“Gaaaaa! Dad!” Desperate to minimize their time out of game, Reeve spun to locate her father but found herself facing not one but two other occupants of the lobby. “Millie!?”

  “Look whom I ran into!” Walter said as he stood with thumbs hooked in recolored suspenders next to Millie’s tall, slender, black-robed caster avatar, whose greenish skin, long braided red hair, and yellow-irised eyes Reeve couldn’t have mistaken.

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  “Yeah, great. Millie, hi! We’ve gotta get back in. A portal’s going to open soon, and minutes are ticking in there. Come on!”

  “Reavyr, you know I prefer—“