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Emily had never been quite as subtle as she liked to believe.
Corvo had warned her last night, in the dream where they had met the Outsider together, that she needed to be careful not to use her new abilities where she might be spotted or recognized. Emily had rolled her eyes—still stung, perhaps, because he had concealed his connection to the Void for so long—and told him that she wasn’t a child.
Now, as the sun crept over the horizon and the Dreadful Wale idled off the Karnacan coast, she Blinked all around the Wale like a child with a new toy. Or—not a Blink, perhaps. Corvo didn’t watch Emily directly, preferring to let her believe she was fooling him for now, but from the corner of his eye he thought he saw shadowy claws pull her from one place to another.
The point still stood.
Corvo fought the urge to roll his eyes as he took a gulp of the hot, sludgy coffee Meagan had brewed that morning. Once he and Emily were in Karnaca it would be too warm for the beverage, but it was a welcome antidote to the cold sea air whipping over the deck.
Meagan. Corvo needed to get a handle on her if they were to continue to rely on her support. He knew she had seen Emily use her powers today, but her reaction was limited to a quiet tensing of her shoulders, a disapproving purse of her lips. Who she was disapproving of, Corvo wasn’t sure.
She was hiding something, but Corvo suspected she meant for them to understand that—to take her obvious secrecy as an admission in itself, and forget the details as a courtesy for her help. He was almost inclined to let her. He and Emily had few allies, even fewer than that first coup, and unlike the residents of the Hounds Pit Pub Meagan at least didn’t pretend to be in it for altruistic reasons.
Still, Corvo had a theory. He decided to test it.
“I was the same way when I first got the mark,” he said, jerking his head to where Emily was perched on the upper deck.
If Meagan was surprised by this mention of the mark, she didn’t show it, even though Corvo had kept his hand wrapped. She paused in her work, though, turning to follow his gaze.
“I wasn’t sure if you two meant to keep it a secret from me,” she said. Meagan gave him a sardonic expression that Corvo thought might be her version of a grin.
“Should we have?”
Meagan barked out a laugh. “I’m harboring two wanted fugitives. You think witchcraft would be what pushed me over the line?”
“It would do that for a lot of people.”
She only shrugged.
Should he press the issue? Maybe a better royal spymaster wouldn’t; he could break into her cabin later, or wait for Meagan to give herself away. But Corvo was the royal protector first. He only bothered to be subtle until he reached his target, and rarely bothered to be patient. “Have you been around witchcraft before?” he asked.
Meagan looked at him for a long time. He could see her weighing the options, knew her answer was yes before she opened her mouth. “I have,” she said finally. “I never got the mark, but…I saw some of the real thing, not just housewives carving symbols onto whalebone.”
“Not a lot of marked in Dunwall,” said Corvo.
“More than most cities, I’d expect,” said Meagan dryly. Her hand twitched toward the pocket where she kept her pipe; she curled it into a fist and sighed.
Above them Emily let out a bitten-off shriek. Corvo jerked up at the noise—high above them, Emily straddled a balcony railing. At his look she called down, “It’s slippery!”
“Watch where you put your feet,” he reminded her, and she waved away the warning, waiting until he turned away before activating her power again.
When he looked at Meagan again she was watching Emily straight on, an unreadable expression on her face.
Corvo had never been a good royal spymaster. He had taken on the position because he trusted no one else to do it, and look where that had gotten them. His talents had always lain with facing physical threats. Faced with something like this, he had no idea what the best move was.
“Look, Lord Protector,” Meagan said finally, “I had to survive in Dunwall, so I found the strongest person I could and joined his gang. But whatever mistakes I made then, I’m helping you now. Please, just…don’t push me on the rest.”
His?
He’d thought Delilah, but—
Corvo nodded, not trusting himself to speak for a moment. “I wouldn’t mention this to Emily,” he said finally. “She’s—young.” With a streak of vengeful anger that reminded Corvo too much of himself, and all the stubbornness of an empress to back it up.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” said Meagan. She took one last gulp of her coffee and left Corvo to his thoughts.
He leaned back against the railing, eyes tracking Emily while his mind wandered. They were used to keeping secrets from each other. What was one more?