Sharp, staccato, high-heeled clacks filled the room as court girls filed in, each with a black garment bag slung over her arm and perfectly styled hair piled atop her head or cascading down her back in soft ringlets. They oohed and ahhed over the set design, letting out little gasps and appreciative squeals. Gabby and Lili entered last, noses in the air, hairdos bigger and bouncier than anyone else’s. Emma turned away fast and pretended to fix a frayed ribbon on one of the tables, but she could still feel their eyes burning on her.

“Gabby! Lili!” Laurel shot across the room and linked her elbows through the Twins’. “Let me show you your dressing rooms! We ran out of room down here, so you guys get to change upstairs in the lighting booth.”

Gabby extracted herself from Laurel’s grip. “Lemme just finish my tweet, ’kay?”

Laurel rolled her eyes and waited while Gabby’s thumbs flew across her phone at warp speed. When Gabby finished, she let out a satisfied sigh. “We’re ready to be taken to our chambers now,” she said in a queenlike voice. As Laurel steered them up a staircase, both twins leveled stares at Emma. Laurel twisted around, too, signaling a covert thumbs-up to Madeline and Charlotte.

“Okay, girls!” Charlotte clapped her hands and drew the rest of the court members into a circle. “You all need to get changed for your big entrance! People are filing in here in ten minutes. Don’t forget heels and a fresh coat of gloss! And remember, the makeup artist is going to come and put blood in your hair and paint blue circles under your eyes.”

The girls pouted. “Do we really have to do that?” Tinsley Zimmerman whined.

“Yes,” Charlotte answered sharply, her slight smirk revealing just how much she loved being the boss.

Tinsley eyed Charlotte’s party dress. “You’re not wearing corpse makeup. We’ll look uglier than you!”

That’s the point, I thought.

“It’ll make you look avant-garde and chic,” Madeline said, sounding like a fashion editor. “You’re dead beauties of the Titanic. You drowned in the ocean. How do you think you should look? Like a Bobbi Brown spring campaign?” She gestured to a bunch of dressing rooms at the back. “Now go change!”

The court girls turned, giving one another cryptic, I-know-something-you-don’t smiles, reminding Emma that none of them knew exactly who was getting pranked today. Tinsley slammed a dressing room door shut before anyone could join her. Alicia Young—she of the nasty cleanse diet—ducked into a tiny, curtained-off alcove to change. Madison Cates looked around furtively, then slipped into the shadows and pulled a black sequined gown over her stiff hair. The other girls disappeared as well. When they emerged from their respective dressing rooms in their black gowns, their faces registered notes of surprise.