“It’s ExcelsiCon, which started as a Starfield con. What else do you expect?” Darien replies—the Darien Freeman. Prince Carmindor. Now that I’m not looking at him in the spotlight, he looks a lot more…normal? I don’t know how that’s possible since he looks like freaking Carmindor even in real life—curly black hair and smooth brown skin and eyelashes that go on for days. But there is something decidedly nonchalant about him. Also, he isn’t as tall as I thought.

Or maybe I’m just a giant in these heels.

Calvin rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, and your girlfriend’s tied to it, so of course you’ll take the con’s side.”

I’ve never seen Darien Freeman glare more ferociously.

Calvin raises his hands in defeat. “All I’m saying is that we should only do one panel at a thing like this. We’re busy people with busy lives. Our time is money and, uh, we’re not getting paid nearly enough.”

“They’re our fans. It’s the least we can do.”

“Can you get your fanboy head out of your fanboy a—”

“I think it’s really cool,” I interject before my common sense can reel me in and tell me it’s a trap.

Darien and Calvin look over at me, surprised either that I spoke up or that I’m defending Darien and this con, I’m not sure which.

I clear my throat and tug on a lock of wig hair. “I mean, they’re all here to see us, right? And this panel’s about villains in Starfield. It should be fun.”

“Except our Nox King super isn’t here,” Calvin points out. “Why isn’t Robert coming again?”

“The great Robert Thomas Eddington is shooting King Lear in Scotland as we speak,” Darien says begrudgingly. He gives me a curious look. Oh no, did I do Jess’s voice wrong or something? Remember the tilt, the toneless accent, the drawl.

Calvin sighs. “Ugh, why am I here, wasting this perfectly good Friday? Euci isn’t a villain.”

“Actually, in episode—” I stop myself before I can recite the exact episode in question, because Jess wouldn’t know “—in an episode, I think, when you nearly get everyone killed. With, like…a lightsaber or something.”

It pains me to say lightsaber. In the episode, Euci becomes possessed by the Balu’atho, an ancient Noxian blade, and goes absolutely bonkers on the ship. What we don’t find out until the end is that the artifact only channels the darkness that’s already inside a person’s heart. Euci is terribly jealous of Carmindor—sometimes so much that he does become a villain.

It’s only fair. I mean, I get it. Carmindor is damn near perfect—like my brother, I guess. It’s impossible to live up to that.