The universe has a sense of humor. It waited for the exact second Damon opened his mouth, then pulled the fire alarm on two matebonds simultaneously.
Rewind sixty seconds to a Beta trying to reason with the Dragon King.
Damon Tavian, the man who had outplayed Renwick Lunaris, was now standing in a doorway trying to flag that maybe Maddox didn't want his entire team to hear this. But then again, Lunaris and Shadowfell warriors all saw it.
"Tavian," Maddox said with a nod. "I'm insisting every person in this room is on the same page."
Damon looked at Maddox. Looked at Kael. Looked at the bottle caps on the table. The bottle caps had become sacred. Nobody was going to say it out loud but every person in that room had developed an emotional attachment to a table full of trash.
