Archive of Our Own

Peace is a fickle thing, Emily tries to reason with herself as she ties her hair in an elegant updo, hands steady and quick at their work.

Peace is fragile and cannot truly ever be achieved. It is something she had learned first-hand as a small child, seeing the plague take her city, seeing the red-and-blue assassins take her mother and her, seeing those whom she was meant to trust cast the sodden grey city of Dunwall into the bowels of the earth without regard - those that had been its cradle, and now its grave. 

And there is so little that Emily could— can —do for it. Dunwall, once prosperous and tall, had crumbled into an ashen facsimile— an echo —of its former glory, all Obsidian Towers and Walls of Sparkling Light. Much like Emily thought herself a cheap version of her mother, bless her memory, whose dark eyes stare at her from across the room. Her portrait reflects in Emily's vanity and for a moment, Emily's stomach drops with longing for her mother's advice, wishing she'd still been a child hiding behind her mother's legs at every social event she'd been forced to attend.

But she cannot hide anymore. 

She is now the Empress and she is determined to do well by her people, especially after she'd seen what her apparent neglect had done to Karnaca. It had been eye-opening and something in Emily had shifted - she could never be the perfect Empress, not even Jessamine had come close but she had made it look so easy. So...effortless.

And now, looking at the portrait hung on her wall, Emily only hopes that she can hold up to the legacy of the Kaldwin dynasty.

She is nearly done with the preparations, securing the high of her coat's collar in place when an intruder breaches her chambers. 

She feels Billie before she hears her, the Mark on the back of her left hand warming at the presence of another Void-touched, though Billie is probably not the best defined by such descriptions. Void-damned, more like, she would correct. Still, Emily does not flinch, and does not react until her clothes are fully fixed and the persona of the Empress of the Isles overshadows that of Emily Kaldwin. 

"Billie," she addresses her companion, shifting her sharp gaze in the mirror until it lands on the would-be assassin clad in red, who hovers in the middle of the room like a ghost, "to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? Anything interesting to report?"

"Much," Billie responds in tow and, for all her grace and feigned nonchalance, wrinkles her nose at the strong smell of fragrance permeating the air, "do you have time to spare before Parliament? I'd rather not drag this on any longer than it needs to be."

That makes Emily frown.

"Speak then."

With a nod, Billie reaches into the folded bag at the small of her back—a nifty extension of her bandolier—pulling out a handful of crumpled papers. In one step, she's by Emily's side, laying out the offered information on the vanity's surface. Most of the papers appear to be posters and torn out newspaper articles from the southern side of Serkonos, far too similar to those having described the Crown Killer just a few months past. This time, however, they speak of the Empress—Emily—or rather the Empress' Doppelganger wreaking havoc on the already wrecked city of Karnaca. 

Emily's frown deepens as she skims over the articles, eyes catching on accusations of the Empress having pulled a Luca Abele and hiring a body double that would sit pretty in Dunwall Tower while the true Empress razes Karnaca to the ground. Some of the articles call her a heretic, some speak of petty crimes, some of vivacious acts of violence apparently caused by the Empress herself. The more she reads on, the more absurd the accusations become, for Emily is pretty sure she had not left the Tower and its surrounding areas for months after coming back from the very same place that now calls to action over the Empress' wrong-doings. 

A couple of months have passed and someone had it out for her again.

(When will she ever catch a break?) 

'Peace is a fickle thing', Emily reminds herself, sighing deeply before pressing her face into her hands. Has she not suffered enough? 

The apparent answer is no and a hand of cool Voidstone on her shoulder. Emily appreciates the gesture but she appreciates Billie's work even more so. It had been difficult to fully come to terms with the woman's actions but Emily is her father's daughter, and if Corvo had the guts and willpower to spare Daud and let him flee, Emily could only show the same courtesy to the one who'd also shown remorse to her actions. Billie had helped her during Delilah's coup and sought a chance to repent herself by Emily's word, even if that word had cast her into exile on the dark side of Tyvia.

So Emily chose work and for Billie to be useful in ways familiar to her. Curious how a woman responsible for the death of one Empress now bows her head to another.  

"Someone has been busy" Billie begins, pointing at a silvergraph taken in motion of a half-shadowed woman far too similar to Emily for it to be a mere coincidence, "and has chosen to imitate you. To bring you down, to discredit you, or worse. It could be just an uncanny similarity and a copied style of outerwear that has people pointing their fingers your way but something about this stinks - it's too deliberate to be a happenstance and with everything that had happened up to this point, I'd wager someone is seeking to take advantage of your shared visage. The motivation is unknown but they could be in opposition to the Crown as a whole."

Taking in Billie's words, Emily continues pressing her face into her hands until the balls of her palms dig into her eye sockets and until she starts seeing stars and random colourful shapes dancing in her vision.

"This fucking sucks," she proclaims, leaning back in her chair. She looks through the mirror once again, eyes firmly on Billie's face, "Have you got any leads? Any information that could point towards a ploy?" 

Billie shakes her head.

"None other than the fact you're sat in front of me in flesh and in steel," therein, she pauses for a short while before continuing, "I was thinking of going to Karnaca to investigate but I wouldn't want to leave your side before informing you and Attano first."

Of course, Billie would want to inform Corvo of her departure. To him, Billie is still on thin ice, a hand guiding the blade buried in Jessamine's chest. With great aversion he all but tolerates her presence to a fault, having to admit that against his judgement, Billie is a useful asset and addition to the already existing network of spies - for she can keep tabs on the Void when he is too concerned with worldly matters to spare a moment. Even if the look he gives Billie is not one of anger and disdain but silent sadness and disappointment.

With a nod, Emily takes a deep breath and dons the mask of an Empress before getting up and starting towards the door. She pauses for a brief moment, turning over her shoulder to look at Billie. There is something in her eyes -  she is contemplating something, mulling her options, and choosing her words - and Billie already knows what she is going to say before she even opens her mouth.

"I want to come with," Emily declares, "with you to Karnaca. If this is turning out to be a threat against me, I shall see to it personally. It might not be the smartest of decisions but it is decisive--"

"You are right in assuming it isn't the smartest of decisions. Have you lost your mind? First of all, Attano will kill me, and second of all, what in the Void do you think will happen when the actual Empress shows her royal arse in Karnaca just like that, claiming to have come to investigate this Doppelganger thing everyone keeps talking about?" Billie's voice comes out as a whisper-yell, hands thrown to the wind at Emily's words. Much to Billie's chargin' Emily's face only hardens into stony determination and she turns towards the assassin with her whole body.

"And what should I do? Sit in the Tower while the situation goes to shit and do nothing? Apologies, Billie, but I am not Burrows. And if I just send you in my stead? It will be equally suspicious."

At that, Billie opens her mouth - she really wants to argue about this, determined to let Emily know she'd be likely falling into a nest of vipers while she still has the advantage of plausible denial but a flicker of something in her range makes her pause and turn toward the door with an alarmed expression. Emily looks confused, ready to open her mouth and ask about Billie's strange behaviour but soon the silence is interrupted by shouting from down the hall, voices of men and women echoing through the tall halls of the Tower's upper levels. 

"They must be in the lower sitting room," Billie says at the same time as one of the guards yells: "Detain her! Detain the Empress - detail the impostor!" from below.  Emily just barely manages to make a sound before Billie is upon her, Voidstone hand clutching the Empress' wrist like a vice. She pulls and Emily displaces with her to the other end of the room. 

"The Safe Room. Now!" Billie urges, lifting Emily's hand to the mechanism, watching as the Empress fumbles a little before slotting her ring into position, twisting sharply to make the entrance appear. Billie does not wait for it to fully open, dragging Emily through before using her grip on Emily's wrist to immediately seal the entrance shut.

"Looks like we are going to Karnaca after all..." Emily says between a few harshly panted breaths, a hint of amusement beneath all the panic and worry. Billie does not share her sentiment though, cursing.

There is little time to think and even she knows that the Empress’ safe room is not impenetrable at the end of the day, so she elects to push the heavy redwood cabinet by the stairs in front of the passageway door, effectively hindering the potential advancements of the rabid guards further. 

When Billie turns to Emily, he sees the Empress’ face harden into something more practised and efficient, the mask of a woman who’d been shunned out of her own city before. And she has - when Delilah vowed to rule Dunwall, the Waking World, and even the Void, young Empress Emily stood exactly in the same spot as she’s now.

Except back then, she was creeping in on Mortimer Ramsey with a killing intent. Ramsey’s only luck was that Emily had long since decided to bloodlessly follow in her father’s footsteps, though it does not mean his fate had been any more merciful. And mercy will not be something Emily will greet the Tower guards with if they manage to break through - all that resolve and drive kicks her into motion towards the countless drawers and storage units.

They are shock full of darts and ammunition and Billie realises that Emily had prepared for the possibility of something similar repeating. And lo and behold, she was right to. Thus while Emily stocks up on supplies, Billie scours the place for anything else that could be useful. Her eyes land on a Mrs Pilsen doll with a gleaming tiara slipping off its bent head. 

Billie grimaces at the doll, finding that thing more creepy than anything else with its hollow black eyes so reminiscent of their mutual acquaintance. Perhaps that is what sets her off, even if it is evident that the toy has been well-loved. 

Fucking aristocratic children and their creepy bougie shit.

“Let’s go,” Emily calls out from the desk, armed to the teeth with Dunwall’s latest technological advancements. Billie gives her a quick look before snatching the shiny tiara right off the doll’s head and stuffing her into the folds of her red overcoat.

If Emily sees it, she does not say a word, but Billie knows that while it might seem like a completely useless item, the tiara is the only thing that can secure them a decent passage to Karnaca. And maybe some ‘tax money’ to go with the offering.

The yelling outside picks up in volume when they leave the safe room through the storage rooms lined with various knick-knacks, winding and weaving between items until the labyrinthine halls spit them out on an architecturally obsolete balcony that overlooks the rooftops of Dunwall. No one would spot them there, Billie notes, looking at Emily. 

She’s done this before, Billie reminds herself again, something akin to pity and admiration settling deep in the pits of her stomach. And she might have to do it again countless times, so for this once, while Billie is there, she decides to take the lead, pointing westwards to where the buildings boast new facades—shiny ones—that hide ugly secrets in their walls, and then beyond to where the Empress' feet and carriages had lead her many times - always out of social obligation and never because of genuine want and need. 

Draper's Ward seems half a city away but they should have no problem accessing it over the tops of buildings - Billie does not give the order to move but displaces herself to the next building over with a roof high enough to give them a decent vantage point from which they can cross the street without alerting those beneath them. Luckily, only one in ten guards ever looks up - Billie realises this with a stab of pain and guilt, as this is exactly how Daud had commanded them to approach when they executed Jessamine. The thought will haunt her later but for now, she's too focused on getting them from point A to point B, keeping her eyes forward as she displaces herself again. 

The tell-tale woosh of air and the soft sound of the Empress' boots hitting the shingles and concrete are the only things propelling her forward.

Beneath their feet, Dunwall changes - from tall arches and spires reaching out towards the sky, from authoritative and powerful lines accented by arching windows into something more lavish and opulent, into massive buildings and gardens with ornate columns and designs bordering on arrogantly obsolete; and it does not stop there for the Draper's Ward seems like an extension exclusive for the Dunwall elite. Or at least it was so before the gangs ran it into the ground. It is ironic and sad when one realises that not even in the next street over, people are dying from disease and hunger.

Billie does not say anything. 

It is not that she cannot but rather than that, she does not want to, preferring to stay silent as she descends into the Ward by following her old footsteps and routes designed for assassins rather than the pedestrian public. But it might as well be what they are now.

"Back to my roots," Billie mumbles without ill thought, turning to look at Emily who has fallen into a neat step after her. Her eyes are sharp when she looks up, raising a brow as if to prompt Billie to go on, to give her an explanation. 'Is this it?'

"Gang territory," Billie starts after a while, voice low and grating like gravel, "we did some business here back when Daud was still the Knife and led us from one pile of shit into another. He had a contact—a friend—who might be able to help us secure a passage from Dunwall to Karnaca on her ship. For a price."

Emily continues to give Billie a look but she seems to be genuinely curious about the ship. Though at this point, she does not have many options. And she hopes this one will end up working out.

"So. Daud's friend?" She questions, raising a brow, "I find it hard to believe someone like Daud's contact can be trusted much but very well - business is business."

"Yeah," Billie snorts, "there is just one problem. It's Lizzy Stride ."

Emily does not know what that means until they reach the run-down port on the edge of Draper’s Ward and she meets Lizzy for the first time.

"Look what the cat dragged in!"

Lizzy Stride is not what Emily expects her to be. When Billie said that the captain herself is the problem, Emily imagined many things as the two of them climbed down the rafters of abandoned apartments and into the streets below crawling with Dead Eel gang members. When Emily felt on edge, Billie assured her it was fine, hand clamped around Emily's wrist just in case she were to shoot someone on autopilot - the gang members leer her way, yapping and cackling like hyenas when Billie waves them off.

(She is sure she hears some of them whisper " That's one of Daud's !" behind her, tasteless comments and laughter not at all spared at the expanse of either of their fates. Luckily, Emily had half a mind to cover her face with a kerchief. The Eels are distracted by Billie enough not to notice the Empress in their midst.)

The Eels pay them very little mind otherwise. 

On the contrary, Lizzy Stride is an arc pylon amongst dead eels; no pun intended.

She greets Billie with a sneer, mouth like a hagfish—full of sharp teeth filed into points—which turns into a wide grin and ends up with the captain chortling and spitting at Billie's feet. She still grabs Billie's hand in a 

strange handshake, treating her like an old friend by proxy. 

Or at least Emily assumes so. 

In her eyes, Lizzy Stride is a filthy crook of a woman with greasy hair and rotten flesh under her fingernails and in her teeth, a smuggler with foul intentions - and yet she can already tell the woman will be less dishonest that she plays herself up to be. Business is business, Emily reminds herself, and an eye taken will be paid by an eye given, though no codex says it has to be one of your own. That much Emily can respect.

"You fucken weasel, you!" Lizzy rasps, taking a step back to look Billie over, "The fuck have you been, Lurk? You look like shite. Polished shite in that fucken' thing."

"That's a long story," Billie is quick to dismiss Lizzy because how in the Void can she even explain the events of the last few years to Lizzy, when they do not even make sense to her. And she's lived them. After a second, Billie presses her tongue to the inside of her cheek, almost seeming impatient.

"Look, I'll tell you later but I came here for business. Official business," she makes sure that Lizzy is keeping an eye on her before nodding her head at Emily who's still stood by her side. Lizzy's pale and narrowed eyes follow Billie's nod to the woman by her side - Emily feels as if Lizzy were looking through her soul in that instant.

Lizzy's cheek is smudged with coal residue.

"And who is your pretty lady, Lurk?" Lizzy grins anew, giving Billie a look that makes her skin crawl, "Care to introduce us?"

"Can we take this elsewhere? Like inside?" Emily groans. 

Her reaction yields nothing but a cackle from Lizzy as the captain turns and beckons them further down the dock where the Undine sways gently upon the Wrenhaven's currents. The ship does not appear grand by any means but it does look sturdy—made of large plates of thick metal—and battle-worn in some places where dents marr its scrappy look. Utility over fashion is nearly foreign to Emily but she appreciates the change, feeling like she's back on the same journey that had led her steps to Karnaca the first time around.  

And now she's here, about to repeat that same journey, to rid herself of another pretender endangering her crown; and the cycle repeats. 

She thinks of Corvo as she advances further, gliding across the vessel's deck as Lizzy Stride does before descending below into the darkness. She thinks of Corvo, her poor father, left behind in a hurry and without as much as a goodbye - he will now have to take care of the mess she'd left behind. Emily only hopes that this time, he will be left out of it, able to preserve himself instead of being marked as an accomplice. 

Her thoughts darken her mood further and Billie seems to notice as they descend the stairs to a nook in the ship's hold where a bunch of nondescript crates create something akin to a one-man sentry point with perfect view of the stairs. Someone had left a deck of playing cards and a knife stuck in one of the crate tops. 

Lizzy seats herself on top of the knife-bearing crate, gesturing at the other crates around her for her guests to sit. She looks intimidating like that, tearing out the knife and twirling it in her hand, bare feet finding purchase on the crate's side. Emily can feel Lizzy's eyes scrutinising her - the captain undoubtedly knows who she is.

"You wanted to speak elsewhere, so speak."

"I don't know where to start," Emily admits, looking at Billie who shares a look with her.

"Liz, this is Emily. Emily Kaldwin, the Empress of the Isles. Emily, this is Lizzy Stride, the captain of the Undine and the leader of the Dead Eels," Billie gestures. The look on Lizzy's face is slightly dour at the mention of Emily's name but her posture does not change from the lax one she'd assumed earlier. She merely contemplates the knife in her hand before using the sharp tip of it to dig out the dirt from underneath her nails bitten short.

"I know who she is," Lizzy drops nonchalantly, cutting off whatever Billie wanted to continue with, "I don't live under a fucking rock, Lurk. Her face is plastered on every bloody poster and every other page of the fucking Gazette. I am more curious about what you want with the Eels - you're putting a target on my head and you better have a good fucking reason for doing that."

She pointedly looks in Emily's direction - she's heard of the rumours and while she doesn't care for them at all, she also does not care to end in Coldridge for something as stupid as harbouring the Empress. Even if the thought of it is certainly alluring and entertaining in a way. And while Lizzy has never been one to shy away from causing absolute mayhem, having the Overseers and the Guard both sniffing at her doorstep is not something she's too keen on. As much as her people piss her off sometimes, they are still her family - even if they are a couple of fingers short thanks to her.

Emily takes a deep breath, squaring her shoulders as she faces the captain with a determined look. She may be an Empress but her rank means naught here - she is just Emily and she wants a deal with the Dead Eels,

"As Billie said, business. We are looking for a passage to Karnaca. I'll pay you well--"

"No," Lizzy interrupts, "I don't care about your money, princess. I ain't taking my people there. And I won't surrender my ship either." 

It is disappointing but somewhat predictable. Emily frowns.

"I will issue you and your people a pardon from the Crown once we are back."

"I don't give a damn about you pardons, Kaldwin. You may not be aware but not even that will stop your dumb fat bloodhounds from severing our heads from our bodies and turning us into street lamp decorations," Lizzy gets up in a flash, knife almost at Emily's throat. The only thing keeping it from making contact is Billie's gloved hand on Lizzy's bony wrist, holding it still. 

"This is not a negotiation, Liz - the money, the pardons, and a gift for your trouble," Billie makes sure Lizzy's eyes are on her as she reaches into her bandolier with her free hand, pulling out the trinket she had snatched in the safe room earlier. The tiara is a tiny thing of wrought silver and minuscule gemstones, glittering under the faint lamplight like Tyvian snow. Lizzy's eyes visibly flicker from Billie's face to the tiara, teeth bared as she pulls her body back, snatching the tiara from Billie's grasp. Billie lets her, watching as Lizzy opens her mouth and bites into the tiara, testing it under her teeth for falsity. Her teeth clink against the dainty-looking crown, unyielding to the point it looks like Lizzy might chip a tooth if she presses any harder. 

Seemingly satisfied, she pulls the tiara out of her mouth, wiping it on her filthy vest (how counterproductive) before placing it upon her head. The expression on her face loosens for a minute, her mouth splitting into a grin full of sharp teeth aimed at both of the women in front of her.

"You've got yourself a deal. Lurk, Kaldwin," Lizzy keeps grinning and Emily finds it uncanny in a way. She does not know what just happened but she will take it. Ahead of her, Lizzy holds her hands together before spitting into her palms. She rubs them together, crossing her arms in front of her at her elbows if only to hold out her hands for each of the women to shake.

Billie looms pointedly disgusted but reaches out to clasp her hand with Lizzy's and Emily has no choice but to follow - she does not think twice before spitting into her own palm to shake Lizzy's hand.

(If Corvo has taught her anything about seedy business deals, it was to honour the dealer's tradition and odd rituals. Spit-bonding is not the worst of them, he'd tell her.)

The captain's grin widens impossibly at the gesture.

"Ladies, welcome aboard the Undine. Make yourself at home."

By the time Emily and Billie make it back up to the main dock, Lizzy has already called for her gang members to meet up on the deck. She stands above on the bridge, leaning against the railing with the tiara sitting pretty on her head. The Dead Eels are disgruntled but they all eventually converge below Lizzy, waiting for the announcement - the captain does not let them wait too long, gesturing at the duo of stragglers who are a smidge too slow for her taste. 

"Eels! For years we have haunted the waves of the Wrenhaven, pillaged and plundered merchant ships, hijacked cargo, and killed unworthy men. We dredged through the gutters of Dunwall, the city that has robbed us of everything - and we robbed it right back!" Lizzy bellows and the Eels below her yell on her command, throwing out obscenities to the wind.

"And I am not saying we're stopping that; but — we also deserve a vacation and to rob some other rich folk, steal better cargo than stale brined hagfish and rotten fruit. So gear up because the Undine is setting sail to Karnaca tomorrow morning on a smuggling mission! And we might be staying for a bit to make up for the shitty route. I heard they have some very profitable trade down there."

Lizzy laughs and shows off her teeth, eyes meeting with Emily's and Billie's before she orders her crew to 'haul ass and gather as many supplies as possible'. She meets them back on the deck once the gang disperses to follow her orders - Emily catches several of them looking her and Billie's way, preemptively pushing the ornate scarf covering her face just a little higher. Lizzy's comment on knowing who she is still rings sharply in her head and while she is aware it might be too late, it still gives her some sense of security in this hostile environment.

She is not afraid for her safety here - between her and Billie, anyone daring to step up to the two of them would be downright insane. No, Emily thinks, but it is the uncertainty of the future that keeps her on her toes and that will most certainly give her a few nightmares.

A call of "Emily!" interrupts her train of thought and she looks off to the side, seeing Billie there with an expectant gaze. 

"Apologies. You were saying?"

"That we should find a place to hide for the night, first of all," Billie repeats, eyes scanning the nearby building for an abandoned hole in the wall that would suffice as their lodgings for the night, "and gather some supplies ourselves. I don't think Liz will be too keen on sharing and we need at least some things to survive the trip - I don't think we can count on the ammunition alone."

And Billie is right, Emily sighs, nodding to the suggested course of action. Lizzy does not need them now and no one says anything as they disappear from the very place they just stood a minute ago and appear elsewhere. The Eels pay them no mind as they make quick work of their surroundings with the Void-powers given to them by their elusive friend - gazing into the Void saves them plenty of time on both supplies and looking for empty spaces.

Whatever they can gather they stack in a would-be apartment, now long abandoned and boarded up from all sides. They make a makeshift entrance from the half-collapsed wall, destroying a few boards of rotten wood to get inside. Only one room is available for entry, co-joined with a small washroom with no door; but it will suffice and serve them well for the singular night that they are staying. 

Billie stacks the canned food she's gathered on a rickety table by the wall, turning to observe their space - the room looks like it could have once been the site of one of Granny Rags' rituals; there are smudged chalk remains on the floorboards, giving Billie flash-backs to all of the times Daud would find one of these hellish scenes and complete the old hag's rituals for her for a piece of carved whalebone. She did not understand then and she does not understand now.

"A rat-bitten blanket and a mattress with suspicious stains on it is the only thing we can work with for the night," Emily sighs from the side, dragging the dubious-looking mattress off to the side to the driest and most stable-looking corner. Billie thinks she should shudder in disgust but it isn't by far the worst of places she's ever had to sleep.

"It will do," she replies instead, "pull the blanket over the mattress and it will suffice for you to sleep on." Emily looks at her in turn, eyebrows raised,

"Me? What about you? Or do you just plan on sleeping on the ground?"

"That's exactly what I plan on doing," Billie replies, "if I'll sleep at all. You, on the other hand, should try to get at least some sleep overnight. Void knows you'll need it."

It is not worth it starting an argument over such a thing - Emily knows that Billie is looking out for her but a part of her wants to be stubborn about these things. Billie knows that she is not fragile and that she's seen much and been through many things, yet she still does these little things and excuses them as courtesy towards Emily as an Empress, and that pisses Emily off to no end.

"Whatever," she eventually sighs, gesturing at the small pile of supplies they have gathered on the way here as a silent invitation to come along and look for more. Billie does not need much persuading, displacing herself from the apartment ahead of Emily, leaving the Empress to follow her across the rear end of the Draper's Ward in search for anything that they could use.

The entire time, Emily is itching to leave the place as soon as possible. Not just the Ward but the entirety of Dunwall, feeling like she's losing precious time now though there is seemingly no ultimatum or stake as there was before. That is if they do not count the state of the Empire which longs for stabilisation - she only hopes that someone will be able to keep it together until she returns and clears her name.

She spends the rest of their daylight perched on the low wall marking the entrance to their makeshift place of stay, eyes on Dunwall's skyline half-hidden by the smoke rising from the mills inside of Draper's Ward. It gives her some time to think and reflect on the situation - it is too much of a coincidence and almost too similar to what happened during Delilah's coup. Emily is the target again, her name dragged through the gutters and given a bloodied knife she had sworn off before her first take on Karnaca. But someone didn't like that and now she's going back. 

Perhaps once she finds out the one responsible, she will break her own vow to herself - she will pick up that knife and carve herself out of this impostor's grasp, giving them and their allies a clear message; that Emily Kaldwin will stop at nothing, no matter how much is thrown her way. 

(She is aware that spilling blood might not be the righteous solution she believes it to be and instead of a warning, it might be taken as a challenge - only time will tell how the situation will develop and whether a non-lethal way can be achieved. Justice might be blind, but Emily certainly isn't and she is aware of the cruelty Justice brings with her - she is no stranger to dishing out fates worse than death as if her own life was above the lives of many. Selfishly, she'd like it to be but realistically, the world will not stop for a dead Empress. It never has before.)

"I can hear you thinking from the other side of the room," comes Billie's voice from behind her, slowly nearing closer as the woman takes a seat next to Emily before offering her a slightly bruised apple, "A coin for your thoughts?" Emily accepts the fruit, pondering it for a moment before wiping it on her coat. She takes a bite.

"I am trying to take it all in. First the coup, now this, and frankly I am starting to believe that if this pattern keeps up, by the end of my days, I'd have spent my life more as a fugitive than an Empress," Emily confesses, chewing on the tart fruit thoughtfully, "I am also trying to figure how to deal with all of this - what will I do when I eventually face my enemies this time? When will I slip and stray my hand?"

With a sigh, Emily looks down, at her empty hand, flexing her fingers. She decides to spare Billie a glance,

"Realistically, I see you. I know you and where your loyalty lies now. But that does not mean I am not afraid of walking that path alone, whatever the reason may be. I have learnt that a support pillar makes everything possible - I have broken the pillars of many people and watched them crumble and fall without that which held them up and made their actions possible. And I realise I have those pillars too - if someone were to rid me of them, I am not sure how long I would last. Perhaps at that point, I would learn to fear my own mortality,"

From the corner of her eye, Emily sees Billie give her an odd look - she cannot decide which emotion it is supposed to convey but perhaps she is better off not knowing.

"For what's it worth," Billie interjects, "I won't leave you."

' Not of your own volition. Do not make promises you cannot keep ,' Emily wants to add but instead, smiles sadly, 

"Thank you, Billie. I appreciate that." 

And Billie humours Emily, returning the small smile in a passing moment. She stabs a piece of brined hagfish with her knife, pointing it at Emily in a jokingly threatening manner,

"Besides, Attano would kill me if I let anything happen to you and I'd rather not end up as a rug in the Royal Protector's chambers. Outsider knows what happens in that place." It is a poor attempt at humour but Emily catches the innuendo in her ward's words, cheeks blazing.

"Billie, stop!"

But she laughs and she laughs freely, at least for the time being - a facsimile of normalcy in the midst of absolute chaos.

Later, Emily blames her wet eyes on laughter, glad when Billie does not question it.

The night finds them both retreating into their respective corners, Emily curled up on the mattress while Billie rests sat up against the wall by her feet. She's half reclined and her good eye is closed - Emily suspects she's not sleeping but she's keeping her eye shut for Emily's own sake. It is how they wake up in the morning, or at least how Emily does - with the first hints of sunlight, Billie is already on her feet, packing the supplies they had scavenged the day before into two tightly wound packs; there's food and money, bandages, and blankets that had not suffered too badly under Dunwall's abandon, and which will serve them well on the colder nights in the hold. 

"Rise and shine, princess," Billie nudges her with the tip of her shoe, causing Emily to groan as she pushes herself up. She's quick to wake but that does not render her any less tired and sore from her sleeping place.

"I am up," she eventually manages, a little bleary-eyed as she follows Billie back down to the dock. There is a relatively fresh stain of blood on the concrete nearby but Emily hardly pays it any attention, too focused on delivering herself to the Undine as quickly as her stiff limbs allow her to. Lizzy already awaits them, nodding sharply in their direction. The Eels appear to be putting finishing touches on the ship - a few burly men carry the last of the supplies below deck, shouting obscenities at each other; a duo of women report back in a minute after having checked the ship's engines. Lizzy gestures at another woman passing by, beckoning her over.

"Anabelle. Show our guests to their quarters."

There is no emotion in Lizzy's voice but cold command directed at the black-haired woman. Anabelle does not appear to be thrilled by Lizzy's order, merely turning on her heel to lead Billie and Emily below the main deck and into the hold, where she shows them a would-be cabin no bigger than a broom closet. It barely fits in a foldout bed with a hammock above it and a small shaving table with a mirror mounted to the far end of the room. 

"The Royal quarters," Anabelle snorts and spits on the floor in front of the cabin, clearing herself out of the hold in the next moment. It is obvious she does not approve of them being here, having taken none too kindly to the Empress herself staking her claim over the ship on an impromptu voyage to Karnaca. No amount of warnings regarding 'precious cargo' will ever stop the Eels, Emily notes, having resigned her fate to a two-week-long sailing journey in a pit of aquatic vipers. 

"Well," Emily braces herself, stepping over the threshold of the cabin, "it could be worse. At least there are no leaks and we have some place to sleep."

"You will need to humble yourself, Empress," Billie comments, inclining her head to look below the foldout, "not that you are not apt at doing so already, but sleeping in an abandoned apartment and having your feet nibbled on by rats might be safer and more comfortable than this." There is an old empty trunk beneath the bed. Billie pulls it out, grimacing at the state it is in. Despite that, it will serve well enough as a temporary storage unit. 

"I will go and tell Lizzy we are ready to go if she is. If we set sail now, we'll be on good time with our arrival. Provided the Undine does not collapse halfway there. Will you be okay on your own?" There is no concern in Billie's voice. Her question is that of a common courtesy, a quick reassurance she's fine to go ahead,

"Yeah, I'll be fine here," Emily replies, nodding her head, "I might join you on the deck momentarily, I just need a moment." Billie dutifully waits for a moment longer after Emily is finished speaking and then she is off towards the stairs, steps silent save for the occasional creaking of the floor beneath the soles of her shoes. Once she is gone, Emily takes a seat on the foldout, placing her head in her hands if only to take a moment for herself. She is unsure whether she wants to watch Dunwall fade into the distance, needing no reminder of the chaos she's leaving behind. At least not from up close.

By the time the ship passes past the majority of Dunwall, Emily appears on the deck, resolute and determined, and with a new sense of purpose in her step. No more feeling sorry for myself , she thinks, approaching where Billie is speaking with Lizzy, arms crossed over her chest. She stands out among the Eels, vibrant red and dangerous and lethal in a way that speaks of years of experience. There is an air of something around her that excites, and Emily only hopes to carry herself with such an air of practised ease someday.

"Look who's decided to join us - the guest of honour herself," Lizzy goads, leaning against the ship's wheel, "Fancy of you to join us. You better be ready for the ride, cause it's going to be a bumpy one - I am driving this ship full speed and honey, it ain't got no brakes. "

They spend the rest of the day like that, talking in the secluded company of only the captain and the two of them. Emily learns quite a few things about the Eels and their operations - Lizzy is sceptical about sharing at first but Emily reminds her that she has already issued a pardon and perhaps she might even hire them in the future to cover their actions as done on behalf of the Crown. At least it would be easier to control the gang activity in the further parts of Dunwall, as the inner circles are already under the carefully controlled jurisdiction of the Bottle Street gang. With Corvo and Slackjaw becoming sort-of-friends, their business partnership had blossomed based on mutual respect and compromises cut by either side. 

One could say it is almost a people-pleasing approach but Emily knows better; knows that concessions sometimes have to be made and that not all promises of order are as truthful as they might seem, sugar-coated and vile. 

But Lizzy's tales spark fond memories of Emily's childhood - dreams of stormy seas and sailing, of a pirate Empress braving the untamed oceans and exploring faraway lands with new adventures and treasures to be found in every corner of the Isles. She now realises how romanticised her idea had been then, laughing when Lizzy tells a story about robbing Watch Officers on patrols of everything but their helmets and underwear and then letting them aimlessly run around like headless chicken, panicking when they had realised someone had stolen their ship's wheel and dismantled their tiller.

It is easy for Emily to forget herself for a moment.

Daylight creeps into sunset and then to night and she had not looked back once the entire time. The one time she had tried, her gaze got stuck on Billie with her crooked grin at another one of Lizzy's stories or when sharing her own of Daud having dug out a bone charm out of a toilet at Coldridge when he went to break Lizzy out. Billie had caught her then and inclined her head in a silent gesture that meant a surprising lot to Emily, allowing her to avert her gaze from Dunwall's fading cutout.

Come evening, their little party moved to the deck itself, sponsored by rat lamps and cheap booze passed around like the golden coins lost and won in the Eel's game of Nancy. Billie joins them, hands quick and nimble from her years as a professional pickpocketer. It is mesmerising to watch the cards disappear and reappear in her hands, switching colours quicker than a lay eye could notice. Billie utilises her connection to the Void to cheat at cards, playing the Eels for their scraps until Pigface, the burly Tyvian with a squashed face, declares that Billie is somehow cheating with her fancy gadgets. 

"Perhaps you've never played a professional, Vanya," Montaine scoffs, setting down his cards as he regards Billie with a curt nod, "Good game, Lurk, but maybe consider returning some of that coin into the cycle. Else we ain't got much to play with again aside from teeth. And some of us are a few short of those."

"Have you considered getting better?" Billie fires back with a snort but returns some of her profits back to be divided amongst the playing crowd so they could continue playing with something at stake. She does not care much for the coin but she also does not plan on losing any of her actual stash, merely having fun with tricking the crew.

"Cannot teach an old dog new tricks," Montaine shrugs and divvies up the coins, passing the deck along to be shuffled, "but a young one can learn, and she has the currency to sway the game, eh, lady?" He regards Emily with his squint, gesturing at the space between Billie and one of the Baker brothers (Emily cannot remember their names to save her life). She returns the look, unfolding her arms before moving from where she was leaning against a cargo crate to join the abstract circle of criminals - among them, she could easily be called the worst. 

"The Lady does not play, especially not competitively, but she is willing to learn. Provided you teach her properly before pulling all of your tricks on me," she seats herself a bit closer to Billie, trusting her companion to be the one watching over her. Billie seems to take her role of a mentor with some reluctance but a few gulps of cheap whiskey make her more complacent.

"And it's Emily. There are no Ladies here, not for the time being. Now how do you play?"

The rest of the journey is divided into the Eels teaching Emily how to play cards, fighting against them, and trying to decide their next course of action; the last of which unsurprisingly meets a thick brick wall of Emily being unaware of any leads and struggling to grasp onto evidence left behind by the would-be imitation of her. She tells herself that they will properly think about it all once they have made port in Karnaca and set up a base of operations somewhere, where they wouldn't be as easy to track down. Billie too says she needs a more secluded place to focus in, somewhere where she can share her thoughts about the whole ordeal in peace - preferably between four eyes. 

So Emily is forced to divvy up her time sailing into various activities, keeping herself busy and on her toes - she goes toe to toe with many-a Eels in combat, learning plenty of dirty tricks and how to avoid their acidic attacks. It also helps her improve her hand-to-hand combat especially, taking care to learn a couple more dirty tricks that not even her father could be able to teach her. It helps her not rely on her sword all of the time. And yet… 

“En garde,” she calls, swinging her sword at her opponent, polished shoes making quick work across the tough planks of the deck. It is the second to last day and in such a short time, Emily has learnt to recognise the crew by more than names. She, ever-so-quick to learn, can easily recognise them based on whether there is gait in their walk and by the weight of their step, by their own fighting style, by habits. The journey is different than that which she'd spent with Bille on her way to Karnaca the first time - this one is forcing her to interact with whatever crew members had decided to tag along for the ride, has forced her to learn them by habits and patterns if she were to trust them for her survival. If someone decided to turn and come for her, she'd have to know who they are and how they would attack. Call it paranoia but if anything, Emily considers it a future investment. 

Going against the Eels allows her to brush up on the street combat she might face. It is of the Gristolian variety, focusing on melee damage and crippling the opponent with krust-made poison and acid. It might not be of the variety she will face but she learns a thing or two, pickpockets a pouch of krust-dust and then some more, and sits through a short guide on how to use it properly without suffering damage from acid yourself. 

The Eels deal heavy blows; most are stocky from carrying crates and doing shipwork, and even women like Anabell, two fingers too light, display a brutal amount of upper body strength. Emily sometimes struggles against them, even with her Robust bone-charm and Void-enhanced strength. But she is lighter and quicker, and as long as she dodges the dust blown at her, she is doing fine. 

"You learn fast, Sparrow," Montaine praises from the side, watching as Pig-face allows Emily a moment of respite against his heavy blows. Her arms are shaking, over-exhausted, and near limp at her sides, but she gives the men a crooked smile.

"My father taught me well," she retaliates, "how to use the size of a bigger enemy against them, how to use my own strength. But I don't think even the harshest of his training could have prepared me for such an assault. That's why I like going against the Baker brothers more - they are easier to manage even in two, sly and cunning, but also somewhat dumber than a pile of bricks."

The gathered crew lets out snorts of amusement. "Certainly a nice way to put it," Montaine hushes the on-lookers, gesturing at them to get back to their jobs. It seems Emily has grown on him in almost a fatherly way, even in such a short time. She considers asking him, opening and closing her mouth like a fish until Montaine beats her to it, waving her off with his hand,

"I had a daughter once. Missus didn't take too kindly to the drinking and gambling and so she took her away to Morley or wherever the hell. Haven't seen them in years and I've little hope they are still alive, but I'd like to think she'd grown to be a woman like you. She was a spitfire as a kid. I would have liked to see her grow up but I understand the life ain't nothing for a kid - she deserved better than this." 

Emily exhales a bit, looking over the man sat on a crate by the edge of the starboard. For a moment there, she sees Corvo, or the man he'd been during the plague - so desperately broken and only wishing to see his family. She understands that this look is specifically reserved for fathers and their daughters, gone and missing, the kind of hopelessness she's seen one too many times.

"I bet she misses you too," she begins carefully, "my father was ever-so-broken to have lost me for days. I cannot imagine the things he went through when I was missing for months, And to think you've been like this for years...have you thought of contacting her? Them?" Montaine shakes his head stiffly, pushing himself off the crate.

"I ain't too sure she'd want to see what's become of her father."

"But at least she will know she has a father that still thinks of her. Think about it. When all of this is over, I can help you search. It's not much, but it should relieve some of the pressure and I think my spy network will be much more useful," she offers, stepping closer to pat Montaine's shoulder, "I will see you at tonight's game of Nancy? Logan's betting his last pair of pants on beating Billie." 

Montaine barks a laugh, shaking his head in a fond manner.

"That fucken kid's about to lose the last of his underwear too. Least we're making port tomorrow so he can get himself something that won't show half his arse like he's about to take a trip to the Boyle's. Damn brat," with a sigh, Montaine turns, waving Emily off once again, "don't let the Eels hold you off for too long tonight. It's a big day tomorrow, Sparrow, and you will need all the rest you can get. It might be the last one for a while."

The evening post Emily's talk with Montaine finds her sat in the nook of their cabin. She's stolen a stool from the mess hall and placed it in front of the little wall-mounted table-slash-shelf with a broken mirror for shaving mounted right above it. It's hazy at the edges, warping the corners of her silhouette. Even the light is dim, casting a shadow over her face as she stares herself down. Behind her, Billie is going over their arsenal, counting whatever rations they have left.

Emily watches her briefly before her gaze slides back to her own face. 

With her hair down, she looks so much like her mother - but where her mother's features had been powerful yet soft and feminine, Emily looks much more like her father with strong and sharp features, a sloped nose, and dark eyes. Even her skin has never gained the pale sheen her mother's noble heritage boasted. Instead, her skin takes to the sun easier than a Gristolian's should, breaking out in freckles in the harshest of them all.

She looks and she sees an echo of her mother, a different one than the Heart had been. She sees her mother in the way she moves, in the way her expressions are steeled - but what would Jessamine do in this situation? Emily ponders that but comes with no resolute answer - for how brilliant Jessamine was, and for how she'd commanded authority, Emily is not too sure whether her mother would have been able to go through all of this. It is a lovely thing to imagine, though - Jessamine, according to Corvo, was quite the dead-eye with a gun, precise, determined to go through all hell, and capable of making quick decisions on the spot.

Emily envies that skill, wondering if it's ever going to be a skill she will learn one day.

"Something on your mind?" Billie questions, casting a glance at Emily from the corner of her eye. She does not look up but she knows that Emily is looking back at her in the mirror. And she is. The young Empress looks resolute but tired, with something ancient dwelling beneath her skin.

"Just thinking about tomorrow - I have no idea where to start." It's an admission that does not come easy but Emily is determined to fix that once they are on-site and can investigate properly.

"There are no hints of an opposition this time around. This is not Delilah waltzing into the throne room. And there does not seem to be any correlation between the victims. We will have to look into things and hope we will find something from my contacts."

"Your contacts?" Billie raises a brow, turning to give Emily a look in the mirror.

"I made friends the last time I was here," Emily begins, running her fingers through her long hair, "I made sure that my network expanded. Corvo has his own and I thought to collect some informants for myself  - like Stilton, Hypatia, Armando, and Mindy."

"All of the high-profile guests then. Aside from Mindy - isn't she Paolo's second in command?"

"She is," Emily admits, "she's surprisingly helpful and has the information none of the others will. I've yet to find more people to trust in 'low places'. But Mindy is definitely one of them. When I returned to Dunwall after Delilah's imprisonment, I made sure to write to both Vice Overseer Byrne and Paolo—discreetly, of course—and made sure that both sides behaved before they had torn Batista into shreds. It was not easy, predictably. The Overseers and Howlers will never get along, nor will they come to stand on neutral ground. A bit of threatening and a few offers here and there to keep both sides at least moderately happy - and right now I could use both of them for information. We need to lay low, so I have considered asking Mindy whether she is aware of any abandoned places we could use as a base of operations. Nothing too conspicuous. And if I want to visit Byrne, I cannot just walk in proclaiming that the Empress wants to speak with him. With the impostor going around, he could think it is a trap. Your thoughts?"

Billie thinks for a moment, slowly putting away all of her equipment, packing for the departure. Her momentary silence unnerves Emily and the Empress soon finds herself tapping her nails on the little table nervously. She trusts Billie to a point with the mundane but she trusts her more with that which isn't. Billie has a past and Emily now needs that past to come to life and help her.

"It's a shit plan, honestly," Billie eventually speaks, "but considering what exactly we are working with, it's as good as any. Someone's dragging you back to Karnaca and for why? Someone wants you here for a specific reason, otherwise they would have you run around like a headless chicken in Tyvia or Morley."

"So the distance is irrelevant."

"Precisely."

"Base of operations then?" Emily guesses, eyes darkening, "Whoever is behind this might be bound to the place. Maybe not by being based here but needing to be here in order for the illusion to function."

Billie kicks the suitcase back under the bed, stepping behind Emily. "How do you know it is an illusion?"

"That's the thing," Emily sighs, "I don't but it is my best guess. Either an illusion or an unfortunate lookalike, but I'd bet on the first."

"If that's the case, Void magic might be involved," Billie retaliates, "there is a point in Karnaca—a place for the lack of a better word—where the Veil is thin and where the Void bleeds into the Waking World. Wouldn't be the first time some crazy freak had tried to harness the Void's powers. And I am not talking about Delilah."

Emily's face scrunches up in thought and eventually, she nods in reluctance at Billie's words. If Billie's words carry even a hint of truth, Emily does not want to know just what she has witnessed, and what parallels she's able to pick up on. It is concerning to say the least, that someone would even as much as try to dabble with Void powers without a filter. Whoever is behind all of this must be using artefacts to exercise so much control. 

Much like Billie, but hers were a gift given. Unwanted but given by the Outsider himself. And for some reason, Emily doubts there is another. 

"Is it even worth it, trying to contact the Outsider and ask?"

"About as useful as watering flowers in the rain, I'm afraid. Meant well but without any significant results. You can try it - maybe the black-eyed bastard will speak to you," Billie shrugs, crossing her arms over her chest. Their eyes meet through the reflection in the broken mirror. Emily sighs again at the matters growing more complicated than necessary, her reign quickly becoming more and more cursed as it progresses.

With Billie's eyes on her, she picks up the blade she nicked from Logan, observing her reflection in the sharp metal. Both her mother and father stare back at her - and she knows that both of them would not hesitate to move on. And she, their daughter, will not either but she will become a product of her own design.

She raises the blade and starts hacking away at her hair, tears threatening to fall from the corners of her eyes all while Billie stands guard behind her, face impassive.

(Nobody questions the change of her appearance that night. Though she is given a few looks, not one person dares to open their mouth - they play cards as usual, casual to the change. Emily is grateful she's not met with the likes of courtly slander and jests.)

Come morning, Billie wakes up to an empty room. She is not worried about Emily one bit but she still does a cursory check only to find the Empress outside, stood at the helm of the ship. She is still there by the time Billie kicks herself out of bed, back cracking worse than that of Esma Boyle's after a night of casual political romping. She stops by Emily's side, watching the golden sun slowly pull Karnaca out of the morning fog. They are close now and should make port by the next hour.

Billie wants to reiterate that to Emily but she is pretty sure that the Empress is aware of how little time they have until they find themselves back on solid ground.

"I will have to speak to the dockmaster once we anchor. I shouldn't be long but I will be with you shortly - do you have any idea where we might find Mindy?" Billie inquires, thinking of this odd partnership the Empress has struck with the Howler's lieutenant. Personally, she'd never met Mindy but she'd heard plenty about her, thinking her to be similar to Lizzy in a way though considerably more chill and nonchalant - someone whom she might get along with but who might also end up annoying her to a degree. She's yet to see about that.

Beside her, Emily sighs and folds her spyglass, sliding it back into its proper place.

"If we do not find her in the alley behind the first Black Market spot in Campo Seta, I have a few more ideas where she could be. Or we might just pay a visit to the Howlers' den. Either or, we will see how lucky we will be but I'd rather not visit the Howlers unattended and raise unnecessary tensions." Billie raises a  brow at that.

"Same as you do not want to visit Vice Overseer Byrne without an officially issued letter first, huh? Enlighten me, Empress, where do you plan on getting something like that without wax seals or proper bureaucracy?" Billie is curious but it is enough for her to catch the corner of a slowly disappearing grin on Emily's face before she is able to mark down the answer as obvious.

"Howlers, right," she sighs, shaking her head at the Empress' shenanigans before she turns and starts walking right back where she came from, "I'll go speak to Lizzy and meet you after I've spoken to the dockmaster. Make sure you're not seen, princess."

Once alone, Emily returns to observing the slowly approaching landmass until it becomes too close for her to risk being spotted as she is. She yields her coat for the time being, pulling her scarf over the bottom of her face. It does not make her unrecognisable, unfortunately, but it does give her the air of being someone familiar that the people have surely seen around before, and should therefore constitute as trustworthy. 

She waits for Billie and her signal patiently as promised, watching the flash of her red coat move down the dock. It's gone minutely, face shed in the appearance of another. Emily blinks at that, completely missing the fact that Lizzy's come to join her, now entertaining her thoughts from the previous evening: someone using the Void to steal her face. With Billie's Semblance, it is possible someone possesses similar skills. Her train of thought is interrupted by Lizzy who whistles loudly at her crew, nearly startling Emily out of staring.

"Listen here, you filthy krust-fuckers. We've made port and as of now function on rotation - supplies, security, free time. Argue amongst yourselves but I want to know your rotations. Montaine, you're in charge for the time being. I want to see my ship pristine and intact by the time I come back. For now, ship duty for everyone. - Mama's gonna play security detail in the meantime."

It takes Emily a moment to realise that Lizzy means herself, brow furrowing at the captain having invited herself along for whatever reason.

"I thought you were not on board with the idea?" Emily asks, watching as Lizzy winks at her with a toothy grin.

"Not on board with my ship being your personal carriage, no, but I do love drama. And it just seems to follow you around."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Emily stammers, turning her head at another sharp whistler—this time Billie's—coming from the dockyard below. She looks at Lizzy and gives her an awkward nod, moving down the ship's ladder. There is certain relief to be felt when her feet hit cut stone, a sigh leaving her lips.

"Finally," she mutters, "but I'd be happier if it were for a better reason."

Billie meets them at the first port wall, arms crossed over her chest. She unfolds them once they approach, giving them a nod before starting towards the Campo Seta streets. She also does not seem to question Lizzy tagging along with them other than another raised brow at both her and Emily. It is only met with a shrug.

"So, Mindy?" Billie asks, letting Emily take the lead as they walk up the ramp and into the busier streets adorned with shops and stalls selling local produce. She pretends not to notice her snatching a coil of copper wire right under a fisherman's nose undetected.

"Who's this Mindy, eh?" Lizzy jumps in just as Emily says 'Yes.' Billie blinks and turns to Lizzy slightly,

"Emily's contact. Right hand of Paolo, the local gang leader - you'll like her, probably. Seems like your type to fuck around with," she doesn't even hide the suggestion in her voice, fully aware that it is better to give Lizzy the information and the subsequent go-ahead a bit sooner so she can get the worst of it out of her system before eventually facing Mindy. Realistically, Mindy wouldn't care much but Billie's endured her fair share of Lizzy's unhinged flirting to not want to hear the worst of the comments directed at anyone she should consider an ally. 

"I haven't even considered you could technically be considered competition but uh, by Billie's words, maybe you could strike up a business deal and see what happens..?"  Emily almost winces at her own words, brushing past a few merchants beckoning people to come and get fresh produce. When she sees the baker's shop, her stomach growls wantonly, wantonly craving the soft rolls she'd have for breakfast at the Tower ever so often. With a heavy heart, she turns her head away, willing her body to pull itself together as she leads the two women up a set of stairs and then slips through an iron gate into an inner block nook. A sweep of her Dark Vision reveals a glowing golden silhouette of a smoking woman heavily reclined on the ratty sofa where Emily had found her many times before.

"She's here."

Mindy appears to be chilling in the same way she was when Emily met her for the first time, merely glancing over when Emily slips into the inner block. Her eyes slowly glide over the rest of the people flooding in, though her expression does not change at all - her smile merely widens a fraction. 

"Not who I expected to see but I am not complaining. Welcome back," Mindy greets with a grin, taking the last drag of her cigar before she puts it out in a nearby ashtray. Emily smiles at her in return, approaching with an easy stride.

"Mindy. I am glad to see you are still around here," she momentarily pulls her scarf down for Mindy to see her smile, "I suppose I am not as unrecognisable as I had hoped." 

"Nah. You're just hard to forget. You made an impression last time," Mindy chuckles and reaches out her hand to clasp Emily's hand without getting up, "And who might your new friends be?"

At the nod of Mindy's head, Emily turns to gesture at her companions to introduce them to Mindy. She gestures at Billie first,

"Billie Lurk. I am sure you have heard of her at least fleetingly from..before," Emily makes a face, "but she now works for me as a guard - sort of like a Royal Protector but not officially. That is still my father's job. Lizzy over here," she gestures at the other woman, "brought us over here on her ship. She's a captain-"

"A Pirate captain. None of that fancy crap," Lizzy jumps in to make matters clear, eyes firmly set on Mindy, who returns the look easily. 

"Not gonna lie, that's kinda hot," Mindy grins and Lizzy returns it.

"I also heard that we work in the same business. The gang kind." 

Mindy folds her arms over her chest and scrutinises Lizzy for a while before it seems that Lizzy has passed some sort of a test that told Mindy she was not lying,

"Lovely. I'd like to take a look at your tattoos later, by the way. The face thing is really cool."

"I've got quite a few more you can take a look at."

At that Emily has to put an end to whatever sort of disgusting flirting is happening between the two of them, clearing her throat to draw the attention away and towards why they came to see Mindy of all people.

"You two can do..whatever you two want to later but Mindy, we need your help. You have probably heard what's been going around - someone stealing my face to murder people and being very obvious about it, just as the Crown Killer thing from a while back. I am sure you remember that?" Mindy nods after a while, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, bidding Emily to go on with her explanation. Emily inhales.

"I need your help with the investigation. We need a base of operations and some informants who might have seen a thing or two. Think you could manage?' Emily questions, "I know it's probably a lot for starters, especially immediately after I have just arrived but-"

"But it's important business and the Empire depends on it because it is de-evaluating your trustworthiness and undermining your rule? Yeah, I get that, no worries," Mindy waves Emily's concerns off, pushing on her knees to get up from the ratty soft, "Come on then, princess. I know a place. There's a vacant spot in the neutral territory between the Howlers and the Overseers you can camp at. No one's claimed it except for the bloodflies but I trust that you'll have no issue cleaning those up."

"Bloodflies are the last of my worries now," Emily nods as Mindy stretches before beckoning them to follow her out of the inner block and back out on the streets. It's quite a walk up to Batista but by Mindy's words, it shouldn't take them longer than an hour if they take the main road. Riding a carriage might be risky right now, so they mutually agree on sticking to walking the main road after all. Mindy takes the lead with Lizzy tagging along by her side, Emily and Billie close behind.

There is a sense of urgency in Emily's steps but Mindy seems half-inclined to sticking to a moderate pace over hurrying up. 

"You're in Karnaca, princess. Walking fast means you've got something to hide - and that makes you more suspicious."

So Emily slows down with a small huff, quite impatient to be already set in a place where she can think. She knows that he has to trust Mindy on things now and rely on her for being able to provide information that Emily would not usually have access to. Thoughts consume her most of the way up but at least this time around, she manages to look around her surroundings some and appreciate Karnaca while Billie keeps her company and while Mindy and Lizzy's voices turn into mindless chatter, a white-noise she drowns out for the first bit.

They walk by a plethora of people, by marching Overseers, and groups of patrolling guards. As they go, Mindy turns to a civilian-looking man, showing him a hand gesture of sorts. He does not seem to react much, offering her a shallow nod. Emily catalogues that, trying to remember the man's face for later, though when he catches her looking, she turns away fast.

Somewhere during that, Billie nudges her with a raised brow as if silently asking whether she's okay. Emily does not reply, merely dismissing  Billie's concerns. She will be alright. Maybe not now but soon, once everything is over and she has the time to sit down and reflect on whatever the hell has happened. For all intents and purposes, she is fine enough to function for now, walking on until Mindy steers them towards the areas of upper Batista where the tension between the Howlers and the Overseers still exists. albeit temporarily quelled by Emily's efforts. 

"Welcome to the crossroads of Shindaerey and Avila," Mindy yawns, "I am sure you remember the apartment building next to us. If I am not mistaken, you went through it and then proceeded the incapacitate the entire gang." Emily nods at that, her brows dipping into a slightly apologetic expression, 

"I remember that, yes. The building was already infested then. It will do - the upstairs was spacious enough but we might need to clean the place up a bit. Don't worry about it - I am already thankful for everything you're doing for us..." 

Mindy takes them to the entrance, waving aside a scarred man guarding the door. He glares at her entourage but says nothing, going back to leaning against the house's crumbling facade. Mindy goes for the door, twisting the knob. It does not open, so she tries shaking it violently before she gives up, kicking the wood panelling.

"Oi, Roscoe," she yells back at the man, "open the damn door!"

Roscoe begrudgingly obliges and Mindy thanks him gruffly before she takes them through the front door and up to the first floor, gesturing at the door. 

"The building is completely deserted but I recommend arming yourself with additional incendiary bolts or bullets. I'll come meet you in an hour - I'll let Paolo know you're around here so no one shoots you dead if they see you from across the streets. Otherwise, you should be generally safe."

"Thank you, Mindy."

The Howler woman eventually leaves them alone and the three remaining women proceed to use the time to clear out the building. By the time they are done, the rooms are clear of bloodfly nests and most of the debris is pushed aside to the rooms that they are not going to be using or that are far too ruined to be used. It's not much but Billie manages to pull a sofa and an armchair from the ashen debris, a couple of chairs and a table, and little bits of other furniture and trinkets. Whatever was not looted by Emily previously now disappears into Lizzy's pockets which are a couple of coins and blood ambers heavier. 

By the time Mindy comes back, Emily and Billie have also managed to clear out the room with a direct view of the Crone Hand's Saloon - the wall has been cleared out and they have posed the table and chairs in front of it. It isn't much but it will be enough to serve as a meeting room where they are able to brainstorm their suspicions and gather any information they might have between them. Mindy finds them like that, laying out scavenged scraps of paper next to bolts. Lizzy doesn't seem to have contributed much aside from clearing the place of any valuables but she visibly brightens at the sight of Mindy. 

"Nice work," Mindy comments, kicking out a chair which she immediately claims as hers, propping her legs up on the table. She eyes the paper and bolts before her eyes land on the empty wall. Emily sits across from her while Billie remains standing taking over the bolts and papers.

"Now that we are all here, let's begin," Billie prompts, turning to Mindy first, "As Emily's eyes in Karnaca, any information you might be able to provide us will be crucial to map out the situation." 

Mindy thinks about things for a moment before she speaks, "We're still doing business here but I'll share, sure. Don't think it's much of what you haven't heard but there have been reports of you, the Empress, going berserk on multiple people in Karnaca. Not many were inclined to believe it at first, not after the last time, but someone came forward with silvergraphs of someone who looks very much like you moving about and got them published in the Gazette. That got a few more people on board, but most people are still skeptical cause most people with half a brain cell are at least slightly aware that silvergraphs are not mobile devices just yet, and hogging around the entire apparatus is borderline suicide. So you're still in the clear. Unfortunately, there are still a few who are very much persuaded it's you running around."

Emily frowns at Mindy's words. So someone has set up a ruse. Claimed death in Emily's name and staged said claim, immortalising it with dust. A visual representation that the more influential folk would believe over the rumours spread by the common folk. But by Mindy's words, most still have their reservations due to the dimension and immovability of the apparatus. If that is the case, then one would definitely be aware of the fact that the dust print must have been planned rather than captured authentically. It is also a bit too clear for the requirements of a silvergraph - Emily's already sat through a few and it always took a bit of her sitting still for a proper print without blur or 'ghosts'.

"So we know for sure that whoever made that silvergraph had planned it and set up the scene before providing a dust print," Emily reiterates, watching as Billie jolts down a few notes and proceeds to stab them into the drywall, "so they had to have set an apparatus and had a silvergrapher take the print for them. Not many people know how a silvergraph operates, if I am not mistaken. Nor many would have one." 

In the background, Billie continues creating their mind board, using threads from the bloodfly-bitten curtains to connect multiple notes to one another. Mindy nods in front of her, reaching into her pocket to pull out a silver cigar case before producing a handful of cutouts from the Gazette; among them the infamous picture of the killer Empress. Emily takes it and looks the copy over, eyebrows only furrowing further. There is some resemblance but the picture does not carry that much quality and clarity to be considered too trustworthy. She can, however, see how some would believe it. 

A little distaste for the monarchy and Emily herself and they would happily see her everywhere as long as it means they can blame another thing on her person.

"I know a guy," Mindy mumbles around the cigar in her mouth, lighting it up with little effort, "he has a studio near my place. A fine man worth his salt but his family are some shifty folk. His mother is a harpy if I've ever seen one, a worse blood-drainer than a Void-damned bloodfly.  The missus is mostly okay, and his son is a recluse. Ain't seen that boy in ages. Hell, I ain't even got a clue if he's still alive."

"It's definitely worth looking into," Billie chimes in, reaching for another paper that she can use. She writes down additional information regarding the silvergrapher and adds it to the falsified silvergraph. 

"And what of the bodies? Any insight on that?" She continues, halfway turned to the board to see if she can garner some information from it. Something is odd about the fact that the Empress had been apparently sighted in Karnaca, in (fake) flesh and all. As if someone had wanted her to be there.

"Clean deaths with slit throats. Saw one of the unfortunate fuckers - probably bled out fast. Haven't seen throats slit like that for a while. The folk in Karnaca usually stab you before asking questions. We don't do clean shit like that - slit throats are reserved for sending a message, usually among nobles."

"Someone did their research," Lizzy snorts off to the side, playing with one of the silver pocket watches she nabbed from the bedroom. It ticks incessantly and periodically, the sound loud in the room every time Lizzy snaps the front cover open. Emily does realise that as well - someone had made all the necessary precautions for the murders to be attributed directly to her with clean and steady hands, those of a noble, and is using her face. She is undoubtedly the target but the motive is lost on her, none of the people she seems to think of could have such power and influence to stage anything of this scale, less even kill for it on a different continent.

"Are there any connections between the victims aside from their deaths? Last time it was my apparent political enemies."

"Not that I am aware of, princess. But then again, they didn't tell us shit about the bodies." 

Ah, another thing for them to look into. Emily gestures at Billie who dutifully adds it to the board before stepping back once again. After a moment, she turns back to the other women, gaze on Emily. Her intact eye is heavy with thought but she takes her time getting said thought out as if mulling over a particularly difficult one.

"We might want to check both the bodies and the silvergrapher out as soon as possible, but first...something is not adding up here - it is not the same but it is similar in the way in which you'd been brought to Karnaca before. Someone is deliberately luring you here because they need you here, in Karnaca. They don't care for your absence from the Tower much, I'd assume, but as you've mentioned, they staged the silvergraph here and all of their operations are present here. I'd wager that they want you here because they cannot move from their site of operations. And if they cannot come to you, they will make you come to them."

"A trap, then," from the side Lizzy echoes again, snapping the watch shut yet again, "Usually it's a gang tactic to create a sense of desperation and urgency in a choke point and then lie in wait to catch you off guard." Beside her, Mindy lets out a noise of agreement as she blows out more smoke out of her mouth. Emily is fairly aware of this being one of the Howler's favourite tactics but she's not considered it could apply to this as well.

"Fine. A trap I am currently falling into because I have no other choice."

"And they know that."

"And they know that," Emily echoes Lizzy's words, "I am more concerned about who it is and why I am wanted here." Billie shifts on her feet before moving the papers and pencil in front of Emily.

"Then it is time to think," Billie then proclaims, crossing her arms over her chest again, "Have there been any Karnaca-related issues ever since the coup?" 

Emily winces. 

"Way too many. I had to dedicate a part of my day to dealing with those only. Delilah left quite a mess behind her. People are concerned for their health and business to the point I even had to have walk-ins for the Dunwall nobility."

"Walk-ins?" Asks Mindy, raising a brow, "Like appointments where they march in and stand in a queue so they can complain about having an unfair life and shit?" It is supposed to be a joke but Emily nods once again with a grimace. She'd thought it'd speed up dealing with some issues without all the unnecessary back-and-forth bureaucracy. The bureaucracy still had to happen but at least it was more controlled and served only to finalise their demands, usually. Not all cases were as simple, unfortunately, but it removed quite a few stacks of papers off of Emily's (and by extension, Corvo's) desk.

"Something like that. There were plenty of people needing to discuss issues from all over Serkonos, not just Karnaca in particular It was hell but it is easier to tell some of them to fuck off to their face because they are unable to act up and will simply be escorted out of the Tower."

"Any particular issues for Karnaca that were brought to you with a sense of urgency, required immediate concern or that stood out to you?" Billie continues asking, prompting Emily to really think about all of the encounters she had that day. For a moment, she zones out, eyes growing unfocused.

She does not remember many of them - most of them consisted of the same sob stories of nobles concerned for the well-being of their overseas businesses or even the safety of their money at the Dolores Michaels' Bank, claiming their family's fortunes depended on low-cost textile mills or the mining industry, whether it be iron, silver, or timber. The usual noble yapping without regard to other people. None of that seemed out of the ordinary.

There were a few cases, though, that Emily would call memorable. More often by the sheer ridiculousness of them;

Lord Konstantin Plekhanov was one such case. The Tyvian representative of Pradym's Mining Associates in Dunwall (a mouthful Emily never even heard of or knew existed) had expressed his displeasure and concern with Her Majesty's sanctions on certain Tyvian raw materials before launching into a long monologue over blockades placed upon naval routes between Tyvia and Serkonos, with his main concern being his on-going attempts at issuing a trade deal between Pradym's 'prized' salt mines and Duke Luca Abele's Palace, stating that the Duke should only use the finest salt in the Empire. 

Emily had to gently remind him that Serkonos has its own salt mines and that the Duke will surely prefer locally sourced and most importantly cheaper and untaxed salt at his Palace, whatever that is supposed to mean. Lord Plekhanov had then promptly accused the Empress of wishing economic ruin on him, thwarting his prospective business deals, and on the way out, he had not forgotten to make a comment on how surely the Tower employ and the Empress herself do not know grated salt from fine one, and that he is quite sure the Dunwall people have poor taste and salt their food with the same salt they use to salt their roads in wintertime.  She had to refrain from telling him they use the fine quality Serkonan salt on their foods and the coarse Tyvian salt on their roads. 

Another absurd case came from Lady Roza Olmstead, a Serkonan woman who'd married a Dunwall native (and a politician, no less), and moved to Gristol whilst leaving her family and business behind. She still owns said business and she made quite sure to remind Emily of that. Though, unlike Plekhanov's desire for Tyvian salt to be used in the high places of Karnaca, Lady Olmstead had come to offer a proposal of Serkonan produce to be served at the Tower. She wove a beautiful story about the legacy of her mother's family, of family vineyards and orchards on cliffs of white just west of Karnaca, of the ripest fruit and of sweetest fig wine her Ladyship has ever tasted.

Lady Olmstead had a penchant for arts and theatrics - it flowed from her way of dress and from her speech, but she was a businesswoman through and through, and Emily would have perhaps even considered her offer had she not received a missive on Lady Olmstead's legacy produce, and how her workers were nearly, if not fully, reduced to slavery over them. Emily was horrified reading the report detailing the brutal and unsafe conditions only worsened by the fact that the workers were prisoners from Bastillan sent to work at Lady Olmstead's farmland under the promise of being released from prison on probation. Turns out that Roza's father, Roberto, is actually the director of Bastillan's infamous prison, Fort Valen, and has been supplying his daughter with less-than-willing labourers. 

Sick after finding out, Emily had ordered Lady Olmstead out of the Tower with a hefty fine, her father dismissed from his function, and the legacy lands investigated and seized if necessary, permitting the workers to be freed from their tithe. People like Roza Olmstead are many, though, and Emily realised that then, promising herself to issue further Worker Protection Acts that would pertain to the Empire as a whole.

(There is a chance that it will not help much. People always find their way around the rules imposed by the Empire. Emily thinks of the Pendletons and their fates; the hand of Justice that served them was as much kind as it was unkind. A cruel fate many have suffered but this one had made Emily momentarily happy.)

But all of those people had been in Gristol and merely came to demand business of her. None came to demand her presence. Except...

"There was one," Emily suddenly recalls. The encounter possibly wouldn't have been all that memorable had it not been a request concerning the Outsider, or so the man who'd come to call for Emily's blessing had said. At first it had nothing to do with the Outsider at all - the mention of the deity's name only came up when Emily had rejected the Overseer's request to aid the Abbey Brothers of Karnaca.

"I believe his name was Overseer Harlowe, one of Byrne's close associates. He'd claimed to come on Vice Overseer Byrne's demand, requesting my presence in Karnaca as a representative of the Crown. I think he'd called for piety on behalf of the Abbey, and told me that if I were to come, more people would be inclined to join. Logically, I told him that I had no time for such activities and that if he really wanted someone influential, should it not be the Vice Overseer? In the end, he admitted the piety was merely a ruse and that they had found a place atop Shindaerey where the Veil is the thinnest and Void seeps into the Waking World. He said it is a call to action, a march against the Heretical and against the Outsider, and said that cleansing the place of evil magic would be a powerful move against the Outsider's influence. I just thought it sounded so ridiculous I had not paid it much attention but looking back on it, it seems very suspicious, doesn't it?"

She looks at the women around her, listening with uncertain expressions and raised brows. Billie especially shares an odd look with her, expression pinched.

"And you didn't think it to be weird then?" Billie eventually echoes with a sigh, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. Emily sputters a little, throwing her hands into the air at the same time as Mindy whistles in the background, adding 'That's some cult shit,' but being ultimately drowned out by Emily's embarrassed voice.

"Not back then! The Overseers always declare war on the Outsider in some way and then an hour later you see them marching the streets. But it never went as far as threatening the Void and frankly, I thought it to be impossible."

"Unfortunately it is very much possible," Billy retaliates, "the place this Harlowe spoke of is very much real but reaching it is nearly impossible, less even staying there for prolonged periods of time. Only some of the Oracular Sisters ever made it anywhere close to being exposed to the ley lines of Void magic but some had gone insane while others had managed to protect themselves from the visions by binding their eyes. It wouldn't stop the whispers but it'd spare them other visual input safe for the Visions."

Emily shudders at that. She's not come across the living Sisters just yet but she's seen the deceased ones on her way to dismantle Breanna's Oraculum. Despite them being years past their expiration, she had felt the Oracular Sisters stare back at her. It did not matter if they were blindfolded and bejewelled, adorned with sage, and with their bones marked with runes. She could feel them looking at her nevertheless, judging her. And the feeling only got worse the longer she stared right back into covered unseeing eyes.

Some say the Sisters still see, even after death. And they are right, but not in the way a normal person would see -- the Oraculum had proved that. When correctly calibrated, it tuned in to the Echoes of the Sisters trapped inside their Visions, lamenting over the world in mellow whispers and urgent chants. Emily remembers the nauseating feeling well. Even now, she associates the memory with the stench of rotting flesh and burnt sage.

"So you think what he said is true? That they are actually planning something?" She inquires but Billie only shakes her head in return.

"No. That had to be a bait. No amount of Overseers would be able to as much as make it past the first saddle of Shindaerey," the assassin starts and then promptly stops, turning her head to Mindy all of sudden, " Wait, what did you say a while ago? Cult--"

"Cult shit, yeah," Mindy nods, stubbing her finished cigar against a piece of decorative porcelain she'd fetched during Emily's dissociation, "the Abbey ain't crazy enough to march on the Void just like that. The Cultists, on the other hand...." she trails off, gesturing her now empty hand.

"But what does the Abbey have to do with the Cultists?" Emily butts in. Lizzy replies right back, gnawing on some of the trinkets she'd found.

"Have you seen those blokes? The Abbey is one step away from being considered a Cult and the line ain't exactly thick .´," Lizzy then inclines her head before making a face as one of the trinkets screeches under her sharp teeth, "All I am saying that I wouldn't be surprised if some of the Overseers actually decided to form a close Circle that'd fuck with the very same magic they shun in order to spit on the Outsider with his own medicine."

"Is that your conspiracy theory? Cultist Overseers?" Billie raises a brow. Lizzy shrugs,

"What? Say it ain't so!"

Emily merely shakes her head at the commotion starting up, rubbing at her face with her dust-dirty hands. She looks back at the board and then leans back in her chair. She'll pick up the slack with the notes in a minute.

"Maybe I will need to pay Byrne a personal visit after all. Except I have more things to ask of him - especially regarding the validity of Harlowe's words. But first, the silvergrapher - Mindy, I will need you to give me directions to his studio. Billie, I need you to find and check the bodies in the meantime - maybe try the local morgue?" 

She looks at Billie with a hopeful gaze and Billie is left with no other choice but to nod and make a mental note to find out more about the victims after she pays the local Guard-adjacent coroner that should be a part of the investigations. She has to find out who it is first and where they are hiding.

"I should go now," Billie eventually settles on saying, sweeping her gaze over the table to see if anyone has anything else to say. Emily gives her a tired nod and Mindy merely gestures while Lizzy takes the moment to get up from her chair, cracking her neck soundly,

"While you do that, I have a crew to return to. Could ask around the port, see if any sailors heard anything. You'd be surprised how much shit they sometimes know." Emily nods again, getting up herself.

"Alright. I will leave in a minute as well. You two go ahead and we can reconvene here after sundown to share what we found."

And with those words, the group disperses. 

Emily and Mindy stay behind for a while - Emily provides Mindy with a map she'd swept off the notice board around the corner, paying close attention to Mindy's instructions regarding the location and how to break in. During the briefing, she recalls sweeping through the very same street and having narrowly missed the studio for the favour of stealing bone charms from Mindy's collection. Oops.

As long as Emily keeps to the high places and shadows, it shouldn't be an issue sneaking underneath the noses of the Overseers keeping watch on the end of the street. Once she has all the information, she and Mindy part as well, the latter willingly playing a prominent distraction from Emily's shenanigans whilst she is on her way home. Even if for a fraction of a second but Mindy's body shielding her allows Emily to slip into the silvergraph studio unnoticed.

The first door is not an issue at all and Emily finds herself in the foyer, staying low as she advances around the front desk and to the inner part - she has to get through iron bars to get there but her Dark Vision easily helps her spot the key she needs for it in a false bottom of the front desk drawer. 

And then it is just her and portraits of a few dozen people peering at her from every corner of the room. There is a whole scene set up in front of the silvergraph, allowing the customers to take photos of different kinds. But as Mindy mentioned, the apparatus itself appears to be very heavy and clunky - definitely not something that could be carried around unnoticed. And definitely not by one person.

The device appears to be intact for now, so Emily moves to the massive cupboard on the side, digging through the drawers stocked full of various documents regarding the studio but Emily is looking for something in particular and she finds it in the next locked drawer. It is a small leather journal with dates and names - who came in for a silvergraph that day, when the device had to be checked and cleaned, when it left the studio for an important occasion - such as Aramis Stilton's interview regarding the welfare of the silver miners.

Emily quickly flips back a couple of pages, looking for a date that would match any of the events and the approximate publishing date of the Killer Empress' print floating around. She finds a notion of it a week prior - on the 17th of the Month of Harvest, the apparatus had left the building on the request of the silvergrapher's mother and had taken a singular silver print before being brought back. The next day it was sent to be serviced.

The concordance and correlation of events are a little too accurate to be a mere coincidence, Emily thinks, cataloguing the information for later. The note also mentions that the man's mother requested that the apparatus leave the building - that prompts Emily to snoop around some more but she does not find anything else worth checking. Instead, she navigates back out of the shop and into the building's stairwell in the hopes that the man, like most businesspeople, lives above his shop. And that he, of course, isn't home. 

Another sweep of her Dark vision reveals that the apartment above is currently devoid of any living creatures but she does not manage to scour whether it does belong to the silvergrapher or not.

She does find an open window, though.

The apartment is neat and filled with trinkets all meticulously arranged in ceiling-high shelves, with books, and mechanical parts strewn in places designated for upkeep and work. Emily pockets another spool of copper wire and steals a Tyvian pear from the man's fruit arrangement. She does not want to stay for too long, quickly digging through the desk's drawers. She gets a name at least—Mateo Villamón, the name of the silvergrapher, and finds several mentions of Victoria Villamón, Mateo's mother, being quite a prominent presence in her son's life. But the information is still little and unimportant - Emily is just about to leave when she spots a sliver of gold in the corner of her vision.

She backtracks her steps to the sofa and turns over one of the decorative pillows, reaching inside the cover to fish out a shiny audiograph card from between the filling. It looks new, just recently made, and the fact that someone had felt the need to hide it. Emily turns it over a few times before she approaches the work desk where an old model of Jindosh's original audiograph player sits and collects dust only haphazardly swept in some places. Recently used then. 

She carefully places the card in and turns the dial before pressing the button to play the recording. At first, the room is silent before Mateo's voice slowly fills the room. He sounds nervous,

'Mother often asks me for things. Bring me the hagfish, Teo! Marry a rich girl, Teo! It is always this-or-that, always the way she plans and poses things and people...I have always excused her actions to myself, telling myself that she means well and wants the best for me, even if she's doing it in her own way. 

But what she had asked of me today? 

I should have suspected something the moment she told me she needed me to take a silvergraph or something—someone—important and that it requires extensive movement of the machine. I should have told her that the apparatus was yet too fragile to withstand being hauled across the city without the proper means and preparation but as always, I wanted to do good by her in hopes she would leave me alone after.

She had a man come in—Overseer Samson, I believe his name was—and said that he'd make sure we'd be safe and that I would not be bothered while working. He looked like the rest of the Overseers and I had no reason not to believe her words. He helped me with the machine and took us to the roof of an abandoned building on the other end of the Batista - mother said he's a customer and a very valuable one at that. 

I was told to get ready and capture the image below on his command. 

I believe I have witnessed some means of dark magic but I swear I saw something step up from the shadows, shambling around until it took the form of our beloved Empress. That thing could not have been human.

I was frozen still! I couldn't say anything as the thing wearing the Empress' face tore down a man in broad daylight. My hands worked on autopilot when Overseer Samson gave the command - it was over as quickly as it had begun. The man did not even react! And when the thing-Empress turned, it wore a completely different face. 

It was...it was a woman—at least it looked like one—and her skin was peeling from the Empress' face to hers. If it weren't for the difference in skin tone, I would not probably even notice. The Overseer made me swear I wouldn't tell anyone what I had seen. All he wanted was that picture and said he'd pay my mother handsomely for the job well done. 

I was told to develop the picture immediately and leave the silver to set. The Overseer said I had done well and that he'd be back for the picture in a week's time. 

So far I have seen none of the money he said he'd pay my mother but at this point, I am just glad I get to keep my life. Selfishly so as I have just done something terrible. I mustn't get rid of the evidence, no matter how much I want to.

My silence will keep my family safe.. '

The audiograph clicks as it finishes and the room plunges into silence. 

Emily stands rooted in place, eyes firmly trained on the now-still card.

Mindy was right and so was Billie. Their assumption on the set scene was more than accurate: the silvergrapher had played an unwilling victim in someone else's greater plans - that someone being his mother, Victoria, and Overseer Samson, who might not have been an Overseer at all. Emily thinks back to Harlowe and his stunt, frowning at the fact that someone among the Overseers is clearly trying to frame her for multiple murders. Is Byrne aware of this, she wonders, or are these people moving underneath his nose, undetected by even the likes of the Vice Overseer himself? 

She decides that she will have to ask Mindy for more information and a passage to the Overseers' offices as soon as they reconvene and share their findings together with Billie and Mindy, but to think who all is involved is giving Emily a headache. 

She takes the card from the audiograph and places it back where she found it before absconding from the apartment by climbing out of a window on the other side of the building. From there, she pulls herself across the street with her Far Reach, and with a few more and some careful balancing on broken support beams, she finds herself on the balcony of their base of operations. 

There is still light outside and it might be hours before any of the other women show up so Emily decides to take her time to reflect on what she's learnt so far; so updates their makeshift information board with new names and leads, connecting the mysterious photos with Mateo and Victoria Villamón and from there to Samson, who then connects with a paper that simply reads 'The Abbey?'.

It still does not make sense to her - for the Abbey to have their hands tangled with magic-adjacent practices. She fails to see any motivation or a viable reason, especially with Byrne so dutifully fighting against the likes of Breanna and Paolo. They could potentially want to frame Emily of heresy, which is kind of already happening in the background, but the Abbey had not yet jumped on the bandwagon. One would think they would be the first in line after the fiasco with the Lord Protector and all the invasive questions regarding their hand wraps. Had the Abbey truly wanted to accuse either of them, they would have already started a witch hunt - and quite directly so! Without any set-ups, without any black magic involved.

So Emily has to look deeper.

Except instead of looking deeper, Emily finds herself dozing off in the dusty armchair. She did not get much rest on the ship and her body is letting her feel the exhaustion of the day and the lack of rest the previous night - she does not even know when she passes out, head bent and her chin resting on her chest, elbows resting on the armrests, and hands clasped tightly on her abdomen. Her back will not thank her for this decision.

Embarrassingly, Emily only stirs after a long while, woken up by soft voices coming from the next room over - she recognises one as Billie's voice, immediately relaxing from the tense high alert she was trained into. Outside, Karnaca has already plunged into near darkness with only a few rays of daylight peeking through the evening clouds - even after her first visit, it still messes with Emily's perception of time. Dunwall is always bordering on near darkness but never quite and so to go from sudden light to near darkness in the blink of an eye is a bit startling.

By the time she makes it to the kitchen, the conversation has nearly died down, only a handful of words being passed between the two rugged women. Billie notices Emily first, greeting her with a cursory nod and a breath of her name while Mindy merely salutes.

"Sorry. Did we wake you?'" Billie asks, looking over Emily's crumpled appearance. The Empress nods but makes a grimace at the gesture, shifting to check their supplies and to find something edible among them.

"I woke up on my own but you did definitely help me feel more alert. I nearly came in here with a sword in hand," she grumbles, pulling out a loaf of bread and some over-ripe figs, and spreading the fruit over a piece. It is not proper sustenance by any means but it will do for now. 

"I am glad you didn't," Billie sighs in response, nodding over at Mindy, "we'll wait for Lizzy to come back and then debrief. I have found some interesting things - or perhaps a lack thereof. Whatever is going on is way more tricky than we had originally imagined."

"You could say that," with a huff, Emily dives into her food as they wait for Lizzy. Mindy and Billie eventually fall into a conversation once again but Emily is barely listening. She only catches a few brief words, far too deep in her own world - or at least until Billie clears her throat and Emily's attention snaps back to her friend's face.

"Lizzy is here. She's chatting up the guy outside but it shouldn't be long until she joins us again."

And Billie is right. Emily just about manages to visit the bathroom and freshen up a little before Lizzy waltzes in with a wide grin on her face. She does not appear to be bothered by the gloomy atmosphere that reigns in the apartment, kicking out a chair from over the table so she could sit down on it.

"Missed me yet?" 

"No, but I could start," Mindy hums, joining Lizzy at the table which eventually prompts Billie to join them too. Emily finds them like that, nodding at Lizzy in acknowledgment of her presence.

"I hope you come bearing some news too. Both Billie and I have come across some unsightly things - or at least I assume so by the way Billie presented it," Emily casts a glance at Billie who nods and leans back in her chair. She too must admit that things are getting slightly weirder and that they might need to employ slightly darker thoughts or throw around some ridiculous accusations before things start making sense.

"Unsightly is certainly one way to put it," she agrees, "I suppose that I could start since I have already been given the attention in our little circle - I followed the trail of the investigations which have spawned from these murders but it quickly grew cold. Turns out the investigators were merely bribed to come to the crime scene and say a couple of words before taking the body in for further examination. So I have tried to track down the coroner assigned to these cases—mind you, the reports for these cases are real and archived, even if the investigations were staged—and it turns out the person does not even exist and is made up. There are no records of their existence in the archives nor are there any signs of anyone with that name ever existing. The examiner's office address led me to a back alley entrance of a fishmonger's shop - the bodies were disposed off together with fish innards and heads - the odour easily covered the smell of decay, sure, but the weirdest part about them is that they did not look real at all."

Billie frowns and grits her teeth, jaw clenched.

"Or, they did, but there was something so uncanny and weirdly off about them. As if someone had tried to re-create their faces but didn't quite get them right," gesturing at her face, Billie attempts to indicate the anomalous look, "but you were also right about the injuries. The only problem is, that these people—things—were not recently deceased. The people have been missing for months and their bodies are only turning up now ."

Emily shudders at the mental image of people missing for months, murdered, and only turning up now when it is convenient for them to be in the right place at the right time. She recalls the audiograph of Mateo seeing the face of her Doppelganger peeling to reveal another underneath - it makes matters worse and makes her think back on the victim. The photo print hangs right there on the wall in front of them, yet the victim does not appear to be in frame enough to be identified.

"We were right about someone having planned this - I visited the silvergraph studio and then the man's house. I did not find much at first but then I came across an audiograph card," mutely, Emily nods at the notes added to their board, "I suppose you could call it a confession to him having staged the print but he too was a victim in someone else's game. The card mentioned his mother and a certain Overseer Samson having made a business transaction in which Mateo—the man—had to set the apparatus on a roof and capture a silvergraph on command. He mentioned that a shadow had spilled out onto the street and took my shape and form and had killed that man in seconds - in a long enough timeframe for Mateo to capture the silver print. By his words, my face had then started peeling away to reveal another underneath. So someone had to have stolen my likeness.."

"Via magic?" Lizzy asks, poking at her head as if she too would start flaking away like the soft eggshell from its boiled innards. 

"Via magic." There is no other response that Emily can give her because none other would even logically be possible. Someone is misusing Void magic after all. The more important question is, however, how they have managed to harness said magic and how they have not gone insane yet without a filter such as the Outsider.

The Void is survivable under specific conditions - Delilah had proven that - but there must be other prerequisites such as the mark or having already dabbled in magic. For a moment, Emily has to step back and assess the situation, set on edge with a different kind of 'fear', or rather an uncomfortable and unsettling feeling regarding her opponent-to-be. Just who are they and what are they even capable of?

"And the Overseers are somehow wangled with this as well, huh?" Billie sighs, drawing Emily's attention away from her own thoughts, "This at least solidifies the initial suspicion. We will need to expedite everything and get to Byrne's office as soon as possible tomorrow. Catch him alone and unguarded if we have to. He might be an accomplice or they might be operating right behind his back; and while I admit that Liam Byrne has some unconventional methods, he is one of the few opposed to the behaviour of the Dunwall Abbey, to the policy of using the very thing you're fighting against. Not to say he's innocent in any way - Byrne is his own brand of messed up."

With a shrug, Billie learns back, crossing her arms over her chest - there is too much information that clashes with each other, even if they exist adjacent to one another and converge at seemingly random points. Those points should give them some insight and right now their closest convergence is within the Abbey. 

"How about you, Liz, got anything?" The woman rather asks, inclining her head towards her companion. Lizzy clears her throat, moving forward in her seat a little.

"Not much. Sailors mostly speak of missing people and warn each other to not wander around without a weapon, be it day or night. The seas lie still and the whales are silent - trawlers come back barren and carry even fewer sailors than they have left with. The superstitious fools believe that something is brewing on the horizon, starting small. Someone also mentioned smoke coming from Shindaerey before the bloke was shut down by another, claiming it was just silver dust on the wind. Shit looked very much like smoke to me for the bit I have seen it - had to focus on that, though."

Billie frowns at the notion of smoke. Lizzy's information does not provide them with much but smoke atop of the peak could mean someone is up there, concealed, leeching off the Void. It is a concerning thought, one that requires action as soon as they are ready for it - they need to find out a safe passage to the mountains and information on who occupies it. Their safest guess is Cultist—Billie knows it is always the Cultists—with a certain obsession-driven idea. But what Emily has to do with it, that she does not know. 

They could view her as a threat for being marked, a show-stopper on their own journey to power stolen from the Void.

"So someone's camping in the mountains," Mindy hums, "You think that it could be your little friend?" Billie lets out a disgruntled noise of agreement.

"I'd bet my right glove on it." 

"Why right?" 

Billie holds up her right arm briefly, showcasing its skeletal construction made of Void-stone and bones of the Ancients, prompting Mindy to let out a loud whistle and a breathy: "Damn, sick.". In the background, Emily tries to make sense of things but she's still left with too many blanks and none of the information provided is satisfactory enough. It is, however, enough to craft a story in her head - of who their culprit could be, of how the story could have started and developed. 

Someone—a woman, by all accounts—wants her here. She lured Emily here with force and accusations of murder and magic when an allusion to a secular man driven by some sort of divine duty to the people from the Grand Evil had failed to appeal to their heretic Empress. If Emily had not been who she is, all but the next person but an Empress nevertheless, she would have likely felt a sense of duty to follow in order to protect her people and cement the Abbey's influence in Karnaca over that of the Outsider.

The only thing cemented here is that they might have merely confirmed that which everyone suspected - the Empress being an agent of the Outsider. It's a laughable thought; Emily is no one's agent or an extension, she's merely utilising a gift freely given by the elusive God. One the others would have to grovel for, would have to succumb to insanity to even get as much as a little taste.

And yet the Empress walks as if she were the God itself.

(At least Emily presumes they view her as such, arrogant and unyielding. An image fitting of their own narrative of good and evil, the Abbey and the Outsider. Emily's head spins.

When have things gotten so rotten?)

Whatever conversation has started dies down with Emily's resolute inhale and the straightening of her back. 

"It is decided, then. Tomorrow, we will pay Vice Overseer Byrne a visit. Mindy?" Emily looks the Serkonan woman's way;

"I need to get into Byrne's office and speak to him. I'll prepare a letter to be delivered and then I will sit down and have a talk with him. I will need you to keep watch," she carries the discussion as if their desolate bedroom were a war room and the table before them a map primed for strategy. The map is still there but it is far less grand, sun-bleached, and stained with grease from the layman's hands. 

She points at the office building nevertheless.

"Do your people have any way inside? Contacts? A way for us to pass the letter and maybe garner some information?" There is hope in Emily's voice - with the ongoing turf war, she is hoping (and partially relying) on the fact that the Howlers have an insider amongst the Abbeymen. Or at least someone who'd deliver dead-drops for them. Anything that goes beyond the rules of this game they play - and she is not mistaken, nor is she disappointed by Mindy's words of affirmation.

"Yeah. One of the powder boys was brought up by Abbey fanatics and does recon for us on the other side. He knows them through and through and they think he's one of them - he can get you in and out easy. If you ask nicely, even some information, but all of that on one condition," Mindy warns, arms over her chest as she looks at Emily. She's asking her to decide without relaying more information.

"And that condition is?" Emily prompts but Mindy merely shakes her head with a slight smile. Devious.

"You'll know - it ain't mine to tell. You either accept the deal or you don't, and we both know that there ain't many options you have, princess. The decision is entirely up to you."

Emily scarcely ever accepts deals this nondescript but she knows that Mindy is correct and her options other are likely not as reliable (or profitable) and favourable. Not to mention that she was the one who'd asked Mindy to lend her someone from her people who knows the local Brotherhood more than anyone else and is willing to share information. As long as the condition is not damning, Emily has nothing to think about when it comes to accepting.

"Alright," she eventually speaks, her face similar to the mask she wears when she makes decisions on her throne, "I accept the deal. I trust you and your people and trust the fact that the condition will be acceptable. Thank you for your help, Mindy. You're doing a lot of work you wouldn't usually be, not without reciprocation from my side. 'You scratch my back, I scratch yours,' remember? You have not had me hold my end of the bargain yet - so what shall it be?" 

Emily has not forgotten. Business is business and business she will conduct; on equal grounds. After the last time, it is surprising that Mindy has not asked anything of her yet.

And much to her surprise, she does not do that just yet, even prompted, waving Emily's concerns off with the flick of her wrist.

"I'll cash my favour in later. Right now there ain't anythin' worth wasting it on; I am sticking around cause of personal reasons," as she says that, her eyes briefly flicker over the oblivious captain, "and maybe I am just enjoying playing pretend detectives with ya. Breaks the mundane of gang duty and Overseer bullshit. Haven't had this much fun since we lost a new guy in the mines and then saw him delivered by Stilton himself.  Right to our doorstep. Prick said that Paolo is his uncle Pedro who took him in after his father's mining incident. That shit was priceless. Kid had to polish the shitters for a month for that stunt."

Well, at least someone is taking this positively , Billie rolls her eyes on the other side of the room. There does not seem to be much more to say, so she decisively closes the debate herself,

"We're all set then. We will meet Mindy's person in the morning and hopefully make haste - the quicker this gets solved, the sooner we can go on a fucking vacation or something. But right now, we need to get ready for tomorrow."

On the side, Lizzy yawns widely, stretching her arms above her head. She's been mostly silent throughout the ordeal, switching between grimacing and listening with a carefully crafted neutrality one would not normally expect of the infamous Lizzy Stride. But she is quick to hop on the train of closure and as soon as she is done popping every joint in her body with those stretches, she gets up.

"Sounds like a plan. I miss kicking Overseer arses," she declares with a toothy grin before wiping her hands on her pants. By now, mostly everyone has started making motions towards retreat and Lizzy uses the moment, taking her chance at the previously offered proposal. Her grin grows wider as she makes eye contact with Mindy,

"So. You still want to see the other tattoos?" 

"I won't say no."

At that, Billie and Emily vacate the room side-by-side at a rapid pace, if only to take a chance on missing out on any other details of Mindy's and Lizzy's evening. Neither of them wants to know about that. 

They leave the room behind in favour of the bedroom which still seems mostly intact. The bed is big enough, Emily notes, looking over at Billie who's checking the integrity of the room quickly before she lets Emily sleep in it. They got rid of the dust earlier that day, have meticulously swept the room, and aired out the stale sheets. It isn't the same luxury as in the Tower, no, but Emily's slept in worse places—they are both aware of this fact—and so having an actual bed to sleep in is already considered more than enough. 

"Who do you think is behind this?" 

Emily's voice is small in the nearly empty room but the echo of the walls makes it carry across the silence. She's almost finished getting ready for bed, shirt partially unbuttoned and boots gone. She even forgets that her hair is short now, automatically reaching up to undo the updo she would wear in the image of her mother.

Except that is gone now and Emily's hands slowly fall back down in her lap.

From across the room, Billie spares Emily a thoughtful look. She is thinking many things, combing through her many encounters with the Eyeless and other cults, cataloguing their opposition's behaviour, and comparing it to that which she has experienced. Ever so slowly Billie leans back against the sliver of empty wall, entertaining her thoughts some more in order to filter them to Emily.

"There's a high-chance that this is, indeed, cult behaviour. It seems sporadic and chaotic but there is order to it all and while they make demands of your presence, you may or may not be the target. You could be just a stepping stone - just like in the bastard's cryptic monologues; to him we are just cogs in a machine, an instrument of transition that will get them closer to their goal. They could be aiming for the Void, its power, or even the Outsider - sometimes it is hard to tell until you're nearing the end of your battle," she speaks carefully so as to not overwhelm. There is calm in her voice but it is eerie - a warning for the Emily of the future to be vigilant shall she ever come to a situation like this. Such words are better remembered and Emily seems to think so too, eyes trained on Billie with a slight frown.

"But if given the chance—if prompted and provoked thoughtfully—they will happily speak of their plans and goals. They will goad on if they believe they have the upper hand, especially."

She recalls those she knew, laughing over the fate of her brothers and sisters. Over Daud.

A crueller fate to serve but one deserving of Billie's wrath. 

"Be vigilant. They will say anything to get under your skin. And they will succeed - because not even the mightiest of us are above harbouring certain weaknesses."

Billie is looking at Emily when she says that. There are no implicit thoughts behind her words but for a moment, it feels as though Billie is looking through her. With her good eye, with the one forcefully given. It feels like she knows something that Emily herself might not even be aware of, but she can feel the vulnerability Billie is alluding to. 

And she knows that Billie can feel it too.

"I will try to be prepared if it comes to that; if it turns out to be as you say," Emily promises, shuffling back on the bed so she can get comfortable. As she does so, Billie takes the initiative to push herself off the wall, arms unfolding. She gives Emily and the bed one last look before turning on her heel and starting towards the door. 

"You should get some sleep. Tomorrow will be even more difficult than today." 

They have already done a lot. The issue appears to be less complicated than they have initially thought but that does not mean it is any less devastating. Their only hope is that they do not run across any further complications.

For now, it still puts enough on their plates as is, Billie thinks as she opens the door to leave when she suddenly gets stopped by the Empress shuffling in a hurry in an attempt to sit up.

"Wait," Emily calls and Billie immediately follows the order, turning to look at the dishevelled woman. She almost appears to be rethinking her original idea but she eventually shuffles to one side of the bed, leaving the other vacant. She pats it once, twice.

"Uh, you could join me, if you'd like to. The bed is enough for the both of us," Billie raises a brow at Emily but that does not stop the splittering Empress talking. To hell with her vulnerabilities. 

"No, don't give me that look. It is big enough. And besides, when is the last time you have slept in an actual bed?"

"On the ship," Billie recounts, though outside of that, it's probably been a good two months of random places to squat at. And most of the time, mattresses were a luxury, unless she broke into some rich freak's house. Emily immediately counters,

"That does not count, it was a hammock. Just hanging fabric and rope. I am talking about a proper— proper —bed."

"I fail to see how that is a relevant argument here, Emily."

Emily groans and throws herself back down on the bed dramatically, head falling on the flat pillow with a dull 'thump'. A couple of seconds pass in silence with Billie still stood in the nearly dark doorway before Emily's head lolls to the side, eyes on the assassin.

"Just come to bed, Billie."

It is the same flavour of bone-deep exhaustion Billie witnesses before and after Emily's social functions when all the people are gone, before difficult meetings, after long days. It is when Emily is at her truest, at her core of being an ordinary woman in a dusty apartment, in a cold bed, all but wanting to sleep in peace with Billie at her side.

Something about that resonates within Billie, echoing her own loneliness and sadness, and stabbing into her guts. She feels guilty for turning Emily down for both of their sakes; and yet at the same time, she realises her stubbornness and fear.

(The latter which she refuses to admit. To feel fear of closeness, to think the closeness might lead to abandonment? 

And suddenly Billie is six and she is all alone in the world, her parents gone. She is fifteen and she is happy until she is not, until they steal Dierdre right from her arms. She is barely an adult over twenty and she watches the man who'd raised her turn his back on her after she had just betrayed him, shunned by both sides. 

Billie Lurk is well into her thirties when she truly meets Emily Kaldwin.)

"Alright," she manages to say after a while, "okay."

The doors are closed and Billie, sans her boots, weapons, and coat, is curled on the opposite end of the bed, back facing Emily. She is on the edge, her body tense, and refusing to relax. Emily can probably tell much the same for a moment before she exhales soundly, and Billie can feel the mattress ease along with the tension.

‘It's a lot,' she wants to say, 'you shouldn't get used to this.'

But she doesn't and when she finally manages to fall asleep, she dreams of red on white, of long red hair turning black, and of pale faces just below the surface of water. In her dreams, blood blooms like flowers - from her cut hands, from the chests of others whose burdens of death she bears.

Because water and blood both feel the same when your eyes are closed.

(It is Emily who wears the purest white tonight and who blooms the prettiest. Billie pointedly does not think of the warm body sleeping next to her.)

The next morning Billie finds herself rising with the sun, fingers cramped around a cigar. She'd told herself she would stop but today's light has found her weak-willed after her dreams last night. Tobacco does not make her forget but it chases away the worst of it at least temporarily. She knows that Emily will not tell her off but something in Billie, a traitorous whisper, reminds her that she'd sworn to do better by her. And by herself as well but telling herself that it is partially for Emily's sake gives her some more motivation to not half-ass it and give up.

Belatedly, when Emily emerges from the bedroom with sleep-thick eyes and messy hair, Billie realises some things - mainly how fucked she is.

They do not share many words - Emily eats a piece of bread and a pear before she starts looking half-coherent by Kaldwin standards and in the meantime, Billie maps as many points of entry and exit as she can when considering the Overseers' offices. They will have a guide, yes, but it never hurts to be prepared in case their plan fails. 

That much Daud taught her, always hoarding one too many maps and documents, familiarising himself with the layouts until he could go inside a building he's never been completely, blind, and still manage to orient himself. Billie can only hope to be on Daud's level of nitpicky when it comes to mission details.

"Has Mindy given you an echo regarding the meeting at all?" Emily questions from her side of the room, watching Billie through the wooden room separators, half hidden by the wooden construction.

"None. I assume she will come for us when they are ready. Which should be hopefully soon. We need to hurry up if we want to catch Byrne before he's swept away for his noon sermon. He will be in meetings all afternoon and we do not have the time to sit around and wait for him to be done."

Emily lets out a noise of agreement before she disappears, slinking away to make herself look like a decent human being before Mindy shows up. They do not even worry for Lizzy after yesterday and merely assume that the woman might show up with their mutual acquaintance in tow. Billie looks out for them ever so often, eyes trained on the salon across the street from them. 

At least until Mindy finally emerges with Lizzy tagging along for the count - she looks nearly as impassive as ever but the slight smirk on her face betrays her good mood. If anything can make it better today, it will be if she gets to punch an Overseer in the face.

Billie turns back inside the house, letting out a sharp whistle to alert Emily to their presence and that it is time to get a move on and rendez-vous with Mindy's promised contact. She also makes sure to wave the two women down from the window, pointing her thumb back out towards the main street where they can meet. 

Lizzy sends her a thumbs up just as Emily emerges, ready to move on. They move wordlessly, leaving the building side-by-side. There is a silent agreement between them, words unspoken, that neither shall address the obvious and remain ignorant of the two and their continued behaviour. 

At least Mindy has the gall to act indifferent when they meet outside on the street but the same cannot be said about Lizzy. Still, they both choose to ignore it for the favour of focusing on just why they have come out here.

"You two look ready for more than one fight," Mindy comments, nodding her head at Billie's gear, her hand resting over her own sword as well, "cannot blame ya, though." 

"I like to be ready for the unexpected," Billie replies in tow, "but to move on, you said you had a contact on standby. Mind introducing us so we can get this done and over with? If it's cult behaviour, we need to move fast to put an end to it." She does not say why, though, unsure how she'd explain some of the things she's seen on her way to Shindaerey the last time.

Mindy clicks her tongue.

"Yeah, I mentioned that we have a snitch - one of our boys spies on the Overseers for us, dresses like them, and has befriended one of them. None of them are aware he's not one of theirs - the documents were easily falsified and no one has asked twice. It comes in handy when you need intel," she shrugs before starting off in a seemingly random direction down the street.

"He's already waiting for us. Not the usual place but he's nearby for convenience.."

Which is fair, Emily supposes. It'd be counter-productive to go further and then have to return. The insight is appreciated. 

Mindy takes them towards one of the lower streets, slipping through a half-rotten door that's seen better days - it takes them inside another abandoned building, or at least its first floor which is littered with rubble and remains of the past occupants' belongings.It isn't the easiest to step over but Mindy points out some conveniently placed planks that lead them to one of the rooms in the back where they are greeted by the sight of a man dressed in Overseer blues and blacks, sans the golden mask which is sat next to him on an abandoned armoire. He's looking at something in his hand, quickly shoving it back into his pocket when the four women finally emerge from the other room.

The first thing that Emily notices is the rugged look - the man looks to be in his late thirties yet still very youthful, with dark hair and eyes. He scrutinises them but his eyes ease up at the sight of Mindy, for whom he stands and whom he greets with a clasp of their hands together.

"You've come," he states in a low voice, eyes shifting towards Emily, "and you've brought friends. Emily Kaldwin, I presume? You are...different from up close. Southern." The statement is slightly awkward but Emily does not fault the man for it. Especially not with everything going on and the people here mostly only ever seeing Emily's face, posterised, on banners and in the paper.

"My father is Serkonan, I am sure you are aware of his identity," she helpfully supplies and the man nods before offering her his hand to shake. She takes his hand, grip firm.

"I'm Rafa. Or Brother Rafael, if you consider my current position," he nods back at the ashen mask left unattended on the dusty armoire.

"Nice to meet you," Emily inclines her head, "and thank you for the help. My companions are Billie Lurk, my friend and protector, and Lizzy Stride, a ship captain and gang leader back in Dunwall. We are here to solve the ongoing situation and clean my name in the process and we have found out that the Abbey of Karnaca might have a co-conspirator in its ranks -  have you noticed anything strange lately?"

Rafa shakes the other women's hands first before withdrawing back to his original spot. There, he takes the golden mask in his hands, turning it over whilst deep in thought. 

"Nothing out of the ordinary, to be fair. We have an influx of unrests but those are not too uncommon around here - everyone carries a knife in Karnaca and they are not afraid to remind you of that fact. Claiming religious motifs, however, is when we take precedence over the Guard. I will check with my contact inside the Abbey but I cannot promise to deliver the quantity of information that you might expect."

"Any information is good information," Emily reassures, already aware that she will need to speak to Byrne in order to gain some more insider information that the average Overseer might be kept in the dark about.

"But - Mindy mentioned you have a condition. I will honour it as long as it is plausible to be kept from my side."

Because she needs to remain realistic in the face of things and because she really needs the information. Any potential hindrance might be taken at face value, even if it leads her in the direction she does not want to go in. She is also aware of Billie's scepticism but she is confident in Billie's trust and loyalty in her (ironically so, after what happened with Daud and Delilah) and knows that Billie will respect her decision as long as it is reasonable.

Rafa seems to think about it for a moment but he eventually nods, looking up at Emily with a steely gaze.

"All I ask of you is to protect my informant from harm. Now and then, and if (now when) shit goes up in flames, if the Abbey is involved or they turn out to be a target, promise me you will spare him," as he says that, his voice is firm and speaks of urgency - something in the tone makes Emily compelled to oblige, an instinctual sense of understanding. This man will not beg but will draw a sword if it becomes necessary. 

"Protect the confidant, right. That can be arranged," her reply is instantaneous and diplomatic but she also believes there is something here that she cannot see. Next to her, Billie straightens her back but does not become hostile at the suggestion for which Emily is infinitely thankful. She spares her friend a glance before turning back to Rafa.

"Billie and I will follow you from a safe distance. Mindy and Lizzy, I need you to be on the lookout on the other side of the building. There is a building we can use as an exit point to not draw any attention to us - the street it leads out to should be relatively vacant. The buildings have apparently been closed due to the bloodfly infestations but repairs have not yet begun to take place. We should be safe there."

With their roles delegated and no substantial complaints spoken - aside from Lizzy grumbling that she has to miss out on all the fun - Emily and Billie take to the roofs and ledges of Batista, needing to be careful of Overseers on higher floors and hounds that could sniff them out on the wind. Rafa, having donned his mask now, walks the streets leisurely, resting his gloved hand on his sword. It matches the gait of the other patrolling Overseers who meet him, always greeting him with a firm 'Brother' before moving on. 

They follow him even as he continues, eventually approaching one of the patrolling Overseers who'd taken a moment to try and get the white hound at his side to offer him its paw in exchange for a piece of jellied eel. The hound does not seem to be interested in its handler's offering but it alerts when Rafa approaches them, sharp ears standing up. It lets out a low woof and immediately rather moves to go sniff at the other for spare treats that Rafa often sneaks it when the others aren't looking. 

"Not today, Białko," Rafa tells the hound before finally paying attention to the kneeling Overseer. His companion gets up with a sigh, dusting off his pants.

"Brother Rafael," he greets.

"Overseer Sterling," Rafa offers in turn, "may I speak with you for a moment?" 

"Is it urgent?" Sterling inquires, looking behind Rafa to see if anyone is watching their interaction. The rest seem to be quite apathetic towards the two Overseers in the street.

"Yes. Of utmost importance, actually. It requires your immediate attention."

With another sigh, Sterling waves Rafa off, gesturing at him to wait a moment before calling his hound to heel. He walks off, approaching one of the Overseers standing guard by the entrance. There, they exchange a couple of quick words and when Sterling approaches Rafa's side again, it is sans his hound which is now being ushered to sit by the other Overseer.

"Follow me, Brother Rafael," Sterling beckons, walking up the street. Billie and Emily are forced to move, taking perch on top of the metal gate separating the upper street from the lower. They have to be careful on the sloped sheets, only able to peek over the edge a little. It is, however, enough to see Rafa and his contact on the other side of the gate, doors closed to avoid disturbance. 

The street is empty, an adjacent connection to the one Emily spoke of earlier, and rightfully sealed due to the past bloodfly infestation. She turns back down to the two men below.

Sterling is a little nervous on his feet, letting out another sigh as he turns to his companion with a hint of exhaustion in his voice.

"Rafael, what is so important that---" he does not manage to finish his sentence as Rafa crowds him against the stone wall, metal masks clattering together as he makes haste to push them aside in his endeavours. Sterling makes a small surprised sound and Emily is forced to pull back a little, turning away from the scene with a slight flush on her cheeks as she realises what exactly had been implied before. She spares Billie a wide-eyed look. Rafa and Sterling are lovers and that is why Rafa had asked Emily to protect him. He is afraid of harm coming his way or them being found out. As lovers or as a spy and accomplices.

Billie too seems to realise and her posture relaxes a little now that she too understands and knows that the informant is not a red herring and a threat. A part of her is jealous but simultaneously understands Rafa's resolve to protect someone who just so happens to be his lover. Her dreams might have been a premonition, forcing her to relive just how exactly it feels to lose one. The world is not fair to those on the edge of society. 

Below them, Rafa and Sterling finally part but still remain very much close. Rafa has places his hands on Sterling's upper arms, forehead pressed against his lover's - it is Sterling who speaks up first,

"What was that for?"

"I have missed you," Rafa confesses, "and we do not have much time. I wanted to see you before anyone got too suspicious." At those words, Sterling seems to relax a bit, sagging against the wall. He removes Rafa's hands from his biceps' and pulls him in for an embrace instead. It does not last long but they make the best of it.

"You're a terrible sap, you know? Being this close to the offices is risky, I hope you realise that."

"I know, Daniel, " Rafa objects, "but if they take you away from me, I want to be with you as much as possible. Have you considered my offer?" Something about Rafa's question makes Daniel momentarily grimace. Emily cannot see much of his face from where she is perched, but she can hear the worry in his voice.

"I am not sure about it. I trust you but your friends will kill me on sight. I know you consider them a family but they will not overlook who I am as easily as you think."  By his voice, Rafa frowns, pleading.

"They are not as bad as you paint them out to be - they will understand," Emily feels bad for witnessing such an intimate conversation, suddenly feeling very sympathetic towards the two unlikely lovers with a book-like forbidden romance where two sides are at war but love blooms between two star-crossed lovers that have to meet in secrecy. Cecelia had a book like that, she remembers. 

Daniel must not look convinced because, with another sigh, Rafa speaks up again.

"I am just worried about you, Dan. How are things, by the way? Any news?" Both Billie and Emily perk up at that question, straining their ears for the information they have come to seek out.

"The same - those bodies piling up have been reported to have traces of black magic on them and Vice Overseer Byrne is starting to get worried about what that might mean. He has started sending bigger patrol groups into the city in hopes of catching another in the act but there have not been any new bodies in a week. I think everyone's starting to be a little paranoid, especially with the Empress disappearing from Dunwall."

No new bodies in a week. That's as long as Emily's been gone from Dunwall and someone has already made the connection that the two could be related. It would make sense if her Doppelgangerdisappeared just when the real Empress appeared in Karnaca. That and they have already got her where they wanted her. All that now has to be done is for them to find her. Or vice versa, she supposes. She'd rather find them first before they have the chance to find her.

"Does he think there is some correlation between the Empress and the murders?" Rafa asks and Daniel visibly shakes his head.

"No. He is loyal to the Empress but I am just saying that someone could pick up on that. I have seen the articles, Rafael, and am not blind. Neither is Overseer Byrne. Some of the other Brothers are whispering of heresy but they remember what happened the last time and are more cautious now. More than anything, people are scared and growing more volatile and aggressive...." Daniel trails off but Rafa is quick to pick up on the implications, thinking it might be useful information.

"Like your brother? How's he doing?" Daniel winces silently at the mention of his brother but is quick to share his worries and vulnerabilities with his lover.

"Not well. It has become too much and he's grown unstable - they have him locked in the kennels for now but I think there is nothing that can be done for him. Overseer Byrne tried a few things, even had an old music box brought up in case it was the Outsider's influence but nothing helped. One of the Sisters came in yesterday evening and Sam was livid. Nothing of what he said made sense - he said the High Oracle had promised him unity, Sight, and power. He'd called her by her given name. ' Valeria, Valeria, ' he screamed, ' I have made you and you betrayed me, you traitorous. .'..ahem. Woman. The Oracular Sister had declared he'd engaged in heresy and lost his mind to black magic. Overseer Byrne seemed disappointed when he apologised to me and told me that nothing could be done to save him. It was horrid."

Rafa waits a moment before he pulls his lover into a tighter embrace, letting him process the information with enough support. Daniel seems to appreciate that, setting his head down on Rafa's shoulder. Emily once again looks away and finds out that Billie is already looking at her with her own frown. 

' Sam? ' She mouths, ' Samson? '

Sam could be Samson, Emily realises, stiffly nodding Billie's way. Samson was the Overseer present during the staged silvergraphing of Emily's Doppelgangerand now something made him go insane and caused him to be locked up in the kennels. Something to do with the High Oracle and the Oracular Sisters, then? 

Emily thinks of Overseer Harlowe who'd come to Dunwall months ago preaching of the Outsider and some sort of cleansing that sounded very ritualistic. The murders and the picture surfaced not too long after Emily had refused to come to Karnaca with Harlowe. It could be that Samson had devised a plan B in case of Harlowe's failure, which could mean that they both have dabbled in dark magic - again confirmed by the Oracular Sister and the murder evidence. 

(And Mateo had mentioned a woman whose face was revealed when Emily's Doppelganger’s peeled away. Could it be...?)

"I am so sorry to hear that Dan. What will you do now?" 

"Nothing that can be done. His Mind is beyond Errant, beyond saving," Daniel sighs softly, parting away from his lover's embrace, "Sam and I never got along much. If they kill him, I will not mourn him. It will be a just course of action - may their Hands not be Restless." 

Rafa searches his lover's face for there is a flash of apathy in his features at the mention of his brother's demise. It seems that Daniel made peace with his brother's departure. Another sigh comes from him as he momentarily presses his forehead against Daniel's before parting away.

"Thank you for trusting me with this...I think we should go now before our absence becomes suspicious to the others. But again, promise me you will give my words a thought, Dan. I cannot lose you. I cannot ." His tone is once again pleading and desperate but quickly quelled by his lover's calm one, uttered as he fixes his mask in place and straightens his clothes,

"I will and I will let you know as soon as possible. I just...need a while. You must understand it is a lot to ask of me - to leave the Order and run away with you. I want to make sure that I know the weight of my choice. If I leave, I cannot ever return."

"I understand," Rafa nods, taking a step back to follow Daniel's actions, putting on his mask and fixing his clothes.

"Thank you for your time, Overseer Sterling. Please return to your post and I will follow shortly after you."

Daniel takes a moment to look at Rafa once again before he nods and turns on his heel, slipping through the metal door and to the other side of the door. Billie follows him with her gaze, remembering the way he walks, the way his clothes are creased, the little scratch on the temple of his mask. While Emily catalogues all the necessary information, Billie quickly reaches into her pocket and pulls out a scrap of paper she took from the pretty Black Market clerk's hands, tearing off a piece. She writes something down on it and then briefly disappears if only to get a good vantage point before dropping the piece of paper at Sterling's feet.

The Overseer notices, stopping. He seems to be puzzled about the crumpled piece of paper but bends down to pick it up nevertheless, unveiling it to read the message written inside in an unfamiliar handwriting,

'If you're ever in danger, follow the rats.'

It is a message as cryptic as any and the Overseer seems to be very much confused about the content but shoves the paper in his pocket anyway. When he looks up to see where the paper came from, he finds nothing and no one above him. Just empty balconies sealed off by pale tarp.

When Billie appears next on the metal roof, she finds Emily engaged in a silent conversation with Rafa. 

"You must understand now,'" she hears Rafa speak, and Emily agree verbally in turn: "More than anything. I must speak with Byrne and then with Samson. Do you think...?"

“That he'll answer? Maybe. That you can kill him? You have heard the man - may your Hands not be Restless when you do. I must go now but Byrne should be in his office until at least 11. Move fast, Empress." 

And then Rafa is gone, temporarily slipping into his role of a patrolling Overseer, leaving Emily behind. Billie taps the index finger of her skeletal hand on the metal roof, alerting Emily to her presence. The Empress nearly jumps but stands down when she realises it is just Billie, reaching up to join her on the roof.

"That was useful, wouldn't you say so?"

Billie is keen on agreeing but she is still a little apprehensive regarding the strange involvement of both of the Orders. She shares as much with Emily, who too admits that there are still some things that are in the grey for her - hence why they need to move to pay Byrne a visit. 

Emily's eyes follow Rafa towards the building and then inside, eyes shimmering golden as her vision tints sepia and Rafa's equally golden silhouette slowly disappears up the stairs - they follow him the whole time and Emily only looks away when Rafa reaches the top floor. At that point, she nudges Billie soundlessly and gestures at her to follow her over the balconies and awnings, over ledges, and water pipes until they reach Byrne's window. 

The fixture is closed and curtains drawn, so Emily refuses to risk using this as her entry point and instead continues onward until she finds a hole in the roof covered by a tarp sheet. It leads them inside and into the abandoned attic above Byrne's office - she remembers it well from her last visit, remembers Stilton's forgotten painting—now an empty frame—and countless pamphlets littering the floor calling for better conditions for the silver miners. Even the audiograph stands where she remembers it, collecting dust. 

Emily's first instinct is to use her Dark Vision to confirm both Rafa's and Byrne's positions - Byrne is pacing around his office when Rafa appears at the door, knocking soundly. It prompts Emily to sneak to the very edge of the attic space where it suddenly ends to give way to the spacious upper part of Byrne's office. She can tell that Billie is close behind her, clutching one of the old pamphlets. Perhaps once this is all over, they can visit Aramis before they leave.

Below, Rafa's knocking is answered by Byrne's firm call of 'Come in!' and Emily looks below to wait for the right opportunity to drop into the conversation. Rafa steps into the office, closing the door behind him softly. His presence makes Byrne look away from the projector hands unfolding as he greets his subordinate.

"Brother Rafael," Byrne's voice carries with carefully practised authority, "how may I help you?" 

At his words, the Overseer reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper, stepping closer to hand it over to the Vice Overseer.

"I am to give you a message from someone whom you're well-acquainted with, Vice Overseer. Someone who wishes to speak to you, preferably today."

Byrne frowns at Rafael's words, taking the letter from his hands. He unfolds it, eyes moving over the simple text before he folds it back up, holding the paper between his index and middle fingers. His face does not look at ease, eyes squinted at the man in front of him. The message itself should not blow Rafa's cover but Byrne appears to be suspicious of how exactly he'd come to obtain it.

"The Empress requires an audience with me?" Byrne questions, "Brother Rafael, you must realise how this sounds -  you come into my office claiming that this message comes from the Empress who's been at large for over a  week, and who seeks to speak with me on matters of utmost importance? A claim like this is impossible to believe without any proof ."

Byrne reacts the way Emily has expected him to - he does not believe the message comes from her, not even on the account of his own Overseer. Emily regrets not having set up some sort of a secret phrase or a code word with Byrne as one of her associates - it would come in handy now but her oversight on the situation must be kept for later. 

"The Empress has precisely nine moles on her face," Rafael suddenly states, catching Byrne off-guard with the statement.

"What? What is that supposed to mean?" The Vice Overseer's confusion is mirrored on both Billie's and Emily's faces and Emily subconsciously tries to remember how many moles she remembers having, while Rafa explains himself,

"You've met the Empress face-to-face before, I had assumed that you would remember and take it as proof but by your reaction, you have not noticed...which, nevermind. The Empress is here to speak to you and she wishes to make it quick as she carries confidential information."

"Then bring her in," Byrne eventually yields, still not persuaded though he seems to be willing to see whether the Empress he will speak to is the real Emily. With a slight bow, Rafa vacates the room, the door clicking shut after him softly, leaving Byrne staring after him, mulling over the strange exchange.

Emily decides to take the opportunity and pulls herself forward, landing on the floor by Byrne's desk soundlessly, leaning back against the heavy wood so when Byrne turns around again, he finds Emily waiting for him there. It's a risky move, she realises as Byrne flinches at her sudden appearance, looking around the room for places she could have entered from.

"What the.." he curses but Emily stops him before he can pull a sword on her or call for help. She holds out a hand, open palm towards Byrne before she turns her hand around and flashes her signet ring at him (she hid it until now, keeping it in the in-sewn pocket of her pants - she wouldn't dare lose it).

"At ease, Vice Overseer," she begins just as calmly and authoritatively as he did with Rafa, "it is truly me. And I mean no harm."

Despite the signet ring, Byrne still keeps his tense position considering her intrusion and too sudden appearance he might grow even more suspicious of.

"Before you pull a weapon on me," she once again puts her hands up to show that she's not here to cause trouble, "I snuck in around your guards and through the side rooms, and three months ago I sent you a letter regarding the temporary truce between the Abbey and the Howlers - it was sealed with blue and silver wax, and contained a note of apology regarding the attached documents being drenched in tea."

The first part is a lie but Byrne does not need to know that; the second, however, is very much true and means to serve as proof of her identity. The signet ring can be stolen but only she knows that the documents she had sent Byrne had a tea stain on the side - she fell asleep in the middle of reviewing them but luckily, they were not that important and merely served as some additional information regarding the situation at hand.

It takes Byrne a moment of consideration but he slowly uncoils from his tense position and offers a sigh before addressing Emily,

"Apologies, your Highness. I believe it is you now but you must understand my apprehension with everything going on," Byrne excuses himself, gesturing at the nearby set of armchairs and for Emily to have a seat. She politely accepts, moving across the room to collapse into the red Abbey-branded monstrosity.

"Conveniently enough," she replies, "that is exactly why I came here to speak to you. I have suspicions about the Abbey's involvement - or at least of some of your men. You wouldn't happen to know anything about it, Vice Overseer?"

Something flashes across Byrne's face at Emily's words - at first, he appears to be almost offended at her words, at the suggestion that the Abbey could be involved in something so profoundly reeking of dark magic and disloyalty to Emily without any prior suspicious, but after a moment, Byrne's face falls and his eyes close. With an exhale, he walks around his desk, arms uncrossing, to where he keeps his reports, meticulously folded and arranged in neat stacks.

"The Abbey stands by its teachings and vows but lately there have been some..unrests for the lack of a better word. We suspect that one of our brothers got involved with black magic. We have tried to cleanse him of its influence and even interrogate him but we did not get far- he refused to speak and when we made him, none of it was coherent thought. Initially, we thought he had fallen to the Outsider's whispers but during one of the interrogations, he openly denounced the entity and declared he did this to combat his power."

Emily listens carefully, eyes squinted as she processes the information - perhaps Harlowe wasn't lying about their original intention with the ritual, then. This would technically cement Samson as having taken part in said ritual, just as Emily theorised, but she will not truly know until she gets the confirmation from Samson himself.

It does not explain Emily's involvement, though. Unless they know about the black mark on her hand but that too is a subject to confirm.

"Is his name Samson, per chance?" She questions, appearing nonchalant about it, even if Byrne's eyebrows shoot up on his forehead. Before he can question her knowledge on the subject, she continues,

"I paid a visit to the local silvergrapher, Mr Mateo Villamón, and listened to his retelling of the events which have led to the publishing of the silver print of 'me' in the streets of Karnaca while I was openly present in Dunwall. He mentioned his mother had made a deal with an Overseer by the name of Samson who'd taken him to the city with the apparatus to create a silvergraph that would show me slaughtering a seemingly innocent civilian. The person responsible seemed to be using black magic to wear a face similar to mine, which—on Mr Villamón's account—had peeled back to reveal the face of a completely different woman."

There are more details that Emily could share but she holds them back, not wanting to give Byrne all the information just yet - the mention of Samson, black magic, and a different woman in context seems to spike the Overseer's curiosity, though. 

He gives Emily a solemn nod as if to confirm Samson is the one held in the kennels.

"That...makes sense," Byrne eventually speaks up, hand on his chin in thought, "and by what little information we managed to get out of our former brother has pointed towards his co-conspirators having used him and betrayed him." 

With resolute action, Byrne reaches into his stack of reports, pulling out the one he had written on Samson's interrogation. His eyes skim over the text, frown growing deeper and more prominent until a deep crease appears on his forehead.

"During the last attempted cleanse, we have asked Sister Razina of the Oracular Order to assist us in the hopes that perhaps the Sisters had a way of exorcising the black magic but when Brother Samson saw her, he suddenly became livid, claiming betrayal from the High Oracle. Sister Razina concluded there was nothing that could be done to help him and that Brother Samson had gone completely delusional. In retrospect, perhaps we should have paid more attention to his words, but to suspect the involvement of the Sisters and the High Oracle herself seems insane. Sister Razina also asked to come back today to speak with Samson one more time though I do not understand why since she left so quickly the last time."

Up above, Billie understands way too fast. She waves at Emily to catch her eye, and when the Empress does so as subtly as she can manage, Billie lifts her head and runs the thumb of her hand over the width of her throat - Razina is coming back to kill him for ratting them out.

Byrne may seem clueless about the Sisters' approach but Billie has seen this happen one too many times - they need to get rid of Samson before he spills anything else - they are likely aware that they will not be able to excuse his words on him being a lunatic for too long.

And truthfully, Emily seems to be thinking much the same - her face stays impassive as she mulls the thought over, knowing that they have to get to Samson first before Razina does. Even if that involves kidnapping the insane man right from under Byrne's nose. 

"Saying it seems insane reeks of uncertainty, Vice Overseer. By Sister Razina's reaction, do you not think there is some truth to Overseer Samson's words? She could not argue against his claims and merely shut him down - are you perhaps afraid of this fiasco reaching the public? That if the Abbey and the Sisters are found to be involved with black magic, that it will undermine your influence and standing?" Emily knows that she is playing fire but she needs to create tension in order to push Byrne towards either a resolute decision or more information on the matter. At the same time, she gestures at Billie in the middle of speaking, giving her the go-ahead signal to get Samson and get the hell out. 

And she succeeds - just as Billie disappears, Byrne puffs his chest out, squaring his shoulders against Emily's accusation.

"With all due respect, your Highness, this is a serious matter, and accusing the High Oracle of heresy seems absurd, even on the account of Sister Razina's behaviour. I admit I must have faulted in my leadership if one of my men has given himself over to the arcane but I will not let that shake my resolve," Byrne's steely determination is back and Emily knows that she's hit the right spot.

"Then join me and support me in this cause, Vice Overseer. I will investigate the matter of the Sisters myself and with my spies, but when the time comes and the unlikely does end up coming true, I ask for your support in the matter." Emily stops before she can say something stupid like 'eradicating the black magic' whilst she herself is a token heretic but what Byrne does not know cannot hurt him. 

But at least Byrne seems to be thinking it over - threatening another blow to his leadership has left him on edge and Emily is glad to have used that in her favour. 

After a minute, the man yields, declaring his support for Emily and her investigation into the matter. She suspects he wants to ask her more about her whereabouts in Karnaca now but there is a look in his eyes that tells her he'd rather not know just what the Empress is doing. 

(Not that she would tell him but she would not fully lie either - just lie by omission and mention she is staying with some friends. Which she is. Byrne does not need to know who those friends are."

Upon Byrne's agreement, Emily inclines her head in a respectful bow, silently thanking Byrne for his patronage. Before she leaves though, there is one more thing she needs to say.

"When you mentioned Overseer Samson's declaration of working against the Outsider, you have reminded me of one curious incident from a while back. An Overseer by the name Harlowe came to my office, claiming he's come on your demand to ask me to participate in some sort of piety or a cleanse taking part in the peaks of Shindaerey, claiming it is of utmost urgency that I come to Karnaca - any idea on what this could mean?"

Byrne looks at her -  he does not have to say much to give Emily an answer.

"There is no Overseer Harlowe."

On her way out, Emily finds out that Harlowe was a pseudonym used by Samson when he journeyed to Dunwall. She confirmed his appearance in Dunwall with Byrne's account of Samson asking for a temporary transfer to Dunwall on account of family matters. Said matters have been confirmed by his brother, Daniel Sterling, but Emily highly doubts that Daniel knew the real reason why Samson wanted to go to Dunwall. Using rocky family matters was just overwhelmingly convenient.

Her Dark Vision leads her outside via the negotiated exit but she only finds Lizzy waiting out there for her, half-hidden in the shadows of a collapsed wall. Lizzy waves her over wordlessly, pushing herself off the wall to lead Emily further up the street where she ducks into one of the abandoned buildings full of dirt and dust. 

"I trust that Billie's made it out already?" She questions, eyes no longer golden to combat the unpleasant tones of harsh sunlight under the Vision's sepia filter. Lizzy crosses the room and leads Emily out into an empty alleyway. Or an almost empty one.

"She and her unwilling passenger as well. He's one ugly fucker if you're curious," Lizzy replies with a snort, taking Emilly further down the alley until they start hearing a male voice hissing curses under their breath. Emily looks at Lizzy who merely shrugs in an 'I told you' way, rounding the corner with the Empress on her heel. 

They are greeted with the sight of Billie with her arms crossed over her chest and Mindy leaning on a shovel whilst a dressed down—and now unmasked—Overseer kneels in front of them, sunk in soft dirt. He's bound by iron, shoulder slumped and head hung defiantly. His hissed curses and words continue until Emily approaches them.

Samson's head snaps up, a snarl on his bitten lips before they stretch into a wide grin - and the Overseer laughs at the sight of the Empress, slowly losing it with each second until Billie kicks him in the stomach, simultaneously yanking his head back. That gets him to stop for a moment, yet the smile never leaves his face.

"Look who decided to show up! The Saint of all Saints!—Lady Empress, welcome to Karnaca," Samson jeers. Billie gets ready for another kick but Emily stops her, asking her to stand back and hold the man still.

"Samson. Or should I say 'Overseer Harlowe'?" Unimpressed, she lifts her brows, "You have succeeded in getting me where you want me, but I must admit through very unconventional means. Did you get inspired by the Crown Killer?" It is a jest on her part and Samson does not answer her immediately, merely showing off his bloodied teeth in response. He seems unphased and Emily knows that she will need to employ a similar strategy as she did with Byrne if she wants any compliance.

"You were supposed to be a part of something glorious, to atone. And you have missed the initial encore. But it is never too late to become a harbinger of a Utopia, of a bright future, with the rest of those who worship the Outsider."

Samson's words do nothing but confuse Emily - he confirms that he and his cohorts know about Emily's affiliation with the Outsider which puts her on top of their list to....pay for her involvement with the Void?  She wants to ask what the fuck is that supposed to mean but realises quickly that she won't get the answers like this.

"And weren't you supposed to be a part of that too?" She provokes, "They promised you a world without the Void-touched, didn't they? But they used you and tossed you away like a broken toy that they did not want to play with anymore. Is that why you are so mad at the High Oracle? Was it her—Sister Valeria—that promised you some far-fetched vision and then dropped you the moment you stopped being useful and did all the dirty work for them?"

Emily's words seem to work because Samson lurches forward and snaps his teeth at her like a wild animal. It has Emily taking a step back, knowing she's probably overdone it by the way Samson grows more and more hysteric by the moment, voice growing in volume and putting them at risk of someone overhearing.

"The Outsider does nothing but taint and corrupt. He creates puppets and you all play his game! Our vision wasn't far-fetched - it was real! To make you see the evils and to remake you anew without the bastard's influence and magic - of them all, you were the worst, letting his domain rule us all! Valeria had a solution and it would have worked perfectly if it weren't for her actions. The dumb whore wanted power to herself this whole time and left me to rot after everything I have done for her! She unleashed the Void on those of us who'd opposed her staking claim to the fruits of our labour - you were the one supposed to suffer, you bastard daughter of a---" 

Samson does not manage to finish his sentence, head snapping sideways. His whole body topples over with the impact from the shovel wielded by Mindy, only a dull metallic thud against his skull foretelling his fate before his body leaves Billie's grip and splays out on the soil below.

"Yeah. Mother Miranda bless your soul, you ugly fucker," Mindy spits on the ground, pulling the shovel back. Emily is infinitely grateful for Mindy's quick reflexes or else she would have shanked him with a blade herself sooner or later. Below them, Samson does not move again but he does not appear to be dead yet much to Mindy's disappointment.

"Thank you, Mindy," Emily sighs deeply, taking another step back, "I think that is as much as we will get out of him without him becoming hysterical again. Frankly, I don't even want to hear more, I heard enough."

Truth be told, they could do with more information but Emily is positive that they will not find it here. Outside of his direct involvement with Valeria, Samson's words mostly consist of unintelligible rambling anyway. 

So she steps back, eventually turning on her heel to go sit down on one of the abandoned crates. 

There is no command from her on what to do with Samson next but Lizzy and Mindy both seem to have the same idea as Billie approaches Emily instead. Her body covers the scene just as a shot rings out, followed by Lizzy's voice and the sound of spitting.

"Bang-bang, big boy."

Emily does not flinch at the sound but she takes a deep breath instead, fully knowing that Samson had it coming and had been on death row anyway, with Sister Razina coming back for his life tonight. They have only saved her the work and satisfaction of putting him down like a rabid animal. Emily only hopes Samson's disappearance will cause havoc and lead the Sisters into chaos, thinking that he's escaped the Abbey's confinement. Or, on the other hand, lead  Byrne to believe that the Sisters have staged this.

Once again, she focuses on Billie in front of her.

"Are you okay?" She asks and Emily finds the question more absurd than anything in the given situation but she responds with a quick nod, attempting to wave Billie and her concerns off. She has no reason to not be okay but at the same time, considering her words, Emily finds herself wondering whether she is okay outside of everything. 

The answer is no. 

She is not but she has to keep her head straight and her mind focused on the matter of things for now, can be ‘not okay’ in their safe house or after all of this is over. Most importantly, she does not want to carry that worry over onto others, so she lies with a smile even if she knows that no one, especially not Billie, believes her. And if Billie has anything to say about the matter, her eye says it all but her mouth remains shut, offering silent comfort and a hand on her shoulder.

"The shovel thing - that was hot. I always wanted to shag an Overseer," Lizzy's voice tears Emily out of her emotional stupour and Billie from her brooding worry as both women turn to observe the scene behind them which they have elected to ignore.

"My father was a Bastillan degenerate but he taught me how to use a knife. And how to gut Guard officers - the best father a child could ever wish for." Mindy merely shrugs, weighing the shovel in her hands thoughtfully.

"That's disgusting," Billie whispers to Emily at Lizzy's words, shuddering, as Mindy then proceeds to use the shovel she's whacked Samson with to dig a hole in the same soil he had knelt in just a moment ago. It reminds Emily of that one time she's brought Mindy the body of her dead lover only for her to bury it behind the Dentist's office.

Yet she has to agree. It is disgusting but it does not mean that the banter does not put a smile on her face, an elevation from whatever just transpired. She suspects that Lizzy is doing it on purpose.

"Do you think they recite or moan the Strictures while porking?" The very same voice continues, carrying on the wind along with the sound of Mindy's chuckle and the sound of her shovel slipping through the soil. 

Emily is grateful for her allies standing by her, invaluable.

The way back is much quicker - they do not talk about whatever events just transpired, suffocated by the low heat of Karnaca's midday. By now, Byrne is off in one meeting or another and everyone is clueless about Samson's disappearance and death. Even the streets are silent and void of wandering people, a thing Emily appreciates. Everyone hidden in their houses to wait the heat and dust out or is eating lunch in a place where neither can reach them. 

For someone like Emily, who's grown up in Dunwall, it is suspiciously quiet but none of her companions seem alarmed. It almost makes her feel paranoid though Billie's lack of reaction to the strange feeling grounds her some, allowing their journey back to remain uneventful.

It is only once they are back inside the base that the feeling dissipates and Emily allows herself to take a deep breath. They rendez-vous at the board next, connecting most of their clues thanks to the information they have just received - Billie fills Mindy and Lizzy on the information provided to Rafa by Sterling, piecing together a cohesive thought map that makes a whole loop back to the cult theory - with the Sisters and some of the Abbeymen at the centre of it all.

The suggestion that they might seek the erasure of the Void and the Outsider along with his marked gets a slightly pinched look from Billie. She has remained silent about her previous escapades and the events of her unfortunate arm and eye loss - she does assure them that the Outsider is, however, doing somewhat well in the Void, and that he is very much alive, yet she chooses to omit that he almost wasn't by her own hand. She chose to walk out of that ending, refusing to be the extension of Daud's revenge.

Emily still gives her an odd look but chooses to ignore it as they devise a plan to infiltrate the Oracular Sisters' Order. 

Billie volunteers, claiming to know where to find them—atop of Shindaerey, where the supposed ritual took place—and how to blend in better than anyone else from their group and as much as Emily wants to protest, she knows that Billie is unfortunately right and has the biggest potential of them all to succeed. That, and she is obviously asking Emily to not pur her life on the line for intel. 

It is the job of a spy, and Emily is severely lacking in those. It just happens that Billie is the closest to it and the most qualified, so whatever protests Emily can think of—how Billie might get hurt—get lost on her tongue and by the end of the next hour, an unanimous agreement to send Billie has been reached. 

And at sundown, Billie disappears.

Emily pretends to not be disappointed at the lack of a proper send-off, having to do with a bow of Billie's head before the assassin has disappeared. It is unclear how long she stands in the window, watching her surroundings in hopes of seeing a flash of red. The cool breeze on her skin and messing up her hair worries her none, not even when she begins shivering.

That night and for the three following nights after it, Emily sleeps in a cold bed.

In the daylight, she entertains herself by training and reading, by walking around, conversing, and playing cards with some of the Howlers. She gets to meet with Paolo on common grounds, finally face-to-face without the risk of them killing each other, though she makes a point to stay at least an extra foot away from him and Granny Rags' weird shrivelled hand. 

She also gets to meet with Rafa one more time, inquiring about the Overseer situation - Rafa tells her of the chaos that ensued following Samson's disappearance. The whole outpost was in shambles. Overseers with hounds up in arms, Byrne and Razina on their heels. By Rafa's words, they did not find Samson, and the fact made Sister Razina seethe. 

The prospect of Samson escaping had terrified and enraged the Sister to the point she threatened to string Byrne up if they didn't find him. Her outburst did have a more positive side effect, though, Rafa reports. Daniel took the events of his brother's actions as a sign that perhaps Rafael was correct and that it would be better if he left the Order. Understandably, Byrne did not take the information well but after some consideration (and the likely scenario that Sterling might become the next target), he'd allowed him a formal leave, though made sure that Sterling knew he was welcome back if he changed his mind. Especially once the situation gets resolved.

Emily is happy for them. She truly is, even if her own heart hurts.

On the dawn of the fourth day, there is still no sign of Billie. No message nor an echo of her whereabouts.

And Emily is getting worried.

She trusts Billie knows how to handle herself - the woman's been through hell multiple times, trained by Daud, and even worked under Delilah. Billie is a deadly force of nature but Emily cannot help herself, Roving Feet, Restless Hands, and Errant Mind become her best friends in the cold tall shadows of the morning light seeping into the room. It is as though she were one of them, climbing the walls, disappearing underneath furniture, entirely too large for her body and driven insane by sedentary idleness kept like a caged animal between cold lifeless walls. 

The furniture is rearranged so many times that she can no longer tell what state it began in, cushions and blankets of her bed overturned in frustration. She even considers putting her fist through the glass cabinet but stops herself before her compulsion takes over. The bloodfly-bitten decorative pillows become the last shepherds of her sanity.

She loses patience with herself exactly at midday.

In the blink of an eye, she is back where she began, back where she was all those months ago. She is out on the streets of Karnaca with a single purpose, guided solely by her tunnel vision that points her to the peaks of Shindaerey. 

The mountain is all jagged black rock and remains of glacial erratics, towering over her higher than the buildings in Dunwall did when she was a child. The path through the mountains is dangerous and full of traps and Emily is a tourist in the Devil's Domain, unprepared for the ascent to madness, and wearing the wrong footwear. 

So she lies in wait for a moment - she doesn't have to wait too long for a Wandering Sister coming from the city with supplies and a missive, eyes uncovered as she too begins her journey, unknowingly becoming Emily's guide through metaphorical Hell. She tries to remember the path the Sister takes whilst keeping herself low and out of sight, as well as wholly misunderstanding the path and the kind of energy she needs to exert on her way up.

The lowest of the temples is a plain thing with dark shingles and marble floors, too low to be anywhere close to the Veil itself. Billie is also not there - Emily makes sure to look multiple times, cataloguing the few Sisters loitering around and keeping guard. 

Her original guide continues further and Emily is, once again, plastered basically to the woman's back yet she keeps the distance respectable enough to not rouse suspicion. Like this, they pass more temples and each one is as uninteresting to Emily as the first one. And each and every one is devoid of Billie's presence.

And Emily is slowly losing hope but she hangs onto the last sliver of it as the Sister, now only armed with the missive, keeps going. There is nothing but barren wastes ahead. The higher the go, the thinner the air gets and Emily loses any vantage for hiding, so instead she has to sneak from a reasonable distance whilst keeping low to the ground. 

But something changes about the air after a while. 

The air grows colder, more dense, and filled with static that tastes like ozone on Emily's tongue. She recognises the feeling dancing over her skin and thrumming underneath her skin and in her veins. The Veil is close and the air is filled with Void energy that feels like a breath of fresh cold air. Emily feels filled with energy, bursting at the seams with the magic seeping in through the crack in the sky.

With the Void washing over her, she doesn't have to do anything - her body, pressed so low, automatically melds into the shadows, assuming a non-corporeal form that does not fade with the drain of magic. It is because her pool of magic does not drain, constantly overflowing as if she were walking in the Void itself.

Crouched like that, the Empress retains the form of a shadow creature creeping and crawling over black rock, vaguely human-shaped, and definitely unsettling to look at. Yet up here, where her magic blends into that of many others, they do not notice her. Not yet.

The Sister from before wavers the further she goes on until she drops to her knees and covers her ears, causing the missive to fall out of her hands and roll across the smoother landing that ultimately climaxes in the last of the ascents where the magic is the strongest, and where countless people made of stone pose with their arms up, mouths and eyes wide open in terror and agony.

And the missive rolls until it stops at the foot of a woman.

She is very much alive, clad in the pristine white ceremonial robes of an Oracle with golden accents that drag across the floor. Despite the lack of airflow, the fabric still bellows with an unseen force. Emily cannot see much from her vantage point but the Oracle's eyes are covered by white bandages with golden lining, disappearing into an intricate headpiece of gold that splits in two and curls upwards like a set of horns. 

High Oracle Valeria bends and picks up the missive elegantly, unaffected by the whispers and the screams. 

For a moment, Emily can only watch before she starts recognising the place of reckoning as the ritual hold she's seen in the Void a long time ago, but lacking the scene of the sacrificial lamb and instead boasting a stone structure that looks almost like a tree. 

And the last temple of the Sisters, the newest, and the most makeshift looking, rests just on the bend of the mountain's edge and away from the Void's reach where the serving Sisters won't be affected. Even before, was absurd to think of the Sisters—and especially the Oracle—being involved in something like this but now that Emily sees it with her own two eyes, the reality becomes much more jarring.

Ever so slowly, she backs away.

Realistically, she is aware that due to its proximity to the Void, Karnaca has always been full of ingenious bastards who had believed to be entitled to its residual power. Those who sought claim to something that cannot be tamed or harnessed without a filter, believing in elevation above the worldly and into the divine. But only a few ever had and will have that luxury—mostly those not seeking it in the first place, and those providing entertainment to the turbulent God—those marked by the Outsider.

Even syphoning power through a mark can be dangerous and many have fallen prey to greed even while wielding it. 

Now attempting to do so without a filter? No wonder that Samson had gone off his rockers, that the Sister at Valeria's feet is still squirming under the pressure while her Oracle pays her no mind.

Emily's claws skitter against the rock and the Oracle's head turns towards the noise sharply as it echoes, leaving Emily merely a second to pull herself away and hide in the crevices between two wayward rocks in the ground. Her body must obey, shadows seeping into the cracks where she remains until Valeria turns her head away.

Knowing she's been caught, Emily claws her way towards the temple as quickly as possible, considering it a blessing that Valeria had elected to let her go for the time being - it gives Emily enough time to count her bearings and to take a look around with the last of her hope held in the approximation of her chest and throat, anxiety gnawing at her bones like a hungry wolf until her eyes skim over a curled up shape in a distinct heap of limbs she identifies as Billie.

Her blood boils and for a moment she is ready to turn around and introduce Valeria to the business end of her sword.

The only thing that stops her is the faint noise Billie's lungs make as she heaves in her stupour - and Emily realises that she has to get her out of there as quickly as possible.

Billie is hurt and it is bad . Her anger and revenge can wait until she gets Billie to safety and ensures that she is okay. Only then, and once she is ready will she retake the Shindaerey peak.  

'Everything else can wait - Billie comes first,' she tells herself, climbing her way into the building. She narrowly avoids the Sisters there, deathly silent as she scurries over floors and walls. They cannot see her but she suspects that they will feel her if she gets a bit too adventurous with her powers, even this close to the Void. 

Once she reaches the room Billie is kept in, she shudders at the damage done to her friend - even with her vision partially obstructed, she can see blood seeping through the white of the Sisters' uniform that Billie wears, can see countless other injuries, can smell the sweetness of the sleep drugs they have given her.

The chest wound is the worst, though - it is the source of all the blood, spanning the width of Billie's waist. Emily berates herself at the sight, cursing herself for allowing Billie to go and leave her side. They could have gone together and protected each other! Could have, but no one can be sure that it'd not end the same way, but perhaps with the both of them in identical states only hoping for mercy from either the Sisters or the Outsider.

Deciding that she can yell at herself later, Emily's ghastly hands slip underneath Billie's body, lifting her up with ease. She does not feel her mass in this state though that will only last a little of the descent before Emly eventually collapses. She has to be careful about that, slipping past the patrolling Sisters with much more effort on her side.

"What was that?" One of them perks up, slowly turning her head like a mechanical dial, "Shh, Sisters. We have a rat in our walls."

Emily decides that first of all, fuck that, and second of all, that she might as well use the last bit of the mountain where the Void still fuels her. She then proceeds to pull herself out of the building, repeating the action a few times until she's over the first dip in the rocks and the influence of the Void fades along with her shadow form, causing her to slip and slide down the side of the hill on her arse for a moment before she gains her bearings again.

"Fuck," with a curse, Emily forces herself up, cradling Billie's broken body to her chest as her descent begins. She only has her own pool of magic to use now, and she has to do so wisely in order to avoid detection from the rest of the Sisters who will undoubtedly soon get alarmed at her entrance and Billie's absence.

And true to her word, when rounding the last temple, an ungodly shriek echoes from the top of the mountain. Emily freezes, blood running cold at the sheer fear she's momentarily struck with, having to persuade her body to move quicker, even if it burns through her stamina.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," she keeps muttering on her way down, glad when the quarry starts looking less uncanny and more real. By then she knows she's made it, though it does not mean that she's out of the woods just yet. There is no indication of how long Billie has been lying there, bleeding, or how long she's been found out and possibly tortured. 

Actually, scratch that last part - Billie's injuries definitely come from a fight and it is likely they had only drugged her and wrapped it enough for her to not die just yet. Perhaps to use as bait. Except they did not expect Emily's lethal silence on the matter. Neither did Emily, with the rage she'd felt—still feels—but it did not seem smart.

She knew it wouldn't be a smart decision, yet she still wanted to. For the sake of her own self-accusatory tendencies and for someone who'd quickly grown dear to her. But there is no way in Void that it wasn't a trap that would ultimately lead to her being late to Billie's rescue. Like this, she might have avoided the confrontation she'd hoped for but she got Billie out of there and that is all that matters.

Well, all that mattered was getting her out and what matters is getting her to a skilled physician as quickly as possible. 

And there is only one person on Emily's mind.

The quarry passes her by and then disappears in the flurry of her movement, slowly turning into the dilapidated edges of wood and stone belonging to Batista. It is not dark outside yet, though it is nearly evening so Emily has to avoid people by calculating a path aided by her Far Reach that would get her from point A to point B. 

She does not want to be seen with a half-dead body, even if it were nothing unusual on these streets, so the less people get an unfortunate glance, the better.

When she comes to a halt in front of a vaguely familiar door, she hopes she's made the right choice before frantically kicking at the door with the tip of her boot. The body in her arms renders her unable to knock or pound on the door and the inhabitant does not seem to like that, soundly stepping behind the door with a lot of curses on her tongue.

"What is your problem----" After a moment of fiddling with the door locks, Lucia Pastor wrings the door open, swinging them with such gusto that it nearly unbalances Emily. A warm hand on her shoulder catches her before she can stumble, Lucia's face stormy. It quickly switches to an alarmed one before Lucia steps back and ushers Emily inside. She understands the gravity of situation, Emily notes with gratitude, turning towards the woman.

"Is Hypatia still in her office? Please, it is urgent."

After the whole Crown Killer fiasco, Alexandria Hypatia returned to mainland Karnaca and after a while chose to pursue a more direct way of helping the miners. A safer one, with fewer laboratory risks, and with Lucia as her coordinator among the community members. The state of Addermire has not been determined yet - renovations were merely discussed but no actions were made towards re-establishing the sanatorium to the way it was before. Hypatia, too, isn't yet sure whether she would even wish to return, hardly having healed from her own trauma and hurt that is connected with the Institute.

Speaking of Hypatia, a door to Emily's left opens halfway and Hypatia's weary face pokes out from the safety of her office to find out what the ruckus is about. She even opens her mouth to ask but her eyes slide to Billie's body, causing her mouth to immediately shut and step to the side if only to kick the door open and hold it for Emily.

"Oh my. Oh, no," the good doctor stammers, ordering Emily to set Billie's body down on the freshly disinfected operating table in the middle of the room. Emily can feel the sharp chemical scent burn her eyes and nose, both watering at once while Hypatia does not even as much as react, too focused on the body. That and she does not appear to recognise Emily just yet and immediately gets to work on removing the badly done bandage.

"By the Outsider, what happened to your friend?" She continues, slowly peeling the cloth away and revealing what gory mess truly hides underneath. Billie's entire stomach and abdomen conglomerate into one large wound in desperate need of being sewn shut. As Emily predicted, the wound has been done purposely, cut from one side to another with an object sharp enough to cut clean and precise lines. 

A steady hand, a clean hand. A hand that knows what it is doing. Just as with the cuts on the bodies they have found.

"Attacked by cultists," Emily eventually coughs up in panic, thoughts echoed in her statement. It isn't far from the truth but she cannot tell Hypatia of the crazy things that have just happened. Mainly because she too is barely even aware of it—barely believes something that feels like a bad fever dream.

"Hypatia, please, you have to help me," Emily shudders, leaning against the table to look at Hypatia from up close, "I do not know whether you recognise me but it's Emily. Emily Kaldwin, I...I didn't know where else to go and I knew I could trust you..."

That seems to move Hypatia a bit with a small: "Oh, Emily. I apologise - I will do my best to help. Lucia will make you some tea in the meantime."

Emily thanks her profusely under her breath before stepping back and out of the office to let Hypatia work. She does not need any tea but she can feel an oncoming panic attack ready to claim her, seized by the same restlessness from before. Except now Billie's life is at stake in the next room. 

It does not matter how many times she tells herself that Billie will be fine, how tough she is. She still wants to curl up in the corner and cry like a little girl.

(Except she cannot afford that. Not here, not now. Not for Billie's sake.)

In the meantime, Hypatia is left all alone in deafening silence. Was it always like this?—she wonders, stepping around the table to wash her hands of any potential bacteria, scrubbing her hands raw before she allows herself to return to her patient. Her tools are only at her disposal once her gloves are on and once her patient has been properly prepared for the surgery without wasting too much time.

Except leaning over the open wound with a scalpel in hand makes her dizzy - the combined scent of blood and chemicals makes her head spin and Hypatia momentarily loses balance. She manages to catch herself on the edge of the table, vision white before it clears out. 

Not to anything victorious, though.

Hypatia finds herself standing over a body again. A different one, torn open, and with its still guts on display.

There's blood. There is so much blood. Squelching around, dripping from the table, from her arms plunged deep into the wound, from her clawed hands picking at viscera like ripe fruit. Her ears ring and she can hear and feel herself laughing madly, shoulders shaking. 

She feels as though she has been huffing chemicals under the counter again. Even though she has promised she would stop. 

"No, stop. You are not doing this again. Hush, gone!"  Hypatia hisses at herself angrily, shaking off the hallucinations until her vision clears and her ears stop ringing. Her sense of duty overtakes whatever triggers are currently overwhelming her - her brain tunes them out, quickly recognising her still very much clean and gloved human hands and a tool in her hand she will use to help this young woman. 

Now where did she put her needle and thread?

Outside, the sun falls and night takes over, significantly darkening the waiting room and the rest of the abode. 

Emily finds herself sat in an armchair, hunched over a cold cup of chamomile tea, and with a woven blanket thrown over her shoulders. Lucia left a singular lamp on when she retreated to bed, casting worried glances at Emily who had not moved for hours. Practically not since she's left Hypatia to work. Only when Lucia shoved her into the armchair and handed her a cup of tea but from then onwards? Nothing. 

Lucia was, understandably, concerned for her guest. A different Lucia than the one she'd met when breezing through Batista, who was ready to send her to all hells for breathing anywhere near her. This Lucia is softer. Maybe it is because of the situation and an attempt at empathy but Emily does not seem to find it in herself to care much for the additional hospitality. 

She only cares about Hypatia coming out with good news.

And she does.

When it is too late into the night and when Emily is on the edge of falling asleep, only remaining vigilant for the announcement, Hypatia finally emerges from her office.

She looks as awful as Emily feels, shaken, and rubbing at her hands obsessively out of habit. But she bears good news and that is the only thing that matters to Emily at that point. 

"She is stable but she will need a lot of time to recover. The drugs, the blood loss, the pain - everything combined was a lot. Your friend is very resilient even though there is something...odd about her," Hypatia flexes her hand and Emily understands.

"It's like prosthetics, it helps," she explains before approaching Hypatia to shake her hand and thank her before pulling her into a hug. The doctor makes a surprised sound but she yields after a moment of confusion, patting Emily's back almost awkwardly.

"Thank you, though, So much. For everything." 

Their hug lasts a little longer before they pull away from one another and Emily finds herself anxious to inquire about seeing Billie - Hypatia stops her before continuing,

"She will have to be monitored for a few days. The wound was quite severe and had gone inflamed, therefore it would be better for me to be on standby if anything were to happen..." she pauses, gesturing at the door in the corner of the makeshift waiting room, "you look like you care a great deal about your friend. And I understand your worry...There is a spare room down here. It isn't much but she can recover in a controlled environment. Would that be okay with you?"

Emily nods. It is more than okay with her - it just means that Billie will be safe and taken care of while Emily goes back to Shindaerey to deal with the Sisters - she cannot decide whether she wants them to suffer a fate worse than death or if she wants to level them to the ground in a fit of rage. For real this time.

"I don't know how much more to thank you, Hypatia. You have saved her life. If there is any way I can repay you, please let me know. I am in your debt now...but first, can I see her?" The question is tentative, asked carefully, "And most importantly, can I help you move her into the room already while I am still here? I'd like to make sure she's situated well.."

Hypatia seems to have no problem with that, beckoning Emily to follow her back to the office. The smell of chemicals is still prominent but Emily suffers through it, gazing at Billie laid out on the table. Her wounds are dressed properly and secured with thick bandages to prevent bleeding and contamination, nothing like the measly fabric the Sisters put her in. 

Speaking of that, the uniform Billie wore had to be partially destroyed for the injury to be fully accessible. The white of it is stained with blood and dirt and Emily feels awful just looking at her friend - Billie is pale, the colour gone from her skin, bruised hands and faces reminding Emily of her failure to protect her. The feelings - the hollow dread and the overwhelming care - are hardly good for Emily now. They are not entirely foreign but in the connotation with Billie, they are still considered strangers in her mind. 

"I am so sorry," she tells Billie's unconscious body, grabbing her hand to hold it tightly between both of hers. Soft pulse can be felt from where her fingers brush Billie's wrist, so overwhelmingly fragile for the moment that Emily refuses to believe it is real. 

But Billie is strong, she argues with her own mind. She is resilient and will recover from these wounds in no time, especially after Hypatia's interference. Emily also knows that Billie is incredibly stubborn (the last time Emily told her that, Billie had blamed Daud and his way of bringing Billie up - he too was a stubborn bastard and Billie just learnt that from him) and will likely be up on her feet in no time. Oh, and she won't listen to anyone who tries to tell her to rest or at least to sit down. 

The thought alone makes Emily smile a little. 

Billie will be okay.

And Emily won't help her by just standing around and wallowing in self-pity. Under Hypatia's careful directions, Emily manages to move Billie to the spare room - it is no bigger than the storage closet she and Emily stayed in on Lizzy's boat. This one is at least more comfortable if not homely, bed tucked between the wall and a narrow wardrobe, and with a small desk and bookshelves on either side of it. Even the window above the desk is small but it does take the entire length of the desk and allows for a few outside. Overall, it is very cute. 

"We sometimes use it for patients that are asked to stay overnight for monitoring. There isn't much space and it is a tight fit but it beats having to stay in the waiting room or trudging home with the risk of a relapse," Hypatia explains, standing at the door. She does not venture further into the room, letting Emily take care of Billie's comfort instead.

"That's very thoughtful," the Empress replies with a small smile, dragging the plaid quilt over Billie's body, "I am glad you are doing better too, Hypatia." The woman in question gives a nod and a nervous smile as if she just hasn't almost had a mental breakdown over Bille's injuries triggering unpleasant memories. Emily continues,

"Thank you - for everything. I will be out of your hair in a minute. I just..need a minute. I will send a friend to bring Billie clothes in the morning."

"I- yes, of course, Emily. I should be sleeping anyway - it's been a day. Goodnight," with a goodnight from Emily right back, Hypatia vacates the door and continues wandering the house until she eventually retreats, feverishly muttering something about not being able to find her sleeping socks. Once her voice quietens and Hypatia disappears from Emily's hearing range, Emily turns back to Billie, ever so carefully pressing their foreheads together.

"I think I know who's responsible for this now," Emily whispers quietly, eyes closed. "I saw the High Oracle—Valeria—and suddenly Samson's words make so much sense. They did something fucked up - I think they tried absorbing the power of the Void and unlike Samson, who'd gone insane, Valeria might have succeeded. It was her who did this to you, wasn't it? To us. She was the one who'd worn my face and killed all of those people."

It must have been. There was no one else around capable of withstanding the Void energy that would allow them to do so - she remembers the Sister thrashing on the floor. Was that what happened to Samson as well? Has Valeria unleashed the power and let Samson suffer in the aftermath until the imagery and whispers had driven him insane? 

She thinks of the moment of clarity he had when Valeria had been mentioned, making the whole situation that much scarier. Even in the throes of madness, Samson remembered who did it to him, who let him fall, watching. And he made sure the others knew as well, uncaring whether people would believe the words of an insane man. He spoke of things no sane person would have ever considered and Emily can only guess what he's been saying behind closed doors.

Regretfully, she soon has to part away from Billie, brushing her hair out of her face before standing up. It is late and she must get ready for the confrontation. It means leaving Billie, Mindy, and Lizzy behind, and venturing back to the climax of Shindaerey where the High Oracle resides. 

With one last glance at Billie, Emily turns off the light and vacates the building, pulling herself to the rooftops where she remains until she is able to comfortably slip into their safehouse. It is just as cold and empty as she's left it, invoking the same claustrophobic anxiety it had that morning. She fights it, she has to, dragging herself to the kitchen to consume a stale piece of bread and tinned whale meat that do nothing to calm her quivering stomach. 

Despite the situation, she is resolute and she is determined, stalking through her own halls like a shadow. There is a note on the table when she passes it by, returning to give it a quick read. It is from Lizzy who wonders about her whereabouts, mentioning she'd spent the day with her crew as to excuse her absence. It also calls for Emily to come join her and Mindy at the Crone Hand Saloon for drinks once she is back but Emily has already turned that down by her absence and now politely in her head, a little chuffed about the situation.

Instead, she leaves another note for Lizzy to find in the morning - it consists of an apology, a brief echo of Billie's state, and a plea for her and Mindy to stop by Doctor Hypatia's and to bring Billie a change of clothes. Emily also leaves those on the table underneath the note so Lizzy doesn't have to go looking for them. 

It is rushed, she knows, but it is also the best she can do in such a situation - she is at loss, tethering on the edge of rationality. Almost the same way she was when Delilah encased Corvo in stone but then, the anger Emily felt was cold and rational, ruthless and calculating. Now, her feelings are an inferno, a feral beast ready to pounce. 

Neither of those are good but Emily would much rather prefer the first - the steeled confidence and strategic movements. Being hot-headed will get her killed in this situation.

So she spends the night calming herself, inhaling and exhaling the cold air coming in through the open window. She prepares the same way Billie had, arming herself to the teeth in hopes that she will not need it. All while trying not to think how the preparations had not helped Billie before her - so why should they help Emily?

Those thoughts plague her mind through the whole preparation phase and they even follow her when she lies down to sleep the rest of the night hours away. Only when the dark of her mind comes do the thoughts dissipate into nothingness, leaving behind residual bitterness that sticks to Emily's dreamless sleep like sweet black tar. Only in the early morning hours, minutes before she wakes, does the tar clear up, swept away by a cold hand that leaves Emily's head clearer than it's been in weeks.

And the day, too, knows that today will be a tough one.

When Emily wakes up, the sky looks nothing short of miserable and halfway to murky grey with a cool breeze replacing the howling winds that sweep through Batista. It makes the air seem like it too stands still with its breath held in curiosity. 

Another piece of bread disappears and after a bit of freshening up, with her hair still a little damp, Emily begins her journey in the same way she had the day before. Except there is no Sister that would guide her this time. It does not mean that Emily does not adhere to the same protocol as before - she still remains low and sneaks through the streets of Batista like a shadow skittering across walls.

The fact that it is yet too early for most people—even the merchants and fishmongers—to be up and on the go helps her remain undetected. Only a few do cross their way, a handful of disgruntled sailors who are leaving for long voyages, a wayward Guard who'd patrolled the streets overnight, and a duo of extremely inebriated gentlemen gracing Emily's ears with a butchered off-key rendition of Shan Yun's 'White Lotus' somewhere down the street. 

Both the quarry and the beginning of the path uphill greet Emily with unusual silence and emptiness to the point when it becomes a little suspicious. It only becomes more prominent once she reaches the first Temple, which too, appears to be completely vacant. It either means that they are expecting her and mobilising or that Valeria had ordered the Sisters to clear out and wait for Emily to reach her so she would have the pleasure of fighting her herself without the Sisters slowing her down and draining her of energy and ammunition.

But then again, would that not be favourable for the Oracle?

Still confused, Emily continues her ascent, allowing her Dark Vision to bleed into her eyes for a sweep of her surroundings. And yet - nothing. There is no sign of anyone, not even at the second and the third Temple, nor nowhere on the road.

It is only until Emily starts sneaking across the last stretch of the ascent does she start noticing glowing silhouettes on the landing above her. At first, she thinks that they have, indeed, all been mobilised to stand guard and protect Valeria but she soon realises why that is not the case after all. 

None of them are moving. 

The silhouettes appear to be countless in their numbers but they all stand still, contorted, and frozen in motion just like statues. 

'Like statues ,' Emily blinks, a horrifying thought in her mind. Her eyes skim over them from afar, Dark Vision blinked clear from her eyes so she could see them in more detail. With the aid of her spyglass, she finds the Sisters do even more than just resemble statues. They are statues. 

Matching those around them of cultists with their hoods up in two rows of half circles, or at least a dozen people who appear to be civilians - Emily even recognises some of them as the apparent victims of her Doppelganger.  ' The bodies Billie found were not even real, remember? ' She reminds herself sternly, squinting through the spyglass to compare those statues to the ones of the Sisters. The fact that she could still see their outlines means that they all must be still alive, just in a state of hibernation, just like Corvo. Or so she assumes.

Emily folds the spyglass back into her belt, patting herself down to ensure that her healing solutions and bonecharms are still in place, that her bolts and grenades are where she left them.

And then she stands. 

With the Sisters compromised, there is no need to remain stealthy; though that does not mean that Emily does not remain cautious as she nears the place where the meeting between the High Oracle and the other Sister transpired yesterday. 

Once she steps into the sphere of Void influence, it welcomes her with cool wisps of smoke curling around her body, immediately letting her body soak in the power they carry. But the Void is not the only one that welcomes her.

Her stepping into the area has alerted the High Oracle to her presence.

High Oracle Valeria steps from behind the bodies of her kin, silent on her feet. Her head is bowed but she raises it once she takes the centre place of the Hold, lifting it up towards Emily who is close enough to make up the Oracle's appearance more closely than the day before.

"Welcome to my domain, Lady Empress," Valeria greets her with a mock bow. When she speaks, she speaks in multitudes, an orchestra of voices bouncing around the vacuum. Her main voice is enchanting, carrying a reminiscent of the Void's echoes and undoubtedly capable of bending the will of those who listen to her melodic whispers.

"I am enchanted to finally meet you face to face. You must understand my disappointment when you have so blatantly rejected our invitation to join us in establishing a new era. A real pity," she tuts, clicking her tongue in mock offence, "I had so many hopes and plans for you. But, alas, joining the party late does not mean it is over. Even when the cake is gone."

Every cell in Emily's body screams for her to remain alert. There is something incredibly wrong about the Oracle, something uncanny in the way the muscles of her face twitch ever so often, the way she speaks. She cannot quite put her finger on what it could be, though. 

'Not human,' Mateo's voice helpfully supplies in her head - she tries to look for the signs of it, though not many seem to be obvious or apparent at first glance. Not yet, at least. Emily's eyes bore into where Valeria's eyes should be were it not for the wrapping.

"So it is true after all," she begins, a frown on her face, "the High Oracle herself stands at the helm of this charade." Valeria laughs.

"Hardly a charade, Sparrow. This could be a new beginning for the Isles - do you know where we stand? What this is?" She gestures to the scenery behind her, beyond the statues of her frozen subordinates and victims. Of course Emily knows where they are - she's seen the recreation of the Ritual Hold in the Void before, deeming this to be an approximate recreation of the legendary place as well. There is always something amiss from the scenery when she sees it. 

And it is always Void-constructed. Valeria does not seem to be aware, not waiting for Emily's answer before she continues speaking,

"This is the end and the beginning of all things, where the Void seeps into the Waking World. A bleeding wound. Not the first nor the last, of course, but the most prominent. Where we all could have been made anew, just like He has, just like I have. Except better."

Emily shudders at that. She does not understand her role in Valeria's plans aside from whatever garbled information Samson gave her - quickly, she realises that she basically knows nothing.

"Is that the cake, the power? Is that what happened between you and Samson? You 'remade' yourself and consumed the power you promised to split with him?"

The High Oracle laughs, shoulders shaking as she spreads her arms in feigned innocence.

"To me, Samson was nothing but a stepping stone. A tool. Ambitious but blindsided by his hatred towards that which he also desperately sought - the power harnessed from the Void. He could not separate his desires from that which has been beaten into him. The pull would have killed him with how split his mind was between his own ideals of good and bad. Ah, but, of course. His death would have been preferable and saved me quite a lot of trouble. But enough of that pathetic worm - the fact that you are here is more important than him," the Oracle smiles at Emily who feels chills run down the length of her spine. Valeria's smile is terrifying. A little too wide, too out of place. 

"What do you want with me?" She asks in turn, hand instinctively clenching on the hilt of her sword. Valeria's smile only widens.

"You, my dear, have the power to turn the tides. Your existence is substantial - the prophecies we as Sisters hear come from the Void and you are the subject of many. One of unlikely birth, whose mother's blood uprooted an Empire, and whose father has always been beloved to the Void, who too held the power to destroy the world or let it live. And of their flesh and bones, of their milk and blood, another will rise in the image of her makers. Another of uncertain fate, a secret to even the Void itself." The last three sentences sound abnormally close, as if coming from Emily's left, a breath on the wind whispered directly into her ear.

"To the people, you symbolise both hope and ruin. To me—you, darling—are the latter."

Valeria's face immediately sours. From the blank to mildly amused expressions she's worn earlier, it is a gruesome change. Her words are laced with venom, dripping excessively with sweet tar gone bitter. Emily nearly reflexively takes a step back, instead grounding herself with a wider position which allows her to be ready for a fight.

"Who..are you?" Emily questions, voice in disbelief that she could have ever doubted that the Oracle was ever not involved with how much of a personal Vendetta the woman has against Emily's existence. Valeria laughs again, her face stretched into a grimace.

"A better question is what am I; I am that which you sought to destroy and to bury, an amalgamation of your fear and guilt. I am an echo of your sins, darling Empress, I am those who have suffered under your hand and sword."

The multitudinous voices are back in a larger quantity, louder, causing Emily to shudder. She must shout over them, unsure whether they are this loud in the Hold's silence, or whether they echo only in her head, bouncing around to disorient her.

"I have never hurt you, never turned my sword on you or anyone else.'"

"Not directly, your Grace. Your ignorance is sharper than any sword you might ever wield, and there are places not even the Empress can touch. We are that which has risen from the shadows and that which seeks its Justice. We are I and I am Valeria, I am your conscience and the product of your reign."

Emily staggers. Breathes in, exhales. 

"You're lying," she mutters.

"Am I or are you? Lying to yourself to make yourself feel better?"

It is then that whatever facade Valeria had been keeping up shatters and suddenly Emily can see her more clearly as she is, without the need to create an illusion of her former self over her current appearance.

The person—no, thing —underneath only vaguely resembles Valeria, with multiple screaming faces and heads, with one too many sets of hands.

It is not the Oracle anymore but whatever monstrous conglomeration had taken control of her mind, with dozens of Cultists screaming for blood replacing any coherent thought. The only thing Valeria's own mind did until now, was filter them and make them unified. And she smiles the way Jindosh's Sentinels did - soulless and dead. The High Oracle had died a long time ago, replaced by a Void-borne shadow of them all - a mere vessel powered by corrupted echoes of the souls damned by the Void.

Valeria screeches.

The blood-curdling sound echoes, causing Emily to yelp and cover her ears, head bowed. It hurts, Emily thinks. It reminds her of fairytale banshees but also of the way the witches or even Grim Alex would screech. She's heard it yesterday from afar but hearing it from up this close, it triggers Emily's Fight or Flight response.

And she is lucky it is Fight because when she lifts her head and opens her eyes, she sees Valeria lunging at her. Emily has just enough time to evade sideways before the real fight begins.

One of Valeria's clawed hands takes a sweep at Emily, who has to keep evading not to get caught on the sharp appendages, always having to dodge another with the aid of her sword. 

Other than the Sentinel smile, Emily notes, Valeria's does actually remind her slightly of Jindosh's Clockwork Soldiers. But where the mechanical constructs almost exclusively rely on their bladed limbs, the High Oracle wields both a sword and a  ceremonial mace - Emily therefore has to be careful to not only not get caught by a blade or claws, but also to avoid being bludgeoned by the heavy mace. 

She's only grateful for the constant replenishing of Void energy, though it makes her veins burn with the flow of power. It wears her down quicker but she presses on, summoning two of her own Doppelgangers to fight along her side. Interestingly enough, they almost seem to separate from her influence, fuelled by the Void energy around them.

But Valeria does not falter.

Three on one may seem like Emily would have the upper hand but Valeria is holding up admirably, body twisting from side to side  with practised agility to fend off each Emily that faces her - she parries each swing of Emily's blade but she is not able to dodge the springrazor one of the Doppelgangers sticks right under her feet.

The mechanism triggers and barbed wires strike, coiling around the High Oracle's lower body, tearing at flesh and cloth and drawing blood. 

Valeria's reaction is instantaneous - she screams in pain at first and Emily almost counts it as a small victory but she's quick to turn mortified when Valeria stabs the mechanism, forcing it to uncoil from her. The injuries are plentiful but all Valeria has to do is reach one of her hands towards the statues and squeeze her hand into a fist in a manner similar to Emily casting Far Reach. 

Behind Valeria, one of the statues cracks, and when Emily turns on her Dark Vision, she just about manages to catch the body in the closest statue of the Oracular Sisters seize up painfully before going limp in her confines. 

And Valeria looks as good as new.

"What the fuck," Emily mutters, turning her gaze to the oracle as her Dark Vision fades, "What the fuck have you done?"

"They have pledged their lives to the cause, Sparrow. I am merely taking what they have promised to give when they joined the Order," the Oracle smiles her unsettling smile, lunging at the real Emily without regard for the two Doppelgangers. Her sword catches Emily's shoulder, causing her to Reach away in panic before linking the nearby Doppelganger with Valeria before she drives her sword through her own chest.

Ahead, Valeria staggers, knees buckling but she does not go down, catching herself last minute. In the distance, another statue crumbles. 

This is going to be much more difficult than anticipated. 

Emily's wound oozes blood slowly—surgically precise—the skin sensitive and itching. It stains her shirt red and slows her down but she does not yield. Despite the pain the wound brings when she uses her mark, she presses onwards, summoning another Doppelganger to fight Valeria.

It takes a while of leading the Oracle on until she is sufficiently distracted with the other duplicates of Emily while the real one Reaches across the jagged black rocks in several bursts to reach the statues. 

From what she's witnessed in her past battles, namely with Delilah, and the way she's seen Valeria reach for the statues whenever she takes would-be lethal damage it is not hard to figure out how to defeat her. Firstly, she must destroy the statues, even if it means killing the Sisters inside. Luckily, not all of them have been caught in the Hold - only about a dozen are trapped here, with two already dead. That means there are ten more to go.

In a moment of hopeful thought, she attempts to chisel at the stone with her sword, hoping that a strong enough impact would merely shatter the stone and free the Sisters inside. Unfortunately, her sword does nothing against the tough stone, which has her attempt more desperate measures that may or may not lead to casualties depending on the integrity of the strange mineral.

(Now that she thinks about it, it reminds her of the curious formation that have appeared in the Void during Delilah's attempt to take control. Strong platforms and swaths of layered obsidian, sharp pieces of resonating crystals floating around her.

She reaches into her pouch, weighing the grenade she's brought in the palm of her hand. It is risky but if she aims well, she could merely cause the rock to crack without destroying the stone. There is no time for her to give it much thought or execute any complicated calculations, so Emily merely Reaches two lengths back, pulls the pin, aims, and throws.

The grenade gets caught in a groove and explodes on impact, causing smoke and sharp stone to go everywhere. Emily attempts to take cover but some of the stone and soot reaches her, leaving small cuts in the arm she tried to protect herself with and ashen remains in her hair. The statues still appear to be intact after the explosion but there are tell-tale signs of cracking.

Without much thought, Emily Reaches forth, snagging a large piece of rock from the ground while she's at it. It comes in handy as it is the only thing that could make its stronger growths crack and Emily puts it to good work as she smashes the rest of the rock casing quickly. With her Dark Vision on, she manages to strip most of the statues of enough rock that the rest simply falls into pieces at her feet. 

When freed, the Sisters appear to be unconscious and crumble into Emily's arms nearly immediately. It adds onto her workload as she attempts to move them to relative safety further away from the ongoing battle. 

Once she is done, she realises that she's only managed to work through nine. The last intact statue stands a bit further away as if the Sister had attempted to flee before being caught - Emily pities her and the fact she did not manage to escape her fate. Still, she sets off with another rock in hand, unwilling to waste another grenade.

However, when she reaches it, a shadow skids past her, and before Emily can make another move a blade comes down upon her in a wide swing. She all but manages to duck with a yelp, freezing when rock and blood rain down on her.

The remnants of the last Sister have been shattered.

There's no time to react as a hand roughly yanks at the front of Emily's shirt and pulls her up, holding her a good foot off the ground before tossing her across the landing. 

The ground meets Emily hard. Her breath gets knocked out of her chest, head and spine painfully colliding with the rock below. The impact makes her head spin and ears ring, body practically useless.

But she struggles. She struggles and she fights the overwhelming noise and dizziness, willing herself to lift herself off the ground and continue. It cannot end like this. Never like this, she promised Billie—

A foot steps on her chest and pushes her back down and sharp pain erupts in her left hand as a blade pierces it straight through her mark. 

Emily screams bloody murder. 

In the silence of the Hold, the sound echoes. Her voice screams back at her tenfold with such intensity that for a moment, in the delirium of all the pain, Emily forgets the voice belongs to her.

It hurts.

It hurts so bad, the pain searing hot, and intense. And Valeria merely laughs above her, pushing more of her weight on Emily's ribs until they nearly give in - only then does she step back. Taunting .

"Come on, darling Empress. Let's make this a little more interesting, hm? Now get up and fight back ." Valeria enunciates each word clearly, voices a snarl coming at Emily from all directions and nipping at her skin like a swarm of hungry rats. She has to force herself into a reclined position, rolling over to catch herself on her side. The movement drags a cry of pain out of her lips, her eyes watering.

Her vision is a blur but she still reaches for the blade pinning her hand to the ground. It tears out another sob out of her when she realises she's been impaled by the Twin-Bladed knife— Billie's weapon —a tool made for severing souls from bodies, for cutting through the Void, for tearing out hearts and names. 

Yet the association with Billie hits her the hardest.

With a strangled battlecry, Emily removes the blade from her hand and heaves herself up, wielding it ready to either tear Valeria into shreds or to turn her into a foyer decoration. But she freezes when she realises that it isn't the one standing before her any longer.

Emily stares at a carbon copy of herself.

Both of her Doppelgangers had been taken down while she was destroying the statues - and this certainly is not one of her own.

The illusion, while identical to Emily down to every piece of dark hair plastered to her forehead with blood, looks wrong .

"What is the meaning of this? Has my face not worn out on you yet, High Oracle?" Emily grits through her teeth, weapon held in a white-knuckled grip while the copy only smiles at her. 

"Quite the opposite - it's comfortable. Now let's see how well you can face yourself and your demons."

Valeria-Emily's left hand sizzles and pulls up a Doppelganger. It twists, neck at an odd angle as it takes up the sword Valeria wielded previously. Realistically, Emily knows that she cannot face them both - especially not if they now wear her face and copy her skillset as easily as if it were one of Galvani's safe codes.

The two are an incredible tag team and Emily is quickly losing her power and stamina, the bleeding draining her of her remaining energy. She focuses on the Doppelgangerfirst, eventually driving the Knife through its chest. It does not go down as easily and before it falls, its sword cuts clean through Emily's side, causing her to falter.

The minute lapse in her defence nearly gets her hit a couple of times, always only dodged by the length of a hair. 

But she's not so fortunate all the time. 

It is already unnerving to fight herself, strikes always a little hesitant until they start reflecting Emily's horrendous condition. And it shows.

One of the mace's hits catches the side of Emily's head, sending her to the floor where she sprawls out on the sharp rocks.  They cut across her face with the impact, the force rendering her immobile. The Knife, too, clatters out of her hand.

Emily is rapidly losing consciousness but she still makes one last attempt to reach for Billie's Knife. She narrowly misses, only able to watch as Valeria-Emily picks up the weapon instead, contemplating it for a moment, before tossing it towards the Veil where it disappears.

"You won't need that where you're going, Sparrow," Emily's voice says back to her, "now good night, and say hello to your mother for me, would you?" 

Emily's vision goes black as a boot connects with her bleeding temple.

And then, there is nothing.

Emily floats in nothingness, in soft cotton-filled dreams, somewhere she cannot feel any pain. Gentle pressure dances over the length of her arm, over her beaten temples. It reminds her so much of the caress of her late mother that Emily wishes she could open her eyes and see her. She tries to but she merely manages to open them a fraction just as the pressure brushes back her hair.

'Wake up ,' a breath fans over her ear, gentle. Emily tries to follow its instructions, scoffing as she fights to open her eyes through the thick molasses that keep them shut.

The instant she manages, the soft warmth from before disappears, replaced by familiar hard stone and cold that seeps into her bones. She soaks it up like a towel, shuddering at the way it makes her feel - pins and needles in her skin but a calm soothing presence in her magic-rawed veins. 

She is no longer in the Ritual Hold, at least not the one in Karnaca. The scenery has been replaced by muddy skies, murky like the water of the Wrenhaven after it was polluted by the corpses. It has never quite recovered and it seems that neither has the Void.

The last time Emily was here, the Void was bleak and grey but now it too looks poisoned. The stone spires, which stretched so high and created swooping arches, now lie half crumpled. Debris floats around them, jittering back and forth in much the same way Emily's witnessed at Stilton's. 

Carefully, Emily pushes herself off the stone floor, taking a moment to gain her footing before she's able to look around properly. The Void was once blue, she remembers. Thinking back on the stories Corvo told her when she was younger, of an expanse of a vast blue ocean, so bright it resembled the glow of whale oil. Whales always floated by and Corvo could see his path laid out clearly.

But here, no whales swim, and no path exists. Only obstacles and pieces of resonating obsidian at a risk of going haywire.

"Outsider?" Emily calls out, voice swallowed by the nearby structures, "Are you here, Outsider?" 

She tries again and again but without any success. The only thing she succeeds in is making herself more tired but at least her wounds do not ooze so much blood here. Instead, the blood drips slowly, drop by drop, or even stays suspended in mid-air.

Something is wrong here.

She can do this, Emily reassures herself, swaying a bit until she finds her footing. She must find the Void's Avatar and speak to him - perhaps he could answer her questions and help her find her way out.

Provided that she is, in fact, not dead, and this not her purgatory.

But that can be mulled over later.

With a deep breath, Emily sets off, carefully Reaching towards the next structure she sees, the one that feels just right. The use of her Mark sends sharp pain through her entire arm and makes her choke back a sob. It hurts worse than having her baby teeth pulled by Sokolov, the pain just as humiliating.

Much like then, she presses on nevertheless, moving from island to island until the air around her slowly begins clearing up into that familiar grey she's intimately acquainted with. From then onwards, she ventures deeper, finding Void-made structures of buildings she knows and which she's already been to, furniture that copies the one found in the Tower, buoys, and rusty anchors suspended mid-air.

In the background, a dead whale slowly passes by, a whaling harpoon sticking out of its meaty side. Its wound slowly leaks clouds of fluorescent whale oil that flows upwards until it turns into seafoam.

Emily pushes on.

(She deliberately ignores the outline of the Tower's gazebo in the background, ignores posters informing of Jessamine's passing, of Corvo's arrest and warrant, of the Crown Killer, of herself-but-not as the Killer Empress. Every time another crosses her vision, she changes direction, crushing more posters underneath her boots. 

Only bloody footprints remain in her wake.)

It feels like ages until Emily finally starts feeling like she's crossed some distance and until she starts feeling like she is close to her target.

The air grows a different kind of thick—like in the Hold—but herein, the air seems much clearer and lighter. Easier to breathe.

Ahead of her, the rocks form a larger platform with sharp spires twisting into columns and reaching out like hands towards the endless sky, with arches that once could have been grand, and with waterlogged Byzantine fabrics lined with gold and floating on the invisible currents crossing the Void. They sway back and forth gently, beckoning Emily into the depths of the realm hidden behind them.

The depths turn out to be merely uneven layers of rocks resembling mountainous terrain. And in their centre, a crack in the slabs opens up like a maw of sharp teeth breathing out residual rocks like when a spring rushes with new water. Except instead of water, each rock that passes from the opening upwards flattens and stretches until the black obsidian becomes flat and crystal clear. The shard then elongates and forms a mirror which is immediately swept aside by a quick pale hand darting for its prize like a hungry fish for its supper.

The Outsider works diligently, arranging the newly formed shards together to form a clearer picture. Complex puzzles broken into thousands of scattered pieces just begging to be put back together to be viewed. Or so Emily supposes, momentarily enraptured in watching him work so delicately and carefully - or at least until the Outsider plucks a shard from the arrangement, turning it towards Emily. It refracts the light dancing off the whole constellation of shards in his arrangement, letting bright spots dance across Emily's face, body, and even vision. Some of it even rests on the inside of her eyelids every time she blinks.

After a moment, Emily’s shoulders drop with relief and a deep sigh. There is no stopping her as she Reaches, making the final leap onto the Outsider's island where the Great Leviathan awaits her patiently.

"Empress Emily Kaldwin," the Outsider greets with an incline of his head—a mock bow—toying with the shard in his hands, "An unlikely traveller to be chasing a fool's errand across the Void. But certainly not an unwelcome one."

The echo of his voice is much different compared to Valeria’s - pleasant once one gets used to it, whispery and smooth, whereas Valeria’s voice is chaos incarnate. She speaks with the voices of many while the Outsider is one, but infinite.

In the same sense, though, hearing the Outsider speak will never not put Emily on mental alert - she is always wary to listen to the turbulent deity's speeches, especially in hard times (and no matter how mocking) to garner as much information as possible. Instead of a sensible reaction, she regards him with a blank face. She’s already used to the strange vernacular.

"I am glad to not be considered as such. Especially considering the circumstances of my presence here..."

"Ah yes, the circumstances. How could I have forgotten? You tether on the edge of the Waking World and the Void's claim on you. You walk its domain unscathed because you are already a part of it in your own way," the deity tuts and returns to his weaving, tapping his fingers on the mirrors languidly. It makes them shimmer underneath his touch - some, he immediately casts aside; some he keeps, forming a reverse cascading waterfall of shimmering glass that reminds Emily of the chandeliers at the Boyle mansion made of thousands little shimmering crystals.

"Am I dead then?" Her voice is inquisitive and tired but she needs to know the truth. If she had failed, then—

"No, no, not at all," the Outsider interrupts her thoughts without regard, "You still live and breathe somewhere down below, a heavy body with worldly worries and remains.  It still bleeds and still struggles to breathe while your mind is trapped here until it is either freed by the Void or until you free it yourself. Though it is the most interesting turn of events - you stand against another challenge borne of the same strain of jealousy and belief as Delilah’s. And I too stand against its influence - nasty work, that High Oracle."

Emily blinks. 

"Valeria once had a bright future ahead of her. Never of any interest to me, however. Her path has always been easy to predict and her desires only became clearer with Delilah's rise. And now she is here, and she is there, carving a chunk of the Void for herself."

Emily blinks again.

"Hold on.," she stops him, disregarding the whole spiel about her being on the crossroads of life and death to instead focus on the latter part, "So you knew that this would happen? Follow the same pattern as Delilah had?" 

The Outsider only grimaces in turn, painstakingly picking through the offered shards until he finds the one he's been looking for. He turns it towards Emily again, letting her glimpse various scenarios featuring Valeria that change with every tilt and with every new refraction of light. 

"I may have witnessed it but have not paid it much attention due to being..preoccupied. Afterward, I let it merely pass me by due to the Path occurring only twice out of a million. I had not thought it could ever happen, I admit," for a moment, the Outsider looks almost bashful in his own confession, a hint of irritation on his face.

To err is to human. Emily bites her tongue before she collapses on a nearby rock with a pained groan.

"I only want this to be over and to go home.." she eventually sighs, pulling her legs up to her chest as much as her wound allows her to.  Her eyes still search the shards, boring into the particular one which displayed Valeria's Paths as if they had anything to offer to her human eyes.

"Home," the Outsider echoes after a long while of silence, "I wonder what that is like."

It's a sad thought for the deity, and even sadder for Emily to listen to. As much as she wants to hate the Outsider for his passive observance, she cannot. She could scream at him for letting her mother die, for letting Corvo be imprisoned, for marking the likes of Daud and Delilah. But she knows that it would not help anyone, neither her nor the god, neither the living nor the fallen. It would not bring her mother back, it would not undo the horrors caused by the vermin of Dunwall. And for once, she does not mean the rats.

But she wonders, though, if the Outsider could do anything, would turn from an Observer into a Participant, what would he do? Why would he save her mother, and stop Daud and Delilah? Do anything to benefit her or anyone else when the world is suffering in their own ways, incomparable?

She is at least grateful for him giving both her and Corvo the means to fight back.

"Home is both a place and a feeling. It's safety and warmth," she mumbles into the fabric of her filthy pants, "sometimes it is a person. It is my bed after a long day, it is sparring with Corvo in the shitty sewer training course he's made for me. It is the fact that he made it, it is him letting me steal the sweet cherries from his plate. It is Alexi putting up with me while she helped me with my hair, it is Billie sat behind my door at midnight while I cry myself to sleep, it is the worn audiograph of my mother locked in her secret room. Knowing that, would you say the Void is your home?" She inquires, lifting her eyes from where they have been chasing colourful lights over uneven rocks.

The Outsider grimaces again but then his face irons into something more neutral.

"The Void is a prison, constant push and pull that threatens to consume the world and tear it apart. It is nothing like you describe home to be - I'd call it a house instead. Though I do wonder," and wonder he does, a distant look in his eyes as he recounts the times he'd felt something with his Marked. Perhaps with one more than others. Someone, who even Emily defined as a home. 

He turns back to the Empress again.

"Despite my aversion to my own state of being, it is mine nevertheless. And I do not appreciate it being invaded and clawed at until it is stolen piece by piece. Valeria has tasted the Void on her tongue and has been overtaken by it. Or rather by those who had once been trapped here by their own making. And mine too, I suppose," therein, the deity pauses, abandoning the mirror shards for a moment. His feet touch the ground and he kneels in front of Emily's hunched figure, reaching out for her marked hand. 

With one wave of his own hand, the skin stitches itself back together to reform the mark.

"Here, this should help a little. Your hand will have to heal nevertheless but it should ease the strain of using magic for the time being."

It isn't healing in any sense of the word and action, but rather a temporary bandage that would prevent the additional pain. Emily looks down at the back of her hand, balling it into a fist. It still aches but at least it does not send hot flashes through her entire nervous system.

"Thank you," she breathes, pulling her hand close to her chest protectively, "can you send me back as well? I have a fight to finish."

Her decision is resolute - if Valeria chose to represent herself as that which Emily regrets and which claws at her conscience, then Emily would go back and treat her the way she wishes to treat her regrets: to get rid of them.

The Outsider looks at her, blinking slowly. It is an unnatural course of action from a being with no need to blink at all. And perhaps Emily is a little unsettled by the mimicry of humanity but she says nothing and remains waiting for an answer. After a while, the Outsider shakes his head.

"I could but it would not be pleasant - it is better if you return on your own terms. I do, however, have a request to make," the Outsider pauses again, lifting up his right hand palm-up. The Twin-Bladed Knife slowly materialises in his hand, pieced together by the dark tendrils of the Void. He holds it out to her and Emily takes it with reverence.

"Thank you for returning this," she starts but gets quickly shut down by the flick of the Outsider's wrist.

"Your thanks are not necessary, Empress Emily. I would be happy if you were so dear as to rid me of this wretched thing. A by-product of which, I hope, will be stopping the meddling of the High Oracle in my domain. I have been meaning to...clean up."

"Hm," Emily looks around, "and how is that going?"

"Miserably." 

Emily snorts, feeling a little better after their little banter though she could swear she heard the Outsider wince.

"So do I just jump?" She turns to the Outsider again, watching him tilt his head quizzically. 

"You could give it a try," he blinks again. Emily gives him another look, turning on her heel with a huff as she stalks towards the edge of the platform where she gazes into the abyss below.

"This is a bad idea, Emily," she tells herself before taking a deep breath. She is already in the Void - what is the worst thing that could happen to her? A second Void beneath?

"Okay. Here goes," she tries again before she leaps into the nothingness below. A pair of black eyes follows her, watching her fall until she blends with the fog and disappears. The Outsider sighs and leans back, turning to his shards again. 

"A curious story with a curious end. But be careful, Empress, you thread where a gruesome tapestry of violence was woven, and have the potential to become an otherworldly Source of Divine Judgement. A name given by the many whom your sword and word had judged. Those who have not forgotten and those who have tried to. Nothing of the glory it promises."

In the meantime, Emily falls. 

The fall feels endless, but Emily persists with her eyes closed until the freezing cold air of the Void stops flowing upwards. The ground rushes up to meet her and she feels as if she had been slammed down again. But this time, she knows better. 

The moment she starts feeling the sharp points of small rocks embedded in her cheek, it feels like the air relaxes and time resumes, playing out the scene from when Emily left it when her consciousness faded. 

And, returning to the real world also means that the pain that was dulled in the Void returns back to her tenfold, causing her to struggle with lifting herself off the floor. The action itself is a feat Emily manages with a couple of pained grunts, gaze turning to Valeria. The Oracle still wears her face, except she's now stood a little way off, turned to where the altar and the Veil are located.

It gives Emily a chance to surprise Valeria, provided that she does not make a sound or let herself be known.

The Twin-Bladed Knife rests heavy and alive in her hand and Emily itches to plunge it into Valeria's chest. She's already concluded that it would be unfavourable to get rid of Valeria non-lethally - kicking her through the Veil would result in the Outsider having another bug in the system to babysit and resolve and from the looks of him, he'd rather not have to deal with Valeria's poisonous meddling any longer. At least with her alive and kicking.

So Emily sneaks, a wobbling unsteady shadow skittering across the Hold like rats scurrying through the streets. She does so with mild success, letting the shadows pull back and withdraw once she is close enough to Valeria to draw her blade.

But when she does, Valeria-Emily spins around wildly, lashing out at Emily with her own sword. 

With how sluggish she is, Emily puts more energy into ducking away from Valeria's swings than any real attack.

"How are you still alive, you rat?" The Oracle roars, Emily's voice echoing back instead. It sounds grated and furious, slowly losing the qualities that made it identical to Emily's - in her rage, Valeria's disguise starts falling apart faster than Dunwall under Burrows' rule, loss of sanity comparable with the decline of its economy.

Besides dodging, Emily merely watches, not saying anything until she vaults over the altar and succeeds in luring Valeria up the slope where they are faced with the Veil.

"Answer me!" Valeria's distorted voice demands, "How have you survived?—I checked!" 

"Probably not well enough," Emily retorts right back, carefully inching back as Valeria advances, only stopping when she starts feeling the icy tendrils of the Void against her back. A sick sense of satisfaction settles deep in her gut as she watches another Emily step out of the shadows behind Valeria, Knife in hand.

There are a lot of ways this scene can go; constellations of outcomes to entertain the Outsider. With guts and glory, or just guts. Never glory alone. A Cathedral with No Gods but Emily—Justice personified—serving the people and the Empire, both of which have been wronged by Valeria's self-justified dogmatic actions. 

Excitement is not the word she'd use. Maybe righteous fury - dubiously righteous, that is.

"You'll pay for this," the Oracle lifts her sword, lunging at Emily until her sword cuts through soft meat and ends up lodged in solid bone. Emily does not react immediately but ever so slowly, she leans forward until she's right in Valeria's face with a crooked grin painted on her face.

"I almost forgot, but the Outsider sends his regards," and just as she says that, the Emily behind Valeria grabs the Oracle's shoulder and impales the woman on the Knife, pushing her back into it. Valeria's eyes shoot open as she tries to look behind her. She does not manage as the second Emily presses her boot to Valeria's lower back, kicking the dying Oracle through the Veil. It pushes Emily towards it too but instead of fighting it, she eases into the flow until her body fades into black smoke that melts into the rift seamlessly, leaving only the 'other' Emily behind.

As it turns out, somewhere during Valeria's snapping and barking, Emily switched with her Doppelgangerwho was then stabbed and dismissed, with its spare magic being recycled by the Void.

Emily breathes out and waits.

The Hold falls silent and she does with it, waiting for the feeling of justice and victory to settle over her once her brain catches up to her actions. 

Watching others kill people her whole life, she had always thought that if she ever kills with intent, there will be a myriad of feelings  tearing her head and her heart apart - relief, victory, justice, anger, satisfaction, Void - even remorse or horror.

But Emily's mind is blank even if her hands shake from exertion.

She's tired.

"That's it?" Emily whispers into the silence of the Hold after a moment, voice barely audible.

"That's it?" She yells into the Abyss, voice breaking. The Abyss does not respond, hollow and as wordless as one would expect it to be. She is unsure whether she wants to laugh, scream, or cry with the rise of barely concealed frustration. She stabs the Knife into the black soil soaked through with blood.

(The frustration does not count for it is merely a by-product of the circumstances at hand, not the kill itself.)

All of those weeks spent preparing and lying in wait, gathering information, and dredging through Overseers and deranged Cultists, and this is all that it's come to?

Listless death, without glory, without even guts, or fights worth to be written into at least dog-eared penny novels. Unceremonious. Boring. Death.

She expected more, expected the final fight to be worth at least some more struggle, but the Knife slid through the Oracle's body as if she were made of soft lard and no bones, a gelatinous mass of flesh and blood. Not even disposing of the body had been as sickly satisfying as she's imagined to be.

Emily thinks of her late mother, how her death seemed so dramatic back then, almost as if time had slowed down for her in the moment it had happened. She now realises those were just remnants of Daud's own power and there had been no fanfare or romanticised sequence of blood-red lips and scattered rose petals in the wind. Just life leaving a body too quickly followed by its warmth until only a shell had been left behind. It had seemed so different back then, so surreal. But she knows now. Knows that there is no Justice served with blood on her hands, no space and praise for coming out on top.

Now she realises why the Outsider would find such actions dreadfully boring. A novel with only a page—immediately flowing from a beginning to an end with as much brevity as possible—loses its charm quite quickly.

And Emily bows to an invisible crowd.

"The curtain falls and the light turns off. The audience and the surviving actor are both disappointed. But the play has been acted out and met with a definite full-stop. The curtain falls after the last act.  And then the story shall commence elsewhere, written by a kinder hand—a boring hand, maybe—but it will have been played to its fullest."

There are no Gods here.

Just Emily.

(Somewhere in the Void, the Outsider laughs. A starving Leviathan opens its great maw and snaps its jaws over the floating corpse of the Oracle. Her bones give with a series of sickening crunches as her monstrous body disappears into the whale's mouth.)

The way back is difficult but thankfully uneventful. 

Emily's wounds have slowly stopped bleeding, crudely wrapped by the very same fabric that covered Billie just a few days ago. It is merely precautionary, Emily tells herself after having kicked back two whole S&J elixirs. Just in case.

The solution certainly helps but Emily is still harbouring her ancient bone-deep exhaustion, and the medication only makes her more drowsy. She's pretty sure she slides down the hill, asleep, at one point and by the time she makes it to Hypatia's office, someone had already mistaken her for a drunk worker having gotten into a fight. Or fish guts. The smell would certainly suggest fish guts.

Hypatia's office welcomes her with rays of the early morning sun and laughter coming from Billie's room. Her heart swells, squeezing painfully two or three times.

When she finally makes it over, she finds Mindy and Lizzy squeezed on a slim armchair together, having undoubtedly dragged it over to sit by her. Speaking of Billie, the assassin is very much alive but she is still pale and with dark circles underneath her eyes. She looks like shit (and Emily knows she probably looks even worse) but she is here and well. And that's all that matters to Emily. 

She stumbles in, the noise of her boots alerting all three women to her presence. Someone yells something and Mindy even stands up but Emily is far too focused on Billie to pay attention to anything else than her. It's not like she can hear much, feeling like her head is underwater, the edges of her vision fuzzy.

"You're here...you're here.." Emily mumbles, taking a couple more steps towards Billie's bed before the ground rushes up to meet her once again. When she falls, her body is met with softness and warmth.

All is well, she can rest now.

Emily's recovery passes her by in a blur. 

When she wakes up, she is curled up in what was supposed to be Billie's bed, shoeless and weaponless but wrapped up in a quilt. The texture ultimately confuses her, skin sensitive and raw as if she's rubbed it with sandpaper. She chooses to endure it, shifting until she's able to sit up. 

Someone left a glass of water on a stool by her bed and she downs the whole thing in practically one gulp. It hurts a little but immediately makes her feel more alive.

"Want another?" An amused voice comes from the doorway and Emily's head snaps to the side to find Billie stood there with her arms crossed over her loose shirt. It's open right down to Billie's sternum, allowing her to stay cool in the heat of the room. 

"Billie..!" Emily's reaction is instant, eyes widening at the sight of Billie up and about. She almost pushes herself up and out of bed to go to her but Billie merely holds up a hand, faster than Emily as she approaches the bed before sitting down on the edge of it. Without hesitation, Emily reaches up to embrace Billie, pulling the woman down with her as she falls back on her pillow.

Much to her credit, Billie yields with no protest, body warm against Emily's.

"Thank the Void you are okay, I was so worried," she confesses, thinking of how broken Billie looked when she brought her to Hypatia's, "How are you feeling?"

"I've been worse but it's better now," Billie sighs, her breath ticking Emily's neck and her arms around Emily's middle even if her position is nothing but awkward, "how about you?"

A grunt meet's Billie's ear before Emily forms a cohesive answer.

"Like I was stuck in a ship's engine coil for a few days and then once it finally spat me out, a whaling trawler ran me over. How long was I out?" 

"Three days. We were starting to get worried about you - what happened?" Billie pulls back a little to question Emily directly, concern written all over her face. It is an unusual kind of vulnerability from her, one Emily is not used to. And truly, neither is Billie.

It is a touching moment, an intimate one, during which Emily should recount the events that have gone down in the Hold.

The moment is, however, ruined when her eyes flicker from Billie's face down to Billie's open shirt multiple times. And Billie notices, giving Emily a pointed look - she does not appear to be offended, merely exasperated and slightly amused. 

"What in the Void is wrong with you?" She asks instead, rhetorically. Emily replies anyway before being swept into a fit of painful giggles.

"Everything, Billie, thanks for asking!"

After that, once she calms down and once she and Billie squeeze into the small bed side by side, she ends up recounting and retelling the events of her two journeys to Shindaerey, of meeting the Outsider, and of Valeria's demise. The story is far from heroic but it is one of struggle and survival nevertheless. Emily also confesses her feelings about her first kill and in response, Billie ends up telling her about her childhood and her first work with Daud - the epitome of struggle and survival.

They stay like that for a long while until Emily falls asleep again, hand loosely holding onto Billie's for comfort.

They leave for port—symbolically—in the next three days. A different ship awaits them with the promise of a safe passage to Dunwall. The Undine is making a temporary port in Karnaca, Lizzy says, the boys enjoy it here, she adds. Except they all know the real reason - the obvious way Lizzy and Mindy are attached at the hip but neither she nor Billie elects to comment on it.

"This isn't over yet - we still have a chunk of work to do to fix this mess," Emily sighs deeply, leaning against the metal cleat their ship is anchored to, "but the worst has been taken care of. Now just the paper, burning the leaflets, and making a speech to appease the people."

"Don't worry about the paper part," Lizzy snorts, "the silvergrapher ended up giving a statement, and the bozo at the Karnaca Gazette chose silence over a rusty shaving knife in his head. So I think you're all set in Karnaca, at least." 

Emily gives her new friend a look, eyes moving to Mindy who merely shrugs with a lopsided toothy grin, holding her hands up innocently.

"Don't look at me, princess." 

But Emily looks until Mindy gives and proceeds to pull Emily into a goodbye hug. The same repeats with Lizzy, who pats her back with a solid hand.

"Stop by again, sometimes. I ain't quite done with ya. And the gang will be happy too."

"I will make sure of it," Emily smiles, stepping back to allow Billie to say her goodbyes as well. She seems taken aback when Mindy pulls her into an embrace as well, followed by Lizzy's complex handshake and a quick one-armed hug specific to them and them only. 

"You ain't so bad, Lurk, even if your mug is ugly as fuck'," Lizzy cackles like a hyena into Billie's shoulder before parting, causing the assassin to roll her eyes at her friend's words.

"I'm charmed. Thanks for the compliment."

Lizzy cackles again.

"Off with ye now!"

So Billie goes, offering Emily her hand as the two board their vessel. They remain on the deck, turning to wave at their friends one more time, even going as far as to wave to the crew stood on deck of the Undine two piers down. 

Someone on the ship calls for the ship to set sail, obviously ready to go now that all passengers are on board. The anchor is lifted and the ship slowly starts moving. Lizzy and Mindy stand there for a while before turning to leave.

And yet, before it happens, Lizzy calls out to Billie one more time.

"And Lurk?" She yells. 

"What'?" Billie yells back, leaning on the railing of the ship. Lizzy raises a fist into the air

"In bocca al lupo!" 

Memories of a distant past fill Billie's head in an instant, making her freeze for a moment. She remembers that phrase back from when she was one of Daud's. Remembers the missions they went on, the rituals that the Whalers kept when their kin were leaving. 

'In bocca al lupo,' one would say. 

'Viva,' the other would reply. 

A distinctly Serkonan tradition carried over from Daud and settling in the hearts and mouths of the Whalers, whispered reverently between brethren. Lizzy must have overheard.

Billie raises her fist and yells back,

"Viva!"

She stays like that until the two women disappear from her field of few. Only Emily remains, leaning her head on Billie's shoulder. The weight of it is calming and grounding and Billie soon melts into it, her own head leaning against Emily's.

"Your father is going to kill me when we come back, you know?" Billie asks, shifting her head a little to turn towards Emily. The Empress does not seem to be bothered, smiling.

"Don't worry, I think I have a way to occupy him."

And if a mysterious gentleman appears in the ghastly Tower halls later, just when it seems that Corvo will truly comply with Billie's prediction, well...who is to blame? Emily certainly does not volunteer for that job, sweeping Billie away when Corvo isn't looking.

But hey, maybe it is a Kaldwin thing to fall in love with one's Royal Protector. Who knows! 

Emily certainly cannot complain.