Corvo wakes some twenty hours later, after two spells of half-there delirium and at least one stumble out of bed that ends with him on the floor, and one very uneasy Whaler tentatively hauling him back to the cot. It would be comical to watch my men tiptoe around him, were it not for the fact that he might soon kill us all.

The third time Cleon goes to fetch me, there is a terrified urgency in him that leaves no room for doubt, even before he's said a word. This time, Corvo is awake, and lucid.

I waste no time joining the other two Whalers who are hovering just outside of Corvo's room, peeking in. The man is upright, his hand on the open box full of his equipment that I left near him. His expression, insofar as he has one at all, can only be described as bewildered. He hardly looks healthy, but his footing is steady.

I walk into the room, making no effort to mask my footsteps. My boots thud across the dank, moldy floor, and Corvo turns, sword in hand. His face turns to stone.

Before he can make a move, I raise my hand. "Leave us," I say.

Reluctantly, the Whalers behind me retreat. Corvo and I are left alone.

Corvo stares at me. There's something chilling in his eyes. Empty. Even as a child, I'd never met a man or woman I couldn't look in the eye, but his almost make me falter. There is a sense that he is looking through me, as if judging my soul, and my fate. I wonder if the Outsider did this to him, or if it was me - whether it was his Mark, or my blade. I don't know which I'd find easier to live with.

He looks ready to pounce me right then and there. I keep my hand near my hilt, just in case.

"Daud," he grinds out.

I shrug carefully. "In the flesh."

Corvo slowly gestures around him without taking his eyes off me. I'm starting to wish he'd put on his mask. "What is this?" he asks, his voice smooth as a set of rusty hinges. I catch myself wondering how many words he's even spoken over the past six months. How many times he has been spoken at, rather than with.

"I wanted to talk, before we come to blows."

The set of his shoulders grows tense, like a crossbow string.

"You wish to talk?" he almost spits. The incredulity in his voice hangs in the air like smog. It's a few moments before he finds words again.

"You killed her." The tip of his sword twitches in my direction, but it's still sheathed - or rather, folded. I resist the urge to draw mine.

"I did. And not a day goes by that I don't wish I'd taken a different path. For Dunwall, if not for her."

Corvo stares at me with those terrible empty eyes. "Convenient."

"I know it must sound hollow to you. It does to me. That doesn't make it any less true."

"And you think that's enough?"

"No. I don't imagine anything could be enough. I still want you to know it." I speak the words slowly as I step closer, holding out my hands.

"Why? Because you hope to escape your fate?" He stares me down.

"Because I want to have a hand in shaping it." I stare back.

"Coward," he spits, voice like gravel.

"I could have cut your throat a dozen times while you slept. Could have had my men turn over your boat and drown you, or set it on fire from afar as soon as they laid eyes on you, just to be safe. I did none of that. Call me what you will, Corvo, I deserve all of it. But not 'coward'."

"Why?"

"Why leave you alive? Why let you recover, why talk to you? Because..." I falter; it takes me a moment to find the words, or even believe what I'm saying. "...Because even if it's too late for me to change my path, it's not too late for the city. Our choices matter, and I can still make some of this right. Help build something, instead of tearing it all down."

He watches me in disbelief. I don't blame him. We circle each other slowly across the room. Far off, there is a blare from a whaling ship. There is a world out there, and it is still waiting. For something better.

"I'm not a fool, Corvo. I don't believe in redemption, or making amends. There is no undoing what has been done, but maybe my legacy doesn't have to be one only of destruction."

He watches me, unimpressed, unaffected. "I... " I trail off. It takes an effort of will to force myself to plead. Not for myself - not just yet. "Corvo, I want to see hope for this city again. I truly do. It's up to you if you believe me or not."

I don't know when I started wanting that. Maybe it was one too many overheard curses that none of this would have gotten so bad if "that fool Corvo" hadn't killed the Empress. Maybe it was when Lurk had slit the throat of a lone city watchman in the canals the day we'd come for Barrister Timsh. What's one more dead body? she had said. Those words sank like fish hooks into my skin at the time. I thought to myself, when did we become this? And then I realised this was what I had made her into. What I had made all of them into, and a decent chunk of Dunwall, to boot, like I was trying to drag everyone down into the same pit of tar I have been sinking into. If I had gotten my shit together sooner, would Lurk have still fallen in with the likes of Delilah? I feel her absence more keenly each day. Even now, there's a part of me that has to catch myself every time I call for Thomas, and not Lurk.

What made me change? Maybe it was seeing death, over and over and over again, and then looking at my bloodied knife and thinking, well, this probably doesn't help, does it?

I could tell him about Emily, but I won't. Doing so seems... dirty. Like it would sully whatever accidental nobility there was in my grapple with Delilah, turn that girl into some bargaining chip, like so many others have done. No. I will keep that to myself, to warm some part of me when the Void takes me. I don't expect that I'll have to wait long.

Corvo stares at me, through me, his face empty and his lips as unmoving as marble. A few moments pass and the air is thick enough to cut with a knife. It's almost as if he's listening to music only he can hear, and his hand twitches, fingers squeezing, grasping at empty air, as if closing around an imaginary throat.

He looks at me for a long time. "What are you proposing?" His voice is quiet, but I cannot read his face any better than if he were wearing that mask.

"We both know the men who've just come to power have already started making sacrifices to their own ambition. They started with you, but do you really think they'll stop there? They're not what this city needs. Outsider's eyes, I don't know what it needs, but it's not them. I can help you bring them down, and get you back where you belong - at the new Empress's side, keeping her safe, in a city with no more infighting. And I think there's still too much of the Royal Protector in you for you not to take me up on that. For once, you don't have to do this alone."

Corvo grits his teeth. "And then?"

"And then we settle our score," I answer without hesitation. Men like me don't get to walk away. There's no retirement waiting for me in Karnaca, no peace to be found in a sunny vinyeard. I knew this.

This pacifies him as nothing else has, and the storm in his eyes settles somewhat. Corvo makes that odd, disturbing squeezing motion with his hand, and I can't help but glance at it, but as before, it's empty.

A beat passes before he nods. "And then we settle our score."