Chapter Nineteen

There’s a weight on my thumb.

I grope at it, feeling the bedding shift beneath me, and my half-asleep mind thinks for a second, I only have two days until Hex leaves and I start to reach for him—

The weight is his ring. Still on my thumb. The pillow is fragrant with blood orange and cinnamon but it’ll fade now.

Because we don’t have two more days.

I grip my hand into a fist.

“You’re awake,” a voice says above me.

My room comes into shape around my widening awareness. White morning light. I’m in yesterday’s clothes. The comforter is thrown over me and I’m knotted in it from thrashing in what restless sleep I managed, and I groggily look up at Kris, propped in bed next to me. He’s in pajamas, typing away on his phone.

“What time is it?”

“Almost seven. You slept?”

I sit up, body bruised like I got pummeled last night, and I did, in a way that makes me rock forward, face in my hands. My eyes are knots of sandpaper.

“Go back to sleep,” Kris says. “It’s early.”

“I’m fine. I need to—”

“You need to sleep. You didn’t crash until nearly four.”

“I’m fine .”

“You’re a fucking liar. ”

“The sooner I rescind those invitations—”

“That can wait a few more hours. Lie back down.”

“Why are you here?” It comes out as a snap of anger. I immediately regret it.

“Because you don’t get to be alone right now,” Kris says. He doesn’t react to my anger. Just patience and calm.

I stiffen and glance back at him.

His brows are up in gentle appraisal.

Guilt overtakes me. “Shit.” I rock forward again, hating myself so potently that I have to sit still until my eyes stop burning.

“You shouldn’t have to do this,” I tell him. “I didn’t want you to have to do this anymore.”

“Do what?”

“Take care of me.”

Kris leans off the headboard. He’s silent until that silence drags me to look at him, and he holds my gaze for another quiet second with a force of presence, of heartbreak, of certainty.

“You are not a burden, Coal,” he tells me.

It’s like he reached down into my soul, to the foundation of my self-flagellation and anger, and grabbed onto the singular moment that started all this.

I’m not sure he realizes how enormously I needed to hear him say that. I’m not sure I did, but his words are a soft hand cupping my cheek and telling eight-year-old me that it’s not my fault, it wasn’t something I did.

She left.

Hex left.

Kris hasn’t.

You are not a burden.

A few tears break free. “Stop it.”

“Here.” He hands me a glass of water that I don’t take. “Iris is bringing breakfast.”

“I’m not thirsty.”

“Drink.”

“Kris—”

He pushes the glass into my hands and he looks furious. “It’s not like you went on a bender and I’m nursing you out of a hangover, dumbass. What happened yesterday flattened me too, so let me take care of you before I pin you down and waterboard you in an attempt to get you to hydrate. Now, if you’re not going to sleep, drink the fucking water .”

I accept the glass. Take a sip. My lips crack and taste like salt.

“I love you too,” I tell him. Because I don’t say it enough.

He drops back against the headboard and tosses his phone onto my bedside table. I see mine there, face down, but I don’t ask for it.

Kris works his tongue against his teeth, and I hold the glass to my mouth, exhaling into it, fogging it.

“You would’ve taken it for me,” he says.

I lower the glass. Set it on the table next to my side of the bed. “Of course.”

His eyes snap shut. A breath, and he looks at me, all bloodshot and angry.

“Never again,” he tells me. “Never again, okay? Don’t you do that again.”

“Like hell. You want to take care of me? That’s how I take care of you. That’s how I’ll always take care of you.” My chest squeezes, a sharp stab of pain. “It’s the one thing I know I can be good at. I’m on the front line, all right? You have to accept that.”

Kris bites his lips together.

“Agree or I’m never drinking water from you again,” I add, voice so raw but it milks a smile at the edges of his lips.

“You must not be fully decimated,” he whispers, “if you’re back on your bullshit.”

I wilt.

There’s a soft knock on the door, then it opens to Iris, a tray propped in one hand. Smells gush in immediately, bacon and savory pastries and syrup, and I should be hungry.

But I watch her come in and set the tray at the foot of the bed.

My eyes go around the suite again. Seeing it for the first time. It’s all back in order. Clothes put away, desk straightened.

“Did you guys clean my suite?”

“Of course,” Iris says like it’s no big deal, but it is a big deal, every single thing they do is a big deal. “Now, what sounds good? Renee put extra cinnamon syrup in the pancakes for you.”

“She… knows?”

Iris’s face says the whole damn palace knows. But knows what? That Hex left me—no, left, not me, not just me—or that Dad threatened us or that I failed spectacularly? What story did Dad let out?

“It was announced this morning that I didn’t choose Halloween,” Iris says tentatively, testing each word before she adds the next to gauge my reaction. “And that’s why Hex left. But… the staff knows you’re upset. Or that it would be upsetting to you. They care about you, Coal.”

At one point, I would’ve been appalled that the whole palace was saturated in sympathy and pity over private matters in my life. I’d have been pissed off that Dad used this intensely personal heartbreak to validate his other lies. But I honestly don’t care.

Iris squishes in next to me on the bed, warm wool dress and boots and all, and arranges the comforter over us. I lean back against the pillows and she drops her head to my shoulder and throws her arm across my stomach.

“Did he sleep?” she asks Kris on my other side.

“Not enough.”

“I’m right here,” I say pathetically.

She hugs me. “Yes. And we are too.”

I sniff. Scrub a hand over my mouth and close my eyes. “So he’s really—”

“Gone.” I feel her looking at me, but I can’t open my eyes. “Last night.”

“And I guess you and I are—”

Iris plucks at a string on my shirt. “Yeah. That was announced too,” she says in a low, overcome voice.

I’d given her hope that there was a way out. That she could get something more for her life beyond duty.

I let her down too.

My arm comes up around her shoulders and I rest my chin on the top of her head.

“My, um. My phone.”

“He hasn’t texted you,” Kris says.

I tense. Because this was supposed to happen, right? There was never any reality where he would’ve stayed and rushed to my room and said he loves me, because it was never going to work. He knew from the start.

The back of my throat itches and I peel away from Iris to cup my hands over my face. She locks her fingers around my forearm but I hold in my darkness for a second, just a second, using every remaining ounce of my abilities to breathe.

“What do I do now?” I don’t mean to speak, least of all something so goddamn self-centered. Haven’t I at least gotten better at that? But the question pushes up, the sole thing capable of growing in this wreckage, because it’d only been a few short weeks but he changed everything about me in a way that feels like destroying now.

I can’t, I can’t, go back to who I was before him. Aimless and useless and directionless and just, just, less. But the better version of me, the one I’d started to grow into, doesn’t exist without him.

I don’t want to exist without him.

“You eat,” Iris whispers. “You sleep some more. Eventually, you get out of bed.”

“I don’t mean now —”

“I know you don’t. But you can’t think beyond now. Not yet.” She sits up and nudges my hands until I let them fall.

She hands me half a croissant. “Eat.”

I obey. Chew absently. Stare up at the ceiling and my bed still smells like him.

Now. Just think about now.

Now.

“I need to write letters rescinding the invitations,” I say.

Kris settles deeper next to me, his phone back out. I see him pull up a notes app. “I’ll handle it.”

“Kris.”

“You can’t write for shit.”

“I’ll do it. This is my mess. I need to do it. Dad will—”

But all my thoughts trip over themselves.

I’m staring up at the ceiling, sandwiched between Iris and Kris, fighting to swallow a croissant that turns to grit in my dry mouth, and a piece connects in my brain that lets a real, deep gasp of air find its way into my starved lungs.

Dad will… what?

He’ll blame Hex if I don’t rescind my invitations to the winter Holidays. If I don’t stop trying to get them to rally against him. Because together, they provide more than half of Christmas’s joy—so together, they’d be enough to restructure our Holiday.

And Dad has only had to threaten them to get their compliance. He’s only ever had to threaten anyone. All this blackmail bullshit, and there’s never been any sort of scandal that came out about these Holidays. Just threats.

Dad didn’t hit Kris. He didn’t even try. The threat of his anger was enough.

Just the threat.

I sit up, brow furrowing, as my mind pulses and I feel half mad. Maybe I’m sleep-deprived. Grief-stricken. I am, that and more, but my heart starts racing and I think I was an idiot.

I know I was an idiot.

Because I remember the way Wren talked to me in the hall. “You and your brother are not as alone as you might think.” And Renee and her kitchen staff, and Lucas and the Route Planners—all the pervasive, unadulterated joy they create.

I remember the way our people cheered for Dad because of the merriness he perpetuates, and how disgusted they’d seemed that I’d mentioned the idea of blackmail.

Dad has kept all knowledge of coercing anyone a closely guarded secret, manipulating every single story that gets out about our family—because he knows our people would be furious if they found out that all our joy isn’t ours.

He had to create a cover for Hex being here so our people would be okay with it. He couldn’t outright tell them, We’re holding someone hostage —he had to play up that whole fake-suitor arrangement. He even silenced the Halloween envoys when they were here before they could say much more than objections to the Easter-Christmas union; he feared them spilling any details, turning his own blackmail back on him.

So does Dad think he could make good on any of his threats?

Because if he did, if he started dropping these truth bombs to the Holiday press, and it got out that all this information was coming from Christmas, then that carefully constructed fa?ade of wholesomeness he’s built around our family would be eviscerated.

He can’t reveal any of the shit he has.

Not without destroying the very thing he says he’s fighting for.

“Oh my god.” I shove off the comforter. The tray rocks; Iris makes a startled chirp; but I dive over her, I need to pace, I need to move.

I start walking the length of my room. Hit my desk, turn back.

“Coal?” Kris is on his feet, watching me like he thinks I’ll leap out the window or start screaming or maybe both.

“He’s bluffing.” I whirl on Kris, relief and desperation and stupidity, how could I have been so stupid, again.

But it wasn’t stupid to fear my father.

It wasn’t stupid to protect my brother, to protect Hex.

I wasn’t stupid.

Kris frowns. “Who?”

“Dad. He’s bluffing. He won’t let anything out against Halloween. He won’t say anything against anyone. All these threats—it’s a bluff. He’s manipulating us because he knows we all fear the repercussions enough that the mere mention of it keeps everyone in line. But you know what? I think he fears the repercussions too.”

I tear my hands through my hair. And I smile. It’s deranged and pushes Iris out of the bed, fingers splayed; both she and Kris emanate concern.

“What are you saying?” Kris asks.

“I’m saying”—I can’t breathe—“I’m saying that I’m not going to write those damn letters.”

Kris’s brows shoot up.

“The winter Holidays will come here. And we’ll stand up to Dad. And we’ll change things. Because he won’t release any of the blackmail he has on people. I’m calling his bluff.”

“It’s a big risk,” Kris says. Not like he’s scared. Like he’s worried I’m not thinking straight.

“It is.”

“It was yesterday too.” He takes a small step forward.

“Yesterday, I knew Dad was going to hit you.” My breath comes out stunted. “I knew he’d hurt Hex. I hadn’t considered that he wouldn’t follow through.”

“And now?” Kris’s mouth starts to lift. A smile? Encouraging, maybe, and it lets me breathe easier.

“And now, I’ll dare him to. I’ll be there to protect you, I’d take the hit—but I know he won’t do it. I know he won’t do it.”

Kris closes the space and throws his arm around my neck. “Good,” he says into my shoulder. “Good.”

“Are you—” Iris’s voice catches. “Are you sure, Coal?”

That reorients me in a jolting swivel, a satellite coming back online. Kris steps aside, and my manic fluttering grinds to a halt and I look into Iris’s eyes.

“I know Dad’s already made the announcement that you didn’t choose Halloween,” I tell her. “And everyone knows our wedding is happening now. But, fuck, Iris—I can’t. We never could. Our original plan doesn’t have to change: we could still try to bring Easter into the collective if we can convince your dad of it, we could still make it so you don’t look at fault for anything—”

She holds up her hand. “I can honestly say,” she starts, takes a quaking breath, and her eyes tear, “that for the first time in a very long time, I don’t give a shit what my court does. I asked if you were sure, Coal, because if you are, then I am too. I’m still with you.”

My face explodes in a grin but I cup one hand over my ear. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that middle bit.”

She flattens her gaze at me. “I said if you’re sure, then—”

“Not that. One back.”

Her eyes go to the ceiling. “I don’t give a shit what my court does.”

I glance at Kris, lips screwed up. “Did you hear that?”

He shakes his head, all feigned confusion, a stifled smile. “Hear what? Was Iris talking?”

“ I do not give a shit what my court does ,” Iris snaps, practically shouts, and she may have started to say it in exasperation, but by the time she’s done, she’s gasping. She scrubs quickly at her eyes and rights herself, but it’s too late to cover her look of abrupt relief, a weight tipping sideways to allow her a full breath.

I sweep her into a bear hug. “Look at you, rebel princess. How’d that feel?”

“Blasphemous.” She squeezes me. “But… freeing.”

I pull away to meet her eyes again and let some of my humor slip. “What finally spurred this miraculous change?”

She hesitates. Chews the inside of her cheek.

Then answers with, “Do you want to tell Hex?”

I solidify in place.

“No.” It shocks even me, but it hangs in the air, and Iris frowns.

“No? Why? This is what he wanted you to do.”

I back up, turn away, trying to hold on to this agitated hope. “No, Iris. Just drop it.”

“This is what he wanted you to do,” she tries again.

“Iris—”

“You can’t give up on your happy ending, Coal.”

I don’t turn. My shoulders go rigid.

“You can’t give up.” Her voice is small and careful. “You started to make me believe that we could change things. That the dreams I had might be alive. And now you have a way to fix what happened with him, and you’re not taking it? Why —”

I spin on her. “Because he broke my heart, Iris!”

She flinches, lips snapping shut, eyes wide and inert.

The weight’s still on my thumb. Hex’s ring. I feel the band with my finger, and I do not think about what it means to touch it, how I kept something of his but he has something of me too, and I’m not sure he believes he has it.

“He broke my heart,” I say again, feeling the words, their burden in my chest. “He didn’t choose me. I know we’re more than our roles and I don’t regret choosing him, but he didn’t choose me. Even if I told him I’m going through with the collective, that wouldn’t change the fact that he was always going to break things off with me.”

Iris huffs a breath. “Coal—”

“But he was right.” It reopens the wounds from last night so they bleed internally all over again. “The first sign of a threat to him, and I caved to my dad without hesitating, no conviction in my position. Maybe if I’d paused for like a second last night, I would have realized Dad’s bluff in that moment and prevented this. But I didn’t, because Hex was right about me. I not only put him first, but Christmas wasn’t anywhere near the top of my list. It was him and Kris and you and everyone I care about, and I lost sight of what was at stake. I haven’t taken my role seriously. I’ve toyed with it this month, but I haven’t committed .”

Kris punches me in the arm. “You have committed. You’ve done amazing things and if he made you feel like you haven’t, then fuck him.”

My jaw clamps.

Kris sighs. “I’m not going to apologize for saying that. He hurt my brother.”

“I hurt him too.”

“Good.”

“Kris!” Iris smacks his shoulder. “God, none of this is good.”

He crosses his arms and mumbles, “A little pain for him is good.”

Iris’s expression is all sorrow and heartache and I want to promise her that we will get our happy endings, that there is hope for us.

But honestly?

I don’t know how it’ll end. I’d been so certain when I sent those gifts to New Koah that I was doing the right thing; and I’d been so certain days ago that I was doing the right thing here too. My chest twinges, dread wanting me to recoil, to take back all this and crawl into bed in defeat.

But I don’t want this ending. I don’t want it so much that I feel like that wanting is trying to push itself out of my skin. I don’t want a reason to have been right about knowing I’d fuck it all up; I want the ending where I fixed things and it worked out exactly as I planned.

But who decides where the end is?

So I’ll keep going. And going. And I’ll learn and do better and sometimes I’ll hate myself for not giving up and I’ll rage at the shit around me but I remember what it’s like to look at the world with uncomplicated hope and I can’t stop until I get that back. What’s the alternative?

It just takes one joyful moment. One by one by one.

I’m relying on that. I’m counting on joy to be stronger than whatever’s waiting for me.

It’s what a Christmas Prince would do. At least, it’s what this Christmas Prince will do.

HEX

please don’t respond to this. i shouldn’t even be texting you. kris will kill me. i just wanted you to know that you were right. and i’m sorry. but i was right too. and through whatever’s going to happen with my holiday and my dad, one of my goals now is to fully become who you helped me see i can be. because i have to believe there is a future where the heir of halloween and the heir of christmas can be together and you deserve the best version of me. we made too much joy for this to not last. and i know you didn’t say it back, but i love you, i love you, i love—

[DELETE WITHOUT SENDING?]

[YES]