As Dylan and Sin scuffled over the velvet seats, Jars stepped into the way. Someone dragged a chair over, and Jars sat down on it. He leaned forward, elbow braced against his knee, and stared at Somerset.
“You should have run,” he said. There was something genuine in his voice. “The Courts are going to make your punishment last forever and—”
The crack of the whip silenced him. He flinched, hands clapped to his ears. Somerset didn’t have the same luxury, but the world went muted as his eardrums burst. Blood tickled as it dribbled down his face.
In the center of the room, Dylan stood on the Sleigh, whip in one hand. He pointed the whip at Jars, who used the back of the chair to push himself to his feet.
“Put that down!” Jars ordered. He pulled on the magic hard enough that even Somerset felt it, and a winter storm squeezed itself into the club. The wind picked up chairs and discarded weapons, sending them rattling around off the walls. Chunks of ice battered the crowd until they hunched over, hands over their heads. A flick of Jars’ fingers threw the whole storm at Dylan, who braced himself and screwed his eyes shut.
Krampus caught it.
He looked like Dylan—albeit a Dylan with horns that poked through his hair and a snaky tail that whipped behind him. Santa’s dark twin, whoever Santa was. The storm spun down to nothing in his clawed hands until all that was left was a squeak of wind that farted between his fingers.
“I’ll call that one a mistake,” Krampus said in a voice that felt like fear in the dark. “Or did you mean to raise your hand to us?”
He tilted that horned head forward, the tines sharp as thorns and caked with old blood.
Jars looked so angry that, for a second, Somerset thought he’d take the challenge. But one thing Jars wasn’t was stupid. A traitor, maybe, and a killer, but not stupid.
He dropped his hands and lowered his head. “I didn’t realize,” he said in a rough, resentful voice through clenched teeth. “He’s not one of the candidates that were put forward.”
“No,” Krampus said. “He’s King of the Season, the Lord of Yule. Next in the Unbroken Line of Nick. And no one has bent the knee to him yet.”
That observation dropped into the room like a corpse into a bog. The first to bend his knee was Ket. The rest of the Yule Boys followed suit, one after the other. Even Stúfur dragged himself up off the floor and onto his knees.
Somerset was still chained to the ground, but he bowed his head in respect.
The last to bow was Jars, who finally, stiffly, bent from the waist in a precarious bow.
“SANTA!” someone started the chant. “SANTA!”
It rattled off the walls, and Dylan stood on the Sleigh, looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else. Somerset grinned at him and nodded in approval.
As the crowd cheered—Dylan might not have been the Santa anyone wanted, but the giddy relief that someone had taken the Whip carried them all away—Somerset noticed that he’d been wrong. Jars hadn’t been the last to bow.
Behind the Sleigh, the man in red leather, who’d been so close to elevation he must have been able to taste ambition like peppermint, stood and glared. He spat on the floor rather than bowing.
That could wait.
Epilogue
Dylanpausedtolookat himself in the mirror over the Delaneys’ fireplace. He didn’t know how he knew this was the Delaneys’ house—or that the little girl’s darkest secret was that she’d stolen a bright pink pencil from a shop in Brighton—but he knew he still didn’t suit red.
It was cold enough that he had to wear the heavy fur-lined coat. The world had stopped around him, the fire caught mid-flicker and the family dog mid-cookie theft, and it was cold in here.
Dylan looked away from the mirror.
The other him didn’t seem to care about the cold. He sprawled in the big, leather armchair, legs crossed and horns decorated with cobwebs.
“That’s it?” Dylan asked. “In the movies, Santa always had a sack of toys or something.”
Krampus grinned. His teeth were jagged and sharp, and had clearly never spent years in braces.
“Do you think we’re out there making counterfeit iPhones?” he asked. “Rip-off sea monkey kits. No. He used to bring toys when a doll made of yarn and a clothes peg was the hottest thing on the playground. Now you bring… joy. When the child picks up that…”
Krampus paused to poke the box that Dylan had just touched with his foot. He looked thoughtful.
“… dog bowl,” he said. “She’ll feel all that joy at once. The Christmas spirit. All the impact of a clothes peg, without Apple suing us.”
