Chapter Eleven

The North Pole ice rink sits in the center of a picture-perfect ski resort of a town, lit by more of those giant lights along with what have to be miles of twinkly strand lights. All the buildings are in storybook Tudor-style wood-and-plaster architecture, interspersed with garland-draped market booths selling fragrant roasted nuts and handmade gifts and, of course, cocoa. Dozens of people mill around, giggling and chatting and snapping pictures of the heater-warmed area where the sleighs deposited the palace group, a cluster of royals spread over benches, all tying on skates.

I can feel the sharpening of attention on Hex. This is the first time he’s been out of the palace, and tons of people have their phones on him, pointing and whispering and it’s the invasiveness of every journalist interaction but cranked to the max. All the images taken and shared are feeding the story that Halloween’s allies believe, that Christmas bowed to them like a kicked puppy and they have a shot at linking with Easter now. Is anyone really buying that Halloween has an honest chance at getting that alliance? Maybe that’s the point: they believe whatever story my dad is letting out because Christmas is so wonderful and gracious and why would Santa lie?

My arms itch to put myself between Hex and the onslaught, but there is no division—it’s everywhere. Pummeling us in a 360-degree sweep, and here we are, supposed to have a fun and candid day of skating among the people.

I yank my laces too tight as a shadow falls over me.

Dad’s in full Santa mode. Red coat and red hat trimmed in white fur.

“Photo before we take to the ice,” he says and heads over to the gate.

Next to me, Iris finishes tying on her skates. Hex, on the other side of Iris, has his skates on, and analyzes the way Kris is standing by his bench before he pushes up.

He wobbles and immediately sits back down.

I hear the quickest gasp from him, a husky, “Oh, no.”

Iris reaches for Kris. “Up.” And she throws me a knowing bob of her eyebrows.

That leaves me to walk over in front of Hex.

He sighs to my legs. “Just like walking?”

“Sure.” No, not at all.

“Gather,” Dad calls from where he’s standing near the opening to the rink. Photographers wait.

I suppose I could tell them what my father has done. Overtaking other winter Holidays. Blackmailing people, Halloween included. They’d report it, wouldn’t they?

Even if I did, what would happen? All the thousands of people of Christmas would rise up against us in a furious tirade of revolution? Plus, I seriously doubt Halloween and the other Holidays would appreciate me hinting at something blackmail-worthy, because the first thing any reporter worth their salt would do is dig into that story.

Nothing good would come from involving the press in my dad’s secrets.

Another sigh from Hex. He extends his hands like a man being led to the gallows.

“ Bum-bum .” I make the noise deep in my chest. “Bum-bum — ”

His eyes raise to mine and he squints. “Is that meant to be an execution dirge?”

I grin. “Just matching your this is how I die energy.”

His annoyance is almost, almost, seething. But one side of his mouth pulses up and he noticeably has to bite his lips together.

I curl my fingers around his thin wrists. “Come on. It’s bad form to murder guests via ice skating. I promise to keep you alive.”

He lets me haul him to his feet. His ankles sway, but he braces on me, hands grasping tight to my forearms, and I’d stand here forever to feel him letting me take his weight as he orients himself.

I see the moment he realizes how close we’re standing. Feel it, more like, a shuddering ripple that makes his fingers palpitate on my arms.

That grip tightens. Each fingertip through his gloves, through my sleeve, pushes down, ten pressure points that turn my entire body into a wound wall of muscle.

After a strung-out moment of him just making me feel this, he whispers, “What is your preferred form of murdering guests, then?”

Sexual tension, I want to say.

But I grin again, effusively charming. “I can’t tell you that. Christmas has to have some element of mystery.”

Hex shakes his head, a smile playing at his mouth, and glances back to his feet. “All right,” he says, to himself, to me. “Walking.”

I hook his arm through mine. It doesn’t feel like enough, though, how he wavers with each step, but his face is pure determination as we make our way over to the gate.

Dad starts to reach for Hex. To pull him in front, because that’s the best photo, the one everyone wants to see.

Headline: Halloween Prince forced overjoyed to participate in Christmas traditions.

But I don’t surrender him. I twist my shoulder and pretend I didn’t see Dad reach for him and my heart lodges itself in my throat.

I can feel my father’s eyes on me. Considering. He won’t make a scene here, though.

Cameras flash.

A crowd has gathered, more people now, phones taking pics. The rink has been emptied for us—how no one realizes that absurdity, that we came to skate with our people but not actually with any of our people, is beyond me—and music starts from speakers set around the square, an airy, festive rendition of “Carol of the Bells.”

Dad is first out onto the ice. The rest of our court snakes in behind him, pushing through the gate.

Everyone from Christmas has some level of skill—it’s in our ancestry—but I’m drawn to watching specifically the members of House Frost. This is one of their specialties, one of the things that they alone brought to Christmas, and I wonder now what else we’re missing from them. What other things have we not embraced or lost in the name of cohesion?

I linger off to the side with Hex, letting the bulk of people funnel past us so we can take our time getting out.

“Are Christmas events always like this?” Hex asks, gripping my arm with one hand, white-knuckling the railing on the other side.

“Like what?”

He nods at the photos being taken. The press. The people with their phones.

“As long as I can remember. Well—” That’s not true, is it? “It didn’t used to be this bad. We’ve always had journalists recording our events and writing articles about us, but it used to be one or two, not half a dozen all the time. It’s only been this overbearing for the past twelve, thirteen years.”

Hex gawks at the side of my face. “You usually have half a dozen journalists documenting your Christmas seasons?”

“Ha. I wish. No, it’s like this even outside of Christmas. We go visit Iris—press. I come home on a break from school—press. Dad likes to make sure our public has a specific image of their ruling family.”

There’s a rising sympathetic horror on Hex, so I shrug, like it’s not a big deal. “You learn to live with it.” No, you definitely don’t; you learn to blatantly ignore it and stay off social media, which I’ve been told is way better for my mental health in the long run. “Why? What’s Halloween like?”

They may read whatever articles get printed about us, but I know they don’t have nearly as many active paparazzi invading their lives.

“More cobwebs,” Hex says, not missing a beat. “Candy corn instead of candy canes. The occasional temporary possession. And our events are enjoyable.”

His teasing washes a smile across my face. “The month is young—there may yet be a possession during Christmas too. But are you saying you didn’t enjoy sleigh racing?”

“And I doubt very much that I will enjoy skidding around a pad of ice on razor blades.”

“Blasphemer.”

“Not my Holiday, so no, I’m not.”

“ Bum-bum, ” I start the dirge again. “Bum — ”

He shoulder-checks me, but it makes him wobble, and he scrambles to tighten his grip on me in a flustered panic. That panic only lasts about two seconds, and when he catches himself, he glares breathlessly at me.

“Do not. Let me. Fall,” he punctuates.

“I won’t. Let you. Fall.” I hold his arm tight to my chest to emphasize the promise, but it pulls him to me. Reminds me of what it felt like to have his body pressed up against mine.

Yeah, maybe sexual tension really will be how I kill us.

All of my court has worked their way onto the ice. There’s plenty of space for the two of us to ease out, but I only let us take another slow step, keeping him next to me, talking to me. I know photos are being taken, but I actively do not let myself consider what sorts of headlines will accompany Iris’s two suitors talking together.

“What kinds of events do you do for Halloween, then?”

Hex turns away to watch the people around the edge of the rink, his cheeks brushed the faintest shade of pink.

He clears his throat. “Lots of things. We have many traditions from both Halloween and Día de Muertos. My brothers love—”

“You have brothers?”

“Three. Triplets. They’re nine.”

I crack a laugh. “That sounds—”

“Messy? Chaotic? Extraordinarily creepy when they all dress identically and hide around the house?”

“I was going to say fantastic, but honestly, that last bit sounds downright brilliant of them.”

His smile is all fondness. “They are far too brilliant for their own good, that’s true. They love hayrides, haunted houses; they love trick-or-treating, of course. My parents have a terrible time stopping them from using our magic to create candy whenever they please.”

“Oh my god.” A huge grin tugs up my lips. “I did the exact same thing when I was younger. Figured out how to use Christmas’s magic to make this one type of ginger-flavored chocolate I really loved, and made piles of it. Just an insane amount of candy. I spent all night puking my guts up. Still can’t eat that type of chocolate without gagging.”

Hex’s grin mirrors mine. “One of my brothers—Salem—did that. Only it was Skittles. Think about that for a moment.”

Realization connects and I wince. “Oh no—”

“Oh yes. Rainbow vomit everywhere . This was only a few months ago.”

“Mine was too.”

Hex snorts.

“What about you?” I have us take another step towards the gate to make it look like we’re trying to get out on the ice.

“Me?”

“Yeah. What tradition do you love most? Aside from the séances and possessions.”

Hex braces himself on the railing and me, and his face takes on a look of pure joy, a memory blossoming—but it just as quickly dissolves into sorrow, a weird, contrasting mix of happiness and grief.

I push closer to him, feeling like I can soften wherever he’s coming in to land.

“Our ofrendas,” he whispers.

“The altars in memory of the dead. Right?”

He pulls back with an appraising look. “Correct.”

“Hey, I know things. But why is that your favorite?”

Hex sucks in a breath. Holds. It’s that studious, considering look again, like he’s evaluating my merit, and I go perfectly still, letting him read me, hoping to god he finds me worthy.

“I wasn’t the original heir of Halloween,” he whispers. “I had an older sister. Raven.”

His words are instantly sobering. “What?”

“She was… amazing. Big-hearted. Funny.” He cracks a small smile. “A lot like you, honestly.”

I don’t dare speak. Couldn’t, even if I’d wanted to.

“So I like ofrendas best,” he continues, “because they let her know we miss her, and that she can celebrate with us. It’s what I love most about Halloween too—we create joy in what is terrifying, and Día de Muertos creates joy with what is gone.”

“And that’s enough?”

The question is out of me before I can stop it. Dragged to the forefront by the certainty in his voice, the simplicity.

Hex frowns slightly. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

I want to look away. Want to hide this cracking open, but I don’t, because in some way, I owe him this. “Whatever we help people create with these Holidays—it doesn’t stop terror. It doesn’t stop things from being gone. Like with Christmas’s joy—nothing we do prevents bad things from happening or fixes things that already happened.”

His frown smooths, his head tips. “And that is the only purpose for what we do? If we don’t prevent bad things, we shouldn’t try?”

“I just—” I roll my lips into my mouth, breathing the bitter, iced air. “We’re supposed to make people happy. But it doesn’t last. So what’s the point?”

Hex straightens, leaning on me a little less, but only so he can twist, facing me. “You said something like that once before. In the alley.” He squints. “Do you remember?”

No point in lying to him, or myself, anymore. “I remember everything from that night.”

He shows a little flash of surprise at the intensity in my eyes, the way I let him see that I mean it, that everything he said is and has been branded on my mind.

“I don’t think our purpose is to prevent all the bad things in the world,” he says. “I think our purpose is to help people endure those things.”

“With that foundation you talked about? One by one by one, until they have something to stand on.”

An unexpected, sensational grin brightens Hex’s face.

We don’t generally concern ourselves with the religious elements associated with our Holidays—they fluctuate as much as joy intake—but I understand now how people are driven to worship.

His smile makes me want to swear my soul to whatever god created him.

“You do remember,” he says. “And yes. We give them the foundation to withstand whatever they may have to face.”

I walk us forward another step. Dad glides past us on the ice and gives me an intense look that says, Get out here. Defense wells in me, my grip tightening on Hex’s arm.

“Why does that not feel like enough?” I whisper.

Hex watches me still, and I can feel his exhale on the side of my face. “I think you’re trying to make each little thing too big. I don’t expect the ofrenda to bring Raven back. In that moment, when I set up the altar for her, I feel a little less alone. A little less broken by her loss. If I can have that, then I know other people are getting the same comfort out of this Holiday. And that’s all I expect to get or create by any of the magic I’m destined to build—one small moment.”

I wish I could have a flicker of his conviction. To believe in what we do, to know it resonates and people need it.

But I realize, in listening to him talk, at the bar and up to now—being with him is the only time in my life when I started to think that the joy we bring might be enough. Because he thinks it’s enough.

“How did she die?” I ask. “Or you don’t have to talk about her if—”

“It’s fine. A car accident. Two and a half years ago. I—”

He stops. His eyebrows crease.

“What?” I ask.

He takes a fortifying breath, expression pleading and intense. “Actually. I’d rather you not ask me about her.”

Instantly, I want to surrender, hold up my hands and back away, but I can’t let him go, so I nod. “Okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t apologize. Really. I don’t—” Another deep breath, another shuddering exhale, and he looks out at the rink. “I don’t do well talking about her. Even years later.”

“No. I get it.” I spend every anniversary of the day Mom left rereading the handful of texts she’s sent over the years, then hating myself for it. “I… thank you for telling me. I wish I could’ve met her.”

Hex whips towards me so fast I jump. His brows bend in that pleading look again, his lashes pulse, and maybe it’s the sting of the bitter winter air, but his eyes are glassy.

“I wish you could have met her too,” he says like a promise, hanging such weight on each word that my knees go weak.

Then he smiles, straightens up. “Now. Show me this next Christmas death trap.”

“It’s hardly a death trap. You’re so morbid.”

“Halloween . ”

“If you adhere to Halloween’s morbid stereotype, then that means I have to adhere to Christmas’s jolliness, and I’m not sure I’m physically capable of shaking my belly like a bowl full of jelly.”

Hex laughs.

Someone help me, please, because this guy makes me want to learn hymns but only recite them if I’m moaning and I think that might be sacrilege, but I’m okay with damnation if he’s the reason, I just want to know for sure which way is up.

Hex’s hold stiffens on my arm as we reach the gate. “All right. Don’t let go.”

“Never,” I say instantly, maybe too forcefully.

Iris and Kris are out there, Kris staying within a few feet of Iris as she takes small strides, but even with her unsteadiness, it looks natural, and I can see Hex’s brow set in study.

“You’ll learn better trying it,” I whisper. But I’m starting to understand him more. Why he’s so controlled, so contained. He’s living up to not only his position in Halloween, but his sister’s memory.

His jaw sharpens. “You won’t let me fall.” It’s not a question.

“I promise.” I adjust my hold on him, because if I’m only grabbing onto his arm, then, yeah, he’s going to go shooting out of my grip the moment we hit the ice. So I prop my arm around his hips, which pulls him into me, and I keep my other hand in a tight pinch on his upper arm.

This was a huge mistake.

What was the word Kris used? Colossal.

Because with Hex in my arms, and all these cameras going off, there is no way, no way, that anyone looking won’t see how I feel about him.

Nothing about the way I’m holding him must be off-putting to him, because he nods. “Let’s do this.”

And I don’t care at all what anyone else might think.

I’m going to skate with this guy, and in this moment, I’m going to pretend we’re a normal couple doing a normal Christmas activity because I know that simplicity is something I will never get. This is as close as we’ll ever be.

I work us to the gate and step out onto the ice first. Hex takes a breath and follows.

“Glide one foot forward,” I say, demonstrating as much as I can without letting him go.

His cheeks are reddening, half cold, half concentration. He moves his legs, increment by increment, and I cling him to me so tightly that soon we’re moving solely because of me, legs wound and arms like vises as I guide him around the rink. I’m going to be sore as hell tomorrow, but it’s worth it, in the way I can feel him leaning into me, the startled huff of a laugh as he realizes we’ve completed one full lap.

The song changes.

To Michael Bublé’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You . ”

I bring all this upon myself, I know I do, but Christmas must hate me, because I did not ask to have this perfect guy in my arms while what has to be the most romantic Christmas song of all time blares around us.

A squealing giggle blissfully drags my attention up, and I see Iris grinning wide as Kris spins her in a circle, like they’re dancing on the ice. He’s smiling too, and when she teeters, he catches her, but she’s laughing, and my heart nearly bursts.

“They’re cute,” Hex says.

I look down at him. “I wish she’d—”

Holy hell, he’s so close to me.

His face tips up, and there’s a disassociating second where the whole breadth of our kiss in the library plays across the refracting light in his eyes to the point where the collision of his gaze on my skin feels tactile. He looks from my temple, to my cheek, to my lips, and each touch of that focus leaves a spark of fizzing awareness as Michael Bublé croons about wanting you here tonight, holding on to me so tight.

We coast to a stop.

“Coal,” he says like he’s begging for something. I think—hope—for one red-hot second that he’ll ask me to kiss him, and I would, right here, in front of everyone, and take whatever damage comes from that impact.

But then the yearning in his eyes changes, tenses. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Stop—” I echo the first word, and it rips me out of the spell.

We’ve been standing here, staring at each other, for long enough that it’s obvious what we’re thinking.

Before any sense of flagellating horror can get a chance to stab into me, Dad skids to a stop in front of us.

“Prince Hex. With Princess Iris,” he says. But his eyes are on me. Fuming. “I need a word with my son.”

Hex goes as solid as the ice we’re standing on. Iris isn’t far—but too far for someone who can’t skate to reach her. And are those tears in her eyes?

Kris is nowhere near her now.

My head snaps around, and I spot him behind me, furious glare on our father.

“All right,” I force out. “I’ll take him to—”

“Prince Hex,” Dad says again. “Now. This is a perfect opportunity to continue getting to know her. As you should be focused on doing.”

“He can’t—”

“Nicholas.”

I promised him I wouldn’t let him fall. That I wouldn’t let him go. Well, this is how it ends, then, on an ice skating rink, because I am outright done breaking promises to him.

So, when Hex pushes against me, I stare at him dumbly. What’s he doing?

“It’s all right,” he tells me. “I can manage.”

He nods at the railing. It’s close enough that he can reach out and grab it.

But—

“Prince Nicholas,” Hex says, “thank you for your help.”

He doesn’t look at my father, but he adds, “Sir,” and pushes on me again.

I release him, only because he gives me one last entreating look. He eases away and I don’t breathe until he grabs the wall and begins pulling himself down it.

Iris slides forward and takes his arm, her glance at me saying, I got this. We’re okay.

Like hell.

Kris comes up next to me.

I cut my chin to the side. “What—”

“Iris,” is all he says.

He was skating with Iris. Skating, and they were laughing.

And then Hex and I. Skating. Looking at each other like that.

“The two of you know how delicate these events are,” Dad says. But his face has gone pleasant so the crowd won’t see that anything’s amiss. No wonder Kris and I have such issues. Dad’s smiling as he berates us. “When we are in the public eye, the image of what alliances our family presents is paramount. You know that well.”

“It’s a lie, ” I hear myself say. Echoey and empty still, hollow and achy.

I’m too on edge, and so I say those three words and watch my dad’s face go analytical, then ripe with distrust.

“Was I wrong to share that information with you, Nicholas?” He glances over his shoulder, to where Hex and Iris are working their way around another lap of the rink. “The Halloween Prince is playing to your sympathies?”

I can’t put a name to the feeling that comes to life in my body when Dad talks about Hex. I feel my vision start to slip.

“He has nothing to do with that,” I say through my teeth.

Kris presses closer. “What are you talking about? What information?”

Members of our court skate around us, smiling in the crisp air, and the song is now something bright and tinkling and merry.

Dad shifts from performative calm to offense back to nothing-is-wrong so skillfully that it makes me dizzy.

“Stay away from him,” Dad tells me. He eyes Kris for the first time. “And stay away from her. You will both do your part to make this competition with the Halloween Prince authentic. If I catch either of you doing anything to weaken that story, you will not like the consequences.”

He skates off, waving to the crowd that presses around the rink.

“What the hell was that about?” Kris gasps.

He doesn’t know about Hex. Not the truth.

I twist, letting the skates glide me around—Hex and Iris are outside the rink, surrounded by members of our court, caught in more idle talk.

“The marriage competition is a lie,” I tell Kris. I keep my voice low, not having to try; it comes out stunted and weak.

“I know—”

“No—the whole thing is a lie. Even the part where we’re lying to Halloween. Hex isn’t here because he thinks he’s going to win Easter—he’s here because Dad forced them to hand over something, some one, to keep them in check about voicing discontent until Christmas Eve.”

A puff of white bursts out of Kris’s mouth. “What?”

Iris is sitting now, working off her skates, while Hex is talking cordially with one of the journalists.

I have more questions than answers. More concerns than solutions.

But I know how to resolve one of those questions right now.

“I’ll be right back.” I pat Kris’s arm and push off him as he goes, “You can’t drop that and run off on me!”

Shit. I’ll tell him everything, I really will.

I cut across the rink, dodge people skating the opposite direction, and step out in front of Iris.

She glances around—no one else is close by. “Your dad’s an ass.”

“What’d he say to you?” I drop onto the bench next to her.

She rips off her last skate and tosses it to the ground. “Accused me of not only jeopardizing the story about you and Hex courting me, but being loose about my commitment to you.”

My face scrunches. “What the—”

“Just for skating with Kris.” She yanks on her boots and slams her feet down. Her shoulders deflate, anger venting. “But I shouldn’t have let you skate with Hex. I lost focus. I’m sorry, Coal.”

“Don’t you dare apologize.”

“You were pissed at me the other night for pushing you and Hex together.”

“Yeah, well, I got over it.”

There’s no one around us close enough to listen; Hex is off to the side now, currently undoing his own skates.

Dad, though, glides past us on the ice and gives me a solemn nod of approval. Presumably for sitting next to Iris.

I look away, jaw tight.

“Does Easter want to be allied with Christmas?” I whisper.

Iris frowns. “Yeah. That’s rather the point of this whole situation between us.”

“No, I mean—I know you said your dad’s doing it now to appease the people in Easter who think he isn’t a good enough leader, but was it really something your father decided he wanted to do, or did my dad force his hand?”

Iris looks out at the ice. Her dad is skating. Smiling.

“Why are you asking?” The question is dense with reservation. Not wanting to talk about it? Or not wanting to talk with me about it?

“Dad told me some things that have started clarifying a lot,” I say. “And I never stopped to wonder what you’re actually getting out of this alliance. All the benefits my dad’s talked about are purely for Christmas, with Easter as an afterthought.”

“Well, I at least get your sparkling company.” She tries for a smile.

I hold her gaze, eyebrows lifting, and she blinks in surprise.

“All right.” She adjusts, shoulders leveling. “My father does want to appease our court. He wants the notoriety Christmas has. And more joy, of course. That’s what it’s all about, right?” But she sighs. “He doesn’t talk about this union with Christmas like it’s a partnership anymore. I think he likes that someone is telling him what to do and making decisions that at least look like they’ll benefit us so he doesn’t have to think about how he’s ruling Easter by himself.”

“He isn’t ruling Easter by himself,” I say with a pointed look at her.

She shrugs. “I do what I can. And Lily… well, you know what Lily’s like.”

Lily puts on a persona as flawless as Iris’s, but she’s five thousand times more controlling. She’d get fixated on the small details that only affected her—a boyfriend who ruined her birthday—rather than anything bigger—said boyfriend ruining her birthday because he bankrupted a country.

“She wants what’s best,” Iris continues, “but she doesn’t have the resolve that your father does. So they agree with whatever he says, and so far, the decisions he’s made soothe the naysayers in our court. It’s not that your dad forced us into an alliance. It’s just that it never occurred to my father that we could rule Easter on our own.”

I arch forward, arms braced on the bench, one knee bouncing. “So we aren’t… blackmailing you into this engagement?”

She tips her head, studying me. “You really think so little of yourself?”

I grin, because that isn’t what I was getting at, and my genuine amusement smooths her concern. “I’m gonna keep it real with you, Lentora. I’m way out of your league.”

She laughs, like a deep, full-belly seal-bark of a laugh.

I drop my mouth open. “Ouch, Peep. You could’ve laughed a little less demonically.”

Dad isn’t keeping her here with blackmail, then. It’s only a little relieving, but I blow out a breath anyway.

She leans her head on my shoulder and tucks her arm through mine. We sit like that for a moment, watching skaters whirl by, listening to Christmas songs vibrate the cold air.

A few photographers catch pictures of us. The only satisfying thought I can drudge up is that it’ll mollify Dad for a bit. Princess Iris and Prince Nicholas cuddle at ice skating event.

Ahead of us, Kris got dragged into a conversation with some courtiers on the ice.

Hex is at the railing of the rink a few yards down, back in his normal boots and studying the poses and methods of the people skating by him, still trying to work it out. But his fingers twitch absently at his side, and his gaze darts to the edge of the crowd and back twice as I watch.

A gaggle of kids is laughing and bouncing up and down, batting at what looks like three little birds that dart in and out of their group. I squint—not birds. Tiny reindeer. Tiny reindeer ghosts, but at first glance, they could almost be made of snow.

My eyes go back to Hex, a smile leaping across my lips.

He must feel me watching him, because he looks over. He notes Iris’s head on my shoulder and his focus snaps away, redness forming a curl from his jaw up to his temple.

“I think we’re making him jealous,” Iris tells me.

I stiffen. I can’t help it.

She peels away with a smile.

“I have no idea who you’re talking about,” I say defiantly.

My god, is he jealous?

“Uh-huh.” She kicks the ground below the bench. “Thanks for being concerned about me. Thanks for just listening.”

I swallow any immediate reaction and instead, I ask, “Are you still okay with all this? The fake-courting scam. Our… eventual marriage.”

Iris bites the inside of her cheek. “I still worry what it would do to our people’s trust if they found out this was all a lie,” she whispers. “And now that this competition is underway, I worry that it would make me look flippant and selfish to not choose one of you at the end.”

“Fuck what—” I bite my tongue to cut back my response of Fuck what other people think. Because she’s always cared what people think of her, how she’s perceived in her position, in Easter, in life; and it’s all for a valid reason, what with some of her court questioning her family since before she was even born. I won’t cheapen her concerns with my own reactions anymore.

I take her hand and squeeze her fingers. “I’m sorry. If I can figure out a way to stop this and have it be for a legitimate reason, I’ll let you know.”

She squeezes my hand back and releases it with a soft sigh. “In some ways, being forced into this is easier. I can see the appeal in just letting your father take the lead and make decisions the way my father does.”

“You deserve better than this though. You deserve two people fighting over you because they’re both madly in love with you, not because they got lassoed into it.”

One corner of her mouth lifts, but the smile doesn’t blossom, just stays wilted on her face. “I used to want a love story like my parents. To look up in a café and know— it’s you. ”

“You could have one. A better one.”

“No.” She meets my eyes. “I used to want their love story. My dad always said he saw my mom at a café in Strasbourg and just knew that she’d be important to him. But I’ve seen what it can do now, when happily ever after ends. This isn’t a fairy tale, Coal. We’re a prince and a princess but it’s our jobs, not some storybook title, and I know Easter has problems but I barely know how to keep it afloat as is, let alone fix the issues. What are we supposed to do?”

She’s as stuck as I am. And she’s been pushed to the point where she’s starting to doubt that there will be a happy resolution, and god, how did I let things get this bad on so many fronts?

My eyes find Hex again.

“I don’t know,” I whisper to Iris. “But I know it isn’t like this in all the Holidays, so maybe it doesn’t have to be like this here .”