“She texted me. Mostly to tell me that Lily wouldn’t be there.”
“She isn’t,” Kris assures me. “Just Iris and her dad.”
“And I’ll say the same thing to you that I told Iris—I do not care where Lily is.She’s engaged now, yeah?” Newly sold off, I mean betrothed, to a Valentine Prince.
Kris gives the same look Iris gives me no matter how many times I swear I’m fine: pity.
“It’s been almost two years!” I throw my head back. “The breakup wasmutual.”
“You had one serious relationship, got dumped publicly, then never dated again. It’s not healthy. Besides”—he drags in a quick breath—“we know Lily brings up… that night.”
I make a cracking shriek noise, half laugh, half deranged feral panther. “Back up—you wanna come at me abouthealthy relationships? How many people haveyoudated, likeever?”
Kris focuses on pulling mistletoe out of his pocket, fascinated by the sprig of greenery. “I date. I date plenty.”
“Sitting next to someone in the campus library doesn’t count.”
“I didn’tsit next to them—it was an arranged date.”
“You took a person to a library, Kris, a library on the campus where they also go to school.”
“We went there for an exhibit to see the—”
“Between you with your lifelong devotion to pining after Iris and Dad with whatever the hell he’s been doing since Mom left, I’m the only one in this family who even plays chicken with healthy relationships.”
Kris snorts. “Being fuck buddies with your roommate isn’t ahealthy relationship.”
“You said you liked Steven!”
“I did. But you weren’tdatinghim.Hey, I failed my midterm, give me a blowjobisn’t a relationship. You’re stalling.Again.”
Iamstalling, so I groan and kick the floor. “It’s weird that she’s there early, right?”
The first event of the season is usually just Christmas upper crust.
Kris sticks the mistletoe in the front door of the dorm suite. “Maybe she needs a change of pace. Our classes are ramping up.”
Iris swears she’s happy in the UK alongside Kris, in the same course as him, even, but I know it was her father’s influence that pushed her to also go to Cambridge instead of a fancy art school she once waxed on about. She’s at least graduating on time, right as I will from Yale—and don’t get mestartedon the fact that I got stuck in a four-year program while she’s out after only three. I’d berate Kris for dragging his program out an extra year, but I know he isn’t doing it on purpose.
“Yeah. Maybe.” A weird feeling itches, something out of place I can’t make sense of.
Kris finishes with the mistletoe. He steps back, and I give a confused hum.
“What the fuck is a beach detector?”
He shrugs. “One of those people who scours beaches with metal detectors.”
“That’s—that’s the guy’s whole identifier? Like that’s all he does? Just—no. Never mind.”
The pulse of magic from the mistletoe washes over both of us, and when Kris opens the door of my dorm suite, instead of the hallway, it shows Claus Palace in the northernmost part of frozen, tundra-coated Greenland.
If the palace’s normal state is festive, this time of year, it’s the Sugar Plum Fairy’s wet dream.
The foyer is an explosion of green trimmings with clusters of vibrant red berries. Shining ornaments in a rainbow of colors hang from every free surface, including a massive chandelier done to look like a sleigh in flight, diamond reindeer at the helm. Lit candles flickeralong the brown banisters that wrap up the two identical staircases and tables hold decorative scenes of Santas and reindeer and snowmen. A miniature train belches smoke as it laps the ceiling on a meandering track, and even itschug-chugssound jovial.
People bustle all around, staff rushing to this or that preparation—not elves, much to the chagrin of the common myth, but they’re decked out in holiday finery. And thesmells—I linger behind Kris in the doorway and breathe for a beat, soaking in that scent, god I wish I could bottle it. Suddenly coming home doesn’t seem so bad, not when the air is sugar-dusted from the kitchens, and the decorations add scents of evergreen sap. Beyond it all, there’s the stinging crystalline scent of bone-shaking cold: snow.
Kris nudges me. “Careful, Coal. Someone might think you like this stuff.”
