Forward, but Never Forget (XOXO)

by Lullabyes

Zaun is free—and must grow into its unfamiliar new dimensions. So must Silco and Jinx. A what-if that diverges midway through the events of episode 8. Found family and fluff, politics and power, smut and slice-of-life, villainy and vengeance.

22. Sumpside Waltz (Part I)

And everybody thinks I'm high
And I am

~"The Devil Does Drugs" – My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult

---

Zaun en fête.

At Silco's headquarters, the gala is in full swing. The ballroom is a wonderland of sequined brightness. Candle-flame, glass and crystal flash at the mahogany tables. Chandeliers twinkle over the gold-flecked marble dance floor. Mirrored murals hang from the arched balconies overhead. A long central table holds rows of appetizers: concentric swirls of sugared delicacies competing with the burnish of vintage wines. At the stage, a string quartet whisks the air with frothy Jazz. The gas-light sparks rainbows everywhere. Even the guests with their jewel skirts and jet suits are lacquered as if with star-dust. Ornaments glint, satin shimmers, and hairdos are brilliant with Macassar oil, a sheer profusion of bedazzlement.

Bodies on fire.

Silco descends the staircase to the ballroom. His polished shoes make no sound across the red runner; his coattals sways lazily behind him like ripples in the wake of a shark's fin. His eveningwear is tailored black serge trimmed with maroon, and cut close to the line of his body. A pristine white cravat is framed by dark lapels, and a blue sapphire tie-pin matches the hard gleam of his smile.

A smile that says nothing; that promises everything.

His entrance attracts notice from the guests below. Conversations fall away. A susurrus spreads through the ballroom. In their stares, he sees reflected different wavelengths of human vices. Envy, hatred, lust. He pays little mind. He's always held a polarizing aura; it's practically his modus operandi. The most well-liked are the easiest to forget. Totality of devotion is inspired by iconoclasts. Those who evoke a visceral response—lighting up the room, or burning it down.

He'd rather see them all burn.

Gliding through the crowd, Silco makes the obligatory stops to greet foreign dignitaries: a cool handshake here, a warm clasp there. So much life on all sides; so much blood. It stirs something like desire: a hunger for flesh.

An old skin, an old self.

He remembers the young man who'd coasted on the fringes of life, yet burned with his own convictions. He'd had a brother, a lover, comrades. He'd had a heart blazing like a torch for Zaun's liberation. He'd vowed everything to the cause. His soul on a silver platter—Take it and let us go free.

He wasn't freed. Betrayal sank its teeth into him. Bitterness consumed the rest. He was devoured and flung out of grace.

The dirty little thing taken to the vilest extreme.

Moments like this, Silco remembers that young man. His dreams; his torments. Everything he'd seen and felt and craved. Everything he'd lost, in exchange for who he is now. Bodies piled at his heels; specters in his shadow. An assembly of haloed dead witnessing his ascent, alongside Zaun's break from bondage.

Vander's specter burns brightest of all.

(Keep your brightness, brother. I have my shadows.)

(Which one of us survived longer?)

Vander gives no answer.

Silco's throat tightens. The way a good man's might with grief.

Then there is nothing at all.

Cutting a slow path through the crush, Silco accepts a champagne flute from a server. Sipping, he eyes the Councilors over the rim.

They have not yet condescended to be friendly. Most stand rigid as if staked. They have never set foot in Zaun beyond the Bridge for ceremonial affairs. They fancy the city is like roaming through a dark alley. The only welcome they'll receive is a ruffian bashing them over the head, leaving them stripped to their Name Day suits, with a motley of bruises and the rankest diseases as mementos.

Silco's jaw twitches. He hides a smile behind his glass.

Tempting.

Except he won't allow contempt to contaminate self-interest. In balancing the past against the future, a pragmatist always plumbs for the latter. Silco is a pragmatist, and so are the Councilors. Better still: they are money-hungry and myopic. In this, they are no different from chem-barons. They only speak the language of profit; their defining virtue.

Silco will weaponize it into a vice.

Tonight, he's kept the festivities flashy but tasteful. Instead of a subterranean hellscape of exotica, the Council have entered a realm that seemingly mirrors their own, and yet bleeds darker shades. For decades, Zaun has bristled with all the decadent mores and unapologetic zest that Piltover's respectable quarters find abhorrent. Now their abhorrence is tinged with fascination.

Silco wants them fascinated.

Like a good businessman, he plays the balance between stereotype and spectacle. Notoriety is the wisest insurance policy. Comfortably ensconced in privilege, Piltover's elite have everything at their fingertips—except true freedom. Their realm is contained by lofty standards of good taste, social tact and political sensitivity. Yet at their crux they are pierced by shameful desires for the transgressive.

Zaun symbolizes all that.

Tonight, the city puts its best foot forward—tripping a Councilor or two in a raffish jape. To be a Zaunite is to do as one pleases. To hell with nicety. Wielding the dark charisma of the forbidden, Silco is determined to penetrate each Councilor's hidden core of greed and find the exact spot to press, before coaxing the arterial funds into a paroxysm of spending.

What they owe, they will pay.

Already the seduction has begun. The chem-barons—on Silco's orders—make their moves.

Hoskel, the old lecher, has been spirited into a conversation with Margot. Her sylph-like contours are barely concealed by a chain-metal dress so delicate it resembles see-through lace. A tantalizing affront to decency—Hoskel practically gobbles her up with his eyes. Piltover indulges in curious whims regarding fashion. Clothing is designed to flatter the body, with clinging gowns and tight-tailored suits. Yet the baring of flesh is kept at a minimum: arms and legs and a tasteful flash of décolletage. Zaun, by contrast, is a fringe of licentiousness: skin and sinew shellacked under the blaze of neon signs. Here, sex is a primal celebration rather than an act done in illicit privacy. Piltovan tourists are often left gasping at the permissive styles and avant garde tastes.

It's only fair.

After a lifelong shortness of breath, Zaun deserves to steal everyone else's.

Margot whispers in Hoskel's ear. He colors up, then whispers back. A frisson of collusion tingles between them. Margot's aegis is high-end fashion; its social shadow is high-end prostitution. Both would benefit from the largesse of a public figure—and access to trade routes. Hoskel embodies both. In exchange, Margot gives Hoskel a taste of the debauches beyond Piltover's borders. A chance to relive his exuberant youth before age takes its toll.

Hoskel's face shines with avarice. Margot smiles sweetly. Catching Silco's eye, she tips a wink.

Silco nods.

One down.

Salo lingers at the bar, but the spirits are sweetening his sour mood. Crimson has buttonholed him with the plummy drawl of Oshra Va'Zaun's old dynasty. Salo answers with his own pampered Piltovan vowels. They're cut from the same cloth: limp-wristed scions with a love of luxury and an inveterate need to show off. Between them they command an army of accountants, lawyers, fund managers and bankers—secretive soldiers who can carry out transactions without question.

Crimson is adept at financial sleight-of-hand and making paper trails vanish. Salo is the perfect foil because he has bottomless pockets and the key to open doors of banking houses all the way from Demacia to Shurima. A symbiotic relationship; they banter like schoolboys.

Perfect pawns to move millions in hard currency from one coffer to another.

Salo plucks an olive from Crimson's martini glass, popping it indolently into his mouth. Crimson leers, his eyes flicking to Silco.

Silco takes note.

Two down.

Shoola and Bolbok are more difficult to sway. She is disinterested in anything beyond herself, and he is a creature of one-track temperament. Their mutual disdain makes for a coldly efficient alliance.

Foreseeing trouble, Silco has sicced Chross on them. Piltovan born and bred, his affable manner masks a razor-sharp gift for strategy. Within moments, he has engaged them in a discussion about the tedious legalities surrounding biochemical research. Both Shoola and Bolbok are investing in an incipient firm that utilizes Hex-tech—while Chross has an entire network specifically reserved for its inverse of chem-tech. Not to mention scapegoats ready to report on the merits and demerits of everything from lethal pathogens to life-saving elixirs. A partnership between them would make for a fascinating hybrid of Piltovan coin and Zaunite innovation.

It would also spawn inevitable casualties. Ones that can be leveraged as blackmail for greater profit.

Chross glances at Silco as the two Councilors toast his champagne glass with their own. They look perfectly in accord, a paradigm of camaraderie. No doubt by the evening's end, Chross will sow discord and have them turn on each other like dogs fighting over a bone. Two separate investors equal double the revenue.

Silco crooks an idle smile.

Four down.

Kiramman is a tough nut to crack. She's been dubbed the Ice Queen for good reason. She remains seated and determinedly aloof, partaking in neither the food nor drink. Her expression holds a stiff tolerance edged with scorn. Still, Silco senses no malice from the woman. She lacks imagination for that. Her raison d'etre is a cool calculus where status trumps everything else.

Silco orders Petrock to whisk her to the dancefloor with a brisk gallantry. Physicality is a marvelous lure. It shuts off the mind and lets the body take over. Kiramman is reputedly an adept horse-rider and a skilled marksman. So is Petrock. Between them, the shared exertion works wonders.

Soon, the locks in Kiramman's body have loosened. By the end, she is dancing toe-to-toe with Petrock, laughing despite herself at his flatteries. When he leads her off the dancefloor to fetch refreshments, she accepts a glassful of cavernfruit sherry without demur.

They spend the remainder of the evening in hushed discussion about the Void Wars, in which both Petrock and Kiramman's father participated. A profitable conflict—though Zaun's has been less so. A majority of Kiramman's factories are in the Fissures. Now her business is in tight straits, and in need of alternate manufacturers. Petrock kindly proffers his services. By midnight, they will be brokering contracts—with a few cash injections to plump Silco's own assets.

While Kiramman tips sherry to her lips, Petrock meets Silco's glance. His reddened jowls recede into the lupine expression Silco sees every day in the war-room.

Silco tips him a single nod.

Five of five.

That leaves Medarda and Talis.

She stands bathed in the chandeliered glow, a Venusian queen encircled by a pack of rapt mortals. Zaunite; Piltovan—they all fall under her spell. Conversation flows in hushed murmurs; each person vying for her attention. Sidling closer, Silco catches fawning drifts.

"... is it true that in Noxus, the noblewomen bathe in crushed petals of Morrin wildflowers?"

"... I've heard that the sands along the Falgren shorelines are made of tiny crystals."

"... I sampled spices from Bel'zhun once. Near burnt my tongue off. But the aroma!"

And etcetera.

Medarda, for her part, has not a fault: she is regally serene and gently good-humored. She's also done her research. She demonstrates an admirable knowledge of the Fissurefolk, their diverse geography, their multifaceted customs. In sum total, she's likely read as much of Zaun's history as Silco has lived it (although a majority, inevitably, is the tripe written by liberal-leaning blowhards like B. Goode and their ilk, who confuse exoticization with understanding.) Yet she listens gravely and answers intelligently.

During a lull, she catches Silco's eye. He bows his head, a mockery of politesse. She fans her lashes, a demure punctuation to a parlor game.

Two old hands; one prize.

Talis is another matter altogether. The square-jawed Adon to Medarda's Venus, he sits picking grimly at his plateful of oysters. He finds the entire gala a sham. Worse than that. By rubbing shoulders with Zaunite elite, he is declaring himself complicit in their war crimes, and in the weaponizing of Hex-tech. Tonight isn't a triumph of peace. It is a deplorable lapse of honor, an act of literal prostitution.

And to top it all off, Silco plans to steal his partner.

Medarda? No—the other one.

Viktor.

He is here, but not as a Zaunite. His invitation was extended through a third-party courier—the type used when summoning diplomats on foreign soil back to the motherland. Viktor declined. He's arrived as part of the Piltover delegation. No waves made or banners burned. But the statement of allegiance is implicit.

Physically, it's easy to see why he's considered Talis' silent partner. He resembles a driftwood skeleton, so wan his veins are visible. A crooked gait paired with a crooked leg—childhood rickets—had seen him lagging behind other sumpsnipes for scrapping the usual way: theft and violence. But his mind was sharp enough to compensate for a brittle body.

After years spent toiling at the fringes, honing his craft in solitude, he'd caught the eye of none other than Heimerdinger—and found himself rubbing shoulders with the scions at the Academy. He could think circles around most of his peers; his postgraduate thesis on electromechanics and energy conversion earned him the coveted spot of Dean's assistant—a position otherwise impossible for Trenchers.

Yet he stands—figuratively—as Talis' shadow. Overlooked where Talis is adored, pale where Talis is swarthy, sickly where Talis is robust. Still, there is a strange touch of destiny about the boy. His hooded eyes express no fatigue: only an iron ferocity of will.

The eyes of a martyr who has missed his calling.

During the gala, Viktor sits at the corner of the Piltovan banquet. He isn't dancing. His bad leg will never let him get away with it. Yet there is an inescapable price for sitting upright for hours in one spot. As the gala wears on, his features tighten with a pained stoicism that Silco decides is his natural state of being.

Suffering; sucking it up.

Talis doesn't stay leashed to Viktor's side. But he hovers. More than once, he insinuates his well-built body into the crush, clearing a space for his emaciated companion to hobble past. From time to time, he fetches him refreshments. He even helps the other man out of his seat, where Viktor quietly brushes off the fuss and hobbles alone toward the restrooms.

There, Silco's staff deliver reports of coughing. A cough familiar to Zaunites: the harsh rolling hack that goes on and on, before ending in a seized-up wheeze. It is muffled, as if Viktor is holding a handkerchief tightly to his mouth. But the sound is unmistakable.

Gray Lung. A fatal blight.

Viktor is dying.

Silco takes a speculative sip of champagne. Dying men are desperate men. And all men are malleable. If Viktor proves receptive enough, Silco might just have another piece to complete his chessboard.

He doesn't approach the younger man. The early evening is about wooing the Councilors, not winning over wildcards. A means to an end rather than the end-game.

(For the past.)

(And for you, Jinx.)

His daughter isn't working the room. She doesn't need to. The space around her is already aswarm with photographers. In anticipation, she's chosen the most dazzling of her three gowns: a silvery sheath dress, scooping low at the neckline and falling into pleated folds at mid-thigh. Her hair is coiffed in a sleek bob, upswept by a jagged tiara of crystal shards. Her skin is dusted with a pearlescent powder that sparkles like constellations. At her throat, the Hex-gem glows azure blue. Her eyes are lined in the same lustrous shade.

The effect is otherworldly: a quicksilver sprite, or a shooting star.

"Make way! Mind the teethies!"

She's trotted out Magnus for the gala. The dog keeps whipping his head side to side each time a flashbulb pops off. Otherwise he stands stock-still, rear legs flared and torso poised, as if waiting for Jinx's signal to attack. She seems to be contemplating it. There is a dangerous glint in her eyes. One that says she'll bite any reporter who gets too close.

Silco doesn't call her over. But he meets her eyes across the crowded room. A smile touches the edge of his mouth. Jinx gets the message and relaxes.

Have a little fun.

Making a show of ignoring the spectators, Jinx orders Magnus to do tricks. Harmless ones at first. Balancing the dog on his hindlegs with an ice cube on his nose, then on his tail. Then placing his giant forepaws on her shoulders and pretending to waltz him around the room. Then playing fetch with the items on the banquet table: a silver tray, a napkin ring, a golden cup—all of which Magnus snaps neatly out of mid-air with barely a scratch from his fearsome jaws.

Half the crowd stare; the other half whisper. Some seem charmed despite themselves. The rest are left wondering how the creature was permitted at such a prestigious function. Salo is heard murmuring with a touch of titillated scandal, "They play fast and loose with etiquette, don't they?" Meanwhile Kiramman tuts in supreme disapproval, "What man allows his daughter to cavort with such beasts?"

A question worth asking.

Jinx's performance ends when a waiter passes with a tray of crawfish. Without breaking step, Jinx reaches out and snatches one up. With a flourish she sets it on Magnus' muzzle, whereupon the dog promptly leaps up and swallows it whole, the shell pulping between his jaws with a crunch.

The collective wince is worth a hundred broken rules.

"Awww, don't worry," Jinx coos to the guests, stroking Magnus' fur. "He won't bite you."

The juxtaposition of beauty and beast weaves is its own magic. The press circle closer, lenses flashing madly. Free-wheeling antics are what the camera adores. Yet it's not simply the antics. It is Jinx. There is a magnetism to her that is nothing like Medarda's polished glamour or Silco's predatory charisma. Hers is a force of nature, at once potent and preternatural.

In a word: perfect.

Silco listens to the shutterbugs' calls in between relentless clicks—"Jinx! A close up!" "C'mon, give us some love!" "Smile for us, please!" Her expressions fascinate them endlessly as she twinkles, pouts, poses, childishly wrinkling her snub nose and rolling her eyes one moment, then puckering her lips and winking flirtatiously the next. Her expression in between is the same as when she paints: rapt concentration. She is illustrating a masterpiece for history's canvas. The portrait of a brand-new city. A girl with the world at her feet.

Then she grows bored and flounces off

The cameramen buzz with dismay. Lock and Ran, waiting in the wings, blockade their pursuit. Meanwhile, Jinx bids Magnus to guard her spot at the banquet. Gratefully, she nuzzles his jowl with hers. Playing with him has done much to restore her equilibrium. Silco takes note, and decides the unsightly bastard has his uses. His place is by Jinx's side, guarding her heart. It's a role Silco recognizes, since he has fulfilled it since the day she crashed into his life.

But Jinx is still restless. Like she wants something more from this night. Something bigger.

With a soothing stroke, she lets Magnus go—and beelines for the dancefloor.

A mincing minuet is in progress. Out of respect for the formal event, the music has been kept a tempo that rarely exceeds sixty beats per minute. Anything more accelerated is dubbed an obscene kick in the pants by Piltovans. Anything less and a full-blooded Zaunite will start a brawl.

The compromise renders the dance floor a pit of plodding malaise.

Jinx takes one look and rolls her eyes. She doesn't wade politely into the sea of bodies. She dives straight in. Catching the saxophonist's eye, she snaps her fingers. The band take their cue. The rhythm changes: sinuous trumpets and throbbing bass.

Get Jinxed, with a raffish ragtime riff.

The dancers falter mid-step. A shocked susurrus spreads.

Jinx's feet nearly kick off sparks. She pirouettes in the center of the dancefloor, her movements so seamless that it is like a pure blue maelstrom within the littoral of bodies. Her pale arms go over her head, each palm holding an opposite elbow. Her eyes close and a gleeful glow transfigures her face. The music flows in waves. So does she, a glissade of silver taffeta lapping close to the shores and then rolling away again.

The other dancers watch with uneasy marvel. Step-by-step, they follow her lead.

Silco shakes his head with rueful admiration.

Hard to believe she'd once been clumsy as a puppy, all tanglefooted totterings. He still remembers when he'd first taken her to Blue Note. She'd ogled the dancers' legs nearly as intensely as the seafood platter. Strewn thumbtacks across the carpet; flung glitter bombs against the walls; filched a bottle of wine and gotten deliriously drunk. Then she'd stumbled onto his table, where he was neck-deep in business with the chem-barons behind a pall of cigar smoke, and vomited all over the tablecloth.

The disaster had its upsides. Afterward, Jinx never touched a drop of alcohol again.

He remembers carrying her out to the limo, tiny, hot, limp, in his arms. Nuzzling his neck, she'd whispered, I wanna learn to dance.

Why? he'd asked.

The girls…they all looked, I dunno. Like—

Like what?

Like they had wings.

Silco didn't smile. But his voice was six degrees away from promise, So do you, child.

Her lessons were slow going. Lots of tears and tantrums. But under her gawkiness lay an unexpected grace. He'd showed her the basics until she began to understand the rhythms of her body and the music. Before long, she could match him step for step in styles as sedate as the waltz to as spirited as the Charleston.

By thirteen, she'd mastered the Sumpside Waltz flawlessly.

At the Blue Note, he'd seldom bothered to dance. There was always business to attend to. But Jinx's wheedling would liquify his willpower to piss. Always, he'd let her drag him out for a song or two. It was there, her tiny fingers wrapped around his, their paired bodies surrounded by shadowed shapes under the sparkling lights, that he'd felt a sense of quiet wonder for this imp in his safekeeping.

To the Undercity, she was a jinx. For him, she was a miracle.

Now she's won him a war. Given him hope. Pierced his dead heart back to life.

(I'll not lose her.)

(Not to Vi—or anything else.)

Silco cuts through the crowds. One glance slices down the silhouettes to find Sevika.

She's hard to miss. He knows the dip of her spine and the muscled shape of her shoulders. He's of the few who can still catch her unawares from that vantage.

She is leaning against an indoor column, a cigarillo in one hand, the other wrapped around a nearly empty bottle. Her black hair reflects the brilliance of the chandeliers. Circling her are a small clutch of men and women. Not sycophants, but daredevils. The closest is a pink-cheeked Ionian girl representing Shon-Xan. She talks at a breathless clip, making wooing flourishes with her hands.

Sevika laughs. An easy laugh; mockery like smoke.

Silco hides his amusement. Hard to tell, but Sevika is rather high-maintenance. Most of these punters wouldn't earn a second glance. Only the bravest would dare try twice.

At Silco's shoulder, a well-groomed Piltovan delegate leers with barely-concealed fascination. "I say, First Chancellor..."

"Yes?"

"Are all the Zaunite ladies built that way?"

Blandly, Silco says, "What way?"

A grin: buyer-to-seller. "Like war-horses."

Silco barely withdraws his own smile from its sheath. They're a funny bunch, these Topsiders. Big on coin; short on common sense. A war, a horse, a whore—it's all something to acquire or trade. They've not yet comprehended that Zaun is no longer their territory. Nor are the Trenchers at their service, except on their own terms. They mistake hospitality for humility, an olive branch for a white flag, the old status quo for an ordained plan. They don't know that in three years' time, the same Trenchers they trampled will rise as if from the graves.

Outshine them. Outmaneuver them. Outlast them.

"I'm no judge on war and horses," Silco says. "But our people are indeed formidable."

"What is that aroma around the wench?"

"Brightleaf." A polite tilt of the head. "Care for a taste?"

The delegate jumps as if out a trance. "Ah—no! That is quite all right."

"The way you were looking at our Deputy Chancellor's cigarette, I couldn't tell." A blunt smile; sharp teeth. "You were looking at her cigarette, correct?"

The delegate chuckles. The sound pipes his nervousness—and whets Silco's appetite for blood.

Catching Sevika's eye, he gestures her over. Reflexively, Sevika straightens. She nods to the crowd. Buzzing quietly, they disperse.

She materializes at Silco's shoulder, "Sir."

Silco says, "Our guest wishes to sample your tobacco."

Caught off-guard, the delegate dithers. Sevika cuts her eyes at the man. She takes a toke on her cigarillo, slow and easy. Holds the fumes, then lets them pour out her nostrils.

She smiles. The delegate swallows.

Sevika says, "I don't share," and dismisses him without further ado.

The delegate's face goes red, then white, then red again. Cosseting his pride, he slinks off.

"Fuckin' pig," Sevika says.

"A complete fool," Silco says.

They fall into step, nearly shoulder-to-shoulder. Sevika flexes her facial muscles, less a grin than grinding teeth. "Don't know how you do it," she mutters. "My jaw's already primed to crack."

"Habit."

"Better habits to indulge, sir."

"Not enjoying yourself?"

She grimaces, "These Uppsiders, they're like..."

"Bidders at a brothel."

"Except it's not us they're buying." Her lips curl around drifts of smoke. "We're like racketeers." A beat, "Or rapists."

Silco doesn't smile. The punchline hangs too heavy. Nandi; Bloody Sunday.

He says instead, "A debt squared."

Sevika's eyes dip, as if there is physical pain in the smooth edges of his words. When she glances up again, the shutterbugs are in range, flashbulbs popping. Hers and Silco's features recompose, instinctively pleasant—Cheese.

Except Jinx is the real showstopper. She drags all eyes to her, attention held captive as if at gunpoint.

Sevika tracks the girl's pirouettes across the dancefloor. "She's behaving," she says, with an undertone of Am I jinxing it?

"She's toying with them."

"Toying?"

"The press would have foisted a role upon her. The mad bomber. The terrorist. The victim. Better she master her own image and court them on her own terms."

"They're already hankering for interviews."

"No interviews." As a father, Silco can't stop time—but he can keep the fucking wolves at bay. "They'll be allowed no access to Jinx until her Big Nineteenth. That gives her enough time to prepare for a life in the limelight."

"If that's what she wants."

Silco smiles, but not merrily. "There's almost nothing Jinx can't do if she wants something." His smile fades. "Provided she's kept safe."

He means: From Vi.

Sevika nods, reverting to operational default. "The network have scoped out the Rumbler's Den. The warmason's on the prowl again. A cage-fight's scheduled."

"And our rottweiler?"

"Tonight she'll earn her keep."

"Hm."

The night's agenda shapes itself in Silco's mind. On the surface—soirees, speeches, social networking. The dance of political intrigue. Beneath it all—bloodshed, broken bones, brutality. The tenor of the times.

In both places, he must hold the reins steady.

The music blends with the tinkling aria of Jinx's laughter. His nerves fire to the pulse of it.

Sevika says, "You all right?"

Another time, the query, no matter how valid, would have earned her a flat stare of reproof. This evening, Silco says, "I'm wired."

Sevika blinks. Silco can be fiendish. He can be cagey. He can be unpredictable.

He is never wired.

"You want I should…" Her offer is almost tentative. "…fix you a drink?"

A proper drink, she means. With an astringent sting. Enough to wash down a pill or two.

Silco shakes his head. He wants nothing except for tonight's cacophony to end. All the cameras; the chatter. Its claustrophobia is like a fist closing around his throat. The last time he'd felt so restless was the night before Vander was slain. He'd paced the confines of the Cannery, too edgy to sit still, his thoughts turning over and over. By the time the attack went down, he was ready.

Vander wasn't.

(I caught you off-guard.)

(That's why I lived and you didn't.)

For a moment, he feels Vander. A presence looming in his periphery. His brother is dead, but he will always have his way.

Even on a night like this.

Sevika lays her fingertips on his elbow. "Sir?"

Silco realizes he is staring at the edge of the dancefloor. Staring past Jinx's head at nothing.

"I'm fine," he says.

"Go up to the bar and I'll—"

"No."

Their eyes meet. Sevika's frown is replaced by a gleam of understanding. She drops her hand from his arm. "There's no shutterbugs at the service bathroom."

"Good."

"No staff either."

"Better."

Another glance traded. Sevika fades into the crush. Two minutes later, Silco follows. The guests are too lost in their own world to notice his departure. The press are crowded around Jinx, who dances as if arm-in-arm with the Devil.

The real Devil takes a detour.

At the service bathroom, Sevika is waiting. Her cheroot is smoked down to the pulsating red tip. At Silco's approach, she pitches it to the floor. Silco treads across the embers, grinding them under his bootheel, and kicks the door shut. The music of the gala mutes. The bathroom is lit by a single fixture: umbra and flame.

Sevika doesn't wait. She backs herself up against the basin. Silco crowds her solid body with his own. His hand steals up beneath the hem of her dress uniform, coasting cool along her thigh. She lets him, a breath held tight. Her legs part further, so he has room to curl his whole palm around her sex. Nylon panties; a surprise. Usually she goes without.

Tonight, they are both covering their bases.

Silco squeezes. She jitters out a high, ragged sound. "Fuck."

"Quiet."

She bites her lip as he caresses her. A circling pressure—slow, deliberate, repetitive. He'd like to take his time, but the night is wearing on. Besides, she is ready for him. A dark patch glistens at the center of the fabric.

"Already wet." His teeth trace her jaw. "How flattering."

"Not for you."

"No?"

"That Shon-Xan bitch. Got a real pretty mouth on her. All pink and pouty. Like a—"

"Like a cunt?"

His fingertip glides up her center line, between her lips. He finds, through wet nylon, her clit. Sevika gasps, a cry bitten down. Silco's smile is a razor; his touch is the opposite. His thumb strokes her, back and forth, spreading the dewy moisture seeping from inside.

"I prefer yours." The mockery is a low-pitched thrum. "She always gives me a proper hello."

"Fuck you."

"My point exactly."

He gnaws Sevika's jaw where the pulse leaps beneath the skin. A tremor gusts through her. He moves down her neck, teasing the skin where throat and shoulder meet. Her dress is tailored to fit like a glove. A collar of gold piping hugs the column of her neck, the buttons running all the way down. It's a bitch to remove, but he's a patient man, and he's never needed to strip Sevika bare to know her truth.

Her skin isn't made for secrets. Her body only speaks the language of scars.

Yanking open the collar of her dress, Silco bites into her shoulder—hard. Sevika hisses, hands fisting his lapels. His jagged teeth break skin. Blood beads in a dark crescent. He laps it with the flat of his tongue: hot and salty. Better than champagne.

"Shit—" she gasps, "don't—"

"Why?" He torments the spot, feeling spasms wrack her. "Don't like it?"

"Someone might see—"

"The Topside pigs?" His canines, exposed, gleam red. "Shall I call them in and charge a fee?"

Her eyes flare. "Bastard—fuck!"

Silco bites deep and holds fast. Her hips buck, riding the heel of his hand, a shockwave barely smothered. Her clit throbs under his thumb. He gives it a cruel flicking through the fabric, so wet it is practically molded now to her labia. Her body is past ready, but he won't give in just yet.

It's a tightrope he's walking tonight, but with her, he is grounded utterly in the flesh.

Tethered.

"On your knees," he says.

Sevika glowers darkly. Her breath comes ragged; her eyes are ravenous. Then a smile splits her face. She's good at this game. Nearly as good as him. She knows what he needs; knows how to give it. That alone is a reward worth the cost.

The rest is just a bonus.

The floor is rough stone. But Sevika sinks to her knees like a priestess at Janna's altar. Her eyelashes dip. She looks at the hardening crux at his trousers, then up at him in a way reminiscent of Nandi: all glowy-eyed sweetness.

Except Sevika isn't sweet. She is fire, and he's ready to be burned.

She undoes the buttons on his trouserfont. Takes his cock out with a callused hand. A hiss escapes Silco's lungs. He is already half-hard. She palms him into fullness, slow at first, then faster. Her strokes are practiced; her grip firm. He doesn't need to guide her. She knows his rhythms like the Old Hungry's bells.

Jacking him roughly with one hand, Sevika rolls his balls with the other. The copper calipers are cool against his flesh; the caress is a livewire across his nerves. Silco's palms slide across her skull. His fingers wed themselves to her hair, tightening at the roots. She gets the message. Her tongue flickers out, teasing the crown. Again, then again, until she is sucking the gleaming juice from the tip, a hum trapped low in her throat.

Then she swoops down and swallows him whole.

Silco curses, the gritty expletive echoing across the tiles. The suction is unforgiving. The heat is divine. He feels himself sinking straight into her throat.

Sevika's eyes—blurred with tears—never drop from his.

Shuddering, Silco seizes her by the back of her skull. His hips flex; she hums around him. The vibration triggers a riptide. His mind blacks out and his muscles take over. Holding her in place, he rides into her mouth. Feeding her; taking his fill. He's always appreciated a good suckjob, and takes them as he should: without apology. Sevika welcomes every inch. It's a gift few lovers have given him. Her tongue is a hot sluice against his shaft. Her lips are an exquisite seal. She works him in a steady rhythm. Slow, sloppy, savoring—with the barest hint of teeth.

He could spill without compunction. Give her every last drop. Let the rage packed in his body tip him over the edge.

Except he wants her there, too.

He shoves her. Sevika's mouth breaks off with a lewd wet pop.

"Get up," he breathes.

A dazed blink, before she rises to her feet. His hands are still tangled in her hair. Their faces are so close he can see the Shimmer-veins gently glowing along the topography of her face: fine purple cracks across her cheekbone and temple. Beautiful cracks. Proof of life; proof of loyalty.

He kisses her.

It isn't a gentle kiss. It is a match struck at both ends. Sevika's sigh scorches; his growl sears. He shoves her back against the sink. Palms at the shape of her breasts through her blouse. She squeezes his cock with a fist; snares his lower-lip between her teeth. He tastes her blood and his, a fusion so heady it's almost alchemical.

One hand drags her panties down, the fabric snagging on her boots. The other flips up her skirt. His fingertips find the slicked seam between her thighs.

Sevika groans into his mouth, "Shit, yes—"

"Yes?"

"Yes."

He works in two fingers, a twisting stroke that makes Sevika's thighs spasm. Draws them out, wet and gleaming. Her eyes follow, rapt, as he sucks them clean. The next moment she is bare-arsed and spread wide against the sink, his palms tipping her knees back. His sheathed cock juts out, curving towards his belly. He teases it along the slick folds of her sex, up and down, until the last of her control slips into grinding snaps, little grunts.

"Fuck," she says. "Hurry. Fuck me."

Silco smiles.

Never let it be said he doesn't pay his dues.

Hiking her legs up higher, he goes into her—hard. Sevika gasps, all of her held taut. Her eyelids flutter shut. Another gift: surrender hidden in a hard shell. Her body gives way, sublimely slick and scalding hot. Her sturdy legs hook around his hips and pull him in.

Their rhythm is raw and rapid. Each motion reverberates through Silco's body and into hers. Her head strikes the mirror with each blowback. Her good hand whiteknuckles the basin. Her prosthetic hand claws his shirtfront. The soundtrack of their sawing gasps is a filthy counterpoint to the lilting elegance of the dancefloor.

A Sumpside Waltz.

Outside the tiny bathroom, the gala continues to spin. A sea of bodies, a tide of time. Jinx's laughter. The flash of cameras. The glitz, the greed, the glamor. In Zaun's streets, the throngs all have their eyes raised to the fireworks in the smoky sky. In Piltover, the fresh air is a tonic after months of terror.

The Treaty is signed. The war is done. The cities share peace.

Yet Silco is a stranger to celebration.

All he knows is the rhythm of the grind. His life as a cycle: kill, survive, kill, survive. The pattern has no end. Only a few constants: Zaun. Jinx. Sevika.

And, always, Vander.

(You died and I lived.)

(So fuck you.)

(Tonight's all mine.)

"I'm close," Sevika grits, a breath away from his lips.

The room is furnace: flesh and sweat and blood. The mirrors are fogged. But Sevika is watching him, his reflection twinned in the blown black of her pupils. No air between them; just a vacuum of need. And then he catches the base of her skull in his palm and hauls her in close, their breaths colliding before their mouths do—except it's a soft kiss where the rest of them is violence, and that's when her muscles seize and her spine crests, a cry tearing loose from her, and he slides home and loses himself, a rush of heat, a blast of darkness, a spangle of light.

A sigh.

Afterward, they stay breathing each other's air. Their eyes catch and hold in a half-lidded pact.

"Better?" Sevika whispers.

Silco musters a smile. Not the smile he wears for the Councilors, or for the chem-barons. Just his own.

"Much," he says.

"Good." Her mouth, swollen, curls in turn. "You'll be missed."

"Such sentiment."

"I meant by our guests."

"So did I."

Sevika's thighs fall away from his hips. Silco eases himself from her; they shiver at the shared friction. Side-by-side, they wsh up and rearrange their clothing. The mutuality is as fluent as any other coded exchange between them.

"Get moving," Silco says, the model of propriety once more. "You have a rottweiler to manage."

"And you've got a circus of Uppsiders."

"Between us, we're spoiled for choice."

Sevika's laugh is hoarse from the fuck. But her eyes are solemn. "It's not exactly what you pictured, huh?"

"What?"

"Freedom."

Silco fingers his cravat, the knot immaculate. "Not yet. But soon."

"Soon," Sevika echoes.

They trade a final glance, and Silco feels an unaccustomed flicker. Something like trust, if he were a man to feel such a thing.

Then the sweat cools and it is gone.

His cants his head sideways: Go.

Sevika's stoicism hardens into steel. She signs one-handed, before stepping past him. Her own shorthand, sparingly used:

Watch yourself.

The door clicks shut.

Silco waits five minutes until his post-fuck cigarette burns itself out. Then he returns to the gala. The band is still playing. The Councilors and chem-barons are still schmoozing. Jinx is still dazzling the press. In a corner, the Shon-Xan girl is waiting, eyes hopeful. Sevika is nowhere to be seen. Nor are Lock, Ran or Dustin.

The real business of the night has begun.

One of the waitstaff proffers a champagne refill. Silco accepts, and takes a sip. His body hums with the afterglow. His nerves are steadier. By nature, he isn't one catastrophize. Yet he knows the edge will remain as the night grinds on. It will remain until he receives confirmation from Sevika that Vi's mission is done.

It will remain so for the next three years. Everything that ever matters depends on him making the right decisions, maneuvering in the dark and in the spotlight, until Zaun stands steady.

Until Jinx does.

Jinx—all glowing eyes and electrified smile. She seems sublimely at ease on the dancefloor. But now and then she jitters to a stop, eyes darting across the ballroom, her restless hands clutching at her dress as if searching for a pinch of leftover gunpowder. Then she'll take a steadying breath and dive back into the flotsam of bodies.

Silco hopes it is overstimulation, and not her ghosts. She is too vulnerable out in the open like this. But keeping her interminably by his side is impractical. Jinx won't learn to handle herself if he helicopters her at every step. It's not his style; it's not hers. If he tried, she'd laugh. Or furrow her brow, convinced he expected her to screw up.

Jinx isn't a screw-up. She is strong.

She's survived a war. She'll survive this.

Mid-twirl, Jinx spots him in the crowd. She flashes her megawatt smile and aims two fingers, firing off like a child blowing a kiss.

Silco's own smile is a crooked thing. Laying a hand to his chest, he mimes a shot to the heart.

Bullseye.

A champagne flute clinks gently against his own. A waft of hot-house hyacinths tickles his nose.

"She's quite a pistol. You should keep an eye on her."

"Hence my namesake."

He turns on his heel, the slow-motion swivel of a corkscrew ready to uncork a rare vintage. Medarda mirrors his movement, the graceful turn of her body like a dance in itself. The chandeliers catch the topaz flecks in her eyes. A beguiling smile curves her mouth.

"I daresay," she murmurs, "you were absent for thirty minutes."

"A private matter."

"With your Deputy Chancellor?"

"Fishing for gossip, Councilor?"

"Call it an idle curiosity. You both left at the same time. Now you've returned, in pristine order."

"A smoke-break is hardly a state scandal."

"Indeed not." A wicked gleam turns her eyes from topaz to green. "But are you aware there is lipstick on your cravat?"

Silco's calm doesn't falter. There is nothing on his cravat, and they both know it. He's too much of a precisionist for it to be otherwise.

"Blood, I think," he says, with heavy irony and a dose of warning.

Medarda's smile deepens. "Then Miss Sevika has bite."

"You'll forgive me if I decline to comment."

"Of course." A dip of her chin. "It is no affair of mine."

"Unless you'd like it to be."

She is too clever to be dissuaded. "You may sidestep, Chancellor. But I find it's the obvious the gives the truth away."

"Such as?"

"The way her eyes follow you in a room. The way yours find her without so much as a glance. Your body language around one another: so casual. A look here. A nod there." Medarda's eyelashes sweep up: slow, sensual, sly. "Certain things just... click."

Silco is unmoved. "Like a trigger?"

"Precisely."

"Then perhaps you should watch your finger."

"Oh, I am watching." Medarda's eyes dip to the blue tie-pin on his spotless cravat, then back up, to his swollen mouth. "Very closely."

On the dancefloor, Jinx does a quicksilver polka. The cameras circle her like rings around a planet. The shutter-snaps resonate like applause.

Medarda follows the direction of Silco's stare. "She's a natural at seizing the spotlight."

He doesn't miss the double-meaning. "She deserves to, after a lifetime in the dark."

"It's a rare gift. So many of us must cultivate it."

"Or manufacture it."

"For you and I, there is little difference." Medarda takes a musing sip of champagne. "That's the eternal gulf between age and youth, isn't it? The young have an inborn innocence that the camera recognizes. A vulnerability that is its own bravery. And the older ones—the corrupt, the cynical, the calculating—always covet it. Maybe because they've locked their own innocence away. Or killed it entirely."

"Do you speak from experience?"

"In a sense." Her eyes drift back to Jinx. "I hope hers lasts."

"My daughter is resilient."

"We all have our limits, Chancellor."

"And what are yours?"

Medarda smiles. She is a master at the nuances of doublespeak. But with him, she can never seem to resist the spontaneity of play. "I'll share if you will."

Silco hides the smile at the corners of his own mouth. He does enjoy their easy back-and-forth. It's been years since he's found someone worth a spar.

"You began the game," he says. "Don't change the rules halfway."

"I thought rules in Zaun were made to be broken."

"Only bent. To an inch."

"You are a stickler for detail, aren't you? I should have known."

"A prerequisite for any politician."

"Or a bladesman." Her smile tempers. "Tell me. Where has Miss Sevika vanished to?"

"She's attending to business."

"And you?"

"The same."

Their eyes meet over their crystal flutes. The parlor game is in motion. So far, he and Medarda have maintained a strategic distance in the guise of civility. But as the evening prolongs, it will become evident they are avoiding each other. Tongues will wag. For such a closely-scrutinized event, the charade of camaraderie means everything.

Especially for discussing matters best kept away from prying ears.

Politely, Silco says, "Would you care to see our art gallery, Councilor Medarda?"

"Art? How intriguing."

"Shuriman collections. I understand you are an aficionada. Perhaps I could solicit an opinion."

"By all means." Coyly, she loops a curl behind her ear. "Lead the way."

From the corner of his eye, Silco signals to one of the staff, a girl in black silk: Keep an eye on Jinx. She nods and melts into the crush. Medarda likewise surveys the spillover for her assistant. A tacit nod is exchanged. The woman will keep Talis occupied in case he observes her absence.

Medarda's arm goes through Silco's. They drift discreetly upstairs.

The gallery is wide and dark-paneled, a long stretch of marble floor striped down the middle by the reflective glow of the skylight that captures the eerie green hues of Zaun's evening. Rows of fluted lamps hang at intervals between portraits. There are echoes of music and laughter spilling out from the overstuffed ballroom below. But here, it is quieter, quiet enough that the only sounds are the rustle of Medarda's gown and the soft click of Silco's shoes.

As they walk arm-in-arm down the aisle, Silco reacquaints himself with the sequence of paintings hanging high upon the walls. Possessing no artistic talent himself—does carving up bodies with his blade count?—he nonetheless has an appreciative eye. It is rooted in the same instinct that leads him to choose the suckers best suited to live and die for Zaun's cause: easy marks versus immortalized martyrs.

These paintings are no different.

The illustrate the fall of Shurima's sprawling empire. Scenes of suffering set against red-stained sands and fury-laden skies. The Twilight of the Gods. The Descent into the Tomb. The Coming of the Savages. Thousand-year-old epics that yet retain a varnished menace. The glistening marks of whippings on the captives' bodies, the arrow-pierced chests with dark trickles of blood and the silver scimitars flashing mid-swing could have occurred yesterday.

There are no women in the portraits. The blunt masculinity of the figures speaks volumes. It is a history of warriors and their triumphs; not of their victims. The men are bare-chested and bronzed, with rippled muscles and oiled hair. They are gods and monsters. Their expressions are proud, even when they are dying.

Their womenfolk, if indeed they are shown, are relegated to the background, their faces obscured by veils and jewels.

Subsumed by shame, and swallowed by shadow.

Just like Zaun.

Silco had glimpsed these artworks long ago, during his days at Piltover's Academy. In the winters, he'd slip into the neighboring art gallery, not for cultural edification, but because there were free meals and mulled wine served at the openings, so he could eat without wasting his rent money. Years later, the collection was briefly exhibited at the Promenade. He'd visited with Jinx, then thirteen. She'd squealed gleefully over the Abstracts, all bursts of color and delightful whimsy. But when Silco led her to the Nineteenth Century aisle, she'd had a meltdown.

The largest painting was a temple disintegrating in a spectral blue explosion. Lightning flashed; storm-clouds rolled; bodies were flung like flotsam. A lightning-haired goddess, Jan'ahrem—Janna—wielded a shield and lance, the spherical radiance of her magic safeguarding the screaming soldiers in the center.

To Jinx, it replicated the bloodbath in the Cannery.

An eerie lambaste? Or a could-have-been?

Silco had guided Jinx to the upholstered bench in the corner. Tearstained, she'd crawled into his lap, clutching at him with an infantile fervor. Within moments she'd fallen asleep. For two bells, Silco had sat there, motionless, so as not to disturb her. It was the first time he'd held her for such a prolonged period in public. Passersby glanced at him. Not with suspicion, but sympathy. He wondered what they thought Jinx was to him. His niece? His own child? A few times he'd tried to nudge her off. But she'd only whimpered and clutched tighter.

And so Silco stayed. Perfectly still, impossibly bored, before passing into a state that transcended boredom.

Straight across from him was the painting that'd set Jinx off. He'd stared at it unblinkingly. The goddess held an expression of peculiar serenity and suffering. The look of someone who has endured many tortures, and yet knows there are fates more agonizing than death. The look of someone who has been killed over and over and yet risen intact. The look of someone who cannot be destroyed, because they burn with life at their very center.

Curled in his lap, Jinx wore the same expression.

Now, Silco traces an idle fingertip along the gilt frame.

"This one," he murmurs, "is an anachronism. The scene depicted is from Shuriman lore. Yet the lance and shield held by the goddess are Freljordian."

Curiosity touches Medarda's expression. "How do you know this?"

"The painting is titled Salvation and Redemption."

A smile lifts Medarda's glossy mouth. "Perhaps we should take it as a lesson."

"Of what?"

"Mixed alliances and the necessity of compromise."

"Tonight's theme, after all."

"I thought tonight's theme was peace and war."

"Are you in a warlike mood?"

Medarda's tone glides into silk. "My mood may yet improve."

She means: If you're handling the warmasons prowling between Piltover and Zaun's territory.

Silco doesn't bat an eyelid. "We live in hope."

He means: It's in the works.

Her expression sobers. "Do you foresee it ending with a whimper or a bang?"

"What would you prefer?"

"A bang." With a ladylike primness, "Though not the sort Jinx might conjure."

Silco smiles thinly. Her manner is flirtatious; beneath that it reflexively feels him out. She already knows what makes him fidget. His sole sign of weakness. Jinx. She'll use it for what she wants—confirmation on the Noxian warmasons' whereabouts, corroboration that Silco's crew will handle the threat, caution on using violence near Piltover's borders—and then return to the safety of her exalted sphere.

She treats Talis as her precious little puppy. She treats Silco like a rabid mongrel to sic at her command, then afterwards muzzle lest he bite. She thinks nothing of manipulating both men, because most men would see nothing amiss. They're too damn blindsided by her beauty, her grace, her elegance—her perfect façade.

Silco has already seen through the façade. It is her money move, the ace up her sleeve. But once you outmaneuver it, the other player is knocked off their game. And to Medarda, it is a game. She has little to lose beyond a few bells' sleep. Whereas if Silco missteps, he stands to lose his grip on Vi, on Jinx's trust, on Zaun's trajectory, and their future.

She can afford to treat this as a game. He can afford nothing—except to drag her down to his level.

Neutrally, he says, "Jinx prefers booms to bangs."

"Then we should thank our stars for her mercy."

"I thank my stars for Jinx every day." He gestures. "We've a collection of her artworks. Perhaps you might enjoy them."

"Of course."

They stroll side-by-side. Past the vestibule stretches a corridor of claustrophobic narrowness. Here, all classical majesty and sleek modernity dissolve into stark delirium. The paintings, beneath framed veneers, are quintessentially Jinx: messy, febrile, intrinsically chaotic and yet dazzling in their drama. They depict dark giants devouring shrieking children, throat-cuttings in street-corners, bottles smashed on skulls in bar brawls.

In one, a doll-sized figure with blue hair is crouched in the burning womb of an alleyway while a sharklike specter sails like a guardian overhead and a red-haired demoness with mallet-sized fists recedes into the horizon. In another, a city blazes in tongues of blue flame while an elfin figure perches on the lip of a burnt bridge, one leg drawn up, the other dangling, the expression at once aloof and wistful.

The final one is the little elf again, with the azure heart of the Hex-gem glowing at the center of her chest. She stands holding a torch of blue smoke aloft, chin high and shoulders squared. The Shuriman Libertas—or Janna herself—in deepening hues of dusk and midnight. The figure has a queerly static air about her, as though she might at any moment ignite into pure brightness.

The technique of each artwork is crude. But in their energy they are fantastically rendered. The grim subjects connect rather than repel. They tell a story, so horrendous, so psychologically assaultive, that there is no shadow of doubt who is the victim under the monster's masquerade.

Medarda's eyes widen. Her breath hitches. The shock is so profound that for a moment she cannot speak.

"Rainbows," she says finally.

"Hm?"

"Rot into rainbows. That's how you described Jinx's work."

Silco cants his head. "How would you describe it?"

"I—" The pulse beats rapidly at the satin hollow of Medarda's throat. "It's beautiful."

He stares at her.

"Sincerely. I am reminded of..."

"What?"

Her voice wavers, then steadies. "When I was a girl, not much younger than Jinx, my mother's fleet captured a small Ionian settlement. I believe it was called Pallas. Rather than endure death by sacking, its citizens opened their gates, begging for mercy. In answer, my mother's troops tore through, setting everything ablaze. Within the day, she'd toppled the chieftain's fortress. She clubbed him down at his throne." A swallow. "Afterward, my mother brought me to behold the victory. I had never crossed the sea from Noxus before. It was my first time participating in a war campaign. I was eager to impress my mother as a diligent learner."

She smiles and shakes her head, as if brushing up against something sharp-edged from her past. The pensive body-language is the same as on the yacht. Again, Silco is seeing a hidden facet of her personality.

Something wounded; something vulnerable.

"I remember the victory procession through the ruined streets," she says. "The buildings smoking like embers. The captives dragged in chains: sour-smelling men, screaming women and children. All in plain view. I could scarcely believe it. I'd known the aftermath of war before, of course. In paintings, and missives, and ballads. But I'd expected something less…"

"Monstrous," suggests Silco with blandness.

She gives him a knowing look. "Yes. The truth filled me with heaviness. My mother spoke to me often of war as valor and glory. And yet here was this monstrosity. This brutalization. Surely there were better ways to win a battle? Later, my mother led me to the ruined throne. She showed me where she'd slain the chieftain. I saw his blood. Like rust, but brighter. His body was already gone. But the color felt to me a violent affront, a reminder of failed statesmanship and its aftermath."

"Not a memory worth treasuring, I gather?"

"The opposite."

"Indeed?"

Her lashes dip. Her smiling mouth takes the shape of bitterness. "My mother had captured the chieftain's heir. A girl. She was barefoot, disheveled, with eyes like dull gold coins." The smile fades. "Her hair and skin were different from mine. Yet I thought she looked exactly like me. A replica. More than that—a mirror. Now it seems an absurdity. Yet in that moment it felt a powerful truth. As if she was someone I might have been, were I born across the sea. My mother… she asked what I should do with her."

"Set her free?"

Medarda's gaze jerks to his, only to find it unflinchingly direct. He already knows the answer.

"Mother beheaded the girl where she stood," she says evenly. "A single stroke of the blade."

"Her aim must have been flawless."

"Oh, it was." Her laugh is brittle—less a windchime than broken glass "I still remember the blood. Such a dark color. Not vermillion. More… cadmium. Madder. Burnt sienna."

"You remember it in detail."

"I painted the scene afterward. The artwork hangs over the bed in my chamber."

"To help you sleep?"

"The opposite. To keep me awake." Her eyes darken, the pupils eclipsing the golden rings. "That day was the death of my girlhood. But also the birth of my truth. I was destined to despise war from that moment on." She glances back at Jinx's paintings. "Your daughter's artwork captures my feelings down to the last brushstroke."

Silco hitches a brow in dry disparagement. "Jinx isn't sentimental about war."

"Then why would she paint such scenes?"

"War means different things to different people," he returns. "To your mother, it is conquest. To you, it is failure. To me, it is survival."

"And to Jinx?"

"A challenge surmounted. A reminder to look forward, but…"

"Never forget?"

Silence pools between them, stirred beneath the surface by darker drives, and yet tantalizing in its truths. She already knows Silco's blind spot. Jinx. Now Silco is ready to learn the full extent of hers. Beyond Talis. Beyond Noxus. Their conversation is the ideal opening. But he doesn't enter sideways. He is straightforward.

"You've little in common with General Medarda."

She shakes her head. "Precious little."

"But her lessons are yours if you play your hand well."

"Her lessons are her own."

"Inherited from empires broken at her sword."

"And lives ruined," she says with quiet forcefulness. "Her children's, first and foremost."

Silco's look is one of half-lidded curiosity.

Medarda glances down at her hands, feeling for the Noxian ring, twisting it on her finger. The gesture radiates a girl's distress. "You must understand, Chancellor. Mother was no mother to me. And I no daughter to her. She was my mentor. My sovereign. My liege." An exhale. "A terrible mistress."

Silco says nothing.

"If Mother had any affection, it was always bound in battlefields. She had moments of indulgence, certainly. But she could hardly wait for her children—my brother and I—to grow up. She wanted us to transition from squires to soldiers, then generals in our own right."

"No diplomats need apply."

"She preferred her children competitive. Extroverted. Gifted in warfare." A wry moue, "I'm sure she would have chided Jinx for a lack of discipline. But on the whole, she would have found the dark and light in her nature a melding of war's best qualities."

Silco recalls the remark that set her off during their first meeting. "The Wolf and the Fox."

Her features recompose into neutrality. "You favor the approach?"

A rhetorical question on the surface. But not when it is a Noxian noblewoman questioning a Zaunite crime-lord.

Silco leans a shoulder against the wall, arms crossed. With a fingertip, he rubs his scarred temple. "War is like water. It holds a certain rhythm. A balance between force and finesse. Too much of either creates a counterreaction. Cunning finesse is inevitably cornered by brute force. But brute force without cunning leaves one susceptible to stratagem. It is the ebb and flow between the extremes that makes the difference." He smiles. "You've a talent of your own. One that lies beyond either."

Her chin lifts a half-inch, eyes glinting guardedly. "Oh?"

"Artistry."

She stares at him.

"Force and finesse are the currents of war," he says. "Artistry speaks directly to the human experience. It is permeable. It floats in and out of different psyches and mixes with different hearts. In each, it leaves an impact—with its victims none the wiser. Always adapting, it penetrates the most well-finessed secrets. Always on the move, it eludes even the most forceful foe."

Medarda doesn't smile, but something in her face suggests she is struggling with the impulse. "That is your advice? Artistry as warfare?"

"I would never presume to advise you."

"Yet you did. Have you tendered the suggestion to Jinx?"

He tips a shoulder. "On occasion."

"Then I am flattered." She extends a palm; Silco takes it. Her handshake holds a scrutinizing softness. Then, like their first meeting, she turns his palm over in both her own. Her expression lapses into contemplation.

"I should paint your hands," she says. "They are by far your most intriguing feature."

"Now I become the flattered one."

She traces the knobs of his knuckles. "I would do them in grayscale. Black and white. The pale skin; the stark veins. The calluses at the fingertips. The scars—so many." A fleeting smile. "They say it is an element of strangeness that transforms a character of beauty into an object of art. Hands, for me, are the same."

Her fingertip flutters over the raised network of ridges. "This scar seems to be from a broken glass. You must have been a child." Her touch travels to another, near the thumb. "This one from a knife, I expect."

"A scalpel, actually."

"Ah, a clumsy physician."

"They are all instruments of torture."

She traces a crescent. "What about this one?"

"An anchor."

"So you've had a taste of seafaring." Her gaze flits upward. "Or should I say smuggling?"

He hums in muted of agreement.

Her fingers stroke down. Her touch is slow, but decidedly unmethodical. "This one is fresh. Not as ingrained."

He knows the scar she speaks of: a ragged wound along his wrist. A ghost of death palpable beneath the beating pulse. "That's from the war."

"War?"

"Our war, Councilor," Silco says. "The Siege between Zaun and Piltover."

At the reminder, her caress stills. "You and Jinx fought side-by-side?"

"We'd little choice."

"Small wonder, then."

He frowns.

"You are close." Her eyes seek his as if testing the waters. "Like family."

"We are family."

"I see that now." She holds the smile as if to reassure him. "So does everyone at the gala. An opportunistic rival would label it a weakness."

"A weakness in plain sight ceases to be one."

"Indeed. It becomes a weapon." Medarda allows herself a brief laugh. "Or an art gallery." Her eyes pass over the paintings. "I envy your bond."

"Envy?"

"I've always believed that suffering—deep suffering—can make you feel separate from others. Isolated from even yourself. The sole silver lining is when you find someone who understands. They become your connection to the world. A bridge."

"Is that what we're doing?"

"Aren't we?"

Silco has no desire to debate semantics. But his silence isn't an agreement.

"You don't trust easily, do you?" she says softly.

"I don't trust at all."

"Because you're too intelligent." Her thumb skims his knuckles, a silken sweep. "You can spot duplicity from miles away. But it's a lonely road."

"You walk it too."

"I've found artistry in my solitude."

"Oh?" He twines their fingers: an unexpected trap. "Is that why you are here?"

Medarda's eyes are dosed with humor. But it's a shell. He feels the subdermal tremor of her pulse.

"I came for the art," she murmurs. "I stayed for the company."

"Mine, or Jinx's paintings?"

"Yours proves just as intriguing."

"That either means you're acquiring a taste for filth—"

"Hardly!"

"—or Talis ought to brush up on his technique."

Scowling, she drops his hand. "Leave Jayce out of it."

Amused, Silco laces his hands behind his back. Hard to tell how much of the exchange she's manufactured between them was truth or fiction, or a clever fabrication of both. Perhaps it's a game she's played with many an old lecher, to catch him off-guard, soften his heart. Or maybe she's stumbled into honesty unexpectedly, and is backtracking before it endangers her. Whatever the case, he's learnt enough.

Her weakness isn't simply Talis.

It is the future she could have with him. A future she desperately wants devoid of warfare.

With her mother at arm's length.

"My congratulations," Silco says. "If you hoped to disavow General Medarda's influence, you could not have chosen more fittingly. Talis is diametrically opposite to the life you left behind. Idealistic. Compassionate. The perfect antidote."

Discomfort enfolds Medarda's body. He's hit his mark.

"I must keep Jayce clear of this business," she murmurs. "Especially with my mother circling Piltover. She badly wants the Hex-tech."

"She's a resourceful woman. She may find alternatives."

She regards him warily. "During our parley, you mentioned that you'd met her."

"Long ago."

"How long?"

"Oh, lifetimes. She'd have been about my age." A half-smile tugs the side of Silco's mouth. "She was quite the beauty. Ferocious, but a beauty." He pauses. "I was not. Just a sumpraker of no account. But your father found me witty enough. After our business, we talked for a good bell." He shrugs, an indolent roll of shoulders. "Feel free to ask her. Though I suspect she will not remember."

"But you remember?"

"A smuggler always keeps track of his buyers."

"And has she—" A glance down the corridor, then back, "—done business with Zaun?" Her voice is a severe hush. "Recently?"

"Not with me." He tilts his head. "You needn't look so worried, Councilor. You know my thoughts on war-lords."

"Mother has allies everywhere." Her eyes are searching, suspicious. "She may have them here."

"Not on my watch." With a fingertip, he taps the scarred skin below his bad eye. "My moniker isn't just for show."

Her expression tautens, but only briefly. She is no longer on the defensive. "Then we understand each other."

"As much as a Fox and a Wolf can."

"And as allies?"

"In that, we stand united."

"In that case," she glides closer, "I've yet another matter to discuss."

"Regarding?"

"The Peace Treaty." She sobers. "Wet ink makes for fragile paper. Jinx has won the hearts of the press. But her image plastered across tomorrow's headlines doesn't guarantee a fresh start."

"Salts old wounds, rather."

"Zaun and Piltover can't afford more wounds." Her hand drifts to his chest, a light press. "I have a suggestion. To seal the deal, so to speak."

"I'm listening."

"A dance."

"With Jinx? Because as her father, I must respectfully decline. You've already stolen a kiss. Go further, and we'll need to negotiate a bride price."

She nearly laughs, then stifles it when she realizes he is serious.

"I wasn't aware an innocent kiss was so costly." She meets his eyes, and they go earnest. Inquiring. "How much is Jinx's worth?"

"More than your city can ever afford."

"Here I thought Zaunites allowed their daughters full liberty."

"We do. We also don't take kindly to strangers encroaching on what's ours." His voice cools a touch. "It was a fine bit of theater, Councilor. But next time: ask permission first."

Medarda's earnestness remains, but he can feel the charm beneath it. Her lips curve: an alluring crescent. "You are endearingly protective."

"It goes with the territory."

"Forgive me if I've given offense. I did say I'd make nice, and she's quite the darling. Tonight's feeding frenzy among the press is proof." The hand on his chest lingers. "As it is, I wasn't asking for a dance with Jinx."

"Then with whom?"

"You." A tweak of his blue tie-pin with a manicured fingertip. "You've only allowed yourself ten sips of champagne. A pity. Here I thought you'd be the man to lure us into debauchery. But a dance is the next best thing."

"A spectacle," Silco surmises.

"To remind both our cities of tonight's new beginning."

He nods.

The gala is a charade. But the dancefloor is the one place where playacting makes a real difference. A symbol of goodwill captured in a hundred photographs and immortalized in a thousand more. The leaders of two nations, arm-in-arm, a single heartbeat between them. A key to a new beginning; a door closed to the past.

And if dancing with Mel Medarda is the price, it's easy enough to pay.

"I assume—" Silco's good eye roams, half-lidded, "—You've a tune in mind?"

"I was thinking a waltz."

"A slow and stately affair." He nixes it with a scoff. "I think not."

"No?"

"This is Zaun, Councilor Medarda. We prefer something with more bite." With wry formality, Silco extends his hand. "Tell me. Have you ever danced the Sumpside Waltz?"

---

For Piltover, the Sumpside Waltz once ranked at the top of the banned list.

Brewed up in the Undercity's raunchiest cabarets, the concoction was potent and addictive. It represented the counterculture that began sweeping the Fissures before the Day of Ash: hangovers of class, sexuality and respectability swept aside in the hot liquor of rebellion. It was denounced from the Piltovan pulpits as pernicious, and censured by newspaper editorials as corrupting.

Its steps were improvised rather than codified. It involved lewd degrees of physical contact. It consisted of whirligigs that gave way to loose-limbed giddiness. The first set was foreplay in motion: one partner, with cunning skill and devilish grace, taking the other by surprise, and then by storm. The second, the reverse: a slow, seductive surrender, where the lead gave up control, allowing the other to take charge: a sensuous assertion, then an insinuating answer, all at once.

The climax of the set was the act itself: an erotic tussle in three-quarter time.

Its high point came with the unfurling of the metaphoric 'white flag'—a strip of cloth, typically a lady's sash, or a gentleman's scarf—wound around the partner's neck, or their hips, and slid back and forth in the beat of the dance. It signaled the symbolic surrender: the final barrier between dancers fallen to the fever-pitch of consummation.

In Zaunite dialect, the message was straightforward: Let's fuck.

Naturally, Piltover was appalled. For generations, the Sumpside Waltz remained the proverbial forbidden fruit. And yet, it was the perfect antidote against the staid, stuffy standards of the gentry's ballrooms. Beneath their scandal, the bon ton found themselves perpetually captivated. While the dance never transitioned to respectable Topside quarters, it was wildly popular among the younger crowd. Even as elders deplored the spread of depravity, their scions slummed it up in Undercity saloons, reveling in the gyrations. Soon, they'd imported the style back to their own clubs, mixing and matching it with Piltovan steps.

The inevitable result was that the Piltovan and Zaunite Sumpside Waltz differed as starkly as everything else about the cities. For Piltover, the Zaunite version was too provocative, while for Zaun, the Piltovans' was overly refined.

Neither side relented.

The dance floor is all sequins and satin. A galaxy in motion. Jinx, shiny and tousle-haired from her exertions, has vacated to the banquet. Magnus lays coiled around her feet. She sits, elbow propped on the table, chin resting on her palm as she picks with a fork at a cherry tart, spreading the red gel onto her plate like congealed blood. She is smiling absently, her gaze unfocused.

Silco attempts to catch her eye. She doesn't react. He hopes it's just tiredness—not ghosts.

At his side, Medarda says, "Shall we begin?"

Silco offers his hand. She takes it. He tugs, a graceful revolution that fits her into the curve of his arm, then guides her into the sparkling swelter of the dance floor. The band strikes up the beginning strains: a lilting melody of piano and strings.

Silco and Medarda move smoothly in the promenade that presages the first set. At the fringes, reporters jostle for good angles. Flashbulbs pop and history is made. Piltover's crown jewel and Zaun's dirtiest secret coming together on the world stage.

"We have two choices," Silco says, their faces within kissing distance. "Make this enjoyable for the cameras. Or make it enjoyable for us."

The music begins its intro: the pulsebeat of bass and the tremor of percussion.

Medarda tips her chin. "Which is which?"

"The former? Topside's waltz. Sanitized. Soporific." He leads her onto the first steps, a decorous spiral. Their bodies do not touch. "The latter? Zaun's waltz. Not sanitized at all."

Amusement skims Medarda's features. "Is the unsanitary so enjoyable?"

Silco doesn't smile. But the next spiral takes them close enough that he feels the heat radiating off her, like a haze at the summer horizon.

His mouth finds her ear and whispers. "Come closer. I'll show you."

Medarda breathes, not-quite-steadily.

And nods.

Silco signals to the band at the stage. Four fingers at shoulder height: an order to switch tempo. The pianist's jaw drops. The drummer gives a little smirk. It's rare that Zaunite musicians are given the chance to show off their improv skills in plain view of Topside.

The pianist fires off an ascending riff in C and D. As one, the entire orchestra joins in. And just like that, the mood changes from faded gold to scintillating red.

From a Piltovan playpen to a Zaunite bash.

A shockwave passes through the dance floor. A few couples jolt as if their toes have sizzled off. Others loosen raucous cheers.

Now it's a party.

Silco is quick as a spark. He circles an arm around Medarda, and their bodies meld together, a fall from socially elevated climes into a licentious pit. A gasp catches in Medarda's throat. Affront at his audacity—or a spark of challenge. Her riposte doesn't even look like a riposte, more a smooth alignment of balance. His left palm and her right connect at eye-level. Her left arm slides along his shoulder. The angle of her body brings her chest flush against his. A fragile pulsebeat of life against his black, black heart.

The dance begins.

He leads; she follows. He coaxes; she yields. They are both quick on their feet. Silco's practiced form is well-matched by her natural grace. But the difference between their styles is clear. She is all poise, all precision, a woman accustomed to a lifetime of being looked at. He is all grit, all gravitas, a man who's spent a lifetime looking out.

In the disparity, they find their own rhythm. Every time he executes a turn, she matches smoothly. Every time she executes a flourish, he shadows seamlessly. The dynamic goes from a push-and-pull into a sway. The intellect idles into neutral. Instinct takes the wheel.

The rest of the dancefloor grows hushed, as if the bodies have been silently dismissed. Beyond the periphery, cameras flash like bombshells.

By tomorrow, they'll frame the display. He: the villain of the piece. A heartless man with a Devil's eye, seducing the ingenue in his arms. She: the virtuoso of Piltover. The Madonna with a golden heart, defiant under his spell. The pairing will titillate the jetsetters; the hardliners will pitch a fit. The end result will be the same. A night enshrined forever in the record books.

A bridge—as he'd mocked.

Their stares connect. Silco cannot resist a brief slice of teeth.

"I daresay—" Medarda's eyes twinkle "—that was a smile."

"Do men cry when dancing with you?"

"A real smile."

"I've no idea what you mean."

She grins, as if confirming a suspicion long held. "You've done this before."

"A time or two."

"With Jinx?"

"When she was a girl. Clumsy pirouettes and flat feet. Until the day she took to it like a bird to flying." He spins her out, reeling her back with a palm at the dip of her spine. "Now I can barely keep up."

A touch breathless, she says, "I find that—hard to believe."

"You flatter me."

"I meant: it's hard to believe you've done this only a time or two. And only with Jinx." The palm at his shoulder imparts a playful squeeze. "I'd wager you've danced the night away at many a saloon. With many a partner."

"Now you exaggerate."

"I think not. You lead with enviable flair. Most gentlemen are too preoccupied with their feet to hold their partner's thrall." Her eyes glimmer from beneath her lashes: green flecked with gold. "Someone taught you. A woman, I'd wager. Someone who valued patience in a man. Perception. Passion." Coyly, "You wear it like a second skin."

"For the moment, I appear to be wearing you." He guides her through a figure eight, the legwork tight and their bodies fluid. "Do you dance so closely with every man?"

"Only when I'm enjoying myself." The husk in her laughter is genuine. "Which isn't often."

"How unfortunate." His lips ghost her ear. "For the men."

Medarda doesn't shiver. But her eyes, dosed with a feline watchfulness, nearly flutter shut. This close, her scent is a visceral lure: hyacinths musked with body-heat. Her skin is pinpricked with constellations. A cluster-bead of perspiration on her top lip. Another smatter on her forehead, and in the hollow of her throat.

He can feel the heat emanating off her. Hear her breaths deepening with the tempo. See the vein throbbing at the side of neck.

Tiny tells of exertion—or its inverse.

Barely a bell ago, he'd shared a different Sumpside Waltz. Him and Sevika, locked in the service bathroom. Their bodies sliding together like a dance, the smack of flesh on flesh like a fight. It was fast. It was frenetic. It was all of raucous rhythms and wicked zeal that are the soul of Zaun.

This is different.

A secret blossoming out of fragile embers—and into a wildfire.

Then Medarda does something unexpected.

Her palm, cupped around his shoulder, roves up to his shirtfront. She plucks off his tie-pin, and tucks it into his breast pocket. Then she loosens his cravat. The white silk, in a slow undulation, tugs free. The heat of her touch soaks into his bared throat.

Silco nearly falters a step. "What are you doing?"

Her eyes hold a glint of challenge. "Improvising."

"You know what a loose cloth in a Sumpside Waltz symbolizes?"

"I do. It means—" Holding each end of the cravat, Medarda slides it back and forth, teasingly, over the skin of his nape, "—the next round is mine."

A shiver ladders down Silco's spine. His smile cuts in a slow curve. "Careful. That's how wars start."

"With a declaration?"

"With a disaster."

Her stare is liquid; darkening. "You don't frighten me."

"You're a shameless liar."

"Not as shameless as you."

"I've had years of practice." He tugs her in. Their bodies fuse at the hips; the cravat pulls taut as a noose. "But if it's a show you want..."

The second set begins. True to her word, she takes charge. Effortlessly, not in a flashy way, but with the same subtlety as when she took command during their harborside negotiation. Her movements are slow, deliberate, sensual. In answer, Silco keeps his own movements simple. A flow rather than a force. The moment is hers; he is merely the space to play out the scene as she pleases.

And she plays with panache: each pirouette a provocation, each flourish a flirtation. She makes him feel in equal turns like a rival to be bested, a riddle to be unraveled, and an idol to be worshipped. The crowd watch with bated breath. The band is on fire. The melody is at its loudest.

But between them there seems a knot of silence, pulling inexorably tight.

When the final set begins, it is the point of no return. The moment when all the stops are pulled: the static between the dancers, of formalized pretense, smoothing into pure sensation. Their feet work in sync; their fingers interlace. His cravat binds their hands, and they wind themselves together: two ends of the same knot in a tightening embrace.

Silco's fingertips, in a languid skitter, chase the curve of her spine. Her lips part as if to taste the air between them. The choreography—well-chosen and flawlessly executed—has dissolved. All that remains are two bodies, absorbed in the groove to the exclusion of all else. They are the center of the dancefloor. The dancefloor, a disguise for the battleground.

Or the bed.

"Oh yes," Medarda breathes. "I see it now."

"See what?"

"You were definitely taught by a talented woman."

"I taught her, if truth be told." Silco allows a half-smile. "Or rather, we took turns."

"I wasn't referring to dancing."

She is looking at him. Really looking: her stare like the passage of sun into shadow, peeling away the harsh contours of his face, the scarred skin and shark's eye, to expose the barest contours of who he once was. The man whose life was an endless series of gambles, but whose smile was his ace up the sleeve. The one who'd kept a knife in one boot to stick into an Enforcer, but a coin in the other to drop into a sumpsnipe's empty cap. Who'd argued all day with Vander, the one he'd loved most, then stormed home into the arms of Nandi, the one who'd loved him best.

A man been born on his knees—who could still dance the night away.

He hasn't forgotten. But he doesn't let himself dwell on those years. The future sits front and center; anything else, he needs to crane his neck to see.

And the crick isn't worth the view.

And yet the memory is a starburst. Suddenly, he is twenty-five again, the world laid at his feet. Nandi's face, luminous as a lantern, her lush-lipped mouth open with laughter and her hair beautiful loose, the strands tangling silkily around his hands. That night they'd won the dance hop, the two of them, and afterward, buzzing on moonshine, stumbled into the alleyway and kissed and kissed until their lungs gave out.

He is twenty-five again. A man of no account. A man with no account.

Only the wide-open future, and a city's heart beating inside him.

"You're staring," Medarda says.

"So are you."

"At your scar." Her stare is soft and uncompromising, a paradox. "It must have hurt."

"Like nothing you've ever felt."

"How can you be sure?" A tiny twist of smile. "We all feel pain differently."

"You're no connoisseuse of suffering, Councilor. Only a dilettante."

"Are you offering to educate me?"

"That depends." He guides her through a dip. Her hyacinth perfume has faded to a ghostly echo. In its place is a sultry cloak of scent that makes him want to inhale and bite deep. "Can you pay for the lesson?"

"Is it so costly?"

Silco holds her pinned, his stare a knife paring her down. "It is fatal."

Her pupils dilate. Shock. Fascination.

Vulnerability.

The last one is the most unexpected, the most delicious. He wants to peel her layer by layer, expose every inch to the whetted edge of his rage. He thinks of her sprawled on white sheets beneath him—a five-star delicacy, her legs open for him, her cries ragged for him, ecstasy a shriek away from agony. He thinks of her diction made silken with privilege—like her hair, her skin—splintering into obscenity. He thinks of his years Topside, demeaned in Lookless Jobs by his supposed betters who spoke like her, looked like her. He thinks of stacks of dockets on miner's grievances submitted to Wardens who dismissed their sufferings with a casual flick of the pen. He thinks of laws passed to keep the Fissurefolk starving; orders rapped to keep them in line. He thinks of corpses at the Bridge. Bloodsplatters on Janna's Temple.

Vander. Nandi. Sevika.

Jinx.

Topsiders rigged the game. With bullets; with bodies; with brute force.

With smiles just like Medarda's

He lets the memory thrum through his bones. Lets it strike that sharp string of resentment deep inside. A resonance of hate.

A reminder to never forget.

He says: "It's time to stop."

Medarda can't parse his thoughts. But she senses the mood-shift. The remoteness returns to his stare. His mismatched eyes go dead as marbles.

Disappointment etches her own features. "Tired already?"

"Not in the least. But—"

"What?"

He glances into the crowd. She follows his stare. Talis is by the bar, his hands curled around an untasted drink. His attention is on Medarda and Silco. His eyes follow their languid glissade, Silco's hand at the small of her back, her palm starfished across Silco's nape.

His excessively handsome face betrays no discomfort. But his body radiates it with every lineament.

Medarda's smile falters. "How many dances has it been?"

"Two." Downplaying his relish, Silco leans in. "One more, and we'll have crossed all bounds of propriety."

Her eyes take on a shrewd gleam. "And you give a fig for propriety?"

"I give a fig for the Peace Treaty."

"Is that why you accepted to dance?"

"Is that why you offered?"

They cut a final series of turns, a double pirouette that sends them unspooling away from each other—then back into an embrace. They've both come out in a hot bloom of sweat. A few corkscrews of hair spill from Medarda's immaculate updo. Silco feels the tickle of strands slipping from his own pomade.

Medarda's fingers twitch—a stymied impulse to smooth them away. Softly, she says, "We should stop."

"Else your prince will whip his hammer out."

She laughs, but it is strained. "Perhaps I could ask a favor?"

"I am all ears."

"You could pretend to say something... inappropriate. It will allow me to save face with Jayce."

"Play your scapegoat, you mean?"

"In the spirit of gallantry."

"Zaun is not known for gallantry—" jagged teeth gleam like a blade against a jugular. "—And I'm not much for pretense."

His grasp on Medarda tightens, an encircling fan of fingers perilously close to the curve of her backside. Medarda swallows a small bubble of sound. Silco leans in, his whisper snaking down her ear, the polished diction oiled filthily black.

"But next time you use me to cover your pretty arse, I'll expect more than lip service as my reward."

Medarda's palm smacks his ribs. Retribution in the guise of returning his cravat. She's too careful to cause a scene.

Too careful by far.

The music fades. The couples break apart. There is a thunder of applause. Reporters flit everywhere, snapping off photographs. Medarda's expression is once more the picture of serenity. Silco's own features are set in the smoothest smile.

Taking her hand, he bows. "Thank you for the dance, Councilor Medarda."

She fans her lashes. "An honor, First Chancellor of Zaun."

He watches her glide away. That supreme side-to-side, a rhythmic sway of hips that mimics their waltz—if not for the stormcloud trailing in her wake. As she turns the corner, she catches Silco's eye sidelong, watching him watch her. Her lips curl.

She knows the game, and she plays it like a pro.

At the bar, she rejoins Talis. He takes her hand in both his own. She clings as if rescued from the jaws of a sea-monster. They exchange words. Briefly, the younger man's eyes meet Silco's. His glare practically scalds.

Silco's fake smile waxes full.

Turning, he accepts a champagne flute from a waiter. His third drink—and last. The dancing has left his senses awhirl. He needs them steady. Already the shutterbugs are swarming, titillated by his and Medarda's waltz. Beyond a doubt, the pictures will be emblazoned across Zaunite and Topside newspapers by tomorrow. Collaboration with a tinge of scandal.

So much the better.

It will keep the real scandal out of sight.

Speaking of—

Silco's idle scan sharpens. Jinx's stole is balled up on the banquet seat. It's getting chilly indoors; she ought to put it on. Except where is she? Not at the dance floor. By now, she'd have cut into his and Medarda's waltz. Except she's not in any of the usual spots either. Not at the dessert cart gorging on tarts. Not at the buffet table feeding strips of beef to Magnus.

The dog—lazy imbecile—slumbers in the corner.

Jinx is nowhere.

Silco tips his chin at one of the blackguards. Promptly, the man arrives at his side.

"Sir?"

"Where is Jinx?"

The blackguard looks bemused. "She—she was right here, sir."

"She isn't."

"I guess she—"

Silco's eyes skin him with a look. "Don't guess. Find her."

Saluting, the blackguard takes off.

On his own, Silco slices through the room at a measured stride. His head goes slowly left and right. Black hair, brown hair, gold hair, red hair. No eye-popping blue. His daughter has disappeared in plain view of a dozen cameras and six-dozen guards.

That's not all. There is an empty seat at the Piltover table.

Viktor is gone too.

---

FLASH MESSAGE

SUBJECT: TREATY

Zaun is official.

END OF MESSAGE.

FLASH MESSAGE

RE: SUBJECT: TREATY

Yep.

Zaun is official.

Your days are numbered.

END OF MESSAGE

FLASH MESSAGE

SUBJECT: TREATY

Is that a threat?

END OF MESSAGE

FLASH MESSAGE

RE: SUBJECT: TREATY

A warning.

You're welcome.

:)

END OF MESSAGE