Lexi’s grandmother, Eleanor, became queen on her honeymoon tour, when her father passed away unexpectedly in his sleep. Eleanor’s ladies-in-waiting did not have a mourning dress for her, so they had to leave to purchase one while she sat on a plane for 40 minutes. Now, a female aide named Mary lays out different outfits for Lexi to try on. When the plane lands, Lexi descends into a crowd of photographers before Prime Minister Jenny Walsh appears and guides her into a car. Jenny is an unusual PM, as she’s a woman from Essex with union backing. Jenny shows empathy to Lexi, and Lexi asks her what happened to Frederick, Louis, and Kris. Jenny says that Lexi may want to wait to hear the details from the queen but ultimately relents.

Louis, Amira, and Kris went skiing in Zermatt, Switzerland, on Boxing Day, like they did every year. They decided to stay through Louis and Lexi’s birthday, the first birthday on which they didn’t communicate at all. Frederick decided impulsively to join them. Lexi wonders why Frederick went, as he is particular and finicky, requiring exactly three balls of soft butter with his toast at every breakfast.

On December 29, Kris, Louis, and Frederick went skiing while Amira stayed behind. At the end of the day, Louis and Kris pushed the ski instructor for one more run. While Kris and Louis didn’t disrupt the snow with their fast and limber skiing, Frederick was slower. He didn’t see a fault line and triggered an avalanche. The snow engulfed Kris, Frederick, and Louis as the ski instructor and security officers watched helplessly. The instructor sprang into action and found Kris while the security officers looked for Frederick and Louis. Kris looked deceased, but the instructor still gave him CPR while the others dug out Frederick, who was dead, and Louis, who was in critical condition.

The car arrives at the palace, which is flooded with mourners. Jenny escorts Lexi to the palace doors, where Stewart and the other aides are waiting. Jenny gives Lexi her private number and email and promises to answer, day or night. Stewart then leads Lexi through the palace to her grandmother, Eleanor, in her apartments.

Eleanor looks older and smaller than Lexi remembers, and Lexi kisses her on both cheeks and makes them both a cup of tea. Lexi asks Eleanor to wait until tomorrow to discuss the deaths; Eleanor agrees. She tells Lexi that Amira is staying in Louis’s rooms, which adjoin Lexi’s own.

Lexi tells Eleanor goodnight and goes to her room. She sees light beneath Louis’s door and enters to find Amira, who stands stiffly when Lexi hugs her. Lexi apologizes and asks if it was awful watching Kris and Louis die; Amira says that Kris was covered in bruises and informs Lexi that funeral preparations will begin tomorrow. Lexi, having agreed to spend the night in Amira’s room, notices a number of prescriptions in Amira’s name in the bathroom: an SSRI antidepressant, an ovulation-inducing medication, and a recent anti-anxiety medication from the doctors in Switzerland. Lexi leaves the bathroom and gets in bed with Amira, who wonders what will happen to them and asks if Lexi is leaving again. Lexi tells her that everything will be alright.

Kris and Amira’s mother, Victoria Shankar, was born Vikki Yarborough in Newcastle upon Tyne and worked as a British Airways flight attendant. Because of her looks, she served the first-class cabin, where she met Madhav Shankar, the son of a wealthy tech tycoon. They married after eight months. However, Madhav’s parents didn’t approve of him marrying a white, non-Hindu woman, so they cut him off, though he retained his £5-million trust fund, his Chelsea apartment, and his South African hunting lodge. Madhav created his own tech company, which was performing well by the time Kris and Amira were born.

Despite their wealth, Vikki and Madhav still wanted more social status, so when Kris and Amira were teens, they placed them in the same secondary school as Louis and Lexi: Astley College, a co-ed, expensive private school 45 minutes from the palace. Vikki enrolled Kris and Amira, and in September of 2007, Kris and Louis became suitemates, and Vikki met Isla.

Lexi dreams about her mother, waking to find Amira gone. She calls Finn, who’s also a medical resident, and checks in about her residency. Finn has already talked to Ben, their boss, who wants Lexi to call and discuss her future whenever she’s ready. She only has one year of residency left, and she doesn’t want to fall further behind. Finn tells her to call Jack and talk to him, but Lexi isn’t ready, nor does she have an answer when Finn asks her about what happens next.

Lexi returns to her own room to dress for the funeral preparations. She looks at the dollhouse that her grandfather built himself (a replica of the Scottish estate where Isla grew up, complete with a porcelain doll of Isla holding a baby replica of Lexi) and remembers playing with her mother. Isla’s doll wears a replica of her actual wedding gown, which Lexi describes as a “big folds of taffeta like spoonfuls of clotted cream” (53), a dress designed by a 19-year-old bride.

Lexi wraps up the dolls and leaves the room, running into Mary, who has come to collect her. Lexi asks Mary about herself, and Mary shares that she works in Wolseley House, running social media for Frederick and his second wife, Duchess Annabelle. With Frederick’s death, her position is uncertain, as Anabella hates her. Annabelle hates Lexi, too, and the two women bond over their shared enemy.

In the drawing room, Lexi sees Richard, Frederick’s brother and Lexi’s uncle. Richard used to be handsome, but he’s aging. He’s a selfish, unkind man who insists on his daughters, Demelza and Birdie, walking alongside him in the funeral procession. Normally, only men walk behind the coffin, but Lexi is now the heir and will lead the procession. Lexi agrees to let her cousins walk, and Stewart ends the planning meeting. Richard then takes Lexi aside and asks her to let him move into the palace with Eleanor while moving Amira out, claiming that Eleanor’s unfamiliarity with Amira could be a source of stress. Lexi knows that he wants more power but agrees anyway. She tells Mary to move her and Amira’s things to Amira and Louis’s apartment, called Cumberland, and Mary reveals that Richard had the servants begin doing so that morning. Lexi tells Mary that she only plans to stay in England for a few weeks.

Lexi tells Amira about the move and asks to stay with her at Cumberland. Amira reveals that her egg retrieval was planned for next week; she hasn’t had coffee, alcohol, or a cigarette in three months, and now she’s going to her husband’s funeral. Lexi says that they should get drunk. When they arrive at Cumberland 1, Lexi barely recognizes the renovated apartment, which is where she grew up. While Amira gets comfortable, Lexi makes orzo al limone and pours Amira a martini. Amira remarks that she hasn’t had pasta or dairy in years, which worries Lexi. Isla struggled with disordered eating after her engagement to Frederick, and Lexi also did as a teenager. Amira eats the food gingerly before noticing Lexi’s phone wallpaper, which is a picture of Jack’s dog, Ragu. Amira asks to see photos from Lexi’s life, so Lexi gives her the phone. Amira asks questions about Lexi’s life in Australia—the first time any family member has done so since she left the royal family. Amira decides that choosing flowers for the funeral isn’t important, and the women keep drinking.

After helping Amira into bed, Lexi calls Jack, who checks in on her. Finn and Lexi moved in with Jack seven years ago, and Lexi immediately found Jack attractive. He was dating a woman named Georgia, but she moved to New York three years ago, while Jack stayed in Australia. Lexi tried to drive Jack away by sharing traumatic memories of her parents, like when Frederick shoved Isla and she fell into a mirror, or when Isla found Annabelle’s nightgown in Frederick’s bed and ran onto the roof. However, Jack stayed. He expresses understanding regarding Lexi’s grief, as his father died when Jack was eight. Lexi tries to cut the tension by bringing up her and Jack’s near-kiss, and Jack tells her that they’ll talk about it when she’s not intoxicated.