We fell into the rhythm of play. Rowan painted the path toward the tower with his words. Jagged stones, a chasm with a narrow bridge, a flock of skeletal bats. Jason asked a constant stream of questions.What does the bridge look like? How wide? How deep is the chasm? Can a Troll fit?
He listened when Rowan answered. He listened when Andrew suggested a spell. He listened when I nervously proposed a tactical formation that put my Paladin shield up front and Dud as mobile cover. Then he nodded like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Dud goes where fruit knight goes,” he said.
The line punched right through my armor. It was only a game.
It still counted.
At one point, a swarm of bats dove at us. Jake fired arrows that picked off three in a singleround. Andrew summoned a gust of wind. I rolled a saving throw and groaned when the number came up low.
“You take the full brunt of the swarm,” Rowan intoned. “Your health drops by twelve.”
Before I could say anything, Jason thrust his die forward. “Dud takes the hit,” he said. “Dud jumps in front of the bats for fruit knight.”
Rowan hesitated. Then he smiled slowly. “Roll for it.”
Jason rolled. The die bounced, spun, and landed on a number that made all of us lean in.
“Natural twenty,” Rowan read.
“Maxed out luck, baby,” Jason whispered.
Rowan spread his hands. “The Cave Troll launches himself in front of the Paladin. Wings and teeth and bone slam into his bulk instead. He roars. Your health takes the damage, Dud. The Paladin is untouched.”
Jason lifted both fists in the air. “Dud wins,” he said. Then he glanced sideways at me. “You good, fruit knight?”
He asked it in character, but the look in his eyes was all Jason. Warm, a little amused, and weirdly earnest.
I swallowed. “Yeah,” I said. “Thanks.” My voice came out softer than I meant. Jason’s smile widened, and something in my chest slid another small step out of alignment.
Rowan pressed on. The tower waited. The map I had drawn lay under our hands. For once, I wasn’t staring at the door or the clock. I was watching Jasonlean forward into the candlelight, good arm around the back of my chair as he reached for the dice, lips curved in concentration.
He was loud, too hot to look at for too long, a little chaotic, and occasionally obnoxious.
He was also here. He had kept his word. He was taking this ridiculous campaign seriously because it mattered to me.
No spreadsheet in the world could untangle that.
CHAPTER SEVEN
jason
Cold air gatheredaround us when the front door to the Thinkers’ House closed behind me. The steps creaked in the quiet of the night, and a single lamp cast a pale circle of yellow on the walkway. Bennet lingered near the railing. He had one hand tucked in his pocket and the other wrapped around the strap of his bag. His breath left faint clouds that drifted upward and dissolved into the dark.
I felt lighter than I had in days. Something about the game had filled me with a strange excitement. Maybe it was the heat of the fireplace or the way Dud had leapt into Rowan’s story without tripping over his own feet, or the way Bennet had smiled next to me when I rolled a critical save at the exact moment he muttered that Dud was doomed. It might have been all of it.
Bennet rocked on his heels. He looked ready to say good night and slip back inside, where all the warmlights glowed behind the curtains. I wasn’t ready to let the moment end.
We stood close enough that I caught the way the wind swept through his hair and pushed a lock across his forehead. He brushed it aside and nodded politely, a typical closing gesture of someone who preferred straight exits.
I smiled at him.
“Walk me home?”
His eyebrows rose. He glanced down the street where the lamps formed a straight line between the two houses.
“You live two minutes away.”