“Oh, hey, you found a table!” Ben appears at both the perfect and worst time, hands me a Diet Coke.

“Found friends with a table, more like,” I tell him. “But now I’d love to dance.”

I wouldn’t, really, but the tension at the table is thick, and I don’t like the way Bronte is glaring at Ben. So we move to the dance floor, Ben taking care to find a spot with ample room, because he is a stilted, if enthusiastic, dancer. His goofiness is contagious; I can’t help giggling and mirroring his painfully unrhythmic, wild flailing. It’s nice to blow off steam after the day we’ve had. The week. Months, really.

It’s strange holding back about the investigation for the first time. Because that has to be over. If the police are satisfied with Luke’s alibi, then I need to leave well enough alone. I’ve caused enough trouble for one lifetime.

Instead, I take Ben’s hands and get lost in the music and in the momentum of the room. After a half hour or so, Ben spins me off the dance floor and dashes off once more to procure drinks. I run up to our table without doing a full sweep, and end up face to face with a double billing of do not want: Morgan and Luke.

“Oh, hi.” I hover uncomfortably by Morgan’s chair, my clutch sitting on the table in front of her, just out of my reach.

“I can’t believe you showed your face,” Luke says with a drawl. There’s no real ire behind it, though.

Morgan peers at me from behind a curtain of bangs, as if she styled them as armor.

“Natalie would hate that dress,” she says. “You’d have outshone her.”

I note that her dress is pink. Natalie’s color. Guess we’re both giving the middle finger to a ghost.

“Can we…?” I sit down cautiously, leaving an empty chair between Morgan and me as a buffer. To her credit, she doesn’t march away. A boy I recognize as Morgan’s escort from the court procession comes up. Caleb. The half-naked Puck. But he’s not here for Morgan. There’s a flask peeking out from his pocket, and he points at it, then at Luke, grinning.

When he sees me, the joy melts from his expression. “Hey,” he says in my direction, guarded. Then he looks over a Luke, widening his eyes meaningfully, a question passing between them, regarding me.

Luke groans, acquiescing to some precursor conversation I’m not privy to.

“Fine,” he says. Caleb grabs a seat and hands Luke the flask so he can take a surreptitious sip.