Stella made jokes about Luna’s height, always teasing her and laughing, but had called her a sister out of nowhere. Proved it by believing in Luna before everyone else. By helping her lead instead of taking over, teaching her how to stand up and present with confidence.

All of that mattered to Luna in ways she’d been unable to admit to herself.

“Did they know that would happen?” Alex asked. “They couldn’t have, right?”

Luna flinched as the pop of the gun echoed in her mind again. She forced herself to keep her eyes open, because if she blinked she would cry. She would fall to the floor into a blubbering heap and cry until there was nothing left.

“It wasn’t real,” she said, trying out the feel of the words. Stella had done the footwork and tossed the baton back to her. Jewel doesn’t win until we find her, and neither do we. It’s time to call it quits. I’ve laid my cards on the table, and it’s a wild royal flush. “It’s still a game. Stella thinks it’s still a game.”

She felt him swallow, could feel the pulse of his jaw on the top of her head. “Okay,” he whispered, squeezing her tighter. “I’m with you, Moon Princess.”

“Because there can only be two winners,” she said, pulling back and holding his gaze. “Stella must have guessed there’d be a plan to separate us? Maybe not weapons, but something? Like the police to arrest Harlow, or they thought they’d have to distract Ethan and Olive while we ran? Otherwise they would have come too? They wouldn’t have stayed behind?”

Alex looked away, staring at the ground.

“I know that sounds weak,” she admitted, flinching again. “I’m trying. I just can’t—it’s hard to focus.”

Lost in his thoughts, Alex let her go. Cold despair began to well up inside Luna, but she didn’t pull his arms back to her. Instead, she watched him reach for the bag he was wearing. “Before we came downstairs, Harlow asked me to carry her bag,” he said, holding it open between them.

The presents, all of them. Harlow had even given him her tablet. Luna pulled it out of the bag—Stella’s wyvern was plugged in, altering the map. Hands shaking, she passed the tablet to Alex and retrieved her codex.

There it was: White Drawing Room—remove the red rose from the white vase. Stella had opened the panel. Nicole or Harlow must have entered the code.

They had planned an escape for her and Alex.

Tucked into the back of the codex, there was a loose sheet of paper: