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Anya had not walked the halls of the Academy in several years. It still felt the same, smelled the same, and the light still shone through the stained glass in the perfect way at the perfect hours of the day. She had not realized how much she missed it. She had been fortunate enough to attend the Academy on a full scholarship, her parents could never have afforded her tuition on their own. They were poor, meager people from Zaun, who survived selling spell bags and healing tinctures, with a client base that relied solely on word of mouth. Mages were not looked well upon, and she had kept her abilities hidden in the years she had been in Piltover. Especially when she was at the Academy.
The only one who knew about her abilities was Viktor. His mother had brought him to her mother many years ago, when they were small children. Shortly after he contracted polio, Viktor’s mother beseeched her mother for any form of healing she knew – she was willing to give as much money as she had, or barter for any wares she had to offer. Anya’s mother accepted none of it. It would have been dishonorable, her mother said, to take payment to heal another woman’s child. It was a gift to give life and health to a child – regardless if she had birthed them herself. The only thing Anya’s mother asked in return was secrecy.
Anya remembered her mother using magic to help heal Viktor’s illness, she remembered her laying poultices across his back and leg. Anya helped make the paste that went across his skin. She doubted Viktor remembered it, even now. He was ill with a high fever and slept most of the time he was under her mother’s care. When he felt well, after his treatment had run its course, he learned of her presence when she brought him water to drink and food to eat. They were still young children, and yet she had such vivid memories – as if she had been an adult all her life.
She wondered if he felt similarly.
Anya entered a lecture hall as the top of the hour rang throughout the Academy. She slipped inside almost unnoticed, and took an empty seat near the door and away from the students’ attention.
Viktor stood at the front of the lecture hall, leaning on his cane and reading from a notebook. He had bags under his eyes and his color looked washed and pale. She could tell he had not slept the night before.
“Good morning,” he began. “My name is Viktor. I am assistant to the Dean. I will be instructing this class while your regular Professor is away on maternity leave. You will be given a quiz, so that I can discern where your abilities lie in this class –”
The students made a collective fuss and groan.
He looked at them with a quiet chuckle. “It will not count towards your grade.” As he surveyed his class, his eye caught a woman sitting at the far end of the room, near the door. He took a double look and saw it to be Anya. She had threatened to ‘audit his class’ but he had not believed her to be serious.
She gave him a smile and a nod as they met eyes.
She was beautiful – no longer dressed in her culture’s formal wear, she donned a simple soft pink opaque dress, with sleeves that fell along her arms and left her shoulders bare; its skirt was a thicker fabric, but still airy and gathered at her feet; and its bodice was lined with boning. Her hair still wrapped in a sheer veil, it trailed down her side. He found himself distracted with surprise at her presence, especially when she had not called upon him to meet regarding her donation. He regretted the class was not something more advanced to keep her interest – and he hoped she did not mean to bring him bad news about rescinding her contribution.
“Your quiz will begin momentarily.” He gathered his attentions back to the present and limped to the desk, only two steps away. A large stack of papers rested on the edge of the desk, and he bolstered himself to walk and pass them out to every row in the hall.
“Professor?” Anya called, the hint of teasing under her breath.
He felt a warm thrall at the nape of his neck as she called him. He turned to see her waiting expectantly for his response. “I am not a professor,” he corrected her, hiding a simper.
“What may we call you?” she asked.
He looked at the rest of the class, noting it would be helpful to clarify. “You may simply call me Viktor.” He hoisted the stack of papers into his arm and began to pass them out, starting with Anya.
“Viktor –” she called again and looked up at him as he stood in front of her. “May I help you distribute these?”
He looked at her, relieved, and nodded. “Thank you, Miss Anya.”
“It is my pleasure,” she said and stood to take them.
Anya passed out every paper to every student, and returned to her seat at the far end of the classroom. When the students were finished, she collected them without being asked, and returned them to Viktor’s desk. She aided the student next to her as they struggled to comprehend a concept written on the blackboard; she asked questions that would expound upon what Viktor taught; and when the class was finished she erased the notations on the board so he could start fresh for the next class.
Viktor sat slumped in his chair, with his head in his hand.
“I can stay for your other classes,” she spoke in their shared, native language.
“No,” he promptly shook his head. “I cannot ask you to do that.”
“You are not,” she chuckled. “I offered.”
He sighed and looked at her as he propped himself up in the chair. “I am grateful.”
“You did not sleep last night, did you?” she asked.
“No, not at all. I was…” he hesitated and glanced at her, debating whether or not to confide in her. It was Jayce’s proprietary project, and he had not gotten permission to share it with anyone else. Regardless, he knew Anya to be integritous and a confidant. “I was helping a new friend with a project. We were here all night, in Heimerdinger’s lab.”
“Did it turn out well?”
“It did,” he said, uneasily – thinking of the explosion the crystal had caused, it had taken out numerous windows and sent the rest of the laboratory into disarray. Heimerdinger was still upset that his books had been blown off the shelves.
She laughed. “You don’t sound convinced.”
“It will take work. A lot more work,” he said and leaned on the desk to stretch his back. “But it is work I am willing to do. I offered my help to this acquaintance.”
“It sounds like a big project.”
“It has the potential to help people – save lives. That is all I have wanted to do.” He put his face in his palm as he turned to her. He thought of Anya and her mother, the innate magic that ran through their species’ blood. “Do you help others, as your mother did?”
Her brows raised in surprise, she had not expected him to mention their past. “I did. I took my mother’s place as a healer after my parents were killed. Before I got out of Zaun. I have not done it since. After I left Zaun, after I graduated the Academy, I worked in an energy research lab. I left magic behind. I worry about being exposed and imprisoned. I finally have freedom – I don’t want it taken away.”
He took a deep breath and nodded. “You may not have to worry for long,” he said.
She furrowed, uncertain if he meant something sinister. “Why?”
He paused a moment, still debating whether to confide in her. But then, he had a marvellous idea – he would bring her into the project altogether. “The project I am working on involves magic. It has been approved by Heimerdinger and the Council. I believe you could be an asset.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know – I don’t want others to know about me –”
“They wouldn’t have to. You could be a silent partner,” he said and sat up again, more excited at the prospect of working with her. “Your background in theoretical physics and your experience in magic could be what we need.”
She thought, looking away from him and instead to the chalk dust that gathered on the floor beneath the blackboard behind him. She had been offered a job as a Professor in theoretical physics nearly a year ago, right before her fortunes had changed and she won the lottery. Getting her finances in order took precedence and she was never able to accept the position – but she would not have been happy with it, regardless. Anya did not relish the idea of being locked away in some classroom, chained to others who did not appreciate her efforts.
But Viktor appreciated them. He valued her intellect. He saw her potential.
His offer was enticing, but the fear of her own preservation grappled for her heart.
He saw the worry drawn deep into her features. She was so placid and smooth, to see the lines of fear carved into her was unusual and unnerving. He placed a hand on the desk, towards her – hoping to comfort her. “I will ask my acquaintance if I can consult with someone I know. No one will know. No one ever has.”
She met his eye again and breathed with relief. His mother had kept her promise – and he had inherited it. “Very well,” she agreed.
The Academy bell chimed the top of the next hour, and Viktor ran his hands down his face as he leaned back in his seat. He was mentally preparing himself for the two other classes he had later that day, though he was grateful he still had some time to rest and grade papers.
“In the meantime,” Anya said, “I can stay the rest of the day to help. You look like you don’t feel well,” she chuckled as he rolled his head and met her with tired eyes. Her warm fingers caressed his chin and she stood to leave. “I’ll get us some coffee.”
He thanked her and watched as she left the hall. There was a canteen not far from the classroom, she would be back in only a few minutes with food and drink.
It was one of Viktor’s earliest memories of her, of life itself: little Anya kneeling beside him as he lay on a stiff mattress inside a dimly lit room, her having brought him food and drink. The smell inside the room had been overpowering – vegetation and herbs, the stench of water and humidity. His fever had broken and he could finally see straight. Anya was the first thing he saw. She held in her hand a small, round piece of unleavened flatbread, and a glass of warm water sat on the floor beside her. It was bland and stale, but it was the sweetest thing he ever tasted.
He sat there at his desk, waiting on his friend to return, and he wondered, how he could repay her? He asked much of her, even if he did not ask it himself: aid in his classroom, aid on his project, aid for the Academy. She gave freely, and of her own volition. But, still, he felt he had nothing to give her in return.
She wanted for nothing, he had nothing he could teach her, and what small tinkering he had done in his spare time made no dent in the debt he had acquired to her in his life.
By the end of the day, Viktor was nearly slumped over his notebook in the lab, his mind still working on a way to tangibly thank her for her favor.
“You alright?” Jayce asked.
Viktor sat up and rolled his neck, still thinking of Anya. “I have a contact who I believe has valuable insight to this technology,” he said. “I would like to show them our notes.”
Perplexed, but grateful for Viktor’s connections, Jayce agreed. “Sure. Do you trust them?”
Viktor looked at his partner, and remembered once again the night Anya had brought him food and water when he was a boy. It had been so many years ago, much had changed – and yet the two of them stayed the same. He realized, despite the years they had spent apart, he trusted her implicitly, as he did then. He realized, in the same moment, that she also trusted him. She had told no one else of her fortune, neither had she confided in anyone else of her abilities; the idea that she felt safe with him nestled itself into his heart, and he felt himself moved.
“With my life,” he said.
Perhaps that was gratitude enough: to be trusted, and to trust. To be her truest and purest friend.