Manya marries Katherine's father, a composer named Tom Forrester, with whom Katherine has a cordial but not especially close relationship, making Katherine doubly distant from the two of them. However, after a while, Manya's love for her begins to melt Katherine's iciness. However, just as Katherine starts truly loving Manya, Tom and Manya send her away to a boarding school in Switzerland. She is miserable there, unable to make connections with the other girls or the teachers, who are mostly cold and autocratic; in addition, her piano teacher doesn't mesh with her at all. This continues until Justin Vigneras, the piano teacher she was originally meant to study with but who was away at the beginning of the term, comes back. Katherine adores him, and is gratified that there is finally someone at school who understands and supports her passion for music and her need to practice. She also learns to get along better with her peers after the arrival of Sarah Courmont, a girl she previously met briefly on her seventh birthday in New York; the two begin to form an intense friendship. However, school officials misinterpret that friendship as another deep attraction, and Sarah becomes distant with Katherine after Miss Valentine interrogates the girls. Just as Katherine's relationship with Justin begins to develop into a closer relationship, he leaves the school.