Excerpt: The Oak Queen's Boy

At this moment in Alathay Castle, the evening is unfolding exactly as it should. The Duke’s table has been cleared, the fires have been lit and the curtains have been drawn precisely according to plan. Alathay is a castle that runs according to its own strict schedule, where not one pin or pencil is ever out of place. The court of Alathay prides itself on being polished and precise. And in the court, no one is more perfectly precise than Mrs. Iphigenia Wodley. At this very moment – at precisely eight o’clock – Mrs. Wodley enters her study and sits at her desk with the folds of her skirt neatly arranged around her legs. There is a ledger centered on her desk, which she opens to the next blank page. By the time she finishes writing her report – at the very stroke of ten – this page will be covered in her small neat script, just like every page before.