#sludge life fanart | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

queenofcats17 · 1 year

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So, I saw a cool fanart and wanted to write a thing.

Also posted here on AO3.

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The green sludge that had previously been the great Emperor Belos dripped from the rock face where it had been splattered.

Most of it was dripping onto the floor below, but some remained where it was. Watching. Waiting. Although he couldn’t see like this, he could feel Hunter’s presence. He could feel the portal roaring to life beneath him. This was his chance. He could finally get home!

But as he tried to make contact with the fleeing Hunter...he missed. Just by an inch, barely grazing the back of the boy’s shirt. He tried to collect himself to send another piece off, but it was already too late. The cave had degraded too much for him to be able to get to the portal unnoticed.

And so the portal closed with the former emperor still on the other side, unable to return to the world of humans he had been so desperately pursuing for centuries.

He pulled himself from the puddle he’d become, cursing and punching at the chunk of rock he found himself on. He had been so close! Another second and he could have gotten home! Centuries of his careful planning and it had all been for nothing!

“Heeey Philip~” Collector’s face suddenly appeared in his line of vision.

Belos jerked back, instinctively attempting to put distance between himself and the child god. “Collector!”

“You weren’t trying to leave, were you?” There was a dangerous edge to Collector’s smile as he floated in front of the disgraced emperor. “You gotta play with me and King!”

“Are you sure we need him?” King asked. He regarded Belos with suspicion and fear, as was to be expected. What reason had Belos given the little titan to be anything but distrustful of him? “He’s been a bad friend, right?”

“He’ll be a better friend now!” Collector said brightly. “He promised he’d play, so he’s going to play!”

Belos was about to agree, to say he would play with them, whatever it took to keep himself on Collector’s good side. He could still salvage this, he told himself. He just had to get back into Collector’s good graces and then he would be able to get back to finding a way back to the human world. It would be alright.

Then he saw the glowing crescent moon on Collector’s outstretched finger.

“What…What is that?” He asked.

“It’s to make sure you’re a good friend!” Collector replied.

“Surely that isn’t necessary,” Belos said, trying to force a smile, something that was near impossible with his current appearance.

“I gotta make sure you keep your promises this time!” Collector smiled wide. Despite his earlier assurances that he wasn’t angry, Belos felt like Collector was holding a grudge.

He turned, trying to escape across the floating chunks of rock. But the Collector’s magic moved too quickly for him.

The moon connected and, in a rain of sparkles, Belos changed. His body shrunk, his monstrous appearance giving way to the form he had taken before he'd betrayed Collector. The transformation looked almost like the scene from the animated Cinderella where the Fairy Godmother gave Cinderella her dress for the ball. Collector had taken the liberty of sprucing up Belos’ Puritan attire, adding in numerous star designs and soft, frilly edges. Even his hair looked softer and fluffier. Slowly, he was lowered to the ground, landing on his hands and knees.

“Are you gonna be a good friend now?” Collector asked, floating over.

Belos stood slowly, turning to face Collector and King. A warm yet vacant smile decorated his face.

“Of course, Collector,” he replied, giving Collector a gentle pat on the head. His voice was somehow both flat and full of warmth. And yet...That warmth felt false. Manufactured. Just as doll-like as Belos’ current appearance. It made a shiver go down King’s spine.

“See? Now we can play!” Collector rose in the air, stars and sparkles flying off of him. Belos remained where he was, arms folded behind his back and a vacant smile still in place.

King also tried to force a smile, but he couldn’t stop staring at Belos. There was no way this was going to end well…

Freedom was everything Collector had wanted and more. He had his best friends, King and Philip, at his side to support him and play with him. Friends who would never leave or betray him, especially now that he’d made sure Philip would be a good friend. Philip even played with him and King sometimes!

Normally, they played out “saving” the Owl Lady, but sometimes they played out “saving” the Emperor. Collector wasn’t going to have Philip go into his beast form, so they constructed a costume that he could throw off when he was “saved” with the power of friendship. Philip was so much nicer now. He always said yes when Collector asked him to play with them and he didn’t have any other icky plans he made Collector help with. All his attention was on making Collector happy.

“Read me a story, Philip!” Collector would beg as he went to bed, and Philip would laugh and shake his head.

“Alright,” he would say with a gentle smile. “But only one. And then you really should get some sleep.”

Collector would always be able to talk him into more than one, though.

Philip played along with the tea parties Collector and King threw, even when they didn’t involve any actual food or drink. He let Collector dress him up in all sorts of outfits he normally would never have touched. He even let Collector braid and style his hair!

Philip never said no to anything anymore.

It was perfect.

King, on the other hand, was having significantly less fun.

At first, he’d been worried that it was all a trick. Collector had said Belos would be nice now, but what if Collector’s spell hadn’t worked? What if Belos was still planning something?

The more time that passed, though, the surer he was that the spell was working as Collector had intended. He was pretty sure Belos wouldn’t give Collector piggyback rides or let him dress him up or mess with his hair if the magic wasn’t working.

Still, even if Belos wasn’t a threat, King didn’t feel entirely comfortable around him. This was the man who had fully intended to wipe out all of witchkind and probably would have tried to kill King too if he’d known what King was. It was hard to feel safe around someone like that.

At present, he, Collector, and Belos were having tea and cookies, attended by the dollified coven heads. Today, Belos was in a version of his emperor’s attire, embellished by Collector with stars and moons. Belos had said it would be the most appropriate choice if they were dining with the coven heads, as it was the appearance the coven heads were most familiar with. Whether or not the coven heads were aware and awake wasn’t clear. King didn’t want to think about it.

The dollified coven heads and Belos’ emperor attire were doing little to relieve King’s discomfort, as they reminded him of all the bad experiences he and his family had had with the Emperor and his covens, something Collector very easily picked up on. Collector had gotten rather good at picking up on his best friend’s feelings, at least in his opinion.

He turned to Belos, tugging at his sleeve. “Tell us a story, Philip!” He begged. Maybe a story would take King’s mind off of being upset!

“I’m afraid I don’t know many stories.” Belos smiled apologetically. “Unless you count Bible stories.”

“Those are stories!” Collector insisted. “So you do know stories! Tell us one!”

“He doesn’t have to tell a story if he doesn’t want to,” King piped up.

“No no, it’s alright,” Belos assured him with that same vacant smile King had grown so accustomed to. “I’m sure I can come up with something.”

He thought for a moment, taking a sip of his tea. Collector watched him intently, wiggling in anticipation.

“Alright,” Belos finally said after what, to King, felt like a period of silence. “I think I have a story for you.” He set down his cup folding his hands on the floating table before him. “Here is the story of Cain and Abel.”

King didn’t know why, but he had a very bad feeling about this story. Collector, meanwhile, looked very excited to hear the tale that was to unfold.

“Once, there were two brothers named Cain and Abel,” Belos began. “They were born of the first humans, Adam and Eve. Abel was a herder of sheep, while his brother Cain was a tiller of the soil.”

“What’s a tiller of the soil?” Collector asked.

“A tiller of the soil is another term for a farmer,” Belos explained. “Cain grew fruits and vegetables.”

“Ooh.” Collector nodded in acknowledgment before settling down to listen once more.

“In time, both brothers brought offerings before the Lord,” Belos continued. “Cain brought for the Lord fruits from his field, and Abel brought the choice firstlings from his flock. And the Lord regarded Abel and his offering but did not regard Cain and his offering.” His eyes closed, beginning to sound as though he were reciting the story from memory. “And Cain was very incensed, and his face fell. And the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you incensed, and why is your face fallen? For whether you offer well, or whether you do not, at the tent flap sin crouches and for you is its longing, but you will rule over it."”

“Do you know what any of that means?” King whispered to Collector.

Collector shook his head, whispering back, “Philip says a lot of weird stuff when he talks about that Bible thing. It doesn’t make a lot of sense but he likes it.”

Belos continued to recite the story, completely oblivious to everything that was going on around him. “And Cain said to Abel his brother, "Let us go out to the field," and when they were in the field Cain rose against Abel his brother and killed him. And the Lord said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother? And he said, "I do not know: am I my brother's keeper?" And He said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the soil. And so, cursed shall you be by the soil that gaped with its mouth to take your brother's blood from your hand. If you till the soil, it will no longer give you strength. A restless wanderer shall you be on the earth."” Belos seemed to falter at this, his breath hitching. He didn’t open his eyes, but his hands formed fists, gathering up bunches of the tablecloth in his gauntlets.

Still, he continued after a deep, shaking breath. His voice seemed to fill the entire room. “And Cain said to the Lord, "My punishment is too great to bear. Now that You have driven me this day from the soil I must hide from Your presence, I shall be a restless wanderer on the earth and whoever finds me will kill me." And the Lord said to him, "Therefore whoever kills Cain shall suffer sevenfold vengeance." And the Lord set a mark upon Cain so that whoever found him would not slay him. And Cain went out from the Lord's presence and dwelled in the land of Nod east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife and she conceived and bore Enoch. Then he became the builder of a city and he called the name of the city like his son's name, Enoch.”

His voice faded out, leaving the room in silence once more.

“Is…that the end?” King asked.

Belos opened his eyes once more, picking up his teacup with trembling hands. “That is the end,” he answered.

“It kinda sounds like you and Caleb,” Collector said. He instinctively moved away, probably expecting Belos to blow up at him. King didn’t blame him for being worried. He had a feeling this Caleb person was probably a sore subject, especially since he’d heard Belos shout that name at Hunter during that fight in the cave.

Belos’ expression fell, and for the first time, King thought he saw a flash of genuine emotion on the emperor’s face. “Yes, it is.”

Collector relaxed a bit at the lack of yelling, although he still looked rather sad. “…I still don’t get why you killed him…” He leaned against Belos’ shoulder, hugging Belos’ arm. “And I don’t get why Cain killed Abel.”

“It’s a good thing that you don’t,” Belos assured him, patting Collector’s head. “There is a darkness that exists in the hearts of men that I hope you will not understand for many years to come.”

“That doesn’t tell me why though!” Collector whined, flopping against Belos.

“Um…” King awkwardly raised his hand, drawing Belos and Collector’s attention to him. “Who’s Caleb?”

“Caleb was…my brother,” Belos explained, his lips twisting as he fiddled with his cup.

“And you…killed him?” King asked slowly.

“I did.” Belos nodded. “Many years ago now.”

Well, that explained why Caleb was such a sensitive subject.

“I still don’t get why,” Collector grumbled, hugging Belos’ arm tighter. “You always said it was “to save his soul”, but what does that mean?”

King felt an uncomfortable lump developing in his stomach. He’d already thought Belos was bad, but this? This made him seem even worse.

“It’s a long story,” Belos laughed wearily. “But in the end…” He paused, considering his words. “I think it was more about jealousy than anything else. As it was with Cain and Abel, I was…jealous.”

“Jealous of what?” Collector probed.

“Jealous of many things. But.” Belos held up a finger to boop Collector’s nose. “I think that is quite enough talking of the past for now.”

“But there’s more stuff I wanna know!” Collector protested.

“I understand,” Belos said. “However, I fear all of this is making King rather uncomfortable.”

Collector looked over at King, who shrunk back a bit.

“I don’t want to ruin the story,” King said, trying to force a smile.

“No, it’s okay!” Collector floated over to hug King. “I can make Philip tell me about it later! We can talk about something else!”

“Are you sure?” King glanced at Belos. “It sounds like you really want to hear about it.”

“I’m sure!” Collector nodded emphatically.

The conversation moved on from there, with Collector getting King to talk about other games they might want to play in the future. King was hesitant to play any games other than “Owl House”, but it didn’t hurt to talk, right? And Collector got so excited talking about other games.

Eventually, Collector got tired, and the three of them retreated to Collector and King’s “bedroom”. Collector asked for another bedtime story, which Belos responded by attempting to recount a fairytale he’d heard once. It was more funny than anything else because it was clear that Belos did not remember this fairytale well at all. He kept stopping and starting and trailing off, forgetting plot points and character names.

Still, it put Collector to sleep well enough, which left only Belos and King awake, King in his bed, and Belos sitting on Collector’s.

King sat up a bit in bed, steeling himself. He needed to know more. “Um…Mr. Belos?”

Belos glanced over at King, offering what was likely meant to be a comforting smile. King didn’t find it comforting.

“You may call me Philip if you like.”

“Right. Uh…Philip.” It felt wrong to call Belos that. “Could…Could I ask you more about Caleb?”

“Are you sure you want to hear about that?” Belos asked, his smile being replaced by a look of concern.

“I…want to understand you better,” King said. “There’s a lot I don’t know about you.”

“I’m afraid that was purposeful on my part.” Belos smiled apologetically, letting out a small laugh.

“Yeah, I…I had a feeling.” King fiddled with his blanket, unable to look at Belos for long periods. “Anyway, uh…I…I was wondering why you killed Caleb. What did you mean when you said you were “saving his soul”?”

Belos’ face fell again and he looked away. The façade of false warmth seemed to fall away, leaving Belos looking unbelievably tired and older than his physical appearance might suggest.

It felt like eons before he finally spoke.

“I was convinced that that witch and this place had…corrupted him. That he’d been seduced.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “We were witch hunters, raised to hate witches. I couldn’t conceive why he would have left me for one. Why he would have replaced me with one.” A hint of anger crept into the last sentence, although it was quickly buried by that bone-deep exhaustion.

“So you killed him,” King concluded.

“I didn’t intend to,” Belos quickly clarified. “It just…happened. He defended her. I didn’t…I didn’t want to.” His voice broke on those words. Tears were welling up in his eyes.

It was strange to see Belos so…vulnerable. So…human. King had never thought of the emperor as a person before. The emperor had always been this looming, faceless threat. Realizing he was a person with a past… It made this all…so much worse. This was a human being who had chosen to do horrible things, but a human being nonetheless. Belos wasn’t some kind of inhuman monster. He was just a man.

But also…King didn’t know how much of it he could believe. Belos’ confession felt genuine, but it could be a trick or the spell manipulating Belos’ personality to make him more sympathetic. Honestly, this was just a lot of stuff King needed to process.

“I’m…sorry,” King said slowly. “That sounds…really hard.”

“It has not been easy,” Belos admitted. “I see him in my dreams constantly. I fear he would be…disappointed in me.”

King awkwardly shuffled out of his bed to pat Belos on the arm. He didn’t know what to say so this seemed like a safe bet. What did you say to something like this?

“Thank you.” Belos smiled wearily. “Your kindness is appreciated, little king.”

“You’re…welcome.” He tried not to think about how much bigger Belos’ hands were. How easily Belos could pick him up and drag him away.

“You should get some sleep,” Belos suggested. “You’ll need your energy to keep up with the Collector.”

“Right, okay.” King clambered back into bed, getting under the covers.

Belos stood up, starting to leave the bedroom.

“Wait!” King suddenly sat up.

Belos paused, turning back. “Yes?”

“Do you miss Caleb?”

Once again, the smile faded, leaving the former emperor looking haunted and exhausted. “Every day.”

And then he was gone, leaving King alone with Collector. King settled back into bed, closing his eyes. He hoped Luz would get back soon. He didn’t know how much longer he could do this.

#the owl house #fanfiction #the owl house spoilers #king clawthorne #toh collector #philip wittebane #emperor belos

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lullabyes22-blog · 7 months

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Forward, but Never Forget/XOXO - Ch: 17 - Grounded

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

AO3 - Forward, But Never Forget/XOXO

FFnet - Forward, But Never Forget (XOXO)

Playlist on Youtube

Fanart, Meta, Snippets

Chapters: 1| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |8 | 9 | 10 |11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54

CH 17: Silco and Jinx. A pitch-black comedy with a pinch of magic.

HEAVY TW: Suicidal ideation, discussions of suicide, attempted suicide.

Secondary tw: violence, disturbing adult behavior among adolescents, depictions of mental illness.

cw for drug use, jumpscares, and the aftermath of war.

If I've missed any tw's, please drop me a PM!

I love and I hate it at the same time you and I drank poison from the same vine ~ "Daylight" – David Kushner

The young bootblack trudges home.

His workbag is slung over his small shoulder. His bones ache in the mizzle hanging like translucent curtains over the cobblestones. It's been a long day. Hellishly long. The explosion in the lower-zones is over. But fear hangs in the air like a persistent chill.

Like after the war.

It wasn't so bad after the first few months. They started tearing down and rebuilding the broken bits in the city, like a stage set from one of those street plays. The web of merchant alleys in the Sumps were pitched with colorful tents, strands of lanterns and chaotic booths. Shops started opening in the Promenade, their doors releasing the aroma of fresh-baked scones and candied carvernfruit. Entresol ran thick with somber suited-up men and women filing in and out of skyscrapers—what his grandpa calls The infernal machines of bureaucracy.

The boy takes it to mean literal machines. All steam and gears and pulleys, powering the city. He doesn't mind it. There were people out on the streets again. Hundreds of shoes stomping through the sludge across the pavements. Dirty shoes mean coins.

By the month's end, he'll have less chances to make coins. There is talk of public schools, and compulsory education for urchins under fifteen. He dislikes the idea of school. Grandpa has promised him there'll be new games to play. But playing outside is better.

Not tonight.

All the streets are emptied. Folks are only allowed to get food from the grocer's, and return home. The street-corners are full of whispers. Firelights—Jinx—The Eye of Zaun. The boy isn't sure what any of it means, except that the city has fallen dark again. Blackguards patrol in chem-suits, carrying guns.

They aren't here to play. Their guns aren't toys.

Under the flickering halo of a street lantern, the boy stops to roll a cigarette. Grandpa warned him not to tarry. Trouble's a-brewing, he'd said. Finish yer work, then sling yer hook.

But it's good to be out, if only for a few minutes.

The boy licks the edge of the paper, and takes a slow breath of the sticky April night.

"Diesel strain, hm? You're having yourself a time."

The man looming from the fog is tall. Taller than Grandpa. His face is like Grandpa's too: all wrinkles and scars. But only on one side, hidden under unruly twists of dark hair. He wears a long coat, the hem clouded with dust, like the tips of his boots, which have metal winking on the toes.

His smile is a sharp thing. But his one blue eye lingers gently on the boy, as if he might be thinking of some other child from long ago.

The stare is unsettling. The boy thinks of a fly caught in a spider's web. He likes spiders. He keeps a big fat one—Billy-O—in a shoebox under his and Grandpa's bed, and feeds it dead bugs.

This is different. This isn't a spider—but something spookier—unfolding out of the dark and blocking his path.

Hastily, the boy tucks the unlit cigarette behind his ear. "I'll be off, sir."

"Do. It's dangerous at this hour."

There is no sinister game of hopscotch. The man sidesteps smoothly, letting the boy go. Close-up, the boy glimpses the man's other eye from behind the veil of hair. It shines with an otherworldly glow: ember and shadow. The boy's heart plummets. He takes off like a shot. Giddiness is a thin cover for undiluted terror.

Death darkening the door—as Grandpa says.

Daring a glance over his shoulder, the boy looks for the strange man.

The streets are empty.

The streets are empty, but Silco is at home.

He's always at home, no matter what part of Zaun he's in. The city's spirit throbs in his bloodstream. Outrunning it is like trying to outrun his own skin. Still—it's been a long time since he's gone from the zenith to ground-zero. He has a view of the cityscape's glittering tapestry through his office window. But it's different from being in the thick of it.

Right in Zaun's bazaar of the bizarre.

Slipping out of his headquarters was easy, even with the doubled guards, and tripled surveillance. When Silco first had the building renovated, he'd ordered it designed the way illusionists build the trappings of their stage. There was the façade: an Art Noveau showcase of steel-framed glass. Then there was the inner sanctum: a warren of trap-doors and tunnels.

His network was privy to the barest blueprint. Silco kept a skeleton crew on permanent shift, guarding each escape hatch. The rest of the labyrinth was his own to traverse: his memory the skeleton key. For a man whose trade is trickery, home was an architecture of vice. Sliding panels to practice eavesdropping. Escape-chutes to deploy ambushes. Every brick a conspiracy and every bolt a ruse.

Silco's fondest wish was that he'd one day give Jinx the tour. Show her that the artistry of the lie was just as essential as the mechanics of the crime. Power could be neither bought nor sold. It was the system of pulleys that gave the machinery the impetus to keep spinning.

Tonight the machinery has seized up. The gears have stalled. A suite full of dead bodies and deadheaded braids—and he was powerless.

He must make things right.

The hatch from the Chancellor's penthouse suite disgorged Silco to the subterranean endpoint at the bottom floor. From there, a twisting shaft that led out beneath the roadways. The stairwell echoed hollowly under his boots. Overhead steel rumbled and dust trickled. The darkness exhaled like a pair of lungs. The space Silco emerged into was an unfinished service passage at Entresol central district—grease-slicked cinderblocks and rough-hewn floors. He'd made a show of hiring the most talented stonemason in his network. But it was an entirely different breed of workmen who built this passageway.

He kept it as they'd left it. No torch or chem-light.

The path to freedom was as black as coal.

The passage terminated in a vault door. Silco worked the combination: 1-0-1-0.

Jinx's birthday.

The night air was hot and sludge-thick. Silco stepped into an ambit of light cast by a gooseneck streelamp. Mizzle fell, droplets alighting on his hair and shoulders. Old piss-stains rose wick-like up the walls like flames. The old alleyway reeked of rot. Silco knew the odor well—the same smell from when he was a boy, trailing after Vander to chase vermin for the ratcatchers.

He took it in stride. It was the reek of life.

A few louts anointed with booze were scattered on the cobblestones. At Silco's footfalls, they staggered to their feet. They didn't look like vagrants. More like scavengers—eyes sharp in skeletal faces—wearing vagrant's clothes.

"Arright, mate?"

Silco nodded.

"Had yer fill of the lights, eh?" One man clapped Silco's shoulder. "Lost yer way?"

"Close enough."

"Don't we know it!" A chorus of laughter. "Let's get you home, eh? We'll help you find the right track."

From inside his coat, the man withdrew a flask. There was an unmistakable whiff: tequila, sea-salt, slime. The sum total of every despair-inducing organism in this city.

That, and a shot of kerosene.

The man grinned—false bonhomie hiding bottomless malice.

"One sip," he said. "It'll make your night."

His companions circled closer. Their laughter ebbed. Their violence pooled in Silco's mouth. Heavy, salty, electric.

A taste he'd missed like his basest self.

Silco's eyes drifted up to the man. His lip curled, exposing serrated teeth.

"Don't I know it," he said.

In a blur, he smashed the flask into the man's jaw. The crack was as wet as the night.

His victim reeled, blood frothing from his mouth. He dropped in a heap. His companions froze in their tracks. The exchange had taken less than five seconds. Less time than it would've taken them to stick a pocketknife into Silco's gut.

It was a favorite tactic of water-rats—muggers. After dark, they preyed on suckers in the blind spots. Once upon a time, they'd been fine sport for Silco to practice his own knifework on.

Now it felt like picking bones off a plate.

In the aftermath, Silco stood, arms loose at his sides. His bad eye glowed red in the refracted lamplight.

"Off," he said. "Else I'll use you for kindling."

The remaining water-rats scattered.

Silco poured the swill from their flask into a dumpster. The fluid soaked the scraps of paper and discarded empties. He struck a matchstick, and let it drop. The stuff ignited with a whoosh.

Let the blackguards chase a pyromaniac tonight. It would keep them off his back—and out of the way.

Flames nibbled at the periphery of darkness. The silky laughter of fire gathered into a roar. Silco strode off without a backward glance.

The thoroughfare was a haze of motorcars and smoke. Oil-slicked puddles showed distorted reflections of pedestrians hurrying home after the curfew. Most wore hats, filtration masks or scarves in case of a Gnasher. Only a few stragglers went barefaced.

Bad weather was a sneak-thief's best friend.

Silco tugged the collar of his coat high, donned his own mask, and melted into the crowd. At Bridgewaltz, no one stopped him. At Emberflit Alley, blackguards crisscrossed the district, but gave him an indifferent berth. At Drop Street, he blurred into the scenery.

A scarred raw-boned man is no rarity in the Undercity. Even with his disguise, most don't recognize Silco by sight. His face isn't well known. Only his voice—and designation.

The Eye.

Chin low, shoulders high, Silco allows his features to slip now into a mask of flat-eyed vacancy. His body surrenders to the flow of the passing crowd. Small steps; slow movements.

Just a little fish in a big pool. Nothing to see.

Beyond the neon ripples of Entresol, the Sumps are chokingly quiet. Streets are scudded with low-lying smog. In the glow of a lantern, Silco takes his bearings. He is in the southern quadrant—a long way from the Oshra Va'Zaun tunnels. He has a half-night's worth of ground to cover before the network is alerted to his disappearance. There will be sentinels at every shortcut; guards in every bolthole.

Fortunately, Silco's sonar is guided by a different map.

Janna performs an act of gracious negligence by camouflaging his silhouette down the rooftops. He slithers without sound from parapet to plinth. Vaults the gaps between signposts like a phantom. The wind whips his hair in his eyes; cold, sharp, bracing. Silco welcomes the sting. He'd been naturally fluid once. But now he lacks the lightness of his younger days. Worse, his bad eye has skewed his depth perception. Momentum bleeds into vertigo. His arms and legs feel cooked. More than once, he has to recalibrate the distance between two points—lest he take a fatal tumble.

Age makes fools of everyone.

And yet the southbound journey holds a bittersweet catharsis. All the time overhead has dulled his sense of scale. His world has become a machine with a single gear: the endless grind. No rest, no respite. Just a mind fine-tuned to run and keep running.

Roof-runs are different. There is an art to keeping one's balance. It requires a sure step; a steady head.

An eye on the horizon.

Silco remembers the horizon of six years ago. Himself and Jinx, hand-in-hand—racing down this very stretch of rooftops. He remembers how they'd kept seamless pace with each other, her small hand folded through his. His shadow; his comet-tail. They'd race together across the crazy jumble of rooftops: teetering like tightrope walkers across the asymmetrical shingles, darting like moths around the gaseous radiance enrobing the gables, skittering like spiders down the storm pipes. He remembers squeezing Jinx's hand whenever she'd make a particularly spry move. Her giggles were like a blue ribbon, unfurling out and out into the night.

In those moments, dizzied with bittersweet kinship, Silco counted himself the luckiest bastard in the city.

(And I squandered it.)

Six years. A long time to keep an eye to the horizon. An eternity, even for the sharpest man. Silco was ready to give his own lifetime up for the return on investment. But he'd neglected the simplest fact of all: Jinx was never meant to be an investment. He'd done the damage, and reaped the rewards. Left her an orphan; made her a killer. And he'd known the cost, hadn't he? The rot creeping in the cracks. The reaper's silhouette darkening the door. He could outwit a dozen devils. But no conman can escape the consequences of his cut. No smooth-talker can talk his way out of the truth.

Nobody can ride the tide of denial forever.

(Forgive me, Jinx.)

Silco sinks deeper into Oshra Va' Zaun's bowels. Down the fire-escape of a shuttered station. Past the chrome glaze of a rusted turbine. His reflection travels the panes of cobwebbed metal like a shark under ripplets of water. His boots hit the dirt with no sound.

Leaning forward, palms on knees, Silco catches his breath. His brain pulses on adrenaline. The surge is familiar: a sparking song of nerves.

Call and response.

(Are you here, my lovely?)

The explosion site is cordoned off. Blackguards scuttle in the shadows like roaches. But Silco knows a dozen tortuous passages from his mining heyday. Jinx was fond of using them for games of hide-and-seek—with Firelights as her quarries. The tunnels were littered with their bones.

Now they are vaporized. Like everything else.

The perimeter of Jinx's hideout is a scorched crater. The catwalks are incinerated into charred rubble. The turbines are reduced to misshapen exoskeletons. The air reeks of a doused firepit. The leftover heat from the blast still radiates off the caverns. Now and then, pebbles skitter, presaging a more sinister collapse.

A similar sensation creeps through Silco.

Not dread.

Grief.

This hideout was his first gift to her. His acknowledgement of her specialness. Her acknowledgement of him as a father. By blowing it up, was she excising their bond? Or did it signify something deeper? Like Jinx spiriting off with Hex-gem. Like Silco setting foot in Zaun's depths. A return to the base elements—shadows and bilgewater for him, magic and gunpowder for her.

Mostly, he wonders if it's a trap. If Jinx is luring him out to deal the death-blow.

He's ready to chance it.

He creeps through the ruined hideout. Most exits are blocked off. Some lead to cul-de-sacs choked with debris. Others void into antechambers of noxious trapped gases. Only one tunnel remains intact. Silco peers through. It is barely large enough to squeeze through. The dimensions are pure darkness, thick and unending.

Silco steps back, taking a breath. A faint prickle of something ripples around the aperture, like the leftovers of a fireworks display. Blue motes glitter at the edges off his sightline.

The aftermath of a blast from the Hex-gem.

He doesn't hesitate. When it comes to Jinx, concern outweighs caution. Switching on his chem-light, Silco crawls into the tunnel. The inside is slimed with dampness and pitted with holes; some coin-sized, others the wide as hubcaps. Their interior yields a grainy dimness, giving no sense of depth.

Silco crawls on, alert for sounds. All he hears is a hollow whispering. Where it could be coming from—?

A spiky shimmer darts through the air. Silco squints. It is a dragonfly. At least it resembles one. But its carapace is glossier. It gives off a maddening whine, zipping by Silco's ear. He slaps it against the tunnel wall. The little bastard crumples like tinfoil.

A raspy croon floats in:

"Peek-a-boo."

A pair of hands flash out of the hole closest to him. They snatch his leg with astonishing strength. Silco makes a sharp involuntary sound. His chem-light skitters from his hands. The last thing he glimpses is a ghost-white face surfacing out of the darkness. A pair of eyes glow pink as cherry-bombs.

Jinx.

"Shoulda known it wouldn't be easy."

"What—?"

Then she yanks and Silco plunges into space.

He feels himself falling: a giddy weightlessness. It lasts no more than an eyeblink. He hits not ground but water, its icy shock sucking the breath from his lungs. He thrashes, disoriented. A little hand seizes his wrist. Then he is swept away—not by an undercurrent but Jinx's unyielding ferocity.

Out into an unknowable darkness.

Silco has grounded Jinx once—and only once.

It was also the only time he'd nearly struck her.

Jinx was thirteen. Her first teenage autumn; a milestone. Zaun had a rite of passage for each. Nothing like Piltover, where bored adolescents celebrated the trappings of maturity by sneaking off to indulge in vices like alcohol, sex or drugs.

Most sumpsnipes were already acclimated with such unsavoriness.

And worse.

In the Fissures, each coming-of-age was marked by something else. A test of courage. At seven, sumpsnipes came together in packs and leapt across the jagged firmament of rooftops, every iron spire and rusted stairwell beckoning with a broken neck. At ten, they swarmed any Topside automobile left carelessly parked in the alleyside, stripping it down to the bone with homemade chisels and gemmies. By sixteen, most had joined gangs, each with their own bloodthirsty initiations: maraudings, maimings, murders. By the Big Nineteenth, if they'd not already slugged a shot of gutrot hooch, cut a chem-baron's purse, ridden the Rising Howl, and cased a Topside joint for a smash-and-grab, they hadn't truly achieved their majority.

Thus, by the Big Nineteenth, the majority of sumpsnipes were dead.

The thirteenth-year marked the turning point. For those who survived it, childhood was done.

Jinx's childhood was already dead and buried.

At the edge of Zaun's outskirts, equidistant between Factorywood and the Sumps, sat a massive turbine, grimed with decades of filth. Large as a crater, with rotor blades the size of boats. It was part of a defunct structure known as the Treatment Stump, that once purified the foul-smelling run-off from Factorywood's smelteries. The whole complex was as primitively derelict as the rest of Zaun's infrastructure.

A monument to rust.

A tributary forking away from the Pilt sat under the treatment plant, corrosive with waste effluents. Upriver, at the Promenade, it was a smooth blue vein. As it snaked lower, past Entresol's Canal Zone, it narrowed, a lurking serpent of foulness, twisting ever downward along the Sumps until it finally reached Factorywood. There, it pooled and collected in a toxic bog at the Treatment Stump, before spiraling lower into the caverns of Oshra Va'Zaun, and merging with the underground river that spat out into the Deadlands.

On their thirteenth Name Day, sumpsnipes anxiously gathered at the edges of the Treatment Stump's turbine, watching the blades whip around, feeling the foul backdraft on their skins. The speed seemed sluggish at first glimpse; only up close did it betray its dangerous velocity.

The sumpsnipes would hold their breaths, gather their courage—then leap fluidly onto the blades.

Done right, a sumpsnipe landed feet-first, and became one with the rotors' rhythm. Jumping from one blade to the next, a spray-can in hand, they'd emblazon its surface with gang insignias, a multicolored impasto to mark the passage of generations. If miscalculated, the sumpsnipe fell through the gap between the rotors—and straight into the churning spume.

A handful of boys and girls did fall. Some drowned. Others were crippled for life.

When Vander was a boy, he'd made the leap successfully. So had Silco.

The trick was to center your focus not on the rotors but their rhythm. To learn it, without letting yourself become hypnotized by its inexorable whirr. You must not fall into the vortex; you must ride it. Once your feet hit the blades, you were safe, in the eye of ordered chaos. The rest was a joyride.

Nothing in Jinx's life was a joyride.

She'd leapt under Silco's watch. Not a milestone but an initiation. The first jump—and the first kill.

A chem-punk was fastened to the rotor. A snitch. He'd been caught slipping intel on Silco's Shimmer strongholds to the Slickjaws. During the last raid, Silco had lost twelve men. Six were taken captive and tortured to death. One was a girl, only fourteen. The Slickjaws had sown her mouth shut, taken her eyes, and left the rest of her splayed in a butchered wreckage outside the Drop.

Jinx had found her corpse.

Afterward, she'd made it her mission to smoke the snitch out. Her methodical approach was no different from Silco's. She'd used stealth instead of subterfuge, but otherwise she'd followed the same strategy. She'd infiltrated one of the Slickjaws' hideouts. She'd tracked their visitors. She'd watched for patterns. Then she'd followed them deep, and cornered the snitch—a Blind Man's bluff turned dead-man's-hand.

Silco had received him hogtied like a prize. TRAITOR was branded on his forehead with blood-red ink.

Jinx had tiptoed coyly up to Silco. "Do I get a reward?"

Silco had put a hand to her cheek. His touch wasn't tender so much as thoughtful. Eyes aglow, Jinx leaned into it. She was always like that: a black cat twining around him, mrrrowing for affection.

Silco had little patience for affection. Jinx was proving his sole exception.

"I'll do you one better, child."

"Huh?"

"You're a fast learner. But you're still not equal to the crew." He'd given her a solemn look. "You've been my little shadow. But shadows must shed their skin."

Jinx had giggled, but there was a brittle edge to it.

"What d'you mean?"

"You trapped the snitch. You captured him, alive and breathing. The Slickjaws will know you for an enemy. They will hunt you."

Jinx bit her lip. Old doubts clouded the clearness of her eyes.

"But...I-I'm not a fighter."

"You're not." He'd smoothed a hand through her hair. "You're better. You're a planner. There is no situation you cannot think your way out of. But sometimes, it takes more than guile to outmaneuver danger. Sometimes, it takes blood."

Jinx's breath wavered.

"It's time," Silco said. "You're ready for the first taste."

His eyes had passed from Jinx to the snitch. He lay on Silco's floor, bound hand and foot, mouth sealed with duct tape. At the intensifying burn of Silco's stare, he began to whimper.

"Let's make it a special one."

At his side, Jinx hadn't made a sound.

Now the snitch was spreadeagled to the turbine. A spit-soaked gag was wadded between his jaws. Bullseyes whorled across his scored skin. Silco's crew had taken their time on him, beating him and branding him. But they'd left him intact.

He was Jinx's quarry. Her treat.

Her kill.

"Two steps," Silco said. "Make the leap—and put a bullet in his brainpan."

The crew were present for the initiation: Sevika, Lock, Ran and Dustin. They'd joshed and jostled Jinx, but none dared push her toward the rotors. Not in Silco's presence. Sevika spoke matter-of-factly of how best to do it: time the rotor's sweeps and jump a split-second in advance. Don't look the target in the eye. Just take aim and squeeze the trigger. And if Jinx was too chickenshit, hey, she could put if off—put her acceptance into their world off—for another year.

A cruel goad. Jinx should've been too clever to fall for it.

Her defiant streak always outmatched her cleverness.

Glowering, she'd elbowed past the crew. Silco can still picture her. Perched like a cat at the edge of the railing, Puff-Puff in hand, the wan moonlight plating her pale skin. The backdraft from the turbine ruffled her bangs and stirred her braids. Goose pimples rose on her arms. The crew encircled her and began the traditional chant:

"Let 'er rip!"

The whole time they shouted, louder and louder, Jinx didn't take her eyes off the chem-punk. She took a breath, steadied her spine and bit her lower lip. Her body was static; her brain was the opposite, its fierce workings lighting sparks in her eyes.

At the last moment, she glanced up at Silco. The small nod he gave was rewarded with her smile at the highest wattage.

She leapt.

The crew fell silent. It was instinctual. Like watching a comet fall. One heartbeat Jinx was crouched on the railing. The next, she was perched crosslegged on the rotors.

One arm lifted, languorously. A pert middle finger aimed skyward.

The crew blinked. Then the cheers began. Sevika rolled her eyes, then grudgingly clapped along. Silco stayed just outside their half circle, his expression unreadable save for a small smile.

Inside his chest, pride stirred.

But this was half the test. The most critical was yet to come.

Jinx traipsed up to the chem-punk. He squirmed against his bindings, emitting high-pitched shrieks against the gag. Without any perceptible shift in expression, Jinx cocked Puff-Puff. Her eyes were blank as distant moons. They beheld her target the same way, as if he were a fragment of space-junk caught in her orbit.

Do it, Silco thought.

It was but one of the hundred steps to forging her into polished perfection. To peeling away the moony-eyed child to expose that tungsten chilliness that Silco knew was at her center. Power was a commodity in their world. By dint of its nature, supply was limited. All scarcity came with cost—be it a rival chem-boss putting a bullseye between your eyes, or a treacherous ally sticking a knife in your back, or greedy underlings seeking to steal your throne from under your feet.

They all wanted to own what you possessed.

They all took without paying the price.

Silco had taught Jinx the language of knives. He'd showed her the intimacy of violence, not just as a display of force but a measure of skill. Now she needed to master the final lesson. Anyone in the Undercity could wield a weapon. Anything in the Undercity could become a weapon. But at its core, a weapon was neither a toy for showy enjoyment nor a tool for sanctified self-defense. It was the purest and most absolute means of death.

He wasn't making Jinx a killer. He was teaching her the cost of survival.

About its winners—and losers.

Do it.

The chem-punk let off a choking sob and began to cry.

Jinx stared back. Her visage stayed empty. But Puff-Puff wavered in her grip.

The crew began muttering to themselves. Was this going to presage another meltdown? Ruthlessly competent as Jinx was with gadgetry, she had yet to learn that bloodwork was a different beast entirely. There was no room for error in the business of life and death.

Maybe, the crew whispered, she's not cut out for this business?

Maybe she was as they'd always suspected: a loose end.

Silco kept his peace. His focus was on Jinx. Every muscle in her body was tensed as if for rupture—or release. Her blue eyes, flat as mirrors, held a liquid sheen.

Tears were trickling down the chem-punk's cheeks.

Softly, Silco said, "Quick and clean."

Jinx's head jerked up.

"If you make a kill," Silco said, "do it right."

Jinx swallowed, once. Nodded.

"Finish it."

All hesitation fled Jinx's features.

In a practiced one-two, she took aim—and fired. The bullet slammed into the chem-punk's forehead. Blood splattered. His breath hitched in his lungs. His feet drummed the rotors.

He subsided into stillness.

Jinx released a shuddering sigh. With a well-aimed kick, she sent the corpse tumbling over the rotor's edge.

Down into sucking blackness.

Meanwhile, within the whirling blur of the rotors, Jinx's body flowed like graceful script. Armed with a spray-can, she decorated the surface around the blood-splatter with her monkey motif, trippy slashes of green overlaying deep-red. Then, like a little girl in a game of hopscotch, she danced from one rotor to the next, before somersaulting up and over the railing to land amid the crew.

They cheered louder than ever. Jinx grinned like a child with a Name Day cake. For the first time, she felt like she belonged in their circle.

Then Dustin made the error of errors: "Guess the cannery made good practice, huh?"

In hindsight, Silco should have slit his throat. It would've saved him a night of trouble.

Silence crept in. Sevika glared as if, by means of some anatomical freak-accident, Dustin's arsehole had pinwheeled where his mouth should be. Ran's jaw swerved to grinding teeth. Lock's features resolidified to stone.

Jinx stared, her face frozen around its previous gleeful expression. Her eyes seemed to turn inside out, like something old and rusted was unhinging. A cold electricity flowed in. Memory. Pain. Hatred.

Dustin shrugged. "Just saying. Li'l Miss already has a mighty fine body-count. I bet once she hits the Big Nineteenth—owfuck!"

In a flash, Jinx's boot hit his kneecap. His bad kneecap; the one she'd cracked two years ago with a mallet. In the same blink, she unscrewed her body from gravity, and backflipped onto the railing. Her stare held a fierce emptiness. She eyed the whipping rotors, but seemed not to see them.

Silco edged closer. "Jinx—"

To this day, he's not sure what happened. Maybe a pall of shadow fell over the scenery. A trick of light. A shift of wind.

Whatever the case—Jinx vanished.

Her shape spilled off the railing, and disappeared into a gap between the rotors. Swallowed by a dark so pure it was like staring into everlasting night.

Or death.

The crew stared, their heads cocked at quizzical angles. Like the first time Jinx had jumped, they seemed not to comprehend what they were seeing. Below, the turbines roared. Above, the space was paradoxically quiet. Then Sevika said, "Fuck," and it was like a ghostly susurrus from the depths.

A call to arms.

Adrenaline sliced through Silco. He whipped forward. He would've vaulted the railing and taken the same trajectory as Jinx at suicidal speed.

Sevika's arm caught him around the waist.

"Silso—don't!"

"Let go!"

"She's gone."

Gone.

Like a lost toy.

Gone and Jinx didn't belong in the same sentence.

Rage tore through Silco's ribcage. His elbow jerked, catching Sevika in the gut. She grunted; he broke free. For the first time since his boyhood, he was gripped by a mad tangle of impulses. The hot rush of horror like a buried river, the high-pitched buzz of fury like vultures circling a carcass, the cold slither of ruthlessness like a sea serpent riding a storm's waves.

His eyes cut mercilessly into the crew. "Find her."

Sevika argued, "Sir, there's no way she'd survive that fall—"

"Find. Her."

The crew had no choice but to obey.

The entire night, a search party combed the path running parallel to the tributary. Lackeys sprinted through the darkness. Torches shone. Every so often voices called a chorus of nicknames—Ghostberry? Bossgirl? Li'l Miss? The Pilt's soft lapping soaked up the cries.

Silco and Sevika covered the southern bend, where the spume churned through the turbine's filters and spat the waste into the soil itself. Nothing but sedge and sludge for miles. At the horizon, a streak of green smog bisected the moon. To the north, the Bridge arced against the surreal cupola of the sky. Squares of light from the warehouses at Factorywood glowed.

Silco's boots splashed through puddles shimmering with toxic hues. The runoff from the dump sites boiled off the vista. If Jinx had washed up on these shores, there's no way she'd survive. She'd have quaffed up the poisons and choked to death. A vision slotted through his mind: Jinx floating facedown, braids drifting like blue snakes, blood pooling from her open mouth.

Dead minutes after her first kill.

Lost our girl already? said a voice inside Silco's head—a gravely voice that he'd stopped hearing since he'd stabbed Vander.

Teeth gritted, Silco blocked it off.

Jinx wasn't dead. He knew it in his bones. Like him, the child was maddeningly unkillable. It would take more than a rusted turbine to cut her down to size. But her being lost was tenfold worse. She could be anywhere. Trapped in a factory cesspit. Despoiled by toxic spume. Strangling in stray wires.

He ordered Sevika to search the eastside. Silco took the west. His eyes kept a careful scan; his body moved in a deliberate rhythm, limbs loosening the way they always did when he was near water. Yet inside, something raked him like a broken spur.

It wasn't fear. He'd tasted that many times before. Mastered it and made it his own. This was different: edgeless and yet ordinary. Part of it was a generalized concern: Jinx was his brightest asset. He was responsible for her safety. The other part was irrationally specific.

Jinx was more than his asset. She was his.

His.

Silco's feet flashed through the bristling trash, navigating between coils of rusted metal and shards of bottles that scattered the river bed. He left the subdivisions and dumpsites behind. The darkened water of the streambeds gave way to something purer and yet dense with minerals. Instinctively, he was cutting a path parallel to the Oshra Va' Zaun caverns.

Down to the Deadlands.

They were a stretch of wasteland between the ore-mines and Zaun proper—a raw patch without a blade of grass or a speck of steel. The vista was hellish desolation: dead trees fossilized into gnarled silhouettes; sludgy pools choked with carcasses; a soil of chalky ash suited to funeral pyres. The name itself—Deadland—had its origin in the toxic gas pockets that leaked from the caverns.

The place was a death-trap, all the more lethal for its isolation.

Once, the Deadlands were home to the castaways of Oshra Va'Zaun. After the early settlers came, it became a squalid pit of cannibalism. Bones buried under blackened cairns; desiccated corpses nailed to posts like scarecrows. Here and there, rock formations loomed: less mountains than obelisks, thrusting up from the scorched earth as if some titanic spirit had roused itself from the mire.

The obelisks were carved with runes beneath layers of dust. Curses, lamentations, blessings—nobody could decide.

In Silco's boyhood, the Deadlands were forsaken except by wagons en route to the mines. On the outskirts, a string of bunkhouses were erected: less abodes than makeshift shacks. A network of tram lines crisscrossed the terrain. Others, collapsed beneath the weight of rock-falls, were ghost-tracks tracing live veins of riverwater—still pumping, and miraculously pure.

When Silco was younger, he and Vander would follow the route on hot summer days. They'd find the deepest, bluest pools to wash the grime off their skins. For Vander, it was an adventure. Silco simply wanted to be in the water. The streams soothed him like nothing else could.

By late noon, the skies would open into downpour. Silco and Vander would take refuge in the caves. They'd carve out shells of dried cavernfruit, and use them as bowls for rainwater. Other times they'd catch fish, and smoke them over a small fire. Afterwards, bellies full, they'd drowse side-by-side. The rainfall would blend with the rise-and-fall of Vander's breaths.

Back then, the Deadlands were Silco's favorite place. He loved how the wind whistled across the wastes. He loved its wildness and eeriness. He loved how, when the clouds broke and the sun shone, everything gleamed as if it coated in diamond dust.

At night, he and Vander counted the stars from the peaks of obelisks. Nestled together, they'd talk of tomorrow, until sleep came.

Now, the Deadlands were no better than burial grounds. A place where even the desperate gave up their last-ditch hopes. Bodies lay piled behind the rocks; bones rattled in the winds. The tram lines were skeletal husks, sunken deep in the soil. The bunkhouses were an expanse of collapsing sticks.

Only the obelisks stood whole—stretching up to break the sky's pall.

Unerringly, Silco's boots found the old path. If he kept going further downstream, he'd rediscover the old railway trestle where he and Vander used to jump off for a swim.

Silco's mind wasn't on swimming.

"Jinx? Jinx?"

A pressure gathered behind his ribcage. He was breathing raggedly, but it had nothing to do with exertion. How, he wondered, was he going to liberate the Undercity—birth Zaun into being—when he couldn't even safeguard a damn girl? Especially this girl, who'd proven such a godsend, a bona fide miracle. Who'd restored color to the edges of his world, while the rest of him dangled over the void, empty-hearted.

What would he do without her?

Dread congealed. Until that moment, he'd not understood how dangerously far he'd fallen under the child's spell.

(Is that fatherhood?)

That's when he heard it. A soft snuffling. At first Silco mistook it for the wind. Then it took a familiar shape. Crying. Scrambling to a halt, Silco cocked his ear. The sound was coming from somewhere behind an overhang of jutting obelisks. Water rippled; moonlight caught the zipping shapes of river-dwelling fish along the shores, their scales distorted by pustules.

Silco followed the sound, until it separated itself from the ambience of barren nature. His boots slipped on wet stones. Catching his balance, he rounded the bend.

There was Jinx.

She sat on a large boulder, cross-legged and toying with her braids. Sniffling, she skipped flat stones across the shoreline, each one bouncing eight or nine times before it sank. Silco crept toward her on silent feet. Like the folklore of hunters who chance upon Celestials, he was half-convinced the little imp would vanish if he startled her.

Two steps. Four steps. Ten.

At the crunch of boots on silt, Jinx spun. By then, Silco had hemmed her in: his body on one side, the water glittering behind her. His voice was a coiled garotte.

"Where have you been, Jinx?"

She flinched. Tears shone on her pink-mottled cheeks. The rest of her was bone-dry.

"I-I crawled out through the vent," she mumbled.

"What vent?"

"The one under the turbine." She sawed a hand under her nose. "It's part of a conduit. Most of 'em crisscross under the old Oshra Va'Zaun caverns. Some go to the Sumps. Some go here."

"Do you know where 'here' is?"

She tossed her head, defiant. "Sure I do!" Then, in a Powderish fit of doubt. "Mostly."

"You got lost, didn't you?"

Lip bit, Jinx fiddled with her braids.

Silco felt the skin tightening at his temples. His palms twitched. He stuffed them into his pockets.

"Did it occur to you," he said, deceptively composed, "that I might wonder what happened?"

She tipped a shoulder. "I figured you'd just leave. Not like it's the first time I've lit out."

It was true.

Restless pest syndrome—Sevika called it. Now and then Jinx would catch a twitchy case of wanderlust, and take off wherever little jumping beans did: the caverns, the turrets, the scrapyards. In boyhood, Silco used to be the same. Sometimes, he still went to ground, as it were. Took a day off to reconnoiter in blessed solitude. It proved harder the higher he rose in the Undercity. His absences would rouse Sevika's territorial instincts. Like a dragon she'd sink in her teeth and not loosen her grip unless he gave her a metaphorical kick in pursuit of privacy.

Jinx was harder to shake off. She followed him everywhere. To narrow her margin of persuasive tactics (including and not limited to tying him to chairs), Silco planned his absences at the last minute, when there would be no room for negotiation.

Jinx would sulk. But in her way, she understood.

They were loners at heart; misfits who'd learnt to befriend their own isolation. Even after years of communal living, neither of them had quite gotten the hang of belonging to a pack.

This was different.

Silco edged closer, his temper climbing to red. "Child, you'd drive a saint to murder."

"Huh?"

"Do you know what kind of filth wanders the Deadlands? You're lucky I found you before someone else did."

"I wanted to be alone, okay?! That stupid Dustin. He—hey. Why're you lookin' at me like that?"

"I thought—"

"What? I was dead?" She let off a burbling laugh. But her eyes flickered nervously. "I was just—"

She cried out when Silco snatched her up, so sharply she couldn't evade. His arm moved in an instinctive arc—the surge of momentum vicious in its familiarity. He'd have slapped her head clean off her shoulders. Same way he'd done numberless lackeys who'd crossed him.

But at the last second, he felt her flinch. The tautness of her body. The rabbiting of her pulse.

Rage gave way to a different reflex. He shut his good eye, shut it tight and dragged her against him. As soon as her small body was in his embrace, his breath seized. His arms became a stranglehold.

"Owwww!"

"You're grounded."

"What—?!"

"Don't ever do that again!"

Nearly breaking his own maxim—We don't hit each other—and he wonders what would've happened if he'd carelessly struck her. The same way Vi had. The same way Vander had.

The capacity was in him. The desire. The rage.

Yet it was eclipsed by a disorienting enormity of terror. How could one child leave him so out of his depth? What did it mean, that she held in her hands the power to undo him so utterly?

(Is that fatherhood?)

Jinx shivered against him. Fear gave way to confusion. A stillborn swat was still a swat. After Vi, she was terrified of screwing up and reliving the same violence at someone else's hands. Except the violence boiled not because of her presence—but her absence. Jinx's mind couldn't reconcile the contradiction. He saw in in the frantic tangle of her emotions: her liquid eyes, her pinched little chin, her trembling lip. He felt it in the crazy thubbing of her heart: a cadence that matched his own.

For a moment, Silco couldn't speak. He just gathered her in closer, his face in her hair.

"Don't, Jinx."

"D-Don't—?"

"Don't disappear like that again."

Jinx craned her neck. The brightness in her eyes spilled from the corners to streak her cheeks. "Wh-why should it matter to you?"

"I—"

"You're n-not my dad. I'm not your kid. So why—"

"Why?!"

With a snarl, Silco swept her in again. But it was all right. She wasn't shrinking away. Her strong skinny arms were wrapping around his neck, and she was burrowing closer, their foreheads together, cold on hot, an inarticulate melding of relief.

It was a relief. Just a misunderstanding. His murderous little sprite was safe. By his side.

Right where she belonged.

(Is that fatherhood?)

(Is it?)

Everything hurts.

A spectrum of hurts. Silco's eyes open, and show him a brighter spectrum of moons—where in hell am I?—cycling around in a pinwheel before they resolve into one. A susurrating echo laps at his ears. He twists his head, trying to see where it is coming from. Tries to leap to his feet, but his body is immobile.

He is chained, padlocked and bolted.

Fuck.

The air holds a chill of mineral wetness. Silco shivers in his drenched clothes. Shafts of moonlight slip through a dappled scudding of clouds. With effort, he cranes his neck. He is sprawled on the spine of a steep ravine. The surrounding landscape is all grayscale: powdery grit, monolithic stone, scoured underbrush.

Like the inside of a skeleton's mouth.

The whispery echo persists. Cocking his ear, Silco recognizes it. The river Pilt. He is somewhere north of Oshra Va'Zaun's mines. They peel away into a cratered expanse of flatland and oxbows that run parallel to the river's shores. The verge where civilization gives way to wilderness.

The Deadlands.

Threads of moonlight hang in the air. He hears the reverberation of the river. Beyond that bleeds a profound silence. The silence particular to desolation: the creatures barely alive, the earth barely alive too.

The not-sound is terrible. Silco has become accustomed to the vibrant soundtrack of Zaun. He is surrounded by clamor all day long now. The drone of construction, the screech of traffic, the skirls of music. And while it can be maddening, it is life.

This is the opposite. The forsaken silence he'd once loved, and now loathes. Not even Vander's ghost is here to console him.

From the gloom: footsteps.

"Wakey, wakey, bats and bake-y."

Jinx looms over him. Her moonlike faces recoalesce from five to three to one. Relief is overpowering. She is alive. Silco's heart pounds in his chest; so wildly he thinks it might break through his chains.

"Jinx—where have you been?"

"Needed a change of scene."

"A change of—?" His scowl bridles. "What are you playing at? Every blackguard in the city is looking for you!"

"Oh. Them." She snorts. "Chasin' their tails. Bunch of morons."

In the half-shadow, her eyes are strangely sparkless. The contours of her face seem off. Silco squints. But she has already moved out of his line of sight.

He strains against the chains. His ankles are manacled together, arms tied behind his back, wrists at an uncomfortable twist. After Stillwater, he'd grown adept at slithering out of whatever restraints he'd been manhandled into. It was a simple matter of disjointing a thumb or dislocating a shoulder.

Except Jinx knows his history. The bindings are doubled and tripled. She's taking no chances.

Chances on what? Why is she out here?

"Jinx." He's in such turmoil he can barely string three words together. "You need to come home."

"Home?"

"Back to headquarters."

"Fat chance."

"What?"

She hovers back into view. Silco stares closely at her. She is a disheveled mess. Dressed in her street clothes, much-frayed and dirt-smeared, jacket around her body, boots at her feet. Her skin under its milk-and-freckles is flushed in ugly pink chameleon patterns. The old childhood mottle of distress. Her hair bursts in blue shards around her skull as if zapped by electricity.

Silco squints as if blinded. Then he remembers.

Gods.

Her hair. She'd butchered it.

Butchered the guards. Blasted her hideout to kingdom come. Now she's lured him out, with a prankster's whimsy that is pure premeditation. That's how Jinx operates. A method to the madness. She can seem deceptively ebullient for long stretches of time. Lull everyone in her periphery with a sense that all is well. Meanwhile the disconnect between inward and outward cracks into a molten chasm, so all her ghosts spiral out.

Catching fire—then exploding into catastrophe.

This is a catastrophe. A failure on Silco's part to spot the signs. Any chance of a goodbye kiss? Sweet Kindred, he'd been so stupid last morning. Why didn't he just cancel his meetings and stay with Jinx? Just tell his love and pride without wielding it like a blade up the sleeve? He knows he'd done that. He'd done it for years, done it again despite vowing to change, so no wonder—no wonder his poor girl—

"Jinx." He speaks with a quiet forcefulness. "We need to talk."

"Reaaaaally not in the mood."

"I know you're upset with me—"

"Upset?" The sulky softness of her face sharpens—a maniacal mask. She stays crouched close, her body giving off a peculiar hum like a tuning fork between strikes. "Why would I be upset, Daddy?"

"You tell me."

"You haven't figured it out? You're smarter'n that."

"Not about this." Silco folds without resistance. "Please, child—talk to me."

"I am talking to you." She glowers. "What's today?"

"It's—"

Bloody Sunday.

The whole city knows that. He can't puzzle any significance beyond that. It's not the Day of Ash—that's in September. It's not Jinx's Name Day—that passed in tandem with Progress Day. It's not the day they met—a date that also holds the dark privilege of being Vander's death anniversary

"I confess," he says. "I can think of nothing."

"Exactly!" Jinx snaps her fingers so rapidly sparks leap off them. "That's the first word that pops into my head when I wake up lately. Nothing. Well. Second word. The first is Fuckin.' Another day of doing fuckin' nothing!"

"I asked you to come along with me—"

"And do more fuckin' nothing? Pffff. I'd rather be a ghost. Ghosts can do whatever they want, right?"

"Is that why you blew your hide-out up?"

"No." A reflex of guilt twists her face. "I mistimed the explosives."

"What?"

"The explosion was gonna go off later. You'd be at HQ. You weren't supposed to be down here."

"You had this all planned?"

A nod.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Your hideout. Your braids. Your drawings." Silco drags a jittery breath. "Jinx, what are you doing?"

Jinx dips a finger into the hollow of his throat, where water collects. She dabs her wet fingertip down his scarred cheek like a tear. Her eyes glow dully; two doused embers.

She whispers, "Thought that was obvious."

"Far from."

"I'm saying goodbye."

Silco's mouth opens. No words come. A mineshaft collapses inside him, a thunder of dust and a blackness that tastes of fear, a cold edgeless fear like nothing he's ever known before. Not on the day Jinx vanished between the turbine rotors. Not on the night he'd found her at the Bridge, death a gasp away.

No.

Silco's whole body is one throbbing heart. His struggles redouble against the chains

Jinx watches him with a strange subspecies of pity. Her hand cups his jaw. Their eyes meet. Silco's own are wild and blasted; hers are eerily calm. Leaning in, she touches their foreheads together. Old intimacy reduced to a sad mockery of leavetaking.

"Poor Silly," Jinx says. "I wasn't gonna do it this way."

"Jinx—please—"

"I was gonna break it to ya gently. After our twelve o' clock talk. I even wrote a script. See?"

From her pocket she digs out a scrap of paper flecked with paint, and unfolds it. Clearing her throat, she recites with mock-solemnity:

JINX: Dear Silco! Thanks for all the laughs and lessons and lunacy. I had fun being your Jinx. You showed her how to come into her own. And together, you showed Topside. You showed 'em all! But now it's time to skip the light-fantastic. There's no place for Jinx in Zaun. But there's a place for me in the After. Don't be sad. We'll see each other someday—when Ol' Hungry stops striking twelve!

SILCO: I understand, child. Good luck and fare thee well.

JINX: You were an okay Dad.

SILCO: And you were an A-Okay daughter.

JINX: I wish we'd met sooner. We had a lot in common—besides murdering our brothers and all. Our time together was too short. Ex-oh-ex-oh…

She falters, and bites her lip. Despite the cruel lampoon, her grief is palpable. "There's more. Mostly you lecturing me to dress warmly for the After. Then we hug and bid each other adieu." She smiles, but it has too many cracks. "You want that hug now?"

"Jinx." It's an effort to move his lips. "Untie me."

She shakes her head, a scolding side-to-side. "You can't have it back yet."

"Have what back?"

She reaches into her pocket and comes out with a glowing blue sphere. The Hex-gem. A single ray of moonlight pierces its interior to scatter in glittering fractals through the air. Jinx holds it overhead, turning it over between nimble fingers.

"On principle," she says, "I oughtta take it with me. Finders, keepers."

"Jinx—"

"It was my gift to you. But it talks to me."

"Jinx—I don't care about the gemstone. Just untie me. Please."

Her smile deepens. But there are layers of darkness in her eyes. "You're such a good liar."

"I'm not lying!"

"Pffft." Jinx mimes a hoop shot with the gem, then attempts to twirl it on one finger like a baseball. "The only reason you're even here is 'cause you thought I'd use Gemmy to blow up your precious Zaun."

"I'm here to take you home."

She makes a derisive sucking sound between her teeth. "Home? What's home where I'm not wanted?"

"I want you home!"

"Sure—but you don't need me! If you just want me around as salad dressing while you're playing First Chancellor—if you just want me in the background, then you don't really want me. You never did!"

It hits like a blow to the chest. "How can you say that?"

For the first time, emotion crackles in her eyes. She begins pacing, flinging the gemstone rapidly from hand to hand. "Because it's true! Every day since the war ended, you've told me over and over and over again that you don't need me—all without saying a word. Take it easy, Jinx. Don't rush, Jinx. No pressure, Jinx. The same thing you say to a sick doggy before you take it out back and shoot it!"

"Jinx, I never meant to—"

"The only thing I was trained for. The only dream I had. The only way to prove myself. That was all tied up with Zaun." There are tears now, bright and gelid, glossing the rims of her eyelids. "Now Zaun's real, and everybody's just, Thanks for your service, now fuck off. And do what? Retire? Go on hiatus? Take a vacation? What's left for Jinx?!"

Silco stares at her. His damp clothes are heavy as the chains folded around his body.

Not as heavy as the grief.

He knows the parameters of Jinx's insecurities as intimately as his own. His are enough to fill a room; hers are enough to crowd a castle. But that's different from seeing them up-close—a raw reality of carnage.

The suite splattered in blood. Her braids amputated. Her hideout jellied.

All things he could've prevented. He'd seen the patterns in their private life and yet refused to connect them. He'd isolated her for the sake of letting her rest (kept her on a short leash). He'd shaped a stable daily routine of cooking, conversation, cuddles (stabilized the surface while her inner-wounds festered). He'd given her a room with a locked door (when Jinx's ghosts are most attracted to things with locks.)

Worst of all, he'd waited for her to come to him. As a father, he should've sought her out first. It is his duty to check in with his child as often as with his crew. More—because Jinx is fragile. Jinx needs him. The onus of Jinx's welfare—tonight's utter shitshow—is all squarely on him.

Shame congeals. His words come choked.

"Jinx—forgive me. I never meant for things to go this far—"

"Yeah, sure. So sorry you're barely ever around. It's all just Zaun, Zaun, Zaun. You're behind the scenes. You're in the spotlight. Got a real sweet life going for yourself, don'tcha?"

He swallows hard. "Jinx, listen to me. This is important."

"Oh, piffle." She peers through the Hex-gem as if through a crystal ball. "Don't bother making excuses, Mr. I'm-too-busy-for-you. They won't work. So you might as well spare yourself the drama and let it happen. It shoulda happened a looooong time ago."

"Don't say that." He tries to meet her eyes, to force a connection. If not for the chains, he'd claw at her, sink his teeth into her. Anything to keep her. "The city needs you. Our people need you. Not just because you're the brightest mind we have—"

"—and look where that's got me, huh?"

Silco's fists tighten against the manacles. "But because you're our future. Without you, Topside has won. They've destroyed us before we've even rebuilt. Like they've destroyed everything before. But not you, Jinx. You're stronger than they are. Stronger than this. You still have your entire life waiting for you."

A sudden rage lights Jinx up from toes to the tips of her bristling hair. "A life—to do what? Join the blackguards? Attend soirees as First Daughter? Do scutwork as your private secretary? You say my whole life is waiting for me—but that's not my life. Nothing since Vi walked away from me has been my life!" Her mouth quivers; she crams her thumb into it. "She knows it too. That's why she didn't say goodbye. She left. Again."

It takes Silco so long to connect the words that Jinx could slap him twice before he finishes.

Again.

Fuck.

She knows Vi was here.

Their stares meet. Silco's calm fractures.

"How—" he rasps, "How did you—?"

"How'd I figure it out?" Jinx's smile is glitteringly sharp. "Oh, y'know. Bugs on the sill. Bats in the attic. Her name got whispered down plenty of secret corridors. Rumors passed from ear to ear until they reached mine. And mine are pretty sharp now, if I do say so myself." A shrug. "Also, the blackguard blabbed."

"The blackguard..."

"Yeah. One of 'em was really into my swimmy time." She twirls her mangled hair and pastes on a little girl smile. "Chatty fella. Especially after I promised not to shoot him... anyplace fatal."

Silco utters a frustrated sound. "That fool."

"Hey! No harshin' on the dead! At least—I'm guessing he's dead. I let him live. No way you'd do the same." Her smile fades. "He told me... Vi was at Entresol a few weeks ago. She'd brought a drone. She was spyin' for Topside—and that stupid Enforcer girl was working with her." She blinks blindishly. "She came. She saw. She left-right-left. And you knew." She jabs a finger at him. "Liar."

Silco tries a dozen glib excuses that run empty.

"Jinx," he says. "I kept it secret for a reason."

"Let me guess. To protect me?"

"Yes."

"From what? My feelings? How crazy I am?"

Rooted to the spot, he explodes, "From ending up dead on the Bridge! Or have you forgotten how she left you bleeding—or who found you and took you back?"

"Back to Singed's table?"

"Back with family." His shout escalates to match hers. "Real family. Not ones who get you killed and never look back. Yes—your sister was here. Yes—she was working with Topside. Yes—I didn't tell you. Because I could only deal with the biggest crisis—not the fallout!"

"Who—Vi?"

"You." His breaths come ragged. "One glimpse of her undoes all the progress you've made! Just a rumor and you're right back where you started. Worse—because now you're undoing even that." He jerks at his chains. "I won't allow it, Jinx. You've had your tantrum. You've swung the city upside-down and put me through my paces. Now it's time to come back where you belong."

Jinx's face smooths so suddenly into an impenetrable mask that she resembles a mannequin.

"I know where I belong," she says. "It's not with Vi. Or with you."

"Jinx—"

She darts beyond his sightlines. Silco struggles and rolls onto his side. A band of moonlight falls through the clouds. He is greeted by an unsettling sight. He is facing a sheer cliff; its blackness so total it swallows the night. Pebbles skitter down the incline. They drop into the pit, engulfed by silence.

A hand seizes the back of his collar. With dizzying strength, Jinx hauls him up. "Tsk, Silco. This ain't your goodbye."

"Jinx—listen—"

"Shh-shh." She hums, identical in cadence to how Silco would soothe her in childhood, whenever she'd whip herself up into a panicky froth. "It'll be over in a minute. Here's the gem, 'kay?" She slips it in his jacket pocket, as if restoring a toy to a squalling toddler. "I'll put the keys in your hand too. But you won't be able to get loose until after."

"After—?"

After she's offed herself.

Silco thrashes madly. But Jinx's strength overmasters his. Once upon a time, he'd hefted her into his arms as easily as a ragdoll. Now it's the opposite. He's helpless against a girl so tiny she belongs in a music-box. It would be funny—except the Shimer zinging in her veins is no joke.

One false move, and she'll carelessly crack him in two.

She drags him up the cliffside. Gently sets him down against a blunted edge of rock. Silco folds to his knees, rough gravel jabbing against his aching joints. Jinx slips a cold key into his cuffed hands, which flex clumsily around it. With a dozen padlocks around his body, she's reasoned that he won't be able to break loose fast enough.

Kingpins do not possess the talents of Houdini.

Jinx skips light-toed down the cliffside. Shadows pool around a collection of shapes huddled at the edge. Silco squints. For a few pulseless seconds, he can't comprehend what he's seeing. Either it is a negative space that the protective part of his brain has erased from his sight. Or he sees it, and is too paralyzed with cowardice to recognize it.

Jinx hadn't blown up everything in her hideout.

A handful of mementos remain.

All of them are from her drawings. The two grotesque mannequins she'd repurposed into replicas of her dead 'brothers.' Between them are Vander's gauntlets, mottled with rust. The squalid lump of a stuffed bunny is perched between them. The rest is a bric-a-brac of grisly nostalgia. Old toys splattered in blood. Finger-paintings of dead Firelights. Doodled-on bombshells—Whisker, Buttons, Punch.

Everything is piled into an old red wheelbarrow. It is retrofitted with a small motor and heavy-duty tires. The tray is splattered with acid-green graffiti—XOXO.

All of Jinx's history—all of her heartbreaks—ready to tip over the edge.

Like her.

"Jinx, don't do this!"

Shaking her head, looking everywhere but at him, Jinx climbs into the wheelbarrow. Six-dozen sticks of TNT are corded together in a tight bundle. A cheap plastic egg timer—from Silco's own goddamned kitchen—is wired to the fuses and strapped to the dynamite with swathes of duct tape.

Jinx twists the knob with precise turns of her wrist.

"Five minutes," she says.

"What—?"

"You get five minutes to skeddadle."

Five minutes until the wheelbarrow rockets off the cliffside.

Five minutes until Jinx is blown to smithereens.

Five minutes until Silco's universe folds into flames.

No.

Terror seizes him, a bone-deep electricity that sets every nerve center on fire. Earlier, he'd not allowed himself to panic. But it was instinctual self-preservation. The same backlash as against prodding a seeping wound. Now he can feel it engulfing him, a full-bodied convulsion. The surface of his face refuses to harden; his emotions are a wretched nakedness.

It is like the night Vander attacked him at the Pilt. The night the Temple of Janna was bombarded by shelling. The night he'd found Jinx blood-smeared at the Bridge.

He screams: "Stop!"

The unhinged sound rips through the night. Jinx's head swivels. Her eyes are no longer glowing pink. The pupils are dilated, a blackness so absolute it encompasses each iris. It turns her stare into a horrid pit, a hungering for someone to swallow.

Or save her.

That's why she'd orchestrated tonight's nightmarish tableau. Her drawings to presage her plans. Her braids to exorcise the past. Her gun to bid farewell. That's why she'd made him run this macabre gauntlet: two truths and a lie, their old game taken to grotesque extremes. The key is in his hands; her life hangs in the balance.

Tonight is his last chance. The narrowest rescue. A toss of the coin.

And she has put the onus on him.

Him—not Vi, or everyone else who'd ever failed her.

She wants him to prove he is different. She wants to punish him for falling short in every possible way. She wants to show him how much pain he's caused her. How horrendously he's used her for his own end, while failing to see the same end reflected back at him tenfold. The same end that shaped her out of a child and into his shadow, his anima, his apotheosis, so now she can't find a way to unmake herself, except by this.

This.

"Stop! Just—stop!" Silco jerks against the chains. "This isn't the way out!"

Jinx hums in lusterless singsong. "Got a few explode-y buddies that say otherwise."

"Your friends are wrong! So are you! After doesn't square debts or rewrite regrets. After is just that. After."

Jinx stares at him.

"How dare you do this, Jinx? How dare you buy a fool's lie?" A sudden rage boils like acid. "Ending your life won't undo anything! Broken things can't be unbroken. What you left behind will remain—only it will be unfinished because you didn't see it through!"

He watches her face change, the fluid trick of moonlight that makes her eyes spark from despairing holes to fire opals. Her jaw hardens and her mouth folds down. With jerky movements, she climbs out of the wheelbarrow and stalks toward him. "Easy for you to say! You've got something to stay behind for. Zaun's your big dream. Your unfinished story. Now you can write any way you choose!"

"Zaun's nothing without you!"

"Me—who?" She stamps her foot. The soil ripples, a tiny seismic tremor. "Why don't you get it? Jinx is dead! She died at the Bridge. You're chasing her ghost!"

"That's not true!"

"Don't tell me what's true and what's not!" Her breaths come ragged, like she's about to heave up her guts. "Jinx is dead. I am. I never woke up after the night on Singed's table. I never got better. I'm dead, like Vander, and Mylo, and Claggor, and I get deader every day. I lost me after I lost Vi, it's all run out. Sand in the hourglass, and every day I lose more—"

"Child—no—"

"I'm dead, and what's left is a disappointment to you. I always was. Take Jinx away, and it's just stupid Powder and her screw-ups and everyone she couldn't save. Everyone who left her behind." A sob wallops her. "I see their faces. I hear their voices. I can't shut 'em out. Quick and clean, you taught me. Make a kill. Do it right. Except there's no right. There's only wrong. All my life, I've only ever been wrong. And now I've done the worst of it." She holds up a fist, opens and closes it. "I can't get the blood out, Silco. I can't see past it. There's only more and more and more and if I don't stop now—"

"You're afraid you'll never stop." Silco's heart is a wringing rag. Oh Gods, she is sick, sick with wounds. And it's all his fault. "Oh my love. I know. I know it hurts. If I had any idea of how much you were suffering—"

"Don't pretend to understand!"

"I do understand. I—I remember the night I killed Vander. I thought I'd never be able to see my way clear of the blackness again. But you showed me I could. It took time, but we did it together. We'll do it again." He tugs at his chains. If he speaks fast enough, if he pleads hard enough, he might outrun the last few minutes. Might salvage the ruins of his life. "Jinx, listen to me. We're all different now. Zaun is different. Don't take away your future because of your past. You're hurting, you've held it together admirably, but, sweetness, just hold on a little longer. I promise—"

"You're not listening!" Her chest heaves, breaths thick with stymied tears. "I'm tired of holding on! I'm tired of bein' left behind. I'm tired of feeling this way, so trapped and angry and broken all the time. I'm so tired—" She stops, the words dying in her throat. "I'm tired of turning my back on everything you start and I finish."

"Jinx—"

"That's our waltz, Silco. Round and round. You spark the tinder. I burn the house down. You dragged Vander to the cannery. I sent him to his grave. You wanted to tear his family apart. I blew them up." A sick laugh judders through her. "Me and my big booms. You and your big plans. Only, I don't get the happy ending." Her eyes take on a flat sheen. "There's only one end to Jinx's story."

"It doesn't have to be that way!"

"It does." She swallows. "Look, I know what you're trying to say. All the good things I could do, if I stay. You want to tell me that I can find something worth living for. Well. I tried that. And I failed. I tried and tried. Every day, I woke up, and I tried to find a way back to who I was. And the harder I tried, the worse it got." Her sobs come muffled, as if against a pillow. "It's no good. I've lost me. The me you wanted. I wasn't the girl you thought, Silco. I'm sorry."

Silco's muscles strain against the chains. His fingers work clumsily with the key behind his back. "You are what I thought, Jinx. I knew it the moment we met."

"You saw what you wanted to see."

He shakes her head. "I saw you. I saw the bomb, and I saw your potential. But I saw you before everything else, Jinx. You were a skinny little twig. You had patchwork clothes and dozens of clips in your hair and scrapes on your elbows and knees. I remember because it reminded me of when I'd climb the rooftops with Vander and lose my balance as a boy. I was a hopeless clod. You were too. But—" He's been speaking more and more softly; now his pitch is barely above a whisper. "You were also just you. Brave enough to climb up and rescue your sister. Smart enough to build a bomb that took my fledgling empire down in a single night."

Jinx's face is pale where it isn't streaked with Shimmer tears. "That's why you stole me, isn't it? You didn't see a smart, brave girl. You saw a blank sheet. Vi left me, and she left a big-ass label stamped on my forehead. JINX JINX JINX. You wrote in the rest. Just the kind of girl you wanted, all bullets and booms. A monster for Zaun. Now Zaun's real, but I don't think that girl is."

"She's right here."

"Half-right." Her mouth is a dark misshapen heart. "You can keep her bones."

"Jinx—"

"As a souvenir. For Zaun."

"Fuck Zaun."

Shock drains Jinx of animation. Maybe she is incredulous at the profanity passing his lips. He's doesn't curse in her presence. Or maybe her incredulity stems from the statement itself.

Fuck Zaun.

A sentence so improbable it verges on treasonous.

It isn't treason. It is truth.

He'd chased Zaun as his lifelong dream. His be-all and end-all; the Undercity's last shot at survival. It was why he'd fought so fiercely for his people. To make sure they weren't destroyed by Piltover's hubris. He'd given himself to the dream, in ways he'd given himself to nothing else. He'd powered himself on blind ambition. Blind faith. Blind rage.

Yet here is the flipside of fathering a dream.

Fatherhood.

He'd never wanted to be a father. Fatherhood was a wasting disease. Fatherhood sucked the marrow from the bones. Fatherhood replaced courage with—

What?

Not cowardice, as Silco had one believed. Not the distilled piss and vinegar of disillusionment.

In his bones, he feels it like a steadying gravity. It doesn't weigh him down. It keeps him going. It powers him like fuel and yet enrobes him like lightning. A shock-pink risk. A flowering blue reward. Silco thrives in risk, but it isn't the reward that's worth having.

It is Jinx.

I am a father. The phrase wheels through his mind, shorting it out of reality and into truth. I am a father and there has never remotely been a miracle like her in my life. Someone I love over my own ambition. Someone who turns my thoughts inside-out. Someone who changes my nature in ways even Nature could not change before. I cherish her over anything else. To lose her is to lose—

Everything.

Jinx stands paralyzed. Her silhouette seems to meld with the moonrays, then separate, then meld again. Silco blinks against the disorienting vision. The hours he's crossed crunch up, and threaten to crunch the last pieces of his sanity. He refuses to succumb.

Refuses to let his dream slip from his fingers.

Jinx.

With love like a knife in his chest, he meets her eyes. "I came down here for you, Jinx. I wake each morning and make Zaun strong for you. I come home each night and make plans for you. But if you leave me—it's all for nothing. Your life and mine. I was wrong to expect so much of you. I was wrong to push you so hard. You were only a child. Your whole life I took and bent in my hands." His good eye narrows. The bad one burns without mercy. "But I never bent you, Jinx. You were always you—at your center. You earned your first lessons with Vi, and practiced to perfection with me. But your spirit? Your fury? That was all you. It's why we're such a pair, remember? We were both left behind. So we vowed to show them all. Now we've done what we vowed, and must live with it. We can choose the same as before. Or we can choose different. But if you end it, there's no choice at all."

Jinx's cheeks are blotched. Tears fill her bright round eyes. "I'm t-t-trying to unjinx it. For Vi. For Vander and Mylo and Claggor. All the things I did. The things I couldn't do."

"You're trying to evade it. Evade me. Evade everything they are to you. Everything we are to each other." Silco's tone sharpens in urgency. He can't stand the thought of her lifelong efforts, the blood spilled and the torments endured, ending on the stale note of his daughter's suicide. "You've forgotten what you are. Not just a jinx—bad or good. You're a survivor. A fighter. You've forgotten how courageous you are, or else you'd never come here. Forgotten how special you are, else you'd never bribe me with a Hex-gem in trade for your life. There's no specialness in leaping into hell. Champions have no place in hell, remember? That's my dominion in the After. Yours is Zaun."

Jinx shies away as if burnt. "I don't belong in Zaun, either. I'd never rest there. They—" A sweep of her arm encompasses the mementos in the wheelbarrow, "—won't let me!"

"It won't be that way forever. I promise."

"You make plenty of promises, Silco." Her bleary eyes slit. "They're like bombs. You drop 'em to get what you want."

Silco's throat works; his voicebox is a noose. Duplicity is never far from his surface. But he can't summon it now. In its place is an agony he can no longer conceal. He looks at her, sees his own reflection. She is a fragment, a mirror, an echo of a thousand old wrongs.

A reminder to do better.

"No bombs, Jinx," he says hoarsely. "Just the truth. I owe you that."

"The truth?"

"I promised, didn't I? We'd talk when I got home?"

Jinx breathes in edgy gasps. But she makes no move to stop him.

"The night Vi left you on the Bridge," Silco says. "I made the choice to take you to Singed. Not because I couldn't afford to lose my finest fighter. I couldn't bear to lose you. Afterward, Piltover demanded a parley. Once, I'd never have entertained it. I would have sent back their missive drenched in blood. But after the state you'd been reduced to… I was ready to negotiate peace."

"So why didn't you?" Jinx cries. "Why choose war? We won by the skin of our teeth! If I hadn't fought for you—"

"I'd have lost anyway."

"What?"

He stares at her, the girl whose torment mocks his own. "Don't you see, Jinx? You are my jugular vein in plain sight. All of Zaun knows it. Topside knew too. After leaving you on the Bridge, your sister was taken before the Council. She revealed your name. She understood the damage your loss would do to our operation. To me. The evening of our parley, Talis offered me Zaun. A place at the table. A nation of our own. All on a silver platter—with you as the caveat." He spends his breath in a harsh laugh that feels like his last. "The worst deal in the world? Hardly. I've negotiated worse. But not if you were the cost, Jinx. At the time, I'd rationalized your survival as Zaun's survival. One could not exist without the other. But my motives were more selfish. You weren't theirs to take. Not for anything. You are my daughter."

The words are is undisguised rage, and Jinx can't look away. Her mouth spasms; her eyelashes glisten like wet spiders.

"My daughter," Silco repeats. "All my sacrifices, all my triumphs, all my sins. None of them compare. History is full of fathers who martyr their children for the greater good. Not me, Jinx. I rejected their treaty the same night. No—not rejected. I threw it in their faces and declared war. I'd rather have you than all their laurels of peace. I'd rather keep you at my side in blood and flame, burning thousands for the cost of one, because what's dead is dead, and what's mine is mine. I know that makes me a failure as a leader. But I'll not pretend not to need what I do." His voice drops, quietly ragged. "And I need you, Jinx. Vi may forsake you. The rest may condemn you. But I will always choose you first. Whatever happens... for as long as I live."

The cliffside is all lunar silence. The wind has died to nothing. The air is an oven; it heats the airless pit of Silco's chest.

Jinx does not move.

"You—" She swallows. "You chose me?"

Silco's lips fold tightly; he can't trust his voice. His life is a dirge of lost loves. He's learned to reveal nothing, to trust no one, to take the blows like a man and riposte tenfold like a monster. Jinx is the sole exception. The only one to turn his weakness into strength. He'd fought to keep her from Piltover. Now, he'll fight to keep her.

Fight to the last drop of Shimmer in his veins.

"I am choosing you now," he breathes. "You, Jinx. Nobody else."

Jinx's knuckles wedge against her temples. Tears streak her cheeks in pink contrails. Her lips stir; her whisper is syllabic and strange. Not for him, but the furor inside her skull. The awful specters that she's had to chase out with gunfire and grenades. As strident as Silco's own specters are silent. As restless as Silco's own refuse to let him rest.

Now they are here. They have faces. They have form.

Jinx whispers: "The two of you. The three of you."

Silco watches in silence.

Her voice grows stronger, more urgent. She says a name, then another, then another, her pitch dropping to a lisp Silco hasn't heard since her girlhood. He doesn't need to know who she's talking to. He doesn't need to know what she's asking. He knows her better than himself. He knows her better than Zaun.

Fuck Zaun.

He doesn't need a dream. He has a miracle. He has a daughter.

"Vander—"

"Claggor—"

"Mylo—"

The wind picks up. It rustles the cracked soil and tosses Silco's hair into his eyes. It is electric and tastes like rain.

"I can't go with you," Jinx says. "Please. I need—I need more time."

She isn't speaking to Silco. She is beyond his world. Her grief is the conduit. Through it, she's speaking to her family—to the future they left behind. To the past they still haven't forgiven.

Because Jinx has never forgiven herself.

Silco's heart throbs like an open wound. He breathes, once, twice. His face is streaked with wetness.

It isn't rain.

"I'm sorry," Jinx whispers. "I'm so sorry, Claggor. For all the things I couldn't do for you. I'm sorry, Mylo. For all the times I lied to you. I'm sorry, Vander. For all the times I didn't tell you I needed you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please." She sags, shoulders bowed beneath her mangled hair. "Please forgive me."

Silco's fists tighten. His right hand is cramped around a key that he no longer needs. The metal is hot and slick as blood.

The wind picks up.

Jinx breathes, "Vi."

The final syllable. The trigger. The explosive release of every wound she's ever sustained. Every gunblast. Every grenade. Every death.

Jinx's shoulders tremble; her voice rises to a fever pitch.

"Vi—I'm sorry—Vi, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"

The sobs bubble out, first softly, then in a broken hitching flood.

Collapsing to her knees, Jinx weeps.

The sight tears at Silco. Every fiber of his body is frantic to hold her. The key clicks into the padlock; he gives one good jerk against the cuffs. They drop. A heartbeat later, the chains give way, their weight collapsing off his body with a jangling chime.

Three minutes in total.

Kingpins do not possess the talents of Houdini. But any miner worth his salt can parse a hairline break in the heaviest chain. And for a man whose trade is trickery, a weak link is the only key he needs.

Silco stumbles to his feet. His stiff muscles enrage him. But the pain is welcome. It jars his body loose; it sharpens him up.

Jinx is still crying, shivery and loose-limbed as a kitten. But the jostling wrenches her attention. In an eyeblink, she springs up. Puff-Puff materializes in her hands.

She takes aim. His center of mass is right in her sightline.

"Stay back!"

Silco smiles—less at this turn of events, than at the gun-toting bane of his existence. "Or what? You'll shoot?"

Jinx fires.

The bullet whisks a centimeter past Silco's scalp. It strikes a boulder near his head, spraying splinters.

Silco throttles back a wince. He walked right into that one.

"Jinx," he says quietly. "Your aim is better than that."

"That was a warning shot!"

"It was an empty threat. I've taught you better."

She lets off a sound between a snarl and a sob. "Next time, I won't miss!"

Silco's smile, edged and bitter, softens. "I know."

"I mean it!"

"I know."

He draws nearer. Jinx whips around. The gun is still in her hands. It feels trivial. Just a toy. The real danger is Jinx. Her lovely face is trapped in a hideous transformation. It can either warp into the marionette mask of the Shimmer-demon. Or it can liquify into the beleaguered visage of Powder, a girl who oozed wretchedness like a cut vein.

Two creatures opposite and yet overlapping; born from having no control over their life.

"Don't," she says. A warning, a plea. "Don't."

"I'm not leaving without you, Jinx."

"I can't—"

"You can. It's your choice. You've always been free to make it. Stop acting like you don't deserve it."

"No! No no no no..." She is still sobbing; tears sluicing down her cheeks. But he is no longer the enemy she is struggling against. "It's not done yet! The goodbyes aren't finished. They have more to say. They need me to stay until—"

Until she's ready to say goodbye for real.

"You don't need them," Silco says gently. "They are only shadows, my lovely."

"They're everything! They're all I have left! If I can't fix them—I can't fix anything!"

"There is no fixed. We have to do it ourselves."

"Please. Please."

"Unless you'd like me to join you?" he says. "So we're all together. All of us in the After."

Jinx rears back as if he's slapped her. Their eyes meet. No bluffs; no bullshit. Either she comes home, or they exit hand-in-hand. Anything else is negotiable.

Including Zaun.

Jinx's gun clatters to the ground. A minute ago, she'd been a force of destruction. Now, sobbing and shuddering, she most resembles the little girl he'd first met in the rain.

Gods, she is still there.

Not Powder. Not the Shimmer-demon.

The spirit he'd fallen so purely in love with. The wildfire shining off her. All that strength and fragility and wonder. His little blue comet. His child. Yet it makes Silco sorry, to see her so beaten-down, beset by so much misery. Everything in him yearns to console her. Help her heal, or, failing that, absorb her grief.

Jinx sways, and Silco snatches her up. She doesn't resist. Her sobs are so fierce her whole body quakes. They hurt Silco in a way even war never could. He cradles her skull into the crook of his neck. Her heart is racing at double-time. So is his. When the emotional reaction finally hits him, it is violent as a gutting. Even though there's a torn space in his chest where there should rationally be relief, what he feels is a raw terror that makes him retch.

She nearly left.

She'd be gone and I'd be alone.

Silco's embrace tightens. She's dangling on tiptoe, the way he's holding onto her. Her eyes are squeezed shut. Her hands clutch fistfuls of his coat. It is a posture of turmoil so childlike that Silco nearly sobs in turn. Poor precious girl. How difficult it must be for her. How difficult it has always been. How little worth she's set in herself, not just her achievements and brilliance, but the astonishing, adorable incongruity that is Jinx.

He wants to speak. But the emotion is a crippling physical ache. And at the same time it is so perfect to have her back in his arms. She smells of her nightmarish ordeal—grit and gunpowder. But also so bittersweetly of home that he can't bear to let her go.

Except—

Against his chest, Jinx breathes, "Thirty seconds."

"What?"

"The timer."

"Gods—"

Reflexively, Silco snatches Jinx closer. But she's already broken loose. Not to abandon him. She pivots and swings a powerful kick at the wheelbarrow.

Jerking, it careens down the cliffside. Hits the edge, and tips straight over.

Plunging into darkness.

Thirty seconds.

Not enough time. The blast-zone is too close.

When the explosion comes, it rumbles like thunder and plumes like lava. It tears through the night, fire and ash billowing up and out of the chasm to blot out the moonlight. A shower of gritty black dust whizzes through the air. Flames balloon in a widening radius. The whole ravine jolts.

Jinx has already snatched Silco's wrist. Her fingers, fiendishly strong, clamp into his bones. Silco is swung into motion.

Then they are racing together, their boots pounding the rocks before everything whites out. Crash and thunder at their heels. Blistering heat giving chase. There is never anything stealthy in fire's pursuit. It charges madly, devouring everything in its path. The earth quakes beneath them. Jinx leaps clear of a crack widening under her boots. Silco stumbles and steadies and keeps motoring. His muscles boil; his nerves buzz. Adrenaline with a leftover froth of Shimmer.

Enough to last the distance?

It fucking better.

He and Jinx scramble up the incline. Embers billow in their wake. Thirty yards, twenty, ten. The obelisks, with their runic inscriptions, are a hazed silhouette against a burning heaven. A doorway glowing with promise. Jinx's palm finds Silco's. Their fingers lace together. She's leading the charge, but her eyes are locked on the horizon of his own.

His little comet, a blazing blue glory.

"I love you," she gasps.

They race hand-in-hand.

A gust of blistering wind buffets them. The flames rush closer, a maw that swallows everything it touches. Silco's lungs are acrid with smoke. Jinx is coughing raggedly. A cough like a miner's wheeze.

They keep running.

Five yards.

Four.

Three.

The obelisks beckon.

Two.

The runes are in reach.

One—

They leap, but it's too late. The flames have caught up to them. The cliff's edge is crumbling away in a slurry of soot. Jinx falls, and takes Silco with her. Her shriek is lost in the firestorm.

They fall together.

Through redness.

Through blackness.

Through nothing.

Then the world reorients itself.

Without warning the thunder ebbs and everything else sucked into silence before the silence turns itself inside-out in a shimmering blue-pink ether.

An eye of madness.

A burning pool.

A fusion of magic.

Before Silco's eyes, multicolored lights pop, and then he is falling not backwards but forwards into a portal, except it isn't a portal but a luminous web in the center of his mind, at the crux of his choices, and he sees—

Flash: A burning alley, Vander's corpse, a girl in the rain, and he kneels but doesn't take her in his arms, doesn't promise her the world on a pike, only encircles her to seize a fistful of blue hair and twist her neck bare, her face locked in horror as his blade slices across the pulse of her pale throat, blood sheeting her skin as her eyes go blank, Silco's own future blanking out with them, a barren vista with no freedom in sight, Zaun a stillborn death, his own life forfeit in a devil's bargain with no hope of redemption, and then—

Flash: the alley again, the girl in his arms, his voice crooning in her ear, and he takes her and keeps her, but their love is different, a bitter aftertaste at once rotten and unnatural, a perversion of family where she is nothing more than meat to devour, a means to an end, until sanity breaks and they glut themselves on each other's bones, two monsters cannibalizing their own, and in the echoing wrongness of the aftermath, he feels himself cracking in half, nothing but raw appetite left behind, a creature of feral impulse that will destroy anything it touches, and then—

Flash: the alley licked with flames, the girl sobbing in the rain, only she isn't a stranger, she is his own child, a legacy of his and Nandi's union, and now Silco cradles her close, and keeps her, and loves her purely, in blood and in truth, except she isn't Jinx, because Jinx wasn't born in this scenario, the exact genetic prerequisites failed to coalesce, but Silco doesn't know this as he nurtures her, and he doesn't know that when the sun rises on her sixteenth year, she will die screaming in agony, a corpse riven by Enforcer's bullets, because her cleverness isn't enough to spark Zaun's birth, because lightning only strikes once, and it's Jinx who is his lightning in a bottle, his child born without a drop of his blood but with the same shard of his soul, his comet, his treasure, and then—

Flash: Jinx as she is, except her body is a prism, fractured shards of light refracting off her skin, her eyes aglow, her beauty a rainbow in a rainstorm, except he isn't sheltering her, she is shielding him, a luminous talisman caught in her hands, a lance made of fire, and she is burning alive, but she unafraid, her laughter ringing true and sweet with the taste of victory.

And then—

He stumbles out of the web, the unlived lives brushing ghostlike at his skin before he falls free. The knowledge fades with him, nothing but an echo in his mind, a shadow at the corner of his eye. The explosion in the ravine is the same, relentless spume putting distance between its quarries.

He and Jinx are no longer in the same spot. They are at a craggy stretch of a plateau. The moon shines against the disturbed clouds in a welter of light. In the distance, the obelisk looms over a burnt landscape. The skyline around it shimmers with the wink of hundred glass windows. Or are they portals?

Between one breath and the next, they fade, until all that remains is the night sky.

Jinx skids to a stop, chest heaving. Silco trips and falls to his hands and knees. His lungs work like bellows. He coughs, throat burning. In that moment, he regrets every belt of whiskey and every lungful of cigarette he'd imbibed in the interceding years since meeting Jinx.

"By Kindred," he gasps. "Never again."

Blue particles fall like dust-motes—a glittering haze. The Hex-gem nearly burns a hole in his coat pocket.

What was that?

A lapse of sanity? Or the crux of miracles?

Something cannonballs into him.

Jinx.

She is on him, a keening flurry of blue and white and pink. The force knocks Silco backwards. Nearly a replica of their first meeting, her arms locked around his neck, sharp knees digging into his ribs. His body answers instinctually. Folding her close, he squeezes her small shape closer, his face in her hair, his reassurances drowned in the flood of her crying.

No—not crying.

Laughing.

Jinx's teary face is pressed against his neck. He feels the imprint of her lips. Her whole body ripples in broken burbles.

"Jinx—what—?"

Silco sits up. Jinx's laughter swells and bursts—giddy peals of gratitude.

The sound sends a dozen conflicting shocks through Silco. Simultaneously he wants to crush her in an embrace—and take her over his knee and belt her until she hollers. He can scarcely breathe; the rage building up in his bones is a whiplash so enormous it makes the near-swat on her thirteenth Name Day seem tame in comparison.

How could she be so reckless? How could she dare leave him?

Yet his instinct, deeper and more merciless than even his rage, sings with a heartsick delirium at having her back. His entire psyche is blasted open by her, this little blue meteor with not an ounce of his lifeblood, yet whose gravitational pull commands every iota of his being.

He holds Jinx for a long time, until her laughter ebbs. Dragging in a breath, Silco holds it for a moment, then loosens his embrace.

Jinx raises her head. Her face is a blotched mess of tears. Yet her expression holds a short-circuited sweetness that is entirely at odds with her doomed designs for tonight. This girl is new to him—a stranger. Someone mysterious. Someone enchanting. Someone he loves, despite all the danger she has brought upon them both.

His daughter, no matter what.

Their eyes meet. Jinx quirks a grin. "Silly."

"Child."

"That was fun, huh?"

"Speak for yourself."

He smooths the tangled hair from her forehead. It needs combing. Her luminous little face is smudged in dirt, the cheeks sticky. She needs a face-washing. Not to mention a bath, and a change of clothes. They both do. Except it is the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere.

Miles to go before they reach Zaun. Miles before they are anywhere close to home.

Silco doesn't care.

Home isn't far off. Home is right here.

Slowly, Silco shakes his head.

(Vander.)

(You bastard.)

(You could've warned me.)

Against his will, Silco slides out a smile. A tiny, crooked smile that barely lasts, and yet is designed to get under even the thickest skin of a runaway teenage girl, crawling around with its crazy-making warning. Jinx pretends not to see it. But her body betrays an antsy jitter. Her features reflect a shift from mischief to squinting suspicion. "What?"

"Nothing."

"What?"

"It's a night for firsts, hm?"

"I—I guess?"

"Here's a second."

To encompass your child in your arms after narrowly losing them. To know the prospect exists always. Today, tomorrow, any day in the future. Is there a more simultaneously blissful and heartbroken feeling in the world? Or a state more ordinary? Shared by thousands across Runeterra.

(That's fatherhood.)

Silco drops a kiss to Jinx's forehead. "My lovely…"

"Yeah?"

"You're grounded."

"Oh fu—"

#arcane #arcane league of legends #arcane silco #silco #forward but never forget/xoxo #forward (never forget)/xoxo #arcane jinx #jinx #arcane zaun #zaun #arcane piltover #piltover #arcane vi #vi #arcane vander #vander #silco and jinx

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