THE HOTEL IS dressed up for the occasion. There are lights in the trees that line the driveway and all of the cars are parked, neat and gleaming, in their spots. Uniformed valet attendants usher Lulu from her Ryde into the lobby. A waiter hands her a glass of champagne as soon as she walks in the door.

Lulu doesn’t know what she was expecting, but this is a grown-up party. Roman Sr. is holding court in one corner, and she recognizes a handful of minor celebrities milling around too: a girl who makes a living doing sponsored content on her Flash; a guy who turned his YouTube channel’s hyper-physical pranks into a career in action blockbusters.

There’s something slippery in the air tonight. It’s unnerving to watch a place that was a private hideaway become just another part of the adult world, a place you can transact your way into.

Lulu wishes she didn’t feel so weird about it. Isn’t she supposed to want to belong here? Shouldn’t she feel special and sophisticated, to be drinking expensive champagne among all of these glittery, wealthy, well-known people?

She doesn’t, though. She misses the raw quality that The Hotel had before it was finished, when it was still a secret. When it was just her and her friends, and no one could see them, or find them, or make them behave.

This place used to be so uncivilized.

She wonders how Cass is handling the end of her secret garden. She can’t find her right away. Instead, Lulu spots Ryan talking to the girl from Flash. He’s wearing a black button-down and skinny black jeans. He looks remote, slightly, like he’s one layer removed from everyone else in the room.

Cass is, predictably, trying to hide in a corner. She can’t camouflage herself tonight, though, because she looks too beautiful: She’s wearing a deep crimson dress cut low down the pale expanse of her back, revealing the line of her spine, the wings of her shoulder blades.

She looks like cream and blood, a breathing swirl of beauty and danger.

Lulu walks across the room to her. Cass has a champagne flute of her own. When Lulu kisses her, their mouths are made of sharpness and air. Cass smiles into the kiss. It only lasts a second. It sets Lulu’s blood on fire.

“You excited for this?” Cass asks quietly.

“What, the new year? Of course I am. I like a fresh start.”

“No,” Cass says. “Didn’t Ryan—he didn’t tell you about the surprise?”

“There’s another surprise? Is it going to be as cold as the pool was?”