“Here.” I give the phone to Gail. “So I can’t make any underage drunk dials. Or Snapchats. Just don’t lose it. Or snoop through it,” I add. “Can I go now?”

Gail nods, looking relieved as she pockets my phone. “All right.”

I jog toward the SUV, the night air brisk and vibrant, leaving all the baggage of Starfield behind me, taking only the parts that I want to remember—the fit of a stargun in my grip, the power of standing at the helm of the Prospero, the nights talking with a girl who calls me ah’blen—and leaving the rest of it behind.

SAGE DOESN’T TURN DOWN THE ROAD to my house—the truck’s way too loud. She stops at the entrance to the neighborhood as I loop my duffel over my head. 9:31 p.m. This is going to be one hell of a sprint. “What’s the plan for tomorrow?” she asks.

“Meet you at the bus station? Six a.m.?”

“Six it is!” She leans over and hugs me tightly. I return it.

“Wish me luck!” I cry as I roll onto the pavement.

All the houses are dark with sleep. I cut across lawns. The motion lights pop on as my feet thunder across dew-covered grass, my heart thrumming in my ears. I can’t be late. I can’t.

Turning into our driveway, I realize with a wash of relief that Catherine’s Miata isn’t there. No one is home yet. What’s today? Friday?

Wait. Friday. Shopping day. Holy sweet merciful credit cards, Batman.

I slow down and creep around to the side, hoping I won’t wake Giorgio as I climb up the creaky branches of the Bradford pear by my bedroom window. Halfway up, my foot slips. I curse, grappling onto another limb for support.

I pause, making sure no one heard me, before climbing up the rest of the way. When I slide through my window, my knees go to Jello and I sink to the ground, my heart still thundering in my ears.

I made it.

Relief wells up inside me. I curl my knees to my chest and press my forehead against them, trying to catch my breath. That was incredibly stupid—tonight of all nights. So stupid I’m shaking. Because I’m so close, so close to going to ExcelsiCon. So close to my father I can almost see him, like a figure in the distant dusk.

Just one more night, I tell myself. Just a few more hours.

Then the lamp in my room flicks on. Startled, I glance up. My heart stops.

Chloe is sitting in my computer chair, legs crossed, waiting patiently. Her gaze is so sharp it could cut glass. “Oh look,” she says coolly. “You’re home.”

“What are you doing in my room?”

She cocks her head. “Why’re you sneaking into the house? Could it really be this late?” She mocks a look at her fake watch and tsks. “Oh my, it really is late.”

Downstairs, the garage door opens and Catherine calls out that she’s home.

“Mom was with a client,” Chloe says simply. Which makes sense—the only explanation why Chloe would be home when Catherine isn’t. “But it seems you made it just in time.”

I don’t understand. “In time for what?”

She leans forward. “I know what you’re trying to do, geek,” she snaps. “You think you were so smart, going behind my back. How do you think Mom’ll react when she finds out you’ve been hanging out with that freak after work? You’ve been lying to her. After all she’s done for you.”

My mouth goes dry. “But you already knew that, and I said I wouldn’t say anything if you didn’t, and—”

“Stop screwing with me!” she cries, slamming her hands on the chair’s armrests. “Where is it?”

I get to my feet, dumbfounded. “Where’s what?”

“You know exactly what!” she snaps. “You took it. You know you did. So where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“Don’t play stupid!” She leaps out of the chair.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“The dress,” she hisses. I’ve never seen her so angry in my entire life. “Where did you put it? What, you think you can wear it? Don’t make me laugh.” Then her eyes settle on the duffel bag slung by the bed. She leaps for it, and I quickly grab for the strap, not wanting to let it go, but she’s too fast.

“What’s in here?” she cries triumphantly.

“Stop it! It’s not in there!” I lunge for the bag but she jerks away, unzipping it. She grabs a fistful of cloth and yanks it out.

I stand, horrified. Oh, oh god. She knows. Now she knows.

Her surprise quickly morphs into some sort of anger as she turns the fabric over in her hands. “Oh my god.” Her eyes cut back to me. “You were going to enter?”

“I—I don’t—” My throat constricts.

“You were! You were going to enter! And you took the other dress so we wouldn’t win! A loser like you. God, you really are pathetic.”

Something in me snaps. Maybe it was her calling me pathetic for wanting to enter. Or that her claws clutch my father’s jacket like it’s a cheap Halloween costume. Or maybe it’s her look of mockery, reminding me of that day last summer when I finally realized that people weren’t nice. That no one was nice. That everyone lied, and that my heart was just a token, and this universe was the one in the Black Nebula. The hopeless, terrible universe. The one no one wants to be in.

I rush toward her, grabbing the collar of the jacket. “Give it back! It’s not yours!”

“It’s not yours either!” Chloe replies, darting away from me. The collar slips from my grasp. “This was in our house, so it’s ours!”

“Yours?” I cry. “None of this was ever yours!”

I grab hold of a sleeve and tug on it. Chloe repels against me, trying to wrench away, but something tears and comes off in my grip. At the sound, I drop the sleeve as if burned and stare down at it.

No—no no no no no no—

“Ugh,” Chloe mutters, dropping the jacket. “Cheap garbage.”

I gather it up and press it against my chest. Willing it back together.

“Wait a second.” She spins around. “If you were going to the contest, that means you have a pass, don’t you?”

My blood goes cold. I’m shaking.

“Of course you do.” She tears a poster off the wall and it comes down in scraps. “Oops, not there. Or there,” she adds as she knocks a frame off the hook and opens my drawers, dumping clothes onto the floor. I watch her, still shaking, still with my arms around myself because I don’t want to let go of the jacket. My dad’s beautiful, ruined jacket.

“Hmm, now where would you put it?” Chloe turns full circle and then pauses on a poster. She glances at me as I pale, then back at the poster, and tears it off the wall. Behind it, tucked into the frame, are my con passes.

I jump to my feet. “Give those back!” I snap.

“Or you’ll do what? Run and tell Mom?” she mocks. Just then she sees the worst of it: my savings, balled up in a rubber band, and the bus tickets to Atlanta.

“What’s this?” Chloe sounds practically gleeful as she scoops up the tickets. “Greyhound tickets? Gross. Oh no—oops.”

With one swift motion, she rips them in half. And then in half again, and again and again until the tickets—the nonrefundable cash-fare tickets that Sage and I were going to use tomorrow morning at 6:30 a.m.—are a pile of confetti.

“This should do nicely.” She takes the roll of bills and pockets it. “We can just buy a better costume. Thanks.”

“You can’t.” My voice cracks. “You can’t or I’ll—”

“Or you’ll what?” Chloe sneers.

“Or—or I’ll tell Catherine you’re going to the con! She won’t let you. I’ll make sure she doesn’t.” I grip my dad’s jacket tightly. “I’ll—I’ll—”

I’ve never stood up to Chloe. I’ve never threatened her. Never in my life. And for a moment she’s shocked that I am, but then she blinks and her face falls into the dead-eyed look I know so well. How she looked last summer when she asked me why I thought James could ever like me. When she asked how I could have misinterpreted his kindness. When she made me out to be the freak, when the answers were always on the tip of my tongue.

But that’s peanuts compared to this. That was the appetizer. Now she has my con passes, my savings, my mom’s dress—she has to have mom’s dress, who else would?—Chloe has everything. She has everything I ever wanted.

“You’ll do what?” she says, stepping over the piles of clothes strewn across the floor. “If you tell Mom, then so will I. How do you think she’d like hearing that her stepdaughter is hanging out with a druggie?”

“Sage isn’t—”

“Or that she’s been skipping work?”

“I haven’t!”

“And who would believe you? You’re nothing, Danielle. You’re nobody. You never will be. No stupid dress can change that. You’ll always be the friendless weirdo whose daddy died.”

She shoves her free hand into my shoulder. I stumble backward, unable to catch my balance, and tumble onto my duffel bag. My duffel bag, where nothing is left but the beautiful crown Sage made me.