Cold wind ruffled Silco's hair. He narrowed his eyes, fist clenched, staring at Logan.
"Uh—Silco. Calm down. Here, sit. Sit down and we'll talk this through."
Silco took a deep breath and asked the stall owner for another stool. Only then did the owner finally realize who the three customers he'd served at dawn actually were. His face lit up as he looked at Logan.
Earlier, Logan had seemed familiar, but the owner hadn't dared to believe it—because in his memory, Councilor Logan hadn't been this pale, his skin hadn't looked this good, and his hair had been a lot shorter.
And most importantly—Councilor Logan was supposed to be dead.
Both cities had announced it together. They'd even built plenty of statues to commemorate him. So at first, the owner hadn't dared to recognize him at all.
But now Silco had sat down, and the owner understood.
"Councilor Logan… didn't everyone say you were dead? Is this… our plan?" he asked as he brought the stool over.
"Plan? No." Logan smiled at him. "I did die. I just didn't stay dead. Hey—life's full of surprises."
Silco took the stool and sat down next to Jinx. The moment he did, Jinx happily placed a bowl of sump-frog meat in front of him.
"Silco, eat."
"…" Silco looked down at the frog's face staring back at him, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
Back when he'd been at his lowest, the worst he'd eaten was rat meat—and even then, he would never touch anything above the head.
But now… he looked at the frog head, then at Jinx's huge grin, and—very, very reluctantly—picked up his chopsticks.
"It's complicated," Logan said. "Bottom line, Silco, I really did die once. But a friend saved me. I stayed asleep at her place for a long time, and the moment I woke up, I came straight back to Zaun."
As he spoke, Logan casually slid his own bowl of sump-frog meat toward Silco too.
"Fuck off," Silco snapped, shoving it back. "Don't keep dumping your problems on me."
What, you think I'm blind?
He glared at Logan, then asked seriously, "And Jinx?"
"If I came back, of course the first thing I did was go find Jinx," Logan said with a helpless shrug. "What do you think I was doing?"
"You came back yesterday?" Silco's eyes narrowed. "And you didn't come find me. Didn't come find Vander."
"Yeah. And?" Logan blinked. "I was busy calming Jinx down."
Silco froze for a beat, then said through gritted teeth, "Fine. That's what you should've done first. So… you know everything now?"
He meant the humiliation and suffering Jinx had endured this past year.
He needed Logan to know—so Logan would treat her even better.
Logan nodded, voice soft. "Most of what I should know, I do. Janna and Jinx both told me. A year is a long time, though—there are things about Zaun I'll still need to catch up on. But it's fine. Silco… I'm not leaving Zaun again."
Silco pushed the frog head down into the bottom of the bowl, grabbed a chunk of meat, and ate it. The slick, nauseating texture made him swallow with visible effort. Then he said, "Alright. After this, you're coming to a meeting with me. I'm calling every councilor. You can get a full picture of what happened in Zaun while you were gone."
"No problem." Logan nodded. "I was planning to eat breakfast with Jinx, drop Isha off with Viktor, then head to the council building to find you anyway."
Silco nodded back.
He had a thousand questions for Logan—but in the end, watching Logan banter with Jinx, Silco swallowed them all. He just ate the awful frog meat in silence, watching Jinx interact with Logan.
She was smiling.
Not the fake smiles from the last year.
This time, she was genuinely happy.
"By the way," Silco suddenly asked, "where did you come back from?"
"Ionia," Logan said, tossing the frog leg Jinx had put in his bowl back into hers.
Jinx immediately picked it up again and placed it right back into Logan's bowl.
Two grown adults, acting like children right in front of Silco—and both of them looked ridiculously pleased with themselves.
"Ionia?" Silco lifted a brow, thinking of something. "You came by ship?"
"Yeah."
"A Noxian ship," Silco said flatly.
"Huh? Silco—how'd you know?" Logan looked genuinely surprised.
"…" Silco rolled his eyes. "I get it."
So the "Ionian" who'd smashed the Noxian sea line and stolen their ship… was Logan.
Heh. Small world.
And honestly—Silco had no idea what gave Ionia the nerve to take credit for that.
How were they worthy of being compared to Logan?
Logan was Zaunite. Not Ionian.
Hopefully those Ionian "friends" remember that.
Silco felt a sudden flicker of satisfaction—and the moment he did, he opened his mouth a bit too wide.
A big chunk of frog meat lodged in his throat.
"Cough—!"
Jinx immediately started patting his back, annoyed. "You're a whole adult and you're still this careless. Choking like that while you eat? Silco, even Isha doesn't do that!"
Silco didn't answer. He just drank water with a grim, miserable look on his face.
At 7:30 a.m., in the Zaun Council building—
Around the long council table, Vander, Scar, Marna, Heimerdinger, and the other councilors had all been reminded by the Undercity Enforcers and invited by Silco to arrive a full half hour early.
"Did the Noxus–Ionia War change again?"
"Damn. If that war ends, we'd better be ready to go to war with Noxus ourselves."
Heimerdinger placed both hands on the table and said, "But our weapons still aren't finished. Jayce's Hextech rifles and Hextech shielding are very useful, but… that won't be enough against Noxus, will it?"
"Magitech won't work on them," Heimerdinger continued without stopping. "If we're going to fight them, we need Zaunite chemtech."
Jayce, sitting off to the side, almost laughed.
It was wild.
Under Zaun's influence, Professor Heimerdinger had completely changed. Jayce was starting to think the little guy sounded like a full-on war hawk now.
Jayce wasn't here because he was a Zaun councilor. Months ago, the councilor exchange between the two cities had ended. With business cooperation growing deeper, the Twin Cities were tied together by shared interests—no contract needed.
Jayce was here because, compared to constant banquets and noble nonsense in the Topsider city, he'd rather come down to Zaun and drink with Ekko and Viktor.
Zaun life…
Honestly, it was great.
And Jayce had picked up swearing like it was a second language.
What did Piltover's big families call him behind his back again?
Right—"Captain Cussword Talis."
When Jayce wasn't angry, he was tall, handsome, refined—the perfect polished golden boy.
But the second he got mad or stressed, every other word out of his mouth was an obscenity.
Piltover people had never been yelled at like that in their lives.
So if Jayce didn't go back, they were practically relieved he stayed in Zaun.
"As for Noxus," Jayce said in a low voice, "I propose we completely cut off contact with them. They've been buying ore from Zaun and smelting iron with it for years. I think it's time we split."
No one found it strange that he'd said "our Zaun."
Because Jayce really did look—and sound—very Zaun these days.
Getting better was hard.
Getting worse was easy.
"Even if the Noxus–Ionia War doesn't end this year, it'll definitely end next year," someone said. "We only have a year to prepare."
Janna sat perched on top of a book, blinking, realizing she couldn't get a word in at all.
"Jayce is right," Vander nodded. "I agree too. But Silco called us all here—where is he?"
As he spoke, the meeting room doors were pushed open by Enforcers. Two of them stepped in and stood respectfully at either side.
Then Silco walked in.
"Finally," Vander muttered, then turned his head away, refusing to look at him.
He was still sulking.
Silco didn't care. He walked straight to the table—and sat down beside Vander.
"You're in the wrong seat," Vander said, turning his big face back with narrowed eyes. "Your seat is over there, ruler of Zaun."
After Logan died, Silco became Zaun's new leader. He'd only ever called himself that once—on the day Logan vanished, when Piltover's councilors arrived in Zaun and Silco said it in front of everyone.
After that, Silco never called himself that again.
But he had been handling everything. Every decision in Zaun needed his approval before it could happen.
So even if Silco didn't say the words, everyone—Zaun's people, councilors, leadership—knew he was Zaun's leader now.
And the head seat at the long table—the one that had belonged to Councilor Number One, Logan—was the seat Silco sat in.
Silco lifted his head and looked at Vander. His gaze was calm—yet his mouth curled upward as he quietly spat out a single word:
"Dumb mutt."
"You—" Vander flared instantly, then froze.
His nose twitched.
Joy burst into his eyes.
"You brought Jinx back?" he blurted, catching her scent… and another scent too. Strange—both unfamiliar and familiar at the same time.
Confused, Vander stopped looking at Silco and whipped his head around—
—and saw that every councilor at the table was standing.
Jayce stared at the doorway, jaw hanging open.
Heimerdinger's mouth gaped as his tiny hands grabbed his own mustache like he couldn't believe it.
Marna's eyes were full of tears, joy practically exploding out of her.
Scar looked feverish, almost worshipful.
Janna lifted a wing slightly, like she was offering a casual greeting.
Sevika—back in Zaun—stood ramrod straight, both hands clenched hard against her thighs.
Logan walked into the meeting room wearing a trench coat. He went straight to the council table, down the right side, to the front-most seat.
He took off his coat, draped it over the chair, smiled at the councilors on both sides—Silco and Heimerdinger included—
—and sat down in the First Councilor's seat.
Smiling broadly, he said in a clear voice, "Alright. Everyone's here."
"Let's begin."
Vander's mouth dropped wide enough to swallow Silco's head. He pointed at Logan, then at Silco, eyes bugging out.
Silco let out a cold laugh.
"Idiot…"
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