Jinx Unchained

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

It was two days after the postponement of Jinx's trial when Melanie sat in her kitchen, listening to Sarah's explanation of what they were doing for her upcoming examination of Jinx's mental health.

"It's pretty nice, actually. The interrogation room they're expanding in the Enforcer base's medical wing will work perfectly. It only has one door which they have to guard. They're adding a reinforced chair, and several of those Hextech restraints, so Jinx can sit there without being a danger to anyone, and they're building a cell out of the other half of the room for her to stay in afterwards. This way they don't constantly have to move her from the cells in the basement to the examination room and back over and over again."

"When do you start?" Melanie asked, sipping her tea.

"Probably in the next day or two. They were almost done with all the construction work. At the same time, I've heard from Lux that they're making great progress in expanding the clinic in Zaun already. The Firelights have cleared out the building next door, and they've begun work on the connecting walkway between the two. Later, they said they may work on connecting the two buildings entirely and just turning it into one large one, but for now the covered walkway will suit our purposes just fine," Sarah said excitedly.

"So, do you think you're going to be able to do anything with Jinx?"

Sarah's excitement turned into uncertainty. "I don't know, to be honest. I want to try, for Martin's sake if nothing else, but the girl is extremely damaged. There may not be much left of her original personality, if anything at all. She is easily at least twice as bad as Caitlyn Kiramman was, and I wasn't able to do much for Caitlyn."

"You hadn't really studied mental illness much at that point though," Melanie pointed out.

"True, but studying it and putting it into practice are two entirely different things. I'm excited to give it a try though!"

Melanie smiled at her sister. She was always so caring, so nurturing. If only the village had seen that skill in her... The fact that they'd picked her... she shook her head. No sense in dwelling on it; it didn't make sense then, and it sure wasn't going to make sense now, over a hundred years later.

"Speaking of Martin, have you gone to visit him yet?" Sarah asked.

Melanie shook her head, feeling slightly guilty. "No, I haven't. I'll admit I've had my mind on other matters, though I know he'd be happy I focused on these things first. But I'll go see him soon. Did you see him?"

"Not yet. Caitlyn said she'd allow me to go visit him soon, though. Will you come with me?"

Before she could answer, Melanie heard a knock on the kitchen door. "What is it?" she called out.

"Ma'am, there's a messenger from house Ferros here for you," the voice of one of her gate guards came through the door. "But the message is very short. All it says is 'she's here'."

Melanie's eyes opened wide, and she immediately jumped up from her stool by the kitchen table and grabbed her cloak. "I have to go, Dae," she said, pressing a kiss to her sister's forehead. Without even waiting for an answer, she wrapped her cloak around herself and slipped into its shadow, emerging into the shadow dimension. She oriented herself towards house Ferros, searched for a suitable shadow, then stepped out of it, appearing within the Ferros' mansion itself. It would give their guards fits, she knew, but it also made it clear to Emilia Ferros that Melanie could get to her at a whim if she so chose.

She grabbed the first servant she saw and demanded to know where Emilia was. The startled man squeaked out a word she couldn't comprehend, but he pointed in the general direction. She immediately set off that way, and within half a minute she came upon a door guarded by two Ferros guardsmen.

The guards raised two scary-looking rifles the second they saw her, and she summoned her shadow wave, crushing them against the far wall where they slumped down, unconscious. She briefly debated using her power to slam the door open as well, then decided against it. She wasn't sure how Malea would react, and she didn't want to startle her daughter into attacking her.

She opened the door by hand and stepped through, barely paying any attention to her surroundings, though it appeared to be a luxury lounge. Emilia Ferros was sitting on a large sofa, next to... Melanie's breath stuck in her throat. It was Malea, alright, if one took away most of her body and replaced it with metal, and put an odd, metallic veneer on her face. "You didn't have to hurt my guards, Melanie," Emilia said angrily.

"Malea!" Melanie exclaimed, rushing over to her daughter in excitement while ignoring Emilia completely.

Malea merely blankly stared at her, clearly not recognizing her. "Do... I know you?"

The question jabbed a knife straight into Melanie's heart, and she almost froze on the spot. "W-What? honey, it's me! Mom!"

Malea looked towards Emilia Ferros for support, and that very act pushed the knife even deeper. "Is what she says true?"

Emilia hesitated briefly, and Melanie's face turned into a murderous scowl in an instant. "Tell her the truth, Emilia! Now!" she hissed, putting the entire weight of her Compulsion behind those words.

Emilia was buffeted like a reed in the winds under Melanie's words, then she nodded to Malea. "From what we've been able to determine, you were indeed Malea Morichi. Viktor changed you somehow, made you believe that you're a member of house Ferros. The truth is that you aren't. Until a few weeks ago, none of us had ever heard from you. Whoever you are, you are not Camille Ferros."

"Malea, what she says is true. You were hurt by Viktor, and he used some kind of magic to turn you into... this. Let me help you, sweetheart," Melanie said comfortingly. "Come with me. There are quite a few things we can try to break his hold over you."

"No."

Melanie blinked. "Malea, why are you—"

"I'm not going anywhere with you. I don't know who you are," Malea said stubbornly.

"Honey, I understand your reluctance, but—" Melanie tried again, then she gurgled when suddenly she found a blade at her throat. Her daughter had... blinked in and out of existence somehow and was now standing right in front of her. The blade had come out of her forearm, Melanie saw with consternation.

"I said, I'm not going anywhere with you," Malea said in an icy cold tone.

Melanie slowly raised her hands, then she backed up when she felt the blade lifted from her throat. She swallowed audibly. She'd almost gotten killed! Her daughter's speed was incredible, but that awe soured quickly when she realized it was because of Veral injecting her children with Shimmer from a young age. That miserable son of a bitch! She hoped the fall didn't kill him and that he still lay at the bottom of that mountain range, withering away in screaming agony!

"Since she doesn't want to go with you, Melanie, I'd say your business here is concluded," Emilia said snippily. "House Ferros will be more than happy to treat her as one of our own."

"Shut your Godsdamned mouth, Emilia!" Melanie snapped, letting her eyes flare with darkness. It was a parlor trick as far as their coven had always been concerned, but it sometimes got the job done even better than Compulsion. Emilia gasped in consternation and tried to scrabble as far away from her as she could.

Melanie returned her attention to Malea, who was eyeing her suspiciously. She'd likely not seen Melanie's eyes change, but she still knew something had happened. There was an easy way to fix this, of course. Compulsion would work on her daughter just as well as on anyone else, but she felt bad at the mere thought of doing that to her beloved child—even if it was very likely Viktor had done the same thing to her in the first place. "Alright, dear. If you don't want to talk with me, is there anyone you will talk to? Who can convince you I'm who I say I am?"

Malea thought it over for a second, then she said, "Martin. I'll talk to Martin."

"You remember Martin?"

"I... in snippets, yes. But he's my brother. He convinced me of that. If he says you are my mother, I will believe him."

"Alright, let's go see him then," Melanie said, making ready to leave.

"Are you mad?" Emilia asked, aghast. "You can't take her to go see him! He's in the Enforcer jail; we sentenced him there for three years! And in case you'd forgotten or just didn't know, Camille here has a warrant out for her arrest for her attack on then-Councilor Talis!"

"Her name is Malea!" Melanie hissed from between clenched teeth, clenching her fists. She wanted to strangle the damn woman for reinforcing Malea's false identity, and she took a step towards her, but Malea immediately put herself between the two of them. Since she didn't know what her daughter might do when faced with a scenario where she'd attack Emilia, she slowly backed off again.

She gave it some thought, then she said, "Fine. I'll bring him here. Both of you will stay here until I return! I don't care if this damned mansion burns down to the ground! Stay!"

Both of them nodded immediately. It wasn't until a few seconds later that Melanie realized she'd used her Compulsion when speaking. She sighed irritably. She'd have to be a lot more careful with it—the temptation to use it was always there, and it always grew the more she used it. It was so much easier to just make someone do what you wanted rather than hope they'd agree with you.

With a scowl she stormed out of the room, back into the hallway. Several guards were there, tending to their two comrades she'd taken out. She quickly slipped past them, and as soon as she found an open room, she stepped into it and wrapped her cloak around herself, entering the shadow realm. She oriented herself towards the Enforcer base and went there, the power of the tome carrying her across the intervening distance in a single hop.

From within the shadow realm, she examined the base until she found the jail cells in the basement and carefully checked to see if there was anyone around. One side of the basement had an occupied cell, but it had four people standing guard right in front of it. She doubted her son would warrant such a use of firepower, not after the Council had essentially let him off with a slightly more restrictive version of house arrest, so she focused on the other side, and saw another occupied cell, this one with nobody watching. Her mind made up, she reached through and entered into the real world again just outside the cell.

Martin was working out, doing pushups on a rug. She blinked in surprise. She'd never seen or even heard of a cell with a rug before, but as she glanced at it, she realized that wasn't the only item of comfort in it. He had a chair, a privacy screen for his waste bucket, and his bed was a damn sight better than the cots she saw in the other cells. He was also wearing normal clothes rather than the typical prison garb she would have expected, and he had a small pile of clothes lying on tiny end table, which she assumed were clean. Clearly Caitlyn had gone out of her way to make his stay a little more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been. She made a mental note to thank the woman at some point.

"Martin, don't react too loudly. The guards on the other side will hear," she whispered.

Her son immediately stopped and looked up, taking her in in a glance. As soon as he saw who it was, he quickly got to his feet and rushed over towards her. "Mom!" he whispered, a huge smile of happiness appearing on his face. "Where've you been? I haven't seen you in... Gods, I don't even remember!"

"I know. I'm sorry, sweetheart. I've been occupied with other things, and I let those take precedence over you. I'm a terrible mother."

"Oh, please, stop it," he said, reaching through the bars to take her hands in his own. He squeezed them gently and he appeared ecstatic. "I'm so glad you're here! But... I didn't see or hear you coming down the stairs?"

"Yes, well, there's an explanation for that, but it'll have to wait a little bit. I need your help. Malea is back, and I need you to talk to her for me."

"Malea? Where is she?" Martin asked, looking around her to see if his sister was there.

"She's in the Ferros mansion. Emilia's been using her as an assassin, and I won't put up with that anymore. I need you to come with me so you can talk to her, help me convince her she's not just some Ferros assassination tool to be used and discarded at will!"

His face blanched at the mention of Malea being used in such a fashion by the Ferros' Matriarch, but then he smiled wryly. "Uh, I'm kind of in jail, mom. It's a little hard for me to get out and just go to the Ferros mansion."

She rolled her eyes. Always a little smartass. She wrapped her cloak around herself and took the tiniest of journeys through the shadow realm, stepping back out inside his jail cell, right behind him. She tapped him on the shoulder.

He whirled around, his eyes wide in surprise and perhaps a little fear. "What the...! How the f... heck did you do that?!"

"It's a long story, Martin, and we don't have time for it right now. Do you still have your powers from the Shimmer?"

He shook his head. "No, they're gone. They... vanished when the Gray rebuilt me."

It was her turn to stare at him in astonishment. "The... Gray?! That filthy goop at the bottom of Zaun? It... rebuilt you? What does that mean?"

"Also a long story, but to summarize: It's not goop, it's a hive mind made up from some kind of unfathomable number of incredibly tiny machines from the stars, all working together. They infected me some time ago, and they'd been increasing the amount of Shimmer in my blood. Piltover and Zaun put a strike force together to kill Slane, and I wound up inside the Gray. It didn't dissolve me because I had... I guess you could say a part of it inside me. They made me more powerful so I could kill Slane, but then I was about to die from the amount of Shimmer that was pumping through my veins. To counteract that, they, uh... well, they completely dissolved me and then rebuilt me, molecule by molecule."

Melanie shuddered at the mere thought of being dissolved, but she put on a brave face for her child. She had a million questions and concerns, but she didn't really have the time to go into them. "Are you sure you're okay after that?"

He nodded quickly. "Yeah, everything is here and working, and I don't think I have lost any memories or anything. The Gray wasn't entirely sure they could reassemble a brain and keep the personality intact, but it seems to have worked."

She wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly against her. "I'm so glad you're okay. And that you've returned to normal."

He squeezed her in return, and said, "Me too, Mom." He kissed her softly on her cheek, and a tear slid down her face at her happiness at being back with her son.

After half a minute or so, she let go of the hug. "You being in jail is a little inconvenient timing-wise, but I guess we'll have to make do," she said, sighing slightly. "Let's start by breaking you out."

He shook his head. "I can't."

She appeared taken aback. "You want to stay in here?"

"I mean, not particularly, but it's only three years. If I break out now, I'll be a wanted man in Piltover and Zaun for the rest of my life, and I'm worried they may still take it out on Jinx. They may also go back on their current goodwill towards Zaun. Three years of a confinement is a small price to pay to not run the risk of losing all of that."

Melanie stared at him, at her handsome son, with his eyes so determined, his face so set. He was so noble, it made everyone else in Piltover who claimed to have that title pale in comparison. They were all wretches compared to him "It just grieves me to see in you here, sweetheart," she said forlornly.

"Cheer up, Mom. At least I'm not in Stillwater, and you can come visit me whenever you want, apparently. You still need to explain to me how you did that, by the way."

"I'm about to show you because I need to take you with me to the Ferros mansion. Do they check up on you often down here?"

Martin shrugged. "It's pretty random. Most of the time it's just when they feed me, or when the cleaning man comes by to empty out my bucket. But every now and then Caitlyn will come down here, or one of the upstairs guards."

"So we run the risk of someone seeing you're gone, if only for a short while."

"Yeah."

She sighed. It would have been much more convenient if nobody ever came to check on him, but she'd have to make do. "Alright, lie on your bed, face towards the wall, with your blanket pulled all the way up over your neck."

"Why do you—"

"Just do it, Martin," she sighed.

He shrugged and did as she asked, lying down facing the wall. She summoned her power and created a shadow image of him lying there, using the Tome to grant it shape and volume. "Alright, now get out and put the blanket back."

He complied, then he gasped when he saw that the shadow was lying there in his stead. He pulled the blanket over it, and in the relatively low-light conditions in the cells, it looked reasonably like a normal person lying there sleeping. She couldn't make it breathe, of course, at least not without staying here and manipulating the simulacrum, but it'd have to do. "Good. Hopefully that will satisfy a cursory glance from anyone," she said satisfactorily.

"Can it hold weight?" he asked.

"It's holding the blanket," she pointed out. "So yes, it can, but don't overload it."

He nodded at her and grabbed a book from the floor, then laid it open on top of the simulacrum, so it would appear he fell asleep while reading.

"Nice touch," she commented. "Now, you don't scare easily, do you?"

"Not particularly," he said, frowning. "Why?"

"I'm going to take you into the shadow dimension with me. Things will seem... strange there, and you may see something unsettling or frightening while we're in there. Just ignore it and remember that nothing in there can harm you as long as I'm with you."

"The shadow..." He opened his mouth a few times to say something, but the words escaped him. Finally he just threw his hands up a little. "Alright. I'll just take your word for it."

"Good," she said. She took his hand and immediately stepped into the shadow cast by one of his cell walls, pulling him along with her.

The very second they entered the shadow realm, Martin's hand squeezed hers so tightly she thought he was going to break it. She gently pried it back open with her other hand while smiling at him. "Are you okay?" she asked, her voice gaining that weird, muffled tone all sounds did in the shadow realm.

"I... yeah. What is this place?" he asked in wonder. His voice had that same weird tone hers did. "Is this a quantum realm, or a parallel dimension, or... what?"

Melanie crooked her head as she stared at her son in curiosity. She had no idea what a quantum realm or a parallel dimension was. "We've never been able to find out. We think it's the space between shadows, maybe? We figured out how to travel through it, which is more than enough for our needs," she explained.

"Who is we?"

She turned her head away from him slightly. "It's... a long story. I'll tell you some other time. For now we have to go get Malea. Hang on a second while I get our bearings, okay?"

"Sure, Mom," he said, his mind already going elsewhere as he looked around in amazement. He tentatively reached out to touch a few things, recoiling slightly when he felt the weird textures this realm was made up off.

She smiled at his almost-childlike curiosity, then oriented herself. Her roaming gaze found the Ferros' mansion, and she searched for the room where she'd left Malea and that Ferros hag. She took hold of her son's hand again and moved the two of them over there, then they stepped out of a shadow in the corner of the room. The Tome was singing to her. It always did when she drew on it a lot in a single day. Whispers swirled around her and certain... urges began to make themselves known in her mind. She tried her utter best to ignore them. Listening to the whispers and giving in to the Tome's desires was the way of madness and things far worse than that.

Malea and Emilia were sitting down on the luxury sofa again; however, Malea noticed the two of them after just a second, and she quickly sprung to her feet, rushing at them with her blade drawn. "Intruders!" she hissed.

Martin quickly held his hands up and stepped in between her and Malea. Melanie growled in frustration—if he had no powers anymore, he sure wouldn't be able to defend himself against the likes of an enhanced Malea! It didn't seem to faze him one bit, however. He calmly held his hands up and said, "Easy, Malea. It's me. Remember? Martin? I'm your brother. You accepted the fact I was your brother in the Enforcer's jail cell."

Malea froze for a moment, her hauntingly blue eyes focusing on him, but then she relaxed and let her blade retract into her arm. "Yes, I remember you."

"It's good to see you again, sis," he said, smiling widely at her. "It's been a little while."

Malea's face twisted into an annoyed frown. "Just because I accepted the fact that I was once your sister, because your grief couldn't have been faked, doesn't mean we're now suddenly all friendly with each other!" she scolded him.

His grin just became more crooked, and he took a step closer. "But we always have been. Friendly with each other, I mean. Apart from those time you tried to kill me, Jinx, and Lux, of course."

"You were Outlaws!"

"Sure, but I'm not anymore, and you're not an Enforcer anymore, so that point's kind of become moot, right?"

Malea hesitated for a second, then she said, softly, "Yes. There's no reason for me to hunt you anymore. But why are you here? I already told you I don't feel that connection that you say we have."

"Because Mom had tried to come here to save you," he said, indicating Melanie herself. "And she was having a hard time getting through to you."

"So she is our mother?" Malea asked, her voice laden with suspicion. Melanie had to struggle not to cry at the sound of that voice.

Martin nodded determinedly. "Yes, and she has... magical powers of some kind, I guess, so she thinks she may be able to help you. Let's give it a try, please?"

"How do I know I can trust her? Or you?" Malea asked, even more suspicious now.

Martin shrugged. "Because I'm your brother, which you accepted, and she is your mother, and we both love you. I wouldn't lie to you, Malea. But also because I think that, deep down inside, you know there's something wrong, and that you are not Camille Ferros."

Malea's eyes just narrowed in response. Clearly she wasn't buying Martin's arguments.

He saw it too, or at least she assumed he did, because he made his sister another offer when he saw her not react to his first one. "Look, give Mom some time to examine you and see if she can figure out what Viktor did to you. If she can't, then... I promise you we'll leave you alone and never come back."

Malea's eyes grew slightly in anticipation, while Melanie grumbled under her breath. "Martin, what the hell are you doing?" she asked angrily.

"We have to convince her we're not lying, and that we mean what we say, Mom," he replied calmly. "We can't help her if she's resisting us the entire time."

Malea's eyes flicked between Melanie's and her brother's, and finally she said, "Fine. I'll let you examine me, but if you can't find anything, you will leave and never come back!"

Martin simply nodded in agreement, while Melanie hummed hers. That settled, she was about to move over to her daughter when Emilia Ferros fidgeted with her ears, then jumped to her feet. "I absolutely forbid this! No matter where she came from, Camille is a valued member of my family, and I do not wish to lose her! I will not let you mess with her mind!" she said harshly.

Melanie rolled her eyes and said, "Sit down and shut up, Emilia!" while lacing her voice with the power of her Compulsion.

Emilia ignored the command and kept going, walking over to the far corner of the room, and Melanie found herself briefly in shock from what she was seeing. She had ordered demons around with the power of her Compulsion! How was Emilia...?

Emilia reached behind a curtain, revealing a large bell pull, and she gave it a firm yank. "Guards! In here!" she cried out.

"Oh, for the love of..." Martin groaned, he was about to run over to the Ferros Matriarch, but Malea stopped him by getting in his path.

"I won't let you harm her," Malea said determinedly, while Emilia kept pulling the bell. The door to the luxury lounge was slammed open and several armed guards came running inside.

"Arrest them! If they resist, kill them!" Emilia shouted.

"Mom, handle Malea! I'll deal with those guards!" he shouted. He immediately turned away from Malea and engaged the first guard before the man had even drawn his sword. Even without all the powers he used to have from his Shimmer, he easily danced in and out of the quickly growing melee, laying out guards left and right with well-aimed kicks and blows to their temples.

Melanie focused her attention on Malea and Emilia. She stepped forward resolutely, bearing down on Emilia who was still frantically yanking that bell pull, but before she could get there, Malea blocked her like she'd done with Martin.

"You will not touch her," Malea said sharply, holding up a warning finger while her sword was half unsheathed from her forearm.

"Fine. Then you make her stop pulling that stupid bell!" Melanie said irritably. She didn't want to be snippy with her daughter, but Emilia's actions were pissing her off, and obviously Malea was still going to be defending who she believed to be her house Matriarch.

Malea hesitated for a second, and Melanie added, "The three of us made a deal, and she's trying to decide for you what's in your best interest. Surely you can see that?"

Malea stood almost frozen, pondering her words, while behind her, Melanie could hear the sounds of battle growing larger. "Things are getting a little hectic here, Mom!" Martin called out.

"That boy is your brother. You said yourself you accepted that. And Emilia is trying to have him killed for what? For you trying to determine for yourself what the truth is?" Melanie insisted. "Does that sound like someone who has your best interest at heart?"

"I... don't know, I..."

"Tell her to stop ringing that bell pull."

Malea turned towards Emilia and yelled, "Lady Emilia, please stop! My brother doesn't mean you any harm!"

Emilia kept pulling the bell pull, not even giving any hint that she'd heard Malea's plea. Melanie frowned as she watched the woman just yank away frantically, and suddenly she understood why she'd been able to resist her Compulsion. She nodded in admiration. It was pretty smart of Emilia to figure it out.

"Mom! Help!" Martin shouted from behind, and she whirled around, just in time to see Martin dodge an attack from a halberd, but that put him square in the path of another guard who slashed at him with a short sword.

Melanie's eyes blazed with fiery hatred as the blade sliced across her son's back, and he screamed out in pain, stumbling to his knees. Several of the guards rushed in to deliver the finishing blow, but before she could summon her shadow power to crush them all like the insects they were, there was a blur, and guards were suddenly thrown every which way possible.

Melanie blinked in surprise as she saw Malea enter the battle, taking out guards with terrifying efficiency. Though she wasn't using lethal methods, she was still using her arm blade to great effect, slamming it flat into the guards' temples, instantly knocking them out. It took just a half dozen seconds until all the guards were down, then Malea helped Martin back to his feet.

"Camille, what are you doing?!" Emilia screeched from behind her. Melanie turned around and flicked her finger at the woman, unleashing a small shadow wave that knocked the Ferros Matriarch away, slamming her into the wall behind her. She crumpled to the floor with a loud grunt, though she was still conscious.

Melanie went over to examine Martin's wound, seeing that fortunately it was just superficial. She tore off a section of a guard's shirt, then directed Malea to pressure it against the wound, which she did without complaint.

Her son momentarily tended to, Melanie walked up to Emilia. The woman tried to scrabble away frantically, though of course with the wall behind her, there wasn't really anywhere she could go. She cowered in fear and spluttered, "You can't harm me! I'm a Councilor!"

Melanie sighed and rolled her eyes. "By the Void, not you too? You've been a Councilor for only several weeks, and already you sound like fucking Mel Medarda!" she hissed. She reached down and gently held the woman's head still with one hand—more out of a desire to not set Malea off than to try to avoid hurting her—then she carefully reached into Emilia's ear with the other. It took a little work, but she finally pulled a little black beetle out of Emilia's ear. She grimaced in disgust at the thought of such a creature skittering around in her ear canal, but she had to admit the Shuriman Sound Beetle was excellent at what it did. She'd never even considered someone using the little bug to guard herself against Compulsion, and she'd have to come up with some way to counter it in the future.

She dug around in the woman's other ear and fished out the second little beetle, holding them both in her hand. They were surprisingly docile, sitting still in the palm of her hand. She supposed that made sense—there wasn't much point to putting the beetles in your ears if they were just going to crawl out, after all. She briefly thought of just crushing them, but then she reached into a pocket and pulled out a small vial, putting both beetles in there. After using a pair of scissors to prick a small air hole in the cap, she stashed the vial back in her pocket.

She got up really close in Emilia's face and said, "Now listen up, wench. I should kill you for what you tried to do here, but the sad reality is that you are a Councilor now, thanks to my own short-sightedness, and if I were to kill you, I'd just get that damned arrest warrant put out against me again."

Emilia just stared at her, wide-eyed, her color having gone as pale as a sheet.

"Since you figured out how to guard yourself against my Compulsion, you're obviously aware of what it does. Trust me when I say that I can make you do anything I want you to. I can make you slit your own throat in front of your children, or I can force you to whore yourself out to every person in front of the Council tower and ruin your life and your reputation for eternity."

"Gods... Mom!" Martin complained from behind, but she paid him no heed.

"I will offer you one chance, Emilia. You will voluntarily forget everything that happened here. You will forget there ever was a Camille Ferros. You will make no attempts whatsoever at getting her back or attempt to get vengeance against anyone in my family for what occurred. If you try anything, I will come back and make your life the most miserable hell you'd have ever imagined possible, and there is nothing you can do to stop me. Nod if you understand."

Emilia's nod was the most frantic a person had ever nodded in the history of Runeterra.

"Good. Enjoy your time on the Council. Try not to fuck up as badly as Talis and Medarda did, or I will get you Nullified as well. And remember what I said about my family," Melanie said. Once she was sure the message had gotten across, she got up and walked back over to her son and daughter.

Martin's eyes looked shocked, possibly even scared. She sighed. He was so noble his own light blocked out the sun's, but as admirable as that was, it was also really inconvenient at times. Malea, for her part, seemed less shocked, but she was definitely chagrined.

"I apologize for making decisions for you, Malea, but I had to make sure Emilia understood the consequences of any potential actions she might try to undertake. Now, you promised you would let me examine you, and in return if I couldn't find anything, we would leave you alone forever. Do you want to still do that?" she asked, her heart thudding in her chest. If Malea reneged on her promise, she'd be left with the choice of either leaving forever, or just using Compulsion against her own child. And while that would work, she really didn't want to start making a habit out of that.

Fortunately, Malea nodded after just a few seconds. Melanie let out a sigh of relief, then directed her daughter towards a chair in the middle of the room, asking her to sit down in it. Martin closed the door to the lounge and locked it, then he stood with his back against the wall, pushing his makeshift bandage against his wound while keeping an eye on the unconscious guards.

Once Malea had sat down, Melanie let her power seep out of her. She visualized it as shadowy tendrils slowly enveloping her daughter's mind, probing and examining. Almost immediately she found a strange, lattice-like structure in Malea's mind, sectioning off a large part of it. To her mental perception, the lattice looked like it was made of a peculiar, almost bone-like material, roughly as thick as her arm. It expanded in three dimensions, and though there was activity in the brain behind it, its signals did not reach the rest of her daughter's mind.

Melanie pondered the image in front of her. It seemed like a cage for a part of Malea's mind. She carefully pushed against the lattice, to find that it gave way relatively easily, which surprised her. She'd have expected it to be significantly stronger, merely from its appearance alone, but it was heavily weakened. Even so, it was still strong enough that it would resist any of her attempts to manipulate it beyond that slight push, unless she drew on the entire power reservoir contained within the Tome.

Melanie shuddered. Only once before had she done so, in her battle against her coven, when she'd tried to free Daeshala. It had made her nearly Godlike in power, but—like Dae had said earlier—it had also made her commit unspeakable evils. Many of her former townsmen had died in horrible agony from when she'd unleashed the Tome's full power. If anyone had ever born witness to the things she'd done that day, their minds would have either shattered at the sight, or they'd forever have sworn to rid the world of evil such as hers—even if she still felt it had really been the Tome to blame.

Still, it was her daughter, and Malea was undoubtedly suffering tremendously from the nigh permanent compulsion that had been implanted in her head. That really made it an easy choice.

Melanie opened herself up and she let the Tome in. Immediately her mind was almost overcome with the whispers, the promises, the visions of the world she could create if she let herself be guided: A world of darkness, with everyone worshipping her as the queen at its zenith. She felt a tremor pull through her at the thought, and she shook her head to clear the visions; then, with the Tome's full power now available to her, she returned her attention to the lattice in Malea's mind.

Her mental projection reached out and touched the lattice again, but this time she opened herself up fully, acting as a conduit between the lattice and the Tome. Shadowy powers almost like ink started oozing from her fingertips and began spreading throughout the lattice. As the darkness covered more and more of the bone-like structure, small cracks slowly began to form in it. Melanie directed every ounce of her power, and that of the Tome, across the entire framework, with the shadows and the cracks multiplying across the structure.

Malea started moaning and shaking her head, and Melanie whispered, "Sit still," while letting the Compulsion seep through. She felt horrible about using it against her daughter, but if Malea struggled too much, the Tome's power might jump from the lattice straight into her brain, and it wouldn't take the shadows anywhere near as long to shred that!

She was really starting to feel the strain. Being a conduit for such an immense amount of power was taking its toll on her, she knew, but she relentlessly kept on, directing more power into the lattice. Her teeth were clenched, and muscles were standing out in her neck as she struggled against the flow that was tearing through her, threatening to overwhelm her.

The first break was almost frightfully loud, though only to her, of course, since it was all happening inside Malea's brain. She saw one part of the lattice tear itself to pieces under the strain of the shadows dancing across its surface. A few seconds later, another part shattered, and then the cascade started. While Melanie looked on in satisfaction, the destruction spread, as the entire lattice framework tore itself apart under the power of her shadows, with large shards flinging themselves everywhere. Fortunately, the cage wasn't really made of bone, nor was it really even a cage, for that matter—that was just how her own brain was translating an esoteric concept in a way she could understand. It was a good thing too, because if the bone had been real, Malea's mind would have been absolutely pummeled to goop.

It took over ten minutes for the framework to finish destroying itself completely, and by the end of it, Melanie was exhausted. She slumped against the back of the chair, resting her forehead against it while she sank to her knees, gasping for breath.

Martin rushed over to her side, and he gently put his hands on her shoulders. "Mom? Mom! Are you okay?!" he asked frantically.

"Yes..." she managed to croak out, but she didn't have the energy to do more. It was taking every last shred of willpower she had to keep herself from being completely overwhelmed by the Tome's glorious crescendo. It promised to ease her tiredness, to give her everything she ever wanted, if only she would give in to it, and she clenched her teeth so hard in her struggle to resist that she nearly felt them shatter under the pressure.

Her son moved to in front of the chair, and he gently shook Malea's shoulders. Her daughter moaned softly, but then she heard Malea draw in a huge, gasping breath. A second later, she asked, "M-Martin?"

"Malea? Is that you?" he asked softly, his voice so full of hope that it brought a tear to Melanie's eye.

"What? Of course it's me. Martin... where are we? W-What happened?"

"Malea!" Martin cried out with joy, and he threw himself at his sister, wrapping her in a giant embrace that rocked the chair. Melanie fell down because of it, bumping her head on the floor, but she didn't care. It had worked! Her daughter was back!

"Why are you so... Oh Gods, what happened to me?!" Malea wailed in sudden fright and revulsion.

Melanie closed her eyes at the grief in her daughter's voice. Explaining everything was going to take a long time, she knew, and helping her daughter get used to this new reality would not be easy. But at least she was back.

"Don't worry, sis. Mom and I are here. We'll take care of you," her son said supportively. "Come on, let's take you home."

*****

Caitlyn knew something was up when she went to go check on Martin, she just didn't know what. He appeared to be asleep in his cell, which wasn't that unusual, except for the fact that it was still relatively early in the evening, and he usually wasn't asleep at this time. Something was strange though. She observed through the trellised bars for a few moments, trying to figure out what was bothering her, then suddenly it hit her.

He'd clearly fallen asleep while reading a book, but he was lying on his side while the book was wide open on top of him. So either he'd fallen asleep on his back, then had somehow shifted to his side without the book falling, which seemed nigh impossible, or he'd been reading the book while already lying on his side, which was just nonsensical. She stared at the form in the bed while counting down three minutes in her mind, and in all that time she didn't see it breathe once.

"Godsdammit, Martin!" she muttered angrily. After the chance they'd given him, for him to go and escape a mere two weeks into his sentence was really just spitting in both her face and her dad's. She whirled around and went back up the stairs, feeling the anger building inside her. She'd assemble a manhunt for him, and that boy had some explaining to do!

After she'd retrieved the key from the upstairs guard station, she went back down, then she froze in front of the cell. Martin was standing there, with his back towards the rear wall of his cell, wide awake and wearing just a pair of pants while holding one of his shirts in his hands. It looked like he'd been just about to put it on. As soon as he saw her he froze as if he was startled, then he said, "Hi, Sheriff. Come to check up on me?"

"How the heck did you do that? Where were you?!"

"D-Do what?" he asked, trying to play dumb, but failing miserably. "I was right here."

She let out a disgruntled sigh. Why was it that people, when confronted with unassailable facts, always tried to pretend differently? He and Vi were like to peas in pod where that was concerned. "Don't give me this bullshit, Martin. You were, in fact, not here! Where did you go? How did you get out of your cell?" Her eyes fell on a crumpled shirt lying at his feet.

"I didn't go anywhere. I'd been taking a nap, and I just woke up."

"Uh-huh. You don't seem as if you just woke up. You seem wide awake. Why are you standing against the back wall like that?"

"Uh... no reason, I was just gonna change shirts."

"Turn around."

He was about to protest, but she held up a finger in warning, and he wisely thought better of it. She repeated her command, and with a loud sigh he turned his back towards her.

The fresh sword cut was easily visible, though it had been stitched relatively well. If he'd been able to put his shirt on in time, she'd have never noticed it.

"Nice cut," she said sarcastically. "Got that from doing push-ups? Or was it the sharp edges in your comfy bed? Maybe I should just put a cot back in here to keep you from cutting yourself."

He hung his shoulders and slumped down onto his bed. "I... I'm sorry, Sheriff, I..."

She opened the door to his cell and went inside, still irritated at him. "Sorry isn't good enough, Martin, dammit! I went out on a limb for you to get you incarcerated here instead of in Stillwater. I gave you a nice bed, some privacy, some clothes, all this stuff, and all I asked was that you wouldn't try to escape. And we're not even a few weeks in and here we are."

"I know," he said, so softly she could barely hear. "I didn't try to escape though."

She raised her left eyebrow as she gave him a quizzical look. "You're a prisoner, you weren't given permission to leave, and you weren't in your cell. Did someone change the meaning of the word escape on me while I wasn't looking?"

"I admit that I wasn't inside, but I didn't try to escape. I came back, didn't I?" he said, raising his head to face her. She saw a small spark of defiance in his eyes.

"Ugh. Martin..." she began, as if explaining something to a child. "You are serving out a prison sentence. That means you don't get to just leave whenever you want to. And how did you even get out to begin with?" She looked back towards the cell door and all the bars. There was no sign of any sort of breakage.

"A uh... a mage got me out. Not Luxanna, before you freak out and try to have her arrested!" he amended quickly. "It was a mage I'd hired a while back to keep an eye on my sister. We had to go and save her."

"Your sister? Malea?"

"Yeah. She'd gone to house Ferros, and Emilia Ferros was using her as an assassin. My dad used her the same way, back when she was still working for his company, and it always tore her up that she'd done that, even though we later discovered she'd been doing so under the same kind of command sentence that Slane had."

Caitlyn frowned. "Your sister had a command sentence?" She was struggling to make sense of things, but even so she was getting annoyed at herself for just repeating everything he was saying.

He nodded. "Yes. It gutted her to discover she'd been used like that. I didn't want the same thing to happen to her while she was in the Ferros' hands, so we set out to rescue her. I'm sorry, Sheriff, I know that I broke my word, but... it's my sister," he said pleadingly. "I had to go save her!"

Caitlyn sat down at the foot end of the bed. "Did you? Save her?"

"Yes, but it wasn't easy. The mage managed to break whatever Viktor had done to her. She's Malea again, mentally, though her body is still Camille's, of course. I don't know that there will ever be a way to restore her to her old self physically. After we saved her, we dropped her back off home and settled her in her own bed after explaining to her what had happened. The last thing she really remembered was fighting Viktor, and she says she just has small flashes of everything in the weeks since then."

"Gods... I'm sorry she had to go through that," Caitlyn said sympathetically.

His smile was wan, but his eyes showed that it meant a lot to him. "Thank you. I appreciate it. I'm really sorry I broke my vow. But she's my sister. I couldn't just abandon her."

Caitlyn sighed. He sounded so much like Vi then and there, it made her heart ache. Vi, who had always been on Jinx's side, no matter what. Never willing to abandon her, never wanting to hurt her. There were times when she wished her parents would have given her a sibling, so she could have known what it felt to love someone that deeply, though she knew her own love for Vi couldn't be that far behind.

She looked at Martin and said, "It's okay. This time! Nobody else noticed, and I still owe you, so I'll let it slide. But Martin? Don't ever do it again. At least not without letting me know in advance."

He nodded quickly. "I swear, Caitlyn. I'm sorry. I feel awful about breaking my word, to you of all people."

She got up and shook her head. "Don't worry about it. Just get some rest. Do you want our doctor to come take a look at that cut on your back?"

"No, thanks. It'll be okay. My uh... my aunt stitched me up when we brought Malea back."

"I see. What's your sister going to do now?"

He gave it a little thought. "Rest, most likely. And then I think she's going to want to get revenge on Viktor."

Caitlyn winced at that. "That... might not be such a good idea, but even if she was strong enough, I don't think she'll be able to get at him."

"Huh? Why's that?" Martin asked, frowning in confusion.

"There is a large, metal... shield, I guess you can call it, around Viktor's base now. It's rectangular in shape. We'd sent an Enforcer patrol over shortly after Jinx's trial, to take him into temporary custody so we could ask him some questions. It was all preliminary, just investigative work concerning his culpability in the Airship crash. As soon as they neared his base, it grew this metal... casing around it. We've tried to break it open or cut through it. We've fired Hextech weapons against it. It's impervious to anything we throw at it. It almost seems like that same metal that grows around him and forms his armor. I don't know that there's any way in. He's also refused to respond to multiple attempts to talk with him."

"I see. That smart, miserable son-of-a-bitch," Martin said bitterly. "Even now, all this time later, he still finds ways to avoid his just rewards."

"I know how you feel," Caitlyn added darkly. "We had to let Calvert go because the Council thought his info on Slane would be useful, and it turned out to be worthless in the end."

"Maybe someday both of them will get what's coming to them..."

"Maybe," Caitlyn said with a dismissive shrug while she exited the cell. She'd long ago learned not to hope for such things. She locked the cell door and walked back up the stairs without looking back, though she did make up her mind to go over to check on him more frequently. His admission that a mage had let him out without any of the Enforcers being any the wiser worried her. He swore it wasn't Luxanna, and she had to admit it didn't really seem like the young, blonde mage's forte, but who else in either Piltover or Zaun possessed those kinds of magical abilities? The last thing he—and she herself—needed was for one of her Enforcers to check down there and notice him missing. The nobility would howl for him to be stashed back in Stillwater.

*****

Martin waited until Caitlyn had gone up the stairs and closed the door behind her, then he turned around, facing the darkest corner of his cell. He was about to whisper to his mom that it was safe to come out, but she was already stepping out of the shadows on her own. He felt a small tremor of fear pull through him at the casual way she did so. She had to be a hugely powerful mage! "That was close," he said, breathing out a long, worried sigh.

"Yes, but at least we made it back in time. I doubt Sheriff Kiramman would have been anywhere as forgiving had she gotten here, and you weren't here," his mother said calmly.

"True," he said, eyeing his mother with a curious glance. "So, are you going to tell me what this is all about, or am I going to have to accept that literally every member of my family has secrets?

She studied him intensely for a moment, then she said hesitantly, "I can tell you, if you wish, but I will warn that you that it is a very grim story, and it will forever alter your perception of me."

"So you don't want to tell me?"

"No, I'm fine either way. It's not as if I can keep what I am a secret from you and your sister anymore and seeing where keeping secrets has brought us these last few months, I'd say it's perhaps better for me to tell you. But again, it's a bad story, Martin. You might be better off not knowing."

He didn't even have to think about it. "I want to know," he said firmly.

She smiled at him as she came to sit by his side on the bed. "Always the curious one," she said, pulling him close against her. He didn't shirk from her touch and leaned into her embrace. They sat quietly for a few long moments, enjoying perhaps the last time they'd ever get to do so. Even though he did want to know, he felt ominously worried about what she potentially might tell him.

His mother finally braced herself, and she began talking, "So let's get the big thing out of the way first... I am not Melanie Morichi. Or at least, not really."

His head whipped to face her. What did she... did she mean she was not his...

"Relax. I am your mother, since I can see by the look in your eyes that's what you're afraid of. I gave birth to you, your sister, and even Mikael. And in truth I have been Melanie Morichi for over eighty years now, but I was not born with that name. I... took it, so to speak. But I'm getting ahead of myself."

Martin's heart thudded a little less loudly on hearing that she was in fact his mother. The worry that she might have been someone who'd just taken his mother's place had quickly gotten up to a fever pitch. It wasn't until a few seconds later when the full realization hit him. "Eighty years? What the hell?!"

She chuckled slightly at that. "I was born as Netari, a hundred-and-thirty-six years ago. I had no last name, because our village, tribe... coven, whichever nomenclature you prefer, did not believe in such things. Everyone had one name, and one name only. So I was Netari. My mother was Askiwa and my father... I believe his name was Reytalan, though I'm not really sure anymore. It's been a long time since either of them... were alive.

"I don't know exactly where I was born. Our village had a name, but I've long since forgotten it, and we rarely called it by its name anyway. We just called it Home, or he Village if we had to. It was a small village, maybe fifty families, with the same number of houses. It was located deep in the jungles of Ixtali, where we seldom saw any visitors, except those that had need of our specialized... services."

Martin raised an eyebrow at that. "What do you mean, services?"

She licked her lips and drew in a deep breath, as if to steel herself for what was coming. "We were a tribe of... magically gifted people, for lack of a better word. Every one of us had a magical talent of some kind, though for several it wasn't really magic, it was something else. Some in our tribe were great at using offensive magic, others defensive, and yet others utilitarian. My father's magic was focused around using the woods and making the creatures in it to do his bidding. Your Academy's department of the Arcane would have called him a Druid, though there were differences. My mother's 'magic' lay in mental domination, though it was purely a power of her mind, not one born of actual magic. She cast no spells to achieve her effects."

"So what's so bad about that?" Martin asked.

"I'm getting to that, dear. The first time I realized something was wrong was when one of my playmates went missing. I was about nine at the time, and she was twelve. I asked my parents, and they said it was nothing to worry about, but she stayed missing, and nobody seemed to care. I asked her parents, who gave me a platitude as an answer, and nobody had seen or heard of her. It was so strange, but eventually I didn't think about it anymore. I was too busy, anyway, for much playing. My mother was teaching me her powers of the mind, though I was only strong with the Compulsion part of it, while Se'gatu, our tribe's... Matriarch, if you will, had requested I come study the shadows under her. For years she taught me how to create shadow waves, how to conceal myself, and eventually how to enter the shadow realm and travel through it."

"Didn't your father teach you any of his abilities?"

"No, I had no Druid skills. We discovered that very early on, when I tried to pacify a Lektor, which is sort of like a small, armored bear, and the thing nearly shredded me in return. My father said he wasn't going to waste his time on me."

"What? That's awful! How could he say something like that to his own daughter?"

She shrugged and waved it off. "Everything in the village was done to further everyone's special talents. Some people's talents matched their parents', whereas others had talents that went in completely different directions. Mine did, after all, when I took to the shadows as well as I had. And my father was teaching a boy from a completely different family, once it was found he had great aptitude with the Druidic talents. It wasn't malicious, it was just efficient. Everyone's magical talents had to be honed to a great extent, to be of use to the village."

"Wait, when you said the village provided specialized services, you meant magical services?"

"Yes. Outsiders would come to our village to request magical assistance for whatever task they had at hand. Some of those were benign, like my father being hired to chase a troublesome pack of Dire-Wolves away from a different village. My mother was often hired to ferret out secrets from other minds. And Se'gatu did... assassinations."

Martin's eyes opened wide at that. "And you were her main student?"

"I was, so you see where I'm going with this. I was being groomed to be an assassin. My powers lined up perfectly for that. I could use my shadow powers to get into places nobody else could get into, and once there, I could use my Compulsion to order a victim to go into a place where it would be easy to dispose of them, or where I could throw them off a balcony, and no one was ever the wiser as to what had happened."

"Gods, Mom..." Martin said softly. "How... how many people did you..." he trailed off.

She turned her head away from him and let out a long breath. "Several. Let's just leave it at that. And while it's no excuse, I do want you to consider something: We didn't know any better in the village. This was how we were raised, how we were trained. Nobody ever questioned any of the tasks we were given. To me, this was just how life was lived. My parents were proud of the fact that I was so good at it. The only thing that mattered was being of use to the village as a whole, because as I found out later, if you weren't, or couldn't..." she trailed off.

It was quiet in the cell for some time, and just when he was about to ask if she was okay, she swallowed hard and continued, "Daeshala was born right around the time I was ten. I loved her with all my heart and soul, of course, being my younger sister, and I doted on her. She was a cute little baby, and an unholy little terror as a toddler, but my love for her surpassed even my love for my parents. Every day after my studies were done, I'd rush home so I could go play with her, or go on walks with her, and just get to be around her. Even when I went through my difficult teenage years, where the last thing I wanted was to be around my parents, Daeshala and I were still together all the time."

"Daeshala? You mean Aunt Sarah?" he surmised.

"Yes. Daeshala was her given name, or Dae, as I typically called her. Anyways, as she was growing up, I started being sent on missions, first just infiltrations, but once I became old enough, I got sent on assassinations as well. My powers were growing rapidly, and soon I knew I was even surpassing Se'gatu in my control of the shadows, but always she was more powerful than me. I could never figure out why, until she showed me on my eighteenth birthday." His mother reached under her cloak and pulled out a large, thick book. It was black, with red letters tracing a runic rectangle alongside the edges of its cover.

The book almost mesmerized him, and he reached out to touch it; his mother quickly stopped him, however. "Don't touch it, honey. It's... well, let's just say you wouldn't enjoy the experience."

"What is it?" he asked, still full of wonder as he stared at it.

"Its original name is unpronounceable to us, but we call it the Tome of the Damned," she said softly.

The ominous sent a shiver down his spine, and he swallowed audibly. "That sounds... bad."

"It is."

Martin looked at his mom with worry in his eyes. "W-Why do you have it then?"

She let out a regretful sigh. "I asked Se'gatu why she was so much more powerful than me, and she showed me this Tome. She explained that for those who wield the power of shadows, it acts as a focus, and an almost inexhaustible font of power. But it is an evil book. Very evil.

"As I was growing up, playing with Daeshala, training, doing missions, I noticed that, from time to time, children went missing, much like my early childhood friend had. Whenever I asked, the answers were always vague, and I was told I would be better off not knowing those things. So I went and asked Se'gatu. She explained to me that those without any magical talents were of no use to the village, and so they were sent away elsewhere. I asked her where specifically, but she refused to answer. She said that it was sufficient for me to know that the children were dismissed and could not return. I felt ill at ease with that answer, but I accepted it, as I had accepted so many other things, like that sometimes it was necessary for us to murder people. It was just the way of life.

"As I trained with Se'gatu more and more, I began to notice some whispers. Like someone was calling out to me. I tried to figure out by myself what it was first, but I was unable to, so finally I asked Se'gatu. She explained that the Tome would sometimes call out to people, but it wasn't anything to worry about. It kept doing it, however, so one night I snuck into her house and went to where she kept the Tome. I touched it, and it... opened my mind to its realities and showed me a vision. Se'gatu knew what had happened almost within an instant, and she rushed over and yanked my hand loose. She hissed at me that if I knew what was good for me, I would never reveal anything the Tome might have shown me. I just nodded dumbly and left. My mind was nearly overwhelmed from that vision, and I needed time to rest and think about it."

"What did it show you?"

She held up her hand, motioning for patience. "I'll get to that in a moment... By the time she was eleven, it was starting to become obvious that Daeshala had no abilities. We tested her on everything, from the shadows, to mental domination, to druidic powers, telekinesis, communing with animals, and she was incapable of any of them. But she was so wonderful, and so adorable, that I knew it wouldn't matter. I was doing more than my part for the village, so were my father and mother, so Dae's inability to do anything wouldn't be held against her..."

Martin's heart started thudding faster. "But it was?"

She nodded silently. "Yes. One night, just after her twelfth birthday, my parents took Daeshala for a 'test'. I asked them what kind of test, and they said it was a test to see if there was anything else she could do to aid the village. I was ecstatic, because Dae had been despondent over not being able to help out in any meaningful way. Imagine growing up in a village where the only life you see anyone living is one of servitude, with everyone helping out in their own special way, but you're unable to do so yourself... I knew it was hard on her. I really wanted to go with her to her test, but my parents said no, and they ordered me to stay at home."

He frowned. "Weren't you, like, twenty-two at this point? Why were they ordering you around? For that matter, why did you still live at home?"

His mom grinned at him. "That was just the way it was in the village. Children didn't leave their parents' homes until they got married, and even after that, they'd have to wait for a house to become available, either through being built, or because its previous occupants passed away. In any case, I stayed home, but soon worry began to gnaw at me. I kept thinking of the other children who'd been sent away, and I was terrified of the thought that they would send Daeshala away as well. So finally I got up and went outside, and I went looking for my family. It quickly became apparent that everyone was gathered in Se'gatu's house, so I snuck inside to find that all the village's adults were in there, and they were attending... a sacrifice in a cave below the basement."

Martin's mouth went cork-dry at that. "Daeshala?" he murmured.

His mother nodded. "Yes. She and one other girl, who had also been discovered to be powerless. All of the adults were gathered in a wide circle around a large, chasm-like pit, and they were all reciting something, some form of mantra. It seemed very ritualistic. Se'gatu was standing inside the circle, close by the pit, chanting something in a language I'd never heard before. She poured something into the chasm, and it slowly started glowing an ice-like blue as the chanting and the mantras kept increasing in volume and power. A little way away from her, on a lectern, was the tome, and it was glowing the same blue that was coming from the chasm.

"The other girl, who was a few weeks older than Daeshala, was hoisted up and made to dangle over the large chasm. She screamed as suddenly a claw came from the chasm and plucked her straight out of the air, yanking her down. Her... H-Her screams, they... they kept echoing, a-all the way." She shuddered. "The next thing I knew, they were stringing up Daeshala over the chasm, and Dae was crying and screaming for our parents to help her, but they just kept chanting over and over, not even looking at her. When I saw they weren't going to intervene, I yelled at Se'gatu to stop. She looked at me and ordered me to leave, that the ceremony had to continue. Daeshala had no use, and thus she would be sacrificed to the Void demon that inhabited the chasm. It was the payment for our talents, she explained."

Martin gasped. "Your village was a town of... demon-worshippers?"

His mother nodded grimly. "Yes. The very fact we were above this chasm allowed its power to seep out and... infect most of us. It was why such a relatively small village had such an incredible amount of magically gifted people in it. In any case, when I saw they wouldn't stop, I was rooted with panic. I didn't know what to do. I could rush up there and free Dae, but I was sure the others would stop me, and combined they would overwhelm me in a heartbeat.

"And then I remembered... what I'd seen in the Tome earlier. It had shown me an image of me unleashing my shadow powers on a crowd of people, and the vision had been right there, in that basement. It was the most incredible sense of déjà vu I'd ever had before. It was like the Tome had shown me that exact moment in time. There was a whisper, telling me what to do, and I followed it. I traveled through the shadow realm, emerging behind Se'gatu, and before she knew it, I grabbed the tome and opened myself to it."

His mom fell silent, and Martin sat there with drops of sweat dripping down his back, worrying over what she'd say next.

She licked her lips several times, then she said softly, "The power the Tome coursed through me, filling me to the brim and beyond. It overloaded me. I felt powerful enough to tear the world in half. I screamed at everyone in there to let Dae go, and they just turned on me and attacked me. In a rage, I unleashed my shadows."

His mom stopped talking and there was nothing but silence and her heavy, rapid breathing for what seemed an eternity. Finally, when he could no longer stand it, Martin asked, "Mom?"

She flinched, and he realized she'd been lost in her memories. Her eyes had a scared, haunted look to them, and she made several trembling attempts to continue, but likely her courage failed her. He finally wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close against him, and she laid her head against his chest and, to his great surprise, began to cry.

It took several moments for him to realize she was talking, or at least murmuring. Once he focused on it, he could hear her saying, "I slaughtered them... I slaughtered them..." over and over. Tearing up himself, he just held his mom close, trying his best to comfort her in her grief.

It was probably thirty or maybe even forty minutes later before she'd finally recovered enough to sit back up straight. She gave him a thankful smile, then she let out a resigned sigh. "I had always been one of the strongest and most gifted with my abilities in our village. Add on top of that my training as an assassin, and there would have been few who could've stood against me as it was. With the power of the Tome, there was no one. Yet they attacked me anyway, and I unleashed the Tome's full power on them, lost in my hatred and rage for the callous way they were trying to murder my sister. Se'gatu was the first to get eviscerated by my shadows, and I screamed my throat raw and bloody while I unleashed waves of horrors on everyone.

"Once I finally got myself back under control, it... it was a horrifying sight. People had been torn apart, crushed, impaled, and the Gods only knew what else by my shadows. My parents were among the victims. There was blood everywhere... just so, so much blood. I tore down the walls of that place with my shadows and slammed the chasm to the Void demon shut. After that it was dead silent, except for the sound of Daeshala sobbing. I got her down and after I'd calmed her down a little, we... left. There was nothing else to do. While a few people might have escaped, the majority had been killed... murdered by the power I'd unleashed. Our village, for all intents and purposes, was gone. The chasm was closed. We couldn't have stayed and survived there.

"We traveled aimlessly for a long time. I can't even remember where all we wound up. We were near Mount Targon for a while, we spent time in Noxus, in Ionia, and even in Bilgewater. Everywhere we went, people tried to take advantage of us, but my power was such that we were safe from whatever crazy scheme anyone hatched."

Martin sat quietly, just staring at his mother. Finally, he said, "I'm so sorry, Mom. About what happened to you."

She sniffed away a few more tears, then she gently touched his cheek. "Thank you, dear. I don't... like reliving those memories, of course, but you deserved to know. You and Malea both. I'll tell her as soon as she's ready for it."

"Do you ever wish... it'd been different? That things would have worked out differently?"

"You mean, if they hadn't tried to sacrifice my little sister to a creature of the Void? Sure. But that's not the reality. The reality was they were all going to just feed her to some Godsforsaken horror, and because of that, I slaughtered them. If I was put in that situation a thousand more times, I'd slaughter them a thousand more times."

"Did Daeshala ever develop any powers?" Martin asked.

His mother nodded and let out a sarcastic chuckle. "Of a sort. It turns out Dae's gift is in healing. Not magically, but in having a seemingly innate understanding of how to heal people. We discovered that at Mount Targon when she was able to heal a wounded warrior through physical means when the priestesses had declared him a lost cause. She is actually extremely gifted, and her skills at healing rivaled those of some of the priestesses there. But because it's not magical in nature, there was nobody in the tribe to teach her how to use those gifts, and thus they always thought she was powerless. They were going to kill her, when she could have been one of the most useful members of our tribe."

Martin hesitated. "So... uh... this happened like a hundred-and-ten years ago or so, right?"

She nodded, confused for a second, then she smiled when obviously his unspoken question hit her. "Ah. How is it that she and I still look so young?"

"Yes... Oh Gods, please don't tell me that in reality you are really some withered old crone, and you just look like this because of an illusion!"

His mother laughed happily at that, and he felt buoyed by that sound. Things had gotten very grim for a little while. "No, silly boy, I am exactly as you see me. Those of us touched by the Void demon seem to have exceedingly long lifespans; however, I'm not sure if that's simply an inherited trait from our parents, or whether it's because we were actively exposed to its power. Meaning I don't know whether you and Malea will have that same long lifespan. I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "I don't particularly care to live forever, I think. Wait... can you live forever?"

"Hmmm, I don't think so. Eventually our bodies will deteriorate so much that even the Void demon's power can't stave it off anymore, but I think we'll have at least another hundred years left in us. I still feel the same way I did back when I was in the village."

He nodded appreciatively. "A two hundred plus year lifespan seems pretty nice. So how did you two wind up in Piltover?"

"We spent about three decades just traveling, and for a while, we even took tutelage under an old Necromancer witch who lived deep in an Ionian swamp. She taught me Necromantic magic: Curses, withering touches, how to create walls of bone, and other such skills. I also learned all there was to know about potions and the like. For all the rumors about her and what you might expect from a Necromancer witch, she was actually a decently kind old woman, and Dae and I both loved her. Right up until she was about to die, and she initiated a ritual that would have transferred her soul into Dae's body, killing my sister in the process. As soon as I realized what she was doing, I unleashed the full power of the Tome on her, and I... did some unspeakably evil things to her," his mother said, ashamed. "My rage overwhelmed me, and at the behest of the Tome I tormented that fucking witch in her final hours, until Dae finally begged me to stop, weeping at my feet. Once I'd regained my sanity, I swore to her I'd never use the Tome again. That was eighty-some years ago.

"It was at this point that we both agreed that we'd had enough of traveling all across the world, and we wanted to settle down, at least for a while. So we decided on Piltover, and once we got here, we... sort of took over the Morichi family. You see, they'd been in a long, slow decline, and other than their title of nobility, there wasn't much left of them. Just a single old woman and a middle-aged brother who was taking care of her. Neither of them had children, and their lineage would have died with them. Dae and I... well, I used my Compulsion to have them let us live with them, then when she died of old age, we both simply took the Morichi name. The brother didn't mind particularly much, since we'd been kind to his sister, and he was glad he didn't have to be alone. Anyone who objected about it simply had their mind changed by my Compulsion. After a few years, nobody knew any better than that we were the two youngest, living heirs to the Morichi family name."

"That's... kind of terrible, you know," he objected with a pained look.

"I realize it's not exactly above board, but on the flipside, without us, the Morichi family would have died out eighty-some years ago. So even though we're not really of the old Morichi bloodline, I'd say we've done well keeping it from dying out. We re-grew the family's fortune and returned the Morichi Consortium to its former splendor. Dae and I had a long talk, and we agreed I'd leave my magic behind. I locked the Tome in a safe, with only her knowing the combination, so no matter how much I might want to go back and get it, I couldn't. It took several long years of struggle before I finally overcame my addiction to its power."

"And where did that bastard father of mine come into the equation?"

"After we were all settled in as the Morichi sisters, Dae and I had dated here and there, though she more than I, but never anything serious. It would have been hard to marry someone and then have to explain why we weren't aging. But thirty years ago, when I met your father, I... was swept off my feet. I know how hurt you were by his actions, and thus it's hard to imagine for you, but your father was a dashing, handsome young rogue. He had a sharp mind, a wonderful wit, and he made me laugh frequently. He doted on me, and our first ten years of marriage were wonderfully happy. I told him about our secret, the magic, in our sixth year of marriage."

"How did he react?"

"He took it in stride. He asked if it was possible for us to extend his lifetime as well, but I told him if you had not been touched by the Void demon it was impossible. Dae had suggested privately it might be possible to do something with the power of the Tome, but to be fair, I was worried I'd just relapse and fully open myself up to the power again. So we just told him it wasn't possible. After I kicked him out, I later discovered that he had found out about the Tome somehow, and he'd taken it with him. I think he thought he could blackmail me with it. He'd also threatened to go public with everything he knew about me."

"Mom... what happened to him?"

"You don't have to worry about him anymore," she said determinedly.

"Did you kill him?"

She looked deeply into his eyes, then she nodded wordlessly. "Once I found out what he'd done... Injecting you with Shimmer, all of you. Selling you to Silco! That fucking wretch. He didn't deserve to live anymore."

"Is that why you went back on your word not to use your power anymore?" Martin asked quietly. "To get revenge on Dad?"

"No. I used my power again to get revenge on Viktor for what he did to Malea. I put a curse on him, the Curse of Setara, which is the most gruesome curse ever known in Necromancy. But he has some kind of magical artifact that's staving off the effects of the curse, so that's why I went back for the book, only to find out that bastard Veral had taken it. Getting it back allowed me to kill two birds with one stone. I took care of Veral, who I admittedly was going to let live, at least until he told me he'd sold you! And once I got back, I increased the power of the curse with the Tome. If Viktor is still alive, he'll be suffering mightily, even with his artifact. The Tome is constantly reinforcing the curse, tearing him apart."

He gave her a pained look. "I'm worried about you, Mom. That power, it seems to do so many bad things to you, yet you keep reaching for it when you need it."

She shrugged. "Only in really particular circumstances, sweetheart, such as when I need to use it to protect my children. Or in Malea's case, get revenge for her first, then use it to free her."

"When did you ever use it for me?" He couldn't remember a time that had ever happened.

"When I got the Council disbanded and Tobias Kiramman put in charge of the new one. I used my Compulsion to gather enough votes."

The words didn't register for a few moments, then he stared at her in pure shock. "Oh Gods, you did what?!"

"It was necessary to save you, darling. That fucking bitch Medarda and that asshole Talis were going to leave you to rot in Stillwater, even though you saved all of us from Slane. It was the last straw I was going to put up with from them."

"But... you interfered with the vote afterwards too?"

"I had to make sure we'd get a reasonable man in charge this time. Tobias seemed the logical choice."

"Mom, you can't do this! The vote is... a democratic process! You can't dictate to the people of Piltover who they can vote for and who can't! That makes you a tyrant!"

She gave him a long-suffering look. "Really, honey? We're going to have this discussion? After I got you moved out of Stillwater and put in here? The previous Council was simply going to bribe their way out of the Nullification vote. They had spent an absolute fortune on it, and they weren't even trying to be inconspicuous about it!"

He vigorously shook his head. "That doesn't matter! The previous Council was rotten to the fucking core, so I don't care that you got them removed, but you shouldn't have meddled in the next election!"

She stared at him for a few seconds, then she smiled wryly. "Tobias pretty much told me the same thing. He only allowed me to manipulate the vote so he'd get elected, because he knew otherwise we just might wind up with another Medarda or Talis crony in charge. But he said besides that, I wasn't allowed to interfere."

Martin nodded. "Good. He's an honorable man, then. I wish you hadn't meddled on his behalf either, though. Promise me that if there are more elections at some point, you won't do so. Please."

She slowly shook her head, though more in amusement than out of any sense of anger, he felt. "You're too good for this world, do you know that? How did you remain so honorable while you were a child forced to steal in Zaun?"

He felt himself blush terribly. "I... don't know. It just always did what seemed like the right thing."

"The youngest son of a scoundrel businessman father who sold his own children and a sorcerous, assassin mother, lost in Zaun, and throughout it all, you remained such a good man." She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. "I'm so, so proud of you, Martin."

He smiled and hugged her back. "Thanks, Mom."

They hugged each other for a while, then he asked, "So, these magical talents of yours..."

"Hmmm?"

"Did they ever... like, get inherited by us? Me and Malea, I mean. Maybe Mikael too, though that doesn't really matter anymore."

She looked at him with those penetratingly dark eyes, as if she was trying to stare into his soul. Finally, she sighed and said, "Seeing as your father was not magical, it wasn't a certainty for it to be passed down onto any of you. For Mikael and Malea it didn't. But you... let's just say you have the latent talent for it, yes. I felt it as soon as you were born."

He sat there, baffled, just staring at her with his mouth open. "So you're saying that I'm... a mage?"

She chuckled. "No. Right now it's just latent within you, meaning you could awaken that ability, but it would take many years of practice before you could do even the simplest thing. I trained from childhood, remember? I could train you, of course, but since all the villagers' original power came from the Void demon, I'm not sure how far you could go, not having that. I suppose I could use the Tome to augment your abilities; it seems well within its range of powers to do that. I could run some tests and see what we could achieve. You'll have to think about it, though. Do you want to be a Shadowmancer, like me?"

"Shadowmancer?"

"It's what Dae calls me," she laughed. "I have the power of the shadows, and some of those of a Necromancer. She was pretty proud of herself when she came up with that."

Martin laughed with her, then he thought it over briefly. Finally he shook his head. "No, I don't think I want to. Thanks anyway, Mom. I've been special enough to last me two lifetimes, and besides, that Tome of yours scares the fuck out of me. I would much rather stay away from it, and for you to stay away from it as well."

She seemed a little disappointed, but she just nodded. "As you wish, honey. I'll admit that I'm a little surprised that your powers never surfaced when you were a child."

Martin pondered that for a moment, then he snapped his fingers. "The Shimmer!"

"What about it?" she asked, frowning.

"Singed said I had an aberration in me. When he did tests on me to see if they could speed up the Shimmer injections they were giving me, I transformed into a Shimmer beast several times, and eventually he realized I was at the limit of Shimmer. The Apothecary later gave me a potion to heal me, and that caused me to transform as well. She, too, told me I was at the limit. When we confronted him in his lair, he explained that, like Jinx, I had some kind of aberration within me. He was never sure what it was. It was the latent magic, I'm sure of it! And at the same time, the Shimmer likely also interfered with the magic!"

She stared at him incredulously. "How do you know all that?"

"I'm just guessing, but it makes sense, doesn't it? It was really the final piece of the puzzle that was escaping me, what that aberration was that caused me to react so differently to the Shimmer injections as opposed to Malea or Mikael."

She just sat there, slowly nodding her head as she tried to make sense of what he told her, then they were both startled when the door upstairs was opened, and footsteps started making their way down. She quickly got up and kissed his forehead. "I better go before they find me here. Stay strong in here, sweetheart. I will come visit as much as I can."

He gave her a big kiss on her cheek. "I will. I love you, Mom."

"I love you too." She turned around and stepped back into the darkness in the corner of his cell, disappearing from his view.

About twenty seconds later, Caitlyn Kiramman showed up in front of his cell again. "Were you talking to somebody?"

"Just to myself, Sheriff," he said, smiling.

"Hmm. Remember what I said, please. Don't leave again. If you do, I likely won't be able to keep you out of Stillwater."

"I remember. Don't worry; I'll be good and stay here. Can I have some visitors from time to time, though?"

She gave him a stern look. "As long as those visitors come in through the front door and register themselves properly, then I'll think about it, yes," she said tartly, with her fists planted on her hips. Her eyes left no doubt as to what she was talking about.

"I'll... let them know," he grinned. The thought of his mom, or Lux, or perhaps even Malea coming to visit him buoyed him immensely. Then his thoughts shifted to Jinx, and a sharp pain tore through his gut. It seemed unlikely she'd be allowed to visit. He plopped down on the bed with a deep sigh, wondering how she was doing. He barely even noticed Caitlyn leaving again.

*****

Sarah sat quietly in a decently comfortable chair inside the hastily created treatment room, located on the first floor of the Enforcer headquarters. It was a little funny to think of it as a treatment room, really, since it was two chairs on opposite sides of the meeting table that had already been in what was previously an interrogation room. A large window along the wall right by the door was essentially the only thing that could be called decoration, since it was one-way glass and thus just looked like a mirror. The only other things in the room were thickly reinforced trellised bars, behind which sat Jinx's small prison cell. Since it had to be hastily fit into this room, her cell had just enough room for a bed, and a bucket for her to do her business in. However, since the girl was always restrained to her bed, she had to wait for the Enforcers to release her before she could go use it.

Jinx sat opposite her on the other side of the table, safely secured to a specifically designed chair with some of the Hextech restraints. She'd struggled for a few moments after the Enforcers had put her in there, but she'd quickly come to realize the inevitability of wasting her energy like that, and after that she'd just sulked.

Sarah and Caitlyn had had a long argument over whether Jinx should be sedated or not, with Caitlyn insisting on it for Sarah's safety, and Sarah herself stating flat-out that with sedation, she wasn't going to be able to accomplish much of anything since she needed to be able to examine the blue-haired girl in her full mental breakdowns in order to get to the bottom of Jinx's issues. They finally agreed to take her off the sedation gradually, since Doctor Kaleen said that from his previous experience with sedating her, it would wear off quickly and cause Jinx to get very agitated. Sarah decided to get a baseline, from Jinx sedated to Jinx unsedated, which would hopefully help her figure out what ailed the young woman, though she already had a pretty strong suspicion of what that might be, courtesy of the talk she'd had with Martin about her.

Thinking of Martin made Sarah wistful. The thought that he was just a single floor down from her was distracting, but so far, Caitlyn had not yet cleared him for any visitors. That might have had something to do with the little caper he and his mom had pulled, of course. Enforcers tended not to like it when their prisoners went on jaunts outside their cell whenever they felt like it. She hoped she could go see him soon.

"You know, that is really fuckin' irritating," Jinx grumbled, and Sarah's thoughts were quickly yanked back to the here and now.

"What is?" Sarah asked curiously.

"That!" Jinx hissed, nodding with her head towards... Sarah blushed when she realized she was tapping her pen against her notepad constantly.

"Sorry," Sarah said with an apologetic smile, quickly moving her pen away. "I was thinking about Martin, downstairs. Have you talked to him yet?"

"Of course not. Duh! Do you think they let me just go visit him or something?" Jinx said testily.

"Ah, I suppose not. Would you like to?"

Jinx blushed slightly and turned her head away without responding. Sarah waited patiently for several dozen heartbeats, then she made a note of her patient's behavior in her notepad. When she looked back up, the young woman was still looking away from her. Sarah scraped her throat and said, "Jinx, will you look at me, please?"

"Fuck off, Sarah," Jinx muttered.

"No, I'm not going to fuck off. Like it or not, you and I are going to be in this room, facing each other, for quite some time to come. You understand why, don't you?"

Even from the side Sarah could see the eyeroll, and she most definitely heard the weary sigh coming from Jinx's throat. She did not reply, however. Rather than push, Sarah simply waited again for at least a minute, before writing down Jinx's refusal to respond.

"What are you writing?" Jinx asked irritably.

"I'm writing down your responses. Or your lack thereof."

"What the fuck for? What's 'Jinx didn't answer me. Again.' going to tell you later?!"

"It helps me to build up a baseline psychological profile of you. What you are willing to engage in, what you're not willing to. What makes you nervous. What makes you scared. What ma—"

"Scared?!" Jinx's head whipped back, and her purple eyes blazed with anger. "I'm not fuckin' scared of anything! Write that down in your fuckin' book!"

Sarah smiled at her and, indeed, wrote that down in her book. Once she was done, she looked back at Jinx, who was still glaring at her. She thought the girl's eyes were actually really pretty like that, when they were shining so intensely. In fact, she was pretty every which way you looked at her, if perhaps a little too skinny. It wasn't hard to see why Martin had fallen in love with her.

"If there's nothing that frightens you, is there perhaps something that worries you?" Sarah asked.

"Only that I'll die of boredom sitting here in this chair while being forced to look at you all day!"

"I understand it's not the most exciting thing to do, but you understand why you are here, don't you?"

"You asked me that already!"

"I did, yes, because I would like an answer. It's fine if you don't feel like answering. I will simply write that down again. But I will keep asking."

"Why? Why keep asking the same dumbass question over and over again?"

"Because I want to know the answer and because by observing how your answer changes under different circumstances, it helps me to understand your motivations and what I refer to as your do's and don't's."

"Ugh. The fuck does that even mean?!"

"It means the things I can talk about with you without setting you off, and the things I can't."

"Well, let me make it real easy for you, then. Don't fuckin' talk to me about anything!" Jinx almost yelled.

Sarah simply smiled and jotted it down in her notepad.

Jinx's eyebrows pulled into a half-curious, half-irritated frown. "You actually wrote that down?"

Sarah hummed affirmatively. "I did, yes."

"So you're going to not talk to me about anything anymore?!" Jinx asked hopefully.

"No, sorry. We are actually going to talk about a lot of things. Not talking would achieve nothing."

"I just told you I don't want to talk about anything!"

"That's what you said, yes, but I'm not so sure that's what you really mean. I think you would actually like to talk about a great many things with me. Right now you're simply angry because this is something new you have no control over, and you're lashing out. I think once you calm down, you'll be more forthcoming."

Jinx snorted. "Okay! Good luck with that!" And with that she turned her head away, and despite Sarah's many proddings, she refused to re-engage. Sarah dutifully put it all in her notepad, and after three hours she called the Enforcers and asked them to transfer Jinx back into her cell. She threw one last look at the young woman, lying on her cot with what had to be very uncomfortable restraints on, and she sighed to herself as she walked out of the treatment room and closed the door behind her. This was going to take a long time.

*****

Treatment logbook. Doctor: Sarah Morichi. Patient: Jinx.

Day Two.

Jinx's sedation was reduced to two-thirds today by Doctor Kaleen. No real change in behavior. Jinx still refuses to engage, believing that she can simply defeat this situation by not acknowledging it. Her will is actually amazingly strong, because she will sit there for hours on end, not responding to any of my questions. It is not something I would suspect most people would be capable of doing. The desire to communicate is innate in all of us, but she manages to suppress it quite effectively, despite my many attempts to engage her in conversation.

Day Three.

Jinx's sedation was lowered to one-third today. Still had another day of silence, with her not engaging me; however, she did occasionally talk to things that weren't there, which Martin had told me about, and I had noticed in passing when she was a patient in the Zaun clinic. Other than that, she did not respond, though she smirked once I ordered her put back into her cell. She likely does not realize it, but in doing so she let me know she appears to be actively present in our sessions, rather than being completely lost elsewhere in her mind, which is interesting—even though she's starting to hear her voices again, her mind is still actively present. She's most likely just playing a game with me, but this means it simply becomes a question of who will give up first, me or her. I'm quite certain her patience will not outlast mine.

Day Four.

No sedation for Jinx today. Vi came by right before I got started, asking if she could talk to her little sister. Thinking I might at least get some response out of Jinx that way, I allowed it, then I almost immediately regretted it. As soon as she saw her sister, Jinx began arguing with herself, which quickly led to her yelling, both at what everyone calls her 'voices', and at Vi herself. Both for Jinx's sake and for Vi's, I took Vi out of there again. The poor woman was pretty crestfallen at seeing how bad her sister was, but I swore to her I'd do everything I could to get to the bottom of Jinx's illness, and she seemed a little less upset when she left.

Jinx spent most of the rest of her day arguing with the voices only she can hear. They seem to be continuously causing her grief and anxiety, because her interactions with them are neither gentle nor friendly—it's like they are tormenting her. Since I am beginning to believe they are merely in her mind, rather than actual spiritual manifestations of something, this would indicate that either her mind is extremely fragmented, or she is so angry and disgusted with herself that her subconscious can't help but berate her constantly. Once she is willing to engage, I will have to try to figure out which of the two it is. Or perhaps it is both...

Despite Caitlyn's protests, I am keeping Jinx off the sedation. I can learn substantially more when she's suffering from the full onslaught of her mental issues rather than when they are suppressed by drugs, though I realize of course that this means I am making my patient suffer. If I can ever have a normal conversation with her again, I will apologize to her for doing this.

Day Five.

Jinx was exhausted today. This would make sense, since according to the two Enforcers who watch her at night, she rarely has any kind of restful sleep now that she is off the sedatives. She's constantly tossing and thrashing, and she wakes up screaming many times. Whatever is tormenting her is doing so consistently whether she is awake or not. If Martin's story about her past is right, I suspect she may have never forgiven herself for the accident that killed her family. This is something to examine more closely, though I will have to do so very carefully. If this is the root cause of her trauma, she will be loath to discuss it with me until I have gained her trust, which may take a long time.

Even exhausted, however, she refuses to talk to me, though I'm unsure now on whether it's still her game, or because she's now actually lost in her mind. Off the sedation, I'm more starting to lean towards the latter.

I have to admit I'm puzzled as to why the sedative seems to calm down her mental issues. It's a standard one, designed to relax the body, so I don't understand why it has such a soothing effect on her mind. It really shouldn't...

Day Six.

I didn't visit with Jinx today. Having her sitting there not talking doesn't tell me all that much, not when it's this many days in a row, and I feel that she gets enjoyment out of inflicting what little frustration she can on me. So instead I'll see if she gets more talkative if I leave her alone for a day or two. It also breaks up the monotony a little, for both of us.

Since I didn't have to see her today, I took a dose of the same sedative she's been getting. While it most definitely relaxed my body and my heart rate, it didn't do anything to dull my mind or my senses, really. Its effect on Jinx keeps baffling me. I may need to ask my sister about this. She knows far more about potions and drugs than I do.

Day Seven.

Reported the lack of progress to the Council today. They took it well and wished me good luck on my endeavors. I feel I'm going to need it.

Day Eight.

Vi was there already when I showed up. Fortunately, so far the guards on the treatment room have been refusing to let her in by herself, for which I am extremely grateful. I know Vi means well, but a few wrong words could easily just make things twice as bad, and my work is difficult enough as it is. I asked her to please come back another time, as I didn't want to send Jinx into another war of words with her voices so soon after she had her last episode. During the treatment, Jinx was again sullen and quiet, only occasionally arguing with her voices.

Other than Caitlyn herself, I don't believe I've ever had a patient make so little progress in a week's worth of treatment, though admittedly I skipped two days in an effort to see if it would make a difference, which it didn't. I will try a different approach, which is to do smaller sessions multiple times a day.

Day Nine.

Jinx was unresponsive again today, though she did seem surprised when she was put in her chair again, and I came in for a second session. I could almost see the wheels turning in her head, trying to figure out what the intent behind it was. This does again show that she is present and aware of what I am doing and saying to her, but she simply chooses to ignore it.

Day Eleven.

A medical emergency in the Zaun clinic forced me to go there for the day yesterday. Several of the Firelights and Champions got into an altercation with a new gang, and two of them were seriously injured. By the time we had them stabilized it was too late to go back Topside and start the treatment, so I stayed down there for the night.

It doesn't appear to have made any impression on Jinx, since she didn't ask about it. However, once I sat down for the second session, she did ask if this was a new way of torturing her. When I asked her to explain, she said she'd heard that shifting things around during the day was a favorite method of Enforcer interrogators to confuse their victims. I assured her I wasn't doing anything of the kind, and when she scoffed and rolled her eyes at me, I told her the date and the time, and that we were in the eleventh day of treatment.

She immediately accused me of lying, because according to her only six days had passed, and she said she saw right through my 'stupid dumbass attempts' at confusing her. Her admission that she felt only six days had passed matched with what happened to her in her trial, where, according to Vi, Jinx thought she'd only been there for a fraction of how long the trial had actually taken.

I read about this concept in a treatise written by a Vastayan doctor. He tentatively referred to it as disassociation, and it surprised me, because I had begun to lean heavily in the direction of the theory that Jinx was present in every one of our sessions and was just entertaining herself by frustrating me. The fact that I might have misconstrued her mental state that badly worries me: I might be in way over my head here, and she may be a patient beyond my capacity to heal, or even diagnose properly. It of course doesn't help that I've only ever dealt with one such situation before, when Sheriff Caitlyn was in a mental crisis, and I was unable to do much of anything for her. This is getting worrisome.

Day Fourteen.

After two more days of Jinx refusing to talk to me—as well as Vi showing up again for one of those days, only to dejectedly walk off when I told her it was not a good idea to visit yet—I told Jinx I would not be visiting with her today, since I had to go report to the Council on her progress again. She laughed at that and said I should tell them she is doing 'just peachy.' I wish she'd display some of that sense of humor in any kind of capacity to help herself out...

The Council visit was uneventful. Council Leader Tobias Kiramman seemed disappointed that after two weeks I still had made essentially no progress, but he asked me to stay at it, with unanimous consent from the rest of the Council.

*****

Sarah sat merely scribbling in her notepad on what was the sixteenth day of treatment. It helped to relax her mind, though that was all it did. Like Jinx had correctly surmised, there was only so much use to be had out of writing 'Jinx didn't talk again today.' When she had admitted to Jinx she'd been right, the young Zaunite had merely smirked, though there'd been some confusion in her eyes as well. When Sarah had asked her if she even remembered what she was right about, Jinx had blushed and snarled that of course she remembered. Sarah had her doubts about that, but she held her peace. Going into a war of yes and no with her patient seemed like a poor idea.

Suddenly, Jinx's face turned towards her, and she said, "I'm not dumb, you know."

Sarah almost broke the head off her pencil at the unexpected words, but she quickly raised her eyes to meet Jinx's pink ones, and she shook her head. "I know you're not. I've never said you were, nor have I even thought it."

"Uh-huh," the young woman said sarcastically.

"Jinx, I want you to know something: I am here to help you. I am not here to judge you or condemn you. I will admit I am not especially skilled at helping people with non-physical injuries, but the one thing I do know is that lying to you would be the absolutely worst thing I could do. I swear to you right here, on the life of everyone I hold dear, that I will not lie to you."

"Unless you're lying about that."

Sarah paused for a second, then she chuckled and slightly bowed her head to acquiesce to the point. "Granted. But you are a smart woman, so think about this logically for a second. If I want to help you, I need to gain your trust. If you ever catch me in a single lie, that trust will irrevocably be gone, and nothing I'd say or do would be able to regain it. So would it make sense for me to lie?"

"You could just be pretending to help me, and instead you want me to fail," Jinx said somewhat smugly.

"To what end? If I fail, you will wind back up in trial, and you will very likely be given the death penalty. If that's what I want to happen to you, why am I even here? I could just go to the Council right now and tell them it's a hopeless cause, and you'll be back in the Council hall tomorrow, with your execution likely happening within the next day. Take that into consideration and think logically to yourself: Would it make sense for me to lie under these circumstances? Would I even be here?"

Jinx mulled that over, then she grunted, "I s'pose not."

Sarah let out a little victory whoop on the inside, but externally she just nodded and said, "So when I tell you I believe you are a very smart young woman, I mean it. And again, logically, it just makes sense. Look at everything you've accomplished."

Jinx snorted. "Yeah, I've killed so many people. Yay me."

"That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what you've done with the Champions, how you freed Zaun from all the gangs, in the space of a little over half a year no less, when all other attempts to clear out the crime syndicates from Zaun had always utterly failed. I'm talking about all the spectacular things you've built and have helped to build. I'm talking about—"

"How the heck do you know all this?!"

"Martin told me," Sarah admitted calmly. "And of course I've learned things from others. Caitlyn and Vi mostly, but tidbits here and there."

"Martin..." Jinx grunted. "Is he always in the habit of talking about his girlfriend to others?"

Sarah raised her eyebrow at that, and quickly scribbled some notes in her notepad. Jinx saw her, obviously, then the young woman blushed furiously. Again Sarah had to admit that she really was quite pretty. If she ignored all the atrocities the girl had committed, Jinx looked rather cute when she blushed.

"Ex-girlfriend..." Jinx muttered under her breath, though still loud enough Sarah could hear.

"Martin talked about you to me because he cares about you," Sarah offered.

Jinx just scoffed and turned her head away again. Sarah cursed internally, and she quickly changed tack. "So what made you say that you're not dumb, Jinx? Which, again, I completely agree with."

The young Zaunite hesitated for a second, then she turned her head back. "When you keep asking me if I understand why I'm here. Of course I do!"

Sarah motioned for Jinx to continue while affecting a curious look.

"Ugh! Do I really need to spell it out? The Council told you to do this. My sentence is stayed while you examine me, and you're trying to keep me from being executed! That's why I'm here!"

Sarah drew in a deep breath, and she couldn't help the small smile that formed. "Other than that the Council asked me, rather than told me, that's right. You know, Jinx, seeing that you understand this, it makes me wonder why you don't care more?"

Jinx shrugged, at least as much as she was able to, considering she was restrained to the chair. "Because I don't give a shit about what happens to me. Everyone hates me now. What does it matter whether I live or die?"

"Not everyone hates you. Your sister loves you very much, and she's been by to see you multiple times already. I've just asked her to refrain from doing so until we can get you to a point where seeing her doesn't set you off as badly as it did last time. You remember when she visited last time, don't you?"

Jinx's face turned red again, and she averted her eyes for a moment. "Yeah..."

"She's been by twice more after that, and I know she'll be by again either tomorrow or the day after. I also know that if she could visit with you without it inflicting harm on you, she'd be here every day. She has told me so to my face—not that she really needed to."

Jinx was silent, and she seemed to be pondering the implications of that. Sarah let her have her time; then, after a few minutes, she added quietly, "I also think Martin doesn't hate you at all. In fact, I think it's rather the opposite."

Jinx just shook her head rapidly, but her lower lip wobbled. "Of course he hates me. I tried to kill him! In fact, I did kill him! He just survived because of... what that weird crap is he has inside him. He hates my fuckin' guts!"

"Jinx, I think you're mistaken about that."

"Well, maybe you're the dumb one then!" Jinx snarled, though she still kept her eyes averted.

Sarah shrugged at that. "I might very well be. Shall we find out?"

Jinx's eyes shot back up, and Sarah had to use every bit of strength she had not to laugh at the poor girl's desperately hopeful look. Jinx likely didn't even realize she was showing her emotions so strongly. "W-What do you mean?" she asked.

"Martin is here, Jinx. He's downstairs in the jail cells."

"Huh? I thought he was in Stillwater?!"

"No, the new Council was appreciative of everything he did to fight and kill Slane, so they commuted his sentence to three years, and they allowed him to serve out his time in the Enforcer jail rather than Stillwater. Would you like me to go get him so the two of you can talk?" Sarah's heart was thudding in her chest. She knew she was taking a risk—Jinx might blow up against Martin just as badly as she'd done against Vi, and every tiny shred of improvement she'd just made would be wasted again, but she had to find some way of gaining the girl's trust.

To her surprise, tears started falling down Jinx's cheeks. "I... I can't see him! W-What if he... h-he hates me? I... I don't... I..."

Sarah got up and slowly walked over to the young girl, to show her she meant no threat. Once she stood next to Jinx's chair, she knelt down and gently wrapped her arms around the Zaunite woman. "Shhh, it's okay. If you don't feel up to it now, we can try some other time. We will only do whatever you want to do or feel comfortable with, and nothing else, okay?"

Jinx resisted the hug for several moments, then she let the tension bleed out of her body, and she buried her face in Sarah's shoulder, nearly wrenching herself askew to do so. Jinx cried for several minutes while Sarah gently rubbed her back, being careful not to snarl her hand in Jinx's astonishingly long braids. "Sshhh, it's okay. Just let it all out," she murmured softly.

Once Jinx had cried out her grief, she appeared embarrassed, and Sarah simply smiled at her, then sat back in her own chair. She made no comment whatsoever on Jinx's vulnerability, treating it as mere fact, and not something to be questioned or derided.

"Why are you so nice to me, Sarah?" Jinx finally asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Because you're hurt, Jinx. And I'm a doctor. I hate seeing people hurt, so I heal them instead."

"B-But I tried to... kill you. All of you!"

"That wasn't personal, I know. You were just trying to strike back against the city that's brought you so much grief," Sarah said calmly. "Also, I was down in the Zaun at the time, so I'd have been fine anyway. You never actually tried to kill me," she added with a grin.

"I... that doesn't even make any sense."

"That's fine. It doesn't have to. I don't care about what you've done, Jinx. The Gods know my past hasn't been free of blemishes either. You're my patient now, like you have been before. We can easily say that you and Lux and Martin saved all our lives down in the clinic when Martin's older brother and his assassins attacked down there and that I owe you my life. I want you to please believe me when I say I will do everything I can to make you better. Okay?"

"Okay, but..."

"But what?"

"You won't be able to. I can't be healed," Jinx said, barely above a whisper.

Sarah smiled and shook her head. "I don't believe that. I think you are seriously ill in your mind, but I also think we can heal you. I want that for you, and so..." she paused, quickly debating internally whether to bring him back up again. "So does Martin. He's told me so multiple times. It's more than anything else he's ever wanted."

Jinx just bowed her head and sat quietly, not saying anything.

"Would you like me to ask Sheriff Kiramman if he can be allowed to visit with you?"

It hung in the air for a long time, until Jinx finally nodded.

*****

Martin was in the midst of a vigorous workout session, starting on his second rep of a hundred front kicks, when the door to the basement was opened, and several pairs of footsteps came down the stairs. He knew most likely they were there to see him, since he was the only inmate in the cells currently. Occasionally there'd be someone who'd be brought down for temporary incarceration, but that usually only lasted one or two days, either until they were set free again, or until they were arraigned in front of the local magistrates or even the Council. After that, it was rare when an inmate was returned to the Enforcer jails. If their offense was heavy enough, they'd either get sent to an actual Piltover prison, or in a few cases, even to Stillwater. If their offense was minor, they usually were given a fine or some community service as punishment.

It made for a somewhat lonely existence, but the one time an inmate had been put on his row, the man had been so dumb that talking to him had been like nails on a chalkboard to Martin. He wasn't quite sure how he was getting smarter, but his mind was constantly overflowing with ideas and theories, and it was becoming harder and harder to keep them in. He'd asked Caitlyn for a pen and a notepad, and he'd filled it with equations and concepts within a day. He hadn't dared ask for a second notepad yet.

Working out at least seemed to keep his mind occupied enough so he wasn't constantly trying to solve gravitic equations or reason out all the possible permutations a star might go through during its lifecycle. He was still trying to figure out where all this knowledge came from. Certainly it hadn't been during his days at the Academy. He knew the Academy taught classes on some of the subjects he was theorizing about, but it was all post-graduate stuff, and definitely not anything they'd have taught to children. So it had to have come from somewhere else. One answer loomed large in his mind, but he didn't really want to think about that.

He'd had visitors since he'd been incarcerated in the Enforcers' jail. His mother had visited twice more, both times simply coming in through the shadows. She'd snorted when he'd told her Caitlyn preferred it if she took the front door, saying she liked the Kiramman girl well enough, but she herself would decide how she'd come see her son.

The other visitors had been Lux and Ekko. Seeing both of them had brought a huge smile to his face, and they'd spent a few hours talking about Zaun and everything that was going on in the Undercity. By and large it was smashingly good news, and it had buoyed his spirits for days, even though he was sad he didn't get to have a more personal talk with Lux due to Ekko being there. That had also been over a week ago.

Caitlyn appeared in front of his jail cell, with a visitor in tow. Martin smiled widely as he instantly recognized her. "Sarah!" he said happily.

"Hi, Martin. How are you?" his aunt asked cheerfully.

He grinned as he indicated the cell around him. "Living in the lap of luxury thanks to our kind Sheriff here."

Caitlyn smiled. "Don't mock me too hard, or I'm having the old cot put back in here."

"I wasn't mocking, Sheriff, believe me. I'm very grateful for what you've given me and have done for me," he said earnestly.

"Good. Your Aunt wants to ask you a question."

He raised his eyebrow as he looked patiently at Sarah.

"I'm treating Jinx, upstairs, as you may know?" she began.

He nodded in affirmation.

"I want you to meet with her. I know she tried to kill you, and you may have some—"

"When can I see her?" Martin interrupted her. "Now?"

"Uh... Yes. Are you sure you want to see her? Considering what—"

"Sarah, please stop worrying about me. I'm fine. I'd love to go see her."

"Fine. Sheriff, if you would?" Sarah asked Caitlyn.

Caitlyn pulled out a set of keys and she inserted one into the lock of his cell door. "I want you to hear me on this, Martin. You do anything that might make it appear as if you're escaping or whatever, and I will personally escort you back to Stillwater myself. Do you understand?"

He nodded eagerly. "I promise, Caitlyn. I won't do anything. I'll stand where you want me to, do what you want me to. You can cuff me if you want too. I don't care. I just... I just want to see her."

The lock clanked as Caitlyn turned the key, and she pulled the cell door open. "I am trusting you on your word. I won't cuff you. Please don't make me regret this."

"I swear," he said earnestly. As soon as he stepped out of the cell, he and Sarah gave each other a giant hug.

"Hi, Daeshala," he whispered in her ear, so Caitlyn couldn't hear it.

She gently pushed him away and looked at him with curiosity. "Did Melanie tell you?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Pretty much everything, I think."

"Interesting. We'll have to have a talk about that sometime later, but for now I want you to focus on Jinx. We're going to go over a few ground rules, okay? I've made just a tiny little bit of progress with her, and I don't want to lose it because you inadvertently said or did the wrong thing."

Martin just nodded, his mind already half filled with visions of Jinx. Gods, he'd missed her.

It was about ten minutes later when he gently opened the door to the treatment room, stepped in, then closed it behind him. He and Sarah had agreed she wouldn't be there, since it might make Jinx open up more, though Sarah would be watching through the one-way glass, and she'd tap on it vigorously if it appeared he was causing any kind of regression in Jinx.

Jinx was still restrained to her chair. He smiled at her with compassion. It didn't look like a particularly comfortable way to sit, especially not for Jinx, who was used to lounging and sitting as crooked as possible anyway. It was crazy how athletic she really was. As soon as he thought that, his mind turned to their last night of making love, and the ways she'd bent herself for him, and he blushed fiercely and quickly banished that image out of his mind.

Jinx was staring at him with her eyes wide open, though fortunately they were the softest pink he'd seen in a long time, rather than the furious purple she'd been showing of late.

"Hey," he said, swallowing heavily. His heart was thudding a thousand beats per minute, and actually seeing her again was sending his emotions into a tailspin. He'd seen her before, of course, when they fought at the tower, but that almost didn't seem to count. Which meant that the last time they'd actually seen and talked to each other was when she... He quickly sat down in Sarah's chair and rested his forearms on the table, leaning forward. "Been a while."

"Y... Yeah," she said softly. She was still staring at him in wide-eyed disbelief, almost.

"How've you been?" he asked after an awkward silence.

She crooked her head as if to gauge whether he was being serious, then she said, "Oh, you know. Just great. I'd wave my arms around to vaguely indicate my luxurious accommodations, but... well, you can see for yourself." She struggled demonstratively against the Hextech restraints which held her in place.

"Yeah, I can. How... uh... how's your therapy going?"

"Is that what this is? Therapy? You're here to talk me all better?"

"No, your therapy is with Sarah. This is just... I wanted to see you."

Her response died on her lips, and she hesitated. "You wanted to see me? B-But... how... why?" she finally asked.

He bowed his head, struggling against his emotions. He didn't know how he felt anymore. Where his love for her had once been was now this vague, contradictory ball of snarled-up emotions. He'd loved her—perhaps he still did—but he could close his eyes and immediately see that flash of blue lightning from Zapper as she shot him in the heart. "I... don't know. I just thought I..." he sighed. He had no idea what to say. How did someone get over something like this?

She seemed to be holding her breath, waiting for him to say something, and when he didn't, they just sat there, staring at one another. Finally she let out her breath in a resigned fashion. "Well, therapy with Sarah is going fantastic. I'll be out of here in no time." Then she whipped her head around and hissed, "I know that's not what's going to happen, you dumbass! All this is just bullshit that's delaying the inevitable."

"Jinx, it's not bullsh—"

"Stop! Don't even... just don't even say it. We both know I can't be cured."

He drew in a sharp breath and tried to push down the pain that was surging up his throat. "No, we don't know that. We've had this discussion before. I think... you're not even willing to try."

She tried to shrug, then she scowled at her restraints and grumped, "Gods, that's so fuckin' annoying." She glared at them for a few seconds more, then returned her eyes to his. "Trying is just a waste of time."

He swallowed his immediate response denying that it was, and instead he asked, "Okay, so what if it is? So what if we waste a few weeks? Or a few months?"

She turned her head away. "Doesn't really matter anymore anyway, right? It's not as if they'd let me go to Ionia anymore."

"We could ask?"

She shook her head. He could see tears start streaming down her face, and his hands itched to rush over there and dry them for her, but instead he just stayed seated, staring at her. His head was pounding, and his mouth was cork dry, but the words wouldn't come, and he couldn't get himself to move.

She cried quietly for a few minutes, then she sniffed loudly and whispered, "Just go. Just... go. Forget about me. I'm gonna be dead soon anyway."

"Jinx, I don't—"

"Just go. Please."

He stared at her for what seemed an eternity, trying to somehow come up with what to say or what to do to get through to her. To get a foot in the door so they could talk about... what she did. But his brain just shut down on him, and it was all he could do to just sit there like a lump, watching the tears fall down her face. It was several minutes later when he finally got up and left, realizing she wasn't going to talk anymore.

Caitlyn and Sarah met him right outside the door, and they silently walked him back to his cell. They'd been watching through the one-way glass, so nothing needed to be said.

Sarah gave him a short hug before he was locked up again, and she said, "I'll keep working on her, okay? We'll try this again some other time, after I've hopefully made some progress."

He just nodded dumbly, then he trudged over to his bed the second Caitlyn opened the cell door for him and fell down on it. He wrapped the crook of his elbow over his eyes and silently cried.

*****

The sound of footsteps running down the stairs to his cell woke him up a lot later. He groggily realized he'd fallen asleep for what felt like quite some time. A plate of dinner sat untouched just inside his cell door—it had likely been brought while he was asleep, and he never even heard them. But the footsteps coming down were so loud there was no way he could sleep through them.

Mere seconds later, Kelana showed up in front of his cell door. "Martin, I need you to come with me," she said peremptorily.

"Uh-oh," he said, half in jest but also half deadly serious. "Am I in trouble?"

"You will be if you don't get up," she deadpanned while sticking a key in the door's lock.

He quickly swung his legs over the edge of his bed and got to his feet, as she unlocked and opened the door.

"What's going on?" he asked as he stepped outside, then waited for her to remove her key from the lock. She motioned for him to precede her up the stairs.

"Jinx is screaming in her cell, and we can't get her to stop," Kelana said a little tersely. "She's practically tearing her arms out of her sockets against her restraints."

"Why aren't you guys letting her out of them then?!"

"The last thing she needs right now is an Enforcer anywhere near her, and your aunt's gone home for the night. You're the only person she might not freak out against."

"Fuck. How long has she been screaming?"

"Probably going on ten minutes," Kelana said. "Move it, Martin!"

Martin felt his heart sink. He was trembling at the thought of seeing her again so soon, but it had to be pretty bad if Kelana felt he was the only option she had. He nodded and went up the stairs, taking them three at a time.

Kelana escorted him past the guards then up the main floor, and over to the corner where Jinx's treatment room lay. He could hear her cry out his name before he'd even set foot on the main floor—it set off a stab of pain in his gut so sharp that he actually gasped. The moment he reached the door to Jinx's room, he raised his eyebrow at Kelana, and she motioned for him to go in.

"I'll need a key to her cell door," he said, right as another one of Jinx's screams pierced the air.

Kelana hesitated for a second, but she soon grimaced at Jinx's wail, and she went into the room herself. He followed closely on her heels, and Kelana quickly opened the cell door for him.

Martin felt his heart break when he saw Jinx struggling against her restraints, screaming her lungs out. He couldn't quite tell if she was awake or not, but she was right on the verge of seriously hurting herself with how much she was straining against the Hextech cuffs that tied her to the bed.

He swiftly darted past Kelana, then knelt by Jinx's side. "Jinx... Jinx! It's okay! I'm here!"

Jinx didn't respond, instead just continuing her scream. He had to grit his teeth against the noise. For such a slender girl, she sure had a set of lungs in her. He glanced at the Hextech restraints, wondering how to get her out of there. The very second he did so, a diagram of the device popped up in his mind, showing the way it likely worked. He blinked in surprise, but he had other things to consider rather than his newly found fonts of knowledge. He reached out to the bottom of the restraints, rotated a small pin, then deftly pulled the Hextech gem out. The restraint made a loud click as it unlocked itself, and he gently pulled her arm free. Reaching over Jinx, he repeated it with the second restraint, then he pulled Jinx upright and took her in his arms.

He kept whispering and murmuring to her while he hugged her tightly against himself, gently stroking the back of her head. Several more times she screamed out his name, until finally he was able to get through to her. He held her back a little bit, then her eyes shot open. He felt a wave of distress tear through him at how bloodshot her eyes were. Clearly she'd been crying for a long time.

"It's okay. Jinx... Jinx? Talk to me, please," he whispered.

"M-Martin?" she sobbed, staring at him as if she wasn't sure what she saw was real.

"Yeah, it's me. What's wrong?" he asked.

"Oh Gods! Martin!" she cried out and lowered her head against his chest. "I... I saw... I killed you. Again and again. Over and over again, I kept killing you! I tried to stop myself, but I couldn't!"

He swallowed the giant lump that formed in his throat. "Hey, it was just a dream. Just a dream."

She violently shook her head. "No, it wasn't! I... I killed you. I did for real. I know I did."

"Y-Yeah... you did, but..." he stammered, with his heart feeling like it was going to burn out of his chest. His weird, Gray-built heart.

"I'm sorry!" she whimpered before she broke back into fresh tears. "I'm so sorry... Martin, please... I'm so, so sorry. I'm sorry!!"

His breath caught in his throat, and he sat there, helplessly holding her in his arms while she alternated between sobbing and saying, "I'm sorry!" over and over again. Conflicting emotions were tearing through him. Should he reject her apology? Should he demand more? Should he acknowledge it and forgive her? All of these options and more ran through his skull, clanging off the sides as they came sharply into focus for a moment, only to be replaced by another one.

Thoughts of her, memories really, started intruding in the chaotic whirlwind of emotions. The first time they'd met, with her being close to killing him several times, but eventually letting him live—mostly because he'd amused her, she'd later confided in him. Carrying her through the water underneath the Weale street facility, with her panicking and both of them almost drowning, only to then find out he'd been hauling her around by her boobs. Her dressing up like a hooker and fooling his mom into believing her husband had cheated on her—though in hindsight he wondered how much of it his mom had actually believed. Their six months together in their hideout, where their relationship had grown into love, at least for him.

As all the good memories of her flooded through him, they slowly began to wash away his grief and anger over her actions towards him near the end. He looked back down at her, seeing her still staring up at him, whispering she was sorry.

As the luminosity of her pink eyes washed over him, they slowly washed away the blue light of Zapper's shot that killed him. She looked so vulnerable. So different from the last time he'd really seen her, at the tower, when she was taunting him and Lux about their imminent demise. The turmoil in his mind lifted, and he made the decision.

He bent down and gently kissed her forehead. "It's okay," he whispered back. "I forgive you."

Jinx's tears just doubled, and she buried her face in his chest, clutching at the fabric of his shirt so hard her hands were trembling. In return, he just held her, murmuring soft reassurances to her over and over.

Kelana came back in, and she said, "Thank you, Martin. I think we can take it from here."

"Can I have ten more minutes, Lieutenant, please?" he asked politely. "I don't want to just leave her like this."

She opened her mouth to protest, but then her visage softened, and she silently nodded before leaving again.

For the next ten minutes, he just sat there, holding a crying Jinx, wondering what this all meant for both their futures.

*****

It was early morning when Vi strode into the Enforcers' base with a purpose. She nodded the briefest of greetings to everyone she passed, heading straight towards the former interrogation room that was now her sister's cell. She was not going to be deterred this time, and to hell with what Sarah wanted!

Right as she got there, she saw Caitlyn standing at the one-way glass window, and she hesitated with her hand already halfway to the door. Cait had gotten here earlier already, of course—her increased hours now that she was Sheriff again really didn't sit well with Vi—but she wondered what made her love so interested that she was watching intently.

Cait finally noticed her after a few moments, and she smiled, then motioned for her to come near. "'Morning, darling," she said, wrapping her arms around Vi's shoulders and hugging her deeply. Vi hugged her back, restraining herself from giving Cait a kiss—her love wasn't very fond of public displays of affection while she was at work; a hug was usually as far as it went.

"Hey, Cupcake," Vi said, grinning at the brief flicker of chagrin pulling through Cait's face. She disliked being called Cupcake at work even worse than being kissed. "What'cha watching?"

"Martin is in there with Sarah and your sister. From what Kelana told me, Jinx had a strong anxiety attack last night, and he helped her get out of it."

Vi bit her lip at the thought of her sister having any kind of attack, though she felt her heart warm at the thought of Martin coming to her aid. Jinx had attacked him and come extremely close to actually killing him, yet he still came to her rescue. Again she lamented that, all those years ago, Powder had been found by that bastard Silco, rather than a good man like Martin. How much different would her life, and her sister's, be now had that happened? It was hard to even imagine.

Cait pulled her along, and she joined her love at the one-way window, staring inside. Jinx sat in her customary seat, restrained with Hextech, while on the opposite side of her sat Sarah. And in the middle, turned towards Jinx, sat Martin. The three of them were talking, though mostly it was Martin and Jinx, with Sarah just taking notes. To her surprise, she could actually hear them!

As if she'd read her mind, Cait chuckled beside her. "There wouldn't be much point to this window if we couldn't hear what was being said inside."

"Yeah..." Vi murmured in agreement, her mind already focusing on the talk between Jinx and her erstwhile lover.

*****

Sarah was writing in her notepad while Martin and Jinx talked. Well, talked was perhaps a strong word for it, as their interactions were still pretty awkward, which was understandable considering she had essentially literally killed him several weeks ago.

But the youngest son of her sister had an incredible heart, and according to what she heard, last night he'd forgiven Jinx for doing so. Lieutenant Kelana had allowed him to sit there with Jinx for another fifteen minutes or so; then, when the girl had finally relaxed enough, she'd been given the sedative that calmed her down, both mentally as well as physically, and she'd fallen asleep shortly after.

She herself had brought Martin back in here, sure that with Jinx being calm, the two of them could have a nice talk, but it had been terse and hesitant so far. She sighed a little internally. The two of them really were way too young to have to deal with this level of emotional heartache. Martin clearly still loved Jinx—one only had to look into his eyes to see that, but she had a harder time reading Jinx's internal thoughts and emotions. There were moments when she looked at him that Sarah was sure she saw love in her eyes, but at other times she seemed distant and withdrawn, even despite the sedative.

She still had made no progress in figuring out why a physical relaxant helped calm the girl's mind down, but she gratefully accepted that it did, and Doctor Kaleen had made sure this morning that there was enough of the drug on hand to help calm Jinx—for weeks, if need be. Still, that didn't really help Sarah out much. A calm Jinx was easier to deal with, sure, but it also led to absolutely no progress in dealing, or even diagnosing, her mental issues.

"I think it was because I felt... you'd abandoned me. Like everyone had, my entire life," Jinx said softly. Sarah blinked in surprise. It had been quiet for over a minute after Martin had asked Jinx why she'd shot him. The pain in his voice when he did so had been unmistakable.

"I didn't abandon you, Jinx," Martin replied, while he restlessly fidgeted with his hands. "I was just trying to get you help, somehow. Your mental... issues had been getting worse and worse, and we just didn't know what else to do."

"You could've talked to me about it!" she said tersely. "Rather than to everyone else!"

"I tried, you know. But every time I did, you shut me down," Martin said, perhaps a little accusingly. "Both Lux and I offered to take you to Ionia multiple times."

"I don't want to go to Ionia."

Martin let out an exasperated sigh. "I know you don't, but Sona might be able to—"

"There's no point, Martin. Nobody can help me."

"Gods, you are so fucking stubborn!" Martin exclaimed. He immediately got a huge blush on his face, and his eyes betrayed the shock at him yelling at her. Maybe it was the first time he'd done so? He was starting to stammer out an apology, but Jinx shushed him.

"Don't apologize. You're right. I... know..." Jinx said, in what was perhaps the clearest moment of self-analysis Sarah had gotten out of her so far. She quickly wrote it down, which led to an immediate grunt from Jinx. "Do you have to write everything I say down?!"

"If it deals with trying to get you better, then yes," Sarah said calmly.

Jinx gave her an irritated look, but then she mellowed out as she looked at Martin again. "I just don't want to waste anyone's time, or get anyone's hopes up, least of all you, or Lux, or Vi. I know what I have can't be cured. This is my burden, my curse. It's my just pennance for everything I've done."

"Jinx, you know—" Martin said, but she kept right on going.

"In any case, I thought you and Vi were conspiring behind my back, just like I thought you and Lux were too," she admitted with a quiet voice. "And the voices kept telling me you were betraying me. You were going to take me to Ionia, then leave me there, so you could be with Lux."

Martin leaned over and put his hand over hers, gently rubbing her knuckles with his thumb. "There's nothing going on with me and Lux, Jinx. I swear there isn't."

Jinx's lower lip wobbled, and she nodded after a few moments of struggling against her tears. "I know. I know that now while I'm on this drug that calms my mind. But when I was off the drug, it all made so much sense. You and Lux wanted to be together, so you'd hauled Vi into your little conspiracy, and once I was gone the two of you could be happy."

"Couldn't you have... I don't know, just accused me of that? Instead of..." Martin said, letting it trail off as a pained expression washed over him.

Jinx turned her head away. "I... I'm sorry. I was so mad at you. You'd betrayed me, and you were lying to me, even after you'd sworn you'd never do so, and it... the voices were screaming at me to get revenge. To get even! And so..."

"And so... you did," he finished for her.

"Yeah," she mouthed as she turned her head back to look at him again. "I'm so sorry, Martin," she said, barely audibly, while her eyes glimmered with her tears.

"What did you feel right after you did it, Jinx?" Sarah asked.

Jinx's gaze flickered between her and Martin, and she briefly hesitated. "I... was angry, and elated that I'd gotten revenge, but almost immediately after I... felt awful. As if I'd stabbed myself in the gut. But the voices told me it was what I deserved, and I'd felt that pain before, so I just stashed it away, like I always do."

Sarah frowned at that. "Stashing away your pain? Can you explain that for me?"

"I don't really know. I just... it's like I swallow it and store it somewhere deep within me, I guess," Jinx said after she thought about it.

"And when do you ever deal with it?"

This time it was Jinx's turn to look at her with confusion. "Deal with it? Why would I... I stashed it."

Sarah let out a soft sigh as several things clicked in her mind. "Jinx, just stashing it isn't dealing with it. You need to deal with the emotions and hurt that you experience, otherwise you just let it fester, and it turns into this giant ball of pain."

Several emotions played over the young girl's face as she gave that some thought, then finally she just shrugged. "How would I know the difference? My whole life has been pain! From the moment I lost my parents to when I killed my family to when I killed Silco and then to when I... killed you," she said, briefly flicking her gaze towards Martin. She blushed and averted her eyes. "I'm sorry. It would have been so much better if you'd never met me."

Martin quickly got up and went to stand by Jinx's chair, before kneeling down so he could look her in the eyes. "I don't really think so. Even if we just look at it logically, if you and I had never met, Slane would still be in control of Zaun, the Council would still have been up there. Everything would still have been terrible."

"I meant for you..."

Martin resolutely shook his head. "No, that would have been worse. Way worse. First off, Slane would have just killed me, but even ignoring that, if I'd never met you then..." he briefly hesitated, and he bowed his head, touching his forehead against her shoulder. "I'd have never fallen in love with you."

Jinx let out a soft sob, and she leaned her head against his. "Was that worth it?"

"Yes. A thousand times yes," Martin said earnestly, shifting around so he could look straight into her eyes again. The weight of his emotions was laced into his voice. "Jinx, I wouldn't have traded that for the world."

She just sat there, staring at the man in front of her professing his love, not saying anything.

Martin smiled. "Also, without Malea pointing us towards the Hexgate compound, it's likely you and Lux wouldn't have even been reunited."

A small smile appeared on Jinx's lips. "Yeah, I guess so. And that no longer bothers you?"

"No, Lux and I have come to an agreement."

Jinx nodded slowly. "That's... that's good. How is she? I haven't seen her since... I think she came by in the hospital one night, but she was angry with me."

"She thought you were going to kill her, Jinx. I think her being angry is understandable."

"Yeah..." Jinx whispered. A huge wave of pain shot through her, and though Sarah didn't know her very well, it was easy to see the regret in the young Zaunite woman's eyes.

"But she's doing well. She and Ekko are managing things in Zaun while we're in here," Martin said.

Jinx's lips pulled into a crooked little smirk. "Heh. I bet she's not too happy with that. She always hated being in charge of things—it's why she rebelled against her family so hard."

"True, but I think she's doing it for m..." Martin quickly swallowed the last word and quickly amended it. "For you. Me and you."

"Oh, uh-huh!" Jinx said sarcastically, still smirking. "Yeah, she's totally doing it for me!' She hesitated briefly, then she asked in a worried voice, "I take it the two of you have gotten close while I turned into an unholy terror?"

"I don't know that I'd use the word 'close'," Martin said, looking a little pained. "But we're good friends now, yes. I think you'd like it. We're no longer at each other's throats fighting over you."

Jinx tried to respond, but it was clear the words fled her mind as soon as she thought them. She struggled for a little while, then she said, "Because there's nothing left to fight over, right?"

"What do you mean?" Martin asked, clearly not getting it.

"I mean that we're..." Jinx swallowed heavily. "Done. Right? I mean, I... I killed you. How can we p-possibly be..." she trailed off.

Martin drew in a deep breath and stood up, still just staring at her. The silence grew from noticeable to lengthy to extremely awkward. Tears slowly began streaming down Jinx's face as he didn't respond, and even Sarah started feeling sorry for her. "Martin, you should..." she began.

"I've forgiven you, Jinx," he finally said, interrupting her. "I understand you weren't thinking clearly, and you're extremely sick. But I still..." he choked on the words. "I don't know if I can go through this again."

In response, Jinx hung her head, not saying anything, though she was clearly still crying.

"I wanted to get you healed. I still do, in fact. But I don't think you do."

Sarah wasn't sure whether Jinx was lost in thought or deliberately trying to shut out his words, but she still didn't reply.

"Is it because... you like being this way?" Martin asked, slightly incredulously.

"No!" Jinx shouted, so sudden that it made both Sarah and Martin jump in surprise. She tried to jump up, only to be held in place by her restraints, but the chair shook violently under her strength. "I don't like being this way! I hate it! I want—" Jinx snapped her mouth shut and looked around her almost as if in a panic. Sarah was looking intently at the young Zaunite woman, and for some strange reason she thought it almost seemed as if Jinx was fighting herself.

It took Jinx a few seconds to get herself back under control, then she said, "No, I don't like being this way, but it is who I am. There is no fixing me. This is me."

"So you don't want to get healed?" Martin insisted.

"I can't be healed," Jinx said stubbornly. "The fact that your aunt has sat there for weeks now, writing shit down and still getting nowhere, should show you that."

Martin sighed. "Then how can I know you won't just shoot me again the next time you feel I've betrayed you? Or the next time your voices imply that I did?"

Jinx's face turned crestfallen, and she looked up at him with her heart in her delicately soft pink eyes. "M-Martin, I..."

"If you... refuse to try to get better, I can't t-trust you not... to do it again," he said, his voice cracking under the strain. "You may just shoot me again, and the next time, I won't have a weird outer space... thing in me to heal me. And the Gray may have healed my heart, but it's still broken. If you're not willing to make an effort to get better, then I... I don't know that I'm ready for us to be anything more than just friends."

His words finally got through to her. She lowered her head and just nodded softly.

He put a comforting hand on her shoulder, but when he saw that she wasn't responding, he hesitated for a second, then he turned around and quietly left the room. Sarah made several more notes, but it was clear Jinx wasn't going to be responding anymore, as she just sat in her chair, likely caught somewhere between moping and grieving.

It was perhaps a minute later when the door opened again, and Sarah looked over her shoulder, curious to find out if Martin had come back. Instead, she was surprised when Vi walked in, but before she could say anything, Vi held up a finger in warning. "Don't tell me this isn't a good time, Sarah!" Vi growled.

"I wasn't going to. I think your sister could use some comfort right now," Sarah said encouragingly.

Vi quickly went over to Jinx's side and wrapped her arms around her sister, embracing her with a tender hug. "Hey, little sis. Ssshhh, it's okay."

"N-No it... isn't!" Jinx said brokenly.

"Come on. Martin will be back, you know he will."

Jinx shook her head. "H-He won't be. He was... the best thing that happened t-to me, and I... I killed him!"

"I know," Vi murmured. "I know, baby. Give him some time, okay? It's a difficult thing for him to come to terms with."

For the rest of the session, Vi and Jinx sat there quietly, with Vi holding her sister. Sarah smiled at the tenderness Vi showed to Jinx, despite everything her little sister had done. She just hoped Vi was right with regards to Martin, because she feared that without him, healing Jinx would be almost impossible.