And explain how I’m usurping my father right to his face. No one here to back me up. Nothing at all put in motion except those letters, those damn letters.
I keep walking, and I don’t look back at Hex or Iris, and my mind goes blank under the storm of everything hitting down on me at once.
Staff shut up rooms I pass with nods of good night, and then I’m at the door to my suite.
Kris is in there.
So I don’t give myself the luxury of stalling.
The knob twists under my fingers and I push in to see Kris standing off to the side, arms folded, incensed, and Dad, seated at my desk, a stack of letters in his lap. The responses I’d hidden in the back of my closet.
My suite has beentossed.
Clothes everywhere. Cushions removed from the couch and chair. Drawers pulled out of my desk and papers rifled through and hetore it apart.
I’m in my coat from the after-dinner event still, and I rip it off, sweating and shaking but neither hot nor cold.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I hear myself ask. “This ismyroom. You can’t—”
“You are in no position to get righteous on me, Nicholas. Kristopher,” Dad doesn’t look at him, “you are not needed.”
“Yes, I am,” he shoots back.
Dad’s mouth purses, but he turns away without another word. “I had begun to think you were serious in your attempts to change.” He pushes up from the chair, letters in his fist. “This month, youhave shown a renewed dedication to your position. I allowed your changes to our events, and while these have been unconventional celebrations, our approval ratings are increasing. Because of your choices.”
His expression darkens.
The room grows cold and frost starts to crawl across the windowpanes at his back. My stomach twists, but I won’t show my nerves.
“But then I heard rumors,” Dad says. “My contacts told me that plans are being made in other winter Holidays to travelhere.And your change in behavior felt too… convenient.” He holds up the letters. “Did you honestly believe you could conspire behind my back?”
“Yes.” No sense denying it. No sense cowering to him.
Dad flinches. “I told you Christmas’s ambitions in confidence.”
“Yourambitionsare harmful and cruel,” I say, and I try to sound level.
This is it. This is my one chance to convince him, somehow, someway, that what he’s doing is fucked up. That he can still be the Christmas King I believed he once was. Ihaveto be calm. I can’t mess this up.
Not this.
“We can’t control everyone,” I tell him, hoping my voice isn’t shaking as much as I think it is. “We can’t be the singular force at the head of something so large. Christmas, Easter, whatever Holidays you’re thinking of controlling—it’s too much. This isn’t how it has to be. This isn’t how itshouldbe.”
“And you, who calls himselfCoaland has only ever made a mess of our Holiday, believe that you have a better vision thandecadesof work? You went behind my back and tried to undo all the systems I have put in place to ensure this Holiday,yourHoliday, is secure.”
“Whatever security you feel you’ve gotten has only come at the cost of destabilizing other Holidays. You’re terrified of Christmas losing joy, of us slipping into obscurity; I get that, Dad, Ido,but you’re creating the very thing you’re afraid of. Don’t you see that?”
“All I have done,everything,has been to make sure you and yourbrother never have to worry about your future. To take care of themillionsof people who depend on us.”
I pity him and I’m terrified of him but this anger has grown into something bigger and wilder and it will chew me to pieces. “I care about them too. This has always beenaboutthem. You told me once it was our job to make the world happy. I’vealwaysbelieved that, and I always held onto the belief thatyoustill felt that way. All the people in North Pole City who think we’re so infallible—we should live up to their opinion of us. We shouldtryto be—”
“And where would we get the resources we need to keep Christmas afloat if not for the joy gained through these Holidays? What is your plan to care for our responsibilities, to provide the services to the world that people have come to depend on, if we undo our whole structure?”
“We don’t need that joy, and you know it. If we stopped focusing on spreading globally, we wouldn’tneedthe extra joy. We can share success with the other winter Holidays. We canpartnerwith them. If we bring the other winter Holidays into our ruling, if we work on a fair, balanced collaboration and use our magic to focus on things that foster actual joy, we can stretch so much further,together,not one—”
“You got these ideas,” Dad interrupts, his mind working behind his narrowing eyes, “from that Halloween Prince. Didn’t you?”
I’ve seen fury on him before.
