As soon as I say that, I hear howmuchit sounds. Like I’m planning some secret tryst.Which I definitely am not.But talking candidly in Claus Palace requires feats of insanity.
And this guy makes me want to be insane.
But Hex sets down his plate. “Five minutes.”
My gut twists, pulse detonating like fireworks,this is not a tryst.“Good.”
I spin on my heels and duck across the room before I can think better of all this.
I could try to avoid him for the next few weeks. It’d been my original plan—to not get anywhere near him so I didn’t make a fool of myself. But apparently I’m destined for that fate no matter what I do, so might as well be up-front about it.
The bulk of the library is silent and dim, the light from the fireplace in the sitting area creating a cozy atmosphere. I weave through shelves, deeper into the narrowing embrace of books on Christmas’s past and traditions and lore, and I realize this was a huge mistake, because the flickering, distant firelight is romantic. By the time I reach the far wall, looming windowpanes showing the arctic scene swathed in starlight and navy blue–black sky, I’ve talked myself out of all this.
I’ll go to my room. He’ll know I chickened out but I’ll save us both the embarrassment of whatever dumb thing I’ll do next.
But I don’t go.
I stay, because the books in this row are judging me.
Kris and I had private tutors up until we hit our teenage years. And these books are well worn with our fingerprints—the history of Christmas. Our family. Past Santas, dozens of them, all leading back, back, back to the origin of the Clauses. How all this started because one guy wanted to spread cheer among his village during the deepest, darkest part of winter, so he became famous for leaving secret gifts and mysterious acts of charity to crack joy into a time of year that used to be deadly and miserable.
I’dlovedthat story.
Another memory comes charging out in full Technicolor—shortly after Dad had taken me on that brief training introduction where he’d showed me the globe, he’d asked me what we were learning about in our studies.
I’d exploded all over him about our origins.“Isn’t it awesome? We’re destined to do that too! We bring joy to the whole WORLD!”
I’d been, maybe, seven? Seven and bright-eyed and Mom hadn’t left yet, and so Dad was bright-eyed too. I remember him bending down to me andsmiling—I haven’t seen that smile in years, maybe since then.
He’d put his hand on my head.“I’m proud of you. You’re taking all this to heart.”
My throat gets tight and I shake it off with a sniff.
Shit, I’m melancholy tonight. It’s the damn dinner smells—leave it to the olfactory sense to conjure up the worst nostalgia. That part of my brain is aching with how all these triggered memories—childhood dinners and unadulterated excitement and learning about Christmas—are a lost golden age I’ll never reclaim. But the rest of meknows,fuckingknows,I’m romanticizing it. These memories only feel idyllic because I hadn’t been able to comprehend reality at the time.
That’s really the golden age, isn’t it? That’s what my brain is longing for, a time when I only saw the sparkle. A time when I loved this unabashedly because I hadn’t realized that the sparkle was a distraction layered over a complex concept full of cracks and mold, and the day you see beyond the glitter for the first time is the day you officially grow up, no going back.
I feel a presence to my right, at the end of this aisle, and I turn to Hex.
We’re in beams of muted firelight that cut through the shelves, the hazy ivory hue of stars from the windows behind me. The crowd is a muffled background noise, giving further gravity to how alone we are now, and I groan.
“I keep doing this,” I admit.
He glances over his shoulder, and with a flick of his hand, rings glinting, he lets a burst of magic fly. Holiday magic takes on the traits associated with the joy that produces it; some of Christmas’s manifests in snow and lights and creating silly little gifts or candy. So it makes sense that Halloween isthisbut intensified, shadows and mystery with an edge of spookiness. Hex uses it to coat the end of this row in a heavier sheet of darkness, giving us privacy should anyone come near where we are.
“Doing what, exactly?” he asks.
Is he going to make me say it? Well, that’s why I asked to talk with him, isn’t it? Tosayall this, to get on the same page, once and for all, andstick to that page even if it kills me.
I hang my head into my hands and rip my fingers back through my curls, sending them springing around my face. “Okay. Look. I’m sorry. Again. I have a problem, it seems, and even though I promised I wouldn’t put you in that situation again, I did.”
Hex sips in a breath. It’s so faint I barely hear the scratch of it on his throat.
“I don’t want to make things awkward for you,” I say. “I keep—ugh,god, I can’t evensaywhat I keep doing because I feel like that will make things awkward for you more, and I’m misreading all these things from you and building them up in my head to mean something theydon’t.You’re having a hard enough time being… being used as a marriage pawn. I don’t want to make it harder on you.”
I barely say the last few words. My lungs are swelling shut. Closing, closing, because heisn’t a marriage pawn,he’s a straight-uppawn,and Hex stands there, thumbs in his pockets, eyes narrow in silentconsideration, totally unaware of how much we’re screwing over him and his Holiday.
His brows pulse together. The only change on his impossibly pulled-together front.
