“You’re getting better at that,” they say in unison, like they’re surprised about it. The thing is, they shouldn’t be. I’ve been working really hard in the gym and doing my best to memorize everything they’ve taught me. I even have the sore muscles to prove it. “What a shame.”

“We liked pegging you in the face and back with food,” Tobias remarks, parking his elbow on the counter and putting his chin in his hand. “It’s just not the same, with you getting all badass on us and stuff.”

Ranger grabs a clean spatula from the drawer beside the stove and swats Tobias in the ass with it.

“Get up and finish your cream puffs. The bake-off against Everly is going to be brutal this year, and I intend to win. I’m not letting lazy good-for-nothings ruin my chances—especially not after finding out Jenica was bullied at Everly because of some cult.”

“Maybe you want to take that apron off, get naked, and finish the cream puffs yourself with some special sauce?” Tobias grins at his own joke, and then pales when Ranger turns a thundering look his direction.

“Get back to work, you little pissant,” he snarls, and Tobias scurries off to do as he’s told. Church, on the other hand, has already finished his tiramisu, and is now sitting in one of the armchairs, working on his Jenica notes.

“Speaking of Libby and the stone,” Church says, glancing up with amber eyes. He’s got a small espresso on the arm of his chair, and a muffin with a chocolate-coated coffee bean on the top sitting on the plate next to it. “Her possession of it would indicate that she’s a member of the Fellowship,” he continues, staring at the screen of his iPad. “Which would make Selena our most likely candidate for the female attacker.”

“Technically, yeah, but what about Ranger?” Spencer asks, pointing over at his friend. He’s still working on some boiled bagels that smell heavenly. “If this shit is, like, passed down to everyone in a family, how could Ranger’s dad be a part of it when Jenica and Ranger aren’t?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out during fall break,” Ranger says, determined to finish icing his three-layer pink cake with the fondant roses waiting to be put on it. “We’ll snoop and dig and sleuth, and then if worse comes to worst, I’ll confront his ass with the evidence.”

“Like I said, my dad is never going to let me go,” I repeat, restarting our conversation about fall break. Dad and I always spend Thanksgiving together, so the chance of him letting me out of the country for a weeklong trip is laughable. “Besides, I don’t have a passport.”

“You will not confront him,” Church tells Ranger, ignoring me and putting the iPad aside as he rises to his feet to help Micah with some fairly fucked-up looking macarons. At least I’m not the only one who struggles in the kitchen sometimes. Church whips an apron over his hips and looks pointedly at Ranger. “Your father is no stranger to scandal. If he could get rid of Jenica, then surely he’d get rid of you, too.”

“Yeah, except that Jenica wasn’t his biological kid,” Ranger says, and I pause. Pretty sure the other boys are just as shocked as I am by that statement. Flicking my attention over to Church, I catch a brief flare of hurt in his eyes before he shuts it down. “You know my mom was married to my dad’s brother first, right? He died in a plane crash when Jenica was like, five, and Mom, in some like grief-induced haze married his kid brother that she’d never really liked.”

“So you and Jenica are cousins and siblings?” Spencer asks, and Ranger gives him a look that could curdle milk. He very quickly holds up his hands in surrender.

“Don’t make it weird. It’s not like there was incest or anything. Chill out.” Ranger turns back to his cake, focusing in on piping some frosting lace along the edges. He’s doing it again, baking out all his frustrations. It’s a pretty healthy outlet though, if you ask me. “I’m just saying, my dad’s a petty, pathetic asshole. So maybe he figured he’d sell Jenica down the river?”

“But not recruit you into the Fellowship?” Micah asks, and the room goes quiet again. After a moment, Church comes over to where I’m standing, removes a small blue book from his pocket, and sets it on the counter next to me.

When I reach out to grab it, I see that it’s a passport—with my name and picture on the inside.

My eye twitches.

“I see that when you asked me to stand against the white wall in our room, so you could get a headshot to sketch for art class, you were totally full of shit.”

“Full of shit,” Church agrees with a brisk nod. “So, pack your bags: you’re going with us to London—whether Headmaster Carson likes it or not.”

The way that Dad looks at me, I’m sure I’ve done it now. This is literally the last straw in our relationship, the lynchpin being pulled, the coup de grâce if you will.

“You are not going to London,” he says, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. “To stay at Eric Warren’s house? Absolutely not.” My face pales because I most definitely did not say anything about Eric Warren’s house. We figured since dad’s admission that he knows at least something about the cult which means he might also know about Eric’s possible involvement. Instead, we spun some almost-lie about staying in Church’s parents’ flat in Hyde Park—that’s one of the rich people parts of London—for the week.

“I’ve never been out of the country,” I plead, folding my hands together like I’m six years old all over again. Yes, we’re going to see Eric Warren née Woodruff (he changed his last name to his mother’s following a political scandal) as part of our investigation, but … it’s more than that. This is a chance for me to see another part of the world, a place I never thought I’d be able to go. “Hell, until we moved here, I’d never been out of California. This is the chance of a lifetime for me.”

With a sigh, Dad puts his glasses aside and then pinches the bridge of his nose, leaning back in his chair like he’s tired. And I don’t just mean from the day, it looks like he’s feeling his exhaustion bone-deep.

“Charlotte, do you think I want you to suffer?” he asks, dropping his hands in his lap and studying my face.

“Um, yes?”

“Charlotte Farren,” he groans, looking like he’d rather take a long walk off a short pier than keep talking to me right now. “Eric Warren is a dangerous man, and you have no business traveling to a foreign country with a bunch of boys that you barely know—”

“I’ve known them for over a year,” I correct, “and we’ve been through a lot together. We almost died in those tunnels; we all grieved Spencer together. They took me to Disneyland. Why can’t you just accept that they’re in my life and they probably will be for a long, long time.”

“Regardless of your relationship with these boys, I won’t have you going to see Eric Warren.”

“Because you know he’s involved with the Fellowship of the Divine.”

Silence.

You could hear a pin drop.

Speaking of pins, Dad sort of looks like he wants to shove one into my eye right now.