The Queen's Champion

Chapter 5

David watches the sun melt into the river with his chin resting against the rim of the boat. He can’t stop remembering that his execution was supposed to be this morning. That he was living on borrowed time.

“You’ve seen those walls of light, haven’t you David ?” Lizzy breaks the silence as she steers them towards the banks.

David pushes himself up and rubs his chin. “Rings a bell. Remind me.”

“Sokolov invention." She scoffs in disdain. "Only that mad bastard could find a way to make a glorified whale oil lamp disintegrate people.”

Right. He remembered now. The invention had made waves throughout court, many thinking they were a fantastic device and praised the ingenuity. Billie, however, was properly horrified and had them banned.

Delilah would think they were an acceptable means of controlling the city, however. She must have lifted the ban. All in the name of keeping order.

David could laugh at that. Order. That was Dunwall’s highest priority now.

“I remember when he presented the invention to the Empress,” David grumbles. He’s remembering the look on Billie’s face when Sokolov threw a live rat into it. Her eyes wide and face positively green, an impressive color for someone with skin as dark as hers.

“So you know not to try your luck running through them.” Lizzy says, her eyes still trained on the water. “There’s two set up on Clavering now. Watch assholes activate them every night after curfew. During the day you can just waltz on up the street to get where you need to go, but then, there’d also be dozens of people out and about, and everybody knows your face.” Lizzy turns around then and flashes him a grin.

David rolls his eyes. “So I need to bypass the gates. They run on whale oil, right?”

“Yep. Should power right down if you can take out the battery. They have chargers that keep track of who gets zapped and who doesn’t, but I’ve heard you practically need to be an Academy philosopher to figure out how to f**k with it. They sell rewire tools on the black market that’ll do it for you, in case you come across one.”

“I’ll keep an eye out.” David has his own ideas for getting past the gates.

“We can check with Jerome and see if he can get his hands on one.” The boat comes to a shudder as the bottom of the skiff hits sand. Lizzy turns off the engine and jumps out. “If we had a few extra days like we planned, I coulda gotten one to you for this.” She grunts as she pulls the skiff into the bank.

David gets out too and helps push, but he doesn’t think he’s much help. Lizzy’s a lot stronger than she looks. At least his boots seem to be waterproof, which is a welcome discovery.

“I take it you remember where Holger Square is?” Lizzy steps back, satisfied with her work, and lights up a cigarette. “You probably been there more than I have.”

“I’ve had to accompany the Empress a few times. I know the area.” He always hated it when Sabrina had to deal with the Abbey. She usually forced the High Overseer to travel to Dunwall Tower himself if she needed to meet with him, but she’s had to go to them a few times. Mostly to give speeches and the like. She hated them too.

“Cool, cool.” Lizzy nods, tapping ash into the sand. “Swing by there and pick up Zhukov. And I’m just warning you now that he’s f*****g weird. Sorry in advance.”

“I’ve dealt with worse, trust me.” David flips his sword over a few times in his hand. He wants to bum a cigarette from Lizzy, light up before he leaves, but part of him is running on cold anger. If he lets that stress dissipate, he’s going to tire out a lot faster. Maybe afterwards.

Lizzy wanders over to a makeshift fire, an iron garbage can turned upside-down caging it up. There are no beach-side campers about, so it must be from earlier in the day. “You ever been to the Golden Cat? Word in the barracks is that you don’t really get your d**k wet all that much.” She makes a face as David grimaces. “But there are, you know, rumors about the Empress’s preferences. Maybe you accompanied her on a little trip?”

“Sabrina did not employ the services of prostitutes, I assure you.” David crosses his arms. He knows Sabrina had more than a few affairs, and to his knowledge they were all with women. But she steered away from the servants, despite the slim pickings in Dunwall’s court. She confessed once that she didn’t like the imbalance, that it made her uncomfortable to court someone she had so much power over. She would certainly feel the same way about anyone she paid for their services, David has no doubt.

And now he was thinking about Delilah, the things she had said to him. David purses his lips. He had a responsibility to ensure her partners weren’t planning to murder her in her sleep, but beyond that, her private life was none of his business. He trusted her to be smart about it. Smarter.

But Lizzy just shoots him a very stupid-looking grin. “That you know of, right?”

David glares harder. Lizzy shrugs and looks away. “Outsider’s ass, I’m just teasing. You can’t tell me she didn’t ever sneak out. Every teenager does it.”

“I know she did.” He grumbles under his breath. Then, louder, “To answer your question, no, I’ve never been to the Golden Cat. I’ll gladly accept any information you’ve gleaned from your visits, though.”

“Ouch.” Lizzy presses a hand to her chest and laughs. “I’ll have you know that there’s no shortage of ladies willing to jump in bed with me for free. Or guys. They all drop their panties when I walk into a room.”

“I’m sure.”

She drops her cigarette in the sand and buries it with her bare foot. “There’s plenty of fake plants and stupid decorations to hide behind. You shouldn’t have a problem sneaking around if you’re careful.” She crouches and holds her hands over the fire. “I’ve never been to the Captain’s Chair, though. Luca will probably be whoring it up, but you’ll still have to break in there and get your hands on his papers.”

“And find that third Copper.”

“Right. Him too.” Lizzy sighs. “I’ve heard a lot of rumors about Abele. What he...you know, does to his whores. You’re probably not going to find that kid in great shape.”

“Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try.” David says harshly. Lizzy waves her hand.

“I’m not saying that. I’m saying bring him back here if he’s really f****d up," she spits. "I know Rose said he’d be fine on his own, and Thalia will b***h about having another mouth to feed, but if he’s too banged up to walk you might as well just kill him. We’d be leaving him for the rats.”

David watches Lizzy out of the corner of his eye, and thinks on how Lizzy can be different from what people expected too. “You really like those kids.”

“f**k off. They’re little shits, but they deserve better.” She groans, tilts her head back to look at the sky. “Lot of ‘em do.”

David thinks about Ricardo. Paul, Lydia. What Sabrina had told him about Reed. They did. They all did. Maybe he and Anthony could change things for them. “Where are their parents? Rose said her brother was sold as a slave.”

“Their mother was killed by Overseers or something. Maybe they sold him.” Lizzy scratches her chin. “I thought slavery was supposed to be illegal.”

“It is.” David puts his sword back in its sheath. “It was outlawed long before you were born.” Enslaving citizens of the Empire, at least. Pandyssian natives quite literally weren’t considered people and didn’t enjoy those protections. Even Billie, who most certainly had Pandyssian blood from her mother’s side, didn’t even try to wrestle with that. Dunwall wasn’t ready for that kind of progressiveness. Not now. Not yet.

Lizzy scoffs. “Well, you can make all the damn rules you want. Doesn’t do s**t if Empresses and Emperors just ignore it.”

David bites his tongue.

“Anyway, you better get going.” Lizzy plops herself down in the sand. “I’ll be right here when you’re done.”

David says nothing. He just Blinks away, perching himself on a lamppost nearby. He watches Lizzy as she looks behind herself and notices his absence, then shakes her head. Hears her mumbling of “f*****g weirdo.” Then he’s on his way.

He can see the outlines of guards up on the bridge, hear the rumble of a boat’s engine. The guards pick something up and swing it over the edge, letting it fall onto the back of the boat.

David ’s stomach drops when he realizes it’s a corpse.

He Blinks from pipe to railing to lamp post. Positions himself over the group, listening in. A third guard is standing off to the side, scribbling away at a clipboard. They all have black and white masks covering their mouths, as if that was going to protect against the plague. A pile of corpses wrapped in shrouds on the side of the road.

“Wait.” David freezes. One of the guards looks over the railing. “I think that one was still moving.”

“Nonsense. I inspected them all myself.” Clipboard Guy says without raising his eyes.

“Well, he ain’t moving no more,” The other guard says with a laugh. The others join in.

There’s anger welling up in David ’s stomach. The carelessness. The disrespect. The stupidity.

And the recurring thought that Sabrina could have handled this better.

For a moment, he wants nothing more than to see these guards bleed, to watch their smug faces turn to fear as they realized they were not, in fact, above death. That they were no better than the poor sods they were shipping off to Outsider-knows-where.

David puts a hand on his blade. He wishes the Outsider had gifted him with some sort of wind power, so he could Blink behind them and blow them all off the bridge at once. Let them fall to their deaths, join the pile of the dead waiting for them in the boat. Even without that, David should have no problem dispatching these three. Fall on one and kill him before the others can respond. Use his wristbow to incapacitate one, Blink behind the other. Push him off the bridge. Deal with the third before they can even get up. But then he catches himself.

These are, for all intents and purposes, Anthony’s subjects now. One day very soon, Anthony will be their Emperor, and while David may never have to explain to him why he chose to kill his citizens, David will think on it every time they speak. That these people posed no danger to him. That they were not obstructing him in any way, that killing them would not put him any closer to saving Anthony. They were just men trying to do their jobs and go home. And whether they were really that cavalier about the plague dead or simply trying to cope isn’t something he’s equipped to judge.

Sighing, David takes his hand off his blade. And when he Blinks behind Clipboard Guy while the other two guards toss another corpse over, it’s to pick his pocket and glance over his shoulder at his papers.

He was keeping count of the dead. Not names, but where they were from. The date of the pick-up. Rounded up for transport to the Flooded District.

David ruminates on this as he Blinks to the top of another lamppost. Why were they taking the dead all the way to Rudshore? It wasn’t that far from the Distillery District, sure, but it was farther than it needed to be. So many points of contact, between the dead and those who moved them. So many opportunities for the disease to spread. Yes, Rudshore was virtually abandoned now, but so were entire blocks of the city as their inhabitants dropped dead. And what about after the plague? Did Delilah ever intend to drain the district? What would she do with all the bones that would be left?

No forward thinking. Sabrina may have been impulsive, short-sighted and even shorter tempered, but David and Anthony had rounded her out nicely. She never would have gone forward with such a rash decision. And she was never this stupid. Delilah had no business handling this.

David takes the Talisman out to hear Billie’s own thoughts on the matter, but she seems to be preoccupied elsewhere. ‘Dunwall is supposed to be a proud city. And maybe it was, not long ago. But I see none of it here.’

He clenches his fist and lets the Talisman fade away.

The wall of light shimmers under the moon. There are guards spotted around the intersection, looking bored. David can see the canister of whale oil powering the machine. It would only take one gunshot or, hell, one flick of his wristbow to destroy it and dart through the gate. There was an alternative route down Bottle Street, he knew, but the Distillery itself was home to a gang, and the gangs only got stronger with the plague. Best to avoid.

As it was, David has a fairly good plan as to getting past the wall. Most security systems counted on people being bound to the ground. An oversight he is all too willing to exploit. David Blinks onto the top of the gate and looks over Clavering Boulevard, pausing to pick up a few feathers left there by a kingsparrow.

That puts him a good three stories above the guards, which he knows from the stacked balconies on the house to his left. The lamps lining the street are a step down from his perch, but still high enough that he won’t be caught in any guard’s peripheral vision. Unless they look up, but as far as David can tell, people don’t bother.

He Blinks to a nearby lamppost and surveys the block. There are guards milling about, but plenty of places to hide. Crates of supplies stacked three high, one decommissioned railcar on the side of the road. At the far end of the street was a second wall of light, this time pushed back and contained within an enclave. David can see the tubes feeding whale oil into the machine, but he can’t see the tank. The wall, the actual brick and concrete wall that the checkpoint is built into, is topped with a spiked fence. David grimaces. He’ll have to find a way around.

David looks around for possible alternative routes. The plaque on the large, multi-balconied house catches his eye. Golden, shiny, and emblazoned with OFFICES OF DR. GALVANI.

Lizzy would tell him not to bother. That Granny Rags was off her rocker, and all he’d find were antique rings and maybe a cameo that looked nice thirty years ago. And she was probably right. If it had been another mentally-unsound old lady telling him to go dig up her treasures, Lizzy would be right.

But Granny Rags was...different. David hesitates to call her a witch-he’s known real witches, and Granny didn’t fit the bill. Still, there’s a heaviness in the air around her. Something that tingles of power, and feels altogether too familiar for comfort.

David Blinks over to the second story balcony.

He can hear the singing as soon as he opens the door, but it's a muted thing. He tries to ignore it. Surveys the empty lounge he’s found himself in. The bones aren’t in here. David can hear them getting louder, but they’re still too far away, even as he hits the corner where their song is the strongest. He brings out the Talisman, squeezes it, and sees something glowing and orange above him.

‘The thinkers of this city-they work constantly on ways to manipulate the elements to their will, never understanding the balance they threaten.’

“You’re not being very helpful, Bils,” David mumbles.

He’d have to head upstairs. David creeps along the floor of the lounge, noting the decorative pistols Galvani had hung over his fireplace. He takes them down and checks them on a whim, finding they each have a bullet loaded into them. He purposely doesn’t put the now-empty pistols back onto the display board out of annoyance. Waste of ammo aside, how irresponsible was it, to put those where his patients could get ahold of them? Did he treat children here?

The door is made of glass, and David is careful to stay back as he looks out. Just one guard with his back turned, examining a particularly ugly painting, and one maid winding a clock. There’s also a lamp hanging above them, and if David can aim his Blink just right…

David pushes the door open and wastes no time Blinking to the top of the lamp. Both the guard and the maid jump at the door opening, seemingly, by itself. They look nervously at each other.

“I told you this place is haunted,” the maid says, turning back to the clock. “It’s usually upstairs. I’ll hear noises and things coming from Luigi’s lab when there’s no one in there.”

“I said I believed you. Timsh’s place is haunted too. Kept hearing footsteps in the attic when I was posted there, but that’s been sealed off since the house was built. Bunch of us refuse to be posted there anymore.”

“Makes sense for him to have angry ghosts,” the maid mutters. The guard steps towards the door and the maid snaps around. “Wait! Did you touch the door handle to Galvani’s lab?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Then you have to wash your hands! You could contaminate the rest of the house!”

The guard scoffs. “Come on, you don’t really believe that witch-doctor stuff? The rats spread the plague, not invisible little specks.”

The maid puts her hands on her hips. “Well, who should I believe on the matter? A natural philosopher who studied disease at the Academy, or a man who joined the Watch so he could avoid finishing secondary school?”

“Is this what it’s going to be like when we’re married? It is, isn’t it?” The guard gestures angrily, while his fiancee rolls her eyes. The guard throws up his hands and turns away. “Void, fine. If it will really make you happy. I don’t know what you see in that guy.”

“He’s the man who’s going to save the city!” The maid replies as she follows him into the bathroom, arguing all the way. David takes the opportunity to Blink to the staircase and disappear up the spiral while they’re out of the room, shaking his head all the way. He’s never understood why people bothered getting married. No one ever seemed happy about it.

A quick activation of Void Gaze, as he’s named it, shows him that the third floor is deserted. And that those bones are burning a literal hole in his retinas. He sneaks into the lab and takes care to let the door click closed behind him. He figures he probably has more plague on his gloves from the river water than whatever Galvani has on his door handles.

David gravitates towards the corner where the bones sing the loudest. They are so, so loud. He can hardly concentrate on looking for the damn things. All that was back here was a dingy bookshelf.

Did Granny Rags hide her charms behind the bookshelf? David tries to pry it from the wall, but it doesn’t budge.

What exactly had she said about her hiding place? David can’t remember-he couldn’t be f****d to pay attention at the time.

He starts rifling through the books. Maybe she hid them between the pages or something. If all else failed, he could take his sword and break through the back of the bookcase. He tugs on one book, and looks up at it in confusion when it sticks. Suddenly, the entire bookshelf begins to move, and David has to jump away to avoid being squished.

Galvani’s secret room held a dissection table, under which was the source of the singing. David wastes no time in dropping to his knees and pulling out the little metal wastebasket.

What greets him is the motherlode of heretical artifacts. David rifles the totems around, each one quieting as his flesh meets bone. He counts six charms, and one rune at the very bottom of the pile.

David takes each charm out and carefully lines them up on the table, slipping the rune into his breast pocket. Three charms gnarled and cracked like the one he’d found in the mill earlier, the other three pristine. David swipes them all into his pocket.

He doesn’t know what they do, but he can’t leave them behind.

Now that his head is clear and quiet, David can take proper stock of his surroundings. The secret lab was hidden within a larger one, with a long table filled with beakers and books and all sorts of sciencey nonsense. Chalkboards with scribbles, cabinets filled with vials of red and blue. David nicks one red Sokolov’s elixir and three of the blue, tucking them away in his coat.

Galvani’s office sits off to the side, a large audiograph machine sitting on top of the desk. David presses the punch card in and listens to Galvani’s musings as he rifles through the desk. Some money and knick-knacks that he shoves into his coat, though seeing Billie’s face on the coins makes his heart thrum painfully in his chest. The rest is all papers and bullshit, research on the plague, just like the information on the audiograph. Not useful to him.

The audiograph finishes and David stands up, ready to go. He’s about to exit out the third-story balcony when he hears a woman’s scream.

David is out of the lab in an instant. There’s a gunshot, making him wince, followed by the sound of pleading. David perches himself on the railing and leans down to peer at the second floor landing.

The maid from earlier is one the floor, one hand raised up to shield her face. Her fiance is leaned up against the wall, nose bloody and his eyes closed but, as far as David can tell, alive. There’s a bullet hole in the wall to the side of his head, the wood still smoking.

A group of burly men in suspenders stand between them. One still holding a pistol to the guard’s unconscious head, two hanging back, and another leaning down to yell in the maid’s face. “He won’t miss the next time! Just give us the damn safe code!”

“Two eight seven! I already told you!” The maid cries.

The man slaps her across the face. “That was the old safe code! He’s gotta have changed it by now!”

“No! I promise, that’s the code, if you let me up I-”

David flicks his wrist and a green dart shoots out, sinking into the maid’s stomach. She babbles for a second, then her head lolls back. David draws his sword and drops onto the lower railing, perching himself on the edge while the men look confused.

“Leave her be.”

David voice still crinkles, and he’s not as loud as he’d prefer to be. Still, the harsh whisper must have been somewhat intimidating, as the men startle and snap their heads to him.

Then David realizes it may not have been the smartest decision to give Lizzy the only mask.

“Shit.” One of the men wipes his palms on his trousers. “You’re David .”

David says nothing. His eyes sweep over the rest of the men, daring them to say something.

He hopes they say something. Because the alternative is taking on all four of them in one swordfight, which David will almost certainly not escape unscathed from. Even if he wins, he’ll likely be wounded before he’s even started his real work. That would be fun explaining to Lizzy.

The tension, however, is broken when a door outside of David ’s view opens and a woman’s voice comes from the end of the hallway. “Hey, b***h was telling the truth. He never-” She stops short, coming around the corner and turning her head at what had her partners shitting their pants. She’s dressed in the same get-up as the others, shirt rolled up to the elbows and baggy trousers with suspenders, her hair cut short. She’s as tall as their shortest guy, and looks just as strong. David internally groans. Five on one. Great.

David turns back to the group. “So you got the safe open. Take what you came for and get out.”

He doesn’t take his eyes off David , but one of the men does lean towards the woman and whispers to her. “You find what we lookin’ for?”

The woman shakes her head, never looking away. “Just some cash. And this weird statue of a wolfhound.”

“Did you take the statue?”

“f**k, why would I?”

David holds up a hand. “If you’re not looking for money, then why are you here?”

The question seems to put the group at ease. They visibly relax, even exchange glances with one another, though they still shuffle around warily. The guy holding the gun pipes up. “His research. On the cure,” he explains. “Our boss wants anything he has on the plague.”

David blinks. “You have some secret natural philosopher stowed away? What good is research to you?”

The man standing over the maid seems to find his voice. “We got people we can get it to. People just as smart as Galvoochie, and aren’t stuck up some noble’s ass.” He steps forward and sweeps his arm out to the side. “You don’t know what it’s like in Dunwall now. Nobody’s lookin’ out for the little guy. We gotta take these matters in our own hands.”

“The Regent’s stopped handing out elixir rations to us civvies,” The tallest member explains, un-twisting one suspender. “And it’s no secret she hasn’t bothered to replace Sokolov to work on a cure. All research is considered private projects, and we don’t see s**t from that.”

“And I guess you blame me for all that.” David stares them down. The group shuffles nervously under his glare, exchanging brief, uncomfortable glances with one another. Finally, David sighs and jumps down from the railing. “Galvani’s lab is upstairs. Go take whatever you need, just leave the bystanders alone.”

Three of them exchange glances before shuffling past him, running up the stairs as fast as their legs can take them. David walks around to the unconscious guard, bending at the waist to check his vitals. The woman watches him with a careful eye, as does the only man who hasn’t uttered a word yet.

The guard is okay, might have a wicked headache for a few days, but he was still breathing. The maid would sleep for an hour and wake up feeling groggy for the next few after that, but would otherwise be fine. David stands up straight, turning back to the two gangsters. The last man, the one who David has yet to hear speak, clears his throat. “You didn’t kill her, did you?”

David stares a hole between the man’s eyes. “No.”

The gangster breaks the gaze then, looking to the floor. “We all wondered,” he admits, biting his lip. “Didn’t seem...you know, like you. You had no reason to kill her.”

“And nobody trust that Regent,” The woman responds, nodding her head.

David says nothing. The man shifts on his feet again, but looks at David ’s face this time. “Look, I don’t know if you’re in this district just to raise hell or protect the Empress’s honor or some such s**t, but the boss is going to want to see you.”

“The boss.” David does his best to pin him to the floor with his glare.

The gangster, however, seems oblivious and just nods. “Yeah. Slackjaw. He wants to talk to all the big players who come through his territory.”

“This is nobody’s territory but the city’s, and Dunwall belongs to the crown.” David is tired. He really wants a cigarette now.

The man holds up his hands. “You know what I mean.” He puts them down and goes on before David can argue more. “Slackjaw will be holed up in the distillery for the night. We’re the Bottle Street Boys,” he says proudly, pointing his thumbs at himself. The woman coughs beside him. “And Liz.”

“There’s like, five Bottle Street Girls too, you bastard.” She punches him in the arm good-naturedly, then turns back to David . “Girls are worth money in the Distillery District. Parents just sell ‘em to the brothels instead of tossing them out on their asses like most of the guys were. We can raise hell with the rest of ‘em just fine.”

“So you’re saying next time we need recruits, we should raid the Golden Cat?”

“At the end of Bottle Street?” David interrupts. “I’ll find my own way. Thanks.”

Bottle Street is a disaster site, litter on the streets and a rat for every three pieces of trash on the ground. Piles of the plague dead every couple of feet, it seemed like, wrapped in sheets and restrained with rope. All watched over by large signs with warnings of danger and sickness splashed across them in blood red.

Some of the corpses still move. David presses on and tells himself it’s just rats.

He doesn’t bother with the front door. He’d rather not have to deal with any other members of the gang besides Slackjaw. Realistically, he knows this could all be a set-up. They might have sent him to Slackjaw knowing full well he would kill David . And even if not, he couldn’t count on everyone here doubting the official s********e people must believe the Regent’s version. Which meant there were a lot of angry people out there blaming him for killing the Empress and starting this chain of events.

David tries to remember if he’s heard of Slackjaw before. He knew about the Bottle Street gang, of course, but they weren’t a priority. Dealing with gang violence was mostly left to the discretion of the Watch, as the Empress couldn’t devote her attention to every band of thugs that popped up and gave themselves a name, but Sabrina liked to be informed. If Slackjaw was a crime boss of note, then Sabrina would definitely have heard of him.

For the first time, David wishes he had paid more attention to the content of her meetings. He was always focused on his job. Never stopped taking it seriously, not for a second, never slipped into that comfort zone and let his guard drop. Keeping an eye out for sharp, concealed objects hidden in a visitor’s coat, a petitioner moving as if getting ready to make a run at her, an advisor with a poisoned needle sewn into the hem of their sleeve. And always, always watching her.

And what good was that now? All things that happened, all things he stopped. But Sabrina was still dead. It only took one failure. One time he lost focus, one assassin that made it past him. And Billie’s life was forfeit.

David gives the Talisman a squeeze, looking out over the Distillery yard. Men wander about, all with either a bottle or a gun in their hand. Sometimes both. A bad combination.

‘Yes, this place is home to murderers and thieves. Are we not becoming just that?’

David is silent for a moment. Then he jumps off the piping and Blinks.

He Blinks from perch to perch a few times, waiting for his magical energy to come back to him. The men on the ground are none the wiser. He Blinks onto the wall that separates the yard in half and nearly falls off of it when a crow flaps its wings at him and flies off.

“f*****g corvids,” he mutters. He hadn’t even seen the damn thing.

He passes by a literal cage filled with men half hunched over and stumbling about, moaning and weeping red. Plague victims. There was no cure at this stage, when victims appear to cry blood. They would die. The only question was how long they would suffer first.

It would be smarter to kill carriers at this point, kinder. And it was stupid to keep them so close to people who were still healthy. These people have been claimed by the plague. They were already dead. There was no point in keeping them close and pretending otherwise.

The inside of the distillery is less populated. There’s nobody guarding the front, so they obviously aren’t expecting him. David Blinks up to one of the brewers and takes stock of the floor.

All the men are clustered around...something. Something that looks distinctively like coffins. White, wooden coffins. One sealed shut, the other open and showing off its padded lining.

Odd. Nobody was buried in a coffin in Dunwall these days. Too few resources, too many bodies to bury. It would be easy enough to hide a murder victim with the rest of the deceased, so they weren’t doing that. Who would be so important as to garner a proper funeral during the plague?

He thinks on Billie’s funeral. He’d been fed details, purely to further his own suffering, about the closed casket ceremony and the stuffy inscription on her tomb that she never would have picked out for herself. The Empress was probably the only person to get a full service in the past year.

David Blinks by to the landing at the top of the stairs on the far wall. Void Gaze shows him three guys in the back hallway, and three more in a smaller room on the floor below. One of them has to be Slackjaw. So six people in all, more if they made enough of a ruckus to attract the people on the brewery floor. Not horrible odds. This was still reckless and pointless, though.

He could start killing, weed out opponents in case a trap is sprung. Might be smarter. But he’d rather not start fights if there’s a possibility of an ally, however slim.

There’s one guy doing inventory with his back to the door when David creeps in, but he throws a bottle and darts by when the guy goes to investigate.

David hides high up in a keg rack, leaning out to survey the area. Two guards patrolling the wine racks, though that was an ambitious term for their action. They were sufficiently drunk and distracted with each other. Not a threat. Slackjaw’s office had no door, just a barred gate meant more for restricting access than real privacy. There's also a gap under one of the kegs that made up the wall, so he could slide through there easy enough. There was just the question of how Slackjaw would react, if he-

He appears at the gate. It has to be him. Could be no one else. Slackjaw swings the door open and lets it bang against the brick wall. He steps forward and opens his arms. “I know yer here, David . Why don’t we be friends?”

David is frozen. He hadn’t been seen. He’s confident in that. Then how? One of the guys from Galvani’s house could have feasibly sprinted back here and warned Slackjaw about David ’s coming. But that wouldn’t account for Slackjaw knowing he was here now.

Slackjaw isn’t looking at his hiding spot. He isn’t searching, but it’s clear he doesn’t know where to put his eyes. He knows David is present, but he doesn't know where David is.

The guards twist their heads around, confused and slightly frightened. Slackjaw sighs and leans his side against the wall. “Nah tricks, I promise. I just want tuh talk. Come on out, David .”

David sets his mouth in a grim line and jumps. He sticks the landing with minimal joint pain, only making slightly more noise than he would have expected from himself a year ago. Both the guards jump. Slackjaw, however, just raises an eyebrow at him.

“Holy shit.” One of the guards jumps back. David doesn’t break his glare, just keeps his eyes locked on Slackjaw’s face. “You’re...you’re…”

“He’s David , you idiot.” There’s the sound of his friend hitting him in the head, then a weapon unsheathing. “That’s what boss-man just said.”

“But it’s him! This is all his fault, the damn plague and the curfew! All because he had to go and kill the Empress!”

“Oi, f**k off with that,” Slackjaw yells. “Don’t be believin’ everythin’ ya hear. David didn’t kill no Empress.” He turns back to David , a smile playing across his lips. “Didn’t you, David ? That’s just part of the big lie. You wouldn’t of hurt a hair on our fair Empress’s head.”

David grits his teeth and says nothing. Slackjaw knows nothing. He wasn’t there. He doesn’t know David , has no way of knowing s**t. He’s running off hunches and half-baked theories. David doesn’t trust him. And he owes Slackjaw no explanation.

Besides, referring to Sabrina as ‘fair’ already has him rubbed wrong. She was far too dark to ever be considered fair. He knew it was just what you called Empresses, but Sabrina had always hated it. It was a constant reminder that while she sat on a throne and could wear crown jewels, she did not fit what the Empress was supposed to be and supposed to look like.

Ironically, Anthony was indeed very fair himself, but that word was seldom used to describe Emperors. Nobody would be calling him that. Except maybe David , to tease him.

To the side, the guard scoffs. “Sure, he didn’t. Twenty witnesses just imagined the whole thing. He was just standing over her body with a bloody blade for no reason.”

Twenty witnesses? Delilah was spinning some high tale, wasn’t she.

“Lies are whorish little bastards. You bring in a few o’ them, and they’ll start spawnin’ their own.” Slackjaw waves David in. “Go cool yer head. David and Slackjaw got some big boy business to be attendin’ to.”

The guards grumble. Slackjaw turns around without sparing a glance back. After a moment of hesitation, David follows.

There’s no one else inside. David looks around, but he can’t find any sign of the other two people that had been in here. Slackjaw is already at his desk when David enters, standing off to the side and rifling through drawers. “Smoke?” he offers, holding up a tin of cigars. David ’s fingers itch for it, but he shakes his head. Slackjaw shrugs and shoves one in his mouth. “I’d offer you a drink, but you look like a man on a mission.”

David folds his arms. There’s nowhere to really hide in here either-perhaps under the desk, but he doubts two adults could fit under there, especially considering one looked taller than Slackjaw. They must have left, but how did he not notice?

Slackjaw fishes a lighter out of his pants pocket, though he doesn’t use it right away. Instead he takes his unlit cigar out of his mouth and gestures with it. “No, yer here on the Empress’s business. Takin’ down this little ring of treech-ari that took her out of the game. And the only person worth your time in my part of town is that Abele bastard. Am I right?” He seems to take David ’s silence as agreement, and slides his cigar back between his teeth. “See,” he says, flicking his lighter on the word. “Slackjaw knows.”

He lights the cigar, blowing the smoke out as he surveys David ’s face and posture. “Now, I think I can help you out with that. Whaddya say, to making a deal with ol’ Slackjaw? Ain’t even askin’ fo’ much in return-just a bit of amnesty when your old boy’s on the throne.” He pronounces ‘amnesty’ wrong, with the inflection on the first syllable, and a hard ‘a’. “Really, more of a favor. Slackjaw’ll take care of Abele for you, nice an’ clean. You don’t even gotta touch ‘im. We shake on it, and you can be on yer merry little way.”

“What do you get out of it?” David spits out. “Why would you do that for me?”

Slackjaw purses his lips for a moment, and looks off into the distance. “Aye. Just...some-ting I owe the old girl, you know?”

David says nothing. Sabrina always felt she didn’t do enough for the poor-David would point out she couldn’t , that her court was quick enough already to question her judgment and that Parliament pitched a fit whenever she didn’t skew things heavily enough in their favor. But she tried. And David knew she was making a difference.

He only wishes she could see now what impact she had.

David blinks, forces himself to clear his head. Slackjaw is looking at him expectantly. “What are you going to do with him?”

Slackjaw leans back, a proud smile on his face. “Shave his head and cut out his tongue. Put his fat bottom to work in one of those Pendleton silver mines, just like the ones his parents own.”

He’s heard of the Pendleton mines. Almost completely staffed by Pandyssian slaves, who were mostly worked to death by the time their replacements came in with the next supply of ‘workers’. Pendleton ships came into the harbor crowded with captives and left laden with silver ore.

It would be a cruel fate. It wasn’t that Luca didn’t deserve it-he did, of that David was sure.

There was the matter of his dossiers. David needed to leave with those. And Joshua Copper, who was in danger as long as he was close to their target. But David could tell Slackjaw about those. He could find the kid and the intel, bring them back for David .

That wasn’t what bothered him about this, though. The real truth was that David just wanted to kill Luca himself.

“So. You in, David ?”

Slackjaw holds up his hand. David examines his face, searching it for any sign of dishonesty. There’s a scar on his jaw, long enough to disappear onto the underside of his chin. New enough that it’s still sharp and pink.

“How do you know I didn’t kill Billie?”

Slackjaw shifts on his feet, but maintains eye contact. “Call it a hunch,” he says.

‘Slackjaw. He wasn’t raised in a world where it paid to be kind,’ Sabrina notes, dryly. ‘But he’s more honest that most Dunwall politicians.’

Which wasn’t saying much. But that was probably Billie’s own, weird way of telling him to trust Slackjaw.

David leans back on his heels and squares his shoulders. “I don’t think so,” he says, keeping his eyes locked on Slackjaw’s. “But there is something else I have in mind.”

Slackjaw leans against his desk and folds his arms. “Ya come in ‘ere and reject the favor I was gonna do ya all nicely, then you got the nerve to ask fo’ a diff’rent one?”

“You’re not doing this for me.”

At that, Slackjaw gives a chuckle. “Right. For our dear Lady Billie, then. Let’s hear it.”

David starts talking before he loses his nerve. “There will be a boy with Abele. At the Cat. He’s young, not loyal to the Regency, and has no business being there. I’m getting him out tonight.”

“You want me to be takin’ in street whores?” Slackjaw shakes his head as he snuffs out the end of his cigar in an ashtray, smiling all the way. “Shoulda just asked. I do that fo’ free.”

“I don’t want you to turn him into one of your gangsters,” David says, exasperated. “I just want someone watching his back until I can send for him. Maybe tend to his wounds if Abele really has him worked over.”

“Aye, Slackjaw can do that.” Slackjaw nods, then pushes himself away from his desk. “I’ll have my men keep an eye out. What’s the lad’s name?”

“Joshua Copper. Wears spectacles. Might have red hair.” David holds out his hand. “Keep him safe until this mess is over. Then I guess we’re even.”

Slackjaw laughs as he takes David ’s hand, but his eyes are far away. “Slackjaw always pays his debts, that he do. But we never be even. I owe that fiery Empress more than me life’s worth.”

There’s not much point in sneaking out, as everyone knows he’s here by now. But David can’t stand the stares and ends up Blinking up to the piping again when he gets out into the yard.

He’s back to his original problem, he thinks as he exits the distillery, finding a way past the second wall of light. His best bet was to try going around, but that came with the risk of running into guards in a tighter space. If he could keep above them, though, they might not even notice he’s there.

David gently squeezes the Talisman, wondering if Sabrina has any insight.

‘Have I been here before? Do I know these streets?’ Sabrina seems to sigh. ‘The hearts of those who walk them are as cold as the winter chill. And the air is nearly as cold as I am.’

“My jacket is keeping me plenty warm, but thank you for your concern.” David sighs. Sabrina never seems to have much in the way of practical advice-though he supposes telling him to bundle up in a round-about way might qualify. He can’t bring himself to be too annoyed, though. He doubts she can help it.

And he needs to hear her voice. Remind himself that she is still with him, in some capacity. It would serve to keep him going, until he had Anthony back.

He’s about to put the Talisman away when he sees the glow out of the corner of his eye. More bones. He’s on the move before he even registers it.

The apartment at the end of the street is filthy. The floor is covered in garbage and rat droppings, the walls filled with graffiti. A different kind of garbage, then. The bones are through the side door, out the back of the kitchen.

David comes out to stone steps and grass, actual grass. It’s warmer out here. He might think it’s just the absence of wind, but no, it is warmer than the Month of High Cold has any right to be.

The bones are on another table, another altar adorned with purple. David strides forward and swipes the runes from the surface.

He figures the Outsider might choose to show His ugly mug here, but he's not prepared for the shrine to pulse, for the grains of wood to split apart and the barbed wire around the top to burst, sending thousands of spikes into the air.

The altar explodes. And the world cracks.

He can still see the stone walls, the grass beneath his feet, but they’re...wrong. Warped, broken apart. And beyond that, he can see the Void.

The Outsider appears, because of course He does. Sitting on His altar, leaning forward, looking smug.

“I’d be careful around her, David ,” He says. “Granny Rags had a different name before. You wouldn’t recognize it. But your sweet Empress’s grandfather begged for her hand once. Young aristocrats dueled for the chance to win her favor.” He leans in closer, as if telling David a secret. “But she found them all lacking. Then she put herself on a new path.”

He disappears then. David ’s gaze shifts to the side.

“You were sent here to kill one man and save two others.” He’s walking among the dry, dead wildflowers now. Or He would, if His feet could touch the ground. “I wonder, what will that tally look like at the end of the night? Does the sparing of two people outweigh the murder of another? What happens when you add more to the balance?”

The Outsider dissolves again, this time reappearing on the stone steps. “The answer you gave Slackjaw was intriguing. You had the opportunity to spare a life, the life of a man who conspired to take your daughter's and ruin your own. But what kind of life would he have left? Would it really be merciful to throw him to the Bottle Street gang, condemn him to a life of pain and back-breaking labor, giving him all the time in the world to ruminate on his crimes? Perhaps there’s more than two sides to the scale.” He c***s His head, and David still feels as if the Outsider can see straight through him. “Either way, you turned him down. What’s running through your mind, David ? Revenge, or efficacy? What will win out at the end of this night?”

He leans back, a satisfied smirk on His face. “I can’t wait to see.”

And then He’s gone. David blinks twice, then rubs his face. “Bastard.”

The yard is still weirdly warm, and though his nose and chapped lips protest it, it makes him too uneasy to consider staying to warm up.

The kitchen is still trashed, though now David can pay attention to the scribblings on the walls. Strange symbols, circles with pictures of impossible animals drawn in red chalk. This must have been the apartment Granny Rags was talking about.

David should ask where she sleeps at the mill, because if she keeps her quarters as she kept this place, it was no wonder they had a rat infestation.

There’s nothing of value in the kitchen or the upstairs bedroom, but David strikes gold in the parlor. Literally. A cigarette case and a jewelry box, nestled side-by-side on the table. A medal still in its case on a shelf nearby. All neatly inscribed with Moray .

Moray. If he’s heard that name before, he doesn’t remember it. He’ll have to ask somebody about it later. Probably Lizzy.

He tucks it all into his pockets, intending on giving it to Jerome to sell later. A quick check with Void Gaze makes him feel comfortable enough walking out the front door.

As he makes his way past the threshold, eyes already scanning the buildings, looking for a place to Blink onto, he spots it. It draws him in from the corner of his eye, and David turns his head.

Graffiti, stroked across the wall in Dunwall’s peasantry form of declaration. Letters bigger than his head. Written in blood red across the stonework.

LONG LIVE THE EMPRESS!

David approaches it slowly. The paint has run in places, but it’s dry to the touch. Hasn’t started flaking yet. It’s been here for a while, but not that long of a while. In the past month. Long after her death.

He puts his hand out, placing it over the E. He remembers Billie’s coronation, the banners with those same words written across them. The crowds that chanted it as the crown was placed on her head. Long live, Billie. Long live.

The saying had no meaning anymore. There would be no more Empresses.

David turns and continues on his way.