Harriet goes pale and she sits on her pristinely made bed. Good Lord, her room is spotless. “I … I’m sorry. I wasn’t … You two weren’t visiting each other as much anymore, and you kept going out with Alfie, and you didn’t even speak at Florence’s party. I thought you might have broken up,” she finishes. She looks sheepish at her poor reasoning—I’m sure she knows as well as I do that it’s not appropriate to kiss a taken person simply because you suspect they might have broken up with their partner. But I couldn’t care less about her thought process. She’s inadvertently given me the answer I’m really here for.

“But you did know we were together at one point,” I continue. “Somehow.”

Her eyes widen as she realizes her mistake. Fear flashes across her features.

“Because you’ve known since November,” I say. “When you contacted the palace to tell them I was seeing Danni Blythe.”

FORTY-SEVEN DANNI

Mom has to call me three times to wake me up for the meeting with the headmaster. When the ringing finally drags me to consciousness, the first thing I notice is my bed’s empty. Then I remember Rose left super early, and I forgot to set an alarm of my own. I swear and grab my phone.

“I’m here, I’m coming, sorry, I’ll be one second, love you,” I babble, throwing on my uniform. Okay, so I’m gonna be … less than polished. Not ideal, but it’s fine, it’s cool, we’re gonna be fine. I’m gonna be fine.

Oh god, oh fuck, what if I’m not fine?

Mom is obviously livid when I finally get to the headmaster’s office, but it’s not with me, exactly. She sort of just seems to be angry at the world right now. She gives me a long hug, then smooths her blond hair back and tidies up the bun she’s wrangled it into. “Sit down, Daniela,” she says. “I want to discuss something with you before we go in.”

I don’t like that look. “What?” I ask warily.

“Drinking. I want to know what part of getting drunk at a stranger’s house, underage, during the school term seemed appropriate to you.”

Oh. Yeah. Shit. Good thing she doesn’t know about the weed, then, or she’d be really pissed right now.

“I raised you better than that, Danni. You know, maybe you’re too young to be at boarding school. You’re meant to be supervised here!”

I shrug. “We’re allowed to go out on the weekends.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“If you get a consent form signed,” I say, not meeting her eyes.

She looks at me flatly. “And I guess I just forgot signing this mysterious form?”

I purse my lips, and she throws her hands up.