Helena and Leela find me in bed. They enter the room gingerly and close the door behind them. I refuse to turn my face from where it’s buried in my pillow to look at them.

“Your Majesty, are you alright?” Bold of Helena to ask when she’s the one who pointed out what was quite literally the most embarrassing mistake I’ve ever made.

“May I?” Leela asks.

I have no idea what she’s asking, but I nod into the pillow, still not looking at them. A weight settles at the edge of my bed.

“Why don’t you come out, Your Majesty?”

I peek out and find Leela smiling at me. She’s still dressed in her black funeral dress, her gloved hands folded in her lap.

“Breakfast was a disaster,” I say, because I don’t know how to move past this without pointing out the elephant in the room.

Leela breaks into a small, tinkling laugh. “There’s no denying that.”

“Great, now you’re laughing at me,” I groan, but I can’t help smiling with her.

Leela covers her grin, her eyes still glimmering. “No, not at you. We’ve all made those mistakes before. Except for you. It’s refreshing to be reminded that you’re as human as we are.”

“Trust me, I’m plenty human,” I say with a snort that sets Leela into another fit of laughter.

“May I also?” Helena points to a spot on the other side of my bed. Once she settles, she says, “While it’s nice to see you smiling, are you okay?”

Leela’s smile immediately drops, replaced by genuine concern. “Yes, this can’t be an easy time for you.”

I appreciate them, but I don’t know how to tell them that I’m offending royals because I genuinely have no idea what I’m supposed to be saying or doing. Once, when I had just started at the office, Molly took me under her wing and told me that the best way to get time off approved was to sell a good lie.

“The secret to a good lie,” she said, “is to mix a little bit of the truth into it. And the worse they feel for you, the better.”

I’m hoping that advice works for me now.

“I’ve been so disoriented,” I say, picking at one of the strings of my duvet cover. “It’s been hard to adjust to all of these changes. Everything feels brand new, even though it’s not. I feel like I’ve forgotten who I am at the most critical time.”

Leela reaches out and stops when there’s barely an inch between my hand and hers. Some internal conflict plays out in her eyes, and though I don’t know what it is, I know which side wins when she finally closes the gap and takes my hand in hers.

“How can we help, Your Majesty?”

I send a silent thanks up to Molly and make a promise with the universe to buy her as many lattes, margaritas, and vanilla-scented candles as she wants if I ever see her again. And if not, I hope she meets a rich woman who’ll buy her all that and more.

“Can you stop calling me ‘Your Majesty?’” I don’t even realize it’s something I want until the words leave my lips, but more desperately than anything, I want friends. I catch Helena’s eye as well. “Both of you?”

Helena gapes like a fish, and Leela’s mouth makes a perfect ‘O.’

It’s Leela who recovers first.

“Yes, we can.” She squeezes my hand and it’s the most basic of gestures, but I could cry with the relief of it. “Though, it’ll certainly get awkward around the counselors and the nobility.”

Helena rubs at her neck. “Oh yes, wouldn’t want to get beheaded for insubordination.”

A chill goes down my spine. “Is that real?”

Leela snorts and checks Helena’s shoulder. “It was—a hundred years ago.”

“Yes, but—” Helena tries.

“But nothing, you overgrown infant,” Leela says, rolling her eyes.

Helena looks so indignant, cheeks red, brows drawn together, that I can’t help but laugh. Leela and Helena turn matching grins on me and it’s like a flip has been switched.

When we settle down, I ask them, “When did you make the palette cleanser mistake?”

Helena sits upright. “When I first came to the palace.”

“How old were you?” I ask. “And where were you before?”

She looks pleasantly surprised. “I was fourteen when I first got here. Before that, I was living on a dairy farm in one of the northern provinces.”

“Which one?”

“Altairz. One of my cousins is of lower nobility and my mother sent me to visit her for a summer. She said—what was it?” She pauses, and continues in a high-pitched voice, “‘A lady’s life can’t just be milking the cows and mucking the mud.’”

“I can’t imagine you milking a cow,” I say, around my laughter. Helena is always impeccably dressed, her hair always intricately woven. I’ve never seen her look anything less than spotless.

She gets a glint in her eye and I get the sense that I’ve awakened something in her. “I’ll show you sometime, if you’re willing to get your hands dirty.”

“You know I am,” I say, wiggling my freshly manicured fingers at her.

“Didn’t your mother send you here to do the exact opposite of milking cows?” Leela asks. “Now you’ve gone and roped the Queen into it as well.”

“The Queen’s a strong woman, she can handle it.”

Helena says it so confidently that for a moment, I truly believe there isn’t anything I can’t handle.