Author's Notes: As chapters go, this one is pretty climatic as Emily and her father deal with the threat of the Jessamine, which I've been building up for several chapters. It's a long one. I hope you enjoy it and please let me know what you think in the Comments! Thank you so much to Belle from Switzerland for leaving me a wonderful comment!

Part IV continued

"Schism"

Chapter 36

Corvo's head was bowed, the wings of his hair hiding everything but his nose. He was on his knees beside me, swaying with the loss of blood from his gunshot wound.

He had withdrawn somewhere I couldn't follow, a dark place inside his head.

He was mumbling beneath his breath; incoherent, delirious, though whether it was the Heart in his ears, driving him mad, or the loss of blood, I couldn't say. Maybe both. His arms were slack at his sides, but he was clenching and unclenching his fists, his fingers stained with the blood he had shed, the lives he had taken.

"Please," I tried again, beseeching the Commander. "He needs medical attention."

But Commander Kittredge was ignoring me. He leisurely paced back and forth near the starboard turrets, his hands clasped behind his back as the Jessamine, likewise, took her sweet time heading south. I watched the obsidian cliffs in the distance as we rode the shallow bends to deeper waters, wrapping around the jutting eastern end of the island.

I couldn't yet see the Dreadful Wale, but I had no doubt it was there, waiting for us.

Waiting to feel the Commander's wrath.

I glanced at the Lieutenant. He had his leg propped up on a barrel, his hands busy with that slim dagger of his, picking the dirt beneath his nails. He watched Corvo and I, but mostly me. He seemed to be enjoying my fear, the bastard.

I swung like a pendulum between shock and horror, the lowest point dropping me into a numbing center of denial. I didn't want to believe I was actually here, captured, hopeless, watching my father bleed out on the deck as the traitorous crew laughed and jeered, throwing out lewd suggestions to their gaunt, hollow-eyed Commander.

"Let us have a taste, Commander!" one jeered, rubbing his crotch.

"Aye! Little Johnny wants to be the new Royal Taster!"

"Not so little anymore!" another hooted.

Their peals of laughter turned the Commander's attention on us. When his hollow eyes met mine, I cried, "Please!"

"Please, I'll do anything!" a crewman wailed in mockery to ripples of laughter. A few had taken to gesturing obscenely at me, darting their tongues between their fingers while others were grabbing a friend, bending him over and pretending to thrust into his backside with exaggerated groans and grunts.

I ignored them. Traitorous dogs! The crew could mock me all they liked; I'd endured worse beneath Delilah.

Commander Kittredge extended his incessant pacing, back and forth, back and forth, to include the area in front of me. Each time he passed me, I looked up at him in desperate plea. I didn't care if I had to beg for my father's life. Empress or not, I would beg. "Commander, please! He's bleeding out!"

"Let him bleed," a crewman jeered. "He killed my brother!"

"Crown Killer scum! He deserves to die," another jeered to murmuring agreement.

"No!" I shouted. "Crew of the Jessamine, listen well. You will all die if Corvo dies, for he is Delilah's prize. Your new Empress will blame the crew if anything happens to him." I glared up at the Commander, my heart thundering. "If you value your life, do not let my father die. Corvo is hers to do with as she pleases."

The threat felt real enough to me, knowing Delilah. She wanted Corvo, not just for him, but for me.

After the dark intimacies of the Void, Delilah knew exactly how much she could hurt me by using my father… How much pain she could inflict by twisting and degrading and abusing the bond between us––even if it was just an illusion. The Void made it seem real.

Commander Kittredge stopped a moment, considering me, his head cocked to the side. I held my breath, every second feeling like forever, and when the Commander finally moved again, I didn't know whether to celebrate or cry. He rested a wrinkled old hand on the Lieutenant's shoulder before moving to stand at the rail, watching the barren island slide past.

The Jessamine could move faster, but clearly he wanted to prolong the torturous wait.

At the Commander's silent touch, the Lieutenant lazily pushed off the barrel with a lopsided grin, tucking his slim dagger back into his boot. He swaggered across the deck and crouched before me, cocking his head.

"You don't shut up, do you? Well, lucky you. We have one of those fancy court physicians aboard," he said in a low voice, gripping my face with cruel fingers and forcibly turning my head to look at the female physician attending the unconscious men on stretchers.

"Doctor Toksvig," he supplied.

Hearing her name, the woman turned, looking at me through round wire spectacles. I stared at her in disbelief. She'd trained under Sokolov. I remembered her smiling sweetly at me every time we passed in the halls of the palace.

She wore a long white dress with a stiff collar, her gray hair tucked into a white skullcap. What in the Void was she doing aboard the Jessamine? The mystery was further deepened by the iron manacles around her wrists, and yet no chain between them.

A prisoner like me, I realized, but with a job to do.

The Lieutenant crouched to whisper in my ear. "She can save your father, but…"

He leaned back so our eyes could meet, so I could see the lust in his eyes.

"There's a price."

He squeezed my jaw in a painful grip, pushing out my lips as he leaned forward and kissed me, forcing his tongue into my mouth. I pushed him back with my fists against his chest, then slapped him hard across the face. As hard as I could! But on my knees, it was awkward, the blow too soft.

His head rolled to the side, my handprint reddening his cheek. He just grinned at me. The watching crewmen laughed and snickered.

"She's a feisty one!"

"Royal blood runs hot!"

I froze, caught in that moment of terrifying stillness, watching for movement, afraid of what might come next. I thought about using magic––just grabbing my father's hand and leaping over the edge with Far Reach, to let the Ocean take us.

But that wouldn't stop the Jessamine. She'd blow the Dreadful Wale to smithereens and hunt us down until we were nothing but bloated corpses carried to shore by the waves.

The Lieutenant rose to his feet, chuckling to himself, his eyes sliding towards Corvo like every action was meant to hurt him, not me. But my father didn't appear to be aware of what was happening. His head was bowed, his face hidden beneath dark hair. Blood seeped through his dark clothes, staining the hardwood beneath his knees. It broke my heart.

The Lieutenant smiled at my desperation. "For a kiss, I'll give you the doctor's tender touch," he said, sweeping his arm and pointing at the court physician. "Come quickly, Doctor. Give us a taste of your wonderful bedside manner."

Doctor Toksvig came forward, her eyes downcast, avoiding my gaze. She was all business, evaluating her patient from front to back and muttering to herself. She readjusted her wire spectacles several times––a nervous tic––and finally said, "A clean shot, through and through. The bullet missed bone and artery, else he'd not be standing."

"He's not standing, Doc," the Lieutenant said, winking at me.

"He appears to have succumbed to delirium," she added, her lips twitching. She was very nervous, I realized, but hiding it behind that clinical detachment so important to her profession. "Furthermore, the amount of blood loss is… troubling. He needs immediate medical attention."

"Please, Doctor Toksvig," I pleaded in a whisper. "Help him."

But she stood back, her eyes downcast. At that moment, she looked less like a doctor and more like a frail old woman.

The Lieutenant feigned surprise. "Immediate? How troubling, indeed. You hear that, Empress? Your father is dying. What will you offer in return for the doctor's immediate…" He licked his lips. "… medical… attention." His eyes dropped to my lips, then back up to my eyes with a salacious grin. "Another kiss?"

His eyes were hungry.

He wanted to see how far I would go, how deeply I would degrade myself in front of an audience to save my father. The humiliation aroused him. The soft lick of the lips. The darting tongue. He could barely contain himself as he stared down at the pleasing sight I made: The Empress of the Isles prostrate before him. On her knees. Begging. Pleading. How low will you go, his hungry eyes gleamed. What would the Empress do to save her father? The crew's lewd gesturing and catcalling only fed his excitement, adding to the spectacle before him.

The Lieutenant patiently waited for my reply, a smile on his face. I felt faint, the heat of the sun glaring down on me, the crew jeering, the ship swaying beneath my knees as we rode the waves.

"A kiss," I finally said, spitting out the word. "After the doctor stops the bleeding."

"A real kiss," he insisted, smiling wider.

"A real kiss," I repeated, feeling sick.

The Lieutenant looked towards the Commander who silently nodded in approval. I gaped in surprise, not expecting him to be part of this disgusting pact, but I should have known…

He was the man in charge, the one who had encouraged rape aboard his ship like it was a tool. I knew because of the Fletchers.

Commander Kittredge had dangled Philly in front of her father, using her to get what he wanted. He'd taken her hostage with threats of far worse if the master architect refused to help repair the damage taken during the pirate attack. In the end, the Fletchers had managed to sabotage the ship and escape, but the Commander had broken his word.

HAD BROKEN HIS PROMISE, I thought, screaming at myself.

Screaming at myself to wake up, to realize I was in more danger, now, than I had ever been along the black sands of Tempest Island. Mister Fletcher had sabotaged the ship in secret. The Commander had had no idea what he'd done until he was already gone, sailing away on the stolen skiff with his daughter.

That meant Philly had been raped during the repairs when Kittredge should have been keeping his promise to do no harm to his daughter in exchange for his help. His promises mean nothing, I told myself as my silent screams disappeared into a black hole of helplessness. The Commander's promise––to treat my father and I with respect if we surrendered without resistance––was a bald-faced lie.

It was a long trip back to Dunwall.

The Lieutenant nodded at the royal physician. "Go ahead," he said, but his eyes were on me, lit with anticipation.

Doctor Toksvig addressed my father's exit wound first, pouring a vial of Sokolov's Elixir into the gaping hole. Oral ingestion was most effective, but applied directly to the wound, it would at least act as a clotting agent and stop the bleeding. It would do nothing to restore the blood he had lost or wake him from his strange stupor. Corvo was still mumbling like a madman.

"Now the kiss," the Lieutenant said, almost breathless, as he grabbed my arm, yanking me to my feet and hungrily angling towards my mouth.

"Hold on," the Commander interrupted, his voice dull and unpresumptuous, as though he was simply calling for a delay in dinner service. "What is that?"

He pointed across the water towards the island.

For a heartbeat, the Lieutenant's mouth crowded my face, reeking of onions, but then he reluctantly relaxed his grip and turned away. I could breathe again. I darted my eyes over the crewmen's heads to the black sands in the distance. Standing now, I could see better. The seagulls were flying above the obsidian cliffs, squawking in annoyance at our intrusion. The island was used to its loneliness, its isolation.

But it was the sight of the ancient Pandyssian running along the beach that caught my attention in a thrill of excitement and fear. He was running south––running so fast he was keeping up with the Jessamine, more or less.

"Uh, sir… He appears to have no pants," one of the crew observed to much laughter.

"One of yours?" the Commander dryly asked, his gaunt face turning towards me in question.

"Maybe he's a royal concubine!" another hooted.

I said nothing, my heart furiously pounding, my eyes glued to the Pandyssian. At this distance, he was a black bird, Corvo's coat flapping in the wind. What in the Void was he doing?

"Strange," the Commander said, unsatisfied with this new development. He raised a hand at the men manning the starboard turrets. "Jennywood, fire a warning shot across his"––gaunt lips twitching––"bow."

"Aye, sir," the sailor grinned.

I lunged forward, a scream caught in my throat, but the Lieutenant painfully gripped my arms, holding me back. Within seconds, the missile dropped into the tube and shot out with a BANG! The projectile whistled as it careened towards its target, then exploded in the waves with a thunderous blast, painting the water bright blue. The Pandyssian was close enough to get knocked off his feet by the shock wave.

After a few tense moments, I saw him get back up and start running again, running south, though moving further inland away from the water's edge.

"Persistent fellow," the Commander remarked. He lifted his hand again to order another attack.

"Stop it!" I cried.

The Commander scowled. "Lieutenant York, I imagine a thorough kiss would shut her up."

Lieutenant York, so-addressed, took it as a command. "With pleasure, sir," he said, bearing down on me. I kicked upwards and kneed him in the balls. Almost. Like me, he had moved instinctively fast, clenching his legs together and pushing me back.

My hand latched onto his. I pried his fingers loose and twisted his wrist until I heard a snapping sound. He screamed in pain, falling back––all of this happening in mere seconds. He shot me a wild look, half-enraged, half-aroused.

It was then I noticed the doctor.

She had an empty vial of Sokolov's Elixir in hand, a second vial. Her eyes were flaring with nervous energy, and I suddenly realized why. She had poured the vial into Corvo's mouth during the distraction––the Pandyssian, the missile blast, me attacking the Lieutenant, the perfect distraction––and now my father's throat was working to swallow the restorative.

He made an animalistic, growling sound, shaking his head from side to side. The Lieutenant's eyes shot towards Corvo in naked fear.

Corvo lunged to a crouching position on his feet, his pants soaked from kneeling in his own blood. The beast awakens! He flung his head back, whipping his hair out of his eyes as he made a grab for the Lieutenant's boot. He was fast. A second later, I saw the slim dagger in my father's hand as he sliced towards the Lieutenant, but the traitor managed to cut towards my father and block his thrust with his forearm.

Lieutenant York smiled at his successful block, clearly enjoying the idea that he could take on the Royal Protector and win.

Corvo smiled back. "Here's your kiss, asshole."

Corvo squeezed the trigger, blasting off the Lieutenant's face at point-blank range.

I didn't even see the pistol in his other hand until it had already discharged, the sound shattering my ears. I had no idea when Corvo had pulled the pistol from the Lieutenant's holster, but he was clearly paying for it now. The man collapsed, blown back by the force of the blast, his face gone, a chunky, red mess where his nose and mouth had been.

Corvo flipped the pistol, smoothly adjusting his grip, and swung in front of me, protecting me, aiming his smoking weapon, cocked and ready, at the astonished crew. Everyone was staring at us, bodies tense, ready to attack but holding back, waiting for the Commander's orders.

His hollow eyes lowered over his Lieutenant, sprawled on the deck in a widening pool of blood. He noticeably grimaced, but––given the circumstances––seemed underwhelmed. He ignored Corvo and the pistol aimed at him, and instead strolled towards a giant thing wrapped in canvas.

He grabbed the corner of the canvas and pulled, unveiling the statue beneath.

A statue of Delilah.

I gasped, startled by the lifelike stone. It was black––obsidian black like the cliffs of Tempest Island––and moving. Somehow, Delilah was using her black magic to possess the stone, seeing through its eyes. Speaking.

"What is it, Commander Kittredge?" the Delilah-statue asked in a haughty, impatient tone. "Have you found them yet?"

"Yes, Your Excellency," the Commander replied, his hands clasped behind his back. "Lady Emily and the Crown Killer are in my custody." His eyes lowered. "However, I humbly ask your permission to cut off Lord Corvo's hand or inflict some other punishment." His eyes lifted, sparking with interest. "Castration, perhaps? He has now killed eight of my men."

The statue was not facing us.

I watched in horror as it twisted its head to look directly behind it, an inhuman angle, those cold obsidian eyes glaring straight at my father, then straight at me.

I took a step back, shuddering.

"I see," it simply said in Delilah's voice. After a long pause, she said, "Not castration. I rather like those parts of him. Don't you agree, little niece?"

Corvo fired at the statue. The bullet ricocheted, blasting away chunks of its nose before landing in someone's thigh. The crewman screamed, falling to the ground.

"Then may I take his hand?" the Commander returned, continuing their conversation as if nothing had happened. "Both hands?" he revised, shooting an annoyed glance at Corvo as the wounded crewman kept screaming.

Doctor Toksvig looked like she wanted to run over and help, but she was too afraid to move, the empty vial clamped in her shaking hands. For a tense moment, the Delilah-statue just stared at us in silence, its head unnaturally turned to face us. Nose-less. It was horrifying. A nightmare's gaze.

She said, "What about the Dreadful Wale? Surely, the lives of its crew is punishment enough––for now. The poor, insane Child Empress has so few allies these days."

"We intend to destroy it, Your Excellency," the Commander said, "but it's unclear how many are aboard." He looked agitated. "Please, consider my request. Let me take his hand." He stared at the statue, his face going hard. "Eight of my men, Empress. Need I say more?"

"A tragedy," the Delilah-statue agreed.

"For you," I interrupted, stepping forward. I glared at the statue like it was just the two of us. I didn't need to deal with the Commander; he was Delilah's puppet.

Corvo readjusted, stepping closer to my shoulder from behind, his pistol aimed at anyone and everyone.

I said in a low menacing tone, "Don't you know who's aboard that ship, Delilah?"

"Oh?" the Delilah-statue asked, faintly amused.

"Em," Corvo whispered in warning, but I knew it was my only chance to save my friends. I had to take the risk.

"Your daughter!" I shouted, eyes raging. "Doesn't that mean anything to you?" I let that sink in for all of three seconds before I shouted, "Rosemary MacKenzie, you fucking witch! If you destroy the ship, you destroy her. Are you willing to shed your daughter's blood, Delilah?"

I had no idea what to expect.

No idea if Delilah already knew that Rosemary was with me or not. No idea if she knew that I knew that Rosemary was her daughter. No idea if Delilah even cared about her daughter. All of it was up in the air. Conjecture. Secrets. Lies.

Only her reaction remained to be seen.

The dark obsidian masked her expression. The cold volcanic glass was emotionless, unmoving.

With a terrible grinding noise, the head of the statue slowly turned back to its front position. She ordered, "Commander Kittredge, destroy the Dreadful Wale. No survivors. You may take Corvo's right hand. His sword hand. Nothing else."

"As you command, Your Excellency," he said with a deep bow, looking pleased.

The statue froze, lifeless, rendered inert once more. I stared at it in shock, my stomach turned to knots. The world froze, nobody moving, everyone staring, nobody willing to take that first step.

But the Jessamine was still moving, the waters breaking against the ship. We rounded the island and suddenly the Dreadful Wale appeared, dead in the water, sinking, the lower decks taking on water from the underwater torpedo that had grounded her.

I realized it was possible Rosemary was already dead, drowned in her makeshift brig in the engine room.

"Commander," the Jennywood man bravely spoke up in the strained silence, his hands at the controls of the starboard turrets. "Should I fire at the ship or the boy?"

The Commander looked momentarily lost. He blinked. "What?"

"The naked kid," he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "He's still runnin' along the beach. Or he was. He's drawing something in the sand, now. Look."

As heads turned to look, including the Commander's, I whispered, "Father…"

I didn't know what to do.

I felt faint. Sick. We were outnumbered. Outgunned. At least fifty men––angry men––were in evidence, not counting the crew most likely below deck.

"Stay close," Corvo simply replied in a low rumble. I saw the pistol waver. The elixir had helped, but he was still far too weak. Running on fumes.

"Let the imbecile draw in the sand," Commander Kittredge decided. "What do we care? Jennywood, fire one missile at the Dreadful Wale. One for Lieutenant York." The Commander turned to glare fearlessly at Corvo with his hollow eyes. "One by one, the Crown Killer will pay for the carnage he has wrought. Your hand, last of all. Enjoy it while you can, Lord Protector. That pistol will be the last thing your fingers feel."

I could cast my Doppelgänger, but that would still be only three against too many.

Corvo didn't even have his sword. It was lying somewhere in a pile of other swords, taken from the beach.

Hopeless.

Jennywood sent off another missile in a blinding strike. I flinched as it hit the Dreadful Wale at the stern of the ship, blasting a smoking hole through its rounded engine plate. I couldn't see anyone aboard. Meagan. Dougal. His wife, Eileen. The Princess, pregnant. No Rosemary, either. I didn't know if that was a good thing. Maybe they had abandoned the ship somehow.

But that was poor solace.

No survivors, Delilah had said. Even if they'd jumped ship beforehand, they couldn't have gone very far. We were out in the middle of nowhere.

"Very good, Specialist," the Commander praised, his hollow eyes moving over my father as he ticked the count. "Number two. For Specialist Hamm."

"Thank you, sir. Yes, sir," Jennywood said, loading another missile into the ejection tube.

I couldn't take it. Couldn't watch.

With a cry, I turned into my father, burying my face in his shoulder. Corvo wrapped an arm around me, pressing a hand to the back of my head, his other still holding the pistol, raised at our enemies. I could smell blood, the sharp scent of burnt copper, his gunshot wound a ghastly sight.

I backed away slightly, afraid of hurting him. I lifted my eyes to look over his shoulder at the waves. The endless Ocean.

It was then I noticed the dark shadow.

Spreading. Moving beneath the water. Coming closer at incredible speed. Alive. Wider than any whale. Wider than anything possible.

"Father!"

Corvo turned around just as the shadow broke, bursting from the Ocean. The sea beast looked like a thing from legend. A monster from the Deep! It was taller than the Clocktower of Dunwall as it rose from the waves and crashed over the Jessamine like the flagship was just a toy.

Long tentacles slapped against the deck with shattering force, crushing bodies and splintering wood. Men screamed for their mothers. I lost all sense of up and down as the deck shifted and Corvo and I began to slide across the wet wood.

The Jessamine lifted from the water, tumbling and tossing. Wind shrieked in my ears. I grabbed for my father's hand and held tight. In the chaos, I glimpsed strange patterns as the sea beast thrashed and mauled with massive tentacles, its skin dotted with patches of color and prickly scales. Blue and green and yellow, blurred by the spray of churning water. The tentacles were attached to a massive face in the middle––if you could call it that. Maybe it was just a mouth. A million tiny teeth around a gaping hole.

I saw that mouth descend over a screaming Commander. In the next heartbeat, he was gone.

Somehow, Corvo kept hold of me. I realized we were being pressed firmly together, a slimy tentacle wrapping around our bodies, tightening so hard I couldn't breathe.

We were lifted in the air, the blue sky reeling overhead. I saw the Jessamine far below, being dragged into the ocean by the monster, and then, suddenly, I saw black sand and obsidian cliffs chasing across the sky. I felt like I was flying. Falling.

The monster relaxed its grip and I could breathe again. Scream again. And scream I did as I felt its slimy tentacle slip away, back into the waves. I was on my hands and knees. Corvo was beside me, coughing up water. I stared at the shiny black granules of sand between my fingers, my heart hammering, my body shaking.

I looked up.

The ancient Pandyssian was floating naked above the ground in the middle of something he had drawn in the sand. Each elaborate marking was fiercely glowing, illuminating the sand in eerie blue light. I stared at his face, at his sea-changing eyes.

"Em," Corvo croaked, tugging my arm. "Look."

The sea beast roiled over the Jessamine, sinking back into the Ocean with its treasure clutched between its curling tentacles. The crewmen were all drowning, dying, dead. Gone. I looked at Corvo, and we shared a look that had no comparison. I'd never seen my father so utterly shocked.

Together we looked back at the Pandyssian.

He was descending in a gracious fall, his feet lightly touching the ground. The sea-changing mist disappeared from his eyes. He looked at me, eyes shimmering like emeralds, a smile trying to climb his face, but then he collapsed. He crumbled to the sand like the wind had blown away his strength.

I ran to him, falling to my knees, my passage destroying the strange symbols he had drawn in the sand. The light was gone, the magic ceased. I held his head in my lap and felt for a pulse, two fingers pressed against his neck.

"He's alive!" I cried. Khesh leera. Khesh leera! "Oh, gods!"

I was crying.

Corvo reached across the sand for his discarded coat and gently covered the Pandyssian's body. The effort cost him. He was grunting in pain, but I understood why he did it. Respect. Gratitude. We were alive because of him!

"Oh, gods, thank you," I cried, leaning down and kissing the Pandyssian's forehead. He felt cold. Was he dead? Please, don't let it be so…

Corvo had nothing left. He let out a long-winded sigh and spread out his legs, falling to his back. He looked up at the sky. There was something terrifying about that look.

"Father," I cried, torn apart. He was in pain and too tired to fight it. Blood seeped from his wound. I grabbed his hand and he squeezed it back, closing his eyes.

That simple squeeze meant everything to me.

He was holding on. In the distance, we heard the low wailing pitch of a horn sounding. The Dreadful Wale.

"Meagan! They're alive," I gasped, swelling in happiness and relief. It was all too much.

Too much to hope for.

Yet we were alive. Free.

Tears ran down my cheeks as I laughed and cried. I squeezed my father's hand again. "Don't you fucking die on me! You hear me? Stay with me, Father!"

His dark eyes lifted, squinting at the bright sky; fighting to stay conscious. I looked down. The Pandyssian's head was in my lap, his eyes closed. His eyelashes were inky black against his pale cheeks. He looked peaceful, like he was dreaming. I delicately touched his pale cheek with the back of my knuckles.

"I won't," Corvo said, cracking a weak smile as his eyes closed once more, tears welling in silvery curves along his lash line. "Jessamine would kill me."

End-of-chapter notes:

About the sea monster. I took this idea from two sources in Dishonored 2. One is during the Kirin Jindosh mission when you first explore his mansion. In that first room, there's a huge statue that looks like an octopus with horns. If you hover over it, it's called a "Deep Rift Watcher" and if a High-Chaos Emily clicks on it, she says, "If I had eight arms, I could choke eight men at a time." Also, if you explore the second balcony of the Royal Conservatory (Breanna Ashworth mission), there's a painting called 'Serkonan Legends, Old Sea Beast'. You can google it to view it! Overall, yeah, it's pretty convenient (plot-wise) that a huge monster sunk the Jessamine, but it ties in really nicely with the Pandyssian's Maormer magic (more on that in future chapters). Doctor Toksvig is also from Dishonored ("The Corroded Man" novel).