An intense-looking guy with wild hair who wore a massively oversized dress shirt, like something a painter might drape over themselves, was gesturing with a vape. Hayes was there as well, sunk deep into the folds of the sofa. Maris was very close to him and they spoke face-to-face.

Janelle scanned the room and found Vi, who was sitting on a rug with three other people, playing a tile-based game.

“Let’s sit there,” she said to Nate and Stevie.

It was as good a place as any. Vi scooted over and made room for everyone, and introductions were made.

“This is Marco, DeShawn, and Millie,” she said. “Do you like Castles of Arcadia? We were going to play.”

“Sure!” Janelle said. “I don’t know how but show me.”

Stevie also didn’t know how to play. Nate did, and this brought a bit of enthusiasm to his demeanor. He immediately started explaining the value of tiles with pictures of grain and bricks on them, the importance of the various green squares, why you needed to build by rivers and collect the tiny wooden sheep and cows and put them in fenced areas. Janelle remained focused, but Stevie couldn’t help looking around the room, and soon she lost track of what the game was even supposed to be about.

A girl came in through the flap with a kind of queenly bearing. She had a crown of vibrant long red hair, thick and curly. Stevie had met people with long hair and people with curly hair and people with red hair, but this hair was like a force of nature. It wasn’t fully curly—it was stretched out and full and golden. It was less like hair and more like a weather pattern. Someone called out the name “Gretchen” and Ellie hopped across the room to greet her. Stevie watched the girl stare down the group on the sofa, narrowing her focus on Hayes and Maris. She spoke to Ellie, then gave a massive hair flip and pointedly did not join the group on the sofa. Hayes just cocked his head for a moment, and then turned back to Maris.

Something going on there.

Germaine Batt, the girl from the coach, sat talking to Kaz, though she also appeared to be mostly looking around the room. She continued to work her phone with an intensity Stevie had rarely seen. “She does that show,” Janelle said. “The Batt Report. She’s some kind of journalist.”

As the room grew louder and more crowded, it became clear that there would be no Castles of Arcadia, and Millie, Marco, and DeShawn split into their own group, and Vi and Janelle got to talking. Nate and Stevie remained together, with Nate sadly gripping a handful of wooden cows.

“This is fun,” Nate said. “What are we supposed to be doing?”

“Meeting people,” Stevie said.

Nate made a sound like a deflating balloon.

“You don’t like meeting new people,” Stevie surmised.

“No one likes meeting new people.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Stevie said as she watched Janelle and Vi. Stevie found herself getting strangely nervous as Janelle and Vi talked, their heads getting a little closer together with each exchange, the laughs a little bigger. A bubble of jealousy rose in her and she clamped it down.

“It’s true,” Nate said. “Everyone pretends to. It’s just one more thing we’re supposed to pretend to like.”

“I’m a new person you’re meeting,” Stevie said.

Nate didn’t reply to that.

“So,” she said, to make conversation, “are you working on the sequel to your book?”

“What?”

It was like a spotlight had come onto Nate and he was pinned to a brick wall, facing down the guards. He squeezed his cows.

“I started it,” he said.

“How many chapters have you written?”

“It’s not like that,” he snapped. “Why are you asking me this?”

“What?”

“I mean . . .” Nate fidgeted. “You don’t just write something and it’s done. You don’t just do it. You write parts and you rewrite and you have new ideas and you move stuff. I don’t want to talk about the book.”

“Okay,” Stevie said. She pressed herself deeper into the futon, until the wooden frame was hard against the base of her spine.

Nate also shifted uncomfortably. “They let me in here because of the book,” he said. “That’s why I am here. Do you know how many pages I’ve written?”

“I thought you didn’t . . .”

“Two thousand. Two thousand.”

“That seems good?” Stevie said, unsure of what was happening.

“It’s two thousand pages and nothing happens. It’s all terrible. I wrote the first book and then I forgot how to write. It used to be that I would sit and write and I would go into some other world—I could see it all. I was totally in another place. But the second it became something I had to do, something in me broke. It’s like I used to know the way to some magical land and I lost the map. I hate myself.”

He leaned back against the pillows and exhaled.

“So, no, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Stevie nervously side-eyed Nate until it was clear he wasn’t going to say any more. Then she turned her attention to the rest of the room.

Hayes was sidling up to Maris. Before long, they were in intense conversation again. Stevie wondered about Beth Brave—she probably wouldn’t be happy that Hayes was sidling up to other people now that he was at school. Stevie also noticed she was not the only person paying attention to Hayes and Maris. Germaine Batt was watching the two of them carefully, and at one point lifted her phone and took a photo. The girl with the red hair, Gretchen, also appeared to object to what she was seeing because she kept deliberately turning away.

Lots of strings attached to Hayes, pulling in all directions.

“It’s David!” Ellie said, throwing up her arms and breaking Stevie’s concentration on Hayes and his orbit. “David, David, David!”

As David David David came into the yurt, the strings of lights shook and a fragrant night breeze blew in. He raised his arms high, as if in triumph. Ellie sprang over and ensnared him in a boa-filled hug. He half lifted her and she wrapped her legs around his middle and stayed there, riding around.

Ellie directed the triple David over to the Minerva group. He was tall, with a shock of partially curly, partially wild dark hair that likely hadn’t seen a pair of scissors in months. Many people in the yurt were casually dressed, but David was leaning a little more toward shabby—cargo shorts with visible wear and holes; a thin, dark-blue T-shirt with a logo that had faded into obscurity; broke-down-looking skate shoes.

In that first moment, Stevie had the feeling she had met David before. Something about him that just had a suggestion of . . . something she couldn’t place. Something that made her brain itch.

“This is David,” Ellie said from her position clinging to his torso. “He’s the last member of House Minerva. Say hello, David.”

Stevie had a strange thought that she really hoped he didn’t say “hello, David” in reply, but that was exactly what happened. Another point on the scorecard. Maybe people at Ellingham were not so different after all.

David’s eyes, which were deep brown and bright, went right to hers, as if he had clocked her disapproval. His peaked brows peaked a bit higher into his forehead, and he gave a long, thin smile. He set Ellie down on the back of the sofa and dropped between Stevie and Nate in a space not quite big enough for him to fit. Ellie did the introductions as she decorated David’s hair with loose feathers from her boa.