Avery heads to the Versailles wing to get Eve to join Xander’s proposed game, Hawthorne Chutes and Ladders. At the top of the east staircase, Avery finds Grayson standing outside the wing and is briefly pulled into a memory of Grayson diving fully clothed into a pool to save a toddler during a past party. In the present, Grayson asks where Jameson is, and Avery answers that Jameson is probably somewhere forbidden, making reckless choices.

Eve emerges from the wing and notices that Oren has assigned someone to watch her. Eve argues that the security team should be focused on finding Toby, not treating her as a threat, and asks what Eve must do to prove herself. Avery answers by inviting Eve to play a game.

Xander explains Hawthorne Chutes and Ladders to Avery, Eve, Grayson, and Max. The game uses hidden chutes in Hawthorne House, pillow wars to claim them, and a race from the ground floor to the roof using climbing gear. To determine who chooses equipment first, each player must reveal a secret, and the secrets will be ranked.

Grayson goes first and flatly admits that he kissed a girl at Harvard. Max reveals that she got a secret nerdy tattoo. Avery offers a more vulnerable confession: sometimes Avery feels Tobias Hawthorne made a mistake choosing her as heir. Grayson firmly rejects that idea, insisting Tobias Hawthorne did not make mistakes.

Xander then reveals that he has figured out who his father is, though Xander has not contacted the man and forbids the others from discussing it unless Xander raises the subject again. Eve follows with the most painful confession: Eve was born after her mother cheated on her husband, and both her mother and the man who raised her blamed Eve for existing. Eve says Eve tried to be perfect but learned that her family wanted her invisible, which Eve refuses to be.

Avery asks about Eve’s half-siblings, Eli and Mellie, who had come to Hawthorne House under false pretenses. Eve says Eli and Mellie never helped her, describes years of exclusion and neglect, and reveals she has not spoken to them in two years. Avery feels guilty for interrogating Eve and thinks of how Avery’s mother would have welcomed Toby’s daughter. The players rank the secrets, choose supplies, and begin the race.