“Um, I—I—”

“No choice. It’s a rule of the Shieldmaidens.”

A group of Sophie’s old friends walked by them, headed toward the cafeteria door, and they whispered as they passed by. Amina Alvi stopped at their table and stood in front of Sophie.

“Hey, Sophie,” Amina said. “We miss you at our table.”

Sophie kept her eyes down on her lunch and raised a hand to signal hello without looking up at all.

“Okay, cool!” Amina’s tone was breezy, as if nothing was awkward at all. “See ya!” She followed the other girls out.

“Soph, we may need a Sophie—I mean a Rose—to make sure the other kids come to the show?” Nessa reminded her. “Maybe you could get Amina on board with us?”

“Brody is the lead,” Sophie snapped, in a way Nessa hadn’t heard since before the dance. “The little sheep will be there to see him, anyway.”

“Yeah, but…” Lara looked at Nessa and Winston for permission to go on. She still seemed a little scared of Sophie. “We need Rose and those girls there on the right night, when we expose him. If they all come the first night, it won’t work.”

Eve broke her silence. “None of this means anything because we don’t have evidence. And until we do? I’m the bad guy in school. Not him.” She picked up her backpack and left the cafeteria. “Take one,” she said as she tossed a few of her masks onto the table.

Eve had a point.

One night after dinner, as Nessa and the Shieldmaidens tried to guess Brody’s email password, Nessa’s dad knocked on her door.

“One sec!” she yelled out as she wrote some good ones: MONEYBAGS, TONEDEAF123?

As she giggled away, her dad opened the door and came in.

“Honey,” he began. Uh-oh. “Honey” meant a talk was coming.

“Dad, I’m really busy.”

“Weak attempt,” her dad said, making her laugh.

She put the phone down.

“I’ll cut to the chase,” he said. “The word on the street is that Evie wrote the list.”

Nessa rolled her eyes. Even her parents thought Eve was a liar? “First of all, don’t ever say ‘word on the street’ again, and second of all, how could you ever think that—”

“I don’t, I don’t,” he assured her. Her dad scooted next to her on the bed and ran a hand through her hair. It made her feel about eight years old, but she liked it. “I’m sure Principal Yu doesn’t, either.”

“You never know,” Nessa grumbled. “All the kids think she did it.”

“I’m sure. And I know this year hasn’t been great so far for her, or probably for you?” He gave her a questioning look, but she said nothing. “But just remember,” her dad recited his usual phrase, “This, too, shall—”

“Pass,” she finished for him.

But it didn’t quite comfort her this time.

“But, Dad,” she began, speaking slowly so as to say exactly what she meant, “before ‘it’ passes, what are we supposed to do about it? You have to do something when life is hard, when people get hurt.”