Author’s Note: Here’s a short story from the world of The Myth-Keepers, my current fantasy work-in-progress. This is set before the first book and follows the main characters of the series, Matt and Aria. It’s been a delight to work on over the past few months, and I’m excited to share a light, humorous holiday story with you. More updates on the first Myth-Keepers book will come with the new year. For now, enjoy this short story, and Merry Christmas!

Matt Wills was at his most vulnerable: nose stuck in a big, thick book.

And, of course, Aria was not one to let such an opportunity pass her by.

The Phoenix perched above him on a branch, which, like all the branches of Fire-roost, glowed with a soft yellow-orange light as it radiated heat. Aria smirked as best she could with her beak clamped around the handle of a bucket filled with emberbeans. She’d wanted mud—the mess made the joke even funnier—but after she’d ruined a copy of a rare book about something important by someone long dead by plopping thick blackberry jam on it, both Matt and Zephatora unanimously banned any pranks involving liquids or messy ooze if books were around. Unfortunately for Aria, books were always around Matt.

Closer… closer… She inched, talon by talon, down the branch. Almost… there!

She stopped directly above him. Aria carefully raised a talon, balancing on her other foot, which gripped the branch tightly. With her free foot, she lifted the bottom of the bucket and tipped it over. The emberbeans rolled out with a satisfying shhhhhhhh as they poured onto Matt’s head below. Several coffee beans pummeled Matt’s head, getting lost in his thick yellow hair. More beans piled onto the open book on the table. He looked up, and a few beans clattered to the ground. A slight smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, ruining his attempt at an unamused expression.

Aria laughed and accidentally dropped the bucket. Matt jumped out of his chair, barely dodging it, then picked up the bucket and started sweeping the beans off of the book into it. Aria glided down and perched on his chair while he cleaned up.

“That’s a waste of good coffee, you know,” he said, though his eyes had a glint of humor in them.

Aria waved a dismissive wing, which knocked some loose emberbeans off the table. “We have different definitions of ‘waste.’ Besides, I knowyou’ll still brew them.”

Matt held her gaze, then shrugged. “Fair enough.” He finished swiping off the emberbeans into the bucket, shooed her off his chair, and sat down again. She perched on the table on the other side of the book. Matt returned to reading it without another word.

His silence ruffled her feathers, and her smirk died. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Matt shrugged. Again.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Uh huh.” Aria rolled her eyes. “What are you reading, something depressing? Did a library just burn down?”

“No.” Matt gave her a flat stare, this one not accompanied by any hint of a smile. “I’m reading about Christmas.”

“Oh.” Aria blinked. “What’s that?”

“An Ordo holiday.” Matt looked down at the page, which held a drawing of an evergreen tree covered with small lights and dozens of colorful boxes with ribbons tied around them. The tree kinda reminded Aria of Fire-roost, but a baby version, where the light hadn’t infused all of the limbs and leaves quite yet. Fire-roost also didn’t have needles, but huge, thick leaves, similar to a maple.

“Seems kind of fun,” Matt said. “I wish we celebrated it.”

“And… that makes you sad?” Aria tensed, bracing for his answer. “That we don’t?”

“A little, I guess,” he said. “Just makes me wonder what I missed out on, growing up with Phoenixes.”

A spark of panic flickered in Aria. “Oh,” she said, her voice thin.

After a small pause, Matt stood and closed the book. “Anyways, I’m going to go do my homework for Zephatora. See you later.”

“Right,” Aria said, her tone still strained. She watched him go, her thoughts burning through her brain like kindling. Not even the sight of another tiny emberbean falling out of his hair as he walked away cheered her up.

“I have to give him Christmas,” she said.

*

Aria tiptoed into the nest she was pretty sure housed the library. Newen perched behind a big ledger, reading through tiny glasses from an even tinier book held in one foot. He glanced up, narrowed his eyes, and asked, “Aria?” as if he wasn’t sure who she was. It was impossible not to know the whole flock; there were only twenty-six of them. Though, come to think of it, Aria wasn’t sure she and Newen had ever spoken to each other in her entire life, so she knew she shouldn’t be as offended as she felt.

“Yep, that’s me,” she said. “I need some help.”

“I see.” Newen lowered his book, though didn’t close it. “With what?”

“I need all your books about Christmas,” said Aria.

Newen hesitated. “Christmas?”

“Christmas.” Aria nodded decisively.

“This is… real?”

“Yep.”

“Not one of your pranks?”

Aria gave a sheepish grin to mask her swell of pride. “Eh heh. I see my reputation precedes me. No, I promise it exists. It’s an Ordo thing.”

Newen sighed and set his book down on the massive ledger. “I will check.”

He flew through a circular opening behind him into another nest filled with more books and scrolls. Aria resisted tapping her talons as she waited. The rhythm of her talon-taps might send sparks shooting out, which might set every single book and scroll ablaze. If she incinerated the whole library, the flock—including Matt—would kill her. She snickered at the thought of Matt’s horrified face if she were to do such a thing.

After a blazing eternity standing around and fighting the temptation to burn the library down, Newen returned with a few scrolls of questionable durability. They were so old, they were probably older than Zephatora by a millennium. He set the scrolls down in front of Aria, then returned to his perch. He raised a feather pen and asked, “Will you be checking these out, then?”

Aria eyed the pathetic assortment of scrolls. “Ummm… is that it? Really?”

“I was surprised to find even those,” Newen answered. He wiggled the pen expectantly.

Aria sighed. “Yeah. I’ll check them out.” It was better than nothing.

Newen marked down something in the ledger and returned to his book. Aria took the scrolls and flew to a different branch outside to assess her findings.

One scroll contained Christmas songs. Another had a series of recipes with some ingredients she knew, but some strange and unfamiliar. The last one was the longest, and the only one with an ornate handle, a shimmering green and red material in need of a good polish. It told a story of an Elf named Niklas who delivered gifts to a bunch of Ordos every year. Though framed as history, Aria found the premise faulty. An Elf? Do something nice for Ordos? You might as well claim Matthias Wills hated coffee, or that Aria always followed the rules.

Aria huffed. “I’m going to need some help.”

*

“Khariiiiiiiiis!” called Aria, flying so furiously into the healer’s nest, she nearly upended a desk full of medical supplies. Not that Aria upending it would’ve made a difference: the herbs, bandages, bottles of different colored liquids all piled together in a chaotic mess, which made Aria proud, as Kharis’s workspace reminded Aria of her own nest.

“Yes?” chirped Kharis, poking her head up from behind the desk. She added a few more assorted leaves and a roll of linen bandages to the pile of supplies.

“I need your help,” Aria said.

“Did you break a wing trying to pour emberbeans on Matthias’s head?”

Aria smirked. “Oh, you heard about that already?” She shook her head. “No, it’s not that. I’m perfectly healthy. I need your help to throw a Christmas party in two days.”

“I love parties!” squealed Kharis. Her smile faltered. “But what’s Christmas?”

“I don’t really know,” said Aria, “so I need your help with that, too.”

She scattered her three scrolls from the library on the ground, since it was less cluttered than the desk. Kharis glanced over each scroll, a tense smile plastered on her beak.

“Oh… wow,” she said, sunny tone forced. “This is great… but, oh, Aria, I hate to disappoint… this is not much to go off of.” Kharis winced. “I don’t want to dishearten—I will try my best!”

Aria remembered another detail: the picture from Matt’s book. “Oh! There’s also something about a tree, and lights, and colorful boxes.” She wondered if she could steal the book without raising his suspicions.

“Tree and lights? Like Fire-roost?” Kharis asked, tilting her head.

“Like Baby Fire-roost,” said Aria.

Kharis’s grin flickered.

Aria tapped her beak with a talon, then pointed at Kharis. “Better description: an evergreen with sparks in it.”

Kharis’s brightness returned. “Ah! I can manage that. But… and I am sorry… that might, maybe, could be all I can do. I will have to find the right Song to keep the sparks from setting the tree on fire. Others could help with the rest, perhaps? I do apologize—I just want everything to go so well for you, Aria dear!”

Aria frowned. “Divide and conquer would work better, it’s true.” She picked up the scrolls and tucked them beneath her wing, then lingered last on the recipe one. “Sure, I’ll go see what the chefs could do with the food.”

*

“Cocoa and roasted chestnuts, we can do,” said Hroffle, setting the recipe scroll down.

“But what the blazes is ham?” cut in Gordram.

“I,” said Aria, “do not know. You were my only hope.”

Gordram grunted as he glanced over the scroll again. “I’m familiar with carrots, but I’m not sure I can get them from the Gnome merchants that quickly. Certainly not in two days.”

“We’re out of honey for the glaze, too,” Hroffle added.

Aria scratched her neck, fighting off the dousing feeling in her spark. “And the gingersnaps?”

Hroffle tapped the side of his beak with a talon. “They sound similar to firesnaps. Will that do instead?”

Aria huffed, but dared not complain in front of Gordram, or else he might have her wash all the dishes after dinner for the next two weeks. “Sure,” she said.

Gordram narrowed his eyes, and Aria straightened and painted on a smile she hoped looked cheerful enough to avoid dish duty. “Why does this matter so much to you, fledge?” he asked.

Hroffle gasped. “This isn’t another of your tricks, is it?”

“No, it isn’t,” Aria replied, then glanced over at the coffee bar, where Matt worked every morning to caffeinate the flock.

“Ah,” Hroffle said. “For Matthias.”

“Well, if it’s for the boy, I’ll work as hard as I can to determine what the blazes ‘ham’ is,” Gordram promised.

“Thanks,” Aria said, the smolder of hope reigniting.

*

Though Aria hadn’t been there for nearly eight years, entering Darenna’s practice room still made her queasy and want to rush to the nearest branch edge to throw up. Dread tugged on her wings and tail as if to pull her back, away from the miserable memory of those days as her apprentice. But thoughts of Matt, and her need for someone who could actually Sing, drove her to find Darenna.

As Aria entered the practice nest, she heard Darenna Singing. She hit a particularly high note, which made the bark of the tree enclosing the room to flash brighter orange-yellow. As Darenna’s note faded, so did the glow of the tree, which ebbed to its usual calm and constant gleam.

Darenna gave Aria a curious smile. A smile that said, “I told you so.” A smile made her feathers bristle.

“So, you have come to learn at last from me,” Darenna said as she smoothed her head feathers back with a talon. As usual, her feathers were neatly groomed and styled with uniform, perfect curls at the ends.

“I spent my year as your apprentice,” Aria said, her tone spitting sparks. “I have nothing more to learn from you.”

“And yet,” Darenna replied, voice smooth as she poured herself a glass of water. She took the time to take a few sips before finishing: “You never learned to Sing from me.”

“I can’t Sing, Darenna,” Aria whispered, keeping her earlier sparks from erupting into a blaze. “It’s not something you can teach me. But I learned plenty from you, like—” Aria abruptly cut herself off from saying “how to be a rude goblin.” Aria realized she was gripping the scroll of Christmas music so tightly, she was crushing the parchment. She sighed, trying to douse her flames of fury. “It doesn’t matter,” she continued. “I have something to ask you.”

“Yes, of course I will give you extra lessons,” Darenna replied. “A Phoenix who can’t Sing is not much of one at all, after all.”

“I need your help with Christmas music!” Aria shouted, thrusting the music scroll in Darenna’s direction.

Darenna looked down at the scroll with a lazy glance, then took the scroll. She rolled open the music and made a show of smoothing out the wrinkles. Aria was sure she hadn’t squeezed it that hard. The scroll was just old.

“They are simple enough songs,” Darenna said after a lengthy pause. “For what purpose are they to be performed?”

“For Christmas,” Aria said. “We’re celebrating in two days.”

“Christmas? Chordia was still well and alive last I saw her, a few hours ago.”

Aria frowned, then realized what she meant. “No, no, Christmas isn’t a Phoenix—it’s a holiday. An Ordo one.”

“Ah. Matthias,” Darenna said in a sing-song tone. “A stout singer, that Ordo. Almost makes you wish he was a Phoenix.”

Aria grimaced to bite back her own snark.

Darenna eyed her, as if expecting her to react, then continued, “Very well. I shall assemble a small choir and begin work. We should be able to learn these songs well enough. I must say though, I believe your composition skills are regressing, if this is what you are writing these days.”

“That—those aren’t mine!” snapped Aria. “They’re Christmas songs from the library!”

“If you say so, fledgling,” Darenna said, waving a wing. “As I’ve always said, a Phoenix who can’t Sing—”

Aria left the nest before Darenna could get out the rest of her barb.

*

Aria channeled her smoldering rage into tearing her and Matt’s shared nest apart. She was technically looking for the book Matt had been reading—the one with the Christmas tree picture in it—to get more information on what this holiday was supposed to involve. But she was also throwing everything and anything across the room in her search for it. Clothes. Different books. Pens. The only thing she dared not throw was Matt’s golden coffee kettle.

There was no sign of the book, and now that she’d made a disaster out of their room, her fury was spent. But she also knew Matt’s mild annoyance would be triggered if he saw the state of the nest, so she made herself pick up his things in as orderly a manner as she could. Clothes were definitely not properly folded, but they were technically folded, and that was good enough. As for her stuff, she just shoved it onto her half of the nest to deal with later.

She huffed and spied the last scroll from the library. The one with the ornate handle that told the story about the Elf. “Might as well give it a read,” she said to herself. “Who knows?”

Aria sat on the floor, opened the scroll, and laid an orange pebble at the top, holding it open. She read:

There once was an Elf named Niklas, who once witnessed a Great Miracle: the Creator came to the world as an Ordo babe. This Great Miracle inspired Niklas: he would spread joy through all the land, one night a year, the night of Christmas Eve.

Niklas lived apart from other Elves, high in the clouds above the Northernmost part of the world. He spent all year making toys, woven of cloudfoam and cloudfabric, brought to life by his Songs. Carried by his Melodies, he flew through the world to learn about the Ordo children of the world: their desires, their attitudes. He gathered letters written to him from the children, which told him what they wanted most, and if his Songs could make their requests into reality, he would. As a warning to the mischievous Ordos, he borrowed coal from the Gnomes to place in their socks.

And then, each year on Christmas Eve, as snow fell across the globe, Niklas took off! He rode in a sled built by the Animage for his mission, pulled by Pegasi of an unusual shape: instead of white, they were brown, with wings of starlight white and antlers growing from their heads. Niklas, propelled by his enchanted sleigh, his enchanted Pegasi, and his own enchanting Songs of Merriment, carried his gifts across the world and delivered them, so that all children would wake up and find a present in their sock and beneath the Christmas tree.

And so, Niklas is an unusual Elf, using his immortality as a gift to Ordos. It is said that the Myth-Keepers do not stop his interaction with the Ordos because he has yet to reveal himself, and so many Fairy Tales and other untrue legends about him circulate among the children. The Ordos do not even know him as Niklas. They call him Santa Claus.

Aria found the Niklas story fairly useful.

And fairly annoying.

“Ugh.” She flopped on the floor and splayed her wings out wide, staring at the ceiling of branches. “Now I need a gift, too? And snow?” Snow fell on the nearby mountains, she knew, and sometimes in the surrounding forest in the winter, but Fire-roost’s constant output of gentle heat kept the flurries from coming close to the tree.

“If only Niklas would bring me a gift of snow that won’t melt on Christmas Eve,” she groaned.

“What’re you reading?”

At Matt’s voice, Aria yelped and rolled onto her stomach, covering the open scroll with a wing. “Nothing!” she cried.

Matt shook his head as he walked into her line of sight. Aria noticed he was holding a book—the book she had tried to look for earlier. “Right,” he said. “That’s not suspicious at all. What prank are you pulling this time? And does it have to be on me?”

“Why do birds keep asking me that,” muttered Aria, fully aware of the answer, and, for once, annoyed by all of the assumptions of her character, true as they may be. “It’s not a prank, I swear.”

“If you say so,” Matt said, giving her a skeptical glance. “I’m going to bed, so if you’re going to do some more scheming…”

“Reading,” insisted Aria.

“…please go somewhere else.”

Aria hopped to her talons, rolled up the scroll, and tucked it beneath her wing, then left the nest to go pace somewhere else.

*

“Aria?”

The creaky voice of a Phoenix woke her. Aria snorted awake and blearily looked up at the face of Quilliam. She was laying on a branch outside of Quilliam’s nest. But why? She blinked, then remembered. Last night, after pacing for a while, thinking of the Niklas story, she came up with a perfect idea for Matt.

“I need a pen,” Aria said to Quilliam.

“A… pen,” Quilliam said.

“But not just any pen,” Aria said through a yawn. “I need a special one.”

“I have told you before, Aria, I will not make a pen that only writes in invisible ink, nor shall I craft one that squirts lemon juice into the eyes of your foes, nor will I—”

Aria held up her wings. “It’s not for me! It’s for Matt.” Although she still wanted that lemon juice one. The thought of using it on Darenna nearly made her laugh out loud. Maybe when she spent her year of apprenticeship with Quilliam, she could learn to make that one herself.

Quilliam’s orange eyes narrowed. “And what, fledgling, can you offer me in return?”

“I can, uh, help you make some pens?”

He clacked his beak. “I do not desire your help.”

Aria huffed. “Then is there something you want from me?”

“Perhaps not,” Quilliam grunted. “When, precisely, do you need this pen by? I’m a very busy Phoenix. Writing my magnum opus. A play on the level of the Ordo’s Shakespeare!”

Aria had no idea what a Shaking Spear was or what it had to do with Quilliam’s play. “I need it tomorrow. Like, early tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Quilliam squawked.

“Yes, and make it really fancy,” Aria said, as she unfurled her wings, the Niklas story scroll clutched in a talon. “And remember it’s for Matt, not for me! Okay, thank you, good-bye!”

She flew off, pretending to be deaf to Quilliam’s protests. He’d come through for her.

She hoped.

*

Aria couldn’t sleep at all that night, and it wasn’t because she anticipated a visit from Jolly Ol’ Niklas. She was so worried Christmas wouldn’t turn out good enough. She’d spent all day checking in with Kharis and the chefs then with Kharis again and avoiding Darenna and Quilliam. She’d spent some time distracting Matt while Kharis decorated, which was an easy thing to do, considering he was still focused on that book that talked about Christmas and other holidays, so she’d just had to keep him reading all day. Then she’d flown to the mountains and brought back buckets of snow in the evening for Kharis, though Aria was skeptical about the tree’s heat making it melt too fast.

Aria had never been one for early rising, so at least her sleeplessness meant she was on time in the morning to her rendezvous with her party-planning team. Though when she flew down to the base of the tree, she hoped she was actually still asleep, because the scene that greeted her looked like a nightmare.

Kharis fluttered around with small squawks as she splashed in the puddles of melted snow. As figured, Fire-roost’s heat made having a “white Christmas” impossible. What Aria didn’t count on? The snow made the whole ground soft and squishy and very muddy. The mud also meant that the Christmas tree was leaning, its trunk not secured into firm earth. The tree itself was pretty ok, with a few sparks hovering in its branches, enchanted by Kharis to not set the wood ablaze, but it didn’t match the extravagance of the image from Matt’s book. The lights were too dim. And there were no presents beneath it. Aria wondered where Quilliam was with her gift for Matt.

Then came the food: Hroffle brought out a plate of firesnaps and set it on the table, which also held hot chocolate and roasted chestnuts. Aria flitted over to Hroffle.

“Where’s Gordram?” she asked.

“With the, um, ham?” Hroffle grimaced.

His questioning tone puffed Aria’s feathers. “Are you not sure where he is…?”

“Oh, I know where he is,” he said. “I’m questioning the creation of… well, you’ll see.” Hroffle disappeared back into the kitchen before Aria could interrogate him further, but Gordram emerged a moment later with a plate of what looked like dragon snot.

Aria eyed the translucent brown cube with speckles of darker brown in it, which was somehow both solid and liquid as it sat there jiggling on the plate. The sight of it threatened Aria’s gag reflex as Gordram placed it on the table.

“What the spark is that?” Aria said, not bothering to hide her grimace.

Gordram’s golden eyes flashed. “Ham.”

Aria’s eyes narrowed. “It is not ham.”

“You don’t know,” Gordram snapped. “And neither does Matt.”

Aria audibly gagged. “It’s definitely not edible, though.”

“Yes it is!” Gordram insisted. “Technically.”

“What is it, really?” Aria glared at the chef.

Gordram grumbled, then said, “Congealed and seasoned Griffin fat.”

Aria’s glare hardened, but before she could say anything else to Gordram, Quilliam arrived with a box, handed it off to Aria, and began to fly away. Aria opened the box—and found it empty, except for an “IOU” note hastily scrawled on a scrap of parchment.

“Quilliam!” Aria cried.

“Apologies, but genius waits for no bird!” he called, without looking back.

She was about to pursue him, but Darenna and a small Phoenix choir entered the clearing. Aria contemplated throwing the empty box into the “ham” for a split second, but instead stashed the box beneath the table. She crammed a firesnap in her beak to calm her down, and thankfully Hroffle’s baking came through, the spiciness of the cookie warming her. Hopefully Darenna’s music would satisfy as well.

“Darenna!” Aria said through a beakful of firesnap as she winged over to the choirmaster. She swallowed. “Give me some good news.”

“Not to worry, I bring great news,” Darenna chirped. “Listen!”

Darenna called the choir to attention, then directed them in a song. It was lovely, but Aria almost immediately noticed one glaring problem: it was a routine Hymn, one they Sang most mornings.

Aria took a big breath to keep from exploding with rage. “Darenna.”

The choir stopped, and Darenna glanced at Aria with expectation, almost like the choirmaster knew exactly what she would say next.

“This is great,” Aria said, unable to fully remove the bitter edge from her voice, “but this is an everyday Song. Where’s the Christmas music?”

Darenna sniffed, pointing her beak in the air. “Your simple little compositions did not inspire me enough. Besides, your constraints were far too demanding.”

“They’re not my compositions!” Aria snapped, her tail feathers flaring out. “They’re Christmas songs—I needed Christmas music!”

A slimy smile slunk across Darenna’s face. “If you truly desired them to be Sung for the celebration, you should have performed them yourself.”

Aria opened her beak to shout at Darenna, but the Christmas tree collapsed. Aria rushed to help Kharis, who squawked and apologized and squawked some more. The choir and Darenna fled as Kharis, Hroffle, Gordram, and Aria tried to right the tree. They got it to stand up again, but mud clung to the needles and covered some of the sparks hovering in the branches.

Aria’s throat constricted as she surveyed the disaster. Normally Aria thrived on chaos, but for once, she wanted to make everything perfect. Her breath came in quick spurts as she wondered how to fix it.

“What’s this?”

The sound of Matt’s voice doused Aria. She turned to face him, fighting steamy tears.

“It’s Christmas,” she said, sniffing. “It’s meant to be sparking Christmas.”

Matt’s eyes widened.

“And I promise you,” Aria continued, her stupid voice garbled by her stupid tears, “it’s not supposed to be a trick. I was trying to make it perfect. I wanted to give you Christmas so you wouldn’t need to leave us and go live with the Ordos.”

A slow smile grew on Matt’s face. “Why would I want to live with Ordos when my home is here? And this—this looks like the perfect Christmas to me.”

Aria beamed, a surge of heat flaring through her, and cleared her throat to get rid of the stubborn tears lingering there. She tapped the muddy ground. “Like the snow?”

“Mmm, could be a bit cleaner.” Matt knelt down and scooped up a clump of mud in his hand. “But you know what?”

“Wh—”

A mud-ball cut off Aria’s question, smacking her right in the middle of her forehead. Some trickled into her beak. She spat it out and shook the mud off her face, then playfully glared at Matt, who smirked at her.

“Oh, it is on,” Aria said.

Hroffle and Gordram took cover in the kitchen as Aria and Matt battled it out with slings of mud. Aria scooped up clumps in her talons, swooped above him, and dumped it on Matt’s head. Matt balled up mounds of mud and tossed it at her, sometimes with enough force to knock her out of the sky. Kharis tried to clean up the Christmas tree as they dueled, but as the tree was only getting spattered with more mud from their fight, she eventually gave up and joined the chefs in the kitchen with an apology. As their battle escalated, Aria snagged Gordram’s “ham” and tossed the whole mound at Matt. It burst into tiny bits, and soon their mud-balls contained pieces of well-seasoned Griffin fat. Aria took a final mud-ball to the chest while Matt took one to the face, and they both collapsed with laughter onto the muddy ground, absolutely filthy.

Zephatora flew into the clearing and landed on a branch, away from the mud, and surveyed the décor. Aria gave her a sheepish smile, as most of her interactions with the Phoenix Elder involved Aria getting disciplined or reprimanded in some way.

“Christmas?” Zephatora said. “Or an attempt at it, I see.”

Aria stood up. “Wait—you know what Christmas is? I could’ve asked you about it this whole time?”

“Of course,” Zephatora said, her gold eyes sparkling. “I spent a few years assisting Niklas.”

Aria spluttered. “Santa’s real? Why’d he never bring Matt anything?”

“But… he has,” Matt said, sitting up and attempting to wipe dirt off his face. He only managed to smear mud into his ear. “December 25, I always woke up to chocolate in my sock and a new book on my desk. I thought it was from you…” He looked at Zephatora.

She smiled. “It was him. Perhaps guided by some advice from me on the book choice.”

“Wait wait wait,” Aria said, rounding on Matt. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?”

“Because you don’t care about books, and you would’ve stolen my chocolate.”

“…Fair. Absolutely fair.”

Gordram emerged from the kitchen, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head as he spotted the empty plate on the table. “My ham!”

“It’s not worth crying over it, Gordram,” Hroffle said, shaking his head. “No one was ever going to eat that. Not even you.”

“I would’ve tried a bite…” murmured Kharis. “Maybe.”

“At least we have firesnaps and hot chocolate,” Aria said. “And each other. What more could we need?”

Matt glanced up at Zephatora. “Maybe a Christmas story? You could teach us about Niklas.”

“Very well,” Zephatora said. “And when my own tales of Niklas are done, perhaps I can locate my father’s recollections of the very first Christmas—or rather, the event that would come to be associated with Christmas. He was there, my father, a blazing beacon in the sky to mark where the Magi were to go—but I get ahead of myself.”

They spent the whole Christmas morning eating the cookies not touched by the mud, drinking cocoa, and trying to keep the Christmas tree from falling down as Zephatora told her tales. When Zephatora paused between stories to take a drink, Matt leaned over to Aria and said, “Thanks for giving me the best Christmas ever.”

Aria raised a half-eaten cookie to him. “Here’s to many more to come.”

“Agreed,” Matt said, “though next year, let’s not include Gordram’s ham in the mud fight.”

“No promises,” Aria said, and they laughed.

~ THE END ~