Pockets Full of Stones

I.

The Captain of the Watch kept a modest house by the standards of Dunwall's elite. It was three stories tall, with a grand total of four bedrooms, one of which housed a few bunks for the maid, cook, and valet, one of which stood empty, and two of which were occupied by the last members of the Curnow family.

Geoff Curnow gave his employees, if not his men, regular time off: all nights between eight o'clock and five in the morning, far more generous than most; two days a month, to be chosen by the individual, almost unheard of; and the freedom to use the bottom floor for personal projects and general living, which would have been absolutely scandalous if not for the fact that the main door to the house let on to the second floor.

Daud, however, slipped in from the roof.

One of the hall windows was open to the night air, either forgotten by the maid or left open intentionally. The hall was exactly the dimensions he'd expected, which meant there had been no alterations since the plans for the building had been drawn up. He glanced down the long hall in both directions. At one end would be the master bedroom, likely the Captain's. Adjacent to that would be a bathroom. At the other end, alongside the staircase, would be a room that a glimpse through a window last week suggested was a study, or even a proper library.

It was only an hour and a half since the staff had retired to the lowest floor. Perhaps he should have waited a little longer, watched for the moving flicker of lamplight that would signal his target moving towards bed. As it was, he had to guess.

He guessed the study.

Hiram Burrows had passed along enough information to suggest that Curnow was a man of cultured, if quiet, tastes. Not ostentatious in the least, but a fancier of fine food and drink, and travel as well. A man like that didn't retire early, in his experience. No, a man like that would take a tumbler of whiskey and a fine cigar, sit in his study, and contemplate... what? Natural philosophy? The newer concepts of law and punishment and reform? Bawdy rhymes collected in an anonymous work?

Daud looked again at the shadowed bedroom and the equally shadowed stairway, then padded quietly to the closed study door. The other Curnow, the niece, was likely out of the house entirely. She was of so little importance and concern that he hadn't looked into her life much, only her movements, and her movements suggested that she was gone nine months of every year, at the very least - which usually translated to weeks on end, in practice. He hadn't seen her arrive at any point that day, and his men hadn't reported seeing her the days before, either.

He tested the knob. The latch was smooth, well-oiled, and it gave easily at a gingerly nudge. The hinges, too, were silent. Warm light spilled from the room in a brilliant line, and with a frisson of sensation - not quite pleasure, but not quite anything else, either - along his palm, what would have otherwise blinded him just added to the orange glow and shadow that everything took on.

A figure, wreathed in the golden glow of a living creature, stood bent over the table. He waited until he was sure whoever it was (the servants would not be allowed in here, so it would have to be Curnow himself, but were the man's shoulders really that narrow without his uniform?) faced only the table and not the door, then pressed a hand lightly against the wood, easing it open until he could make out details. He let the ghostly orange and yellow lights fade back into the roil of power in his veins, and blinked.

That was not Geoff Curnow.

He could almost hear the Outsider laughing, chiding him, mocking him, and he reached for the doorknob, ready to retreat. Callista Curnow had her uncle's height and pinched features, but not his breadth, or his bounty. She would have been an easy kill; her attention was wholly focused on the model whaling ship that she was assembling, piece by intricate, tiny piece, building the scaffolding that would no doubt house a tiny clay leviathan when it was completed. Perhaps, he thought, hesitating, he should kill her anyway. Perhaps he should make it look like a violent break-in, somebody with a grudge against the Watch.

But Burrows had been very clear, as he always was: send a message. The right people will understand it. Geoff Curnow, dead, under his own roof, with nobody a witness. Daud set his jaw and began to pull the door shut, leaving the grave-faced woman to her toys.

A scuff on the steps turned his frustration into a flash of white hot rage before he could contain it. Amateur work, that's what this was. The modest house had made him careless. He clenched his right hand and the thrum of power was back, shifting his vision.

That was Geoff Curnow, coming up the stairs, opening his mouth as he saw the shadowed figure that was not his niece. Daud's heart jumped with another thump of deep-sea cold as his mark throbbed and time slowed to a halt. Without being able to see down the stairs much further than a corner, Daud couldn't risk dragging him that way. So instead, with a few quick steps and a heave, he dragged the immobile, unaware body of his target into the hall proper and then back, back, towards the bedroom and away from the still slightly-open study door.

By the time the world returned to its usual rhythm and flow, Daud had his forearm locked underneath Curnow's jaw, his other arm pinning the man against him. A good swift kick might have been able to take him down, and he should have put a blade through his throat, but Daud faltered, that imagined, mocking laugh echoing in his ears.

All evidence suggested that Geoff Curnow was as good a man as they allowed in Dunwall anymore. He kept a modest house and was kind to his servants. His niece came and went with freedom. The Lord Regent wanted him dead.

It was a split second decision, the kind he didn't relish making. "Do not scream, or speak, or make any sort of movement," he growled, even as Curnow thrashed, body trying to correct for all its motions in that space between seconds, motions it couldn't remember and couldn't comprehend. There was the expected moment of confused terror in his eyes, the stammering breath, the hissed, bitten off curse.

Daud tightened his hold just a little. Curnow was good; he fell silent, and waited.

"There's a man who very much wants you dead," he continued, his own voice reverberating strangely within his mask, distorted by its filter. "He has paid a great sum of money for it. Now, I-"

Curnow's cooperative silence broke, and there was the kick he'd half-expected, along with a sudden crack back of Curnow's skull, skewing his mask and unbalancing him. Daud snarled and twisted, using his weight and inertia to drag the man down to the floor. The thud was unavoidable. All he could do was throw his mass on top of him, draw his blade, and press it to the nape of his neck.

"I am not usually one to question my employers," Daud said, though why he was even talking anymore, why he was even trying, while his breath came fast and hard, eluded him. He pressed forward (and down, the edge of the blade biting into soft, vulnerable flesh). "But, Geoff Curnow, I am going to give you a choice. You can die-" and here he jammed his knee hard into the watchman's spine, eliciting a groan, "or you can disappear. Leave Dunwall. Slip out past the barricade. There are ways, and I am sure you know them."

At first, Curnow didn't answer him. Then, slowly, he tried to turn his head. Daud realized he couldn't entirely see him, not with how his mask had been pushed to one side, so he pressed the heel of his hand against the bony protrusions at the base of Curnow's skull and held him still as he tried to nudge his mask back into place with one elbow. He only succeeded in pushing it further off.

"And what do you get, in return?" the man asked, voice muffled by the plush runner.

Daud was just trying the shape of nothing in his mouth when a flash of warm lamplight reflected too-bright off one of the lenses in his mask, and his head jerked up. There, standing in the doorway, unprepared and foolish, was the niece.

She was backlit entirely, just a silhouette, and if she'd known how, she could have taken the advantage and likely struck him before he could counter. Instead, she stood frozen, no doubt staring at the two of them.

"Callista," Curnow rasped, "go."

Daud stared at her. Model whaling ship floated through his thoughts - such an odd thing to spend time on, such an odd thing to fascinate a woman. "Walk away, girl," he heard himself say, distantly.

It was not filtered by his mask.

She could see his face, at least a portion of it.

"You can't kill him," she said, with a sort of breathless wonder, like out of a dream. She wasn't entirely seeing what was in front of her. She couldn't be. "Don't kill him," she said.

Shouldn't she be screaming, shrieking, running down the stairs to call the guards who patrolled in the streets, in the vain hope that somehow somebody could help before the deed was done? Instead, she was doing exactly what she should be doing to stop a killing. She was staring him in the eye and refusing to look away.

"She's my price," Daud said.

Curnow swore, but Callista stayed motionless. In shock, or considering? She had built a model whaling ship in all its perfect details; if he could see her eyes, would they have the shine of logic in them? He glanced down, just for a moment, at where his sword rested against skin.

"It is a practical tithe," Daud said, thoughts marching lockstep with his words. "She's seen my face. I can't ensure she won't tell a soul, unless I have possession of her mouth."

"Kill me, and let her go. She'll leave the city. Callista, you'll leave the city," he said, and it was not a question.

"I can't do that," Callista said.

"There are notes, in my desk! Contacts! It can be done!"

"That's not what I mean, Uncle," she said, and Daud's heart hammered in his head and throat. "I won't let you die to protect me. I won't kill you." Her gaze, he thought, was on him, boring into him. "Besides, he's right. If he kills you, I'll find him."

"Callista!"

Daring, foolish girl, Daud thought. He couldn't look away from her.

"But if I go with him," Callista said, "you can get out of this city and away from whoever wants you dead." She was sounding out her words as she spoke, also thinking as fast as she could speak. The silhouette of her head tilted to one side, bird-like. "It's the High Overseer, isn't it?"

"Don't speak treason," hissed Curnow, even as Daud released the pressure on his spine and neck. Ah, that made even more sense than Burrows alone. It was the last piece, the one he'd been missing. The Overseers and the Watch had clashed in numerous places across the city in the last few months. The Overseers were led by a man in the Regent's pocket, foul and corrupt as the Wrenhaven itself. And then there was this man, this good man, who likely could not be bought.

"You need to disappear, Uncle, and one can slip through a blockade more easily than two. Besides, if you die, that means..."

The fight began to drain out of the body beneath Daud's knees. Something passed unspoken between the two. And then Callista straightened her shoulders and said,

"I'll go with you."

Curnow didn't protest. Daud sat up just enough to withdraw a sleep dart from the pouch at his waist, then bent down to prick the man gently with it, in the throat so it would take effect quickly. He waited until Curnow's breathing grew slower, until he could no longer lash out in one last ploy, and then he stood. Callista hadn't moved from her spot in the doorway.

"You can't kill me," he said.

"I know," she said.

"If you try, I will snap your neck, then come back for his," he said.

"I know."

He drew close enough to take her wrist. She flinched, but it was a small thing, reined in by pride and an incredible amount of self control. Reaching up, he pulled his mask properly into place.

And then he led her back to the window he had come in by, up to the roofs, and out to where his ferryman sat waiting.