Chapter Fourteen

“Read it back to me again.”

Kris rattles off the Holidays that I told him were on Dad’s list. “That all?”

“Yeah. I think so. I only got a glance, but—yeah.” I kick in my desk chair so it spins, head thrown back, watching the ceiling heave over me. “What more info do you think we should have? Crap, like maybe the exact percentages they’re giving? I don’t remember—”

“I think they’re well aware of how much joy they send to Christmas.”

“True. I don’t know. I… I don’t know.” I drop my feet and the chair stops, but my mind keeps spinning, and I bounce one knee. “It doesn’t feel like they’ll take anything we say seriously. Does it? They’ll see any letter from me and toss it.”

“You don’t know that.” Kris sits up from where he’d been strewn across my bed. He closes his notebook with a snap. “Plus, I’ll be the one writing these letters. Don’t doubt my skill.”

I should smile. I can’t. My stomach is a knot of strain and I can’t believe I’m going to do this, to try to usurp my father’s hold on these Holidays and ask them to join a collective. What we’re sending them is a totally innocent request: we’re inviting them to the Christmas Eve Ball. With vague mentions of a new arrangement that is more beneficial for all parties.

Nothing in the letters is incriminating, but this whole situation feels real. Because it is.

When they get here, we’ll discuss the collective, and talk about however my dad has been coercing them, and figure out how to undo it. Iris and her dad will still be here too, obviously, and maybe Neo can be convinced that a collective is better for Easter, even if it means pissing off my dad.

So much could blow up. Fuck.

“I want this to work,” I say.

Kris clicks his pen absently. “I know. I do too. And it will. Or it will as long as we can get the contact info for these other leaders. You said you had something for that?”

“Yeah.” Two birds, one stone this idea—a whole section of Christmas oversees the routes Dad’s magic takes him. Which means the location of every single person on earth is under our roof. I can grab the locations for all these Holiday people by accessing the route lists, while also start ingratiating myself with the head of Route Planning, maybe get some training going.

Much like I did when I set up the gift transfers in New Koah a couple years ago.

The comparison has been circling my thoughts like a beady-eyed vulture and the only reason it isn’t feasting unrepentantly on the last dying heaps of my composure is thanks to my willful, vicious compartmentalization.

I’m not sending anyone gifts or willy-nilly fulfilling wishes.

It’ll be fine. It isn’t the same.

Nothing bad will happen.

“Okay.” I scrub my face and stand. “I’ll get those addresses. Meet back here in an hour?”

“You think I can handwrite all of these letters in an hour?”

“You don’t have to handwrite them.”

“These are our first official correspondences! I have standards, Coal.”

“Well, I have anxiety, Kris, and we need to get these letters out ASAP. Type them. Print them. Done and done.”

Kris shoves out of bed. “Fucking Neanderthal. Once you’re Santa and we’re doing this for real, there’s going to be some changes around here.”

I stop him halfway to the door. “I respect the hell out of your skill, I really do. And you’re right, calligraphy would sell it a lot better. But we already only have a week and a half until Christmas Eve.”

Holy shit. I hadn’t thought of it like that. Only a week and a half left until either Kris and I pull this off, or I end up married to Iris. Which was an unbearable thing already, but now with Hex, just… absolutely not. I’m not content with whatever secret relationships Iris hinted at us having outside of this arrangement. We both deserve more than that.

Kris punches my shoulder. “I know, I know. Fine. Typed, soulless letters, coming up.”

He swings the door open and we part ways, him heading to his suite, me cutting out towards the bulk of the palace.

I get halfway to where they oversee the routes when I pass an outdoor courtyard drenched in snow, frozen bushes and gray statues of reindeer making the whole area somber and icy. In it are Iris and Hex and a half dozen of our court and, of course, those damn reporters, taking a walk under a few space heaters—ah, yeah, Kris and I had been invited to that, but after yesterday’s concert, where I spent the whole time two rows back from Hex seething over the fact that my father chose to sit right next to him, I heard Dad opted out of this event and I chose to duck out too.

Iris and Hex are making a lap of the courtyard. He’s bundled up in his black peacoat but his cheeks are red with cold, most others around him in bright scarlet, gold, and green. Iris is smiling and I know she’s trying to make it easy on him but my gut yanks me to a stop at the window.

I twist the skull ring on my thumb.

That should be me. Not just there, in Iris’s place, but there at all. Hex knows I skipped this event to plan with Kris, but it’s no excuse.

Would he want me out there, in Iris’s place, if I could be? If the autumn collective would flip shit over the mention of a failed negotiation between Christmas and Halloween, what would they think about us? If there is an us.

It wouldn’t be a huge upset for the Christmas Prince and the Halloween Prince to be together, would it? I’m not my father, and I’m actively trying to improve the very things that make the autumn Holidays dislike us. Hex wouldn’t allow any of the things we’ve done if he thought it would endanger his Holiday.

God, I really can’t shake this need to protect him.

I pull out my phone and twist it around in my hands for a few seconds.

HEX

so i gotta know. who’s your stylist?

Hex looks down at his pocket and digs for his phone. His eyes go from the screen to the courtyard, scouting around, until he sees me through the door’s glass.

He grins and bends away to text quickly with his fingerless gloves. He’s going to lose a few appendages if he keeps wearing those.

HEX

I am. Why?

ah, okay, then you’re the one i need to give a stern talking to because it is exceptionally unfair that your entire wardrobe is made up of my kryptonite

I watch him read it. Watch his grin rise again.

HEX

You’re going to give me a stern talking to? If I recall, you said I was daddy.

A staff member walks past and I don’t realize until he gives me a perplexed look that I made a rather pitiful chirping noise.

I try to cover it by nodding at him. “Hey, Maverick, right? From housekeeping? Excellent job with the… cleanliness. Really top-shelf stuff. You do the lord’s work, my friend.”

Maverick carries on, confusion bowing out to amusement as he leaves.

I wait until I’m sure he’s gone.

Then drop away from the outside window and press my face into the wall.

And type back and delete about seven different responses until if Hex is watching the screen it’ll be a constant ellipsis of my sanity-crumbling turned-on panic.

for someone who said he doesn’t have a lot of experience in this area that was a pretty big game thing to say, hallow

HEX

I don’t know what you are talking about, Claus. If there is any big game play happening, it is entirely your fault, as I merely repeated facts you stated previously.

you’re wholly innocent and i’m the big bad corrupting influence, huh?

HEX

Educational influence.

And I said I was inexperienced, not innocent.

class is in session sweetheart

HEX

I have learned quite a lot from you.

Or, rather, about you.

First, the Christmas décor kink.

Now, daddy.

i am not going to call you that

i mean i have my fair share of daddy issues

but i am not going to call you that

And all he texts back, the only thing he fucking texts back, is:

HEX

Hm. We’ll see.

This guy

Will kill me.

He only says like a handful of words at a time and somehow they’re as pointed and achingly hot as everything else he does.

I pace up and down the hall because not moving will make everything inside of my body shake up like a champagne bottle.

Okay, I can’t take this.

I push open the door and I’m hit with a fist of glacial wind. “Iris! Hex!” I nod back into the hall. “You guys about done?”

Hex’s whole face is red now. His tone in text was suave confidence but thank god, honestly, that he’s as riled up as I am because I know I’m beet red too.

Hex and Iris eye the group around them, the reporters. I have no idea how long they’ve been at this, but Iris smiles at the group, all geniality.

“I believe we are,” she says. “Thank you for joining us. We will see you at dinner, yes?”

I bounce on the balls of my feet. Get the fuck in here.

She shuffles Hex away, giving me a tight eyeroll none of the court can see. Hex sees it, though, and he stifles a smile to the ground as I hold the door open for them.

They slip inside and Hex shivers, head to toe.

“Please do not take this personally,” he says, “but I am very tired of this element of Christmas.”

Iris moans her agreement and kisses my cheek. “My savior. I had no idea what we were supposed to be doing, honestly. A winter walk? When it’s well below freezing ? Who organized this?”

I don’t care, my brain is so laser-focused on my phone in my hand, on Hex being two feet from me, on the wound-up tension trying to rip its way out of my stomach.

But the rest of their group heads for this door. And we’re in a hallway in broad daylight and I can’t touch him so I have to stand here, willing this need to fizzle out.

His lips pulse in a soft smile, his eyes holding on mine in unspoken understanding.

He looks down at his phone again, quickly types something, then stuffs it into his pocket.

Mine vibrates.

HEX

I really don’t care what you call me.

As long as you say it in that way where you moan a little.

My eyes snap shut.

I put my phone to my forehead, and breathe, deep, deep breaths, because that’s all my body needs. Just air. That’s all it’s going to get right now so it’d better learn to be okay with it real quick.

“Coal?” Iris asks. “You all right?”

“Yeah. Yep. Definitely.”

I send off one last text and holster my phone.

you play a dangerous game. just remember: you started this

His buzzes in his pocket but he doesn’t look at it. He smirks at me, that shitty grin he’s skillfully suppressing, a spark in his eyes like fire, like heat.

The court disperses, and even the reporters hurry off, seemingly so cold they don’t notice that Iris, Hex, and I linger. Mental note: paparazzi can be dissuaded by extreme temperatures. I might break the palace’s thermostat just to fuck with them.

Then it’s just us three, and I did come down this way for a reason, didn’t I? What the fuck was I doing down here.

Ah, Route Planners, yeah.

Having Iris and Hex with me could be a good cover—look, I was giving them a tour of one of our great hubs, no real trade secrets, just friendly inter-Holiday bonding.

“You both. Come with me to the Route Planners?”

Iris and Hex give me almost identical looks of confusion.

But Hex nods. “All right. Why?”

My gaze shifts to Iris. Kris and I haven’t told her what we’re doing. Not yet. Even though this will eventually help Easter, I know now that it’s bad enough that Hex knows as much as he does about what would more or less be me usurping my dad’s plans.

“I… to check it out,” I say, dumbly.

Her eyes narrow. “Coal.”

“I swear, I’ll explain everything when I can. Plausible deniability and all that.”

She sighs. “Fine. To… the Route Planners?” She sighs again. “Christmas, always so magical.”

I lead the way, cutting down another hall, and Hex shivers again.

We’re alone now. Mostly. Except for Iris and anyone who might pop out of these rooms we’re passing.

I can’t stop myself. I loop my arm around his waist and press my body into him as we walk, scrubbing my hand up and down his side.

He leans into me with a guttural moan of relief. “Thank you.”

My body sparks at that moan of his, but I shove my way past that reaction. “Oh, don’t thank me yet. Like ninety percent of my brain is spiraling out over your texts and I’m trying to figure out how to get you back.”

“Get me back?”

“I almost collapsed in the hall. Just full-on dropped right to my knees.”

His eyes cut to mine. A quick, amused flash.

Then he says, “On your knees?” and it’s so innuendo-heavy that my grin goes satanic.

“There will be another Christmas event,” I promise him. “There will be another useless fucking PR stunt. And I’m going to text you something fantastically raunchy right in the middle of it so I’m the only one who knows you’re coming apart in a crowd full of people.”

He clears his throat.

Straightens his gloves.

Opens his mouth then shuts it and maybe we shouldn’t play this game, but my god, I am utterly captivated by the way he’s flustered.

Iris, bless her, is pretending not to hear anything we’re saying. Until I catch her eyes, and she arches one brow in a suggestive leer.

I flip her off and she laughs.

We reach the Route Planners, and those looming doors inject some somberness into me. Well, somberness, and a sudden, stabbing flashback to the New Koah incident. Riots and theft and the whole damn economy crashing—

It’ll be different. This will be different.

I shake out my hands and step away to knock. There’s shuffling behind the door, a voice calling out, “ One moment. ”

But that vulture of dread is looping closer and closer, so I inch back by Hex and growl, “Careful” out the side of my mouth.

His smile is suppressed. “I did nothing.”

“That’s the problem.” I keep my voice low. “Your doing nothing makes me want to shirk all this newfound accountability and drag you back to your suite caveman-style.”

He doesn’t respond right away, and I cut a look down at him. His face is set, brows pinched.

I spin to him. “You’re upset.”

The doorknob twists. I have the worst timing, I truly do—

“I’m not upset,” Hex assures me. “How could I be? Just—don’t jeopardize your responsibilities for me.”

“I know.” I turn to whoever is opening the door when it’s the last thing I want right now—but that’s what he means, isn’t it? To not choose him over Christmas. He’s telling me not to choose him over my responsibilities, and honestly, he has to keep telling me that.

I have to stay focused. I can’t fuck up again.

But a deeper part of me whispers, Hex doesn’t want you to jeopardize Christmas because he’s not planning on sticking around. This isn’t real to him.

Between the sudden avalanche of insecurities and the continued pulse of riots, theft, economic crash, my mouth goes dry, joints feeling like they’re solidifying so I can barely move my head to look up as the door opens.

A man stands there, holding a tablet in one hand, his head cocked. Behind him, I can hear the bustle of work, computers clacking, people shouting questions, something beeping.

Last time I came here, I blundered my way into an international incident.

No, no, it wasn’t here, not the Route Planners; it was a different area, a different time, a different me.

The last time I was at the Route Planners was when Dad brought me here as a kid.

That comparison is no less unsettling.

“Um. Hi. Hello.” I straighten my shoulders, digging deep for all my princely formality. “I came here to start getting a feel for how this area of Christmas operates. And you are—” I study the guy, and a smile cracks over me. “Lucas, right? Weren’t you working in the stables?”

His face relaxes in a pleased grin. “That’s right, Prince Nicholas. Good memory. I transferred over here a few years ago. Dare I ask if you’ve found anyone else to swindle sleigh wax from?”

I wince, but my smile doesn’t abate. “Thankfully Kris and I grew out of that daredevil phase.” To Hex—because Iris knows exactly what happened; she’d been there and flat out refused to get involved, as the only smart one in the group —I say, “Kris and I figured out that if you put sleigh wax on the bottom of sleds, they go a bit faster.”

Hex laughs. “Only a bit?”

Lucas starts flipping through his tablet. “You know, I think I still have access to the property damage photos of the wall you smashed through—”

“ Okay .” I surge closer to him. “Not that I don’t appreciate a trip down memory lane, but—can you help me with the Route Planners? Or, us, I guess. I’d like to show the Easter Princess and Halloween Prince around as well. I figured it’s about time I get down here.”

Lucas’s finger hovers over his tablet and he looks at me again, studiously this time, and I realize he might refuse. He’d be well within his right to. Dad hasn’t authorized this; the last time I trained is infamous; it’s also the highest point of the busy season.

But then Lucas smiles again in honest delight. “We’d love to have you, Prince Nicholas. Come in, please. Princess Iris. Prince Hex. All of you—right this way.”

He pushes the door wide. An office space lies beyond, bigger and more open than Dad’s office but still strung with the same decorations as the rest of the palace. Greenery and poinsettias, bulbs and sparkling lights. The desks vary from cluttered with photo frames and personal effects to clinically neat, and the air is buzzing with the frenetic energy of work.

That energy crashes to a halt at our entrance.

And yeah, we are out of place, Iris, Hex, and me. As I turn to meet all these gazes, most people are smiling, some are outright confused.

“Is it… okay that we’re here?” I ask Lucas.

He’s going to realize what I’m asking, who is asking, that Prince Coal shouldn’t be trusted—

“Of course,” he says. “In truth, we’ve been expecting you for a while.”

“You have?”

“Well—yes. You’re the future of this Holiday, aren’t you?” Lucas pushes his grin around, eyeing people in a get it together way.

I scramble to figure out a logical explanation for we’ve been expecting you .

Then it hits me, and I feel like such a dumbshit.

Dad didn’t let news that I was responsible for New Koah get very far. Some people know, of course; but he kept it under wraps as much as possible to salvage our reputation. So of course most of Christmas’s department heads would be waiting for me to resume training. Why wouldn’t they? Especially with my active steps to not be in the press since New Koah, they’ve all probably been wondering why I’m shaping up but not taking a larger role in things.

Which Dad would know. Wouldn’t they be asking him about me?

“Now,” Lucas says, “did you have some place you’d like to start specifically?”

“Anywhere,” I say, because I can’t very well be like, Do you have a list of contact info for these leaders that I definitely mean nothing nefarious by asking about?

Lucas ushers us towards the back of the room, and as we round a few more desks, a massive globe comes into view.

Dad had stood right in front of it. “These are the people who need us. And I do mean us, Nicholas—you and me. One day, it will be your job to make the world happy.”

I rub at my chest, the spot where that ache hasn’t let up.

How did I remember him so wrong? Why did I keep an image in my head of him that was so shockingly different, someone hopeful and full of wonder against someone callous and cruel?

If I hadn’t stormed into his office and demanded to be a part of stuff again, would he have ever reached out? Did he hold me back because of how I’ve behaved, or was it something else?

Hex leans into me, lets his body rest against mine for half a beat. “Are you all right?”

Iris is close enough that I catch her corresponding concern.

“I’m not sure my dad wants me to do this,” I whisper. “Take on responsibilities.”

“Why?” Iris asks.

For the same reason he stages every photo op. For the same reason his one and only priority with me and Kris is public image : control. It’s honestly easier to have a son who’s getting in trouble and rebelling in stupid ways than it is to have one who questions the structures and might make changes. When Dad did set up training for me, it wasn’t real, and he only ever punished me for my antics when they got problematic for Christmas.

Was he intentionally keeping me useless?

What exactly is my reputation among the press and our people?

But he told me about his blackmailing scheme, and he didn’t have to. Or maybe he only told me as a test, like he said. He wanted to see what kind of leader I’d be—one like him, ruthless and devious, or one like… one like it should be.

I give Iris and Hex a forced smile. “It’s nothing.”

But neither of them believes me, because I’m a crap liar when people know my tells.

We reach the globe, twice my height and covered in blinking lights, and Lucas starts talking about how they track the distribution of joy across the continents as Dad—and hundreds of staff—makes deliveries. The Route Planners ensure all the people visited get a fair amount of gifts or cheer, no one gets skipped, and so on.

Iris gives me a look like she knows I’m here for a different reason. She starts talking to Lucas about this globe being similar to one in Easter, and Hex uses the distraction to twist closer to me.

“It isn’t nothing,” he whispers.

I sway towards him, breathing in, citrus and spice. People are watching us over their desks, so even bending into him is too much and I draw back, stomach winding.

“I don’t know what they think of us. Of what we’re doing and how we do it,” I say.

Hex’s brow bends. “Your people?”

I nod.

“They seem to love you,” Hex murmurs. “I’ve seen the way you interact with them. You genuinely care about them, and they pick up on that.”

“The staff in the palace basically have to like us. Or at least pretend to better than anyone, being directly around us all the time. I mean I don’t know what our people think, the extended families of everyone who works for us, the community that’s built up in North Pole City over the centuries of Christmas, the people Dad is always so set on manipulating. I stopped reading the tabloids a while ago, and I don’t know what the general attitude is towards us.”

Hex’s head tips, considerate. “Your direct staff are also privy to that image and would react quite differently if opinion of you was negative. But when was the last time you spoke to someone? Outside of the palace, I mean.”

I give a quick shake of my head. Never, that I remember. We used to go out into North Pole City more often when Mom was here, but even that was as a family group, for photos with people, not to talk to anyone.

“I need to talk to them,” I say. “ Really talk to them. Hear what they think. Preferably without drawing the focus of press or my father.”

As if I have time to add more stuff to my ever-growing to-do list. But this is as necessary as inviting the winter Holidays to our ball and undoing blackmail and learning how Christmas operates—it’s all interconnected, and I can’t pull one thread without pulling them all. More threads keep slithering up into the bundle until I’ll have a whole-ass rope of responsibility.

Hex grins. “I can help with that.”

I cock my head.

Lucas is moving to another area. Iris follows, giving us a backwards glance to keep up, but I hesitate, and Hex’s grin widens.

“You need to get out of the palace? Down into the city, without being seen?” He shrugs. “What, precisely, am I the prince of?”

Oh, how very dare he use that teasing tone with me, right now of all times.

“Halloween?” I guess, cheeky.

“Also known as Mischief Night.” His smile is deliciously wild. “I am, when the situation calls for it, incredibly skilled at causing only the good kind of trouble.”