"You don't seriously think Silco's going to fall out with me over two lackeys, do you?"
Seeing that the two men still refused to give up, Caleb cut straight to it.
"If you've got the guts, kill me."
When they still wouldn't leave, Caleb finally dropped all pretense and went cold.
"Don't worry about what Silco will do to you. Just tell him my name when you get back."
"Tell him to come find me."
"If I weren't worried about dirtying little Ren's room, do you think I'd be wasting my patience talking to you?"
He planted a kick in each of their backsides, and the two men had no choice but to slink away.
Caleb tidied up the room, rubbed his face, and put that smile back on.
"Done eating, Ren?"
Watching the girl struggle to wind noodles around her fork, Caleb sat down at the table and started on his own bowl.
"Caleb, what kind of utensil is that?"
The girl stared curiously at the two thin sticks in his hand.
"These are chopsticks," Caleb explained patiently. "They're something people use where I'm from."
"I see." Ren nodded her little head even though she clearly didn't understand, then lowered it again and happily went back to eating.
What this big brother had made was completely different from anything she'd had in Piltover. Even the slippery strands of food felt fascinating to her.
"I need to work for a while later. Can you keep the house locked up?"
"I'm going to ask a reliable friend to stay with you, okay?"
Caleb sounded like he was asking for her opinion more than anything else.
"Okay!" the little girl replied, her cheeks puffed out with lobster.
…
"You did all this by yourself?" Vi glanced lazily at the case board spread out across the floor.
"We have to report everything to the Council," Caitlyn said. Her leg had already been bandaged. "Tonight."
The two of them were lying on the bed. Caleb had disappeared somewhere, so they talked about the case for a while, then drifted into old memories.
"When my parents were still alive, Powder and I used to sleep in the same bed too." Vi's eyes were full of nostalgia.
"Though ours was half the size of this one."
"We'd laugh and joke around, pretend we were monsters, and see who could be bigger and scarier."
"Like, she'd say she was some slime monster that spat venom, and I'd say, 'Then I'm a spike-shell crab monster that loves eating slime monsters.'"
Vi rolled onto her side, resting on one arm as she met Caitlyn's eyes.
"Sometimes I got a little too into it, and I'd scare her."
"So when that happened, I'd pretend I chased all my monsters away so she wouldn't wake Mom and Dad."
"I told her that as long as I was there, no monster would ever hurt her."
"But later... there really was a monster."
Vi closed her eyes and stopped looking at Caitlyn's crystal-blue gaze.
"And I ran."
…
Heimerdinger walked alone by the river.
Ever since he had been forced off the Council, he had spent a long time thinking things through, and in the end he had decided he wanted to bring some kind of help to Zaun.
But everywhere he looked, all he saw was poverty, violence, and endless pollution.
Beggars twisted by shimmer mutations.
Thugs in the alleys ambushing people for revenge or money.
Even children couldn't escape it. At far too young an age, they were already helping their families sort scrap parts.
A little girl had brought Heimerdinger some spare pieces, and he used them to make her a tiny spinning top, but her parent immediately dragged her away.
Leaving behind only a cold warning.
"Don't bother him."
"Goodbye," the little girl said politely anyway.
As the Father of Piltover, a living legend who had been around for over three hundred years, was it really possible that no one in Zaun recognized him?
Of course not.
They were just cold. They rejected kindness, because in a place like this, surviving at all was already a luxury.
His student, Viktor, had been born in a place like this?
Every step of Heimerdinger's journey had left him on edge.
The sage stepped down into the mortal world, his eyes full of pity.
Thinking as he walked, he eventually arrived beneath one of the city's bridges.
A hoverboard lay ahead of him. Heimerdinger picked it up, turning one of the fan blades with his fingers.
"Oh..." he murmured in admiration. "This is exquisitely designed."
"Though the blades inside the wheel seem a little off."
He frowned slightly. His old habits as a professor at the Academy clearly hadn't left him.
"You're wrong."
A somewhat weak voice came from nearby.
Heimerdinger turned toward the sound and saw a head with white dreadlocks rising from behind a metal plate.
Ekko had survived. His hoverboard had just been blasted off to the side.
His foot had been injured too, so all he could do was hide behind the slab and stay out of the Enforcers' sight.
"The air density's higher down there," Ekko explained, though pain flickered across his face again.
"Are you all right, young man?" Heimerdinger stepped forward, looking at him with concern.
"I'm fine. I just... twisted my foot."
Ekko clutched his injured left foot. He had managed to bat away the Flame Chompers in time, but the shrapnel had still done damage.
"You're... Councilor Heimerdinger?"
Ekko hesitated. This small yordle was a legend in Piltover, one of the founders who had built the city in the first place.
Then he remembered what Caleb had said a few days ago. Heimerdinger had already left the Council.
"I'm afraid... I'm not a councilor anymore..."
Heimerdinger's expression turned wistful. One life goal after another had slipped from his grasp. Even after living such a long life, disappointment was still disappointment.
"What are you doing over on this side of the river?"
Now that his suspicion had been confirmed, Ekko felt oddly nervous, like a student turning in homework to a teacher.
"I came because I wanted to do what I could for the people of the Undercity, but..." Heimerdinger let out a sigh. He had seen too much misery on the way here.
He thought of his own words, that there must always be accountability, and of Jayce asking him, "Then who holds you accountable?"
Heimerdinger had no choice but to admit it: he had failed the Undercity, and he had failed badly.
"It doesn't seem like I'm very welcome here."
Heimerdinger lowered his head. Along the way, the Undercity had changed in his mind from "rabble" and "a gutter" into a place of victims, of people suffering under endless harm.
Hopefully, under Jayce's leadership, Piltover would finally offer them some real help.
Ekko couldn't hold it in anymore. He laughed.
"What are you laughing at?" Heimerdinger asked, puzzled.
"Because the two of us are in the same boat today." Ekko looked at the little old man sitting on the ground beside him, barely taller than he was that way.
A faint smile tugged at Heimerdinger's lips too.
This was only the second moment since coming across the river that had made him feel even a little happy.
"That injury of yours is a lot worse than a twisted foot. You need proper treatment."
Even through the fabric of his pants, the bloodstains had already dried, and Ekko was still pressing down on the artery in his leg to keep it from bleeding.
No one in their right mind would believe that came from wiping out on a hoverboard.
Heimerdinger knew plenty of doctors, some from families who had practiced medicine for generations.
To his surprise, Ekko shook his head and refused the offer.
"I need to get home first. It's not safe to stay here."
"My leg won't move right now, so I don't know how I'm supposed to get back, and..." Ekko trailed off.
"My hoverboard's in your hand."
Heimerdinger looked down at the hoverboard he was holding and quietly nodded.
…
"Where did you go?" Caitlyn asked, glaring at Caleb as he stepped through the door. She sounded annoyed.
"My mother already went ahead to the Council. We need to be ready to speak at any time."
"Relax." Caleb patted her on the shoulder and led Ren into the room.
Though in his mind, he added one more thought.
Vi was going to screw it up anyway.
"Would your father mind looking after the sheriff's daughter for a while?"
Caitlyn looked at the timid little girl, then nodded.
"No problem."
After leaving Ren in the care of the kindly Mr. Kiramman, the group made a few quick preparations and headed for the Council.