I sigh. “The masquerade ball. Let me guess. You want to crash it?”

“It’s not crashing if you used to go here,” Tessa says in that characteristic deadpan voice of hers.

“‘Used to’ being the operative words,” I snap back. “How’d you get out of the treatment center, anyway? I thought the judge said you had to go for at least six months.”

“I do, but I checked out for the weekend,” Tessa says airily. “It’s completely allowed.”

“The dance starts in ten minutes in the dining hall,” I tell them, eager to end this interaction as quickly as possible. “You’ll need costumes. Masks or capes.” I’m hoping this is enough information to get them to leave me alone.

“Awesome,” says Archer, smiling at me again.

“What’d I miss?” asks Jake Choate, bounding up behind them. He’s wearing a shimmery silver shirt and a slick blazer. “I was peeing in the bushes back there,” he says to me, like I care one iota. “When you gotta go, you gotta go.”

I don’t even respond. But I do notice the time on my plum. It’s almost eight o’clock. I sigh, turning back up the path, and use my Darkwood key to unlock the gate again. I hold the door open for Tessa, Jake, and Archer, who don’t bother to thank me.

I leave them behind, racing back to the dance. I have no idea what I’m going to do when I see Ollie there. Act like you never heard his thoughts, of course. If that thing happens again… I don’t know how I’ll react or what I’ll say. But for the sake of my best friend on the planet, I’m going to have to risk it.

• • •

The dance is already in full swing by the time I arrive. The dining hall has been transformed: twinkling lights are strung across the ceiling in an intricate web, and there are lush plants and flowers everywhere. With all the costumes and masks, some gold and glittering, others dark velvet, the place gives off an eerie, unfamiliar vibe. I can’t see anyone’s eyes. As I wind through the crowd, looking for Ollie and Pru, I lift my hood up over my head, suddenly feeling the urge to be anonymous, like everyone else.

A hand lands on my shoulder, and I bristle, startled. When I spin around, it’s Ollie, his gray eyes sparkling through the eyeholes of his mask, which he’s holding up to his face. I feel instantly warmer from his touch, but chilly at the same time.