The last part came out sharper than she probably intended. A line drawn in the dark between them.
Alex flinched.
There it was, then. The thing she’d been trying not to look at directly. The sense of… competition, almost. Between her and the job. Between her and the version of Erin who was more comfortable monitoring CCTV than lying still.
She stepped back fully, crossing her arms against the chill that had nothing to do with the corridor’s temperature.
“Right,” she said softly. “Of course.”
Erin cursed under her breath. “Alex. That’s not—I didn’t mean?—”
Something thudded down the corridor.
Both of them jerked instinctively toward the sound. Erin’s hand came up to Alex’s arm again, not intimate now but protective. A soft, scampering noise followed. Whispering. The quiet, rapid breathing of small creatures trying very hard to be stealthy.
“Okay,” Alex said. “That is either a herd of rats or our children.”
“I’d prefer hostile rodents,” Erin muttered. “We have protocols for that. There’s no protocol for four under-sixes in the dark.”
“REINDEER!” a voice shrieked from the direction of the stairs. “THERE’S A REINDEER!”
Alex closed her eyes briefly. “Ah,” she said. “The cavalry.”
Tiny feet pounded toward them. A second later, something latched onto her leg with the force of a small meteor.
“Mummy Alex!” Matilda yelled, voice echoing down the stone. “There’s a deer outside! A huge one! With ANTLERS.”
“It was definitely a monster,” Frank said, slightly out of breath. “I saw it with my actual eyeballs.”
“There was a shadow,” Florence contributed. “And it moved. And it was stompy.”
Hyzenthlay’s voice floated in more calmly. “It was probably a branch,” she said. “The wind is very excitable.”
“In this family,” Vic’s voice added from further back, “the wind is not the only one.”
“Where are the lights?” Matilda demanded. “Did the castle forget to pay the bill?”
“No one’s getting cut off,” Alex said, steadying herselfwith one hand on the wall. Under the barrage of small bodies, she felt oddly anchored. “The power’s just gone on a brief holiday.”
“I hate the power,” Frank announced. “It’s mean.”
“It’s doing its best,” Hyz said. “Sometimes things get overwhelmed.”
“I’m overwhelmed,” Vic muttered. “Does that mean I can go out too?”
“You’re staying right there,” Julia said, her tone slicing through the chaos like a well-sharpened knife. She emerged from the gloom, phone held up like a makeshift torch, its pale glow casting strange shadows across the corridor. “No one is going anywhere until we know what’s going on.”
Alexandra watched Erin tilt her head slightly, listening. Somewhere in the distance, beyond the thick walls, she could just make out another sound joining the muffled hush of the snow: the low grumble of a generator trying, and failing, to cough itself awake.
Erin swore under her breath again. “That’s not good,” she said. “Back-up should have kicked in by now.”
“Patel’s on it,” Julia said. “He’s already texted. They’re checking the panel. Emergency lanterns are being lit in main corridors. The kitchen has gas. Mrs. MacLeod says, and I quote, ‘over my dead body will these people eat cold sandwiches on Christmas Eve.’”
Even in the dark, Alex could see the flicker of relief cross Erin’s features. Not because the power situation was particularly better, but because someone else had, as Julia had said earlier, taken point.
“We should still check the kids’ wing,” Erin said. “Make sure none of the older staff are?—”
“Our children,” Alex said firmly, “are right here.”
