She is standing before the alter with the Outsider's black blood dripping down her arm, staring at Daud's restless spirit fading and flickering before her, when she thinks, I was able to touch him. I reached out and put my hand on his face, felt his fingers dig in to my shoulders.
She has set foot in a place no living being was meant to enter, put a knife through the heart of a god and watched him bleed out at her feet. What else might she be able to do here?
Billie takes Daud's hand in hers, the fragments of her inhuman arm gripping him tightly, and she turns and walks them both out of the Void.
They cannot go back to Karnaca. The Eyeless's hold on the city will soon fade with the Outsider dead, but likely not before they've exhausted every last bit of power they still have hunting down the ones who did it.
And the two of them are far more recognizable now than they have ever been. Billie's new strangeness is usually easy enough to hide, but Daud…
As time bends around Billie, so now do life and death seem to warp around Daud. She sees it in pulses and flashes nearly every time she looks at him, a ghastly glimpse of charred bone under the surface his skin, like a silvergraph plate that's been printed twice by mistake. She often catches him staring down at his own hands, frowning as he slowly flexes his fingers, and she knows he can see it as well.
Few others seem to notice anything, but occasionally some stranger will stop dead as they walk by, whirling around to stare after them in uncomprehending horror.
Daud keeps his hood up and suggests they move inland where the towns are less populated, at least until they figure out where they're going from here. Billie doesn't argue. She knows the port towns better than most, but Daud knows every mile of Serkonos, and she certainly has no better plans.
What does one even do after killing a god?
They take the pass through the mountains to reach the plains and keep on heading north, spending most of their nights sleeping in abandoned barns and empty woodsheds. It's getting into the rainy season, a bad time to travel this way, and sometimes when the storms are at their worst, Billie will knock on a farmhouse door and beg a few hours shelter, claiming that her husband had grown too sick from mine dust to work any longer, that they had lost their home and are travelling now to Cullero where their grown children live. It's usually enough to get them a bed for the night and sometimes even a hot meal. She's always been good at spinning a tale, making up a new life to slip into for a little while.
Daud gives her a strange look the first time she does this, and Billie just shrugs. "I didn't think you'd pass for my aging father."
He snorts and shakes his head at her, but he goes along with the deception. It's an easy enough role for him to play. Daud is stronger now after coming back from the Void, but he still looks pale and tired, and he certainly sounds like someone who's choked down a lifetime's worth of silver dust. He keeps his head down, mumbles his answers to their hosts' questions, and then lets Billie take his arm and make apologies as she leads them to their borrowed room.
They sleep close now, whether they're sharing a narrow, straw-filled mattress or pressing up against the wall of an old barn to avoid the draft from outside, and each night Billie can feel an unnatural heat from his body. It isn't noticeable at any distance, but close enough to touch like this, it feels like fire under his skin.
"Did you burn my body?" he asks when she brings it up.
"Of course," Billie says. The Whalers always burned their dead. Overseers would pick apart heretic corpses like rats for dissection, given half a chance
Daud shrugs one shoulder and tosses the bones from his breakfast into their fire. "Could be that."
She accepts that explanation with a silent frown, watching the flames flicker between them. It makes as much sense as anything else and fits cleanly with the flashes of ash and bone she often sees in Daud's face, but she can't help but feel it is instead the Void trying to pull him back, reaching out in the night to reclaim what Billie has taken. The Outsider is dead and gone, but Daud is still within reach.
She takes to sleeping with her hand curled around his wrist, feeling his steady pulse beneath the burn in her fingertips as she slowly drifts off.
Daud often wakes before her, but he says nothing about it.
"We should head farther north," Billie announces one evening as she scrapes the last bit of whale meat from her tin. "It'll be getting warmer soon, and you know we stick out like this."
She wears gloves and long sleeves to keep her arm hidden, and Daud dresses much the same while also traveling with his hood up to avoid people noticing the strangeness beneath his skin. Fine enough clothing for the recent storms and winds, but far too unusual outside of Serkonos's brief cold season. The Eyeless numbers are dwindling and the wanted posters are coming down, but strangers behaving oddly will always draw the kind of attention they don't need.
Daud pauses eating to raise an eyebrow at her. "To Dunwall?" he asks.
She shrugs, trying for careless and casual. "There's more places north of here than Dunwall." She chews her last bite slowly, tapping her fingers against the empty tin in her hands. "It might not be a bad idea to stop there, though." Daud is already shaking his head, so she hurries on to explain, "We don't have a connection to the Void anymore, and they're the only other ones we know who've been there. I want to know what happened when the Outsider died, if any his chosen few felt it. And if you tell me you don't, I'll call you a damn liar."
Daud looks down, rubbing the back of his hand where the Outsider's mark used to be. It was gone when he returned from the Void, though it's hard to say just whose death is to blame for that. Billie's gifts have also weakened – the arm still moves and the eye still sees, but all of the other little tricks are gone – but she is still not sure if that had been the Outsider granting her some of his own power or merely passing along something older and stranger.
Eventually, Daud lets out a sigh and nods, as Billie knew he would. He never could stand a mystery. "If you think we can pay this visit without winding up in Coldridge, then fine," he says, stabbing into his own tin with unnecessary force.
Billie smiles. "I think I'm still enough in the Empress's good graces to avoid that, but I can't make any promises for you." The look Daud gives her in response is so deeply unamused that she can't quite keep from laughing, but her tone is entirely serious when she reaches across to put her hand on his arm and says, "That won't happen. I didn't pull you out of the Void just to watch you get executed."
He looks away from her, staring into their fire, but he does not shrug her hand away. "We don't have a ship anymore," he reminds her.
"The Wale wouldn't have gotten us very far, anyway. I barely got her floating enough to let her burn." She pulls her hand back and taps her fingers against her tin again in thought. She collected on a lot of favors during her search for Daud, but there's still a few old acquaintances out there who owe her. "I know some people," she says. "I'll find a way to get us there."
Billie's contact gets them safe passage on an old cargo vessel, the ship being captained by a woman who tends toward mostly legitimate business but who has never been averse to looking the other way while a few crates of illegal merchandise or a couple unregistered passengers are slipped on board, at least for the right price. It's a big ship and in better repair than Billie ever dreamed of seeing the Dreadful Wale in, and it gets them there quickly.
At the docks, she writes a short letter, forcing herself not to overthink the wording, and then finds a courier wearing Dunwall Tower colors and bribes him with a few coins to get the message into the hands of the Empress.
And then they wait.
Billie spends the first hour or so taking in their surroundings and planning a few quick, clean routes out of the city, just in case Emily is less accepting of their presence than Billie hopes. Of course, she's working from years old memories of these streets and alleys and rooftops. It's impossible to know what might have changed.
She turns to look at Daud, who is standing with his back to her. He has his foot propped up on one of the mooring bollards, and he is idly tossing a coin into the air and catching it again as he stares out over the water. She wonders if he ever came back here in the intervening years, or if he, like her, made a vow to never again set foot in this rotten city.
But Dunwall is a different place now and not just in the patterns of its streets and buildings. It's not great, maybe not even good yet, but it's better, and Billie doesn't mind breaking that old vow again as much as she might have thought.
The sun has dipped fully below the horizon, the sky painted in deep reds and purples, when a messenger finally comes for them.
"You Meagan Foster?" he asks.
I guess I am today, Billie thinks. Out loud, she simply nods and says, "That's me."
"Then you and your friend there can come this way."
She exchanges a glance with Daud, watches him slip his hand into his pocket to grip whatever weapon he has hidden there before following after the messenger. Billie puts her hand to the hilt of her own short knife as she walks beside him, and she briefly longs for her old whaling blade, sunk into the sea now with the ashes of the Dreadful Wale, or even the unsettling twin-bladed knife she left stuck in the Outsider's corpse.
They're worried for nothing, she's sure, but it would still feel better to be properly armed.
"What have you two done?"
The words are out of the Empress's mouth before the doors are even fully closed behind them, and Billie tightens her grip on her knife without thinking.
But Emily doesn't look angry, exactly. She is sitting on her throne with Corvo stood behind her, and though her Royal Protector seems appropriately uneasy and wary, given the company, there is something different to her expression. It is clear she is seeing more than the obvious when she looks at them.
Billie exchanges another quick glance with Daud before saying, "That's a story that takes some telling."
Emily props her chin up in her hand. "I have the time."
They pick their way through the events carefully, each telling the parts they know best while avoiding, through silent agreement, the unnecessary details that are too personal, conversations and disagreements that are still too fresh and raw. It does not change the basic shape of the tale.
Emily takes it all in without comment, her brow furrowed in an expression of troubled contemplation that Billie recognizes from her time aboard the Dreadful Wale. When it is finished, she lets out a long sigh. "I knew something about it felt strange lately, and then to get a message from you…" She stops and shakes her head. "I couldn't have guessed anything like this, though."
"Strange," Daud repeats in his rumbling voice. "Your mark?"
Emily's face is carefully cool and neutral when she turns her head to stare at him. After a moment, she nods, looking down to slowly unravel the length of cloth wrapped around her left hand. "It burned for a few days, and by the end it looked like this," she says, holding up her hand for them to see. The Outsider's mark is faded and blurred, as though someone had drawn it on in ash and then tried to rub it away. "I haven't tried everything, but it still seems to work the same. But it doesn't quite feel… right."
Frowning, Billie takes a step closer to better examine the changed mark. "Have you noticed anything else?" she asks, and she glances up to include Corvo in the question. "Either of you?"
Emily turns in her seat to face her father, and enough time passes that it is clear some unspoken discussion is taking place. When she turns back around, Emily shakes her head. "No," she says firmly. "Nothing else like that, anyway. But the Overseers in Dunwall have been on edge lately. Nothing they've reported to me, of course, but people have noticed them acting odd. It's clear something is troubling the upper ranks and it's filtering down to the rest of them, and now I have a good idea what it might be." These last words are punctuated with a tilt of the head and a raised eyebrow.
Billie nods, though she wonders if it's really the Outsider's death troubling the Overseers or the attack on their members at the Royal Conservatory shortly before. "I'd be curious to know what they're saying that they're not saying to you."
"Yes, I'd like to know that, too," Emily agrees with a sigh. She sets her chin in her hand again and considers the two in front of her for a few moments. Eventually, she drops her hand back to her lap, straightening up and nodding to herself like she's come to a decision. "You can both stay while I find out what I can. I know you would never have come here if you weren't trying to find answers. You'll have guards on your doors, though. It's not that I expect trouble from you, but I've become a little more cautious recently. I'm sure you understand."
"Of course, Your Majesty."
A guard leads them out, and Billie glances over her shoulder as the doors shut behind them once again. "She was calmer about all of this than I expected her to be," she says quietly.
"She's the Empress of the Isles," Daud answers in a similarly low tone. "She'll keep her thoughts to herself until she decides how she wants them to be heard. If she was more open with you in Karnaca, it's because she ruled over nothing then."
She shoots him a sideways look. "I've known leaders who let plenty of their opinions slip before."
He lets out a huff of breath that could almost pass for a laugh. "I led thieves, killers, and witches," he says. "Emily Kaldwin answers to far more dangerous followers."
Billie sleeps poorly those first few nights in the Tower. She tells herself it is the softness of the bed, the excessive luxury of her surroundings compared to what she's known all her life, and she almost manages to convince herself. But still she wakes early to a now familiar nightmare: fire and Voidsong and the flesh melting from Daud's charred bones as he is pulled beyond her reach again.
During the day, she paces anxiously, wandering the halls with a nervous guard on her heels. She never sees Emily or Corvo, though the same messenger who brought them to the Tower tells her that both are working to discover what the Overseers know, as promised. She hardly even sees Daud, who apparently found their travels more tiring than he let on and is taking advantage of the comfortable rooms they've been assigned. That or he's deliberately avoiding her, but she's choosing to believe the former for now.
Either way, it's something of a relief when he finds her tucked into a corner of the immense Dunwall Tower library early on the third day.
"I don't remember you being much of a reader," he says from just behind her.
She lays her hand across the pages of her book in a half-hearted attempt to cover the words. "I wasn't very interested in any of your waterlogged history books is all."
There is a rustle of cloth as he leans in close over her shoulder. "You prefer the ramblings of Outsider-worshipping madmen instead?"
"We've both seen enough by now to know there's a lot of truth to these ramblings." She hesitates for a moment, then pushes the book away and turns to face him. "I was hoping to find something about spirits come back from the Void. Thought I'd have better luck here; no one's ordering anything in the Empress's library burned for heresy."
He straightens up again slowly, frowning. "You wanted to see if it's happened before." She says nothing, and he shakes his head. "Don't waste your time on this, Billie."
She clenches her jaw, suddenly irritated. "You want me to just ignore it?"
"I don't believe it's worth doing anything more."
She stands so abruptly that Daud has to take a step back to avoid being knocked by her chair. "Look at this," she demands, snatching up his hand in hers and shoving the sleeve of his coat up to the elbow. The phantom of heat and charred bone still lingers beneath his skin. "What if it's trying to take you back? What if this is you fading away and burning up all over again? You want me to ignore that?"
"Billie," he says firmly. He puts his hand carefully over hers, uncurling her strange fingers from his coat. "Listen to me. When we started this, I expected to die. I wanted it, even – wanted to go out doing something I told myself was worthy and not have to live on to see if I was wrong. And all I regretted then was dragging you into it and putting you to the same risks." He turns her hand over, runs his thumb along the ridges of driftwood and black stone, and then he squeezes tightly and looks up to meet her eye again. "Whatever time you've given me is more than I deserve, and I'm grateful for it. Don't waste any more of your time worrying over me."
And though she tries to hold onto it, as quick as it came on, that flash of anger is gone. She looks down at their joined hands, both so odd and otherworldly now, and shakes her head. "You didn't drag me into anything. I knew there'd some kind of trouble when I went looking for you, and I was ready for whatever damn mess you'd gotten yourself into." A wry smile creeps onto her face. "Just like old times."
Daud snorts and takes a short step back, opening the space between them but not quite letting her go. "I think your memory is failing you."
"All right, maybe it was more the other way around back then," she admits with a shrug and a small grin.
"Almost always, as I remember it."
She laughs softly for a moment, looking down again. She's missed the easy way they had between them, back on Dunwall's rooftops and even back on the Wale, as brief as that was. She tilts her head up to look at him and lets her smile fade. "I can't promise to stop worrying," she says. "That's not something you can ask of me."
"And I know better than to try and change your mind anymore," he answers with a sigh. "At least promise me you won't pursue it too far. There's more than one way for the Void to consume you."
"I know that much, believe me."
"Good." Daud nods, satisfied. He shifts his fingers, then slowly releases her hand, taking a step toward the door and clearing his throat. "I'll leave you to your reading."
Billie flexes her hand as she watches him go. She couldn't feel his fire through the pieces of the Void, but something of his touch still lingers. She turns back to the book still open on the table, and, with a shake of her head, she snaps it shut. She's learned more than enough today.
When sleep fails to come easy once again, Billie decides to accept the obvious and throws back the bed covers, slipping from that too-plush comfort and letting her feet hit the cold floor.
She moves first to the door and presses her ear against it, listening for movement out in the hall. The guard at her room is quiet and professional, but she can still hear the soft sounds of breathing and shuffling steps. She's been watched but not contained here. The guard would probably let her go where she wishes to go, but she's not keen on the idea of him following her this time.
Instead she backs away and heads to the window, pushing it open and sticking her head out to evaluate. Daud's room is adjacent to her own. Windows this high up rarely have latches, and the ledge below is plenty wide for someone with Billie's experience navigating rooftops. She climbs out onto the stonework and sidles her way along swiftly to the next room.
Daud is asleep on his back, one arm resting across his stomach with the sheets below pushed down to his waist. The summer months are always uncomfortably warm in Dunwall, even so early in the season.
Billie crosses the room and eases her weight down onto the mattress beside him. She places her hand flat against the center of his chest, relishing in the steady heartbeat, the burning sensation beneath her fingertips. She lets out a sigh, a long-held tension in her body slowly easing.
His hand moves up to cover hers, gripping it tightly for a moment before resting with his fingers curled gently around her palm. He's always been a light sleeper, probably knew it was her from the moment her feet touched the floor. "It hasn't taken me yet," he murmurs, eyes still closed.
"Good." She traces a small circle on his chest, letting her nails scrape gently against his skin, and then says, "I think you're right."
His eyes open, looking at her with a sleepy, half-lidded expression that makes her shudder from some old, almost forgotten want. "About what?" he asks.
"Whatever time either of us has left" – because she knows it is not just Daud living on unearned borrowed time; she should have died a dozen times over already, on the streets to the City Watch, at the end of Daud's blade, on Emily Kaldwin's executioner's block – "we shouldn't waste it worrying or digging around for answers we don't need." She moves her hand out from under his, letting it drift down to settle just above his hip. "We shouldn't waste it here."
Daud reaches up to touch her face, his thumb resting near her unnatural eye. There's a worry there, too, despite his scolding. "Then what do you want to do?"
"Get out of these old, rotten cities we keep coming back to." Her other hand on his chest now, unfeeling of his strange warmth as she leans in closer. "Do something new for a change."
He does not respond at first, merely moves his hand to curl around the back of her neck, the weight of it easing her down even closer. "If that's what you want," he says, near enough now that the heat of his breath tickles her throat, "then I'll follow."
In the morning, Billie slips back out through the window with Daud following behind her. They're neither of them what they once were, but crossing these rooftops is still only a small challenge. They touch ground before the sun rises and make their way swiftly to the edge of the city. Enough time passes winding their way through Dunwall's cramped streets that their absence has surely been noticed by the time they finally reach the gates, but the guards there let them through without comment. The Empress is letting them go.
When they reach the first crossroads, Billie pulls down her hood. "Where to now, old man?" she asks. "Farther north?"
Daud shrugs. There's a lightness to his movement that she hasn't seen since long before she first left Dunwall behind, and there's even a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. "It's as good a direction as any."
"North it is, then," she says with a smile of her own. She starts down the path, Daud following close behind.
The sun rises higher into the sky as they make their way far, far from Dunwall. What else is there to do after killing a god but to go out and live in that changed world?