"You can't be serious!"
Sophie's voice cracked down the hallway before she'd even fully stepped through the door, echoing off stone walls that had heard a lot of raised voices over the last two days but none quite like this one.
Lucas sat on the edge of a wide bed, hands resting on his knees, and he looked up at her with the tired patience of a man who'd already had this conversation once today and knew he was about to have it again.
"Sophie—"
"No," she said, crossing the room fast, dropping to her knees in front of him so their eyes were level. "Don't Sophie me. Not for this."
Angel came in behind her, arms crossed, jaw tight. Seraleth followed last, wings folded close behind her and the three of them arranged themselves around him in a loose semicircle, the same formation they'd unconsciously fallen into every time they'd cornered him over the last two days trying to talk him out of something none of them had actually said out loud yet.
