The door to the Empress' private study was ajar, and Corvo knocked. "Emily? Can we talk? Something's happened."

"Yes Father?" she answered, rising from her desk and going to meet him in the doorway. "Oh." She took pause at the sight of the person accompanying him.

"He appeared on the grounds while I was taking my morning walk," Corvo said.

"Hello, Empress," the person said, waving slightly with a long-fingered hand. "I did not think we would meet again like this."

She thought she recognized that voice, with its slight underlying rasp. And the unstyled flat mop of dark brown hair seemed familiar too. She thought so, but she wasn't entirely sure. He wore a dim blue-and-gray outfit that she knew had definitely been taken from Corvo's own closet, and it hung loosely off of his too-small frame. "I'm sorry, I don't recall your name, sir," she said politely, choosing not to comment on the borrowed clothes.

The man let out a short breathy laugh. "Oh Empress, I don't recall my name either; too many centuries have passed since it last saw use."

Corvo put fingertips to the side of his forehead. "I'm surprised you can laugh about your situation," he said to the man. Then he exhaled and lowered his hand. "Well, Emily," he said, in a voice soft and serious, "this is the Outsider."

Mind racing, Emily looked the pale man over again.

"You know your father would not lie to you," he said.

She was stricken with astonishment. Now that Corvo had informed her, he was actually quite recognizable, even though his voice no longer had the haunting half-echo, and his eyes no longer were the solid glossy black, and his body no longer had the leanness of perpetual adolescence. "You've changed."

"Into a human," he said without missing a beat.

She ushered them into her study and closed the door. "What's behind this change?" she asked, leaning against the wall and folding her arms.

With a bit of a scowl now, Corvo answered, "Daud's returned to being an assassin, with our friend here his latest target."

"Although this time he was not working for coin," the Outsider said, gracelessly seating himself in an armchair. "It was of his own volition that he sought a way to kill me." As he spoke, his gaze floated and jagged around the room, rather than looking fixedly at either of the people there. It seemed reminiscent of how he'd used to Blink about when conversing in the Void. "At the end, everything dissolved around me," he continued coolly, "and then by some means, I found myself removed from the Void and remade into this form."

"How could you allow him to do that?" Corvo asked, gripping the back of the armchair. "Didn't you know what he was planning?"

The Outsider tilted his head back to smirk up at him. "Dear Corvo, you know it is not in my nature to interfere."

"Excuse me, you interfere a lot," Emily said sharply, pointing to her covered left hand.

"What my Marked choose to do with the gift is their own decision. There are some who would never dare use it at all, but they are not interesting enough to ever receive it, of course. I only wish to watch what unfolds by their actions." He began to kick his legs back and forth experimentally, watching them swing. "It was fascinating to watch Daud on his quest to take me down. Many humans have wanted to, but never a Marked."

"Well, I am glad that he did not entirely succeed," Corvo said, a soft smile starting to break over his face.

"So now what?" Emily asked, directing the question at Corvo mostly.

"I think it's best he stay at Dunwall Tower, at least for a while," Corvo answered her. In truth he would accept nothing else, and no other option he could think of even made sense. The Abbey had shelters for the homeless and destitute, but their conditions were widely known to be less than hospitable, and they would certainly react badly if they ever found out whom they were housing. And some friends of the Empress eschewed the Abbey's doctrines, yes, but that did not equate to meaning they would happily caretake the Outsider, even his human version.

Emily sighed and headed back towards her desk. "All right, Father, but you are in charge of him; I have enough on my plate with the Morleyan delegation coming in two days' time." She fell into her wooden swivel chair and returned to leafing through a stack of correspondence and requests.

Corvo beamed at the Outsider and helped him up from the armchair. "I think you'll find it interesting being human."

And the Outsider smiled back.