If it hadn't been for the chains, he would have killed himself the first night.

The music never ended. Outside his cell, two Holger devices cranked without hands, courtesy of new toggling technology from Sokolov—who, in whatever dank hole in Tyvia the former Royal Physician now cowered in—never seemed to tire of inventing new ways of inflicting misery. This particular novelty enabled his torturers could go about their business while he suffered—chained to the wall by his wrists and neck—an unending cycle of weakness, tremors, and a pulsing ache that had made itself at home behind his right eye.

Reprieve came three times a day—three random, precious intervals where his wounds would heal a little more and his mind would clear and the magic would always come slinking back like a kicked hound, growling and weary and resentful of its mistreatment. These reprieves were his meals, lavish by prison standards and indulgent by common folk: fresh baked bread, spicy pilaf and fish—sometimes a pastry or fruit if whoever prepared these decadent marvels felt so inclined. Fine food, Hawk had said when attempting to feed him through a music box serenade, deserves to be in the stomach, not on the floor.

So after that unfortunate incident, he ate in blissful silence, and with the lethargy of an elderly man, drawing out the moments bite by deliberate bite. And Hawk would pace outside his cell as if strolling along a scenic path instead through one of the murky halls of the Palace dungeon, his lips caught in a strange half-smile, and his gaze fixed on the past. Every so often, those eyes would settle on him and look through him, seeing some other creature in chains—this great Pandyssian cat who had killed half of Hawk's hunting party when it had escaped. Hawk would relay this tale many times, and with the awe of a child, how magnificent it was in its wrath, how graceful its savagery as it tore his men apart. If Hawk could capture it again, he would bring it back to The Isles—even if it meant feeding it every one of his men to keep it alive.

But it was gone forever, Hawk had said during one impassioned retelling, grasping the bars and peering through with all the intensity of his namesake. And its ghost still haunted him. It stalked him in his dreams, its eyes, brilliant and yellow and ravenous. The shade of it followed him everywhere in the waking world. But often he would catch a glimmer of it in the eyes of his foes—heretics and witches, the infamous Marked. A feral intelligence, a force of nature that challenged Hawk to tame it, to break it—"And yes, little crow," he had whispered. "Anything can be broken. No matter how defiant. No matter how resilient. But breaking doesn't mean slavery or defeat. It means surrendering to a higher cause. A higher purpose — a righteous purpose.

And this righteous purpose would present itself when the last crumb disappeared from his plate, when the water jug emptied and his chamber pot filled, and when he resumed his seated position on the floor and the lever came down, his chains raising and the wall met his sweating back with a jarring thud—the same offer would come. "Help us, Corvo," Hawk would say with that quiet, fervent passion of his that lulled more each time. "Who better to hunt the hunter of men, than one like himself? Help us find Daud. Avenge your Duke. Avenge the suffering the Outsider has brought upon you, and Serkonos. Help us destroy them both."

Each time, his refusals grew weaker and slower, and the delight in Hawk's eyes flared brighter. And the music would play again, ceaseless, excruciating, and that barbed nest behind his right eye would throb, burrowing deeper into the meat of his skull.

And there were no lulls in this shrieking crescendo, no moment when he could stop digging his heels in the dirt floor or unclench his jaw or open his eyes — because the blue haze of the music would creep inside him and rot whatever it touched. His eyes would turn to jelly in their sockets, his tongue turning to ash in his mouth, and those ashes burning their way down his throat to his organs, dissolving them one by one by one, until there was nothing left but nothing, and Outsider help him...please help him—because those barbs behind his right eye were now slithering into his left and tunneling into his ears, thorns piercing and burning and burning...please—please, if he could just get off one cuff. Just one. He could rip the thorns out before they did any more damage. Rip them out. Rip them out before—No, too late...too deep. Burrowing, chewing, eating him alive piece by piece. Please, just turn it off. Turn it off!

And the music stopped.

He groaned like a beaten animal and slumped forward with a sob, muscles twitching, his sanity coming back in layers of awareness. The cool dirt against the smalls of his feet. The balmy air wafting through the tiny slot of a window high behind him, the pungent floral scent of the Palace gardens nudging his head up and his eyes cracking open. The blue haze was gone and so, thankfully, the need to plunge his thumbs into his eye sockets. No more barbed nest tunneling into his skull. No more prayers to an uncaring deity. The green tinge of the moon, typical for the Month of Earth, cast a watery pall over the walls and floor, making his cell glow like the holds of a sunken ship. Unlit and unseen hanging lamps swayed, metal frames creaking. Then a shadow moved at his cell door, slim and small. Not Hawk.

This shadow reached a slender arm toward a section of wall he couldn't see, and a whale oil lamp burst into hazy, golden life.

"Arella," he said, losing half her name in the dry tunnel of his throat.

Gone was the prim uniform of the High Oracle. She wore a shift of sea silk, a gauzy material the color of cream and with a lace neckline cut low, the hem stopping at mid-thigh and revealing the legs of a dancer, strong and toned and so white they appeared luminescent. She carried a wide-mouthed ceramic jug etched with blue canna lilies and a matching towel thrown over her shoulder. Her hair seemed to celebrate its freedom from the wimple as it cascaded to her waist in a torrential waterfall of dark auburn curls.

She waited outside his cell with the intent, it seemed, to give him time to collect himself. And he needed it. The music had been worse this time around, his resistance no longer as effective as before. Yes, when it played, he always wanted to die, but never had he wanted to pluck his own eyes out, or scoop his brains out of his skull. He couldn't even pass out from exhaustion - as tended to happen during the lengthier stretches. It was wearing him down, and with a sudden alarming speed that portended his eventual madness. How many sessions could he endure before he stopped recovering? How many sessions before his magic left him altogether? The Mark on his hand stayed dark. Dead. Not even a thread of power in his veins.

It will come back, it always does. Don't worry. Don't give in. It'll come. Be patient, it'll come.

While he was encouraging himself, Arella moved toward a Holger device and raised her arm as if to turn it on. The mantra in his head shut up and he tensed, not breathing, not blinking, a fearful shout of NO! rising like bile in his mouth. But he didn't say it. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction.

She cocked her head, one red tendril of hair falling over her nose. "Does pride keep you from begging, or does fear?"

"You're the Oracle...you tell me." He all but hissed the words, glaring at her attire, at the way her shift became transparent when the light hit it just right. Why would Hawk allow her to run around like that? Why was she alone and without escort?

"It is neither." She entered his cell and approached him without trepidation, red curls catching on the towel and then freeing themselves in impatient pendulum swings. "What keeps you silent is guilt, and shame, and hate — and not hate for us, but for yourself." She set the jug on the bench where he took his meals, and stood over him, staring down as if he was some new, fascinating thing she had discovered. "We are brother and sister in pain, Corvo, forged in violence and sorrow. It is all we know in this life, and so we seek suffering again and again, bearing it without complaint, like the rock that suffers the tide."

"Why are you here?" His voice not quite a whisper, and not quite steady. It was like she stripped him to his soul in the matter of seconds, a feat Hawk had yet to accomplish, and the High Overseer had been trying all week.

"Tarquin has seen to your stomach, but neglects your smell. This will remedy that."

And what else did she intend to remedy? "How...kind," he said and cleared his throat. She smelled of the ocean, of the brine in the air, and the waves cresting under the scorching heat of the summer sun. One could lose themselves in that scent. In all that hair tumbling over her back. And what would she smell like in other places? He had seen no outline of an undergarment. Nothing but smooth silk and teasing flesh beneath. He shifted his legs, hiding the interest building there. "If you leave the jug and lengthen the chains, I'll see to it myself."

"No, this task is mine." Her eyes caught the light and brought the images behind the glass again. That horror without form. Something lurked in this High Oracle, something that rivaled the darkness of the Outsider. The Overseers accepted the Oracles' powers of foresight as divine. But most of their reverent sisters needed a helping hand of narcotics to "see" the future. True clairvoyance…that was rare. And suspect. Arella's abilities didn't originate from some sacred constellation or benevolent star cloud. That darkness behind her eyes was the Void saying hello. And wherever the Void appeared, the Outsider wasn't far behind. But was she his? Or was she bound to something else?

She bent over and dipped the washrag, the valley of her breasts dark and inviting through the gap of her scalloped collar, the red curtain of her hair flowing over one white shoulder. Void or no Void, she made a tempting distraction. He licked his lips and said, "I doubt very much Hawk sent you here."

"He did not."

"I don't understand, sister...High Oracle—"

"Arella, as you called me before."

"Arella...you might want to have one of your sisters do this task. Where are they?"

"Outside the dungeon. It was our compromise." She wrung the washrag over the jug, giving it a firm shake, then started with his feet. He closed his eyes under her gentle touch, fighting to keep his breathing steady. Her voice washed over him in the same manner, lulling and low. "My visions are sacred and accepted as truth, but they don't trust your role in the days to come. It is unthinkable to them, a witch who will bring death to the one who gave him power. They don't want me to even see you. They believe you're tainted by the Void, and they are right. As they are right to fear you."

"I'm chained to the wall with a leg and backside one of them mangled," he said and shifted again when she rolled his pants to his knees. "Even if the chains dropped off and my magic returned full power, they have their maces and that damn noise. What's there to be afraid of?"

The hall outside his cell stayed empty, but for how long? If Arella's sister had any sense, they wouldn't be guarding the door—they would be bringing Hawk with all speed. And when Hawk took a gander at his precious High Oracle give their pet witch a sponge bath—well, it wasn't hard to guess what the punishment would be.

She patted his legs dry, the soles of his feet, and between his toes, taking care not to miss a single drop of moisture. "They fear anything they cannot predict," she said. "My sisters lie to themselves. They think they see the future, but they see dreams and smoke. If they had a fraction of my sight, one moment in my place—if they saw what I see every time I close my eyes or look into the eyes of another, they would go mad."

"Like that Horncroft woman?"

"Yes, dear Gwen. So many futures piled high in her mind, like tea cups on a plate. So many to balance, and eventually they fell...and they shattered."

"But somehow, this hasn't happened to you."

She smiled and wrung the washrag again, water cascading over his forearm—and splashing onto the bodice of her shift. "You and I, we're already broken. Already insane. It's why they chain us to walls or put masks on our faces. We terrify them."

"You're not in chains, High Oracle." The words left his mouth without thought, and his mind shrank from his lack of tact. Her soft rebuke brought heat to his face.

"All because you can't see my chains, doesn't mean I don't wear them...and please, it's Arella. My name is not my station."

"I apologize...Arella. And, you're right. I suppose we're monsters in our own way. But monsters are killed by those who fear them. So why are we still here?"

"Because killing us would be kind, and the Void is not kind."

"Cruelty belongs to the world, not the Void. The Void doesn't betray or lie."

"Yet you blame the one who walks there all the same." She studied the Mark with the tip of her finger, the washrag like a glove. Her palm pressed to his, steadying his hand in the chain cuffs as the other explored. Slow, gentle circles and dripping water. The lower part of him began to stir again, his breath catching, then quickening. She mesmerized him with the motions, the care she took in tracing the veins in his hands, in his wrists. Her breasts rose and fell, the sodden material leaving nothing to his imagination.

He jerked his eyes away, blood rushing in his ears and other places. Maybe Hawk did send her. Maybe this was some ploy to win him over—a torture of a different sort and one beguiling enough to succeed. But she would not undo him so easily. He was not some besotted Overseer or servant boy enthralled by her power or beauty. Arella had made him her enemy the moment she took what mattered to him most.

"I know this game," he said. "But why not send one of your underlings to seduce me? If not your sisters, then a servant girl." He didn't look at her as she washed under his collar and around his ears, her breasts pressing into his ribs.

"And the next morning we'd be burning a corpse. Even the lowest of us despise you. And if you could be swayed by such a simple thing as lust, I would have had you the moment Tarquin turned his back, but you are not a beast, Corvo. And I am not your adversary." She swept aside the wet tangles of his hair, an intimate touch that brought another face into his thoughts. Dark waves replaced red curls, and blue eyes replaced gray. An unpleasant tug of guilt then, and the same damn regret. If he had been faster that day, more vigilant. She'd still be alive, and he wouldn't be chained to the wall with this strange creature on top of him.

"You want to be friends, Arella? Then bring me Jessamine. She doesn't belong to you."

"Oh, but she never was yours, not even when she was alive."

He flinched under her hand, chains clanking. "You know nothing about—"

"How you loved her?" Arella said, her eyes pulling him in, drowning him. All the hairs on his body stiffened along with the rest of him as the washrag began a slow decent from his neck down to his bare torso, past his navel, where she abandoned it to slide her hand under the waistline of his thin cotton pants. She then cupped that part of him that had been neglected for too long—that part of him that hardened even more at her touch, defenseless against it. "The first time you made love to her," she said into his ear, "you both hid behind masks. But you knew her scent, her body, her name on your lips and forever seared in your heart. A secret you kept even when the child was born—but you knew that everyone knew—and that emboldened you. You stole moments in the hallway, in her chambers, in the gardens—but she was careful after Emily. So careful not to let it go too far."

"You...you, can't know that. Did she tell you—the Heart?" He defied the angry twinge in his injuries, arching into that hot, dainty hand, and when she rolled her wrist—he was lost, her touch and her words igniting that long forgotten memory.

"Not the Heart, not Jessamine. But you…you are showing me, Corvo." She pressed against him, moving with his thrusts, her shift riding up, exposing her bare thighs and ass. An electric current seemed to hum over his skin, whispering through the raised hairs on his neck and chest. "I see everything. I see the past in all its glory. I see that night of the Fugue Feast, you and her entwined on her bed, on red sheets dampened with your sweat, your bodies glistening, moving with such grace and passion and abandonment. I'm between you now, and I feel your hearts beating so furiously, so frantically. Her cries in my ear, and your moans against my mouth. She and I milk every drop of seed from you, Corvo Attano, and leave you spent and dazed and aching for more. Yes...yes, like that," she breathed against his cheek. "Just like that."

He came with a convulsive cry, the Mark flaring white, his hips snapping up, his toes curling and heels digging into the cool dirt. The pleasure was a foreign thing after so much torment, and his body trembled, uncertain how to stop. But he did quiet under her unblinking stare, the electric current fading, the spasms receding and the heat leaving, and the emptiness taking its place, leaving him cold and aware of her hand still on him, cleaning him now with the washrag, stroking him with it as if to say hush, I know, I know...

And he hated her then. How she saw right through him, his hungers and his needs and his weaknesses. How she saw memories that belonged only to him and Jessamine—and even these thoughts running through his mind now, she knew somehow. Her smile told him so.

But still, he wanted her. If only for the heat between her legs and her body against his. That primal need she seemed to understand—and damn her, encourage. Milk every drop, oh yes, he would hold her to that. And much more.

But the music drove them apart.

His arousal and what little magic had come creeping back evaporated in a burst of chaotic sound. He winced, drew his knees to his chest and drove his head into the crook of his arm as if that taut, sweaty flesh could somehow lessen the onslaught bearing down on him. The jug toppled over and gray foamy water sloshed out, soaking his pants and making mud. Arella snarled a word the music snatched from the air, and departed in a rush of motion. His cell door slammed shut with a muted clang. More words exchanged in varying intensities, the throaty displeasure of Hawk unmistakable over the discordant choir.

Then, blessed relief as the music ceased.

He hissed a sigh and unfurled his body, noting the still-warm washrag plastered to his stomach. He grimaced and twisted until the evidence of his weakness flopped on the floor. Hawk and Arella traded verbal blows in front of his cell, their conversation coming to him in snatches between the ringing in his ears. His punishment depended on who won, and while Arella had pissed him off, she was his only chance at making Hawk compromise with these damn music boxes. He didn't want them turned off, but he didn't want them on either. He had another solution, one he had been waiting for the right time to suggest.

He scooted away from the mud as much as he could, and settled back into his usual sitting position—not that there was much room to deviate. The High Oracle and High Overseer continued to argue, their subject of disagreement…unexpected. Hawk had caught him with his pants down, literally, and witnessed the High Oracle doing things that would have sent their entire Order into a fit of rage. Yet, Hawk was complaining about…being disturbed?

"They were wailing at my door, rousing the entire Palace—my Warfares, the new Grand Guard recruits, even the blasted servants! Thank the Cosmos the Duchess was exhausted from the funeral, or she would have been squawking along with the rest of them." Barefoot, and in his nightly attire: a dark blue muslin tunic laced over his lean chest, and loose-fitting pants, Hawk had lost some of what made him imposing, but made up for it with the stony set of his jaw, and a glower so icy it could have frosted over his spectacles.

"You should have sent them on errand, made them patrol the gardens, or posted them outside the Duchess's chambers," Arella said, her chin raised and her body a rigid wire. Water dripped down the back of her thighs from a wet splotch high on her ass, a gift from the toppled water jug. "They would've followed your orders without question."

"For all your foresight, my dear, you don't seem to realize how difficult your sisters are making this transition. They barely obeyed when I ordered them to stay put. You don't seem to realize how close they were to charging down here with a riled-up squad of Warfares and Grand Guard at their backs. Your impatience could have cost us everything!"

"I didn't foresee interruption." Sullen, like a scolded child. "The stars told me—"

"That I would come? That we would be having this conversation? Because you seem surprised, my dear."

Point for Hawk, and another point for standing against a woman who could probably predict the exact moment and method of his demise. How would have Fairchild fared against a creature like this? Or Martin, or Campbell for that matter? They would have shrank away, no doubt, at the sight of the High Oracle balling her fists, power almost crackling around her. There was no evidence of this force, no starlight aura like the Outsider radiated. But even though he sat chained several feet from her, the hairs on his body rose again as they had when she had been cooing about Jessamine in his ear, but this was stronger. This was the warning hum of a Wall of Light not attuned to his flesh, when one step through in the wrong direction would disintegrate everything he was in an instant. The scent of ozone and ocean, then. A storm in full wrath and roiling waves beneath its gale.

The scent of the Void.

Closer to the danger, Hawk drew up to full height, but instead of retreating, he stepped toward that electricity buzzing around the High Oracle—drawn to it, it seemed, as he had been to that Pandyssian cat. It was Arella who took a step back, who curled her lip as if revolted by the sight of him or whatever she saw in his future.

"Your intrusion doesn't matter, nor am I afraid of their judgment." Arella's voice was a dull blade, but it drew blood all the same. "I wasn't finished. And I'm still not finished. If your men take so much as a step down those stairs without my consent, I will have them shot."

"I've already ordered them to avoid this area."

"Your orders are not enough. Their hate is stronger than their sense and they will try again. Tell them, Tarquin, you tell them what will happen if they disobey me."

"And your sisters? What of them?" Hawk said, his breath coming in soft, labored pants. In the lamplight, sweat glistened on the High Overseer's brow.

"I will discipline them. And then again. And then once more. After that…and after that, I think…I —" Arella's hand fluttered to her forehead and her gaze went someplace else, giving Hawk a moment to glance at the cell for the first time since he'd entered the dungeon. The look was indiscernible, falling somewhere between accusation and resignation. It was the look of someone who knew this was going to happen, who had tried to delay it as long as he could, but knew it would be impossible. All those stories told about Pandyssia, pacing back and forth, stealing glances toward the stairs leading up to the Palace cellars—then the strange absence of guards posted. No one checking in. He assumed they assumed the music would be enough to keep him docile, but no, Hawk was making sure if the High Oracle decided to visit, no one would witness her indulging in a guilty pleasure.

Until he played nice and agreed to this bizarre plan of killing the Outsider, he was still the villain, still the one the brothers and sisters wanted to burn or stick his head on a spike. And if they had caught her with her hand down his pants, they would have cried blackmagic! and hauled him upstairs to do one of the two—and not even Hawk's authority or Arella's visions would have stopped that mob. It gave him a new understanding of the situation, but made it even more confusing. Somehow, his captors had also become his protectors.

When Arella came back from wherever Oracles go when divining the future, swaying and holding her forehead as if afraid something would spill out, most of her anger had deflated, and the buzzing energy had reduced itself to a low-level hum. Safe to approach, and Hawk reached her in two quick steps, gathering her in his arms, muffling the beginnings of a broken sob against his chest. Whatever Arella had seen, it had reduced her from a powerful Oracle to a distraught female who sniffled and said "they are dying" into Hawk's chest over and over again. Hawk stroked her hair and shot him a look over the crimson top of Arella's head, lips pressed and turned down, jaw working as if ready to say:"See how this girl suffers? See what this power does to her?

But he already knew. Whether you see the world through eyes that can gaze into the future, or watch a heart beat through walls, or study an enemy frozen in time before you plunge a blade into his neck, there was always a downside to power, the sense of wrongness when you wielded it, the allure of using it to solve all your problems. But he knew something else. No matter how hard Arella cried, or how much he regretted, they wouldn't surrender their power. It was theirs. A gift or curse, it was theirs, and without it, they would be without that advantage. They would be vulnerable. And in this world, the weak and defenseless are used and tossed aside. Those with power survived. Those with power ruled.

She lifted her head, then, wiping her eyes. That electric field hummed higher and Hawk moved an arms-length away. But she reached out and took a hold of his wrist, bringing him back into her embrace. Her arms wound around the High Overseer's neck and she brought her lips to his in a chaste kiss. Then she said, stroking Hawk's face as he had her hair, "Your way isn't working."

By the High Overseer's tired sigh and lack of anger, this seemed to be an old argument. "Patience my dear. You may see the destination, but you forget the journey. Our little crow will see reason soon. Give him some time."

"We have none."

"We have plenty. Everything is as it should be. The Duchess is ours. Karnaca is ours. Daud will be found soon and—"

"But what about the doors? The bleeding doors with teeth? And the Great Ones, their bones like mountains on the shores, death spilling from their blackened throats?" Arella stood on her tiptoes, pale calves knotted and straining. She had Hawk now by the strings of his tunic, the fabric bunching with every desperate tug, and Hawk staring down at her with a dim sort of amazement, as if her electrified aura had zapped him senseless. "We need to stop it before it begins. We need to make him understand! He can't run from this. He can't sail away or pretend it doesn't exist." She released Hawk who stumbled back, dazed, and she turned to the cell door. An unreasonable bolt of terror lanced through him at the sight of her glassy eyes. Something there, something dark. He tried backing up as she neared, forgetting the wall behind him. The lantern's glow cast her face in shadow and flame.

"No more hiding behind masks," she said. "Face what you are, and what you must do."

That hate came back, and he latched onto it, using it to shake off whatever magic she used against him. He stopped trying to disappear into the wall and leaned forward as far as the chains would allow. "I will face my own demons in my own time, and a little girl in a wet nightdress isn't going to tell me when. Fate isn't decided by the Cosmos or some black-eyed entity in the Void. It's decided by choices and actions—and consequences to those choices and actions. Like stealing something precious, something that once I escape, I'm going to tear through every Overseer and Oracle to reclaim." He relaxed with a smile that used to make the nobles in Jessamine's court quail in fear. "So both of you bear that in mind while you groom and fatten me up. I'll find a way out of this cage. And then I'll find my way to you. And if the Heart isn't exactly as I left her, no whispering star is going to save you, High Oracle. There'll be nothing left of you but a pretty smear on the wall."

Hawk opened his mouth—to probably launch into another tiresome paralleling tale of subduing his holy cat—but Arella silenced him with a raised hand. She pressed against the cell bars, her appraisal cold and feline, as if he was something she wanted to eat, but couldn't reach. Then came a sudden sense of invasion, a prickling across the nape of his neck that had nothing to do with the collar around it. And then that dreamy look again in her eyes, and a devious smile twisting her lips. Without turning, she said to Hawk, "Tonight, leave the music off."

The implications of Arella's words didn't register at first. Then his gut dropped and kept dropping until it reached some invisible bottom where it balled itself into a gnarled, quivering thing. On the other side of the bars, Hawk mirrored the same emotion on his face saying, "But that creature will consort with him."

"Yes, and do you see the terror in our crow's eyes? The audiograph we found in his secret room makes sense now doesn't it, Tarquin? It wasn't to make himself resilient to our music, it was to keep the Void away —"

"It was to keep my dreams mine." Damn that childish waver in his voice. And damn her magic, whatever its source. The Overseers music was efficient for torturing witches, but not a witch they seemed to want sane and healthy. Hawk would have to turn it off eventually, and that would provide the perfect opportunity to "confess" his sins and ask for clemency. Then he would've requested his audiograph—and that might have tipped the scales in his favor, enough maybe to grant his freedom. But all his careful scheming had been ruined by this freak. This woman who reeked of Void, and was as unnatural as the Outsider himself.

As if sensing his thoughts, Arella caressed the bars, the gesture somehow more lewd than when her hand had been in his pants. "Your dreams will be his tonight," she said, her words on the verge of singsong. "It's been so long and he's so eager to reacquaint."

"If he frees me, you'll be waking up with my blade at your pretty throat—if I let you wake up at all."

"The Outsider will never free you. Not until you sever the bond of his magic to your soul." To Hawk she said: "Come…our flock needs reassurance and new posts, preferably far away from our bird's cage. And Duchess Katrina is having another nightmare. She requires my guidance."

"Wait! High Overseer, please don't let her do this," he said, grasping at whatever shred of camaraderie he and Hawk might have developed after enduring those endless fairy tales of Pandyssia. "I don't...want to see him."

"As much as it pains me to leave you at the mercy of that creature," Hawk said with genuine sympathy, re-lacing his tunic and tying a sloppy knot. "The High Oracle is right and wise to suggest this. Her visions are divine truth. If in her mind, she sees you chained and unharmed in the morning, then it will come to pass. It's a harsh lesson when we discover trusted friends are really enemies. But if you allow it, sworn enemies can be trusted friends. Think on it, Corvo. Ponder it with all your conscience. You have strayed, but you know our strictures. Perhaps recite a few of them to ease your fears, and to give you the strength to resist the temptations of the Void…and of its master. May the stars watch over you, Corvo. And goodnight."

"No, Hawk...Arella. This is a mistake!" Then, to their retreating backs: "Mudlark cunts…Void damn you both!"

They didn't reply. Hand in hand, the High Oracle and High Overseer left him to confront the silence alone.

The wall lamps flickered and dimmed. On some sort of timer, or maybe toggled like the Holger devices. He'd never noticed before because his world had been the music and meals. Music and Hawk. Music and Arella—when he'd seen her slender shadow outside his cell once or twice, never knowing if he'd imagined her presence or not. And now this quiet. This thick, velvet quiet that brought his magic purring back into his veins and luring him into a doze. A tiny band of moonlight from his cell window slanted on the bars of his cell. A bar of light on bars of steel. The color changed from white to a rich violet.

He jerked awake with a small cry. The lamps had been floating, hadn't they? The dirt under his toes felt wrong. Too soft and warm, like fine beach sand. Whale song drifted through his cell window, haunting and mournful, their lament for the end of the world. No, he was a fool. He didn't need the audiograph. It was like a pebble for luck, or a talisman to ward off evil spirits. Its power was in his head. The Outsider had lost interest long ago. Given up, maybe…hopefully. Probably found someone else by now to corrupt and ruin. No, he wasn't special anymore. Wasn't interesting. He'd be just like the other millions of souls that dream themselves into the Void sea, one of the millions floating by, unworthy of notice. Faceless and ordinary.

Ordinary, Corvo? You are a beacon among these millions, worthy of my interest and undivided attention. And you have it now, as always. But someone else has been waiting anxiously for your return to the Void. Someone you had left for dead among the whale bones and sewage of Old Dunwall. Be careful, Corvo, she still bears a grudge.

The Outsider's voice seemed to come from the shadows under the bench, the wisps of smoke from the lamps outside, the beam of moonlight that had changed from the sickly green to a vibrant hue not quite purple and not quite blue. The Mark glowed as if pleased to hear its master's voice, even as its wearer resisted the pull of the Void, concentrating on the hard iron around his wrists, the collar heavy on his neck. The flowery breath easing through his window did nothing for the beads of cold sweat breaking over his upper lip.

He resisted. Defied. But he was exhausted, and given his rather amorous activities this evening, one might even say he was spent. And that empty place tugged at his consciousness with a warm, comforting hand, promising release from his dank, dreary cell. And wouldn't he like that? Wouldn't it be wonderful to spend an evening without chains, without that awful music making him want to tear out his eyes, without worrying how he was going to escape a woman who seemed to predict his every move, without the dreary real world and its troubles ruining all his fun?

Yes, dearie, don 't spend another moment in that dreary place! Come and dance! The Boyles are throwing a lovely party, and everyone who is anyone is invited. You're the guest of honor, dear sweet man, and I have a surprise for you. A special birthday gift I made from Slackjaw's bones. Yes, yes, that ill-mannered lout is dead! Boiled in the pot and left to rot. You silly thing, did you think burning my cameo and leaving me to that ruffian would end me? Oh no no no, not at all. Granny Rags has faced worse, much worse. Pandyssian savages and doors with teeth! But no hard feelings. I have forgiven you. And I want to do my part again. Yes, do my part for my black-eyed groom. Come, come! The Waltz of Roses is about to begin. And I can't very well dance by myself, can I?

His chains rusted and crumbled, his cell bars and walls breaking to pieces, revealing the pearlescent skies of the Void and its strange floating debris of the waking world. He floundered in the grip of something, a force that didn't let him drift to the glowing white core of the Void like a stray feather or a puff of cloud.

It yanked.

He plummeted without a sound, unable to stop himself, or transverse onto one of the suspended islands, or break free of the tether that drew him deeper and deeper, toward an unknown destination…

And unknown fate.


I want to give a sincere thanks to not only my reviewers, but for those who faved and are following. I wouldn't mind a comment or two from you *hint hint* but knowing that you're reading is good enough. But special thanks to Bland and Skarto for their thoughtful reviews and for presenting the concepts I don't always spell out. And even to MD, though we disagreed on some of the more ambiguous aspects of canon, you still provided a few crits that I ironed out in the first chapter.

This story is doing well here, but it's faring better on AO3 - surprisingly. I didn't realize the Dishonored fandom is bigger there, like 200 more stories bigger. And these stories are not all "porn" as some might assume, but with some very wonderful stories that feature rare pairings or no pairings at all. I encourage those reading to check AO3 out if you haven't. There are plenty of gems over there :D