“Seven fives,” she says without missing a beat. Low enough that it’s not risky, but high enough that the game shouldn’t last long enough for me to win, either. Predictable enough. I make a face at her and turn to watch the twins, whose play styles tend to be… interesting, at the very least.

Drom checks her hand again before speaking, a hint of a frown crossing her face.

“Nine fives.”

I scoff. She went too high, as usual, especially considering that I don’t actually have any fives on the table.

“No way,” I say, leaning over to elbow Pol. “Call the bluff.”

But he won’t, of course, not when it’s Drom, and especially not with other people encouraging him to do so. Pol checks his hand, looks back and forth between us, and checks his hand again.

“Well, think about the statistics,” Lyre says. “According to—”

“Ten fives,” Pol declares, cutting her off.

“Aw, bud, I didn’t want to have to do this to you.” I shake my head, grinning. An easy win for me. “Too bad. Liar!”

Pol groans as we all lift our cups. I peer around the table, eyeing everyone else’s dice.

“You didn’t have a single five!” Pol complains, leaning over to look at my hand. “Why do you always do this shit?”

“Only six of them on the table,” I say with a laugh after counting them up. “Drom, you could’ve gotten Lyre.”

“Yeah, fuck off.”

My siblings slide their glasses and the bottle to me. Winning the hand means I get to pour everyone else’s drinks. Usually the idea is to get everyone else as drunk as possible, but seeing as this is my bottle of good whiskey, I give barely a splash to everyone except myself. They all grumble as they take them back, but these rules, at least, we always follow.

As soon as everyone has their cups back, we drink, shake, and flip again.

Though the night may have started out on a sour note, we soon fall into the easy rhythm of the familiar game. Lyre wins the next round, and then me again, and then Drom in a particularly lucky callout. Soon the laughter and jokes are flowing steadily, though we all keep our voices hushed for fear of waking Momma. Something inside me eases, like I’ve let out a breath I was holding for too long. This is how things are supposed to be. This is how we’re supposed to be.

And then, halfway through the fifth hand, the lights turn green. In the second it takes for me to realize what that means, the emergency alarm begins to blare.

“Shit,” I say, scrambling out of my chair and sending a couple of my dice toppling to the floor.