happens.

He returns to the meat locker, where Abigail still sits in the interrogation chair. She raises her head as he approaches.

“Took you long enough,” she laughs weakly. “Was starting to think you weren’t coming.”

“I’m a lot of things, Abigail, but I’m no liar.”

“Hmm.” She lets her head hit the backrest with a thunk.

David steps in front of her, absentmindedly kicking away Rothwild’s body. “Time is short. Tell me who Gardenia is.”

“Let me out of this chair first.”

He does. She should know, by now, that she couldn’t run away from him. David would catch her. She’d tell him her secret, or he’d put her right back in this chair. Leave her to die.

Abigail rubs her wrists as she gets to her feet. She bites her bottom lip, looking worried, but only for a brief moment. “Look, Bundry was right when he said the name will be of limited use to you. I know a name, but just the one.”

“One more name than we know.”

“Very true,” she agrees, looking almost chipper again. “if you’re really in this to take down that witch of a Regent, then all I can say is good luck. And I truly hope that this name is of use to you. Ashworth.”

David watches Abigail from above as she makes her way to the docks. He doesn’t really care what she’ll do now-Rinaldo will find her and Jonas someplace to lie low, so it’s up to her to stay alive. But he promised she’d walk away from this if she gave him the name. David keeps his promises.

The name he reflects on as he Blinks across the yard once again, as the slaughterhouse rumbles behind him. Ashworth. It’s familiar. A noble family, he knows it has to be. But he remembers nothing past that. No faces. Not even the memory of names on a guest list, scrawled in Billie’s weirdly uneven handwriting.

He could deal with it later, though. Once he’s back in Draper’s Ward. Someone would figure out the connection, and they’d go from there.

David pauses on top of the sign at the entrance to the slaughterhouse, scanning the yard. He saw few people inside, everyone already running for the exit. Hopefully the alarm would do as intended and get everyone evacuated before the whole facility went up in smoke. He turns and slips into Granny’s lair, a mere block away from the alley where he agreed to meet up with Rinaldo and Lizzy.

He drops the whale eye in the pot, grimacing a bit as it simmers. Then there’s a scream. A word in no language that has ever graced human ears, screaming like a overheated kettle. Unworldly and inhuman. And the stone plinth comes alight, a figure of bone forming from the flames.

Okay. The f**k.

David just shakes his head to himself, and plucks up the rune. It was Granny Rags. His life would be simpler if he didn’t allow his thoughts to linger on hers.

He slides the rune into his pocket, and a strange sense of uneasiness comes over him. David stands there, blinking, trying to determine the source.

Then it hits his gut.

There’s no way to explain it. No way to connect the symptoms, his racing heart and how the pit of his stomach drops out from under him. The panic. He just knows that she’s in trouble, Lizzy’s in trouble, he knows it and he knows where she is and he has to go help her.

David turns, ready to set out, when he feels something prick his neck. His hand comes up to feel it, his fingers closing around something long, hard. He plucks it, ignores the slight pain, and pulls away a dart with the last remnants of green sleep concoction rolling around inside of it.

His head begins to feel heavy, but besides that, there’s nothing. David’s been sleep-darted before, so he knows how it’s supposed to feel. It wasn’t working on him. The Mark worked against that as well.

The thought is barely finished before David’s vision goes dark. There’s something on his face, thick and scratchy, and he torcs his head back and forth to try and get it off. Whoever is behind him goes to work on pulling the bag tight over his head, tries to tie it off at the nape of his neck.

His hands are grabbed before he can reach for his sword, and his captors pull. One hand on each of his wrists, one on the outerside of his elbows, pushing and locking them in place. David struggles, but even with his unnatural strength, he can’t shake them free.

“The sleep dart had no effect on him.”

Their voices are stiff, droll. Muffled, as if they’re wearing masks.

The person holding his left hand pulls off his glove, runs their finger under the wrappings. “Woodpecker was right. The Outsider has chosen to Mark him.”

David listens carefully, then shifts his weight to punch out where he’s determined the voice to be. They dodge it, however. Easily.

“Put another two in.” It’s a female voice this time, to his right. “The King and Queen have tested this. It took three darts to properly subdue her Majesty.”

David would like to think it was his fighting instinct that allowed him to shake them off. That the fright of hearing that they had a way to knock David unconscious, combined with the fact that Joan was still slamming whatever panic button that was installed on their arcane connection, gave him the burst of adrenaline needed to break free. And maybe that was true. But for the most part, it was anger. Anger at the name, that they had the nerve to use that title. That no one had any right to be called Majesty besides the Empress herself.

David pulls his hand free. And Blinks.

His feet find air, and David falls. The landing knocks the breath out of him, but he can finally pull that accursed hood from his eyes.

The sky is bright orange, through the haze of smoke that’s beginning to settle over the district. Above him, three figures with beaked masks peer over the edge of the balcony.

David’s not stupid enough to try and fight them from here. They have the high ground-literally, in this case. He’d be at a disadvantage. But, as David grits his teeth, he almost doesn’t care.

He Blinks to the top of the entrance sign again, and before the Cardinals can react, he Pulls one from the balcony. The Cardinal seems almost surprised, head on a pivot, as David suspends them in the air.

Another Cardinal appears to his right. Fine with him-he’d let their friend go. David releases his Pull and allows the Cardinal to fall.

He forgets that they can Blink, which the Cardinal does as their friend rounds on David. He parries, goes in for the stab, only to have the Cardinal waft away like smoke.

David turns, eyes scanning for another victim to appease his anger. He spies the last Cardinal, still waiting on the balcony, their sword drawn and dancing back and forth as if waiting for him.

David leaps off the sign. He goes in for the kill, his sword out and ready to shove through the Cardinal’s neck.

The Cardinal, who disappears into blue smoke and feathers the second before he lands. David catches himself, cursing as he lands.

David straightens up again, readies his sword, but no one appears to face him. He looks around, scans the area with Void Gaze just to be sure. But they’re gone.

The Cardinals are gone.

David grits his teeth. He wants nothing more than to track them, to hunt them down and rip their hearts out.

But Lizzy.

Lizzy’s in the alleyway, right where she said she’d be. Somehow, she ran into trouble there. David doesn’t know how. But he was going to find out. Help out.

“Why didn’t you warn me about them?!” David spits to her as he Blinks across the yard, intending on approaching from the rooftops. If Sabrina had told him about the Cardinals watching him, he could have killed them before they attacked. Could have gotten to Joan all the sooner.

‘They exist in a place a fog. I cannot see through it. They are everywhere, and nowhere.’

Well, that was inconvenient. f**k. He can’t be mad at Sabrina for it. He knows she tries her best.

Joan is close now. He can feel her panic, her fear, and if he listens hard enough he swears he can hear her thoughts, wondering where he is and why she can’t fight this off and if David will even bother saving her.

He steps across the rooftop, sliding through the space between two buildings. To his side, another piece of graffiti stands out. Billie’s face, her formal portrait, spray-painted over the frost-covered bricks.

David doesn’t allow his eyes to linger on it for more than the second it takes to confirm what it is. Sabrina is dead. He can’t save her. Joan needs his help now.

The sound reaches his ears before he sees them. Low, grinding, and painful enough he thinks his ears might bleed.

They have Lizzy. Three Overseers, all gathered around her. One busies himself cranking a large music box strapped to his chest. Her body hunched over, whether from pain or from the weight of the large butcher’s saw strapped to her back, he cannot say.

When David gets closer to the edge, it confirms what he already suspected. He knows what the Ancient Music is, what it supposedly does. And now he finds out that, unlike pretty much everything else the Abbey creates, it actually does what it’s intended to do.

It blocks his magic. Blocks Lizzy’s as well, if the way she cowers and shakes with her hands over her ears is any indication.

“You have long fingers, like a woman’s,” the Overseer in front of her remarks coldly. “I bet they break easily. Tell me of the shrines, heretic. Tell me about the blood rituals you perform to earn His favor.”

Joan doesn’t respond. David’s not even sure if she can hear him, with that music box right in her ear. David is twenty feet up and even his ears hurt from the sound.

There’s a snuffling sound. And David realizes that Joan is crying.

The rage carries him. David takes a few steps back, then sprints to the edge.

He jumps. Fires one bolt into the music box, catching it in the gears and silencing the damn thing. He falls onto the Overseer who threatened to break Lizzy’s fingers. Pulls him back by the mask fastener to get to the fleshy part of his neck, and inserts his sword through it.

Joan snaps back to attention as soon as the music stops playing. She jumps and disappears into the air.

On the ground, the Overseer with the music box still puzzles over its apparent jam, trying desperately to pull the bolt out before David can strike again. Across the alley, the other Overseer readies a grenade. David merely slides forward when he throws it, passing the Overseer by, and allowing the grenade to bounce off the now-defunct music box and blow both the box and its player to bits. Before the remaining Overseer can turn his head, David springs to his feet and quickly slides his sword through the back of his neck.

‘Always a pleasure, watching you work.’ Billie’s voice startles him as he ascends to the rooftops to check on Lizzy. ‘Seems to me there’s always something more to learn about pain .’

His, if the pang in his chest was any indication.

Joan is standing on the rooftop above, waiting for him.

“I...thank you,” she breathes. David reaches forward and puts his hand on her shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. We should go, though. In case their friends have hounds.”

The hounds would be able to find them over land, but they’d be lost once David and Joan are in Melusine. David shakes his head. When they’re safe, he intends to ask her how the hell she allowed herself to be captured. Tell her she’s only alive because David came to her aid. Remind her that he might not be there the next time she gets herself into trouble.

But this can wait. And, when David glances around, it’s not nearly his primary concern.

“Where’s Rinaldo?”

Joan is still breathing hard. “He went back for her,” she says without even a hint of resentment. “Abigail.”

David is going to strangle him.

“She’s out!” He throws his hands up. “I got her out, she went to her...the place is going to explode!”

“I told him.” Joan shrugs. “He was intent on it.”

Fuck.

“Go.” He motions. “Go wait in the skiff for me. I’ll go after Rinaldo.”

Joan disappears without argument. David allows himself exactly five seconds to huff and be angry about it. Then he’s off.

The drain would take too long, and he doubts Rinaldo is on the killing floor anyway. David rounds to the loading dock he saw earlier. He slips in and comes out above the packing area.

Rinaldo is wandering the area where they process the bones, seemingly oblivious to the bursting pipes rattling off in the distance. David lands and runs to him.

“What the f**k are you still doing in here?”

Rinaldo turns to him with a gasp. “David! I can’t find-”

“Abigail is with her friend,” he says harshly. “I said I’d let her go!”

Rinaldo at least has the humility to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I just thought-”

“It doesn’t matter, just get the f**k out!” David turns him around and shoves him in the direction of the exit. “We’ll contact you if we need you again! Just don’t f*****g die!”

David turns to backtrack towards his entrance, only pausing to check and make sure Rinaldo is leaving.

He’s not. Rinaldo made it about five steps before he stopped again. “David, where are you going?” He has to scream to be heard above the c*****e, motioning behind him. “The exit is this way!”

David waves him off. “I’ll find my own way out! Don’t worry!”

The dock would be faster. And he risked being seen if he exited out the main door.

Rinaldo still looks unsure, but he turns and hauls ass out of there. David waits until he’s sure Rinaldo’s actually left, pausing to examining the large industrial bone grinder built into the floor. All jagged teeth on metal gears, meant to tear apart and crush the hardest of materials in an instant. Talk about a safety hazard there.

David exits the facility for the final time. If the place isn’t empty by now, then whoever stayed behind f*****g deserves to be left.

Now he just has to Blink far enough to clear the coastal shelf, swim out to Lizzy’s boat. David takes a knee and scans the water, searching for the speck of grey and brown that was Melusine. He worries that Joan ran into more trouble. That she didn’t make it back to the boat. But then he spots the skiff, sees the blue of Lizzy’s coat and Granny Rags’s grey head. He stands up.

Then several things happen at once, too fast for David to comprehend.

There’s a hiss, high in the air, and a thunderous clap that nearly deafens David. There’s a burst of light reflecting against the river water, the same color scheme that makes up the evening sky only much, much brighter. And something hot against his back.

David is in the air. He tumbles forward, he sees his feet against the sky and notes that’s wrong somehow, and then he can look back at the slaughterhouse. The roof and about half the side wall is gone, replaced by a pillar of fire larger than any whale he’s ever seen. He thinks, as bricks and rubble rain down from the sky, that he can imagine the whale he just murdered in this. A mass of flames, a whale reborn in fire, rising up to take another bite.

Then he’s looking at the sky again. He’s too far up. He’s not going to survive this fall. David wonders if he should try to Blink, but to where? He’s remembering physics now, Billie’s f*****g physics lessons, about the laws of motion and all that bullshit. No, he’s going too fast now. His velocity is preserved in his Blink-he’s tested this. All Blinking will do is bring him closer to whatever surface he’s going to splat again.

He shifts forward again, and he’s looking down at the water. So that, then. If he could figure out which direction to Blink to, he might be able to overshoot the coastal shelf. But would the surface tension of the water still kill him? Probably. He can’t really find the energy to try and find out.

His body is no longing arcing through the air. Now he’s falling properly, the water coming at him frighteningly fast but still so slow he has time to think on it.

Was this how Sabrina felt, falling to her own death? David’s thought about it a lot, even though he prefers not to. He wonders if she was conscious for this part. How much she was really aware of. Did she die like he’s going to, her body breaking against the rocks? Did she survive the initial fall, were her last moments spent under the water, filled with panic and lacking in air, floating in a cloud of her own blood? Or was the last thing she saw the blue summer sky against her shoes, blood loss putting her to sleep before her body even hit the waves?

Maybe he’ll ask her, when he sees her again.

Getting closer. f**k, he broke his promise. Anthony  will never forgive him.

This was fitting. A legitimate end to such an illegitimate person. His body cast into the Wrenhaven, just as Billie’s was, after setting alight a pyre worthy of an Empress. Something poetic about it. Maybe they’d write songs about the whole ordeal.

It’ll be fast, at least. And David hopes, selfishly, that it won’t hurt.

Did dying hurt? He should have asked her, when he had the chance. He knew she felt pain beforehand. As did he. Not enough, though.

It would be over soon. Maybe then Sabrina could be free. They could see each other again.

The water is almost at his nose. No, forget it. This was going to hurt like hell.

David braces himself as he hits the water. It feels like a cold kind of fire, like pouring vinegar on raw skin. Like a slap.

The water does nothing to slow his fall. David plummets down and smashes his head against the rocky bottom of the coastal shelf. White fills his head, a searing-hot pain spreading over his skull.  Pain seizes up in his muscles and pushes his bones through his skin. For a moment he is a burst of fire, a human torch kept impossibly lit underwater, reality pulling him two ways. And David feels like a phoenix, alight and flying. Then, everything is black.