I sighed. “You could. And I wouldn’t stop you. But a little piece of my soul would die of shame every time someone heard you.”
Mouse chuffed happily and came over to lean against my legs while Fitz laughed at me.
Maggie picked up a tennis ball she had been bouncing for Mouse, tossed it, and bounced it off the target dummy’s scorched head. “Kazinga!”
Mouse charged the ball and pounced on it.
—
Christmas Eve was something special.
We showed up at the Carpenters’ place around sundown. I was visited by several different kinds of spirits. Santa came by. Maggie got some great presents. So did I.
Ebenezar appeared at the front door on Christmas morning. Michael welcomed him in. Almost the entire Carpenter clan had made it in, including Daniel’s wife, a tiny brunette named Camille who had a baby girl in her arms and another one toddling precariously about, mostly in an attempt to seize Mouse by the tail. Maggie absolutely adored the fact that she was no longer the smallest child in the household and promptly appointed herself the toddler girl’s protector, which inevitably brought Michael’s youngest son along for the ride: Little Harry and Maggie were still thick as thieves.
They made an odd pairing. Little Harry wasn’t quite two years older than Maggie, but at their age, those months were consequential. Maggie was bottom percentile for both height and weight for girls her age. Little Harry had begun to grow, and he was taking after his father and older brothers. His voice honked between boyish tenor and adult baritone at random, especially when he was laughing, which was frequently. He towered over Maggie, though she showed no awareness whatsoever of the difference in their physical sizes.
Murphy would have been proud.
Our two families opened presents together, though most of the gifts were basic products that were still hard to come by in the beleaguered city. Food was consumed. There was a lot of laughter, and a round of traditional Christmas songs. Maggie soaked it all up. My grandfather gave her a red stocking cap he’d knitted himself, and I felt the simple thermal enchantment on it that would keep her comfortably warm in all but the most bitter gales, at least for the first couple of winters. She promptly put it on and then put the red-and-blue scarf I’d crocheted for her with it, and she and young Harry went out to test her new bike on the clean-shoveled driveway in front of Michael’s house.
Michael, Ebenezar, and I wound up on the porch, sipping hot cider and watching the children play.
“That’s the downside of all this modern infrastructure,” Ebenezar was saying. “Maintaining it under normal wear and tear is work enough. Rebuilding after something like last summer…” He shook his head. “So many people in so little space.”
“It could be a lot worse,” Michael said firmly. “The major roads in have been reopened now, and something like a street system is actually functioning. Supplies are getting easier to get hold of. More and more of the water supply is coming back online. My company is working three different sites right now, and we’re accelerating. By next summer, we’ll be something like the old city again.”
“How long until I get those changes I asked for?” I asked.
“Spring,” Michael said. “That’s the best I can do.”
“That should work,” I said. “My last check cleared, yeah?”
“It did,” he said. “We’re good.”
Ebenezar lowered his mug. His eyes drifted down the street toward the house where Molly kept an Unseelie action team ready to go in case her family was attacked by purely mundane means. “How are you paying your bills in that place, Hoss?”
“Ill-gotten gains,” I said without hesitation. “I should have enough to last until next fall at least.”
He looked at me from beneath shaggy grey brows. “Then what?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I admitted.
“What kind of investments are you secured in?” he asked.
Which is what he would ask, of course. Wizards live a long time. Not every wizard understands every kind of arcane theory, but they are, every last one of them, versed in the magic of compound interest.
“Ill-gotten gains,” I said. “I never had much chance to start a portfolio.”
“Mmmph,” Ebenezar said, frowning.
Michael glanced at my face and said, “Wizard McCoy, I have to confess, I was mostly stuck at home during the battle. Do you mind if I ask you some questions about it?”
“I’d be honored, Sir Michael,” Ebenezar said.
Michael engaged the old man on a review of the battle. The two of them settled down over a small table marked with a chessboard, takingout a number of small objects from pockets or nearby and using them to represent various positions and threats. Michael asked cogent and knowledgeable questions.
I drifted down the porch a way.
