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“There’s no way I’m showing up alone. I don’t do well with... people,” she confessed. Her voice was rough, almost hiding the nervousness.

“That’s okay. I don’t either,” I told her.

“Then we havetwoproblems,” she said, scowling. I laughed.

“It’ll be fine,” I promised.

“You can’t let them know about me,” Bryony said. She grabbed my hand, her gaze urgent.

“That you’re running blind with this whole witch thing, you mean?” I asked. “Why would I?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” she countered.

I just shook my head. I didn’t understand people. She dropped my hand. We kept walking, and before long we were in sight of the folly. The others were already there. Desmond was starting up a little fire in a cobbled-together ring of stones on the folly floor. Celia was putting on lipstick, peering into her phone camera to get it right. The lipstick tube had a little bee stamped on the bottom of it—my mom had one just like it.

When she saw Bryony, she squeaked and almost dropped the lipstick and her phone. “What is she doing here?” she asked, borderline panicked.

“It’s cool,” Desmond told her, tossing twigs on the growing fire. “Helen invited her.”

Bryony stood rooted like a tree next to me. Her stony look and stiff posture would look intimidating if you didn’t know she was terrified.

“Okay. I just—okay,” Celia said. She still looked a bit scared, but her urge to make everybody comfortable was winning out.

“I’mstill not exactly sure what it is I’m doing here,” Bryony said.

“You’re hanging out,” I said. “We’re all hanging out. Desmond, did you bring the...?”

“Dangerous amounts of terrible vodka?” Desmond asked, extracting a bottle from his backpack with a flourish. “Anything for you, my lady.”

“You didn’t say anything about gettingdrunkwith Vaughan brats,” Bryony said under her breath though still loud enough for Celia to overhear. Celia’s cheeks went predictably red.

“Look, we all know there are weird things at Harrow,” I said. No one contradicted me. That was a start. “It’s obvious that you don’t like talking about it outright. I don’t either. You don’t know if people will believe you.”

“You don’t know what’s listening,” Celia said quietly.

“Sometimes it’s hard to talk at all,” Desmond added. “Or to remember what it is you wanted to say when you go to say it. Like something is stopping you.”

Celia nodded. Bryony looked curious—it wasn’t the same for her.

“Well, we’re not going to talk about things that happen at Harrow,” I said. “We’re going to talk about things thatdon’thappen. It’s like that drinking game.”

“ ‘Never have I ever’?” Desmond guessed, and I nodded. “Sounds kind of lame.”

“You shouldn’t use that word. It’s ableist,” Celia said.

“Right, sorry,” Desmond said. “This idea seems rather subpar.” His correction was good-natured, and Celia smiled. Bryony cast them a speculative look. I wondered what she’d expected them to be like.

“Sometimes it’s easier to talk about things when you come at them sideways,” I said.

“And drunk,” Desmond added.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Celia said, ever the supportive one.

“It should be interesting, at least,” Bryony added with a shrug.

Desmond, outnumbered, heaved a sigh. “Fine. It’s not like I have a better plan,” he said. “And afterthatdinner, I could definitely use a drink.”

Desmond took out a stack of yellow plastic cups and poured a glug of vodka into each. For Celia, he added a generous pour of Sprite. “Everybody knows how this goes, right?”