"My mother," he says, waving his hand at the party. "There's no way she would have allowed us to get away without having one, so it seemed to be in everyone's best interest to just agree with her."

He pauses then and looks at Essie, his eyes narrowed slightly. "I don't know if I ever thanked you at the ball," he says. "For talking to me. It's so strange to look back at that and have these memories of... of thinking I was a real prince and that people sometimes genuinely didn't know what to do around me."