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It started with the sound of water, soft and slow, like a river passing through time.
Lux stood in the middle of a field suspended in twilight. Everything smelled of old wood, wildflowers, and the distant promise of rain.
She wasn’t alone.
Near the edge of a cliff, curled up in a patch of sunlight like she belonged to it, was her. The girl with the red hair.
Not strawberry blonde or coppery, this was deep, wild red, the color of embers that refused to die. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in a mess of waves, glowing where the light touched it, like it was catching fire in slow motion.
She was barefoot, her boots discarded near a guitar and a stack of old records. Her legs were pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped around them, chin resting lazily on her knees as she watched Lux like she already knew her. Not in that fan-at-a-concert kind of way, but like she’d been waiting.
Lux didn’t speak.
She never did, in the dream.
And the girl didn’t move much either. Sometimes she would smile, softly and tiredly, as if her heart carried the weight of too many lives. Sometimes her eyes shimmered, reflecting grief that hadn’t been named yet. But always, always, she looked at Lux like she saw something she’d lost long ago.
In one version of the dream, Lux sat beside her. Their shoulders would touch, and the red-haired girl would hum a tune too beautiful for the waking world, low, sad, like something born from the river below.
In another version, Lux would reach out. Just barely. Fingertips close enough to feel warmth.
But the second she got too near, the world would begin to fade, like the memory of a song you heard once as a child but could never find again.
“Wait,” she would whisper.
But the girl never stayed long enough to hear it.
Lux woke in her bed in her Piltover Penthouse, the remnants of that humming still echoing in her chest. She stared at the ceiling, heart aching in a way she didn’t have words for.
Who was she?
Why did it feel like she'd known her forever, even if they’d never spoken?
And why did she feel like something inside her was unraveling, like a thread had been pulled loose, and everything she thought she knew was starting to come apart?
Lux sat upright in bed, sheets tangled around her legs, hair clinging to her forehead from restless sleep. The red-haired girl’s eyes were still vivid in her mind, soft, stormy, lonely. That same hum echoed in her bones, the dream slipping away but refusing to let go completely.
She couldn’t stay in bed. Not with that feeling clawing at her chest.
Barefoot, she padded through the quiet halls of the penthouse and stepped into her writing room just as the first light of dawn stretched across the windows. Everything inside was still. The sun hadn't risen high enough to cast judgment yet.
She picked up her guitar, her old one, the one with worn frets and a faded sun-shaped sticker on the back, and sat on the stool by the window.
She didn’t think. She just played.
The melody came first: slow, gentle, aching like a memory that never quite belonged to her. Notes that drifted, searching, wanting.
Then the words followed words she didn’t know she had in her.
“I hope I’m in your dreams the way you are in all of mine…”
When she finished the last line, her voice cracked, and not from strain.
Tears slipped down her cheeks before she realized they’d come.
She set the guitar down carefully, like it had just become something sacred. Her notebook lay open on the table, the lyrics scratched out in loops and tears and half-finished lines. But the bones were there. The feeling was there.
It wasn’t just a song.
It was her.
It was the girl.
And somehow, it made her feel closer to her than ever before.
Just as Lux wiped her eyes, the sun broke over the hills, spilling gold across the floor.
She knew what this meant.
This song was going to change things whether she was ready or not.
Late morning sunlight filtered into the writing room, catching on polished hardwood floors and the gold embroidery of the throw pillows that Lux’s mother insisted on buying for appearances. The whole place felt curated like a showroom, not a home.
Her parents arrived precisely at 10:00 AM, like they always did.
Her mother wore a crisp cream blazer and carried two phones. Her father came in with his tablet already open, scanning an itinerary for the upcoming tour. They didn’t sit, they settled, like executives stepping into a quarterly review.
“Morning, sweetheart,” her mother said, kissing her cheek. “We’ve got about twenty minutes before the Piltover rep calls. You said you wanted to show us something?”
Lux nodded, nerves a tight knot in her stomach. Her fingers hovered over the strings of her guitar. “I wrote something new.”
Her father didn’t look up. “Hopefully more tempo than that ballad you tried last month.”
Her mother added quickly, “We still need a strong finale for the show, and something flirty for the press push. But go ahead. Let’s hear it.”
Lux took a deep breath.
And she began to play.
The room filled with the soft, slow chords of the dream-song. Her voice was quiet but steady, weaving its way through lines full of longing, ache, and unspoken love. She didn’t try to hide the emotion this time. She let it bleed into the melody the way she missed someone she’d never touched, the way she wished time didn’t move so fast, the way she just wanted to sit beside her and stay there forever.
The final note hung in the air, trembling like her heart.
She looked up.
Her parents exchanged a glance.
Her mother was the first to speak, voice light and professional. “That’s… pretty. Very tender. It sounds like you wrote it for someone.”
Lux didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
Her father closed his tablet. “It’s not a single.”
“What?” she asked, already knowing why.
“It’s quiet. Slow. And worse, it sounds like a love letter. One that ends.”
Her mother nodded, folding her arms across her chest. “You sound like you’re mourning someone. Someone… romantic. And very real. That’s not the image we’ve cultivated.”
“I am real,” Lux snapped, more harshly than she meant to. “I’m not some Hallmark cutout.”
“You don’t have to be,” her father said smoothly. “But you do have to sell the idea that you’re available. That your music is for everyone, not one specific… person.”
He didn’t say girl, but he didn’t have to.
Lux stood slowly, setting the guitar down on the bench beside her. “So I can’t sing something true unless it fits your version of me?”
Her mother smiled, tight and graceful. “We’re protecting your brand, darling. You are light, joy, and hope. This? This is heavy. It’s intimate. It narrows you.”
“It’s honest,” Lux said quietly. “And I think I’d rather be honest than palatable.”
That stopped them for a second.
Her mother shifted her weight. “Look, we’ll keep it on the list of maybe-laters. For an acoustic session, maybe. But not this show. You’ve got thousands of people coming to that show, and they expect the Luxanna they know. They’re not coming to hear a sad love song to someone they can’t imagine.”
“They don’t have to imagine her,” Lux said, her voice suddenly shaking. “I do that enough.”
Her parents didn’t respond.
They just turned, almost in unison, toward the door.
Her father offered a final word before leaving: “Think about what kind of story you want to tell, Luxanna. Not just for you, for your career.”
And then the door clicked shut.
Lux stood alone in the silence, staring at the space where they’d stood.
The door clicked shut behind them like the lid on a coffin.
Silence followed. Not peaceful silence, a heavy, smothering kind that pressed down on Lux’s chest like a weight she couldn’t breathe under.
She stood there in the middle of her carefully curated songwriting room, the one her mother had “modernized” with gold-accented lamps and floor-to-ceiling drapes that looked good in promo shots. Her fingers were still trembling from the last chord of the song she wasn’t allowed to sing.
The air felt too still. Her skin felt too tight.
And suddenly, it all snapped.
She kicked the ottoman hard. It slid uselessly across the polished floor.
“God!” she shouted, louder than she’d meant to. Her voice echoed back at her like someone else was yelling. “What do they want from me?”
She spun in place, pacing, her fingers twisting into her hair as she tried to breathe and stay calm.
But she couldn’t.
“I gave them everything,” she muttered. “I gave them cute, I gave them sunshine, I gave them every sweet little lie they ever asked for, and the one time, one time I write something that means something”
She swept her arm across the desk, knocking over her notebook, pens, and a half-drunk mug of tea. The cup hit the floor and shattered, porcelain scattering across the wood like broken snow.
She stood there, staring at it.
And that’s when the tears came.
Not gentle ones.
Ugly ones. Angry, heaving sobs that ripped through her like a second voice she’d been choking down for years. She stumbled backward and sank to the floor, curling her arms around herself as she gasped for air between cries.
“I saw her,” she whispered hoarsely. “I saw her. I felt her.”
She pressed her forehead to her knees. “I just wanted to keep her. Just for one song. Just one.”
Her old guitar rested beside the desk, leaning against the wall like it always did. The same one that had carried her through open mics, bar gigs, and every song that had built this glittering cage around her. She looked at it, blinking through tears.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she whispered to it.
She reached for it on instinct, but her grip slipped.
The neck hit the sharp corner of her desk.
CRACK.
The sound was immediate. Devastating.
Lux stared in horror as the wood split, the fracture running through the grain like a scar.
“Nono no no”
She dropped to her knees, cradling it as if she could take it back. As if loving it could undo what had just happened.
But it was broken.
Her constant. Her companion. Her voice.
Just like her.
She clutched it to her chest, burying her face in the worn shoulder of the wood, sobs returning in waves as she whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Time passed, but she didn’t move.
Eventually, the tears slowed. Her body emptied itself of the panic, leaving behind a strange stillness.
A numb kind of clarity.
She sat there on the floor, the guitar limp in her arms, mascara streaked down her cheeks, her parents’ voices still ringing in her head.
“That’s not the image we’ve cultivated.”
“You’re light. Joy. Hope.”
“You sound like you’re mourning someone real.”
She was.
Lux blinked at the sunlight pouring across the room, too bright, too indifferent.
Her phone buzzed across the room.
She didn’t want to move. But eventually, she crawled toward it, dragging the broken guitar with her.
The screen lit up: Ezreal.
She stared at it.
Then answered.
Her voice was barely there. “I need help.”
“Lux?” Ezreal’s tone immediately shifted. “What happened?”
“My guitar,” she whispered. “I broke it. The old one. She’s gone.”
A pause. “Shit. Okay. Okay. Don’t panic. You still breathing?”
“Barely.”
“I know someone,” he said gently. “She’s weird. Brilliant.Got kicked out of a few music shops for playing Wonderwall. Might be a little insane. But if anyone can fix your guitar-”
“Who?”
“Her name’s Jinx.”
Zaun, the sister city of Piltover, smelled like rust and rain as Ezreal’s car rolled down a narrow backstreet in The Lanes. It was nothing like the shining towers or neat cobblestone promenades she’d seen in magazines. This part of town was all noise, color, and barely-contained chaos.
Lux sat in the passenger seat, her broken guitar case clutched tightly to her chest, like she was afraid someone might try to take it from her.
“Are you sure about this?” she asked, eyeing the crumbling buildings. One had a mural of a pink shark with a mohawk spray-painted across three stories.
Ezreal grinned. “Completely. Jinx may be a little... unpredictable, but she’s a genius. And trust me, if anyone can fix your girl, it’s her.”
He pulled to a stop in front of a converted garage plastered with stickers, spray paint, and mismatched signage. The front window read:
"POW-POW REPAIRS – WE FIX WHAT OTHERS BREAK (OR MAKE IT LOUDER)"
A neon sign flickered in the corner window, shaped like a guitar pick with a lightning bolt through it.
Ezreal hopped out of the car, motioning for her to follow. Lux stepped out slowly, boots hitting the wet pavement, taking it all in. This place looked like trouble.
Which might’ve been exactly what she needed.
Inside, the shop was an explosion of color and noise. Tools everywhere. Hanging string lights. Shelves cluttered with broken amps, Frankenstein guitars, synth guts, and old pedals. There was a half-dismantled drum kit next to a couch that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in five years.
The workshop door creaked open on old hinges, and the smell of solder, wood dust, and motor oil hit Lux like a punch. The place was a mess, with wires tangled like ivy across metal shelves, guitar necks hanging like bones from the ceiling, and half a jukebox lying gutted on the floor near the back wall.
And in the middle of it all was her.
She was crouched on a workbench under a busted spotlight fixture, a tangled nest of cords spilling down around her like the aftermath of a storm. Her hair, long and blue as lightning in summer dusk, was braided.
But the face.
The sharp cheekbones. The wide, storm-dark eyes. That quiet melancholy was always tucked in the corners of her mouth, even when she smiled.
It was her.
The girl from the dreams.
Not kind of. Not similar.
It was her.
Only the hair was wrong. In Lux’s dreams, it had been a red ember, glowing like a fire kept just under control. But the rest? The rest was exact.
Lux’s breath hitched like it’d been pulled from her lungs by a thread.
She reached instinctively for Ezreal’s sleeve. “Ez, we need to go.”
“What?” he blinked, already stepping further in. “Why?”
She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Her voice caught in her throat. Her fingers curled tight against her palm.
No. Not now. Not her. Not real.
She turned toward the door, panic rising.
If she stayed, if the girl looked up, if their eyes met.
“Jinx!” Ezreal’s voice rang out like a hammer to glass.
Lux froze, spine stiff.
The girl looked up.
Their eyes locked.
And Lux forgot how to breathe.
Jinx blinked lazily, then narrowed her eyes in recognition. “Ezreal?”
Ezreal grinned and waved. “You’re not setting anything on fire. Progress.”
Jinx hopped off the bench with an easy, coiled energy, wiping her hands on stained coveralls. She strode toward them like she owned every uneven floorboard, every lightbulb still swinging overhead.
Lux stood straighter as she approached, instinctively trying to hold on to whatever calm she had left. Lux was taller by a lot, which was another difference thing she noticed as Jinxed walked towards them, but it didn’t help her feel grounded. If anything, it made her feel like a deer about to bolt.
Jinx glanced at Ezreal, then looked Lux up and down with a smirk tugging at one corner of her mouth.
“And you brought…” Her eyes met Lux’s.
The air shifted.
Something clicked behind Jinx’s expression, a twitch in her brow, the barest tilt of her head, like she was trying to place a song she couldn’t name.
Then: “You’re… her, right? Country sweetheart. Sunshine voice. Big hat, bigger boots.”
Lux swallowed and found her voice. “Luxanna.”
“Right,” Jinx echoed. “That’s the name.”
Her grin widened. “Didn’t expect to see someone like you wander into my shop. You lost, sunshine?”
Lux drew herself up a little, chin lifting, forcing a soft smile. “No, ma’am. I came for help.”
Jinx quirked a brow. “With what?”
“My guitar,” Lux said. “It’s… broken.”
Jinx held out her hand. “Let’s see her.”
Ezreal opened the case and set the guitar across the bench.
The second Jinx saw it, her whole demeanor changed. The cocky smirk melted into something quieter. Almost reverent.
“She’s beautiful,” Jinx murmured. “Old. Played hard. Loved harder. You’ve had her a long time?”
“Half my life,” Lux answered softly.
Jinx carefully turned the instrument over, running her fingers along the fractured wood and split neck with the gentleness of a mechanic holding someone’s heart in her hands.
“I can fix it,” she said after a beat. “Probably.”
Lux let out the tiniest breath of hope.
“But…” Jinx added, eyes flicking up again, “I don’t know if I want to.”
Ezreal looked confused. “What?”
Jinx ignored him, gaze still locked on Lux. “People bring broken things in here all the time, hoping I can patch over something they already gave up on. But this guitar? She’s been loved. I’m not gonna fix her to send her back into spotlights and photo ops.”
Lux felt something rise in her, a slow flare of heat. She stepped closer, just slightly, so that she was looking down at Jinx.
“That’s not what this is,” Lux said, trying to keep her tone steady and respectful.
“No?”
“I wrote something on that guitar I wasn’t supposed to,” she said, voice gentling. “Something real. Something raw. She’s not for the cameras. She’s the only one who’s heard the version of me I don’t sell.”
Jinx paused.
For once, her mouth didn’t twist into something sharp.
Lux took a deep breath and pushed forward. She knelt slightly to meet Jinx's eye level, offering a warm smile, all velvet and honey.
“I know you don’t owe me a damn thing, sugar. But if you’d just give me the chance… I’d be mighty grateful. You fix her, and I’ll owe you a song. One that ain’t for the crowd. One that’s yours.”
It wasn't much of a lie on Lux's part; the song was about the girl she was staring at right now, even if the girl didn't know it.
Jinx stared at her, lips twitching.
Then: “Damn. You are charming.”
Ezreal laughed. “Told you she was good.”
Jinx rolled her eyes, but her expression softened. “Fine. I’ll do it.”
Lux let herself breathe fully, for the first time since she walked in.
“But,” Jinx added, pointing a smudged finger directly at her, “you come by. Every day. While I work on her. No assistants. No stylists. Just you.”
Lux blinked. “Why?”
Jinx shrugged, already turning back to the workbench. “You’re the one who broke her. You sit with her while she gets better.”
Lux gave a small, amused smile. “You make that sound like therapy.”
Jinx smirked, reaching for her tools. “Kinda is.”
Lux returned to the little repair shop the morning after the deal was made. Her guitar, the one she’d broken in frustration, the one that had carried all her honest songs, was now in the hands of a girl who made her feel dizzy just standing nearby.
Jinx had already cleared the workbench when Lux walked in. She didn’t turn around right away, just waved a socket wrench over her shoulder.
“Good. Thought maybe you’d ghost.”
“I don’t do that sugar,” Lux said, stepping inside.
“You looked like you were ready to bolt yesterday,” Jinx muttered. “Figured you’d run for the hills once the neon and grease set in.”
Lux chuckled politely, but her chest felt too tight. She didn’t know how to explain that it wasn’t the cluttered shop or even the jagged energy of the girl in front of her that scared her.
It was recognition. Bone-deep and terrifying.
The girl from her dreams, Jinx, was real. Same eyes, same shape of mouth, same way of taking up the room like gravity had bent around her. The only difference was the hair and height.
Everything else matched like a blueprint.
But Lux didn’t say that.
She smiled instead. Easy. Southern sweet.
“I’m not the runnin’ kind,” she said, offering her best charm like armor.
Jinx rolled her eyes but smirked anyway. “We’ll see.”
That first day passed quietly. Lux watched while Jinx dismantled the broken pieces with calloused fingers and laser focus. They didn’t talk much beyond tools and parts, which was fine. Lux was too busy trying not to stare. Trying not to say, “I know you. I’ve dreamed of you. I’ve written about you without even knowing your name.”
Instead, she sat, legs crossed on the shop couch, sipping iced tea and fiddling with her notebook.
The next day, Lux brought coffee and doughnuts.
Jinx raised a brow when she saw the pastry box.
“You tryin’ to butter me up?”
“You’re fixin’ the heart of my music,” Lux said with a warm grin. “Doughnut’s the least I can do.”
Jinx shrugged but took one with sprinkles on it.
They sat side by side on the workbench as Jinx glued and clamped the newly cut neck piece. Lux tried to ask about the tools, the heat gun, the odd bottles of polish and glue, anything to keep her brain from saying,” Do you dream about me too?”
At one point, Jinx looked over and said, “You keep looking like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Lux blinked. “I do?”
“Yeah. Like there’s something you’re trying not to ask.”
Lux swallowed and smiled. “I think we all have a few of those.”
Jinx gave a little shrug like she didn’t care enough to push.
But her eyes lingered longer than they had before.
By the third visit, the quiet between them wasn’t awkward anymore. It was charged. Lux brought muffins and tried not to look at Jinx’s hands too long. They worked with such confidence, like they’d built things out of thin air their whole life.
Jinx talked more that day about a crazy client who tried to pay her in pinball tokens and about how her tools had names. Lux laughed more than she meant to.
“You’re not what I expected,” Jinx said suddenly, halfway through wiping polish on the body.
“Oh?”
“Figured you’d be more… glitter. Plastic.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Lux teased.
“Nah,” Jinx said, quiet now. “You’re better than the version on the album covers.”
That made Lux stop.
She watched Jinx for a long moment, the compliment settling into her chest like warmth after cold.
Still… she said nothing about the dreams.
Not when Jinx helped her restring the body and their hands brushed.
Not when she caught herself humming the dream-song under her breath, and Jinx looked at her like she’d heard it before.
And not when she stayed a little too late one evening, just listening to Jinx talk.
It became their rhythm. Lux would show up with tea, sweets, or nothing at all. Jinx would let her sit close, point out progress on the guitar, and laugh at her jokes. Lux would bite her tongue every time she came close to saying, I wrote about you before I knew you.
The last day, the shop was closed.
Lux didn’t knock. She figured she’d drop off one last thank-you, a set of guitar picks that fit Jinx, plus a ticket and a backstage pass to her next concert.
But when she stepped inside, she didn’t see Jinx at the workbench.
She heard her.
Lux froze in the doorway.
Jinx was sitting on the edge of the workbench, her head bowed over Lux’s guitar, fully restored now. The strings sang as her fingers slid across them. But it was her voice that stopped Lux’s breath.
Jinx was singing.
“How would a girl like me put it?
A woman with some sense probably wouldn’t...”
Her voice was raw. Gentle. Like she hadn’t meant anyone to hear it.
“And I had a dream I was falling
Maybe that’s a fucked-up metaphor...
Maybe it just means when I meet you in my dreams
Nothing stops me from going through the floor…”
Lux stood there silently, clutching the gift to her chest.
Her eyes burned.
“I remember being younger with an awful pining hunger
For a good that a girl could never find…”
Jinx’s voice cracked a little on the last word.
Then came the chorus.
“And I guess I’ll just love you from the window
While you’re dancing with the charmers in the room…”
The final line spilled into the air like smoke.
“Or do I live in a love I’m dying for?”
Jinx didn’t notice Lux at first.
Not until she turned toward the back door and froze in her tracks.
Lux stood in the threshold, half in shadow, her lips parted like she hadn’t taken a full breath since the song began. Her eyes shimmered, but she wasn’t crying, not yet.
“You weren’t supposed to hear that,” Jinx said quickly, sharp, like a blade she regretted pulling.
Lux stepped inside, careful, steady, like approaching a wild animal. “That song…”
“It’s just a song,” Jinx cut in, already defensive, already retreating into herself.
Lux shook her head. “No. That was a confession.”
Jinx turned away, waving a hand. “You’re reading into it.”
“You said you had a dream you were fallin’,” Lux pressed, voice low and warm, like a storm that hadn’t broken yet. “That's when you saw her, me-in the dream, you just kept goin’ straight through the floor. You don’t write a line like that by accident.”
Jinx didn’t look at her. “You’re dreamin’ again, Crownguard.”
Lux’s voice broke just a little. “I ain’t the only one.”
Silence.
Then, quietly, Jinx walked over to the workbench and handed her the guitar gently.
It was beautiful. Whole. The crack along the neck was gone, replaced with something more substantial.
“It’s done,” Jinx said. “Good as new.”
Lux took it with both hands, but her eyes stayed on Jinx. She didn’t look away, even as Jinx reached for her jacket.
“I’ve got a job across town,” Jinx muttered. “Another build, another deadline. You’ve got your guitar. We’re square.”
She headed for the door without another word.
But Lux moved fast, soft boots across old wood, and stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“Wait.”
Jinx paused.
Lux handed her the gift.
She tucked it gently into Jinx’s hand, her fingers brushing against hers.
“You said you’d fix her if I gave you a song,” Lux said, her accent thickening with every word, soft and sweet like summer rain. “So I’m makin’ good on that promise, sugar.”
Jinx looked down at the ticket, then up at Lux, expression unreadable.
“I ain’t askin’ for much,” Lux added, smiling despite the lump in her throat. “Just for you to show up, sit a while, and hear what you helped me put back together.”
Her voice gentled even more.
“And maybe… maybe you’ll hear a little of your song in mine.”
Jinx didn’t say anything.
But she didn’t hand the gift back, either.
Just gave the faintest nod, lips twitching like maybe she’d let herself believe in fate for one night.
Then she stepped outside, the little bell over the door jingling behind her.
And Lux stood there in the quiet, her guitar pressed to her chest, heart hammering against it like it might break all over again.
But this time?
She was gonna play anyway.
The crowd was still cheering her name, voices echoing off the rafters of the arena.
“LUX! LUX! LUX!”
Her final hit of the night had just ended the kind of glittering, radio-perfect track that her parents loved, the label adored, and the public expected.
But Lux didn’t leave the stage.
She stayed seated on the worn wooden stool at center stage, the strap of her newly restored guitar digging into her shoulder like an anchor. Her fingers lightly rested on the strings. Her heart beat like thunder.
She should’ve walked off by now.
Instead, her eyes drifted up to the lights, and for just a second, the noise around her faded, swallowed up by a memory still fresh in her chest.
Her mother’s voice had been sharp earlier that night, cutting through the warmth of the dressing room like a blade, “We agreed on the setlist, Luxanna. No surprises.”
Lux had been tuning her guitar, trying to breathe through the nerves.
“It’s just one song,” she’d said, soft but firm. “At the end. That’s all.”
Her father chimed in, calm but pressing, “Sweetheart, you’ve built an image. People love the story you’re selling. Don’t throw that away for one reckless moment.”
But it hadn’t felt reckless. It had felt real.
Now, sitting under the spotlight, guitar resting in her lap, Lux felt that same truth twisting behind her ribs like a secret ready to be set free.
She adjusted the mic with a steady hand.
The crowd quieted again, sensing something unplanned.
“This next song,” Lux said, her voice low but clear, “wasn’t on the setlist.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd.
“It’s not on the album either. I didn’t tell my label. Didn’t tell the press.” She paused, letting her eyes sweep the crowd. “Didn’t even tell my parents.”
A heartbeat passed. Two.
Then another voice stirred in her memory, softer, warmer.
Ezreal, backstage just minutes before the encore, trying not to look worried, “You really gonna play it?”
Lux had nodded.“I promised her a song.”
“You think she’s out there?”
She hadn’t answered him. Just slipped the strap over her shoulder and walked toward the stairs.
Now, staring into the dark edges of the crowd, Lux still didn’t know if Jinx had used the ticket.
But her fingers moved to the strings anyway.
“I wrote this song when I didn’t know what else to do but feel something too big to carry on my own,” she said.
Another breath.
“My folks think heartbreak needs to be pretty. Needs to wrap up neatly.” A faint, tired smile played at the corner of her lips. “But love don’t always come clean. And it sure don’t always come quiet.”
She let her gaze drift once more to the farthest reaches of the crowd, the shadows, the exit signs, the edges where the lights didn’t reach.
Maybe she was out there.
Maybe not.
Either way… she deserved this.
“This one’s for the dream that wouldn’t let go.”
Lux lowered her eyes.
And began to play.
Strummed the first chord.
And began.
“I hope I'm in your dreams
The way you are in all of mine…”
Her voice, low and trembling, caught on the edges of the words. It wasn’t polished. It wasn’t perfect.
But it was real.
“You've got a love so fine
I wish that I could make you mine…”
The crowd was dead silent now, not because they were confused, but because they knew that this wasn’t part of the act. That this was a moment she hadn’t let anyone see before.
Lux felt someone watching and looked to her right to see Jinx was there backstage watching.
Eyes locked on the girl bathed in golden light.
“Won’t you sit down…
You know I love you, honey, and you look so tired…”
Jinx blinked hard.
It was her.
It was about her.
“But that river will flow on
Even after we’re all long gone…”
Lux’s fingers trembled just slightly as she strummed, but her voice grew steadier.
She was singing for the version of herself who’d stayed quiet too long.
For the version of Jinx who couldn’t admit the truth.
For the nights they dreamed about each other and woke up alone.
“Take me with you now before I’m one…”
Jinx sat slowly, sinking into the dark seat like her legs had given out.
She didn’t need to say it.
Lux already had.
“I walk into the room and there you sit…
You're so alone and quiet.
I can't help but stare, how I love you…”
The stage lights dimmed around her, just her and her guitar now, like it had been in the workshop, like it had been in the dream.
“And it just ain't fair…”
The bridge came in waves of soft “oohs” and haunting echoes. Lux’s eyes closed, her voice lifting into something wordless and heavy with everything she hadn’t said.
When she reached the final chorus, her voice cracked beautifully on the last line.
“Take me with you now… before I’m one.”
She strummed once more, then let the final note hang in the air like a breath between heartbeats.
The crowd erupted.
But Lux didn’t react. Not right away.
She turned and looked at Jinx. And Lux smiled, not a stage smile, not a marketing smile.
A real one. Soft and tired and full of truth.
The lights had barely started to dim when Lux saw her slip away.
One flash of electric blue in the far right wing, barely visible between curtains, then gone, swallowed by shadows and steel doors.
Jinx had bolted.
She didn’t wait for the encore.
Didn’t wait for the thank-you.
Didn’t wait for the part where Lux would have said, “That was for you.”
Lux didn’t hesitate.
She handed off her guitar to a stunned Ezreal and headed straight for the side exit, ignoring the confused shouts of her crew and the flashes of backstage cameras.
The alley behind the venue was soaked in golden citylight and leftover thunderclouds. Damp air. Distant noise. A half-moon.
Lux spotted her fast. Jinx was pacing near a rusted-out fire escape, leather jacket tugged tight, hands shaking like she wanted to punch a wall or set something on fire.
“Jinx!” Lux called out.
Jinx turned, startled, then swore and started walking faster.
Lux followed.
“Jinx, stop!”
“You weren’t supposed to do that!” Jinx snapped without turning. “You weren’t supposed to sing that!”
Lux jogged to catch up, finally grabbing her by the wrist just as they reached the mouth of the alley. Jinx tried to pull away, but Lux held firm.
“I told you I was gonna give you a song,” Lux said, breathless. “I meant it.”
“Not that song.”
“It’s the only one that was honest.”
Jinx looked at her, furious and terrified and wide-eyed all at once. “You don’t get to stand under those lights and sing like that and make me feel like maybe I’m not crazy, then come out here and look at me like I’m a dream come true.”
Lux stared at her. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t get things like that,” Jinx whispered. “Because people don’t stay when they see the real me.”
Lux stepped closer.
“You showed me the real you the moment you put your hands on my guitar,” she said softly. “You held something broken and didn’t even flinch.”
Jinx’s mouth parted like she wanted to argue, but nothing came out.
“And I didn’t dream you because you were perfect,” Lux said, voice shaking now. “I dreamed of you because I was lonely. And you made it feel like I didn’t have to be anymore.”
Silence fell.
For once, Jinx didn’t have a joke.
Didn’t have a witty remark or a quick escape.
She looked at Lux like the song was still playing in her head.
Then quietly, almost pleading: “You meant it?”
Lux nodded. “Every word.”
The alley was quiet. Somewhere nearby, traffic hummed. A breeze passed between them, soft as the breath before a kiss.
Jinx’s voice was barely above a whisper. “If I kiss you now, is it gonna wreck everything?”
Lux smiled, slow and sure. “Sugar… if you don’t kiss me now, that’s what’ll wreck it.”
Jinx didn’t wait a second longer.
She surged forward, grabbing Lux by the collar, wild, reckless, terrified, and kissed her like she was trying to breathe her in.
And as soon as their lips touched, everything changed.
The air around them rippled, thick with something unseen, some heat, some old, ancient pull finally answering itself. Light poured into the space between them, just for an instant.
Jinx’s eyes flared a brilliant, glowing red, not with anger, but with intensity —the spark of something remembered.
Lux’s glowed violet, soft and shimmering like dusk after stormlight, full of power and peace, like recognition.
The color burned in their irises, not painful but beautiful. Eternal. Familiar.
They broke the kiss, just enough to breathe.
Lux stared into Jinx’s glowing eyes, and her voice came out on a trembling whisper:
“I found you again.”
Jinx blinked, stunned. “What…?”
And then it hit her, too.
The dreams.
The ache.
The reason Lux had felt like a ghost was that she had been missing long before they met.
The songs they both wrote without names.
Jinx let out a shuddering breath. “We’ve done this before.”
“In another life,” Lux murmured, hands now cupping Jinx’s face gently. “Maybe a hundred.”
“Feels like I lost you every time.”
Lux leaned in again, forehead pressed to hers, a tear slipping down her cheek as she smiled through it.
“Well, you’ve got me now, sugar,” she whispered. “And this time… I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”
Their foreheads stayed pressed, breath mixing in the dark alley, eyes still lit from within.
No one around them noticed the soft flicker of color in the night.
No one would believe it anyway.
But they felt it.
The spark.
The memory.
The promise.
The beginning or the continuation of a love that had waited lifetimes to be remembered.