The car slowed to a near crawl down the gravel road, symmetrically and systematically lined with tall trees on either side. Overhead, their bare branches reached out across the divide, interlocking as if they conspired to block out the moon. But someone had taken the time to decorate each tree trunk with a spiral of white lights to ensure the dark wouldn’t win.

Luna rested her forehead against the chilled window and muttered, “I could walk faster than this.”

“Too dark. Too cold,” Alex said. They’d barely slept on the plane, too hopped up on excitement, complimentary soda, and cookies. He was fading fast now. Close to midnight, his eyes looked bleary and unfocused. “Which house is this?”

“Winery.” Luna hadn’t been 100 percent sure where they would spend the weekend until they’d driven through the towering main gates.

The Winery at Midnight.

A moment so iconic the Founders were boiling with jealousy, flooding the group chat with keysmashes, and rage and crying emoji.

Jewel had multiple houses sprinkled here and there across America, and Golden Weekend had always rotated locations, seemingly at random. As far as Luna knew, and she knew quite a bit, it had never been hosted at the Van Hanen Winery.

The Founders had theorized it was off the table because it was the most well-known and personal to Jewel.

Luna continued, “It’s her family’s house. She grew up here. In one of her early videos she said it ‘had been built to function as an overbearing display of Van Hanen wealth.’ Direct quote.”

Alex wrinkled his nose. “I hope she’s not as pretentious as she sounds.”

Was it possible to grow up on an actual estate and be down-to-earth? To go to private school, star in hit TV shows and blockbuster movies, and still be a normal, unaffected person? Probably not. But Jewel tried her best anyway. That counted.

“She’s not,” Luna said, confident in her beliefs. “She just talks like that for the camera, I think.”

Aerial shots of the winery were easy enough to find online. A few interior ones of the mansion too, if someone knew where to look, which Luna would never intentionally do …

So, technically, it wasn’t her fault the images ended up on Goldspiracy or that she clicked on them without realizing. And then kept clicking, because what was the point in pretending that she hadn’t seen them when she had. Damage was done.

Before, during, and after construction, the mansion had been dubbed the heart of the entire estate, with its three levels, seventeen bedrooms, an excessive number of bathrooms, two kitchens, a massive ballroom, two libraries, several dens, storage rooms, and a sprawling attic. And that’s just what was on paper.

Rumor had it that the blueprints mysteriously didn’t match the actual layout.