“Just how much money do you have?” Seven asked absently, tilting his head to give Enzo better access.
“Enough to keep you in chore charts and rubber duckies for life,” he murmured.
“That’s so hot,” Seven whispered, his hand sliding down to grope Enzo’s half-hard cock. “Do you think we have time to fuck in the shower before our trip to the emergency room?”
“What am I gonna do with you?” Enzo murmured, sucking his plush bottom lip.
Seven gasped. “Don’t worry, Daddy. I have a list.”
“Fuck, you’re perfect.”
“Took you long enough to notice.”
Enzo nodded. “I’ll spend forever making it up to you.”
Seven smiled against his lips. “Oh, I’ll make sure of it.”
The stage lights pooled like melted amber, cathedral colors washing across silk banners and foam masonry, turning the sold-out theater into a chapel for nerds. ThePaladin Livelogo burned above a painted rose window and a throne no one would sit on. The air shimmered with the electric hum of anticipation, thick with the scent of popcorn butter and the warmth of overheated bulbs, the thready odor of an overworked fog machine ghosting through the aisles. If faith had a sound, it was two thousand people holding their breath at once, waiting for a twenty-sided die to stop rolling.
Felix had pulled a few strings and gotten them good seats—Felix good, not normal good. Mid-center orchestra, the kind of section reserved for platinum cards and recognizable last names. Seven still couldn’t look at the ticket stub without smiling. Nico tried—and failed—to look unimpressed with their surroundings, his gaze darting from item to item, like he might miss something. Felix checked the stitching on Seven’s bracer,while Shiloh traced the edge of his own pauldron, smiling that soft, secret smile he saved for Levi.
Arsen had gone full paladin with hand-tooled leather, unnecessary buckles, and a cape that made him look taller. Ever shimmered in sorcerer-inspired glitter. Mal endured chainmail for love, bribed by Nico’s promise of post-show pastries made with his own two hands. Lake and Cree kept it clean, donning quiet silhouettes and careful details. Silas managed fratty knight chic, which shouldn’t have been possible, yet there he stood, laughing with Mal about whether mead could be shotgunned.
Legacy idiots and later recruits alike had been polished to Felix’s standard: not a thread wrong, not a seam unpressed. Felix would rather perish than be seen in bargain plastic at a landmarkPaladinevent, and not just because of vanity, but because he knew what this meant to all of them.
The sound of the dice clattering across the stage seemed to travel down Seven’s spine. It wasn’t just a game sound, it was a memory trigger. Their childhood had sounded like this. Over ten years of logins, lag, homework unfinished because the Greenwood needed him more. Over ten years of this guild. The Knights of the Kids’ Table, named as a joke at twelve, but kept because some names just rooted under the skin and refused to be evicted.
The d20 settled. The lead—Ser Thalos himself, the man who’d carried his voice for a decade—peeked down, lifted a hand, and grinned into the mic. “Natural twenty.”
The hall detonated. People stood and screamed and clapped. A guy two rows back yelled, “CRIT, MY LIEGE!” Someone near the aisle cried. Joy rolled through the crowd in a single living wave. Arsen shook Ever’s shoulder and glitter took to the air. Shiloh laughed helplessly, then hid his face against Levi’s sleeve, like he’d been caught doing something illegal. Which, with Levi, was always a statistical possibility.
Seven clapped until his palms stung. It was absurd how happy this made him. How right it felt.
On stage, the table was theater, all carved edges, brass inlay, and leather-bound rulebooks no one pretended to read. The actors wore stage-worthy versions of their characters, accurate enough to thrill, and theatrical enough to be seen clearly from the balcony. The Ser Thalos actor rose for a curtain call. He was older up close, silver at his temples with lines at the eyes earned by laughter, frowns, or both. He had a gravity about him that made things like honor and vows and better selves feel possible. He wasn’t quite as handsome as the character in the game, but Seven was riveted just the same.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice rolling across the crowd like a summer storm. “We started as a handful of friends rolling dice in a drafty soundstage, and now, it’s—” He took them all in: the crowd, the banners, the phones held up, their screens glowing like stars. “This. You grew up with us. We grew up with you. We watched guilds form, break apart, reunite. We watched communities build. We watched you fall in love.”
Laughter and cheers.
“We know some of your guilds by name,” he went on. “We see your fan art. Your memes. There’s a running list in our writers’ room of ships we didn’t plan but wish we had.” A beat of silence. “Tonight, we’ve got some legends with us. Tonight, we have”—he shaded his eyes, scanning the crowd—“the Knights of the Kids’ Table in the building. Where are you? Stand up.”
The theater roared.
Seven’s heart fell straight into his shoes.
Felix’s fingers found his and squeezed like a tourniquet. Nico made a noise unfit for human throats. Cree, calm as a surgeon, murmured, “What did you do?” If he’d known anything, he wouldn’t have asked. But Seven hadn’t done anything.
“Me? I didn’t—” His mouth went dry. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Seven,” Nico breathed. “They know about us.”
A stagehand was already hustling down the aisle wearing black clothes, a headset, and the friendly smile assigned to wranglers of nerds. “Knights of the Kids’ Table?” She pointed at her clipboard. “Can you come with me? We’re bringing you up for a minute.”
Seven leaned toward Felix. “I will strangle you.”
“You’re welcome, you ungrateful douche,” Felix whispered back, straightening his cloak like a single out-of-place hem might determine his fate.
Enzo hated crowds, so no wonder he’d skipped this. Seven now wished he’d skipped it, too. He pictured an immaculate kitchen, coffee cooling on the counter, a livestream on a laptop. He pictured Enzo in the corner of that kitchen, the light from the window cutting across his jaw, the quiet click of his pen as he annotated case files, content, miles away from all this glitter and noise.
