“She’ll come to. By the time you get her home,” the man advises.

I get a full view of the man’s face. The chunky tortoise-shell glasses resting on his nose. The unkempt hair.

He meets my eyes for a split second, and I freeze, feeling like I’ve seen him somewhere before.

“Ollie,” I call out. He’s at my side; he hasn’t left it this entire time.

“Yeah?” he answers.

“Isn’t that…” I point to the man in the back seat. Within moments, the door has slammed shut in my face, cutting off my view of this person, whoever he is.

I turn to look at Ollie.

“Albert Seymour,” he says quietly. “That was my uncle. Gravelle’s half brother. The creator of the Similars.”

It’s what I suspected. I only have a second to process this development before I turn back to the car, running to the rear and rapping on the window. I bang as hard as I can, hoping Seymour will open it.

He does.

“Mr. Seymour,” I say, my eyes darting from the man’s careworn face to Ollie and back again. “What are you doing here? Who are these—these copies?” I ask him, praying that he won’t brush me off.

Ollie runs up next to me to address his uncle directly. “We’re not letting you leave until we get answers,” Ollie says with conviction. “So go ahead. Enlighten us.”

Seymour sighs like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I can’t. Not now. Meet me at Fillmore Park tonight. Eight o’clock. I’ll tell you everything you need to know.” He puts his window back up, and the SUV takes off seconds later.

“Mr. Ward! Ms. Chance!” a voice barks at us. We turn to see Principal Fleischer standing in front of us, arms crossed over her chest, irate. “You have three seconds to hightail it to your respective dorms, or—”

“We’re going!” I shout, grabbing Ollie by the arm and rushing out of there.

“Look at this label on her jacket,” I say, as we follow the last of the students who are moving in a group toward the dorms. “It says ‘Duplicate.’ What do you think that means?”

“No clue.”

“When I asked her who she was, she said, ‘Tessa Leroy.’ Like it was obvious. I think she believed it too.” We approach Nightshade, Ollie’s dorm. “We’ll bring Pru with us tonight to meet Seymour. And Maude. Not everyone. I don’t want to scare him off.”

At lunch, I fill in my friends about Seymour and our plan, asking Pru and Maude to come with us to Fillmore Park. It’ll mean sneaking out, and given the chaos caused today by the three newcomers, I’m wary of breaking curfew and angering Fleischer. But we have no choice, not if we want to know who those kids are and why they came here.