“Must have been the longest lecture you’ve attended all term.” Susan smirked, pulling a tatty leather wallet out of her pocket and handing it to Daisy. “I’ll pay if you go. The barman sounds chatty—it’s too early in the day to talk to strangers.”

“It’s half past two in the afternoon.”

“Your point?”

Glancing anxiously to where the barman was entirely ignoring their existence, Daisy leaned in to whisper, “It’s illegal. I’m not yet eighteen.”

Susan didn’t even lower her voice to reply. “Yet the barman will assume you are. And the alcohol isn’t for you, so you’re not doing anything wrong. You can do this, Daisy Wooton. I believe in you.”

Esther raised a fist in solidarity before giving a little shiver. “Mulled cider for me.”

Daisy pulled off her cardigan and laid it over Esther’s bare legs before turning toward the bar with the stride of someone who knew what she wanted (a whisky, a mulled cider, and an entirely legal hot chocolate). She tried to ignore the way the soles of her shoes stuck to the floor and made a tacky little schulp with every step. Positioning herself a respectable distance away from where an overly affectionate couple were running their hands under each other’s clothes, she waited patiently as the barman prepared coffee with all the urgency of a Windows update.

The barman had just located the milk when someone barged up, jostling Daisy into dropping Susan’s wallet onto the floor.

“I’m so sorry!” Daisy apologized reflexively, even as she was bending down to pick up the wallet the new arrival had knocked from her hand.

“Don’t worry about it.” His voice was rich and round, nourished by a diet of elocution lessons and port, and when Daisy was upright once more, she realized she knew the person to whom it belonged.

Jonathan Tremain. Geography. Ellerton Hall.

Name-subject-hall was the way everyone had introduced themselves that first week, when Daisy had encountered Jonathan queuing for the showers in a fetching silk robe several inches too short to be considered decent, with Amelia embroidered on the back.

Possessed with unexpected nostalgia, Daisy waved hello.

“You probably don’t remember me. I’m—”

“Poppy! Of course!”

Did it count as remembering if he got her name wrong? “Actually, it’s—”

“How’ve you been?”

She could be Poppy. That was fine.

“I’ve been good, thanks. What about you?”