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A quiet had descended on the tower. The sea was distant, lapping against the cliff, biding its time. Emily had been tucked in hours ago, likely dreaming about parties and cakes and shiny jewelry by now. She’d asked if they could hold a masquerade, and Corvo had only gulped and hemmed and set his jaw in the fashion that allowed him to silently say no without making the verdict too final. She was a smart girl and always had been, and he knew she understood. It was too uncertain, and he was too frightened to lose her, and it was just too soon. So instead of pleading, gripping his coat and turning those wide dark eyes of hers on him, she had merely nodded, a bit of a pout hanging on her lips, and allowed him to blow out her candles – all but one. The dark still frightened her, and Corvo still worried, even after all the evil men had been hunted down and disposed of and she was safely behind the high stone walls. After all, he had breached that stronghold himself. Who was to say that another could not?
But dwelling on it would drive him insane, and he was already dangerously close to the precipice. He pressed his back against the outside of her door, leaning his head against it and grasping for control the way he’d seen Jessamine do all those months ago. It spanned across time, that habit, in a dozen years and a million places, but some things remained the same. Her hair was unpinned and tumbling about her shoulders, her eyes closed and mouth slack and throat gasping. His name would hit her teeth, break against them, be chewed and swallowed and forgotten before anyone could hear. Secrets, he thought. Too many damned secrets, and what good had it done them? What was the point of keeping a secret if they killed you anyway? If only he could ask her. What was the point?
He wondered how much time they would have saved if not for the constant fear of discovery. A few seconds to cast a watchful glance over his shoulder or an hour spent waiting for the guards to end their shift, a fearful pause before a kiss or to remember which name he should call her – Empress or Jessamine, love or Majesty. Every hesitation had sapped at their time together until he’d wanted to tear his hair out and scream at them, chase them into the Void if only for a few damn minutes with his empress. Was that so much to ask? And now she was dead, and he was hollow, and Emily was … corrupted. Happy, yes, and safe, and as sweet as she ever had been, but she had learned mistrust. She had learned the finality of death.
As if it could read his mind – and perhaps it could – he felt a sudden pulsing, a warmth against his thigh. He slipped a hand into his pocket and touched a weathered fingertip against the quivering flesh. Half human, half machine, but not whole at all, and just a part of what had once been his Jessamine. It was absurd, it was convoluted, it was perverted and macabre and repulsive, but it was what he had.
The first time he’d heard its voice echoing through his head, Corvo had been horrified. Holding it in his hand was worse than murder, that sickly slimy feeling that had nothing to do with corpses and everything to do with the rush of sorrow and self-loathing that followed the ending of a life. It was a relief and a reminder, a blessing and a curse. Its answers, when they came, were indirect and often left him questioning and hungry, absolutely ravenous, to hear her voice again. He’d learned the art of asking it questions, more like leading the witness than interrogating them. It wasn’t like a conversation, not quite, and far removed from the easy banter of their secluded walks through the tower’s grounds - his hand on his sword, hers on his arm. He was like an addict. One more mystery, one more thinly veiled reference to times past. Dreams that he grasped at when wakefulness became too painful.
With a quick scan of the halls, he retreated to his bedroom, never severing the contact between the heart and his skin. It felt like a butterfly, like butterfly kisses, beating against his hand. This is depraved, he thought distantly. This is wrong.
He curled onto his side, coat still on and folded awkwardly under his body, bound to be mussed by morning. The heart lay on his sheets, next to him, bright and pulsating, the only illumination in the otherwise pitch dark room coming from the circle of light it offered.
“Do you remember butterflies, Jessamine?” he whispered, his voice timid and half-swallowed. “The ones in the gardens?” It made no reply. He hadn’t really expected it to.
The Lord Protector turned onto his back, linking his arms behind his head and staring up at the dimly lit ceiling. His eyes lost focus after long moments, and the darkness swam before him, reminiscent, perhaps, of the Void where he’d first received this token. Then they slipped shut and he breathed in, placing the trinket right over his chest where he could feel it drum against his ribcage. He remembered late evenings and early mornings when the tower was sleeping, before the horizon had cracked open its eyes and revealed the dawn. He sighed now, opening his eyes and placing a hand over the heart, pressing on it as if he could force it through his bones and toward his own.
“Goodnight, Jessamine,” he whispered, the mantra of a thousand breathless nights.
It made no reply.