It took me a moment to realize that they were looking at Campbell.

“Notoriety suits me,” Campbell said, but her usual bravado fell flat. “Don’t you think?”

“I think we’re supposed to be in the back room,” Lily said, nudging Campbell in that direction. “Come on.”

Before I could follow them, I noticed a disturbance a few feet away. “You two go ahead,” I told Campbell and Lily. “I’m going to rescue Sadie-Grace.”

Sadie-Grace Waters was what my old boss, Big Jim, would have referred to as a looker and what my grandmother referred to as a sweet girl. She wasn’t particularly skilled at standing up for herself or recognizing sexual innuendos. I managed to push my way through her thick ring of current admirers just as one of them was saying something rather questionable about apples.

“Hi, Sawyer!” Sadie-Grace greeted me cheerfully. “People here are so friendly.”

I snorted and gently maneuvered her away from the crowd.

“Where are you going?” one of the men called, disappointed.

Sadie-Grace, bless her heart, bounced to the tips of her toes. “I can’t tell you,” she called back. “It’s a secret!”

The back room was bigger than I’d expected. Round-top tables lined the walls, a half-dozen candles burning on each table, the only light in the room. I’d spent a chunk of my childhood obsessively calculating the maximum occupancy of every building I entered, and my guess was that the room could hold forty and was pushing that number. Every person here was female. Most were dressed like us—sundresses layered over swimsuits, hair strategically windblown—but I counted eight who wore what appeared to be white shifts and elbow-length white gloves under floor-length scarlet robes. Their hoods were up, casting their faces in shadow.

“Don’t be shy,” one of them told Sadie-Grace and me. “Pick your poison.” She gestured to the table beside her, which was filled with martini glasses. Each glass bore liquid of a different color—an entire rainbow of poisons to choose from.

Sadie-Grace went for a purple one. I circled the table to grab the only clear drink I saw.

“Do you like it when things are transparent?” the hooded girl asked me. From this angle, I could see her better. Her hair was dark and thick, her skin the same medium brown as her eyes.

I took a very small sip of my drink. “I don’t like anything too sweet.”

A second or two passed, then the dark-haired girl turned and disappeared into the crowd.

“I can’t believe she came tonight.”

“I can’t believe they invited her.”

“Wasn’t that nice of them?”

My default would have been to ignore the duo murmuring behind me, but the next thing one of them said was: “It would only be polite to go say hello.”