One by one, the other White Gloves read their secrets. Most of them had kept things brief. Some of the secrets were hard to understand without context. Some were pretty damn clear.

You’re not here because you’re powerful, we’d been told. You’re here because you know what it’s like to feel powerless.

Once they finished, it was our turn. The first Candidate followed their example. She read her card—no context, no explanation. One by one, the others did the same. I barely registered what they were saying, because I was waiting for my turn—and my friends’.

The four of us went last.

“I have a half-sibling I’ve never met.” Campbell had a way of tossing out words like they didn’t matter and including just enough of a challenge in her tone to dare anyone to tell her that they did. After a second’s silence, she broke the mold the others had set and elaborated. “Though to be fair, I suppose it’s entirely possible that I have met this person and just didn’t know we were related.”

That was an angle I hadn’t considered—though maybe I should have, given that I’d gotten the distinct impression from Campbell’s grandfather that he’d had a plan for the baby, once upon a time.

“My turn?” Sadie-Grace had a habit of turning statements into questions. “I… ummm . . .” She was seated, but I would have bet big money that her feet were going crazy. “Okay? Here it goes?” She took a deep breath. “My mama was pregnant when she died.”

I heard a sharp intake of breath beside me. I wasn’t sure if that meant that Lily hadn’t known what Sadie-Grace had just told everyone, or if she was taken aback to hear her best friend actually say the words.

Suddenly, Sadie-Grace’s reluctance to tell her father the truth about Greer’s “baby” made so much more sense. When Sadie-Grace had discovered the pregnancy was fake, she’d been so sad. I couldn’t remember everything she’d said when she’d gotten drunk at our casino-themed Debutante party, but I was pretty sure the words No sisters for Sadie-Grace had been included.

I’d known that Sadie-Grace’s father had lost his first wife when Sadie-Grace was young. I hadn’t realized he’d also lost a child. Knowing that and knowing what Greer was doing to him now made my stomach turn.

No wonder Sadie-Grace can’t bring herself to tell him the baby isn’t real.

I was next in line to read my secret, but before I could, Lily jumped in to take the attention off of Sadie-Grace. “My turn.” She waited a moment, then spoke, enunciating every word. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”