The Queen's Champion

Chapter 10

After the announcement, Zhukov and Galia immediately rushed off to meet with their spies at Dunwall Tower. To which David thought, ‘We have spies at Dunwall Tower?’

Quinn Fleet, for one, was not only stationed at Dunwall Tower and therefore in Delilah’s warpath everyday, but was funneling information back to her sister and by extension, their conspiracy. David appreciates it, though he worries for her safety. He liked Quinn. And to top it off, she was one of the few women Sabrina actually got along with. He didn’t want to see her hurt.

Most of Billie’s guard and staff had jumped ship when Delilah took over, some out of disgust over David’s accusal, but most just to save their own necks. Delilah was quick to root out those who remained loyal to the old Empress. And almost everyone fell victim to her suspicions, unfounded or not.

She had Dimitri burned alive, Brendan and Finn drowned. One night she summoned Patrick to her studio. Nobody knew exactly what happened to him. Misha had been hauled out to face death by firing squad, but on the way to the targeting range she had twisted out of her captors grasp and vaulted over the Tower wall, jumped into the ocean. She broke both her legs and would likely never walk without assistance again, but she survived to tell the story. Supposedly Fisher was taking care of her now, their exact location kept secret.

There were other names given, maids and cooks and tutors. David noted, thankfully, that Anthony ’s last governess had fled to the countryside the moment Delilah took power and was therefore spared the purge. Anthony  had grown out of a need for a governess five years ago, but Sabrina had kept her on to teach the other children at Dunwall Tower. (A perk of working for the Crown, she had spun it, when her advisors ridiculed the program. Work at Dunwall Tower, food and lodging provided for and your kids get a free education. Sabrina never had an issue with unloyal servants) Anthony  had a rash of bad governesses himself, but he had the last one for nearly three years and was calling her his aunt by the end. He’s glad she escaped in time. David had liked her, and Anthony didn’t need another tragedy weighing on him.

Even with Delilah’s murder spree, there were still a few brave souls willing to work undercover. Vladko and Leonid both still worked in the Tower proper, alongside Quinn. Thorpe and Yuri were stationed outside the gates. Akila and Marco were overseeing dead counters, and apparently Julian doing some of his own assassin work on the side while working in the Watch, taking out Delilah supporters.

The love for Sabrina was alive and well.

Galia came back that night haggard and defeated, a worried look in her sunken eyes. Thalia had called an emergency meeting, one that Anthony  was explicitly not to know about. Lydia creatively got rid of him by asking him and Rose to take Reed outside to play, as it was such a nice evening, and shouldn’t a boy his age be playing instead of working all the time? David rolled his eyes and fist-bumped her under the table, though it seemed to startle her more than anything.

David slides into his usual seat next to Lizzy, who hasn’t moved since Jerome first dumped her there. Everyone else takes their place, with Galia sitting instead at the head of the table instead of the seat next to David.

“Zhukov is still out doing reconnaissance,” Galia says, rubbing her temples. “I-”

Paul scoffs. “What the f**k is that supposed to mean? He’s out at all hours doing Outsider-knows-f**k, do you even know where he is?”

“No.” Galia slams her palms down on the table. “No, I do not know where Zhukov is, but I trust he knows what he’s looking for.”

“And...what is that exactly?” Joan c***s her head. “We found the Emperor. I was under the impression that was the whole point of this thing.”

David breathes in slowly. “Is there something actually important we gathered here to discuss?” He shifts his gaze over to Thalia. “And is there a reason Anthony , the person who will soon be ruling an Empire , was not allowed to sit in?”

Thalia flips her hand as if to dismiss him. “The young lord has been through so much lately. William thinks it best if we avoid stressing him out for the time being.”

David turns to Joan and whispers. “Who?”

She rolls her eyes. “Trimble,” she spits.

Ah.

Lydia is already laying the back of her hand over her forehead. “May we please start the meeting already? I have a terrible headache and would like to retire soon.”

“Alright, princess,” Galia says in a snippy tone. Then she clasps her hands together and sets them on the table. “Like I was saying , I went out to talk with some of our spies. Leonid was even able to sneak me in to see some of the damage. It’s…” she pauses to consider her next words. “It was bad. This was a high scale assault, and a lot of Overseers are dead.”

“No real loss there,” Edgar snorts.

Joan leans forward. “How many are we talking here, Blondie?”

“Several dozen. Fifty, at the absolute least.” There’s the sound of everyone sucking in air through their teeth.

“Shiiiit.”

The door opens and Jerome comes meekly trailing in, his hands shoved into his coat pockets. Paul wads up a piece of paper and throws it at him.

“Where the f**k were you? And where’s Dress-dude?”

“I have an actual job, Paulson. I was busy.” He jerks his thumb behind him. “The Dressmaker’s out playing with the kids. Figured nobody would mind. He usually doesn’t contribute much to these meetings.”

“Dude, that’s not even my name. It’s not short for anything.”

Joan smacks Jerome’s arm as he sits down. “Thanks a lot, it was just me and David on this side of the table. Made it look like we smell or something.”

“You smell like rotten fish, Lizzy,” David says as he sips his tea.

“Anyway,” Galia exhales. The door opens again and she throws up her hands.

“Apologies. Nobody bothered to inform me we were having a meeting.” Trimble pats Thalia’s head as he comes up behind her, then casting a disapproving glare at Lizzy. She shoots him the finger.

“That’s because you never bother to come.”

Trimble stops before Galia’s chair, fixing her with an intense stare that has her drop her jaw. Then, muttering something under her breath, Galia shifts out of the chair and into her usual seat, as Trimble takes the head.

David has to scoot his chair to make room for her, and immediately scrunches his shoulders up. His elbows bump against the two ladies on both sides of him. He suddenly feels too big for his chair.

“Alright,” Trimble says as he gets settled. “You may proceed. What did I miss?”

“I went out,” Galia says through gritted teeth. “Checked on the situation at Dunwall Tower. A f**k-ton of Overseers died.”

“That’s a cause for concern, though.” Lydia elegantly lays her hands on the table. “The number you quoted is far too high to be considered ‘a fringe group’. Especially when you consider the six that escaped. A group that large would never be able to keep the attack a secret.”

“Not to mention not everyone in on it would be staging the assault,” Paul says. “At least a few people would be left behind to do damage control. Probably more.”

Galia nods grimly. “That’s what I kept hearing. There were too many, and they had way too much firepower for it to be a renegade group. They completely sabotaged the water lock-that thing is not going to be working any time soon. And part of the garden, which I think infuriated the Regent more.”

David thinks on the explosives and weapons in Holger Square. So his hunch was right. They were going to war.

He just didn’t think they’d be going to war against Delilah.

“So it was an Abbey decision.” Joan nods as she sips from her own tea. “High Overseer Martin just threw them under the bus when their little assassination plan didn’t go as planned.”

“I don’t know how much you can really blame on Martin,” Jerome says as he rubs his eye. “He became High Overseer literally an hour before this happened. And the Ass-End Circle or whatever in charge of choosing the new High Overseer, they were probably too busy with that to be planning rebellions.”

“But the rest of the Overseers are guilty as f**k,” Edgar says proudly.

Trimble holds his fingers to his mouth. “That doesn’t make any sense, though. The Regent has given them free reign while they enforce martial law. The Overseers love power. Why would they want to kill her?”

“Oh, probably because Delilah is a witch,” Joan says nonchalantly, and immediately takes a long drink of her tea in order to give everyone the proper time to dramatically gasp.

“What?” Thalia holds her hand to her heart. “That’s-don’t joke about that, Miss Catspaw, that’s not something-”

“Overseers already tried to kill her, how much worse can it get?” Joan pours herself another cup and dumps a clump of sugar in. Lydia straightens out her collar.

“I’m not surprised. There have been rumors for years, about bonecharm usage and putting spells on men-” She leans forward, dropping her aloof act. “But do you have proof? Is she actually Marked by the Outsider?”

David instinctively lays his right hand over his left. Joan just shrugs and begins vigorously stirring her sugar in. “Don’t know about a Mark, but David and I talked to a creepy statue she possessed at Thalia’s uncle’s place.”

“What?!” Galia turns to him with wide, frightened eyes. “David! She saw you?”

“No, sorry.” Joan takes a drink and makes a face. “I talked to her. Kept the mask on. David peeped from outside the door like the creep he is.” She pushes her teacup to Jerome’s place. “Here, you drink this. Way too f*****g sweet, if you ask me.”

Thalia looks like she might spontaneously faint, but unfortunately she doesn’t. “You mean to tell me,” she says, her face white. “That statue-the one on the top floor? That’s her?” She buries her face in her hand. “By the Void.”

Edgar glares at her. “You didn’t talk about, like, this, ” He holds out his arms as if to motion to the table. “-in front of her, did you? Because I swear on the Outsider’s ass, Thalia-”

She shakes her head, fingers still covering her eyes. “No, I-”

Paul takes a bite of an apple he’s seemed to produce from thin air. “She f****d a guy in front of it once.”

“Paul!”

“I’m just saying.” He shrugs.

Thalia finally lowers her hands and shakes her head. “It’s not that, it’s just... creepy.”

“Oh, very.” Joan examines her broken, dirty nails. “By the way, I told her David was dead, so at least she’ll be looking for his corpse now instead of him. So nobody kill him and dump his body in the sewer for the next few days, mmmkay?”

“Why do we need to put a time limit on that?” David raises his hand. “Why can’t that just be a permanent thing?”

“So the details are working themselves out,” Trimble derails, scratching at a notebook David hadn’t seen him produce.

Great, he was one of those people. David hated people who f*****g took notes during regular-ass conversation. Well, Sabrina had to have a scribe take notes for her most of the time, but that was different. Her thoughts were actually important.

“Well, we have a motive, at least.” Lydia shrugs. “It’s...very concerning that the Abbey would so brazenly attack the Regent. Especially during a period of interregnum such as this.” She taps her lip thoughtfully. “Unseating the Regent without a known ruler would cause chaos in the best of conditions. And Dunwall is far from the best of conditions.”

Joan shrugs, looking nonplussed. “Well, we know they don’t got a spare heir tucked under their skirts. Because we got him.”

“Yes. And that speaks magnitudes of how desperate the Abbey must be.” Lydia purses her lips.

Edgar stretches and gets to his feet. “Well, it also says oodles about how incompetent they are as a fighting force, if fifty of them couldn’t take out one witch.”

“You tell that to all our dead men and women in the water, Wakefield.” Joan takes an angry sip of a brown bottle she produces from her pocket. Considering how tight she wears her pants, David has no idea how she fit it in.

“That actually brings me to my second point.” And Galia looks nervous now, waiting for Joan to glare at Edgar hard enough to bring his ass back down to his chair, grumbling all the way. “The attack...should have worked. Leonid was stationed on top of the Tower, and he watched the whole thing through his spyglass. Talked about...women, screaming men to death. Overseers shooting Delilah’s attendants, only to have their bullets turn into bloodflies.”

David suppresses a shudder at the mention of bloodflies.

“I thought he was just in shock,” Galia continued. “But if Delilah’s truly a witch, it makes sense. All those women she brought on, they must be her coven.” She runs one finger over her smooth, rounded nails, painted soft pink. “Delilah herself was apparently batting away grenades with a badminton racket.”

Delilah and Sabrina used to play badminton with each other frequently. Sabrina didn’t particularly like the sport itself-it was something noblewomen were supposed to enjoy, so she took what pleasure she could in hitting things and wearing shirts that didn’t come down to her wrists. She was stronger than most of her opponents, but Delilah was one person she didn’t beat on a regular basis. They were weirdly competitive about it. David never played much attention to the game itself-he watched because it was his job, but he wasn’t keeping score.

“Badass. Too bad she’s a b***h,” Paul snorts.

“Very badass. But it puts a hitch in our plans.” Galia bites her lip. “Delilah might be harder to kill than we anticipated, David.”

“That won’t be a problem,” David says without emotion. “I’ll find some way to kill her.”

If she’s hard to kill, all the better. He can take more time with it. Make her suffer for it. Anticipate. She’ll have time to be afraid.

“So what’s our next move?” Joan thunks her elbow down on the table, aiming her pointed look at Trimble, who is still scribbling away in his notebook. He looks up after a minute, no doubt feeling the heat of eight stares on his balding head.

“What?”

“What’s our next move?” Joan repeats. “You know, since you seem to wanna be in charge and everything.”

“Oh, no.” Trimble waves her off and resumes writing. “I’m just here to observe for now. Gather thoughts.”

“Well aren’t you f*****g useless.” Joan snarls.

Trimble looks like he’s about to retort, but Lydia speaks up before he has the ability. “I think this all poses an interesting question, moving forward with our operation. Does Delilah’s magic come from her coven, or does her coven draw power from her?”

“That’s a good question, Lids.” Paul rubs at his eye. “Gails, can we put a spy in her coven? Is that even a thing that’s possible?”

“I don’t know.” Galia stares at the wood grains. David slams down his teacup with a little more force than necessary.

“No. Even if we could pull it off, it’s too dangerous for whoever we plant.” He shakes his head. “Finding a turncoat would be ideal, someone who wants out and is willing to spill Delilah’s secrets. But we’d have to be careful that they’re not playing us either.” He focuses on the chip in his teacup, the coffee stain on the rim. “Reed decoded the entirety of Abele’s dossiers, right?”

Galia blinks. “Most of them. What he didn’t finish Jerome and I can use his key to translate.”

“We can what now?” Jerome jerks awake.

“Good, good.” David tosses back the last of his tea, burning the edge of his tongue. “There might be answers there. They might use codenames, but it’ll give us more than what we have now.”

Galia smiles. “Sounds like a solid plan, boss.”

David settles back in his seat as Jerome whips his head around. “ What’s the plan? Guys, what’s going on?”

“Okay, so Thalia, Edgar, Zhukov and I will comb through the dossiers, see if we can learn anything about Delilah’s coven.” Galia’s back is straight, proper, and her expression nearly perky again. “We’ll call on your help if we need it, Lydia. Jerome, keep an ear out for news in your circles. If you hear anything about magic or witchcraft bring it straight to us, even if it sounds inconsequential.”

“O...kay?”

“Lizzy, your job is to rest up and not injure yourself further,” Galia continues, craning her neck to see her behind David’s back. “David, I guess...just keep doing what you’re doing?” She shrugs. “I feel weird giving you orders.”

“I’m not the Royal Protector right now,” he grunts. “I’m not your boss.”

“Right, well then...just keep being a badass, I guess.”

Jerome gets up and yawns, stretches his arms over his head. Joan makes grabby motions with her hands in his direction. “Take thee princess to bed, I command you!”

“I’m gonna throw you off the roof,” Jerome grumbles, but he does scoop Joan up in his arms.

David watches in mild amusement, hiding his smirk behind his empty teacup. Lydia rolls her eyes and gets to her feet, waggling her eyebrows at David over the table. “Good night, you strange creatures.”

David settles into bed feeling the closest he’s come to content in a long while, listening to the crackling of his fire and imagining all the different ways he can kill Delilah’s witches. He drifts off to sleep with pleasantly little tossing and turning.

The next thing he sees is his sturdy, expensive boots against the floor of the pavilion.

“Your hair is so difficult…” Anthony  complains. David looks up to see him with his hands buried in Billie’s updo, trying to pin up her hair.

He’s back in Dunwall Tower. Back on that day .

It’s not unusual for him to dream about it. f**k, in Coldridge it was a regular installation in his nightmares. But he’s...he’s remembering Coldridge. He remembers the conspiracy, killing Abele, rescuing Anthony . He remembers being Marked by the Outsider, as surely as he can feel the Mark simmer over his flesh. He remembers everything.

And he remembers what happens next.

David looks towards the two, the Empress and her little brother. Anthony  is still yammering away about plague-fighting methods. David’s been dropped in earlier, maybe two minutes before the assassins show up. Or maybe they’re watching them now, waiting for an opening.

Either way, David doesn’t have time to waste thinking about it.

Sabrina turns to him, her mouth open with some bullshit about his party on her tongue-and oh, David wants to melt at the sight of her. Regal, beautiful, alive. Her dark skin flushed with blood, her eyes bright and still sitting in her skull where they belong. Her stomach lining intact. Her smile drops when she sees his expression, her brown, glossy lipstick shimmering ever so slightly as the afternoon sunlight hits her face. “David? Is something wrong?”

He opens his mouth, but what was there to say? Instead he pushes his emotions down, and darts forward.

Anthony  yelps as David roughly grabs him by the elbow. David hadn’t realized how much weight Anthony  had lost-his stomach and arms are padded where they were bony when David saw him hours before, and there’s weight in his face that’s disappeared in the months between this and the present. Perhaps that’s why Anthony  looks so much older to him now. Anthony uses David’s shoulder to steady himself-f**k, he’s got two working arms again-and David reaches his other hand out to wrap around Billie’s upper arm.

“We have to go. Now. ”

Sabrina doesn’t question it. She knows the drill. She believes David knows best. She trusts David, trusts David’s judgement, trusts him to keep her safe. So she doesn’t complain about David manhandling her, doesn’t ask why they need to retreat. She just does as he tells her.

David’s not stupid enough to think that he’s actually gone back in time. That the Outsider is giving him another chance. He knows this is a dream. But he has knowledge this time, control. He can change things this time. Stop it. He’s not watching her die again.

And on the slight chance that this is the Outsider’s idea of a test, see if he’s worthy of a do-over, worthy of saving her, then f**k, he’s going to pass.

He’s going to save Billie. Save them both.

The assassins would close in soon, and while David has no doubt he can take the Crow Queen, he’s still susceptible to her Rat King’s mind control attack, or whatever the f**k it was. That would leave him useless, and Billie-unMarked, armed with a single tiny knife Billie-to defend herself against the Crow Queen’s magic. It’s too late to give her the Bond-he doesn’t know if he even can, in a dream-but he can put up another wall of defense when he inevitably falls.

Delilah had sent the guards away. No doubt to ensure there were no witnesses, but having others present would counter her assassins in another way. David highly doubted that the Rat King could exert control over the minds of several people.

It’s taking too long to get down the steps. David still has Anthony ’s arm in his grip, and he reaches out and wraps his right arm around her waist, pulling her in before Blinking all three of them forward.

“What the f**k-! David!”

Very Un-Empress-like. Any other time, David would have teased her for cursing like that where others might hear them. Now he just shakes his head, pushes on her back.

“Just go! Move, move!”

She’s rarely this good at listening. Usually she’d roll her eyes whenever he gave her an order, demanded to know the whys, jokingly reprimanded him for daring to boss the Empress around. But with her life on the line, she knows to shut up and listen. Her feet speed up and she scurries in the direction David pushes her, some of her braids coming loose where Anthony  had been trying to pin up her hair when David yanked him away.

Anthony , who has never been good at knowing when to stop questioning things. Anthony  stops and stares at David. Completely dazed, and still has to be pulled along. “How…”

“We need to go, Anthony ,” David hisses through clenched teeth, ushering him through the gates behind his sister.

Rulfio is standing off to the side, his uniform shirt untucked at one hip and his hand in his pocket. He drops his cigarette as they approach, snapping to attention.

“Empress Billie! Is something the matter?”

He regards her nervously, which strikes Daus as odd as Sabrina and Rulfio got along quite well. David thinks he remembers something about him quitting smoking, but he can’t be too sure. It didn’t matter right now anyway. It couldn’t matter.

“Where’s the rest of the guard?” David barks. Rulfio turns his head towards the front gate, and David waves his hands frantically. “No, don’t get them! Stay here!”

“Why?” Rulfio turns back, confusion written across his face. David hadn’t noticed how long his hair had grown, back when this actually happened. His box braids nearly reach his chin, and they bang across his cheek whenever he turns his head. Sabrina used to plait her hair like that, before she moved to Dunwall Tower and wasn’t allowed to anymore. Anthony  took such joy in messing with her braids and making them bounce.

David shakes his head. He takes out his pistol and fires it once, into the air. Then he turns to Anthony  and shoves the gun into his hands. “Give your sister your sword. Be ready.”

Anthony  meekly nods and hands the blade off to Billie, who looks at David perplexed but determined. This would work better. Sabrina knew how to fight with her fists, but she was an exceptionally talented swordswoman, one of the best. Protocol dictated that the Empress couldn’t carry weapons on her person, but f**k it, she could wield a sword and protect herself better than ten Tower guards who were allowed to carry. Anthony  knew how to shoot a gun. Protecting himself with one would be easier than a sword.

The assassins descend as a round of footsteps come dashing up the steps, but there’s a shout and no guards appear at the gate. Anthony  backs himself into a corner, brandishing his pistol, and Rulfio instinctively moves to cover him. David draws his blade.

David and Sabrina fight back to back, covering each other, both perfectly in sync. The lower Cardinals, they were never much of a threat. They disappear upon injury, which would make killing them difficult, but David only cares about getting them away from Billie. It works well enough, and soon the wave disperses.

Sabrina huffs and turns around. “Is that it? Is there more?”

Still panting, David nods and turns to her. Her face is more annoyed than anything else, and her pristine white blouse is once again stained with blood-though it doesn’t belong to her this time.

There’s a corpse at her feet. She’s somehow managed to behead one of the Cardinals. David blinks in surprise, and resists the urge to reach out and ruffle her hair, praise her. Because there will be more. He knows what’s coming.

“Get Anthony  inside.” David motions to Rulfio. He’d have to get Sabrina inside too. The assassins could very well strike in there too, and they certainly will, but there would be less angles. Fewer places to hide and attack her from.

He can see Luca and his lady friend rushing over, but he pays it little mind. Luca’s worse than useless and he’s dead anyway, so David can deal with him later. He steps over to the gate and yells again for the guards. This time Misha, Fisher, and Kieron come tearing up the steps, red-faced and out of breath.

“Sorry, Lady Kaldwin...drill, she said…” Fisher puffs. Misha steps forward, straightening her uniform out on instinct.

“Lady Billie! What happened?!”

Sabrina holds up a hand. “I’m fine. Bit of a witch problem. I took care of it.”

David shakes his head and grabs her shoulder. “There’s more. I need to get you inside.”

Now with the others here, the Rat King will have to choose who to take out of the equation. Worst case scenario he’ll still pick David, but even the Crow Queen shouldn’t be able to take on three guards and the Empress herself. Not before the Rat King’s power wears off. No magical ability could be maintained indefinitely. Then David can take care of them both.

There’s a flash of blue in David’s peripherals, and he snaps his head to the side. The Rat King stands on a ledge, his long coat billowing around him. His skull mask, with the lopsided jaw and the stitched mouth, the empty eye sockets staring dead-on at Billie.

David pushes her behind him and brandishes his sword, yells for the guards to swarm around Billie. The Rat King flashes forward, and David counters his sword before he even registers it swinging towards him. The King stumbles back, and David goes to put his own blade through his chest.

The Rat King, however, extends his arm and swipes it to the side. Suddenly David is knocked back by a terrible gust of wind, landing on his back maybe ten feet away. He swiftly pushes himself to his feet, intending on Blinking back, witnesses be damned. But then there’s arms-strong, too strong-sliding under his armpits, pulling his hands back, a foot on the underside of his knee keeping him kneeling in the dirt.

A hand digs into his hair, wrenching his head back. A panting, strangely similar to a wolfhound’s, in his left ear. And at his right, he hears Luca’s disgusting, lying voice ring out.

“Kill her, Stefan! Kill that b***h!”

Misha, Fisher, and Kieron hold up their weapons and gather in front of Billie, who herself is brandishing a blade still stained with Black Cardinal blood. Behind them, the gate bursts open yet again and more guards flood in, but more assassins appear and keep them from advancing.

The Rat King stares at Billie’s rag-tag group of protectors, all ready to do battle, to spill blood for their Empress. Then the Rat King raises his arm and pulls his elbow down. And suddenly Kieron’s head is gone. Misha’s hand reaches to her gushing throat, already falling to her knees. Fisher has a sword through his chest, and the Rat King calmly extracts it from his back before turning to Billie.

Sabrina somehow manages to duck as the Rat King Blinks forward and avoids the swipe of his blade. She stumbles forward, blade still clutched in one hand, and her other hits the ground to catch her fall. She looks up, looks around wildly. Looking for him.

David screams at her. Tries to tell her to run, to go hide. To forget about David and get herself to safety. All this is swallowed up when a hand comes down to his jaw and holds it closed with a force he didn’t know was possible.

The guards advance, still fighting off Cardinals as they step over the bodies of their comrades, as they close in on the Rat King, as they swarm around their Empress. Sabrina meets David’s stare, and for the first time in so long, there’s fear in her eyes.

And then her eyes go...blank. Glassy. She straightens up, drops her sword. And without a hint of ceremony, she turns and begins walking away.

Some of the guards yell to her, but they’re too busy fighting off this wave of Cardinals to follow her, or to even notice that the Rat King himself has mysteriously disappeared into thin air. Sabrina walks along, her steps awkwardly uniform and even, her gaze straight ahead. Her feet stop maybe fifteen feet in front of the steps that lead up to the Tower entrance. And the Crow Queen materializes on the steps.

Billie’s boots shift, and the Empress turns to face the Queen. The Crow Queen reaches into her jacket and pulls out a long, silver pistol, puts her finger on the trigger. She takes aim. And then she nods her head.

In a flash of light, the Rat King appears behind Billie, as if presenting her to his Queen. Sabrina stumbles forward, her hand going to her stomach on instinct.

“Wha...what…” She puts one boot out to steady herself, leaning over at the waist as she tries to gather her bearings. But then she raises her head. Sees the Queen. And she instinctively pulls herself up to her full height.

The Crow Queen’s gun goes off just as David breaks free.

He runs. He forgets he can Blink, that he could catch her before she even hits the ground. He pays no attention to assassins, to the guards. Nobody else exists. He can see nothing but Sabrina BillieBillieBillie.

Red is already crawling across her blouse, blooming from a single hole in the left side of her chest. Her arms splay at odd angles, and a stray braid falls across her nose.

David brushes her hair away from her face. The light has already gone out of her eyes. And when he picks her up her neck lolls back at an impossible angle, and he has to put his hand at the back of her head to steady it, because she won’t be able to breathe that way. He cradles her to his chest and presses his hand against her wound, pressing down, trying to stop the bleeding, trying to stop the life from flowing out of her. He’s here again, with her blood on his hands, he failed and Sabrina paid the price, he failed her he failed her he failed-

“David!”

There’s a face, and it’s not Billie’s so David’s hands immediately fly up to wrap around their neck. He bolts up, sliding one foot onto the floor as he squeezes and pushes the person away from him.

Then he realizes it’s Anthony .

David snatches his hands away. Anthony  drops to a knee, gasping in a horrible way as he reaches up to touch his throat. David scrambles back on the bed, as far away from Anthony  as he can go.

“Anthony !” It comes off more of an accusing yell than one of surprise. “I didn’t-f**k, are you hurt?”

Anthony  coughs and clears his throat. “I’m fine,” but his voice is raspy.

David shakes his head and scoots to the side of the bed again. “s**t. Are you okay?”

“I just said, I’m fine.”

Anthony  pushes himself up. There’s a candle on David’s bedside table, and through this light he can see Anthony ’s throat move as he swallows, the bones in his face and the absence of the cherub cheeks he’s had for so long.

“You were thrashing about,” Anthony  says, rubbing his throat. “I tried yelling at you. You wouldn’t wake up until I shook you.”

David runs a hand through his hair. “ Do not touch me while I’m sleeping. Ever.”

“I get it.” Anthony  grabs his candle. “I was just trying to keep you from hurting yourself. Good night.”

“Anthony , wait.” David presses two fingers against his eyelids. “I’m sorry.”

Anthony  hesitates. Then he puts the candle back down, and slides himself onto David’s bed.

“It’s okay,” he tries to say, but David shakes his head.

“No, it’s not okay.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

David just strangled Anthony  and now he’s here trying to play therapist for him. The Empire didn’t deserve this boy.

“You always helped me with my nightmares,” Anthony  continues, letting a small smile show. “So I can return the favor.”

David laughs bitterly at that. “Anthony , you do not want to know what’s going on in my head right now.”

“Was it about Billie?”

He goes quiet. Anthony  reaches out and takes his hand. “I’ve been writing her letters. Burn them as soon as they’re done, but I can say what I want to her. Used to write to you too, but I don’t need to do that anymore.” He c***s his head. “Maybe that might help?”

David doesn’t say anything. Eventually, though, he brings Anthony ’s hand to his mouth and kisses the inside of his wrist. “Go back to bed, kid.”

Anthony  doesn’t look pleased about it, but he takes his candle and goes. David waits and watches the light dance across the ceiling, until Anthony  blows it out and he can hear him settle down in his pile of cushions.

David flops back and stares at the ceiling. He hasn’t reacted like that in...fuck, a long time. He had to get over it, the snap reaction to attack right out of his sleep, with kids around. He had done it with Billie, once. He hadn’t choked her. He had been sleeping on the floor right next to her, huddling together to keep warm. She had stirred, sat up for something, and roused David enough for him to see a dark figure six inches away. David had seized her by the back of the head and slammed her face to the floor.

She had also claimed she was fine. Her nose was just bloodied; he hadn’t broken it or anything. She brushed David’s concerns aside as he bandaged her nose and cleaned the blood from her face. The flesh stayed purple for about a week.

After that, he trained himself out of it. With the way they lived, he and Sabrina often slept together in close quarters, and he couldn’t be hurting her like that. And then when Anthony  came along, he frequently wanted to cuddle up to one or both of them. Which David indulged him in because, f**k, he was five. He hadn’t even worried about it in years.

Now he was doing it again. First to Lizzy, then to Anthony .

They would avoid waking him up like that now, at least. David can’t imagine anyone else here trying-most everyone avoided stepping foot into his attic bedroom. And when he’s back in Dunwall Tower, he’ll have a locked door between him and everyone else and he’s giving no one the key. He’s never co-sleeping with anyone ever again. It wasn’t an issue. Just something he had to deal with, now.

He allows the Talisman to form in his hand, holds it inches from his nose and kisses its surface. “How did we get here, Billie? Can’t even get a moment of peace.”

‘I will be glad to rest,’ she says.

His sleep is thankfully free from all sorts of dreams from then on. David wakes with the sun and nips out to do his morning exercise regime before Anthony  stirs. He stays out past breakfast time and avoids the factory floor, where Anthony will be studying with Lydia, with those browning finger-shaped bruises at his throat, and goes straight back up to the attic.

He’s halfway up the stairs when the sound reaches his ears, stopping him in his tracks. Someone is in his room. In his sanctuary, near his bones and his weapons, where Anthony  sleeps safe and sound. Someone is in there alone.

And she’s singing.

“They said what, are you, but a harbinger? To leave us hopeless and forlorn.”

David slowly steps up to the top floor landing, leaning around the doorway to catch a glimpse without been spotted himself. Rose is kneeling on the floor, a sponge in her hand and a bucket at her side.

“The wolf bore it’s fangs, and spread it’s claws. And tore out it’s own eye. Drink my blood, and become my sons. Or by dawn you’ll not survive…”

By the Void, her voice is beautiful. He knew Rose sang, and she must have had some sort of training at some point because she could talk music theory with Lydia. But Rose was usually silent unless spoken to. She never sang for them.

“And so the pack was born again, as the wolves of old Redmoor. To rule in life, and serve in death, as the moonlight-bound hunter.”

David Blinks into the room to avoid being seen. He watches from behind as she scrubs the floor, suds sticking to her hands. The tune is sorrowful, thoughtful, and Rose’s voice was thin and high. Clear, like a bell. He always thought that saying was stupid, but listening to Rose now, he understands it. She sings as if a bell’s ring had words.

“And so the pack was born again.” She sings quieter now, slower. “As the wolves of old…Red..moor.” Her voice lilts up, breaks, like the lyrics themselves are crying. “To rule in li-ife, and seeerve in death, as the moonlight’s dark….hunter…..”

Rose’s singing dissolves into humming, and David waits and listens to the sweet tones until he’s sure she’s not going to continue with her song.

‘Redmoor is ancient. It’s history crosses with legend. And none is more famous than the story of Redmoor’s great beasts, roaming the cliffside.’

David clears his throat. “That was beautiful.”

Rose yelps, nearly tipping over the water bucket in the process. “f**k!” she curses under her breath. David lazily watches her as she scrambles to her feet, wiping her hands on her trousers and straightening her back. “David! I’m sorry, I was just...I didn’t hear you come in…”

“Kind of snuck in. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

Rose nods without meeting his eye, then bends over to collect her bucket. She instinctively holds her stomach as she does so. David swallows.

“You don’t have to stop.”

“I can come back later,” she says hurriedly. David frowns. To be completely fair, Rose, of all people, would probably be most justified being nervous about being alone with an adult man in his bedroom. David would never hurt a woman or, well, anyone in that way, but she didn’t know him well enough to know that.

Plenty of people thought he did that to Billie.

“Rose. Wait.” David holds up a hand. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

She hesitates, but she turns back around. She continues to clutch her bucket until David motions for her to put it down.

“You can make bonecharms,” he leads in, which sounds so incredibly stupid to his ears that he nearly smacks himself. “It’s an...unusual skill. I’ve met very few people who can.”

Rose clasps her hands in front of her. “I’d prefer not to elaborate on where I learned it, if it’s all the same to you.”

“That’s fine. None of my business.” He’s already figured Rose’s mother was a witch. Whether she was like Delilah’s witches or had been a loner, harmless until someone crossed her, like David’s own mother had been, that he can’t say. But Sabrina tells him Rose herself is the latter. Still growing, still learning, her heart still unblackened. So he could f*****g care less about the rest. “I want to know if you can do more.”

She presses her lips together before nodding, looking up to meet his eye. “I can. But doing them requires a lot of whalebone.” She lets the question hang in the air.

“I can bring you some.” David sits down on his bed. Rose turns her eyes back to the floor, and David watches as she fidgets. “How old are you, Rose?”

“I’m sixteen as of the Month of Wind, sir.”

Two months ago. Nearing three, if her birthday was at the beginning of the month.

“I see.” He purses his lips. “Who’s the father?”

She stammers, speaks too quickly. “I don’t know who my father is, sir.”

“Not. Yours.” David points down.

Rose stares at the floor somehow more intensely than before, her shoulders so rigid and stiff she might crack like ice at a stiff breeze.

David tries to speak more gently this time, but it probably still comes off like he’s lecturing her. “Do you know who he was?”

She nods, but she still doesn’t look up.

“How old was he?” When she doesn’t answer, David does it for her. “Too old?”

“Fifty or so,” she mumbles.

Cold anger collects in his chest, and his fingers automatically tighten. Fucker had a decade on David. Rose had been fifteen. Had to have been. David had never felt the urge to impregnate literal children, so it couldn’t be that hard to refrain. Was it really so hard to not f**k kids?

Fuck, what was wrong with people?

“Do you want me to kill him for you?” he says bluntly.

Her eyes fly up, going wide in shock. But then a dark cloud crosses her face, and her frown only deepens. “No,” she says in a voice that he wouldn’t have thought belonged to her. “I want to do it myself.”

‘She sees you as someone worth looking up to, and she follows our example. Her heart might not be so bitter otherwise.’

David forces himself to smile. “Wait until Anthony  is on the throne. I can make it so the courts won’t touch you. You could kill him in the middle of Holger Square and you’d never see the inside of a jail cell.”

“I think I’ll go with something a little more discreet, but I appreciate it.” And then she grins in a way David’s only seen her do with Anthony .

He leans forward, forcing himself to hold eye contact. “I hope you know that when this is all over, you have a job waiting for you in Dunwall Tower. If you want it, that is.” He turns and opens the drawer on his bedside table, fishing around for his key. “I know it’s not my business, but if you plan to keep the kid, education’s provided. For you and your brothers, too.”

“Like, as a maid?” She shifts in her boots. “Or a cook? Because I’ll come clean, I really can’t cook. I’ve been fooling Gerald for weeks now.”

David waves his hand. “We’ll find a place for you. And your talents.” Officially, he’d probably place her as one of Anthony ’s attendants. Unofficially, David’s already thinking of the vacant Spymaster position, and if he was being honest with himself, there was no way he could ever trust someone other than himself to be Anthony ’s Spymaster. He’d need his own fleet of agents, and the majority of people David had ever even sort of trusted before are dead.

But in addition to that, David could think of a lot of uses for a witch who could hide her colors. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, just like him.

She straightens out her shirt, and David sees where her belly presses up against the fabric. “And people won’t talk? About me being so young, and...and stuff?”

“People have better things to talk about.” David rolls his eyes as he fits his key into the padlock keeping his bones secure. That was true enough-there were plenty of more important things happening everyday at Dunwall Tower. Even so, people would still gossip. Probably gossip even more because of her friendship with Anthony . People had gossiped about his and Anthony ’s relationship, spread rumors about Sabrina being pregnant seemingly every time she smiled at a man. Hell, people still whispered about the circumstances of her own birth, even though everyone knew Sabrina was the product of an affair, that her mother had been a lowly gardener. It wasn’t like it was a secret. People still acted like it was a scandal twenty years after the fact.

But rumors were inconsequential to people like them. If somebody had a problem with Rose, they could take it up with David. The gossip would never reach her ears.

“I mean, I suppose.” She fidgets. “My mother had my brother and me when she was seventeen though, and she always said we ruined her life.”

“For being born? You weren’t the ones that decided to fuck.” He scoffs. “I’ll tell you a secret, my mother was sixteen when I was born. I’m not going to lie and say life was easy for her. But she did fine for herself. And so will you.”

With that, he pops open the desk. “How many different charms do you know how to make?”

She blinks at the subject change, but gets back with the program quickly. “Oh, uh, a few? I don’t think most of them will be useful to you. I made a lot of charms for things like enhancing charisma, or birth control. Not that I, uh, saw much use from that.”

“Can you learn new charms?” David shifts the desk so she can see the contents inside.

Rose nearly falls over.

“How…” she breathes. She reaches her hand out, never taking her eyes away from the charms. “Can I touch them?”

Hesitantly, David nods. “Just put ‘em back when you’re done.”

Rose lets out a literal squeal as she dig her hands in. David cranes his neck and watches her carefully.

“How did you find all of these?” she gasps as she runs her fingers along the ends, letting the charms clink together. “You must be the luckiest scavenger ever.”

Wasn’t luck, David thinks sheepishly. It was all Billie. They showed up on Void Gaze, but he couldn’t see very far with it. Thirty meters, at most. Sabrina could sense the bones from a few hundred.

Just another way he’d be f*****g lost without her.

“f**k, you have runes too.” Rose nods approvingly. “Those sell for a pretty turn.”

David slides the box of runes to the other side of the desk. “I’m not selling my runes. Don’t touch them.”

She regards him oddly, and David swears her eyes dart to his hand.

But then Rose shrugs, and she returns to examining the charms. “There a bunch here that I don’t know how to do myself. I can learn-but learning a bonecharm destroys it.”

The thought makes him want to rip Rose away from his bones. “How? Why do you need to ruin them?”

Rose pushes away from the desk. “It’s kind of hard to explain, but it involves scraping the inscriptions off-I can show you sometime, if you have a few hours to spare. It takes some time. And I’m...it can put you in a trance. Good way to lose most of a day.”

David didn’t exactly have much to do, but Rose has a job. She can’t disappear for hours at a time. He pulls down the top over the desk.

Rose picks her bucket back up. “Let me know when you want me to teach you. I’ll get Reed to cover me for a few hours so I can slip away. And pick what charms you can stand to part with.”

“Will do. I’ll keep an eye out for raw whalebone when I’m out.” He snaps his head back as Rose turns to leave. “Rose? Don’t breathe a word of this to Anthony .”

She makes a motion as if locking her lips. “Not a word. I promise.”

Afternoons are a bit tricky when it comes to keeping busy. Anthony ’s lessons are over after lunch, so he can’t sit in on those, and Anthony  himself usually disappears to screw around with Rose. He’d rather let Anthony spend time with someone his age than force him to entertain David, so he tries not to let it show how bored he is.

Joan is technically on bedrest until their next mission, and while she’s doing much better than Trimble predicted, she’s not exactly in sparring shape. She mostly just wanders around drinking and yelling at people, which David respects as a lifestyle choice, but wants no part in.

Lydia also vanishes after lunch, and Paul usually takes a nap to escape Thalia’s incessant nagging. He doesn’t understand Ricardo worth s**t. Galia is usually up by noon, but half the time she’s glued to Zhukov’s side and he’s not dealing with that. Jerome’s always busy, so David doesn’t like to bug him too much. He can never find Reed. That’s pretty much everyone he can sort-of stand in this place. He finds himself out of people to talk to very quickly.

He tries to get back into reading, but it’s like his thoughts are going too fast to pay attention now. There’s only so many times he can work out in a day without seeming like a complete nut. He needs a f*****g hobby. Maybe he should take up whittling.

David settles on snooping.

It wasn’t even intentional, at first. David was out practicing his powers, and his dream came back to him. The way the Rat King pulled his arm down, how he seemed to move when the world was stopped. David examines his runes, practices the motions. And eventually, the power just clicks.

David stretches his hand out and brings his elbow down, his palm facing his nose. The color seeps from the world, and the air itself seems to slow.

Time itself stutters to trickle, leaving David to take it all in.

He can’t keep it up for long-and it burns through his mana like crazy, leaving him nearly drained after each use. He drinks probably unhealthy amounts of water while he practices, determined not to waste valuable elixirs on training.

He’s on top of the guard house that serves as Joan and Edgar’s sleeping quarters, having been throwing various objects in the air, slowing down time, and then Blinking forward to catch them for the past half hour or so. He’d gotten careless, assuming he was high enough to avoid being seen. His footing stumbles as he tries Blinking to a pipe and he falls, just as Edgar Wakefield exits his dormitory.

There’s really no good explanation for why or how David is on top of the pipes, so he panics for a split second. He clenches his hand, his perceptions magically speeding up to the point that the world grinds to a halt there, mid-Blink. He looks around for a place to Blink to and, f**k, behind Edgar seems as good a place as any.

David Blinks past the door, landing on his feet just as Edgar closes the door behind him.

And it occurs to David that this wasn’t really the best plan. He’s sort of stuck here for now, as Edgar would have questions about David exiting his room right after him.

He eats from Edgar’s stash of tartlets as he goes through drawers. Edgar himself has really nothing of interest-logbooks from his time in the Navy, some audiographs that contained musings on their missions. But there’s really nothing pertinent. Edgar was able to put on airs and act like he knew what he was doing, but Sabrina was right, as she always is. His skull was thick and his head full of nothing.

David feels a little guilty going through Lizzy’s belongings, but he reminds himself that the time for trusting people has passed. It had already cost him Billie. He couldn’t make those mistakes with Anthony  on the throne. He trusted no one.

It’s quite clear that Joan had always been the brains of the duo. She knew how to do Edgar’s job better than him in the Navy, and she had headed up the Dead Eels gang with him as her lieutenant. Which makes David question why she even needed Edgar around. He was the brawns, sure, but Joan had plenty of those too. Perhaps it was just for the intimidation factor. Joan was terrifying because David knew she was tough, but for all her brutality, she was a small woman. Your opponent underestimating you could be useful, but it would be a detriment in the gangs. David knew how important it was to project an image.

Joan has very few personal effects, but David does come across a tackle box shoved under her bed. The top is filled with pearls. Necklaces and bracelets, strings of pearls in all shades of white, blue, pink, and black. Loose pearls rolling every which way. A few pieces that had gemstones as accents, but the majority of it is pearls.

The bottom is filled with letters. Letters, as David finds, written by Mortimer Hat to Lizzy. They’re dated, some of them reaching back decades, when Joan was a little girl.

He only skims over one letter, one dated from about a year ago. Old Hat, in his spiny handwriting, talks about his business under plague conditions and Lizzy’s naval accomplishments. It’s surprisingly soft for a man of Hat’s standing. Caring. He calls her ‘his little river pearl’.

Fuck, that’s annoying. David’s always hated pet names, even for kids. The Emperor, when away from the courts and constraints of royalty, had called Sabrina ‘Cocoa Puff’ on occasion. It sounded stupid and just reinforced his theory that the Emperor couldn’t actually remember her name on a consistent basis. The most David would call her was ‘little Empress’ when he was annoyed with her and wanted her to know it. She had a goddamn name and he was going to use it.

David puts the letter back, slides the box back under her bed. It felt too wrong, to read these words from a man to his beloved daughter. Despite his curiosity, he was too uncomfortable to continue.

Then it was like an addiction. He went through the Copper’s meager belongings, Rose’s boncharms and various bottles of liquids, Reed’s book of surprisingly good pencil sketches. Ricardo has nothing of interest besides a silver necklace with a blood amber pendant and a worn charcoal drawing of a girl with thick hair swept up into a bun. Lydia Boyle composed her own music and left sheets scattered about her room, along with a bow harp with a loose string. Her diary spoke of her dissatisfaction with noble life, her desire to focus on developing her musical skill, her distaste for her male suitors and confusion over her feelings for her female servants, her fellow noblewomen.

He sneaks into the Dressmaker’s living space while he’s off at Jerome’s shop. Living up to his name, the man has bolts of fabric and spools of brightly colored threads lying around, a few half-finished projects still on mannequins. Sketches with design ideas tacked up and littering the table. There’s several sketches of outfits he had designed for the Empress, which David passes over with barely a glance.

His back wall was also covered in drawings. Children’s drawings. David spots one that Anthony  did, when he was very young, of a whale and a stick figure with a scar fighting it off with a sword. A lot of kids had presented the Dressmaker with drawings, it seemed, and he kept decades worth of scribbles to proudly paper his wall.

There’s also dolls and toys lining his shelves, and David roots through his drawers to see if he can find that one lock of Billie’s hair. But there’s only loose scissors, buttons and pencils. David shuts the drawer.

Sneaking into Jerome’s shop is a bit trickier, since he doesn’t reliably show up for meals with the rest of the group, but he times it for when Jerome slips away to visit the market. David finds quite a few explosives, but beyond that, there’s no real dirt. Jerome ironically seems to have the fewest skeletons in his closet, despite the number of bones he keeps in there.

He hesitates on looking through Galia’s room, not because he respects her too much or anything, but because she shares the space with Zhukov. But he eventually pushes that anxiety down, tells himself how stupid that was. Zhukov was no threat. Despite his height, David’s sure he could put Zhukov down with two fingers.

Still, Zhukov was...unnerving. Just in general, but what more, he can’t get a read on him with the Talisman. Sabrina is strangely silent whenever he tries to get her thoughts. Not like she has nothing to say about him-Sabrina had something to say about everyone, and even if she didn’t, she had some other sort of scathing remark at the ready. He couldn’t feel anything from her when he sets her on Zhukov. It was like she couldn’t even see him.

Galia Fleet keeps her Watch sword displayed above her bed, the edge sharp and shined. Her medals aren’t on display, but David figures she left them with her sister. He knows she has a number of them. He awarded her some herself.

Her cot is the only bed in here, hidden behind a curtain. Normally that might set off some alarm bells, but while Galia was certainly fanatic about Zhukov, it never struck him as...like that. There’s only a large armchair, set up to look out the window, and the leather reeks of Zhukov’s smoky, sulfuric signature scent. Zhukov sleeps sitting up, alright. Somehow that doesn’t surprise him.

The rest of the room is filled with worktables and tools. And when David opens a drawer, he finds nothing but bleached white bones.

So Zhukov could make bonecharms too. Maybe that was why Sabrina was blind to him. Perhaps he had a bonecharm that hid himself from her gaze.

David didn’t like that.

Disappointingly, there’s nothing else of note in here. If anyone had something worth snooping through, David would have guessed it would be Zhukov, but the man seemed to have zero possessions. Nothing from his homeland of Tyvia, no books or journals or little trinkets. He didn’t even seem to have a spare set of clothes. Maybe it was a blessing he smelled like charcoal and smoke, if the fucker never changed his underwear.

Thalia was set up in the great room, her bed behind a number of fancy changing screens to give the illusion of privacy, as Gerald and Paul both had bunks on the other side of the room. She has a number of diary-like audio logs, all of which were about social events and gossip and all mind-numbingly boring. The only halfway interesting one was the one she recorded immediately after Anthony  was rescued.

“Day Twenty-Five, Month of High Cold.”

Her voice is just as grating as ever.

“Well, David managed it. Rescued the Empress’s brother. Nearly got Catspaw killed in the process, which would have been inconvenient, but we could have recovered from that setback.”

Inconvenient. Thalia better hope she never needs their help. He and Joan might just find it an inconvenience.

“I’m forever amazed by his efficiency. A mere day after he escapes from prison, he single-handedly took down Luca Abele and framed his assistant for the job. He’s accomplished more in less than a week than the rest of us have in a month. He’s done things I scarcely thought were possible.

“I have to wonder what exactly it is that fuels him. The late Empress is at the root of it all; David was so clearly in love with her. But is love his drive? Or guilt? Regret, maybe.”

It was anger. Pure, murderous rage that would very soon take aim at all the people who kept insinuating he had f****d Billie.

“I have to wonder what exactly transpired that day. If David even remembers who really killed her. Or why.

“In any case, Lord Anthony  is safely with us. He’s staying with David for now, which has several of us on edge, considering his history and the capacity for violence he’s displayed over the last few days. Edgar justifies the decision and reminds me that Anthony  is David’s biological son, and he would certainly refrain from hurting him, but that brings little reassurance. He loved the Empress too.

“No matter. This city has been at a standstill for too long, moping in past events that we cannot change. It’s time to move forward. Uncle Arnold is dead, killed by David’s own hand. Legally, whoever has power of attorney for my grandmother now is also my guardian, but that will cease to matter upon my eighteenth birthday. By the time this business is finished, I’ll be of age and set to inherit my fortune, and I will be the one in charge of my destiny. I have to wonder, after the coronation, will Lord Anthony  be looking to wed? Food for thought.”

David rips the punchcard out, only barely avoiding tearing it in half. He angrily smoothes it out and slides it in with the rest of her audio cards, moving to shuffle through her trunk.

Anthony  was not marrying Thalia Timsh. David didn’t much care who he ended up with, but he was putting his foot down at her. He always said he wouldn’t control their choices, but he wasn’t really telling Anthony  who to marry, was he? Just who not to marry. It was a small list.

Fuck, that was another thing David hadn’t given much thought to. Noblewomen would be out in droves, seeking Anthony ’s hand in marriage. He would not be happy about that. Though Anthony  didn’t necessarily have to marry a woman-he just had to have heirs. Sabrina had intended to never marry. She had it a bit simpler, though. No one could say the new heir wasn’t the Empress’s kid when they literally slithered out of her. People would question the paternity of Anthony ’s children. But the Emperor had dealt with it, so it couldn’t be impossible.

Still. Anthony  hadn’t even planned on having kids. He had been content with being ‘the fun uncle’ who spoiled the kids and annoyed their mother. He won’t get to be that either.

The subject brings Thalia’s other topic to the forefront of his mind, as he rifles through her clothing. It was clear that everyone thought he was Anthony ’s father. He doesn’t know how they think that-David is olive-toned in a way that makes his skin look yellow in the right light, with brown hair that was considerably darker when he was younger. Anthony ’s skin has warm undertones and goes pink easily. What more, he’s blond. David’s no genetics philosopher, but considering how Sabrina clearly didn’t get her skin tone from the Emperor, her mother would have had to look similar. And they were claiming that she was Anthony ’s mother too. There was no way in the Void that David and someone with Billie’s dark complexion could create Anthony .

Not only that, but how did they layer on David and Sabrina f*****g? David would have had to know her since she was six at the very oldest, if he had been around to conceive Anthony . It was doubly gross when you considered David would have been, like, her stepfather or something in this scenario.

He was convinced all noble families must be full of perverts, if this was the norm for them. f**k, he was glad he wasn’t born into nobility. Looking through Thalia’s fancy clothing and expensive trinkets, none of it could be worth the bullshit.

“Hey, man.”

David jumps, nearly banging his shoulder on the wall. He curses and turns to Paul, who’s leaning against the doorway and swinging a set of keys.

They stare at each other for a moment. Then Paul laughs and pushes away from the door. “I’m not gonna say s**t to Tails, don’t worry. The look on your face was priceless, though.”

“I was wondering if I was going to have to kill you,” David mumbles, shutting the lid of the trunk he was currently snooping through.

Paul closes the door behind him. “I hope not. I got things to do, man.” He motions behind David. “You come to try on her heels? I’ve done it a few times. Her feet are pretty damn big, so you shouldn’t have a problem.”

Wiping his hands on his pants, David stands up and regards Paul with mock suspicion. “I’ve never worn heels, but the Empress once referred to them as ‘torture devices whose only purpose is to gouge the eyes of men out’. So I think I’ll pass.”

Which was all very true. High heels weren’t really in fashion anymore, having gone the way of ankle-length skirts and corsets, but Sabrina had been shoved into all three in her younger years. She never got used to walking in heels. David literally needed to lend her his arm so she wouldn’t fall on her ass while wearing them. Her advisors gave up making her wear them after one incident where she yanked off her heels and chucked them at a pursuing suitor’s head before making her getaway barefoot. They had found the incident far less amusing than David had.

Though Paul just laughs and shrugs his shoulders. “They’re damn sexy, though. But your call. You smoke?”

David stands there for a moment, then tentatively nods. Paul plops down on the floor and slides a box from under his cot, flips the top open.

Then, to David’s surprise, he pulls out a bong.

David stands and watches as Paul empties a little bag into the bowl, then sets it aflame with a flick of his lighter.

Paul holds his hand over the mouthpiece, and David nervously shoves his hands into his pockets. “Uh, that? That, I do not smoke.”

“To each their own.” Paul shrugs. “I’m surprised, though. Thought you toked up with the Empress.”

“Sabrina didn’t smoke either.” David had even smacked cigars out of her hand when she was younger, at which she had protested and called him a hypocrite. He relented, eventually, but she had always smoked expensive brands of cigarettes that smelled stupid and artificial. David wishes now that he had relaxed more, that they had shared his shitty cigars together when there were no eyes on her.

But Paul just laughs at that. “Empress Billie? You can not tell me that woman wasn’t under some kind of psychoactive substance at times.”

“I am telling you so,” David argues. “Because her court would have thrown a goddamn fit. She couldn’t even drink whiskey without somebody getting their panties in a knot, you think she was getting high in her off time?”

“From everything I’ve heard, yeah.” He uncovers the mouthpiece and inhales. “People said you could always tell because she’d show up to court all mellow and the like. Usually she’d be dressin’ f***s down as soon as they looked at her wrong.”

Well, that part was true. Sabrina spent a lot of her time at court yelling. Not as much when she first became Empress, so young and afraid of doing the wrong thing, but as time went on and she grew more comfortable in her role, she made her distaste for her peers quite known.

Not that David blamed her. Hell, he egged her on.

And it was true that there would be days she was inexplicably calmer. David had chalked it up to her age, or simply the fact that she was Sabrina and he didn’t f*****g understand why she did anything.

“That’s called being a hormonal young adult, Paul,” David mutters angrily.

Paul laughs loudly. “Right, and so is getting baked. Case in point.” He points to the bong.

Well, this was getting nowhere.

David plops down on the floor, his eyes scanning over the various papers and drawings Paul’s pinned up over his bed. “Interesting art you got there.”

“Oh, that?” Paul takes another hit. “Tattoo designs. Came up with them myself. You got any tats, David?”

Tattoos were more common in Serkonos, where people generally wore less clothing to compensate for the heat, but David found himself agreeing more with the Gristolian stance on tattoos. They reeked of deviance and were usually associated with criminal behavior. Not that David was in any place to judge, but he believed it said a lot about a person to want to project that image. He wrinkles his nose and shakes his head. “Uh, no.”

“Shame. It’s an artform.” Paul takes another puff. “I told Joan I’d do her other sleeve, when this bullshit is over. Already started on the sketches. Think we got a topless mermaid in there somewhere. It’s the t**s, literally.”

Joan already had a full sleeve on her right arm, and David knows she has a few on her back and her stomach. It wasn’t like he minded-it was her skin, she could f**k it up if she wanted. But he wasn’t about to call them works of art. He thinks she’d look prettier without the tattoos, but then, he highly doubts Joan cares at all about being pretty.

Sabrina had wanted tattoos when she was younger. Sailors usually had a number of them, so he knew it was mostly just copycat behavior, but once she had a crown on her head it was forever off the table. The Empress couldn’t have tattoos, especially one who was already associated with depravity. Think of what people would say.

“You ever thought about getting some ink?” Paul continues. “Could just be something small at first. I just like ‘em cause they’re pretty, but a lot of people get something that means something to them. I know a couple that got each other’s names tattooed over their hearts. It’s f*****g cute.”

He thinks about it for a minute. He’s never shirtless and will never show off his arms again, so it would be easy to cover up any tattoos. Hiding the Mark will be harder and far more dangerous. He doesn’t care about decoration, but he briefly entertains the thought of getting Billie’s name written on him somewhere. Then he thinks about the tattoo gun. There’s no f*****g way he’s ever letting anyone near him with something like that.

David coughs. “I’m not really the tattoo type.”

“I can respect that.” They sit in silence for a minute, both of them looking in opposite directions and avoiding eye contact. “I want to open a tattoo shop. When I move back down to Karnaca.”

“You’re going back?” David raises his eyebrow. He never really entertained the thought of going back home. His mother wouldn’t be there, so why bother? The only time he ever truly thought about it was when men started tailing Sabrina everywhere and he considered moving all three of them out of Dunwall for her safety. But then it turned out that those men were Spymaster agents.

Paul nods. “One day, man. I was born in Morley, but I don’t remember it worth s**t. Serkonos is my homeland. And Karnaca’s the closest thing to f*****g paradise there is.” He takes another puff and then sets the bong aside, leaning against his cot with a dreamy smile. “Came up here with my best friend, was just supposed to be a year or so. But cities weren’t real keen on letting people back through customs when they might have the plague, and now with this official quarantine s**t, we’re f*****g stuck.”

‘They’re closer than lovers. Twin spirits, they call themselves. Their bond is stronger for the distance between them, the rules and the need for secrecy.’

Bit of a shame, that Paul was planning on leaving Dunwall. David had been hoping to hire him on as part of the Tower Guard. “So why are you working for Thalia? Where’s your friend?”

“I dunno where he’s at right now.” And even without Sabrina telling him so, David can tell that Paul is lying. “But we agreed we’d stay out of trouble, just try to make some coin while we wait this s**t out. Thalia’s a huge b***h, but she pays well. This whole deal-” he holds up his hands as if to motion to the room. “-with the conspiracy and the new Emperor and s**t, I didn’t sign up for that. Didn’t buy into it at first. Thought it was just a pet project. But say what you will about Thalia, she gets s**t done.”

David can’t exactly bring himself to agree with that. Thalia can’t do s**t herself. Other people have made all her plans work. He knows she’s only seventeen and he shouldn’t be so hard on her, but Sabrina was running multiple countries at that age. She had been reliant on other people listening to her orders without f*****g them up, not improvising and making her shitty plans work the way David has. Supposedly Thalia wanted to be Princess Consort. She’d need to actually be competent to be the wife of the Emperor. It was a hard no on multiple levels.

“Well, I’m glad you decided to put up with her.” David gets to his feet. “It’s an asset having you here.”

Paul nods and raises an imaginary glass. “Same, man. I didn’t think we’d break you out. Glad we did.”

He’s standing in a broken-down shopfront, the shelves empty and the front door boarded shut. David is a prisoner in his own mind again; he speaks without input and watches uselessly as he moves his own body. He’s a puppet to his own memory now.

Sabrina stands before him, fists at her side, her nose scrunching up in all her teenage petulance. Her springrazor curls float around her head, the whale oil lamp behind her casting a dim halo as it illuminates the stray hairs at the edge.

There’s no Anthony  around, so this had to be before he started living with them. David is wearing a coat, which he always does regardless of weather, but Sabrina is wearing a shirt that barely covers her shoulders and is showing some tightening in the chest. A few months after he met her then, as she’d been flat as a book until he got her eating properly. Must be hot out, if it’s warm enough for her to wear that. Made sense. He and Sabrina met in late winter, and Anthony  hadn’t happened along until the following autumn. It was just him and her that summer.

He doesn’t even remember what this fight was about. Something stupid, inconsequential. Their voices are muted; all David can hear are his gruff mumbling tones and Billie’s shrill yelling, but words are not discernable.

But he remembers this. f**k, he remembers doing this.

David holds up a finger to her nose and Sabrina swats it away, more out of the instinct to get it out of her face than true anger. It seems to annoy him, and David steps closer and closer as they argue. Sabrina holds her hands up and makes a face of disgust, and David responds by leaning down and getting in her face. She stands her ground. David reaches up and roughly shoves her back.

Her heel hits the bottom step and she stumbles a bit, but she doesn’t fall back. She looks down to assure her footing and turns her face back up to David, her eyes burning with anger. And David remembers, remembers something about that look enraging him, made him want to scrub her snarky little mouth out with soap. But they didn’t have soap, so David grabs her by the shoulder, yanks her close to him and swiftly pops her across the face.

Sabrina falls sideways onto the stairs, holding out her hands to catch her fall and narrowly avoids banging her head on one of the steps. She’s already dripping blood onto the rotting wood. Her face is blank. David’s punch had knocked the wind right out of her.

David stands there in horror for a moment before he drops to his knees. And David remembers how this goes-how it should go. He had examined her split lip while apologies danced on his still tongue, and he’d silently cleaned up the blood and prayed that the wound didn’t need stitches because, f**k, he couldn’t afford a doctor and he doesn’t want to explain to one that he had sucker-punched a teenage girl a third his size for talking back to him. And then he made her tea as his own little sort of peace offering, and she started speaking to him again after two days. And that the next time he hit her, Sabrina had kneed him so hard in the groin that he had puked, just like he taught her to.

But all of this goes unseen. David’s just the monster that hit a little girl because his ego got bruised, and when he goes to brush her hair away from her face, get a look at her lip, her flesh gives way and melts under his fingertips. David turns the face and finds himself staring into the empty sockets of a skull.

He’s kneeling in the Imperial Crypt now, a place he hasn’t been inside since the Emperor’s funeral. He always waited outside when Sabrina went to visit her father. Now, instead, he’s in her tomb, kneeling in front of her sarcophagus.

Her name and her date of birth, her date of death are all inscribed at the foot of the coffin, but David’s eyes don’t linger on them, the way her death date is written in such slightly different handwriting than her birthday. He stacks the skulls at her feet and they stare at him, empty and judgmental.

David runs his finger over her name. The skulls begin to chatter, white teeth gnashing together and jawbones chipping with the friction. David pushes them away and touches his forehead to the hallowed ground, bows to his Empress.

The days pass in such fashion. David does a few rounds of snooping, even venturing into Granny Rags’s creepy hovel. He only spends a few minutes in there, bowing out after the creepy inscriptions on the wall and the smell of rat droppings gets to be too much. He’s unable to reliably predict Trimble’s behavior and look through his apartments, so David makes plans to sneak in while he’s asleep.

He spars. He trains. At night sometimes he watches Anthony  scribble at his desk, cursing under his breath at his non-dominant hand. Sometimes after he’s finished, he folds up the paper and immediately feeds it to his candle. David tries not to let that bother him too much.

All the while, he keeps an eye on the giant bulletin board they’ve erected in the main hall, covered in pictures and maps and snippets of whatever information they’ve gathered.

Charcoal caricatures of both Abele and Timsh grace the board, both with their faces Xed out with red ink. It puts a smile on David’s face whenever he sees it. Delilah had her face up there, but her portrait mysteriously disappeared one night and now she’s only represented by the Regent sigil. Just fine. Having her watch as they ate was making him sick anyway.

They hardly have pictures for the rest. There’s no faces they can attach, not even real names. Just the flowers Delilah’s assigned to her witches. Aster. Heather. Iris. Freesia. Gardenia.

Gardenia pops up often in Abele’s dossiers, oftentimes referring to what could only be magical practices. It had confused Galia in her first read-through, but with the knowledge that these people were undoubtedly witches seemed to clarify things. Gardenia had been entrusted with basically running the coven while Delilah played Regent, and seemed to be the backbone for a lot of Delilah’s spells and magic. One section that described a failed blood ritual Gardenia performed in an attempt to enamour Delilah to Anthony  made David’s stomach turn.

But as important as Gardenia seemed to be, nobody was able to find a reference to his or her true identity.

They were just as lost with the rest of the witches as well. They weren’t mentioned nearly as much, lowering the chances someone would slip up, but they could still be crucial to taking Delilah down. The only names David is able to make any sort of connection with are two that Delilah repeatedly charges Luca with ‘safeguarding’. One’s Anemone, which David is certain is meant to refer to Joshua, which again makes him wonder how Abele ended up owning the poor kid. But it made sense, and it explained why Luca was looking for Rose. If the Coppers were a known family of witches, it would fit that Delilah would seek to exploit their magic.

And then there’s ‘Hydrangea’, who seems to be David’s parallel. Delilah’s assassin. Luca was supposedly tasked with keeping them placated until they needed someone dead. Something about referring to it as ‘setting Hydrangea on them’ makes David supremely uncomfortable. He doesn’t want to acknowledge it; nobody does. But they all knew it was proof that the Butcher was operating under Delilah’s control.

It didn’t scare him so much as it made him nervous. The Butcher was no match for a true killer. They wouldn’t survive an encounter with David.

No, it was the sheer fact that the Butcher was unpredictable. Wild. Either she knew a lot more than she let on, or Delilah was putting the fear factor over carefully selecting her marks. There were a lot of deaths that didn’t benefit her in any way. It was like she was letting the Butcher run rampant.

And if that was the case, David does not know how Delilah thinks she can control them, or why she’s willing to risk such a gamble in the first place.

In any case, the identity of the Butcher remains unsolved, and not a matter of utmost concern to them. The Butcher was the knife Delilah used to cut her enemies out from under her. She’d just find another if they disposed of the one she had now. They were going for the spine of the beast, let it all collapse out from under her.

But it’s the Butcher that gives them their next clue, their next link to the someone who might be able to tell them more, and that’s how David finds himself sitting at the dining table after Galia called another group meeting.

“Alright, we’re here. Tell us what the f**k I dragged my ass out of bed for at the ass-crack of dawn,” Joan says, yawning, from her place in David’s lap.

David rolls his eyes. “It’s nine AM, Lizzy.”

“Exactly. b***h needs her beauty sleep.”

Joan claimed it necessary she sits on David’s lap, as Anthony  is sitting in her old spot. David pointed out that there were other chairs and they could make them fit. Joan hadn’t responded and David just resigned himself to the fact that he wasn’t getting her up again.

Trimble is unfortunately sitting to David’s other side, as Galia is standing near the bulletin board with a stack of folders in her hand. David hopes he’s uncomfortable with his proximity to Zhukov.

Galia, who just smiles and nods to Jerome, who’s been practically bursting with giddiness since they walked in.

“Jack Ramsey is dead!” he explains, grinning from ear to ear.

Everyone blinks.

“Who’s Jack Ramsey?” David leans and whispers to Anthony  in an everyone’s-meant-to-hear kind of hushed tone.

Joan torques around in her seat. “Wasn’t it your job to keep track of dipshits like that?”

“I’m good with faces. Bad with names.”

Anthony  rolls his eyes. “He’s a whaling baron. Or, was, I guess.” He fidgets. “What does that have to do with Delilah?”

“Nothing!” Galia says brightly. “He’s been in a huge feud with Bundry Rothwild. His workers walked off the job yesterday-and wouldn’t you know it, Ramsey had representatives right there to sweep up striking workers, offer them a job working for him. Last night his wife woke up to the sound of screaming and found him in their kitchen propped up against the stove, with his face burnt off and half his innards hanging out of his chest.”

“So Rothwild ordered a hit on his business rival?” Lydia asks, raising an eyebrow.

Edgar coughs. “So what?”

“Yes, how does this pertain to us?”

“Because his wife caught a glimpse of a hooded figure leaving the scene,” Jerome says, practically bouncing up and down. “Ramsey’s wounds were consistent with the other victims-it was a Butcher murder!”

Everyone is silent, and Jerome stops bouncing. “The Butcher. The one Delilah’s using.”

Paul taps his finger to his lip. “Yeah, but, how do we know the big b***h ordered this?” He leans back in his chair. “She doesn’t, like, own the dude. The Butcher might have taken a contract themselves. Or just felt a hankerin’ for murder.”

Galia slams her palm down on the table, causing Thalia to startle and eye Galia resentfully as she moves her teacup away. “It’s something, okay?” She huffs, her smile gone. “It’s the only lead we’ve found, okay? If Delilah allowed Rothwild the use of the Butcher, it might stand to reason,” She turns and tacks up a drawing of a square-faced man that David immediately dislikes based on his slicked haircut. “-that she has an interest in keeping him happy.”

“Meaning they might have a partnership,” Jerome states. Galia shoots him a glare.

“That’s basically what I just said.”

Jerome holds his hands up.

“Anyway.” Galia tosses her hair back. “It’s a bit of a long shot, but there’s a few other coincidences that caught our attention.”

“No such thing as a coincidence,” David grunts, sipping his coffee. “This is Dunwall. Everything’s tied up like a bag of snakes.”

“Good analogy,” Lydia notes.

Galia rolls her eyes. “Exhibit A,” she begins, pulling out a copy of a ship’s building plan. “A ship owned by Bundry Rothwild. Lovingly entitled My Gardenia.”

“My uncle sold him that boat,” Thalia says, but then sinks back into herself. “I don’t know the meaning behind the name, though. I thought it was a...coincidence.”

“And maybe it is,” Galia continues. “Or maybe Delilah’s peppering the city with clues.”

More like she was rubbing her untouchable status in everyone’s face, David thinks.

“Exhibit Two!”

Galia pulls out another paper as the Dressmaker leans forward. “Pardon me, wouldn’t it be Exhibit B?”

“Really? That’s the fight you’re going to pick today?”

She stares him down, and the Dressmaker quickly goes white and sits back down. David shoots her a dirty look, but Galia’s not paying attention to any of them.

“This is a manifesto of all Rothwild Slaughterhouse’s outgoing sales.” She points. “You fancy folk probably don’t know s**t about the whale harvesting industry, so I’ll give you a bit of a crash course. When we capture a whale, we don’t put it out of its misery right away. We bleed its supply of whale oil dry until they expire.”

“By the Void,” Lydia says, putting a hand to her heart. It’s probably the first time David’s seen her legitimately unsettled over such a thing.

Galia doesn’t even pause in her speech. “But eventually the poor fuckers do die. And we don’t let any part of them go to waste. We all eat whale meat, obviously. The organs and eyes and s**t can be used to make medicine. So what’s left then?”

“Bone.” Zhukov says it like a starving man would describe a piece of sizzling meat.

Galia smiles uncomfortably. “Yes. The...the bones.” She clears her throat before continuing on in her normal fashion. “It used to be that you could make tools and jewelry out of whalebone, but the Abbey got their knickers in a twist and banned carving whalebone. Now, most slaughterhouses will grind the whalebone down to bone meal. Most of it destined for fertilizer.”

“This is all a very nice whaling lesson, but do you have a point?” Thalia fixes her with a stare.

Jerome gets to his feet and rounds the table. “This is our point.” He puts his finger to the middle of the page. “Demand’s crazy with most businesses shut down like this. Rothwild’s been making a killing with the oil and meat. But he’s hardly sold any bone meal in the last few months.”

Lydia twists around in her seat to get a look. “So where is the bone going, then?”

“Glad you asked!” Galia grins. “Funny thing, my spies have noticed Dunwall Tower’s been receiving shipments of whalebone. If Delilah’s a witch, I think we can all guess what she’s using it for.”

Nothing David can’t handle. Whatever project or spell Delilah was working on, it couldn’t slow David in his tracks. Not like he’s intending on letting her finish anyway. “Good enough.” He slaps at Lizzy’s thigh. “Up. Let’s go see what Rothwild knows about Gardenia.”

Galia’s smile dropped off her face. “But I haven’t even told you all my news.”

Trimble’s seemed to catch on that something is happening and reaches out to grab Lizzy’s arm. “Elizabeth is still supposed to be on bed-”

“I’m f*****g fine, William, you said so yourself.” Joan yanks her arm away.

And David would have left then, would have strode out and thrown on his coat, taken Lizzy’s boat himself if he had to. But Billie’s voice comes wafting back to him like sweet-smelling smoke.

‘Your recklessness will be your ruin. And what will your downfall make of him?’ He can practically hear the ‘hmm’ in her voice and see her eyes roll over to Anthony . ‘The smoke is clouding your eyes.’

David stands there, silent for a moment. Then he sits back down. “Okay. What else?”

Galia straightens her shirt as Joan rests her ass back on his knee. “I’ve had a plant in Rothwild’s slaughterhouse itself. It-well, I don’t know who it is exactly, but they worked with us at the Tower.”

“How does that work?” Paul folds his arms. “You have a plant, but you don’t know their name?”

“Leonid told me about it.” Galia rubs her temple. “We try not to use individual names too much. So if one of us gets captured, there’s only so much intel they can get.”

“Or they can get no intel.” Edgar shrugs. “You don’t have to tell them shit.”

Joan leans forward, her bony ass digging into David’s leg. “They torture people, Edgar.”

“Yeah, but you still choose whether to spill your guts or not.” Edgar smiles in that creepy, almost predatory way. “Heard Delilah’s harpies were beating the s**t out of you, David, and you didn’t make a sound for six months. That’s tough if I’ve ever heard it.”

David presses his lips into a thin line and tries not to look in Anthony ’s direction, whose mouth sits slightly open and his eyes wide with misplaced concern.

Joan folds her arms. “Edgar. Seriously.”

Edgar leans back, holding his hands up. “Just saying. Any of us gets captured, we just gotta take a page out of David’s book.”

“It shouldn’t come to that,” Galia says shortly. “None of us should be getting captured. If you’re worried about it, keep some poison on you. I always do.”

Lydia blinks. “That’s a little morbid, Miss Fleet.”

“Can I finish what I’m trying to f*****g say?” Galia yells. Then she rolls her shoulders, turns back to David with a more neutral expression on her face. “The plant’s agreed to meet you there at sundown. They’ll give you the summary of events, help you get in if they can. But with the strike and everything, I make no promises that things will go a certain way.”

“Better than nothing.” David stands up. “You got a map of this place?”

After David and Joan have been debriefed on exactly where they’re going, and Joan battles it out with Trimble to get him off her ass, most of everyone has dispersed. Everyone besides Anthony , who still remains seated at the table.

“It shouldn’t take long,” David says, sliding back into the chair next to him. “Should be back tonight.”

“Can I ask you for something stupid?” Anthony  asks, raising his eyebrows. “Can you let me know when you get back? Even if I’m asleep?”

“What, like when you were a little kid?”

But then Anthony ’s face falls, and David feels like the worst kind of asshole.

“Yeah, yeah.” He puts his hand on Anthony ’s arm. “I’ll wake you. So don’t bother waiting up for us.”

“Thank you.” Anthony  smiles ever so slightly, but it’s gone with the wind and he turns back to David with fear in his eyes. “You’ll be careful, won’t you? Please?”

“Don’t worry, Tommy-boy, I’ll watch the old man’s back.” Joan laughs from across the table, still chatting away with Galia.

David swallows and nods. “You don’t need to worry about me, Anthony .”

“I just don’t want you-or Lizzy-getting hurt again. Not on my account.”

“I’ll be fine.” David moves his hand back. “I’ve fought f***s like this before. I can deal with them.”

“I know.” And then Anthony  closes his eyes, and lets out a long shuddering breath. “I just really look forward to going back to the Tower where you don’t have to.”

Anthony  hugs him, and David allows it, not voicing his thought that there will never be a time where he won’t have to draw blood for Anthony .