“You don’t remember?”

Some of the tension seemed to drain from Himari’s body. “No. It’s so bizarre. I remember everything else: god, I remember the name and title of every last person at court. But the days leading up to the accident are a complete blank.”

A complete blank. Relief swept through Daphne. If Himari didn’t remember, it would be like none of it had ever happened: Daphne sleeping with Ethan, the blackmail, the night of the fall.

Or—what if Himari was only pretending to have forgotten? She might be acting like this to draw Daphne close, and carry out some greater revenge scheme.

“I’m not surprised you remember everyone at court,” Daphne said carefully. “You and I spent weeks combing through McCall’s Peerage before our first royal function.”

Himari smiled at that. To Daphne, at least, it looked genuine. “I still can’t believe we made note cards for that. We were such dorks.”

Back then, neither of them had mattered in the vast hierarchy of court. Himari’s parents possessed an earldom, so they ranked higher than Daphne’s, who were a second-generation baronet and lady. But Himari’s older brother would inherit their title, while Daphne, at least, was an only child.

Both girls had been nobodies, and each wanted desperately to be somebody. It was what had initially drawn them to each other—their shared impulse to climb.

Daphne hadn’t realized at the time what that kind of wanting could do to someone, how dangerous it could make them.

“If you don’t remember falling,” she asked, “what do you remember?”

“The last thing I remember is our French exam! When I woke up, my first thought was that I had a calculus final today, and I needed to make sure I brought my calculator to school.”

Daphne listened hard, searching for any hint of hesitation or falsehood in Himari’s words, but she didn’t hear any.

“Our French exam? That was at least a week before the graduation party.” And before Himari’s birthday: when Daphne ended up with Ethan, and Himari saw them in bed together.

Before Himari threatened Daphne with the secret, and Daphne decided to fight fire with fire, and everything escalated so horribly out of control.

“It could be worse. I could’ve lost months instead of days,” Himari pointed out. “Though I guess I have lost months, given that a year of my life has disappeared.”

“I’m so sorry,” Daphne replied, because there was nothing else to say.

“I didn’t believe my parents, you know.” Himari was still holding the gift basket, fiddling with the cellophane wrapper around a soy candle. “When I woke up and heard the date, when they told me that the king had died, I didn’t believe it.”

Daphne swallowed. “A lot happened while you were in the hospital.”

“I know, you’re about to graduate! Next year, I’ll have to be a senior all alone.” Himari sighed dramatically, looking so utterly like her old self that Daphne almost smiled.

Suddenly, she remembered a time back in freshman year—before she was dating Jefferson, because no one would dare do something like this now—when a junior named Mary Blythe started a rumor that Daphne had gotten plastic surgery. On her nose, her boobs, everything.

Daphne had forced herself not to acknowledge the rumor. She knew that the more vocally she protested, the more people would believe it was true.

Himari, however, had created a fake email address and reached out to Mary, posing as a recruiter for a reality dating show. She’d convinced Mary to record an embarrassing audition video—which Himari then played during a school assembly.

“What?” she’d exclaimed, in answer to Daphne’s stunned look. “No one gets to mess with you.”

Himari was a little scary that way. There was no one as fiercely loyal to her friends—or as utterly merciless to her enemies.

If only Daphne knew which category she fell into now.

“So what have I missed?” Himari pulled her legs up beneath the blankets. “Catch me up on everything that’s happened in the past year.”

“Beatrice is queen,” Daphne began, but Himari interrupted.

“I know that! Tell me about you and Jeff,” she pleaded. “Why does everyone keep saying you might get back together? When did you break up in the first place?”

“He broke up with me last summer,” Daphne said cautiously. “For a while he dated Nina Gonzalez. Samantha’s friend.”

Himari’s eyes widened in recognition, and she barked out a laugh. “That girl? Seriously?”

This time, Daphne couldn’t hold back her smile.

She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed having someone to confide in. For years, Himari had been the first person Daphne went to with any sort of news—good news, bad news, news that didn’t really matter at all.

But ever since the accident, Daphne had been holding these sorts of conversations with Himari in her head: asking her questions, guessing how Himari might have replied. This was precisely the reaction she had imagined, when she’d wondered what Himari would’ve said about Nina.

Himari reached into the gift basket for a box of chocolate truffles and popped one into her mouth, then passed Daphne the box. “Tell me the whole story, from the beginning.”

Samantha walked down the palace hallway with willfully slow steps. She trailed her fingers over every tapestry, scuffed her feet on the carpets, the way she’d seen children do when their parents dragged them on a palace tour. She felt maddeningly like a child right now, receiving a summons to meet with Lord Robert Standish.

She’d only been to Robert’s office twice before. Once a few years ago, when that paparazzo got the infamous photo of her skirt riding up. And then last spring she’d been called there with Jeff, after Himari Mariko fell down the stairs at their graduation party.

Neither occasion had been especially pleasant.

The Lord Chamberlain worked on the second floor, just outside Beatrice’s study—so that he could monitor the queen’s visitors, a bright-eyed Cerberus guarding her time. Sam was grateful to see that her sister’s door was firmly shut. She’d done a fantastic job avoiding Beatrice for the past couple of weeks, and had no intention of stopping now.

She knocked at the chamberlain’s door, then reluctantly slipped inside to take a seat.

Robert was seated at his desk, dressed as usual in a charcoal-colored suit. It was the only thing Sam had ever seen him wear. She’d occasionally caught herself wondering whether he ever took it off, or maybe his closet was simply full of them, dozens of matching gray pants and jackets lined up in tidy little rows.

She made an impatient noise, but Robert didn’t look up. He kept on typing, as if to punish her for her tardiness.

Perched on his desk was an arrangement of red roses, along with golden daylilies and blue delphiniums. The whole thing was disgustingly patriotic. Sam reached up to pluck one of the flowers, rolling it back and forth. It was as dusky blue as a midsummer sky, as Teddy’s eyes.

She crushed it between her fingers, then let it fall to the floor.

“You’re nineteen minutes late,” Robert said at last. Sam found it strangely irritating that he’d said nineteen instead of twenty. He shook his head with a resigned sigh. “Your Royal Highness, I set this meeting so that we could discuss your new responsibilities as first in line for the throne.”

“There’s no need for me to go through all the training that Beatrice did,” Sam said automatically. “It’s not like I’m ever going to rule.”

This—being first in line for the throne—was the highest Sam would ever rank. Once Beatrice had children, the entire family would engage in a silent game of musical chairs, bumping everyone down a spot in the order of succession. The more kids Beatrice had, the more obsolete Sam would become.

Even Teddy had upgraded to Beatrice, the instant he’d gotten a chance.

“I’m certainly not suggesting that you prepare to be queen. Beatrice isn’t going anywhere.” Robert was clearly so appalled by the suggestion that he was startled into omitting her title, for once.

“Good, then we agree.” Sam rose to her feet. “There’s no need to waste your time preparing me for a role I will never fill. Especially when neither of us wants to be here.”

“Sit down,” Robert snapped, and Sam sank sullenly back into her chair. “We aren’t here to train you as a future monarch. Besides, the only person qualified for that sort of preparation is Her Majesty herself.” Robert was the type of person who said Your Majesty as if the title belonged to him, or at least as if it lent him a secondhand glamour.

“Then why are we here?” Sam demanded.

“Our discussion today will focus on your new role as heir to the throne. You are a representative of the Crown now.”