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‘Nooooo,’ Daniel breathed.

As if Christmas wasn’t already hard enough for him. For them both. How could they bear to lose anything else at this time of the year?

And not that she wanted to turn the festive period into some sort of nerve-wracking countdown – but by the time Christmas morning arrived and the final Christmas-period takings had been counted, she would know the bookshop’s fate. She almost wanted to tear up the chocolate advent calendars and hide.

Noémi heard movement and felt Daniel’s strong arms around her, realizing only then that her body was shaking. She had promised herself she was not going to cry when she finally spilled the truth to her lovely team. She was meant to be in charge of things, here to smile, and hold her staff together. Here to make sure that this Christmas would be better. Not that she’d ever felt like much of a leader. Maybe this mess proved she had never deserved to be. Her dear mum, Élisabeth, had argued Noémi would be perfectly capable of taking over the shop. And things had been on the up for the first two years. But for the last two – not so much.

Élisabeth now lived in a nearby specialist retirement home, her memory in a heartbreaking state of confusion most of the time. Though if Noémi stopped to think about that right now she’d be sobbing until spring.

Felix’s quiet chants of ‘Oh dear, oh dear’ brought Noémi back to the present where her thirty-three-year-old perfectly good knees were giving up the ghost, and Daniel was steering her into one of the armchairs as though she was a particularly doddery pensioner. And tears were escaping down her cheeks.

The bookshop suddenly felt cold, as though memories of the last thirty years were circling around like accusatory phantoms. Memories of growing up in the shop that her mother had bought as her own small adventure when Noémi’s dad had left them to return to France in pursuit of a woman with her own château.

‘Let this be our castle,’ Élisabeth had whispered to her. ‘Let this be our quest.’

And for all those years, it had been. A shop full of stories and customers and dreams. People snuggling up in armchairs reading tales of other lives. Escaping, feeling, travelling without moving. Visitors had smiled and the tills had rung. They’d made a life here. These walls, stacked high with paper and possibility, had been their island. Their place of dreams. This shop was Noémi’s world.

And now, she was single-handedly screwing it up. For all of them.

‘I’ll get the fire burning,’ said Felix, noticing her shivers. ‘And we’ll have a jolly good think about fixing this.’

These days, there were probably rules against fires in bookshops, but the fire had always been part of their cosy aesthetic, and they were generally careful with the fireguard.

‘I’ll do it,’ Daniel replied quickly, never trusting Felix’s scattiness. He claimed the open fire was an accident waiting to happen, but Noémi had come to learn that most tragic things happened beyond the safety of her cosy bookshop, not inside it.

‘I’ll fetch the mince pies,’ said Felix, hopefully. ‘Everything’s always better with a spot of pastry.’

If only it was that simple.

When everyone had rallied around, stoking fires, bringing tissues, and decanting emergency, clove-scented mulled wine from the cauldron-shaped warmer on the counter, Noémi forced herself up and reclaimed her place next to the mantelpiece. She let the warmth from her glass seep into her fingers and the crackle of the log fire calm her, before attempting to speak again.

‘I’m sorry I haven’t dared to mention this before. I feel like such a failure, and I really don’t want to let you down. You’re like family to me. And to Mum.’ Her voice wobbled at the last word. Felix had worked at the bookshop since Noémi was small, and with Noémi having been friends with Daniel since their first day of primary school, he was dear to Élisabeth too.

‘You are not a failure,’ Daniel said firmly.

‘And you’re not letting anyone down,’ Felix finished. ‘Perhaps we’ve been letting you down. I mean, I’m not the best bookseller, nowadays. I forget what lives where and I’ve never been any good with that new till.’

That new till was at least ten years old, and Noémi knew if she looked at Daniel, he’d be raising his eyebrows.

‘You’re both marvellous, and I won’t hear otherwise,’ Noémi replied.

In truth, Felix probably lost them more money than he made, through unfortunate mistakes and by sometimes forgetting to charge people. But there was no way she was letting her staff take the blame for this. And she was equally guilty when it came to losing takings. She often couldn’t resist giving discounts and treats that she could barely afford. Though surely she could bring things back from the brink without getting all Scrooge McDuck?

‘I can work less hours,’ Daniel offered. ‘Or take a pay cut. Or maybe it’s time I found another job, if you don’t need me?’

‘No!’ Noémi replied, even though having less staff would solve some of the cash-flow problems. Daniel had only started working there when life had derailed him. He wasn’t even that bookish, though he did love schmoozing. And Noémi would always support her friends. ‘We’re in this together. I mean, unless you’d rather find a better place to work?’

‘In it together,’ Daniel confirmed, swigging the last of his mulled wine and standing up like a best friend on a mission. ‘Let’s decorate and brainstorm. There’s nothing that can’t be fixed with drawing pins and festive tat.’

Only a best friend would have noticed the tiniest hitch in his voice at that.

‘Indeed,’ said Felix, standing with equal vigour and promptly catapulting his china plate of mince pies.

Crockery annihilated. That just about summed things up.

‘Oh dear, I’m sorry. Should I feed the crumbs to the fish?’ asked Felix.

‘No, no!’ Noémi rushed to clean up. She’d had to secure the lid on Wanderer’s goldfish bowl, because they were now on Wanderer the third, after Felix’s absentminded overfeeding of the shop’s fancy-finned pet. And goldfish did not cope well with festive titbits. ‘It’s no problem. Maybe you could help Daniel with the garlands?’