It wasn’t as if Lily and Maria weren’t popular. Maria was at almost the exact same spot as Delilah in the social hierarchy. Two boys had already asked her to homecoming, and even though she’d turned them both down, rumor had it another offer would come in before the week was out.

But “almost” didn’t cut it. At Acheron, if Delilah Dufrey didn’t like you, you might as well resign yourself to spending your high school career with the mousy-haired girls who gave themselves teddy bear tattoos with ballpoint pens.

It wasn’t just that Delilah was hot, either. Though she was, of course. She was hotter than she had any right to be, with her long blond hair and her sparkling eyes and her pert little nose that was so perfectly shaped the freshmen took bets on whether she’d had a nose job.

Nope. There had never been a single thing wrong with Delilah Dufrey.

She’d been unanimously elected homecoming queen last year, and everyone already knew the same thing would happen this year too. She was first in their class, edging out Maria by one one-hundredth of a point. She was senior class president and captain of the soccer team, the cross-country team, and the debate team. She was only vice president of the Gay-Straight Alliance, but that was because Mateo had founded the GSA back in their freshman year. And, of course, because Delilah wasn’t gay. At least, not gay enough.

And as of today, Delilah was first in line for the Kingsley Prize.

The Cawdor Kingsley Foundation Prize went to five graduating seniors from Virginia private schools based on their grades, extracurriculars, and all the other usual stuff. Each of the five winners came from a different school, and Acheron had had a winner every year since the award was created. It came with a free ride to the college of your choice, plus two years of grad school. Winning it pretty much guaranteed you’d get into any college in the country.

At Acheron, winning the Kingsley Prize was just called “winning.” You said the word and everyone knew exactly what you were talking about.

Cawdor Kingsley himself was dead now, but before that he’d been some rich “Southern gentleman” who’d made his fortune running manufacturing plants that had killed every fish, plant, and amoebic creature in half the rivers in the state. Like many a Southern gentleman before him, he’d been a proud member of his local White Citizens’ Council, barely one step removed from the Klan. Now his great-grandkids were trying to redeem the family name by giving his money away to everyone they could think of.