“Are you all right?” Alex asked Erin quietly, the humour softening.
“I’m fine,” Erin said, brushing snow off her knees. “Just trying to keep everyone alive.”
“You always were overly zealous about that,” Alex said, and there was a note in her voice that made Vic feelsuddenly, acutely like she should avert her eyes in case she walked face-first into something private.
She did the opposite, of course.
“So, good news,” she said brightly, clapping her gloved hands together and ignoring the way her palms stung. “The reindeer are here, alive, and mostly upright. Which means Phase One is technically a success.”
“I’d like to file a complaint about your definition of ‘technically,’” Jarmo called, still hanging onto Vesa.
“Rejected,” Vic said. “We’re spinning this positive.”
“Spinning what positive?” Julia asked, emerging from the archway with the air of someone who had sensed chaos and come to supervise.
She took in the scene with one sweeping look: the animals, the handlers, the children vibrating with excitement, Vic and Erin wet from the snow.
“Oh,” she said. “Reindeer Gate.”
Vic groaned. “Please don’t call it that.”
“It fits the naming convention,” Julia said serenely. “Snowpocalypse, Mattressgate, Cranberry Crisis?—”
“I refuse to acknowledge Cranberry Crisis,” Vic said. “We fixed Cranberry Crisis. Patel found an alternate supply. It never happened.”
“You can’t retroactively erase events by sheer force of will,” Julia said.
“Watch me,” Vic muttered.
Alex laughed. It was a low, warm sound that turned her head at just the wrong angle for Erin’s sanity.
“Children,” the Queen said, crouching to their level. “These are the reindeer who will be in the courtyard tomorrow when we do our Christmas Eve surprise.”
“Yes,” Vic said, seizing the chance to pivot back into her element. “And we are not going to scream or run at them orattempt to ride them, because they are big and easily spooked like young horses and we have to always respect them for the beautiful animals that they are.”
Frank looked faintly disappointed. “Not even a little ride?”
“Absolutely not,” Erin said. “They are not ponies. They are basically small elk.”
“Can we feed them?” Florence asked. “We have oats.”
“You threw oats all over the front steps,” Julia reminded her. “The steps are fed.”
“We’ll arrange something tomorrow,” Alex said. “If the handlers agree. Today, we’re just going to let them get used to the castle and settle into their warm straw beds in the stables.”
“And not chase them onto any more landing pads,” Erin added, giving Vic a pointed look.
“I didn’t chase,” Vic said. “I was… moving purposefully in their general direction.”
“Semantics,” Erin said. “Either way, I’d prefer you not to get flattened. The Queen needs you.”
Alexandra’s head snapped around at that, and for a second, their eyes did something soft and private again. Vic looked away pointedly.
“Right,” she said. “Okay. Great. Everyone’s alive. The reindeer are alive. The pad is intact. No one tell the civil aviation people about this, or they’ll make me fill out a form.”
She dug frantically through her coat pocket for her pen, fingers numb. Her clipboard was somehow still clutched under one arm, miraculously unscathed.
This, she thought wildly, was why you planned. Because events were always one panicked reindeer away from disaster.
