As the overseer’s daughter, I didn’t get invited to many gatherings. Most of the other kids my age were too worried I’d rat them out for one reason or another.

The first and only time I had received an invitation had been on my twelfth summer. The same mixture of excitement and dread I had felt then, now swirled in my stomach as I held the blood-red paper in my hand.

“So, what does this mean?” I met my stepmother’s gaze as my brow furrowed. I ignored the withering glare Julianna shot my way, preferring the least of the three evils.

Belinda snatched the envelope out of my hand and waved it in the air with a rough laugh. “You don’t even know what you hold in your hand, you silly girl.”

Crossing my arms over my chest, I huffed. “Then why don’t you enlighten me? I’m assuming it has something to do with this Election I’ve heard so little about?”

My stepmother’s forehead crinkled showing her age, something she would be appalled to know had she seen it. “Who have you been talking to? I thought those in the outer circles weren’t included in the Election?” She glanced at her daughters before the accusation in her eyes fell on me.

“I’ve heard about it before, but not much,” I admitted but not including Marsha in my story. If I wasn’t supposed to know about it then the more I knew the better.

Julianna scoffed and rolled her eyes. “She doesn’t deserve to be invited. She doesn’t even know what she is being invited to, let alone what an honor it is.” Julianna’s eyes zeroed in on the envelope still in her mother’s hands. “In fact, why don’t I just take your place? They won’t know the difference, no one even knows you.” She tried to take the envelope from her mother’s hands but Belinda moved it out of her reach.

“Ah ah ah,” Belinda shook her head. “You know it doesn’t work that way. Even if Clarabelle,” she shot me a look of disdain, “isn’t well-known, the envelope is bonded by blood. Remember what happened to Gemina?”

Julianna’s eyes widened and fear crossed her face before she turned away with a pout. I almost asked who Gemina was and what happened to her when Lea jumped in.

She grabbed my hands with a giggle. “Oh, Clarabelle you are just going to love it. The dresses, the food...oh,” she skipped in place making me jiggle, “and the ball! It’ll be so much fun. I only wish I had been invited but you know the youngest child never gets invited.” Her lip curled out and her gaze dropped.

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. “So, what exactly am I getting into? Just going to some party? I don’t see how that’s such a big deal.”

The three looks of utter abhorrence came my way so suddenly, I had to take a step back. Maybe it was more of a bigger deal than I had thought.

“The big deal,” Belinda snapped, “is that this could change our lives forever. Not only would you get to live the life of luxury high up in the capital for the rest of your days but we,” she gestured around to the three of them, “will never have to work another day in our lives. Julianna and Lea will be able to marry,” Lea made a disgusted noise causing Belinda to add, “or not. Whatever they want to do and all from you going to one little party.” She held the invitation out to me with an eager grin.

I took the envelope from her with a hesitant hand. Flipping it over in my hand, I gave her a small unsure smile before putting my fingers on the wax seal. I almost opened it but then stopped at a thought. “I really should wait until my father gets home and find out what he thinks of all this.”

“No!” Belinda and Julianna shouted at the same time but then Belinda glared at her daughter. Julianna’s lips pressed tightly together and she stared down at the floor. Belinda stepped toward and placed her hands on my shoulders.

“Look, your father won’t be home until tomorrow and this is a twenty-four-hour invitation. You can’t just wait until he comes home, it’ll be too late by then.”

Her explanation made me frown. A twenty-four-hour window? What did the Crimson Fold have up their sleeves? The thought of going to this thing seemed more and more like a bad idea.

I pulled away from her grasp, turning my back to them. Marsha’s words from earlier filled my head. He had said I had a fifty-fifty chance of being picked and I shouldn’t worry. The way he had made it sound had been like being invited was a good thing and even my stepfamily thought I should be happy about it. Julianna sure seemed pissed I’d gotten the invite over her but why should I worry about being invited? And why had Belinda been so relieved for me to receive it instead of her daughter?

There were so many questions and yet no time to figure out what exactly I would be getting into. The smart thing would be to wait until my father arrived home. He would know what to do and I trusted him not to lie to me. Not like Belinda might.

Turning back to their anxious faces, I said, “I’m going to wait for my father.”

Lea and Julianna blew up, arguing over each other and then turning to their mother when I didn’t respond in kind. Belinda though, had become unusually calm, not blowing her top they she did when I dragged mud onto the carpet.

She waved her daughters off and they instantly quieted like the good little drones they were. Her gaze leveled on me with a careful expression as if she were afraid to show me too much. “I understand how you feel, Clarabelle.”

“You do?” I cocked a brow, not believing her for a second.

“Of course, I do.” She was trying to console me. It wasn’t working. “You’ve been taken away from your home, put into a house you don’t know with people you just met. You have no reason to trust us or our ways, but believe me when I tell you, this isn’t something you want to trifle with. You don’t want to anger them.”

“Why?” I countered. “What would they do if I don’t go?”

Before my stepmother could answer Julianna rushed to my side and grabbed me by the arm. Her nails dug into my skin as she shrieked, “We’ll be outcasts, that’s what! Pariahs. Forget having a choice in spouses, we’d be lucky to have food on our table.”

I pulled my arm away from her, forcing myself not to wince. She’d probably left marks from the sharp pincers she called nails. Turning away from Julianna—who tended to over exaggerate—I looked to my stepmother. The glare of disapproval on her face gave me hope it wouldn’t be as bad as Julianna had said.

“While not exactly the delivery I would have approved of,” Belinda pushed her eldest daughter behind her with a frown, “my daughter is right.”

Crap.

“If you don’t go,” she said calmly, “we won’t only be shunned by the people but we will be forced from our home, forced to move to another ring.” Her nose wrinkled in disgust before she sighed. “Basically, our lives will be changed forever no matter your decision.”

I had no pity for her or her daughters. They had been living in the luxury here in the Inner Circle. Part of me wanted to be petty and say they deserved whatever they got but I knew my father wouldn’t like that. I remembered what he said to me when he told me we were moving to the Inner Circle.

“I want you to have everything I could never give you here, Clara.” He’d cupped my face, giving me a smile.

“But I don’t need anything else,” I’d tried to argue with him, tears in my eyes. I hadn’t understood why he’d thought he needed to uproot me from my home to live with strangers. Sure, I didn’t have many friends in the Glade but at least it was home, not like the cold house of my new step-family.

When I’d arrived in the Inner Circle, I’d realized what my father had meant. They had so much more than we would ever have. I’d never have to worry about going hungry or having threadbare clothing. But I’d give it all up to go back home to our tiny house in the Glade. Where my mother had hung sunflower-printed curtains in the kitchen, and where she had died from pneumonia the following winter.

Thinking of my mother made me realize something. I didn’t want my stepfamily to move to the Glade. To have them there, in the house in which my mother had lived, would be to taint everything I loved about it. Unfortunately, the only way to make sure that didn’t happen was to accept the invitation and go to the ball.

“Fine,” I sighed in defeat. “I’ll go.”

Lea and Julianna cheered and clapped their hands, while their mother let out a relieved breath and then nodded toward the envelope. “Then you should open the invitation right away.”

“Why does it matter if I open it now or not?” I stared back down at the object in question.

“Because once you open it, they will know you have accepted.” I didn’t like the mysterious tone to her voice; I didn’t like mysteries. Things in life should be simple: you work, you eat, you die. Fancy envelopes with strange powers were not something I wanted in my life.

Already regretting my decision to go, I grasped the wax seal between my thumb and forefinger and pulled. Pain instantly radiated through my finger. I jerked it back quickly popping it into my mouth. Coppery blood filled my mouth and my gaze shot back to the seal. There inside sat the tiny pin that had pricked my finger.

What kind of person would do such a thing? But then again, what kind of people invite a bunch of strangers to their home for a party with lethal consequences if you declined.

Self-important people, that’s who.

Once my finger stopped bleeding, I reached into the envelope careful of any other surprises. Inside, sat an off-white rectangle with curly blood-red writing on it.

Clarabelle Feldson, you have been cordially invited to attend Alban’s annual Election Ceremony. In the next 48 hours transportation will be provided to bring you to the Core. There you shall be provided with every item you would possibly need until your place has been decided.

Thank you for your contribution to Alban.

It was signed ‘The Crimson Fold’ and stamped with a miniature version of their signa.

My heart raced as I realized what this meant. My father wouldn’t be home in time to see me off. He wouldn’t even know why I wasn’t home unless Belinda told him, and I bet she knew this.

Rage swept through me and I crumbled the invitation in my hand. “You knew about this, didn’t you?” I pointed at my stepmother, my fingers still gripping the crushed paper.

“Whatever do you mean?” She placed her hand on her chest, an innocent expression on her face.

I didn’t believe it for one second. “They’ll be here to collect me before father ever gets home. So, I wouldn’t have a chance to change my mind or even talk to him about it.”

Belinda shrugged, not bothering to deny it. “We don’t question their rules, just obey them. You’d know that if you had grown up here and not...well, where you did.”

“Well, I have news for you,” I snarled. “I’m not going.” I tossed the envelope and the destroyed invitation at her feet before stomping away.

As I marched up the stairs, Belinda called out to me, “It doesn’t matter now, you’ve already accepted. They’ll take you now, whether you want to go or not.”

For some reason, her words didn’t make me any madder than Marsha’s his cryptic reassurances did. Fifty-fifty my butt. As far as I was concerned, those odds had never been in my favor.