It took Nicole a few heartbeats to realize Stella had ended their conversation. She stared, waiting patiently for her to look up, but she didn’t. What was she doing, anyway? The tablet only had three active apps: The Cruelest Jewel, Mapped Up, and Touch Base—their only way to contact the outside. Everything else on the tablet had been disabled, including the Notes app.

Across the table, Alex and Luna shared a bowl of strawberries, speaking quietly to each other and laughing. Francis was still sleeping, or at least pretending to. All at once, she realized that if they didn’t have The Cruelest Jewel to talk about, nothing else held them together.

Nicole had thought they had a good group vibe going, and she’d obviously thought wrong.

No one wanted to talk to her?

People liked the idea of JadeTheBabe, or the other characters she played, more than the real Nicole. Coming to terms with that dissonance had wrecked her for an entire week a few months ago. Her worst fears had come out to play, telling her everyone she met could sense something broken inside her, something they instinctively knew to avoid—or try to take advantage of.

Just as Nicole began to settle into the doldrums of feeling sorry for herself, Stella looked up and said, “Nicole, you’re breaking my heart. You have a magnificently expressive face, and it is bellowing sadness at me.”

“I’m not sad,” she lied, purposefully winking her left eye. “I’m thinking very, very hard.”

“Aww, you remembered.”

“It’s barely been twelve hours since you said that.”

“Ahh, you’re right. It feels like I’ve been here forever. Probably because of the sleep deprivation.”

Nicole laughed at herself—she’d shot straight to paranoia for no reason. Why was making new friends always so anxiety inducing and stressful? She needed to relax.

“Hi, everyone!”

Nicole turned to see Olive and Ethan approaching the table wearing matching denim overall outfits—a dress for her and pants for him—and a black collared shirt with short sleeves.

“Sorry we’re late,” Olive continued. “We had to call an emergency staff meeting.”

“Everything okay?” Francis had miraculously risen from the dead.

“It will be,” Ethan said as they sat.

“What did we miss?” Olive beamed around the table, filling up a plate with food. “Is she really making you all play twisted croquet? She always cheats when we do.”

“See? I told you she was cheating!” Luna said.

Olive grinned at her. “Minus the cheating, are you having a good time so far?”

“I am,” Luna said. “I love the house and the game and everything. Everything’s really perfect.”

“This house is wild,” Stella said. “And probably haunted.”

“It’s not haunted.” Olive laughed. “But I know what you mean. The first time Jewel invited me over so we could study, I had a string of small heart attacks. And that was before the renovations.”