“Not sure if she’s mentioned this to you,” I say to Evie, “but Mom claims if you stop on this corner at midnight, you’ll meet the devil and he’ll make you an offer for your soul.”

“Do you have to enter a fiddling contest for it?” my cousin asks, amused, stepping sideways to avoid a crack in the sidewalk.

“Probably,” I say. “You know she literally drives two blocks out of her way on the bank run to avoid this street, right? Always has, ever since I was little.”

“They do ghost tours down here around Halloween. Maybe she got scared when she was a kid. I’ll ask my mom on our next Skype call. In the meantime, if you see any devilish looking figures with fiddles, warn me. Come on—this way.”

The party is in the sprawling backyard of one of the historic mansions near the center of town. I don’t even know whose house this is, one of Beauty’s Old Money families with a multimillion-dollar manor. Evie hands over a party invitation at a gated driveway filled with luxury cars, and we’re allowed to come inside. We’re directed to follow a path that leads to a pool and pool house—one that looks bigger than our apartment above the bookshop.

“Uh, Evie? Who are these people?” I ask as we make our way toward the pool’s blue water, around which dozens of teens are laughing and drinking and dancing to loud music.

“Mostly Goldens,” she says. Golden Academy, the private school in Beauty. Elite. Ivy League prep. Out of reach. “A lot of college students, home for the summer. Harvard’s only a couple hours away. Wish I could afford it.”

My goth cousin at an Ivy League? I wonder if this is because she briefly dated the Harvard guy. She’s taking some basic biology courses at the local community college for a couple of years, but she wants to be a forensic anthropologist. Or a historian. Or a writer. In typical Saint-Martin fashion, she’s always changing her mind. Even her mother, Franny—the straitlaced sister, compared to my mom—changed careers a dozen times before she rented out their house and ran off to Nepal with Grandma.

I get a little nervous the closer we get to the pool, where everyone’s congregating. These kids don’t just look rich, they look older. Prettier. Bigger. Faster … Better. I see them swaggering around town, but it’s weird to be invading their personal property. I feel like an interloper. “Um, Evie? How do you know this crowd again? Because you dated that guy?”

“Adrian. Yeah, sort of.”

“If you broke up with him, why are we here?”

“He’s one person. Plenty of other fish in the sea. Besides, I was assured he wasn’t invited, so we won’t be running into him. One hour, okay? Then if you want to jet, we’re out.”