The dining room is alive with conversation, silverware clinking against porcelain as laughter rises and falls like the shifting tides of debate. Philip Hamilton sits among his family, his back straight, hands folded neatly in his lap—just as his mother taught him. Across the table, Thomas Jefferson leans back in his chair, a smirk playing at his lips as he swirls the wine in his glass.

Alexander Hamilton is mid-sentence—something sharp, something precise, something meant to cut through Jefferson’s easy confidence. Philip watches as his father gestures, passion crackling in his voice. This is familiar. This is home.

But tonight is different. Tonight, Philip isn’t just watching. He’s thirteen now, nearly a man—or so he tells himself. He knows the world is bigger than their home, bigger than New York, bigger than the stories whispered between bookshelves and late-night candlelight. And tonight, at this very table, sits one of its architects.

Jefferson’s gaze flickers to him suddenly, assessing, amused. “And what about you, young Hamilton?” he drawls. “Your father’s sharp tongue, your mother’s grace—what do you make of all this?”

All eyes turn to Philip. His pulse quickens. He’s spent his life listening, learning, waiting for the moment he can prove himself.

That moment is now.