“The palace is secure; there’s no need to panic,” he began—but his next words were drowned out by a stampede of footsteps.

The guests cried out breathless questions: where was the threat, what about the royal wedding, were they free to leave. The Guard seemed helpless to stop the sea of frightened people rushing past him and out into the hallway.

Nina realized that she was still clutching tight to her mom’s hand, and quickly let go. “You all right, sweetie?” Julie asked, glancing over.

Nina’s mamá, standing on her other side, rested a hand on her daughter’s back in silent reassurance.

“I’m all right.” Nina plucked nervously at her gown. Why wasn’t there any circulation in here? There were too many people, crowding the room with their shrill complaints. Nina hadn’t seen Ethan since she’d left to find her parents; she wondered if he was still toward the back of the room. And where was Sam? The Guard had said the palace was secure—that meant the royal family was all safe, right?

“Sorry, I just need some space,” Nina muttered. Her parents nodded in understanding as she joined the flood of people headed out the ballroom’s main doors.

She jostled blindly down the hallway, past oil portraits and carved side tables and iron sconces, past Guards and footmen who spoke in low tones, too preoccupied to worry about her. Finally, a few doors down, Nina turned in to an empty sitting room. She collapsed onto a couch, slumping forward and closing her eyes. At least now she could breathe.

“Oh. It’s you.”

At the sound of that voice, Nina went hot and prickly all over.

“Excuse me.” She hurried to stand, but Daphne had planted herself before the door like a human barrier. A strange series of expressions darted over her face: surprise and dismay rapidly giving way to a hungry, avid sort of calculation.

Nina knew that look didn’t bode well for her.

“Don’t run off just yet. There’s something we need to talk about.” Daphne smiled like a lion, bold and beautiful and utterly deadly. It shattered what remained of Nina’s self-control.

“I already did what you asked, and broke up with Jeff! You’re here as his date, Daphne. You won,” she said acridly. “Can’t you just leave me alone?”

Daphne made a show of stepping aside. Her smile never faltered, but it became, oddly, more relieved. As if Daphne was secretly thrilled to speak openly, without any pretense at being the polite, well-mannered Daphne Deighton that the world knew and loved.

It struck Nina as oddly pitiful, that she was perhaps the only person with whom Daphne could be herself.

“Of course I’ll leave you alone,” Daphne sniffed. “I can assure you that this isn’t pleasant for me, either. I just felt like I should warn you, from one woman to another, about Ethan.”

Nina wasn’t sure how Daphne knew about her and Ethan—whether Jeff had told her, or whether Daphne had seen them holding hands in the throne room. She found that she didn’t especially care.

“It’s none of your business,” she tried to reply, as calmly as she could.

“But aren’t you afraid of what will happen once everyone finds out?” Daphne made a clucking, concerned sound. “Nina, for a girl who claims to hate the spotlight, you somehow keep finding it over and over again. America isn’t going to be very kind to you, once they learn you’ve left Jefferson for his best friend.”

Nina itched to slap her smug, perfect face. How did Daphne always seem to zero in on her greatest fears?

“I’m not stupid. I know it won’t be easy,” she replied, with more bravado than she felt. “But Ethan is worth it. We have something real.”

Daphne gave a sharp laugh. “You fool. I’m the one who told Ethan to go out with you.”

Silence scraped at Nina’s eardrums. She couldn’t hear anything anymore: not the muffled sounds of footsteps, not the security guards speaking into walkie-talkies. It had all receded behind a wall of shock.

“Ethan only ever started dating you because of me.” Each of Daphne’s words was like the sting of a lash, like a knife digging into Nina’s side. “You see, I was worried that Jefferson still cared about you. I realized that I would never get him back if you were still an option. So I asked Ethan if he would keep tabs on you.”

“You’re lying.” Nina’s reply was automatic.

Daphne rolled her eyes. “I orchestrated the entire thing. I told Ethan everything I’d learned about you, from your weird M&M obsession to the fact that you love Venice. I wanted him to flirt with you a little, and he did exactly what I said.”

Nina’s heart lurched with a sick sense of betrayal as she recalled the pleasant glow of surprise she’d felt when Ethan had noticed those things. She’d thought he was so observant, that they were compatible.

She’d never really questioned why, after they’d lived on the same campus for months without seeing each other, he’d suddenly shown up in her journalism class and asked to be partners. Had he been following Daphne’s orders the entire time?

At the hurt look on Nina’s face, Daphne smiled. “Well. It’s nice to know he made use of all my intel.”

Some stubborn part of Nina refused to back down. “Ethan wouldn’t do that to me. He’s nothing like you.”

“You have no idea what Ethan is really like.”

Nina’s stomach plummeted as she remembered what Ethan had said, just this morning: My reasons for hanging out with you, earlier this year, were totally messed up. And that night at the twins’ party: You shouldn’t want to be with me….If you only knew.

Daphne cast her a withering glance. “Don’t you see, Nina? Ethan loves me, not you. He dated you when I told him to, because he loves me. He’s kept secrets so dark you couldn’t begin to imagine them—covered up things that would make your blood run cold—because he loves me.” Daphne spoke with a terrifying calm. “Whatever you think of me, that I use people and manipulate the tabloids, then you have to think the same about Ethan. He and I are cut from the same cloth.”

Manipulate the tabloids. Nina drew in a breath. “You told that reporter about me and Ethan, didn’t you? The one who called Jeff?”

“Of course,” Daphne said, smirking. “Don’t you get it by now? I’m behind everything.”

What a fool Nina had been, thinking she could escape. No matter how much Daphne took from her, no matter that Nina had broken up with Jeff, it would never be enough. Daphne had meant what she’d said at Beatrice’s engagement party: she would always be one step ahead of Nina, making her life a living hell.

But why did Daphne even care what she did anymore? She wasn’t a threat; she was with Ethan now.

Nina sucked in a breath as comprehension dawned. “Oh my god. You’re in love with Ethan, aren’t you?”

Daphne gritted her teeth but didn’t answer, which was how Nina knew it was true.

“You’ve always loved him,” she went on, threading the pieces together. “But you wouldn’t date him, because you wanted to be a princess more than anything else. Even more than you wanted Ethan.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” the other girl spat. “You don’t know me at all.”

Nina took in Daphne, the absolute desperation of her ambition, and again felt that disgusted, hollow sort of pity.

“I feel sorry for you,” she declared. How could anyone give up a person they actually loved, to mold their entire life around someone they didn’t?

“You feel sorry for me? Who do you think you are?”

“Who do I think I am?” The sheer condescension of Daphne’s question made Nina stand up straighter. “I don’t have to think about it at all, because I know who I am! Unlike you, I am proud of where I came from, of the brilliant, hardworking parents who raised me. They may not have a title, which clearly means everything to you, but you know what? We don’t care.”

Nina took a step forward to underscore her point, and felt a grim satisfaction when Daphne flinched.

“We don’t fixate on how long our ceremonial capes are, or how high we fall in the list of the peerage,” she went on fiercely. “We care about the things that matter—integrity, honesty, kindness. We don’t look at other people and automatically think of them as our competition; we think of them as our friends.”

Nina was so deeply tired of court, with its layers of pointless and archaic protocol, its titles and precedence, its utter lack of loyalty.

“You know what, Daphne? You win. You can have all of it—Jeff, Ethan, the titles and tiaras. I don’t care. Enjoy living inside this gilded cage, being scrutinized and picked apart by every person on the planet. None of it will make you happy, since none of it will be real.”

Her eyes glinted with defiance as she moved to the door, then turned to deliver one last parting shot.

“No matter what you do, no matter how high you climb, you’ll never have anyone to share it with,” Nina said coldly. “You’ll be completely alone.”