A yawn stretched Marius’s mouth. “You should talk to Alexander. He lived there for centuries. Plus he’s an artist, so he could draw you exactly what it should look like.”
“Oh, good point.” She rubbed her chin. Her uncle Tobias and aunt Rowan and their mates would have had plenty of experience with Earth Christmas too, but they were busy with their own lives. Truth was, she didn’t want to ask for help, not even from Alexander. It was too hard to explain to Marius that the entire point of throwing this party was to prove to her parents that she could handle organizing something complex and original on her own. If one of her relatives was involved, it would be too easy for her mom and dad to assume they’d done most of the work for her. She had to do this herself.
“Did someone say my name?” Alexander appeared in the door of the library, dressed in torn Earth jeans, a white T-shirt, and the paint-splattered leather jacket he was rarely seen without—Earth garb the artist refused to give up. He nodded at Marius. “Harlow sent me to find you. Seems Archie’s got his head stuck in the chair again, and she needs your help getting him out.”
Archie was Harlow’s second youngest and was going through a phase where he was into everything. Marius closed his eyes and gave his head one hard shake. “That boy is going to drive me back to the fighting pits. We didn’t have these problems with Anissa.”
“Anissa was an only child,” Charlie added. Anissa was Marius’s firstborn and a single egg. She was already grown and away at university. Archie was from Harlow’s second pregnancy, one of three children and the only boy. Annabelle and Aria were absolute angels, but Archie never missed a chance at trouble. Olivia was the result of Harlow’s third pregnancy, a rarity for dragons, and aside from never sleeping at night, seemed just as sweet as her sisters.
“How does one get their head stuck in a chair?” Alexander asked.
Charlie laughed, picturing the pudge-faced Archie in his predicament.
Marius’s lips slanted in an adorably frustrated way before he answered. “Take a chair with widely spaced spindles and add a boy with an oddly narrow skull who can’t stay out of trouble and somehow it happens. This is the third time he’s done it. You’d think he’d learn by now. I’m starting to believe he might like it, to be honest.” He headed for the door at a fast clip.
She called her goodbyes after him and Olivia, who drooled on his shoulder, still in dreamland.
“Has his hands full.” Alexander chuckled. “Times like these, I remind myself why it’s probably a blessing Maiara and I can’t have children. I do not envy him, you know?”
She giggled. “I enjoy children, but I also like to sleep. Maybe in a hundred years if I ever meet the right male.”
Alexander pumped a fist in solidarity. “So what did you want to ask me about? I heard you mention my name.”
She hesitated for a moment. It wouldn’t hurt to ask—she simply wouldn’t accept his help if he offered. “Do you know anything about Christmas?”
“The Earth-dimension holiday?”
“Exactly the one. I want to throw one for Avery and Xavier when they return.”
Alexander thought about that for a moment. “Can’t say that I do. I never celebrated the holiday myself when I lived there. My mate is from a different culture, one that did not know Christmas, and I never had a reason to participate.”
“Oh. Never mind then. I’ll think of something.”
He gave her a shallow bow, then left the room.
“Looks like you are my only hope,” she said to the book. She grabbed a pad of paper and a quill from the library desk, then started sifting through the pages. “Christmas… Christmas…”
She found the entry under religious holidays near the back of the book. Christmas is both a religious and secular holiday celebrated by humans. Some believe it is the birthday of the son of one of their gods. Others celebrate a celestial being who lives at the North Pole of their planet, where it is always winter. This being is called Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus and is often depicted wearing a red suit and having a beard. If children are good all year, he magically knows and rewards them with a toy that he leaves in their home on Christmas eve night.
Charlie furrowed her brow. “He breaks into people’s homes in the middle of the night to leave gifts? Weird.” She made a list on the notepad. Demigod. North Pole. Red suit. Beard. She underlined the name Santa Claus three times. It wasn’t much to go on. Why wasn’t there anything about cake? She really wanted this to be good. She wanted her parents and her aunts to see what she had done and know that she was a capable adult and worthy leader. A true princess of Paragon.
She flipped through the gold book again but could find no other information on the subject. Tapping her thumb on the notebook, she wondered where she should look next. Leena might be able to find information for her in the scrolls of Rogos or gaze into a pool of the goddess’s tears to scry it for her. But that would mean bothering the scribe, who was always incredibly busy. Plus she very much wanted to accomplish this on her own.
Studying her notes yet again, a wave of excitement washed through her as an idea brightened the corners of her mind. The answer was right in front of her. Santa Claus was a celestial being who lived at the North Pole! Charlie was also a celestial being, one who could travel between dimensions and was impervious to extreme heat or cold.
She didn’t need help or another reference manual. All she needed was Santa Claus.
Chapter
Three
The beam from Dr. Liam Morris’s headlamp lit a circle of ice below him as he guided the ice auger into position. Inside the space-suit-style gear he was wearing, he didn’t feel the cold, but the wind was another story. He leaned into an especially strong gust, gripping the auger, which was thankfully mounted to his Arctic rover, for support. A light snow had started, but the sky was threatening a full storm. He needed to hurry. Even with his specialized equipment, he’d rather not face the full brutality of this unforgiving environment. The North Pole was encased in total darkness this time of year, and he was one of only a handful of scientists on the planet willing and able to brave it for the sake of science.
This excursion was absolutely necessary for his research. Satellite surveillance could tell a lot about the shifting ice in the Arctic, how thick and wide it was at various points during the year, but the composition of that ice when it was at its thickest was what interested Liam. Knowing what microbial and chemical components composed the layers and how that mix was different from the year before would go a long way in understanding how the earth was changing, how concentrated the pollution in the ocean was at this remote location, and the potential dangers to come.
He locked the specially designed auger into place, a more difficult job than it seemed thanks to his thick gloves, and entered the code to start the extraction. His suit had a system to warm the air inside his helmet, which made his breathing sound like Darth Vader’s, and he concentrated on the sound to calm himself as he worked. Then there was nothing to do but wait for the extraction program to run its course.
“Liam, you still with me, buddy?” The intercom in his helmet transmitted the voice of his partner, Noah.
