Vic had never in her life felt so seen and so judged by a piece of paper.
“Hyzenthlay,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose, “we do not draw moustaches on the Christmas Schedule.”
Hyzenthlay, who was lying on her stomach on the tartan rug in front of the fire, swung her feet idly in the air and looked up with the guileless expression of someone who absolutely had just done that.
“I didn’t,” she said.
Vic lifted the top page of the stack in her hands. A neat, colour-coded table stared back at her. In the margin beside 23rd December, 16:00—Formal Tree Decorating, someone had sketched an impressive handlebar moustache on the smiling stick figure that was clearly meant to be the Queen.
The Queen, in this instance, being Alexandra. Vic had even drawn the tiny crown.
“You literally did,” Vic said. “This is still warm from your pen.”
Hyzenthlay considered that, then shrugged. “She’d look good with a moustache.”
Vic opened her mouth to argue, then paused.
To be fair, Alex would look good with anything. She’d survived the short-haircut scandal of year two of her reign and the “tattoo That Definitely Wasn’t a Tattoo” rumour and come out stronger. A pencilled-on moustache was hardly the wildest thing anyone had tried to put on the Queen.
“Agreed,” Vic said. “But we don’t deface the Christmas Schedule. The Christmas Schedule is sacred. The Christmas Schedule is the only thing standing between us and total chaos.”
Hyzenthlay rolled onto her back and squinted up at the ceiling beams. “I thought Christmas was about love and togetherness and stuff.”
“It is,” Vic said, clutching the sheaf of papers to her chest. “And also, colour-coded timetables.”
“Mama says your relationship with spreadsheets is ‘deeply concerning,’” Hyzenthlay reported.
“Mama,” Vic muttered, “says a lot of things.”
She glanced automatically toward the door, as though her lovely wife Julia-Swoolia Grey-Hughes-Wilding (The Queen’s most trusted advisor) might be summoned by the mere mention of her name. The door was closed, and beyond it came the faint, comforting murmur of voices and clatter from the rest of Balmoral. Somewhere downstairs, Mrs. MacLeod was terrorising the kitchen. Somewhere else, a security briefing was happening that she had not been invited to because apparently, “Vic, you’ll start reorganising the guard rotations for fun.”
She did that once.
Fine. Twice.
On the low table beside the armchair, her laptop screen showed a dizzying array of tabs and documents: Christmas Gift Registry (Cross-Reference: Allergies & Political Sensitivities), Emergency Indoor Activity List (Ages 3–6, & “Regrettably Overgrown Children” – see also: Erin), and the masterpiece: Operation: Perfect Royal Christmas — Master Schedule.
Forty-three pages.
Forty-three beautiful, logically structured, meticulously timed pages, covering everything from “23rd Dec, 15:00–15:30: Arrival of Their Majesties + Triplets – Courtyard Welcome (warm cocoa prepared in advance, mini marshmallows, vegan option)” to “26th Dec, 10:00–11:00: Optional Sledging (ensure medical kit + insurance waivers; no crown jewels).”
It was, without exaggeration, the most organised she had ever been about anything in her life.
Well. Almost anything.
Her marriage with Julia had involved a surprising number of spreadsheets too. Mainly about childcare and work schedules and whose turn it was to do bedtime stories, and once—just once—a colour-coded intimacy chart that had made Julia laugh so hard she’d had to sit down.
Vic’s cheeks warmed at the memory. She pushed it aside. There would be time to enjoy the fact of being in Balmoral with her love later. Right now, she had a Christmas to stage-manage.
“Right,” she said, tucking the moustachioed schedule page into the stack to deal with later. “Recap. Why are we here?”
“Because this is where Auntie Alex wanted Christmas,” Hyzenthlay said promptly.
“Yes,” Vic said. “But why are we here early?”
Hyzenthlay rolled back onto her front, propping her chin in her hands. She’d inherited Julia’s unnervingly direct gaze and intelligence and Vic’s tendency to treat any question as an opportunity for storytelling. “Because you said we needed to ‘secure the objective before the enemy arrives,’” she recited. “And Mama J. said the enemy is Christmas.”
Vic winced. “I maybe got carried away with the metaphors.”
