“The Nutcracker?”
“Yeah.”
“The theme of my wedding to Iris isThe Nutcracker. That’s shockingly not too awful.”
Kris gives me a look. “Having second thoughts?”
“Yep. The epaulets cinched it for me. I’m gonna be a married man tonight.”
He rolls his eyes but smiles in mixed pity-relief that I’m back to joking again.
We reach the ballroom. It’s where the guests are mingling before the ceremony, which will be held on a snow-covered lawn beyond the orchestra stage and ceiling-high windows—out there, an aisle waits, surrounded by fancy red-and-blue striped chairs and space heaters disguised in garlands. In the ballroom, theNutcrackertheme runs rampant, red and blue chasing each other around the décor, woven into symmetry by gold and green. The orchestra plays something soothing and light; most of the members of our Houses are talking and milling about the space. Members of the Easter aristocracy are here too, not many; but it isn’t really about Easter, anyway, is it?
I spot a handful of people from a few other Holidays—Valentine’s Day, sans Lily, due to Dad’s insistence that she would remind people of our previous relationship. And… that’s it. It’s a testament to Christmas’s place in the Holiday hierarchy: even with a wedding this monumental, yeah it came together fast, we have no allies in attendance, no actualfriendsto invite.
Reporters as always line the room. Their presence doesn’t feel as oppressive and invasive as it usually does—I see them, and look away, barely registering their impact anymore.
There’s a cluster of guests off to the left.
A few different groups, all together, all people I don’t recognize. Members of our noble houses are talking to them, not necessarilyavoidingthem, and why would they? They don’t know that Dad wanted me to uninvite these people.
When Kris and I step through the doors, I press my shoulder to his.
“Once more,” he whispers.
I lean on that. On him. “Unto the breach.”
We don’t get two feet into that ballroom. I’m honestly shocked he let us get this far.
Dad rushes up on us in another wildly expensive red suit, but he’sfull-onraging,and he doesn’t for one second try to cover it for the cameras.
“You told me you undid this,” he hisses at me.
The full building swell of everything I’ve wanted to do crashes up on this moment, a wave slamming into a rock, and I let it wash over me, seafoam and salt and refreshing chill.
“I won’t undo Christmas’s future,” I tell him, and it’s my turn to talk while my smile is sickly sweet and performative. “If you’ll excuse me, I should greet my guests.”
I start to push around him.
He grabs my arm.
A few people have noticed us by now. Some in that group of winter Holiday representatives. Photographers.
“We need to speak,” Dad tells me. “In private. Now.”
He spins me around and hauls me out of the ballroom and I’d have to physically tear myself out of his grip to get away.
Kris is booking it to the winter reps.
Dad drags me up the hall and into a sitting room, the same one I pulled Iris into after Dad first announced our potential marriage, another fire lit, burning low, orange and heat.
I rip away from him as soon as I can. “I’m not backing down on this. We are capable of exactly what you want, ensuring Christmas lasts, buttogether,with other Holidays too. We can grow by sharing success and being apartof something, not theonlything.”
He slams the door shut and starts pacing between the low stuffed chairs.
I’ve never seen him this furious with me.
“You’re going back to Yale,” he says mid-pacing. “Tomorrow. First thing.”
