And the fact that he seems tounderstandhas me on edge. He isn’t rolling his eyes at me, isn’t brushing off my attempts as hopeless. As if he thinks I could actually do this.
But his version ofthisis… intolerable.
“I want you to be good at this as well,” Dad says. “And I want this to be goodforyou. For you and Kristopher both. For the thousands of employees who depend on Christmas’s success. For the people who will benefit from the joy that we bring. We have such potential to do good in this world.”
Wedohave potential. We do. That’s what’schokingme. I don’t know how to harness it, and Dad sees it too, but this isn’t the way to harness it either, so where does that put us?
“Sleep on it, Nicholas.” He waves at the door. “We can speak more after you’ve had time to process what I’ve told you. At the next events, be attentive to Iris and play your part.”
One last flip of his eyes up at me. One last, intense look.
“Do not disappoint our family,” he says.
The words sink into the ache in my chest. They’re the source of that ache, the ever-present knot fueling my rigidity these past years.Don’t be a disappointment. Don’t hurt anyone.
I nod, stiff, and leave the office.
Then take off sprinting through the palace.
I make it back to my suite, get the door shut, and collapse against it, sliding to the floor in a lead-like heap.
Here I’ve been worried about how we’re not bringing real joy to the world, and my father’s been plotting a global Christmas takeover and blackmailing other Holidays.
The room is dark and cool but it’s suddenly closing in, crushing me, I’m sweating and shaking and can’t catch my breath.
How am I supposed to fix any of this?
Chapter Ten
The next scheduled Christmas PR celebration event isn’t for another day, so I take full advantage of that and stay in bed.
I need to process… everything. I need to lie in silence and roll back through every memory of my father and every blip of knowledge I’ve been given on Christmas and our joy and try,try,to figure out how I missed this—and what I’m going to do about it.
But every time my brain slams up against that question, I only see scrolling headlines.
Riots. Robberies.
Dear Santa, Mommy left and I don’t think she’s—
No, shit, that wasn’t it. The kid lost herdad,not hermom.
I roll over and bury my face in the pillows and will the bed to eat me whole.
I’m asking myself to undo the foundation of stolen joy and performative acts my father has built Christmas on. Not to just let Iris and me out of this marriage or maybe not be a jerk to Halloween—but to stop manipulating people I didn’t know we were oppressing. And every time I start to thinkmaybe I can try this,my whole body seizes up with dread, because the last and only time I ever tried to fix something, I broke an entire country. What if I collapse Christmasandthese other Holidays?
Not to mention the fact that moving against my father at all isn’t just a familial dispute; it’d betreason.I’d joked about us having a dungeon, but what would the consequence be for getting caught doing something like this?
Hex didn’t expect me to fix anything. Maybe he was right—maybe Ican’tfix this. But what am I supposed to do? Show up at the next Christmas event all smiles and pose with Hex for more photos like everything’s fine, like Christmas is holly and jolly and notactively ruining lives? Marry Iris on Christmas Eve then graduate next semester and flit off to grad school like any of this will help my Holiday?
My bedroom door opens. I groan into my pillow. “Wren, I told you, I’m taking a—”
“Not Wren,” Kris says. The door clicks shut behind him.
I sigh, body wilting into the bedding.
He sets something on my bedside table. I turn and see a tray of food, a sandwich and a steaming mug and a salad.
“What happened with Hex?” He drops onto the bed next to me with a bounce. “Iris and I need to know whether we should ostracize him and you’re not answering your texts.”
