Members of our court skate around us, smiling in the crisp air, and the song is now something bright and tinkling and merry.
Dad shifts from performative calm to offense back to nothing-is-wrong so skillfully that it makes me dizzy.
“Stay away from him,” Dad tells me. He eyes Kris for the first time. “And stay away fromher.You will both do your part to make this competition with the Halloween Prince authentic. If I catch either of you doing anything to weaken that story, you will not like the consequences.”
He skates off, waving to the crowd that presses around the rink.
“What the hell was that about?” Kris gasps.
He doesn’t know about Hex. Not the truth.
I twist, letting the skates glide me around—Hex and Iris are outside the rink, surrounded by members of our court, caught in more idle talk.
“The marriage competition is a lie,” I tell Kris. I keep my voice low, not having to try; it comes out stunted and weak.
“I know—”
“No—the whole thing is alie.Even the part where we’re lying to Halloween. Hex isn’t here because he thinks he’s going to win Easter—he’s here because Dad forced them to hand over something, someone,to keep them in check about voicing discontent until Christmas Eve.”
A puff of white bursts out of Kris’s mouth. “What?”
Iris is sitting now, working off her skates, while Hex is talking cordially with one of the journalists.
I have more questions than answers. More concerns than solutions.
But I know how to resolve one of those questions right now.
“I’ll be right back.” I pat Kris’s arm and push off him as he goes, “You can’t drop that and run off on me!”
Shit. I’ll tell him everything, I really will.
I cut across the rink, dodge people skating the opposite direction, and step out in front of Iris.
She glances around—no one else is close by. “Your dad’s an ass.”
“What’d he say to you?” I drop onto the bench next to her.
She rips off her last skate and tosses it to the ground. “Accused me of not only jeopardizing the story about you and Hex courting me, but beinglooseabout my commitment to you.”
My face scrunches. “What the—”
“Just for skating with Kris.” She yanks on her boots and slams her feet down. Her shoulders deflate, anger venting. “But I shouldn’t have let you skate with Hex. I lost focus. I’m sorry, Coal.”
“Don’t you dare apologize.”
“You were pissed at me the other night for pushing you and Hex together.”
“Yeah, well, I got over it.”
There’s no one around us close enough to listen; Hex is off to the side now, currently undoing his own skates.
Dad, though, glides past us on the ice and gives me a solemn nod of approval. Presumably for sitting next to Iris.
I look away, jaw tight.
“Does Easter want to be allied with Christmas?” I whisper.
Iris frowns. “Yeah. That’s rather the point of this whole situation between us.”
