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“Light Phases enjoy portable light sources. And birthdays.” Julius informed the room at large. “We can come to all of your parties now and bring lamps.”

Cross leaned closer to Nia. “Do not tell them when my birthday is.” He whispered loudly.

Kahn ignored all of them because he didn’t give a shit. “When is your birthday, Randa?” That he did care about. Everything involving his Match was vital to know.

“The 18th of September. I never celebrate it, though. It brings up bad memories of that horrible period just before I turned ninety-three.” She shuddered. “My parents were pushing me to Bind with Yuan and become Queen of the Reflection House. Then, he tried to lock me in his awful castle…”

“Yuan? I thought Jerrod, the Stone House King, was the one who attacked you.”

“No, Jerrod barely knew I existed. It was Yuan who was obsessed with me.”

The fuck…?

“Then why the hell is Yuan still alive!?” Kahn felt like he was going crazy.

Randa blinked. “He’s very powerful. I only escaped because I caught him by surprise and froze him with my powers. I didn’t have time to kill him before he broke free. I just ran. It would’ve been my word against royalty if I’d reported it to the Council.”

Kahn ground his teeth together. Yuan was living his life like nothing had happened, while Randa was still so traumatized that she didn’t celebrate her birthday…? No. Hell, no. “You should have told me his name days ago!”

She frowned at him.

Shit.

Kahn held up his hands in apology. “Sorry. It’s not about me. You can share what you want, when you want.” He wasn’t mad at Randa, obviously. He was pissed off at Yuan and, to a lesser extent, himself for blaming the wrong king. But it was all easily fixed. “I’m just glad you’ve told me now.”

“I didn’t not tell you, before. I guess…” She shifted uncomfortably. “I guess, I don’t like to say his name. That’s not healthy though. I’m sorry. It didn’t occur to me that you’d think it was Jerrod.”

“You did nothing wrong.” He soothed. “And the problem is easily solved. I’ll murder Yuan tonight.’

Randa’s eyes widened. “No! I don’t want you risking yourself over…”

Daven cut her off. “Who are we murdering tonight?”

“Yuan. That fucker just shot to number one on the Must Kill list.”

“Sounds good.” Mannus nodded, on board with slaughtering the Reflection King without knowing why. “Do we have time for penguin cake, first?”

Gion continued opening gifts.

Ty reached under the table and came up with a violin case, decorated with a bow. She handed it to her Match with a teasing grin. “This is from me. You’ll make exceptional music on it, I’m sure. It’s almost as old as you.”

A genuine grin transformed Gion’s face. He forgot he hated his party, enraptured by his gift and his Match. “Angel, I love it. I love you.” He clicked open the case to admire his expensive new instrument.

Happy Applewhite suddenly moved.

The robot took a step forward. Kahn’s head snapped around to stare at it in amazement. He hadn’t thought that these goofy-looking animatronics were advanced enough to leave their small podiums. This one was lumbering forward at an impressive pace.

“Well, that’s some Five Nights at Freddy’s nightmare fodder.” Tharsis mused.

“It’s pretty high-tech for such a dump.” Cross seemed morbidly fascinated. “You think it’s AI? I’ve heard of AI.”

Ty looked Isaacs’ way. “I don’t remember seeing this on the website.”

Isaacs’ head tilted, his smirk fading. “Me neither.”

The other robots started walking, too. Stomping away from the walls, they fell into a loose circle around the partygoers. Everyone watched with varying degrees of confusion and apprehension.

“Are we sure this is part of the birthday show?” Randa asked warily.