My sister, Kayle, believes in justice as a flame: purifying, absolute, and merciless. For her, darkness must be eradicated with fire, leaving no ashes that might rekindle. I, however, have learned that darkness is not an enemy to be burned, but a soil to be understood. In its darkest corners, sometimes, the most resilient of seeds can sprout. True justice, for me, is not a sword, but a garden. It requires patience, it demands the dirty work of pulling the weeds of cruelty, but above all, it requires the faith that, even in the most poisoned soil, something good can be cultivated.
'The Last Cup' had become my most unlikely garden.
The salon had not known silence since its opening. The bell above the door chimed as if it were the heart of a living organism, pumping a constant flow of souls within its wooden walls. Every table was a vein through which stories, secrets, and prejudices circulated, learning, for an hour or two, to rest side by side. The air was a symphony of contrasts: the delicate clinking of Piltovan porcelain mingled with the soft whir of a chem-tech augmentation; the rustle of Ionian silk robes responded to the heavy drag of work boots from Zaun.
Our little haven had become a whispered legend. Culinary critics, with their sharp pens and pampered palates, called it 'the improbable bridge between progress and necessity'. The Piltovan elite, at their lavish parties, referred to it as their new 'exotic salon', a place to venture and taste danger without actually getting dirty. And in Zaun, in the damp alleys and noisy taverns, it had earned its most honest name: 'The Truce'.
I had never thought that peace could be served in steaming cups, but humanity, in its infinite capacity to surprise, had found a way.
Azra'il, of course, saw it all with a less poetic eye. "It's not a garden, Morgana, it's a laboratory," she had told me one morning, as she polished the counter with a contained fury. "And we are the mad scientists, watching to see which of our test subjects will bite the other one first."
"Our customers are not test subjects," I had replied, adjusting a cushion in our small Eastern wing, a space with raised tatami mats and low tables that had become a favourite among the Ionian visitors.
"No? Yesterday I served a tea with Root of Equilibrium and watched a chem-baron and a trade-noble discover that they are both afraid of butterflies. If that's not science, I don't know what is."
Her perspective is a necessary counterweight to my own. Where I see the potential for unity, she sees the potential for disaster. Perhaps the truth, as always, resides somewhere uncomfortable in between. My garden has its pests, and her laboratory produces unexpected results. The dynamic works.
Our new employees had found their rhythm in this chaotic dance. Lucien served with a Demacian solemnity that, ironically, charmed the very nobility he so feared. Kaeli had become the guardian of our standards, her keen nose our first and last line of defence against anything less than perfect. Eddie, my sweet, anxious Eddie, had turned the kitchen into his sanctuary, and his pastries had become almost as famous as Azra'il's. And Rixa... Rixa was the silent rock that anchored the salon, her hardness, born of a life in Zaun, making her immune to any attempt at Piltovan intimidation or arrogance.
They were my resilient seeds. And they were flourishing.
It was on a particularly busy afternoon that the heart of our salon stopped for an instant. The bell chimed, and with it, a silence spilt into the room like a cold wave. Conversation halted mid-sentence. Teacups hovered in the air on the way to lips.
In the doorway stood Cassandra Kiramman.
As a Councillor, her image was known to all, stamped on news-sheets and proclamations. But to see her in person was different. There was a haughtiness to her posture that stemmed not from arrogance, but from an unshakeable self-confidence. She wore a deep purple dress, the colour of Piltovan royalty, with light lace at the collar and wrists that softened her imposing silhouette. A single emerald jewel glinted discreetly at her neck. Her presence was like that of a warship gliding into a harbour of fishing boats: imposing, undeniable, and fundamentally changing the landscape.
At her side, holding her hand, was a miniature version of her elegance. Caitlyn Kiramman, at thirteen, already possessed a composure many adult women would never achieve. Her dark blue hair was held back by a simple ribbon, and her large, curious eyes were absorbing every detail of the room with an intensity that was familiar to me. They were the eyes of a huntress, even at that tender age.
The reaction was instant and divided. The Piltovans sat up straighter. I saw Lord Harrington nervously adjust his cravat, while a high-society lady discreetly hid her copy of a popular, low-quality romance novel. They were children caught misbehaving, suddenly aware that the headmistress had entered the room. The Zaunites, on the other hand, shrank. The shoulders that had begun to relax stiffened again. The hands that rested on the table clenched beneath it. Their gazes dropped, the instinct to become invisible before Piltovan authority too strong to ignore.
"Ah, brilliant," Azra'il whispered to me from behind the counter, her body tense. "The royals have come to inspect the zoo. Quick, hide the peasants and bring out the good china."
"Hush," I murmured, placing a hand on her arm. "Treat her like any other customer."
"Any other customer doesn't have the power to shut this place down with a snap of her fingers because the colour of the napkins displeases her," she retorted, but she was already wiping a non-existent spot on the counter, her own version of preparing for battle.
Cassandra, however, seemed oblivious to the commotion she had caused. Her piercing blue eyes scanned the room not with judgement, but with genuine curiosity. She noted the mix of customers, the different attires, the silent tensions. Her gaze lingered for a moment on the wooden tatami mats of our Eastern wing, where an Ionian merchant and his family were sipping their tea in silence.
To everyone's surprise, she walked in that direction. With an unexpected grace, she knelt slightly and touched the dark silk fabric of one of the cushions, the gesture almost intimate, reverent.
"My grandmother used to gather us like this," she said, her voice low, more to herself than to anyone else. Caitlyn watched her, fascinated. "Cherry-wood floors, low cushions… she said the tea tasted better when we were closer to the earth. The steam would fill the air with the scent of home."
It was not merely a noblewoman's observation on a foreign custom. There was memory in her eyes, a deep longing. It was as if, in our small salon of misfits, she had stumbled upon an echo of her own family, a ghost of affection kept between porcelain and silk.
Slowly, she turned to Caitlyn and said, with a softness that surprised all who were watching, "Let's sit here, my dear. To honour your great-grandmother's memory."
To the astonishment of both the Piltovan elite and the watchful Ionian customers, Cassandra Kiramman, the Councillor, gracefully removed her gloves, placed them aside, and settled onto one of the cushions on the raised tatami. Caitlyn, with the adaptability of youth, imitated her, her eyes shining with the novelty of the experience. The choice was a powerful act; she had not sat between the worlds of Piltover and Zaun, but had chosen a third space, one of memory and tradition, silently declaring that here, all cultures were worthy of respect.
When I approached to give them the menu, bowing slightly as the local custom required, she thanked me with a nod, her dignity impeccable. Her eyes scanned the options, passing over the exotic names and poetic descriptions, until they stopped on one, the simplest of them all.
"'Common Dream-Blossom'," she read aloud, a trace of a smile on her lips. "A humble name for something, I presume, extraordinary. I should like to try it."
I took the order to Azra'il. "The Councillor. One Common Dream-Blossom," I announced.
Azra'il huffed. "Common dreams for an uncommon woman. How ironic." But as she spoke, her movements became a ritual. She didn't take the glass jar from the counter. Instead, she turned and opened a small, dark wooden cabinet, from which she retrieved a black tin box. From inside, she took a handful of delicate, pale petals that seemed to absorb the light. She did not throw them into an infuser. She placed them carefully in a warmed porcelain teapot and poured the hot water over them in a slow, circular stream. The steam that rose was not just steam; it was a perfume. A perfume of lazy afternoons, of hidden gardens, of something safe and ancient.
When I served the tea, the aroma enveloped Cassandra's table like a gentle mist. She watched it for a moment, the pale amber colour, and then brought the cup to her lips.
The first sip was hesitant. Her eyes closed.
On the second sip, her shoulders, which she carried with the weight of a city, visibly relaxed.
And then, a single, silent tear escaped her right eye and traced a slow path down her cheek. She did not wipe it away.
"It's identical…" she whispered, her voice thick with an emotion she clearly had not expected to feel. "My grandmother's tea. The scent, the subtle sweetness at the finish… As if… as if time had been folded in on itself."
It was more than taste. It was memory distilled in porcelain. And I, who have known the pain of absence in a way few mortals could comprehend, recognised on her face the cruel miracle of rediscovering something irrevocably lost, even if for only a few moments.
While her mother was lost in her reverie, young Caitlyn was studying the pastry menu with the seriousness of a general studying a battle map. Suddenly her lips moved, forming the words in a murmur. "'The Veiled Lady's Madeleines'… what a beautiful name. So mysterious."
My breath caught in my throat.
She ordered them. And it was Eddie, with his now-steady hands and his face lit with concentration, who brought them. Small, golden shell-shaped cakes, with a light dusting of sugar over them. Caitlyn took one, her curiosity winning out over her etiquette, and took a bite.
Her eyes widened. A smile of pure delight spread across her face. "Mother," she exclaimed, her voice muffled by the pastry. "It's the most delicious, elegant cake I've ever eaten in my entire life!"
Cassandra emerged from her mist of memory, the trace of sorrow on her face replaced by an affectionate smile at her daughter's joy. "You always did have a taste for refined things, my little huntress. A trait from your grandmother."
I had to turn away, pretending to adjust something on the counter, so they wouldn't see the sudden moisture in my own eyes. *Veiled Lady*. The name echoed in me with the force of a millennium of memories. It was what they called me, the mages I protected in the shadows of Demacia. A whispered name, a legend born of my desire to help without drawing the fury of the hunters. It was a name of mine. And Azra'il, in an act of affectionate provocation or frightening intuition, had chosen it to name a sweet born from my oldest, most sacred memory.
Azra'il, with her strange, inexplicable talent, had recreated the recipe from fragments of my own childhood memories that I had told her. The madeleines… they were my mother's speciality. I remembered her, Mihira, in our humble home at the foot of Mount Targon, her hands covered in flour, her tender smile as she handed me and Kayle those small golden cakes, warm from the oven. They were the embodiment of a time before she left on her celestial mission, before the betrayal and the pain. They were the embodiment of peace.
And there she was. The young heiress of Piltover's most powerful family, smiling with the same pure sweetness of a child tasting joy for the first time, as she savoured a piece of my most secret and painful history. Destiny, at times, has neither humour nor poetry. It has a surgical precision, able to lay your heart bare with the gentlest of touches.
The Councillor's visit did not go unnoticed. The whispers became a wave that swept the room. I heard a merchant say loudly to his companion, "If Cassandra Kiramman has come here, then it's legitimate. This place is more than a popular fancy, it's a landmark." The Zaunites, seeing that not only had they not been thrown out, but that the most powerful woman in the city shared the same air without a single frown of contempt, began to truly relax for the first time. I saw two of them exchange a look of sheer amazement. Cassandra's presence had granted our haven a political legitimacy I had never sought but could not deny.
When they finished, Cassandra stood. Her gaze met mine, then Azra'il's, who was watching everything from her fortress behind the counter.
"This place," she said, her voice clear and firm, "is a rarity. Piltover is a city of walls, seen and unseen. You have built a bridge. I trust you will take good care of it."
Caitlyn, still discreetly licking a crumb of sugar from her fingers, looked at her mother with pleading eyes. "Can we come back, Mother? I liked it here very much."
Cassandra's smile was genuine and warm. "We shall, my dear. Places like this deserve to be preserved."
She left coins on the table, more than enough to cover the bill, a gesture of silent acknowledgement. As mother and daughter left, the silence held for three more heartbeats before exploding into a whirl of excited conversation. The news would spread like wildfire.
That night, after the last cup had been washed, Azra'il joined me on the balcony, looking out at the city lights.
"Well, there you have it," she said, her voice devoid of sarcasm, just tired. "We've received the blessing of Royalty and the Underworld, all in the same fortnight. Vander and Cassandra. The gauntlet and the velvet glove. What do you suppose is next, a celestial visit from your sister?"
The mention of Kayle was like a jab of ice, but I ignored it. Instead, I focused on the present. Our unlikely garden now had two guardians, one from each end of the world. Two opposites, united by tea and sugar.
"I don't know what comes next," I replied, watching the twinkling lights of Piltover and the sickly glow of Zaun. "Perhaps it's luck. Perhaps it's fate. Or perhaps it is just proof that even in a city hopelessly cracked… a single cup, offered with honesty, can be the beginning of a bridge."
-----------
AUTHOR'S NOTE
-----------
Chapter successfully completed with 0% sanity 😎
And remember: commenting is an act of love, and a way to prevent the author from disappearing mid-arc 😭