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.

24. Love

You're the only story that's never been told
You're my dirty little secret, want to keep you so
~ "This is Love" – PJ Harvey

---

Love.

It's a funny thing, isn't it?

Funny like a brain tumor.

Even years later, Silco can't say what he felt for Nandi at The Nymph was the stirring of love. Puppy love or just plain stupid love. He was twenty-five. Like all Undercity punks, he'd aged in dog-years. But inside, he was still just a kid. He didn't know what love was. Daddy had showed him some. Mother, too, when she wasn't ablaze with its opposite. Vander taught him the rest.

But what Nandi made him feel was brand-new. For the first time, he'd wanted to be… not bound to something…

To belong to someone.

Those were dangerous times in the Undercity. It was smarter to belong. There was safety in numbers.

That year, Piltover started outsourcing its textiles to foreign mills. It led to wage cuts in the factories and mass poverty in the Lanes. Fissurefolk gathered in streetside demonstrations that erupted into violence after an Enforcer beat an old man to death. Riots broke out at the Bridge. Armed barricades were erected. Trenchers were not allowed past the surface. Merchants had to present documentation for crossing into Piltover. Trespassers were arrested on sight.

In the Undercity, life was at a standstill. Enforcers skulked in the streets, plotting their next brutality. Sometimes they spirited off shopkeepers, extorting money or setting up illegal checkpoints to harass passersby. Schools closed due to shootouts. At night, families holed up in their homes; girls were discouraged from walking the streets alone. News of atrocity piled upon atrocity made the rounds weekly.

Within the atmosphere of seething panic, Silco and Vander upped their resistance.

Silco still worked with the miners. There were speeches made at Entresol and chartered petitions sent to the Council. Twice, Enforcers kicked his rat-hole's door down with warrants to search the premises. Crude theater to intimidate him into compliance. Except compliance was never in Silco's vocabulary. The first time, his backtalk earned a blackened eye. The second time, two cracked ribs and a hellish hospital stay.

He didn't care. He'd learnt to toughen every part of his anatomy. He'd make sure the Undercity was toughened the same way.

Whatever it took to beat Topside at their own game.

Vander had changed tacks too. Grudgingly, he'd begun training their youth squads in guerilla tactics. Anything to protect them from becoming casualties at the hands of Enforcers. They wrangled up men and women with prior militia experience from the Noxus-Ionian war, and others who were willing to fight for their right to be free. Their force swelled in size from several hundred to thousands. They trained hard, learnt how to use long-term strategy, and how to survive short-term threats.

The critical edge they lacked was firepower.

Not homemade kubatons or basement-brewed Molotov cocktails. They needed firepower strong enough to bring down an Enforcer barricade or blow up an armored vehicle. Silco suggested reaching out to outsiders for smuggled weapons. Noxus had a shadowy cabal of arms' dealers ready to trade with foreigners. They could receive the crates via Bilgewater's smuggling route.

Vander's refusal was like a mortar blasting in Silco's warpath.

"Fucking hell! We start dealin' with Noxus, there'll be no end to it!"

Silco's jaw tightened. "There'll be no end to the Enforcers if we don't."

But Vander was too fired up. Planting both elbows on the Drop's counter, he regarded Silco ferociously across its width. "You know the red tape runnin' around that sort of thing? We'd be in Stillwater faster than greased lightning."

"You're talking about red tape while they're killing us on the streets?"

"Our lot aren't trained for weapons."

"We can learn."

Vander locked eyes with him. "You'd teach the kids to kill?"

"To protect what's theirs." He challenged Vander with his own piercing stare. "The Enforcers don't just use their firearms to kill us. They use them as a show of force. To intimidate and paralyze. Most Zaunites haven't seen that caliber of weaponry before. It's so overwhelming that it puts them in a state of shock. They need to be habituated to what frightens them. To fight through it. Fight with it."

"What you're proposin' isn't lessons., Silco. It's corpses."

"So what's your solution? Let Topside pick us off one by one?"

Vander made no reply.

"We can't sustain our losses any longer," Silco went on. "We need to think smarter. There's no bootstrapping our way out of a game when they're the ones writing the rules. If we lose, they'll say it was a lack of will. Or a lack of skill. But it's neither." His knuckles rapped, once, on the counter. "It's a lack of equal footing. They have the guns. We don't. It's a simple equation. If we don't arm ourselves, Vander, we're dead meat walking."

Silence hung between them. A deep, uncompromising silence. Vander's eyes were unreadable.

Softer, Silco said, "You wouldn't have to deal with Noxus. I'd handle it."

"Same way you handle our books?"

Silco glowered. "And it got you the Last Drop, didn't it?"

Vander's jaw hardened.

"These arms dealers aren't small-fries, Vander. They're a consortium of businesspeople. They're discreet. For a price, you can get military-grade weaponry. Only rule: don't snitch on them, they won't snitch on you."

"It doesn't come cheap, neither."

"They accept payment in all stripes. Not just money."

"An' if you fail to pay up?" Vander scowled. "Money won't be all they take."

"They'd take less than everything Piltover's taken."

"We're not workin' with Noxians. So drop it."

"Why? What's stopping us? One of their men was at the harbor yesterday. If I approach him for a meeting—"

"You're not approachin' anybody! So shut it!"

Vander slammed a fist into the wall, inches from Silco's head. The room thundered. Silco rocked instinctively backwards. Their eyes met. Vander's face, distorted into a beastly mask, strobed through his mind with a surreal déjà vu. Snaps of different places, different people, silenced with those same fists. Adrenaline ran toxic as battery acid through Silco's veins.

He'd been afraid of plenty of things. But never of Vander.

Vander retrieved his fist. The knuckles were scraped raw. Silco could see his natural tendency for violence warring with his better nature. Vander glanced at the wall, then at the floor. When his eyes met Silco's again, they were queasy with regret.

"Silco—"

Silco feigned a composure he didn't feel. "We'll talk later."

"Look, I—"

"I'm off to Nan's."

Silco crossed out to the Drop's door for his coat. His hands gave the barest hitch as he pulled it on.

"Blut..."

"What?"

Vander's rigid-shouldered stance conveyed nearly as much as Silco's own tight-screwed impassivity: a reflex of hope. Then pride intruded. One bristled into retreat. The other sidestepped with a slither. Their eyes met and then dropped as the silence hung.

Vander exhaled. "Give our Priestess my best, yeah?"

"I will," Silco said shortly.

"They still holdin' the boy's memorial at the Temple?"

"I think so."

"Tell 'em I'll be there."

Silco inclined his head. "I'll do that."

"Supplies are dryin' up fast in the bazaars. She and Sev need anything?"

Silco nixed the offer with a jerk of his chin. The lockdown on trade meant the Lanes were running low on most things, even staples. The bazaars were getting more expensive and harder to stock. Even the Undercity's black market had begun to sputter. They were all going to have to tighten their belts.

Silco's was already tighter than a noose. But he was a fixer. He knew where to look. How to get his hands on whatever was needed. Last week, he'd traded a pair of antique silver candlesticks at the Black Market for a small crate of sardines. The week before, a half-dozen cans of peaches. It was simply a matter of bartering where it served, and pilfering where it didn't. There were plenty of families going hungry in the Lanes. But not Nandi, or her sister.

He'd see to that. Whatever it took.

"We're fine," he said, and the We fell like a gavel. "I take care of what's mine."

Once, it would've been a casual volley. Now it was a rebuke—and a reminder of lost chances. Vander's features tightened: chastened, churlish. He hated the fact that Silco's private life had gained a sheen of felicity, while his own had hit a dead-end.

Lika had broken it off with Vander a month before Vi's fifth birthday. No note; no warning. She'd moved back to her wasted shanty at the edge of the Sumps. Vander kept tight-lipped on the split. But it wasn't difficult to glean the reason why. There were rumors that he'd sired two boys by separate women a stone's throw from the Drop. The boys were both near Vi's age: one three, the other five. No one could understand why he'd kept it a secret.

Maybe, Silco had reasoned, because they'd been born in dubious circumstances—drink, drugs, or just plain desperation. Maybe because the two mothers were from vastly different walks of life: one tavern trash, the other a chem-fiend. Maybe because, the most pragmatic reason, he'd been in denial that the boys were his in the first place.

Until now.

Now, with the boys growing up, and the family resemblance too undeniable to do anything but stare Vander straight in the face.

He'd fathered more than just a daughter. He had sons, too. And the realization had struck with all the impact of a nuclear bomb. He'd become a father twice over—not just to a girl who was once a stranger, but to a pair of strangers who were flesh-and-blood. And there was no hiding the mismatched litter.

Not from the Lanes—or from Lika.

Silco didn't know the extent of the damage done, but the break had been catastrophic. Lika always had a restless spirit. But once she was committed, she stuck till the bitter end. She could tolerate hers and Vander's constant spats. But Vander's deception had blindsided her. He'd always been a bit of a bastard, but she'd never dreamed he'd keep a pair of children a stone's throw away.

Their domestic life became a death-trap. She began calling everything into question: his fidelity, his commitment, his capacity for honesty.

She'd been pregnant at the time the news broke. A rough ride, from the secondhand reports. The morning sickness had been chronic. Her nerves: a bundle of dynamite. Then one morning, halfway to the bazaar, she'd been hit by a blowback of cramps so intense they'd felled her to her knees in the middle of the street. Little Vi had screamed blue murder, not comprehending the scene. Passersby had hurried Lika to the nearest medick's station, where she'd miscarried within the hour.

Vander was at a rally when he'd got word of it. The loss had cut him like a knife. He'd rushed to the Drop, frantic with worry. Lika, dosed up with painkillers, had given him a flat stare and said: "It was for the best." The words were spoken without anger. Just the weary, fatalistic air of someone who'd reached the end of the road.

Then she'd turned her face to the wall and shut her eyes.

They'd split the next morning.

Vander had begged her to reconsider. When the begging failed, he'd tried raging. When the raging failed, he'd followed the pattern Silco knew all too well: a bottle of whiskey in hand by daytime, blotto by nightfall. His bar-fights were legendary. He'd taken to donning his old mining gauntlets, like an underworld gladiator. Anyone who dared cross his path got a taste of cold steel.

Silco had seen his share of the carnage, and didn't flinch. He'd also seen Vander's boys. He didn't know what Vander's intentions were for them, but the children would grow up doomed if their mothers' temperaments were any indication. It was a cruel fate, for a child who already had so little. They needed a chance. Even if the chance was only a glimmer. They needed a father.

Vander needed to get his act together, or else.

The wake-up call came when he got his arse handed to him.

Lika had returned to her little hovel in the Sumps, with Vi. By the year's end, she'd taken up with a new man. Sergei, a whip-thin wastrel with Freljordian sleeve tattoos and a talent for swordplay. In bad light and in each other's clothes, he and Silco could've passed for distant cousins. But their similarities ended there. Sergei was an artist: all soulful brooding and poet's temperament. He didn't talk much. He didn't drink much. But what he lacked in loquacity, he made up for in a penchant for theatrics. He'd been a carnival performer as a boy. Had his own act with a sword-dance. The show's finale was an impressive feat of juggling: six blades flung into the air, caught one by one as they descended, and hurled at a human target.

Silco had seen it performed. Sergei was good. But he'd also heard stories: that Sergei dabbled in blood magic; that his family were necromancers; that the last man who'd wronged him had died under mysterious circumstances, and that the man's heart had been found missing from his chest.

All tall tales. As far as Silco could suss out, the worst Sergei did was smoke certain psychotropic strains of herb that put him in a state of heightened paranoia. It was the root of his taciturn nature. The more paranoid he got, the quieter he became. He'd go days without saying a word. Just sitting there, watching the walls, as if the shadows were moving.

But Sergei was good with his swords. And the fact that he could defend himself counted for everything.

Especially in the Lanes.

He'd run through a succession of women before he'd settled on Lika. But then, he'd done so with an intensity that was difficult to mistake for anything but the real deal. By January, he'd moved in with Lika. By July, he'd slipped a spiked ring on her finger. Together, they ran a ramshackle store near Factorywood. It was musty and cramped, every square foot packed with arcana. Spiders in jars, ancient scrolls, faded relics. It did poorly, trade-wise. But Sergei supplemented sales as a purveyor of puffcap mushrooms. They talked of moving to Bilgewater to start a business in bootlegged elixirs.

Vi? Yes, of course they'd take her. She was their little girl now.

Vander wasn't the type to take such a big lick without giving one back. Lika was free to go her own way. But Violet? The girl who belonged to him, and only him, by blood?

Vander wasn't having that. Not a chance.

It came to blows between him and Sergei. A fight so godsdamn ugly it made all Vander's past brawls look like a cotilion. It took Benzo and half-dozen others to break it up: all fishhooks and crotch shots and gut punches. Lika got roughed up in the crossfire. A stray elbow hit her square in the head, splitting the skin above her brow, a cut that scarred into a vague fish-hook afterward.

Worse was when Vi, six years old, broke up the fray with a shrill piping cry: Don't hurt my Daddy!

Vander thought she'd meant him. But when he'd reached for her, she screamed and scrambled into Sergei's arms. Poor chit didn't remember Vander anymore. In her eyes, he was just a hulking threat.

Vander had broken Lika's heart.

Vi left his own pulverized.

Since then, Vander kept his distance. He and Lika traded the barest pleasantries on the street. Lika still lent her efforts for Zaun's cause. But she kept her daughter at an arm's length. She knew what Vander was capable of. The violence in him had never scared her before, but it did now. Sergei was no less protective. He was a man of few words, but no coward.

If Vander tried to snatch Vi, he'd go to his grave fighting.

"Let 'em go," Silco advised, when Vander was sober enough to listen. "Lika's happy. Vi's happy. Let it be."

"She's my daughter!"

"So what? You're father to two sons, and you're not running off with them, are you?"

"I can't just let 'er go, Blut."

"You have no choice."

"There's always a choice!"

"Then choose the right one."

"How's this the right one?"

"You want to raise your daughter, or lose her altogether?" Silco shook his head. "The Lanes need you, Vander. Times are bad. If we can't find a solution, there'll be more bloodshed. That'll be a lot worse than losing a child. Because then there'll be no children, or families, or future for any of us."

Vander's eyes red-rimmed blazed. "An' what'd you know about fuck all? You're not a father!"

"Thank Kindred for that."

He meant it, too. The entire sordid business left a bad taste in the mouth. He felt sorry for Vander, but couldn't tender excuses for his mistakes. Especially if said mistakes were real live children. Not could Silco fault Lika for walking out. She had her pride. In her shoes, Silco would've done no different.

In a way, the split introduced a queasy amicability between him and Lika. They never sought each other out on the streets. But Lika was a constant visitor at Janna's Temple, to seek the Priestess's counsel on everything from fertility to foresight. Sometimes Silco would catch her eye in the pews. A look would pass between them: the look of two people who'd loved a legend, and had lived to tell the tale.

Last he'd seen, she'd had a child by Sergei. a little urchin with blue hair and a nose dusted with freckles.

He didn't know her name.

Privately—though he hated the idea of a trade—he was happy to have Vander back. Except he didn't have Vander. Not really. As time passed, he stopped hitting the bottle, but his moods were as sour as a month-old pickle. When he was happy it was a manic-sick happiness that never sat right on his face. When he was sad, his spirits plummeted into a pit that kindled without warning into rage.

The erratic spells widened the gulf between them. Reversed, Silco never resented Vander for having more. That would've been like resenting himself. But with the roles switched, Vander's bucket didn't go as deep. At times, he seemed almost angry with Silco. As if the younger man had let him down, somehow.

As if, after his relationship with Lika went into freefall, he'd expected Silco to catch him.

Sometimes Silco wished the same. It was a fraught question with no simple answer. His longing for Vander wasn't gone. But it had moved so far down the cellar of his psyche that he'd have to rearrange a roomful of heavy things for it to resurface again. Work occluded it. Their constant fights consumed it.

They were like a broken pantheon: intimacy stymied rivalry, friendship tormented by retrospect.

Love never runs equal to reality. That's the rottenness of it.

They made terse goodbyes. Silco exited without a backward glance. Vander lacked the patience for Silco's intensity tonight, the same way Silco lacked the fortitude for Vander's stubbornness. A common refrain. They'd both outgrown their childhood selves and become movers-and-shakers in their own spheres: Vander as the custodian of the Lanes, and Silco as its spokesperson.

With it came a clash of egos. A shark growing into his scales. A wolf cutting his teeth.

Blood was inevitable.

Nightly, their exchanges veered off from whipcrack ripostes to rough, angry words, Silco's getting ever more cutting, until Vander looked ready to punch him, but balled up his fists instead as if gripping tightly to his temper.

Tonight, Vander had let the fists fly. The wall this time. Silco's face, the next?

He was in no mood to find out.

He was in no mood, period. It was April in the Undercity: Gnashers raged with smog and acid rain. The suffocating season played scales on his nerves. But what really set him off was the futility. There had been more Labor Reform Acts in Piltover. But no respect for the laborers. More committees to address social grievances. But no end to the grievances themselves. The Council would grant them small tokens, pretend they were on the Undercity's side, then let their own interests win.

They all did, these Pilties. The game was rigged.

Except the Undercity played by its own rules. With the right maneuvering, they could create the right outcome.

Silco walked down the buckled sidewalks. The rainfall had stopped. The air was thick with the chemical stench borne down from the smog. He kept well off the main drag; Enforcers might waylay him. Six months ago, the Council had enacted a pat-down policy. It came in response to the Undercity's rapidly swelling population, which coincided with the tail-end of the Noxus-Ionian wars and the economic collapse of a number of city-states all the way from Drakkengate to Tereshni. Hordes of refugees swarmed into the Fissures, looking for shelter or work.

The unskilled turned to crime.

Along the canals at the Boundary Markets, Pilties were increasingly waylaid by Water-rats. At the Promenade, pickpockets cut ladies' purses and plucked coins right from the menfolk's trousers. A year ago, an elderly Piltovan was clubbed over the head, all his belongings stripped, leaving him bare save for his long-johns. The spate of infractions stoked Piltover's anxieties of the Undercity's urban evils. Worse were suspicions that a deeper, more systematic web of organized crime was on the rise, one beyond the Council's power to penetrate.

Their answer?

Treat every Trencher as a threat.

Lately, Fissurefolk were routinely roughed up for contraband or weapons. Casualties were inevitable. Just yesterday, a boy no older than ten was killed during a skirmish. His life gone in a flash like piss in an alleyway.

Silco passed the street-corner where it had happened. Bloodsplatter lingered on the bricks. People had left cheap tokens at the site. Weed flowers from the river. Lanterns and candles. Balloons tethered to rocks. He'd passed by the same spot earlier with Vander. His brother was overcome; eyes sheened with angry tears.

But he refused to take action. Stop this tragedy from repeating.

There was a patter of footsteps. Silco tensed, expecting Enforcers. His face resolidified to stone; a smart answer ready on his lips in case of interrogation.

But the steps were too light. A child of twelve or eleven—north-Ionian judging by the ice-white skin and almond eyes—stopped abreast of him. A small fist proffered a clutch of handmade bracelets strung together with raven's feathers.

"Buy one, mister," the child said in Standard heavily accented in Va-Nox. "For your wife?"

"How do you know I have one?" Silco deadpanned in the same tongue.

The child took in him in with a speaking glance. Fashions and fads swept the Lanes with the same rapidity as chem-squalls. With the deepening disorder in the Fissures, even the poorest folk took their cues from Topside standards—and took greater relish in subverting them. The neat severity and sharp tailoring of the Topside clothiers was a mark of status. In the Lanes, this was translated into its polar opposite: ragged edges, wild prints, and colors in a riot of hues. A classless, chaotic diversity; a flagrant defiance of Piltover's conservative strictures.

It was a look that declared, "I'm not you, or yours, and I'm damn well proud of it."

Silco wore the style like a second skin, and he wore it well. He'd left off the patched workman's jacket and stovepipe trousers. Lately his sartorial choices were of a piece with the Undercity's streets: pitch black and littered with shrapnel. His shirts were tailored of heavyweight canvas resembling rough-grained leather: fitted to the torso for maneuverability, and full of pockets for hidden blades. His pants were made of a similar fabric, but more supple and cut into a tapered shape for roof-hopping. They were tucked into high boots that rose to the knees: riveted with steel plates at the toes, and laced up with rawhide strips. The outfit was topped off with a jacket: cut like a belted frock-coat, but without sleeves. It was fashioned of a sturdy, waterproof fabric. The interior was lined with a thick fleece for extra insulation. In a pinch, it could double as a blanket.

Everything had a utilitarian design. Yet the embellishments of metal studs and buckles added a rugged panache.

In a city built on the backs of slaves, the Lanes was a place where individualism would always reign supreme.

Then, and now.

The child shrugged. "Don't see why you wouldn't."

Silco's mouth twisted wryly. "That so?"

"The clothes are old. But they're well-mended. All the buttons were sewn on with neat stitches. No stains. Nice polished boots, and you're putting 'em to use. Like you're on your way out of the cold to someplace warm. And whoever's waiting is worth making an effort." Another shrug. "Fellows whose wives've washed their hands of 'em wear a different look altogether."

Silco couldn't help a smirk. "What's my look say, then?"

"It says," the child smirked back, "you're gonna make someone happy tonight."

"Aren't you the little sweet-talker?"

"Not if you don't want me to be." A head-tilt. "How about you buy a bracelet. I'll give you the flattery for free?"

Silco bit down a snort. He liked the kid's guts. "You should sell them. Not me."

"It's how I practice." A final shrug. "Till I start selling myself."

Silco's smile faded.

The child didn't even register the graveness of the statement. The almond-eyes stayed on him. The bracelets gleamed in the tiny palm.

Lately, the Undercity was chockful of children like these. Leftovers from orphanages shut down after Topside funding had dried up. Stragglers from the Void-Wars, whose families had succumbed to disease or violence during the journey. Survivors of Enforcer raids, their guardians flushed like lumps of refuse down the city's sewers, their own young bodies too stubborn to follow.

All of them wore rags and dirt, their faces pinched with hunger. All of them had nowhere to go.

Silco and Vander organized food drives to ease the tide. Every week, they gave away sacks of grain and bags of flour to Janna's Temple, along with barrels of salted fish and jars of preserves. Some kids who'd come for those provisions now worked for their cause, keeping watch around the neighborhood. Others fell through the cracks, resorting to peddling hand-tooled wares—or peddling themselves.

Silco rocked on the balls of his feet. Charity always woke a flaming itch in his bones. Not because he was selfish, but because charity was never charity enough. He could smuggle from noon until sundown, with no shortage of mouths to feed. And he and Vander could only keep things afloat for a few more months at a stretch, before it all ran dry.

What then?

Where would the Undercity be in another year? Five years? Ten?

Would there be anything left worth salvaging?

To the sumpsnipe, Silco said, "What's your name?"

The almond-eyes glinted warily. Maybe this stranger with the nice smile wasn't so nice after all?

Then: "Ran."

"Well, Ran, you're in luck." Kneeling, Silco dug into his pocket for coins. "I've three cogs. What will that buy me?"

The child ogled the wealth in his palm. "Two bracelets."

"Two it is."

He was perfectly aware he was being cheated. It didn't make a lick of difference. He always respected a scrapper trying to work their way up. Especially when the scrapper was a child. The Undercity was no place for them on their own. But once they hit the ground running, they had to do what it took to survive.

Silco couldn't fault a child for fighting for their chance.

The sumpsnipe lay the bracelets in his palm. A bone charm dangled off one, tied into a knot. Memory stirred. Mother used to knot the charms on her jewelry the same way. A ward against the evil eye, she'd called it. Or, if the knots were tight enough, against the very gods.

He hadn't seen this token since her death. He wondered if Nandi would like it.

Taking the bracelets, Silco handed one back to the child. That earned him a bemused squint. "Suits you better," he said. Then, in a different tone—"Get moving before it's full dark. Go to Janna's Temple. Recite a prayer with the shrinemaidens, and you'll get a hot meal."

The child nodded. The cogs were snatched up. The little feet scampered off.

Silco listened to the receding footfalls. Something labored in his chest. Not grief, but a rage nearly as unruly. For a moment, he nearly called the child back, ready to install them at the Drop so they'd have a safe place to sleep. Ionian children were a hot commodity with flesh-peddlers. They always fell prey to pimps once they hit the streets.

Except what would Silco's efforts solve? Nothing. Nothing solved anything anymore.

The only way to seize freedom was by force.

Silco's rage sparked into conviction. He knew what he had to do. If Vander refused to lend a hand, he'd take matters into his own. He'd sensed he was on a collision course for a while now, though with whom or what he didn't yet know. The only silver lining was the certainty that what he was doing was right. It kept Silco moving. Kept his mind from unspooling into despair.

One silver lining.

The other was Nandi.

They'd been seeing one another steadily for over four years now. It had happened in the same fashion as their first dance. Unexpectedly smooth. Silco had never before fallen off the deep end. With Nandi, he wasn't taking a fast run at the cliff. More as if his body was spearing the surface of night-blooming water.

A buoyant serenity.

Was it love? He wasn't sure. More… the possibility of love. Nandi had this air like a feather skimming his life's surface; soft ripples spreading everywhere. Before, Silco always had to work not to present himself as the difficult person he knew he was. A dirty little thing—sharp edges and all. It never lasted long. Eventually, each relationship paid the price of his acid tongue and his hard-driving ambition.

Only with Vander could he express the way he was truly made.

Except lately, Vander only ever looked at him with a clenched jaw and whitening knuckles. Nandi became a respite on those nights. A safe harbor before Silco went out to sea.

Today, Silco's memory of their courtship exists as secondhand sensations. Parts left intact; the wholeness surrendered to deep waters. What he recalls most is his hand in her hair. The first night at The Nymph before they'd danced, the silky strands catching at his fingertips as he caught her falling pin. The first time they'd kissed outside Janna's Temple, his palms cradled widespread against her skull, dark locks between his fingers and the aftertaste of hashish on their tongues. The first time after they'd made love at her flat, her head tucked into the sweaty curve of his shoulder, his arm a braid of pale sinew against her dark smooth back, the bony fan of his hand resting with curled fingers in the damp tangles at her nape.

A week after their first dance, she'd taught him to say her name The way it's supposed to be said. The soft second N, with the accent of the second syllable. A Vekauran name her mother had chosen, same as her sister's.

Sevika meant Servant of God. But to Silco's ears, Nandi was sweeter. It meant Joy.

In private, he'd sign that to her, in lieu of an endearment. In public, he called her Nan.

She and her sister called him Sil.

Their natures were a well-matched equilibrium. She had a tasty wit. Warm at the edges, where Silco's was cool. Her dreaminess worked in his favor too. The enemy for Silco's passion was always boredom. But with Nandi, it was difficult to be bored. The way she floated through life, with a free-flowing serenity, kept him always off-balance. He was temperamental, fast-talking, skeptical. She was sedate, soft-spoken, superstitious.

By twenty-seven, she was the Priestess at the Temple of Janna. Her duties ran the gamut from prayer to cremation rites to midwifery. She wore the blue robes of her profession, and kept her beautiful hair plaited in a severe knot that she'd let loose only when she and Silco were alone. In her spare time, she worked with the soothsayers who made pilgrimage to the Temple.

Charlatans, Silco scoffed whenever he saw them.

But there was a thread of compassion that bound all of Janna's devotees together. Some were mad. Others were desperate, on the run from their own tragedies. The Priestess took care of all of them. She kept a roof over their heads. A lit fire for their meager meals; a warm word for their troubles.

Whenever Silco visited, he kept a respectfully blank mien while the seers spoke of Mana and Hexes and Crystals. Magic, they told him, was like a spectrum of wavelengths. Most were deaf to its frequencies, and blind to the colors it created.

Those who could sense its vibrations—a rare breed, as the seers would tell it—were called the Guardians. They were attuned to shifts in energy and the subtle patterns of the world around them. These manifested differently for each individual: premonitions, or a sixth sense for danger, or special gift for healing. Some had a smidgeon of magical aptitude. Others, like conduits, could channel the energies through their bodies, and use them for the greater good.

For some, the gift was a blessing. For others, it was a curse. For the vast majority, it was neither: a mere trifle in the grand scheme of things.

Conversely, the Mages—the real magic-wielders—had no such qualms. They were the ones whose spirits, the seers explained, were so closely fused to the Void's spectrum that the vibrations ran like a current through their bodies. This current could be channeled through a focus: a crystal or a gem or an enchanted relic. From there, it could be directed outwards.

To summon storms. To conjure aerials. To wield the forces of Nature herself.

The power was enormous, the Mages' reach infinite. But the gift was not without its anti-blessings. A Mage's life was a lonely one. For the currents running through them were also the currents of the Void, and the Void's call was unceasing. Madness was a frequent affliction. So were nightmares. The Mages were prone to spells of melancholia. Many lived in isolation, and died young. Others had an appetite for chaos, and went rogue, becoming the monsters of legend: necromancers and time-travelers and reality-warpers.

They became true demons, the seers claimed. They knew no allegiance save to their own dark hungers.

That was why, in folklore, the Mage was always paired with the Guardian. Together, the two forms created a balance: the Guardian, the light; the Mage, the dark. Their union birthed an energy-bond: an equilibrium that kept the Void at bay. Their two energies, resonating, could shape the world in harmony.

Or shatter it.

So what am I? Silco had signed, with an arch smile. A Mage or a Guardian?

Shaking her head, Nandi signed back, You're just a silly man.

Sitting him down, she'd taken his hands, and pressed her fingertips lightly to the pulse at his wrists. Her touch was cool, almost liquid, against his skin. She closed her eyes and breathed in, her lovely dark brows drawn, a look of deep concentration on her face. A tiny frisson seemed to spread in wake of her touch.

Releasing his hands, Nandi opened her eyes.

He'd half-expected her to give him a verdict of doom, the way a medick delivered the prognosis of a wasting illness. Instead, she'd smiled. He didn't understand the smile. But the gentle glow in her eyes put him at ease.

Not a scintilla of magic in those veins, she'd declared, half-rueful, half-teasing. All the power's up here. She tapped his skull. Maybe a bit too much.

Then I'll let you split my skull open and take some, he'd retorted. For a fee.

She'd laughed, and the sound was like water over stones. Silco didn't think about magic and mages again.

Not until decades afterward.

When Nandi wasn't at the Temple, Silco would take her out dancing at The Nymph. There, he'd watch her move across the floor. Each step a graceful unfurling, effortless. Their last year together, they'd even won the Equinox dance hop. No trophy, but they'd split the winnings: two hundred gold cogs each. Nandi donated hers to the Temple. Silco did the same, though his was a fraction of what she'd contributed. The rest, he put aside for a rainy day.

You never knew when you'd need extra coin. Not with the world the way it was.

He'd put a few cogs aside, too, to treat Nandi to something nice. A red shawl, like the one she'd worn on their first dance. Only hers was a plain handstitched garment. This one was wine-colored velvet with a gold brocade at the fringe. A rich color, a good weight. Soft, the way she felt against him in the dark.

He'd spotted it by the window-sill of a high-end shop on the Promenade, while he'd been meeting with a lookout. The price was steep, but it'd be worth it to see Nandi's face. When he bought it, he imagined wrapping her up in it. Then unwrapping her. Like a present, a gift-giving for them both.

Nandi had scolded him for being a spendthrift. You've got a weakness for fine clothes, she'd said. Then she'd smiled and pressed the velvet shawl against her cheek. But you have good taste, too.

Afterward, she was seldom without the shawl. Silco loved seeing her wrapped up in it. But he'd liked taking it off her even better. Her bronze skin a perfect complement to the fabric's ruby hue. That lovely hair loose at last. It had such a silky texture; touching it was a pleasure almost as heady as kissing her. Even at his crudest, Silco was gentle with her hair. Sometimes he'd catch a strand of it between his fingers. Rub it against his lips. It always smelled like her—sandalwood and a sweetish undernote of incense.

It was a smell he still associates with good things.

Their togetherness hinged on their spending time apart. Sparetime Sweethearts, as the Undercity saying goes. He slept at his rathole at the Pump Station. She stayed with her sister in Drop Street, in a neat flat consisting of one small bedroom and a kitchen with moisture-buckled floorboards and soot-blackened wallpaper.

She never intimated moving in with Silco. He never breathed a word about a "living-in" arrangement.

Vander mocked Silco for choosing a girl as gunshy as himself. Yet the truth was simpler. They both came from homes rived with abuse. Their own space, cramped and dead-end as it was, felt too precious to risk. Still, they shared the usual things.

Money. Meals. Kisses. Sex.

Silence.

She was a good listener. Ironic—but true. Silence was an art; she taught Silco how to use it. The trick lay not in words, as she explained, but the spaces in between. The expressions heavy with subtext. The looks loaded with context. As a Priestess, she soothed people of all stripes with the language of silence.

From her, Silco learned the same. As a kingpin, the tactic proved useful. The well-timed edge of silence could cut into a target's nerves until all their secrets spilled loose.

She taught Silco other things too. How to brew tea without burning it. How to darn his socks and keep his boots grit-free. How honesty didn't always mean opening oneself up to danger, but to salving old wounds until they stopped hurting.

That was the best part of being with her. She salved unbearably raw places inside Silco. He remembers what it felt like to tell her about Daddy's murder. How Mother unspooled out of sanity and into wretchedness, and how Silco's own love for her died a slow death. He told her about Hope House Orphanage, and the unwanted caresses at the hands of his caretakers. She demonstrated a tender understanding towards his obsession for performing ablutions after sex, to always washing his hands and brushing his teeth as if scouring a dirty pot.

He told her about his and Vander's vision for the Undercity—Zaun—and how it needed to happen. They had spent so long under Topside's shadow. It had chased the Fissurefolks' dreams away; turned them into shadows themselves. The Council wouldn't lift a finger to save them. The only way to fight was to break away and claim independence. Become a nation-state where the law held no sway, only justice.

Freedom.

Nandi understood. She wanted better for the Lanes, too. But she didn't brandish it like a weapon. She wanted to share it, and for the sharing to be part of something greater.

A haven.

She was a haven for Silco, and he was content with her.

Oh, he's not blinded by retrospect. They had spats like any couple. Not as bad as Lika and Vander. Nowhere near as bad as himself and Vander.

Still, they had their differences. Left to her devices, Nandi suffered what she called 'heart-pains.' Not a medical condition; more a turn of phrase. The Psychickers today would term it Melancholia. On the day marking her father's arrest, she'd sink into a torpor. To get through it, she'd get high off her gourd on hashish.

Who was her dealer? Hells bells, she didn't need one.

As an acolyte of Janna, she had an encyclopedic knowledge of all herbs, from medicinal to psychedelic. She could have poisoned a roomful of Enforcers, and they'd have died smiling like newborns. But she chose a different route. Hashish to soothe the hurt. Puffcap for a kick.

She'd smoke herself into a stupor and then float free. Silco would find her sprawled boneless, staring up at the ceiling.

The first time, he'd been horrorstruck. Like staring at Mother, unkempt snakes of hair and empty half-lidded eyes. Except this was worse. This wasn't madness, but a willful giving-in. He'd shaken her out of the fugue, hard enough to stamp bruises on her shoulders. Then he'd held her against him, his jaw working and his pulse running like a racehorse. He'd wanted to scream at her, but no sound would come.

Afterward, he'd tried dragging her to see a medick. She refused.

A family sickness, she called these spells. They wouldn't be chased out. They could only be endured.

Silco couldn't endure it. He'd never before had anything that was his. His home, his family, his body—all taken against his will. Nandi was a sanctuary. To see her lost, even for a little while, made him feel powerless. And Silco hated feeling powerless. During her fits of torpor, he'd devolve into the angry, impotent boy who'd watched Mother lose her mind. He'd pace the flat like a trapped animal. Sometimes, he'd be tempted to slap her back to reality.

He'd never dared do such a thing. But the urge was there, lurking like a specter.

For both their sakes, he'd withdraw. Walk the streets. Find trouble. Kick it down, and bleed his rage out. The distance hurt like hell, but he saw no choice. Watching Nandi languish made him feel complicit in her misery. Afterward, he'd try to make amends. Take her out dancing. Bring her trinkets. Hold her, as if that'd make a lick of difference. He'd stay vigilant for signs of another spell coming on. But they crept like a tide, sometimes dragging her in waves to the bottom, other times receding so far that there was nothing but tranquil horizons for days.

In time, Silco grew accustomed to the ebbs and flows. When she emerged, it felt like a miracle. When she withdrew, he forgave the absence.

Likewise, Nandi despised it when Silco drank. Level-headed and soft-spoken when sober, he could be a nasty piece of work in his cups. His temper blackened to bilge. His possessive streak widened by a mile.

Once, he'd overheard a young man at the Temple tell Nandi she had the prettiest eyes he'd ever seen. Silco had crept up unseen behind him, and smashed a bottle over the fool's head. Another time, he'd nearly knifed a pair of youths on the sidewalk. All because they'd dared to catcall Nandi, herself deaf to the words. Silco had heard it all. His first blow drew blood. His second drew a knife. Nandi had dragged him off, whitefeced and shaking.

Afterward, she'd refused to kiss him if he had bourbon on his breath. Turned him out at her doorstep if he ever shambled in drunk.

He didn't understand why it scared her. Didn't see the connection between his anger and her fear. In his eyes, he was acting as any man should act. What's yours is yours. You keep it safe. You kill those who threaten to take it. In Nandi's eyes, it was different. She saw a boy, still reeling from a broken home, whose worst instincts had been whetted on privation's blade.

His violence was a symptom of that history, rather than a reflection of her worth. And her withdrawal was less about her, and more about him. She refused to be a crutch for his rage. She wouldn't feed it, or give him a reason to lash out. It summoned her own father, and the blows at his hands. How his fists had rained down on Nandi and her siblings, until their family fell apart and nobody was left whole.

Once, in tears, she'd disclosed to Silco that her father had drunkenly bashed her around the head with his boot when she was a child. It's what had put her hearing on the perpetual fritz.

Like drowning, she said. Better to be born that way, don't you think?

It was the only time she'd ever admitted such a thing. A rare glimpse at the wound beneath the serene surface. The admission had shocked Silco. The idea that anyone could treat their own daughter with such callousness made him want to kill.

Nandi was gentle as a dove. She didn't deserve a single blow.

Then again, domestic tiffs were a dismally common in the Lanes. Fissurefolk lived in cramped quarters with little privacy. They had a hard enough time keeping food on the table, let alone keeping peace in the house. Tempers were frayed by hunger, fear, and constant noise. Boys learnt from their fathers how to silence their womenfolk, and girls learnt how to swallow the pain. It was a cycle of suffering.

Nandi had survived her father's fists, just like Silco had survived his mother's claws. Neither of them forgot the scars. Between them, they'd shared a maxim:

We don't hit each other.

We don't do what they did.

It wasn't perfect, but it was what they had. That was the best part of being with Nandi. She was a safe harbor, not a dead-end.

They didn't live together, but they lived.

They had a routine. After Silco's rallies at the Sprout, and Nandi's work at the Temple, they'd meet at Oldtown, in the amber glow of the Equinox Bazaar. She'd drift towards him dressed in her ceremonial blue robes. Hair twisted atop her head with a pin; face bare except for a smile. In those moments, she'd look as magical as Janna herself. She was tailed always by little packs of boys and girls from the Temple. Silco would likewise be surrounded by a knot of hard-faced miners cloaked in cigarette smoke.

Where Vander was the lynchpin of the Lanes, Silco and Nandi were the bastions, fighting the tide of Topside's entropy. But they fought at opposing polarities. Silco was fixated on freedom through enterprise. Nandi's heart was in community care. In later years, Silco thinks she'd have turned her calling into into a community calling. Started a learning center for disabled children, maybe.

Maybe.

They'd sit beneath the awning of a cornerside stall, holding court with the locals. Nandi, reading lips, would tender advice on everything from poultices to poisons. How to soothe sump-rot, or cap a man's seed in the womb, or keep rats away from the cellar. Silco would proffer opinion on labor issues. When to bargain for higher wages, how to stonewall a snitch, how to organize a strike.

Afterward, once the crowds had thinned, the shopkeeper would give them both a barrel of cag-cog as thanks for luring customers to his stall.

Nandi and Silco would roll the barrel between them, laughing until their sides ached. In the morning, Silco would drop his share off at the Drop. Nandi would haul the rest to the open kitchens in Janna's Temple.

Her work there called for a fiendish strength: chopping, hauling, hefting. Her hands possessed something of that strength themselves, despite their compactness. Sometimes she'd amuse Silco by crushing empty food cans or punching a dent into an alleyside wall like Sevika could.

Runs in the family, she'd sign with a smile.

Indoors, she liked working with her hands too. But she'd ditch the robes for a stain-flecked apron and a pair of mitts. Hausfrau gear, Silco termed it. She'd get domestic on his behalf: a homecooked dinner three nights a week. Silco adored the savory cuisine that leapt from her hands despite the cheap ingredients.

Lentil stew and fishbone curry, Vekauran-style. Butter-brushed flatbread and salted yoghurt drink, Zhyunian-style.

And, his favorite—mango pickles.

Later, the table laid out with dishes, they'd eat in together, Nandi taking birdlike bites in time to Silco's gorging mouthfuls. Their chairs would be angled close, so her bare foot always touched his boot-clad ankle. Their silence was a natural thing, filled only with the muted clicks of spoons, and yet shaped by the honesty that is characteristic of growing intimacy.

Afterward, they'd go to bed—the bed Silco had won in a card game at the Drop. Surprising Nandi after she'd come home expecting the usual pallets laid out where she and Sevika slept. Instead there was Silco, lying on top of a queen-sized bed with his arms folded behind his head, a crooked little smile on his face.

Stunned, she'd climbed on top of him—and they'd made love without a word.

In his forties, Silco finds it funny. Trust comes so easily in youth, catalyzed by good chemistry. With Nandi, trust didn't leak out of him; it flooded him like a baptism. No regrets except for the sweetest kind. A sweetness that Silco had naively thought would last the distance.

Like his and Vander's bond.

Like his humanity.

Except those were dangerous times in the Undercity. The disorder was already spreading. They had no control over it.

They had no control over anything—except their own choices.

The streets were now scudded with a spectral layer of rime. Beneath the roiling clouds, the sky the color of a deepening bruise. Silco wended his way towards Nandi's flat in Oldtown. As he walked, he became cognizant of a presence tailing him. Three men. Maybe four. They stayed well back, but not so far as to be obscured by the evening's gathering murk.

Silco kept his stride loose, his hands in his pockets. A casual stroll; a vigilant eye.

He'd lost count of how many times he'd been set upon. Sometimes it was muggers—water-rats, as they were called. Sometimes it was street-louts grown belligerent with cheap hooch.

Mostly, it was Enforcers.

Silco had developed a sixth-sense for their presence. He could spot them a mile off. Their tread was never quite as light as a Trencher. Their movements were too expansive; their posture too upright. They moved as if they had a right to exist. Whereas Fissurefolk walked with heads ducked, shoulders hunched, backs curved by the weight of the world.

Tonight, the footsteps belonged to Enforcers.

Adrenaline sluiced down Silco's spine. On its heels was a remorseless, burning thrill.

If it was a beatdown they wanted, he'd deny them the pleasure. If it was a shakedown, he'd empty nothing but air. If it was his hide they sought, he'd make them sweat to earn it.

They'd come after him in the open. The advantage was his.

And his was an advantage to be savored.

Silco kept a casual pace. Under his breath, he sang: a smooth-grained tenor, slow and meandering. His favorite folk ditty: the Wave-Soaked Maiden. Below the lyrics, he kept his ears attuned to the footsteps.

To a casual observer, he was a man on a pleasant stroll. His steps slowed at intervals to take in the scenery. He stopped briefly at a stall selling stale breads fried in sweet lard. A barterhouse peddling patched-up clothes. A bookseller hawking old tomes.

At each stop, he'd lean in, speaking quietly, while his hand delved into a pocket to pantomime an exchange of coin. The dance was wily and well-practiced. His body hid the real transactions from view: his mouth, shaping a single word—Dibs.

It was short Dibble, or policeman. Without wasting a single breath, he was signaling to the shopkeepers that they should alert the lookouts.

In those days, the Night Watch had a system. Everyone in the Lanes knew the coded signals for an Enforcer patrol. Every week—sometimes twice—they'd switch up the codes, lest the Wardens catch on. The Fissures was a lawless pit, but solidarity was its own currency. Even with the rampant poverty, they'd trade in it by the bucket, before they ever traded in one of their own.

This week's buzzword was Dibs. Silco had passed it out earlier in the week to all the boys and girls at the Last Drop. Now he was reaping its benefit. Each time he uttered it, the vendor nodded, their attention never straying from his face. A minute later, Silco continued his walk. The Enforcers' footsteps followed.

Meanwhile, the vendors would sound the silent alarm.

Silco wove deeper into the warrens of Oldtown. The Enforcers followed, more falteringly. The streets had grown narrower, the pathways vertiginous labyrinths. The ginnels were strewn with mounds of pungent garbage. The gutters ran thickly black with bubbling sewage. The homes—tight-packed and piled upon one another—seemed to sag under the accumulation of decades of soot.

It was the side of the Fissures the Council forgot about. A place they were content to let rot. But here, no byway could be bypassed. No darkened corner was truly desolate.

And no trespasser was welcome.

With the ease of familiarity, Silco rounded the corner. His footsteps now were accompanied not only by the Enforcers' tread, but by the stirrings of a half-dozen others. The sumpsnipes who roosted in the rooftop attics had fallen into lockstep with him. He heard their whisperings. He sensed the scrape of their scruffy boots across the rafters. He felt the fizz of their malice in the laden air.

Silco's lips pursed in a smile. A whistle rose, high and lilting.

A battle-cry.

A moment later, the deluge began. Not a Gnasher or a summer squall. It was a hail of the Undercity's finest missiles. Empty tin cans and broken glass. Splintered bricks and rotten cavernfruit. Putrid bones and rancid eggs. All the refuse Piltover dumped daily into the Fissures. All the waste that, belowground, never truly went to waste.

Now it fell.

A downpour of refuse, a hail of hatred, descending upon the heads of the Enforcers.

Shouts and curses echoed. Threats were barked—and ignored. Bodies faltered—and fell. Glancing over his shoulder, Silco caught the tail-end of a particularly spectacular strike. A dog turd smacked an Enforcer's visor and splattered everywhere, blotting out his vision. As the Enforcer disgustedly wiped the mess off his helmet, a second missile—a bagful of pebbles—nailed his groin.

Howling, the Enforcer doubled over.

His comrades were too busy trying to escape the deluge. But they were hemmed in, the ginnel a dead end. The sumpsnipes ruled the territory. They were a veritable swarm now, their shapes resolving into countless pairs of gleeful eyes, their bodies a single mass of moving shadows.

Hooting and cackling, they rained garbage upon the Enforcers. They flung filth the same way that Topside had flung their futures into the gutter.

Silco had a fair aim himself. But his marksmanship couldn't compete with the collective bullseye of a dozen crazed urchins. Soon, the Enforcers had no recourse. They'd either have to run the gauntlet of lethal garbage—or scale the walls to the rooftops. Neither option, with their bulky equipment and the narrow pathways, was feasible.

Finally, they chose to reconnoiter.

In simple terms: run.

The sumpsnipes weren't ready to relinquish their quarry. They pursued on deft little feet, still pelting the men with garbage. The Enforcers' enraged roars, and the thwacks of refuse, and their collective whooping cries—it was a symphony with no conductor.

Just the chaotic cacophony of untranslatable comeuppance.

To Silco's ears, it took its place of honor amongst all the other singalong catastrophes that dwelled in the Fissures: Gnashers, Temblors, Ash Plagues. The ballads of broken families and the sonnets of sullied souls. The epics of misery, the travails of poverty, the opera of the oppressed. All of it, shared and halved and divvied. A common ground without an inch of surrender.

Silco grinned like a fiend. This was one show where he'd gladly pay full-price for a ticket.

Vaulting the rooftop, he perched on a crumbling ledge, and lit a cigarette. Tipping his head to expel a lazy ribbon of smoke, he lounged back in his front-row seat, and watched the spectacle unfold.

The perfect view to the perfect payback.

A final missile of offal, and the Enforcers were scrambling back to the thoroughfare. The sumpsnipes, their job done, melted back into the darkness.

Silco stayed, smoking, until the adrenaline had ebbed. Then, in a fluid motion, he hopped off the ledge and landed in a crouch on the cobblestones. He was a half-block from Nandi's flat. Hunger—and more intimate appetites—urged his footsteps forward. Still singing—but only to himself now—he made his way to the Equinox Bazaar.

Thirty minutes later, he was climbing the wobbling stairs of Nandi's old building, a satchel of brown rice and pickled sardines dangling from his arm, his chin trying to nudge a drooping loaf of bread higher. The stairs creaked under his boots; some were rotten, but he knew the bad ones by heart. Same way he knew the song that still filled his mouth. Same way he knew the sweet scent of sandalwood that would greet him at the top landing.

It'd seep out through the cracks, beckoning.

Like revolution: a siren's call.

---

The smoggy sky was sliced by the red-rimmed fingernail of moon.

Its glow filtered through the windowslats, catching the dust motes that floated in the bedroom. The air held a sultry thickness to it, filled with the sounds of ragged breathing.

Silco and Nandi stirred together beneath a shroud of the mosquito netting. He was braced over her, his torso pressing heavily on her breasts and belly. The muscle fibers twitched down his lanky arms; Nandi's right hand kneaded at the curve of his spine like a bird's skittering feet. Her left hand rested where they were joined, feeling him enter her, a deliciously subtle rocking, a tiny bit deeper each time.

"Sil," she gasped.

Silco fanned his fingers through her outspread hair. His own eyes were locked on her face. There was single candle on the nightstand—they never killed the lights completely. They liked to see each other, so they could sign and she could read his lips. He liked how she looked in these moments: as close and as far-off as shapes glimpsed underwater. Her pupils dilated beneath heavy lids, her skin dusked by a glowing heat. Her moans came like music: louder, softer, a song only he could hear.

The pleasure built between them the same way: swelling and receding, a river-current that wandered off before finding its way home. Nothing like how it would be when he was older: a violent slice, the wreckage of sensation like a knife driven to the bone. With Nandi, everything unfolded at exquisite half-speed. At a word or a glance, she could rule him into stillness.

In retrospect, Silco knows who was in charge in their bedroom. It wasn't him.

He touched their foreheads together, as if to feel for a fever. His lips mouthed, Okay?

She nodded.

Slower?

She shook her head.

He nuzzled her neck. The grain of his stubble rasped along the skin above her choker. She let off a shuddery sigh.

Tickles, she signed.

Silco was half-tempted to tickle her for real. But that always made her shy. Maybe because she couldn't hear her own laughter?

What she fancied as offkey was to him strangely lovely.

On the floor above, footsteps juddered. Crude shouts and thumps of discord. The walls rocked with it, a ship pitching in a storm. Below, drunken singing rose and fell, a melody as irredeemably coarse as a rusty saw. The building was like a bat's cote: six or seven people crammed into each room. Some were families; others were relatives or friends or just two strangers sharing space. Some were born here; some would die here. But the commotion was never-ending. Sometimes, a gunshot or two was par for the course.

Silco had grown up inured to strangers' soundtracks in his life. Old Gus voiding his bowls into the chamberpot above, or Young Jenny's screams during delivery below, were par for the course living in the Undercity.

There were no secrets in close quarters: you knew everyone's business, and they knew yours. Most nights, the din was almost soothing, a background static that helped drown out his own thoughts.

But tonight, there were no thoughts. No room for any. Just a pure, simple rhythm, in an unbroken loop of sensation.

Nandi's dark fingers tangled in his hair, mirroring his paler ones around the nape of her neck. She dragged his head down, so their mouths fit together unerringly. The kiss was nothing like Silco's future fare: rough and teeth-edged and verging on brutal. When he and Nandi kissed, it was the softest openmouthed slide of lips against lips, the softest curl of tongue against tongue.

Each kiss blurred the edges of his mind. Took him away from the gritty mess of weapons and arguments and Enforcers. Made him into someone young, starry-eyed, nearly innocent. Made him want all the things that he'd once believed he'd never have.

The things he now knows were always impossible.

They broke off on wavery exhalations. Their mouths stayed inches apart, barely touching, just breathing each other's air. Teasing—the same way Silco timed the stirrings of his hips to the tracings of his fingertips across Nandi's scalp.

Words spoken right into the skin.

When they'd first begun their affair, intimacy had spooked them both in different ways. He'd been wary about letting down his guard. She'd been terrified of letting herself go. They'd each had a handful of lovers, but nothing as steady as what they shared. It took time before their bodies knew how to touch one another. Time to school each other on how to give, and how to take.

In the future, fucking for Silco would be colored by the same black-burn of rage that bled into everything else. He tended to attract those who sensed the razor's edge he rode, and wanted to bleed against it. Many bled to death.

Nandi had bypassed his defense-mechanisms. Broken him open into honesty.

The devotees at Janna's Temple learnt tantric arts to keep their bodies as supple as their minds. They took herbs to enhance sensitivity; practiced a breath control technique that let them melt into the moment instead of speeding towards the finish. As if sex was a meditation. A pilgrimage to the self.

Nandi had the same stillness to her body; a liquid sanctum of patience. She taught Silco likewise. If he rushed to come, she'd make him linger. If he held her too tightly, she'd take his hand and thread their fingers together. If he got too worked-up, she'd soothe the shakes out of him with nothing but a whisper.

Sssh. Take your time.

Silco was grateful for her tutelage. She showed him lots of wicked little tricks. How to last longer by timing his breathing to the rhythm of their rocking bodies. How to get her off faster by scooping a palm under her lower back and angling his pelvis into a grind rather than a thrust. How a few drops of lubricant made everything slick and smooth and perfect. How a well-timed kiss or a well-placed caress could shift the mood from urgent to filthy to achingly tender.

Silco learned all that. In time, he'd go beyond the specifics to tapping into the duality between softness and firmness—and where they two were best put to use. How to wield touch as a tool of intimate expression—and as a weapon to keep someone off-balance. How to read rhythms—physical, emotional, psychological—and how to move in uncanny lockstep with them. How tenderness could impart indelible truths—or carve terror right into the bone.

With Nandi, sex wasn't a salve for Silco's rage. It was a purification.

After Nandi, rage became a void that nothing could sate.

In his arms, Nandi shivered. Her feet skimmed his calves, her strong hands coasting his shoulders. Her fingertips were a wingbeat code: Harder.

Silco shifted their rhythm to a deepening grind. So imperceptible at first that it was as if he was toying with her, or else stymied by inhibition, unsure how much she could take. Except it was just the warm-up, and Nandi knew it because her equilibrium devolved into a raw intensity. She folded him closer in her arms, ankles locking at the base of his spine, her motions matching his before they were carried along by his building momentum, an achingly slow undulation that became a deep goading torment.

The mattress creaked beneath them, springs cramping and uncramping. The hot air coated them both in sweat, their bodies skidding together in luscious suctioning sounds. Nandi's breaths shuddered against his neck, then spangled on a sharp alto when Silco wedged his own hand between their bodies. The heel of his palm covered her clit, massaging gently.

She jerked, fluttering in a quick inchoate climax that subsided the tension, but ended nothing. Her muscles clutched slickly around him, an aching constriction that made him clench his teeth, half-grin, half-grimace. When the shock of it passed, she panted and caught hold of his arm.

The message was plain: I'm too sensitive.

Silco palmed her hair to cup the curve of her skull in one hand. Without guidance, he'd slowed almost to nothing again. A drop of his sweat fell onto her lips. Nandi wet them with her tongue. Her face was half-lidded—but oh-so-open. Before, she'd used to hide her face in the pillow. Or bury it deep in his neck. But that had changed. His body was becoming hers, as hers was all his.

Then she whispered, "I love you."

Silco shook in a ragged breath.

She'd neither spoken it, nor signed it before. It made his unflinching brain seize up and his inexorable body lose its rhythm. A lifetime later, he'd think: Love must be like a revolution. The same sense of stolen breath, the same resounding crash, the same burning-bright boom.

When a revolution comes, your world is split down the center. When you fall in love, your heart is split in two.

A tiny smile spread on Nandi's lips. "Do you love me?"

Silco swallowed, a stunned reflex that belied his softly-husked voice. "I—"

She let off a sultry laugh that made the hairs stand up on his arms.

Don't answer, stupid boy, she signed. Just kiss me.

Silco obeyed, his mind pinwheeling. Sometimes he wonders whether he should've been less self-censored. Would it have made a difference? Given her one sweet memory to take wherever she would go? More than the imprint of his hands on her? She'd deserved the sweetness, surely.

She did not deserve what came afterward.

Outside, thunderheads crowded out the crescent moon. In the bedroom, the shadows thickened as the color drained from the sky; the sheets were glowing-white against their skins. Bit by bit, the indolent rhythm was getting away from them, devolving into merciless repetition, undercut by harsh gasps.

Silco breathed in the sandalwood scent of Nandi's hair, licking the salt from her neck. His motions were a rapid circling now, pulling out fractionally, pushing back in. Nandi wavered a beautiful series of croons, her thighs trembling against his flanks—and he knew he'd found the spot to collapse her. Usually he worked the edges of it, keeping them both on a simmer, savoring their physicality like he'd learnt to savor every other piece of their life together.

Except Nandi was strung out and shaking with the intensity of her need, and the sight threatened to tear Silco's own self-control at the seams. Draping his sinewy weight across hers, he twined their fingers together. His breath felt raw as sandpaper in his throat.

Now? he mouthed.

Her shapeless moan was an answer in itself.

He was already slamming himself into her, the razor-edge of aggression acceptable in the heat of the moment. She arched on a cry, her head flung back, the quivering of her body deepening into a familiar spasmodic shuddering. This time her climax came bone-deep—a blissed-out crescendo that became begging when he kept fucking her through the spasms, keeping her pinned and at his mercy, ruthlessness an inversion of raw need. Harder, ever harder, the mattress creaking lewdly, until the torture of oversensitivity blurred inside-out. She rewarded him with a final convulsing crest, her head and torso coming up off the mattress and her breath sobbing out through her lips.

Silco took it all in, electrified. Years later, he'd be exposed to sex in all its artifices, the naked bodies of strangers no better than targets at a shooting range. Except Nandi never knew a moment's artifice. Especially not here. Her every desire came from the same place as her dancing.

Pure variations of a single entrancing theme.

Silco's own orgasm slashed through him like a knife. The tension shredded from his muscles on a series of shudders, his breath hissing out through his clenched teeth. Beneath him, Nandi made a weak, almost crying sound. He recognized it as relief, because it echoed his own slurred groan. Their voices ebbed together into a panting stillness.

At the window, rain washed down to tint the sky a misty gray-green. The drunken argument upstairs subsided. The room grew druggingly cool. But Silco was hypnotized by the feverish heat of Nandi's skin. Beads of moisture glittered everywhere on her body: cheekbones and throat and breasts. A riverbird washed up on the bed.

Her eyes fluttered open, hazy in the half-dark.

"Sil...?"

He nuzzled her hair, mouthing, Okay?

She signed shakily. What's gotten into… into… gods.

Too rough?

My back is going to hurt.

Shit. Sorry. I—

Her sigh lilted with satisfaction. I didn't say I minded.

Silco's anxiety folded into a smile. Her arms encircled him; he nestled in, face burying itself in her sumptuous hair. Outside, the stormclouds swirled and shredded. A red eye of moon stared in from the windowslats.

Silco drifted, lulled by the glow. Curled in close, Nandi seemed drift too. Then she signed, Have you…?

Silco nuzzled her hair.

Have you been fighting again?

He signed back, With whom?

Vander.

Reflexively, Silco began scooting away. Nandi trapped him with her body. Her fingers were a playful crisscrossing.

Escaping?

Just to get my smokes.

Yes. Escaping.

Caught out, he winced.

Nandi always knew when he was lying. Silco could modulate his voice until it was sinlessly smooth. But Nandi never heard that: she fixed on deeper tells. Respiration, blinking, muscle tension. Ironically, it made Silco try harder to keep trouble under wraps: a misguided attempt to keep their private hours trouble-free. That only meant he lied better.

He'd always been a fine poker player. Nandi made him into a virtuoso. The irony wasn't lost on him—then or now.

Sullen, Silco sat up, his legs tenting the sheets. It's nothing serious.

You're scowling like a cut snake.

What?

You and Vander will come to blows, if you're not careful.

Saw that in the stars, did you?

She refused to rise to his jab. It wasn't often she interfered with his and Vander's tiffs. But the prospect of a real clash between them was something she didn't want to be within spitting distance of. Too many memories of her father; another man whose rage left nothing but bodies in his wake.

Meeting his eyes, she signed, Stop pushing him.

I'm not, Silco retorted. He's just being stubborn about arming our cause. But he'll come around eventually. He'll realize we're better off defending ourselves.

Weapons are a big risk.

So are Enforcers killing us one by one

You'll drive a wedge between yourself and Vander.

Silco didn't answer. He reached for the cigarettes on the rickety nightstand, and made an offhand business of tapping one from the pack. Tipping one to his lips, he signed. Vander and I have been getting on each other's nerves lately. But the work is too important to let squabbles stand in the way. He knows that. So do I.

Her eyes gleamed in the dark. Don't do anything reckless.

Reckless? Me?

The ugliness on the streets... Tears glinted on the rims of her eyelids; she blinked them away. It's bringing out ugliness in everyone. Don't let it rule you too. Don't let it rule Vander. He's got the same devils driving him that you do.

Silco showed her an off-kilter smile. Devils, eh?

Please. Leave him be. Don't force his hand.

I won't.

He covered her hand with his.

She signed ruefully. Sorry to be a nag.

You're not. You— He tried signing with his clumsy fingers, before settling for a slow inflection of words. "You know what a difference you make, right? What you mean to—"

Thudding footsteps in the kitchen. Someone had just entered the flat. There was a jiggling at Nandi's doorknob, then a head thrusting in before either of them could protest.

"Nan, where is your—shit."

Sevika stood with her mouth open. Her eyes took in the tableau: the veil of mosquito netting, the half-nude shape of Nandi and the sheets pooled in Silco's lap, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lip.

Anyone else would've been mortified. Sevika, who possessed not a scrap of shame, just smirked.

Her features lacked Nandi's polished symmetry, the same way her body lacked her sister's sinuous grace. Where Nandi was ethereal, Sevika was earthy: hard-edged and honed curves. A body built for brawling. By twenty-one, she ran her own gang, armed with blackjacks and billy clubs. Their aegis was protection and profit; keeping the Lanes running smoothly while ensuring Vander and Silco got a cut of all the different rackets. After-hours, they played lookouts during Silco's rallies, alerting him to the arrival of Enforcers.

Even in those days, Sevika had a reputation as a workhorse—and a hellacious bitch when crossed. People went to Nandi for advice on ailing relatives or broken hearts. They went to Sevika when they needed someone knocked down or dragged out.

In each case, Sevika delivered.

Now, she shielded her eyes. Except the fingers were spread wide apart. The smirk was still playing around her mouth. "Knew it. The second you two have the place to yourselves, I walk in and get an eyefu—"

A pillow came flying. But Nandi's aim was off; it hit the doorjamb instead. Sevika ducked, her guffaws trailing. As the door slammed shut, Nandi was already snatching up a robe and racing barefoot after her sister. Muted shouts and scuffling came from the kitchen. The cursing—half in Vekauran, half in Standard—was the most creatively vile Silco had heard in his life.

It no longer shocked him that Nandi was capable of such crassness. Or that Sevika could inspire her to such extremes.

That was sisters for you. A lesson he'd learn; in time, and in blood.

The soundtrack subsided. In a minute, both girls were back. Nandi, enfolded in her tasseled robe, her face flushed from the argument. Sevika, still smirking incorrigibly.

Resuming her place on the bed, Nandi glowered.

Well? she signed. Have you anything to say for yourself?

Sevika's smile was a dare. Ten cogs, and I'll keep my mouth shut.

You're not blackmailing us for something that wasn't our fault.

I meant I'll keep my mouth shut about what your man's packing. Janna's tits, Nan. No wonder you're always walking like your back's been blown ou—

Another pillow came flying. It struck true, square in the face. Sevika's cackles instantly muffled in volume.

You weren't due back for another bell, Nandi fumed. Where's Diya?

Found her at the Sprout again, with her tongue down some tramp's throat. Thought I'd take the long way home and let her get her jollies. Or whatever passes for 'em when the action's that stale. Sevika pulled a face. She's gotten into the habit of reciting poetry now, Nan. Poetry. Who does that?

Nandi rolled her eyes. Try half of Vekaura.

Can't make heads or tails of the stuff. All that flowery bullshit. Rather read the scribblings in the tavern alleyside. At least the rhymes have bite.

You can barely speak Vekauran. How do you expect to understand the kāvya?

Sevika shrugged. Kāvya never did shit for me. At least the rhymes on the tavern walls are about real live folk getting a real live fucking. A sly smirk. Maybe you and Sil could contribute a few verses.

Nandi sighed, head in her hands. Silco watched the byplay with amusement.

Unlike Nandi, Sevika was impatient with dreaminess in all forms. Where her sister regularly doled out bread to the mystics at Janna's Temple, Sevika had little patience for such impracticalities. For her, spiritualism was synonymous with stupidity. The attitude carried over to the men and women she associated with. She was drawn to those who took a stand, spoke their minds, got things done. Her flings were the same—only the biggest and baddest need apply. Her roster was a revolving door of burly bruisers, sweet-talking rogues, and sharp-eyed cheats. They had one thing in common: they all got their hands bloody.

Sevika went through them like a lit fuse. But she was pickier with her heart; nobody ever stuck.

Her shine for Silco hadn't scrubbed off in the interceding years. She'd been tetchy and territorial when he'd first taken up with Nandi. But her pique had worn down with time. If anything, the proximity dragged him down off the pedestal—podium?—and to an equal plane. Some nights, she'd treat him as a surrogate big brother, brusque and snarky, vying with him over dinner to spear the last forkful of Nandi's pickled mango. Other nights, he was a mentor, his handful of years lending him an allure that had her seeking out his counsel on everything from her gang's daily takings to her ex-girlfriend's shady habits.

The rest of the time, though, she delighted in stirring the pot.

There wasn't a square inch of privacy in Nandi's flat. Sevika barged in and out whenever she pleased. If Nandi rebuked her, she'd listen with a straight face. Then repeat her transgressions the next week. If she caught Silco alone, it was worse. She'd seize the chance to get up close without truly invading his space. She'd also glower with such ferocity at anyone else who dared the same—barflies, friends, foes—that she resembled a dragon guarding gold.

The fact that Silco didn't bat an eyelash at her behavior eyelid only fed her fire.

Often, Nandi warned him that it wasn't enough to be distant—he had to be discouraging. Silco shrugged it off. The girl's proclivities meant little. Her strong arm and sharp eye made her a useful ally. She kept a lookout for the Enforcers' presence, and was fiercely loyal.

In that respect, she was Nandi's sister through and through.

"Heard you and Vander had another blowup," Sevika said to him.

"Don't believe everything you hear."

"Is it true we might take up arms? Real arms?"

Nandi, reading both their lips, cut in: "Sevika."

Silco signed, for Nandi's benefit more than Sevika's: Nothing has been decided yet.

Why not? Sevika signed back.

Because we don't want anyone dying.

That's bullshit! We've gotta take our streets back!

Nandi warned again, "Sevika—"

Her sister didn't relent. If we're going to have a future, we've gotta fight. Or are we just going to keep cowering and taking their shit? Are we going to keep letting our folks starve while Topside's bastards fill their fat stomachs every night?

Silco shook his head. We can't fight Enforcers with blackjacks. Not with slingshots or molotovs. For the firepower we need, the Lanes would have to be trained. Every able-bodied man and woman.

Sevika signed back, I'd volunteer. So would everyone in this street.

You'd get killed. Enforcers are well-armed. We'd need our own ammunition. But guns aren't cheap. Or easy to come by.

We could break into the Enforcer barracks? Sevika suggested. Steal their own ammo?

The risks are too high. We'd have to go Topside, and there are too many variables to control. Besides, if we do this, we can't half-measure it.

Meaning?

Meaning if we steal ammo, we should have an entire armory. Grenades. Carbines. Rifles. Everything. If we're going to go for their throats, we have to aim for their jugular.

Nandi interrupted in a flurry of fingers, Are you both insane? Don't speak for your neighbors when you don't know what they stand to lose!

A silence fell, charged as gunpowder.

Already, Silco knew he'd misstepped. His time in Nandi's flat was time-out from the rest of his life. He never discussed the particulars of his work. Not because he didn't trust her, but because he needed, for one bloody hour, to escape the turmoil beyond her threshold. To just be a man—and not a cause.

Inside the walls of this flat, he was Sil: a lover, a dreamer, a believer. Outside, he was Silco: a voice in the dark, a rallying cry, an unyielding force of conviction.

Nandi was his sanctuary, and he needed that. Needed to feel, if only for a moment, the warmth of her skin, and not the chill of gathering violence. The softness of her body, and not the steel of his plans. The sweetness of her faith, and not the teeth of his own rage. Otherwise this was just another room, another hovel, another place where his ambition would always get the better of him.

It already had.

He felt two sets of dark eyes on him. One: raging. The other: pleading. The room no longer belonged to two lovers and their unruly interloper. A fourth party had arrived: politics. Always, it had its own distinct scent: like a twisty noose of smoke that snaked from mouth to mouth, stealing the breath, strangling the lungs. It gave Nandi's eyes the sheen of cracked glass. It made Sevika's hands go to her hips. Made Silco's jaw tighten, his mind a quicksilver gyre of strategies, and his heart a stone lodged in his chest.

But he'd long grown inured to the weight. It was so familiar, it felt like a phantom limb. Or the opposite. Not an amputation, but an augmentation.

A double-beating rhythm, out of synch with his ordinary skin.

Without meeting Nandi's or Sevika's eyes, Silco reached for his lighter, firing up his cigarette. He didn't inhale, just let the smoke plume. As it spiraled, the air felt less stultifying. He could breathe. Could think.

Could formulate a plan.

"Sevika," he said evenly. "Don't barge in and talk shop. This isn't the time or place."

"Who died and made you my boss?"

"No one. I'm just telling you: not now."

"But—"

"No." The cigarette felt hot in his grip. He took a drag, smoke spindling into the air. "If your gang is in, we'll talk to Vander. All of us together. But unless there's a unanimous decision, don't go riling up the crowd. Understood?"

She didn't quite back down. But she didn't quite argue either. "And Vander's gonna agree?"

"Yes."

"Just like that?"

"I'll convince him."

"How?"

"The same way I always do. By working the odds in our favor." He pirouetted a finger. "Trot off now. Nandi and I have other matters to attend to."

Sevika rolled her eyes. "What? More fucking?"

"Yes." Grinding out the cigarette in the ashtray, Silco held her stare. "Exactly that."

Something flickered in Sevika's eyes. Not flirtatious, exactly, but there was something challenging in the way her smile lingered. Moments like this made him very—aware—of her raw physicality. In his mind, she was still the grubby little chit who'd perched on his knee, gobbling up the bergamots he stole from the foreman's stash.

Now, in the span of a heartbeat, she was a grown woman. A hard-muscled knockout, all sinew and attitude. She looked as if she could kill a man bare-handed, and relish doing it. There was something wildly alluring in that. Same way a dragon's roar or a tiger's teeth were alluring: the thrill of violence, and its seductive promise of victory.

It was a violence that echoed Silco's own.

And there's the rub, isn't it? When someone was—is—too much like you. Too willing to use violence. Too willing to be used. You see in them the worst of yourself: a shadow that cannot be exorcised. But also the best of yourself: a call of the wild, and yet a place to leash your inner beast.

The temptation never leaves you. Not for a moment.

So you find ways to spin temptation into tether—and pray it keeps.

"Out," Silco said, their stares disconnecting. "Now."

Sevika, sensing she'd crossed the line, turned sullen. "Whatever."

She snatched up one of Nandi's shawls—the good red velvet one Silco had gifted her. The sisters were perpetually swapping each other's clothes with an ease that Silco found baffling. Now it seems like a peculiar breed of foreshadowing.

Nandi's shawl ended up on Sevika. Sevika ended up as Silco's XO.

I'm heading over to Karka's shop, Sevika signed. The Enforcers raided it yesterday. Left behind nothing but scraps. We're going to need stronger walls and thicker doors to keep their bullets out.

Karka? Nandi echoed. He's got the cleanest hands in the Lanes.

Doesn't matter. His shop is right beside the Sprout. That makes it a target. Sevika slung the shawl over her shoulder. Anyways, I'm out.

Nandi made a X with her hands. Sevika scowled, grinding to a halt.

Yeah, she signed. I know the drill. No dark corners; no solo strolls. Keep to threes and fours. If you see someone suspicious, alert the watchmen.

Be home by midnight, Nandi signed. I'm making payasam.

Sevika's features softened. Whatever hers and Nandi's differences, they shared a deep and abiding affection. It was evident even during the thicket silences between them. It lent Silco courage that his own rough patch with Vander would soon smooth over. That whatever happened in the future wouldn't alter what they had now.

I want extra cashews, Sevika signed, then aimed a crooked leer at Silco. "Don't blow my sister's back out, Sil."

Nandi snapped, "Sevika!"

The door clattered shut.

Silco stared after her with a dark amusement. Girl hasn't a jot of tact.

Nandi shook her head. Usually, she let her sister's impertinences slide. Tonight, her mood seemed brittle as glass.

She's reckless.

Silco gave her a one-armed squeeze. She's bold.

I worry someone will take her boldness as a challenge. Take advantage of her.

Sevika? He bit back a scoff. She'd gut anyone who tried.

Nandi rested her chin on her drawn-up knee. They're all like this, the younger ones. Fierce and stubborn. But they don't know what's at stake. They think violence is the way of the world.

It is for them, Silco replied. They had no childhoods. Never had a choice to learn a different way.

Nandi looped a lock of hair behind her ear. Since her birth, she's been trying to find her place in a world that wants to grind her down. For her, that's meant struggling tooth and nail for every little scrap. But what does she get from it? Not a future. Just the same woes, piled up higher. And that's not life. That's death, wearing a mask. Just a different way of killing ourselves.

Silco took a burning lungful of smoke. She's still young.

Nandi crammed a fist into her mouth: a queerly childish gesture. She's got our father's temper, and our mother's will. It's a dangerous combination.

Silco took her by the elbow, tugging away her fist. She's also got your good sense.

She's got her own, Nandi argued. But it's too wrapped up in her anger. She mocks me for keeping the old traditions. But I have to. I have to teach her how to cook our grandmother's recipes, or they'll die with us. I have to remind her of the old songs and the kāvya, so she'll know the language of our folk. And when she mocks it all? I tell myself, at least she's hearing them. At least something of our past will be carried into her future. Her lovely lashes dipped. But that's a fool's errand, isn't it? She has no connection to our heritage. Neither do the others in our enclave. Their parents were the last generation truly steeped in the old ways. But their children were all born here. In the Undercity. Where everything is built on slime, and nothing ever stays clean. Half of them barely speak their mother tongue except to curse. Their only real language is fists and kicks.

You can't blame them for that.

The gleam in Nandi's eyes grew pensive. It's not about blame. It's about loss. Because they have lost the best part of themselves. A sense of rootedness in the past, that gives them a foothold for the future. A way of life, not just a survival instinct. Even our elders have lost their bearings. They can't keep up with the change. It's like we're all adrift, in a world where no one is home. All that's left is—

What?

Following the path of change. Her eyes met his. Yours and Vander's.

Softly, Silco said, "Zaun."

Nandi nodded. "Zaun." She was quiet a moment. Then: I see the hope it gives everyone. I see the way it gets Sevika through bad days, and worse nights. And you—I've never seen such fire, or felt so alive, as when you're working a room. Your conviction. Your strength. It's like a wave that carries us along, and we can't help but surrender. But sometimes I wonder—

What?

If you can really carry it all. Her fingers trembled, so slight he almost missed it. Lately, it's like there are two of you. One outspoken and determined, the other—colder. Sharper. They're both swimming side-by-side, the space between them narrowing. A collision is inevitable.

Silco dared a smile. Read that in the kāvya, did you?

Nandi shook her head. Truth comes to us in every shape.

Silco's smile faded. She'd always had a knack for plainspoken wisdom. The Void didn't need to speak through her; her instincts held the purest clarity of all.

Silco caught her chin. He knew how to give her something that didn't come from within: a hot, fierce kiss on her mouth. Nandi let off a gasp, before her lips parted against his, expelling a moan. Her body went liquid in his arms. Silco liked that he could unbalance her that way. Liked that he'd unlocked the secret to inverting her equilibrium.

They broke apart on wavering exhales. Nandi's stare was a half-lidded daze.

Silco mouthed against her lips, "You're too wound-up."

Her signing came shaky. Too many thoughts.

"Then let's make you forget them." He eased her back across the rumpled sheets. "Unless you've somewhere else to be?"

Her answer was wordless. The softness of her mouth licking a fire into his, and the softness of her sigh filling the airwaves, and the softness of her body melting against him. All of it, a surrender to a higher calling than themselves. His cigarette, halfway burnt and still smoking, snuck through his fingers and dropped to the floorboards.

Ash scattering in a trail of pulsing embers.

Afterward, in the sultry gloom, blissed-out and boneless, he drowsed.

Nandi drowsed too, her hair spread out of his chest. Sometimes, older, he'll still think of the scene: the sheen of her skin as it cooled back to room temperature, the silky dusting of sweat slowly starting to twinkle. The rain scattering down at the window and the air making a patina of steamy languor around their bodies.

It was the last time he'd ever feel like a decent human being.

Nandi jittered out a sigh. You'll be careful out there, yes? At tonight's rally?

I will.

If Enforcers come—

We'll scatter. No fuss, no muss.

My sister—

I'll keep her close. Make sure she doesn't run afoul of trouble.

Thank you. She hesitated. I worry about you all. You, Sevika and Vander. Your work is getting more dangerous. And now you're talking about—arming ourselves. Against Piltover. The same way the Icathians armed themselves against the old Eastern states of Shurima. Do you remember that? The old fable?

Briefly. Didn't end well for the Icathians, though, did it?

Her sigh grew heavy. It ended well for nobody. The Icathians unleashed the power of a magic artifact from the underground. A secret weapon to turn the tides of battle. In doing so, they inadvertently unleashed the Void upon the world. And the Void was the only true victor. It devoured everything. Shurima. Icathia. All its armies. Its people. Everything.

Silco's fingertips chased a bead of sweat down her throat. You think I'm crazy to want the same thing for us?

No. But I fear you underestimate the consequences. We're not prepared for conflict on such a scale. Not yet. Our folk need more time to prepare. They need to be convinced this is the right move. Not just for their children, but for themselves. If you force this upon them too soon, it could backfire. The same way the Icathians' recklessness did.

Maybe, Silco returned. Or maybe we've reached a point where action is necessary. No matter the risks.

Sil—

He took her hand, their fingers lacing together. "For as long as I can remember," he said, enunciating plainly, "I've felt the pull of change. It's been a constant, since I was a boy. Now, it's a voice I can't shut out. We need to make Zaun a reality, Nandi. We need to throw off Topside's yoke and stand tall. Today, they've got us boxed in, scrounging for scraps. Tomorrow, they'll have us caged, and ripping each other to shreds. And that's not life, either. That's death, wearing a mask. Their mask, and their game. And we're going to wear our own, we'd better make it one with teeth."

Nandi half-lidded stare was luminous, full of fallen stars. She didn't interrupt him.

"When the Void fell upon Icathia, the land was devastated, and the people were no more. But that wasn't the end of their story. Some escaped the destruction. Some were spared. The survivors had a second chance at life. At freedom. At a future. They built the empire from the sands, and resurrected its glories. And their legacy was passed on to their descendants, from Shurima to the far corners of the continent." His eyes searched hers. "You keep the old stories alive, and in you, your family lives on. Your clan in Vekaura. And all the folk who came before." He took her palm, and pressed it to his heart. "In me, it'll be all those who come after."

Her fingers trembled in his. "And if we lose?"

"We won't. Because even if I fall, or Vander falls, the cause will go on." He squeezed her fingers. "That's the beauty of a dream. It can't be killed. Only forgotten."

Nandi was silent. Then, gently, she tugged her hand free, and cupped his jaw. Her kiss was slow and lush and lingering. She could argue with Sevika until her fingers fell off and she went blue in the face. But she knew better than to try with Silco. His rage ran dark and cut deep. Vander was one of the few who could match its intensity.

Nandi could only defuse the edge.

The kiss broke; her damp forehead touched his. Her words came husked. "There's no dream sweeter than this."

"This?"

"This. Here. Us."

Silco felt a tug deep in his chest. He could've lost himself in her again, and gladly. Except Nandi was already peeling away. Silco watched her rise, wobbly and nude, her long hair tangled around her body. She swayed, nearly stumbling. Silco half-rose on an elbow; she smiled, nixing the silent query.

Then she was gone—a deft tread as she crossed the tiny wash closet.

In those days, Nandi's bedroom had no modern plumbing. But she always kept a chipped earthenware tureen ready. It was brimful of sudsy hot water, a bergamot bobbing inside. There was also a separate ceramic bowl, with an infusion of herbs in a tepid potion of boiled water.

The wash-closet door was half-open, shielding her from view. But through its carved gaps, Silco could see tantalizing bits and pieces of her moving. Naked, she was half-sylph, half-woman, and purely irresistible: her torso all lithe elegance, her legs solid with muscle, tapering into long callused feet like talons.

She performed her ablutions with the same serenity as everything else. Then came the contraceptive ritual. Crouching over the ceramic bowl, she busied herself with pouring water and unscrewing phials, before fetching a square of cloth. With the improvised douche, she daubed out what he'd put inside her only moments before, saturating the cloth with the sweetly pungent potion. Afterward, she'd carry the bowl over to the chamber pot.

Family planning differed sharply between Topside and the Undercity. Access to easy birth control was limited. Nandi's menstrual cycle was regular as clockwork. But she mistrusted the coitus interruptus method popular amongst most Undercity men. Getting off at Factorywood—as it was called.

She'd adopted the Vekauran midwives' practice instead. The rue and rhubarb were an herbal abortifacient that she'd daub inside herself, at the onset of her fertile cycle, when her body was at its most sensitive. It didn't kill the seed—nothing short of a lethal overdose would do that—but it was safer than the alternatives.

So far, the ritual had proven failsafe. But Silco shelled out coin for sheaths whenever possible. He had no plans to be a father. The Undercity had enough brats to go around. They dropped like bombs and killed with them so many possibilities.

Except the true delimitations were poverty, not parenthood. One morsel of bread to be shared among thousands of families—is it any wonder fathers washed up by the river while mothers went mad?

Nandi's rite took several minutes. When she re-emerged, she looked a different woman: demure and clean-scrubbed, her hair plaited into a shiny twist at her nape. She held a washbowl of zesty water in her arms, and a washcloth. Sitting on the side of the bed, she cleaned him off with laving caresses.

Silco lay back and let her. This was another little ritual, a last bit of tenderness wrung from the moment before he returned to the hell beyond her walls.

Will you be at the rally tonight? he signed.

Nandi shook her head. Not tonight. Sobering: I need to prepare for the murdered boy's vigil. I'm leading the prayers at the Temple.

Silco darkened. A vigil won't bring him back.

He deserves a chance to be mourned.

He deserved more than that. He shook his head, and said out loud, "We all do."

Nandi said nothing. Only kissed his forehead, as if to quell whatever storm was brewing within. Their palms clasped in parting, a little roughness to his calluses, a little smoothness to hers. They both had old blisters from their days in the mines.

A different world. Another time. But the scars would always linger.

Silco slithered out of bed, crossing to the chair where his clothes were draped. The moisture dried on his skin, a whole-body shiver. The temperature had dropped four degrees in barely a bell. More rain was imminent.

Nandi watched him from behind the mosquito netting, her shape gone spectral by the candle's glow. Only her dark eyes seemed real; he felt their softness like feathers across the skin. She liked to watch him dress. If her body was half-sylph, half-woman, Silco's own was all shapeshifter. He could be eellike in the slow languor of his movements; raylike in the fluidity of his joints; sharklike in the silent precision of his prowl. Nandi often teased that in another life, he must've dwelt at the bottom of the sea.

Like the Wave-Soaked Maiden, she'd tease. Crashing ships on sharp rocks with a song.

Ironic, because she'd never heard him sing. Never even knew the timbre of his voice. His most potent weapon had no effect on her.

It was the silence of their intimacy that held the strongest sway.

He finished lacing up his boots, and ran a hand through his hair, smoothing out the tangles. His reflection in the chipped old mirror—the right half lit by candle-glow, the left half-shrouded in shadow—seemed for a moment eerily foreign. The fine web of lines spidering out from the corners of his eyes deepened like cicatrix. His jaw held a bladelike edge; his nose seemed less a straight jut and more a serpentine crook. The eyes seethed with inky malice.

He blinked, and the phantom doubled over into blue-eyed familiarity.

Nandi signed, You look a treat, Sil.

That should be my line.

You're dressing sharp tonight. Somewhere to be before the rally?

Just a few errands to run. He knotted the last button, and faced her. That's me off, then.

From the bed's warmth, Nandi extended a hand. Silco caught it, and squeezed. Their lips met, one last time; he lingered on the sweetness. Her mouth was as soft as her hands were strong; a magnet that always drew him back.

She signed, You'll be careful out there?

I will.

And remember what I said about not pestering Vander?

He nodded wryly. Yes, Nursie.

She huffed. A nap should fix that attitude.

I'm not tired. Too many thoughts.

I should keep fucking you to keep your thoughts occupied.

Silco smiled. He still couldn't coax her to talk dirty. But watching her sign off swearwords was its own treat.

Tempting. But—

What?

Let's bet on what blows out first. The bed, or your back?

Showing rare annoyance, she swatted his arse. "Out."

Chuckling, he straightened, hands slipping into his pockets. A ticklish rustle stopped him short. He fished out the feather bracelet he'd bought from the chatty grubber. The bone charm dangled between his fingertips: a lonely chime.

Nandi's eyes fixed on the charm. What's this?

Just a bit of frippery. Taking her hand, Silco looped it around her wrist. I meant to give it to you after dinner.

Nandi rotated her arm, admiring the darkly-glossed clutch. It looks North-Ionian.

It is. He tipped his chin, remembering. My mother had one, once. Same design.

His smile was an inward thing. But Nandi recognized the emotion all the same: the acceptance of grief; the quiet defiance of loss.

Her smile mirrored his, small and sweet. It's pretty. These feathers...

Ravens, I think.

Nandi's smile froze on her face. Ravens.

What of them?

They're sacred to Janna's Temple. We use them during special ceremonies.

Like what?

Her eyes dipped. Necrogamies. That's when one partner has passed, and the other calls for the spirits to join them in matrimony. The feathers are sacred to the ritual.

Sacred? Silco scoffed to cover a rippling disquiet. They're such noisy birds.

Nandi's expression grew wistful. Ravens mate for life.

In retrospect, Silco has often thought: She couldn't have meant it.

Not that way.

He and Nandi had never pledged themselves formally. Never even hinted at a lasting union. Silco's feelings for Vander were still too strong, his desire for space too ingrained. His and Nandi's relationship had grown so comfortable, it felt wrong to suggest anything else. As if changing course would somehow dislodge the fragile equipoise they'd savored so far.

She couldn't have meant it. Surely…

He signed, You don't have to wear it.

Hush, I like it. She traced a fingertip over the charm. Maybe it means something different in North-Ionia.

Maybe.

There was silence, save for the patter of rain against the windowsill. Then Nandi said, with offkey softness:

"Love you, Sil."

Maybe she was only saying it for reassurance's sake. Or maybe so he'd say it back this time. He should have.

Gods, he should have.

Silco felt his eyes soften and his mouth twitch. He leaned in, and kissed her temple. A stopgap until his wordsmith's tongue was aligned with his heart, and he could conjure the perfect sentence for closure of this sweet transaction. Maybe, even, the start of something altogether sweeter.

He didn't know it was the last time he'd see her alive.

---

Red tape, Vander warned.

Don't be reckless, Nandi asked.

Take our streets back, Sevika declared.

Silco kept his word.

His mission was planned meticulously.

Heading home, he took a detour through Factorywood. His footsteps led him to a metal door set into an ordinary alleywall. Its surface was blackened by old fires. The air was filled with the reprehensible stench of soggy trash. But he knew this was the place. Every city has secret doors with secret knocks. In those days, Silco knew a few knocks, as a street magician knows a deft handful of magic tricks.

Older, he'd conjure up real magic. He'd make the Undercity its door, through the water and air and sky; through the blood that ran through its streets and the brutality that throbbed at its depths. Through Jinx, who wielded magic's potency as a weapon of the most sublime ordinariness.

And blew Piltover sky-high.

Silco's knuckles rapped at the door in a remembered tattoo. A slot snapped back. A pair of beady eyes considered his.

"Feck. Back again?"

"I want to arrange a meeting."

"They don't like their time wasted."

"It won't be. Now let me in."

A pause. "Can't be havin' no funny business. They don't like your offer, they'll dump ye in the Pilt."

"I know."

"Nothin' I can do to stop 'em."

"I know." The sky was draining rain again; Silco's coat and hair were coated with droplets. But his eyes stayed steady. "I've made up my mind."

A weary exhale. Then a deadbolt disengaged. The door swung open; a man wheeled out to greet him. His wizened shape, like the room's interior, glowed in unreal hues of sickly gray.

He was known, in those days, as the Maker-of-Introductions. His network brokered meetings between people who wanted things from each other. Connections mattered, then as now, and a nothing like Silco had to solicit a person next-to-nothing in order to meet someone higher up on the food chain, and so on and so forth, until he was lucky enough to sit across the table from a major player.

For each meeting, the Maker charged a commission. Afterward, five percent of any profits gained, plus ten thousand for each subsequent deal struck.

A fair price, considering the Undercity's daily losses.

Never let it be said the Hush Company forgot its roots.

Silco had painstakingly stowed coins away for this meeting. Missing meals, missing sleep, stashing a fraction of everything he earned, holding back over the years so that there would be enough for this moment. It would have to be enough. He had no other options. He'd risk anything—everything—to strike back at Piltover. To stop them from bleeding the Undercity blind.

Anything to free Zaun.

"Well, what're ye waiting for? The Council's invite?" Chross jerked his chin. "C'mon."

Silco stepped through. Outside, the rain fell like blows.

---

The Riverside Harbor was laced with fog.

Ship-masts rose like jagged fingers against the choking twilight greenness. To the south, Piltover glowed like a pearl nestled in an enchanted shell. To the north, the river flowed towards the sea in the colors of ink, an unearthly blackness. As a child, Silco had rarely been out to these spots, and never without his parents. As a young man, he'd walked its dark corridors for smuggled goods, with a strange sense of ownership over a shadowy world beyond dry shores.

Youth walks hand-in-hand with hubris.

Tonight, the docks were full of ceaseless movement. Fishermen hauled in teardrops of nets dripping with whiskered catfish. Sellers determined the sex of thrashing water voles, then slit open the females' guts, emptying their fetuses—wriggling pink lumps in viscid liquor—into a pot for stew. Wires glinted like spiderwebs and fishhooks flashed like crescents as shirtless sailors mended their snares, passing bottles of rum among themselves.

In those days, the Undercity harbor was a waystation. Only squat dinghies and the odd trawler passed through. Some were seafarers from Bilgewater. Others came adventuring from far beyond. They were always a rough-hewn bunch. Scars and welts and missing limbs.

Yet the Noxians stood apart: tall as monuments, and haloed as if with blood.

Silco's boots barely made a sound on the planks. He walked along the shadowed strip of canal toward a ship rooted at deep dock. The smog-cloaked moonlight broke off its sleek gangplank and polished angles. Letters in Va-Nox were stenciled from gold to a faded green along its hull.

On the right side: Cry Havoc.

And the left: Let slip the hounds of war.

Fitting.

The Captain was only a handful of years older than Silco. Dark skin, kinked hair, his shoulders sinewy with muscle, tapering into a lean waist with whippish hips and powerfully toned thighs. His right eye was gone; a knot of pinkened scar tissue rested in its place. He stood at the gangplank, a cigarillo caught between his gold-capped teeth. More gold flashed in the center of his chest: a heavy medallion, inscribed with a solar crest.

With deliberately slow diction, he greeted: "Das Unheil nimmt seinen Lauf."

An old Va-Noxian phrase. It meant: When disaster takes its course.

In Standard, Silco replied: "You can take poison with that."

The greeting—prearranged—was as ironclad as a handshake. Or whatever passed between cutthroats no stranger to betrayal.

He gestured Silco to come aboard; the gangplank creaked, and Silco crossed without a pause.

The Captain loosed a gusty waft of smoke. "We've been watching you since the shore, little eel."

"Have you?"

"You're a quiet one. You glide like your feet barely touch the ground."

"I've heard your men since the marketplace," Silco returned. "Their feet boom like hooves."

The Captain expelled a laugh, as if endeared by a childish misapprehension. His voice was soft, but had a melodic rasp to it, as if he were singing with the wind.

"It's a test," he explained. "You hear the footsteps of soldiers, you see only half the spies. You go unnoticed, we go unquestioned. It's the way of things where I come from."

Silco eyed the man, trying to divine his expression in the shadows. "Clever trick."

"Only if you're on your way to a hanging."

"Is that where I'm headed?"

"Not with that walk." The Captain's affable manner shaded into steely scrutiny. "Your eyes look ahead. Your gait is firm. You walk like a man ready to do business, and men like that seldom end up dangling from a rope."

"Only the bottom of a barrel," Silco mused wryly.

This time, the Captain's laughter was like the crash of a wave. He extended a palm. "Name's Aziz. Welcome aboard."

Silco clasped the offered hand. He gave not his name, but his father's. "Olivier."

Business under the table necessitated discretion. Best that the Captain not know what his cargo would be worth on the market.

"You're our man, eh, Olivier?"

"Thanks for meeting with me."

"A bargain's a bargain, and all that."

They spoke in Standard now. The Captain's syllables were heavily accented with Va-Nox: aristocratic, but coarsened by a lifetime at sea. Still, they held their own robust charm. A cadence of wars won and wealth made; a grander life than any Silco had ever laid claim to.

With a jerk of his chin, he ordered Silco belowdeck. His gallery was grand, too: a corridor of polished mahogany, with gilt-edged sconces and ornately carved marble plinths. Portraits and sculptures graced the walls. Scenes of gilded bays and blood-soaked battlefields. Scenes of victory and gore; war and chaos—a paradox ever-entwined.

Silco eyed the interior with a casual interest, kept on the edge of feigned indifference. In truth, he was fascinated. Every detail of the space was calculated to inspire awe—or provoke its flipside of fear. Every inch of the ship was a testament to power: as a legacy, and as a birthright.

What must it be like, Silco wondered, to possess so much that the future of a nation was only a whim away? How many children could one portrait feed? How many enemies could one sculpture buy off?

The Captain strolled, cigarillo between his teeth, like a gentleman in a fine salon. Silco fell into step beside him, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, trying to match the nonchalance. Except for two things: his palms were sweating, and he felt too much at sea for a man who'd spent a lifetime at the bottom.

"I admit," the Captain said, as if reading his mind, "we don't get visitors like you."

"Hard to believe."

"Oh?"

Silco tipped his chin with as much spirit as he could muster. "Every ship has rats."

The Captain laughed again. He seemed a man given to laughter—a natural disposition as much as an artful façade. Either way, it was disarming. "Aye, and we're the worst. Our ships carry the blackest plague. Men turn white the moment they glimpse us, and turn blue the moment we pass them by."

"A colorful pox."

"That's war for you. Always makes a man's blood run cold."

"And coffers run hot."

The Captain shot him a shrewd look. He was plainly enjoying this little game. "You've got a way with words, Olivier."

"It's won me a few scraps here and there."

"Play it right, it'll win you more."

They passed an elaborate fresco on the right wall. Gold leaf inlaid the sea and waves. Silco spared it a passing glance, and saw it depicted a single figure: a sinewy man who rose out of the ocean's depths to sweep up the world in his arms. His belly was a black maw ringed with a shark's teeth.

The Captain noticed his interest and slowed his pace. "Hunger is a potent thing. It makes you brave."

"The bravest men are always the hungriest," Silco agreed. "Who is that?"

"Siegfried the Conqueror. Sea-king of Ironwater."

Silco didn't bother to feign wisdom. "Never heard of him."

"That's because he never made it to the page." The Captain's lip curls at the corner. "My daughter dreamt him up."

"She made this?"

"She makes all sorts." There was a father's pride in his voice. "A gift for art. A gift for storytelling."

"Do you sell them?"

"A hefty price, you understand, for what's essentially a fancy of youth. They're not yet ready for the world, little eel. She's an artist with plenty to learn. A few more years, maybe. For now, they're all mine." The Captain looked fondly upon the fresco. "Soon, she'll dream up her next piece. City of oil-slicks and slum-dwellers, maybe."

He gestured to a chamber on the far end of the corridor. The door was open a crack. A beautiful hanging lantern peeped out, the luminous focal point of a vignette of coffee-colored wood, rich carpeting, and cream walls. Two young voices—a boy's and a girl's—lapped in dulcet harmony.

The Captain leaned in, finger to his lips. "They're neck-deep in lessons. My son and daughter. Her first voyage past the Immortal Bastion. His final."

"Final?"

"He'll be away to a war-campaign in the Placidium. Advisor to the High Command. We'll watch him from afar, see how he fares. He's clever; can keep his head down. Listen and learn." A chuckle. "My own father used to say war is the best school of survival. If you're lucky enough to survive it."

Despite himself, Silco peered through the crack. A boy—early twenties—lazed cross-legged in a cushioned settee. He was a handsome one. He could've been a painting himself: chiseled features and smooth brown skin, a crop of raven curls, and striking eyes that reflected a lantern-lit room like bronzed mirrors.

He was reciting from an open book in his lap.

"A ruler who has moved into a new region with a different language and customs must also make himself leader and protector of the weaker neighboring powers, while doing what he can to undermine the stronger. In particular, he must take care that no foreign power strong enough to compete with his own gets a chance to penetrate the area. Why is that?"

"Because a discontented people, out of fear or frustrated ambition, will always encourage a foreign power to intercede," his sister said with a gentle confidence. She was in her late teens: a slim frame, dark curls upswept into a bun, and the same amber eyes. But she lacked the boy's classical beauty. Hers was more natural: an open countenance, bright-eyed and inquisitive. "The solution, then, is to make peace with the weaker neighboring regions. In exchange for favor, they'll give him information."

"Right," the boy said. "And should he be willing to trade favors?"

"He must! Without concessions, the neighbors will grow resentful and rebel against him. And they're better than the alternative."

"Which is?"

"War," she said matter-of-factly. "War is a costly thing. It takes time. It's risky. It's uncertain. The only certainty is that a foreign power would love nothing more than to snatch an opportunity when it rises. Therefore, a ruler must forge relations with the neighbor-states. With his own strength and their support, he can easily undermine the more powerful adversaries and hence dominate the region."

The boy grinned. "Very astute, Mel."

The girl beamed. "Thank you, Kino."

"Were you quoting Johannas?"

"Agasias," she corrected. "One of my favorites."

"Good taste. That quote's from the Treatise on the Universal Polity, isn't it?"

"Not quite," the girl said. "The Universal Polity was written in the year 931 after the Shattered Era. The Agias treatise was written in 934, three years after the Shattering, in the reign of King Vas. They're two very different texts."

The boy lifted a teasing brow. "One on war, one on peace. Different texts, indeed."

They spoke in silken vowels without a trace of the Captain's weatherworn Va-Nox. Two scions of privilege, steeped in the traditions of their homeland. Their refinement verged on unreal; their rapport inexplicable. In the Sumps, it was difficult to find youngsters who could read, let alone engage in such rarefied banter.

Perhaps, Silco thought bitterly, there's a special breed afforded such civility.

A breed who never go hungry.

He began to withdraw. His shadow caught the girl's eye; she glanced up. Their stares met for a moment. She summed him up at a glance—no threat, and plainly beneath her interest—then resumed her conversation with her brother.

At Silco's shoulder, the Captain said, "She's waiting."

She.

Not the girl in the chamber. The one in the grand cabin.

The one whose word could command a fleet of ships. Or bury a city under the waves.

The Captain shut the door with a gentle click. Silco followed him down another corridor; a set of stairs. The ship swayed languidly back and forth. At the end, an arched doorway led out into a sumptuous cabin smelling of perfumed smoke. The decor—polished wood and silk brocade—was rich beyond Silco's imagining.

In a divan at the corner reclined a woman Silco would later to know as Ambessa Medarda. A decorated Noxian warlord in her prime; in those days, a fearsome rear admiral.

She was an imposing shape, dark-eyed and full-lipped, with pitch-black curls and a muscular body packed into a smart uniform of blood-red and slate-gray. Silco can still recall her face now; frowning as she sucked on a hookah, her eyes focused on the bed of glowing embers at its tray, her fingers casually gripping the pipe stem without even the mitigation of a filter.

In nonchalant greeting, she glanced up at him through a haze of smoke. "Do come in, sir Olivier. But wipe your boots off, eh? The muck on your streets could fell a pig."

Silco did as asked. He took the chair across from her. Back then, he was never comfortable sitting with his back to anything but a wall. But the room's arrangement left him with little choice.

"Been waiting long?" he asked.

Medarda shrugged a shoulder. "Not as long as Piltover is keeping us waiting."

"Your goods are stalled at Topside's ports, is that right?"

"Too bloody right." The pall of smoke parted; her eyes stabbed into his. "Now explain how you can fix that."

Silco took a moment to sift through his thoughts. His mind in those days functioned on the defensive rather than the offensive. Even when taking risks, he kept to the wayside. He'd not yet developed the paranoia—or is it the wisdom?—of playing a scenario from all angles.

"There are routes through the Undercity that will serve you better," he said. "They're used by inner-city smugglers. Most are designed to force any surveillance Topside to either reveal itself or lose you."

"It's the last we're eager for." She took a long drag from the pipe; smoke poured out of her nostrils. "Tell me again... how do you know these routes?"

Silco shrugged. "They're proven useful a time or two."

"I don't speak Trencher. Translate useful for me."

Silco settled back in his seat, deliberately casual. "Wouldn't you rather find out firsthand?"

She smiled, seemingly amused at his response. "I'd need your explanation as to why."

Silco began to answer, then stopped himself. He didn't need to show his hand. She was simply baiting him into feeling like he had to. Doublespeak was a common language in the Lanes. Yet this felt less like a test of cleverness than a swordfight of crisscrossing semantics.

It was a reminder that as toughened as he was to the Undercity's grind, he'd yet to shed his naivety in more sophisticated contexts. Especially when dealing with others whose motives were further-reaching than his own.

Instead, he said, "Why don't you tell me what goods you're carrying?"

Her smile faded. "Supplies to our men in Ionia. That's all I need say."

"War supplies?"

She bared her teeth, smoke wisping from the sides of her mouth. From the corner of his eye, Silco saw the Captain's arm flex toward his belt. The gesture, so casual, resonated with a jaguar's violence. Silco felt suddenly like a deepwater eel in the midst of two big felines. And in the act of stepping into their ship, he'd flopped from shady waters and under the broiling sun.

In the Va-Nox, the Captain said, "They a curious bunch, Trenchers. They talk a lot."

We know when to be quiet, Silco wanted to tell him.

Of course, that defeated the purpose of eavesdropping.

Medarda hummed. "Loose lips become loose ends."

"Should I give him the kiss-off?"

"Better to hear him out first."

"You don't think he's lying to us?"

"I think his truth is like the chemical rainbows on their waters, Aziz. Pretty at first glimpse. But best not to steer too close."

The Captain chuckled around his cigarette. "That's unusually poetic from you, Ambessa."

"A flight of fancy." She tipped him a wink. "Or boredom."

"It is a bit like our honeymoon, eh?"

"I wasn't as bored then, Schatze."

That's her endearment for him, Silco thought. It couldn't have been more of a non sequitur; yet his memory filed the detail away.

A moment later, Medarda's dark eyes flicked to his. He got the sense she was sizing him up.

She said, "I've asked the Chross fellow about you."

"Have you?"

"I'm told you're gung-ho about revolting against Piltover." She lounged like a surfeited lioness across the sofa. "Can see it's true. You've got a few scars to show for it."

Silco tipped a shoulder, refusing to be goaded.

"Scars are the map of a man's choices, as the old Shurimans used to say. But a chip on the shoulder is a different matter." Her fierce eyes narrowed. "I'll tell you right now, boy. We've no interest in getting tangled in Deep-Trench rubbish."

The word boy pinged off Silco's skull, even as he kept his face passably calm. She couldn't have been more than a decade older than himself. Yet he sensed this wasn't a habitual phrasing, so much as her way to get under his skin. Testing his mettle.

He said, "I've no interest in Noxian war-mongering. But—"

"But what?"

"For the moment, our aims appear to dovetail."

"Do they indeed?"

Silco rested his elbows on his knees, and his chin on his locked hands. His voice was quiet, his stare unbroken. "The layout to the routes is yours. So is my surety that they are safe. All I need in exchange... are a few of your supplies."

Medarda's broad face pulled a dubious expression. "I thought you weren't interested in Noxian warfare."

"I'm interested in the weapons you're shipping."

Silence burgeoned through the cabin. Medarda exchanged a glance with the Captain. Silco saw a message imparted in its familiarity. No sign of threat, but that meant little. Predators never broadcast the depth of their dangerousness. A lesson he'd make his own in due time.

Same way, in due time, he'd cross the threshold of this ship again one day, almost one of the family.

Medarda focused on Silco. "Your surety, you said?"

"Ironclad."

"From the boy of the Iron City, eh?"

"We keep our word."

"And your silence?"

"Like our loyalty."

"I'll need proof of the routes' reliability."

"I can guide your mapmaker through them. Once you know about them, you'll have your proof. But in exchange, you must be willing to part with a small parcel of your supplies."

There was another silence, this one excruciatingly long. Medarda didn't glance at the Captain again. Nor did she look at Silco. She slouched back in her divan, sublimely self-absorbed, and sucked on the hookah. The cabin grew diffuse with smoke. Silco sensed it was a sport she'd keep up for as long as it amused her. He didn't interrupt, loath as he was to lose the lure halfway between the cat's paws.

Then Medarda set her pipe down, and swung her legs off the sofa. She scrutinized Silco from top to toe, and patted the cushion. "Do come here."

Silco stared at her with a degree of guardedness. "I'm fine where I am."

"No reason to be skittish. I've cleared a nice warm spot for you."

From a masculine instinct Silco couldn't identify, he glanced towards the Captain. He only smiled, a gold-studded crescent, and dropped his cigarette into a tray at the corner table. The cabin was so quiet that Silco heard the papery rustle of the stub hitting steel. Again, he looked from one face to the other, then understood there was no point in asking further questions.

He settled at a polite distance beside Medarda. She grinned and the Captain guffawed.

"Marvelous," she said in Va-Nox. "A well-mannered Trencher."

"Careful you don't crush him, Ambessa."

"Hard not to. He's so skinny he'd disappear turning sideways."

"Sure talks the talk, though."

"So long as he walks the walk." Medarda slewed her gaze back to Silco, shrewd pinpoints of gold and black. In Standard, she said: "Weaponry is a wicked business, boy."

"So is war."

"Dealing with both is like falling in love."

"Love?"

"Once you're in, you're never out. Not alive."

Silco shook his head. "Once. To get the Undercity its freedom. Once and I'm done."

Her mouth shaped a smile that wasn't kind. "You're a fool to believe that."

"Do we make the deal or not?"

"I will decide the manner in which we make the deal."

"Then do it. But only put my name on it. No compromise on that. The rest of Zaun is not involved, will never be involved, and will never owe you anything."

"Zaun? I've never even heard of it."

From the table, she fetched a jewel-encrusted dagger. Their eyes met. She extended her hand; Silco offered his own. Her fingers were roughened with calluses like his, but in different spots. A soldier's sword-grip, not a smuggler's knife-span. Without missing a beat, she notched a shallow cut into both their palms, and pressed them together. Blood blended with blood, not a handshake but a binding oath.

"There," she said. "Now our deal is done."

And she smiled at Silco.

A smile like the spreading dark at the twilit harbor.