“Is Santi here?” Eleanor asks before I can reply. I have the feeling she’s been sitting on that since Rose got here. So that’s why she’s wearing a dress that Marilyn Monroe herself would call “awfully skintight.”

“He’s around,” Rose says. “Do you plan on actually speaking to him tonight?”

“I do,” Eleanor says, more than a little defensive.

Rose raises her eyebrows, but before she can roast Eleanor, some guy in a tuxedo grabs her arm and vanishes with her into the crowd. Cool, bye, then.

“What’s Santi doing here?” I ask Eleanor. “Did Rose invite him for you?”

“Nope. His mother is the Spanish ambassador.” Eleanor scans the crowd—looking for Santi, I assume—but then she nods somewhere through the sea of people. “Hey, it’s Rose’s parents. Do you want to meet them?”

I blanch, and look at the ground. “Oh, no, that’s okay.”

“Really? Not even to say happy birthday?”

I literally cannot think of anything less appealing than bothering the queen of Henland right now to wish her a happy birthday when she’s probably got no clue who the hell I am. She will definitely, one thousand percent survive without meeting me. Besides, everything Molly drilled into me earlier today—a blur of rules about what everyone needs to be called, and who I’m allowed to talk to, and how deep I have to curtsy—has vanished.

“Maybe we can just get something to eat?” I say weakly.

“Best idea you’ve had all night. Let’s go.”

Waiters with appetizer trays are weaving through the crowd, and we grab a couple of pieces of hot finger food from them, but we hit the jackpot when we find a massive buffet table overflowing with cakes, pastries, and a chocolate fountain.

“Molly is gonna be so pissed she missed this,” Eleanor says. “She said last year the only thing missing was macarons, and look. A whole tower of them. I’m gonna steal her some.”

“You know she didn’t want to come, right?” I ask, just to check.

Eleanor stops smiling. “Yeah. I know.”

I realize too late that I was meant to play along and pretend nothing’s wrong. Because if we don’t acknowledge a problem, it goes away, or something.

Not far from us, Rose is standing with Alfie, talking to a middle-aged couple I don’t recognize. Alfie looks more or less like a model, all sharp jawline and perfectly coiffed hair, and he’s beaming and chatting and bringing the couple to laughter like he was made for this. I would do anything to be confident like that. Rose is standing close-close to him, too. Like, right up in his personal space.

They look like a couple. They aren’t one, though, right? Surely I’d know if they were.