Chapter Text
Caitlyn Kiramman had been compared to a great many things over the course of her life. Really, anything you can imagine, from a jewel of Pilotover, to a rising star of high society—perhaps the future of House Kiramman for the optimistic. Once, in a newspaper column she still hadn’t forgiven, “the living embodiment of maritime elegance.” Despite that, no one had ever compared her to a hostage, though in her opinion it was by far the most accurate description.
She stood beside her mother at the edge of the ballroom, smiling politely while a merchant lord explained the economics of sapphire imports with the solemn intensity of a man revealing state secrets. Caitlyn already knew more about sapphire imports than he did. Of course, this was largely because she had read the reports, he had written them.
“ —which is why, inevitably, the eastern routes remain the backbone of our prosperity.”
“Fascinating,” Caitlyn said.
The man brightened. “You think so?”
“No.”
Her mother stepped on her foot; Caitlyn smiled through the light pain.
The merchant lord looked wounded.
Not deeply wounded, not stabbed-through-the-heart wounded. More the sort of injury a man suffered when confronted with the possibility that the young woman he had spent ten minutes lecturing had not been hanging on his every word.
Beside her, Cassandra somehow managed to maintain a gracious smile while conveying an extraordinary amount of disappointment through a single glance. It was a skill Caitlyn suspected was taught to noblewomen sometime around infancy.
“You have such a sense of humor,” the merchant said uncertainly.
“I do,” Caitlyn agreed. “Unfortunately, it rarely appears when people are discussing shipping quotas.”
His confusion lingered long enough for her to make a polite escape.
Before either man or mother could stop her, she slipped into the crowd.
The ballroom occupied nearly an entire floor of the Kiramman estate. Crystal chandeliers hung overhead, scattering warm golden light across polished marble. Musicians played from a raised gallery while nobles drifted between conversations with the leisurely confidence of people who had never worried about the cost of anything in their lives.
Well, unless it was regarding who had managed to get the most luxurious item.
Caitlyn moved through them like a ghost. Not because she was particularly sneaky, mostly because she had an itch to see what they expected to see.
And Piltover, fatefully, expected Caitlyn Kiramman to be exactly where she was supposed to be. Nobody imagined she’d be halfway across the room eavesdropping on strangers.
Quite a useful misconception.
She accepted a glass of champagne from a passing servant and continued wandering. Near one of the balcony doors, she stopped a familiar face.
Jayce Talis stood surrounded by merchants, diplomats, and investors, all competing for his precious attention.
Poor man.
His expression suggested he’d rather be trapped beneath a collapsed laboratory. Someone laughed at something he said; Jayce smiled politely, and then his eyes found Caitlyn across the room.
His relief was immediate. Too bad.
The moment he started moving toward her, Caitlyn turned and walked the other direction.
“Caitlyn,” he called out after her.
She sighed, before turning to look at him.
“Jayce.”
“You abandoned me.”
“I didn’t realise you required supervision.”
“I absolutely do.”
Jayce finally appeared at her side carrying two glasses of something significantly stronger than champagne. Caitlyn accepted one without question.
“Cait, you have no idea how many people have asked me about crystal current stabilizers tonight.
“You invented them, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t make them that interesting.”
“It made you rich.”
“It made everyone rich.”
“Not everyone.”
The words slipped out before she could stop them, having a sharper edge to them without her meaning to.
Jayce frowned, “What does that mean?”
Caitlyn glanced toward the harbor visible beyond the balcony windows. This one tiny thought had been bothering her for weeks. Certain merchants had become wealthy seemingly overnight, entire trade houses had risen from obscurity.
Meanwhile, cargo records continued refusing to make sense.
“Nothing,” she said, quickly brushing it off.
Jayce looked unconvinced, but before he could press further, a voice interrupted from behind them.
“Ah! There you are.”
An elderly woman draped in enough jewels to finance a small navy approached with a delighted smile. Lady Haverford. Caitlyn recognised her immediately. Mostly because Lady Haverford had spent the better part of twenty years attempting to arrange marriages for anyone who stood still long enough.
The woman’s eyes moved between them. Then she beamed.
“Every time I see you two together, I think the same thing.”
Caitlyn felt dread settle immediately.
Jayce apparently did too.
“No,” he said.
Lady Haverford laughed. “Oh, come now. Such a handsome young inventor. Such a lovely young princess. You’d make a wonderful couple.”
Caitlyn closed her eyes briefly. Jayce looked as though he was considering throwing himself from the nearest balcony.
“We’re not—” he started.
“ —a couple,” Caitlyn finished.
“Yet,” Lady Haverford said knowingly.
“Ever,” Jayce corrected.
The woman waved a dismissive hand.
“Nonsense. Give it time.”
The two of them had grown up very closely, and since they were both only children, they always acted like siblings to each other. Naturally, they could never imagine themselves as a couple. And after all…
“I’m a lesbian, actually, but that was kind of you.”
The silence was immediate.
Lady Haverford blinked, then the softest “oh” left her mouth.
Perhaps for the first time in recorded history, the woman appeared completely out of words.
Caitlyn took a sip from her drink. Jayce started very intently into the distance.
“Oh,” Lady Haverford repeated.
“Yes.”
“Well.”
Another pause, before: “How modern.”
Caitlyn was never entirely sure what that was supposed to mean. Lady Haverford clearly wasn’t either. So, she simply patted Caitlyn’s upper arm awkwardly, nodded at Jayce for reasons only known to herself, and retreated into the crowd with remarkable accelerating speed for a woman who’s been around since the decolonization.
The moment she was gone, Jayce barked out a laugh.
“Oh, that was so bad.”
“I solved the problem, but I think I’m moderately offended merely by her thought that I’d ever look at a man.”
“I’m not worried about you, but perhaps you nearly killed her.”
“Eh, she’ll recover, won’t she?”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not,” Caitlyn admitted, clearly enjoying herself with her dry humor. “But if she survives, perhaps she’ll stop trying to marry people off to every eligible man in Piltover.”
Jayce raised his glass to her.
“A noble cause.”
Caitlyn clinked hers against his.
“A public service.”
And just when they were alone again, another guest intercepted him. It was a council representative. Someone could joke it was just like rescue arrived in the form of bureaucracy.
Jayce shot her a look as he was dragged away by said representative. Caitlyn offered a sympathetic smile and promptly disappeared again.
The evening improved considerably after that. Mostly because she stopped pretending to be in any way fascinated in all the shit they were selling.
She found a quiet balcony overlooking the harbor and escaped into the cool night air. Below, lanterns floated across dark water, ships moved between docks like patient giants. Gosh, Piltover never really slept. Trade never really slept. Money certainly never slept.
This city had its way of breaking through its harbor. Every crate loaded, every contract signed, every vessel launched. Everything eventually passed through those docks. And she supposed that was precisely why the inconsistencies bothered her.
Caitlyn rested her arms against the stone railing. She knew the official records said one thing, yet reality said another.
It was an undeniable fact that reality was harder to bribe.
The balcony door opened behind her. She honestly expected her mother, but instead, she heard a familiar voice.
“Running away from your own party?”
Mel Medarda stepped onto the balcony with a knowing smile, elegant as ever and dangerously charming as ever.
Mel possessed a remarkable ability to make every conversation feel like she already knew how it’d end.
“Technically,” Caitlyn said, “it’s my parents’ party.”
“Right…How convenient.”
“It keeps me sane.”
The two women stood overlooking the harbor. For a moment, neither spoke, until Mel broke the silence and nodded toward the ships below.
“You’re studying them again.”
“You say that like it’s unusual.”
“It is unusual.”
“Only for people who find trade routes boring.”
Mel’s smile widened.
“And yet here you are.”
That was the irritating thing about Mel. She orbited everything.
Caitlyn bothered to speak once again.
“Have you ever looked at the shipping records?”
“Voluntarily?”
“See, that’s exactly the problem.”
Mel leaned against the railing.
“And what mystery are we investigating this month?”
Caitlyn hesitated. She wasn’t entirely sure why she’d brought it up.
Perhaps because Mel understood how politics worked better than almost anyone. Perhaps because she wanted someone else to tell her she was imagining things.
“There are gaps.”
“Gaps?”
“In the manifests.”
Mel’s expression remained pleasant, but neutral.
“Missing cargo?”
“Missing paperwork.”
“That sounds less exciting.”
“It should be.”
Caitlyn looked toward the harbor.
“Some ships arrive without proper records. Some leave without taxation reports. Entire shipments seem to vanish from official archives.”
“Clerical errors happen.”
“Yes, but certainly not on this scale.”
The silence that followed only lasted a second, but Caitlyn noticed it; Mel recovered instantly.
“Perhaps you should become an investigator.”
There was humor in her voice, but something else too, even if Caitlyn couldn’t place it.
Before she could examine it further, voices drifted through the open balcony door. Several council members entered the adjoining hall. Mel glanced over her shoulder.
“Speaking of investigations,” she said lightly, “I believe they’re about to discuss trade policy. A thrilling opportunity.”
“You’re cruel.”
“I know.”
Mel offered her a smile, and disappeared inside. Caitlyn watched her go, then frowned.
The phrase ‘trade policy’ itself wasn’t unusual, but the timing certainly was. Most meetings happened during daylight hours, not hidden away during social events. Not behind closed doors while everyone else was distracted. Curiosity stirred.
Caitlyn knew that this was a familiar and often disastrous sensation, yet she followed, anyway.
Not immediately, of course not. That would have looked suspicious, and Caitlyn was never the type of girl to go unnoticed.
She counted to thirty, then slipped through the door. The ballroom remained crowded, and miraculously, nobody noticed her crossing toward the eastern wing of the estate.
That part wasn’t open to guests, but…she wasn’t a guest after all, she lived here, so perhaps she wasn’t doing anything wrong, right?
And the fact entrance was prohibited was exactly what intrigued Caitlyn.
The corridor beyond was quiet, voices echoed faintly ahead. Caitlyn slowed down, trying to make her own footsteps as quiet as possible.
One of the doors stood partially open. Someone foul enough would believe it was on purpose. Light spilled into the hallway, and she found herself approaching carefully, even when she knew this was a bad idea. She wasn’t stupid, she wouldn’t get close enough to be seen. Just close enough to hear.
“...cannot continue indefinitely.”
A man’s voice. There was something so obnoxious about it, it instantly made Caitlyn dislike him.
Shortly after that, another voice answered. This one was lower, clearly sharpened by irritation—Caitlyn was good at telling someone’s mood by the tone of their voice.
“We don’t need indefinitely. We need another year.”
“The extraction levels are already drawing attention.”
Extraction. The word made Caitlyn’s brows furrow.
A third voice then spoke.
“The shipments remain secure.”
“The shipments are not the concern.”
Someone sighed. Papers shuffled. And then she heard a phrase that made her freeze.
“The Zaun routes.”
For a moment, the entire conversation seemed to stop. Not literally, just inside her head.
The name wasn't unfamiliar. Everyone in Piltover knew it. Or, at least, technically, but nobody ever talked about Zaun. Not in polite society, not in council meetings, certainly not in connection with secret shipments.
After all, it was just a district. Or a neighbourhood.
But now Caitlyn was starting to believe that wasn't the entire truth. She'd spent her entire life in Piltover and could count on one hand the number of times she'd heard anyone seriously discuss Zaun.
“The lower channels are becoming unstable” another voice said. “If the caverns collapse—”
“They won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“We know enough.”
Caitlyn’s pulse quickened. All these pieces didn’t fit with each other. Not yet at least. But she could tell they were beginning to form an outline. A dangerous one.
Very carefully, she leaned closer.
Inside the room, more papers changed hands, a map appeared briefly through the narrow opening.
Caitlyn couldn’t understand much, she could only take a glimpse at it. From the looks of it, it was the coastline of Piltover, the harbor.
And beneath it?
Lines. Dozens of them. An entire network spreading beneath the city itself.
She quickly figured they were underground routes, and her stomach immediately dropped. She has heard all about the stories of Zaun, but they had always sounded like myths.
All about old tunnels, and ancient caverns, and forgotten settlements, but nothing more.
Yeah, well, it seemed like the map suggested something entirely different.
Caitlyn hadn’t caught enough to have a clear picture in her mind, but the existence of a hidden trade network operating beneath Piltover was undeniable.
And judging by the secrecy surrounding it, someone wanted it to remain hidden.
“Destroy the older manifests.”
The order cut through the room like a sharp knife getting thrown against wood.
“We have already removed most of them,” someone brave enough dared to say.
“Most isn’t all, is it?”
“We’re working on it.”
“Well, work faster.”
Caitlyn found herself starting with a million different questions running through her mind.
Destroy them? Why? If everything was legitimate, why erase records?
The answer arrived immediately. Because it wasn’t.
That’s when a floorboard creaked beneath her foot—tiny, barely audible. Unfortunately for her, the room beyond fell silent, every voice stopped. Caitlyn felt the blood running through her veins turning into ice.
Someone stood, a chair scraped against stone.
“Did you hear that?”
The question was followed by approaching footsteps, closer and closer with every passing second. Despite her shock, Caitlyn moved fast. She slipped away from the doorway and ducked behind a marble column just in time before the door swung open, almost aggressively, and light flooded the corridor. A council guard stepped outside, and then another followed. For several agonising seconds, they scanned the hallway, as Caitlyn pressed herself against cold stone, praying nobody decided to take three more steps.
One guard frowned, then said: “Probably nothing,” but the second wasn’t convinced. He continued looking, looking directly toward her position. Then, from somewhere deeper inside the estate, a servant dropped a tray; the resulting crash echoed through the hall.
Both guards turned, and the moment broke, but Caitlyn wouldn’t even like to imagine what would have happened if her deus ex machina hadn’t appeared at the last second. The door finally closed, yet she remained motionless for quite some seconds until she was certain they were gone. Only then did she allow herself to exhale. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and the rational part of her brain suggested returning to the ballroom immediately.
It’s just that the rational part of her brain had never stood much chance.
Now she knew two things. Firstly, someone on Piltover’s council was hiding trade routes connected to Zaun, and, secondly, someone was actively destroying evidence. Of course, that meant there had to be evidence left somewhere. She had a feeling the evening had finally become interesting in the way she had been waiting for longer than she’d admit.