Page 118 of The Nightmare Before Kissmas
Hex’s lips raise, brightening his whole face. “It did bring joy, Coal. It brought us together.”
Well damn.
I kiss him again.
Because I have to. Because I can. Because he’s right.
And then I drag myself away from him, a feat of incredible strength honestly, and join my brother and Iris in talking to people, because this will all work out too.
I won’t let it do anything else.
Chapter Sixteen
“And what did you do today?”
Oh, the most loaded of questions to answer, particularly when one’s answer involves preparing for a coup. But just, like, a minor one.
Dad sits at the head of our massive dining table, a commanding presence in crimson, me at his right, and his question makes my body freeze mid-bite.
The whole of our court and a few reporters are spread down this cumbersomely large mahogany table, Renee’s best dishes strewn under flickering golden chandeliers. Utensils click on plates, voices murmur idle conversation, but only the dozen or so people on this end of the table hear Dad’s question. Including Kris, nearby; Iris, next to her dad across from me; Hex, on the other side of Neo.
We’d made it back to the palace with plenty of time to change for dinner. And we’d all agreed tocometo dinner, some overly formal affair in celebration of a lord of House Caroler’s birthday, and even though Hex’s magic had worked and no one had been waiting to scold us in my suite, I feel breathless.
Or is it visiting the Route Planners that Dad’s talking about? Wow, I’m losing track of all the things he could berate me for. Almost like old times, really.
“Oh, um—finalized the class schedule for my last semester,” I say, then realize that I do, in fact, need to finalize the class schedule for my last semester. I’m almost certain I’ve missed a few key deadlines.
Dad lifts one eyebrow. There’s a beat where I expect him to explode on me, that he found out what I’m doing, but I hold his gaze. I hold it because for the first time in our relationship, IknowI’m in the right, about everything.
I wanted you to be better.
Now, I’ll just be better for you.
All the other people Kris and I talked to in the city felt the same as that initial couple: Christmas is superior, our king is so great he shits tinsel, why is he the best, he just IS the BEST how DARE you QUESTION IT—
It was more and more harrowing to see that Dad has, very successfully, instilled not just an unwavering loyalty to Christmas in our people, but a devotion tohim.Though everyone I dared to mention any blackmail or seedy methods to did seem shocked by it, like it’d be more feasible to move the whole North Pole to a desert than for Christmas to do shit like that.
I try to lean on what Hex said about not changing everything overnight. This is a long game, but it has to start at the places where people are suffering most: unraveling Christmas’s seizure of joy. Preventing my dad from being able to see through his blackmail threats by taking away his power. Everything else will come later. One step at a time.
Brave, admirable, honorable.
Buffeted by hope, I smile at my father.
He nods. “Very good, Nicholas. Responsible.”
“It seemed the best use of my time.” I turn back to my plate, glancing at Hex as I shift.
He wore another corset vest to dinner. A different one. Still black, but with vertical ribs of deep, rich orange, and the collar of his black shirt underneath is popped. The table cuts him mid-chest but I saw him walk in; I know exactly how that whole blessed contraption turned his body into an arrow pointing down, down, so tightlydown.
I have my phone on my thighs and I inconspicuously swipe to his text thread.
HEX
you know exactly what you’re doing to me, don’t you?
Hex looks down at his lap.
HEX
