Was Ahri's lover Eduard Santangelo?

For those of you that may have already forgotten, Mr. Santangelo was the man who introduced us to the Vastaya through his journal and a few of his drawings. He was also determined to document and research all the magical creatures that inhabit Runeterra.

Now some of you may be thinking, “That egghead from Piltover? There’s no way Ahri would date him. Didn’t he die before meeting Ahri anyways?” Well there are a few pieces of evidence that suggest he could be the lover she killed.

If you looked at the new evolutionary diagram for Vastaya on the Universe page, you’ll notice that it was drawn by Ahri’s lover since written below her name are the words “my beloved jewel of Ionia”. If you read the short story, “Garden of Forgetting”, you’ll know that Ahri describes her lover as an artist. At first you may think that contradicts what we know of Eduard Santangelo. When you read his journal he sounds more like some rigid scientist than a romantic artist, but if you look back at the diagram it seems like the man who drew it was genuine in trying to research and understand the Vastaya; much like Mr. Santangelo was. That and if you go back and read Eduard Santangelo’s journal, you’ll see that he actually did draw very well, so he was an artist (he even drew an image of Ahri bathing in a lake).

Eduard Santangelo also made it quite clear that he was interested in Ahri. Very interested. He was so interested that the cover of his journal is the image of a nine-tailed fox. It was even stated towards the end of his journal that he was going back on a second expedition to find out more about the fox girl and to further the research for the second edition of his journal. For all we know that diagram was going to be a part of the second edition.

However, the last we heard of Eduard Santangelo (officially) was that he was kidnapped by the Novari Brotherhood during his second expedition in Ionia, and sentenced to execution. He was never heard from again, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he was executed by the Novari Brotherhood. They could have released him. He could have escaped. The problem is that we don’t know for certain what happened to Eduard during his second expedition in Ionia. What we do know is that he was determined to find Ahri on this expedition.