Lady Tremaine tries to navigate her daughters’ upset over the ball invitation. While Rosamund cries, Mathilde focuses on calculating the family finances. She suggests taking up falconry as a way to improve their circumstances, but Lady Tremaine is reluctant. She assures her daughter that she’ll do anything to ensure that she has a good future.

Lady Tremaine continues to reminisce about the past. Shortly after Henry’s father suggested marrying off the girls, Lady Tremaine met Lord Robert Bramley and baldly indicated her interest in remarrying. A widower himself, Robert was eager for his seven-year-old daughter, Elin, to have a new mother. Lady Tremaine presented herself as such, and she and Robert soon started courting.

A blubbering Rosamund appears, interrupting Lady Tremaine’s thoughts. She and her daughters discuss the possibility of Lady Tremaine paying the queen a visit regarding the ball invitation.

Lady Tremaine muses on Sigrid’s drastically improved circumstances after the original acquaintance and the history of their relationship. She remembers Sigrid writing to her about her engagement to the future king. Lady Tremaine had hoped that her and Sigrid’s past connection would afford her family an entrance to society life, but they were excluded instead. She attributed Sigrid’s wasp injury and their rivalry over Henry as the reasons for this exclusion.