After more than a month of radio silence from the White Gloves, they’d gotten in touch. Three texts. The rose, the snake, a message: The Candidates are many. The Chosen are few. You have been chosen. Tonight, King’s Island, midnight.

A fourth text came through while I was standing there, one word: Initiation.

“Each White Glove chooses her own replacement,” Lily said. “I’m betting Victoria chose you—or maybe Hope did. One of them probably chose Campbell, and I think Nessa’s halfway in love with Sadie-Grace.”

I didn’t ask whether Lily had gotten a text. I didn’t have to.

“It’s stupid,” Lily said softly. “That I wanted this so badly.” She swallowed. “Even when I stopped wanting anything else.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I told her. “I won’t go tonight.”

“It does,” she replied as she began taking clothes off the hangers. “And you will.”

Over the course of the summer, I’d never once unpacked my lake bag. I just swapped in clean clothes for the dirty ones and kept everything else—swimsuits, flip-flops, toiletries—packed. Lily, on the other hand, unpacked her bag every weekend.

And now she was packing. “Stop that,” I told her.

“My mama ran away when she was a year younger than we are now.” Lily addressed the words as much toward her paisley bag as to me. “Did you know that, Sawyer? I didn’t, until your mama let that slip to me over Fourth of July. When my mama was seventeen, she left home, society, all of it, for more than half a year. And when she came back, it was like she was a different person.”

“So?” I asked.

Lily zipped her bag. “I’m ready to be a different person, Sawyer.”

I reached for my own, already-packed lake bag. “I’ll go with you. Forget the White Gloves. We can have a secret society of two.”

Lily was quiet for a long time, then managed five words. “That’s not what I want.”

I felt like she’d hit me, the way she’d punched her fist into the wall of what remained of the King’s Island house.

“Don’t do this,” I told her.

“If I stay,” Lily replied, her voice low, “I’m going to do something I’ll regret.”

To say that Aunt Olivia wasn’t pleased when she discovered Lily’s absence would have been an understatement. She demanded that I tell her where Lily went, but I didn’t know. Lillian got involved.

I still didn’t know.

“Do you know when she’ll be back?” Aunt Olivia pressed. “You must. Lily tells you everything.”

That hurt. Clearly, she doesn’t. Not anymore. “She took a bag with her,” I said. “That’s all I know.”

Aunt Olivia glared at me. “Don’t be ridiculous, Sawyer. That can’t possibly be—”

“Ease up, Olivia,” my grandmother cut in.