Breanna fusses over the effigy of Jindosh, heaps of harsh herbs and burnt human fingers and pins in her lap as she warms and shapes the wax, periodically glancing over at him to check a detail. "Don't worry, Kirin," she says, fixated on a line in the effigy's face. "It'll be over soon enough. The ritual itself is not unpleasant, and then the pain will be over, too. You'll be safe here forever."
He can only lie there, dying beside her.
She powders some dried bones in an obsidian mortar, cheerfully poring over a list of ingredients. "We're only missing dried kelp. Well, that's easy enough to obtain." She turns over his arm, checking for the right lines to apply the mixture. He pulls back from her, but she only smiles indulgently, stroking his hair in turn, as if to soothe him. "You always wanted to make an indelible mark on history," she says, "and now you will. Your machines will only break down, your locks will rust, your physical body will rot, but Delilah will usher in a new age. And none of this would be possible without you."
One of the witches comes into the bedroom. She eyes the two of them with a knowing smirk, before relaying her report. "You were correct: Stilton's gone for the night. An opera where the big oaf is sure to stick out. He never learns. Only a few guards at his house." She grins, clutching at her grisly necklace of fresh fingers. "Poor Stilton's going to come back to a bloodbath. The way is clear for you now. Our mistress is waiting!"
Breanna grins. "You've done well, Annabelle. Delilah will hear of your feats." She sets aside the accoutrements of her witchcraft and joins her coven in the living room. "Tonight, we will be aimless no longer. Delilah returns tonight. I can feel her there in the Void, and I will bring her back to us. We will retake the throne, and we will remake the Isles in our image."
It's all so familiar to Jindosh, somewhere in his twisting memories.
"You will all be rewarded richly for your actions tonight," she continues. "If anyone tries to stop us, spill their blood. They would show us no mercy, so show them none. No blood is more precious than that of Delilah." As she turns to leave with the rest of the witches, she stops Annabelle. "Stay with him," she commands. "If he dies before I can reach Delilah, all will be for naught."
"I want to see Delilah return," Annabelle complains.
"I'll tell her about your important role," Breanna replies sweetly, stroking her cheek. "You'll be honored beyond measure."
Annabelle exhales in frustration. "I guess."
"And so, your reward will be all the greater," Breanna replies, with a reassuring touch to Annabelle's shoulder, as the coven moves past her. "Watch him carefully. He's not doing so well. I need him alive."
When Breanna leaves, Annabelle's demeanor changes. "Can't believe I have to babysit some dying vegetable," she grumbles to herself. "Can't believe Breanna's did this to her lover. Maybe she wants to take Delilah's powers too. Light of my spirit, my heart is in your hands," she mocks, kicking up her heels. "Pfh. I've heard better in the cheap novels. She's cold like a black widow, that woman."
Up-close, Jindosh can tell that she's young, only just in her twenties.
"What am I doing here," she continues to herself. "Can't go back home, true, but helping some old backstabber out can't be all there is. Maybe after Delilah remakes the world, I'll set out on my own." She looks over the written notes. "Hmm. Got to give him the herbs again. Where did she put them?" She digs around for the herbs and upon locating them, grinds them into a fine powder that she adds to a glass of wine. "It's for the pain," she tells him, tilting the glass so he can drink. "You don't want to be in pain, do you?"
But this time, he turns away, afraid of the drugged sleep again. "I don't want to sleep anymore," he manages slowly.
"Fine, I'll just make you," she says flippantly, sitting beside him. "You're being difficult. Being the Grand Inventor really did go to your head, but if you had any sense, you'd never have gotten involved with a witch. She doesn't love you, you know. She only loves Delilah."
Through the feverish haze of pain, Jindosh can't remember what they were discussing. The image of Delilah flares and fades in his mind. "The lens aren't ready yet," he says distantly.
"What lens?" she asks. "Come on, I've got better things to do than listen to you babble. Drink it already."
She holds onto the back of his neck and forces his head upwards. He twists under her grasp, as she tries to open his mouth. "Come on, already!"
And in their struggle, the glass smashes onto the floor.
"Look what you did," she complains, prodding the shards with her boot. "Fine, you know what? I hope you die from the pain. I'm not making you a new one. Don't cry to me when it hurts, because I don't care. And you won't remember anything by the time Breanna comes back anyway."
She turns her back on him and begins to collect the wet shards, grumbling to herself about ingratitude and how she might mix up something special just for him, Breanna be damned.
Jindosh can clearly see the the effigy next to him now. Its shadow falls over him like a net. He doesn't want to be trapped in an effigy for the rest of time, kept as a link to the Void. Annabelle won't let him leave. None of them will. It's a miracle she didn't tie him to the bed to prevent his escape: perhaps it's only her petty resentfulness that saves him.
There are lines in her, he can see now. Lines that flow and curl. Circuitry, he thinks numbly. It's all circuitry. And if you want a circuit to stop, you have to disrupt the flow—
He wrenches one of the golden lines in her sharply to the right, breaking the flow. She screams in fear, blood pouring out of her mouth, and stumbles on her knees towards him, her arms outstretched. He backs away and pulls at another line. She falls in a heap of blood and cries.
The death-throes follow soon after.
He collapses near her body, shaking from the adrenaline. He has to leave this place. He can't remember why or how the witch is dead—something about circuitry—but he only wants to be gone from here. He crawls along the floor, the pain hot and burning now, but made bearable from the adrenaline. The walls waver and twist before him. Breanna's apartment is a labyrinth with no thread to follow. She'll be back soon. As he makes his way slowly on the floor, the pain ripping through him, he doesn't understand why she would do this to him or what she wants from him, or even why he's in pain.
A sword pierces his abdomen in a sharp, swift motion, cutting upwards and then wrenching itself free. He gasps in shock and clutches at his unbroken shirt, writhing on the wooden floor. A blade goes sideways through his throat. It's a swift execution. He presses his hands to his throat in a vain attempt to save himself. Even as he can feel the blood flowing out, there is only intact skin under his fingers. And then, in its place is a strange emptiness now: something under his skin is extinguished.
His breathing is shaky, as he surveys his surroundings. Only the dead witch, still bleeding out, a frightened expression on her distorted face.
Using the wall as a support, he staggers to his feet, the memory fading fast into all the others. "I'm so afraid," he says to no one. "What happened? Something... something is gone again."
The room pitches again. He collapses. He tries again. He retches from the exertion. He is going to die here, he realizes. There is no way out. Even if he could escape Breanna's apartment before she came back, who knows what's out there? The Overseers and maybe worse.
He crumples onto the floor again. When he opens his eyes again, there are two pairs of boots in front of him. Voices drift past him. He closes his eyes from exhaustion and nausea, as someone roughly turns him over. He's a rag doll, helpless and limp in worn hands that are used to efficient killing.
"So that's what the witches had planned," an assured male voice says. "I wonder what setup they used to get the Outsider's attention."
"You don't want his attention," the second, older male voice responds. "The Outsider plays games with the lives of those he marks and thinks nothing of it." He kneels next to Jindosh. "I hope this was entertaining enough to him," he says, turning over Jindosh's hand to reveal the mark. "That explains how the witches got their powers back. The Royal Curator really wasted no time looking for Delilah, did she?" He lets Jindosh's hand drop. "He probably felt her die."
"He spent his life using other people to experiment on, only to end up being an experiment himself. I suppose that's justice."
"He doesn't have much longer to live," the older man says, as he rises to his feet. "I suppose this is how it ends for him."
"We should just put him out of his misery. If the rumors are true, he won't understand anything anyway."
The older man says nothing, but unsheathes his sword.
"Goodbye, Grand Inventor," the other man says.
The point of the sword is cold against his neck. Jindosh understands in some part of his fractured brain that there is no point in struggling. And part of him also understands instinctually that this is the end, that the sword will tear open his neck and he will bleed out here, on the floor of Breanna's apartment, in more pain, pinned like one of his beetles. He has foreseen his own death. He wants to see the light fading in his own eyes, that terrible process that has always fascinated and eluded him, reflected in those of this stranger, his liberator and his murderer. He doesn't really want to die here, but this is where the current has led.
Yes, to witness the fading light in his own eyes is his final wish—to glimpse the final mystery through the eyes of another. An imperfect looking-glass. This is perhaps his last thought, a relic from his past struggling to the surface, intent on completing a circle, answering a question that he is no longer consciously able to.
Reflected in that stranger's hard grey eyes, he glimpses himself for the first time in weeks, unshaven and helpless and unraveled. The fine fibers of his nightshirt are damp and sticky with blood, and he convulses in fear and pain, undone and on the knife-edge of life and death. Nearby, the masked younger man is surveying him with a practiced disinterest—mercy-killings are a dime a dozen in Karnaca—but Jindosh doesn't notice him.
The older man gazes back at him, his hands steady on the sword's handle, unwavering and implacable. Better to plead with the mountains or the sea. Those hands have doled out death with ease. There's fresh blood on the blade.
Breanna, Jindosh thinks distantly, through from where this thought comes from, he can't say. It's less of a thought than a recognition, the last remnants of the Void bond. He is almost sorry she's dead: another coordinate erased.
Jindosh can't remember now why he's looking at the man. His memories are fading fast now. They seem to anticipate his death, pooling out of his head and evaporating somewhere far away. He closes his eyes and hopes his death will be swift. He doesn't have the strength to fight back anymore, he's too weak to see the lines now, but he is still frightened despite all of this, and he clutches at himself, a feeble attempt at reassurance.
The older man clenches the handle tightly. The scales have finally tipped. And then with an pained exhale, he pulls the sword back, the fight leaving him.
"Void help me," the older man says, "the Outsider plays games with us all." A pause. "We'll take him with us."
"Daud?" The younger man turns sharply to look at him, but Daud only shakes his head.
"You don't deserve this," Daud says roughly to Jindosh, sheathing his sword, "but neither did I. And if the Outsider sees fit to keep you alive until we can treat you, he can have the show he so badly wants."
Thomas watches Daud with a pained reserve, before kneeling beside Jindosh. Thomas lifts him with a careful strength typically reserved for corpses, and carries him close as they begin to head back to one of Daud's many hideaways in Karnaca. It's a strangely intimate position to be in. The scent of the soap Thomas shaved with settles around Jindosh, even through his mask, and the world slowly darkens as Jindosh goes limp.
Jindosh awakens in the Void, or perhaps he's always been there in the Void. It's hard to tell. The mangled whales float through the airless sky, singing their pain to him, their oil fluorescent and staining their grey skins.
The Outsider smiles at him, another cruel, harsh smile. "My supplicants tell me endlessly about justice. They beg me to make things right in their lives: strike down a rival, bestow riches, bring back a loved one.
"Corvo Attano, the man who turned your mind into a kaleidoscope, sits in the Tower of Dunwall, feared and adored and beloved. Those closest to him know what he's done. He himself was wronged by another of my Marked—the assassin Daud, who slew the only woman he ever loved. There is a hole in Corvo's life, even now, years later, and it's made him indolent towards Emily when he shouldn't have been."
The Outsider pauses. "How far back would you have to go to make things right? It didn't start with Corvo, did it? That was only the culmination. Would it be your mother, the woman who knew what she'd failed to do only when you were expelled from the Academy? Your brother?" The Outsider leans in. "Your father, who left a fragile woman to raise the child he abandoned?" He pulls back, surveying the starless void. "I've seen it all play out.
"Remember the tabby you found dead in the street and took home to dissect? You thought it was a stray and wanted to know what made it tick, but it was really a house pet that had escaped. She was the dearest friend of a little boy; he'd raised her from a kitten. He hoped everyday that his cat would come back, and every morning before class, he'd walk the streets, just on the off-chance he'd see her again. He kept that up for a year.
"What if the cat hadn't escaped that day? Would you be any different? You knew from your mother's horror over the cat that you were special, and that she was only ordinary and would never understand the wonders in your head. What if your mother had guided your intellect properly, instead of leaving you to a child only a few years old than you were, a child who knew already at a young age he would never suffice and quietly resented you for it? Who was too young to know that children need more than food, water, shelter, and an occasionally sympathetic ear? What if your father hadn't abandoned you? Would you still have had that drive to be special? Would you have been a better person? We'll never know now, will we?
"Violence and mercy alike bind people together—threads that bind and suffocate. Corvo spared Daud's life sixteen years ago, against all reason: Daud is now forever in Corvo's debt, you are now in Daud's. The man who destroyed you is also your savior. What will you make of that, I wonder? Do you think that's justice?"
The Outsider reappears closer to Jindosh now. "But let me help you out here, Grand Inventor." The Outsider leans in again, as if to whisper a secret. "No one ever gets what they deserve."