[Location: Morningstar Manor, New York]
Zeraphira gave me a long, slow look.
"You found a cursed child in a vampire relic, adopted her, recruited an Elder, befriended a shadow army, and returned with a grieving vampire queen who pledged herself to you."
She folded her hands neatly. "You are, in fact, several tropes in a trench coat."
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
"…That is slander."
"No," Selene said. "That's genre awareness."
"Okay, no need to—"
"—finish that sentence," Ezravia said smoothly, pushing her glasses up. "Because the evidence is already overwhelming."
Selene pointed at me like a lawyer who just won a case. "Your Honour, the Protagonist rests."
"I object to this entire courtroom metaphor," I muttered.
"Overruled," Zeraphira said calmly.
I looked around the room.
No allies. Not one.
Even Eris had defected. She was now sitting beside Astra, feeding her cookie crumbs like she was taming a very polite, very deadly pigeon.
