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Jayce’s absence leaves behind a crater.
In agony, Ximena wakes, the memory of a child dancing the knife’s edge of her dreams, turning around in his starry robes, the too-large hat tipped back on his head as he spins and spins until he tumbles down.
Does it look right, mama?
Ximena gets up in the dead of night and goes to his room, pushing open the door against the weight of all he was here. She cradles the thought of him in her arms the way she did when he was born, all dark hair and grasping fingers, mouth seeking her before his eyes ever opened.
He was a long, long birth.
Hours of pushing and breathing and cursing and pleading, all for him. For this. She thinks about him, how warm he always was, how soft he felt.
In the dark of the bridge, Ximena Talis writes her son’s name on a piece of paper and watches it go up in flames.
When they came to Piltover, they had nothing.
Ximena did laundry, from sunup to sundown, then returned home and made dinner. Jayce would stand on a step stool by the stove, chattering about school, about a book he found, a rock he picked up, a strange star he saw in the sky.
“Mama,” he said one night. “There’s a costume party at school.”
“Oh?”
“I want to go as a wizard.”
She raised a brow. “You don’t have a wizard costume, my love.”
“Can we make one?”
Ximena sighed. She’d made friends with a few of the women who worked in the other shops. She could get something at a good price, if she asked, or owed someone a favor.
“I will see what I can do. Go on, set the table, please.”
In the morning, she sent Jayce off to school and opened the laundrette, sorting through bags of clothes. Beautiful things, all velvet and silk, sent down from the noble houses. Ximena always cleaned these first, to make sure they could be picked up as quickly as possible. On her lunch, she went down the street to a fabric shop and asked about something she could use to sew a costume for Jayce. She left with a bolt of discounted blue fabric, emblazoned with golden suns and moons.
She carried it home that night behind her back.
“Close your eyes!” she called, listening to Jayce’s bright, bubbling laughter. She set the fabric on the kitchen table. “Alright, open them.”
He gasped when he saw it, touching it with gentle, careful hands.
“Is this real gold?”
Ximena laughed. “No, Jayce. It’s not. Will it do for your wizard, hm?”
“Yes! Yes, thank you—” He threw his arms around her and held her tight.
It took two nights of sewing to get the costume just right. The buttons were still a bit crooked, and Ximena had never made a hat before, but Jayce was thrilled with it, marching around the apartment and pretending to cast spells. That night she tucked him into bed, hanging the hat and robe on a hook by the door for school in the morning.
“Do I look like a real wizard, mama?”
“Yes.” She kissed his forehead. “Like a very powerful magician.”
Jayce’s sudden absence leaves the fate of House Talis in Ximena’s hands. Before the Hexgates, before the explosion, before anything, House Talis had been little more than a collection of blacksmiths, lingering on the edge of more established nobility.
Now, it is a collection of ghosts. Ximena stands in front of the cold forge and doesn’t dare touch the haunted tools that were handed down to Jayce by her husband, left to him like a blessing.
“I thought I might find you here.”
Ximena turns as Caitlyn steps closer, reaching out and picking up a hammer without fear.
“I was…gathering my thoughts,” she says. “They’ve told me I must decide what to do with all this.”
Caitlyn nods. “I heard. As the head of House Talis—”
“I am not,” Ximena says sharply. Sharp enough that Caitlyn flinches. “Not yet.”
Caitlyn sighs. “Jayce is…gone. What’s left behind is—”
“I will make my decision by the end of the week,” Ximena says, and leaves Caitlyn alone with the ghosts.
Ximena met the man who would become Jayce’s father at work. She’d replaced a button for him before an important meeting, turning away when he stripped off his old shirt to change right there in the shop.
“What’s your name?” he’d asked, placing more gold than was strictly necessary into her hand.
“Ximena.”
“Ximena. You’ve saved my life, I won’t forget this.”
After that, he would come into the shop every few days with another mishap. Always, he asked for her by name.
“Another stain?” she asked, and he had the decency to look embarrassed as she spot cleaned it for him there on the counter.
“Another tear?” she asked, and he would stumble over the sort of work he did and how clumsy he could be.
“Another button?” she asked, and when she had fixed it, he held her gaze just a moment too long, let his hand linger on hers a second more than it should have —
“You’ve gotten very good at patching me up,” he said.
Ximena flushed. “Only because you’ve given me so much practice.”
“Maybe you can fix something else for me.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a beautiful slip of paper — a ticket to the theater. “My date left me high and dry. I was wondering if you might go with me.”
She held the ticket in her hand. “I…I’ve never been before.”
“That’s alright, it’s mostly just sitting. Occasionally clapping.”
She laughed. “Yes, well—” She looked up. “I don’t even know your name.”
He laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s Talis. Uh, Leo Talis. But—Talis. Everyone calls me that.”
“Alright.” She turned the ticket over in her hand and nodded. “I will go with you.”
Ximena takes the money from selling the forge and gives it to the academy. There is nothing worth buying with the bones of her son’s legacy. No joy to be found. She has her home, she has enough to get by for what meager years she has left.
They tell her they’re going to name a building after him. The letters will be forged from iron and hung for all of Piltover to see.
It’s the sort of thing that would have made his father proud. Her husband chased legacy for as long as she knew him, hung the pursuit of it around Jayce’s neck like a gift.
You’ll be the one to make a name for this house someday, even as he craved the honor himself.
She married into House Talis for security, because its prodigal son loved and pursued her, captured her heart and called Jayce his own. He kissed her for the first time in a dark carriage, put his hand under her skirts in the face of propriety and left a mark on her collar bone she just barely managed to hide. He took her son to magic shows and taught him to forge before he had ever even suggested marriage.
Ximena knew he was not wealthy. Richer than herself, certainly, with enough means to own a home and pay for someone to fix his shirts, but —
Their wedding was a subdued affair. Only his extended family, her handful of friends. It was not news or anything of import. There was no snobbery over the fact that the head of House Talis had married a laundress and adopted her son. As far as most houses in Piltover were concerned, Jayce had always been heir to a meager forge and the shadow of fame.
It does not come up, when she is asked to speak at his memorial.
Caitlyn suggests it. Suggests it like casual violence, as if to open her mouth and speak her son’s name will not kill her.
“I don’t think I should.”
“Only a few minutes,” Caitlyn pleads. She sits at the kitchen table, and for a moment, she is twelve again, her legs dangling above the floor, waiting for Jayce to get home from class. Ximena would make her tea, extra lemon, and cut her a slice of cake, listening to her chatter about her day.
Her grown hand covers Ximena’s, startling her from her memories. The kitchen is grey and it has not stopped raining for six days.
“I miss him, too,” Caitlyn says. “More than I—more than I can bear. But this is how we’ll begin to move on. How we’ll cope.”
Ximena looks out the window.
“Alright,” she says. “I will speak.”
There was money enough to send Jayce to the preparatory academy, but after three months they threatened to expel him for fighting. Jayce had thrown himself between two other children, punching one of them so hard it knocked them out.
“This will scar,” Ximena said, taking his chin in hand and cleaning a deep gash in his brow.
Jayce scowled. “Good.”
“Why are you fighting, hm? That’s not the boy I’ve raised.” Jayce said nothing. Ximena sighed. “You do not have to fight battles which aren’t yours, Jayce.”
“The other guy was way bigger!” he said. “It wasn’t fair!”
Ximena finished cleaning his face and kissed his forehead. “Many things in life are not fair, my love. Someday, when you grow up, you will be big and strong enough to defend whoever you’d like. But right now, I need you to come home in one piece.” She pushed the dark hair back from his forehead. “Promise?”
Jayce nodded. “Promise.”
Promise.
Promise.
Promise.
He came home filthy and shaking.
Ximena reached out and touched his face, hands trembling. “Jayce. Where have you been?”
“I needed—” he croaked, and moved past her, carrying his hammer into the house and leaning it against a wall. “I needed to see you.”
Ximena closed the door and locked it, drawing the curtains in the front room. Jayce stood there, one hand bracing himself on the wall, leaving a dark smear in his wake.
“Shit.”
“Language,” she said, without thinking.
Her reaction seemed to startle him. He turned and looked over his shoulder, eyes going wide for a moment before he nodded.
“Right. Sorry.”
She approached him. “It’s been months, Jayce. People were looking for you. I was looking for you. Where—”
“I can’t—I can’t talk about this. Mom, I—” A shudder passed through him. He wrenched his eyes shut and breathed. “I don’t really have a lot of time.”
“What does that mean?”
He trembled, one hand twitching toward the hammer, which didn’t…look right. Ximena tore her gaze away from it.
“Very well.” She put a hand on the elbow of his jacket. “Come. Whatever you are doing next, you cannot do it looking like that.”
Jayce frowned. “I don’t—”
“Shower. Food. Now.”
He straightened. “I—yeah. Okay.” He walked past her into the hall bath and shut the door.
She went to stand in her bedroom, one hand clasped over her mouth as she breathed. As she breathed. As she breathed.
The pipes rattled. They’d always rattled. Jayce’s father had fought with them for years and given up. She could still hear him muttering and swearing, sleeves rolled up as he held his hand out and Jayce eagerly passed him his tools.
Ximena went to the closet, reaching up to the top shelf and pulling down an armful of clothes. Each one, she had carefully repaired or altered over the years, before and after her marriage. She laid them out, running her hands over the fine silk and old trimmings. Out of fashion for years, but — they would do. She picked out a shirt and trousers and went to lay them on Jayce’s old bed before returning to the kitchen.
He appeared a half hour later, dressed and clean. He sat at the table and stretched out his left leg, adjusting a brace. She hadn’t noticed it before.
“...What happened?” she asked, carding her fingers through his hair.
Jayce flinched at her voice, closing his eyes and gripping the table. He breathed heavily through his nose. “I…fell.”
“You fell.”
“Mom.” He took a cup of tea from her hands. “Please. I—”
“Yes,” she said. “You cannot tell me. You cannot say where you’ve been or what happened to you. Fine.” She put a hand to her forehead. “At least…at least tell me you will not leave again.”
Jayce set down his cup and closed his eyes, taking a few steadying breaths.
“I can’t do that either.”
“You—”
“There’s something I need to do. I can’t stay much longer. There’s a fight coming, and I’ll make sure someone gets you far away from here, alright?”
Ximena frowned. “What? You’re asking me to leave?”
“Not asking. It’s not up for debate.”
She turned from him, hands on her hips, squeezing her eyes shut. There was a dense, heavy thrumming in her ears. She felt her heart racing, her mind swimming, breath coming in quick, shallow gasps. She braced herself against the counter, trying and failing to suppress the sob which escaped her.
Before she sank to her knees, Jayce put an arm around her waist and helped her into a chair.
“Easy,” he murmured. “Easy. I’m here. I’m right here, mama. It’s okay.” He put a warm hand on the back of her neck and knelt beside her chair.
Ximena bawled up her skirt in her hands and buried her face in the fabric. Her hair came loose from its twist and tumbled down her shoulders, over Jayce’s hand, spilling around her. She felt him pull her close, heard his voice in her ear.
I’m here. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
She breathed.
He was a long, long birth.
He picked up rocks and carried them in his pockets. She used to pull them from the wash, line them up on the window sill and wait for him to find them all over again.
He loved illusions and card tricks. He chased magic until he disappeared from her world and then stumbled back into it.
Does it look right, mama?
Is this real gold?
If my own family won’t help me, I’ll find someone who will.
Ximena shook, and Jayce held her.
He was too big for her to hold anymore.
“Is this why you came back?” she whispered. “To say goodbye?”
Jayce kissed her temple. “You were everything. It used to be just the two of us, against the whole world.”
“And now you will leave me alone in it.”
He held her tighter.
“I’m sorry.”
They build a statue.
It looks…nothing like him. Not in a broad sense. It has his face, but they’ve made his shoulders too wide, his jaw too square.
They ask her to speak, and she does, for Caitlyn’s sake, but whatever words come out of her mouth sound like nonsense to her own ears.
Her kitchen table at home is littered with sympathy cards. Tokens and notes of mourning and pain. He will be missed. He was so dearly admired. He was loved by all. He was an inspiration to us all.
Now, they avoid her. Construct a moat around her and refuse to approach. As if this sort of grief is infectious. As if her agony might spread.
Only Caitlyn speaks to her. She brings a bottle of wine for them to share and they sit at the table, watching the mourners leave flowers and candles at Jayce’s enormous stone feet.
“I hate it,” she mutters.
Ximena nods. “It’s quite ugly.”
“He’d be embarrassed. It’s not the sort of attention he liked.”
“No.” Ximena sips her wine. “Caitlyn. What happened to Viktor?”
Caitlyn goes stiff in the chair beside her. “...Viktor’s dead.”
Ximena frowns. She hadn’t asked during the few hours Jayce was home, but she had thought, if he was well, he might be here. Jayce told her some time ago that Viktor was very sick. That Viktor was dying.
“When?”
“During the blast. When my mother—” She grips her wine glass. Drains it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize no one had told you.”
“When would they have bothered?” she murmurs, not quite believing her. It hardly matters now. “He was dear to Jayce. And he was kind. Is there no headstone for him?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Well. I will see to it, then.”
Caitlyn nods. Fills her glass again.
Ximena turns to her. In a few months, Caitlyn will probably be a stranger again. There is nothing which anchors them to each other, nothing they have in common anymore.
There’s no amount of coin Ximena wouldn’t give to go back to those days of cake and tea, of Jayce’s scuffed academy shoes and the weekends her little house was full of invention and debate. To return to the days when Jayce and Viktor sat at her table, notebooks scattered between them, coffee going cold in their cups. When Caitlyn sat with them, listening intently, basking in their brilliance. When they were young and the world was soft and good in their hands. She sighs and gets to her feet.
Her presence here isn’t necessary. No one wants to remember the boy she raised, but rather the statue they raised in his place.
She will not stay and be discarded.
Before he left, Ximena fixed the button on Jayce’s shirt one last time.
“Mom, please—”
“This is how I met your father, you know.”
He nodded. “You’ve told me.”
“There are other things of his, in the bag. Take it.”
“I don’t—” Jayce sighed. “Alright. I’ll take them.” He put the shirt back on and righted himself.
As suddenly as he came back to her — it was time for him to go.
“Promise you’ll leave, when they come for you,” Jayce said. “I need to know you’ll be safe.”
She nodded, pressing her hands against the green silk of his shirt. “I will. I swear.”
Jayce pulled her close. “...I wish things were different,” he said. “I wish they were…better. Simpler.”
She smiled. “We always do, even after we spend so long complicating them for ourselves.” She drew back and reached up to put her hands on his cheeks. “I’ll—I’ll never see you again.”
“I—”
“It’s…it’s alright.” It wasn’t, but for now, it needed to be. “Just—let me remember you. As you were. And as you are.” She reached up, running her thumb over the scar in his brow.
Someday, when you grow up, you will be big and strong enough to defend whoever you’d like.
A tremor. He shuddered and she held him through it.
But right now, I need you to come home in one piece.
Promise me.
Mothers make promises.
In the moments after giving birth, in the moments between sleep and wakefulness, in the hours spent nursing and cradling and holding and healing — a mother makes promises.
In his absence, the promises Ximena made her son haunt her.
Sometimes she stands in front of his statue, and if she looks at the right angle, it is a perfect likeness of her Jayce. Strong and good, confident and bright.
In the fall, they put his name on a building. In the winter, snow covers his statue. On his birthday, people light candles.
Eventually, they will not come. Eventually, they will not know. Eventually, she will be gone, too.
Jayce’s absence leaves behind a crater, but, in time, a crater becomes a lake —
And in change, there is beauty.