- The girls get used to having dinner with the King by early December. Christmas is coming up, and with its arrival, mourning will be lifted.
- One night, Keeper cuts into a dance with Azalea, and accuses her of not looking for the magic item—he grasps her fingers so tightly that they are bruised the next day, and the coldness in his eyes scares her.
- Azalea goes to look for the sugar teeth in a stream (where Clover dumped the remains of the rest of the magic tea set), followed by Lord Howley, the latest gentleman to court her. Azalea encourages him to go tell her father about his marvelous ideas about politics and raising taxes.
- She looks around the stream, falls in, and is pulled out by Mr. Bradford.
- He tells her about some of his ideas for putting railways in Eathesbury if he went into politics, and Azalea thinks he'd actually be good at running things—but he's not sure if he wants to commit, since government wore his dad down.
- Things get kinda flirtatious between Azalea and Mr. Bradford before Lord Howley comes to find Azalea again, and then she goes to change into some dry clothes.