Billy frowned, wondering if maybe it had something to do with the alcohol he’d had the night before—or the heavy meal. Looking around the room, feeling very conspicuous, he tried to see if anyone else was having problems with their rods.
They were. Not a single elf that Billy could see was making anything.
This was not good.
“Do you know what’s wrong?” Billy whispered to the elf working at the table next to him. His name was Ralph, and though Billy didn’t know him well, his impression of the man was that he was a calm and levelheaded guy.
“Do I look like I know what’s wrong, Billy? Jingle Bells! This is because of that machine of yours, isn’t it? We’ve been havingnothing but trouble since you tried turning it on!” Ralph whispered back loudly, spit flying out of his mouth as he talked.
Billy stepped back at the panicked frustration lacing Ralph’s accusation. The poor man looked like he was ready to murder someone, and Billy did not want it to be him.
“Sorry, Ralph. I don’t think that my machine could affect the castle magic like this. The experimentation room is shielded, remember?” he whispered back.
Ralph turned away and focused on his rods, grunting out something that didn’t sound very convinced. Looking at the table in front of him, Billy saw Elsa giving him a speculative look, like she was considering the possibility that thiswashis fault.
It wasn’t. It couldn’t be…could it?
No. The experimentation room could draw on the castle magic, but not interact with it. Everything that happened down there was separate.
“It’s probably something to do with how the new Santa overloaded the castle yesterday, you idiot. I can’t believe you’d think Billy would sabotage Christmas!”
It was Tulip, marching over to a suddenly very flustered Ralph with a furious look on her face. Her voice was loud enough to reach the entire workshop, and with the silence broken, the room erupted into chatter.
“Hey,” Billy said, trying to make sure Ralph could hear him over the sudden noise. “It’s okay. I know how stressful this must be for you guys.”
“That’s no excuse for baseless accusations. Is it, Ralph?” Tulip stopped between Billy and Ralph’s tables, crossing her armsand glaring at Ralph until he wilted.
“I guess not, Tulip,” Ralph mumbled. Tulip harrumphed and turned her back on him. She grinned at Billy, but the lines around her eyes gave away her stress. Billy was well aware that any interruption this close to Christmas was a disaster.
“Is anyone investigating what’s going on?” he asked, hoping that Pat was on it.
Tulip nodded. “Pat and Grumpus are finding Santa as we speak.”
Billy nodded, but then a thought occurred to him.Would Nick be able to fix the magic?Billy liked Nick, but he honestly wasn’t very impressed with the alpha’s commitment to being Santa or his knowledge about the job. What would they do if Nick didn’t know how to fix this?
“How much time can we afford to lose?” Billy was worried. If they couldn’t get toy production up and running, he didn’t know what they would do.
“I don’t know,” Tulip said, shrugging. She reached out and touched the bike Billy had finished up the night before but not yet taken to be packaged, spinning the back wheel while she thought it over. “I guess we could work longer shifts to make up for lost time… Three days? Four, maybe?”
Billy was relieved. Even if Nick didn’t know how to fix the problem right off the bat, three days was more than enough time to figure it out. Or so he hoped.
“So what do we do in the meantime?” he asked. He grabbed the bike on the table and lowered it to the floor.
Tulip shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean… it’s Decemberthird. Pretty much the only thing we’ve got going on right now is making toys.” She studied him. “You could work on yourmachine, though. Couldn’t you? I mean… the design and research you do doesn’t require magic.”
“I could do that,” Billy hedged. He wanted to do something to help, but unable to think of anything, he might as well make himself useful. “But I think I’ll wait to hear what Nick says.”
“Who?” Tulip scrunched up her brows like she was thinking hard.
“The new Santa,” Billy said. “His name is Nick.”
“Oh, I almost forgot! You had a date last night! How did it go?” The lines of stress smoothed out on Tulip’s face as she clasped her hands together excitedly. She was way too invested in this.
Billy smiled anyway. “It was good.” He looked down and shuffled his feet. He knew that he was blushing. “We had dinner and drinks, and we talked… I like him.”
“And did you…?” Tulip made a thrusting motion with her hips, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth as she grinned lasciviously. Billy shook his head with a snort.
“No. I fell asleep on him and he put me to bed. We cuddled, though. He was the big spoon.”
