LoL Universe Indexing and Search

Vi stifled a yawn as she moved through the gilded chamber at the heart of Piltover’s Hall of Law. Dawn was less than an hour old, and the place was quiet. A few drunks were sleeping it off in the shaming cells, and she’d heard there were a couple of chem-augmented thugs in the deeper, more secure lock-ups. She’d ask around later, see if she could provide any insight as to what they were doing up in Piltover.

She rolled her shoulders, the muscles there stiff after a hard night’s work. It had been a long shift, and her forearms were aching from the pressure of her powered gauntlets. All she wanted to do was go back home, get them off, and bathe her fists in ice water. Maybe throw back a few glasses of something strong and sleep some, but the pnuema-tube from Caitlyn had been full of imperatives about getting herself down to the district house on the double. Vi had cocked an eyebrow, tossed the message and given it an hour before leaving her cramped home in the dressmakers-quarter to answer Caitlyn’s summons.

“Hey, Harknor,” she said to the desk-warden when she reached the cells. “What’s so important Caitlyn has to drag me from an erotic dream about—”

“Ah, ah, stop right there,” said Harknor without looking up from his elevated desk as he ran a finger down the list of prisoners brought in during the night. “I’m not in the mood to hear another of your lurid fantasies.”

“You sure?” grinned Vi, leaning on his desk and blowing a loose strand of pink hair from her eyes. “This was a good one. Had a plot and everything.”

“Quite sure,” said Harknor, looking away and holding out the charge sheet. “Caitlyn and Mohan brought in a hextech thief last night. He hasn’t said a word to anyone, but she thinks you might be able to get him to talk.”

Vi arched an eyebrow as she scanned the page.

“Devaki? You’ve been a very naughty boy,” she said, rolling her eyes and curling her metaled fingers into a fist. “Yeah, Devaki and I knew each other back in the day. I’ll get him to talk.”

Harknor shook his head, saying, “Listen, Vi, I don’t want to have to call the surgeon back here again. Caitlyn wants this fella to able to speak when he goes before the procurator.”

“Where is she anyway?” asked Vi. “She isn’t even here to say hello?”

“Chasing down a lead at the docks,” said Harknor. “Said she figured you could handle this one on your own. She wrong about that?”

“Nope,” said Vi, turning and sashaying toward the cells. “Which cell’s Devaki in?”

“Number six. But remember, he’s got to be able to talk!”

Vi nodded and said, “Yeah, yeah...”

She reached cell six and slid back the locking bar. Normally, another warden would secure the door, but Vi didn’t need anyone at her back. She knew Devaki from the old days, even worked with him a few times before the job with the Factorywood Fiends went bad. Devaki was a thief, not a fighter, and if she needed backup to restrain his scrawny frame, then it was time to find a new line of work.

Devaki was sitting on the edge of the chipped hunk of stone they called a bed with his back to the wall and his knees drawn up to his chest. He cradled one arm close to his body, the limb ending at a bandaged stump where his hand ought to be. He looked up as she entered, and his eyes widened in surprise.

“Vi?”

“Piltover’s finest,” she said with a petite curtsey that, despite where he sat, made Devaki smile. “What happened to your hand?”

“Your damn sheriff shot if off,” he said. “What happened to yours?”

“I got an upgrade,” said Vi, holding up her hextech gauntlets. They hummed with a low buzz and she turned them around to let Devaki see just how powerful they were. “Fully customizable with variant levels of hurt. I can punch through walls with these babies.”

“Yeah, I heard what happened to the Ecliptic Vaults,” said Devaki with an easy smile, as if he was talking to the old Vi, the Vi from the Lanes. He wasn’t bright enough to know that Vi wasn’t the one standing in front of him.

Devaki held up the arm ending in a stump. “I’m gonna need an upgrade too. This was a high-end augment from Bronzio’s. That sheriff didn’t need to shoot it off.”

“You can bill her,” said Vi, closing the distance between them in two strides and lifting Devaki off his feet. She threw him against the opposite wall, rattling his bones and sending plaster dust billowing into the air.

Devaki slid to the floor, shocked and gasping for breath. “They’ve been playing nice so far, but now they send you in? What gives?”

“I’m the one they send in when asking all polite doesn’t get you anywhere, cupcake,” said Vi, letting the power build in her gauntlets. “I’m the one who’ll go to town on you with these beauties. Unless, of course, you tell me what I want to know.”

“Whoa, wait! Vi, what are you doing?” spluttered Devaki, holding his remaining hand out before him as he scrambled to his feet.

“I’m interrogating you, what’s it look like?”

“But you haven’t asked me anything!”

Vi cocked her head to the side. “Yeah, I should probably get on that.”

She reached down and hauled Devaki to his feet, applying a growing pressure to his shoulder.

“So, who was gonna buy that stolen hextech?”

Devaki winced in pain, but didn’t answer.

“Come on, you’re tougher than that,” said Vi, releasing his bruised shoulder. “You want to see what happens to a face when I don’t pull my punches?”

“No!” cried Devaki.

“Then tell me what I want to know.”

“I can’t.”

Vi tapped a finger on her chin, as if weighing whether to punch him again. She smiled, the expression worrying Devaki more than the thought of her fists.

“Be a shame if word got round the Lanes that you’d been informing on all your criminal friends for the last couple of years.”

“What?” said Devaki, spluttering in pain and indignation. “That’s a lie!”

“Of course it is,” said Vi, “but I know all the right people to talk to down there. A lot of folk’ll listen if I let it slip that you’re in the wardens’ pocket.”

“I’ll be dead in a day if you do that,” protested Devaki.

“Now you’re catching on,” said Vi. “Tell me what I want to know. I’ll make sure it gets about you resisted arrest. Even give you a black eye so it looks like I beat it out of ya.”

Devaki’s shoulders slumped, knowing he had no defiance left in him.

“Fine, I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

“Excellent,” said Vi, “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Born into a wealthy and influential merchant clan, Caitlyn Kiramman swiftly learned the social graces of life in Piltover, but preferred to spend her time in the wilder lands outside it. Equally adept at mingling with the moneyed elite of the City of Progress or stalking a deer through the mud of the forest, she could confidently track a bird on the wing over the merchant districts, or put a shot through the eye of a hare at a hundred paces with her father’s repeater musket.

Caitlyn’s greatest assets, however, were her intelligence and willingness to learn from her parents, who reinforced her understanding of right and wrong, even within a life of comfort and privilege. Her mother was one of the highest comptrollers in Clan Kiramman, and would always warn Caitlyn of Piltover’s seductions, and its gilded promises that could harden the kindest heart. At first, Caitlyn paid little heed—to her, Piltover was a place of beauty and order that she cherished after each trip into the wild.

All that was to change one Progress Day, some years later.

Caitlyn returned to find her home ransacked and empty. The family retainers were all dead, and there was no trace of her parents. Caitlyn secured the house, and immediately set out to find them.

Tracking within the confines of a city was very different from hunting in the wild but, one by one, Caitlyn located the thugs who had invaded her family home. The trail eventually led her to a hidden safehouse, where her mother and father were being tortured for information. She rescued them under cover of darkness, and alerted the Piltover Wardens… though not one of the kidnappers they arrested knew the identity of the individual who had hired them—only a proxy with the initial C.

Caitlyn and her parents began to rebuild their lives… but something fundamental had changed. Her mother in particular could no longer face the politics and duplicity of clan life, and gave up her prestigious role, leaving something of a vacuum in the Kiramman leadership. And, though she loved her parents dearly, Caitlyn had no desire to take her mother’s place, nor to learn her father’s trade as an artificer.

Instead, her focus turned toward breaking through the web of intrigue surrounding the mysterious "C". Utilizing her hunting skills, she established herself as a private investigator, and quickly made a name for herself as someone who could find anything or anyone. In recognition of her self-made success, Caitlyn’s parents crafted her a hextech rifle of exquisite artifice, with greater accuracy than any musket. The weapon could take a variety of specialized shells, and be easily modified in the field.

After a particularly traumatic case involving a missing hextech device and a series of child abductions, Caitlyn was summoned by the Wardens.

She had been recommended by one of their number who had also developed something of an affinity for stranger cases—and their battle with a host of rogue chimerics in the employ of a lunatic chem-researcher driven mad by his own concoctions led to her being offered a formal position as a sheriff. At first, Caitlyn refused, but eventually came to realize that the Wardens’ resources could potentially get her closer to discovering the true identity of “C".

Caitlyn has since become a highly respected officer within the ranks of the Wardens, always striving to make the City of Progress a better and safer place. She recently partnered with a new recruit from Zaun, the brash and reckless Vi. How such an unlikely pairing came about—and been proven so effective—is the subject of wild rumor and tavern speculation among their fellow Wardens, as well as those they haul away to jail.

What Caitlyn doesn't know, however, is that "C" is also keeping tabs on her... especially as her investigations bring her ever closer to the truth.

Urgot always believed he was worthy.

As a headsman, an executioner of the weak, he was a living embodiment of the Noxian ideal that strength should rule, making it a reality with every swing of his axe. His pride swelled as the bodies piled ever higher behind him, and his intimidating presence kept countless warbands in line.

Even so, a single word was all it took to seal his fate. Sent to distant Zaun to eliminate a supposed conspiracy against the ruler of Noxus, Urgot realized too late the mission was a setup, removing him from the capital even as the usurper Swain seized control of it. Surrounded by agents of the chem-barons, and enraged that everything he believed was a lie, Urgot was dragged down into the chemtech mines beneath Zaun. He was defeated. He was enslaved. He was not worthy after all. He endured the mine’s hellish conditions in grim silence, waiting for death.

In the Dredge, death came in many forms…

The mine’s warden, Baron Voss, would sometimes offer freedom in return for a prisoner’s tortured confession—granting it with the edge of her blade. From the screams that echoed through the tunnels, Urgot learned about the wonders of Zaun. There was something special about the city, something marvelous and evident even in the secrets that spilled from slit throats. Urgot didn’t know what it was until he was finally brought before Voss, fearing that she would break him.

But as the baron’s blade cut into his flesh, Urgot realized that his body was already wracked with agony, far beyond anything Voss could inflict. The Dredge had made him stronger than he’d ever been as a headsman.

Pain was Zaun’s secret. His laughter drove Voss back to the surface, and a reign of anarchy began in the depths.

Seizing control of the prison, Urgot reveled in new trials of survival. He found the parts of his body that were weakest, and replaced them with scavenged machinery, technology created by those who would die without it—necessity being the mother of pain.

The guards could no longer enter the areas Urgot had carved out of Voss’ grasp. The prisoners themselves were more afraid of their new master than they were of her. Many even grew to hold a fanatical respect for Urgot, as they were forced to hear his feverish sermons on the nature of power, his grip tightening around the necks of those who would not listen.

Only when a Noxian agent arrived in the Dredge was Urgot finally forced to confront his own past. Though the spy recognized him and sought his aid in escaping, Urgot beat him mercilessly, and hurled his broken body into the darkness.

It was not strength that ruled Noxus, Urgot now realized, but men… and men were weak. There should be no rulers, no lies, nothing to interfere with the pure chaos of survival. Starting a riot that ignited a chemtech vein within the mine, Urgot shook the city above, and cracked the prison open in an explosion that rivaled the birth of Zaun itself. Many prisoners died, with thousands fleeing into the Sump—but the worthy, as ever, survived.

From that day, Urgot’s reign of terror only grew. A hideous fusion of industrial machinery and Noxian brutality, he slaughtered chem-barons and their lackeys one by one, gathering a following among Zaun’s downtrodden masses. He was said to be a new savior, one who would lift the boot of the oppressor from the neck of every common Zaunite.

However, his actions did not make such distinctions, as Urgot tested the worthiness of the meek and the powerful alike. To any who found themselves spared in his deadly trials, his message was clear: he was not there to lead, but to survive. If others were worthy, they would survive, too.

When Urgot finally struck at representatives of the Piltovan merchant clans, the Wardens were forced to intervene, hauling him in chains to a fortified prison cell—though this merely seemed to confirm “the Dreadnought” as a legend among the gangers, the sump-snipes, and the forgotten.

For Piltover is not the first to shackle Urgot, and one must wonder if any cage can ever hope to hold him for long…

Vi remembers little of her childhood in Zaun, and what she does remember, she wishes she didn’t. Running with the sump-snipe gangs, she quickly learned to use her wits, as well as her fists, to survive. Everyone who encountered Vi knew she could talk—or punch—her way out of trouble. More often than not, she chose the latter.

None of the old-timers from her youth could tell her anything of her parents. Most assumed they had died in one of the industrial accidents that were, sadly, all too common in the undercity. Though she had ended up in the crumbling Hope House orphanage, a notoriously mad sump-scrapper claimed to have found her adrift in a bassinet large enough for two in the ruins of a collapsed chem-lab. In the end, Vi figured some things were best left unknown.

With her wild pink hair, she became a distinctive sight on the streets of Zaun—hightailing from angry shopkeepers in the boundary markets, swaggering through the colorful bazaars of the Black Lanes, or hitching rides up into Piltover aboard the hexdraulic conveyors. Wherever there was a scrape to be gotten into or a scam to be run, Vi was in the thick of it, though she never stole from those that couldn’t cover the loss… and never hurt those that didn’t deserve it.

As she got older, the capers of childhood became more audacious and daring, and Vi formed a gang of her own. Brash and quick to anger, she still relied on her fists a little too much, and was rarely without a black eye or split lip.

She found a mentor in the owner of a bar on the edge of the Lanes, who tempered some of her more self-destructive tendencies. He tried to reinforce her moral code, and showed her how to fight with discipline, as well as teaching her ways to better direct her simmering anger.

In time, Vi earned a reputation as someone who got things done, no questions asked.

Listening to the chatter of the Zaunite miners who frequented the bar, she came to learn when big deals were being made, and how payments were to be delivered. To a chem-baron, this was chump change—but to her and her friends, it would be a fortune. She planned a heist, but knew it would require extra bodies to pull off, so Vi reluctantly brought a rival gang, the Factorywood Fiends, in on her score.

Everything was going fine, until the leader of the Fiends killed the mine owner with a pair of oversized pulverizer gauntlets, and trapped the rest of the workers in the tunnels. Even as both gangs fled with the loot, Vi knew she could not leave these innocent people to die. She snatched up the gauntlets, the wrist mechanisms clamping down painfully on her arms, but she endured the agony long enough to smash open a path to free the miners.

The following day, Vi paid a visit to the Factorywood Fiends. Still wearing the powered gauntlets, she took on the entire gang, administering a beating so legendary that it is still spoken of in the Lanes to this day.

Vi eventually disappeared from Zaun during a time of great upheaval, when tensions with Piltover were running high. Rumors circulated between the gangs that she had been killed in a huge explosion in the heart of the undercity, or that she had turned her back on her friends and struck out for distant lands. The truth, however, finally came to light when Old Hungry’s Scars—a vicious gang whose murder sprees had spread topside—were brought down by a respected sheriff of Piltover and her new ally… Vi.

The former gang leader was now in the employ of the Wardens, and she had replaced the chem-powered pulverizer gauntlets with a pair of brand new hextech Atlas prototypes.

No one yet knows the exact reason why or how Vi came to be working alongside Caitlyn—but given the anarchic nature of the crime wave now sweeping Piltover, speculation runs rife that it might involve a certain blue-haired hellion from Zaun…

I have too many questions I want to ask her. I sneak a side-glance as we walk. She’s looking straight ahead. I watch her gaze sweep back and forth across the far perimeter of the park, her red hair catching the last scraps of the afternoon light with each step. Does she see something? Is this the way she normally patrols? Is she bored? Why is she here? I can’t believe she wanted to come. Why did she come? I quicken my pace to keep up.

“Fortun—Sarah,” I say, remembering.

She doesn’t look away from the path ahead, so I keep going.

“Ez really does have detention, Lux,” she says.

“Oh,” I stammer. “It’s cool.” I can feel the pink in my cheeks. I tug on the tips of my gloves. She turns to look at me, a smug grin softening her face.

“He wanted to be here,” she says. “Soraka too, but Pantheon’s was short staffed. And tonight is Syndra’s astronomy class at the university—”

“—And Ahri?” I blurt out too quickly.

Sarah’s smile tightens. “She’s been busy.”

“No worries,” I say, looking for a way to change the subject. In the middle of the park, Janna pushes Poppy and a free-loading Jinx on a squeaky merry-go-round. Lulu sways idly in a close-by swing set, its metal chains clang softly, like lonely windchimes. There’s no one else in the park besides us. “It’s pretty quiet.”

“Like you said, it’s probably nothing,” she says casually.

I take the folded slip of paper out of my pocket. The frayed edge where I tore it out of Lulu’s notebook flutters in the breeze. The shapes of the playground equipment and power lines surrounding Valoran City’s metro park were clear enough, but it was the dozens of circles in the sky that worried me. Poppy said that it was too warm in physics class, and Lulu was just doodling to stay awake.

“Look!” Lulu shouts from the swing, snapping me out of my thoughts. She is at the top of the swing’s arc, gesturing excitedly at the horizon. A bright spot has risen just over the silhouette of the skyline. “Twilight star! I saw it first.”

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. It’s just a star. Stars can’t hurt us.

“The twilight star is not a real star,” Poppy groans. “Technically it’s a planet.”

“Janna said everything has starlight in it,” Lulu argues back.

Janna nods her head in agreement.

“What are you gonna wish for, Loops?” Jinx juggles Shiro and Kuro absently as the merry-go-round spins. Lulu pumps her legs on the swing, pushing it higher.

“More stars!” she shouts. “I want to see more stars.”

“But it’s not dark yet,” Jinx says. “The other stars aren’t out yet.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Lulu pumps her legs harder. “The other stars are always there no matter what. Even if you can’t see them.”

“Rocket-breath is right,” Poppy says, hiding her reluctant agreement with Jinx by examining a non-existent scuff on her hammer. “It needs to get really dark before you can see the stars in the city. It’s not like at the camp.”

I cup my hands together and shout back to them, “You’re all right.” Jinx opens her mouth to argue, but shrugs and takes the win.

I turn back to Sarah.

“Are they always like this?” she asks. I’m sure she’s thinking about us compared to her own team. How this kind of talk would never happen if it was only them. They would just get right down to business. Search the park and be done. I can’t tell if she’s disappointed or annoyed or both.

“You mean are they always this argumentative?” I offer. “No, I mean, well, yes… sometimes—”

“This innocent,” she says, quietly.

“Well, you have Ahri to lead you. Of course you always know what you’re doing. Us, well… All they’ve had is me.”

“Innocent isn’t always a bad thing.” She has that faraway look on her face again, like she’s trying to remember a dream she had a long time ago. She nods her head slowly as if agreeing on the memory. “Yes, that’s who you remind me of.”

“Me? Remind you of Ahri?!” I ask, trying desperately to not sound desperate. Does she really think I’m like Ahri? Which part? Maybe a younger Ahri? I mean, she should know, she’s Ahri’s lieutenant. Did Ahri have multiple lieutenants on her old team? Maybe if our teams join, I can be another one, like Sarah?

“No.” Sarah lets out a sharp laugh. I don’t know if she can read minds, but my hope deflates like an untied balloon.

“Someone else. You remind me of someone else,” she says, softening. “Someone I lost a long time ago. She had pink hair too.” She looks me over again, and I try not to squirm under the scrutiny. “Come to think of it, you’re also too loyal for your own good… and such a dreamer. You’re kinda a mix of all of them,” she says.

Them? The team you lost? Is this a bad thing? Who were they? I add ten more questions I want to ask her to the list running constantly in my head.

How did it happen?

“Lux! Sarah! Look.” Lulu yells happily, interrupting my thoughts before I can get any further. “My wish!”

We look back at the distant playground. I run through a quick check. Lulu. Jinx. Poppy. Janna. Still safe and sound. The twilight has softened all of them, making them seem younger than they really are. The street lamps in the park click on in an unsettling coincidence. Hovering above the team are a swarm of twinkling lights. The team looks like they’re caught in a magical dream.

“Loops, It’s like Short Stop said, it’s not dark enough…” The creaking of the merry-go-round slows to a stop as Janna, Poppy, and Jinx look up as well. It’s getting darker fast. Too fast. I can barely see the trees around the edge of the park. Sarah and I start walking back toward the playground more quickly.

“Those aren’t stars,” Sarah says. I squint to get a better look. The points of light waver, almost glistening. As we get closer I can see what Sarah means. Dozens of thin translucent spheres reflect the light from the street lamps. Bubbles? They were… bubbles? I stuff Lulu’s drawing into the cuff of my glove.

“I don’t think the twilight star heard you right, Lulu,” Poppy says. “Those are bubbles.”

They aren’t just bubbles. One of them floats down toward Poppy, almost as if it was following the sound of her voice. Poppy steps back, letting it drift toward the metal railing of the merry-go-round.

The hushed silence is interrupted by a snort-laugh from Jinx. “C’mon. They’re harmless—”

A trail of bubbles begins to close in on her. I reach for my wand as I start running. “Jinx!”

I throw the staff out ahead of me. It and a prismatic rainbow of starlight just graze the top of Jinx’s pigtails before returning to my hand. A sphere of multicolored light covers Jinx and Poppy. A few bubbles bounce off the barrier and pop against the swing set leaving behind a swirl of dark mist, fluttering black shapes—bugs perhaps, or moths?—and a long, high-pitched laugh, like the delighted cackle of a child.

“That can’t be good, right?” Jinx whisper-yells. “Let’s pop these bad boys!”

“My thoughts exactly.” A double shot of Sarah’s twin pistols fire before she can finish her sentence. A wave of bubbles pop in a shower of black haze and twisted butterflies.

“What’s inside doesn’t look that great either,” Poppy says.

The high-pitched laugh stops short and is quickly replaced by an annoyed groan. The noise echoes around us, setting my teeth on edge. In the center of the pack of toxic bubbles that Janna gathered, a thin circle takes shape. The circle opens into a portal, letting long tendrils snake out from some dark dimension. One unsettling squid eye opens, followed by a second. The gelatinous blob unfolds into some cross between an evil octopus and demonic jellyfish.

“Take it down,” Sarah yells. Shiro and Kuro fire eagerly. Poppy twists around, pulling her hammer back for a long, arcing hit. She growls through the effort as the hammer swings around. In a resounding smack, it connects with the bubble mass, knocking the now angry and disoriented jellyfish out of the center. The malcontent blob drifts for a moment, but collects itself and the scattered bubble pack. They move purposefully toward Sarah.

“Sarah, get down,” I yell. I can feel the heavy power of pure starlight channel through my staff, vibrating the bones in my fingers and arm. The creature darts around, hiding behind bubbles. I fire in a beam of white-hot light. The little jellyfish slips between the bubbles and I miss. I try to get closer, but it feels like time is standing still.

“Loops, no!” Jinx yells.

It’s too late. From out of nowhere, a tiny Lulu pushes Sarah out of the way. Sarah lands hard, but rolls onto her back, both barrels blasting above her.

One bubble escapes the pack above. It floats down, straining to get closer. It breaks against Lulu’s cheek in a wet pop. The darkness seeps out, expanding, and in the space of two heartbeats, Lulu is enveloped by an inky cloud. Her eyes close as she crumples to the ground in a small heap. I dive for Lulu, scooping her up in my arms. More bubbles pop above me as Sarah and Jinx finish off the last of them. A portal opens above the dark jellyfish. The maniacal laughter gets louder and the little beast floats toward the opening, almost as if was buoyed by the sound. As it crosses the portal’s threshold, it disappears, taking the remains of the dark magic with it.

I bring my ear down to Lulu’s face. She’s breathing, slow and even… is she asleep?

“Lulu!” I shake her by the shoulders. Lulu lets out a soft moan and her eyes flutter for a second. I bring my wand up, the brightness is near blinding. Lulu’s closed eyes flinch. “Lulu, by Starlight, wake up!”

“Lost. They were lost.” Lulu’s voice is barely a whisper. Her eyes close tighter against the light, and her lip quivers. It’s as if she’s stuck in a nightmare. “Dark now,” she says.

Lulu sits bolt upright, her blue eyes wide open now. She looks past all of us, like we’re not there, like she’s seeing through us to somewhere else. Like she’s somewhere else.

“She’s on her way,” Lulu says.

“She? Who, Lulu? Who’s on their way?” This is big. One blaring thought shuts out all the others in my brain. Could it be her? Is Ahri on her way? I bite my lip. I look around at Janna, Poppy, Jinx, and finally Sarah.

“Ahri!” I say. “Ahri will know.”

“No,” Sarah says.

“Of course she will.” I push off her muted reply, trying to keep a smile of optimism for the others. “Can you call her, Sarah?”

“I can’t.” Sarah won’t look at me.

“Wait, why?”

“We’re not talking right now,” she says quietly.

“Sarah, I think this is more important than—”

“—The slumber party.” Sarah interrupts looking me straight in the eye. “That night. She was supposed to come. At the last minute, she said there was something she had to take care of. Something she wouldn’t let me help with. I thought she was just being…”

“Ahri,” I finish as she nods her head in confirmation. “You haven’t seen her since?”

Sarah shakes her head no, tightening her grip on the pair of pistols in her lap. Just before Sarah looks away, I see it—a flicker of panic. I can feel my heart thump harder in my chest.

A hundred more questions flood my brain. My stomach tightens.

What could make Sarah panic like this? Where did Ahri go? What’s coming?

Are we strong enough to face it?

Am I strong enough?

I want to ask her, but I can’t.

Helia, the Blessed Isles

Erlok Grael stood separate from his peers, awaiting the Choosing.

They waited within a small open-air amphitheater, the architecture all gleaming white marble and gold-encased capstones. Helia wore its opulence proudly, as if in defiance of the brutalities of life beyond the shores of the Blessed Isles.

The others joked and laughed together, their collective nervousness drawing them closer, yet Grael stood silent and alone, his gaze intense. No one spoke to him or included him in any of the whispered japes. Few even registered his presence; their gazes slipped over and around him as if he didn’t exist. To most of them, he didn’t.

Grael did not care. He had no desire to swap inane small talk with them, and he felt no jealousy at their juvenile comradery. Today would be his moment of triumph. Today he would be embraced into the inner circle, apprenticed within the secretive upper echelons of the Fellowship of Light. He had more than earned his place there. No other student present came close. They might hail from wealth and nobility, while he came from a line of illiterate pig farmers, but none were as gifted or as worthy as he.

The masters arrived, filing down the central stairs one by one, silencing the gaggle of hopefuls. Grael watched them, eyes burning with a hungry light. He licked his lips, savoring

the prestige and glory that were soon to be heaped upon him, anticipating all the secrets that he would soon be privy to.

The masters shuffled into place upon the lower tiers of the amphitheater, their expressions solemn, staring down at the cluster of adepts on the floor below them. Finally, after an overlong pause to build suspense, a pompous, toadlike master, his skin pale and wet-looking—Elder Bartek—cleared his throat and welcomed the graduating students. His verbose speech was heavy with gravitas and self-congratulatory asides, and Grael’s eyes glazed over.

Finally, the time came for the masters to choose which of the graduates would be taken under their wing as apprentices. There were leaders here from all the major disciplines and denominations of the Fellowship. They represented the Arcanic Sciences, the various schools of logic and metaphysics, the Blessed Archives, the Astro-Scryers, Hermetic Oratory, Esoteric Geometry, the Seekers, and other branches of study. All served, in one way or another, the greater purpose of the Fellowship—the gathering, study, cataloging, and securing of the most powerful arcane artifacts in existence.

It was an auspicious gathering of some of the world’s most brilliant minds, yet Erlok Grael focused on only one of their number: Hierarch Malgurza, Master of the Key. Her dark skin was heavily lined, and her once-ebony hair was now mostly gray. Malgurza was a legend among the adepts of Helia. She didn’t appear at every year’s Choosing ceremony, but when she did, it was always to embrace a new apprentice into the inner circle.

The Baton of Choosing was brought forth. It was passed first to Hierarch Malgurza, the most honored master present. She took it in one gnarled hand, causing a ripple of murmurs among the students. Malgurza would indeed choose an apprentice this day, and the ghost of a smile curled Grael’s thin lips. The elderly woman cast her hawkish gaze across the gathered hopefuls, who held their breaths as one.

Whoever was named would be marked for greatness, joining a hallowed, elite cadre, their future assured. Erlok Grael’s fingers twitched in anticipation. This was his moment. He was already half stepping forward when the hierarch finally spoke, her voice husky, like oak-aged spirits.

“Tyrus of Hellesmor.”

Grael blinked. For a second, he thought there must have been some mistake, before the cold reality of his rejection washed over him, like a bucket of frigid water to the face. There was a delighted whoop from the chosen student, along with a burst of whispers and gasps. The newly named apprentice stepped forward amid a flurry of slaps on the back and ran up the steps of the amphitheater to take his place behind Hierarch Malgurza, a broad smile on his smug face.

Grael made no outward reaction, though he had gone dangerously still.

The rest of the ceremony went by in a dull, surreal blur. The Baton of Choosing passed from master to master, each choosing a new apprentice. Name by name, the crowd of hopefuls around Grael dwindled, until he stood alone. The sea of masters and former peers stared down at him, like a jury ready to announce his execution.

His hands did not twitch now. Shame and hatred writhed within him, like a pair of serpents locked in a death struggle. With a click of finality, the Baton of Choosing was sealed back within its ceremonial case and borne away by golden-robed attendants.

“Erlok Grael,” announced Bartek, his eyes smiling. “No master has spoken for you, yet the Fellowship is nothing if not benevolent. A place has been secured for you, one that will, it is hoped, teach you some much-needed humility, and at least a modicum of empathy. In time, perhaps, one of the masters may deign to take you on—”

“Where?” interrupted Grael, eliciting murmurs and tuts, but he did not care.

Bartek looked down his bulbous nose at him. His expression was that of a man who had inadvertently stepped upon something distasteful. “You will serve as a minor assistant to the Wardens of Thresholds,” he declared, malice gleaming in his eyes. There were smirks and stifled laughter among his former peers. The Threshers, as the student body derisively called them, were the lowest of the low, both literally and figuratively, those who guarded and patrolled the lowest depths of the vaults beneath Helia. Their ranks consisted of those who had earned the ire of the masters, whether through gross political misstep or misdemeanor, and any others whom the Fellowship wished out of the way. Down in the darkness, they could be forgotten. They were a joke. An embarrassment.

Bartek’s patronizing voice droned on, but Grael barely heard his words.

In that moment, he swore that this was not the end. He would serve among the wardens and ensure that his worth was noticed, such that none of these pompous, sniveling masters or his snobbish peers could deny him. He would serve a year, maybe two, and then he would take his rightful place within the inner circle.

They would not break him.

And he would remember this insult.

Alovédra, Camavor

It was dark and cool within the hallowed Sanctum of Judgment, and Kalista appreciated the reprieve from the scorching Camavoran summer outside. Standing at attention, bedecked

in form-fitting armor and a high-plumed helm, she waited for judgment to be rendered.

Despite being out of the sun, the slender young heir to the Argent Throne, kneeling at her side, was sweating, and his breath was shallow and quick.

His name was Viego Santiarul Molach vol Kalah Heigaari, and he waited to see if he would be crowned king, or if this day would be his last.

Absolute rulership, or death. There could be no middle ground.

He was Kalista’s uncle, but she was more like an older sister to him. They had been raised together, and he had always looked up to her. He was never meant to be the next king.

That should have been Kalista’s father, the firstborn, but his unexpected death had placed Viego, his younger brother, next in line.

The sound of the massed crowds outside was muted within the cold walls of the sanctum. Hooded priests, their faces obscured by shadow and blank porcelain masks, stood anonymous in the gloom, forming a circle. The incense from their censers was cloying and acrid, their whispering chant monotonous and sibilant.

“Kal?” breathed Viego.

“I am here,” Kalista replied, standing at his side, her voice low.

He glanced up at her. His patrician face was long and handsome, yet in that moment he seemed younger than his twenty-one years. His eyes were panicked, like those of an animal caught between fleeing and fighting. Upon his forehead, three lines had been drawn in blood, coming together to a point just between his eyebrows. The blood trident was traditionally drawn only upon the dead, to help speed them on their way to the Beyond and ensure that the Revered Ancestors recognized them. It spoke of the lethality of what lay ahead.

“Tell me again of my father’s last words,” whispered Viego.

Kalista stiffened. The old king had been the Lion of Camavor, with a fearsome reputation in battle—and on the political stage. But as he lay dying in bed, he hadn’t looked anything

like the robust warrior-king who had so terrorized his enemies. In those final moments, his body was wasted and thin, all his vaunted power and vitality sapped from him. His eyes

had still radiated a small measure of the power he’d had in his prime, but it was like the last glow of a fire’s embers, one final glimmer before the darkness claimed him.

He clutched at her with the last of his strength, with hands that more closely resembled a vulture’s talons than anything belonging to a man. “Promise me,” he croaked, burning with

a desperate fire. “The boy does not have the temperament to rule. I blame myself, but it is you who must bear the weight, granddaughter. Promise me you will guide him. Counsel him.

Control him, if needed. Protect Camavor. That is now your duty.”

“I promise, Grandfather,” Kalista said. “I promise.”

Viego waited expectantly, looking up at her. The faint roar of the crowd outside rose and fell like the crashing of distant waves.

“He said you’d be a great king,” Kalista lied. “That you’d eclipse even his great deeds.”

Viego nodded, trying to take comfort in her words.

“There is nothing wrong with being afraid,” she assured him, her stern demeanor softening. “You’d be a fool if you weren’t.” She gave him a wink. “More of a fool, I mean.”

Viego laughed, though the sound had an edge of hysteria to it and was too loud in the cavernous space. Priests glared, and the heir to the throne gathered himself. He pushed a wayward strand of his wavy hair behind one ear, and was still once more, staring into the darkness.

“You cannot let fear control you,” said Kalista.

“If the blade claims me, it will be you kneeling here next, Kal,” Viego whispered. He reflected on that for a moment. “You would make a far better ruler than I.”

“Do not speak of such things,” hissed Kalista. “You are blessed of the Ancestors, with power flowing through your veins that your father did not have. You are worthy. By nightfall you will be crowned king, and all of this will be just a memory. The blade will not claim you.”

“Yet if—”

“The blade will not claim you.”

Viego gave a slow nod. “The blade will not claim me,” he repeated.

There was a change in the air, and the priests’ incessant chanting quickened. Their censers swayed from side to side. Light speared down into the sanctum through a crystal lens

set in the center of the dome high above, as the sun finally moved into position directly overhead. Motes of dust and ribbons of cloying scented smoke drifted in the beam of light,

revealing... nothing.

Then the Blade of the King appeared.

Its name was Sanctity, and Kalista’s breath caught in her throat as she looked upon it. Hovering suspended in midair, the immense sword existed only in the spiritual Halls of the Ancestors, except when called forth by the rightful ruler of Camavor, or when summoned by the priests for the judgment of a new sovereign.

Every monarch of Camavor wore the Argent Crown, a belligerent tri-spiked circlet perfectly befitting the long line of belligerent rulers, but Sanctity was the true symbol of the throne. The primacy of whoever held Sanctity was undisputed, and to possess the Blade of the King was to be soul-bound to it—although not every heir to the Camavoran throne survived

the ritual of binding.

Kalista knew that was not some vague, mythical threat, either. Down through the line of history, dozens of heirs had perished here in the Sanctum of Judgment. There was a good

reason some called the blade Soulrender, and it was rightly feared by Camavor’s heirs and enemies alike.

The crowd outside had fallen silent. They waited in hushed anticipation, ready to welcome a new monarch or mourn his passing. Either the doors would be thrown open and Viego would stride forth in glory, blade in hand, or the bell atop the sanctum would toll one singular, mournful note, signaling his end.

“Viego,” Kalista said. “It is time.”

The crown prince nodded and pushed himself to his feet. The blade hung before him, waiting for him to take it. And yet, still he hesitated. He stared at it, transfixed, terrified. The priests glared, eyes wide behind their expressionless masks, silently urging him to do what they had instructed.

“Viego...” hissed Kalista.

“You’ll be with me, won’t you?” he whispered urgently. “I don’t think I can do this alone. Rule, I mean.”

“I’ll be with you,” said Kalista. “I’ll stand with you, as I always have. I promise.”

Viego gave her a nod and turned back to Sanctity, hanging motionless in the shaft of light. In seconds, the moment would be lost. The time of judgment was now.

The priests’ chanting reached a fevered pitch. Smoke coiled around the sacred blade, like so many serpents, writhing and twisting. Without further pause, Viego stepped forward

and grasped the sword, closing both hands around its hilt.

His eyes widened, and his pupils contracted sharply.

Then he opened his mouth and began to scream.

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There’s this dream I keep having.

It starts pitch black. It’s so dark, I’m not sure my eyes are even open. It’s like being woken up when the power’s gone out. All those familiar bits of light snuffed out, swallowed up. Just me and an empty night.

I can’t help myself. I reach out, hoping that it is just a blackout, that I can just push away the weight of being alone like too many heavy blankets. But the darkness doesn’t move.

I tread midnight like water in a well, all the while the cold drip of loneliness slips down my back. Then I realize that there’s no surface to break. My chest tightens. My panic rises and it’s hard to breathe. I’m in way over my head. Then someone or something’s pulled the plug at the bottom of the darkness and I’m sinking further into the inky black. My mouth opens to yell, to scream, but only silence comes out.

What did I expect when I have a mouth full of nothing? My heart’s beating too fast. Just when I’m about to give up, just when I’m about to let go, I feel them.

Janna. Lulu. Poppy. Jinx. I feel their light. It’s like warmth and joy and comfort and laughter got balled up together so tightly they had no choice but to catch fire.

My eyes are open. Maybe they were there from the beginning, but this is the first time I can truly see. Their faces are so beautiful, so peaceful. They’re sleeping, dreaming maybe, untroubled by the darkness that surrounds us. I stretch my arms out, but they’re too far. That’s when I realize we’re falling.

The horizon of a world big and blue rushes up to meet us. I can’t concentrate on where we’re going, the danger that’s fast approaching. At this point I don’t care. All I can see are my sisters falling. The atmosphere of the planet below us burns hot, and their lights ignite.

My arms ache to the bone. I try to catch them. I try to hold on, but I can’t stop them from falling. I’m not strong enough to keep us together. I’m not enough for them. The tips of my own fingers start to glow and break apart. The last thing I see is their emblems darkening as their light shatters into a rainbow of ragged cinders.

And then I wake up.

I’m in my bed, the blanket in a sweaty tangle. The darkness is gone, replaced by a muted gray. I’ve taken to sleeping with one of the windows open. I walk over to it and watch the street below. The soft glow of the lights outside paints me and my room in shadow.

Above all the sleeping quiet is darkness. I can feel it still, stretching on and on. It’s hard to see the stars from the city. Just a few pinpoints of light break it up. But I know more are out there. Somewhere.

I crawl back into bed and wait for the dawn. I don’t go to sleep. I can’t. The dream is the same.

Always the same.

“Are you going to join us?”

Jinx is lying on a plastic lounge chair in the backyard, while Shiro and Kuro are napping in the grass at her feet. It’s hard to tell if she’s heard me. Abnormally large plastic sunglasses cover her eyes and most of her eyebrows. She’s got one earbud tucked in her left ear, but I can see the other dangling over the side of the recliner.

She totally heard me.

“Hey, are you coming inside? We’re going to get started.”

Jinx sticks a wad of fluorescent gum back into her mouth, chews loudly, cracking the bubbles with her teeth, and then slowly begins to blow a big, pink bubble. When she gets the bubble big enough to obscure her sunglasses, she sucks it back in with a loud pop.

“Summer’s not gonna last forever, Lux,” she says without looking over. She folds her arms behind her head. Feathered clouds pass in the reflection in her sunglasses. “Better soak all this up before it’s gone.”

She twirls the end of one long red pigtail around the tip of her finger, challenging me to give her something worth coming inside for.

“You’re right,” I say. She loves it when she thinks she’s right. “Summer’s almost over. I just think we should talk about… things. You know, before school starts again.”

Jinx purses her lips and blows a raspberry in the air.

I should not have mentioned school. Definitely lost her there.

“Well,” I say, trying a different tactic, “I guess you don’t want any of the popsicles Poppy brought?”

Jinx sits up, straddling the recliner. Kuro startles awake, yawns, and mischievously starts to tumble the still sleeping Shiro over in the grass. Jinx pushes the enormous sunglasses up to sit on her forehead, making it look like giant plastic stars are shooting out of her pigtails.

“Popsicles?”

“Yep,” I say as I step inside the house. “Shaped like rockets.” I shut the sliding glass door behind me and walk towards the kitchen. Five seconds later I hear the door slide open and shut.

Thank the stars. As temperamental as Jinx is, she can be awfully predictable about desserts. And ammunition.

My peace is momentary. As I walk into the kitchen, Poppy is standing on a chair in front of the stove, turning pancakes on the griddle, her determination and focus evident from the bend in her elbows and the iron grip she has on a big metal spatula. There is a trail of batter and sticky syrup linking her to the refrigerator and the counter.

“Uh, Poppy, what’s going on? I was gone for, like, five minutes,” I say as Jinx elbows past me, making a beeline for the freezer.

“Lulu said she was hungry,” Poppy says over her shoulder. She shrugs and turns her concentration back to flipping the thin batter in front of her. “I made pancakes.”

Lulu is sitting at the kitchen table intently drawing with one hand and stabbing a bite full of pancake with the other, unconcerned with the food drama surrounding her. Pix is gnawing on an uncapped green marker. Lulu scratches her familiar’s head without looking up from her own work.

“Sounds good, Shortstop.” Jinx claps Poppy on the back and then slides into one of the chairs, all while slurping one of the rocket-shaped popsicles. “Make me one shaped like a star? No, wait, one shaped like a missile? Oooh, I know, how about a star missile? I need rainbow sprinkles!”

“Oh, look who finally decided to join us,” Poppy mutters to the griddle.

Chaos. Utter chaos. There’s pancake batter on the ceiling. How are we supposed to save the universe if we can’t get it together ourselves? Janna is quietly washing the pile of dishes that Poppy’s been creating. She’s staring out the window in front of the sink. Zephyr is sitting on the counter next to her attempting to lick the syrup from its paws.

“So,” I start to pace in the little bit of open space in the kitchen. “I think we should talk about the next year. School’s about to start and…”

“Hey, whatcha drawing, Loopy?” Jinx leans over Lulu’s shoulder, stealing a bite of her pancake with a spare fork. She doesn’t want to think about the future so badly, she’ll even feign interest in Lulu to get out of it. I try to keep my deep sigh inaudible.

I start again. “As I was saying, we…”

“It’s the starfall,” Lulu interrupts, completely unconcerned that words were coming out of my mouth. “The new stars are coming.” Without looking up she pushes a paper flyer across the table towards Jinx. A glob of whipped cream and sprinkles drips off Jinx’s pancake piece onto the paper as Jinx gives it a once over. She smirks and leaves it on the table. I can see the flyer has more than ten words and only one picture, so of course Jinx has totally lost interest in it.

I stop my pacing behind Lulu, taking a good look at what our little artist has been drawing for the first time. It’s a field with some trees around the edge. The five of us are standing in the field looking up at a night sky. Janna being the tall, purple one, Poppy has her hammer, and Jinx’s long, red pigtails are easy to pick out. I guess I’m the round pink one. Does my hair really stick out of the sides of my head like that?

“This is you?” I ask, pointing to the green-haired one in the meadow of green and black fireflies. Lulu nods, biting her lip in concentration as she shades in the dark blue of the sky. Among the penciled-in stars there are more colors.

“What about these?” Jinx asks, pointing at the colored bits.

“New stars, of course,” she says, rolling her eyes at Jinx. Lulu looks up at me. “Can we go?”

“There are no more new stars here,” Poppy says as she turns another pancake.

There’s a loud clatter from the sink as Janna fumbles a plate. “Sorry,” she stammers as she catches it.

I walk over and stand next to her. Through the kitchen window I can see the wispy clouds are gone; it’s just a big, empty summer sky. In the sink, Janna slides the sponge around the plate’s outer rim in a slow, wet orbit.

“Nice save,” I say, offering Janna a towel off the counter. “The slippery ones are the hardest to hold onto.”

Janna looks over at me and then down at the plate she’s been washing. Her cheeks color pink, betraying her normally cool demeanor. Something’s up.

She nods and puts the extra-clean plate in the dish rack. She tucks a lock of lavender hair behind her ear and picks up another syrup-drenched plate from the stack on the counter.

Yup, something’s definitely up.

Jinx, oblivious as usual, continues to drown her pile of pancakes in syrup, alternating layers with whipped cream and sprinkles.

“You know how much I hate to agree with our blue-haired door stop,” Jinx says as she crams a full fork in her mouth. “But Loops, it’s just us against all the big bad this part of the galaxy has to offer.”

Lulu puts down her pen and picks up the flyer, handing it to me. I take it and wipe off Jinx’s melting clump of whipped cream and sprinkles with a kitchen towel, smearing a wet rainbow trail across the top of the paper.

“'Camp Targon’s Summer Starfall. Watch the summer meteor shower. Get out of the city and get to know some new stars. Games and amusement. Last chance for summer fun',” I read aloud. “It’s hosted by the Astronomy class at the university and open to all the local high school students.”

I look up. No one’s listening. Lulu’s back to drawing. Poppy and Jinx are stacking more and more pancakes on their plates, determined to see who can eat the most. I can see Janna’s face in the reflection of the window. She’s lost in the sky again.

The paper crunches in my hand. I ease my grip, embarrassed by how tightly I’m holding on. The deadline to register for the camp is today.

“Last chance,” I breathe the words to myself. I look at the girls; everyone’s going in different directions. They are not going to be happy about this. But I’m the captain. This will be good for them. “It will be good for us,” I whisper out loud, talking myself into the decision.

“Pack your bags, ladies,” I say loudly, pasting a bright, shiny smile on my face. The bubbly confidence is as much a show for them as it is for me. Each of them looks up, unsure of what is about to happen.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and start dialing the number on the flyer. “We’re going to welcome some new stars.”

Jinx slips a floppy sunhat on as she ambles down from the bus. She had insisted on wearing her bathing suit on the ride over. The obnoxiously loud colors of her bikini are tempered only by the sheer cover-up billowing behind her in the breeze.

“Alright, nerds,” she sighs. “I’m going to find the pool. Time for some cannonballs.”

“It’s a lake,” Poppy corrects her while carefully watching the bus driver unload our gear onto a patch of grass.

“Whatever, Short Stack.” Jinx grabs a tote bag graffitied with hand-drawn stars and over-sized guns from the top of the pile. As she passes Lulu, Jinx tugs on the teal butterfly bow in Lulu’s hair. “See ya later, Loops.”

I look at Poppy.

“She didn’t actually bring a cannon, did she?”

Poppy shrugs. “Do you really think she could keep her mouth shut about it if she did?”

I’m about to call after Jinx and insist she stay with the group, when I hear a groan behind me. I watch as the bus driver pulls out the last bag, his arms quivering with the effort. The blue duffel is nearly as big as Poppy. She watches him carefully, her foot tapping out an impatient rhythm in the dry grass.

He sets the duffel down with a little grunt. “What have you got in there, kid? Rocks?”

“Nope.” Poppy reaches over and snatches up the handles of the duffel, swinging it over her shoulder with ease. She flashes a toothy, satisfied grin at the bus driver. “A hammer.”

Poppy gives me the same smile, I’m sure remembering the challenge I gave everyone before we left, that we’re here to blend in and hang out. Be normal. She grabs the handle of Jinx’s forgotten wheeled bag and nudges Lulu gently.

“Come on, Lulu. Our campsite isn't going to set itself up,” she says cheerfully.

Lulu nods, humming a song only she knows the melody to. She flutters from wildflower to pinecone to pebble, marveling at every treasure the camp has to offer while Poppy maintains her dutiful march down the trail.

The bus starts back up again and then pulls onto the road. I watch until it disappears behind an outcropping of rocks and trees.

“No turning back now, huh, Janna?” All I can hear is a breeze blowing through the pines. I spin around slowly. The last of the other stragglers from the bus are already halfway down the trail to the camp. The bus drop off point is empty. “Janna?”

I finally find Janna standing on the rounded top of a granite boulder that’s sunk deep in dirt. She’s got her back to me. Her hands are wrapped around her arms and the curls of her lavender hair are bouncing in the invisible breeze.

“Janna?”

I drop my backpack on a clump of grass and clamber up to stand next to her. Down in the little valley below us I can see the bustle of other campers and teams setting up. Between the trees there’s the glittery sparkle of Lake Lunari. My bet is that Jinx has already launched herself in there. I feel a smile cross my face as I wonder if she realizes that it’s fed by snowmelt.

But Janna’s not looking at any of that. She’s so tall. I shade my eyes from the sun and look up for a few minutes, straining to see what she sees. It’s another piercingly blue summer sky, empty save for the craggy face of Mount Targon and a few white clouds. My elbow brushes her arm as I shift my position.

Janna looks over surprised.

“Oh. Hi,” she says, like I haven’t been standing next to her for the last five minutes. She smiles, but I can tell that she’s still worried about whatever it is that’s been bothering her. She looks over to where the bus dropped us off.

“Where did everybody go?”

“Wow.” I shake my head. “You really are somewhere else, huh?” I look back at the purplish-gray outline of Mt. Targon framed by a dark fringe of pine. There’s still snow on the peak this late in the summer.

Janna rubs her hands over her bare shoulders and sucks in a breath as if she were suddenly chilled. It’s not even a little cold. The clear sky and sun overhead make me wish for the first time that I had followed Jinx’s advice and just worn a swimsuit and shorts. I fan my face with our camp registration.

“We should get going,” Janna says, her long legs stepping down easily from the boulder as if walking on air. She looks back at me as I fumble down the rock. Her smile fades as she glances back up at the sky. “There’s a storm coming.”

“What?” I try and look back at the sky, but my foot slips on a pocket of loose gravel and the roundness of the rock. As usual, too many things at once. I sit down hard in a puff of dust, the back of my leg scraping on the rock.

“Ow.” I wince at the sting. Just what I need. Lulu, Poppy, and Jinx blown to the corners of the camp. Janna feeling like she’s on another planet. And now their intrepid leader is going to be taken out by her own two left feet.

“Fantastic,” I mumble into my hand as I rub my face.

A cool breeze catches the damp hair at the back of my neck. I look up to Janna offering a healing hand.

“Nope,” I say. I manage a smile. “I’m fine. Remember, no powers while we’re here.”

Janna shrugs. “Better be careful then, we’ve only got one leader,” she says. She looks at me and I’m sure she can hear all the doubt rattling around in my head. She turns back to the trail as I stand up.

“Let’s hurry,” she calls over her shoulder. “We’d all be lost without you.”

I let out the breath I’ve been holding. That’s what I’m afraid of.

The camp information table is draped in dark purple fabric. Rocks and big pinecones hold down stacks of different photocopied flyers. Sitting behind the table is a girl with long black hair. No, not a girl. She looks too old to be in high school and way too cool for a dusty table at a summer camp. She must be one of the Astronomy class sponsors. I hear Janna’s footsteps stop behind me as I walk towards the ‘girl.’ I take this as a not so subtle clue that I’m on my own.

I walk up to the table. The tall pines and late afternoon sun combine at an angle so there is shaft of light stabbing me in the eye no matter where I try to stand. The contrast of light and dark makes it hard to see the person behind the table. She makes no effort to move out of the shadows and instead sounds somewhat amused by my inability to find a good spot to have a conversation.

“Hi,” I say, sticking my hand in the general direction of where I think she is.

“Name.”

Not exactly the friendliest response. Also a step more to the left than I anticipated. “Lux,” I answer, a bit flustered. “Luxanna. My group is the—”

“Hmmm… ‘the Star Sisters,’” the girl interrupts. Her voice holds a strong note of mocking disapproval. “That’s such a… cute name. You two are the last to check in. Leaders are usually the first ones to check in.” She lets out an exasperated sigh for emphasis.

Sun and planet align so I’m finally granted a sliver of shade to get a better look at our collegiate judge. On closer inspection, I think I preferred the audio only version. She’s pursing her lips as if she had just eaten something gross, but still had manners enough not to spit it out. A lanyard name tag with perfectly put together letters reads: Syndra.

“I’m sorry,” I try again, trying to sound more confident. I knew I should have told everyone to stay together. “I stayed to make sure all our bags made it off the bus. The others were really excited about getting to the campsite.”

I feel Janna’s fingertips on my arm, supporting me. I look over at Janna. Her normally calm face is grimacing at the girl behind the table. I do a double take between them before returning to the conversation.

“Well, we’re all here now,” Janna says curtly.

“Great,” Syndra says, totally not meaning it. “Space twenty-sixteen. Some of your group is already there. There’s also a loud one down by the lake. I assume she’s one of yours.”

Jinx. Fantastic.

Syndra leans over and picks out some of the colored papers. She stops and looks up when I don’t immediately acknowledge Jinx as my responsibility.

“You might want to, you know, deal with that,” she says. “Here’s a map and a schedule. The best viewing for the meteor shower starts after midnight.”

Syndra hands me the stack of papers, her eyes narrowing as she looks me over for a final judgment. I am obviously not living up to expectations. “You understand that leaders are accountable for keeping their groups together when it gets dark, right?”

“Yes,” I squeak. I nod dumbly, feeling like a child. I clear my throat to try and find my voice. “I promise I’ll keep everyone together.”

As if on cue, a group of four wanders in from one of the trails. It’s like cool just supernovaed in the middle of camp. A wake of starstruck campers begin to gather in little eddies behind them. I can’t blame them; I can’t look away either.

“Now there’s a team you can learn something from,” Syndra says pointedly. I watch as her snark melts into a smile. “Ahri!” she squeals.

The center star in the approaching constellation looks up. She brushes her perfectly side-swept, peach bangs from her eyes, and smiles. A tall redhead, a quiet girl with mint colored curls, and a kinda cute guy with blonde hair flank their all-too popular leader. Of course the group makes their way over to us, picking up more followers like a magnet. Not only does each member exude individual awesome, they move together effortlessly. I can’t help it. I’m so jealous my teeth hurt.

“Syndra,” Ahri says. “Are you all done? We missed you on the hike this afternoon.”

“I had to wait for the stragglers,” Syndra says looking at me.

“Yeah,” I say. “Sorry about that.” I turn to Ahri and smile, extending a hand. “Hi. I’m Lux. You must be—“

“Cool,” she says, finishing the conversation before it even got a chance to start. She eyes my extended hand floating out in space in front of her for an extra moment, really letting my awkwardness sink in for everyone. Finally her perfectly manicured fingers touch my hand in a halfhearted shake. “Charmed, I’m sure.”

Ahri turns to Syndra, effectively dismissing me from the conversation.

“Okay,” I say a little too loudly. “Nice meeting you, I guess.”

A breeze starts to blow through camp and I turn around abruptly and pick a direction to just start walking in, any direction, as long it’s not towards the information table.

Which is exactly when I run smack into Janna. The stack of camp papers goes flying. So much for situational awareness. Once again I’m on my butt in the dusty grass looking up at Janna. Only this time my annoyance is tempered by the expression on Janna’s face.

Her earlier grimace has been replaced by a dark scowl. The light breeze around us picks up into a stronger gust.

“I have to take a walk,” Janna says. She’s not asking. She doesn’t even look down in my direction. This is weird. I’ve never seen Janna so... so angry.

“But Janna,” I say, grabbing at the flying papers and trying to pull my wind whipped hair from my mouth at the same time. “They just told us to stay together.”

It’s too late. Janna walks down a shady trail taking the wind with her. Behind me, above the dying wind, I hear Syndra laughing. I hope it’s at something clever Ahri must have said. I venture a quick look back, only to catch Syndra looking directly at me. And smiling.

I turn away and concentrate on putting my multi-colored stack of flyers back together, letting the trail of lost paper take me as far away from the cool kids as I can get.

I find the last flyer curled in the hollow of a tree. Instead of bending over to pick it up, I let myself sink down onto a pile of pine needles and lean against the tree. In front of me is the lake, but now that I’ve stopped moving I realize I have no idea where I am.

I push my back against the scratchy bark. This trip is so not going how I wanted it to. We’re not even together, let alone working more as a team.

My face feels hot. The back of my throat tightens. The light glinting off the lake in front of me blurs a little. I can feel the water well in my eyes.

I start rifling through the stack of papers I’ve collected to distract myself from my sudden pity party.

“And not a single, stupid map.” I let out my frustration out in a groan. “How can I be a leader if I don’t even know where I’m going?”

“Meh. Maps are totally overrated.” A guy’s voice breaks the background noise of distant campers. I look up. Great. It’s the cute, blonde guy from Ahri’s star-studded entourage. I stand quickly and wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.

“But, if you really think you need one, I happen to have this on me.” He hands me a slightly wind-crumpled map of the camp. My group’s site is clearly circled and numbered in Syndra’s perfect handwriting. His grin is a little lopsided. “I have a knack for finding lost things. I’m Ezreal. You can call me Ez.”

I nod, trying to control my sniffling. He’s still smiling. Is he flirting with me? I look around. He takes a handkerchief from his pocket and hands it to me.

“Thanks,” I murmur awkwardly. Even in the shade of the pine trees, his eyes are really blue.

“Maybe you can help me find my team.” I gesture to the trees around us. This little corner of camp is empty except for the two of us. “Seems everybody’s lost but me and you.”

“Sounds perfect.” He sweeps a lock of blonde hair away from his eyes with his hand and gestures with a gentlemanly bow back to the trail. “It’s Lux, right? Like a light?”

“Yeah,” I nod. If he only knew. “My mom had a thing for desk lamps.” I feel my bubbly confidence returning, the one that Jinx constantly complains is so annoying. I look over and watch his cocky smile falter for a second. He’s not sure if I’m teasing him. It’s my turn to smile. Am I smiling too much?

“I’m just kidding,” I offer.

“Sure, lamps are cool,” he says a little relieved. “But not exactly my favorite kind of light.”

“You have a favorite kind of light?”

“C’mon, doesn’t everybody?” His cocky grin is back. The small footpath we’ve been following is about to join up with the larger trail that goes from the lake to the main part of the camp.

“Are you going to tell me or do I have to guess?” It’s silly, but I’m totally forgetting how sorry I was feeling for myself a few minutes ago. For the first time since getting to the camp, I’m not worrying about anything, not even tripping over my own feet.

Which is exactly when Jinx shows up, a mischievous grin plastered on her face along with wisps of lake-soaked hair. Her smile tightens as Ezreal steps out of the shadows and onto the path.

“Hey there, Lux buddy. Find a new friend?” Jinx’s clap on my back startles me back into reality and I nearly choke on my tongue trying to answer her.

“Jinx, this is Ez,” I cough, trying to catch my breath. “Ez, this is Jinx.”

Ezreal extends a hand to Jinx. Jinx accepts the challenge and strong arms him, squeezing his fingers and pumping his hand up and down like some kind of backwards arm-wrestling contest. Much to Jinx’s surprise, Ez takes the awkward handshake in stride.

Jinx yanks him closer. “What exactly are your intentions towards our Lux, may I ask?” she says in a threatening whisper that all of us can clearly hear.

I feel my face go pinker than my hair.

“We… We…” Ez stammers. “We were just talking about our favorite kind of light. Did… Did you have one?”

Nice save, Ez. If there’s one thing that can distract Jinx, it’s talking about herself.

“Oh, that’s easy,” Jinx says. She eases some of the tension in her grip and lets go of Ezreal’s hand. Ez opens and closes his fingers, double-checking that they still work.

“Really?” I say, surprised. “You have a favorite kind of light?”

Jinx turns to me. “Well, of course. Doesn’t everybody?”

Ezreal shrugs. His cocky grin is back.

“Ezreal, is everything alright?” a cool voice asks. And now it’s a party. The tall redhead, the second star in Ahri’s constellation of awesome, approaches from farther up the main camp path. She doesn’t look too pleased with any of us. Especially Jinx.

“It’s alright, Sarah,” Ezreal says, attempting to smooth over the redhead’s rough contempt.

“Hi. I’m Lux,” I dust my hand off on my shorts and offer it to her in greeting. Her eyes narrow and suddenly it feels like I’m under a dissection microscope. And, of course, when I get nervous, I can’t stop talking. The words just start to pour out like someone left the faucet on. “It’s, uh, nice to meet you, Sarah. Your hair’s super cool! I don’t think I could ever pull off red, but on you—wow.”

“Miss Fortune,” she interrupts. “Sarah is for friends.” From the look on her face, I do not fall into that category.

“Oh, of course. I’m Lux. Did I say that already? I was just looking to pick up the team snack and got a little lost.” I search one of the flyers in my hands for the details I know I saw a few minutes ago. “Yep, team snack, right here at the mess tent. Looks like it’s chocolate chip cookies and... and… oranges.”

“I hate oranges,” Miss Fortune says coldly. She looks at Ezreal. “Ahri wants us to walk the perimeter before dark.”

Ezreal gives her a mock salute. “Aye, aye, captain.”

Miss Fortune rolls her eyes and begins walking back up to camp. Jinx begins to pull me in the opposite direction.

“I’ll catch you later, Lux,” Ezreal says and starts to jog after her.

I can’t help it. I call after him. “You never said what’s your favorite!”

He stops, shakes the hair out of his eyes, and cups his hands together.

“Starlight,” he shouts back. Even from this distance I can see his lopsided grin clearly. He turns and catches up to Miss Fortune.

“Huh,” Jinx muses thoughtfully. “I totally thought he was gonna say double rainbows.”

It’s my turn to roll my eyes. I punch her gently in the arm.

“Come on, let’s go find those cookies.”

It’s nearly dark by the time Jinx and I make it back to camp. By the way Poppy is going after a cord of firewood, I can tell she isn’t pleased. Jinx loudly crunches through another cookie, announcing our arrival.

“Took you long enough,” Poppy grumbles. She picks up another piece of wood to cut down to size.

“Ooh. There you are!” Lulu jumps off the stumps she’s sitting on and rushes me in a hug. At least someone’s glad to see us.

“Don’t sweat it, Bam Bam,” Jinx tosses the bag of oranges onto our picnic table. “I brought oranges and cookies.” Jinx looks into the bag again and brings out the last uneaten cookie. “I mean, I brought oranges and one cookie.”

Jinx breaks it in two, giving half to Lulu and keeping the other for herself.

“Here you go munchkin, don’t say I didn’t share,” she says.

Lulu looks up at Jinx and smiles. Poppy groans.

“Alright,” Jinx adds, “But only ‘cuz you’re crazier than me.” She gives Lulu the other half as well. “And because I don’t want Poppy to have any,” she whispers loudly. “Hey, aren’t we supposed to set some stuff on fire?”

“You mean a campfire,” I say.

“Yeah, one of those.” Jinx reaches into her Stars and Ammo tote bag. I can hear Kuro’s squeaking and the distinctive click of a trigger.

“Uh-uh.” I shake my head, “No powers.”

“Killjoy.” Jinx rolls her eyes. Poppy laughs between wood chops.

Janna bends over the campfire ring with a lit match and a bundle of dry pine needles. After a few seconds, the needles catch fire. A thin waft of smoke rises and Janna blows gently, coaxing a bigger stick in the middle to ignite. She tucks the flaming bunch into a teepee of wood in the center of the ring and gives Jinx a satisfied smile.

“And that’s not cheating?” Jinx drops the empty cookie bag on the table with a melodramatic sigh and starts looking around for a stick. “Whatever. Did we bring marshmallows?”

Poppy sets the neatly-chopped logs in a pile next to Janna. “Aren’t marshmallows all you brought?”

“Ooooh yeah,” Jinx snaps loudly, remembering. She finds her discarded tote and pulls out a bag of marshmallows, threading four on long, thin stick. “I brought a towel too, Shorty. I’m responsible.”

I settle onto a stump near Janna. She seems better than before.

“You alright?” I ask her. She nods.

“I think I just needed a bit of fresh air.”

I gesture to all the trees around us and smile. “Well, I guess we came to the right place.”

Janna nods her agreement, but without my enthusiasm. Before I can ask further, Lulu dusts the cookie crumbs off her hands and climbs up next to Janna.

“Tell us a story, Janna,” she says.

“I don’t really know any stories, Lulu.”

“How about a ghost story, Janna,” Jinx adds, “You’re old. You probably know some ghosts, right?”

Janna arches a lavender eyebrow at Jinx.

“Please?” Lulu pleads.

Janna takes a deep breath. It seems no one can deny Lulu tonight.

“Alright,” Janna begins. “Once upon a time, there was a lonely light that stood against darkness.”

“Was it the First Star?” Lulu asks.

Janna nods.

“Yes. In the beginning the First Star was all alone. After a while it didn’t want to be alone anymore so it took all of its starlight and spread it across the night.” Janna waved her hand gently across the sky, gesturing to the blanket of stars above us.

“And that’s where we came from,” Lulu says proudly.

“You. Me. The animals and the trees. Even Jinx,” Janna adds with a smile. “Everyone carries a little bit of that light. It’s very powerful stuff and the First Star knew it needed to be protected from the darkness. The first Star Guardians that were chosen were said to be very strong and full of light.” Janna’s voice drops slightly. “But, those that burn bright, burn quickly.”

“Isn’t that what we’re here for?” Poppy adds, confused. “It’s our duty to protect all of the First Star’s light.”

“Yes,” Janna agrees. She looks over at me. “But it’s more than duty; it’s our destiny. And it's our destiny to do it together. The First Star knew how hard it was to be responsible for so much and do it all alone.”

“Did anybody ever decide not to go with the flow, you know, against the whole destiny thing?” Jinx pokes her marshmallow stick at one of the burning logs, knocking off a few glowing embers. I’m surprised. I didn’t think she was paying attention to anything except burning sugar.

“There was a Star Guardian, once, who decided she’d had enough of the cycle. She didn’t want to return to starlight. She wanted to stay just who she was.”

“You have my attention,” Jinx says, turning to face Janna.

“It’s said that she first came to be in a system full of darkness,” Janna continues.

“Did she find sisters, like us?” Lulu asks.

“Oh, yes,” Janna says. “And because her corner of the galaxy was so dark, they meant everything to her. For a time they were happy. And she was happy with them. Then one day there was a battle. A great evil came, swift and terrible. She lost her sisters in the fight and she became very sad.”

“That would make me sad too,” Lulu sniffs.

“Me too, Lulu.” Janna says, hugging her. “But they say that instead of staying sad, she became angry and turned away from the First Star’s light. They say she followed the evil to where it came from, hoping she could find some way to undo her destiny.”

Lulu shivers and snuggles closer to Janna.

“Is she still alive?” Poppy asks.

“I don’t know.” Janna thinks. “If she is, her light would be pretty old by now.”

“Older than yours, Janna?” Jinx mocks.

“Yes,” Janna says, mocking her right back. “Older than mine.”

Lulu yawns. “Was that a real story?” she asks.

“I’m not sure anymore, Lulu,” Janna says quietly.

It’s quiet. All I can hear is the crackle of the fire as the weight of the night settles over us. I decide to break the silence.

“Well, the meteor shower begins in about four hours. Maybe we should get some sleep before then,” I offer.

Janna stands the sleepy Lulu up and marches her slowly towards one of the two tents. I go to follow her. Poppy stops me and points to the other tent, before going in ahead of Janna.

“You’re with Jinx,” Poppy says quietly. “She snores. Good luck.”

“I heard that, Little Bits,” Jinx says, stuffing another handful of marshmallows in her mouth.

“Don’t worry,” Janna says as she navigates Lulu into the tent. “I’ll look after her.”

I smile and grab a bucket of water to douse the campfire. I look up. More stars than I can count cover the sky. So many. Maybe more Star Guardians. Just like us. It would be nice not to feel so isolated. I shake the hope from my head and pour the water onto the fire. It sizzles and steams as the glowing embers are drowned, leaving me alone in the night.

I climb into the dark tent. Jinx is already whistle-snoring and I can hear Poppy smacking her lips in the other tent. Not exactly peace and quiet, but we’re together. There are four holes in the tent roof. Through them I can see the sky. I try and count the stars beyond our world.

I don’t even make it to ten before I’m swallowed by sleep.

The darkness is the same, but this time the dream is terrifyingly different.

Instead of just me at the bottom of the lonely well, we’re all there. Lulu, Janna, Jinx, and Poppy. We’re all lost in the darkness. Their calm serenity has been replaced by panic. Each of their muffled voices lap over each other, pleading with me to get them out.

Above us and far, far away I can see a handful of stars. Their light wavers, nearly blinking out. They call to me too, but I can’t reach them. I can’t move. Glowing ash rains down from above. It glitters as it falls through my fingers. I recognize what it is before the muted light winks out completely.

Star Guardian emblems. Shattered and broken.

An unseen weight hits me full in the chest, knocking the wind out of me, pushing me down further. The starlight above fades even more, moving away from me. The heavy weight bounces up and down, shaking me, but my arms and legs are dead weights. I’m stuck, frozen in the darkness.

The weight stops bouncing. I keep sinking.

“It’s no use,” Poppy’s voice is annoyed and resigned at the same time. She sounds closer, but I still can’t reach her.

“Here. Let me show you how it’s done, Smalls.”

There’s a metal scraping sound and a slosh of liquid. I suck in a huge breath as cold water splashes over me. I’m drowning. I am literally drowning this time. I sputter and blink my eyes open. It was just a dream. Sort of. The weight on my chest is distinctly Poppy-shaped.

Jinx is standing over the both of us with an empty canteen in her hand. “Oh look, our fearless leader is awake now.”

“Was that completely necessary, you two?” I wipe my eyes and try to sop up the water from my sleeping bag with a spare sweatshirt.

“Lulu’s missing,” Poppy says quickly.

I’m on my feet, out of the tent, and pulling on my shoes. I open the flap of Lulu’s tent. Her sleeping bag is empty. So is Janna’s.

“Janna didn’t even take the cane I made her,” Jinx adds, true concern peeking out in her voice. “What if the old lady falls and can’t get up?”

This is worse than the dream.

“We couldn't go find them without you,” Poppy says insistently. “You said it’s our duty to stick together.”

“I just wanted to dump a canteen of water on you and see what happens,” Jinx says. Her tone says she doesn’t care, but her face disagrees.

“Can we leave now?” Poppy pulls at my arm.

Resting on top of Janna’s pillow is the picture Lulu made of all of us in the meadow. We’re all looking up at the sky. New stars, Lulu said. My stomach sinks as I look closer at the picture. The fireflies. Black and green glowing things surround us. I have a totally bad feeling about this.

I look at Poppy and Jinx. I can’t remember the last time they shared the same expression. Their worry is clear. Flashlights aren’t going to cut it tonight.

“Poppy, get your hammer. Jinx, wake up Shiro and Kuro,” I say. “It’s time to bring out the big guns.”

The light from my staff is infinitely better than a flashlight, but does nothing to calm my pounding heart. I stop my run to get a better look at the map of the camp I’ve clenched in my other hand. Unfortunately, Lulu must have found someplace out of the way. We’re well past the boundaries of the camp.

“There’s a clearing near here,” I say. “A rock slide’s made it off limits to the rest of the camp.”

“Sounds like a great place to welcome the new stars,” Jinx pants, more than a little winded from the growing elevation. “Stupid cookies.”

Poppy tightens her grip on her hammer. “Let’s go.”

The distance between the trees becomes greater, finally opening up to a full meadow. I take a deep breath. Jinx lets out a low whistle.

It’s beautiful.

A low fog has settled like a misty quilt over the area. Moonflowers trail over tiny wild roses. Arcs of little blue flowers poke up and hang over the mist. White granite boulders catch the sliver of moonlight and dot the dark meadow like a stony star field. Above, the meteor shower has just begun.

Sitting in the center of it all on a red and white checkered picnic blanket is our little green-haired Lulu. She even brought the oranges.

“Oh, thank the First Star. She’s here.” A gentle breeze pushes some of the mist away as Janna steps out from behind a tall pine next to us. She must have come up the opposite way from camp. Even she is a little out of breath.

“Lux!” Lulu jumps up. I can’t stop myself from running to her. I’m running so hard, the ground shakes. Wait, no... I stop running, but the ground’s still shaking. A greenish black glow starts to emanate like sickly veins beneath the mist. A vibration rumbles in time with the now pulsing glow.

“Lulu.” I can barely hear myself over the deep growl of the moving rock beneath us.

“We’re not alone. New stars are coming, Lux.” The innocence in Lulu’s eyes has disappeared. She takes my hand. “I’ve seen them in my dreams.”

Even though she’s standing right next to me, her voice sounds so far away. Like she’s still caught in that dream.

Jinx, Poppy, and Janna circle around the edge of the meadow. The earth heaves beneath my feet.

“Stay back!” I shout.

The warning comes too late. The cracks break into deep fissures. The mist ruptures and a horde of black insects the size of dogs comes crawling out, dripping an eerie green light.

Staff in hand, I reflect a beam of Starlight to the nearest creature. The light hits the creature beneath its winged carapace. It explodes in a disgusting burst of lucent green goo.

“By Starlight,” I whisper. “They have wings.”

I shout to the others. “They have wings! We can’t let them reach the camp!”

“Woo-hoo.” I can hear Jinx whooping over the fray. “Shiro. Kuro. Who’s feeling ferocious?!” Missiles start firing before she even finishes her sentence. “Come on Short Stack, it’s bug squashing time.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice, Rocket Breath,” Poppy shouts back.

I see Janna rise off the ground a few feet. “Hold on, Lulu.” I feel her fingers tighten around mine. Janna’s voice echoes in the field.

“For tranquility!” A gust of wind blows the mist from the meadow. Several of the creatures get caught in the whirlwind eddies, smashing into heavy tree trunks. Now that the fog is gone, I see there’s way more of the awful little things than I thought. This isn’t like the other attacks. We’re in way over our heads.

“Look, the new stars!” Lulu shouts.

Five lights streak across the sky. They’re heading straight for us. I follow their arc as they touch down. The lights separate and hit the meadow in a perfect, five point landing. Several of the creatures explode with their impact.

When the dust and goo settle, I nearly have to pick my jaw up off the floor.

It’s Ahri and her entourage. Miss Fortune, Syndra, Ezreal, even the quiet, mint-haired girl.

“You’re a Star Guardian?” I yell. “You’re all Star Guardians?” No one can hear me over the fray. That, and everyone is listening to Ahri.

“Time to shine, ladies,” she says. Her smile alone could light up the meadow. “You too, Ezreal.”

They move as an efficient, synchronized unit. Miss Fortune raises a gleaming white pistol and fires the first shot. It blows through one creature and right through to the one behind it. It’s the first time I’ve seen her smile and I count my lucky stars that I’m not the current object of her attention. Ahri and Ezreal are blurs of light as they dash into and out of the fight. The creatures are definitely not fast enough to keep up. Ahri giggles and blows a kiss towards one of the bigger monsters. Seemingly even more mindless than before, it starts to walk slowly toward her and the glowing orbs she’s playing with. Her giggle stops cold as she lobs the orb at the creature, obliterating it in a burst of dark ooze.

Syndra hangs back, but only for a moment, entering the fray with three of her own orbs. The maniacal grins on the balls could give Kuro and Shiro a run for for their money. At the center, the girl with mint green hair raises a long staff in the air, channeling Starlight from above. Looking at her, I feel my racing heart start to slow down and my breathing get easier. Ahri’s orb catches the last creature effortlessly, exploding it in a shower of black insect exoskeleton and bioluminescent goo. As quickly as the new team had arrived, it’s over.

Ahri rubs the tips of her fingers together as she gathers her orbs, obviously not pleased by the creature’s residue. Syndra juggles her dark purple familiars while her casual arrogance lifts her up above the mess.

“All in a night’s work, eh Soraka?” Ezreal says, giving the quiet girl a wink. “Thanks for the little pick me up.”

Soraka maintains a serene smile while nodding enthusiastically at Ez.

Obviously satisfied with all the excitement, Ez smiles in my direction as his winged familiar tucks itself neatly back into his gauntlet. Miss Fortune blows a trail of smoke from her twin pistols and ignores both of them.

The easy moment is fleeting as the ground rumbles again. Before I can count to two, the earth ruptures, knocking me back. I hit my head hard against a log.

“Ow.” I try and shake off the metallic whine now stuck between my ears. I stop moving when I see the meadow itself is going all wonky, like the fabric of space and time is warping in front of me. The green glow is back and stronger than before.

“Lulu! Jinx!” I search for the girls, but all I can see is the hulking carapace of what looks like a space bug the size of two elephants emerging from the biggest rupture in the ground.

I feel the ground ripple and then there’s a streak of light in front of me. A white gauntleted glove reaches out and catches my hand as the earth beneath me starts to give way.

It’s Ez.

“Told you I’d catch you later.” His voice is drowned out in the chaos. “That inter-dimensional nasty isn’t going to explode itself.” The world is literally going to pieces and he’s still smiling. “You ready, Starlight?”

I nod. Ready as I’ll ever be. He lifts me up, launching me into the sky above the monster. From this vantage point I can see everyone.

Janna and Soraka contain a new horde of little evils crawling up from the smaller cracks. Ahri, Miss Fortune, and Syndra begin taking those out as they start to maneuver into a better position against the big one. I land close to Lulu as she avoids the monster’s many limbs while Pix zaps at the smaller creatures. Jinx and Poppy look like they’re arguing at the edge of the field. I can barely hear them above the fray.

“You want me to what?” Jinx yells.

“The Rocket. Fire me on the Rocket!” Poppy shouts back.

“Poppy!” Jinx’s jaw drops in shock. Then a smile slowly blossoms on her face as she leans over and excitedly hugs the short blue haired girl next to her. “I thought you’d never ask.”

A moment later Poppy is riding a missile towards the creature’s dripping maw, hammer in hand. The hammer connects with a loud crack. The creature reels back. Its moment is up. I lift my wand and channel Starlight into it. The creature’s sharp incisors snap greedily in the air. It sees Lulu at its feet and opens wide.

My beam of light smashes into it, bursting right out of the back of its head. A spray of noxious liquid drenches the field. The creature screeches and starts to topple over.

Its heavy, flailing limbs reach back in its death throes. Right where Lulu is. I look around. There isn’t anyone closer. I dive in and push Lulu out of the way. Black monster pieces rain down on top of me.

And then it all goes dark.

The first thing I can hear is canvas flapping gently. And birds chirping. My fingers are resting on a thin blanket. I crack my eyes open. Sunlight stabs me in the eye through the four little holes in the ceiling. I’m in my tent.

“Ugh... What…” The words get caught in my dry mouth. I try to sit up more, but think better of it as the ceiling starts to spin. “…am I?”

“Not dead,” a too-cool voice answers.

The fabric at the foot of my sleeping bag pulls as someone adjusts their position. I try and squint through the dizziness. Ahri tucks her perfectly peach hair behind her ear.

“You took quite a fall last night,” she says.

The events of the night start rushing back in some kind of horribly disjointed movie. Running through the woods. The field. The creatures. Lulu. Then everything crumbling around me. It wasn’t just a bad dream.

I bolt up, completely regretting the sudden move a moment later when my brain catches up and slams into the inside of my head.

“Lulu? Is she?” I grimace a little in pain. I rub my forehead to try and shake off the headache.

“Everyone’s fine. I sent them to get breakfast,” she says. “I’ve been told there’s a hammer with my name on it if I don’t tell the stubby, blue one when you’ve woken up.”

Ahri picks up a canteen that’s sitting next to her. She hands it to me.

I look at her as I take a sip of the cold water. This close and I can see that we can’t actually be that far apart in age. But there’s something about her. More experience. More confidence. She’s seen more of what the universe can throw at us. She’s the leader we’re meant to have. I know it.

“I wanted to tell you, you made the right choice,” she says. “Risking yourself and stepping in like that.”

“It was nothing,” I say, pushing away the compliment. “Any one of us would have done it. It’s what Star Guardians do. We’re sisters.”

She laughs softly, but then a touch of darkness washes over her face. A moment later it’s gone, the mask of perfection back in its place.

“We’re not sisters,” she says quietly, her voice tinged with regret. “We’re just strangers with memories.”

She stands up.

“We’ve sealed the incursion point. My team will be returning to the city this morning. We’ll take care of anything that comes up from now on. You and your girls can stay here until you’re recovered. Enjoy the summer sun. After that, stay out from underfoot.”

“Wait, you’re not going to lead us?” I ask, confused. My head is pounding. “Like, all of us together? With a team twice as big, we’re twice as strong. We worked great together last night.”

“You almost got yourself killed last night,” she says.

I’m not listening anymore. “Together, there isn’t anything we can’t face.”

“No, Lux,” she says with an air of finality. “Together, there’s so much more to lose.”

And just like that, dismissed again. Ahri turns to leave.

“Star Guardians are a team,” I say. I swallow the tightness in my throat. I’m not going to beg, but I can try to make her see reason. “It’s our destiny.”

Ahri pauses. She looks at me carefully. The tent flap is open; the bright sun divides her face in light and shadow. “Destiny?” she says; a subtle bitterness creeps into her voice. “That’s such an ugly word.”

The flap of canvas closes behind her. I can feel my face getting hot in frustration. She’s a Star Guardian leader. Why won’t she lead us? Why is she leaving me alone? I stare up at the top of the tent. The four holes of light dance above me.

Not alone. Jinx and Poppy and Lulu and Janna are out there. They need someone. I can’t just let this go if I’m all they’ve got.

I lurch to my feet and stumble towards the light outside. I don’t have time to wait for the world to stop spinning.

Jinx was right.

Summer’s not going to last forever.

Tamara forces herself to rise early - an easy habit to get into when the earth is your bed and fallen leaves the only blanket. Less so when the mattress is stuffed with goose down and the sheets woven from soft cotton. The curtains are pulled back, and warm light pools on the floor of her third floor boarding room. She’d closed the curtains on her first night in Piltover and had slept two hours past dawn, which worried her so much, she has never closed them since.

Swinging herself out of bed, she strides naked to the window and taps the colored glass with a callused fingertip, black with sooty residue from the workshop. The light shimmers on her skin, her frame wolf-lean and wiry-muscled. Despite that, she rubs a hand across her belly as if fearing it has grown soft. Below her, the cobbled street is already busy with stall-holders setting up to catch Progress Day’s early trade. Colorful bunting to celebrate this auspicious day is strung between every building, giving the narrow street a festive atmosphere so unlike the city Tamara calls home. Cog and key banners of gold and crimson silk hang from the distant towers glittering on the upper slopes of the clan districts. It is there the rivers of gold said to flow through Piltover’s streets have their source.

Tamara grins at the thought and turns from the window. Her room is meticulously tidy, a place for everything and everything in its place. Notebooks are stacked at one corner of her workbench, alongside carefully arranged tools, hex-calipers and folded schemata. Yesterday’s lunch of black bread, cheese and dried fruit sits unopened in muslin wrapping next to her tools. A small metalworking forge is ingeniously built into the brick wall, the fumes carried to the roof via a twisting series of iron pipes. At the center of the desk is a wooden box in which sits the device that has taken her many months of effort to construct, working from the plans etched into rolls of wax-paper she keeps hidden beneath her mattress.

She reaches under her bed for the chamber pot and relieves herself before quickly freshening up with the powders and tinctures provided by her host. She dresses in the rugged clothes of an apprenta; simple leggings, an undershirt equipped with numerous pockets and a wrap-around doublet with an ingenious system of hooks and eye fasteners that can be ripped off with one quick pull. She’d been puzzled at the need for this until Gysbert had blushingly told her it was to make it easier to get off in the event of it catching fire in a workshop.

She checks her reflection in a polished glass mirror hanging on a brass hook on the back of her door, brushing her long dark hair back over her ears and securing it with a leather thong and copper hair-clips. Tamara runs her fingers over her high cheekbones then along the line of her chin, and is satisfied by what she sees. Colette keeps telling her she could do more with her looks, but her friend is young and hasn’t yet learned the danger of being memorable.

Tamara places the wooden box in her shoulder bag, together with the muslin wrapped food and a selection of notebooks and pencils. She’s nervous, but that’s understandable. This is a big day for her, and she doesn’t want to fail.

She removes the chair wedging her door shut and turns the locking wheel to release the bars securing it in place. Compared to where she comes from, Piltover is a safe place, its violent crime rate absurdly low. Its inhabitants are untroubled by the everyday violence of most other cities, but they are not so foolish as to believe they can do without locks on their doors.

Especially in the weeks leading up to Progress Day.

Tamara locks her door and pauses on her way down the stairs to empty her chamber pot in the boarding house’s central chute for the disposal of night-soil. She used to wonder where it ended up, before realizing that shit only ever flows downward. Somewhere below in Zaun, there’s a garden that likely blooms like no other. She places the pot in its assigned cubbyhole for cleaning, and makes her way down the winding screw-stair to the communal dining room. A few of her fellow apprenta are either breaking their fast or frantically tinkering with the devices they hope will finally get them noticed by one of the clans. Tamara places a hand over her shoulder bag, feeling a sense of pride at what she has made. She’d followed the plans exactly, even though the finishing touches went against the grain of her stoic professionalism.

She waves in response to a few weary hellos, but doesn’t stop to talk. Few of them will have slept more than an hour or two a night for the last fortnight, and she will be surprised if some of them don’t fall asleep during their auditions today. She’s out the door to the street before anyone can delay her, and the brightness of the sun pulls her up short.

The high buildings of her street are constructed of square-cut limestone and chamfered timber. Embellished with bronze facings, leaded glass and copper eaves, dazzling sunlight glitters from every surface. The streets are busy and loud, filled with moderately well-dressed men and women moving back and forth. Couriers push between apparitors, victuallers and tallymen, who shout after them and wave their fists. A few vagabond tinkers ply their suspect wares on canvas cloths atop barrelheads, ready to run at the first sight of a warden. Sumpsnipes who’ve hitched a lift on the Rising Howl from Zaun lurk at the edges of the street, scanning the passing trade for someone to cutpurse. These are the younger, inexperienced ones, forced away from the easy pickings of the cross-chasm bridges by the older, stronger kids.

Tamara keeps a wary eye on them as she moves down the street, her steps precise and measured. She has little enough worth stealing, but the last thing she needs today is a sumpsnipe picking something he shouldn’t from her. The smell of roasting fish and fresh-baked Shuriman sunbread from an open dining hall makes her mouth water. Instead, she stops a woman pushing a wheeled barrel encircled by hissing pipes and purchases a hot tisane, together with one of the sugared pastries she has come to love a little too much.

“Happy Progress Day, dearheart!” says the woman as Tamara places a silver gear in her hand and tells her to keep the change. “May the cogs turn clockwise for you today, my lovely.”

The woman’s accent sounds oddly lean and leisurely to Tamara, as if she has all the time in the world to voice what she wants to say, yet it is not uncommon this close to the Boundary Markets: a blend of Piltovan affectation and the looser familiarity of Zaun.

“Thank you,” replies Tamara. “May the Gray never rise to your door.”

The woman taps her head and her heart, a sure sign that she is born of parents from above and below. As much as the citizens of Piltover and Zaun like to pretend they are separate entities, both are far more intertwined than they might openly admit. Tamara wolfs down her pastry and follows the road to its end, exactly twenty steps distant, where it meets the larger thoroughfare of Horologica Avenue. She turns right, finishing her tisane and counting her steps as she crosses each intersecting street. The buildings here are grander than the apprenta quarter where she’s billeted, fashioned from polished granite and ironwork columns.

Many boast flickering chemtech lamps that give the morning air a crisp, actinic flavor. It seems pointless to burn them given the early hour, but Tamara has learned a great deal of Piltover society is dominated by perceived wealth and power - one being a factor of the other. It’s everywhere she looks: in the cut of the clothes people wear, the vividness of the colors and the extent of their publicized philanthropy. Tamara sees numerous couples taking their morning constitutional; well-appointed men and women adorned with subtle augments. One woman wears an implanted cheek-plate with a gem-like hextech loupe over one eye. Her arm is linked with a man bearing a metallic gauntlet that flickers with traceries of light. Across the street, another hunched man in overalls wears what appears to be some form of breathing apparatus on his back - tanks filled with bubbling greenish liquid that vent puffs of atomized vapor.

She sees people look on in admiration and wonderment, but her gaze has been trained to notice what others do not.

The two hextech augments are fake.

Tamara has studied Piltover’s emergent technology closely enough to know what is real and what is not. The cheek-plate is molded silver glued to the woman’s face, and her loupe is nothing more than a lapidary’s lens engraved with a maker’s mark she assumes is fictional. Her beau’s hand is an ordinary bronze gauntlet with glass channels filled with bioluminescent algae scraped from one of Zaun’s cultivairs. Only the breathing apparatus is genuine, and the bloodshot redness of the hunched man’s eyes, combined with the tougher, hard-wearing nature of his overalls, tells Tamara he is from a deep level of Zaun.

She travels from Horologica Avenue to Glasswell Street, along the winding Boulevard of a Hundred Taverns and thence into Sidereal Avenue to Incognia Plaza, where Zindelo’s great sphere sits inactive as it has done since the inventor’s mysterious disappearance last year. Crowds gather around the latticework artifact; gaggles of would-be inventors, artists and pallid, hack-coughed Zaunites who have traveled up-city for the day.

Deep in his cups, Gysbert has told her Progress Day is viewed very differently down in his hometown of Zaun, which he insists was the original City of Progress before Piltover came along. Above, Progress Day marks the moment the Sun Gates opened for the first time, allowing trade to pass easily between the east and west of Valoran. It also marks the moment when taxation on that trade turned the trickle of gold entering the city’s coffers into a fast flowing river. Below in Zaun, it is a day to remember those lost in the geological upheaval that created the east-west passage and submerged entire districts underwater.

One day, two very different perceptions.

Tamara passes through the square, avoiding sprinting pneuma-tube runners as they race to bear messages to their destinations. A promenade courtier, Noami Kimba, waves to her and blows her a kiss. They have met three times in the sultry air of evening, and each time Kimba has offered her a chance to spend the night in her arms. Tamara has refused each time, too busy for any diversions, but if she is able to stay longer than today, she may take her up on the next offer. She makes her way to the plaza’s northern archway as a massively bearded man with metaled shoulder guards and an iron skullcap enters. His arms are pneumatic, piston-driven monstrosities, and Tamara recognizes one of the nameless hierophant cultists of the Glorious Evolved. He grunts at her, before entering the square to harangue passers-by with his zealous blend of theology and techno-sorcery. She leaves him to it and turns onto Oblique Lane, heading toward Techmaturgy Bridge, counting her steps as she goes.

The city opens up before her, revealing the great split that divides northern and southern Piltover. The yawning chasm looks as though it ought to be ancient, the result of natural geological forces, but it came into existence within living memory and nothing natural created it. Man’s hubris and desire to master the elements wrought it. Tamara admires the strength of will it must have taken to enact a plan of such audacity that the splitting of the earth and the destruction of half of Zaun was seen as an acceptable price to pay for future prosperity.

The great tower of the College of Techmaturgy rises arrogantly from the wide canyon, anchored to the upper cliffs by swaying suspension bridges and thick iron cables that thrum like musical strings when the winds blow in hard from the ocean. The main bridge is an arched wonder of steel and stone, thronged with people moving between Piltover’s two halves and cursing the vintners and purveyors of sweetmeats whose rival stalls have created a bottleneck at its center. Revelers still drunk from the night before are shepherded onward by wardens in blue jackets, gleaming boots and checkered trousers. In any other city, they would look ridiculous, but here their gaudy appearance actually seems normal. Sumpsnipes with razor-rings dart through the crowds and more than one reveler will be returning home with what remains of their purse slit and emptied.

The north of the city is where the bulk of the clans have their mansions and heavily guarded workshop compounds. Most of the traffic today is heading in that direction. She sees a good many apprenta making their way across the bridge, each bearing their invention with the care of a mother bearing a newborn babe. She seeks out the familiar faces of Gysbert and Colette, but there are simply too many people to pick out her fellow apprenta. Tamara reaches the end of the bridge, and takes a breath. Normally, she is not scared of high places, but the dizzying scale of the height difference between Piltover and Zaun is breathtaking.

Two statues of robed officials flank the road onto the bridge, one representing the spirit of wealth, the other the essence of honesty. Tamara digs out a bronze washer and places the coin in the outstretched palm of the first statue. The weight of it triggers an internal mechanism and the fingers close over the coin. When they open a moment later, it has gone.

“I always go with the other one,” says a man appearing beside her. He is handsome, dark-haired, and smooth-skinned, which means he is rich. His breath reeks of last night’s shimmerwine. “I find it helps to pay for the things I don’t have.”

Tamara ignores him and carries on her way.

He moves after her, made persistent by the dulled senses of a hangover and too much money in his purse.

“Here, now wait a minute, there’s no need to be rude, young lady.”

“I’m not being rude, I have somewhere to be and I don’t want to talk to you,” she says.

He follows her onto the bridge with a laugh that tells her he sees her as a challenge, someone he thinks he can buy with a few gold hex.

“Aha, you’re an apprenta, aren’t you?” he says, finally recognizing her clothes and seeing the bag on her shoulder. “On your way to the auditions, eh? Hoping to catch the eye of an artificer and be snatched up by one of the great houses, are we?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes,” she answers, hoping against hope that he will hear the brusqueness of her tone and leave her alone. Instead, he increases his pace and stands in front of her, blocking her passage across the bridge. He looks her up and down, as though examining a piece of livestock he’s thinking of buying.

“You’re a fine looking specimen, my girl. A bit bony, but nothing a few meals at Lacabro’s wouldn’t sort, eh? What do you say? It’s Progress Day, everyone should have a bit of fun, eh?”

“I’m not interested,” says Tamara, moving to push past him. “Get out of my way and leave me alone.”

“Now listen here, lass, my name is Cella Allabroxus, and I know a few of the bigwigs on the north side,” he says, continuing to block her way. “Spend the morning with me and I’ll put in a good word for you, make sure your audition gets a bit of a boost, if you know what I mean?”

“No, thanks,” says Tamara, and she can see what’s coming next. He reaches for her arm, but she catches his hand before it makes contact, twisting it around and drawing a surprised gasp of pain from him. If she applies even a fraction more pressure, his wrist will snap like kindling. She uses his pain to maneuver him toward the bridge’s parapet. Her fear of heights quite forgotten, she presses Cella Allabroxus back against the waist-high stonework.

“I asked you nicely to leave me alone,” she says, pressing hard on Allabroxus’s wrist and drawing a whimper of pain from him. “Now I’m asking again, albeit not so nicely. Leave me alone or I will push you off this bridge and when they find what’s left of you spread out over the rooftops of Zaun, they’ll think you were just another drunk who couldn’t walk a straight line over the bridge. Are we clear?”

He nods, in too much pain to speak.

“I don’t need your ‘good word’ or any kind of ‘boost’. I’m pretty damn good at what I do, and I’ll stand or fall on my own, thank you very much. Now smile at me, walk away and go home. Sleep off the wine and remember this moment any time you feel like being discourteous to a lady.”

Cella Allabroxus gasps as Tamara releases his wrist. For a moment she sees he is tempted to retort with something offensive, but she cocks an eyebrow and he thinks better of it. Cradling his wrist, he scurries back the way he came and Tamara lets out a weary sigh. She catches the eye of a sumpsnipe gang loitering on the other side of the roadway and nods in the direction of the fleeing Allabroxus. The footpads take her meaning and race after the man.

“What was that all about?” says a young voice behind her.

The tautness drains from Tamara’s body and she lets a looseness return to her limbs. The cold determination Allabroxus saw falls from her face, replaced with an open smile.

“Nothing,” she says, turning to see Gysbert and Colette. “Just a drunk who thought he’d try his luck.”

“You’re late,” says Gysbert, pointing over the parapet at the dulled metal sides of a mechanized clocktower a hundred feet or so below the level of the bridge. “Look.”

“What are you talking about?” answers Tamara. “I don’t think Old Hungry’s told the right time in years.”

“True,” he says, and though he’s trying to look angry, his eyes speak only of infatuation. “But we agreed to meet before Old Hungry’s shadow was past the Techmaturgy tower.”

He points to where the dark outline of the mysterious clocktower has fallen across the lower laboratory levels of the tower, where greenish-gray fumes leak from hornpipe vents. “See?”

Tamara smiles and puts her hand on his shoulder. He glances down at the point of contact and any anger he might actually be feeling vanishes.

Colette rolls her eyes and says, “Come on, let’s get going. Gysbert might be foolish enough to forgive your lateness, but Clan Medarda won’t. They shut the gates at third bell and they rang the second before we reached the bridge.”

The manor house of Clan Medarda is not far from the northern end of the bridge, but the streets are busy and there will be many others seeking entry to display their creations at the auditions.

“You’re right,” says Tamara, hefting her shoulder bag and patting the device within. “Let’s go and show those rich sons of bitches what we can make.”

The gates of Clan Medarda’s mansion house are imposing creations of tempered steel set in a high wall of alabaster white stone. Bronze busts of its illustrious family members sit in numerous alcoves along the length of the wall, including the clan’s current head, Jago Medarda. Scores of eager apprenta are gathered by the opened gates, each bearing a prized invention they hope will see them secure a contract of servitude with this illustrious house. The politeness on display is endearing to Tamara, with each apprenta being careful not to jostle their neighbor’s creation.

Men in the clan’s colors, armed with swords and pikes, guard the entrance, checking the authenticity of each supplicant’s paperwork before allowing them entry. Tamara watches them as they work, admiring their professionalism and thoroughness. A few apprenta are turned away, their papers incorrectly stamped or fraudulent. They don’t protest, but simply walk away with a resigned shrug.

When it’s their turn, Tamara, Colette, and Gysbert are allowed in without a hitch. Colette had taken it upon herself to ensure their papers were in order, and the youngster is a stickler for details. It’s a trait Tamara believes will stand the girl in good stead in the years to come.

Just as they pass through the gates and third bell rings from the Piltover Treasury building, Tamara feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She has learned to trust this instinct over the years and pauses, as if to adjust the straps of her shoulder bag, looking back to the street. Sitting on the rim of a marble fountain is a woman wearing the loosely tied jacket of a Piltover sheriff, a customized cap pulled low over her shadowed features. One leg is cocked at an angle, her elbow resting atop it as her gaze sweeps the throng of apprenta. There’s a long-barreled rifle over her shoulder, one with what looks like a gleaming gemstone enclosed in a lattice of silver wire. Her gaze pauses on Tamara, who turns away before it can linger too long.

Tamara knows that look: it is the look of a hunter.

The gates shut and she catches up to Colette and Gysbert, who stand in a twenty-strong crowd staring in open-mouthed wonder at what seems at first glance to be a simple carriage. But then Tamara notices the underslung hextech pod and the knot of gold and silver cabling linking it to the front and rear axles. A soft light glows within the pod and Tamara tastes copper on her tongue.

“It’s a self-locomotor,” says Gysbert. “One of Uberti’s designs, if I’m not mistaken.”

“It can’t be,” says Tamara. “She works exclusively for Clan Cadwalder.”

“Not for long, I hear,” says Colette.

“What do you mean?” asks Gysbert.

“Scuttlebut around the workbench says one of Medarda’s agents stole a copy of the schematics,” says Colette, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Rumor has it things got pretty bloody. Bodies all cut up, that sort of thing. Folks are saying Clan Torek are looking to lure her away, but Clan Cadwalder won’t admit anything, of course.”

“Well, they wouldn’t, would they?” says Tamara, as the lacquered black doorway to the manor house opens. “A public admission that their head artisan’s designs were stolen would make them look weak.”

A steward bearing a long black staff and liveried in the crimson and gold of Clan Medarda ushers the hopeful apprenta into the manor house. Tamara hears sighs of wonderment as he leads them through its vaulted antechambers, luxurious reception rooms and grand galleries. The clan’s conspicuous wealth is displayed for all to see in gold-framed portraits that fill entire walls, giant sandstone statues of beast-headed warriors conveyed at enormous expense from Shuriman tombs, and crossed weapons that bear the hallmarks of Ionian design. The floors are gleaming marble flagstones, the grand staircase wide and crafted from the whorled boles of Freljordian Ironwood trees.

Tamara sees that everything in this house is artfully crafted to intimidate and remind the visitor just how little their achievements matter in the face of what Clan Medarda has acquired. She looks up in time to see a woman in a floor-length gray dress and crimson-tasseled pelisse glide being escorted across a mezzanine level by another steward. The heels of her boots click with a strange metallic cadence, and she looks down upon the herd of apprenta with the ghost of a smile creasing her lips as she passes from sight.

Eventually the steward halts their march in a moderately sized waiting room with a herringbone-patterned floor and a Revek clock fashioned from ivory and mother-of-pearl that keeps time with metronomic precision. An imposing set of black-lacquered doors with a hatch at eye level leads onward, but the steward raps his staff on the wooden floor and indicates that they should sit on benches set against each wall.

“When your name is called, enter the proving chamber,” he says. “Move to the lectern and state your name. Give a short explanation of what you will be demonstrating, followed by a brief - and I cannot stress that word enough, brief - explanation of its workings. You will be judged by the learned artificers of Clan Medarda, so assume they know more than you. My advice is to keep your answers short, as they bore easily. If you are successful, take the left door onward. If you are unsuccessful, take the right door onward. That is all. And good luck.”

The steward has given this speech many times before, but Tamara hears sincerity in his last words to them. She places a hand on her shoulder bag, knowing that on any other day, the device within would be enough to secure her a place at any one of Piltover’s clan houses. She shares a look with Gysbert and Colette. Both are nervous, and she is surprised to find her own heart racing. She has spent so long preparing for the Progress Day audition that the thought of stumbling at this last hurdle makes her sick to her stomach. It has been a long time since she felt this way, and she smiles, welcoming the sensation. It will keep her sharp and focused. She reaches over to take Gysbert’s hand and gives it a squeeze. Sweat dapples his brow and he smiles weakly in thanks. Colette is staring straight ahead, scanning the faces on the other side of the room, no doubt wondering who might make the cut and who will fall by the wayside.

The hatch in the black door slides back and everyone tenses. A name is called, and a young girl across from them stands. The door opens from the other side and she shuffles nervously through it. A musty smell of aged wood and charged atmosphere gusts from the proving chamber, and Tamara tries to imagine what it will be like.

Another six apprenta pass through the door before one of their names is called. Colette is first, and she stands with determination, lets out a breath, and walks through the door without a backward glance.

“She’ll be great,” says Gysbert under his breath. “I know it.”

“So will you, Gys,” says Tamara, though she suspects his nerves will likely get the better of him. The kid from Zaun is skilled, but more than just his nerves will count against him in the grand halls of a Piltovan clan.

Two more apprenta are called. Looking at the clock, Tamara sees each audition is getting shorter. Are the learned artisans of Clan Medarda already getting bored? Will that count for or against those yet to demonstrate their devices?

Gysbert all but jumps off the bench when his name is called. He almost drops his bag, but catches it at the last minute, his face red with worry and dripping in sweat.

“Take a deep breath,” Tamara advises him. “You know this stuff. Your work is good.”

“But is it good enough?” he asks.

Tamara thinks she knows the answer, but nods and says, “It is.”

He passes through the door and more apprenta are called until only Tamara remains. The room is empty, but she can’t shake the feeling that she is being watched. When her name is finally called, it is a relief, and she takes a moment to compose herself before turning and stepping through the door into the proving room.

The chamber beyond is circular and illuminated by glowing spheres of glass that float above sconces carved in the shape of outstretched hands, as though giving light to the world. It’s all Tamara can do to suppress a sneer at the rampant self-aggrandizement. It is a lecture theater, with tiered benches rising in concentric rings to the back wall. A plain wooden lectern and workbench sit in the center of the room, and two doors lead onward. Left for success, right for failure.

The tiered benches are capable of holding at least a hundred people, but only five sit before her. Two men and three women, all wearing the crimson robes of masters. They are scratching on great ledgers with gold-plated quills that echo noisily in the chamber’s excellent acoustics. Every one of them bears a genuine hextech augment, and she senses their eagerness to be done.

“Name?” says one of the women without looking up.

“Tamara Lautari.”

“What will you be demonstrating?” asks one of the men. His lips do not move, and his voice grates artificially from a mesh-fronted neck brace.

Tamara sets her bag down on the workbench and removes her creation, an arrangement of wirework struts arranged in a cube with an acid-engraved sphere at its center.

“I call it the Hex-Armillary Amplifier.”

“How do you hope it will function?” he asks again, and Tamara tries not to show how much his mechanically-rendered voice disturbs her.

“By harnessing the properties of a crystal and exponentially increasing its output beyond anything that’s been achieved so far.”

She says the words neutrally, but the arrogance of what she says does not go unnoticed. Every one of the masters now fixes their gaze upon her. They are likely used to hearing grand claims from apprenta, but the confidence in her tone clearly piques their interest.

“And how will you do that?” asks a white-haired man with a gem-faceted eye set in a porcelain plate upon his burn-scarred face.

“The geometries of a crystal are vital, as is the axis upon which it spins,” says Tamara, opening a delicate hatch in the sphere to reveal a precisely engineered cradle. Thin chains, like those of an expensive necklace, hang down, ready to secure a power crystal. “My device reads the speed and angle of spin, adjusting it to achieve optimum power delivery.”

“Absurd,” says a woman with an artificial arm and the penetrating gaze of an academic who has heard every wild idea from her students and dismissed them all. “There is no time in the discharge of a crystal’s power to adjust it with any degree of control. Praveen tried the same thing two years ago and almost brought down half the goldsmithing district.”

“Respectfully, ma’am, I disagree.”

“Your disagreement is irrelevant, apprenta. Can you prove it? Can you demonstrate what you claim?”

“I believe so,” replies Tamara.

“Belief is not the basis of science,” says the woman, as if speaking to a confident but ill-informed child. “Empirical evidence is what is demanded.”

“I can do it,” promises Tamara.

The woman looks unconvinced, but nods and says, “Very well, you may begin.”

A hatch slides open in the workbench beside Tamara. A fretwork stand rises from below, holding a small, faceted crystal of sapphire blue that shimmers with its own internal light.

A hextech crystal.

The crystal is no bigger than her thumbnail, but it is the future.

This is what could make the clans of Piltover rulers of the world if they so desired. Or, if not them, whoever can craft it more efficiently and without the years of work to produce a single item. This crystal has only a low level of power left in it, but it is still immeasurably powerful and outrageously valuable.

She hadn’t anticipated it would also be so beautiful.

“Well, go on then,” says the burn-scarred man. “Dazzle us.”

She lifts the crystal from its holder. It’s warm to the touch, vibrating at a level almost too subtle to detect. It is far heavier than she expects. With exquisite care, Tamara places the crystal within her sphere and fastens it with delicate chains. She checks it is secure and seals her device. The mechanism atop the cube is movable and she twists its interlocking parts to arrange the cardinal points of contact into their engaged positions.

Her device starts to hum as the conduits find a source of power in the crystal, and a soft blue glow emanates from within. Tamara grins as her device spools up. The hum builds and the taste of metal in her mouth grows stronger. It is getting louder now, unpleasantly so, pulsing in waves.

The light spheres around the hall pulse in concert with the rise and fall of the bass thrum coming from her device. It is moving across the workbench, the vibrations jittering it left and right, up and down. Crackles of energy flicker around the sphere, flaring from its upper surfaces like lightning running in reverse.

“Turn it off, Mistress Lautari!”

Tamara reaches for her device, but a whip of blue light lashes out, carving an angry red weal over the back of her hand. She flinches and backs away from her rapidly overloading device.

“I can’t,” says Tamara in dismay. “It’s optimizing too fast!”

She always knew this was going to happen, but she’d hoped the changes she made to the design wouldn’t fail quite as catastrophically as this. A bolt of blue fire arcs out of her machine toward one of the light spheres. It explodes in a shower of magnesium-bright sparks.

Another follows, then three more. Soon the only light is the violent blue glow of Tamara’s crackling device. The woman with the hextech arm stands and makes a fist. With a rush of sliding metal, the entire workbench falls into the floor, which promptly seals up after it. The outline of the trapdoor is briefly limned in light and a hard bang of detonation echoes from far below.

“A safety chamber,” says Tamara, relieved her device didn’t explode a few seconds earlier.

“Yes, Mistress Lautari,” says the woman, sitting back down and picking up her golden quill. “Do you think you are the first apprenta to come before us with a potentially lethal invention?”

“I suppose not,” answers Tamara. She is disappointed, but not surprised. This was always the intended outcome, despite the best efforts of professional pride to sabotage her purpose.

The man with the hextech eye writes in his ledger and speaks without looking at her.

“I think you know which door to take.”

Tamara’s exit from Clan Medarda’s mansion is far less grand than her entrance. The rightmost door opens into a bare stone corridor that winds downward through the rock of the cliffs until it reaches a steel door with enough reinforcement to withstand a siege ram. A heavily muscled enforcer type with hexdraulic arms and a helmet she’s not sure is actually a helmet opens the door. She’s barely through it before it’s slammed shut behind her.

It opens onto a side street lower down the city, one that leads back to the cliffs. Not quite Zaun, but not entirely Piltover. The street is paved with mismatched cobbles and foggy with low lying scraps of the Zaun Gray. Gysbert sits opposite on a crumbling brick wall, the smashed remains of his device lying strewn at his feet.

He smiles as he sees her and says, “It didn’t go well?”

“Not exactly.”

“What happened?”

“It exploded.”

His eyes widen in surprise. He laughs, then claps a hand over his mouth. “Sorry, shouldn’t laugh. Exploded?”

She nods and grins. He laughs again.

“At least all mine did was fall apart,” he says. “Not that it matters. As if Medarda would let a Zaunite into their hallowed ranks!”

She ignores his bitterness and asks, “Have you seen Colette?”

Gysbert’s eyes light up at the prospect of delivering good news.

“I haven’t. I think she made it.”

Tamara lets out a sigh of relief.

“Well, at least one of us got in,” she says. “So… shall we drown our sorrows? It’s Progress Day, after all. I think we’ve earned a few after nearly blowing up the learned masters.”

A figure moves into view, lithe and silhouetted against the light at the end of the street. Others are with her, but they’re clearly deferring to her since she’s the one with the long-barreled rifle pulled tight to her shoulder. The weapon’s muzzle is unwavering, its sights firmly aimed at Tamara’s head. “Sorry, Mistress Lautari,” says the sheriff she’d seen earlier today, “but I don’t think you’ll be getting that drink.”

Gysbert’s protests are brushed aside as the sheriff and her men lead Tamara away. He hasn’t the courage to follow her, and she’s glad of that. She doesn’t want him dragged into this. She’s frogmarched toward the edge of the cliff, and for a wild moment she thinks they’re going to throw her over the edge.

But this is Piltover. They do things by the book here. Back home, she’d already have a knife in her guts or be sailing through the air on a long drop to the spires of the city below. Instead, they turn into a narrow overhanging street that winds along the line of the cliffs toward the great funicular that leads down to the busy wharves on the ocean passage through the city.

“Are you arresting me?” asks Tamara. “What did I do?”

“Really? You’re going to play dumb?” asks the sheriff. “We searched your room and found everything. The hextech journals, the schematics.”

“I’m an apprenta,” says Tamara. “I’m supposed to have schematics.”

They reach an iron-mesh platform attached to a collimated series of rails angled down toward the ocean and docks below. Hundreds of ships throng the wide channel, moored in the shadow of the titanic form of the Sun Gates that allow sea transit from east to west. Some are just passing through, while others berthed offload goods before filling their holds with the bounty Piltover and Zaun have to offer. Tamara sees Freljordian ice-runners, Noxian troop barques, Shuriman grain-galleys and even a few vessels that look suspiciously like they’ve recently sailed from the thieves’ haven of Bilgewater.

Watching over them all are Piltover’s warship squadrons: sleek, ebon-hulled vessels with twin banks of oars and iron-sheathed rams. Rumor has it they’re powered by more than just the strength of their oarsmen and that each is equipped with a battery of powerful hextech weaponry. Tamara doesn’t know if that’s true, but that people believe it is true is all that matters.

She’s jolted from thoughts of warships as three of the sheriff’s men bundle her onto the elevator, holding her tighter and more painfully than they need to.

“Maybe so, but I don’t think many apprenta have such detailed maps of Piltover hidden within their work. I’m Caitlyn, and I’ve walked a beat for more years than I care to count, so I know this city’s streets better than most. And I have to say, you did a damned accurate job. Even Vi could walk blindfold around Piltover with those plans and not get lost.”

“I don’t follow,” says Tamara, as Caitlyn pulls a lever and the angled elevator begins its juddering descent to the city’s lowest levels.

“Yeah, you’re more a trailblazer than a follower, aren’t you?”

“What does that mean?”

The sheriff doesn’t answer, and Tamara shakes her head, her eyes filling with tears.

“Look, I swear I don’t know what this is all about,” she says, her voice cracking and her chest heaving with sobs. “Please, I’m just an apprenta trying to catch a break. Signing a contract with Clan Medarda was my last chance to make something of myself before my father’s money runs out and I have to indenture myself to one of the Zaun Chem-forges. Please, you have to believe me!”

Her pleas fall on deaf ears, and neither the sheriff or her men bother to answer her increasingly histrionic pleas for compassion and understanding as their descent continues. When the elevator lurches to a halt on the dockside, it’s in the shadow of a Shuriman galleon riding high in the water, its holds freshly unloaded. Tamara sees all her worldly possessions stuffed into a metal cart used to haul grain from the holds of such vessels. Her journals and rolled up plans are inside, pages ripped and torn, months of painstaking work discarded like junk. She smells oil and knows what’s coming next. She throws off the grip of the men holding her and falls to her knees before Caitlyn.

“No! Please, don’t,” she weeps. “Please. I’m begging you!”

Caitlyn ignores her and walks over to the cart. She lifts a smoking pipe from a passing stevedore and tips its burning contents into the cart. The oil-soaked paper of Tamara’s books and plans bursts into flames with a whoosh of ignition. The fire consumes them swiftly, burning everything to ash in a matter of minutes. Smoke curls from the remains of Tamara’s work, and she spits at Caitlyn’s feet.

“Damn you,” she snaps. “May the Gray forever be at your door!”

“Nice try,” says Caitlyn, dragging her to her feet. “You’re pretty tricksy with that accent. It’s good, I’ll give you that. Just enough slang, just enough roughness, but I’ve heard every voice in this city, from top to bottom, and yours just doesn’t fit, you know? A little too much of the soot and spite from your homeland to really pull it off.”

“What are you talking about?” protests Tamara. “I was raised in upper Piltover. I’m a Goldview Lass! Born in sight of the Ecliptic Vaults! I swear I’m not lying!”

Caitlyn shakes her head. She’s tired of this game.

“No, your accent’s good, but it can’t quite cover that guttural Noxian superiority,” she says, punctuating her words with a finger jabbing into Tamara’s chest. “And I know what you are. Yeah, I’ve heard the fireside tales of the warmasons, the warriors who sneak into enemy territory and scout it out. You map out the terrain, find the best ways for an army to advance, laying the groundwork for invasion.”

Tamara doesn’t get the chance to deny the accusation as Caitlyn’s men march her up the gangway and onto the galleon. They hand her to two swarthy Shuriman bladesmen, hard-eyed killers who’d sell their own grandmother for half a silver gear.

“You don’t come back to Piltover,” says Caitlyn, resting her rifle in her arms. “If I see you again, I’ll put a bullet in your head. Understand?”

Tamara doesn’t answer. She sees Caitlyn means every word she says.

“Keep her below, then dump her somewhere unpleasant in Bel’zhun,” says Caitlyn to the shipmaster. “Or throw her overboard once you get far enough out, I don’t care.”

The ship is far out to sea by the time they let her up on deck. Too far from land to swim, but Tamara has no plans to get wet. She watches the glittering jewel of Piltover slide away over the horizon, sad to be leaving, but pleased her mission is finally over.

A shame her artfully prepared plans and schematics went up in smoke, but that was always a risk, and she can recreate them from memory. She closes her eyes and runs through the mental exercises that allow her to conjure walking Piltover’s streets at night, counting steps and mentally mapping every junction, street and winding alley.

She ponders which of the breadcrumbs she left in her wake allowed Caitlyn to draw the net around her, but supposes it doesn’t matter now. The sheriff of Piltover is clever, but Tamara has a nagging sensation it wasn’t actually Caitlyn who discovered her. That worries Tamara, as it means there is someone in Piltover she doesn’t know about who has cunning enough to unmask a warmason.

Whoever it was, and no matter how much they might think they know about the secretive Order of Warmasons, there’s one thing they haven’t yet realized.

That warmasons work in pairs and sometimes it pays to burn one to embed another more deeply in foreign lands.

Tamara smiles to herself, already imagining the valuable intelligence Colette will be gathering for Noxus in the heart of Clan Medarda.

She lies back on a bed of empty grain sacks and settles down to sleep.

What’s the difference between law and order?

Can you have one without the other? And what does either have to do with justice? Maybe it depends on who you ask. If you asked me, well, the young me, justice comes by cracking skulls.

Guess I’m feeling young today.

It’s still dark when I finally reach the Hall of Law. As is often the case, though not usually so early in the morning, I’m bringing guests with me. A pair of them, two from the seven I had caught vandalizing a row of shops and cafes down on Horologica Avenue. One is snoring from the light tap I gave him, but the other is wide awake, and quite the fan of colorful language.

“Pipe down—you’re disturbing my peace.” I tighten my metal fingers around his collar and nod to his accomplice, slung over my shoulder. “If I were you, I’d take a hint from your friend here.”

“This is brutality,” he hisses. “Where are we? In Noxus?”

“Noxus?” I have to stop myself from laughing. “I wish. If we were in Noxus, I’d be taking you to the Reckoning pits, not a shaming cell.”

The imagery gives him a jolt, and I get a few moments’ quiet before he’s back at it.

“You think you can silence us, but you can’t. We are going to expose your system of oppression and tear it down.”

“And breaking all the windows in a tea room accomplishes this, how? You’re just another bored, spoiled brat, looking for a reason to smash things. You aren’t helping anybody.”

“We’re speaking up for those without a voice!” he snaps. “For the poor and the downtrodden.”

I look at his clothes. New, clean. There hasn’t been a day he’s wanted for anything. “Well, I am one of those poor, downtrodden Zaunites, and my voice works just fine.”

“And now you’re part of the system.” He spits pink onto the street. “Put a few cogs in your pocket and you turn on anything. How do you sleep at night?”

There’s an itch I get, wearing these gauntlets. The urge to feel a ribcage wrap around my knuckles that on some days is damn near overpowering. Try as I might, his words have my blood getting hotter, and my hextech fists begin purring in response, ready for a scrap that’s usually sure to come. But I tamp it down.

“When I’m not rounding up idiots for smashing up tea rooms? I sleep like a baby.”

Mercifully we reach the doors.

“Here, help a poor Zaunite in need.” I use the talker’s head to knock. I confess letting a touch of my frustration slip into the last rap—it’s loud enough to get someone to work the lock from the other side.

“Warden Kepple.” I grin at the blinking face behind the slowly opening door.

“Getting an awful early start, eh, Vi?” he grumbles, pawing sleep from his eyes.

“Injustice never rests, my friend.” I drag my arrests through the door, giving Kepple the quick version of the morning’s events.

“I’ve apprehended two of them,” I finish. “Both suspects are…” I look at each of them, now both snoring in tandem. “Subdued.”

Kepple raises an eyebrow. “Sure seems like it. Sheriff Caitlyn’s already looking for ya, upstairs.”

“I trust you can handle the processing for this pair of recreational revolutionaries, then?”

“I’ll get it logged,” Kepple grunts as I dump one of the punks in his arms, and the mouthy one at his feet.

I flash a smile as I pass him. “You’re an asset to the force.”

Caitlyn’s office is a mess. The creaking wooden desk is smothered, hidden beneath a forest of brass pneuma-tube capsules and the endless forms, messages, and edicts that they contain. The sheriff is lost somewhere in that forest, rummaging through warrants and mandates and the demands of her bosses and the merchant clans. It doesn’t look like she’s left the room in days, leaving me to guess at how short her temper might be as I close the door behind me.

“Sit down,” she says without looking up, still digging around for something.

Straight to it, then.

“What, this about those punks?” I clear off a chair and sit, flexing the mechanical fingers of my right hand and propping my boots up on the corner of her desk. “They’ll be walking around again in a few days. If you ask me, I went easy on them.”

“This isn’t about that,” she answers, each word somehow more tired than the last. “There is something that has been brought to our attention, developments that are… complicated, that we need to look into. It’s about Zaun.”

I see then that it’s not all lack of sleep weighing Cait down. Something’s got her guard up, an apprehension that’s rare in a woman who can put a bullet through a silver cog from three streets away.

“Is it her?” I ask. Can’t keep the acid from my voice.

Cait finally stops hunting around her desk. Those sapphire eyes flick up to me. “No. This is something different. Something new.”

“New,” I repeat, though no more sense comes out of it.

Cait takes a slow breath. “Something is happening in the Sump.”

I cock my head. “That’s pretty damn far from our jurisdiction.”

“Ever since the split,” says Cait, “our cities have existed in symbiosis. Despite appearances, one can’t survive without the other, so a balance must be maintained.”

Split, they call it. Usually a split is clean and even. In this case, some rich merchants got excited about digging a canal, too excited to make sure the land was stable. They put half of Zaun under water. Drowning people in service of commerce, and the way that commerce has been divvied since, is pretty far from clean or even.

“A real easy way to break that balance would be to reach down into lower Zaun and start shaking things,” I point out. “But we aren’t talking about the Promenade here—there’s no overlap in the Sump where we can massage events after the fact and make matters slide.”

Cait sighs. “These are all topics that have been discussed and considered.”

“By who?” I ask. “Care to clue me in?”

“I am able to tell you as much as you need to know, and right now you don’t need to know that.”

“So what does this have to do with us?” I ask, fiddling with an empty pneuma-tube capsule. “What the undercity does is its own business.”

“Not this time.” Cait plucks the capsule from my hand, setting it down as she sits back against the desk. I frown. She isn’t normally this tight-lipped.

“What’s changed, then?”

“We don’t know,” Cait answers. “To find out, we need eyes down there, someone who knows Zaun. That’s where you come in.”

“This is all pretty vague, sheriff.” I shake my head. “What about the barons? You think they’re just gonna sit back and let Piltover send wardens down to their turf and start flipping tables?”

Cait gives me a tired grin. “Is that the big, bad Vi I hear, scared of a few little chem-barons?”

I cross my arms over my chest. “I just like to know who’s going to be looking for my scalp, is all.”

“The barons won’t be an issue.”

“Oh, really?” I raise an eyebrow. “And why is that?”

“Because they’re the ones asking for help.”

I sit up straighter at that.

“You’re right. This is new.” I shake my head. Something is very off with this, and I’m not getting anywhere close to the full picture. “Still a lot of bad blood between the barons and the Wardens. There’s a dozen ways this can go wrong.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much on that account,” she says, “because you won’t be going as a warden. Those kids you tuned up happened to have spawned from Clan Medarda, and their parents want your head.”

She holds up a sheaf of vellum missives. I can make out the calligraphy through the light coming in from the window. From that same window I hear the beginnings of a crowd gathering—an angry one.

“Lucky for you,” Cait says with a smile, “I talked them down. You can keep your head, so long as you’re out of the Wardens. You’re leaving town, going home to reflect and reconnect with your roots.”

“Cute story.” The word home sticks out, whether she meant it to or not. All these years here, guess I’m still a visitor—one who’s getting the boot for doing her job, because someone has enough cogs to think they’re above the law. “Convenient, too.”

“This means you’ll be on your own down there.” The levity drops from her voice. “No backup. And appearances must be kept up. I’ll need your badge, and your hands.”

“Go down to Zaun…” I work the clasps on my gauntlets and take them off. “Don’t know what I’m looking for, only that it’s bad enough that the chem-barons can’t handle it.” I drop the bulky hextech fists on Cait’s desk with a thunk that crushes capsules and scatters papers onto the floor. “And I can’t even bring my hands. This is getting better by the minute.”

“There’s no one else I could trust to do this,” Cait says.

“So you’re really not gonna tell me who’s pulling the strings on this one?” I ask, biting back on my temper. “Not every day I’m asked to provoke an international incident.”

“I’ve told you all I can, Vi. Believe me.”

“You could always come with me,” I say with a grin. “Take a little working vacation to Valoran’s most scenic tourist destination.”

Cait doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t have to. I know she can’t go, but it’s always fun to tease. And it keeps me from punching a hole in the wall.

Dawn settles into morning by the time I reach the Rising Howl. The crowds outside the Hall of Law gave me jeers and a few tossed stones as I left, but they knew better than to get too close. They clung to the Hall where they could stay seen, and keep their teeth in their heads.

It feels strange to walk the city without my gauntlets, my hands still wrapped up from the day before. I left anything that could tie me to the Wardens back at the Hall, anything to tie me to Piltover, really. I’ll need to lay low—I’m far from forgotten in Zaun, and there are plenty of folks whose memories I’d rather not refresh. I’ll go down, see what’s got the barons so spooked, and be back in a few days, tops.

The conveyor fills near to bursting as the conductor whistles herself hoarse and the doors finally lock. Hexdraulic winches loosen their grip on the great chains holding us, and the descent begins. I find a seat on the bottom level of the pod, staring out through the bottle-green window panels as we sink.

The morning light has spilled across all of Piltover, glittering off towers of iron and glass, but only teases the lips of the chasms. The light will reach the Promenade—Zaun’s highest level—but won’t be much more than a glimmer any lower than that.

I shift my boot, seeing a symbol scratched crudely into the floor. Some kind of spider.

The air already starts to slicken as the conveyor slides through the Promenade, and I taste chem fumes and feel a low sting in my nostrils. The new spire comes into view, a giant tower of pale stone and shimmering glass starting all the way down at the Entresol. Mechanicians, laborers, and menials toil in its base levels, synthesizing and refining their hex-crystals before shipping them up to the city above. Of the process, all that remains in Zaun is the concentrated runoff, more dangerous than the Gray by tenfold, at least by the smell of it.

I’m not sure who owns this spire—Ferros isn’t the only player in the synthetic hex-crystal game anymore, though they still make the strongest, purest kind. Word is even chem-barons, like the Poingdestres, are trying to make their own brands of cheap knock-offs, without the merchant clans. But most likely, this spire is yet another joint venture between the barons and the clans.

As we descend to the Entresol, something catches my eye through the window. The conveyor shafts are no stranger to graffiti, but one mark stands out bright and new against the faded tags it’s covering.

A spider.

I look down at the floor. The mark is the same. My eyes go back to the window and I find it again, and again.

I stand up, pressing my back to the wall as the Howl shudders to a stop at the Entresol. The conveyor empties, and more than one pair of eyes look at me with alarm when I don’t exit.

A bell chimes, a signal the Rising Howl is due to depart. The conductor descends the stairs, peering this way and that before spotting me.

“Lift’s going down soon,” she says, the unease clear in her voice. “You’re heading Sumpward, then?”

I take a look around, seeing an empty platform beyond the doors. “Looks like I’m the only one.”

“May not pay to be unique in this regard, dear.” She takes a step closer, pushing her goggles up to her brow. I can see the fear in her eyes. “Sump’s not right these days. Best to stay further up.”

“You know anything about it?” I ask.

The conductor looks down, fidgeting with her sonophone. “Enough not to trifle with it.”

I consider her for a moment. “I think I’ll take my chances.”

She lingers, hoping I’ll have a change of heart, before giving a slow nod and clambering back up the stairs. Soon the Howl begins its slow rumble downward, down to the Sump, where I will see what everyone is so afraid of.

The light gets poorer once you clear the Entresol. Chem-lamps appear fewer and fewer, like fireflies rising up the farther down we go. The light from the Howl itself is enough to see the immediate surroundings of the conveyor, though the worth of that might be dubious.

The Sump has never been pretty. Maybe a long way back, before the Flood turned half of it into a graveyard and the other half became a landfill, it might have been different. But that’s long gone, and from what I see, even compared to what I remember, it’s only getting worse.

Make the wrong enemies, break one too many promises, back a loser with your last cog, you’ll end up down here. Desperate people scratching out a living, safe from those above who won’t stoop to look for them. That makes it almost a haven for them, if not from each other.

The lights flicker out. I stand, walk over to the window, and lean against the railing to glimpse through the green glass. After a few moments, the lights return, bathing the conveyor shaft in enough illumination to show me what’s covering every inch of it.

Spiders. Nothing but spiders.

That same crude mark as before, but where above it was rare, here it has been etched, carved, or sprayed over everything. An unending swarm, as though marching and climbing up from the dark they had already claimed as theirs.

I feel something cold in my stomach, a tiny flare of adrenaline. Whatever it is that Cait sent me down here to find, it has to be connected to this.

“This is as far as I’ll go,” I hear the conductor’s voice scratch from the sonophone as the Rising Howl comes to a halt in a groan of protesting iron. The doors unlock and I peer out at an abandoned platform, the only light a single chem-lamp pulsing faintly at the far end. I step onto the platform and the doors lock fast behind me, the conveyor already rising as I look back at it over my shoulder. Soon it’s just one more firefly, rising from the chasm.

There’s no such thing as silence in Zaun, even down in the Sump. I hear steam coughing out of corroded pipework, factories and scrapyards growling in the distance… and a trio of voices muttering in the dark.

The spider symbol crawling all over the conveyor shaft is on the gangers, too, splashed on threadbare clothes, still raw and red on their faces and necks from new tattoos. They’re armed, and making no effort to hide it. One has a chain, another a length of pipe. I see the dull sheen of a tarnished blade in the hand of the last.

They’re young, young enough not to recognize me. Whatever gang this is, these are new pups, the most likely to do something stupid in order to prove themselves.

“You lost?” one of them says, the one holding the knife.

“Can’t say that I am,” I answer, playing off a bored calm as I take in every detail. Posture, health, temperament. I know in a few seconds which of them take the orders and which one gives them. Which are most likely to run, and who is willing to spill blood.

I make to pass them. The blade flicks out ahead of me, catching the yellowed light from the chem-lamp.

“I think you are.” He looks me over. “Tell me, sister, have you come to hear the Voice?”

I take a slow quarter step to keep all three of them in view. “Whose voice might that be?”

Knife wrinkles his nose. “Believers and pilgrims would know, and that’s all who’s welcome here.”

“Time to turn around and go back home, sun-stained filth.” Another of them spits. He gets a hissing chorus of agreement from his mates.

I could probably get more out of them. The name of their gang, who this Voice belongs to, how exactly they have the whole of the Sump running scared. But the urge to lay hands on them wins out.

“Boys, boys.” I shake my head, smiling. I make a fist, and my knuckles crack loud enough for them to hear. “I am home.”

A quick side glance to each other and they rush me. My eyes go to weapons, flicking from blade to chain to pipe to see who I need to drop first. The air tastes like ammonia and grease as the tension cracks open.

Adding a splash of blood won’t hurt.

I throw the first punch, forgetting I had left my hands behind. Wear them long enough, and you get used to the power a pair of hextech Atlas fists can give you. When my knuckles find the side of Knife’s skull, I feel something flex sideways, between my fingers. The pain is sharp and immediate, making me hesitate enough for the pipe to swing in low and take me in the ribs.

The third circles, chain lashing my legs, but my focus is on the blade. My punch had sent him to all fours. A knee to the jaw and he sprawls.

I snatch hold of the chain, wrenching the ganger holding it into a headbutt. His nose mashes flat against my forehead. He topples, clutching at his face. The whistle of the pipe makes me duck, throwing its owner off balance, and I add to his momentum to send him crashing into a wall.

Pipe springs up to his feet, and freezes. His eyes dart from me to Knife, back to me, then to Chain. The pipe pings as it hits the ground, almost drowning out the pounding of his boots as he runs for it. I lunge after him, but I’m stopped cold by a spike of pain in my ribs squeezing my lungs shut. I let him go.

Knife and Chain aren’t worth the trouble. I snap the blade beneath my boot and fling the weapons off the platform, ignoring my ribs as I start making my way deeper into the Sump.

They say that when something’s hurt and on the run, it heads back to what’s familiar. A nest or warren, some kind of sanctuary where you know you’ll have some walls to put around you.

Precious few sanctuaries in the Sump, for me at least. There might have been a handful of places I could go, but now everywhere I look there’s that mark, the spider that’s swallowed everything. I need somewhere to catch my breath, and down here there’s only one place I can think of.

I’m hazy on when and how I first ended up at Hope House for Foundling Children. I haven’t thought about the orphanage in awhile, but I still know the way by heart. You always remember how to get home, even if you ran away from it.

I stay out of the open, keeping to shadows and side streets to avoid any more encounters. I watch clots of gangers moving around, every one of them armed, but no chaos. They aren’t breaking or wrecking a thing down here.

Why smash up what you already own?

My hand is getting distracting, joining my ribs with a sharp poke each time my heart beats. I can feel it swelling up under the wraps, not broken but damn near close. I just pull them tighter.

Round a corner and there it is, Hope House, in all its dull, crumbling glory. It was far from in good shape when I left it, and the years since haven’t been any kinder. I’m amazed it’s still standing. For a second I’m a kid again, coming home banged up from a scrap or a heist. I can’t keep the smile off my face seeing it.

Kids chase each other around the front of the building, the faster, healthier children outpacing those with a missing limb or wheezing through third-rate esophilters. They see me coming and scatter. Trust is a hard thing to come by this far down, one of the first lessons the abandoned are forced to learn.

One of them makes for the front door. He hurries up the worn steps leading to the entrance, nearly stumbling face first before reaching it. His fist pounds on the door until it opens, and a young woman looks down, too young to be his mother, but old enough to be responsible for him.

“Now what did I tell you about playing on those stairs?” she scolds, thumbing away a smudge of grime from the boy’s cheek. “I’ve told you they’re tricky, and if you’re not careful, one of these days—”

“One of these days,” I say, stopping at the foot of the steps, “you’ll collect a crack in your skull.”

Her eyes go wide. I knew her voice the second I heard it, and it’s enough to sting my own eyes a touch. My mind fights to reconcile the young woman standing there with the shy little girl I once knew.

“I used to have to warn a little girl here about that all the time.” I smile. “She was trying her hand as a tumbler, when her head wasn’t buried in a book.”

“Gave up on the tumbling,” she replies, gently guiding the boy through the door before stepping outside and closing it behind her. “But I still like to read, when I can find the time.”

“Roe?” The first stair creaks under my weight as I place a foot on it. “Is that you? Can’t be.”

“It’s me.”

I climb another stair. “You can’t be Roe. Roe’s just a kid, barely reaches my hip. Look at how you sprouted.”

“Nobody stays a kid down here for long,” she says. “You should know that better than anyone.”

Another stair. “It’s good to see you. Been a long time.”

“Yeah, well.” She looks down. “I’m not the one who went anywhere.”

I stop my climb, and take a step back. The hurt is clear in her voice. When I left, she was just a kid, one I had looked after from the day she first showed up at Hope House. I had never let her run with me, kept her clear of the scraps and the stealing and the gangs. I protected her.

And then I left.

“Heard you’re with the law now,” Roe says, leaning back against the door.

“You see a badge anywhere?” I spread my arms out wide. “I was a warden for a little while, yeah, but we’ve gone our separate ways of late.”

“Seems to happen a lot.”

I dip my head. “Hey, if you wanna brawl, we can brawl. You’re old enough now.”

Despite herself, a thin smile slips through.

“Maybe. Can it wait until I get back?” Roe asks. “I’m gonna go in just a moment.”

“Go where?”

Roe looks back toward the door, then to me. She is silent for a moment, considering me. I glance at her and notice a pin on her collar, little more than an etching on a chip of scrap metal. It’s of a spider.

“Have you ever heard the Voice?”

I leave with Roe, walking through the crumbling neighborhoods toward the gathering. I listen to her talk about her life, learning about this new person she’s blossomed into. The shyness is still there, and she’s still smart from all those nights I saw her with her head hidden in books, but there’s more to her now. There’s conviction in her, an intensity that shines in her eyes.

I stick to asking questions, skirting around mentioning what I’m doing down here. All the talking starts a coughing fit that nearly doubles me over.

“What?” Roe laughs. “Spent too long up out of the Gray, huh?”

“I took a pipe to the ribs.” I wince, pressing a hand to my side. “A message of welcome from your friends when I stepped off the Howl.”

Her smile dulls. “We all want the same thing. An end to the oppression. Liberation from the barons and the clans. Clean air. Just not everybody agrees on how we should get there. Most are coming from life in the gangs, so they’re on edge. There’s great people here, kind people who just want a better future for us.”

I’d spent years in Piltover, walking among those who saw Zaun as nothing but a prison, a wasteland, an underworld. Piltover looked down and saw Zaun’s eyes looking back at them, and they either pitied them or hated them—or tried to speak for them, like that punk I arrested.

“They certainly seem preferable to the lot I’ve met already,” I say.

Roe nods. “I’ll show you.”

The closer we get, the more people we see. There are all kinds, young and old, members of rival gangs who were out to slit each other’s throats only weeks ago, all walking together. Every one of them has the spider on them, on a patch or tattoo or on a pin like Roe’s. They’re filing into an old factory with only three walls upright, and no ceiling, waiting in patient lines to gain entry.

We reach the door, barred by a pair of brutes. They are armed, one augmented with a claw of burnished iron, but they know each person by name, greeting them warmly as they come in.

“Roe, my sister, you are welcome,” one of them says, his voice low and soft despite his aggressive bulk. He then looks to me. “But this one, no.”

“Let her in,” Roe tells them. “She’s with me.”

“She is sun-stained,” says the other, lifting his chin with a sneer. “Not to be trusted.”

They want to turn me away for the joke of a tan I’ve gotten upstairs in Piltover, not because I joined the Wardens. These guys must be new.

“She has come to hear the Voice. I vouch for her, Togg.” Roe stares the guard in the eye, not backing down. “Get out of the way.”

The pair convene, muttering, before turning back to us. “The Voice is for all to hear, so you are welcome, too. But we will be watching.”

I feel their eyes on me as we step inside, and the static’s enough to have me taking in the room for ways out if this goes wrong. The place is a wreck, full of holes and collapsed masonry. If things turn red, I can get out. The only question is whether Roe will run with me, or after me.

There’s no pomp or ceremony. No music or votive candles, no dish passed hand to hand for contributions to the cause. There’s just a mass of people, surrounding a mound of rubble in the center where a man sits, calmly waiting.

“Is that him?” I whisper to Roe. “The Voice?”

She nods. I look over at him, this man who conquered the Sump, and I don’t understand.

He’s young, barely older than Roe, little more than a kid himself. Scrawny and gaunt, he has the look of a ganger in his eyes, eyes that have seen his share of horror. But there’s a strange warmth there, too, like he has a secret to tell, just to you. The last of the assembly enters, and the Voice begins to speak.

“I see many new faces.” His voice is gentle, almost quiet, though it carries to every ear. “You are all welcome here. Each one of us found our own way to this place, countless paths leading to where they become one. Know now that you are no longer alone.”

I scan the crowd. All are hanging on his every word. I wonder how many have never had those words spoken to them before. The rejected and abused, the forgotten, seen as people for the first time.

“We all bear scars,” the Voice continues. “The marks of the lives we’ve had to live, our trials and our suffering. The world has done all it can to beat us down, to convince us to stay there and be grateful for what little we have. That has been the reality here for far too long, and it is time that changed.”

Murmurs of affirmation wash over the gathering. You don’t need to have worked as a warden to feel the tension ratcheting up. The Voice is dredging up wounds, making them raw again. He isn’t lying—these people have borne more than their share of hurt, but I can see the game he’s playing, hidden beneath that truth.

“How long have their boots been on our throats?” His voice begins to rise, its edge sharpening. “The chem-barons. They use our home to build their wealth, and what do we get from it? We get poison in the air we breathe, in the water we drink. Sickness, pain, death—is this what we deserve?”

“No!” The crowd is angry now, playing right into his hands. I glance at Roe beside me, and see the same rage on her and every other face. Maybe it’s the contrarian in me, but I feel like they should have found a theater to hold this performance.

“I say, no more,” growls the Voice. “No more will we weep for brothers and sisters too weak to stand, or watch our children’s lives waste away. The barons will pay for what they’ve done, but more than that, we will bring justice to those they truly serve.”

Here it comes.

The Voice stabs an accusing finger skyward. “The corrupt merchants in that city towering over us. A city where the sun shines so bright it blinds them to the crimes they have committed here. The pain they have caused you, and the ones you love. They hide in that blindness, because they think it will protect them. But it will not, not after he arrives.”

Awed whispers fill the room, like he has just spoken of a god. Roe brushes a tear from her eye. They’re all drawn in, but nothing about this feels right, and I’ve yet to trust a word that’s come from this Voice.

“Who is he talking about?” I ask, but Roe nods back to him as he continues.

“I am his Voice, and we are all of us his sons. I have seen his face. I have heard his words and survived his test. He laid his hands upon me as his chosen, to seek out his flock and make ready for his return. That day is soon to dawn, my brothers and sisters. Not one of retribution, but of justice.”

“And who will pay the blood price for that?”

Silence descends. All eyes turn to me as I find myself standing.

“What are you doing?” Roe hisses, tugging at my hand.

Damn my temper. Vi, you’re a terrible spy. Well, no going back now.

“I’ve heard this kind of talk before,” I say, both to the Voice and the crowd. “Glib talkers who prey on the pain of the wronged and the dispossessed. They rile them up in the name of justice, when all they want is to see their puppets dance, because they want to be a god.”

The Voice listens, without any change to his patient facade. “I have not seen you here before, sister. You are new to our ways—none can fault you for not seeing them clearly.”

“I see clearly.” I glare at him. “I see a cult getting whipped up to spill blood. I see a liar promising freedom and prosperity, but putting armed thugs at every entrance to his territory.”

“They are what will win our freedom,” he answers plainly. He looks me over. “If our brothers attacked you, then I am sorry. You must understand that a dog can only be kicked so many times before he bites back. We’ve waited and we’ve waited, but now there is another way.”

He walks down from his mound of rubble, slowly approaching with his arms spread wide.

“I see much pain in you, a hurt you keep hidden behind your eyes. I see a child of Zaun who has strayed from her rightful home. Piltover has its corruptive mark all over you. You think strength lies in helping our oppressors to change, but they won’t ever change. You have strength, strength that could be used to help liberate these people.”

He certainly has a way with words. I realize I’ve made fists, and exhale to slowly release them. As much fun as making a crater out of his head would be, I wouldn’t last five seconds after.

“Whatever pain I have is mine.” I thump a fist against my chest. “I carry the weight of the choices I made. I don’t push them onto others. I don’t make scapegoats, and I don’t believe the wrongs done to me justify my inflicting them on someone else.”

The Voice looks down, chuckles softly before meeting my gaze again. “He would like you. But, if this is not your path, then leave now, and no harm will come to you. Return, though, and I can make no promises.”

I glance down at Roe, at every face staring at me. “I’ll go, and so should all of you. There is no one coming, no great being to deliver you. All I see is a man, looking for lost people to do his bidding.”

Again that soft smile, almost sad and without a hint of malice. “No, my child. He is very real. And soon enough, you won’t have to rely on my words to know that.”

True to his claim, no one touches me when I leave. Not even a threat. I don’t hear a harsh word until I am clear of the place, and Roe catches up to me.

She cuts me off. “Who do you think you are?”

“I—”

“You left,” Roe snaps. “Years pass, and all of a sudden you just walk back in and think you know what’s best for me?”

“I heard enough. You can’t tell me you actually believe all of this.”

“What’s so hard to believe? That there’s someone out there who gives a damn about what happens to the Sump?”

I take a deep breath. “I know a demagogue when I hear one, Roe. They talk, and they say anything to spin folks up, but in the end it’s never their hands that get bloody. He’s manipulating all of you.”

“He’s trying to help us.” She shakes her head bitterly. “Do you even remember what it’s like down here? You got out, but the rest of us aren’t so lucky. We stay separate and alone, and nothing will ever change. He’s going to set us free!”

“How?” I try like hell not to sound like a warden just now. “And how many are going to be left alive when it’s done? Do you know what he plans to do? If you know something, Roe, please, it is very important that you tell me.”

Something changes in her eyes. “Why? Who are you going to tell it to? Why are you even here?”

“I want to understand what has happened.” I raise my hands, trying to walk back the suspicion curdling our talk. “What is happening now, so that I can keep two cities from falling apart.”

Roe laughs, but it comes out as half a sob. “You’ve been in the sun too long. You’ve lived up there for all these years, you say you care, but what the hell have you done for us?”

“Roe.”

“Just name something,” she presses. “One single thing you’ve done to help these people, to help me, instead of keeping us all locked where we are.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Why not?”

It’s a simple question, but it hits me like a knife in the gut. A child might ask it, trying to figure out why the world doesn’t make sense.

“Forget it. Go back up. You don’t belong here. He’s coming, Vi, and then you’ll see. All of you up there will see.”

“Who?” I grip her shoulder. “Roe, who is he?”

Her expression goes cold. “Everyone knows who the Voice is talking about. Everyone but you. It’s the Dreadnought.”

“Dreadnought?”

It’s night up in the Promenade. Cait’s left behind anything that might make her stand out, to be recognized as a sheriff of Piltover in the bustle of where the two cities touch.

“Mean anything to you?” I ask.

Cait shakes her head once. “I’ll do some digging, see what I can turn up. What else can you tell me?”

I explain all that I had seen. The marks on every wall. The complete control over the Sump. The Voice’s words when they gathered.

“They are organized,” I tell her, “and they are angry. It’s not a matter of if this boils over, but when.”

“Okay.” She takes a breath, processing. “And when it boils over, do we know where, or how?”

“I don’t know.”

Cait’s voice changes with the next question. It’s lower, quieter. “Have you heard any of them mention hextech?”

“Hextech?” I frown. “What does that have to do with—”

“Hextech,” she repeats, locking my gaze to hers. “You hear anyone start talking about gems, crystals, magic, that is news I need to know immediately.”

A question surfaces in my head, one I don’t want to ask, but will stay lodged there until I do. “Do you already know what you’re looking for, Cait?”

She looks at me. “We’re on the same side here, Vi.”

“And what side is that?” The fact she has to say such a thing puts me even further on edge. “It isn’t just the barons involved with this, is it? We’ve watched them feud with the gangs for years, and never lifted a finger. Suddenly there’s a new player on the scene that the barons can’t keep on a leash, and now you’re talking about hextech. The clans get spooked about their margins, so they need us to go down and keep Zaun in line?”

Cait doesn’t answer. My blood’s up, and I push out a slow breath. “Guess I’ll have to find out myself.”

“I told you what I could, what you needed to know.” She looks me over, her eyes falling on my hand. “You’re hurt.”

“I’ll manage.” I stand, and start walking.

Dawn’s light doesn’t reach this far down. The flickering chem-lamps make a poor substitute as I climb the steps to the front door of Hope House, where that little boy sits, alone.

“Hey,” I say softly. “Remember me? I’m Roe’s friend. My name’s Vi. What’s yours?”

Both of us are careful as I close the gap. He’s pouting, cheeks flushed and arms crossed over his chest. “Yulie.”

“Yulie,” I say, stopping a few stairs shy of him. “Do you know where Roe is, Yulie?”

He nods his head. “She’s gone.”

Something goes cold in my stomach. “Gone where, Yulie?”

The boy looks at me, the hurt making his eyes shiny in a grimy face. “She came home mad. Then she left with some of her friends.”

“Now, Yulie, this is very important.” I reach out, very slowly, and place a hand on the stair he’s sitting on. He watches me, but doesn’t flinch away. “Do you know where they went?”

“She said they were done waiting.” Yulie sniffles. “I wanted to go, but she said I had to stay here.”

“Where did they go?” I try to keep my voice soft so as not to spook him, but I’m getting impatient.

“The new tower.” Yulie nods up toward the Entresol. “She told me they make the magic rocks there. I asked if she would bring me one, and she promised that, when she got back, she’d have enough for everyone.”

I’m already running.

It takes time to make it up to the Entresol, but once I’m there, I know where to go.

The spire. A symbolic and literal image of the common Zaunite’s oppressors. It spans both cities, but while all the sweat and blood are shed in Zaun, most of the money is spent in Piltover. At the very tip of the spire is a dome, where the merchant clan’s representatives lord over the workers below.

What a sight will greet them today, if they bother to look down. To see the base of their tower turned red with blood.

The ground is already thick with dead when I arrive. Piltover may be the destination for the hex-crystals, but the chem-barons get their cut for having the spire on their turf, and they make sure they have enough brutes on hand to keep the factory secure.

The cult must have run at the gates, dragging down the guards like a tide. I see corpses from both sides littering the way. The security force had chemtech weapons, training, and experience, but they couldn’t stop a wall of fanatics, armed with little more than blunt objects and the chance to get a little payback.

The gates have been thrown open, and I see men and women that I recognize from the gathering, hauling crates and inspecting racks of round metal canisters. I keep my distance, blending into the crowds. I find my way to where most of them are massing, around a pile of crates seized from the spire. I can’t see Roe anywhere.

Standing atop the crates is the Voice. His face is bloodied and bruised, his clothing torn. He looks like he had been in the thick of the fighting. Using a pry bar, he levers open the nearest crate, revealing racks of small, gleaming blue stones.

Synthetic hextech crystals.

“This is a momentous day!” The Voice holds up one of the crystals in triumph. “Behold, the instrument of our freedom. For so long we have given everything, and received nothing in return. Today, with these, we will balance those scales, and take what is rightfully ours!”

His celebration is interrupted by the terrible screech of metal against stone.

All eyes turn upward to the walls of the spire, where a dark shape can be seen descending in a great shower of dirty sparks. Even from a distance it is enormous, an entire arm replaced by a massive cannon, the body perched upon a multitude of splayed mechanical legs, segmented and ending in sharpened claws gouging deep wounds into the spire. As it gets closer, I can see that the top portion is vaguely human, pallid flesh fused to metal and lambent green medical tubing, but the legs belong to a monster.

Or a spider.

Dreadnought. I hear the name flicker through the crowd, whispered like a prayer.

I had believed that the Voice was deluded, or a charlatan. That the creature was something he had conjured up to rally an army for himself. But he is real. Things have suddenly become far more dangerous.

The Dreadnought crashes down to the ground, making impact in a cloud of dust and rock splinters. The people fall to awed silence, parting before him as his clicking spider legs bring him to loom over his prophet.

“You’re here,” the Voice says, an ecstatic whisper. “You’re finally here.”

“Indeed, my witness.” His true voice is thunder, rendered through furnace iron. “I am here.”

I push into where the onlookers are thickest, my eyes darting, going from searching for Roe to watching what is unfolding. The Voice leaps down from the crates, his hands full of hex-crystals.

“Mighty Dreadnought,” the Voice says, beaming, “I offer these, hard won with the blood of your children. The key to our liberation.”

The Voice pours the crystals into his master’s flesh hand, stepping back in preparation for praise.

“Why do you bring these before me?” The Dreadnought tilts his hand, and the crystals spill to the ground.

Silence. Then: “I don’t understand,” the Voice stammers, watching the priceless gems scatter into the dust.

“That is clear.”

“We’ve won you a fortune. With these we can buy weapons, armies.”

“You think as they do.” The Dreadnought says it like an accusation. He looks out to the crowd. “Hate Piltover for what they have become, but revere their forebears. Industrious, committed, those people possessed the strength to harness the magic within our world, and bend it to their will. Truly they were mighty.”

I can feel the crowd’s confusion, because I share it. Of all the things they expected their savior to say, I can’t imagine it was this.

“Yet over time, the tool they had forged bore more weight. It became a crutch, and then it became their master. They have made themselves into slaves. They awoke so shackled to these gems that in their absence, the civilization they had inherited would end.”

He turns to the Voice. “Wealth is a vice—it is not strength. The boy I found that day appeared worthy. Was I mistaken?”

Unease sweeps over the crowd. We all become very aware that nearly every facet of the Dreadnought is lethal, bladed, and weaponized as his hand cups the Voice’s jaw.

“I was chosen,” the Voice pleads. “That day. You spared me.”

“Indeed.” The monster nods slowly. “Though I am not infallible. I can only seek out my failures, and correct them.”

The Voice screams, a sharp, short sound. A yelp of agony and it’s over. The Dreadnought discards the body, immediately forgotten.

“I am Urgot,” the creature says, turning to address the crowd. “And I have heard you, Zaun. The whispers of your hearts, the things you have hoped and dreamt for me to be. The names, the titles. A liberator. A god. I speak before you now to say that I am none of these things. I am greater. I am an idea.”

Every person there flocks to him, ringing his monstrous form like a congregation. He reaches for one of the metal canisters, and I notice dozens more of them within the gates. “I am a reflection of this world, an echo of the great contest between strength and weakness waged in each of our souls, with every breath we draw. I cannot be a god to you—that offering is not within my power. What I can offer you is a test to learn if you bear the strength needed to be your own god.”

A sick feeling creeps up my spine. Urgot gestures to the medical tubing linking his mechanical body to the mask covering his mouth and nose, and holds up the canister. It’s covered with warning sigils: toxic, poison.

“What lies within this metal shell is the very air I have come to breathe. I took it in, and conquered it, for true liberation comes from within. That is the message we will take to our enemies, our would-be oppressors.”

Urgot scans the crowd. “Who among you has the strength to follow me? To take this misery within yourself, and endure?”

Every one of them sinks to their knees, yearning to be baptized.

“Urgot!” they roar. “Urgot! Urgot!”

“Very well.” Urgot closes his hand over the canister’s safety valve, pale fingers forming a claw. “Let us see.”

The gas bursts out from between Urgot’s fingers as he crushes the valve. He tears a rent in the canister, and a green cloud rushes out to envelop his followers. I’m near the back, away from the greatest concentration of it, but almost immediately people begin to die.

“Roe,” I whisper, pushing through the crowd as panic begins to set in. Men and women collapse, pinkish froth boiling from lips and noses. I find a breather mask discarded by the wreck of an equipment shed, and pull it on as I feel the air begin to claw at my throat.

Visibility devolves into a putrid greenish haze. I see silhouettes all around me, shivering and thrashing and toppling over. I have to find Roe. I have to get her out. I have to find her.

And I do.

She is kneeling with a group of others, tendrils of mist rolling up their chests as it finally reaches them.

“Roe!”

She looks up, seeing me. The shy little girl I used to know. Roe stares me in the eye, vision clear with absolute belief, and breathes in.

“No!” I skid to her side. Her skin begins to blacken, dark webs of corrupted veins filling with poison. She gags. Bloody foam rings her lips. I tear the breather mask from my face, trying to press it to hers. Roe spends the last of her strength fighting me, even as she sags to the ground. Her conviction, that ironclad belief, never leaves her eyes until the life does.

Less than half of them are still alive when the cloud finally dissipates. Many of the survivors are those who are half augmented, their jaws bracketed in clunky brass esophilters and prosthetic windpipes. My mouth tastes like blood and burnt sugar. Tears cut through the grime on my face.

“Arise.” Urgot lifts a hand, and his army clambers to their feet. “Those who have passed the test bear the right, and the duty, to grant that trial to the world.”

He turns his eyes to the peak of the spire. “For too long have they been separated from the full fruits of their labor. It is time we return it to them.”

Urgot had sealed the spire, his followers opening every canister inside the air-filtration system. The toxic mist is coiling up the tower like a sickly green snake to fill floor after floor with choking, paralyzing death.

I had managed to sneak in before they locked the gates. My heart pounds as I climb the stairs toward the top, clutching the breather mask to my face. I don’t know how many dead I pass on the way, but a feeling settles in my gut that I may join them before this day is done.

If that’s the cost of a reckoning, then I’ll pay it.

It’s a race now. The cult and their monstrous leader are swarming up to reach the dome. The men and women at the peak are clan folk, and if they die, so will many more from both cities. The symbiosis, that fragile peace, will end, and those waiting for an excuse to use violence will finally have one. That’s not a fight Zaun ever wins.

I’m ready to give my life to see that prevented, to protect these people so that the true innocents might be spared. But when I throw open the doors to the clan’s sanctum, all I see makes me want to hate them.

The peak of the tower is a shimmering glass dome, painted in painstaking detail to resemble a clear, clean sky. Opulence is heaped upon opulence, from the richly appointed furnishings to silver trays of sugared fruit. The clan representatives here do not reside in a laboratory or workspace—they are in a palace.

I hurry toward the knot of frightened Piltovans, trying to suppress my anger, when a familiar face steps forward from their midst.

“Cait?”

The sheriff tips her cap. “Up here in the Promenade, it can get murky where Zaun ends and Piltover begins. Sometimes you just aren’t sure where your jurisdiction is.”

I tell her of what has happened, of what is coming.

“Well, then.” She produces a bulky case and hands it to me. “You’re going to be needing these.”

The gauntlets purr as they come to life. I make a fist, my aching bones a memory as I wait for the scrap that’s coming. Toxic mist tumbles in, immediately stinging the eyes and biting the lungs. Several of the clan folk begin to vomit.

Cait’s face goes stony and her rifle snaps up high, faster than I can track. I hear the shot and the ring it leaves in my ears. I feel the air tear as the bullet strikes the reinforced glass of the dome.

Cracks radiate out from the hole left by the bullet, rushing across the surface like lightning. The dome shatters. Colored glass rains around us, spinning and slicing. The pressure change lashes at the gas, whipping it out of the tower.

It buys us a second to breathe, but no longer. The mist fills the entrance, darkening as cultists skulk through. They pace and rattle their weapons, but hold back, waiting.

The doorway darkens again, this time entirely. It solidifies into Urgot’s titanic silhouette as he arrives, stooping to enter the dome’s bucolic splendor, his followers parting before him.

Urgot watches the gas dissipate and chuckles, a sound like gravel and slipping gears. “You think you have denied these people their test? That you have denied yourselves? No. I shall deliver it to you, and after you are destroyed, I shall deliver it to them.”

Cait grips her rifle, the hextech crystal in its chamber pulsing with rose-tinted light. She looks over her shoulder at the Piltovans behind her. “Get clear, now. Take the bridge to the Promenade. We’ll handle this.”

Energy dances across my gauntlets as I crash them together. “Behold!” Urgot cries, gazing at me. “Such precious weapons. Your masters give you strength, but underneath you are broken. Weak.”

“I don’t need these to be strong.” I laugh, bitter and quick. “I won’t need them to break you. They’ll just make it more fun.”

“I saw you with the girl.” Urgot gives a slow nod. “You cling to two worlds, child of Zaun. The day will come when you will have to choose.”

“I’m tired of listening to you talk.” My rage finally slips. “I’m tired of doing anything other than beating you to death for what you did.”

I can’t tell if the fight lasts seconds or hours. I only remember it in flashes. Crushing metal. Ribcages wrapping around my knuckles. Thunder from Urgot’s cannon-arm, stitching explosions. The sound of blood, fizzing and popping as it cooks on my gauntlets.

Between Cait and me, we whittle down Urgot’s followers, until it’s only him left standing, a metal monster of fire and bullets and slashing chains. It’s unclear who will leave the broken dome alive, until Cait sees an opening with her bola net.

Urgot roars as it envelops him, pinning his arms to his sides and distracting him just long enough for my charge. I put everything into the blow, sending him teetering off the edge of the dome. But I won’t let him fall, not yet.

I gather up the end of the net, straining against his appalling weight as my boots slip and skid to the edge. I want to look him in the eye once more, before I drop him.

“Let’s see how fast a spider flies.”

“Wait!” I hear Cait shout behind me.

“This ends here, Cait,” I hiss.

Cait stops beside me, a metal spar in her hands. “True strength is being able to choose whether you use it. You let him die now, you make us no different than he is.”

She threads the spar through the net to pin Urgot to the tower. I don’t want to listen to her. I want justice. But I know it won’t replace what he has taken.

I spit, and hammer the spar into the ground.

It would take a very generous perspective to call the stacks of wind-blown rock just off the isthmus islands. Barren and lashed by salt-spray, they’re far from any place someone would want to make their home. Seems a few generations back, someone in a position of authority in Piltover agreed, and built a prison there.

After my reinstatement into the Wardens, I told Cait that I trusted her to see that Urgot would be transported and interred to the letter. I was headed for the Sump, to visit Hope House and use these heavy hands to build instead of break. But I think she saw what it meant to me, and she wanted me here to see with my own eyes that he would face justice.

“I know this was difficult for you,” Cait says. “But I wanted you to see the end result of all that you did. So you know that you made a difference.”

Difference. The word catches in my throat, and my head fills with the image of all those people, suffocating on the poison left in the wake of progress.

“Putting him away, we saved both Piltover and Zaun a lot of chaos.”

“Do you ever think that something better might come out of that chaos?”

She looks at me, sighing softly. “Maybe, or maybe something even worse. A lot of people would have to die for anyone to find out, and I can’t let that happen. So we fight, and we do what we have to, to keep things together. That’s what the law does, what we do. We preserve order.”

Law. Order. Can you have one without the other? And what does either of them have to do with justice? If you had asked the younger me, she might have had an answer. Ask me now, and I’m not so sure anymore.

“Urgot’s following will wither,” Cait says. “Ambitious folks will fracture it, looking for power. They’ll be too busy fighting each other to give us any trouble.”

“You weren’t there, Cait.” I shake my head. “Not like I was. You didn’t see the numbers, the commitment. We aren’t finished with them, not by a long shot.”

We’re standing on a gantry overlooking the cell block. Cells flank us on either side, the cages cleared as wardens and prison guards bring Urgot down a central passage to his new home, an immense tube of reinforced iron running from floor to ceiling like some gigantic piston.

Urgot is in chains. He makes no move to resist as the procession reaches his cell.

“How much of him can we remove before he dies?” Cait asks me, loud enough for the Dreadnought to hear. “I bet most of him.”

“Step forth and test your theory, then.” Urgot’s eyes glimmer. “Unless all you have brought with you are idle threats.”

“Let’s speak plainly.” Cait slings her rifle. “You exist here on our sufferance alone. You will eat when we tell you, sleep when we tell you, breathe when we tell you. Nothing more, nothing less. Deviate from this in any way, and I will have you destroyed. Is that clear?”

Urgot laughs. “You believe you have the power to destroy me? You don’t. You never did. That is a door that will never be open to you.”

“Well, I suppose I’ll just have to settle for closing this one.” Cait nods to a technician. He throws a switch and the tube descends over Urgot, clanging to the floor and locking fast.

I can still hear him laughing through the iron as we walk away. I pause at the door to the cell block, looking back over my shoulder, a dread I can’t shake sneaking up my spine.

Urgot didn’t look like a prisoner to me.

He looked like a spider, waiting patiently in his web.

Scrape the bench of sunless moss,
And harken to this tale of loss.
A princess lies below the soil,
A king’s pride and joy, a beauty divine.
Now food for worms, her flesh to dine.
Skin once fair, now left to spoil.

A Princeling came, a suitor fair,
To press his cause, to wed the heir.
The marriage feast like none before
was blighted by a deed most foul.
A poisoned cup, the king did howl.
To find a cure, the Princeling swore.

His ship set sail, crossed ocean’s deep,
With knights all pledged to end death’s sleep.
Through tempests fierce and unknown miles,
Drawn by wind from a land undying,
The very storm its name seem’d sighing.
A place men named the Shadow Isles.

Like the hound abroad with bloody scent,
Drawn ever on by forlorn lament,
To a night-veiled isle on no man’s chart.
No wind was heard, no bird nor beast,
Only spirits summoned by death’s priest.
Onward knights to this island’s heart!

Through black-thorned trees on crooked path,
A clash of steel, a cry of wrath.
The Shadow of War wrought bitter defeat,
The Princeling’s men were slain.
He ran in fear; they died in vain,
His love of life too bright, too sweet.

Lost in darkest, haunted night,
Pursued by spiteful wraith and wight.
He chanced upon a moonlit field,
And a ghastly monk assailed by the mist.
“Aid me!” cried he, “With sword and fist!
The spirits are cruel, their hearts unhealed.”

“Here, all men are equal, all sins forgiven,
But pride hath made this land corpse-riven.
The dead we’ll fight, our lives as the prize.
Shepherd them onward, and then come the dawn,
Triumph will teach you secrets long gone,
But vanquished, we fall and then rise.”

They fought as brothers on cursed battleground,
Atop the bones of scholars renowned
‘Gainst spirits in black, with hunger infernal.
Dawn never came, but the battle was done.
The monk and the Princeling had won!
“Speak, fellow! Tell secrets of life eternal.”

The monk told tales of a time forgotten
An ancient queen, now dead and mulch-rotten.
Of her king brought low by sorrow and woe,
Who came to this isle to bring back her life,
But damned the world to endless strife,
Spirits of death and carrion crow.

His magic unleashed a terrible scourge;
Grim prelude to the Deathsinger’s dirge.
Black mist rose up and doomed all to death.
But spirits arose from every dead thing,
Cursed to undeath by this grief-maddened king.
He begged it all end with his very last breath.

A land once blessed, was ripped asunder,
Split with lightning and beaten by thunder.
Phantoms now mutter in graves enshrined.
And banshees throng its haunted streets,
Shrieking their woes of black defeats,
A boundless curse upon all mankind.

The Princeling listened, all aghast,
To hear this tale from the grim outcast.
He spared this ancient king no boon,
But tales of death and grim disaster;
Unmask all, from slave to master.
The Princeling’s lies laid bare by the moon.

The goblet supped by his new wife,
The Princeling poisoned to take her life.
Her father’s wealth and crown he craved;
No cure he wished, but existence deathless,
No succor for his queen, forever breathless;
His soul was dark, his mind depraved.

And yet his bride had one last curse.
A fatal spell of bitter verse.
Justice sought with dying breath,
Set the Spear of Vengeance on the hunt
To punish him for such great affront
And bring about his bloody death.

The mist closed in and called his name,
A huntress aglow in mist-wreathed flame.
Her spears of light pierced his breast,
A cold ground yawned wide and deep,
The Princeling fell to blackest sleep,
Never to wake from his victim’s bequest.

Smothered in darkness, dying in pain,
No crown for his brow, never to reign.
Buried forever in earth’s dark womb,
Heed the price of ambition’s dark call
Be not ensnared by its artful thrall,
The Princeling’s greed was his doom.

A pallid light waxed cold and bright,
Borne up through the earth, his soul took flight.
No reprieve was this, but torment afresh,
The Warden of Chains drawn by his scent.
Dancing to the Deathsinger’s lament.
“Your soul is mine,” said the beast called Thresh.

So heed this fate and learn it well,
Shun the Isles where the dead still dwell.
Seek ye all the things to cherish,
And pass the years in time well spent.
A life full-lived, a soul content.
And know you all are doomed to perish...