Chapter Text
When Joanna reached the waiting room, she pinched her cheeks to give herself some blush - and nudged the front door open only far enough to see the Overseer outside.
“Overseer! Good evening. What can I do for you?”
“Are you Joanna Haight?” The Overseer asked, in a terse, muffled voice.
Joanna nodded. “That’s me.”
“Owner of Madame Jo’s?”
“Uh-huh.”
The Overseer opened a slim, brown notebook, then fished a pencil out of his uniform.
“Right. I’m here to investigate the appearance of a wanted heretic, as per the Grand Guard’s quarantine of the Campo Seta District.” He flipped through page after page until he came to the first blank one. “I’m going to ask you some basic questions. I encourage you not to lie.”
Joanna leaned on the doorframe, and crossed her arms and raised her eyebrow. “Don’t you usually come in pairs?”
“My partner is sick tonight.” The Overseer answered with words like bullets as he scrawled something in shorthand. “Now. In the last day, have you experienced any signs of imminent witchcraft? Ringing in the ears? Thin, black smoke? An unexplained metallic taste?”
“No.” Joanna played with the turned-up lapel neckline on her coat, and took a long, lingering glance at the saber on the Overseer’s hip. “What’s this heretic’s name, anyway?”
“You’re not at liberty to know.” The Overseer kept scribbling, one curlicue after the next. “In the last week, have you seen any… suspicious people in the district?”
“No…”
“Any signs of someone building arcane structures, or drawing ritual circles?”
“No.”
“Good. Now. To this evening.” The Overseer turned to the next page. “Has anyone come to your door, and asked to hide in your residence?”
Joanna frowned. “No…”
“Any forced entry? Did you… see or hear someone trying to break in?”
“No…”
The Overseer scratched something else in his notebook, then dog-eared the page. “Hmm.”
“I’ve been up with a patient,” Joanna insisted. “If someone had been here, I’d know.”
The Overseer thought for a minute - then snapped the notebook shut.
“All right. I’m still going to need to search your clinic for arcane influence.” The Overseer’s masked chin tipped up as he tried to get a look inside. “Runes. Bone charms. Any indications of Outsider worship. We think the heretic we’re looking for might not have worked alone, and we need to rule out confederates…”
Before he could move, Joanna propped her hand on the side of the door.
“Do you have a warrant?”
“I’m an Overseer.” The Overseer stuck his foot on her threshold. “If you’re not guilty, you have nothing to worry about.”
Joanna hesitated for a long time, before…
“You’re right.” Her face softened, but when she grinned at him, she bared her teeth. “I’m just being silly. Come in. I’ll show you around.”
Joanna shut the door behind the Overseer, and he pocketed his notebook as he came inside - and with measured, easy steps, he left wet boot prints on the floor.
“Now, we’ve got a new baby in here, so try not to be too loud. Otherwise, make yourself at home, Overseer…” she waved her hand in circles, as if to prompt him - “Overseer…”
“What?”
“I didn’t catch your name.”
“I didn’t give it.”
“Could you?”
“Hayward.”
“Very nice.” Joanna slipped out of his way, so Hayward could look around. “You don’t sound Serkonan. Are you from Gristol?”
“I grew up in Dunwall.” Hayward inspected Joanna’s desk and the card cabinet that loomed to its right. “I came here on a transfer three years ago.”
“What a coincidence. I’m from Dunwall.” Joanna fiddled with the flowers in her desk vase as she waited for him to finish up. “I lived there until I was thirty, and then I just…” she shrugged - “I don’t know. I guess I lost my taste for it. It’s an unforgiving town.”
Hayward sized her up through the eyeholes in his mask. “I used to hear limericks about a girl named Joanna from Dunwall.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear, dear. You’ll never know up from down.” Joanna led him through the wide entryway and across the tile floor. “Now, this is where I see my patients, and they tell me what they’re here for…”
“I thought you did births,” Hayward snipped.
“I do. And so much more.” Joanna kept crossing tile after tile. “Now, this is Mrs. Dent. She just had her little girl tonight…”
Mrs. Dent nodded to him. “Evening, Overseer.”
Hayward strolled on without acknowledging her. “Hnh.”
“No, you can’t stay open just doing births. You’ve got to… what’s the word… diversify.” Joanna led Hayward to the far left corner of the room, and let him open the door and shut it when he just found a toilet inside. “When I first opened, I had people coming with what they call ‘midshipman’s friend,’ and I remembered my mother said you could treat it with oil of Tyvia. I kept treating things. They kept coming. It just sort of went from there.”
Hayward picked up the syringe left over from Mrs. Dent’s birth, then set it down - and Joanna watched him intently as he opened the drawers on the instrument cart.
“You’re awfully interested in what I do here.”
“Am I?”
“I thought you were on a witch hunt.”
“We hear sometimes about these clinics when they dabble in the arcane arts.” Hayward bent over and sniffed Joanna’s sink, his arms behind his back. “Purging wombs. Strange rituals so women never come down with child.”
“Goodness. It sounds like something from a penny dreadful.”
“I’m afraid not.” Hayward stood up. “We see their posters in the street. They never advertise it outright. ‘Clearing feminine obstructions.’ But we know what’s going on.”
“Wait- you…” Joanna stammered…
Hayward stared her down…
And Joanna hesitated again - before she let out a rollicking laugh.
“Oh, ‘feminine obstructions,’ that’s nonsense. That could be all kinds of things.” She fanned her fingers over her chest like a bemused courtesan. “Their mothers bring them in and they’re worried sick that something must be wrong, but more often than not they’re just nervous, or they don’t eat well enough.” She primped the back of her hair as she heel-clicked toward the hall. “It’s not uncommon to be irregular when you first get your courses, anyway. I say to give it a couple years, and…”
Hayward cleared his throat.
Joanna looked innocent. “Something wrong, dear?”
Hayward stiffened. “I’ve heard enough.”
“Yes, well, if you never talk about it, the problem never gets solved.” Joanna gave him another toothy, insincere smile. “Should we keep going?”
“I wish we would.”
So with an insinuating wave, Joanna led him into the dark hall.
Emily felt the vibrations of their footsteps through the floor, and she huddled under the supply room table and cupped her hands over her mouth.
Hayward opened some of the end table drawers. “What’s in here?”
Joanna kept tabs on him from over her shoulder. “It’s just a hallway. It’s not going to bite.”
Emily waited and listened, her eyes wide in the cloying dark…
Hayward nodded to the supply room. “And what’s in there?”
“It’s for the patients,” Joanna lied. “Sometimes their birth has issues, or I’ve got to stitch them up. It’s nice to have somewhere they can rest without all the clinic noise.”
Emily shivered as their voices came closer, her ribs shaking in her coat.
Hayward studied the ceiling. “I’d like to see it…”
“Well…” Joanna walked past the boiler, still keeping him in the corner of her eye - “let’s see now…”
Emily’s blood throbbed in her veins, and she readied herself to jump. Joanna jiggled the supply room handle back… and forth… once… then twice… and Emily tracked the shadows of their feet under the door…
“Ah.” Joanna turned around. “Would you look at that. It’s locked.” She eased herself past Hayward and started back down the hall. “I’ll have to go upstairs and get the key. I’ll be right back…”
“I’ll come along.”
“Oh, you don’t need to do that.”
Hayward took a heavy step after her. “I think I do.”
“Really, Hayward, it’s almost one in the morning. I think you’ve seen enough.” Joanna put her foot on the bottom of the staircase. “I’ve shown you my clinic. You didn’t ask to see my house.”
“I’m asking now.”
Joanna glowered at him, unflinching. “Then come back tomorrow, with the Guard. You know, some things do need a warrant…”
“Do they?” Hayward took a second step. “Or are you afraid of what I’ll find up there?”
Joanna’s hand closed so hard around the stair rail that her knuckles turned white.
“What?”
“The Abbey’s known about your clinic for years. Don’t embarrass yourself.”
Joanna took a long, unsteady breath - but when she turned around, she just smiled.
“See, I don’t believe that.”
“Don’t you?”
“No. But I think you have.”
Hayward stopped.
“Oh, believe me, I’m sure the witch hunt is just the Abbey doing its job.” Joanna let go of the rail. “But you have to admit, it works out well for you that it happened in my part of town.”
Hayward tilted his chin up. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“Find some bone charms - some pennyroyal tinctures - lock an old midwife up. What a good little star on your record, isn’t it?” Joanna squinted. “What a job well done.” She backed him up toward the towel closet, one prowling step at a time. “And isn’t it convenient - that it would shut the mouth - of the only other person who knows where you were a week ago?”
Hayward’s back went board-straight, but he didn’t respond.
“Isn’t that right, Overseer Hayward?” Joanna cocked her head. “Or should I call you… Abel?”
As soon as Hayward heard his name, he froze.
“You thought you were pretty clever, pilfering some poor guard’s clothes. No one’s seen you without your mask in years. Well, no one except that girl you like.” Joanna reached into her pocket and brandished her scalpel against the side of his chest. “But I’ve known men in ways you’ve never even dreamed of before.” With one clean swipe she stuck her foot between his parted legs, and with one hard thunk she threw her other hand down and pinned him to the wall. “I know when a man’s shoes don’t fit him - and I never - forget - a voice.”
The leather on Hayward’s gloves creaked as he scraped his fingers against his palm - and when he finally answered in a small, hushed voice, his throat quavered.
“What do you want?”
“If I’d met you when I was younger, I’d have asked you to pay up. Four hundred a month, to keep me quiet. I’m not that easy anymore.” Joanna leaned in so close that she smelled his stale hair under his mask. “I want you to go back to where you came from. I want you to go to your boss, and I want you to tell him Madame Jo’s is clean. No evidence of witchcraft. I want you to spread the word to your little boys’ club to leave this place alone…” she clenched her teeth - “and I don’t want to see so much as the Abbey’s third cousin here again.”
Hayward gulped. “I could just kill you.”
“You could.” Joanna tilted the scalpel just enough for it to scrape his ribs through his robe. “But I hope you listened to your mother’s warnings when you lived in Dunwall.”
Hayward’s head moved in careful inches as he looked at her - then the scalpel - and he must have put two and two together, because his neck relaxed and his shoulders slumped.
“The Crown Killer is watching,” Joanna whispered in his ear. “You just don’t know which one.”
He stared at her. She stared back at him. He said nothing. She didn’t budge. And after a minute of pin-drop silence, the clock chimed from the clinic wall, and it rang in their ears before it faded - one deep, solitary bong.
“It’s getting late, isn’t it?” Joanna asked.
“Yes…”
“Yes,” Joanna repeated. “That’s what I thought.” She drew the scalpel back and stepped away, but kept it pointed at Hayward’s heart. “They’ll be wondering what’s keeping you. I think it’s time for you to go.”
As the Overseers stomped down the street and the last of the neighborhood’s lights went dark, Emily climbed - step by creaking step - back up the apartment stairs.
The wind creaked gently through the moulding as she crept toward the bedroom doorway, and she spied her father’s sword on the end table underneath the window. When she went to take it, she noticed a pair of silvergraphs at its side - she took one by its heavy frame, and tilted it so she could see - and saw two rows of courtesans in feathers and silk, all smiling back.
Emily squinted at it, then peered closer to pick their faces out. Eight or nine women, young, made-up, that she didn’t recognize - and in the middle, Betty, in a smart madame’s waistcoat. She set it down, then picked up the other - Joanna looking coy in a black peignoir - and when she turned it over, she saw someone had scribbled a date, 1849.
Ugh. Emily grimaced, then stuffed the sword in her belt. She grabbed Joanna’s portrait again, and almost turned it face-down - but at the last minute, her fingers fell away, and she went inside.
She found the bedroom cleaner than she left it, with the bed remade and the pillows fluffed, and the rug smoothed in the places where she and Daud had kicked it up. Someone had swept the fragments of the broken vase off the floor, and left the dustpan in the corner and laid the flowers on the tabletop. And Daud had returned to the same chair she’d seen him in when she woke up - like a prisoner who wouldn’t leave, even though he had no bars on his cell.
But before Emily could speak for herself, she heard him.
“Come to finish the job?”
Outsider’s blood, the voice. Emily’s heart sucked in her chest.
“Make sure you start under the ear, and cut deep enough to reach the artery.” Daud drew a line down from his ear and across his throat. “It’s quicker. More merciful. Unless you want me to suffer, in which case… don’t.”
Emily steeled herself - and pulled her gut in - and took a deep breath.
“No.”
Daud picked up the half-full glass that sat on his end table by a bottle of milk. “Why not?”
“I’m not going to give you the relief.”
Daud didn’t respond.
“I know your kind of people. You think death would set you free.” Emily stepped one shaky boot step into the room. “Well, I’m not going to give you that. I want you to live with what you’ve done.”
“Don’t worry.” Daud took a dispassionate sip of his milk. “I do.”
Emily glanced at the lavish bed across the room. “Do you?”
Daud set his glass down. “I do.”
Emily chewed her lip and racked her brain for what to tell him next - until Daud patted his stomach, and made a faint, discomforted noise.
“So. You’re just going to walk away, like your father.”
Emily’s nerves prickled. “Don’t talk about him.”
“You don’t want anything else from me.”
“No.”
“But you haven’t left the room.”
“You’d really rather I kill you.”
“No. But I’m not convinced you’re done.” Daud rubbed his thumb in idle circles on the arm of the chair. “Delilah survived what I did to her. I’m not sure I’m much help to you.”
“That’s not…”
“Then what do you want?”
“I just want you to tell me why.”
Again, Daud said nothing. Emily fought the twitch in her lip and the burning in her nose.
“I just want to know - what meant so much to you - that it was worth my mother’s life.”
Daud didn’t react. He didn’t fidget. He didn’t even reach for his milk. Until at last, as a fly buzzed by the balcony, he let out a quiet sigh - and the shoulders of his silhouette sank as he cupped his fingers over his glass.
“You won’t like the answer if I tell you.”
“I’m not leaving until I hear it.”
“Fine.” Daud rested his elbow on the chair arm, and his voice stayed clinical and calm. “I did it because I was paid to. I didn’t have it in me to say no.”
Emily just stood there, fifteen years of pent-up tension turning in her gut.
“Moral courage is a strange thing. It finds you in places you don’t expect.” Daud tipped his glass back and forth and watched the white film roll down the sides. “In the Void. In paintings. Bathtubs.”
“And let me guess, in brothels?”
“There, too.” Even in the cover of darkness, something softened in Daud’s face. “I’m not one for Overseers, and I…” he eyed Emily’s left hand - “suspect neither are you - but there’s something in the Strictures about ‘the hands that steal and kill and destroy.’ I can’t remember which. Doesn’t matter.”
Emily didn’t tell him which one.
“Overseers make it look clean and easy to absolve yourself. Throw out your bone charms. Stop killing. Curse the Void for the things you’ve done.” Daud took a last sip of his milk to finish it off. “The Void doesn’t make people do anything, but that’s beside the point. They’ll tell you about redemption.” He paused. “They don’t mention the guilt.”
“So you do feel guilty. Aren’t you special?”
“I was, many years ago.”
Another breeze blew into the room and rustled a neighbor’s windchimes - and a pair of rough voices called to each other on the road outside.
“Well. At least you’re honest.” Emily started to turn around. “That was all I needed…”
“Wait.”
Emily glanced over her shoulder - and her toe scraped along the floor.
“Before you leave…” Daud studied the inside of his glass - “I’d like one last favor from you.”
“Why should I do anything for you?”
“Because it’s not for me.”
Emily squinted at him with disbelief - but she decided to let him talk.
“Go to the bookcase.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
“Where?”
“The one behind the screen.”
Emily shuffled back into the room, then pushed the screen aside - and sure enough, she found an L-shaped bookcase in the corner, three shelves high.
“Look between the dictionary and Death in the Month of Songs.”
Emily screwed up her face, and combed through the moonlit rows of words - but eventually she found them in the middle of the second shelf, Imperial Unabridged Dictionary, Death in the Month of Songs. She pushed them apart with her fingers and tugged a yellowed notecard out, and she read as best she could, in faded ink -
“Rebecca Haight?”
“I found that deep in Coldridge Prison once upon a time. A midwife sent there when her clinic was raided some thirty years ago.” Daud put his glass down again without pouring more, then folded his hands in his lap. “It’s Jo’s mother. Pardon her. And don’t tell Jo I told you to.”
Emily balked. “You’re joking.”
“I wouldn’t joke about something like that.”
“If she was doing what I think she was…”
“She was.”
“The Abbey will kill me,” Emily pleaded…
“I know.” Daud stared down at the end table as the last dregs of milk rolled down his glass. “Consider it one less woman who died a useless death.”
Emily started through the doorway, before she looked back one more time - and she slipped the notecard into her coat, in her inside pocket beside the Heart.
“You’ll never know how much I hate you.”
“Good.” Daud examined his too-short fingernails. “Remember that hatred. Someday you might find a use for it.”
“But for Jo? I will consider it.”
“Thank you,” Daud said. “That’s all I ask.”
By the time Emily crept downstairs, the whole house had gone dark - and a soft silence lingered in the air, like it had curled up and fallen asleep.
She lit the lamp on the hallway wall, then winced as the orange light seared her eyes - and as soon as she could see straight, she made her way toward the back door. She passed the doorway to the clinic, and heard the baby snuffling inside - then rounded the corner, and put her head down, and turned up her coat lapels…
And she heard a pair of soft, clicking footsteps, just as she reached for the doorknob.
“Going somewhere?”
Emily slowly turned around.
“I heard what you said to Overseer Hayward. Thank you. I owe you one.”
“Eh. Don’t worry.” Joanna came down the hallway, her hands in the pockets of her coat. “Any other Overseer, and it wouldn’t have worked. Some days it’s better to be lucky than smart.”
“Well, if you say so.” Emily reached for the door handle again. “But it is late. I should leave, if the Overseers are gone.”
“I know.” Joanna leaned against the wall, then pulled one hand out to rub her eye. “Both Mrs. Dent and the baby are sleeping. I should probably go to bed. It’s been a long night for all of us.”
Emily looked away. “Yes. It has.”
Joanna hesitated - then gave Emily a small, sad smile.
“I’m not going to find a body up there, am I?”
Emily let go of the door handle.
“No.”
“Good.” Joanna crossed her arms, and she sighed a soft, relieved sigh. “I would’ve understood why if I did. But there’s been enough death in this town.”
“It’s not even that. I would’ve killed him, and it wouldn’t bring her back.” The old hardwood creaked beneath Emily’s feet as she retreated from the door. “That’s the only thing I can think of being worth someone’s life. I can’t just start killing people if they won’t give me what I want.”
Joanna’s shoulders relaxed, and she chuckled despite herself. “Now if everyone in power thought like you, imagine what kind of world we’d have.”
“You know, there’s something even in just saying it to him. Like a thread you can tie off.” Emily scratched at her throat under her scarf as she stared at her toes. “Maybe my father was onto something. I didn’t realize it’d be enough.”
“Do you feel better, then?”
“Not really. But I think I will, in time.”
“That’s what counts.” Joanna fished in her pocket and frowned. “Before I forget, I just wanted to give you something before you go. It’s not much, I know, but I thought maybe it would help.”
Emily watched in silence…
“I used to keep this in my room when I was at the Cat, and no matter what the Overseers tell you, I think these old things are good luck.” Joanna pulled out a three-pronged bone charm, its arcane marks smoothed down with time. “And if anyone could use a little luck right now, it’s you.”
“I… I don’t know.” Emily took it by its bony limbs, then tried to give it back. “That sounds awfully important. I shouldn’t just take something like that.”
“It’s been fifteen years since I left, dear. I don’t need it anymore.”
“Well…” Emily closed her fists around the bone charm, before - “in which case, I have something for you, too.”
Joanna listened with wide, expectant eyes.
“The captain I’ve been staying with is a woman named Billie Lurk. That woman that Daud knew, the… the lieutenant you mentioned before.” Emily looked down, and she kept feeling the sides of the bone charm with her thumbs. “I’m not supposed to know that. She’s going under a different name. But I’ve seen some pages from her journal. I put it together on my own.”
“Billie Lurk?” Joanna hushed. “Really? I mean, Billie’s alive?”
“I can tell she’s had some hard times lately, but yes. She’s alive. And well.” Emily stuffed the bone charm in her trouser pocket, then looked up. “I think if I’d had an old friend… I’d want to know they were all right.”
“You can tell him yourself, you know.”
Emily squirmed. “I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Of course.” Joanna waved it off. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.”
“Well… listen.” Joanna edged closer to the door. “I hope you get to the bottom of this… whatever’s happening in Dunwall. And I hope…”
Emily waited for Joanna to go on…
“Oh, to the Void with it,” Joanna said, and threw her arms around Emily’s sides.
Emily flinched and stood very straight, with her muscles very tight - but no matter how much she shrank into herself, Joanna didn’t let go. So eventually, she softened, and draped her own arms around Joanna’s neck - and for a minute more, they stayed there, nestled in each other’s grasp.
“You know, I think you’ll pull through this.” Joanna pressed her cheek into Emily’s coat. “If you’re half the girl I got to meet fifteen years ago, Delilah doesn’t stand a chance against you.”
“I’m not so sure of that.”
“I am.” Joanna patted Emily’s back. “Remember when the papers said you stayed up all night to finish a trade accord?”
“The Serko…”
“Yes, that.” Joanna stifled a laugh. “I believe in you, even if you don’t.”
Emily’s ears flushed pink, and she squeezed Joanna to her chest.
“Now, go on.” Joanna loosened her grip, then broke off the embrace. “Go. Give that Tyvian maid a promotion, so you can see her more often.”
“I will.”
“And go make your father proud. Don’t do anything he wouldn’t.”
“I won’t.”
And with that, Emily turned away, and unlocked and opened the door - then took a last step over the threshold, and disappeared into the night.
Half an hour later on the deck of the Dreadful Wale, Meagan paced back and forth as the moonlight waned over the docks.
The old deck boards creaked beneath her, and the water lapped against the sides - and a chill wind blew past her, ruffling her sleeves and hair. She rubbed her hands together to warm them - then pulled at the neckline of her coat - and she shuffled over to the starboard rail and draped her arms over the side.
But she jumped away when she heard a deep, sudden thunk against the hull.
“Who’s there?!”
Emily’s voice answered from somewhere beneath her. “Meagan?! Is that you?”
Meagan leaned over the rail. “How did you get back? The skiff’s still here!”
“I stole another!”
“Outsider’s blood…”
“Get me the rope up there!” Emily’s skiff thunked against the hull again. “Throw it down to me and tie it to something. I can do the rest myself.”
Meagan raced over to the coil of rope that lay further toward the starboard bow, then grabbed it and threw it over, keeping one end looped around her arm. When Emily latched on, Meagan tied her end onto the rail - and soon, Emily’s head poked up, and she hoisted herself over the side.
“Where were you?” Meagan scrambled out of the way. “Do you know how long you’ve been gone? I sent Sokolov and Stilton to look for you, they came back without you an hour ago…”
Emily dusted her knees off. “Ugh…”
“Emily?”
Emily looked up. “What?”
“I asked you a question. Where were you?”
Emily stood up straight and caught her breath.
“I think if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me. I’ve got all night.”
Emily took one more glance over her shoulder at the thin, dark coastline.
“I found that shrine you asked me to, but I saw the Outsider, and passed out.” She smoothed down a windblown lock of her hair. “I’m not sure how long I was sleeping.”
“You mean you’ve been out all this time?”
“No, no. I woke up later, and I was upstairs in this house.” Emily strode across the deck, toward the door that led into the hold. “One thing led to another, and I ended up staying for hours. There was this woman, and she had a baby, and…” she interrupted herself - “anyway, that’s where I was.”
“Why didn’t you just leave?”
“I was going to. There was an Overseer lockdown.” Emily waited as Meagan heaved the door open for her. “It only ended about an hour ago, and I had to hide, but it was all right. It was good to see the people there. I think I put some things to rest.”
“‘Things to rest?’” Meagan held the door. “Who in the Void was in that house?”
“Well, it’s the strangest thing. I think it was someone you may know.”
Emily watched her head as she stepped through the doorway into the hold, and once Meagan had followed her in, she let the door swing closed. It shut with a heavy thud, and the ship’s bell jingled softly into the night - and after a quiet minute, the light in the porthole window snuffed out.
And the moon set over the Dreadful Wale, and the ink-black waves on the shore - over the palace, and the dockyards, and the house on Campo Seta Road.