The door opened, admitting Carolan, one of the diminutive nissechiefs. His ears, pointed like Andor’s, but much longer and more pronounced, twitched in agitation. “Forgive me, Nikolai, but we have aproblem.”
Nicholas stopped short of another groan. There was a hot pot of tea waiting for him and a comfortable bed ready for when he finally had a chance to sleep. It looked as if he might not see either for some time to come. “What now,Carolan?”
“You bypassed adelivery.”
“What?!”
The gnome pulled a small scroll out of his pocket. “Indeed. One Claire Summerlad, age seven, Dallas, Texas, UnitedStates.”
Andor snorted. “Not my fault. You assigned me the Americaneast.”
The saint passed a hand over his eyes. “I’m getting too old forthis.”
“You’ve been the same age for almost seventeen hundred years. That’s not much of anexcuse.”
Nicholas laughed, the sound booming off the walls. Andor had gotten in a small dig, one that restored Nicholas’s good humor, despite his weariness. “Touché, Andor.” He nodded to Carolan. “I’ll take care of it now. It’s one household, a meager one at that. There won’t be much tobring.”
The nisse chief bowed. “I’ll have her things waiting when you’reready.”
After he left, Nicholas turned to Andor. “You’re welcome to joinme.”
Andor raised an eyebrow. “You trust I won’t do something against yourrules?”
Nicholas chuckled. Despite his many transgressions during his long servitude to the saint, Andor remained one of his favorite helpers. The nisse didn’t always understand Nicholas’s tolerance for the unruly, often haughty elf, but they hadn’t witnessed what hehad.
The early years of the twentieth century had been bleak ones, when men seemed hell-bent on destroying each other in the travesty known as the Great War. Millions died on hillsides and in trenches from wounds and disease. The greatest drain on his magic had taken place then, when gifts weren’t toys or trinkets but nearly dead hope, a pail of food to eat, a loved one returned alive from thebattlefield.
It was during one of those years they had passed over a field carved into a maze of trenches. The December air was icy, filled with the scent of sulfur. Nicholas had sent Andor to a small village nearly razed to the ground by war. Only two families remained, widows with children and an old man. When he returned for the elf, he wasn’t at their appointed meeting place. Instead, Nicholas found him in one of thetrenches.
A soldier, gut-shot and bleeding out, lay dying in the frozen mud. He was no more than eighteen, and Nicholas remembered him as a small child, vibrant and determined to catch Pére Noël stuffing his shoes with treats by thefireplace.
Andor crouched over him, his graceful hands bloodied as he spread them over the boy’s wound. Nicholas remained silent as the elf spoke softly, ancient words of ljósálfar power that brought comfort and a surcease ofpain.
The boy’s stark face relaxed, turned peaceful as he stared up at Andor. “Are you anangel?”
Andor’s pale, unearthly beauty took on an ethereal glow, magic pouring from him as he met the soldier’sgaze.
“If that’s what youwish.”
“I don’t want to diealone.”
Andor’s voice chimed like the music of bells. “You’re not alone. Your forefathers awaityou.”
The boy’s expression turned beatific as he looked past Andor’s shoulder to a spot beyond the world’s reality. “It’s Christmas,” hesaid.
“Yes.”
“Merci,” he said on a gentle sigh. His eyes glazed over, and he wasgone.
Andor passed a hand over the soldier's face to close his eyes. “You’rewelcome.”
When he climbed out of the trench, his broad shoulders were bowed. He looked to Nicholas. “There’s much deathhere.”
Nicholas clapped a hand on Andor’s shoulder. “Come, lad. We’ve more to do thisnight.”
That moment had forever changed the saint’s view of Andor Hjalmarson, and while his antics during the Season sometimes drove Nicholas to distraction, he’d never forgotten the elf’scompassion.
“Nicholas?” Andor’s question, laced with impatience, brought him back to thepresent.
