Chapter Six

You weren’t the one who initiated it.

I fall out of bed at dawn the next morning, barely having slept, and yank on a hoodie Kris gave me last year—it has two Christmas bulbs on it and the words I’ve Got Balls. But it’s a damn comfortable hoodie and I have a deep-seated need to be as cozy as possible right now.

You weren’t the one who initiated it.

I traipse out of my bedroom, hood up, hands in the pockets, barefoot and still in my red flannel pajama pants.

He’d kissed me.

He’d kissed me. In my drunken, messy state.

You weren’t the one who initiated it.

I slump down to the kitchen. Grab a tray. Load it up with two massive stacks of cinnamon roll pancakes—nothing beats our kitchen this time of year, nothing —and a giant carafe of fresh pour-over coffee and a pitcher of oat milk.

“Renee,” I call across the kitchen to the head chef, who is overseeing meal prep for lunch already. “I love you and your staff more than I love Kris.”

She pops her head up with a bright smile. The people around her look my way too, pausing their chopping and writing notes, a few waving, all of them with amused smirks that match hers.

“Thank you, Prince Nicholas,” Renee says. She glances at my tray and sighs. “Why am I not surprised that you have two servings of carbs and sugar, but no fruits or vegetables?”

“This isn’t all for me—”

She points to the breakfast spread I’ve turned away from. “At least get fruit. Or I will be forced to resume pureeing spinach into the pancakes.”

I pivot and grab a bowl of sliced melon, but my shoulders go stiff.

“I’m sorry.” I twist back around to her. “Did you say resume pureeing spinach into the pancakes?”

Renee shakes her head at how one of her staff is slicing carrots, only half paying attention to me. “Yes, of course.”

“ Of course ?”

“It was the only way to get either of you boys to eat vegetables when you were younger.” She looks at me again, head cocking. “Did you never wonder why your pancakes were green?”

“They were—it was—they were Christmassy !”

“Yes. Thanks to the spinach.”

“You have children ! Do you treat them with as much subterfuge as you treat me and Kris?”

“Unapologetically.”

Her sous chef is failing to hide a smirk as she reads a production sheet.

“Lacie! You knew about this?” I demand.

Lacie’s eyebrows go up and she shakes her head. “I’m not getting involved.”

“Oh, silence is incriminating.” My attention zips over the rest of them, half a dozen people laughing into their meal preps. “How, from the bottom of my heart, dare you. All of you. You’ve shattered my trust. I should go on a hunger strike to spite you.”

“Mhmm.” Renee cuts me a smile as I leave.

“Tell your children I said hello and I’m sorry on their behalf, you traitor.”

“I will. Enjoy your breakfast, Prince Nicholas.”

The kitchen staff’s laughter follows me as I balance the tray and head back up the stairs, the safe bubble of humor deflating when I snake around to avoid any of the main areas—just in case. I know where Hex is being put up, in a wing on the opposite side of the palace. But still.

You weren’t the one who initiated it.

Goddamn it.

A rolling mantra of curses barrels through my mind as I stumble to a halt outside Iris’s door. I kick it and rest my forehead against the doorframe.

Within, I hear shuffling, the pad of footsteps, then she unlocks and opens the door.

I moan pathetically. “I’m sorry we didn’t rescue you sooner last night.”

“I don’t need saving, I told you.” A pause. “But next time, do it before midnight.”

I cut her a smile and hold up the tray. “I promise, Cinderella.”

She surveys my offering and deems it acceptable with a satisfied hum. “Oooh, cinnamon. But I’m not getting Kris to unlock the group chat name.”

My gasp is more than a touch overdramatic. “I am hurt, hurt, that you think breakfast comes with asterisks.”

“Oh, so this isn’t also your way of trying to woo me as one of my adoring suitors?”

She’s joking, I know she is; she’s batting her fucking eyelashes at me.

But it shuts me up, because that didn’t even occur to me. I do stuff like this all the time. But it’s different now, isn’t it? If someone sees—

Iris rolls her eyes with a grin. “Get in here, you idiot.”

I hesitate. Then hate myself for hesitating because this is all fake, Dad’s lies cocooning around me, so I shake it off and head inside as she closes the door behind me.

She’s dressed already, courtesy of the earlier start time for reindeer racing, in a warm wool gown, still purple, her braids tucked into a long side knot.

“Did you sleep at all last night?” I set the tray on the table in her suite’s front room. It’s a guest room in the Christmas palace, but there are touches of Easter everywhere—magically budding tulips, baskets of pastel eggs. Her father’s room, two halls over, is decked out the same.

“A few hours.” She goes right for the coffee as we sit. “Did you?”

I crack a laugh. It breaks apart into another pathetic moan.

She sets down her mug with a sigh and digs into a bag next to the table. Art supplies topple out, the odd ball of yarn and brush—she’s tried to get me to “ channel stress into crafting ” like she does, to laughable results every time—until she comes up with a thing of nail polish. I don’t ask the color; I splay my hand on the table for her, eating with my other one.

“Your nails are a disgrace,” she says.

“All right, Wren. I’m a guy.”

“Sexist.”

“I mean—”

“I know what you mean. Hold still.” She sets to work, and I eat, eyes drifting to where she has her flower crown on a pedestal under a grow light. She can keep them alive with Easter’s magic, but she’s always done that, gone the extra step with plants and Easter creatures to make sure they don’t have to depend on her magic, that she isn’t a frivolous Easter Princess.

“So,” she says softly after a beat, dragging the polish brush across my thumb. “Want to talk about Hex?”

“Nope. I’m sorry I used your mom to argue with your dad about our sham of an engagement. I should’ve apologized sooner. It was out of line.”

She blinks up at me. Her surprise morphs into a shrug and she refocuses on painting. “You didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.”

“Still. It was disrespectful.”

“No, what was disrespectful was what he said, that she would’ve understood this arrangement. He knows damn well that she’d have been livid with him.”

“Are things really that precarious in Easter? I mean, Lily’s marrying into Valentine’s Day, which has gotta be fostering some confidence. Why do you need Christmas too?”

Iris dips the brush into the paint bottle, lifts it back out, dunks it again, does this a few times before she shakes her head. “He’s been like this since Mom died. Not power-hungry, but more… susceptible to suggestions. From our court, telling him he needs to do more; from your dad. He’s hurting. He misses her. I get it. But—I don’t know. I’ve tried to help him ever since she died. It never felt like enough, and lately, it really doesn’t feel like enough, like no matter what I do, he’ll have that blank look, and mutter something about Easter needing me. As if I don’t know. I know Easter needs me. I know he needs me. I’m well-aware.”

My brow furrows, and I watch the way she scrambles too forcefully in her bag for another bottle of polish.

“What do you want to do after you graduate?” I ask. “Just like—for real. Do you know?”

Iris squints. “I’m pretty sure I’m doing it, Coal.”

“Not your duties. I mean what do you really want to do. There has to be something? You wanted to go to art school once.” It’s bothering me that Kris didn’t answer that question.

It’s bothering me more that I don’t have an answer to that question.

Iris sets down the nail polish and takes a bite of her pancakes. Her eyes drift out, and a spark of a smile flashes.

“What?” I echo her grin.

“Okay.” She dusts her hands off and flares her palms together, parting them back to show me an egg. Not just any egg—it’s an Easter decoration, a delicate sculpture with a surface coated in painstakingly perfect geometric designs, the colors all rich, intense jewel tones.

“It’s pretty,” I say, eyeing her.

Iris pinches it between her thumb and forefinger. “It’s called a kraslice. A type of egg painting they do in Eastern Europe. They layer wax and paint and then peel it off to reveal this level of detail—you see the shading? The blue beneath the green? It takes hours. It takes skill .”

“So… you want to make kraslice?”

Iris flips her hand and the egg vanishes. “Yes. No. I want—” She sighs and stuffs in another bite. As she chews, she shakes her head. “All the stuff we put out of Easter now is getting more and more… cheap. Ease and speed prioritized over stuff like a kraslice. We do some things that are beautiful, and it’s important that the things we offer are accessible. But… I don’t know.” She sinks back in her chair. “I wish we could prioritize more stuff like that. More stuff that’s true tradition, not for the sake of convenience.”

“I get it.”

She flattens her lips at me.

“What? I do.”

“Oh, really? Coal cares about Christmas traditions?”

That’s the second time something she’s said has dug into me, and I let it show now.

“I do care.” I set down my fork. “I just don’t see how caring will change things. And I used to be okay with it, because maybe I didn’t understand the full breadth of responsibilities of Christmas, maybe there was more at work than what I was seeing—but god, anymore, that’s not true.”

Iris watches me carefully. “How so?”

“Okay.” I guess I’m doing this. “You mentioned old traditions, right? I remember when I was younger, and Kris and I studied Christmas’s history—which we haven’t in years, and it was disappointing to stop, because I did used to love it—”

“You did?”

“Yeah. That was before you.” Before Mom left. Before everything changed.

God, I haven’t thought about this old version of me in… years. Even starting to now has a piece of me lighting up helplessly, a spirited levity in my chest.

“We learned about stuff like our noble houses. The Luminarias and the Jacobs, the Frosts, the Carolers—how they developed from different pockets of joy created by Christmas in different communities across the world. There are hundreds more different cultural touches that combine or can combine to create a celebration that’s encompassing, not just easy. But no one ever talks about it? All the shit we put out is the same old regurgitated stuff that only fits one set type of person.”

“Yeah, exactly.” Iris screws the lid back onto one of the polishes. “We could be doing so much more. But we aren’t. My dad and yours keep saying how this merger of our Holidays will change things, but my dad has never taken any other steps to improve things beyond a generic ploy for expansion. His complacency grows each year and I don’t know how to break out of it.”

“It isn’t just your dad.”

Iris’s face squishes. “Speak for your own Holiday.”

“I mean—it isn’t just at the top. You know how most of my friends back at school see Christmas? The same way I do—not wanting to go home, not wanting to deal with their families, hoping maybe they’ll get a cool gift to soften the stress of whatever arguments they get into. And here I find out that that attitude is exactly what my dad’s been letting fester, because he’d rather focus on the commodification of Christmas so he can stretch our resources than narrow in on making our Holiday resonate with anything meaningful. But would it be meaningful? Would anything we provide really resonate, really be able to make anything in this world better ?”

Iris frowns. “We do. We make people—”

“Happy. I know. But what good is one day of happiness when it’s proven over and over again that it does jack all to stop anything bad from happening? Would we be better to siphon off all the money and assets we have to charities? Wouldn’t that do more?”

“Christmas is involved with charities. I know you are.”

“Yeah, we are. But it’s a negligible amount, in the big scheme of things. And the sad thing is, the small percent we kick off to charities probably does more good than all of the other shit we peddle combined. Because at the end of the day, what would people rather have: a white Christmas and a single day of magical feelings, or a roof over their head?”

Iris rocks to the side. “I’ve never heard you talk like this.”

I sit back in the chair—I’d leaned forward, shoulders caved in—and have to take a breath to fight the tightness welling in my lungs. “Yeah. Well. I guess I don’t tell you everything either.”

She exhales. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about switching my class load. It isn’t a big deal.”

That isn’t exactly what I was referring to, but I’ll take it. “Would you stop saying that? It is. It’s allowed to be. You’re allowed to be pissed about your dad forcing your life to go a certain way.”

“I’m not though.” She waves the polish bottle around to encompass something intangible. “I don’t hate my classes. Some of them are interesting. And applicable. Did I tell you I was at the top of my statistics class?”

I yank my head back, face fully wide in revulsion. “Oh, god, Iris, this is so much worse than I thought. I might stage an intervention for you.”

“And”—she inches closer, all conspicuous—“I liked it.”

“No one likes statistics. It’s philosophy but with numbers.”

Her face screws up. “What? No, it isn’t.”

“Yeah—it’s all theoretical shit. If you can argue well, you can get any answer you want.”

That confused look breaks on a chuckle. “If that’s what you think statistics is, it’s really no wonder you bombed it.”

“I eventually passed.” Barely. “My point is that liking statistics is a cry for help.”

“Well, I must be screaming for help, because I liked my philosophy classes too.”

I mimic throwing up. Violently. “I have failed you, utterly, to let your mind become so corrupted by the educational enticements of—” My eyes finally land on my right hand. “You painted my nails black and orange.”

She smirks. “Figured you should pay homage to a certain Halloween guest.”

I try to decide whether I should be horrified, but I clench my hand into a fist—the paint’s dry—and stuff it into my hoodie’s pocket.

Iris makes a high-pitched chirp. “Oh my god ! You like him.”

I have my hood up, but it isn’t hiding me enough. “I do not—”

“Coal, you didn’t fight me on the nail colors. You like him. Oh my god!” She tucks her legs up into the chair, beset by manic giggles. “Kris told me you were unhinged last night because of Hex, but I thought it was everything else, not—”

“Okay, okay, stop, because yes, it is everything else. This whole fake vying for your hand bullshit. That isn’t enough? Let’s not make up other stressors.”

But her grin is downright feral. “Uh-huh. Sure. I definitely believe you.”

“The way you believed me about him existing?”

“Exactly.”

“No. Iris.” Kris and Iris are the only two people who ever see this side of me, and even they see it so rarely that it takes Iris a beat to realize I’m not dicking around, that the severity on my face is real—real and pleading.

She drops her legs back to the floor and matches my stance, arched towards me. “Coal?”

“I do not like him,” I tell her, stating each word in a level, calm voice that I hope to god sounds convincing. “I cannot like him. You have to help me not like him.”

She shakes her head. “Why?” Then winces. “I know you and I will be… together, but we won’t be together together, so we’re free to be with other people. In secret, I guess.” She scowls. “Fuck. That’s pathetic, isn’t it?”

“No. Well, yes, but we really don’t need to discuss covert bedroom schedules right now.” Because part of me is still hoping we’ll get out of this somehow, I don’t add. “But why are you going along with this fake shit? Why aren’t you fighting your dad more? Because I will not mess this up. Because I’m pissed off about what Christmas has become but—but I still fucking care, and I will not endanger my Holiday over some guy. Plus, I know what ramifications this could have for you and Easter if I fuck it up, and I won’t be the cause of any more shit for you.”

Iris gapes at me, and I wonder for a second if I have pancake on my face.

But she takes my hand. “All right. All right, Coal. I hear you.”

I wilt over our clasped hands.

“Something’s changed in you,” she says softly.

I groan. “Don’t say that. Makes me want to go streaking through the Toy Factory to prove you wrong.”

“Oh, I think those days might be past you, Nicholas Claus.” She smiles. “You’re almost acting responsible. ”

“Ugh, and to think, you’re someone who claims to love me.” I drop her hands and slouch in the chair. “And why did we get talking about me again? When I haven’t heard your opinion on your fabulous and completely drama-free suitor party. Did Hex sufficiently sweep you off your feet? Do I have competition?”

The questions make my stomach cramp and I’m regretting the few bites of food I’ve had. That’s an outcome I hadn’t considered: I don’t know what Hex’s deal is, but what if he and Iris legitimately fall for each other?

I rub my chest absently, pretty sure the pancakes are giving me heartburn.

Iris spears a slice of melon with her fork, eyes on the table. Her mood dips so abruptly that all my senses go on alert.

“Can we not talk about that?” she asks.

“Oka-ay,” I drag out. “Why? I came fully prepared to mock each and every aspect of that faux-event.”

“That’s exactly it.” Iris uses her fork to cut the melon slice into smaller and smaller pieces. “I’m sure I’ll want to joke about it someday. But I’m not in the mood for it right now. It’s shitty and I—I don’t really want to talk about it with you yet.”

I frown, watching her cut the melon, no, pulverize it.

“We don’t have to joke about it,” I say.

Iris throws me the very definition of a disbelieving look. “Oh really? So you didn’t bring up last night’s party so you could start making jokes and steer the conversation away from all the serious bits we’d been discussing?”

My jaw drops open.

Part of me wants to be offended. The rest of me feels like Iris just forehead-smacked my psyche.

“Are you sure you haven’t been taking psychology classes too?” I mutter.

She huffs. “You’re not that difficult to figure out, Coal. I’m not saying we can’t joke around now. I know how uncomfortable talking about anything real makes you, and I don’t think we’ve ever had a conversation that stayed serious for as long as the one we just had. I’m saying I don’t want to joke around about this fake relationship shit. Not yet. Let’s talk about something else—you look like you’re going to vomit.”

That’s why she’s been keeping stuff from me?

I pull one leg up onto the chair beneath me, unable to stop shifting awkwardly. “If you need to talk about it, or anything else, I’ll listen. I won’t mock it. I swear. And if you think I can’t do that for you, then I’ve been an epically shitty friend, and I’m sorry.”

Iris eats some of her melon mush and smiles. “I know you would if I really needed you to. But I don’t need that.” She pauses. “Not yet.”

“Okay.” But something still feels off. Unbalanced. Like Iris does need to talk about how all this competing for her hand nonsense is affecting her, but she’s holding back, not because she’s not ready, but because she knows, on some level, that I won’t help her or be able to listen.

Fuck. Have I always been a shitty friend?

I know she doesn’t want to marry me, even if she was the one who convinced me to go along with this because duty and what will it do to our people, but is it getting too much for her? Is she having second thoughts?

Could I actually do anything to get us out of it if I tried, or would I just mess things up way worse?

I take a breath and blow it out, but Iris waves at my plate before I can try to begin piecing together an apology or an escape plan or anything beneficial.

“ Eat. You only have an hour or so until reindeer racing.”

I smirk half-heartedly. “I think you mean we only have an hour until reindeer racing.”

She sips her coffee, nonplussed. “I shall happily cheer on you and Kris from the heated spectators’ tent.”

“Coward.”

“What’s that?” She cups her hand around her ear. “It’s the sound of someone who had one mildly serious conversation yet is now so stricken with responsibility by it that he will sedately drive his sleigh instead of whipping carelessly around the track, which means he will—gasp—lose to his brother.”

“Don’t put your money on Kris. You know his competitiveness feeds my competitiveness until we’re a perpetual motion machine of egging each other on, and I really doubt one serious moment will break that grand tradition.”

Iris laughs, but the sound of it, the feel of it, rings hollow, tapping on the insecurity that’s always camped deep inside of me: that nothing I do has any real impact. That everything I’m capable of is so far short of enough that I’ll never be able to help when it’s most needed, never be able to support those I love in any way that matters.

But Iris dives into talking about last year’s race and how both Kris and I lost, so I let her carry me on to that topic, cracking jokes, trying to pretend this isn’t the pinnacle of what I have to offer her or anyone else.

Reindeer racing is one time-honored Christmas tradition I have no problem with.

The track starts at the stables and meanders through the pine forest that beards the palace grounds, going up and down over hills and crossing natural ice bridges before ending right back at the stables. Every few years, someone gets the bright idea to make it an airborne race, but Dad usually decides it’s a waste of magic—so we’re grounded, which is all the better, because few people are skilled enough to drive flying sleighs.

The winner gets gloating rights. And a trophy, but mostly the gloating rights.

Last year, one of our cousins from House Frost won, so as Kris and I head down for the start of the event, our game faces are on.

But this is more about photos and press than any actual competition, so Wren and her stylists dolled us up in swanky yet surprisingly functional snow gear, not like we’re going full-on skiing, but more like we’re doing a shoot for a magazine advertising skiing—sleek fleece and polar thermals. My blue jacket is thin enough to move in yet comfortably warm, and I tug down the knit white-and-blue hat that presses my curls to my forehead.

We duck out of a side door in the palace to Wren already waiting for us in her own functional outerwear, tablet in hand. Along with space heaters, energy-saving lighting has been set up everywhere, giant bright beaming contraptions to combat the fact that we’re in the top of the northern hemisphere and daylight is in short supply this time of year. But we’ve rather perfected mimicking the sun, and the lights make it look midmorning enough.

“Everyone else is in place,” she says. “Why are you two always the last ones?”

“Kris has a crush on you. You set him all aflutter,” I say, and Wren sighs heavily, the awkwardness of my snark too much of a burden.

Kris tugs on his gloves as we round the side of the palace, snow crunching under our boots. The air is so cold it tastes like winter, that chilly, bitter trace that sinks in with each breath. But the sky is clear over the lights, no fresh snow today, and all around is the same buzzing, busy energy of Christmas prep alongside the chaos of event prep. There’s a whole layer of the North Pole that runs parallel to ours—we’re swept up in staged events while everyone else is working to bring Christmas to the world.

I watch a team of people oversee a delivery as Kris leans into me. “Once more,” he starts.

I spin to the setup by the stables. “Unto the breach.”

A wide, festive tent fills half of the stable yard, closed off on three sides to keep the warmth from more space heaters clustered around lush seating areas. Members of the court are already there, cozied up under thick blankets, staff overseeing a buffet made by Renee and her team.

My focus zips around. I can’t help it.

Iris is off to the side with Dad, her father, and Hex, all talking with reporters.

He’s not wearing a corset vest this time. That I can tell. Because he’s in a form-fitting black peacoat with a white button-up giving a pop of contrast beneath. Collar pins glint on his lapels, each one linked by two staggered chains draped over the knot of his black tie.

If my mind flashes with the image of grabbing those silver chains and wrenching his face up to mine, I willfully ignore it.

I will not make a fool of myself. I said what I needed to say to Hex. There’s no further reason to interact with him. Ever.

Even if he was the one who kissed me.

God, shut up, self.

All my flustered internal chaos goes to frozen silence when Hex holds out something he’d had by his side: a bouquet of flowers. They’re jet-black, and might actually be dead, because a petal crumbles off and drifts down to the snow at his feet.

He extends them to Iris with an uncomfortable smile, forced and pinched, and his movements are stiff.

The reporters eat it up though, people from Christmas Inquirer and Joy Gazette and others snapping pics and cooing, and it only intensifies Hex’s look of extreme discomfort.

I take a step forward, not sure what I can do, when Iris takes the bouquet with her signature easy grace. Her smile is genuine and kind, and it seems to set Hex a bit at ease, but I suddenly find myself not sure whether that’s a good thing.

She’d teased me about liking him, so I doubt she’d actually make a move on him, but—but I don’t like him, because that would be ridiculous. So if they make each other happy, then…

Then that’s great.

Fantastic.

Definitely completely fine.

The bouquet in her hands transforms. What had for sure been dead flowers blossom in a gentle unfurling of buttercup yellow and sunset orange and stalks of healthy, vibrant green, Easter’s magic breathing life back into the darkness.

That sets the reporters off cooing again, and Iris smiles wider at Hex.

“Easter is a bit the antithesis of Halloween, isn’t it?” she says.

He grins, more real than any emotion he’s shown yet, and the fact that it’s aimed at Iris has me all knotted up in an insane barrage of conflicting feelings. The most virulent of which, I’m loathe to admit, is jealousy, which is so fucking dumb. Because I’m supposed to be interested in Iris, or pretending to be, but all I want to do is drop-kick my best friend away from Hex even though she’s as trapped as we are.

I am going to need so much therapy after this.

I shoot a glance at Kris, who is watching this unfold with the same complicated expression I can feel on my own face.

Dad finally notes us and waves us over. “Boys! Come here for a picture.”

Kris wordlessly tells me to keep it together—right back at ya, bro—and we trudge over.

Dad slaps his arm around me and pulls us into a staged stance.

Headline: Claus Family all smiles with Halloween Prince, who is definitely not here against his will.

The reporters get their shots and our group starts to disperse. Kris and Iris beeline into the tent. Iris’s fast retreat has my shoulders unwinding—she doesn’t like Hex. This is all an act.

Fuck, she is having second thoughts about going along with this, isn’t she?

“What do you think of your time in Christmas so far, Prince Hex?” asks a reporter from—I check his badge— Morning Yuletide Sun, a Christmas-only tabloid. The press from the wider audience outlets listen in, ready to make sure every Holiday keeps abreast of just what a big deal this whole engagement thing is.

Dad lingers, likely wanting to know whatever Hex says to the reporter, so I linger too. From this angle, I can see around the tent to where the sleighs are lined up, stable hands fixing the reindeer in place and double-checking the harnesses.

Hex’s jaw works. His hair is pulled back fully, showing how his ears are already red with cold, his cheeks similarly rosy in the downright frigid air.

So when he deadpans, “It’s cold,” I snort.

He casts a look at me.

I spin away, fascinated by the edge of my glove.

“Halloween can be a chilly time of year as well,” the reporter presses.

I feel Hex’s eyes on me for one more beat before he shifts to the reporter. “I spend most of my time in Mexico,” he says.

“Mexico?” Paper flips as the reporter checks something. “Halloween’s presence was strongest in the US, I thought?”

“My mother helps her older brother oversee Día de Muertos,” he says. “So I stay down there sometimes to balance her responsibilities. And I—”

Dad swoops in. He lands a hand on Hex’s shoulder, rocking him, and my teeth clamp in a punch of protectiveness.

I take a step forward. Iris, with Kris by a space heater in the tent, watches me, but I purposefully don’t meet her eyes, fixed intently on Hex and my dad.

“We are eager to show the Halloween Prince all that Christmas has to offer,” he says. “Such as this tradition. We’ll see how Halloween fares against Christmas!”

I take another step.

Hex’s face is mild—except for the sharp pulse of his eyebrows. “I’m not made for cold.”

“Will you not be racing, then?” There’s all kinds of intention in the reporter’s tone.

Hex starts to say No, and I watch my dad’s grip tighten on his shoulder.

I’m next to them in a heartbeat. “Dad. Wren needs you.” Which is probably not a lie, but it’s the first thing I can think of and I honestly don’t care.

Dad looks down at me.

I’m so aware of his fingers gripping Hex’s shoulder that my vision starts to go red.

Dad gives Hex a friendly pat and nods at the reporter. “Of course. Excuse me.”

He walks away, snow crunching in his wake, and my eyes are on Hex’s coat, the part of it now wrinkled from my father.

My gaze scrambles over the crowd, finds Iris, locks on, and she immediately crosses back over to us. That split second of me wordlessly needing her and her instantly coming is familiar, but guilt sours my stomach. In a situation where she is arguably more victimized than I am, I’m still needing her to step in? God, I’m pathetic.

“Are you not participating in the race, then, Prince Hex?” The reporter is standing next to us. Camera at the ready.

Hex is staring at me. Curious. Wondering, probably, why I’m gasping, why I keep staring at his shoulder, why I haven’t said anything to him.

“I was not aware that it was expected of me,” Hex finally says.

Iris slides up between us. “Participating in the race isn’t expected, but think of the scandal if Halloween wins.” She links her arm through his, smooths the wrinkled spot on his coat, and I release a shuddering exhale.

Hex considers. His eyes don’t leave mine. Is it weird that the reporter is here, that Iris is here, but we’re only looking at each other? God, I still haven’t said anything.

“Are you racing, Princess?” Hex asks her. Again, watching me. “I’ll ride with you.”

She laughs, that perfected trill. “Not this year, unfortunately.”

The air shifts a breath before I can find the sense to look at her.

I see her wide, not-at-all-cordial grin. It’s a downright demented smirk.

“But you can ride with Prince Nicholas,” she announces.

Somewhere deep beneath my self-pity, I know I deserved that.

“Brilliant!” the reporter coos. “The two heirs, racing together!”

A flash of a picture being taken. There’s no hiding the stunned shock on my face, so that will make for an interesting photo.

I find my voice and moan out what might be a refusal as Hex goes, “All right.”

All…

… right?

Iris beams. “Come. Let’s get some cocoa before the race.”

Hex blanches. “If you insist.”

The shock of his disgust against his fixed docile expression makes the faintest blip of a laugh bubble in me. It’s enough that it sends sensation back into my body, freeing me from the single-minded focus that dragged me over here.

As Iris leads him into the tent, she flips a too-pleased-with-herself leer at me.

Oh, the Princess of Easter is evil.