He gives another easy shrug, but I’m starting to see that these acts of supposed dismissal are deeply meaningful for him—whereas I flail around at the slightest spurt of emotion, he keeps such a tight lid on his reactions that even a shift of his head, a pulse of his eyebrows, is a sign that he’s restraining himself with everything he has.
“Not directly,” he says.
“How? Why? He doesn’t—we don’t—” I cut myself off, too many words trying to get out. I palm my face and breathe before looking at Hex’s profile. “Tell me. Please.”
But he responds with a question. “How much of the world’s joy does Christmas monopolize?”
The pivot has me shaking my head. “Um—fifty-seven percent, last I checked.” And bycheckedI mean heard my father raving about it.
Hex’s eyes, finally, slide to mine. “More than half. In a single Holiday. And with Easter now too, stretching out from just one segment of the year? Christmas has almost endless resources. A relentless grasp on the world. And there are things, even in our society of joy and goodness, that can become threats. This competition is a cover to make my presence here acceptable.”
There is no air in this room, in the space between our bodies, and I steady myself on the window ledge, bearing down on it for dear life.
“You’re our prisoner,” I state.
Hex convulses. “That’s a bit overstating things—”
His eyes dip to the side. Surprise breaks his severity.
I follow his gaze.
To see that I’ve blasted ice across the glass, down the wall, a sheet of sparkling, geometric frost spreading out beneath the tense fingers with black and orange nails.
I yank away, staring at my hand in disbelief.
Hex is studying me. Again, still, maybe he’s always studying me, always watching my reaction and assessing options and planning, analyzing. He has to be, doesn’t he? If all this is a bigger scheme than I knew.
He must be exhausted.
“What is he threatening you with if Halloween doesn’t go along with this?” I ask.
Hex’s surprise shifts into… awe. “You honestly don’t know.”
He should be furious, hurt, raging at me, but he’s looking at me in this stunned wonder and I can’t make it fit with anything we’ve said. He has no reason to look at me like that.
“Of course I don’t know,” I snap, but not at him, not athim,and he seems to understand, because he lets me fall apart and doesn’t flinch. “I don’t know anything, apparently. I didn’t know that Christmas was in the business of making threats so potent that other Holidays would willingly concede to any demand and send us aprisonerascollateral—”
“I’m not a prisoner, Coal. It isn’t as—”
“Can you go back home of your own free will without something awful happening?”
His lips stiffen.
“So you are.” I’m shaking. “A prisoner. We havea prisoner.And it’syou—and I was—oh my god—”
Feeding into the tension between us was bad enough when I thought we were lying to him about competing for Iris.
But now that I know he’s trapped here—and I wascoming on to him—
“Oh my god,” I can’t say anything else, hands going into my hair, “oh my god, I’m so sorry—I’m—”
I drop to my knees.
I can’t hold myself up anymore.
And I don’t deserve to, I don’t deserve to stand there and have him watching me withempathy,like he should in any way feel bad for me, not after everything we’ve put him and his Holiday through.
“You deserve so much more thanthis,” I say to his legs. “You and Halloween both. And Iris too, becausefuck.We should not be treating any of you this way; my father was… he’s insane. I’ll fix this. I’ll—”
