We froze at the sound of a small gasp.

Sloth stood in the doorway, expression unreadable. Kiva was perched on his hip, blinking wide violet eyes.

Sloth calmly reached up, clapped a hand over her ears, and said dryly,

“Please tell me you weren’t all arguing about a groupmarriageto the witch.”

Greed snorted. “That’s one word for it.”

“Whyis everyone horny in my kitchen?” Gluttony’s voice boomed as he entered, eyebrows raised. “Did someone spike the cinnamon rolls?”

“It’s her,” Envy said, now upright and unrepentant. “She’s in our heads.”

“She’s in your pants,” Greed added.

The door opened again.

Wrath stepped in, hair damp from a shower, cheeks flushed from the heat of the manor, Diana trailing just behind her with the knowing smirk of someone who’d orchestrated everything.

The room went silent. All of us turned.

She blinked. “Did I miss something?”

Every eye devoured her. Even Kiva peeked from under Sloth’s hand, blinking like she could sense the shift.

Diana patted Wrath’s shoulder and whispered something in her ear—something that made her eyes widen slightly. Then Diana took Kiva from Sloth’s arms.

“Come, darling. Have you picked strawberries before?” She turned and left the room, humming.

Wrath cleared her throat. “You’re all...staring.”

“I’m deciding whether or not to kneel,” Lust said from somewhere behind me, having slipped in unseen.

Her lips parted, stunned. And that was all it took.

I crossed the room first.

“Wrath,” I said, low and strained. “We need to talk.”

She tilted her head. “All of you?”

“No,” I said, voice dropping. “But you should decide who stays.”

Her eyes lit with something dangerously curious. “What if I say everyone?”

The air grew thick. Magick stirred.

Greed grinned. Envy stepped forward. Lust leaned against the doorframe like a shadow with teeth.

She took one step back, just enough to let the hem of her robe slide higher over one thigh.

“Close the door.”

Greed closed it without a sound.

“All of you,” she muttered, a slight inflection at the end as though she were questioning it, but now.

And just like that—everything shifted.