The first hint we had that something was wrong was when Kappa and I discovered a pair of the black tights that Olivia wore in winter nailed up—yes, nailed up, with an actual nail—to the mantel piece above the sitting room fireplace.

I had Kappa on my hip, and was giving him a stern talking-to about how he was not going to go around kidnapping the Christmas ornaments this year, and he was giving me half-hearted, dismissive promises that I didn’t buy for a second—when he suddenly stopped, mid-protest, and stared.

I followed the line of his gaze over to the fireplace, and there were the tights, looking grim and resentful about their new role as a Christmas decoration. They ended a good two feet lower than the dark red stockings surrounding them, and while the Christmas stockings hung at a jolly angle, looking right and proper, the tights dangled—limply and without honor.

When I recovered from my mute surprise, I looked at Kappa. At the same moment, Kappa looked at me.

“More candy?” he asked. The smooth brow between his black eyes was faintly wrinkled with confusion.

I mirrored the expression—same black eyes, but there was nothing faint about the wrinkles between my eyebrows. “Kappa, did you put those up?”

He shook his head.

I walked over to get a better look. The glutton who had tried to con more candy out of the Big Man in Red had done a terrible job hanging them up. The nail came in at an angle and was bent halfway down. I winced when I saw the faint marks of a hammer bashed into the mantel’s wood. The nail had also skewered both the front and the back of the tights, leaving Santa with only two small holes on either side of the nail to stuff the tights with.

On the other hand, if you were hoping for quantity…tights stretched an awful lot.

I shook my head to reboot it out of Christmas-calculation mode and back into sanity.

“Kappa, you promise, promise, me that you didn’t do this?”

He bounced in my arms, his little face screwed up with indignation. “Promise!”

I hesitated.

I wanted to believe Kappa (especially when he was scowling like that), but there were no other real possibilities. It shamed me to admit it, but if you lined up everyone in the Noctis mansion from least mature to most mature, there would be a huge crowd around the “most mature” section, Olivia would be hanging out somewhere in the middle, and Kappa and I would be down at the other end with tons of room to play around in.

And not even I would do something that stupid.

And if I had, I would’ve done a better job nailing it up.

That left only Kappa. But he was sure doing an outstanding job of feigning ignorance.

“I think we should take it down,” I said.

I waited to see if he would object to the idea, but all he said was “Why?”

“It clashes with the rest of the decorations. Poor Count Vasil would be most distressed if he knew.”

“Darius and Conrad are coming home?” Kappa asked with a whine in his voice.

I felt my own heart whine with sympathy.

They’d been called away on a mission two days ago. There was some hope that they’d be back before Christmas, but there was no guarantee.

“Not too long,” I assured Kappa, “but not today.” I put him down on the floor. He let out a screech when his feet touched the cold wood, so I swung him around and put him on the couch instead. “Let’s get this down.”

I took the coward’s path and hid the tights in the dryer. With any luck, Olivia would think she’d missed them when she did her last load and blame the holes on the dryer.

[https://i.imgur.com/f011ZNa.jpg]

The next morning, there was a strange package under the Christmas tree on the great landing.

Maybe it was meant to be a present, but those were kept under the tree in the front hall, and, anyway, it didn’t…look…like a present. There were four sheets of printer paper wadded around it, and instead of using ribbon and tape, our secret Santa had tried to secure the papers by nailing them together.

Inside the mangled papers were two of my homemade ornaments, nailed together to make a chimeric monstrosity of origami crane and cloth-wrapped wire star.

I was certain that the crane hadn’t done anything to deserve being crucified like that.

My temper started to rise, but, just as quickly, it faded.

I’d put Kappa to bed at nine the night before after spending almost all day with him. In the winter he rarely got up before ten. If it was cold enough, we wouldn’t see him until noon. He shouldn’t have had time to put something like that together.

I threw away the “present” and went to search the washroom. Kappa had stolen three ornaments, but there was no sign of a hammer, and he was still curled up in his nest. Igor told me that he hadn’t seen Kappa at all that morning, and he’d been up since five-thirty.

When I asked Olivia if she’d sensed anything with the ward that surrounded the mansion, she looked at me like I was an idiot.

“Don’t you think I would have mentioned it if I had?”

Of course drawing attention to a possible problem before it got out of hand would be the smart thing to do.

Later, I would remember that I’d had that thought…and curse myself.

[https://i.imgur.com/f011ZNa.jpg]

That night, I heard someone singing carols.

Well, I call them carols, but they were more like a toddler’s imitation of a few Christmas songs they’d heard only once or twice. The melodies were barely recognizable, and most of the words had been replaced with la or da, but they were belted out with cheerful enthusiasm.

The voice was higher pitched, so I assumed it was Kappa—despite how unlikely that was—but as I went downstairs, the voice grew fainter. When I tried to follow the sound upstairs, the singing suddenly stopped as I reached the last flight. I searched the whole third floor before deciding I was crazy and going back to bed.

At five-forty in the morning, a series of outraged knocks made my old wooden door rattle on its hinges. I was already down one hour of sleep, thanks to my search for the midnight caroler, so it took real effort to drag myself out of bed and stagger over to the door.

I thought it would be Olivia. She was the only person I managed to outrage on a semi-regular basis.

By the time I opened the door, she was standing out in the hall—no doubt roused by all the noise—but she hadn’t been the one knocking.

I blinked. It was always weird and startling to see Igor somewhere other than the kitchen or the dining room.

“Igor?” I mumbled as I rubbed my eyes.

He said, “I thought I made it clear that you were not allowed to use the kitchen without my express permission.”

I blinked again.

“You were up last night?” He made it sound more like an accusation than a question.

“Yes?” I ventured.

“Was hot chocolate not enough for you?”

Olivia rolled her eyes and turned to go back to her bedroom. Kitchen drama didn’t concern her. Igor continued his rant with me as his sole, captive audience.

“That mess you made is untenable! It’ll take you at least an hour to clean it up. You’d better get dressed and get down there, or there won’t be any breakfast to speak of—not that you deserve any breakfast. What kind of person decides to make candy in the middle of the night just because they can’t sleep!”

My eyes widened, and all drowsiness disappeared. I blurted out, “You can make candy? Like, in a normal kitchen?”

There was a note of excitement in my voice. I couldn’t help it.

Olivia stopped.

Igor paused. First the larger of his two eyes narrowed, then the smaller one. “You didn’t know that?”

“I thought you had to have special tools or something!” I threw the door wide. “What kind of candy can you make?”

Igor eyed me through the two mis-sized slits of his eyelids. “Emerra, were you down in the kitchen last night?”

“No, I was upstairs.”

Olivia took a few steps toward us, “What were you doing up there?”

“I thought I heard someone singing, but I couldn’t find anyone.”

Igor turned his head. “Olivia?”

“It wasn’t me!” she said.

“Wasn’t you singing, or wasn’t you in the kitchen?” I asked.

“Either!”

Igor scowled at a spot on the floor. “Kappa’s still asleep, and anyway, he never liked sugar.” He raised his larger eye to look at me. “Do you sleepwalk?”

How dare he single me out like that!

“Why don’t you ask Olivia?” I said.

“She doesn’t have trouble sleeping like you do,” he said.

That was both completely unfair and completely accurate. There were few people in the world who had as much trouble sleeping as I did.

Olivia said, “And if anyone would try to make candy in their sleep, it would be you.”

Also accurate. But I wasn’t ready to accept that I might be a sleepwalker. For one thing, that would mean I’d have to be getting some sleep.

“Look,” I said, “before we go around tying me down for the night, do you think we could rule out the possibility that someone else did it?”

Olivia scoffed, “Like who? Your imaginary singer?”

Realizing exactly how stupid it sounded, I said, “Well…yeah.”

Igor and Olivia exchanged glances.

“I know this is going to sound crazy,” I added, “but have either of you seen someone wandering around with a hammer?”

[https://i.imgur.com/f011ZNa.jpg]

When Olivia and I finished telling Big Jacky and Iset our disjointed stories, they glanced at each other the same way Olivia and Igor had glanced at each other.

Big Jacky turned his skull to me. “And it wasn’t you?”

“Kappa lives here too, you know!”

“Kappa doesn’t like sugar,” Jacky pointed out.

It was disturbing to realize that none of my friends found it difficult to picture me nailing up tights and making candy in my sleep.

“No, it wasn’t me!” I insisted.

Jacky kept his empty eye sockets fixed on me for another second, then looked away. “You sound relatively sure of yourself, and since we have no evidence to the contrary, I think we should dismiss the possibility. For now.”

“You are so getting coal in your stocking.”

“Iset,” Jacky said, “did you hear anything?”

“No,” the mummy said, “but the library is on the other side of the house from the kitchen, and I was listening to music last night.”

Jacky turned to his apprentice. “Olivia?”

“Nothing disturbed the ward, Mr. Noctis. I guarantee it.”

“And yet two strangers have knocked at the door in the last week.”

“Well, sure. But they were delivery men.”

“Correct. For our convenience and the convenience of our visitors, you’re maintaining a malign ward. That means that anything which is not excluded by the parameters of your spell can cross the boundary unnoticed.”

“What about the other precautions?” I asked.

I knew we had them. Jack Noctis tended to attract trouble.

“They’re meant to help,” Iset said, “but it’s impossible to account for everything.”

“Jacky,” I said, “can’t you tell if there’s someone in this house who isn’t supposed to be here?”

“How?”

“You’re death!”

“Yes, and if they should die here, I would know. You haven’t seen anything?”

“Only what I’ve told you about.”

Jacky didn’t have a face to look troubled with, but he still managed to look troubled.

He tapped his finger bones on the arm of his desk chair. “Olivia, Iset,” he said, “I want you to work out a way to find out if we’re harboring a stranger. If we are, I want to know who they are and why they’re here. Emerra, stay with them. They may need your help.”

“Why?” I asked.

I was no magician, and Jacky knew that.

“Because only the very normal and the very abnormal could get through both Olivia’s ward and our other precautions. If it is something abnormal, they may need your eyes. Let me know if you learn anything.”

With that, we were dismissed.

Olivia and I followed Iset out of Jacky’s study and into the hall. She put a bandaged hand on each of our shoulders.

“Have either of you had breakfast?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Go and get something to eat, then find me in the library. I have a few ideas, but there are some things I need to look up.”

Breakfast was cold cereal. It was accompanied by Igor’s louder-than-normal grumbling as he cleaned up the mess left by whoever—or whatever—had decided to try some late-night cooking.

“They ruined my baking sheet,” he announced before roughly tossing the abused pan into the sink. “When you find the brat that did this, I’ll serve them up, fricassee.”

Olivia and I bent lower over our bowls.

[https://i.imgur.com/f011ZNa.jpg]

Five hours and four spells later, we had learned the following things:

There was something or someone in the house who wasn’t a member of the household, and they weren’t human.

Everything else was still a mystery.

But I had managed to be useful! Not because of my eyes, but because I knew how to help with the massive headache that had descended on Olivia after the fourth spell.

She was sitting on the couch in the drawing room with her feet in a tub of hot water and a frozen pack on the back of her neck.

It would have been a frozen bag of peas, but a few months ago, Igor had told me off for “playing with food,” so I had sewn my own cold pack and stuffed it with rice and lavender. I made it look like a lounging cat because there was no good reason not to, and it was nice to have something cute around when all I wanted to do was screw my head off and toss it in the nearest garbage can.

Olivia had frowned when I handed her Nippy, the frozen feline, but I didn’t take it personally. Supernatural headaches could be brutal.

As I swabbed the chalk off the floor, I asked Iset, “Could it be a ghost?”

I whispered to avoid aggravating Olivia’s headache.

“No,” she murmured back. “Whatever it is, it must have some kind of a body, or Olivia wouldn’t have been able to sense it. Not with those spells.”

“Could it be an animal?”

I looked up when Iset didn’t answer. There was an air of amusement around her.

“An animal that knows how to sing and use a hammer?” she said.

I blushed. “It could be a really smart monkey!”

“You already said you didn’t do it,” Olivia grumbled.

Ah-ha! A few minutes ago, Olivia never would have managed a quip like that. Nippy must have been working her magic.

Iset was leaning against a low dresser pushed up against the wall. Her arms were crossed, and her head was turned toward the drawing room window. Beyond the cold glass, the sun made the snow on the yard shine like white fire.

“It’s curious isn’t it,” she mused.

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” I said.

“If you consider everything they’ve done—the stockings, the present—you’d think they want to be noticed. But when you try to find them, they disappear.”

“Maybe it’s one of Santa’s elves,” Olivia said with grim sarcasm.

I looked at Iset, “Could that be it?”

Olivia raised her head. “There’s no such thing as elves!”

“There’s a Santa Claus!” I said. “How do you know he doesn’t have elves?”

Olivia rolled her eyes, then winced and went back to scowling at her wet feet.

I had a photo of a man in a red fur-lined cloak standing with my three favorite ghosts, but the question of whether or not he was actually Santa Claus had inspired a series of spirited debates between me and Olivia. Big Jacky—the only person who could give us any reliable information—had refused to say anything, so I stuck by my assertion that, yes, Olivia, there is a Santa Claus.

I turned to Iset for support, but she was distracted by her own thoughts.

“Emerra,” she said, “why aren’t children allowed to see Santa?”

I stopped scrubbing. “Ah. Yes. Um…” I stood up and leaned on the Swiffer. “So, here’s the thing—”

Olivia broke in with, “It’s so they don’t find out it’s their parents.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“No,” Iset waved her hand dismissively, “I know that. But what do the parents tell their children?”

I blinked a few times but couldn’t make any sense of the question.

Iset elaborated: “When the children ask why they aren’t allowed to see Santa Claus, their parents can’t say it’s because he’s not real. What do they tell them?”

I squirmed my way through a lopsided shrug. “I don’t think they tell them anything. I’m not sure many kids ask. It’s a rule, you know? It’s a part of the magic. You’re not supposed to question it.”

“And the children are satisfied with that?”

“Not really. But it’s that or no toys, so…” I shrugged again.

I turned, eyes wide with amazement, when I heard Olivia’s quiet snicker.

She noticed that Iset and I were watching her, shook her head, then muttered, “Sorry.”

I was not about to let her get away with that. I could count the number of times I’d heard Olivia laugh out loud on one hand, and her shy smile made her cheeks bubble up.

“What’s so funny?” I demanded, already grinning at I-didn’t-know-what.

Olivia cleared her throat and pulled Nippy off her neck. “I tried to trap Santa Claus once.”

My grin widened. “Oh?”

“I was young, all right!”

Maybe it was my imagination, but her cheeks looked slightly pink.

“And how did it go?” I asked.

Olivia made a face. “Not well. This was before I had any formal training, so I didn’t really know any magic. The spell was supposed to freeze Santa in place, but I caught Nylah instead. She fell flat on her face, and it felt like she was walking on pins and needles for a week.” Olivia briefly put a hand over her mouth to hide her smile. “I shouldn’t be laughing, but Nylah’s expression was priceless.”

My heart swelled with holiday cheer. “Now there’s a memory to treasure.”

Iset uncrossed her arms. “Olivia, you know magic now.”

“Yeah,” Olivia said.

“What do you think about trying to set another trap?”

[https://i.imgur.com/f011ZNa.jpg]

Since there was a small chance that whatever was sneaking around our place could see or sense magic, Olivia had to set the trap using a dormant spell. Not even I could see magic when it was dormant.

“But that means whatever it is will have to step right on it!” Olivia cried.

“So we’ll have to use bait,” I said.

“Like what?”

“A bunch of nails.”

In return for my brilliant suggestion about the bait, I made Olivia swear on the names of four of her witchy ancestors that she would tell me the moment the trap was sprung.

“And why would I do that?” she asked.

“Call it an early Christmas present.”

She rolled her eyes and went to bed after warning me, again, not to step on the trap.

I gave the conspicuous pile of nails, sitting in the middle of the front hall, one last glance, then turned toward the kitchen. I could use the back stairs to get up to my bedroom. I took the stairs two at a time, and with each hop, I felt a flutter in my stomach.

My childhood had been…rough. I never had the chance to believe in Santa Claus when I was young. But I was more than making up for that now, and this Christmas, I finally got to feel that thrill of anticipation that every child delights in.

So what if it wasn’t exactly like waiting for Santa Claus? The principle was the same.

Of course, I was too excited to go to sleep. When Olivia came to get me at three o’clock, she didn’t have to knock. I heard her footsteps.

As we crept down the back stairs, Olivia said, “Do you think it’ll be dangerous?”

Whoever was currently stuck to the floor of our front hall had tried to make a present and hang up a stocking. That meant they were probably fans of Christmas—a fact that I thought spoke well for them.

On the other hand, we had successfully baited the trap with nails.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. I stopped and looked over my shoulder at her. “It shouldn’t be able to get out of the trap, right?”

“Not unless it’s really powerful,” she said.

“And then?”

“And then we’re dead anyway.”

Never go to a witch for comfort.

We snuck through the butler’s pantry, into the dining room, and over to the arch that opened onto the front hall. From beyond the arch, we could hear faint sounds—tiny huffs of air, whines of effort, and high-pitched grunts. I crouched down so we could both peek our heads around the corner of the arch.

There was our stranger, standing inside the glowing circle of white runes, beside a pile of scattered nails. Its body was no larger than a kitten. It had long pointed ears, wiry arms and legs only as big around as twigs, a spiked knob on the end of its long tail, and smooth, burgundy-colored skin.

My hand went over my mouth.

“Oh my god,” Olivia whispered. “What is that thing?”

She’s never seen one before, I remembered.

I moved my hand and stood up, forcing the witch to take a step back. “Olivia, I need you to listen to me. I am not joking around, and I’m not being stupid. You have to trust me.”

I could see Olivia’s contrarian instinct rearing up, but the look in my eyes was enough to make her hesitate. She nodded.

“Go get Big Jacky,” I whispered. “You can get Iset if you want, but we need Jacky here.”

“Jacky’s study is behind that thing!”

“It’s okay—it’s not powerful. He won’t be able to escape the trap. But whatever you do, don’t talk to him.”

Her eyes widened.

“Do you understand?” I asked.

She nodded.

I motioned for her to get going.

We stepped out of the dining room together. She hurried around the imp, giving him as wide a berth as possible, before cutting over to the door of Jacky’s study. I slowly walked in a straight line toward him.

At first he split his attention between us, but as I drew closer, he focused on me.

I was only two feet away from him when Olivia called out, “Jacky’s not in his study.”

I kept my voice calm. “Check the library.”

Olivia ran off without another word.

As I lowered myself to the floor, only an inch outside the circle of runes, I kept my eyes fixed on the imp’s face, watching for the moment of recognition. There was none. He didn’t know who I was.

Which was…odd.

I sat down and crossed my legs. After scanning the statement twice for anything that might be unwise to say, I decided to risk saying it.

“Hello.”

The imp scampered over on all fours, but he stood on two legs to get a better look at me. “You aren’t supposed to see me,” he whispered.

Questions were good. Questions were safe.

“Why not?” I asked.

He looked puzzled. “I’m not sure. She never told me that.”

She?

“How did you get in here?” I asked.

His miniature grin showed a crowd of needle teeth. “Guess!”

But I knew about imps and their games.

“No.”

He scampered two inches closer. “Come on! One guess!”

There was something seriously wrong with that imp. He was bouncing around on his legs like a cartoon kangaroo, and I was pretty sure that his expression was a simple, honest, happy smile—but as far as I could see, no one was getting hurt.

“You crawled up a drain pipe,” I said.

“I came down the chimney!” He threw himself onto his back and rolled around laughing, as if he’d told the greatest joke in the world.

I caught myself smiling and had to bite it back.

“Just like Santa Claus?” I said.

He stopped rolling and sat up. His all-white eyes managed a sparkle I had never seen from any other imp.

Glints, yes. Sparkles, no.

“Yes!” He smiled even wider than before. “Do you know him?”

My hindbrain hoisted a big red flag and waved it. I was the one supposed to be asking questions.

But that question…seemed harmless.

“I know of him,” I said. “I’ve never met him.”

The imp rolled his head back as he cried, “Oh! He’s the greatest thing in the whole world!”

Then he was off, chattering at a million miles an hour, giving me a scattered account of Santa Claus that sounded like it came straight from the mouth of a six-year-old, while I sat there wondering how, in the literal hell, an imp had learned about Christmas.

After a few seconds, I held up my hand to stop him.

“Forgive me for saying so,” I said, “but you seem unusual—you know, for…someone like you.”

He cocked his head, but didn’t answer.

I decided to go for the jugular. After all, the worst he could do (while trapped in that circle) was laugh at me.

“Look,” I said, “do you have a name?”

And much to my surprise, he immediately gave me an answer.

“I don’t know.”

I blinked. “You…don’t know?”

He curled into a small red ball and held his head with eight toothpick-tip fingers. “I feel like it’s there. Like it’s…important…but I can’t remember.”

Iset and Olivia came back up the hall, but they stopped where they were when they saw me shake my head.

The imp didn’t notice. He was groaning and tapping on his noggin in an effort to remember.

“Do you remember why you’re here?” I asked.

The imp sprang up so fast, his body must have been spring loaded. “I had to get back to the North Pole before Christmas.”

“The North Pole,” I repeated. It still sounded insane.

“It’s easy!” He said in a sing-song voice, dipping his head from side to side as he recited, “Turn your tail south and walk. Look for a big, happy house with lots of snow.”

“Okay. But why?”

“I’m one of Santa’s elves.”

I stared for a full two seconds. My brain needed that time to accept what my eyes were telling it: the imp meant every word he said.

Then I snorted with laughter.

Jacky finally showed up. He must have received Iset’s call while he was somewhere in Australia—because, god knew, the moment he heard there was an infernal in his home, he would come running.

He appeared right beside me, using all six-feet of his height to tower over the imp.

“You,” Jacky said, his voice toning like some abyssal bell.

I grabbed his pant leg. “Hang on, Jacky!”

Jacky hesitated, then fell silent.

I turned back to Santa’s lost elf. “Do you know who this is?” I pointed to the suit-wearing skeleton beside me.

The imp’s eyes moved between me and Jacky.

“Go on.” I smiled. “Guess.”

In a hesitant squeak of a voice, he said, “Mrs. Claus?”

I was still laughing when the imp said, “This isn’t the North Pole, is it?”

I bit my lips together to force stop the laughter, then said, “No, my friend. This isn’t the North Pole.”

[https://i.imgur.com/f011ZNa.jpg]

We left the imp-ish elf in the kitchen after extracting a promise from Igor that he wouldn’t murder him and serve him up for dinner.

“Anything made out of that”—Igor pointed to the imp with his chef’s knife—“would be inedible.”

He went back to cooking but kept the smaller of his two eyes locked on the kitchen island. Olivia had drawn a new rune circle there, and Jacky had unceremoniously dropped the imp into it. The imp scuttled from side to side, wringing his red hands.

Jacky, Olivia, Iset, and I went to the furthest corner of the library to talk.

“He’s lost his memory,” Iset said. She sounded resigned. And exasperated.

It was hard to blame her. A question-and-answer session with an imp is always bound to be frustrating, if only because they talk like Kappa would if some monster force fed him eight energy drinks—but we’d spent hours at it and learned nothing.

Nothing, that is, unless you count the poor thing’s misguided ideas about his role as an elf and how you make candy.

“That’s what it claims,” Jacky said.

“I believe him, Jacky,” I said.

I stared into the deepest part of Big Jacky’s eye sockets and waited. There was a moment where I wondered if he was going to argue with me, but then he turned his skull to look away.

Olivia said, making the question clear in her tone, “Then that story about how he’s lost? About how he must have fallen off the sleigh…?”

“It must have made that up,” unease etched its way across every bone in Jacky’s skull, “for some reason.”

Iset sighed. “All those must-haves. He doesn’t remember, but he must have gotten lost. He must have fallen off the sleigh.” She raised her head. “He made it sound as if it was the only logical explanation. But that makes no sense!”

“And what is he doing here?” Olivia asked. “How did he get inside?”

Jacky said, “By now the demons know that they can’t get inside without an invitation, but an imp—so long as it means no harm—might be able to find a way in.”

“But imps always mean harm,” Iset said.

“It seems we’ve found an exception.”

Olivia wondered out loud, “Would memory loss cause a change in intention?”

“We don’t know,” Jacky said. “We’ve never run into a situation like this before.”

“Are you sure it’s an imp?” Olivia asked.

“Yes.”

While trying not to smile, I said, “Are we sure he isn’t one of Santa’s elves?”

“I would hardly think so.”

Olivia gave me a dirty look. “She’s teasing you, Mr. Noctis.”

Iset said, “Then why does he think he is?”

We all fell silent. I turned my head to look out the library window. More clouds were building up on the horizon. We might see another inch of snow before sunset. Perfect Christmas weather.

“Could he have been sent here?” Olivia asked.

Jacky immediately said, “How? And by whom?”

“A demon?” Olivia held up her hands when she saw that Jacky was watching her. “Look, I don’t know anything—but if the demons know they can’t get inside, maybe one of them tried to use the imp to get their foot in the door.”

“Imps and demons don’t usually get along,” Iset explained, “and imps aren’t known to be very reliable.”

“But they can be reliable enough,” Jacky muttered. “Emerra?”

I blew out my breath and shrugged. “I mean, yes, it’s…possible—but how could a demon expect him to do what the demon wants if he’s lost his memory?”

“We need answers,” Jacky said. “If it was sent here, we must know.” He stood perfectly still, then turned to me. “Emerra, would you be willing to help?”

There was a blank moment where I had no idea what he was talking about. Then it hit me. My hand went to my forehead.

Oh, geez.

It wasn’t that I minded helping Jacky, but trying to use my powers on purpose never led to anything good. Either it didn’t work, and I wound up standing around like an idiot, staring at things until my eyes watered, or it did work, and I walked away with a killer headache.

I said, “Nippy’s back in the fridge, right?”

“Pardon?” Jacky said.

“You mean that dumb cat?” Olivia said. “Yes.”

I let my hand drop back to my side and sighed. “Let’s go.”

As I led them out of the library, I heard Jacky say to Olivia, “Is Igor aware that there’s a cat in the refrigerator?”

We returned to the kitchen. When the imp saw me coming, he scampered up to the closest edge of the magic circle. I pulled out one of the stools and sat down. Everyone gathered around me. My face flushed when I felt their collective eyes on me.

What did they expect to see? Fireworks?

Even the imp was staring at me expectantly.

I cleared my throat as I tried to think how to start. The imp took that as a signal that he could speak.

“You’ll let me go?” His tail wrapped around his legs, and he held his hands up, excitedly tapping the tips of his fingers together in a fast, four-point clap.

“Uh…not yet,” I said.

His small brow furrowed, and he let out an angsty hum. “How many days until Christmas?” he demanded.

“Three.”

He tilted his head. “How far is the North Pole?”

“It’s still pretty far away.”

“Then you have to let me go!” he wailed.

“We can’t do that yet.”

“Why not?”

I rubbed my forehead. How on earth was I going to get him to hold still?

Inspiration struck. I was still wondering if the trick would automatically land me on the naughty list as I started talking.

“Because you haven’t passed inspection yet.”

His head jerked back.

“You know what inspection is, don’t you?” I said. “I mean, if you are one of Santa’s elves—”

“I know what inspection is!” He grabbed his tail just below the spiked knob and wrung his hands around it. “What’s inspection?”

“All of Santa’s elves who are returning to the North Pole from missions abroad have to be seen by a professional elf inspector. We have to make sure that they really are one of Santa’s elves. There are lots of impostors, you know.”

The imp nodded with whole-hearted agreement.

Carried away by my bluff, I went on: “They’re also checked for other things—”

“Like what?”

“Ah. Well. Like any residual magic that might be clinging to them—that stuff can mess with the sleigh—or…”—I struggled to come up with something else, and tried to struggle as fast as possible—“or fleas that might infect the reindeer. You know,” I waved away the question, “that kind of thing.”

“Oooooohhhhh.” His eyes were as wide and round as the O his mouth made. “Where can I find one?”

“What? A flea?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Olivia smack her forehead.

Iset said, “I think he means ‘where can I find a professional elf inspector.’”

“Right.” I smiled down at the imp. “You’re in luck, sir, because I happen to be one of those professional elf inspectors.”

He bobbed on his legs. “Are you a good one?”

“I can assure you, there are none better.”

“What do I have to do?”

“This is the tricky part.” I crossed my arms, rested them on the island’s countertop, and put my chin down on them. “You have to hold still and let me look at you.”

He hemmed and hawed while bobbing from side to side, then he looked at me—but not directly. He seemed to be studying my pinkie. “For how long?”

“How long have you been away from the North Pole?” I asked.

“I don’t remember.”

“Then I don’t know how long.”

With my head down on the counter like that, we were almost eye level to each other. That made it easier for me to see the mournful expression steal over his face.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “Just do your best.”

“Okay.”

He turned and looked me right in the eyes.

The white of his eyes washed over me in an instant, and I was gone.

[https://i.imgur.com/f011ZNa.jpg]

There was a weight to the torture that made me realize the decades that I had been subjected to it. The shame was a poison that coated me like a sheen of sweat. When I opened my mouth to gag, it dripped from my tongue and teeth. To be an imp rejected by imps was a humiliation worse than having your skin removed and being rubbed down with shit.

I was baffled. But that was the problem. The other imps had told me—the fact that I couldn’t understand why they hated me was one of the reasons they hated me. It made my empty head buzz with confusion. It always did. They would see my face, they would sneer, and I would cower and brace myself. Then they would descend on me.

Emptiness and pain. Confusion and pain.

Words became noises I couldn’t follow. They grabbed me. Four on each arm and leg. Some part of me knew I was being carried along, but it felt as if I was riding the wave of laughter. Then I saw the gate—nothing more than a small rip—but I felt the breeze and started to struggle.

I can’t! Imps aren’t allowed to go! They’re killed if they go and come back!

The laughter got louder.

They threw me through the gate. There was a rush of air. I hit a fast-moving…something—hard, metal and glass—bounced, hit another something rushing the other way, hit hard and rolled over the ground. Black, yellow, black, yellow…black.

There was a small human. A girl, she said. Her name was Hannah. What was I? she asked. I didn’t know. I couldn’t remember anything. Only black, yellow, black. I asked her what I was. She said that I had pointed ears, and that meant I was an elf. She laughed at me when I asked what an elf was, but it wasn’t a mean laugh. It was something else. It was the nicest sound I had ever heard.

She kept me hidden. She said that people weren’t supposed to see the elves, and I would’ve known that if I hadn’t forgotten everything.

“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you until you feel better.”

But I already felt better. Everyday was so light. Hannah laughed all the time. And she sang. She taught me all the Christmas songs because the elves sing while they work and I’d be sad if I couldn’t join in. Elves made toys, they wrapped presents, they made candy—the list went on and on! My head spun, but when she saw my expression, all she did was laugh again.

“Don’t worry. I’ll teach you.”

It was hard because I couldn’t remember anything. I know I got things wrong. Hannah would often chide me with a mock-serious look on her face. I stood there, letting the wash of her voice roll over me, and tried not to smile too much.

“Don’t worry,” she always said afterward. “You’ll learn.”

At night, she told me all about Santa Claus. I never got tired of the story, and each time I heard it, something inside me glowed brighter.

I tried to ignore the unease that was growing in me day by day, but over time, its roots reached down far enough to split up the weird glow that seemed to make up most of my innards. When I tried to explain it to Hannah, she said she understood.

“I knew I couldn’t keep you forever,” she said. “It’s almost Christmas. You have to go back to Santa.”

Did I?

“Of course! It’s your home. Santa and all the other elves are probably worried about you.”

Was there anyone back home that worried about me? I tried to remember, but my head was nothing but a black hole. Something about home…yes. Something about home was making me uneasy.

“You’ll feel better when you get there,” Hannah assured me. “Everyone feels better when they’re where they belong.”

I wasn’t sure, but I trusted Hannah. Hannah knew everything.

“Turn your tail south and walk,” she said. “Look for a big, happy house with lots of snow.”

The walk had been long. And cold. And dark. There were days and days of it. No more laughter—only strange noises I couldn’t understand and freezing nights that left me feeling dull and empty.

I did my best to ignore it, but there was something scary about how familiar the emptiness felt.

Then, I saw it! A big house! The biggest house in the whole world! It glowed in the darkness. When I finally managed to drag myself onto the porch, I raised my trembling hands to the edge of the window frame and pulled myself up so I could look through the tall, skinny window beside the door.

Just inside was a Christmas tree a million times bigger—no! A billion times bigger than the one at Hannah’s house.

I’d arrived.

I plopped onto the cold wood of the porch and leaned back on the door.

Now how do I get inside?

[https://i.imgur.com/f011ZNa.jpg]

I took a deep breath as I came back to myself, then I pushed away from the counter and rose from the stool in one seamless movement. I didn’t want the imp to see my face.

I didn’t want anyone to see my face, so I kept my eyes on the spot where the edge of the wall cabinets met the floor, while tucking one hand into the pocket of my pajamas and using the other to brace myself up on the counter.

“Good news!” I said while forcing an equal measure of cheer and nonchalance into my voice at knife point. “Our little friend has passed the inspection. He’s one of Santa’s elves.”

There was a clatter when the pan Igor was holding slipped and hit the counter.

“Wha—” Olivia started.

“Emerra?” Iset said.

Olivia’s face, creased with irritation and confusion, wasn’t as hard to bear as Iset’s gentle concern.

I turned away from them, back toward the imp. He was bouncing on his legs again, faster now, in a random pattern that managed to convey his perfect joy.

“I pass?”

I nodded, then swallowed the lump in my throat so I could talk. “Yup!” I forced myself to look at him while avoiding his eyes. “I can get you your certificate before you leave.”

The imp let out a whoop that should have been louder than something his size could produce.

When Jacky spoke, his voice was low, and it sounded as if it was echoing out from a cave. “Emerra—”

I looked into his eye sockets and raised my voice to talk over death.

“Jack Noctis—”

The whole room went silent. Even the imp was still.

“—I have given him an inspection. He is one of Santa’s elves. Do you understand?”

The silence stretched between us, dragging in one second after another, as if it was pulling taffy.

Jacky sighed. “No,” he said. “But I understand enough.”

I swallowed. Nodded a few times. And started to breathe again.

“Oh, lord,” Igor grumbled. He went on grumbling in an undertone as he picked up the pan and went back to work.

“Well, great,” Olivia said. She motioned to the newest of Santa’s elves. “What are we supposed to do with him now?”

[https://i.imgur.com/f011ZNa.jpg]

Specks of snow drifted past the sitting room windows. The chill of the snow and the darkness tried to push through the glass, but it could only get an inch or two inside before it was swallowed up by the warmth of the mansion. The only sound in the room was the popping and crack of the fire as it whipped and danced around the fireplace. It would have had a similar monopoly on light, but a smattering of illumination from the Christmas tree out in the front hall fell across a small section of the floor.

There were other, more substantial, signs of Christmas in the room. A large garland wove its way around a few brass decorations on the mantel, and from the mantel hung five large burgundy velvet stockings.

The center stocking wiggled. Just a bit.

A moment before, it would have gone unnoticed—but now there was someone in the room to see it.

The ancient floor creaked under the old man’s boots. He pushed aside the edge of his fur-lined cloak and reached out with one of his rough hands.

Before his hand met the white cuff at the top of the stocking, a small figure, nearly the same color as the sock it emerged from, popped its head out.

“Surprise!”

The old man’s hand had jerked back involuntarily, but then he drew it back to stroke his shaggy beard.

“What do we have here?” the old man muttered.

The imp’s eyes sparkled. “You’re him.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve seen your picture!”

The old man’s eyebrows jumped. “Have you now?”

“Oh! Oh! I’m supposed to show you this!” The imp reached into the stocking with one hand and pulled out his own tail. A thin green ribbon secured a piece of cardstock to the end of his tail, just below the spiked knob.

The imp passed it reverently, tail and all, to the old man.

“It’s my certificate,” he said in an awe-struck whisper.

“Hmmm,” the old man said. “I’ll have to take a look at that.”

The certificate turned out to be nothing more than a gift tag. It said, To Santa Claus.

The old man smiled. “Was this your idea, old friend?”

Jack Noctis stepped out of a shadow that was too thin to hide a skeleton.

“You should flip the card over,” he said. “I have cleaned my mitts of this whole debacle.”

The old man read the other side of the card.

Love, Emerra Cole.

A deep laugh rolled up from his chest. “So it was her doing?”

Jacky walked over to one of the armchairs in front of the fire and sat down. “For a while, she wanted to keep it—or him. Can you believe it?”

“That would’ve been problematic for you,” the old man observed.

Jacky motioned to him. It was a lazy gesture meant to affirm what his guest had said when the situation had exhausted Jacky beyond words. He leaned back in the armchair.

“Fortunately,” Jacky said, “she capitulated after it broke the fifth ornament. Or was it another one of the dishes?” He added in a grumble, “We still haven’t found the hammer.”

“How did it come here?” the old man asked.

“Our best guess is that our…unfortunate…association with other infernals has weakened the space between this town and their realm.”

The imp’s eyes had been moving between the two men as they spoke, but when Jacky swung his finger bones around to point, the imp tucked himself back into the stocking until only his eyes, ears, and the end of his tail could be seen.

“That one,” Jacky said, “came through, and either he was accidentally directed here, or he was drawn here. Possibly both.”

The old man rubbed his beard. “And I’m supposed to take him with me?”

“That is up to you, and I told her that. It’s a gift. Merry Christmas! Accept it, or not, and do with it as you please. Isn’t that the rule for most gifts?”

“Yes, but what am I supposed to do with it?”

“You would know better than I would. After all, he’s one of your elves.”

The old man’s smile disappeared. “You’re mad.”

“That’s what she told me.”

The fire popped and spit as the two men stared at each other. The imp cowered and looked on, his tiny fingers digging deeper and deeper into the cuff.

The old man suddenly turned and raised his hand up to the top of the stocking. “Come on then, friend.”

The imp’s head popped back up. “I can come?”

“You can come.” The old man jogged his hand by an inch to draw attention to it. “Hop up. This is my busy night. We have much to do.”

The imp skittered over the man’s hand, up his arm, and climbed the cloak to perch on his shoulder.

“Mess on the cloak,” the old man said, “and I’ll feed you to my ravens.”

“Ravens?” the imp said.

“Don’t worry. You’ll learn.”

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Jacky said quietly.

“Of course I do!” the old man said. “Imagine leaving one of my elves behind.” He shook his head. “My reputation would be in shambles.”

“Do you think he’ll find a place with you?”

“I think he might. If he doesn’t, I have no doubt that Krampus can make something of him.”

“You’d foist him off on Krampus?” Jacky’s voice was high with disbelief.

The old man smiled at him. It was a faint thing, almost hidden by the beard, but the wicked twinkle in his eye was obvious.

“There’s nothing wrong with a thoughtful re-gifting,” he said. “Be sure to tell Emerra thank you for me.”

“I will,” Jacky said.

“Merry Christmas, old friend.”

“Merry Christmas.”

Then the old man was gone. At last the house was quiet.